[.ca] Brief Tour Of Human Consciousness (ISBN 0131486861)

Slightly disjointed but highly fascinating:
I picked up this book with no clear expectations other than learning more about various facets of the human mind, and in this area I have been well served. There are, however, a few odd things about it that I believe deserve a mention. The book is divided into two main sections; the actual book, consisting of no more than 112 pages, more or less half the total of pages, plus the notes, glossary and other small portions that constitute the other half. I usually prefer when notes are added at the bottom of every relevant page rather than have the reader switch to the end of the book every few pages. In the case of A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, this would have been impossible since nearly half the book (or a good third) is written in the notes. Instead, most of these notes include further information that could have fitted the normal flow of the book had they been better integrated directly into the text. This work feels a bit disjointed, in that there is initially no clear direction to where the narrative is going exactly, although it is highly fascinating throughout and does come together rather nicely towards the end. Never too scientific or complex to become tedious, it remains a fun ride into the human mind that'll make you suddenly aware of several processes that we take for granted and rarely consider. The author's descriptions of the various processes at work simply related to vision is quite astounding, as are many of the experiments described in the book with patients who suffer from various disabilities. This alone is well worth the price of admission. The book touches many interesting topics, such as language, evolution, art, free will, various mental and physical illnesses, and many other aspects relevant to the human mind, which are all truly fascinating. Unfortunately, many questions also remain unanswered as Professor Ramachandran talks about future experiments and potential results by clearly admitting that there is much work yet to be done. A good portion of the book remains highly speculative. There is the odd bit of humour that seems a bit out of place, such as peculiar references to Germans and Jews (albeit separately) that I visibly did not fully understand, though various other funny moments fared much better, thankfully. There also comes the problem of repetition, where the same ideas are sometimes mentioned more than once throughout the book, and the poor black and white pictures are mediocre at best. Some diagrams are unreadable and appeared better suited at colour printing, though they are fortunately very few and usually not required for full understanding of the main elements. Despite these few minor setbacks, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness should appeal to curious minds interested in a light overview and better understanding of their own selves. The book's five chapters had me smiling to myself more than once and later provided many hours of interesting conversations with friends and colleagues!

Engaging, light read:
\o...\c Ramachandran presents his ideas lucidly, employing compelling and fascinating examples of patients with synesthesia (which appears to be his specialty) and other neurological disorders, and using this cases as a foothold for his exploration of consciousness. I found his discussion of the neurological basis of art to be a bit disappointing. While he wisely admitted that his thoughts in that chapter were highly speculative, and was fairly careful to remind the reader that this "neuro-aesthetic" approach did not deal with the other 90% of art appreciaition/reception that is a cultural affair, I nevertheless was quite unconvinced by, e.g., his discussion of how seeing multiple perspectives of the same face in a Picasso engages us more because we have different groups of neurons that are keyed to fire when viewing only particular facial perspectives. Towards the end of the book, Ramachandran persuasively presents his "bootsrappting theory of language" (I forget the actual name he gives it) which was one of the highlights of the book. He contrasts his approach, which sees language as having emerged luckily by getting a sort of free-ride from neural circuitry that evolved for other purposes (as mammalian ear bones evolved from conveniently located reptile jaw bones), with that of Steven Pinker, for whom the evolution of our linguistic capabilities evolved in a more linear, and direct fashion. If you, like me, have a penchant for philosophy, you may be slightly miffed by his frequent jabs at professional philosophers--despite their modicum of aptitude. If bickering is an occupational hazard of philosophy, gliding over the differences in human thought and behaviour that are created by culture is a similarly recurring problem for neuroscience--one that Ramachandran doesn't fully avoid. Moreover, he commits one of my least favourite blunders (as common, if not more, among philosophers) which is to exagerrate the difference between human and higher primate brains (especially of orangutans), and he prejudges their capabilities while clearly being not terribly well-informed on higher-ape research.