The Mind's Past – October 17, 2000

The Mind's Past Paperback – October 17, 2000

Author: Michæl S. Gazzaniga | Language: English | ISBN: 0520224868 | Format: PDF, EPUB

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The Mind's Past – October 17, 2000
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While we humans point to our big brains and jabber endlessly about how different they make us, other animals seem to remain unimpressed. "Yeah, well, what are they good for?" they'd ask if they could. After all, evolution has been no kinder to us than to them--all of us have had the same amount of time to get where we are, and all of us do just fine eating and reproducing. Are our brains really more valuable to us than teeth to a shark or wings to a bird? This evolutionary view of consciousness could be the key to a better understanding of how we think, and neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga has been helping develop this outlook while working on the frontlines of research. From studies with split-brain patients in the 1960s to the latest tricks of molecular biology today, Gazzaniga shares with us the results of this research and how they are changing the way we think about thinking.

The title of The Mind's Past refers both to the brain's evolution and its construction of personal identity and memory, which offer clues to the puzzle of consciousness. Gazzaniga's refreshingly straightforward, informal prose asks what our brains are good for and shows that some of our most powerful achievements (like language and statistics) might best be thought of as byproducts of systems designed to help us survive and reproduce. The surprising assertion that most of what we believe to be conscious and willful happens before we are aware of it is made plausible and perhaps comforting in this short, very humanistic book. By careful study and reflection on the mind's past, we might be able to learn something of its future. --Rob Lightner --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Gazzaniga, director of the program in cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth and author of Mind Matters, The Social Brain and Nature's Mind, adds an engaging account of how and why the human brain creates a narrative to explain its experiences. Writing for a popular audience, Gazzaniga relates that a portion of the left brain, which he calls the "interpreter," constantly drives the mind to seek reasons for its convictions no matter how unfounded they may be. An example is given of a woman who suffered from a syndrome that led her to believe she was home while visiting her doctor. When asked how she could explain the elevators in the corridor, she immediately produced a reason: "Doctor, do you know how much it cost me to have those put in?" While Gazzaniga's anecdotes are fascinating, the conclusion he draws from them seems rather unconvincing. Arguing from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology, he asserts that the left brain's incessant ratiocinations function to enhance human beings' reproductive success through sensible reasoning. Gazzaniga's conclusion about the "interpreter" seems analytic, at least in relation to evolutionary theory, which already presupposes that all facets of a species function to promote its reproduction and survival. In fact, Gazzaniga's conclusion stands in contradiction to a basic tenet of his own theoretical framework: namely, that adaptation is not determined by reason but rather by chance. Nonetheless, Gazzaniga's work remains intriguing precisely in its attempt to understand the brain's will toward order and reason, "even when they don't exist."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Books with free ebook downloads available The Mind's Past – October 17, 2000

Paperback: 263 pages
Publisher: University of California Press; New Ed edition (October 17, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0520224868
ISBN-13: 978-0520224865
Product Dimensions: 0.6 x 5 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,070,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

This book takes a look at long held assumptions about human consciousness, and examines them in the light of modern empirical neuroscience. It examines the processes of perception and the work of the left brain's "interpreter." It's an uncommon look at "common sense."
The first chapter of the book examines the "Fictional Self," and continues to weave this thread of thought throughout the book. What fascinated me most about this line of thought was that it paralleled ancient Eastern thought about the illusion of individual reality. However, Dr. Gazzaniga's book does not draw on these ancient traditions, and it is up to the reader to figure them out.
Dr. Gazzaniga writes, "... the primate brain prepares cells for decisive action long before we are even thinking about making a decision! These automatic processes sometimes get tricked and create illusions - blatant demonstrations of these automatic devices that operate so efficiently that no one can do anything to stop them. They run their course and we see them in action; as a consequence we have to conclude that they are a big part of us." p. 20
In The Bhagavad-Gita it says, " As the ignorant act with attachment to actions, Arjuna, so wise men should act with detachment to preserve the world." (3rd Teaching, 25, translated by Barbara Stoler Miller) Just like "The Mind's Past," The Bhagavad-Gita points out the illusion of willful action. Dr. Gazzaniga's empirical observations have a poetic parallel in The Bhagavad-Gita.
The book also examines the dual functions of perception, the flow of perceptual information to the parietal and temporal lobes simultaneously, one prepares the body to act within reality, and the other constructs an illusionary perception of reality.

This lightly told, but hardly frivolous, study of the mind/brain refutes many long-held notions of what comprises the conscious mind. Gazzinga's approach is an attempt to inform us all of the real status of "self." He contends the "self" - hence, "free will" is a conceit. We pretend to have consciousness through our desire to establish identity, but the brain has its own, hidden, mechanisms of which we are only now becoming aware. He stresses the evolutionary roots of our minds, roots which may not compel behaviour, but certainly drive it with forces we fail to perceive readily. It's an amazingly complete work in spite of its brevity, rewarding to anyone opening its pages.
Gazzaniga is a clinical researcher, not a field worker. This doesn't impede his stressing an evolutionary development for how our minds work. Gazzaniga posits an "interpreter" as residing within our left brains. The distinctive roles of the left and right halves of the brain have been the subject of intensive research during the past years, but his assessment has some novelty. It is rather more than the classical "Cartesian Theatre" which has held sway in the minds of many psychologists and philosophers over the years. Gazzaniga's "interpreter" outperforms the role of "observer" postulated by Descartes. It has moved from Descartes' pineal gland to the left cortex. In Gazzaniga's view, the "interpreter" has a more active role, even powered to stimulate activity in sensory areas, previously thought to be wholly reactive. This device is rooted in our animal ancestors, living in a dangerous environment, needing to predict events for survival and reproduction.