Customer Reviews

The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force

5 star:		(41)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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?

The author uses his personal experiences as a human being and as a physician treating OCD patients to explore the mind body problem.

There are many "isms" associated with what stance a particular philosopher may take on the mind body/brain problem. In my limited mind I see two extremes with a continuum between which has not been fully explored.

One can believe, as most neuroscientists do, that the mind is nothing more than a consequence of purely physical process'. In it's most extreme form we have functionalism which repudiates any concept of mind outside the physical realm. As we move away from this concept we see various "isms" rear their head depending upon what modifications one can make to this thesis. If you believe that mind exists but has no influence on brain then you believe in epiphenomalism. Of course if you believe in the functionalist viewpoint and state that you truly do not know if mind exists outside body you subscribe to agnostic physicalism. Alternatively, if you concede that mind emerges from the brain and can affect the brain but cannot be wholly explained by physical phenomena then you are an emergent materialist. Going a bit further if you subsribe to the notion that the mind and brain are seperate entities and can affect one another then you hold on to dualistic interactionism.

The discovery of newtonian mechanics was a revolution which explained the unexplainable. Newtonian physics let to various deterministic outlooks in every field including biology and neuroscience. The discovery of quantum physics shattered the belief in deterministic systems and replaced it with probabilistic systems. Here we see a paradigm shift in physics from studying what "is" to what we can know about what "is". In the authors words a shift from ontology to epistimology. It is the inertia of newtonian thinking which persists in neuroscience today.

Like the author I subscribe to a mind independent of brain which can influence the brain. Whether quantum mechanics can explain this is an exciting question.

The author uses research in OCD, stroke patients, and the Silver Monkey debacle to argue that directed attention/mental force can alter brain circuitry/processing and that this mental force is not simply a physical process or byproduct of the brain itself.

He clearly explains basic concepts of neurophysiology, neuroanatomy and basic quantum mechanics so the unseasoned reader requires no background knowledge.

He incorporates the ideas of non-locality, quantum zeno effect, anti-realist implications of quantum mechanics and the mysterious collapse of the wave funtion during observation into a theory of mind over brain.

His thinking is that the choice of what to focus on ( Heisenberg choice ) leads to many outcomes of a probabilistic nature ( anti-realist implications of QM ) and that by directing attention one is able to select one possibility from the many ( quantum zeno effect ) which is then actualized ( collapse of the wave function ).

This new way of viewing the brain has many implications not just in philosophy but in clinical medicine, economics, sociology and in fact any science in which one has thinking participants. This has been alluded to in the past by George Soros in applications to market trends.

The main dilemma of course is: who or what is directing the attention in the first place? The author holds that it is free will/soul.

The author argues pesuasively for abandoning Newtonian explanations for brain function in favour of quantum mechanical explanations. However, the argument provides a mechanism for showing how such a mind-brain interface may work but assumes a priori that there is a distinction between mind and brain.

The materialists could argue that the quantum mechanical explanation of brain function and functionalism/materialism are not mutually exclusive. They could simply argue that quantum mechanics is simply another physical process, probabilistic not deterministic, but this does not imply there is a will or soul.

Like other great mysteries ( existence of god, life after death, etc )free will remains an enigma and you either believe in it or you don't.

Unlike like our predecessors we now have an explanation of how such a mind-brain interface may work.

this book is great in terms of psychology- full background on studies that support the authors point of view, can read as repetitive, but then again, isn't repetition key for retention?

the book isn't as bad as the negative reviews have it, nor as miraculous as the positive reviews do. it's great for the psychology of learning and neuroplasticity...

however, as for it's metaphysical content, post introductory run-down of the various viewpoints of philosophy of the mind (materialism, epiphenomenolism, etc.) in the beginning, the rest of the book is mysteriously void of the corresponding qualia debates (although i suppose the author is an M.D., not a Phil. Ph.D.). but if he would like to claim that mind is something other than matter, it would be nice to touch on this (especially concerning causal efficacy of non-material mind). i'll agree with other reader/reviewers that invoking quantum mechanics has become somewhat fashionable, but those parts were interesting reading, even if it didn't seem clear how he meant to invoke immaterial mind into the equation.

at least it makes you think about all these issues- to the negative reviews, no one book should be your single source anyway- schwartz has a captivating theory, which (just like anyone else's) should be taken with a grain of salt, open to interpretation and evolution...

On the plus side, I loved reading about the experiments and gaining an understanding about what the results mean and how that works with neuroplasticity. I believe that the brain can be changed with "exercise" and that's what made me pick-up this book.

But I personally was hoodwinked by the whole "the mind is not of this world" thing. It seemed to me, an admitted novice, but not a complete dolt, that Dr. Schwartz should have been up-front with counter arguments. I think it was nearly 100 pages into the book before he mentioned that it could be that one part of the brain was changing another. We do have a "reptile brain" with a more modern brain added later...I could see where one part could teach the other part something! I wouldn't expect him to argue forcefully for the other camp, but I recognized (with some other readings) that the other position was distorted to improve his (rather weak) argument.

Something the other reviews didn't mention was that this was a bit of a biography for Schwartz. He tells us when, where, who, what they talked about. It's also a bit of a history lesson; sometimes I'd be excited about a topic, only to find out the experiment was in the 1800's (and there's no fMRI results).

I'm in the camp with some of the other reviewers that got tired of the repetition. If the repetition was eliminated, the folksy "I was with 'Mr. Cool' on this day" was eliminated, and especially the drumbeat of how the mind exists outside of reality, you'd have a much more readable and interesting book.

The physical brain can be "all there is" and still operate upon itself! Nothing in this book convinced me otherwise.

I'm a board-certified cognitive behavioral therapist and I recommend this book to my fellow therapists as well as the book TRAIN YOUR MIND TO CHANGE YOUR BRAIN. Both of these books give a wider-horizon overview of the power of the mind to make physical changes in the brain than my own book BRAINSWITCH OUT OF DEPRESSION which is more specific to depression. I've had great success training people to re-wire their brains to quickly get out of the pain of depression by using simple mind exercises to switch their neural activity from the feeling part of the brain (the subcortex) to the thinking part of the brain (the neocortex). So I can personally attest to the feasibility and practicality of neuroplasticity in changing out of painful habitual neural patterns.

I've always been fascinated by the workings of the brain, so I knew I had to read this book after reading a brief excerpt in "The Wall Street Journal." The idea that mindful attention to the workings of the brain can cause physical changes in the brain is a radical departure from recent scientific thinking. For many years, it has been believed that the brain is "hard-wired," a process completed early in childhood, and the adult brain can not be rewired in any significant way. The work of Dr. Schwartz and his colleagues demonstrates that the brain can be retrained to overcome the effects of illness or injury, at any age.

I am not a scientist, so I'll admit that some of the scientific explanations caused my brain to do some heavy lifting. And, there were parts of the chapter on the Silver Spring Monkeys I found too disturbing to read. That aside, this book excited me about the possibilities to retrain the brain. Dr. Schwartz's work has been primarily with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients, but the implications for other mental disorders, as well as victims of stroke and brain injury, are monumental.

This book also got me excited about learning other subjects it touches on, such as quantum physics and Buddhism. (Really!) If you are ready to expand your thinking on this important subject, you will certainly want to read "The Mind and the Brain."

I learned quite a bit from this book, and believe it is a worthwhile investment. However, instead of spending this review writing about the information I gleaned from this book (essentially all of which can be found in previous reviews), I would like to outline what I believe is its main shortcoming.

In one sentence: the author arrives at a conclusion that is not warranted by the arguments he presents. He attempts to argue for the existence of free will, but he bases his argument on a false dichotomy: his claim is that attention must either be (1) a causal and fundamental (i.e., irreducible) force, or else (2) a deterministic (and therefore predictable) physiological response.

He does a marvelous job showing that attention is indeed a causal force (e.g., citing studies of his OCD patients), but doesn't demonstrate its irreducibility. For example: How do we know that attention does not itself arise from physical processes? To answer this, he presents an evolutionary argument: what use would attention be if it were a mere side-effect of a physiological (and actually causative) process?

To rule out determinism, he introduces quantum mechanics. However, while he is correct in asserting that this allows attention to arise from stochastic processes, he does not explain why this by itself implies free will. Does the fact that our minds behave nondeterministically (and therefore 'unpredictably') allow us to conclude that we have something called "free will?" The author seems to believe so.

He goes to great lengths to prove that our minds respond to more than simple sensory input, being also controlled by this nebulous thing called 'attention.' But without being able to argue that attention is not itself the product of a purely physical process (mind you, I'm not sure how one might go about this--but he should be up front about this), and without explaining his definition of "free will" to be little more than physical nondeterminism, I believe it is premature to draw the conclusions that he does.

All in all an excellent book, with (what I believe are) faulty conclusions.

This book is on the leading edge of thought in the worlds of Consciousness and Neurology. In fact, the book's thesis is quite contrary to Classical Western Thought , which is descended from a Newtonian worldview dealing only with measurables;it is broadly termed "materialism" - and posits that there is no such thing as a "mind" , and the whole subjective world can be completely reduced to firing patterns of neurons in the brain. That is - "free will" is an illusion, and all behaviours are either conditioned responses OR are completely subordinate to the dictates of genes and other congenital limitations.

Schwartz, a practitioner of Buddhist meditation and inventor of the 4-step behavioral/congnitive method of OCD treatment, resoundingly says "NO!". His experiences with mindfulness (a buddhist concept) applied to OCD reveal the stunning plasticity of the brain. Plasticity (of a brain)- being able, even in mature adults, to re-map and re-wire itself in response to experience and stimulus. This ability is harnessed in OCD treatment, to laboriously create alternate pathways in the brain, so that patients eventually overcome their "compulsive" behaviours. Plasticity of the brain finds many humane applications - one great example in the book is a cure for dyslexia in children.

Schwartz makes the logical conclusion - with numerous examples of nerological studies, including the infamous Silver Spring Monkeys deafferentation experiments - that human will or volition , or "mind" acts upon the "matter" in the brain and causes radical reorganization to reflect the kinds of stimulus. He makes a strong case for the role of experience and stimulus in shaping our brains from gestation, infancy, childhood, and indeed, for the rest of our lives !

He then volunteers the help of quantum physics to come up with a hypothetical "mental force" that acts upon the neurotransmitters and calcium ions in the synapses of our brains, thus either enabling, or disabling certain actions and thoughts. He proposes that the "explanatory gap" that yawns between Mind and Matter be dissolved by a quantum physics explanation.

Giving us a quick tour of quantum theory - Schroedinger's wave equation, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and the collapse of the wave function ; and a quick tour of the human brain and tying these together with a lot of circumstantial evidence, Schwartz does a convincing job.

A considerable debt is owed, in years of inhumane treatment, disfigurements and drastic surgical procedures, to the non-human primates who "volunteered" their lives for advances made in this field. To me, an outsider, it seems like every important step forward came at the expense of a monkey's skull being split open.