The Tell-Tale Brain

Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, Wolfgang Pauli, Arthur Eddington, and James Jeans—have pointed out that the basic constituents of matter, such as quanta, are themselves deeply mysterious if not downright spooky, with properties bordering on the metaphysical. So we need not fear that the self might be any less wonderful or awe inspiring for being made of atoms. You can call this sense of awe and perpetual astonishment God, if you like.

Charles Darwin himself was at times ambivalent about these issues:

I feel most deeply that this whole question of Creation is too profound for human intellect. A dog might as well speculate on the mind of Newton! Let each man hope and believe what he can.

And elsewhere:

I own that I cannot see as plainly as others do, and as I should wish to do, evidence of design and beneficence on all sides of us. There seems to me too much misery in the world. I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae [a family of parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that a cat should play with mice…On the other hand, I cannot anyhow be contented to view this wonderful universe, and especially the nature of man, and to conclude that everything is the result of brute force.

These statements¹ are pointedly directed against creationists, but Darwin’s qualifying remarks are hardly the kind you would expect from the hard-core atheist he is often portrayed to be.

As a scientist, I am one with Darwin, Gould, Pinker, and Dawkins. I have no patience with those who champion intelligent design, at least not in the sense that most people would use that phrase. No one who has watched a woman in labor or a dying child in a leukemia ward could possibly believe that the world was custom crafted for our benefit. Yet as human beings we have to accept—with humility—that the question of ultimate origins will always remain with us, no matter how deeply we understand the brain and the cosmos that it creates.

GLOSSARY

Words and terms in italics have their own entries.

AGNOSIA A rare disorder characterized by an inability to recognize and identify objects and people even though the specific sensory modality (such as vision or hearing) is not defective nor is there any significant loss of memory or intellect.

ALIEN-HAND SYNDROME The feeling that one’s hand is possessed by an uncontrollable outside force resulting in its actual movement. The syndrome usually stems from an injury to the corpus collosum or anterior cingulate.

AMES ROOM ILLUSION A distorted room used to create the optical illusion that a person standing in one corner appears to be a giant while a person standing in another corner appears to be a dwarf.

AMNESIA A condition in which memory is impaired or lost. Two of the most common forms are anterograde amnesia (the inability to acquire new memories) and retrograde amnesia (the loss of preexisting memories).

AMYGDALA A structure in the front end of the temporal lobes that is an important component of the limbic system. It receives several parallel inputs including two projections arriving from the fusiform gyrus. The amygdala helps activate the sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight responses). The amygdala sends outputs via the hypothalamus to trigger appropriate reactions to objects—namely, feeding, fleeing, fighting, and sex. Its affective component (the subjective emotions) partly involves connections with the frontal lobes.

ANGULAR GYRUS A brain area situated in the lower part of the parietal lobe near its junction with the occipital and temporal lobes. It is involved in high-level abstraction and abilities such as reading, writing, arithmetic, left-right discrimination, word representation, the representation of fingers, and possibly also comprehension of metaphor and proverbs. The angular gyrus is possibly unique to humans. It is also probably rich in mirror neurons that allow you to see the world from another’s point of view spatially and (perhaps) metaphorically—a key ingredient in morality.

ANOSOGNOSIA A syndrome in which a person who suffers a disability seems unaware of, or denies the existence of, the disability. (Anosognosia is Greek for “denial of illness.”)

ANTERIOR CINGULATE A C-shaped ring of cortical tissue abutting and partially encircling the front part of the large bundle of nerve fibers, called the corpus callosum, that link the left and right hemispheres of the brain. The anterior cingulate “lights up” in many—almost too many—brain-imaging studies. This structure is thought to be involved in free will, vigilance, and attention.

APHASIA A disturbance in language comprehension or production, often as a result of a stroke. There are three main kinds of aphasia: anomia (difficulty finding words), Broca’s aphasia (difficulty with grammar, more specifically the deep structure of language), and Wernicke’s aphasia (difficulty with comprehension and expression of meaning).

APOTEMNOPHILIA A neurological disorder in which an otherwise mentally competent person desires to have a healthy limb amputated in order to “feel whole.” The old Freudian explanation was that the patient wants a large amputation stump resembling a penis. Also called body integrity identity disorder.

APRAXIA A neurological condition characterized by an inability to carry out learned purposeful movements despite knowing what is expected and having the physical ability and desire to do so.

ASPERGER SYNDROME A type of autism in which people have normal language skills and cognitive development but have significant problems with social interaction.

ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING A form of learning in which the mere exposure to two phenomena that always occur together (such as Cinderella and her carriage) leads subsequently to one of the two things spontaneously evoking the memory of the other. Often invoked, incorrectly, as an explanation of synesthesia.

AUTISM One of a group of serious developmental problems called autism spectrum disorders that appear early in life, usually before age three. While symptoms and severity vary, autistic children have problems communicating and interacting with others. The disorder may be related to defects in the mirror-neuron system or the circuits it projects to, although this has yet to be clearly established.

AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM A part of the peripheral nervous system responsible for regulating the activity of internal organs. It includes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. These originate in the hypothalamus; the sympathetic component