"Mind and Brain" with William Uttal (BSP 83)

William Uttal, PhD

There is nothing more exciting than the mind/brain problem" according to Dr. William Uttal, author of Mind and Brain: A Critical Appraisal of Cognitive Neuroscience.  In the latest episode of the Brain Science Podcast  (BSP 83) I talked with Dr. Uttal about why he feels that brain imaging can not solve this mystery.

First, there is the problem that brain imaging represents the wrong level of analysis because every spot you see on a brain scan actaully represents thousands of neurons.  This means that the activity and interaction between individual neurons has been lost. Then there is the problem of reproducibility, with divergent results between studies.

The evidence is accumulating that "much of the brain responds to any stimulus, and every area of the brain participates in multiple functions."  This means that asking where a given function occurs may be the wrong question.

BSP 83 represents an on-going discussion of these issues, so I have included links to related episodes in the show notes. 

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.
• Listen to mp3 for Free
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• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

References: 

• Uttal, W. R. (2011) Mind and Brain: A Critical Appraisal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
• Uttal, W. R. (2009) Neuroscience in the Courtroom: What Every Lawyer Should Know About the Mind and the Brain.
• Ihnen, S. K. Z., Church, J. A.. Petersen, S. E., & Schlaggar, B.L. (2009) Lack of generalizability of sex difference in the fMRI Bold Activity associated with language processes in adults. NeuroImage, 45, 1020-1032.
• Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False". PLoS Medicine 2 (8): e124.

Related Podcasts:  

• BSP 46: How fMRI works.
• BSP 78: Discussion of Beyond Boundaries: The New Neuroscience of Connecting Brains with Machines---and How It Will Change Our Lives, by Miguel Nicolelis.
• BSP 79: Interview with Miguel Nicolelis.
• BSP 82: Discussion of Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain, by Michael S. Gazzaniga.

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How Mind Emerges from Brain (BSP 82)

In his latest book, Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain, respected neuroscientist, Michael S. Gazzaniga, explores how the discoveries of neuroscience impact how we see ourselves as human beings.  After providing a brief review of 20th century neuroscience, and even some of the work from the past decade, Dr. Gazzaniga concludes that nothing neuroscience has discovered changes the fact that "we are personally responsible agents and are to be held accountable for our actions."

Gazzaniga's position contrasts with those who think that recent discoveries show that the brain creates the mind in solely "upwardly causal" way, and who argue that since much of what our brain does is outside our conscious awareness or control, we should not be held responsible for our actions.  Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain presents what I think is a convincing argument against this common position.

In the latest episode of the Brain Science Podcast (BSP 82) I present a detailed discussion of Dr. Gazzaniga's book.

How to get this episode:

• Premium Subscribers now have unlimited access to all old episodes and transcripts.

• Buy mp3 for $1.

• Buy Transcript for $1.

• New episodes of the Brain Science Podcast are always FREE.  All episodes posted after January 1, 2013, are free.  See the individual show notes for links the audio files.

Listen in your Favorite Audio app: Audible, Amazon music, Pandora, Spotify, YouTube and many more.

References:

• Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain, by Michael S. Gazzaniga.

• The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas, by Michael S. Gazzaniga.

• A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down, by Robert B. Laughlin (2006).

• Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter, by Terrence W. Deacon.

• Anderson, P. W., (1972). "More is different." Science, 177(20470, 393-396.

• See the free episode transcript for additional references.

Related Episodes:

• Links to episodes of the Brain Science Podcast that are mentioned in BSP 82.

• BSP 81: Interview with Patricia Churchland about the brain and morality.

• BSP 53: Discussion of Did My Neurons Make Me Do It?: Philosophical and Neurobiological Perspectives on Moral Responsibility and Free Will by Nancey Murphy, Warren S. Brown.  (Also BSP 62)

• BSP 35: Discussion of Mirror Neurons.

• BSP 66: For more on scrub jays.

• BSP 3: Memory and the use of animal models.

• BSP 38: Interview with Jeff Hawkins.

• BSP 47: Brain Evolution.

• BSP 74: "Small world architecture" in brain networks (Olaf Sporns).

• BSP 75: Interview with David Eagleman (arguments for legal reform).

• BSP 76: "Choking" with Dr. Sian Beilock.

• BSP 56: Interview with Eve Marder (implications of muliple realizability in neuronal circuits).

Announcements:

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• Next month's episode will be an interview with Bill Uttal, author of Mind and Brain: A Critical Appraisal of Cognitive Neuroscience

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Send feedback to brainsciencepodcast@gmail.com.

Exploring Consciousness in the Blogospere

I am not very good at keeping up with all the great blogs about neuroscience, but I did happen to find two that I thought you might enjoy.  Both Developing Intelligence and Conscious Entities explore both the meaning of consciousness and the relationship between the human brain and computers.