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Conventional science has long held the position that 'the mind' is merely an illusion, a side effect of electrochemical activity in the physical brain. Now in paperback, Dr Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley's groundbreaking work, The Mind and the Brain, argues exactly the opposite: that the mind has a life of its own.
- Sales Rank: #25959 in Audible
- Published on: 2011-11-15
- Format: Unabridged
- Original language: English
- Running time: 867 minutes
Most helpful customer reviews
283 of 313 people found the following review helpful.
Consciousness addressed by science
By A Customer
I was having a bit of a philosophical crisis when I went looking for a book on free will and determinism -- I had discovered that deep down, I really didn't believe in free will. That was a surprise, since consciously I thought the idea of fate was absurd. I always thought that my brain had been programmed to be the way it was through my genes and the way I was raised, and that the best I could do was to not get too upset about the way I am, do whatever came to me, and hope for some life-changing experience to make things better.
After some research on the internet I decided to do what William James and Abraham Maslow did and "act as if" I had free will, and see if I got the same extraordinary results they did (both had been depressed determinists and were "cured" once they gave free will an active try). I still wanted intellectual confirmation though, and I came across this book at the bookstore and bought it on a hunch.
This book has blown my mind. Schwartz' cognitive-therapy work with obsessive-compulsive patients leads us to ask the question, "How is it that a strictly mental process can result in measurable brain changes as shown on PET scans?" Is it caused by another part of the brain? Even if it is, that just postpones the question, because what caused that part of the brain to be any different this time? He makes the case that conscious experience isn't reduceable to anything more fundamental -- try having a colorblind researcher truly understand the color "red" by tracing physical and chemical changes in the brain. Combine that with the fact in quantum mechanics that observation affects which reality it is that shows up, and he proposes a kind of fundamental "mental force" and does a much better job of explaining it than I've done here.
One problem is that in the middle of the book there is a lot of scientific history of particular studies that would support his theory, but they aren't really necessary because they don't say much more than what he's already said, and there's lots of detail that isn't necessary for making his point. It can get dry and uninteresting in those parts, and it seems more like he's just trying to give these unsung scientists their due.
That can't negate, however, how great the rest of the book is. It has a very powerful argument against strict materialism, especially for this atheist/materialist who didn't believe in free will last week. (I can't *believe* how many things this book explains with regard to spiritual claims.) So, don't get discouraged by the scientific history if you get bored by it, and see the book through. And have fun.
206 of 230 people found the following review helpful.
Some good and bad conclusions
By A Customer
I bought this book anticipating a different perspective on this timeless question. A different perspective is exactly what I found. Schwartz begins with a description of his research on obsessive-compulsive disorder. This section of the book is simply great. It is a nice example of how advances in neurobiological investigation have helped to elucidate the neural circuitry that underlies psychological states. Schwartz also gives a nice overview of the current views on conciousness.
He then goes on to discuss the topic of neuroplasticity citing the case of the Silver Springs monkeys. You get a nice history lesson in addition to a summary of some hard won facts about the brain. He also gives plenty of examples of neuroplasticity in humans. He uses this as the physical basis of his own stylized treatment for OCD. His treatment is based on the concept of a mental force (a nebulous concept if there ever was one) that is able to change the brain through the principles of quantum mechanics. He devotes the rest of his book to discussing the quantum mind as well as some implications of the theory as it applies to consciousness.
It is the last third of the book that attempts to explain the concept of a mental force that interacts with the physical substance of the brain (through quantum mechanics) to ultimately produce behavior. The problem as I see it, is that Schwartz believes that consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, in that it is more than the sum of its mere physical parts. He seems to be unable to accept the idea that our mental lives are reducible entirely to physical processes. Many of Schwartz's conclusions in this book are based on his a priori assumption that the mind is more than the brain. He interprets the results of a variety of experiments as proof that the mind is not reducible. Granted, many of the experiments he alludes to are fascinating--neuroscience is fascinating by definition, of course--but that does not mean they HAVE to be the product of something greater than the brain. A good example of this is his discussion of Libet's experiments that revealed a readiness potential as proof of free will (and thus a rejection of the "philistine reductionist" viewpoint that all human behavior is caused because as we all know a lack of volition would just be the absolute-ruin-of-the-world-as-we-know-it GAG!). I also found Libet's experiments intruguing; however, I see them as simply raising more questions, not providing a death-blow to materialism.
Finally, Schwartz has a habit of quoting all over the place. He is especially fond of William James, and why not? James was ahead of his time. His contribution to our understanding of the mind is known by every student of psychology. However, Schwartz is using James's insights as an appeal to authority. He also quotes Roger Sperry among others as if to say, "well, these great thinkers think the mind is more than the brain so it must be so!"
Then there is the whole quantum mechanical (QM) brain theory. I'm not a physicist so I will refrain from commenting too much on it. To Schwartz and his physicist buddy Stapp, QM is the mechanism by which the immaterial affects the material. There is a lot of hype in the section of the book and some interesting proposals as well. However, it simply doesn't deliver in the end.
In the end, it is Schwartz's mixture of hard neurobiological facts with immaterial hocus-pocus conclusions that CAUSES me to give it an average evaluation. It's hard to believe that a scientist would be so quick to credit certain discoveries as irrefutable evidence of his own biased opinion. Contrariwise, these perplexing phenomenon are merely the beginnings of further lines of investigation. A scientist must assume he or she is working to uncover some material process. How would one go about trying to prove a physical process is the result of something immaterial?
If you have OCD, you will enjoy the first third of the book. If you are a student of the neurosciences you will enjoy the first two-thirds of the book. And if you're a dualist you will probably enjoy all three.
93 of 102 people found the following review helpful.
Overall, a very worthwhile read
By Amazon Customer
There's a lot of interesting and useful information in this book, but it's not without it's flaws. On the positive side:
- The descriptions of experiments on the brain are fascinating. So are the descriptions of experiments in quanta mechanics and the resulting paradoxes.
- I find the conclusions regarding the brain's ability to rewire itself quite inspiring.
- I also find very interesting the idea that Buddhist meditation may be driving neuroplastic changes; it is implied that this physiological change--unbeknownst to the practitioner--is what is actually gained through meditation.
- I admire authors' drive to bring science to questions regarding sentience, although it isn't clear how successful they are; as others have said, taking the evidence provided to the conclusions provided requires a leap of faith. In any case, it's a start from which others may build.
On the flip side:
- I found myself reading reworded versions of the same idea over and over. It was as if the authors were themselves trying to rewire the reader's brain through repetitive exercises. Unfortunately, this makes the reader lose attention, thus undermining this goal.
- There is a lot of text that attempts to add a human interest perspective. Maybe this was considered important to the commercial appeal the book. But, for this reader, it only diluted the value.
- As mentioned by many others, the authors do not provide convincing evidence to support their conclusions on free will. For example, the authors provide very interesting details about quanta mechanics and the evidence that the universe is not deterministic. While I agree that a deterministic universe eliminates the possibility of free will, the inverse is not true: proof of a non-deterministic universe does not result in proof of the existence of free will.
On the whole debate over free will, I have concluded there are two levels at which people discuss this question: (1) a real-world, practical view and (2) a theoretical view. In the real-world view, as long as one consciously believes he has the ability to make choices, he has free will. There may be a perspective that exists, maybe from the view of deities or the afterlife, in which it is clear that free will is just an illusion; this possibility is the theoretical view. But this theoretical view just doesn't matter in the real world. The answer to the theoretical view of free will, whatever it is, has no moral implications to this world (the book is very concerned that the answer has deep moral implications). The fact is, sentient creatures believe that they make decisions under their own volition and believe that these decisions have consequences to themselves and others.
The authors start out with the theoretical question and proceed to prove only the real-world view. But I don't know if the real-world view of free will needs proving. Doesn't everyone believe they experience volition?
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