Those who follow my blog know that it is actually about a theory of knowing — a theory about how our minds come into being and how they work. My position is that mind can only be understood in the context of the whole creature. It cannot be reduced to parts. As I lamented in a blog entry some time ago, one of the most misleading trends in mind research is being fueled by MRI technology. (See “Use a Brain Scanner, Go to Jail“).
Last week’s New Yorker has a fine article on the subject of brain function and human behavior. “A Man of Letters” by Oliver Sachs, discusses research into a form of aphasia called alexia, in which the stroke victim loses the ability to decode written language, although he can still write and can still comprehend language by other means. Although MRIs show that the malady is correlated with damage to a very specific region of the brain, the idea that the decoding of written language is physiologically ensconced in one portion of the brain is problematic. The advent of written language, a cultural invention, is too recent to be explained in terms of brain evolution. So what shall we make of the observed correlation between an area of the brain and decoding writing?
To me, the correlation observation is like saying that legs are necessary for walking and when they are damaged, walking can no longer take place, therefore legs are the cause of walking. Silly, no? But just yesterday I listened to a long NPR piece heralding the discovery of regions of the brain that are correlated with murderous impulses.
We are lost in the funhouse of our inventions. God save us from ourselves!
