The Genius Within

Dr. Vertosick, neurosurgeon, slaps us on the back with a hearty assurance that life can be defined as the functioning, or machinery, of "connection weights" in networks of neurons. Here connection weights are defined as "the relative strength of a connection in a network" and "neurons" have the broad meaning of entities in networks of connected input/output devices. Hence, he asserts, a neuron could be anything from an enzyme to a human in society. The essential message is that ultimate explanations lie in understanding connection processes between material entities (e.g., genes) rather than the entities themselves. Thus, while Vertosick discounts the selfish gene metaphor he proposes, alas, "selfish neurons" in the sense noted above. Despite the intriguing title Genius Within does not live up to its subtitle "discovering the intelligence of every living thing." Vertosick gives the impression of a busy neurosurgeon trying to break with the paradigm of reductionist-materialist explanations while remaining in the mindset, and substituting computational metaphors. I doubt Vertock's dizzying claims and over-confident style of presentation will resonate or "connect" with the intelligence of every living SMN member. The opening chapter (the microbial mind) is reasonable, leading us away from causal "brain chauvinism" and showing us how emergent properties such as luminescence develop in bacterial populations achieving critical mass. Such "quorum sensing" is now well-known (Shapiro, 1998), though Vertosick provides no citations that connect with his bibliography. The chapter concludes: "the golden age of antibiotics may be nearing its end." Chapter two (the immune intellect) also makes fair points, but progressively engages in odd metaphors and similes "the immune system is like the pro golf tour." From here on there is too much silliness, flippancy and stark over-confidence "Voilá- we've hit pay dirt." Vertosick claims to understand learning, defined as "synonymous with alterations in the connection weight matrix, " and arrives, incongruously, at what he calls "the greatest Yang-Um boundary of them all the true interface between the dead and the living, between the dumb and the smart." Whew! The rest of the book seems rushed and thoughtless, and Vertosick tries to compensate by being clever and breezy - but it doesn't work. He even treats his patient's severe ailments too lightly and experimentally. Too frequently he chimes - you don't need to know the details "trust me," or they can be explained as random noise! Surely thoughtful professionals and students don't want to gloss over such details? I might concur that "DNA isn't some mystical substance fallen to earth, like manna from heaven" (Vertosick calls it "the molecular equivalent of cheap newsprint"), but to then assert "those who view genes as irreducible building blocks of life are mistaken. The basic building block of life is the neuron" (his italics), simply transfers reductionist thinking in another direction. Besides, it mixes metaphors, as he already defined a neuron as a process not a "block"! Vertosick likes to go "out on a limb …and… crawl out even further" claiming "all intelligence is intrinsically Darwinian" and "Nature sows competition in a restricted ecosystem and then harvests intelligence like so much wheat"! One is bombarded with bold assertions, many in italics: "The process we call thought results from the Darwinian sculpting of network noise." Alas, the nonsense continues, citing the epiphenomenalist view that we "may someday explain how collections of nerve cells yield that thing called consciousness.." (Thing?) In the final chapters Gaia is approved as a more or less good network idea and we are told, again incongruously, that "the map is not the territory." (see Wilber 1995, for comment on those who make such claims while describing the territory in purely 2D map terminology)! Vertosick's dizzying network enthusiasm fits this bill exactly. He crams in concluding remarks on fractals, relativity, game theory, "theories of everything", schizophrenia, Gödel's theorem and –you guessed it- assembles them together into a network (watch out SMN)! It seems all you need is a concept –like Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, and nine beads - neurons being the first and chaos (his emphasis) the last- and "all knowledge reduces (my emphasis) to patterns of harmonic frequencies"… so… "life is music" - tra-la-la - (neuron's and connection weights not withstanding)!

On the final page Vertosick belated mentions his last two books (Why we hurt and When the air hits your brain) and his concept of God. I'll let interested readers explore these "weighty" network connections for themselves.

Shapiro, J. A. 1998. Annual Review of Microbiology. 52: 81-104. Wilber, K. 1995. Sex, Ecology and Spirituality. Shambhala. 831p.