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A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers, by V.S. Ramachandran
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How can some people come to believe that their poodle is an impostor? Or see colors in numbers? Internationally acclaimed neuroscientist, V.S. Ramachandran, now shares his unique insight into human consciousness in an entertaining, inspiring, and intellectually dazzling brief tour of the ultimate frontier—the thoughts in our heads.
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness is made up of five investigations of the greatest mysteries of the brain. The first chapter shows how amputees feel pain in limbs they no longer have as it introduces the great revolution of our age: neuroscience. The second chapter walks through the way what we see determines our thoughts, and demonstrates the counterintuitive point that believing is in fact seeing. The third chapter takes a leap beyond cutting edge science to audaciously set out a general theory of beauty, explaining why, the world over, cultures have fundamentally similar notions of what is attractive. The fourth chapter explores the bizarre world of synesthetes, people who see colors in numbers, textures in smells, sounds in sights, and flavors in sounds. Finally, V. S. Ramachandran one of the foremost brain researchers in the world today, sums up the implications of the revolution in our understanding of consciousness, to make a fascinating argument about our essential sense of self and its distributed nature.
- Sales Rank: #503523 in Books
- Brand: Brand: Plume
- Published on: 2005-07-26
- Released on: 2005-07-26
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.20" h x .60" w x 5.40" l, .45 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 208 pages
Features
- ISBN13: 9780131872783
- Notes: 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
From Publishers Weekly
What does an amputee who still feels a phantom limb have in common with an avant-garde artist, or a schizophrenic who claims to be controlled by alien implants, or an autistic child who can draw a hyper-realistic horse? According to neuroscientist Ramachandran (coauthor, Phantoms in the Brain), named by Newsweek one of the 100 people to watch in the 21st century, the answer lies deep in the physical structures of the brain, and his new book offers a thought-provoking survey of his area of research. Through examples, anecdotes and conjecture, Ramachandran aims "to make neuroscience... more accessible to a broad audience." In this he succeeds admirably, explaining how the roots of both psychological disorders and aesthetic accomplishment can be located in the various regions of the brain and the connections (or lack thereof) between them. The text is engaging and readable , feeling as though Ramachandran had sat down for an afternoon to explain his research over tea (no surprise, as the book grew out of the author's 2003 BBC Reith lectures). Though the topic of neuroscience might initially seem daunting, readers who enjoy science popularization in the vein of Oliver Sacks, Richard Dawkins (both of whom enthusiastically blurb this book) and Stephen Jay Gould will find much to appreciate here.
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From Scientific American
Patient X declares that his mother is an impostor. The diagnosis? Freud might say the patient has a troubled Oedipus complex. But the same patient thinks his poodle is a fraud, too. Ramachandran offers a more rigorous neurological explanation in A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness. Examining the cause for patient X’s behavior is just one stop on the writer’s journey through the neural pathways of the brain. As the tour guide, Ramachandran, a neuroscientist at the University of California at San Diego, leads readers through a collection of his experiments and theories, championing the idea that charting the brain on a neurological level will provide us with a robust understanding of everything from politics to love. Case studies of patients with obscure syndromes help the author solve the brain–mind puzzle piece by piece. In the case of patient X, communication between regions responsible for visual recognition and the production of emotional responses has been impaired. Because the patient recognizes his mother’s face but feels no corresponding emotion, he deduces that she is simply a look-alike. Parts of the book are fascinating and accessible, especially Ramachandran’s work with phantom limbs and synesthesia—in which patients seem to transpose the processing of senses, such as sensing the note "middle C" as the color green. Ramachandran presents a convincing argument relating the syndrome to the enhancement of an ability we all possess: drawing connections between objects and events. In a noticeable departure from the empirical explanations of the early sections, Ramachandran later explores possible psychological underpinnings for the evolution of human language and a universal definition of art. The final chapter, an abstract, philosophical foray into free will and the human sense of self, is even more speculative. At times a captivating presentation of facts and anecdotes and at other times an assortment of theories, the book is more of a tour of Ramachandran’s opinions and experiences than the concise introduction one expects from the title. In the end, the book succeeds in delivering an entertaining and thought-provoking look at how and why we should think about thought.
Lisa DeKeukelaere
Review
“V. S. Ramachandran is one of our most gifted physicians and expositors, and in this new book he illuminates everything he touches—whether it is phantom limbs and how they can be ‘cured’; or how the brain can generate illusions and delusions; or synesthesia and its relation to metaphor, creativity and art; or the ultimate questions of how brain relates to mind. A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness belongs to that rare category of scientific book, one as accessible as it is deep.”
-Oliver Sacks, M.D.
Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful.
Excellent! Listen to the 2003 Reith Lectures, too.
By David H. Peterzell PhD PhD
Ramachandran has once again written a book that is valuable to his peers and fascinating to everyone (who isn't brain dead).
I think Ramachandran is the most brilliant, creative Neuroscientist alive. Sure, he is very popular science writer. But if you aren't paying attention (e.g., some of the other Amazon reviewers), you might not see that he is to our field what Mozart, Picasso, and Einstein were to theirs.
Many, many neuroscientists pick "safe" topics and stick with variants upon a theme all their lives. The work is often valuable, but it is not exactly akin to a spectator sport. Ramachandran, in contrast, chooses "sexy" topics to study. He brings "rasa"; spirit; passion to the study of the brain. And if you've ever seen Ramachandran speak (either to scientists or the general public), you know what I'm talking about, and you know that the book is not a fluke.
Ramachandran does not think like other neuroscientists. Most neuroscientists pick a topic or area of the brain, and then do systematic, parametric, sensible experiments to map and test the minute details of their theory. There's usually lots of data collection and data analysis. But Ramachandran has a knack for creating "breakthrough" experiments routinely. In these experiments, the answer to a sexy question comes instantly, dramatically, and powerfully. Such creative, intuitive genius is extremely rare. Trust me, we'd all like to do science this way.
I hope that we can appreciate that Ramachandran incorporates a wide variety of worldviews as he creates gem after gem. He is from the great culture that was and is southern India; he is a medical doctor and neurologist; he is a reknowned perceptual and cognitive neuroscientist who trained with master academics in England; and he is passionately insightful about art. I've heard people compare Ramachandran to mystics, healers and others. The cult status is of course a little ridiculous (see other reviews). But the enthusiasm is understandable. And the book, like his earlier "Phantoms in the Brain" is wonderful.
Ramachandran has published a virtually identical book in the Great Britain under the title, "The Emerging Mind: The BBC Reith Lectures 2003." For some reason, the publishers of the American text chose not to emphasize the link to the BBC Reith Lectures. But in fact, the five Reith Lectures were presented, in edited form, on BBC radio. And more to the point, these radio broadcasts can be heard online for free at the BBC website ([...] The website contains a variety of demonstrations, as well as free transcripts of the lectures. One's enjoyment of the book can be enhanced considerably by listening to these five Rieth lectures. The five lectures correspond closely to the five chapters of the book, although they are not identical. The lectures, like the book, are highly entertaining.
My favorite chapter was the fifth chapter, "Neuroscience - The New Philosophy." The central theme is the idea that the study of patients with neurological disorders has implications far beyond the confines of medical neurology. In particular, the chapter takes up the challenge of various forms of mental illness. As Ramachandran points out, "there have traditionally been two broad and different approaches to mental illness. The first one tries to identify the chemical imbalances, changes in transmitters and receptors in the brain, and attempts to correct these changes using drugs. This approach has revolutionized psychiatry and has been phenomenally successful. Patients who used to be put in straitjackets or locked up can now lead relatively normal lives. The second approach we can loosely characterize as the psychotherapeutic approach. It often assumes that most mental illness arises from early upbringing." Ramachandran presents a third approach that is different from either of these, but which, in a sense complements them both. He attempts to explain some symptoms of mental illness in terms of what is known about function, anatomy and neural structures of the brain. He suggests that many of these symptoms and disorders seem less bizarre when viewed from an evolutionary standpoint, that is from a Darwinian perspective. He proposes to give this discipline a new name - evolutionary neuropsychology.
Also, don't miss the preface. The blunt humor may be too subtle for some people, but I loved it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful.
Awesome book - easy read
By paa choo
Dr. Ramachandran has taken the world of nueroscience to common people. The language is easy to understand and the flow is very good. The book consciously stays on the medical side of things, not delving into spirituality. It is often easy to do that especially when dealing with brain, mind and consiousness, and with his eastern background. On the other hand, I wouldn't mind trying to relate to some of the wellknown concepts in spirituality (like the soul) and seeing if there is any relevance in extending some of his neuro/brain concepts there.
There are a few speeches Dr. R gave that is in youtube and TED. Especially the TED one is a good abridged version of this book. One gets the impression while you read this book that there are 100 other researches that can be performed on the brain to understand better on how things work (eg. details on sleep is very less known, dealing with certain pains that don't seem to have any origins etc)
Again, very well written book, and I am hoping he is working on more interesting research and books soon.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Ramachandran's A BRIEF TOUR OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS
By Richard W. Cummins
V.S. Ramachandran characterizes his work with a chapter epigraph that is a comment Sherlock Holmes delivered to his foil, Watson: "You know my method, Watson. It is founded upon the observation of trifles" (p. 60). To give you some small flavor of his work, consider the following trifle that Ramachandran used to create a neuroscientific bridge from ethology (the study of animal behavior) to aesthetics (the study of beauty).
"Scientists observed that herring-gull chicks will start pecking their mother's red-spotted yellow beak immediately upon hatching. The mother responds by regurgitating food to feed her youngsters. Scientists also discovered that the mother doesn't even need to be there, as the chicks will also peck at a fake yellow beak. Even more amazing, the chicks will peck at a stick with three red stripes on it with more intensity than their pecks on mother's beak: 'They preferred it to a real beak, even though it didn't resemble a beak'" (p. 46).
Ramachandran isolated this phenomenon under the neurological fact that our brains are wired to do the greatest amount of work possible with the least amount of work, and built it to an understanding of why humans enjoy abstract art. Using the example of the chick that "is absolutely mesmerized," Ramachandran delivered his "punch-line about art" (p. 47).
"If herring-chicks had an art gallery, they would hang a long stick with three stripes on the wall; they would worship it, pay millions of dollars for it, call it a Picasso, but not understand why-why they are mesmerized by this thing even though it doesn't resemble anything. That's all any art lover is doing when buying contemporary art: behaving exactly like those gull chicks" (p. 47).
Ramachandran provided these explanations as a window to the neuroscientist's approach to phenomenon, but he did not see these explanations in competition with the mystery of existence.
"Many social scientists feel rather deflated when informed that beauty, charity, piety and love are the activity of neurons in the brain, but their disappointment is based on the false assumption that to explain a complex phenomenon in terms of its component parts ("reductionism") is to explain it away" (p. 57).
To illustrate this point, he described a man in love with a woman named Esmerelda.
"I tell you about the activity in her septum, in her hypothalamic nuclei, and how certain peptides are released along with the affiliation hormone prolactin, etc. You might then turn to her and say, 'You mean that's all there is to it? Your love isn't real? It's all just chemicals?' To which Esmerelda should respond, 'On the contrary, all this brain activity provides hard evidence that I do love you, that I'm not just faking it. It should increase your confidence in the reality of my love.' And the same argument holds for art or piety or wit" (p. 59).
In the most important section of this short book (the text is 112 pages with 44 pages of rich endnotes), Ramachandran briefly presented his case that neuroscience is the "new philosophy." He humorously prefaced this chapter with the comment that "All of philosophy consists of unlocking, exhuming, and recanting what's been said before, and then getting riled up about it" (p. 83).
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness was originally delivered as the BBC Reith Lectures, which were begun by Bertrand Russell in 1948. His approach-conversational with vivid examples-coincides with his purpose, which is "ultimately, to bridge the gap that now separates C.P. Snow's `two cultures'-the sciences and humanities" (p. ix).
In addition to this title, one might read Phantoms in the Brain : Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind (Ramachandran & Blakeslee, 1998).
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