Product Description

This text charts the brain's mind, progressing from single nerve cells to co-operative nerve cell assemblies to the emergence of complex brain patterns. By drawing on recent developments in brain imaging and theories of chaos and non-linear dynamics it shows how brains create intention and meaning.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #725382 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Raise your arm. Now: which came first? The raising of your arm, or the decision to raise it? Walter Freeman's admirably articulate and very difficult little book on the biological foundations of consciousness comes up with a surprising answer: action precedes consciousness of action. Consciousness has better things to do than involve itself with simple motor actions; rather, it establishes the parameters within which action occurs by itself. We are not divine homunculi, directing action independent of the physical constraints of cause and effect. But neither are we ghosts in the machine of the body, observing, and taking credit for, actions which are in reality dictated by conditioned responses and blind fate. Minds are like weather systems: at once evanescent and remarkably robust. Freeman's grasp of philosophy is unprecedented among experimental biologists, and he writes at the leading edge of that movement that makes study of the mind the venue for the long-awaited reconciliation of science and the humanities. This book would make a poor introduction to the subject: it is too much part of the ongoing debate, and readers would do better to tuck a few Dennetts, Calvins and Penroses under their belts first. But this caveat takes nothing away from Freeman's contribution or importance, and the book is a fine addition to Steven Rose's "Maps of the Mind" series, which looks to be the most diverse and rigorous science series for many years. --Simon Ings

About the Author
Walter Freeman is a professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught Brain science for forty years. He is the author of more than 300 articles and two books, Mass Action in the Nervous System and Societies of Brains.

Customer Reviews

this is a fascinating book a gifted exposition
This is a fascinating book. Walter Freeman has taken the most vexing problem in neuroscience today and offered a compelling and well reasoned explanation. How does a mind emerge from a brain? Schopenhauer call a version of this problem "the universal knot", and there are thousands of years of discussion about how the mental relates to the physical, the age old mind-body problem. Freeman has devoted his life to neurobiological research, and teaches in the graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley. In this book (which builds upon his two previous books and 350 articles)Freeman moves effortlessly between the fields of neurobiology, philosophy, the history of science, engineering and computer science, mathematics, and non linear dynamics, to weave together a comprehensive explanation to the universal knot. Part of Freeman's task is to appeal to a wide audience and not merely to those interested in a particular discipline, and to balance breadth with appropriate level of depth. Interdisciplinary studies are tricky that way, as depth in one area can become alienating to one reader, but too much breadth can seem to only cover the surface. This book strikes that delicate balance quite well, and anyone with an abiding interest in this topic will find plenty to be captivated by. The book is also poetically written. Freeman is devoted to a form of emergentism that allows for the realities of imagination, creativity, and free choice to exist in brains. Unlike many neurobiological researchers, his ideas of causality are explicit and his philosophical biases well articulated and direct. He is critical of chemical and structural determinisms which attempt to reduce, in their severe forms, our experience to a form of epiphenomenalism. Instead, Freeman argues, with impressive brain evidence, philosophy from Thomas Aquinas and pragmatists such as Merleau Ponty, and modeling from nonlinear dynamics to show how brains become minds--minds capable of making choices. "I hope to encourage the belief that people have the power to make choices. I will do this by explaining the neural mechanisms through which goals emerge within brains and find expression in goal directed actions"(p.7)

not up to expectations
After Ramachandran's Reith Lectures 2003, it seems hard to find a reading about neuroscience as exciting. Had I read 'How Brains Make Up Their Minds' three or four years ago, I might have thought that this was a very detailed and exhaustive book. But in 2005 it looks old. It addresses academic debates which do not seem to me of crucial importance and it is overly conservative in its philosophical excursions. If you expect some excitement from this book you might discover that you can find it only in the title.