Michael S. Gazzaniga, 1988
Foreword by Robert Bazell
Preface
The bravado over drinks soon translated into action, and I became leery.
Learning about these matters has been invigorating for me. It forced me to
read a new literature and to discover that my previous work on the brain
had prepared me for much of what can be said about mental states. More
importantly, the exercise revealed the many ways mind and brain interact
over a wide variety of psychological states. It also showed me how discussing
neurobiological information in the absence of a psychological context was
as empty as discussing states of mind without bringing into play the new
knowledge of brain states. The luxury of remaining ignorant about one or the
other area is no longer available to the contemporary student of human nature.
This book is my effort to bring general readers into these fascinating topics
and to show them the links between mind and brain.
Introduction: Mind Facts, Brain Facts
Chapter 1. Pain
Chapter 2. Memory and Thinking after Forty
Chapter 3. Intelligence
Chapter 4. Crazy Thoughts
Chapter 5. Anxiety
Chapter 6. Depression
Chapter 7. Obsessions and Compulsions
Chapter 8. Addiction
Chapter 9. Love
One evening, sitting in the Rainbow Room high above Rockefeller Center,
a friend suggested that I ought to write a practical book about drugs
for the general public and that it would pay a lot of money. I said --
with an ear to the money part -- I'd do it. I go to bed at night seeing
bursar's bills in my dreams, burdened with what is the apparently endless
task of paying college tuition fees for my gang of daughters. But I said
a practical or "how to" book wouldn't be half as interesting as
a "what-do-we-know" book about various mental states. This
assertion covered my then considerable ignorance about such matters of mind.
It is old hat to say that the brain is responsible for our mental activity.
Ever since the scientific revolution, the guiding view of most scientists
has been that knowledge about the brain, its cells, and its chemistry will
explain mental states. However, believing that is the easy part, explaining
it is quite another.
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