From the Bookshelf of Science and Inquiry…

The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

V.S. Ramachandran

Start date: January 1, 2013

Finish date: January 31, 2013

Discussion: Book Club 2013

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Book Club 2013

December 2013: "The Strangest Man"
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June 2013 - Cosmos
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What Members Thought

Nov 28, 2012 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it it was amazing

Shelves: psychology-sociology, science

I have to emotionally review this book and then write a response to another reviewer. AMAZING! So fun, so many good facts and brain candy. I love how out of so many things that we consider "disorders" we can piece together ourselves in our many arrayed fashion and find similarities and Synesthesia? What who ever heard of people responding to number-color categories in the fashion fabulous! So many interesting and intriguing case studies. Our mind is so variable and so fragile, we are all humble I have to emotionally review this book and then write a response to another reviewer. AMAZING! So fun, so many good facts and brain candy. I love how out of so many things that we consider "disorders" we can piece together ourselves in our many arrayed fashion and find similarities and Synesthesia? What who ever heard of people responding to number-color categories in the fashion fabulous! So many interesting and intriguing case studies. Our mind is so variable and so fragile, we are all humble creatures with the minds to see ourselves withing the universe. How unique how beautiful!

Now I want to respond to a number of reviewers who have commented that his tone in this work made it seem as if our brain capacity is at such a higher level as to make us the pinnacle of the evolutionary tree. I completely agree that this is not the case and I must say that yes the author did come across in this manner and that it is disappointing from an evolutionary view to have the author jummp to this conclusion. I first realized that we are certainly not the pinnacle of anything when viewing and learning about the life cycle of moss in my biology class and finding out that they live a large diplontic phase, instead of the traditional haploid/diploid phases of plants which makes them very unique indeed and in their own way the pinnacle of their kind. This only shows me that there is no pinnacle, there is no such thing. We can never have a diplontic life cycle we are not built to and in this way moss is superior to us if we want to apport superiority. In addition we can never gather our own energy from light as many plants do and in this way they too are superior to us. We do have a fascinating brain though and interesting capacities in our own right, and while I must say to the author that I think he made a mistake in treating us as the pinnacle, I do think our intellectual capacities should be expounded and celebrated and that we should search for new insights into this vastly interesting world we call neuroscience and consciousness. In this regard the book is fabulous and he did an excellent job of conveying some of the uniqueness of the mind. ...more

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Jan 10, 2013 Oscar rated it it was amazing

V. S. Ramachandran’s book provides an enlightening and philosophical discussion regarding certain aspects regarding the human brain. He often takes a philosophical approach regarding what makes us human, that is, in regards of what the human brain does, such as develop a sense of self, structure language, enjoy art, among other things that other species are unable to do. Such philosophical discussion, however, serve as a means for the book to delve into discussions regarding how science has expl ...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Charlene rated it really liked it

Shelves: general-science, neuroscience, medicine, abnormal-psych

This book is well written, has excellent stories, and makes use of fabulous science-- most of which Ramachandran personally uncovered. Being a neuro major, this info was not new to me. The way he put it together was not new for me either. For someone who hasn't studied but loves the mind, this book is perfect. His work in synesthesia is wonderful. His arguments one why humans are special was better than I imagined it would be (I am an antihumanist). Overall-- fairly good. ...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Steve Van Slyke rated it liked it

Shelves: kindle, science

After reading How We Decide I thought I might enjoy another book about neuroscience and how the brain works. I didn't enjoy this book quite as much but it's still a worthwhile and important work on this topic. And I didn't agree with other critics who felt the author was attempting to separate humans from other hominoids so that we could justify our ill treatment of them. He says: “Today it is impossible to seriously refute this point: We are anatomically, neurologically, genetically, physiologi After reading How We Decide I thought I might enjoy another book about neuroscience and how the brain works. I didn't enjoy this book quite as much but it's still a worthwhile and important work on this topic. And I didn't agree with other critics who felt the author was attempting to separate humans from other hominoids so that we could justify our ill treatment of them. He says: “Today it is impossible to seriously refute this point: We are anatomically, neurologically, genetically, physiologically apes.”

At another point I thought he was channeling Carl Sagan when talking about the number of neurons and synapses in the human brain when he says, “With all these permutations the number of possible brain states is staggeringly vast; in fact, it easily exceeds the number of elementary particles in the known universe.” Sagan used a nearly identical phrase in his Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence.

I enjoyed the first half of the book where he describes: how various brain abnormalities, caused by injury or disease, can be used to learn about how the human brain works; how his low-tech experiments and treatments sometimes answered questions that the latest scanning technology could not; how his studies of synesthetes, those who associate numbers with colors, revealed that possible “cross-wiring” between the sections of the brains for processing these different phenomena could be the cause. These were all fascinating.

Anyone with a particular interest in the cause of autism would certainly want to read his chapter on this subject in which he concludes that the main cause of the disease is most likely a dysfunctional mirror neuron system. Mirror neurons are a major topic and theme throughout the book.

I found the the latter half of the book where he delves into language, aesthetics and art to be less interesting, more speculative, and less compelling based on the evidence he provides.

It did provide a useful basis for better understanding of the next two books I read: Lone Survivors: How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earthand Masters of the Planet, wherein evolution of the human brain and its capabilities are discussed.

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