The "Brief Tour" part of the title is accurate, as this book is a relatively quick read. It jumps between interesting case studies and Ramachandran's theories which still await experimental evidence. He freely admits as much, but makes a strong case for his theories as is. A worthwhile read.
I recommend this book without hesitation. It presents a brief survey of different studies conducted by Ramachandran. In addition, Ramachandran talks about his hunches about certain issues such as the relation between neuroscience and arts, implications of mirror neurons in communication and culture and what cross-activations may mean in terms of on going human evolution. Except the chapter where he speculates about the relation between arts and neuroscience, I throughly enjoyed every page of this book. I should also state that Ramachandran acknowledges that previously mentioned chapter is completely speculative and his ideas about this topic is yet to be developed.
The most striking idea in this book for me is Ramachandran's explanation of metaphors based on cross-activations of neighboring, or approximate areas in the brain. It is a beautiful theory that makes very much sense.
I'm an Oliver Sack fan of old and was excited to find a similar author. He is a bit more in depth and metaphysical than Sacks and I adored his last book. I looked forward to reading this book. Unfortunately, it was very short and the topics included weren't all that interesting to me. Interesting, but no show stoppers. If it had been longer, I'm sure I would have learned something that really excited me. Try his other books instead.
As a student of Cognitive Science, I often have problems explaining to friends and family just what it is about cognition that is so fascinating. Now I can just loan them this book! I think this book is perfect for those who are interested in consciousness studies but don't have time to read something more in depth. It does have a few odd issues : a lot of the real content is in the endnotes, and some endnotes are missing. But, lucky for this book, the quality of its content more than makes up for the ridiculous publishing errors. I recommend it to anyone and everyone.
This is a great Book!
If you have read Dan Dennett's Counsciousness explained you should read this!!!
Especially the Problem of Self & Qualia (subjective sensation) and how this can be explained as Metarepresentations of other Brain Systems instead of being explained away...
Can other animals beside us lie? ;)
Read this book if you are interested in the answer and the Brain in general.
