<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Nice idea, but horrible author
Review: The topic is a great one, and the author was a great researcher into the topic. Unfortunately, while he may be a great scientist, he's a horrible author. His idea of the book's audience is vague: he defines neurons as "nerve cells" and introduces Phineas Gage as if talking to someone with no background in neuroscience, only to throw out terms like "fissure of Rolando" in the very same page. He's obviously been retired for quite some time, as all his research is several decades old. Within the first few pages of the book, he state boldly that consciousness can't be explained by materalism-- something that, while may be true, is far from the kind of statement you just throw out without backing it up. The organization is vague at best, at times it feels as if he's just rambling. Worst of all, he repeats himself, almost verbatim, multiple times. The story of how he got the chance to perform these experiments is told practically word for word at least three time in the first 20 pages. A tribute to his college advisor is likewise repeated using the same words. Experimental evidence is complete introduced multiple times, as if it the author had somehow forgotten that he had already introduced it. I spent quite a lot of time trying to find a pattern to these repetitions-- was the book composed by splicing together articles he wrote elsewhere? In the end, I couldn't make heads or tails out of it. Libet's research is truly extraordinary, but if you want to learn about it, don't read him, read a secondary source like Dennett's Consciousness Explained.
<< 1 >>
| 
