Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality

by Paul L. Núñez

Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? In addressing this "hard problem" of consciousness, we face a central human challenge: what do we really know and how do we know it? Tentative answers in this book follow from a synthesis of profound ideas, borrowed from philosophy, religion, politics, economics, neuroscience, physics, mathematics, and cosmology, the knowledge structures supporting our meager grasps of reality. This search for new links in the web of human knowledge extends in many directions: the "shadows" of our thought processes revealed by brain imagining, brains treated as complex adaptive systems that reveal fractal-like behavior in the brain's nested hierarchy, resonant interactions facilitating functional connections in brain tissue, probability and entropy as measures of human ignorance, fundamental limits on human knowledge, and the central role played by information in both brains and physical systems.

In Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality, Paul Nunez discusses the possibility of deep connections between relativity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and consciousness: all entities involved with fundamental information barriers. Dr. Nunez elaborates on possible new links in this nested web of human knowledge that may tell us something new about the nature and origins of consciousness. In the end, does the brain create the mind? Or is the Mind already out there? You decide.

Genres: Nonfiction, Neuroscience, Psychiatry, Philosophy, Psychology, Physics, Science

306 pages, Hardcover

First published April 7, 2010

Reviews

[mkfs · Rating 3 out of 5]

In deciding between which neuro book to read next, Jeff Hawkin's On Intelligence and this book by Nunez (whose older Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of Eeg I have long wanted to read), I read the prologues of both.

The Hawkins prologue is defensive and rather vague about the contents of the book, resulting in the author coming across as a bit of a crank.

The Nunez book prologue, in addition to being more informative, contains this gem:

Like most brain scientists, much of my time is spent in "day science", with its focus on essential experimental or mathematical details. Esoteric reflections on the nature and origins of consciousness are mostly relegated to "night science", the discussions among colleagues after the second round of beers has been consumed.

Being more of a night-scientist myself, I was sold.


The book covers a lot of territory, and unfortunately not very well. There are layman's explanations of probability, information theory, quantum physics, and so forth, but much better overviews can be found elsewhere. The remainder is an informal discussion of Nunez's insights over decades of brain research, and these are well worth reading.

The book presents the question: does the brain create the mind, or is the mind an external force which the brain receives like an antenna? Ultimately, the book provides a lot of justification for why the question is valid, and ends by asks you to consider this question seriously. There are no answers provided, and barely any theories. This makes the book more than a little disappointing.

[Dennis Redfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Musings on the nature of consciousness from one of the premiere EEG specialists in the world. Spoiler: after forty years looking at EEG patterns, we know almost nothing.

[Delany · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I could give it 1.5 star(s), I would. I kinda liked parts of it but not much. The author is not a very clear or effective writer. The entire book seems to be an argument against "strong reductionism" He undertakes this argument by repeating, over and over again, that the structure of the brain and the structure of all complex systems (and all of reality, I suppose) can be described in terms of "nested hierarchies" (and he reminds me of Ken Wilber in this), and that these complex systems display emergent properties (of which consciousness is one example). He then alternates between (a) lengthy and highly technical analyses of the brain from the perspective of an engineer/physicist, and (b) purely speculative ideas about the nature of the universe and of what we call "mind." I know a good bit about the anatomy and physiology of the brain, but I'm neither and engineer nor a physicist, and I was unwilling to try to follow his technical passages. The speculation also left me cold.

Here's what he keeps coming back to: "Perhaps our universe is just one level of an unimaginably large multiverse. Maybe our universe just popped out of the multiverse by chance or maybe not. Could so-called empty space be permeated by an 'information field,' so that in some sense the universe itself is conscious?" It really isn't worth the effort to read this whole thing in order to understand that, as to these ideas and questions, we remain in the dark -- at least, for the time being. The book has only 7 reviews on Amazon, most of them very positive. I suspect that they were written by his friends.

[Michiel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book that tries to link relativity, quantum physics and thermodynamics to the mind-body problem. Somewhat limited in his explanation of certain topics but Nunez is able to make his point somewhat better then Penrose in the emperor's new mind.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

yawn