Mind Wide Open
by Paul Miller
His trick as an author is to spend time with the people at the cutting edge of the science and then explain their work through his conversations and interactions with them. It works a treat. It makes the books so readable because you're with a guy having fun. I met up with Steven last week and got the feeling he was slightly bemused by the way people keep buying his books, reading his articles and treating him like a guru. He does it because he loves it and that playful curiosity comes through in his writing. He's what Pat Kane might call a 'player'.
Mind Wide Open: One Man's Journey into the Workings of his Brain is Steven being playful and inquisitive again. This time, rather than wondering how ant colonies work or slime mould self organises, he wonders how his brain works. He finds out how Tiger Woods blanks out the crowd when teeing up, he finds out why his wife was calmer than he was in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, he finds out why we can remember events and images from years ago but can't remember phone numbers from two minutes ago. And he explains it all with page-turning clarity and humour.
The book is well timed because we're increasingly interested in understanding our brains and how we can change their characteristics and performance. From anti-depressants to Ritalin, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to Memento we've got brains on the brain. The science, as Mind Wide Open shows, is moving fast. Certainly I was quite surprised when I went to a recent conference in the US how many 'enhancements' are in the R&D pipeline. It may not be long before we can enhance our memories using drugs for example.
Anyway, it's a really interesting book, well worth a read.
Will Davies
On David's comment: 'Brain processes' aren't subjectivity, they're objectivity. [Discuss]
Jo Ma
Well, Appleyard is catty but correct. Johnson is a third rate writer trawling through material done before by better writers and thinkers. Emergence dealt with old hat subjects in a trivial way and MWO continues that record. Mediocrity has a market too so SBJ shouldn't be surprised that he sells some books, or that others who are even less astute think he is wonderful.
David Lee
I just saw 'eternal sunshine of the spotless mind' yesterday: it was very enjoyable i must say, and it got me thinking. for all its rather implausible plot devices it shows that our very notions of what constitutes the 'human' is being radically challenged by technology at all turns.
This interest in the working of the mind is nothing new - and sociologist Nikolas Rose shows how psychological understandings of brain processes have been used from the 20th century onwards by governments, businesses and advertising agencies alike to help govern the modern subject. He calls this process the 'psychologisation of social life'. As Rose argues:
'subjectivity now enters into the calculations of political forces about the state of the nation, about the problems and possibilities facing the country, about priorities and policies. Governments… have formulated policies, set up machinery, established bureaucracies, and promoted initiatives to regulate the conduct of citizens by acting upon their mental capacities and propensities.'
What i suppose i'm missing from your posting, Paul, (and i'm speaking rather in the dark here having not read the book or met the man - as you have done!) is some consideration of how the advance of brain enhancing technology and scientific knowledge of the workings of the brain, fits in with wider issues around the use or misuse of power.