박문호의 베스트북
뇌의 마음
월터 프리만
의미
지향성
뉴런집단 동력학
예전에 소개 받고서 정말 읽고 싶었는데 참 구하기가 쉽지 않네요 ㅠㅠ
출판사에서 재판을 해 준다면 정말 좋을텐데...
좋은 책들이 사라지는 풍토가 너무 안타깝습니다.
작년 11월 천문우주뇌과학 모임에서 이일준 선생님이 발표하였던 책이네요.
'무척 어려운 책이구나'했습니다.
박사님이 보충설명 하시는 것도 당최 알아 듣질 못했습니다.
2007년 12월에 나온 책인데 벌써 절판이라니 씁쓸합니다. 분량은 287쪽입니다.
앞쪽에 밑줄 친 곳이 있는 것으로 보아, 힘들어서 마저 못 본 듯 하네요.
뒷표지에, 이 책을 읽고나면 적어도 유전자 및 환경결정론의 덫에서 풀려날 수
있고,우리에 대한 사랑이 더 깊어질 거라고 되어 있습니다.
"연결을 하나 발견하여 그것을 유지하느냐의 여부는 시냅스의 활력에 달려 있다. 만약에 시냅스가 손상을 입거나 쓰지 않아 활발하지 못하다면, 연결들은 쇠할 것이고 시냅스들도 사라질 것이다. 심지어 뉴런까지도 없어져버릴 수도 있다. 나이 들어서도 신경 연결들이 건강을 지키려면, 근육처럼 운동이 필요하다. 평생에 걸쳐 활기찬 커넥션을 성장시키고 지켜나가는 것이 시냅스의 수와 힘의 강화를 통하여 학습하고 기억하고 적응해나가는 데 필요한 기본 바탕이다. 그렇게 하기 위해서는 커넥션들도 매일 운동을 필요로한다."
이 책은 저자의 약력에 놀라움과 감탄을 하고, 절판되어 도저히 책을 구할 수 없음에 놀라게 됩니다.
월터 프리먼1927년 출생. 생물학자이며 이론 신경과학자, 철학자.
인간의 뇌에서 의미가 탄생하는 과정에 관심을 집중해왔다.
다양한 학문 분야의 다양한 이론들을 바탕으로 뇌의 흐름 중에서 가장 중요한 것이 의미이며 정보는 그 다음이라는 주장을 편다. 신경망 이론들이 강조하는 상징적 표현과는 대조를 이루는 학설이다.
MIT에서 물리학과 수학을, 제2차 세계대전 중 해군에서 전자공학을, 시카고 대학에서 철학을, 예일대학에서 의학을, 존스 홉킨스에서 내과학을, UCLA에서 신경정신병학을 각각 공부했다.
1959년 이래로 UC버클리에서 뇌과학을 가르치고 있다. 지금은 이 대학 대학원의 교수로 재직 중이다.
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Freeman's emphasis is a bit unique in that he focuses on the dynamics of how neurons communicate rather than on either the anatomy of the brain, or on either mental states or behavior.
By adopting this focus on neural dynamics, the author accomplishes some interesting things that other authors haven't been quite able to accomplish. He comes up with a multi-step mathematical model of how neurons organize themselves in order to function as a mind. His model is far more specific than most (such as the vague model in Susan Greenfield's "Private Life of the Brain" for example) and he links his model clearly and consistently to the pragmatist philosophy of mind.
The key to Freeman's unique approach is that he addresses from the outset the critical observation that makes hte "mind-brain problem" difficult. He recognizes that most models of brain function fail to address how top-down function in the brain could possibly work. How, in the classical model of brain function, can we have an expectancy that reliably alters basic perception, such as in hypnotic anesthesia and hallucinations ?
Materialist and cognitivist models of mind (in terms of simple flows of neural energy or information between neurons) simply have no way to explain why some behaviors should be "voluntary" and others "involuntary," or how meaning is somehow created from symbol processing. Representational models (which consider the brain to store "images" in some sense) still have some serious explanatory gaps.
If the brain simply links together sensory stimuli from the senses, and then somehow "taps into memory" to help interpret what we perceive, why should our initial perceptual gestalts themselves be altered by what we expect to perceive ?
The way attention and expectancy work - requires a different way to look at the brain, such as providing a continual staging process for awareness. The point is made succinctly and eloquently by Freeman, although readers interested in mroe of the background to this will find John McCrone's "Going Inside" a great read as well. Rather than discussing the background of this modern view of conscious awareness, Freeman links it to his own model of complex dynamics among populations of neurons and discusses various implications for philosophy of mind and brain.
Freeman's view is that consciousness is not itself a "cause" of neural effects, but a global linkage for smoothing chaotic fluctuations through interactions. The author borrows from a definition by Thomas Aquinas to make a point of defining intentionality in biological terms as a frame for problem solving rather than the weaker sense of "aboutness" used by analytic philosophers. He then builds a model of mind that uses chaotic attractor patterns to explain how we create meaning in individual brains by interacting usefully with the environment.
Walter Freeman is one of the scientists seriously trying to address such puzzling matters as _choice_, and how others can sometimes become aware of our own choices before we are, in both daily life and careful experiments. A lot of Freud's speculations in his theory of the Unconscious mind were intended to address this, but theorists today are in a better position to do it more scientifically. How can choice seemingly be "unconscious" and yet we have a very real sense of free will ? Is it an illusion ? Freeman makes a strong entry in the race to explain this in a way that works scientifically and yet explains what we actually experience. I read this at about the same time as John Taylor's "The Race for Consciousness," and found that it covers a lot of very similar ground, and often more elegantly.
While this book is surprisingly readable for having so much relevant technical detail in neuroscience and complexity maths, it will often frustrate readers who want to follow it in great detail unless they have some background in both neuroscience and nonlinear dynamics. In spite of this, I give it my highest recommendation because I think anyone who reads it will learn something interesting about the brain and its relationship to the mind.