Neuroscience Through the Looking Glass
Neuroscience Through the Looking Glass
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透过镜子看神经科学
DOI：
10.1027/0269-8803.19.3.234
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发表时间：
2005
影响因子：
1.3
通讯作者：
B. Kotchoubey
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
B. Kotchoubey
这本书是神经科学家、心理学家和哲学家的一个响亮的合唱，他们承诺，再过几年，再一个大规模的项目，再一个脑电图、脑磁图、功能磁共振成像和正电子发射断层扫描专家的联合努力，再一个成像技术，心灵和意识的奥秘，感觉和思想的奥秘，最终将被解决（或溶解）。然后，心灵和物质的二元论将被克服，并被期待已久的心灵/大脑/基因的统一科学所取代，它将根据神经元活动或至少是大脑中的化学和物理过程来解释人类状况的所有高度和微妙之处。与这种观点（非常乐观或令人恐惧，取决于一个人的观点）相反，班尼特和哈克（以下简称B&H）认为现代神经科学--也许不是全部，但至少是大部分--现在已经走到了死胡同，不是因为它没有开发出技术来回答越来越有趣的问题，而是因为它不能提出正确的问题。不是因为它无法实现目标，而是因为它不知道应该实现哪些目标。不是因为未解决的实验问题，而是因为概念问题。那些阅读这本450页书的人可以接受或拒绝作者的一个或多个观点和结论--但他们将无法回到“科学照常”，被动地接受被B&H如此强烈动摇的教条。这意味着这本书是强制性的阅读材料。这本书有几个重要的优点。首先，一位神经生理学家和一位哲学家这一对杰出的作家完全致力于寻求真理和清晰，而不是用一本新的畅销书来打动公众。第二，它是用优秀的英语写的，具有出色的幽默感。第三，它是非常全面的，在这方面，让人想起詹姆斯的心理学。作者连续分析了所有形式的心理活动：感觉，疼痛，知觉，想象，记忆，思维，知识和信仰，情感，意志，以及意识的不同种类和细分。除此之外，B&H简要回顾了哲学思想的历史，这些思想体现在从威利斯和贝尔到阿德里安，埃克尔斯和彭菲尔德的神经科学经典中。他们讨论了身心问题研究中的方法论问题，并对神经科学的可能性和不可能性以及哲学的可能性和不可能性提出了一个清晰但并非毫无争议的观点。最后，他们分析了现代心灵哲学中几种最有影响力的方法，这些方法在丘奇兰、丹尼特和塞尔最近的著作中有代表性。因此，作者没有遗漏任何认知和行为神经科学感兴趣的重要问题。他们的主要结论可以概括如下：（1）大多数现代神经科学是建立在笛卡尔主义、传统英国哲学（洛克、伯克利）和唯物主义的混乱和不自然的混合物之上的。现代神经科学家拒绝笛卡尔的身心二元论，只是简单地采纳（并稍微调整）了他学说中的所有其他内容，简单地将所有可能的心灵功能重新归因于大脑（甚至，按照乔姆斯基的说法，归因于心灵-大脑的混合体）。从洛克和伯克利开始，神经科学接受了主观主义，以及这样一种观念，即在感知、意象和记忆中，大脑创造了外部物体的“意象”或“副本”--感知中的好副本，意象中的弱副本，但记忆中的弱副本。(2)由于这种哲学上的混乱，神经科学的很大一部分是...
This book is a strong dissonance in a loud chorus of neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who promise that, after yet another few years, one more large-scale project, one more combined effort of EEG, MEG, fMRI, and PET experts, one more imaging technology, the mystery of mind and consciousness, of feelings and thoughts, will finally be solved (or dissolved). Then the dualism of mind and matter will be overcome and replaced by a long-awaited unified science of mind/brain/gene, which will explain all the heights and subtleties of the human condition on the basis of neuronal activity–or at the very least, the chemical and physical processes in the brain. In contrast to this view (very optimistic or frightening, depending on one’s perspective), Bennett and Hacker (hereafter referred to as B&H) suggest that modern neuroscience–perhaps not the whole of it, but at least large parts–is now at a dead end, not because it did not develop technologies to answer more and more intriguing questions, but because it cannot formulate the correct questions. Not because it is unable to reach its goals, but because it has no idea which goals should be reached. Not because of the unsolved experimental problems, but because of the conceptual ones. Those who take up the task of reading the 450 pages of this book can accept or reject one or more of the ideas and conclusions of the authors–but they will be unable to go back to “science as usual,” passively accepting the dogmas so strongly shaken by B&H. This means that the book is mandatory reading material. The book has several important merits. First, the tandem of prominent authors–a neurophysiologist and a philosopher–are fully devoted to the search for truth and clarity, not to impress the public with a new bestseller. Second, it is written in excellent English, with a brilliant sense of humor. Third, it is extremely comprehensive and in this respect, reminds one of James’s Psychology. The authors consecutively analyze all forms of mental activity: sensation, pain, perception, imagination, memory, thinking, knowledge and beliefs, emotions, volition, and different kinds and subdivisions of consciousness. In addition to this, B&H briefly review the history of philosophical ideas as manifested in the classics of neuroscience from Willis and Bell to Adrian, Eccles, and Penfield. They discuss methodological issues in the study of the mind-body problem and formulate a clear, though not uncontroversial, view on what is possible and impossible for neuroscience, as well as what is possible and impossible for philosophy. They close with an analysis of the several most influential approaches in the modern philosophy of mind, as represented in the recent books of the Churchlands, Dennett, and Searle. Thus, the authors do not leave out any of the important problems of interest for cognitive and behavioral neuroscience. Their main conclusions can be summarized as follows:(1) Most modern neuroscience is based on a confused and unnatural mixture of Cartesianism, traditional British empiricism (Locke, Berkley), and materialism. Rejecting the mind/body dualism of Descartes, modern neuroscientists simply adopted (and slightly adapted) everything else in his doctrine, simply re-ascribing all the presumable functions of the mind–to the brain (or even, following Chomsky, to the hybrid of mind-brain). From Locke and Berkley, neuroscience took on subjectivism, as well as the notion that in perception, imagery, and memory the mind-brain creates “images” or “copies” of external objects–good copies in perception, weaker in imagery, yet weaker in memory.(2) As a result of this philosophical confusion, a big part of neuroscience is …