A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers

A brilliant, wryly humorous, brief tour of the human mind built on first hand experience with patients and a dazzling research career. This long awaited new book by V.S. Ramachandran is akin to the bestselling works about patients by Oliver SacksWhat is body image? Why do we blush? What is art? What is free will? What is self? Until recently, these questions were the province of philosophy, but studies of the brain are now producing explanations based on research anyone can see for themselves in PET scans and MRI images. Neuroscientists such as V.S. Ramachandran are now unlocking the key to what many have considered the metaphysics of our consciousness. This knowledge of the brain has progressed so rapidly few have yet recognized it for what it is. It will change how we think of human beings, even our very notion of understanding. This is a revolution, already underway that will have impact on all our lives. But until this book, topics such as art, creativity and love have received very little attention from neurology and new findings have not been offered in an approachable way. Dr. Ramachandran presents new theories and experiments that illuminate the biggest questions we can ask. Picking up where the great earlier thinkers like Freud, and Darwin began, V.S. Ramachandran and his colleagues are forging a whole new science. Walk through a final frontier of human knowledge with the perfect, eloquent, expert guide on this unique brief tour.