Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind (1998)

Ramachandran has possibly done it. He is quantifying the qualitative. What is red? There are three laws of qualia. 1 irrevocably input. 2 Choice of output. 3. Transient permanence. The problem of building a model becomes one of modeling the flexibility of choice. ( )

This book, written by neurologist V. S. Ramachandran, suggests that by looking at case studies of individuals with particular types of brain injuries we can learn a lot about the the human mind. He looks at examples of patients with phantom limb syndrome, vision problems, paralysis and other problems and uses his understanding of their neurological (physiological) causes to speculate on their implications about the structure and functioning of a "normal" human brain.

I found this very interesting to read, with descriptions of both symptoms and anatomy being very clear and easy to follow, although it is a little repetitive in places. However, although I know very little about neurology myself, I found some of his theories hard to swallow - it was often unclear if he was neglecting to mention the evidence he had to back them or if there was no evidence at all. I am particularly skeptical of his explanations for foot-fetishes and anorexia.

A quote which I think sums up Ramachandran's view of the brain well: "Freud's most valuable contribution was his discovery that your conscious mind is simply a facade and that you are completely unaware of 90 percent of what really goes on in your brain." ( )

(Reviewed August 20, 2008)

A bit of a schizophrenic read. The first two thirds are dumbed-down to an amazing extent, and the last third tends to ramble. Rama has a very high opinion of his own views, and has a tendency to say things like "most scientists think this. Well, they're all wrong and I'll tell you why." But other than some of these hiccups in the prose, it's an interesting and intriguing book. ( )

Abnormal syndromes illustrate fundamental principles that govern the way human minds and brains work, shedding light on body image, language, laughter, dreams, depression and other aspects of our nature. ( )

Who am I? At least once in his lifetime, everyone must have faced this question. It is a hard question to answer and this book shows that it is probably a lot more harder than we think. For this book shows that the idea of “I”, of “myself” is actually an illusion. It is something formed by the acts of neurons in our brain. Hence when something happens to these wonderful cells our identity can change. “I” that I know it, could change into someone else. How scary is that.

But it is exactly what Dr. Ramachandran, a prominent neuroscientist, tries to share with us in his book “Phantoms in the Brain”. Written together with Sandra Blakeslee the book describes Ramachandran’s encounters with patients, all with some sort of problems in their brains, which ironically, because of their defects, illuminate how our brains work. They show that actually there are many phantoms and zombies in our brains. We think they only take over when we are devoid of consciousness, but no, they are there with us every time, we’re just not aware of “them”.

The book has 12 chapters, each deals with different aspect of human brain. In Chapter 1 “The Phantom Within” he introduces the world of neuroscience. Chapter 2 “Knowing Where to Scratch” describes the cases of phantom limbs – where amputees actually feels and get all sorts of sensory input from their missing limbs, which is partly caused by the remapping of parts of the brain that originally deals with the sensory input from the limbs because it suddenly stopped getting the input. In Chapter 3 “Chasing the Phantom” Dr. Ramachandran further investigate the cases of phantom limbs. He actually discovered a therapy that helps trick their brains into rearranging the neurons and by that “accepting” that their limbs are gone.

Chapter 4 “The Zombie in the Brain” deals with the process of vision, which is actually not as simple as we thought it to be. Here he describes the case of Diane who due to carbon monoxide poisoning became blind. Diane can’t see things, can’t describe things. When she is shown a letter box she can’t describe what it was or how it was oriented. However when she is given a letter to slid into the letter box, immediately she orientate it parallel to the slot and slid the letter in. It’s like there’s a zombie, an unconscious part of Diane who guide her hands without her actually seeing the letter and the letter box. Through patients like her neuroscientists learn that the processing of vision in our brains in complex. To put it simple, there’s a “what” pathway that recognises things, forms and colours and assigns identifications to them. Then there’s a “how” pathway that deals with spatial positioning and orientating. The two pathways are located in different parts of the brain and a damage to one part doesn’t disturb the function of the other. Fascinating stuff! Chapter 5 “The Secret Life of James Thurber” still deals with vision. This time he explores the way our brain produces representations of the vision sensory inputs. Here we learn about our vision blind spots and how our brain tries to fill the gap to produce a complete picture. The chapter is filled with interesting pictures for experimenting and play around with our blind spots.

Chapter 6 “Through the Looking Glass” describes patients who because of some damage to their brains from stroke, experience a neglect of one side of their body, such that they don’t even realise that that side of the body exists. In Chapter 7 “The Sound of One Hand Clapping” describes cases of anosognosia where patients who are paralysed in some part of their body refuse to accept it such that they either belief that part of their body still work normally and unparalysed, or they even think that those parts do not belong to them. In Chapter 8 “The Unbearable Likeness of Being” Ramachandran delves into the cases of Capgras’ delusion where patients think that their loved ones are actually impostors.

Is there a God button in the brain? That part of the brain which helps human to experience a deeper meaning of things and feel the presence of a higher being? Is there a God gene? Ramachandran explores these questions in Chapter 9 “God and the Limbic System”. In Chapter 10 “The Woman Who Died Laughing” he explores the possible evolutionary roots of laughter and smiles. Chapter 11 “You Forgot to Deliver the Twin” investigates the relationship of mind and body and interactions between them.

The last chapter “Do Martians See Red?” looks into consciousness. While the other chapters are clear and relatively easy to understand, this one is – understandably, considering the tough subject - difficult. Here Ramachandran propose a way to explore consciousness, not from philosophical point of view, but from neuroscientific point of view. Even after reading it twice I can only understand less than 50% of what he says here.

However, apart from the last chapter the book is written in simple language that is relatively easy to understand. It is often quite humorous as well. The descriptions of patients and cases are what make the book so interesting.

Neuroscience seems to be the death toll to Freud. But Ramachandran doesn’t think so. He thinks that Freud is a genius at observing the problems of human mind. It is in the finding the causes of these problems that he failed, and it is where neuroscience now takes over.

After reading the book we are left to wonder – who am I? Are we just puppets controled by a bunch of neurotic neurons? ( )