The Cerebral Symphony: Seashore Reflections on the Structure of Consciousness (Paperback)

by William Calvin (Author)
Key Phrases: stony beach, cerebral symphony, serial buffers, Woods Hole, Darwin Machine, Eel Pond (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Neurobiologist Calvin's wispy, New Age-flavored travelogue--abuzz with cormorants and skunks, insects and plants of Woods Hole, Mass., and its littoral environs--ensheathes his fairly technical exposition of the neurophysiology of mind. Some readers will be enthralled; others may grow impatient with his approach. Of particular interest is his theoretical blueprint for a Darwin Machine, a type of computer that uses parallel networking in a "variation-then-selection" process to generate ideas. This hypothetical device, in his forecast, will one day exhibit most of what we now call consciousness, including the gifts of imagination and creativity. Along the way, Calvin ( The River That Flows Uphill ) offers a graceful introduction to the mechanisms underlying visual perception, memory, language acquisition, problem-solving and music appreciation--skills that the Darwin Machine, in his view, will someday possess. Illustrated.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal
Don't be fooled by the New Age packaging; Calvin, author of The River That Flows Uphill ( LJ 3/1/87) and The Throwing Madonna: From Nervous Cells to Hominid Brains ( LJ 7/83), is a neurobiologist and scholar with an exceptional knack for writing to the layperson. The subject here is how our brain cells work in concert to let us think, but the (necessary) neurobiology and chemistry is nicely blended with a friendly voice and the eye of a miniaturist; the author combines the newest work in the field with an engaging and graceful sense of the past, and nothing stops him from accurate and often charming analogies. This is perhaps the only book where Charles Darwin and the Grateful Dead are mentioned in the same chapter. The entire book becomes an example of Calvin's theories about the accretive and evolutionary process of thinking. Excellent for general collections and essential for collections in the social or health sciences.
- Mark L. Shelton, Columbus, Ohio
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 420 pages
• Publisher: IUniverse (January 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595166954
• ISBN-13: 978-0595166954
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,596,385 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Get the big picture., June 12, 2002

By	Roger Albert (Cumberland, B.C. Canada) - See all my reviews

I read Calvin's Cerebral Symphony some years ago and found it a refreshing and accessible look at a topic with which I had some passing familiarity and interest. As a sociology and anthropology instructor I could only have tangential knowledge in the neurosciences. I'm not suggesting that reading Calvin made me an expert in the field, but his writing technique and approach opened a new dimension of exploration for me and "connected" with a growing anthropological and archaeological literature on the nature of thought, language and the relationship of brain development and speech. His subsequent work has been even more relevant to my corner or academia.
Another Amazon reviewer has soundly panned Cerebral Symphony and I think, unfairly. Granted, there are books more stylistically compelling. For instance, Robert Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is much more carefully crafted than Cerebral Symphony, but I was left with the same sense after reading both of these books that I had read books that addressed in a highly engaging way topics that will prove to be pivotal in the history of scholarship.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars It's the writing style., April 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Cerebral Symphony (Paperback)

Too wordy and disjointed. Too complicated. That's complicated, not complex. I can handle complex. Douglas Hofstadter talks about complex things, but I can understand him. I can remember what he wrote. And if I can understand Hofstadter, I must have SOME reading abilities. But this book of Calvin's I found forgettable, because his sentences and paragraphs and topics wander too much. And I like this stuff, the topic, that is. I eat this stuff up, books about consciousness and neuropsychology and psychology in general. But this... I read a few years ago, found it slippery at the time, and can barely remember what I got out of it. Here's a sample: "Consciousness is a very overused word, the same string of syllables being used to designate a multitide of meanings. It's much worse than the multiple meanings of brain, which, besides denoting the three pounds of nerve cells inside our heads, is also used as a verb (to club, aiming at a head), as the opposite of brawn, as a surname in England, as a term for a studious student or the chief planner of an enterprise, and more recently to designate something as inanimate as a computer. Being a neurophsyiologist, I tend to avoid the nonneurological uses of the word [WHICH ONE?], but I doubt that I'll convert the rest of the Englsih-speaking world to my more restrictive usage" (p.75).

And trust me, it gets worse in the next few sentences. Redundant. 90% of that first sentence above is tangent. By the time I get to the end I don't remember what the subject was. This guy likes to hear himself talk. I don't mean that personally, maybe he's a great guy, I don't know, but I think he needs some help with the writing style. And it wouldn't be so bad if he eventually got to some point about consciousness or psychology, but sometimes I can't find why all that tangent was there.

I can't (or won't) critique what the book is about; I think the writing style overrides it. (The type it's set in didn't help, either. Sounds like quibbling but it's true. Somehow it added to the muddiness. Too squished, maybe. I think the quoted sentence reads more clearly as I've typed it here than when one reads it on paper in the book.)

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Music Soothes Breast and Beast., August 10, 2008

By	Betty Burks "Betty L. Burks" (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews

At the Symphony there are some violin musicians who go to the hospitals to soothe the psyches of damaged children. The music gives them a sense of well-being, the opposite of Teresa Patterson's playing at the Magazine Club did. Zach once wanted to take lessons. Is this the stuff we hear that dreams are made of? The chimpanzees responded in like manner as the hospitalized children. There is biological evolution which seldom progressed to a pure clone. If it had gotten to that point, I know one whom I won't name as two readers object vociferously to constant tidbits about him. Mark is learning to play musical instruments to be in a band someday. Song is the noblest, most intimate, most complete manner of self-expression known to manking. We all have music in us in varying and different ways. Sometimes, however, song becomes only a source of forgetfulness of material things and a solace, but also an inspiration.

The Gregorian chants of the medieval Catholic Church celebrate the ancient ritual of music in concert, especially when the acoustics are excellent. Chords are simultaneous notes just as phonemes are; tunes are chains of chords just as words and sentences are chains of such. Brad McCuen gave away sixty years of music to MTSU in 1997 -- 30,000 record collections are said to be valued at more than $300,000. The University paid a pittance of only $50,000 to defray the moving and charting. The mental attitudes controling cooperation, conflict resolution and family size (all likely to be strongly shared with our primate cousins) would rank high. William Calvin is the author of The River That Flows Uphill.