HUMANIST GALAXY OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS: MICHAEL GAZZANIGA 5-18-22

ALPHABETICAL BRAIN® VOCABULARY
HUMANIST GALAXY
OF SECULAR SCIENCE STARS
MICHAEL GAZZANIGA
May 18, 2022

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WHO'S IN CHARGE?:
Free Will and
the Science of the Brain
by Michael S. Gazzaniga.
HarperCollins, 2011 (272 pages)
[The Gifford Lectures 2009]

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BOOK OUTLINE
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Note = Numbers in parentheses refer to pages

INTRODUCTION (pages 1-6)

Quotes by Author = "How the mind relates to the brain, with its implications for personal responsibility, no matter who addresses it, keeps grabbing our attention. The importance of the answer to this question, which is central for understanding what we humans are experiencing as sentient, forward-looking,and meaning-seeking animals cannot be overstated... Does the mind constrain the brain, or does the brain do everything from the bottom up? It is tricky, because in nothing that follows [in the book] am I suggesting [that] the mind is completely independent from the brain. It is not..."

"I see it as my duty to review the human knowledge of our time that many of the great minds of the past did not possess... [My anlysis will] show us that the physical world has different sets of laws depending on what organizational layer [a person] is looking at, and we will discover what that has to do with human behavior... Even with all the knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology, psychology, and all the rest, when the moving parts are viewed as a dynamic system, there is an undeniable reality."

"We are responsible agents... [In philosophy: "agency" means willpower or free will]. Human life is a really good deal!" Source: Introduction (5 and 6)

"Even with all of the fantastic comprehension gained about the mechanisms of mind that neuroscientists now have worked out, none of it impacts responsibility — one of the deep core values of human life... To understand some of the claims that have been made about living in a ‘deterministic’ world, we will visit a few different layers of science, going from the micro world of subatomic particles, [from] places you never thought neuroscience would take you, to the macro social world of you and your buddy.” Source: Introduction, page 6)

1) THE WAY WE ARE (7-41)

“There is a puzzle about everyday life. We all feel like unified conscious agents acting with self-purpose. And we all feel like we are free to make choices of almost any kind. And at the same time, everyone realizes that we are ‘biological machines.’ And everyone realizes that the physical laws of the universe apply to both real manmade metal machines and human biological machines." (7)

note =

"biological machine"

“Our brains are a vastly parallel and distributed system, each with [an infinitely large number] of decision-making points and centers of integration.” (8)

“The accomplishments of the human brain are one good reason we are convinced of our central and purposeful self.” (9)

“The modern technology and know-how ("reasoning" ability) of humans is [utterly] amazing!” (9)

2) THE PARALLEL AND DISTRIBUTED BRAIN (43-73)

3) THE INTERPRETER (75-103)

note =

Unconscious iceburg + diagram

4) ABANDONING THE CONCEPT OF FREE WILL (105-142)

5) THE SOCIAL MIND (143-178)

6) WE ARE THE LAW (179-215)

7) AN AFTERWORD (217-220)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (221-222)

NOTES (223-242)

INDEX ( 243-250)

[1] Emotions =

[2] Free Will =

[3] Genetics =

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, SUMMARY,
AND BOOK DESCRIPTION
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR = Michael S. Gazzaniga is the director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the president of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, the founding director of the MacArthur Foundation’s Law and Neuroscience Project, and a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences. He lives in California.

Additional Biographical Information: Michael S. Gazzaniga, one of the premiere doctors of neuroscience, was born on December 12, 1939 in Los Angeles. Educated at Dartmouth College and California Institute of Technology, he has been on the faculty of the Center for Neuroscience, University of California, Davis. His early research examined the subject of epileptics who had undergone surgery to control seizures. He has also studied Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients and reveals important findings in books such as Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind. While many of his writings are technical, he also educates and stimulates readers with discussions about the fascinating and mysterious workings of the brain. Books such as The Social Brain and The Mind's Past bring forth new information and theories regarding how the brain functions, interacts, and responds with the body and the environment. – Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

SUMMARY = The father of cognitive neuroscience and author of the books, Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique, [as well as many other books] offers a provocative argument against the common belief that our lives are wholly determined by physical processes and we are therefore not responsible for our actions. [webmaster's comment: "Outdated assumption among many old-fashioned scientists"]

BOOK DESCRIPTION = This book is a powerful [argument against the scientific] orthodoxy that the study of the brain [had] taken... in recent years: Since physical laws govern the physical world and our own brains are part of that world, [it was assumed that] physical laws, therefore, govern our behavior and even our conscious selves. [In other words], free will is meaningless, goes the mantra; we live in a “determined” world. [However, this is] not so, argues the renowned neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga in this thoughtful, provocative book based on his Gifford Lectures (2009) one of the foremost lecture series in the world dealing with religion, science, and philosophy. This book proposes that the mind, which is somehow generated by the physical processes of the brain, “constrains” the brain just as cars are constrained by the traffic they create. Writing with what Steven Pinker has called “his trademark wit and lack of pretension,” Gazzaniga shows how “determinism” immeasurably weakens our views of human responsibility; it allows a murderer to argue, in effect, “It wasn’t me who did it — it was my brain.”

Gazzaniga convincingly argues that even given the latest insights into the physical mechanisms of the mind, there is an undeniable human reality: We are responsible agents who should be held accountable for our actions, because [moral] “responsibility” is found in how people interact, not in [their] brains. An extraordinary book that ranges across neuroscience, psychology, ethics, and the law with a light touch but profound implications. The book is a lasting contribution from one of the leading thinkers of our time.

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EDITORIAL BOOK REVIEWS
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LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEW = Gazzaniga (psychology, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara; Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique) takes us inside the workings of the human brain, exploring its known neurological functions and their contributions to the human sense of the conscious self and consequent behaviors. To what degree are we hardwired for behavior? What of genetics? How does human brain function differ from that of other members of the animal world? He highlights amazing research into split-brain cerebral functions and reveals a brain that can be localized and simultaneously diffuse in function. So do biological processes determine our behavior, trumping free will and letting us off the hook for our actions? Gazzaniga argues convincingly that they do not --- that the influence of human social interaction on behavior disproves this deterministic theory. We are free agents, capable of overriding impulses, making conscious decisions, and regulating our behavior accordingly within social and ethical constructs. VERDICT A fascinating, accessible, and often humorous read for anyone with a brain! And a must-read for neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminal attorneys. -- Judith A. Matthews, Michigan State Univ. Lib., East Lansing.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY REVIEW = Are our actions determined solely by physical processes, or is the mind its own master? This age-old philosophical conundrum gets a terrific, if ultimately indecisive, analysis in this engrossing study of the mechanics of thought. Gazzaniga (Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique), a leading cognitive neuroscientist, draws on cutting-edge research, including his fascinating experiments with "split-brain" patients, to diagram the Rube Goldberg apparatus inside our skulls. Beneath our illusion of an in-control self, he contends, thousands of chaotically interacting neural modules governing motion, senses, and language unconsciously make decisions long before we consciously register them; the closest thing to a self is a brain module called "the interpreter," which spins a retrospective story line to rationalize whatever the nonconscious brain did. (Brain injuries can make the interpreter tragicomically muddled, leading patients to claim that their hand doesn't belong to them or that their relatives are imposters.) The author's reconciliation of that deterministic model with the idea of free will is less successful, requiring "a unique language, which has yet to be developed"; until then, we can only invoke muzzy notions from complexity theory. Though he doesn't quite capture the ghost, Gazzaniga does give a lucid, stimulating primer on the machine that generates it.

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BOOK REVIEW SUMMARIES
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[1] This exciting, stimulating, and sometimes even funny book challenges us to think in new ways about that most mysterious part of us—the part that makes us think we are us. -- Alan Alda, actor and host of Scientific American Frontiers

[2] Terrific... An engrossing study of the mechanics of thought. Publishers Weekly

[3] Gazzaniga is a towering figure in contemporary neurobiology... The book is a joy to read.” -- Wall Street Journal

[4] A fascinating affirmation of our essential humanity. -- Kirkus Reviews

[5] A fascinating, accessible, and often humorous read for anyone with a brain! And a must-read for neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and criminal attorneys. – Library Journal starred review

[6] Fascinating... An intriguing and persuasive treatment of the moral implications of modern neuroscience.” -- Reason.com

[7] From one of the world’s leading thinkers comes a thought-provoking book on how we think and how we act... An exciting, stimulating, and at times even funny read that helps us further understand ourselves, our actions, and our world. -- CNBC.com, Best Books for the Holidays

[8] Fascinating... Gazzaniga uses a lifetime of experience in neuroscientific research to argue that free will is alive and well. -- Salon.com

[9] An utterly captivating and fascinating read that addresses issues of consciousness and free will and, in the end, offers suggestions as to how these ideas may or may not inform legal matters. -- Daily Texan

[10] The scope of Michael S. Gazzaniga's new book is huge --- it tackles the age-old debate of free will and offers a lot to consider about what Gazzaniga deems the "scientific problem of the century.” -- Portland Mercury

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