Resumo de Brains To Consciousness

The essays in From Brains to Consciousness progress
? or, some will say, regress ? from straight science to attempts to connect
that science with philosophical concepts such as consciousness. The latter are
not overly successful, demonstrating the extent of the gulf that still
separates science and philosophy in this area. If vague or unconvincing,
however, they are nevertheless thought-provoking.

The collection opens with two general essays on neurobiology (by John
Parnavelas) and neurochemistry (by Trevor Robbins). On more specific topics,
Larry R. Squire writes about memory and brain localization, Tim Bliss about
long term potentiation and the chemical basis for memory, and A. David Smith
about aging and mental decline. These are all accessible introductions for the
lay reader.

Moving onto more controversial topics, Richard Bentall looks at psychiatric
classification and diagnosis and argues that there will never be a theory of
schizophrenia. In the other direction Tim Crow lurches from a vague argument
for a biological basis to "the schizophrenia mutation" and then
attempts to tie together schizophrenia, language, and hemispherical asymmetry
with specific genes. (Given Rose''s antipathy to this kind of sociobiology, I
wonder if he didn''t include such an extreme example deliberately.)

Five essays attempt, in different ways, to connect neurobiology with
consciousness. Roger Penrose offers his usual fare, mixing confusions about
computability with speculative physics and arbitrary biochemistry to argue that
no computer can understand. Richard Gregory argues that qualia are triggered by
real-time afferent signals in order to distinguish them from memories
("flagging the present"). For Igor Aleksandr, a key component of
consciousness is "iconic learning" in neural nets; for Susan
Greenfield, a critical factor is the number of neurons corralled at any one
time; and for Wolf Singer, consciousness and qualia have a social or cultural
origin and can not, therefore, be understood as emergent properties of an
isolated brain.

From Brains to Consciousness concludes with an essay by Mary
Midgley that places consciousness in a broader epistemological framework,
arguing for a diversity of approaches ? "one world, but a big one".

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