The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation

by John Horgan (Author)

30 customer reviews

ISBN-13: 978-0684865782

ISBN-10: 0684865785

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GRAY MATTER UNDER INVESTIGATION

In his acclaimed book The End of Science, John Horgan ignited a firestorm of controversy about the limits of knowledge in a wide range of sciences. Now in The Undiscovered Mind he focuses on the single most important scientific enterprise of all -- the effort to understand the human mind.
Horgan takes us inside laboratories, hospitals, and universities to meet neuro-scientists, Freudian analysts, electroshock therapists, behavioral geneticists, evolutionary psychologists, artificial intelligence engineers, and philosophers of consciousness. He looks into the persistent explanatory gap between mind and body that Socrates pondered and shows that it has not been bridged. He investigates what he calls the "Humpty Dumpty dilemma," the fact that neuroscientists can break the brain and mind into pieces but cannot put the pieces back together again. He presents evidence that the placebo effect is the primary ingredient of psychotherapy, Prozac, and other treatments for mental disorders. As Horgan shows, the mystery of human consciousness, of why and how we think, remains so impregnable that to expect the attempts of scientific method and technology to penetrate it anytime soon is absurd.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

Jim Holt The Wall Street Journal The Undiscovered Mind is full of fascinating vignettes in which noted brain researchers are caught thinking out loud....Riveting [and] eye-opening.

Walter A. Brown Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Brown University School of Medicine and Tufts University School of Medicine John Horgan has done it again. In this rich, irreverent, thorough, and entertaining tour of mind-science, Horgan makes complicated lines of research accessible and compelling.

Abraham Verghese Chicago Tribune Compelling....The Undiscovered Mind is a well-researched and important book.

About the Author

John Horgan is the author of The End of Science, a U.S. bestseller that has been translated into ten languages. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Times (London), The New Republic, Lingua Franca, Slate, The Sciences, and Discover, among other publications in the United States and Europe. He lives in Garrison, New York.

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Product details

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Free Press (November 14, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0684865785
ISBN-13: 978-0684865782
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.9 x 8.4 inches
Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 30 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #830,890 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #559 in Books > Textbooks > Social Sciences > Psychology > Neuropsychology
- #1348 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Neuropsychology
- #1725 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Neuropsychology

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chung hsieh

Five Stars

August 27, 2015

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

excellent!

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Muhammad Juned Akhtar

Must read

August 19, 2016

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Easy to follow. Full of fact. The writer has done some good researcj and is open minded

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A.Luther

Where Is Mind Sciences Really At?

July 21, 2015

Format: Paperback

Recommended for anyone new to the field of psychology and other related areas in the study of the human mind. Horgan gives a broad overview of a number of critical subjects in the science of mind and shows that progress in the mind sciences is not all that it is cracked up to be. The areas of mind science Horgan looks at are as follows - psychotherapy, in particular Freudian psychoanalysis; psychotherapeutic drugs; genetic causes of human behaviour; Darwinian explanations of human behaviour, also called 'Evolutionary Psychology;' Artificial Intelligence and its capacity to model the human mind and behaviour, and finally, the nature of human consciousness. Horgan scrutinises these areas of science and finds them all either wanting or problematic in some way. Here is a brief outline of some of his criticisms:
Freudian theory is unable to validate its concepts scientifically. Freudian psychoanalysis, as well other psychotherapies find it difficult to demonstrate and empirically prove their clinical benefits. Similarly, psychiatric drugs struggle to validate the principles of how they work and science has yet to provide uncontroversial evidence that they are effective in treating most kinds of mental illness. Scientists have been unable to identify any specific genes that can be attributed to causing significant human mental capacities such as intelligence or mental disorders such as schizophrenia. Evolutionary psychology provides explanations of human behaviours that can be made to fit any type of observed widespread human behaviour. Artificial intelligence is unable to model "common sense" human reasoning and other 'simple' human behaviours. Consciousness researchers are unable to bridge the "explanatory gap" between consciousness as a physical process and consciousness as subjective 'felt' experience. None of Horgan's criticisms are either new or unexpected (especially the criticisms of Freudian psychoanalysis). Current trends in theories of gene expression in human behaviour now tend toward understanding epigenetic processes and may have steered science clear of some of the arguments against the simplistic genetic causes of behaviour that Horgan critiques. Nonetheless, Horgan's critique of mind sciences is to me entirely valid almost 15 years on. I would recommend this book to anyone looking to discover what is really the state of play in the sciences of the mind beyond the hyperbole and "neuro-bunk" we often see in the media.

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A thought-provoking and incisive critique

September 23, 2013

Format: Paperback

In the Undiscovered Mind, Horgan argues (quite rightly) that we are far from a scientific accounting of mind and consciousness. Contra other reviewers on this page, Horgan does not deny that certain of the brain sciences have made very great strides. He is simply not of the view that said strides are steps on the path to answering the most fundamental questions about mind/consciousness -- questions that have worried countless generations of philosophers and, more recently, of psychologists, psychiatrists, cognitive scientists, etc. His argument is cogent and compelling; he may be right. And yet, it's an undecidable argument. Unless and until it can be shown that a materialist accounting of mind and consciousness is impossible, the door will always be open. Horgan doesn't dismisses that possibility out of hand, he simply finds it very unlikely (for reasons he articulates with great force). The jury is out and the journey is sure to be a long one -- longer than most practitioners of the various brain sciences would care to think or admit. But I'd wager the problem will be cracked one day. In the meantime, it's a fascinating problem to chew on. And the Undiscovered Mind is a terrific addition to the popular literature on it.

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June 15, 2000

Format: Hardcover

While John Horgan gained notoriety (albeit not always of the positive variety) among the scientific community from the provocative thesis contained within his 1996 book The End of Science, his latest The Undiscovered Mind qualifies his contention that science has neared its apex, insofar as the brunt of fundamental discoveries may already have been made. Instead of delving into cosmology, physics, and biology as he did previously, he focuses on dissecting the current level of progress within neuroscience, making the case that it is far less developed than its sibling fields. This had to have been one of the most infuriating books I've ever read, although I think at the same time it is one of the most valuable ones. Rather then kowtow and sing odes to the marvels of neuroscience, he looks at some of its weakest links. In the process he develops some rather colorful descriptions of the theoretical problems of consciousness and therapeutic questions of efficacy. The brain like Humpty Dumpty can be taken apart, but can't be put back together again. Irregularities and neurological diseases can demonstrably obliterate portions of cognitive abilities, thus linking areas of the brain to the capacity for such abilities, but this doesn't demonstrate how they are integrated. As Horgan surveys more than just the progress of laboratory science, though, he gives good reason to be skeptical of the pharmaceutical, psychiatric, and psychological industries, while clarifying that if he came upon another depression, he would accept treatment. He discusses the toll of psychosurgery in the first part of the 20th century, and notes the sometimes macabre treatment that ensued from the premise that psychopathology stemmed from underlying biology, while yet stating that this is a reason for caution, not for an about face. And when it comes to anti-depressants he tries to make the case that much of their effectiveness might stem from the placebo effect rather than any direct synaptic influence. When he turns to psychoanalysis and its competitors, he reveals the methodological problems inherent in assessing such an idiosyncratic treatment. And interestingly he makes a comparison of psychoanalysis with the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology with regards to testability, falsification, and other measures of scientific precision. Although he finds fault with the fractured face of the neurosciences, his book is helpful in introducing the reader to the key players in the ongoing debate, even if one doesn't particularly agree with the Chicken Little approach. To some extent, I see his critique of neurobiological perspectives as being hyperbole, as it would not be consonant with the more well-established Darwinian paradigm to explain the brain in terms of angels dancing on pins, i.e. Horgan provides no alternative, and as such doesn't wholly overthrow the present competing hypotheses.

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