Brain scans; being human (Introduction)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Monday, January 10, 2011, 22:52 (5045 days ago) @ David Turell

The following is a book review from the WSJ of "The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscintists Quest for What Makes Us Human", by V.S. Ramachandran. The reviewer is an emeritus profedssor of geriatric medicine, and he is quite negative about the use of brain scans to discover the secrets of consciousness. I can only heartily agree with him:
> 
> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704034804576025681468057572.html?KEYWORDS... can support a critical attack like the reviewers only insofar as skepticism prevails: we don't have positive evidence for what in the brain causes consciousness. -However, it is certainly a valid hypothesis that the brain is the sole center of consciousness based on the evidence that if you harm the brain enough, you cease to be conscious. It certainly has more to avail itself than the Aristotelian idea that the "brain" (then it was thought your "heart") was a hollow "acceptor" of your consciousness. Or, in other terms, a hollow "machine" for your "ghost." -We have no valid explanation for how consciousness could be "outside" of you, therefore it stands to reason that the brain IS you.

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"