How Brains Make Up Their Minds [Hardcover]

Raise your arm. Now: which came first? The raising of your arm, or the decision to raise it? Walter Freeman's admirably articulate and very difficult little book on the biological foundations of consciousness comes up with a surprising answer: action precedes consciousness of action. Consciousness has better things to do than involve itself with simple motor actions; rather, it establishes the parameters within which action occurs by itself. We are not divine homunculi, directing action independent of the physical constraints of cause and effect. But neither are we ghosts in the machine of the body, observing, and taking credit for, actions which are in reality dictated by conditioned responses and blind fate. Minds are like weather systems: at once evanescent and remarkably robust. Freeman's grasp of philosophy is unprecedented among experimental biologists, and he writes at the leading edge of that movement that makes study of the mind the venue for the long-awaited reconciliation of science and the humanities. This book would make a poor introduction to the subject: it is too much part of the ongoing debate, and readers would do better to tuck a few Dennetts, Calvins and Penroses under their belts first. But this caveat takes nothing away from Freeman's contribution or importance, and the book is a fine addition to Steven Rose's "Maps of the Mind" series, which looks to be the most diverse and rigorous science series for many years. --Simon Ings

A novel account of how meaning and intentions develop in our brains that draws on modern theories from both the biological and the physical sciences.

How do we exercise our will? The erosion of Descartes' concept of the soul in the machine by recent developments in neuroscience leaves us with the challenge of understanding how we control our behaviour and make sense of the world around us. Do our genes and environments determine all that goes on in our brains, or do we create ourselves through what we believe and how we behave? In How Brains Make Up Their Minds, the distinguished US neuroscientist Walter J. Freeman charts the brain's mind, progressing from single nerve cells, through cooperative assemblies of these cells, to the emergence of complex patterns of brain activity. By drawing on new developments in brain imaging and theories of chaos and nonlinear dynamics, he shows how brains create intentions and meanings. The result is an original and stimulating synthesis of neuroscience and philosophy that argues that the power to choose is an essential and inalienable property of brains, and, moreover, the foundation for the development and flourishing of individuals and societies.

Walter Freeman is a professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, where he has taught Brain science for forty years. He is the author of more than 300 articles and two books, Mass Action in the Nervous System and Societies of Brains.