How Brains Make Up Their Minds - (Maps of the Mind) by Walter Freeman (Hardcover)

About the Book

Walter J. Freeman explores how we control our behavior and make sense of the world around us. Avoiding determinism both in sociobiology, which proposes that persons' genes control their brains' functioning, and in neuroscience, which posits that their brains' disposition is molded by chemistry and environmental forces, Freeman charts a new course--one that gives individuals due credit and responsibility for their actions.

Book Synopsis

I think, therefore I am. The legendary pronouncement of philosopher René Descartes lingers as accepted wisdom in the Western world nearly four centuries after its author's death. But does thought really come first? Who actually runs the show: we, our thoughts, or the neurons firing within our brains?

Walter J. Freeman explores how we control our behavior and make sense of the world around us. Avoiding determinism both in sociobiology, which proposes that persons' genes control their brains' functioning, and in neuroscience, which posits that their brains' disposition is molded by chemistry and environmental forces, Freeman charts a new course--one that gives individuals due credit and responsibility for their actions.

Drawing upon his five decades of research in neuroscience, Freeman utilizes the latest advances in his field as well as perspectives from disciplines as diverse as mathematics, psychology, and philosophy to explicate how different human brains act in their chosen diverse ways. He clarifies the implications of brain imaging, by which neural activity can be observed during the course of normal movements, and shows how nonlinear dynamics reveals order within the fecund chaos of brain function.

Review Quotes

A must read for anyone who seriously wants to understand how brains make up their minds.--Stan Franklin "Minds & Machines"

This book takes a significant position that sets the stage for unifying research results in neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy into a cohesive interpretation of the psychological and philosophical aspects of brain activities. Delightful to read, cohesive, and thought-provoking.-- "Choice"

About the Author

Walter J. 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 several hundred articles and three books, Mass Action in the Nervous System, Societies of Brains, and Neuro Dynamics.