Going Inside: A Tour Round a Single Moment of Consciousness

Rating:
Summary: Start with McCrone
Review: After struggling with Damasio, Edelman, Freeman et al. McCrone provided the perspective I needed to begin pulling it all together. All these authors are attempting to apply evolutionary processes to explain the workings of our human brain; not so much how the brain evolved but how it continues to use evolutionary process in its workings. Unlike the others McCrone is not a scientist but a science writer and a good one: he gives just enough background on the various discoveries and theories, and explains how the various brain components work individually and together. My only quibble is that his book has only a few drawings of the brain so I had to refer to others to better visualize the components he describes. Read McCrone before tackling the others.

Rating:
Summary: Eye-opening read
Review: Having just finished this engaging book, I thought I'd write a review...I'm not sure I'm 100 percent on board with McCrone's analysis but I've got one foot in the boat. It does seem that neuroscience is emerging from the dark ages. I hope the psychology establishment is paying attention. McCrone's assertion that language is the vehicle that the "engine of awareness" uses to turn itself inward to become "self aware" reminds me of Julian Jaynes' book, The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Maybe Jaynes was right after all. Whatever the case, McCrone's book is the best science writing I've come across in a long time. For example, his explanation of chaos and complexity theory is clearer than anything else I've read. I may actually have a rudimentary grip on it now. Throughout the book, on nearly every page, I found myself having the same reaction: "Wow, really?"

Rating:
Summary: Readable exploration of the latest research in "mind science
Review: Mind science is an exciting field, and John McCrone, who is the author of two books on related subjects, and a Brit science writer, having written for the New Scientist, the Guardian, etc., attempts to bring us up to date on the latest findings and speculations. Clearly he sees the brain as a dynamic organism that creates its reality through a combination of sensory input and a constantly readied state of arousal that continually interprets the world and guesses about what to expect next, and then amends accordingly, again and again. Thus his point of view for examining how the brain works is that of a "moment of consciousness."

I particularly enjoyed the chapter on how complexity theory is being applied to brain research where McCrone makes the observation (p. 60) that "The idea of a bounded object [say, us] is really just a convenient fiction." McCrone recognizes that our brains and our minds are part and parcel of the world and cannot be understood alone. The brain is a dynamic entity, not only constantly changing, but constantly interacting with both the environment within and the environment without. Thus McCrone observes that "Given the real world is a continuous place, and so exact starting points can never be measured, this means that it is impossible--as a matter of principle--to predict the behavior of a feedback-dependent system [like the brain]" (pp. 64-65). Ergo, the fall of a strict reductionism in the study of the brain, and the realization that the brain must be understood in light of not only its composition, its components, and its developmental history, but its dynamic nature.

I got less out of the chapters that reported on the current research, partially because of the fragmentary nature of the research, and partly because I am uncomfortable reading about experiments on the brains of monkeys, etc. McCrone recognizes how "animal experimentation" has "tainted the field," and he addresses these concerns to some extent. (See particularly page 112.) Fortunately the development of new high tech scanning devices is allowing researchers to study the brain without cutting it open or by relying on (in human subjects) neurological injuries to give them a glimpse of what is going on inside. I was fascinated with McCrone's report that the way tennis players are able to react to a 140 mph serve is that they anticipate where the serve is going in part by reading the body language of the server before the ball is actually hit (and they don't even know they're doing it)! In fact it is part of the brain's talent to predict. As it readies itself for the next moment, the brain makes a prediction of what that moment will be like. McCrone calls it "riding a wave of predictions" (p. 147).

McCrone makes it clear that it is as much in the process of development that we become who we are as it is in the genetic code. He writes, "there is just not enough room on a DNA molecule" for all the information that the brain needs. The brain, in a very real sense organizes itself as it grows in concert with the world. If you watch a baby, you can see that the baby is working very, very hard to make sense of its world.

In the penultimate chapter, "The Ape that Spoke," McCrone argues that the acquisition of language was critical to the development of consciousness. He states that "Animals are locked into the present tense," living "entirely in the here and now," and that "there is no reason to think that a monkey ever sits around mulling over the story of its life." For those of us who have had close intimate relationships with animals, this is not so clear. Personally, I think animals such as cats and dogs do have some sense of self, and that they do have some experience of the past, and can anticipate the future to some degree. We really don't know about their level of self-awareness. We can be reasonably sure it is less than ours of course, but I think there is a tendency in some quarters to underestimate what animals know. I also don't agree with McCrone's notion that "The invention of articulate, grammar-driven speech was also the invention of articulate, logic-driven thought" (p. 288). There was plenty of "logic-driven thought" before there was grammar; indeed animals often think logically, if their behavior is any indication. (And there is no reason to think it isn't, to echo McCrone's words above.) I think that because some of us are such highly verbal people, we tend not to notice that we think and figure out things logically at a level deeper than that of language. Human language is often a translation of a more basic language. Additionally, I think it is important to make a distinction between "consciousness" meaning "awareness" and "consciousness" meaning "self-identity." Whenever the word "consciousness" is used, I cringe a little because I know it will mean different things to different people and there is the very real danger of talking past one another. Although McCrone does attempt to define consciousness as he goes along, he is to my mind not entirely successful. For example, on page 265 he writes, "So, again, what is consciousness? In some sense, it must be the outcome a moment's processing." Perhaps--but what does THAT mean?

We could argue other points; however, the main thing is this is a good book that gives the reader a vivid sense of what is going on in mind science these days, a field of knowledge that is growing very rapidly, and may some time soon experience a breakthrough of stunning proportions; or we may be entering a transition phase, near "the edge of chaos" from which may come some startling new conception of how the mind works and who we are.

Rating:
Summary: Good popular work.
Review: This is an overview of consciousnes studies. It is a good one at that. The intermingling of chaos, complexity, dynamics, a lot of neurophysiological evidence, among other things, is enlightning. But McCrone is a science writer, and some would ask him to leave the theorizing to the scientists. The last 4 chapters, his attempts as actually building a model for consciousness, are interesting, but not very direct at pointing out how the brain can manage to come up with anything resembling consciousness. The qualia issue dodged, the book explains many things, like how some brain structures set the boundaries and mode of processing of the brain. But all rests on the authors interpretation of the work of others(not that this is bad). At the end, I think, thee best thing to get out of McCrones discussion is his definition off consciousness : "the view we put into a moment". He correclty points out that we must look at all the complexity in consciousness, while taking in consideration all the processing involved. Not just have a good view once in the top of the mountain, but to consider the whole rocky enterprise of the climb.