asimovfan (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} asimovfan) wrote,@ 2008-05-31 23:44:00 |
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Thinking about Brains
(This was originally was going to be a review, but it turned out more as a personal reaction. So I thought I might post it here since it's pretty much a blog post.)
[Best American Science Writing 2000]
I've been reading this essay collection in fits and starts. Originally I had marked this as three stars, because I'd read a few and they didn't particularly impress me (other than the fact they were done well) but I've upped it to four after discovering the incredibly personal, descriptive and yet still managing to be strongly scientific and well researched essay, entitled Gray Area: Thinking with a Damaged Brain.
I've taken many neuroscience courses, but as Feynman has so often noted, there is no bigger difference than between knowing the names and the facts of a thing and truly understanding their substance, the real heart of the matter. In this same way, I've heard so much and studied so much about brains, but actually seeing the effect of brain damage on this writer's life speaks volumes, with both a strength and subtly that would be incredibly difficult for a normal, undamaged writer to match. (who lacks the experience and much make up for it with just imagination)
Everything, from the types of mistakes he makes, the things that give him the most trouble in the everyday things in his life, to the ways he has learned to cope with them, say so much about how the brain works. Forget the cartoonish handlings of the brain, the crudeness and simplicity of people getting knocked on the head and forgetting who they are, this is the real deal. The picture of the brain, when it works and when it is damaged, as researched by one who has experience and come to terms with firsthand, whose own life has become irreparably touched by all those fundamental and sometimes so distant facts which us healthy people can barely phantom.
[Also of note, if some reason you cannot get your hands on this book, the "Gray Area" essay is also available for free online at http://www.lostmag.com/issue3/graya
Crossposted at my Goodreads
(This was originally was going to be a review, but it turned out more as a personal reaction. So I thought I might post it here since it's pretty much a blog post.)
[Best American Science Writing 2000]
I've been reading this essay collection in fits and starts. Originally I had marked this as three stars, because I'd read a few and they didn't particularly impress me (other than the fact they were done well) but I've upped it to four after discovering the incredibly personal, descriptive and yet still managing to be strongly scientific and well researched essay, entitled Gray Area: Thinking with a Damaged Brain.
I've taken many neuroscience courses, but as Feynman has so often noted, there is no bigger difference than between knowing the names and the facts of a thing and truly understanding their substance, the real heart of the matter. In this same way, I've heard so much and studied so much about brains, but actually seeing the effect of brain damage on this writer's life speaks volumes, with both a strength and subtly that would be incredibly difficult for a normal, undamaged writer to match. (who lacks the experience and much make up for it with just imagination)
Everything, from the types of mistakes he makes, the things that give him the most trouble in the everyday things in his life, to the ways he has learned to cope with them, say so much about how the brain works. Forget the cartoonish handlings of the brain, the crudeness and simplicity of people getting knocked on the head and forgetting who they are, this is the real deal. The picture of the brain, when it works and when it is damaged, as researched by one who has experience and come to terms with firsthand, whose own life has become irreparably touched by all those fundamental and sometimes so distant facts which us healthy people can barely phantom.
[Also of note, if some reason you cannot get your hands on this book, the "Gray Area" essay is also available for free online at http://www.lostmag.com/issue3/graya
Crossposted at my Goodreads
