Neurodynamics of Personality

Rating:
Summary: You're a fancy robot.
Review: That's the disheartening take away message from this text. As organisms, we don't tend to think much about the mechanisms behind our thoughts, motivations, and actions. We implicitly assume that they all derive from "us." We feel as though we are rational entities with free will, who evaluate our environments and choose actions that will make us happy. It's a fluid and convincing process that supports itself, hence the unquestioning belief we have in our autonomy.
But what makes us tick? All those wet parts in our head obviously have something to with it. We've all seen people whose mechanics have failed them, victims of Alzheimer's or stroke or schizophrenia. They're not so volitional or rational. Or what about animals? It's easier to believe that mice or ants are creatues of instinct, that they follow simple rules and don't reflect on themselves. Well, this book is one of many to illustrate that we too are mindless creatures of instinct. This makes sense if you think about it from an engineering standpoint. How could you ever devise a system that had free will? The very idea is at odds with the laws of physics, as it implies some level of operation above nature (i.e. supernatural, nondeterministic). Centuries ago, this was considered proof of the soul, and existance on a deeper plane ("I think, therefore I am."). Our behavior looks too complex to us to be the result of algorithms operating on cumulative experience, but that's exactly what it is. WE are essentially the result of unconscious processes that evaluate our environment and determine the best actions, based on the results of prior associations, to achieve evolutionary ends (procreation, ultimately, and survival, immediately). What we experience as our mind is the result of a part of the brain that claims authorship of actions already initiated at a subconscious level. It's a confabulation engine that makes coherent stories about why we chose to do things, what we intended to do, and what we're planning to do. It's a process that works seemingly backward. In this regard, we come to know ourselves much as others do, by observing ourselves. Given our more intimate relationship with our own brains, however, we have a priveleged perspective (though not in all areas, as the market for psychoanalysts can attest)).
This, to me, was the most fascinating angle of the book. The "dynamics" aspect of the book is an attempt to explain the way the brain creates dynamic behavior by utilizing a collection of attractors, or default states, which interact with each other to determine an ultimate single state. Because the attractors are operating on the edge of stability, mild perterbations in the environment can produce dramatic shifts in the strengths of the various attractors, and affect the eventual output of the system. Much like a weather pattern, this results in broadly predictable trends, but transiently unpredictable behavior. I have a feeling this theoretical framework is based mostly on conjecture, but it seems a productive line of thought.
Overall, a very interesting read which will forever prejudice your understading of yourself, and with many social and legal ramifications that await future argument (people will still argue in favor of free will, I imagine, despite all evidence to the contrary).