47 of 47 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Non-reductive science, July 18, 2003
This review is from: The Brain and the Inner World: An Introduction to the Neuroscience of the Subjective Experience (Paperback)
The subtitle of this one is "an introduction to the neuroscience of subjective experience." It is intended for the non-specialist, and they deliver on that wonderfully. The writing is compact but clear; the first section is "Introduction to Basic Concepts" that are necessary to understand the rest of the book. Frankly, it is the clearest discussion of brain anatomy, neuronal structure, and chemistry, that I have ever read. It was time to go to bed when I had finished, and I lay there going over the material in my head it was so attractively clear. Solms has been a mover in getting people to relate together neuroscience and psychoanalysis (he is trained in both).
Their second chapter on "Mind and Brain: How do they relate?" is a clear outline of the "mind-body problem" from the philosophical point of view, and a compact discussion of the various options (various monisms, interactionism, and parallelism). The chapter is set up with the distinction philosopher David Chalmers makes between the "easy" mind-body problem and the "hard" mind-body problem. The `easy" problem is what Francis Crick, in "The Scientific Search for the Soul," deals with: the neural correlates of consciousness. They agree this is an approach with great promise (except for its Crick's reductionism). The "hard" problem is how consciousness actually emerges from matter. (On this question they remain agnostic and tend to believe it is not soluble scientifically.)
They wind up with a "world view" (their term) that underlies their work and that provides the context in which they do their work while not itself being adjudicable scientifically. They call it "dual-aspect monism" : "We are made of only on type of stuff (that is why it is a monist position), but . . this stuff is perceived in two different ways. In our essence we are neither mental nor phyhsical beings. . Dual aspect monism implies that the brain is made of stuff that appears physical when viewed from the outside (as an object) and "mental" when viewed from the inside (as a subject). . . This distinction between body and mind is therefore an artifact of perception."
Finally, they believe hard-nosed AI is on the wrong track. "It is relatively simple to produce a computer that displays some degree of intelligent behavior and may therefore pass the Turing test under certain circumstances. . . But generating intelligent behavior is vastly different from generating a mind. . . A computer must be able to generate `joys and sorrows, memories and ambitions, and a sense of personal identity and free will (to paraphrase Crick) before we are persuaded that it possesses a mind. The fact that we are not persuaded vividly illustrates the gulf that separates the `easy' and the `hard' problems in cognitive science."
I've gone on too long already. At the end of the book Solms and Turnbull weave together the two methods, of neuroscience (body) and psychoanalysis (mind) to mount a more adequate approach to the dual-aspect beings which we are.
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25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the best brain intro yet, June 21, 2002
Solms and Turnbull do a remarkable thing: offer a panoramic introduction covering all of the basics about all of the central aspects of inner experience that have been researched so far -- dreams, emotions, memory, identity, etc. -- and they do it in an extremely clear and readable way. All of the defined terms are highlighted in the text and clearly described. There is very little fluff at all; every paragraph and practically every sentence is necessary. The first chapter -- a basic overview of the anatomy and function of the brain -- is the best general introduction I have yet come across.
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31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An outstanding book on both brain and psychoanalysis, July 11, 2002
This is the most significant book on psychoanalysis I've come across in a couple of decades. Solms is a neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst working in New York, London, and South Africa, and co-author Oliver Turnbull has worked extensively with him. Solms has mounted a sustained effort to put psychoanalytic theory together with what we are learning about the brain. He does this by doing a neurological workup of patients and then interviewing them psychoanalytically.
Solms' basic idea is that we now have (as Freud did not) two ways of looking at mind. One is Freud's way: we use free association, interpretation, etc., to look at mind subjectively. The other is the neuroscience way: objective studies of the changes in behavior wrought by changes in the brain. To find out fully about mind, we have to put these two methods together. And he does!
Frankly, this growing movement of neuro-psychoanalysis seems to me the only thing that will stave off the impending death of psychoanalysis. Solms addresses quite directly the afflictions affecting psychoanalysis and offers hope, very concrete grounds for hope. Also, the book can serve as a very nice introduction to neuroscience.
Let me put it quite bluntly: Anyone seriously interested in and concerned about psychoanalysis who doesn't read this book is simply nuts!
Norman Holland, University of Florida
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