Revolution of the Mind: Inspirations and Resources
Me, in my usual state of befuddlement, with a few of my inspirations.
With the launch of Revolution of the Mind fast approaching on 23 August 2022, I feel it’s a good time to announce its main themes by way of a pseudo-bibliography.
While Struggle to Make Sense of it All considered the general relationship between science and stories in our attempts to understand the world (as well as how secondary evidence dooms us to corrupt, or at the very least bend, the notion of ‘truth’ to our own ends), Revolution of the Mind focuses on a more specific field of knowledge; one that is perpetually caught between rational enquiry and emotional narratives: the brain, consciousness, and the notion of ‘free’ will.
Throughout the writing process, I continually researched this area and, though at times this frequently became a muddy or mentally strenuous task, it never felt like hard work - just an absolute pleasure to be able to devote time to a subject I’ve been obsessed with since I was a teenager (though back then my consideration of it was mostly an introspective one!).
I’m forever indebted to the great thinkers who have written and spoken so elegantly and rigorously on this most complicated of subjects, giving even someone like me a chance to learn and understand the many, many debates, studies, theories, hypotheses, and misunderstandings around it.
I don’t intend to go into my own conclusions on the subject here (in fact, drawing any strong conclusions on the nature of consciousness from our present understanding would be at best presumptious, at worst delusive). No doubt you’ll gather a few of my own particular leanings as you read the story though!
What I really want to do is acknowledge some of these great minds and share a few resources on the subject. If you also share an interest in human behaviour, (what makes us do and think what we do and think and what makes us think that we’re either thinking or doing it – not complicated at all!), then hopefully these will allow you to find out a little more about it for yourself - and also help you avoid coming to your own conclusions!
Books
The Private Life of the Brain - Susan Greenfield. (Penguin, 2000). Highlights in particular the importance of the effect of emotions on the balance of the brain, but also just a great primer for neuroscience in general
Behave – Robert Sapolsky. (Penguin, 2018) This one is compulsory and compulsive reading. It’s the entire history of what we know about ourselves and how we operate as individuals and a species.
Free Will – Sam Harris. (Simon and Schuster, 2012). Sam’s neuroscientific argument in favour of ‘free’ will being illusory.
The Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation – Peter Ulric Tse (MIT Press, 2013). A somewhat speculative, though interesting, consideration of how certain mechanisms in the brain might allow for ‘free’ will. For me it was the incredibly in-depth description of the brain’s workings that was most valuable.
Consciousness Explained – Dan Dennett (Penguin, 1991) Ok, so the title perhaps oversells it a little, but I guess the necessary caveat ‘as far as we know to date within the limitations of the studies considered’ is never going to appeal to marketing departments of publishing companies. Regardless, the book offers a fascinating insight into the way our minds process information from objective reality, and how this informs what our consciousness is, and by extension, the limits of the narratives it creates. In terms of realising how little of ‘reality’ we actually experience, and the limitations – for strong evolutionary reasons – of our brains, I found it more valuable than any mind expanding drug could ever be.
For a philosophical consideration of the notion of ‘free’ will from a compatibilist point of view, you could also try Dan’s Freedom Evolves (Penguin, 2003). Though I found the arguments somewhat vague and harder to follow (that’s probably on me), this book certainly made me realise that the notion of ‘free’ will depends very much upon individual definitions of both ‘free’ and ‘will’. Indeed, many debates around the subject are doomed from the start, owing to such semantic differences – people are often simply arguing about very different things!
Videos
Susan Greenfield - The Neuroscience of Consciousness. Probably the best and most concise introduction to the subject imaginable.
Sam Harris – Free Will lecture. Covers many ideas from the book of the same name.
John Conway – The Free Will lectures. Fascinating, in-depth and substantial!
Nicholas Humphrey - Are Brain and Mind the Same Thing? A nice short one for you!
Sean Castleberry - Philosophical Lecture Shorts: The Problem of Free Will and Determinism
Robert Sapolsky - Human Behavioural Biology lectures – this only links to the first, but you can find the others easily.
Dan Dennett – Is Free Will an illusion? What can cognitive science tell us?
Sam Harris, Ben Shapiro and Eric Weinstein - Free will debate
The Pangburn Hangout – There are too many interesting on-topic discussions here to mention. Enjoy browsing!
Jordan Peterson – Maps of Meaning. Ok so, controversial I know, but its important to consider all sides of a discussion and, particularly from a storytelling point of view, Jordan makes some interesting points here.
Podcasts
As with any podcast series, the quality and nature of discussion depends very much on the individual guest. I’ve given a few personal picks for each of the below podcasts, but searching by topic will likely produce other useful results as well.
Making Sense – Sam Harris (Neuroscientist). Esp. Consciousness and Self (Anil Seth, 21.10.21); The Biology of Good and Evil (Robert Sapolsky, 9.8.2017) The Light of the Mind (David Chalmers, 18.4.2016); Free Will Revisited (Dan Dennett, 3.7.2016); The Limits of Self Knowledge (24.11.2021)
Very Bad Wizards - Tamler Sommers (philosopher) and David Pizarro (psychologist). Esp. Tumours All The Way Down (Sam Harris, 15.12.2014) and You Yourself, and Your Brain (Eddy Nahmeous, 22.7.2013) for an interesting counterpoint.
University of Oxford podcasts – various. I’ve linked to the results for ‘free will’, as these are the ones I used.
The Infinite Monkey Cage – Brian Cox (Physicist) and Robin Ince (comedian / fellow armchair scientist!). Esp. The Human Brain (25.9.2021); The Mind vs The Brain (8.8.2017); What is Reality? (9.2.2016)
Rationally Speaking – Julia Galef (rationalist author/speaker) and pre-2015 Massimo Pigliucci (philosopher). Esp. Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Gregg Caruso, 10.7.2016); The Science and Philosophy of Free Will (17.7.2011)
Philosophy Bites – Nigel Warburton (Philosopher). Again, I’ve linked to all results for ‘free will’.
Essays and other resources
Neil Levy, Free Will in the Brain? (2021)
Naturalism.org - What Should We Tell People About Free Will? and Don’t Forget About Me: Avoiding Demoralization by Determinism.
Anthony Cashmore – The Lucretian Swerve: The biological basis of human behavior and the criminal justice system (8.2.2010)
Nadine Dijkstra and Leon de Bruin, Cognitive Neuroscience and Causal Inference: Implications for Psychiatry (19.7.2016)
Robert C. Bishop, Review of Peter Ulric Tse’s Neural Basis of Free Will: Criterial Causation (31.1.2014)
The Naked Scientists, How Does a Brain Cell Work? (25.11.2007)
Ray Kurzweil, How to Live Forever — a personal view (16.9.2012)
IFL Science - Scientists Just Read Someone's Brain Signals And Decoded What That Person Was Perceiving (Ben Taub, 29.1.2016)
Olivia Ho-Shing - New Technologies Visualize the Power of the Brain (Harvard, 6.4.2016)
Obviously, this is by no means an exhaustive list - there are a number of other resources that I won’t mention to avoid spoiling the plot of Revolution of the Mind, or because they no longer seem to be publicly available. But if you’re just starting to forge an interest in the brain, mind, consciousness and free will, it should be enough to get your feet wet – you’ll find an absolute ton of other resources online or in your local library.
Happy hunting, and don’t forget to look out for the launch of Revolution of the Mind on 23 August 2022.