An Alchemy of Mind: The Marvel and Mystery of the Brain [Paperback]

 

 

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Since 1990, when she published "A Natural History of the Senses," Diane Ackerman has continued to explore how intimate human experience defies rational explanation. "A Natural History of Love" appeared in 1994. Next came "Deep Play" (1999), an account of human creativity and our need for transcendence, and "Cultivating Delight: A Natural History of My Garden" (2001), about the way gardening elevates our souls. What fascinates Ackerman in these books is the pervasive mystery of nature, despite the increasing depth of our scientific knowledge.

Her approach is to select a topic that is in its essence ineffable, then gather information about it from the worlds of science and evolutionary theory,literature, myth, popular culture and personal experience, and lavish her findings with elaborately worked, poetic prose. Her intention is to say the unsayable. Here, for instance, is Ackerman defining memory in her newest book, " An Alchemy of Mind," which considers the human brain and consciousness from her customarily impressionistic mix of perspectives: "An event is such a little piece of time and space, leaving only a mind glow behind like the tail of a shooting star. For lack of a better word, we call that scintillation memory."

She is a grand, erudite synthesizer, positioning herself at the place where knowledge ends and reporting back to us in the language of lyric. "I believe consciousness is brazenly physical," she tells her readers, "a raucous mirage the brain creates to help us survive. But I also sense the universe is magical, greater than the sum of its parts." This is not the way things sound in neuroscience journals or philosophy of mind papers.

With "An Alchemy of Mind," which might as well have been called "A Natural History of the Mind," Ackerman delights in finding metaphors that simultaneously describe and demonstrate what she is saying. Explaining our compulsion to make subjective order from objective chaos, for instance, she speaks in terms of cartography: "The brain is still terra incognita on the map of mortality, still the fabled world where riches and monsters lurk. But we've begun mapping its shores and learning about its ecology."

As always, Ackerman has done her homework. Her book offers a useful, evocative picture of what is known about the brain's landscape and environment. It presents current research in cognitive science, neuroscience and technology to show how the brain evolved and is structured. It discusses memory and emotion, the formulation of self, the development and operation of language, the differences between human and animal brain function.

Ackerman loves the clarity of fact. But she adores the quixotic, the paradoxical: "Language is so hard only children can master it," she tells us.

Any page reveals a gem of expressive clarity.Early in the book, examining how the brain adapts as we learn new information, Ackerman says, "We arrive in this world clothed in the loose fabric of a self, which then tailors itself to the world it finds."Later, talking about emotions,she says, "Our ideas may behave, but our emotions are still Pleistocene, and they snarl for attention, they nip at passing ankles." To this, in a brilliant throwaway line, she adds, "Emotions often provide a dark italics to our lives." These are memorable translations of scientific premises.

"An Alchemy of Mind" is a bravura performance in the field of popular science writing. At a time when books about the brain, mind and consciousness compete for readers' attention,Ackerman has presented a helpful survey of the field leavened by yeasty writing and provocative insights.
--Floyd Skloot, Newsday

The mind is a difficult place to explore without a guidebook. With dozens of excellent books by competent researchers now available, is it wise to take up one by a poet? Ackerman is masterful in her use of imagery and metaphor. She is able to convey both research and personal experience in ways that make both seem readily familiar. With many years' experience and a wealth of contacts to draw upon, she leads us almost trippingly into the great mystery of consciousness. Will we reach the end of the journey enlightened, confused or hungry for more information? Will we be dazzled by the science or simply enthralled by the illusions?

Ackerman's writing skills are immeasurably captivating. She has an almost uncanny ability to synopsise or compress a complex quantity of information into a limited space. In this book, she opens with a brief review of consciousness theories, followed by a tour of the brain's physical domain. She demonstrates how her own mind is working as a sample readers may use in understanding their own consciousness. She explains how the brain works along many paths, using varying paces of internal communications. Whatever we feel about ourselves "inside", she notes, there is no single, consistent identity that we can focus on for any duration. There are simply too many influences, both external and internal, affecting how the brain is operating at any given moment. And for "brain", Ackerman reminds us, read "mind". She's under no delusion that the two may be separated.

As Ackerman trips happily over the many treacherous questions besetting those in cognitive sciences, she introduces little asides to keep you entertained. We learn of "Oscar", an alligator who wanted to mate with a French horn player. We follow the journeys of Einstein's brain as researchers struggled to learn what prompted the mathematician's great genius. Her family tree, a delightful shrub of dislocation, inventive genius and musical interests provides an example. Ackerman thus qualifies to combine elements to "fiddle with words". The family tie is but the surface expression of our deeper evolutionary roots. The author speculates on why the human brain should have evolved the way it did. To her, the ability to think about both ourselves and the cosmos around us is "one of evolution's bad jokes". Even so, she reminds us, creative ideas are formed in "an alchemy of mind", which is the positive payoff for our species.

Does Ackerman produce the "guidebook" we need to understand the mind? The roles of poetry and metaphor are good pointers, but they must be followed beyond what the author offers here. She relies on her prose skills to obviate the need for illustration. Another indication of Ackerman's failure to produce a truly useful guidebook is exposed in her bibliography. Although she constantly congratulates herself on what a fine research job she's done on the book, the Bibliography belies that claim. There's no mention of Daniel C. Dennett, although Owen Flanagan's 1992 "Consciousness Reconsidered" is listed. Patricia Churchland, although noted in the text, isn't found here. In short, the reading list is highly selective. One would have hoped for better at this time. A highly readable and tantalising introduction, its shortcomings nearly negate its benefits.

[stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

One of my favorite moments in the movie "Contact" is when Jodie FosterÕs character, overwhelmed by the expanse of multi-colored galaxies she is seeing, says "I had no idea it would be this beautiful, they should have sent a poet" (or words to that effect). I understand this sentiment. I understand that the expressions of science often cast nets over things with so fine a mesh that the aesthetics of human experience cannot pass through. Einstein's "E = mc2" seems far too cold to describe the warmth of the afternoon sun in spring; far too small to express the terrible (awe-full) power of a nuclear explosion.

I began reading Diane AckermanÕs ÒAn Alchemy of Mind : The Marvel and Mystery of the BrainÓ with some vague expectation that what I would find there was a synergy of poetic and scientific descriptions Š perhaps the only synthesis capable of preserving the marvel while unlocking some of the mystery of the human mind. Ackerman wastes no time in establishing her ability to use words. She begins, ÒImagine the brain, that shiny mound of being, that mouse-gray parliament of cells, that dream factory, that petit tyrant inside a ball of bone[É]Ó (page 3). She is abundantly and wonderfully skilled at creating magical combinations from common words and her book is full of deceptively simple observations (such as the playful but profound ÒThe brain is a five-star generalizer.Ó Š page 54) that manage to convey far more than first impressions might indicate.

But she also wastes little time before indicating that her understanding of science is at best inexperienced. She makes references to theories that are not at all widely accepted (from ESP to Julian JaynesÕ Ò[É] Breakdown of the Bicameral MindÓ) without ever discussing them and therefore giving them an implied stamp of acceptability. Worse, she seems to misunderstand evolution (or at least fails to discourage her readers from believing that it is purposeful and sometimes calculating) and confuses descriptions of the phenomenological experience of mind with (as being equivalent to) explanations for how the mind works. (It is interesting and to some degree telling that in the index for the book one finds an entry for Pirsig but not Pinker, Crick but not Dennett, É)

AckermanÕs scientific abilities are made all the more questionable by the nature of her occasional careless statement. On page 38 she attempts to make the immense time span of Ò32 million yearsÓ more easily appreciated by saying itÕs equivalent to 44,000 consecutive lifetimes (highly unlikely unless the average lifetime is over 720 years). ÒCommon sense,Ó she write on page 10, Òtells us that if life exists elsewhere in the universe, it will be far more technologically advanced than weÓ (a statement that is far closer to nonsense than common sense). The real problem with all of these problems is that they make everything she wants to tell you questionable. How do you maintain (or regain) trust in what Ackerman presents? Why should you read any of it if you have to continuously be checking the veracity of her statements?

There is one possible reason: because Ackerman has a beautiful way with words. But for that to remain a good reason you need to keep in mind that ÒAn Alchemy of MindÓ is not really a science book or, ultimately, even a valuable collection of essays about the human mind. It is really better described as a collection of poetic essays about how Diane Ackerman experiences and thinks about her own mind (and how some books sheÕs read influence that experience). Read with that in mind, there are some real diamonds to be discovered between the covers of this book.

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5.0 out of 5 stars A naturalist-poet explores the mysteries of the human brain
   Diane Ackerman remembers a pubescent summer at a camp in the Poconos. Ten 13-year-old girls in a bunkhouse. Read more

Published on Jun 20 2004

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a fascinating book
I enjoyed reading this book very much. Diane Ackerman takes a complex subject like the human brain and makes it easy to understand. Read more

Published on Jun 8 2004 by Robert G Yokoyama

5.0 out of 5 stars pure delight
Diane Ackerman takes concepts that have interested but eluded me since high school and makes them vivid and alive and crystal clear. Read more

Published on Jun 1 2004 by Sarah McGrath

5.0 out of 5 stars What an accomplishment.
Ackerman writes brilliantly, her descriptions are charming, her keen observations are both original and scientifically astute. It's a perfect bridge between science and art. Read more

Published on Jun 1 2004

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