Can the Brain Explain Your Mind? by Colin McGinn | The New York Review of Books.
Book review of:
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist’s Quest for What Makes Us Human
by V.S. Ramachandran, Norton, 357 pp., $26.95
Critical but appreciative review:
What should we make of all this? It is undoubtedly fascinating to read of these bizarre cases and learn about the intricate neural machinery that underlies our normal experience. It is also, in my opinion, perfectly acceptable to propose bold speculations about what might be going on, even if the speculation seems unfounded or far-fetched; as Ramachandran frequently remarks, science thrives on risky conjecture. But there are times when the impression of theoretical overreaching is unmistakable, and the relentless neural reductionism becomes earsplitting.