Books

Identity is a term much used yet hard to define. Perhaps for this reason, the concept has long been a favourite with philosphers, and for the very same reason has been avoided by brain scientists, - until now.

In this neurobiological exploration of identity, Greenfield briefly reviews the social perspective from finger prints, to faces, to signatures of the many ways we try to identity ourselves, - in vain. The psychiatric perspective however does offer some valuable clues that then leads to an excursion into the physical brain: the neuroscience perspective. But identity cannot just be an objective phenomenon: hence any pertinent brain phenomena have to be seen also, as they are in the follwing chapter, from an individual perspective.

Armed with the insights gained from these diverse approaches, Greenfield attempts to conceive of actual scenarios in the physical brain that would correspond to familiar examples of identity. However, given the physical brain adapts exquisitely to the environemnt, and the 21st Century environment is changing in unprecedented ways, are we facing correspondingly unprecedented changes to our identity?

Tomorrow's People is an exploration of how this century is going to change not just the way we think, but also what we actually think with - our own individual minds.

How will new technologies transform the way we see the world? At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we may be standing on the brink of a mind make-over, far more cataclysmic than anything that has happened before.

As we appreciate the dynamism and sensitivity of our brain circuitry, so the prospect of directly tampering with the essence of our individuality becomes a possibility.

In this tour through the brain's workings, Susan Greenfield brings the reader right up to date on the latest theories and controversies surrounding neuroscience. From studies of the bizarre and disturbing effects of brain injuries, she tackles the questions that have baffled philosophers since antiquity.

Brain Story: Unlocking Your Inner World of Emotions, Memories, and Desires attempts to explain the current state of knowledge in the neurosciences, a discipline that has made stunning advances over the last twenty years. It explores the structure and function of the brain, the myriad of ways in which this immensely complex structure can go wrong and the ingenious methods that research scientists have used to figure out how our signal organ works.

How do our personalities and mental processes, our "states of consciousness", derive from a gray mass of tissue with the consistency of a soft-boiled egg? How can mere molecules constitute an idea or emotion?Some of the most important questions we can ask are about our own consciousness.

Our personalities, our individuality, indeed our whole reason for living, lie in the brain and in the elusive phenomenon of consciousness it generates. Thinkers in many disciplines have long struggled with such questions, often in ways that have seemed incompatible, if not downright contradictory.

Philosophers have meditated on the subjective experience of consciousness, with little attention to the physical realm, while scientists have sought to establish a causal relation between brain function and mind, often ignoring the qualitative aspects of experience.

In Journey to the Centers of the Mind, Susan Greenfield offers an intriguing, unifying theory of consciousness that encompasses both phenomenological mental events and physical aspects of brain function.

Using information gathered from cluesin animal behavior, human brain damage, computer science, neurobiology, and philosophy, Greenfield offers a "concentric theory" of consciousness, and shows how certain events in the brain correspond to our qualitative experience of the world. Demonstrating the ways in which we can interpret the experience of consciousness in terms of interactions among neurons, she explores how much we can learn by continuing to find the links between our physical and mental inner worlds.