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The Undiscovered Mind: How the Human Brain Defies Replication, Medication, and Explanation
GRAY MATTER UNDER INVESTIGATION
In his acclaimed book The End of Science, John Horgan ignited a firestorm of controversy about the limits of knowledge in a wide range of sciences. Now in The Undiscovered Mind he focuses on the single most important scientific enterprise of all -- the effort to understand the human mind.
Horgan takes us inside laboratories, hospitals, and universities to meet neuro-scientists, Freudian analysts, electroshock therapists, behavioral geneticists, evolutionary psychologists, artificial intelligence engineers, and philosophers of consciousness. He looks into the persistent explanatory gap between mind and body that Socrates pondered and shows that it has not been bridged. He investigates what he calls the "Humpty Dumpty dilemma," the fact that neuroscientists can break the brain and mind into pieces but cannot put the pieces back together again. He presents evidence that the placebo effect is the primary ingredient of psychotherapy, Prozac, and other treatments for mental disorders. As Horgan shows, the mystery of human consciousness, of why and how we think, remains so impregnable that to expect the attempts of scientific method and technology to penetrate it anytime soon is absurd.
In his acclaimed book The End of Science, John Horgan ignited a firestorm of controversy about the limits of knowledge in a wide range of sciences. Now in The Undiscovered Mind he focuses on the single most important scientific enterprise of all -- the effort to understand the human mind.
Horgan takes us inside laboratories, hospitals, and universities to meet neuro-scientists, Freudian analysts, electroshock therapists, behavioral geneticists, evolutionary psychologists, artificial intelligence engineers, and philosophers of consciousness. He looks into the persistent explanatory gap between mind and body that Socrates pondered and shows that it has not been bridged. He investigates what he calls the "Humpty Dumpty dilemma," the fact that neuroscientists can break the brain and mind into pieces but cannot put the pieces back together again. He presents evidence that the placebo effect is the primary ingredient of psychotherapy, Prozac, and other treatments for mental disorders. As Horgan shows, the mystery of human consciousness, of why and how we think, remains so impregnable that to expect the attempts of scientific method and technology to penetrate it anytime soon is absurd.
336 pages, Paperback
First published September 14, 1999
9 people are currently reading
256 people want to read
About the author
John Horgan
44 books56 followersJOHN HORGAN is a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. A former senior writer at Scientific American (1986-1997), he has also written for The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Discover, The London Times, The Times Literary Supplement, New Scientist, and other publications around the world. He blogs for the Center for Science Writings and for Bloggingheads.tv (see links at left).
His latest book is Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality, published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin in January 2003 and in paperback by Mariner Books in March 2004.
His latest book is Rational Mysticism: Dispatches from the Border Between Science and Spirituality, published in hardcover by Houghton Mifflin in January 2003 and in paperback by Mariner Books in March 2004.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 26, 2007
I didn't finish this book. I tried to, but I couldn't. Though I aim to learn a little something from everything and anything, this guy is just such a damn hater. He makes a lot of assumptions based on outdated technology and presumes to know what our technology will be able to help us with in the future. I mean, I dunno, one the one hand he has credentials like writing for SciAm and some fancy college degree; on the other hand his reactions to professors rather lucid attempt at explaining a wonderful phenomenon lead him to not only frustrate his interviewer but dismiss her research as aimless and inconsequential.
I just can't help but wonder if I'm being sophmoric with my interpretation of the case presented in this book.
I just can't help but wonder if I'm being sophmoric with my interpretation of the case presented in this book.
August 10, 2019
A little off the mark
A large part of this book is an evaluation of the effectiveness of various approaches to "mind-science," including psychoanalysis, psychopharmacology, evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, artificial intelligence, etc. Horgan interviews some of the main players and then evaluates their arguments. Understandably, the contrarian-minded author of The End of Science (1996), finds fault with all of them. What he doesn't do is set up any sort of pecking order of effectiveness among them. Thus the reader is left to conclude that those who advocate lobotomies and electroshock treatment, for example, are no further off base than those who advocate the use of Prozac or other SSRIs. Horgan actually suggests that all mind science approaches might be helpful (as in "All have won and all deserve prizes"–the "dodo hypothesis" from Alice in Wonderland that he seems to be making fun of in Chapter Three, but then adopts). He himself would try (for depression) "psychotherapy first, and the antidepressants. If they didn't work...I might give the shock therapy expert...a call."
John, I recommend placebo therapy first. And whatever you do don't go near those electrodes without the signed approval of your wife and kids, your employer, your lawyer, your publisher, and a good father confessor. Call your grandmother. If they all agree it's okay, call me. Also, you might reread your own book which includes the inescapable conclusion that none of these therapies is much better than the mere passage of time, something known, by the way, as you report, for many decades.
Another part of the book is about the issues in mind-science, especially the question of consciousness, an enigma Horgan doesn't expect to be solved anytime soon, if ever. I would like to say that the question of consciousness, like the question of God, is at first a problem of definition. The disputants are often talking about different things. To one, consciousness is akin to "awareness." To another it's something like "ego-identity." To a third it's something like "spiritual awareness." Just as the God of the Vedas, about which nothing can be said, is very different from the God of conservative Christianity, who has a bad temper and seeks to punish sinners, so too is the idea of consciousness as simply a degree of awareness a far cry from consciousness as self-identity. After the disputants agree on their definitions I would ask (and I think this is Horgan's feeling), how can an ant comprehend itself in its entirety? or Can a pillar of salt measure the ocean of Brahman?
Horgan also considers the question of machine consciousness or the consciousness of artificial intelligence. Here one can easily see the functionality of solipsism. If I have any doubt about someone else being conscious (of course I have no doubt about myself--I think) how much easier it is to doubt that a machine may be conscious. If I can't ever prove that anyone other than myself is conscious (and I can't), how am I going to prove that a machine is?
So I think Horgan's essential skepticism is largely justified. When, in some distant millennium, we finally do understand ourselves, we will no longer be what we are today. However, along the way, I think it should be noticed, for example, that evolutionary psychology has a much firmer scientific basis than say psychoanalysis. And it might be pointed out that one has to be pretty desperate to try "electro-convulsive therapy," which is what electroshock therapy is currently being called. That Horgan was able to describe the horrors of lobotomy and the currently popular surgical procedure, "cingulotomy" without once noting that such "treatments" are anything more than "controversial" (page 129) suggests a loss of perspective. On page 134 he allows that he is concerned "that drugs [Prozac, etc.], and to a lesser extent, shock therapy have been oversold." He adds that "the administration of psychiatric drugs to children has gotten out of hand."
"Oversold"? "Out of hand"? Horgan doesn't say whether a cingulotomy, in which a "marble-sized bundle of nerves" that links the frontal lobe (instead of the whole frontal lobe) is severed, is an "out of hand" treatment or even whether he would, as a last resort, choose such a treatment for himself should the other three fail.
On target however is the way he addresses the notion that physics is "the most fundamental--and thus most important--scientific research." (p 259) He calls on physicist Philip Anderson to point out that "Reality has a hierarchical structure...with each level independent, to some degree, of the levels above and below." Anderson adds, "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one." That the so-called soft sciences such as psychology are actually more complex than the so-called hard sciences is one of Horgan's implicit points, and one of the reasons he believes mind-science hasn't really accomplished much as yet, or indeed ever will. At bottom he believes that there is a clear limit to what we can comprehend. On this I agree. I just think that we still have quite a ways to go before we run out of ability. I think consciousness, for example, will eventually be seen as an illusion and a mechanism of evolution, a "trick," so to speak, that makes us so intently identify with our particular phenotype that we will do almost anything to keep it alive and well. How the mind works, how it apprehends and creates "reality," the details thereof, including the infamous "binding problem" may well be beyond the comprehension of any of us. However, together as a cultural entity in this world, with our electronic machines and other artifacts, we may as a species comprehend many things that we as individuals cannot.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
A large part of this book is an evaluation of the effectiveness of various approaches to "mind-science," including psychoanalysis, psychopharmacology, evolutionary psychology, behavioral genetics, artificial intelligence, etc. Horgan interviews some of the main players and then evaluates their arguments. Understandably, the contrarian-minded author of The End of Science (1996), finds fault with all of them. What he doesn't do is set up any sort of pecking order of effectiveness among them. Thus the reader is left to conclude that those who advocate lobotomies and electroshock treatment, for example, are no further off base than those who advocate the use of Prozac or other SSRIs. Horgan actually suggests that all mind science approaches might be helpful (as in "All have won and all deserve prizes"–the "dodo hypothesis" from Alice in Wonderland that he seems to be making fun of in Chapter Three, but then adopts). He himself would try (for depression) "psychotherapy first, and the antidepressants. If they didn't work...I might give the shock therapy expert...a call."
John, I recommend placebo therapy first. And whatever you do don't go near those electrodes without the signed approval of your wife and kids, your employer, your lawyer, your publisher, and a good father confessor. Call your grandmother. If they all agree it's okay, call me. Also, you might reread your own book which includes the inescapable conclusion that none of these therapies is much better than the mere passage of time, something known, by the way, as you report, for many decades.
Another part of the book is about the issues in mind-science, especially the question of consciousness, an enigma Horgan doesn't expect to be solved anytime soon, if ever. I would like to say that the question of consciousness, like the question of God, is at first a problem of definition. The disputants are often talking about different things. To one, consciousness is akin to "awareness." To another it's something like "ego-identity." To a third it's something like "spiritual awareness." Just as the God of the Vedas, about which nothing can be said, is very different from the God of conservative Christianity, who has a bad temper and seeks to punish sinners, so too is the idea of consciousness as simply a degree of awareness a far cry from consciousness as self-identity. After the disputants agree on their definitions I would ask (and I think this is Horgan's feeling), how can an ant comprehend itself in its entirety? or Can a pillar of salt measure the ocean of Brahman?
Horgan also considers the question of machine consciousness or the consciousness of artificial intelligence. Here one can easily see the functionality of solipsism. If I have any doubt about someone else being conscious (of course I have no doubt about myself--I think) how much easier it is to doubt that a machine may be conscious. If I can't ever prove that anyone other than myself is conscious (and I can't), how am I going to prove that a machine is?
So I think Horgan's essential skepticism is largely justified. When, in some distant millennium, we finally do understand ourselves, we will no longer be what we are today. However, along the way, I think it should be noticed, for example, that evolutionary psychology has a much firmer scientific basis than say psychoanalysis. And it might be pointed out that one has to be pretty desperate to try "electro-convulsive therapy," which is what electroshock therapy is currently being called. That Horgan was able to describe the horrors of lobotomy and the currently popular surgical procedure, "cingulotomy" without once noting that such "treatments" are anything more than "controversial" (page 129) suggests a loss of perspective. On page 134 he allows that he is concerned "that drugs [Prozac, etc.], and to a lesser extent, shock therapy have been oversold." He adds that "the administration of psychiatric drugs to children has gotten out of hand."
"Oversold"? "Out of hand"? Horgan doesn't say whether a cingulotomy, in which a "marble-sized bundle of nerves" that links the frontal lobe (instead of the whole frontal lobe) is severed, is an "out of hand" treatment or even whether he would, as a last resort, choose such a treatment for himself should the other three fail.
On target however is the way he addresses the notion that physics is "the most fundamental--and thus most important--scientific research." (p 259) He calls on physicist Philip Anderson to point out that "Reality has a hierarchical structure...with each level independent, to some degree, of the levels above and below." Anderson adds, "At each stage, entirely new laws, concepts, and generalizations are necessary, requiring inspiration and creativity to just as great a degree as in the previous one." That the so-called soft sciences such as psychology are actually more complex than the so-called hard sciences is one of Horgan's implicit points, and one of the reasons he believes mind-science hasn't really accomplished much as yet, or indeed ever will. At bottom he believes that there is a clear limit to what we can comprehend. On this I agree. I just think that we still have quite a ways to go before we run out of ability. I think consciousness, for example, will eventually be seen as an illusion and a mechanism of evolution, a "trick," so to speak, that makes us so intently identify with our particular phenotype that we will do almost anything to keep it alive and well. How the mind works, how it apprehends and creates "reality," the details thereof, including the infamous "binding problem" may well be beyond the comprehension of any of us. However, together as a cultural entity in this world, with our electronic machines and other artifacts, we may as a species comprehend many things that we as individuals cannot.
--Dennis Littrell, author of “The World Is Not as We Think It Is”
July 10, 2007
Great antidote to the current overhyping and trendiness of neuroscience. This guy is the anti-Eric Kandel. Premise is that neuroscience is the least advanced of any of the sciences.
Read
June 21, 2009An interesting comment on why the mind cannot be pinned down scientifically and how it relates to the psychological field. The evidence is outdated to some degree but it's still an interesting read.
November 18, 2009
Horgan tweaks the arrogance of the scientific community as they think they known diddly squat about the human mind...
March 20, 2022
An interesting survey of the ‘scientific’ explanations of the mind and how it really functions and our psychologies are formed. From the theories of Freud, to the genetic theory, to AI and natural selection; Horgan shows how each of these explanations is lacking any real explanatory power. The issue I have is that Horgan on occasions overstates his case. The book was written in the late nineties and some of the predictions he makes (such as AI, neural networks, fusions energy etc) are off. This tends to reduce the confidence in what else he says. However, much of what is said is on the money, whilst it is disappointing that Horgan appears to be an avowed naturalist and has no space to consider the answers offered by religious knowledge to this field.
January 13, 2015
This book is rather old, and thus, neuroscience has made considerable advances beyond the point at which it was written. It is, however, very readable, very controversial, book that questions the limits of science in regards to the mind. He finds that no form of therapy works better than any other, that many of the claims of benefits derived from psychotropic medications are ill-founded, and that we have not succeeded, in explaining what it is to be conscious or aware. Many of the most prominent medications prove to be little more than placebos, and sometimes less than that. He also discusses evolutionary psychology, which applies "just so" stories which may be plausible to explain how we became what we are, and how artificial intelligence is limited by our inability to define what it is to be aware. It is a salutary contrarian view which is a very useful counterpoint to the often blithe arrogance that asserts that neuroscience is fact when it is so often theory, and also to Ray Kurzweil's equally blithe arrogance that human consciousness or something equivalent can be soon replicated to assemblages of machines. His central point is what he calls the "humpty Dumptyilemma," that neuroscientists and psychologists can break down mind and brain in any number of systems or localized parts, but we cannot assemble those pieces into any meaningful whole. (Yet, here we are, existent beings).
May 17, 2015
This is a critique of theoretical science's theories about the questions of consciousness and the failures of practical science's efforts at discovery. Horgan is not a man of religious faith other than a religious faith in science but he is honestly attempting in this book to explain the seemingly hopeless difficulties the atheistic scientist has in trying to unlock the secrets of the mind. I think, considering his background and devout love of science and his wholesale purchase of the paradigms of modern, atheistic science he has done a very fair job of telling the truth. "The dangers posed by scientific hubris are greatest when scientists seek not merely a cure for cancer or mental illness but a final, definitive explanation of who we are and even who we should be," exposes the threat that militant atheistic determinism presents to society as we can see by any reasonable study of the 20th century's eugenics nightmare. (p.263)
He also acknowledges the failure of Artificial Intelligence(AI) to mimic the mind and since he published this in 1999 little has changed surprisingly.
This book is definitely an interesting read and anyone interested in the philosophy of science or in science's limitations would be benefited by reading it.
He also acknowledges the failure of Artificial Intelligence(AI) to mimic the mind and since he published this in 1999 little has changed surprisingly.
This book is definitely an interesting read and anyone interested in the philosophy of science or in science's limitations would be benefited by reading it.
September 23, 2013
Very thoughtful, thought-provoking, and topical critique. In my view subtitle should properly read, "How the Human Mind HAS DEFIED..." Though I am entirely sympathetic with Horgan's criticism of some of the bolder claims of contemporary brain science, I reject (as foregone) the pessimistic conclusion he approaches. Differences with the author notwithstanding, I found his argument challenging and fascinating. Great read!
September 8, 2016
Excellent read, couldn't put it down. Read it in a single afternoon and was throughly intrigued.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews