Who's in Charge? by Director Michael S Gazzaniga

Who's in Charge? by Director Michael S Gazzaniga

A powerful orthodoxy in the study of the brain has taken hold in recent years: Since physical laws govern the physical world and our own brains are part of that world, physical laws therefore govern our behavior and even our conscious selves. Free will is meaningless, goes the mantra; we live in a determined world.Not so, argues the renowned neuroscientist Michael S. Gazzaniga in this thoughtful, provocative book based on his Gifford Lectures--one of the foremost lecture series in the world dealing with religion, science, and philosophy. Who's in Charge? proposes that the mind, which is somehow generated by the physical processes of the brain, constrains the brain just as cars are constrained by the traffic they create. Writing with what Steven Pinker has called his trademark wit and lack of pretension, Gazzaniga shows how determinism immeasurably weakens our views of human responsibility; it allows a murderer to argue, in effect, It wasn't me who did it--it was my brain. Gazzaniga convincingly argues that even given the latest insights into the physical mechanisms of the mind, there is an undeniable human reality: We are responsible agents who should be held accountable for our actions, because responsibility is found in how people interact, not in brains. An extraordinary book that ranges across neuroscience, psychology, ethics, and the law with a light touch but profound implications, Who's in Charge? is a lasting contribution from one of the leading thinkers of our time.

Gazzaniga, Michael: - Michael Gazzaniga is the director of the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He received his PhD from the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Roger Sperry and had primary responsibility for initiating human split-brain research. He has established Centers for Cognitive Neuroscience at Cornell Medical School; the University of California, Davis; and Dartmouth College. He is founder of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute and founding editor of the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. He was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2009. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Academy of Sciences.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780061906114
ISBN 10	0061906115
Title	Who's in Charge?
Author	Director Michael S Gazzaniga
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers Inc
Year published	2012-09-11
Number of pages	272
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.