Did anyone else get a kick out of the results of cutting the corpus callosum(see p. 43)? The unknowing side lies to explain the actions precipitated by the knowing side. I had never heard that this happens. I was laughing out loud when I read it. Not only does it demonstrate that there is no unified self, it occurred to me that it reflects how lies are often created in ignorance(like the big lie of religion).

I was laughing when I read that too. The human brain is an amazing organ, and it sure must be fun for these scientists to experiment with it forcing hallucinations and mystical experiences.

Chris

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward,for there you have been, and there you will always want to be."

I love reading about those kind of weird brain experiments. I can't even imagine what circumstances lead to that experiment. Do you know of any good books on the brain or any books that would discuss similar experiments?

On the theme of how the brain works: listen to this year's BBC Reith Lectures you can hear them online at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/reith2003

They are by given by the neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran.

Believe me these lectures are COMPLETELY unmissable.

Listen to them and let me know what you think.

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I love reading about those kind of weird brain experiments. I can't even imagine what circumstances lead to that experiment. Do you know of any good books on the brain or any books that would discuss similar experiments?

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Yes, look for Michael Gazzaniga. He took part in these experiments and has writen a number of good books- he is also a "founder" of Cognitive Neuroscience, should anyone be named as such. He has called the nonsense people make up a result of "the interpreter".

www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520224868/qid=1059104849/sr=1-8/ref=sr_1_8/104-5553552-6316706?v=glance&s=books

He is also very freindly to evolutionary psychology- always a plus in my book- and he draws from a good deal of Pinker's work, it seems.

Edited by: SciFell at: 7/24/03 10:59 pm

Two Books by Antonio Damasio:

"Descartes' Error"

"The Feeling of What Happens"

Both books talk about brain experiments, brain trauma accidents and their results. Good reads. He definitely shows we are not at all unified and that there is no center of the brain that controls "the soul" controls the whole brain.

He describes the feeling of consciousness and nerologically how that is derived.

Monty Vonn
montyquest@aol.com

Thank you for the recommendations. It is so great to ask for suggestions and get informed responses. I plan to take them all.
Peter- I already took your advice. The Reith lectures were great! I had not heard of synesthaesia before. Ramachandran said that some scientists don't believe it. Has anyone else heard about it? It must be a hot topic among scientists. Even Dawkins was there for that lecture(at Oxford)and asked a question about it.
Ramachandran also discussed Pinker. His lecture discussing the universal laws of art touched on topics in Pinker's book. I liked the way Ramachandran explained why people like non-realistic art. In Pinker's chapter on art he said that modernists take, "all of the fun out of art." Ramachandran's law of peak shift explains why modern art does excite us. I am no art aficionado, but I do like non-realistic, modern art more than realistic art. After reading Pinker's take on it, I was glad to hear of an alternative theory from Ramachandran.

Tara

I had heard of synesthaesia before, I coudn't think where. But then I looked in one of Susan Greenfield's books about the brain and she mentions it there. She has quite a different view of the mind to both Pinker and "Rama". She adopts a more nuts and bolts (neurons & synapses?) view of the brain. She thinks synesthaesia has more to do with subcortical structures in the brain because it can be triggered by drugs and it sometimes develops in people with schizsophrenia.

She lays much less emphasis on the innate structures of the brain causing species specific behaviour (as Pinker and the evolutionary psychologists do). And instead thinks that connectivity between neurons (and therefore the way that we think) emerges randomly as the brain grows and develops.

However she simply HAS to be wrong to take things that far because we DO have species specific behaviour. (religion, laughing, crying, falling in love, invading Iraq, etc.) and I think Pinker and the EP's have to be right about the mental modules they have proposed.

However in the "Blank Slate" Pinker says that about 30 - 50%of what makes our minds happens as a result of random brain connectivity so I think there is a synthesis of views - you just have to look behind the headlines.

I wondered if you would spot Dawkins in the audience What did you think of Rama's put down of the religious fundamentalist in the last lecture?

Edited by: PeterDF at: 8/1/03 5:20 pm

Peter,
I remember Rama responding to a question about the soul. Is that what you're talking about? It was interesting how he discussed that seizures in a certain part of the brain produce vivid religious experiences. It was like attributing religious fanaticism to a brain malfunction. It was also pretty funny when he was asked why he doesn't believe in God and he answered because of common sense! If only it was more common to not believe in God.

I would like to suggest that the severing of the nerves in the corpus callosum and the resulting two brains (at least for the higher functions) does not mean that our minds are not unified. In fact the funny results obtained come from dis-uniting the brain. But what it does challenge is our notion of what a unified mind might be. William Calvin and others have suggested that our sense of unity, of having one inner voice, is what is an illusion. This experience really masks the operation of what Calvin likens to a committee of neurons babbling and arguing with each other, our feeling of unity simply being the final consensus reached. What our minds demonstrate is a complex unity (maybe like that of a host of potential personalities vying for dominance), which can be fragmented into semi-autonomous "minds." This might explain dissociative hysterias. When the complex and labile unity of our minds is disturbed, say in schizophrenia (or, like my daughter, in schizo-affective disorder), it is possible to hallucinate, because the operation of an inner voice is confused with a perception -- a phenomenon called "perceptualisation of the concept."

Edited by: rielmajr at: 8/10/03 10:23 pm

Hi Tara

It was after the last lecture - I thinik it is the incident you referred to. Rama seemed reluctant to answer his question - probably not wanting to offend him. But he came back at Rama for clarification, and Rama effectively told him that it was nonsense to expect to find a soul.