Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique

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Human: The Science Behind What Makes Your Brain Unique

by Michael S. Gazzaniga

3.77 · rating details · 120 ratings · 31 reviews

What happened along the evolutionary trail that made humans so unique? In his accessible style, Michael Gazzaniga pinpoints the change that made us thinking, sentient humans different from our predecessors. He explores what makes human brains special, the importance of language and art in defining the human condition, the nature of human consciousness, and even artificial

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Paperback, 447 pages

Published July 1st 2009 by Harper Perennial (first published July 1st 2008)

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Jun 11, 2008

Mark rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: medicine, psychology

This is a brilliant overview of all the research work that has gone into deciding what makes human beings unique (if we are, but the evidence is strong that we are, among Earth's creatures).

It covers everything from the evolution of our social awareness and moral standards to the debate over whether intelligence must remain embodied -- that is, do you need a physical body to develop the kind of consciousness and intelligence that humans have? -- or whether it can be disassociated fro...moreThis is a brilliant overview of all the research work that has gone into deciding what makes human beings unique (if we are, but the evidence is strong that we are, among Earth's creatures).

It covers everything from the evolution of our social awareness and moral standards to the debate over whether intelligence must remain embodied -- that is, do you need a physical body to develop the kind of consciousness and intelligence that humans have? -- or whether it can be disassociated from the flesh and incorporated into a computer or robot of some type (the Ray Kurzweil approach).

It also explores what role the arts play in human life and where they may have come from, in an evolutionary adaptive sense, and looks at the raging debate over how consciousness arises (one leading theory today is that our sense of self-awareness actually emerges from several different modules of the brain that supply different parts of it).

Gazzaniga, director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at UC-Santa Barbara, is an erudite and occasionally funny writer who seems to have consulted every relevant study under the sun, and footnotes them extensively.

As someone who regularly produces story ideas for myself and the rest of my newspaper, I found that I filled several small notebook pages with possible articles from ideas in this book. Just two: At Meiji University, Tohru Suzuki and his colleagues are developing humanoid robots that imitate human actions they observe, record the facial and vocal emotions humans are expressing and imitate them as well and can even tell when a human points to an object what emotional salience he attaches to it; Malcolm Donald, a theoretical neuroscientist, believes our language and culture came from our evolving fine motor control, because that is what enabled us to produce gestures, which were the forerunners of language, which is the bedrock of culture. And on and on.

If you are looking for one book that gives you a cook's tour of the human brain, this would be an excellent choice.

In his conclusion, Gazzaniga writes: "Maybe those people who see humans as only slightly different from the rest of the animals are right. Just like other animals, we are constrained by our biology. We may not have the capacity to be any better than their worst appraisal. But the ability to wish or imagine that we can be better is notable. No other species aspires to be more than it is. Perhaps we can be. Sure, we may be only slightly different, but then, some ice is only one degree colder than liquid water. Ice and water are both constrained by their chemical composition, but they are very different because of a phase shift."

And humans, he persuasively argues, have undergone a phase shift from their nearest primate relatives -- and may do so again in the future.

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Sep 11, 2009

Moody rated it

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I wrote this paper for a girl once (English was her second language and she wore nice pants, so I did her a favor). It was on the biochemical nature of love. I learned about the physical components and the evolutionary benefits of affection. It wasn’t particularly in depth, but it gave me an outline of the machinery behind what people feel. And it took some mystery out of the experience of love, gave it a cold name in science. This kind of discovery doesn’t diminish the sensation, but it do...moreI wrote this paper for a girl once (English was her second language and she wore nice pants, so I did her a favor). It was on the biochemical nature of love. I learned about the physical components and the evolutionary benefits of affection. It wasn’t particularly in depth, but it gave me an outline of the machinery behind what people feel. And it took some mystery out of the experience of love, gave it a cold name in science. This kind of discovery doesn’t diminish the sensation, but it does remove some of the mysticism surrounding it, the kind that I like to believe in. So there’s a question to ask here: How much to do you really want to know? Sometimes with knowledge comes banality.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson spoke in town the other day. He told a story about brilliant men in the history of science who could reach into their minds and illuminate the dark parts of the universe, could invent new fields of science to serve their quest for truth, and create understanding where there had been none. These same men would reach the limits of their knowledge, their capacity to understand, and at that edge of comprehension would intuit an explanation from the information available at the time. They would use metaphysics, alchemy, and host of other suitable institutions to fill in the large gaps of their ignorance. And at each step, the fog of God would be pushed back a little further and a little further until the border of knowledge was reached, and the need for something to fill up the dark unknown emerged once again.

This book pulls back a little more of the shroud, breaks our so unique personalities into a set of tiny molecules linked together in a series of chains that have been selected for over time to increase reproductive success. That’s it. There’s amazing complexity in this process, enough to merit wonder and awe, but in the end, it’s a chunk of cells trading electrical signals in concert. And brains are lazy. It’s a lazy organ that will do as little work as possible to achieve the desired result. This makes analytical thinking a difficult and a seldom engaged in task. We’ll allow the first plausible explanation that comports with our understanding of the world to satisfy the question. This book appeals to me in that way. It supports what I suspected before I started reading it. It gives a factual foundation to what I already believed. It’s why I picked up the book in the first place. But I acknowledge that there are alternative explanations, other possibilities out there. And the book is far from complete, much of it is educated guesswork. Our understanding of the human brain is in its infancy, and there are still great mysteries left to explore. There were leaps forward where there might not have been, brain size increases and the advances in human progress that accompanied them. Why and how? Beats me. Here’s what you get instead:

The book contains a wealth of information.
Did you know that 30% of chimps die from aggression? Or how about that in the Middle Ages animals could be charged, appointed lawyers, and tried in court for the crime of buggery? (Guilty animals were put to death, pitchers and catchers). I took copious notes to refer back to later. It’s the kind of book you tell people about while you’re reading it, whether they’re interested or not. It’s not the final word on the issues it takes up, it’s just another prism to view the world through and hopefully expand your understanding of it.

I read the final chapter on Artificial Intelligence first. It was the most interesting topic to me at the outset, and it didn’t disappoint. I had such a fun time, I continued at the beginning and went from there. I might recommend that approach for you too. Using the sci-fi doorway to get interested before plugging on to the dryer stuff.

It took me months to get through the whole thing. It’s dense much of the time, and a good deal of it was over my head, but he adds a laymen’s explanation in each section, and he’s often funny. The whole of the book is fascinating, rich with facts, and approachable.

MP - If you want I'll send you my notes or call me for a verbal tour of its highlights.
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Jun 24, 2011

Jorge rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: evolution, neuroscience

Human by Michael S. Gazzaniga

Human is the fascinating book about what makes us uniquely human. Dr. Gazzaniga, a neuroscientist, uses his expertise in neuroscience and related fields to explain what makes human brains unique. This 464-page book is composed of the following four parts: 1. The Basics of Human Life, 2. Navigating the Social World, 3. The Glory of Being Human, and 4. Beyond Current Constraints.

Positives:

1. A very-accessible, enjoyable, education...more

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Apr 24, 2010

Maxwell Wassmann rated it

· review of another edition

The titular claim of Gazzaniga's "Human" is that it will provide you with the "science behind what makes your brain unique". A bold claim--scientists have been attempting to identify the precise factors that make cognitive function in humans so special. Unfortunately, the subject matter is not something easily resolved, certainly not by another of Gazzaniga's popular science entries. A more realized understanding of the uniqueness of the human mind is going to require more ar...more

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Jan 07, 2010

Bob Nichols rated it

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Gazzanigia writes about how humans are unique. But as all animal species are unique, what he is really saying is that humans are special. What makes us special is mind and our capacity for self-consciousness and capacity to control our animal natures. In making his case, the author does a good job of surveying the various scientific studies that are well known.

The author's second chapter asks the question, "Would a chimp make a good date?" This is intended to make his p...more

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Mar 16, 2011

KC rated it

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Shelves: own

I picked up this book because I had heard of Michael Gazzaniga before, through my Honors Intro to Neuroscience class (yes, I was a neuroscience major!) and the premise of the book intrigued me. Are humans unique and distinct from all animals that came before us or are we merely on an evolutionary continuum with even more evolved species to follow us?

Gazzaniga believes that humans are unique and sets about convincing his audience through explaining what is known (and still not known) ...moreI picked up this book because I had heard of Michael Gazzaniga before, through my Honors Intro to Neuroscience class (yes, I was a neuroscience major!) and the premise of the book intrigued me. Are humans unique and distinct from all animals that came before us or are we merely on an evolutionary continuum with even more evolved species to follow us?

Gazzaniga believes that humans are unique and sets about convincing his audience through explaining what is known (and still not known) about different cognitive processes in humans and animals, especially comparing us to non-human primates (i.e. monkeys and apes). Topics include language, art, and consciousness. An example of this is asking if animals produce or appreciate art. We know humans do, but why? What is the evolutionary function of art? How does it help us to survive?

Gazzaniga is able to cover many topics in this book to provide evidence for his pont. All of his facts are well referenced, so that interested readers can find the primary documents for the research (I even found a paper that he cited because I wanted to know more!). Gazzaniga's own research is also very interesting, he studies split brain patients, patients who have had their corpus callosum (the main fiber tract that allows the two hemispheres of your brain to communicate with each other); through his research, Gazzaniga is able to test what each hemisphere is responsible for doing and how important that communication between hemispheres is for an integrated self-awareness.

While I found many of Gazzaniga's points interesting, there were a few things I did not like about the writing in the book. Some parts went into very basic explanations of science (which is good for many readers without a science background!) but then other parts listed more scientific detail than necessary to make the point, which meant that some parts felt tedious. I read this book for the ideas that Gazzaniga postulated and to find out why he believed that humans are distinct, not to pretend that I was retaking functional neuroanatomy. While I have no problem with either basic scientific explanation or in-depth scientific reasoning, I felt that they didn't belong in the same book. Non-science readers can still read the book and understand most of Gazzaniga's point, there may just be a few parts that are best to skim if you want the ideas and not the explanations.

My favorite section was the last topic covered in the book, robots and artificial intelligence. I've never studied much computer science or robotics (nor do I want to), but I find it fascinating nonetheless. I liked that Gazzaniga brought in many perspectives on A.I., from believing that we will soon have human-like robots to the belief that we will never be able to create computers that act/behave/think/feel like humans. This section also included DNA therapy ideas and the ethic questions that necessarily go along with these therapies.

Overall, I enjoyed the ideas in this book and I learned many interesting facts (my favorite: monkeys have two tubes in their throat, one for eating and the other for breathing, which means that it is impossible for them to choke! Yet it was evolutionarily more advantageous for humans to combine the tubes, making it possible to choke, but allowing us to make all the sounds that we can make- which monkeys cannot). I recommend this book for anyone interested in neuroscience and human nature, regardless of science background, but with the understanding that it is not necessary to understand every point if you don't have a biology or neuroscience foundation(less)

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Jul 24, 2011

Kirk Lowery added it · review of another edition

Shelves: science

If you're going to read this book, bring a map of the brain's various areas, names and associated functions. Otherwise, it's hard to track all the research that the author summarizes. Gazzaniga is a confirmed materialist, with the belief that what the brain does physically is all there is. He assesses what we know of animal brain function and asks how humans are different and unique. He understands self-awareness as an "emerging" from the complex of lower level functions of consciousne...more

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Sep 09, 2009

Elaine rated it

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I have always enjoyed and benefited from Gazzaniga's works, both those written with Michael Sperry and those like Nature's Mind which he has done on his own. I fully expected to love this book as well, but it typifies all that is the worst in supposedly scientific exploration. What is good about this, and all his books, is that he presents studies that show where emotions, thinking, and language are localized in the human brain.

Because this book concerns itself specifically with ...moreI have always enjoyed and benefited from Gazzaniga's works, both those written with Michael Sperry and those like Nature's Mind which he has done on his own. I fully expected to love this book as well, but it typifies all that is the worst in supposedly scientific exploration. What is good about this, and all his books, is that he presents studies that show where emotions, thinking, and language are localized in the human brain.

Because this book concerns itself specifically with the uniqueness of the human brain, he cites research showing what parts of the brain are activated when certain knowledge or emotions are elicited. This much is fine. However, his conclusion is always that since the human brain shows such activation, that means it is unique, that no other animal shows such activation. Unfortunately, he does not cite any research that shows that other animals' brains don't show localized arousal when stimulated by given tasks. He seems not to have heard of the ethological and cognitive studies of non-human animals despitee their timeliness and prevalence.

Moreover, he, with no justification whatsoever, makes blanket statements like "dogs feel sympathy but they don't feel pity." How does he or anyone else know this? Dogs don't have words to express emotions, but their body language, vocalizations and behavior do express their feelings and often their thought processes. Since these behaviors are consistent throughout dogdom, we can justifiably interpret certain behaviors as evincing certain feelings. Gazzaniga says that dogs don't feel guilt or shame. They act guilty only to avoid being punished. However, dogs display markedly different stances and eye contact when they are afraid, when they are trying to placate a human (as when a beaten dog crawls on its stomach, with tail and head lowered), and when they have been caught misbehaving.

I have even had dogs act as if they didn't do what they did do. One example, a dog of mine was forbidden to get on the sofa, but did when I was at work. When she heard my key in the lock, she jumped off the sofa, and crawled under it, so when I entered the room, she would be coming from underneath the sofa, yawning and stretching. Not only did I hear her jump, but she left fur on the sofa and the sofa cushion was still warm to my touch. If I then said, "What did you do?" she would adopt the guilty stance, curled body, head lowered, peering out from lowered eyes as she maintained eye contact and moved slowly in a semicircle in front of me. Those behaviors only occur when a dog has knowingly violated rules. Isn't that guilt? Couldn't it also be shame? If not, what is it? It never occurs under other circumstances, and all of my dogs have behaved the same way only when they got caught violating rules.

It is interesting that Gazzaniga lists a variety of disciplines concerned with brain functioning, but omits linguistics. Yet, linguists were pioneers in such studies since they were and are concerned with how the brain processes and produces language. My own work in schizophrenic speech (see my Understanding Psychotic Speech caused major changes in psychiatry because I showed that a dysfunction in brain processes, not Freudian constructs, were responsible for the specific language deviations characteristic of this population.

Had Gazzaniga acknowledged linguistics, as well as neurolinguistics, he would have had the definitive answer to the uniqueness of the human brain. Linguists have known for more than a century that what makes humans human is language (see Chapter 1 in my book Language the Social Mirror, 4th ed.. Note, I wrote "language," not "communication"

Language is the specific multilayered, rule-governed, context-bound system which allows all humans speaking in any language to produce a potentially infinite number of utterances, and to convey the past,present, future, the possible, the impossible, the invisible as well as the visible, the concrete as well as the abstract. Moreover, unlike animal communication and paralinguistic human communication, languages change when the environment changes. All languages also allow individuals to change language, such as Dylan Thomas's the sweethearting cribs or Shakespeare's But me no buts. Of course, if Gazzaniga had looked at linguistics or neurolinguistics, he wouldn't have had a book to write. He also wouldn't have been able to claim that all language resides in the left hemisphere, the refutation of which I will spare you.

What makes this book especially reprehensible is that Gazzaniga knows better. This is a poorly researched potboiler.(less)

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Jan 05, 2010

Anthony rated it

· review of another edition

A pretty interesting review of recent neuroscience research. But his thesis, that humans brains are different from other brains, is not exactly controversial.

Also, for a book about the uniqueness of the human mind, it was surprisingly unaware of the importance of the man/animal distinction in a number of bioethics debates.

It's a popular press book about the brain, and maybe I've read too many of these to fully appreciate it. Gazzaniga recently gave the Gifford lectures an...more

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Nov 24, 2008

Chrystal rated it

· review of another edition

Heard about this book an interview with the author on NPR. Piqued my curiosity.

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Oct 14, 2009

KC rated it

· review of another edition

One more in a series of books read regarding the spaces between our ears.

What would it mean if we were our brains? Gazzaniga argues forcefully that understanding the processes doesn't necessarily demystify them. We can all be fabulous and determined as the unending drumbeat of fact upon fact upends the age-old guesses of ignorance and certainty of what and who we are. Seeking perfection in its various forms becomes a foolish occupation of privileged minds, as all of us end up ga...more

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May 22, 2011

Cassandra Silva rated it

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Shelves: science, psychology-sociology

I am not sure if the author fully addressed his thesis in this book. He asserts to help the reader understand the nature of his own consciousness and what sets us apart, in terms of brain function from other species. It reads somewhat like a psychology lecture, going through different aspects of brain function and what is known at the time. He compares us to a handful of other species. Most notably chimps. I guess the "magic" of being human was lost in the text. The things that we are ...more

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Jun 19, 2009

Ellen Druda rated it

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Shelves: non-fiction, brain

What I like most about it are the insights into how the things we think are so human are really just reflexes that have evolved from our chimp ancestors. Some of the subjects discussed are morality and the arts and their biological components. The author looks ahead into the future of artificial intelligence and robots, and how they can work with neural implants. Fascinating and smart book written for the layman. Loved it!

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Nov 26, 2008

Brea Jones rated it

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Recommends it for: people curious about themselves but not in a vain way

Recommended to Brea by: the new york times

i thought i already wrote a review for this but i guess not.

i really enjoyed this book - it's a science book but not too science-y so you don't have to put it down every few pages for a comic book break.
gazzaniga talks about how we are who were are compared to animals and explains things like gossip, in group/out group behavior, and doing each other favors with evolution.

good read! if you're feeling like a smarty pants.

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Feb 15, 2009

Andrew rated it

· review of another edition

This is another decent read in the expanding popular literature of the material basis for human nature. Gazzaniga does a clear job of describing which areas in the human brain make it a unique organism unlike the brains of other animals, and he's careful not to outpace the science that supports his claims. It's not a real page-turner, but I think that's just because this discipline as a whole has yet to find a really gifted writer to broaden its appeal to a wider audience. Worth a look, thoug...more

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Nov 24, 2008

Jodi rated it

· review of another edition

Some of it was very interesting to read, some too scientific for my taste. Actually a very good mix of real science and anecdotal explanation, all in a well laid out, amusing tome...but tome it was.

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Dec 22, 2008

Adih Respati rated it

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Shelves: 05-sciencewriting, 08-brainscience, 11-biology

Gazzaniga teaches on how human brains evolved to enable language; how language enables social competence; and how social competence enables the experience of beauty, art, and consciousness.

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May 28, 2011

Jysoo added it · review of another edition

The author deals with diverse issues which make human unique. Many of the issues are quite deep and interesting. My main criticism is that the author tried to include too many things for each issue, and it requires some efforts for me to understand the flow of the story.

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Apr 26, 2009

Ron rated it

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Shelves: science, non-fiction

Very good overview of the research into how the human brain works and how the various brain functions have precedence in primates. The author is a materialist and as such offers up his philosophy about human nature that really has no substantive basis in the research if one is not a materialist. Otherwise, a fine book.

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Jan 16, 2009

marcali rated it

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Recommended to marcali by: heard fellow on Fresh Air

Shelves: worth-owning, books-that-talk-to-each-other

Excellent book, covering an astonishing array of studies & ideas-- although i agree with other review that it is somewhat scattershot in its aim for a reader base (swings from general sci reading to more academic).
one criticism-- the author uses humor quite a bit, mostly to great effect; however, the old men v. women joke made seemingly sympathetic to women is a reoccurring part of his humor arsenal. After being deployed yet again at some point during the discussion of the rise of language...more

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Apr 17, 2009

Cynthia rated it

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Interesting survey of the research on features of the human brain which make humans unique.

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Feb 15, 2010

Beth rated it

· review of another edition

Wonderful read! For anyone who's interested in the human mind. My favorite neuroscientist is also a great nonfiction writier!

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Nov 08, 2009

Jrobertus rated it

· review of another edition

Gazzaniga is a famous cognitive scientist, and he takes a contemporary view of the subject. I have read widely in this field, so there was not much new here, but if one were new to the area, this would be a good overview of the science; he does review the main ideas of many heavy hitters like Damasio and Pinker. I did enjoy his review of the left brain "interpreter" and how it may underlie a sense of self.

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Jan 02, 2012

Alina rated it

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Shelves: nonfiction

This book is a grab bag of research on the neuroscience of both humans and animals, and related fields such as evolutionary psychology and artificial intelligence. Lots of interesting stuff in here, but I do mean "grab bag." The presentation is haphazard. This book combines a chatty, informal style with technical language that isn't always well explained, and some concepts and experiments are described in a perfunctory fashion.

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Sep 19, 2008

Tim Donaldson rated it

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Recommends it for: thinking people everywhere

This was one of the more interesting books I have read in a long long time. I bought it one days just because it looked interesting at the bookstore. A lot of details about "alpha male behavior" and the evolution of the human brain, abilities that we share with animals, abilities we don't share with animals. Loved it.

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Dec 21, 2011

Jason Webb rated it

· review of another edition

Feeling even better about being human after reading this book. Keep your eye on this space.

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Oct 18, 2008

J. D. rated it

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An absorbing survey of the similarities and unique differences between Homo Sapiens and other species. The thesis here is that humans' uniqueness arises mainly from connective alterations in the central nervous system.

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Nov 18, 2008

Jeremy Adam rated it

· review of another edition

I reviewed this for Greater Good. Messy and too long by half, but stuffed with fascinating ideas and information about what makes the human being a unique animal.

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May 27, 2011

Christine rated it

· review of another edition

Stopped reading only about 10 pages in - too much neural anatomy for me to really enjoy and follow.

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Oct 16, 2008

Zach Chasnoff rated it

· review of another edition

The writing is dry but the tidbits, oh the juicy tidbits.

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About Michael S. Gazzaniga

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 is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind.

His early research examined the subject of epileptics who had un...more

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