Reddit reviews 13 Things that Don't Make Sense: The Most Baffling Scientific Mysteries of Our Time

Thirteen Things That Don't Make Sense was my introduction to semi-woo while I was still a hardcore atheist (I'm now "agnostic" ... I refer to Brahman as "God" but it isn't a "deity," IMO). It doesn't have this same level of weirdness, but it's certainly got hints that we have no idea what's really going on in several fields of study: http://www.amazon.com/Things-that-Dont-Make-Sense/dp/0307278816?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0

Taking introductory chemistry in college fucked me up in good and bad ways (that is, I was too busy obsessing over functional minutia to comprehensively study the most relevant material needed for tests, that class got me my first and only C in college). I was trying to comprehend how electron shells work and almost broke down crying because, as I now understand, it's impossible to understand quantum activity through a standard model lens. The more I thought about how and why subatomic particles function, the more I came to understand string theory (without realizing at the time that's what I was doing). Just meditating on what science understands about the electromagnetic spectrum, gravity, the forces, etc. is enough to make me question if any of this is more than a pop-up book of 2-d information.

I will admit that I've always loved stories of woo-woo, but always believe there's a solid scientific explanation to any of it that may be true. I used to say, "Well, maybe ghosts are actually people in over-laying dimensions, and 'haunted' places are places where the 'veil' between realities is thinner than usual." But often I'd just reject "weirdness" as people hallucinating; however, I've had several SOBER experiences myself which defy explanation, and it's a lot harder to reject one's own experiences than it is to reject others'. Specifically, I've had others tell me what I'm thinking, verbatim, when I asked them to do so (a random, unpredictable thought that would be IMPOSSIBLE to fucking guess - BLEW MY FRIGGIN MIND), and I have, on NUMEROUS OCCASIONS, predicted exactly what was about to happen, prior to it happening, with no way of knowing how or why (ie no clues beforehand, that I was consciously aware of). Just digging around the web looking for explanations (but rejecting anything that's particularly "woo"ey), I started realizing that there's tons of experimental data showing that everything is whackier than we think.

Check out this video about consciousness: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mJh-bcaw7SY

Then check out THIS video about how WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT ANYTHING (kidding; it's about the double slit and similar experiments; but I'm pretty sure the former statement is the correct conclusion anyway): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shWRKpf7Hwg

I've heard nothing but awesome things about A Day In The Frontal Lobe from people who love reading and love neuroscience. It's one of my next planned reads.

Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time was a good read and the illustrated version was awesome.

If you want something a little lighter with an easy writing style and low base knowledge entry 13 Things That Don't Make Sense is good and fun to read.

Except it has been reproduced in numerous cases that are swept under the rug.

The book 13 Things That Do Not Make Sense covers the LENR controversy in some detail.