An Anatomy of Thought: The Origin and Machinery of the Mind

by Ian Glynn

Love, fear, hope, calculus, and game shows--how do all these spring from a few delicate pounds of meat? Neurophysiologist Ian Glynn lays the foundation for answering this question in his expansive An Anatomy of Thought , but stops short of committing to one particular theory. The book is a pleasant challenge, presenting the reader with the latest research and thinking about neuroscience and how it relates to various models of consciousness. Combining the aim of a textbook with the style of a popularization, it provides all the lay reader needs to know to participate in the philosophical debate that is redefining our attitudes about our minds. Drawing on the rich history of neurological case studies, Glynn picks through the building blocks of our nervous system, examines our visual and linguistic systems, and probes deeply into our higher thought processes. The stories of great scientists, like Ramon y Cajal, and famous patients, like Sperry's split-brained epileptics, illuminate the scientific issues Glynn selects as essential for understanding consciousness. Some might argue that his lengthy explorations of natural selection overemphasize evolutionary explanations of psychological phenomena, but they must also agree that evolutionary psychology has distanced itself mightily from social Darwinism in recent years and merits a reappraisal. The great consciousness debate may form the core of the 21st-century Zeitgeist; get ready for it with An Anatomy of Thought . --Rob Lightner

Genres: Psychology, Neuroscience, Nonfiction, Science, Biology, Philosophy

592 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

"An Anatomy of Thought" is a fascinating overview of how our minds evolved to the way they are now, and how we reached our current understanding of it. It's written well, though still the topic is by nature quite dense so this is no beach read. Also, I picked up this book thinking that it would be more like a reference guide to the parts and processes of the brain, which it isn't, at least not primarily. I'm not disappointed at all, but readers should know that this is more a guide on the evolutionary process that formed our minds and the scientific process that has illuminated what we know to date. The biggest impression I take from this book is how very little we know about our minds, but how ingenious the methods used to discover what we do know have been.

[Greg Stoll · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed book about many aspects of the brain. It was pretty interesting but also long and dense and I ran out of steam about 70% of the way through. (although I did finish it!)

[Jeffrey Rubard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although the story that psychology has historically neglected the brain's role in cognition is somewhat fanciful—experimental psychology in English began with William James discussing the brain physiology of his era—there certainly has been a profusion of results in scientific research concerning the brain in recent decades. "Neuroscience" thusly attracts many, but for those of us with no special scientific gifts working our way into the cohesion of those findings is difficult. I have read a number of "elementary" books on neural science, but there are only two I can recommend without trepidation as important and sufficiently general introductions to the discipline: Joseph LeDoux's Synaptic Self, which explains "Hebbian plasticity"—the foundational concept of modern neuroscience, charmingly phrased as "cells that fire together wire together"—and Ian Glynn's An Anatomy of Thought.

Glynn's book is much wider in effective scope than LeDoux's: he includes simple introductions to all the scientific concepts that make neuroscience cohere, with well-wrought histories of the concepts' development. Evolution, biochemistry, brain localization, cognitive psychology, the study of perception, and more than a bit of philosophy appear in his pages. Much that is "assumed" to make sense without explanation in a neuroscience textbook is delved into here with gentle but probing depth, such that those who have attempted to master the topic unsuccessfully in the past might make another start here. (The book, published in 1999, may be showing some age but with competitors that are usually little more than "adverts" for scientific reductionism I think it is still worth reading.)

[George Baca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll keep this succinct. 2 stars for the sheer knowledge of the author. He is clearly a very erudite individual considering the topic at hand. 1 star is for the first half of the book.

The book is poorly written, truly belonging to the 20th century. Sentences are occasionally occupying 1/4-1/2 of the page, and often include information that is unnecessary for the explanation. Incredibly inefficient. While the book tries to do this with the presumable intent of establishing fluent prose, it does precisely the opposite. In places, it feels more as an ego trip rather than an introductory outline for what we know about the mind. This book left me frustrated more often than it has made me informed. When the need for clarification was necessary - it lacked, when there was a need to drive the book forward - it initiated breaks. This professor albeit incredibly knowledgable, is not a writer.

[Ashley]

Too long and way to academic for me

[Broodingferret · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably would’ve liked this book a bit more had I read it closer to it’s publication date. As it is, it was in a pile of books I got from a used bookstore so I read it more recently and, while it’s quite informative and well-written, the information in it is a bit dated and the writing style, while replete with British humor, is a little dry (though I suppose that last bit is a touch redundant). That said, most of the book deals with generalities and has therefore aged rather well, I just can’t think of much to recommend this book over any number of others that have been published more recently, such as A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain.

[Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure I'm bright enough to get this!