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A review by theangrylawngnome
The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force by Sharon Begley, Jeffrey M. Schwartz
3.0
Take one good, or even very good book. Stick it in a blender with an awful one and set to puree.
Well, okay, I'm speaking metaphorically here, so don't do that. But that at least gives an idea of what I thought of this one. The sections of the book related to the author's work with OCD sufferers, his descriptions of similar work on those with Tourette's Syndrome and major depression and his basic narrative of discoveries related to the brain and what has come to be believed related to its flexibility were all superb. The man knows his stuff, knows lots of people who know their stuff and knows how to communicate it all to a general audience, though I must admit I he did lose me for a time in his section on Quantum Mechanics.
Unfortunately, that ain't all there is here. And that other stuff is a train wreck, mostl flowing from what I can only call a mission of some sort to disprove Materialism, both scientific and philosophical. First, makes no bones about the fact that what he has learned from Swami Dorito Guacamolejam (or whoever) is at least part of the reason behind this, revealing a rather unfortunate bias. Second, there's even a villain of the piece: Behaviorism. Not that I'm any fan of it, but, eh, he ain't Galileo and they ain't the Inquisition, so his over the top stuff here is just silly. And as best I can tell, his conclusions don't follow from his facts: in other words, Materialism is not disproven. Perhaps in need of modification, but not disproven.
I was also more than a tad irritated at his unwillingness to give a straightforward definition of the term "Mind." It is in the title, after all. But while there are lengthy discussions of brain physiology and function, the Mind seems to pop in and out of the book, usually only after some experiment or other is described that appears to debunk the commonly held materialist theory of XYZ. He also switches to the term "Will" for a while, which is either the same as the mind, a part of the mind or something else that falls outside materialist theory and has little or nothing to do with the mind (or brain), it really isn't clear.
Well, okay, I'm speaking metaphorically here, so don't do that. But that at least gives an idea of what I thought of this one. The sections of the book related to the author's work with OCD sufferers, his descriptions of similar work on those with Tourette's Syndrome and major depression and his basic narrative of discoveries related to the brain and what has come to be believed related to its flexibility were all superb. The man knows his stuff, knows lots of people who know their stuff and knows how to communicate it all to a general audience, though I must admit I he did lose me for a time in his section on Quantum Mechanics.
Unfortunately, that ain't all there is here. And that other stuff is a train wreck, mostl flowing from what I can only call a mission of some sort to disprove Materialism, both scientific and philosophical. First, makes no bones about the fact that what he has learned from Swami Dorito Guacamolejam (or whoever) is at least part of the reason behind this, revealing a rather unfortunate bias. Second, there's even a villain of the piece: Behaviorism. Not that I'm any fan of it, but, eh, he ain't Galileo and they ain't the Inquisition, so his over the top stuff here is just silly. And as best I can tell, his conclusions don't follow from his facts: in other words, Materialism is not disproven. Perhaps in need of modification, but not disproven.
I was also more than a tad irritated at his unwillingness to give a straightforward definition of the term "Mind." It is in the title, after all. But while there are lengthy discussions of brain physiology and function, the Mind seems to pop in and out of the book, usually only after some experiment or other is described that appears to debunk the commonly held materialist theory of XYZ. He also switches to the term "Will" for a while, which is either the same as the mind, a part of the mind or something else that falls outside materialist theory and has little or nothing to do with the mind (or brain), it really isn't clear.