Altered Egos: How the Brain Creates the Self

Rating:
Summary: Great Brain Food
Review: A facinating account of how the mind operates. I was captivated by the stories of Dr. Feinberg's patients, whose odd behavior makes compelling reading. I could not put it down!!! I especially liked the story about the patient who identified her own image in the mirror as a woman who was stalking her.

Dr. Feinberg's eloquent and compassionate stories are instructive as well as entertaining. A must read for anyone who is interested in the subject, from the professional to the layperson. I simply loved it!!! Thank god for enlighted and sensitive author/doctors like Feinberg!!! This book deserves a Pulitzer Prize!!!

Rating:
Summary: Dr. Feinberg's masterpiece
Review: Altered Egos by Todd Feinberg is a superbly written, fascinating account of a doctor's observations of his brain injured patients. Dr. Feinberg compassionately portrays their histories in riveting case reports and subsequently anchors the rich case material in philosophical and neuroscientific theories. Examination of alterations in the self that result from damage to the brain provides the basis for Dr. Feinberg's groundbreaking discussion of the complexities of the self. Dr. Feinberg artfully presents his theory of the nested hierarchy of consciousness. This book is a must read.

Rating:
Summary: Pushing the edges of identity
Review: Feinberg is clearly a master teacher. Reading this book is like being on well-organized, interesting rounds. While not assuming that his audience is familiar with medical or philosophical terms, he is able to lead you from the simple to the complex.

His patients are presented with kindness and respect. We wonder why patients no longer recognize their limbs or family members or even their own reflection in a mirror. Feinberg clearly explains the areas of brain specilization whose loss contributes to these problems.

He then extends his discussion to problems of consciousness. He traces philosophic discussions and current developments with simplicity and precision. For the uninitiated, such as I, he provides a glossary which is easy to access and understand.

I was amazed at the extent of the bibleography and truly grateful to be able to benefit from Feinberg's scholarship. In addition, I have made notes on many of the pages which I hope to discuss further.

A highly recommended book!!!!!!

Rating:
Summary: Dr. Feinberg's masterpiece
Review: I have taken the time to read Dr. Feinberg's book not once, but twice, in order to get its full flavor. As one practices law and who deals with clients with neurological injuries, both as injury victims and the elderly I am amazed at how well the author explains the nuances between mind and "self" or as I like it: the way one presents him or her self to the world.

The book is very readable and does not contain any pedantic phrases or highly technical scientific terms that are often replete in such texts. Instead it very ably explains much of what needs to be known about the brain.

Dr. Feinberg's insight should inspire other researchers and academics to continue their inquiry into the function of the brain so that we can all become more aware and knowledgable about ourselves and those around us.

Rating:
Summary: Provocative theory and interesting case studies
Review: I love books like these because I am fascinated by the brain, so I had to try it when I heard Dr. Feinberg on NPR. He does not disappoint those of us who enjoy books on the wilder side of neurology. He is very good at explaining all the most bizarre behaviors in fairly simple language, and his drawings of the brains of his patients were an outstanding addition.

I felt his theories of how the brain constructed the self were thought-provoking, but I don't think he spent enough time on them. If he had fleshed them out a little more, I would have given the book five stars.

However, if you like Oliver Sack's accounts of his patients, you'll like this book, too.

Rating:
Summary: Not as interesting as I thought
Review: I thought it was too clinical, I prefer books on the mind more in the line of "The Man Who Tasted Shapes", which is written more as a story than a clinical book. Did offer good insight into the way the mind works. Especially fascinating was the research on the front temporal lobes. - Kristy Welsh, author of "Good Credit is Sexy"

Rating:
Summary: Disapointed.
Review: The title, the reviews, the praise in the back cover, all make you expect a grand theory of the self and mind-body interaction. Instead you get last years philosophy trend. After 100 pages of case studies, and brilliant summaries of all kinds of brain disorders and damages, high hopes arise that a theory of brain function will make clear the mechanisms by which the self arises. At the final moment, Feinberg, having emptied his resources, calls for a face-saving emergence theory to his aid. The self, then, emerges from the nested organization of the brain. Wow. So the self is an emergent property? O.k now what is the interesting part? This has been done to death, just ask Walter Freeman.
Feinberg constantly asserts he is not a dualist, or in this case, an emergentist dualist. But his philosophical stand contradicts such assertion. Yes, he falls into the oldest of philosotraps. Qualia are irreducible, so is first person perspective, we cannot know what is like to be a bat, mary the colorblind learns a new truth about the world, and intentionality is something nearly supernatural.
Now, it has to be admitted that the use of strange concepts in favour of the theory colors it, if not help it. Meaning and purpose are the key to understanding the self. (if this sounds dualist, or new agy, well, it almost is). Of course, meaning is just intentionality and purpose function, but so what?
I agree with most reviewers about the quality of the case studies, but remember that the authors purpose (or function)was theorethical. Guys, read this for fun, and if afterwards you want to know about how the brain creates the self, look elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding neurophilosophical thinking
Review: There has been a good deal of writing about the brain and mind of late, but I can't recall a more enjoyable and thought provoking read than Dr. Feinberg's new book "Altered Egos".I first heard Dr Feinberg on NPR radio and I went right out to buy his book. The first part relates numerous fascinating case studies of patients with brain damage who experience an alteration in their sense of self.For example, some patients misidentify their spouses,as in the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime ("This is not my Beautiful Wife"). Other cases don't recognize their own arms; still others who suffer from a condition known as "alien hand syndrome", might even attack themselves. In the later sections of the book, Feinberg uses these cases to explore how the many areas of the brain that contribute to the self combine to create a unified self and an "inner I". In simple language that is accesible to the non-professional, Feinberg draws on basic principles in neurology and philosophy and presents his case that the brain/mind is a "nested hierarchy of meaning and purpose." He argues convincingly that this nested hierarchy is the final irreducible reality of what and who we are. I personally found the combination of neurology and philosophy in this book exciting, and the best part was that I found the writing not just understandable, but fun. Feinberg's book is a must read for anyone who has wondered what it really is to be a person.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding neurophilosophical thinking
Review: There has been a good deal of writing about the brain and mind of late, but I can't recall a more enjoyable and thought provoking read than Dr. Feinberg's new book "Altered Egos".I first heard Dr Feinberg on NPR radio and I went right out to buy his book. The first part relates numerous fascinating case studies of patients with brain damage who experience an alteration in their sense of self.For example, some patients misidentify their spouses,as in the Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime ("This is not my Beautiful Wife"). Other cases don't recognize their own arms; still others who suffer from a condition known as "alien hand syndrome", might even attack themselves. In the later sections of the book, Feinberg uses these cases to explore how the many areas of the brain that contribute to the self combine to create a unified self and an "inner I". In simple language that is accesible to the non-professional, Feinberg draws on basic principles in neurology and philosophy and presents his case that the brain/mind is a "nested hierarchy of meaning and purpose." He argues convincingly that this nested hierarchy is the final irreducible reality of what and who we are. I personally found the combination of neurology and philosophy in this book exciting, and the best part was that I found the writing not just understandable, but fun. Feinberg's book is a must read for anyone who has wondered what it really is to be a person.

Rating:
Summary: 'Metabrain' control of the 'self'.
Review: There is no doubt Dr. Feinberg is an excellent communicator of very complex ideas. He stays away from technical language and manages to keep the interest of the reader throughout most of his fascinating narratives of the bizarre clinical behavior of his patients with right fronto-parietal brain damage to the neocortex. This exposition takes about half the number of pages of his short book and does not give a clear hint about his intention of resting his theory of consciousness on this clinical data. Unfortunately, the remaining space and his adherence to non-technical language makes it very difficult for him to elaborate a credible account of how a physical brain may evolve a mind. His deep philosophical insight is there but his important conclusions lack the necesarry theoretical development to back them up. Without saying so he identifies with the functionalist branch of neurophilosophers. For them it is no longer required to scrutinize the chemical or quantum physical properties of the physical brain to explain the conscious state. This approach has many advantages in that the model emphasis is in `functional', not structural organization, i.e., how many abstract components there are and the different possible states they can assume under boundary conditions, plus a definition of the causal relationship controlling state transitions. It looks as if `functionalists' have adopted information theory as their front line of attack and defense. Wherever the same conditions are to be met, in a neuronal or silicon array, you will expect identical results, the principle of organizational invariance for `functional isomorphs'. In his book a patient's inability to maintain the integrity of his concept of self (herein equated with his consciousness)is the result of a disruption in the homeodynamic balance programmed in the nested hierarchical multineuronal control system (that we call the 'metabrain')now damaged by disease. His conclusions are to be considered more as another model for the brain control of 'first order judgements' or awareness than an explanation of a logical supervenience of 'second order judgments' (that we call 'metaconscience') on the physical brain. In the opinion of this reviewer, when he implies that the 'will' to act is in itself an unconscious act arising from those cognitive combinatorial structures we have called the 'metabrain' and directed to the `homeodynamic' preservation of the psychological integrity of the self, he is making an unwarranted assertion not supported by his clinical data. In his model it is not expected that a `normal' person would display an aberrant behavior that is contrary to his physical or psychological best interests. Yet we do witness this behavior in individuals involved in heroic sacrifices or unselfish acts of altruism. Mother Theresa of Calcutta is a recent good example of such personal sacrifice for the benefit of others.