Introducing Mind and Brain

320 Pages·2018·86.92 MB·English

by  Angus Gellatly

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP
Email: [email protected]
www.introducingbooks.com
ISBN: 978-178578-314-2
Text copyright © 1998 Angus Gellatly
Illustrations copyright © 2013 Icon Books Ltd The author and illustrator have asserted their moral rights
Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any
means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Mind and Brain: a Brief History
Inventing the Mind
What is the Mind?
Meet the Brain
Matter or Spirit?
Pioneer Map-Makers
The Mind of the Gaps
Ventricles, Tissues and the Mind
A Fish Called Wondercure
Bumps on the Head
The Beginning of Localization
Beginning to Assemble Brain Functions
Tracing the Progress
Neurons and Glia
Grey and White Matters
The Electric Brain
Abnormal Firing
The Chemical Brian
Chemical Malfunctions
Brain, Hormones and Body
The Geography of the Human Brain
Evolution and Development
The Hindbrain
The Midbrain
The Forebrain
Left and Right Hemispheres (LH and RH)
Mental Abilities
Simple Minds 1: the Sea Slug
Simple Minds 2: Frogs and Toads
Simple Minds 3: Birds
Simple Minds 4: Human Beings
Complex Minds and Computers
Language and the Brain
Disorders of Language: the Aphasias
A Model of Language Use
Language and All the Brain
Language, Interpretation and Action
Movement and Mind
Tuning the Movements
Two Motor Movement Control System
Levels of Control of Movement
The Motor System
Damage to the Motor System
The Origins of Voluntary Movement
Proprioception and Body Ego
Smells and Emotions
Emotional Reaction
The Anatomy of Fear
Fearful Symmetry
Sub-cortical Learning
Knowing When to be Afraid
Emotions “Left and Right”
Emotional Tone
Emotion and Reason
Emotions Involved in Decisions
Memory Makes You Flexible
What Amnesia tells us about Mind
Two Kinds of Memory
Memory with and without Emotions
The Location of Memories
The Complexity of Memory
Sensing and Seeing
The Anatomy of Vision
Visual Areas: Colours, Directions and Shapes
Loss of Colour
Motion Blindness
Higher Level Vision
The Lower Visual Pathway: Effects of Injury on Recognition
A Recognition Test
The Middle Visual Pathway: Relative Spatial Positions
The Upper Visual Pathway: Effects of Parietal Damage
Mind Spaces
Visual, Motor and Imaginai Spaces
Representations of Space
Attention and the Mind
Experiments with Attention
The Attentional Network
Mental Grasp
What is Consciousness?
Blindsight
Working Memory
The Central Executive in Area 46
Narrative Consciousness
Free Will and the Frontal Lobes
Responsive Movements
Effects of Frontal Lobe Damage
FL Damage and Unwanted Responses
What is Free Will?
The Self
Loss of Self
Denial of Loss
Dissolution of Self
Feelings of Transcendence
Alternative Perceptions
Sanity: Beliefs and Pathologies
Explaining Delusions
Hearing Voices
The Impostors Delusion
What Do We Learn About the Mind from Studying the Brain?
Evolution of the Mind
The Social Intellect
Mind Reading
Do Mental States Exist Outside Our Experience of Them?
The Heider Experiment
What About Personal Responsibility?
Crime and Punishment
Further Reading
The Authors
Acknowledgements
Index
This book is about a biological organ, the brain, and what it does, the mind.
As with all body parts, evolution has adapted brains to suit particular
environments and ways of life. If the brain has evolved, and is the vehicle of the
mind, does it follow that the mind has also evolved? The answer to this question
must be both “Yes” and “No”. The brain and “biological mind” of primates
evolved for life in the jungle or out on the savannah. They are adapted to solve
the particular problems of finding food and shelter, of reproducing and caring for
young.
However, in addition to being an evolved “biological mind”, the human mind is
also a “cultural mind” socialized in how to solve a host of “unnatural” problems
thrown up by the invention of music-making and reading, painting, computer-
programming and voting in elections. The cultural mind is reflexive – it reflects
upon itself. To an extent, the mind is how we talk and think about it.

Mind and Brain: a Brief History
Human beings have known about the brain for a long time without being at all
clear exactly what it is for. The large number of early hominid skulls which
show signs of deliberate damage suggest that by three million years ago our
predecessors had at least worked out that the brain is a vital organ.