Smarter than All? How Our Brain Thinks and Makes Decisions

As is fitting for authors of books about intelligence, Spanish university professor and laboratory researcher Manuel Martin-Loeches is not only smart and scientifically competent but also wise.
Thanks to his storytelling talents, we can grasp the most complex picture of how our brain works—and understand what has allowed us to progress further than all our relatives and neighbors in evolution, from octopuses to Neanderthals.
However, after describing the phenomenally developed intelligence of Homo sapiens and convincing the reader that we are indeed the best, the author arrives at a paradoxical conclusion: by default, our brain is geared towards seeking pleasure, not finding the “truth,”—and often is only smart enough to deceive itself.
A sober, melancholy book that teaches us to take pride in our evolutionary success—while simultaneously regretting that the capacities of the mind are still not limitless: the brain, aware of the inevitability of death, tends to rely on various false narratives.
In the end, the reader can now make a conscious choice: in favor of pleasure—or truth. The professor does not indicate anything. He is wise, and the apparatus is at his disposal.