Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

Neuroscientist V.S Ramachandran is internationally renowned for uncovering answers to the deep and quirky questions of human nature that few scientists have dared to address His bold insights about the brain are matched only by the stunning simplicity of his experiments using such low tech tools as cotton swabs, glasses of water and dime store mirrors In Phantoms in the Brain, Dr Ramachandran recounts how his work with patients who have bizarre neurological disorders has shed new light on the deep architecture of the brain, and what these findings tell us about who we are, how we construct our body image, why we laugh or become depressed, why we may believe in God, how we make decisions, deceive ourselves and dream, perhaps even why we re so clever at philosophy, music and art Some of his most notable cases A woman paralyzed on the left side of her body who believes she is lifting a tray of drinks with both hands offers a unique opportunity to test Freud s theory of denial.A man who insists he is talking with God challenges us to ask Could we be wired for religious experience A woman who hallucinates cartoon characters illustrates how, in a sense, we are all hallucinating, all the time.Dr Ramachandran s inspired medical detective work pushes the boundaries of medicine s last great frontier the human mind yielding new and provocative insights into the big questions about consciousness and the self. Free Read [ Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind ] Author [ V.S. Ramachandran ] – kino-fada.fr Ramachandran is not as touchy feely an author as Oliver Sacks, but the pair of them cover the same ground They both write about neurological problems, the symptoms expressed as behaviour and anecdotes concerned with the people who suffer from them Ramachandran s approach is that of a scientist and doctor first, the people he describes are very much patients Sacks isoh look this is interesting, maybe even exciting, we he and the patient can explore this together They both know Ramachandran is not as touchy feely an author as Oliver Sacks, but the pair of them cover the same ground They both write about neurological problems, the symptoms expressed as behaviour and anecdotes concerned with the people who suffer from them Ramachandran s approach is that of a scientist and doctor first, the people he describes are very much patients Sacks isoh look this is interesting, maybe even exciting, we he and the patient can explore this together They both know their subjects and, both are erudite in many different spheres including literature, history and philosophy which illuminates their writing and although Ramachandran concentrates quiteon the science and both are equally enjoyable and 5 star writers.If you like Sacks you will almost certainly like Ramachandran, but he is not as immediately accessible, so persevere I look forward to readingfrom this author.__________________ He had the arrogance of the believer, but none of the humility of the deeply religious Be...Francis Crick the Crick half of the famous Watson and Crick duo that discovered the structure of DNA coined a term and used it as the title for his book on the subject called The Astonishing Hypothesis, which represents the idea that all human cognition and perception every emotion, belief, existential crisis, perceived sight, soun...I think this was a good book to read after reading Susan Sontag While Sontag says that thewe attribute a disease to our mind and to our attitudes theit betrays our ignorance, Ramachandran tries to answer questions like Can your mental attitude really help cure asthma and cancer For example, VSR is courageous enough to venture into esoteric areas such as mind body connection and divine visio...HOLY CRAP.This is the best book about neuroscience and cog sci for a popular audience ever written by someone not named Oliver Sacks Ramachandran is, as one of the cover reviews says, profoundly sane, and has a real sense of what you can get from the scientific method and what you can t, and really understands the way quest...Few years back I read Oliver SacksThe Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Talesand was amazed by the cases presented This book is evenastounding human brain is such a mystery even today.I knew about amputees phantom limbs but not to this extent And these are not the only cases one woman did not recognize her arm, saying it s his brother s others completely lost perception of their left part of the body and surro...This book is a direct flight into to the Limbo This is a book about psychology, neuroscience, all the good stuff Ramachandran is delightfully witty and approaches the big and small questions of psychology and neuroscience with curiosity and equal doses of scepticism and speculation alike One of the truly good things about Phantoms in the Brain is that it is written with humility and humour Ramachandran manages to expound whilst being hilarious and without dumbing down , so to speak The book isn t an overtly serious nature thesis so it This is a book about psychology, neuroscience, all the good stuff Ramachandran is delightfully witty and approaches the big and small questions of psychology and neuroscience with curiosity and equal doses of scepticism and speculation alike One of the truly good things about Phantoms in the Brain is that it is written with humility and humour Ramachandran m...I begin to like Dr Ramachandran Such a remarkable, intelligent, and humble man, someone who would make a nice companion during long campfires The phantom limbs this book famously talks about is well known now But it talks about muchthan that The brain is after all a complex thing We hardly understand how it ticks and many things that pass on as bogus, like clairvoyance, are not completely unprovable given the limitations of brain study That Ramachandran is willing to stray into the I begin to like Dr Ramachandran Such a remarkable, intelligent, and humble man, someone who would make a nice companion during long campfires The phantom limbs this book famously talks about is well known now But it talks about muchthan that The brain is after all a complex thing We hardly understand how it ticks and many things that pass on as bogus, like clairvoyance, are not completely unprovable given the limitations of brain study Tha...This is the second book about neuro psychology I ve read and it has been an entirely new experience The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was and reflected in the title as such mainly amusing On the other hand, Phantoms in the Brain is as, again, suggested by the title quite disturbing The first focused on weird cases per se, collecting stories only because they were odd, hence unique The second looks at the same kind of stories as unexpected ways to understand and generalize the This is the second book about neuro psychology I ve read and it has been an entirely new experience The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat was and reflected in the title as such mainly amusing On the other hand, Phantoms in the Brain is as, again, suggested by the title quite disturbing The first focused on weird cases per se, collecting stories only because they were odd, hence unique The second looks at the same kind of stories as unexpected ways to understand and generalize the inner workings of the brain.And the message is unsettling, even if not entirely surprising It s one thing to presume that...Such a shame I didn t get to know about this humbling scientist and his works until yesterday where I got a chance to attend his lecture on Anomalies on Human Brain.

• English
• 09 March 2019
V.S. Ramachandran
• Paperback
• 352 pages
• 0688172172
• V.S. Ramachandran
• Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind