A BRIEF TOUR OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Ramachandran's short lively 5 chapter book barely comprises 100 pages of text (with almost as many devoted to notes and glossary). Clearly an enthusiast for the power of neuroscience, Ramachandran claims (p. 2-3) that "we are poised for the greatest revolution of all - understanding the human brain." Thus "all the richness of our mental life … is simply the activity of these little specks of jelly [neurons] in our head… There is nothing else." Positive hubris indeed, but somewhat contradicted by the confession (p. 23) that "the mind may be more than just the activity of neurons"- that much is still mysterious (frontal lobes), enigmatic and that the number of possible brain states "exceeds the number of elementary particles in the known universe."

Some of Ramachandran's ingenuously simple experiments produce pleasing and concrete results. Patients with paralysed phantom limbs can re-animate them by a simple mirror exercise. If the good hand simulates a symmetrical movement, like clapping, the mirrored phantom experiences a feeling of motion and unlearns its paralysis. Ramachandran boldly extrapolates this success to an attempt to treat right hemisphere damage (and left side paralysis) with mirrors, but with less magical success. Nonetheless he learned that some patients denied their left side paralysis and even the paralysis of others with similar afflictions. This leads to considering "mirror neurons" which fire similarly whether we or someone else perform a given action. Ramachandran links this to evolutionary transmission of cultural information. Is this not Sheldrake's morphic resonance? Interestingly, some brain injured patients who lack visual cognisance compensate with auditory cognisance. Thus, seeing involves the conscious operations of the visual cortex and also an unconscious, evolutionarily ancient pathway (superior colliculus). This helps explain how one can drive safely while day dreaming. There are implications for the famous Gallup self-awareness test were a mirror allows one to recognise a paint spot secretly placed on one's forehead. Some patients deny the mirror image represents themselves, but still reflexively remove the paint. Could this imply that when chimps do this they act reflexively not self-consciously?

Ramachandran goes overboard when formulating ten universal laws of art. He belittles philosophers, artists ('flaky') and social scientists who, he claims, do not understand reductionism and can never test their conjectures. Thus, the magisterium of science rears its head, to predict that science (neuroaesthetics instead of philosophy) will bridge "the huge gulf that separates C. P. Snow's Two Cultures – science on the one hand and the arts, philosophy and humanities on the other." Ironically, despite this 1:3 discipline score, science- specifically connections between the visual centres and emotional limbic structures- is confidently pegged as the solution. Other disciplines need not apply.

Ramachandran exudes confidence. Dismissing Chomsky along the way, he evokes synesthesia –(seeing colours in numbers, sounds in sights, flavors in sounds etc.,) to launch a " new synesthetic bootstrapping theory of language origins" using the extraordinary argument that in attaching flint axes to hafts, our ancestors were conducting a practice similar to "the embedding of noun clauses in larger sentences." The reasoning seems to be that tool use and hand gestures are linked to the motion of tongue, lips and mouth before or while being assimilated into Broca's area. (Compare this with Kipp's view that speech "activates" Broca's area and is not a finished product of a brain centre). Such Goethean biologists note that the jaws are the limbs of the head, and we certainly know that babies synchronise their movements with mother's speech, just as we all gesticulate. Ramachandran does not use such observations to develop his case. Clearly synesthesia informs us of untold connections. Colour blind patients can see colours they are normally blind to when looking at Arabic numbers (but not roman numerals). Thus, form and colour resonate. Likewise 98% of people associate rounded shapes with rounded labels like booba and jagged shapes with labels like kiki." (Basic vowel polarity in fact). Thus, form and language resonate. What jumped out at me was all the evidence of a completely integrated complex organic system (Ho's excitable media) shot through with myriad compensations, that point beyond mere causal chains and brain centered controlling mechanisms. Such alternative perspectives, however, are not discussed. Likewise synesthetic cross-wiring is seen as the result of "bad" genes. Conversely the potential benefits of a more interconnected network are apparently not considered "normal" or beneficial. The final chapter "Neuroscience: a new philosophy" proposes a new 'discipline' – "evolutionary-neuro-psychiatry" based on Darwinian principles, but no coherent thesis is elaborated. This strikes me as another attempt to marry old Darwinism with new psychological insights (repackaging evolutionary psychology). In my opinion it fails to bear much fruit and Ramachandran digresses into, for him, circumspect discussion of qualia, free will and the 'mystery' of self admitting he has "no clue to what the problem of self is" (p. 98). I suspect all evolutionary conjectures based on natural selection paradigms operating along linear time lines are doomed. As complex systems evolve, properties emerge (explicate punctuations arise from implicate order). Ramachandran's observations are consistent with such paradigms but not so framed. At last Ramachandran's motivation is confessed. After cheerleading for neuroscience and grandiose evolutionary claims he admits the "sense of excitement I and my colleagues experience" in such endeavours. His enthusiasm is obvious and perhaps "neuroscientists can begin to answer some lofty questions" about qualia, free will and self (my emphasis). But the case for neuroscience as the new philosophy is still far from compelling.

Reference: Kipp, F. 2005. Childhood and Human Evolution. Adonis Press.