How to Create a Mind: The Secret of Human Thought Revealed

by Ray Kurzweil

Consider the case of a ten-year-old female epileptic patient. Neurosurgeon Itzhak Fried was performing brain surgery while she was awake (which is feasible because there are no pain receptors in the brain).14 Whenever he stimulated a particular spot on her neocortex, she would laugh. At first the surgical team thought that they might be triggering some sort of laugh reflex, but they quickly realized that they were triggering the actual perception of humor. They had apparently found a point in her neocortex—there is obviously more than one—that recognizes the perception of humor. She was not just laughing—she actually found the situation funny, even though nothing had actually changed in the situation other than their having stimulated this point in her neocortex. When they asked her why she was laughing, she did not reply along the lines of, “Oh, no particular reason,” or “You just stimulated my brain,” but would immediately confabulate a reason. She would point to something in the room and try to explain why it was funny. “You guys are just so funny standing there” was a typical comment.