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Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain

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The first question is whether a layperson can enjoy this book about such a profoundly complex subject as the human brain and its relationship to sentient consciousness. The answer is YES! Not because the hyper-complex nature of the subject is "dumbed down" but because Michael Gazzaniga is a gifted writer talented in expressing the most complex ideas in easy-to-understand sentences. He has a most delightful sense of humor that conveys his insights in a light-hearted and enjoyable manner.

Let me also say up front that this book is useful in explaining how the brain operates on two levels. Gazzaniga explains how the "right brain" is driven by the senses and acts on an immediate, subconscious level. The "left brain" applies a conscious after-the-fact reasoning that attempts to make sense of the actions that the subconscious mind has already taken. The left-brain's "interpreter module" is always at work inventing theories to "explain" what the right half of the brain has already "decided" on the basis of reflexive subconscious instinct.

Gazzaniga gives powerful examples of how easily the "interpreter module" can be deceived into coming to false conclusions. Suffice it to say that our brains can work against us by making poor decisions on the basis of perceived information that is false or unreliable. Understanding how the conscious mind rationalizes decisions that the subconscious mind has already acted on has relevance in helping us to make better decisions in every aspect of life. The book should be read for this reason alone. It explains how our conscious mind is far more fallible than we ever imagined.

The book answers some most intriguing questions about the relationship between the brain and consciousness:

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We are still left with this thorny little problem: What is going on in the brain to produce this magnificent ability that humans have, how did it come about, and how do you capture it? Fortunately for job security and today's graduate students, the mystery is alive and well, but some of the secrets are being revealed, which we will now explore.
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Here are some of the mysteries revealed:

* Are the brain's neural circuits hard-wired by DNA genetics, or are they created by the acquisition of experience as the organism lives?

* Does the brain "learn" by experience or is it pre-programmed with instinctive responses that are activated by encounters with reality?

* Are babies born with brains already "wired" to understand physical properties, for example why dropped objects fall down but not up, or why animate objects differ from inanimate ones?

* How did our brain evolve from the brains of lower primates? Which of our evolutionary human ancestors would be recognized as the first "human?"

* Are there unique structures in the human brain that make it qualitatively superior to every other species?

* Are the neurons in the human brain structured differently from those in the brains of other animals?

* Are particular mental processes and memories stored in one location in the brain or are they dispersed throughout the brain as a whole?

* Is the brain a "bottom-up" or "top-down" device, i.e. does consciousness control the brain, or is consciousness the sum of the brain's "dumb / automatic" processes?

Gazzaniga answers these questions in interesting detail, in so far as they CAN be answered based on our current state of knowledge. Some of the answers are surprising. For example, it seems that certain survival behaviors (fear of snakes and other predators, for example) ARE hardwired in the brains of humans and animals, but that over a period of thousands of years these instincts have been shown to "wash out" in cases where predator species have become extinct and are no longer threats. Gazzaniga explains numerous ingenious experiments that discern which behaviors are learned and which are innate. There are many surprising revelations about the structure and function of the human brain.

Gazzaniga also wonderfully explains that consciousness is a complex phenomenon. He says trying to understand consciousness by analyzing neurons in the brain would be like trying to figure out the traffic patterns of a large city by looking at the carburetor of one automobile!

Thus has Gazzaniga explained the FINITE capacities of the human brain up to the current state of knowledge. What is lacking is a theory to explain why the brain has a seemingly INFINITE capacity. Every structure in the universe appears to have constraints except the human brain. As we live our lives we accumulate a mental image of every sight, sound, and physical activity we have experienced since assuming consciousness. We layer more memories into our consciousness without losing the old. Our ability to learn seems to be unlimited. A person who is fluent in five languages can become fluent in five more.

HOW can an organ the size of a bowling ball store what appears to be an infinite amount of information? Can this be a purely biological, chemical, and electrical process? Is there some hidden dimension to the brain that CAN'T be explained in terms of physical processes?

And WHY HAVE our brains acquired the power to discern the nature of the universe? We are able to express in mathematical formulas the entire spectrum of the universe, from the quantum mechanics of the subatomic scale to the megastructures that anchor the galaxies. A few pounds of matter in the head of each of us is able to comprehend the entire scale of creation!

Our brain is unique as the only anti-entropic entity in the universe. The natural trend of the universe is that order descends into chaos. The brain creates order FROM chaos. The brain has the capacity to create fantastic wealth from the most common materials that are found in nature. It allows us to create the most sublime artistic expressions.

The brain's capabilities seem to go far beyond the requirements of mere evolution to insure the survival of the species. Wouldn't human beings be more prolific as a species if we were a bit LESS intelligent, smart enough to feed and breed but NOT smart enough to divert energies into non-reproductive agendas like art and philosophy? (Gazzaniga might express the question as: "Why did the conscious aspect of the brain develop when the subconscious works so well?" Consciousness slows us down with rationalizing decisions that the unconscious mind has already made, wasting time and energy and coming to conclusions that are often wrong.)

I know there is no scientific basis for answering these questions yet, but it sure would have been interesting if Gazzaniga had given us his speculative insights!* Also the book is a little weak in the back chapters because it goes into a relatively uninteresting discussion of how consciousness relates to ethics, such as why some humans are altruists and some are criminals. This question boils down to "free will" --- whether or not we really have any conscious choice about the decisions we make.

Discussions along these lines have always seemed pointless to me. If we don't have free will then we are merely robots responding to stimuli. If that were so there would be no need for conscious decision making, which Dr. Gazzaniga points out time and again is an inefficient and sometimes even detrimental aspect of our brains. The fact that we ARE sentient proves to me that we have free will. Otherwise, why waste the body's resources creating a conscience? Isn't it a law of nature that energy is never expended for no purpose? I am tired of this discussion and would have rather read speculations as to how the brain can store a seemingly infinite amount of information and process that information so as to discern the nature of the universe.

The discussion of free will aside, this book is a fascinating, practical, and entertaining read for laypersons. It thoroughly discusses the finite aspects of the brain, but would have been even more interesting if Gazzaniga had engaged in a bit of speculation about the brain's seemingly infinite capabilities. The insights into the mechanisms of the brain and its relationship to the consciousness we call the mind are more valuable than what I've read in every previous book on the subject combined.

* if Gazzaniga had given us his speculative insights! Connectome: How the Brain's Wiring Makes Us Who We Are by Sebastian Seung was released on 2/7/2012. It is an excellent complement to this book. It contains exactly the types of speculative insights I was looking for, such as whether we will ever learn enough about the functioning of the brain's neural networks to duplicate human intelligence in a machine, or to immortalize ourselves by uploading our consciousness.

This easy-to-read book is skilfully written for a lay readership by a veteran cognitive neuroscientist, famous for his work on split brain patients. The elogious reviews of Alan Sewell, J. Gomez and others spell out in detail its numerous merits. I agree with many of those positive comments, but rather than repeating them I would like to focus on three weaknesses.

First, in tackling a subject at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, the author needed to draw on modern scholarship in both areas. But he fails in this. He describes the work of dozens of modern neuroscientists and psychologists, and briefly mentions a few classical philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Locke), but has nothing to say about modern philosophical scholarship. There is no mention at all of the contributions of philosophers such as Dennett, Van Inwagen, Kane, Kim, Murphy and Miele, who have all written extensively on the philosophical questions that the book attempts to address (free will, emergence, selfhood, complementarity and downward causation).

Second, Gazzaniga fails to define what he means by "free will". This is a serious defect, because the definitional problem is central to the modern debate about free will. I'm not by any means a Dennett fan, but the subtitle of Dennetts's 1984 book Elbow Room was a true aphorism: "The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting". Some varieties don't exist but others do, and those are in Dennett's view (and mine) the ones worth wanting.

Third, in introducing chaos and quantum indeterminism as a defence against hard determinism, Gazzaniga attempts to guide the unsophisticated layman through a deep and difficult controversy, all in eight pages. In my opinion he totally fails to show any relevance of chaos and quantum indeterminism to brain function and free will.

Despite these failings, the book is a fascinating mine of up-to-date information on the cognitive neuroscience related to free will and selfhood. I am glad I bought it.

We humans love our dualisms: good or evil, hot or cold, free or determined. Who's in Charge?, a book extrapolated from the author's 2009/10 Gifford Lectures, is a book that questions that last dualism. Given what we know about the brain, Gazzaniga writes, it is not quite clear whether the idea of 'free will' really makes sense (as generally conceived) or if determinism really has the implications we usually think it does.

Here is the picture Gazzaniga (roughly) paints. Marshaling much evidence from his and others' studies, it appears that our brain is something like a collection of modules performing different functions WITHOUT that 'central command' module that is supposed to approximate the free will (like a president who has final signing or veto power over bills). Moreover, that feeling we have of a unified conscious experience is most likely the result not of a 'central commander' module, but a module (appropriately) referred to as 'the interpreter,' whose role is to construct (somewhat) post hoc explanations of why we did what we did AS IF we were really conscious in doing it. Here, Gazzaniga draws on research of split-brain patients, whose corpus collossums are severed, disallowing their left and right brain hemispheres from talking to each other. Studies show that when the right hemisphere is told to do something (say, the left eye is shown a word and the patient is asked to grab the object that they are shown from an array of objects), the left hemisphere (where the interpreter is) will often construct a rationale for why the patient grabbed the object (that has nothing to do with the instructions to the right hemisphere). For a simpler example of the interpreter in action, think about when you hit your thumb with a hammer. Our pulling away of our thumb is usually automatic, before any pain is consciously felt, but when asked, people often say (and think) they pulled their thumb away because of the pain.

If this seems like depressing robotic determinism where "we" are not in charge of "our" brains, the next chapters might offer some relief. Gazzaniga questions the reductionism behind attempts to reduce the mind to the brain. Yes, he says, the mind is an outgrowth of the brain, its neurons, and its synapses. But as far as we can tell, the mind is an emergent property that is simply more than the sum of its parts. In the same way that while social groups are actually collections of individuals, but social behavior cannot be predicted solely by appealing to individual behavior (and social behavior can actually constrain individual behavior as easy as vice versa), Gazzaniga argues that the mind may just constrain the brain that gave rise to it. Add to that some developments like chaos theory, the butterfly effect, etc, that uproot some of our long-held notions about the determinism of the universe, and we at least have reason to doubt that our notions of causality and determinism when it comes to humans (if not elsewhere) are assumptive at best.

The final chapters deal with the idea of responsibility. As Gazzaniga points out, responsibility is a concept that only has any meaning in a social context. Asking whether I am responsible for my behavior is essentially a question about moral praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, and whether deserts are just in particular cases. The reason we have these concepts is inherently social, and so is the morality and law that we base these ideas on. Whether or not someone was consciously in control of their action is, to Gazzaniga, an interesting but irrelevant point to the working of justice. The question is - and the rationale for law is - whether certain actions should be punished in order to preserve civil society. (And by Gazzaniga and others' theories, it makes little sense to even ask whether I was or was not in control of an act that I performed, because if I performed it, something in me was responsible for it. Whether the interpreter can spin a story about it is irrelevant.)

It may be needless to say, but this book is both intriguing and unsettling. Gazzaniga is no philosopher and many of the deeper questions his ideas evoke have to wait until the philosophers get ahold of it. While Gazzaniga is very convinced that the brain's function (among other things) is as a decision machine, it is difficult to see how that works in absence of a 'central commander' doing the presidential deciding. Another question that Gazzaniga doesn't address is how our vocabulary should change when discussing ideas about free will versus determinism. He is certain that our vocabulary must change in order to be accurate (he rhetorically asks what it is that free-willers want to be free from), but doesn't give much clue as to how we might go about this. Does it even make sense to ask whether "I" am in charge of "my" actions, as if there is an "I" that is distinct from all the subconscious parts of me (like, can I really ask whether I am in charge of my breathing? In one way, it is obvious that I am not, and in another way, it is clear that I am.). There are many other questions this book evokes, but I am sure each reader will find their own. Either way, it is remarkable fun to read, absorb, and puzzle over the vast territory Michael Gazzaniga exposes us to here.

Who's in Charge? is not in any sense an easy read. While Gazzaniga makes it easier than it probably could be in the hands of a less skilled writer, the middle chapters in particular (where we are getting familiar with the idea of the mind as an emergent property of the brain and the physics that helps explain it) are slow going. But Gazzaniga does a good job in using analogies, anecdotes, and plain language to make his points, and the careful and patient reader will be rewarded with a very interesting theory about how humans really work. While Gazzaniga does not leave all ends tied up (there are some loose ends left), he has written a very powerful survey of what neuroscience is telling us about who is in charge.

*****
"You may think you decided to read this review -- but in fact, your brain made the decision long before you became aware of it. ..., using brain scanners, researchers could predict people's decisions seven seconds before the test subjects were even aware of making them." -- Brandon Keim, Wired science
*

We like to believe that our decisions are determined by our conscious control, that we exercise a free will. Philosophers have debated that concept for centuries, and now experimental neuroscientists are raising a new challenge. They argue that consciousness of a decision may be a mere biochemical afterthought, with no influence whatsoever on a person's actions. According to this logic, they say, free will is an illusion. Gazzaniga, the father of cognitive neuropsychiatry contradicts the common belief that our lives are totally controlled by physical processes and we are therefore not responsible for our actions.

Since St. Augustine, many philosophers and now psychologists are convinced by clinical data that free will does not exist. Supporting Origen and Pelagius, Dr. Gazzaniga, the father of cognitive neuroscience convincingly argues that, even given the latest insights into the physical mechanisms of the mind confirms that, "there is an undeniable human reality: We are responsible agents who should be held accountable for our actions, because responsibility is found in how people interact, not in brains." An extraordinary book that ranges across neuroscience, psychology, ethics, and the law with profound implications.

Who's in Charge? is a lasting contribution from one of the leading psychologists of our time. Michael Gazzaniga engaging book, is based on his contribution to the Gifford Lectures, the foremost lecture series dealing with religion, philosophy, and science. He argues thoughtfully that the mind, brought into being by the brain physical processes, confines the brain to a generated constrained mode. Gazzaniga offers a provocative argument, "Since physical laws govern the physical world and our own brains are part of that world, physical laws therefore govern our behavior and even our conscious selves."

Gazzaniga explains how determinism weakens our views of human responsibility in limitless ways. It allows a violator to legally argue, that 'It was not him who committed the act, but his brain'. Since every event is determined by other happenings, our actions are inevitable consequences of the events leading up to them, making it impossible for anyone's actions to be genuinely free. Daniel Dennett, a Tufts Univ. cognitive scientist who wrote extensively about free will says, "When we consider whether free will is an illusion or reality, we are looking into an abyss. What seems to confront us is a plunge into nihilism and despair."

"I was a free man until they brought the dessert menu around. There was one of those molten chocolate cakes, and I was suddenly being dragged into a vortex, swirling helplessly toward caloric doom, sucked toward the edge of a black (chocolate) hole. Visions of my father's heart attack danced before my glazed eyes." --Dennis Overbye, NY Times

Moral Responsibility: Beyond Free Will and Determinism (Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy)

The mind is an entity that comes to be through the processes of several structures (modules) of the brain. It's unknown what all of these structures are and it is unknown how the result (mind) comes to be. This overall system is referred to as "complex".

"A complex system is composed of many different systems that interact and produce emergent properties that are greater than the sum of their parts and cannot be reduced to the properties of the constituent parts." (p. 71) The mind is such an emergent property. In essence, nobody knows how the hell it happens. Calling it an "emergent property" thing probably sounds better.

You don't get an answer to the question "who's in charge?". Well, to be fair, you seem to get a "sort of no one is" (not a quote). The author quotes Luis Amaral and Julio Ottino as follows: "The common characteristic of all complex systems is that they display organization without any external organizing principle being applied". From this quote it's impossible to tell what "external" is supposed to (not) mean. Mr. Gazzaniga proceeds to discuss the workings of the Google ad auction as an example of no one being in charge. As he says, it is run on algorithms, though. I would propose run -by- algorithms and that the algorithms are in charge. Ultimately in charge would be who or what created and put the algorithms in place. If there's no who - nothing of sufficient personal quality - involved, then there is no free will. We'd all be Google ad auctions. The brain's algorithms aren't (fully) known.

You don't get a good definition of the mind. You do get a vague and superficial account of some elements that allegedly are involved in its genesis. Not knowing how the mind is constituted and how it works then leads to uncertainty in regards to free will. In another vague and superficial account, the author briefly outlines that when no exact predictions can be made (chaos theory; uncertainty principle), determinism (the lack of free will) can't be proven.

You also do get some information on the relevance of unconscious processes. Various modules of the brain work unconscious to the/any person in question, come up with individual results, these results may compete with each other and, after having somehow been evaluated, lead to a final result, an effect. This effect can be you doing something or be you not doing something. So, input (information) is processed by several structures within the brain, somehow integrated and then acted on by the organism/person. At any rate, this only comes to your attention/awareness once it's already been decided. The process of evaluation occurs without you being aware of it until it has been completed. Consciousness is slow; unconsciousness is faster.

"When we set out to explain our actions, they are all post hoc explanations using post hoc observations with no access to nonconscious processing. (...) These explanations are all based on what makes it into our consciousness, but the reality is the actions and the feelings happen before we are consciously aware of them -- and most of the them are the results of nonconscious processes which never make it into the explanations."

This passage (on pages 77 to 78) is less than clear and appears to state that every action is decided and made unconsciously. Later on it is modified into "most of our processing is going on unconsciously and automatically". Some time thereafter (pages 128 to 129), he talks about "[the] buildup of electrical charge that preceded what were considered conscious decisions [which] was called Bereitschaftspotential, or more simply, readiness potential". This goes back to the brain initiating actions unconsciously.

Unfortunately, he doesn't elaborate on it enough. Scope and details remain unclear and missing, among them the possibility of inhibiting readiness potentials and suppressing actions. Furthermore, in this context, he doesn`t discuss the intentional acquisition of automaticity, as in training yourself in order to produce a specific unconscious response in reaction to a specific situation (for example learning to play the piano really well: intuitively). Thus he concludes the respective section with these words: "Conscious volition, the idea that you are willing an action to happen, is an illusion. But is this the right way to think about it? I am beginning to think not." In "thinking not", he proceeds to go back to the uncertainty principle/chaos theory and emergent properties. As mentioned above, that doesn't convince.

This book, as far as I can tell, doesn't add anything new to the matters it addresses (the mind, modularity and free will (see above), also nature vs. nurture and, in its final chapter, the relevance of personal responsibility to criminal law). If you are already familiar with a few popular science books in this field, there's not much sense in going for this one. With all due respect to the author, it lacks in depth, clarity, completeness and novelty of thoughts.

On emergence/emergent properties, I would recommend reading chapter 5 (pages 143 - 181) of Terrence W. Deacon's book Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter (W. W. Norton, 2012) [already available hardcover]. The entire book is relevant.

As I started reading this book, I really was excited. For the entire first half, I was sure that this book would be one of the best I'd read all year. Then came the second half of the book and I found it so aggravating and confused that I could barely finish. What happened?

The author is a neuroscientist. The first half of the book is about neuroscience. The second half of the book is about philosophy. I'm not talking about the general notion of philosophy which can be applied to anything but the specific formal investigation of topics of interest to professional philosophers. The change in the author's expertise and credibility was jarring.

In the beginning I was delighted to read about the idea that the brain has a collection of separate parallel cognitive actors populating one's mental life. That's interesting stuff and he was able to back up these weird, sometimes unintuitive ideas with good science that he clearly was well familiar with.

But then came the very big picture. At stake: does determinism absolve personal responsibility? Let us (like the book) ignore that the author really strongly establishes the aforementioned idea of multiple cognitive actors which makes the idea of "personal" complicated in and of itself. Even if we take the mind to be a singular actor the idea that determinism somehow changes how our day to day actions need to be carried out is faulty. This is a well-established discussion among philosophers and tepidly bringing in the quantum-classical boundary and other such nonsense is really orthogonal and distracting in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong, but this book was in no shape to convince me of that.

Throughout the book, the author kept citing one example after another of how magic does not exist and that causality is so compelling that one might dedicate one's career to, say, neuroscience. But at the same time, there was an inexplicable dissatisfaction with this train of thought. On page 140, speaking of determinism, he says simply, "No one really likes that notion." Though the author is squeamish about determinism, I'm actually comfortable with it. Einstein was ok with it. So are Bertrand Russell, Stephen Wolfram, Schopenhauer, Spinoza, Voltaire, etc. I'm just pointing out that determinism isn't a new concept and it's been much better covered elsewhere.

The ending of the book went from muddled to more muddled as it randomly sampled unoriginal material from philosophy and law. There was one strange notion about responsibility that the author tried to impress upon the reader as important, but it was not really explored or justified. Here it is presented significantly in the penultimate paragraph of the book: "My contention is that ultimately responsibility is a contract between two people rather than a property of a brain, and determinism has no meaning in this context." And to show how original this is, here's David Hume in 1748: "The mutual dependence of men is so great in all societies that scarce any human action is entirely complete in itself, or is performed without some reference to the actions of others, which are requisite to make it answer fully the intention of the agent." (Notice how Hume left open the obvious possibility of responsibility to oneself.)

In short this book did nothing to convince me that interesting neuroscience somehow introduces magic into the fabric of the universe and we can consequently have some processes that follow basic rules while other's do not. Determinism is pretty compelling and pretty much the entire basis of our technological civilization is rooting for it. However, it's not a good practical excuse for making personal behavior choices (beyond arguing the case for determinism). My advice, read the first 100 pages.

Who's in Charge: Free Will and the Science of the Brain by Michael S. Gazzaniga

"Who's in Charge: Free Will and the Science of the Brain" is the thought-provoking book about the fascinating topic of free will and neuroscience. Neuroscientist and gifted author Michael S. Gazzaniga provides the latest insights into the science of the brain and offers unique perspectives. This 272-page book is composed of seven chapters: 1. The Way We Are, 2. The Parallel and Distributing Brain, 3. The Interpreter, 4. Abandoning the Concept of Free Will, 5. The Social Mind, 6. We are the Law, and 7. An Afterword.

Positives:
1. A well-researched and well-written book.
2. The ability to convey difficult topics in an accessible, engaging manner.
3. Fascinating topics and the author does a wonderful job of breaking them into subtopics.
4. Educational, backed by current studies and unique perspectives. It's imperative to use the latest advances in science; especially in the fast-paced world of neuroscience and this book delivers...evidenced by interesting new perspectives that are making new waves.
5. Provides compelling arguments that the mind which is generated by the physical processes of the brain, constrains the brain. Interesting stuff!
6. Lays the scientific groundwork of what the brain is and how it evolved to be what it currently is.
7. Fascinating facts and tidbits throughout.
8. Does a wonderful job of explaining how the brain works. How it makes decisions.
9. Debunks even preconceived scientific views like the notion that all neurons are alike.
10. Honestly, where would we be without the understanding of evolution? Brain evolution for your understanding.
11. The differences between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Many great examples based on split-brain patients.
12. Phenomenal consciousness, what is the view in neuroscience today.
13. A thorough look at what the brain's job description is.
14. Complex systems in an accessible manner and the implication to the brain.
15. The interpreter module...
16. Non-conscious processes versus conscious processes.
17. Free will in proper perspective, thought-provoking points. Fascinating!
18. A very interesting look at determinism. Personally, it has made me reconsider some of my views.
19. A look at chaos theory.
20. The concept of emergence in a whole new light.
21. Quantum mechanics for the layperson.
22. Some of the most thought-provoking ideas and concepts pertaining to the mind, enlightening!
23. Dualism, determinism, reductionism...a transformation of a worldview right before our very eyes.
24. Great examples of upward and downward causation.
25. The neuroscience of the influences of social interactions. A lot of interesting new views of social groups here that I really enjoyed.
26. Wisdom throughout, "A genetically fixed trait is always superior to one that must be learned because learning may or may not happen."
27. The Baldwin effect, knowledge is a beautiful thing.
28. Monkey cops...I kid you not, and you wonder why I read?
29. Theory of mind, mirror neurons and mimicry.
30. A great discussion on moral systems and moral intuitions. Including whether moral intuitions are universal or not.
31. The impact of cultures on psychological outcomes.
32. Interesting takes on what we know about neuroscience and how it's used in the courtrooms. Concepts like responsibility as an example are discussed.
33. Various forms of justice.
34. The ultimate question of whether we are free to choose is answered to satisfaction.
35. Links worked.
36. Good notes section.

Negatives:
1. Lack of charts and diagrams to enhance the learning experience.
2. There are a number of books that go into more depth on some of the topics presented in this book, check some of my recommendations of books that I reviewed for Amazon.

In summary, a fantastic, worldview modifying book that I will cherish until new discoveries are made. Books like this one are why I enjoy reading as much as I do. It provided not only current views of neuroscience but even more importantly, it gave the knowledge to update my worldview. An intellectual treat of a book, I can't recommend it enough! Enjoy!

Further suggestions: "Human" by the same author, "The Believing Brain..." by Michael Shermer is superb, "The Brain and the Meaning of Life" by Paul Thagard, "The Moral Landscape..." by Sam Harris, "Hardwired Behavior" by Laurence Tancredi, and "Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality" by Patricia S. Churchland,.

In this book, Mr. Gazzaniga has put together an admirable effort to summarize the major arguments revolving around free will and the scientific bases for them. The reader is treated to insights that only someone so integral to neuro science could provide. And yet, at the same time, one sees holes in logic throughout and is forced to look elsewhere for the definitive treatment.

To begin, Gazzaniga is talking about consciousness and how it arises from brain function, but he admits that there really isn't a clear definition for the concept and that he is content to not even define it here. We are therefore fumbling in the dark for most of the book. The claim is that there really can't be a clear definition because consciousness as we know it doesn't exist. But proving that something doesn't exist shouldn't be reason to leave it undefined--indeed, one should take more care to define it since it is such a crucial concept.

Instead, the author goes on to explain the way the brain is thought to work and what exists in the place of consciousness. By means of examining the history of neuro science advancements--his own included--Gazzaniga puts together his theory of consciousness. It goes roughly as follows:

- Brain activity occurs in a "gazillion" decision centers, not one.
- Brain activity and action occur before conscious awareness.
- One of the many processes in the brain is in charge of interpreting what is going on.
- This "Interpreter" compiles the data and concocts a story that serves as one's reality.
- There is no such thing as consciousness, but rather an interpretation of automatic action.

Though this argument is rather plausible, one is not satisfied by the proof. First, the author says that there are a "gazillion" decision centers, but does not properly define decisions and therefore does not distinguish between reflex action and cognitive reasoning. Indeed, throughout the book, the only evidence given to support the distributed decision-makers is based in reflex action, not deliberate reason. It is one thing to say that pulling your finger away from a hammer before you feel pain occurs without a conscious decision, but another thing to say that deciding what car or house to buy or what career to pursue is also unconscious.

The Interpreter may well attempt to make up stories for things that the brain does automatically. But that doesn't mean that some other portion or function of the brain is incapable of actually making decisions and sending commands to other parts of the brain and body.

And this is essentially the argument that Gazzaniga makes when he turns his attention to free will and responsibility. He understands that a mind without consciousness is to a large degree incapable of free will, and that without free will there is no personal responsibility. Acknowledging the difficulties this would produce in society, Gazzaniga then molds an argument that says that despite the fact that there is no consciousness, individuals can and should be held responsible for their actions. The idea is that the mind is emergent--it is greater than the sum of its parts--and can thus control the stuff from which it emerged. The analogy he gives is that cars make up a highway full of traffic, but the traffic controls the cars. Thus, the mind, even though it arises from the brain, can control the brain.

This argument too is plausible and, too, one is not completely satisfied. For one, Gazzinga does not explain the "big problem" of how mind emerges from the physical brain. Scientist might not know the answers here, but it is still crucial in such an argument. Nor does the author spend enough time considering the implications of an emergent mind with respect to the individual--he skips immediately to the social realm, where he finds the necessary rationale for responsibility. Now, he might find the social realm more compelling, but at least one reader is not quite sure. Around the mid-point, Gazzinga asks the rhetorical question whether a person can be responsible if he is the only one in the society, and answers no. To him, responsibility is a social thing. At least one reader thinks it is an individual and social thing.

If nothing else, the ability to stir such thoughts and questions makes this book well worth the read. Now, on to find the answers....

This book prompts me to share a point of view of the mind which, while presumably not original, is one that I assume many would either disdain or not comprehend. Think of the physical world as a system. Everything in it is part of the system, starting at whatever the most elemental physical property might be - even if merely the most elementary entity of information. Some components of the system are more sophisticated than others in their make-up, capacity, and/or capabilites. But they have no existence outside the system.

Not only is no man an island, there is no man without the Island. We are part, not parcel. It so happens that so called individuals have the perception that they are separate from the rest of reality. It should be clear from sensory deprivation research that without stimuli, aka the world, individual perception falls apart.

Don't confuse perceptions, and ignorance with reality. We are a SEAMLESS part of the world, even if it SEEMS like we are individuals. Not much in the world is static, and Reality is not dependent on any human or humans for its existence, while the obverse is clearly true. Humans can clearly impact Reality, but nothing they do can eliminate it.

The existential question - and THAT is what this is all about - is whether the PURPOSE OF REALITY is to be ascertained, determined, or impacted by humans. Not likely. It is intiguing, however, that we are compelled to think our race to be important. Maybe there IS a REASON for that. But don't ask my to answer the existential question, "WHY?" There seems to be plenty of takers on that one.

I bought this book expecting an in-depth exploration of free will/determinism, similar in style to the books of say Steven Pinker. The current book is something different.

It is a very meandering account. We get lots of side comments that might take the author two three pages to clear up. Then we get back to the main story, except that we do not get much depth (in comparison to Steven Pinker). I spotted several mistakes. Well, maybe they are mistakes or maybe they are just created by the meandering style of writing. Just to take one example: He describes how people used to think that better measurements gave more predictability, but that is no longer true. Then he goes on a three page side story on chaos theory and concludes that small measurement differences can create predictability. Fine, except for the fact that the initial point had to do with better measurements not small measurement differences. Is this a mistake? I suspect this is an error, but the author has already moved onto another point. The book is full of these kind of annoyances.

I strongly get the impression that the author had a bunch of somewhat uninterested 30 year old's in mind when he wrote the book. So he tries to please this group. The author does so to the best of his ability, but he is certainly not a good writer. So it gets very messy. Sometimes he gets personal saying things like my son-in-law would say something. Sometimes he references psychology studies. A lot of complexity removed.

If you just want an airport book on the topic of free will/determinism and don't want too much complexity, the book might be for you. Just don't expect to get an overall picture. You get lots of interested facts, really interesting. This might be fine if you a dozing off on the flight.

Personally, I expected a structured account of free will/determinism written by a neuroscientist. I would have liked a structured review of the physical studies coupled with some clear philosophical reflections by the author. This book contains nothing of the sort.

Just now when doing the review I realise that the author is also writing 101 psychology textbooks. This explains a lot to me. Academics who write textbooks are not exactly the most fascinating people. Anyone who has felt the dullness of one of those $150 textbooks knows what I mean.

Alternatives? The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (Penguin Press Science) is an old book but so readable and you do understand the bigger picture. Sadly the book is 20 years old so I bought the current book to get a more modern perspective. Having read both, it seems that not much has happened during the last 20 years. If you come across the old book, check it out. Sadly, I don't have any other recommendations since this is not my area.