When reading this account of a series of conversations between Jean-Pierre Changeux and Alain Connes, two main themes emerge. The first is how little progress there has been made in the philosophy of mathematics and knowledge since the time of Plato and the second is how much fun it is to discuss it. Changeux is Director of the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at the Institut Pasteur and Connes is a previous winner of the Fields Medal for mathematical excellence. His prime areas of work are in analysis and geometry. These two superb minds jointly explore the realm of consciousness, knowledge, and the inherent ambiguities in the search for truth and understanding.
As the conversations progress, many of the main themes of philosophy are covered, with an emphasis on mathematics and the abstract nature of the human mind. My favorite chapter was "The Neuronal Mathematician", where the neural basis of understanding theorems is discussed. If it were possible for Plato to eavesdrop on the conversation, he would be baffled by the references to computers, but the discussion on the "forms" of mathematics would seem like old news. One very profound question raised in this book bears repeating, "Is it necessary for a computer to experience pain and suffering to be considered conscious?"
A book that should be thought of as a primer only, this is one work that can keep you thinking and pondering for years.

Published in Journal of Recreational Mathematics, reprinted with permission.

There are many "dialogue" books of this sort, but personally I haven't read anything matching the brilliance of this one. The two men featured in this book, both true masters in their fields, represent two very different philsophical views, which become quite obvious immediately, yet they manage to engage in an intellectual dialogue free of the venom characterizing so much academic polemics nowadays, true to the spirit of those "pre-modern" French intellectuals, even reminiscent of Socrates & company. This is a minor masterpiece.

The topic matter of this study--the interface between the sciences of neurobiology and philosophy as they try to resolve the mind-body problem of dualism vs. monism--is extremely promising, and the participants in the debate (Jean Changeux and Paul Ricouer) are eminetly qualified to attend to it. Their discussion is exciting and thoughtful, though it is marred by their lack of a common language (which seems to undermine their whole strategy from the beginning). They can't even agree at times on basic terms, and at times they try to cover these differences by engaging in an irritating exchange of name-dropping (thereby belying the claim on the book's dust jacket that this book is accessible to non-specialists--you're expected not only to know who Kant and Spinoza are and what they've said on the subject, but also the Churchlands, Eccles, etc.) and "mutual admiration society" overpraising of one another. You do come to learn the impasses in their respective disciplines in speaking to one another, but the book seems very scattershot and happenstance. It seems like a noble project that failed due to a lack of structure and to the participants' oversized egos.

This book will blow your mind, er, your mind. Um, well, which is it?

This exchange between the Neuro-Scientist and the Philosopher is utterly gripping - but only if you are willing or caoable of the sustained concentration needed to acquire the sophisticated arguments and subtle differentiations that they each make. It is worth doing so.

In an age where scientistic triumphalism feels no need to explain itself, its methods, or its assumptions, to a public capable of understanding it (i.e., after the destruction of our education systems and the dumbing down used by the media and the government to prevent any meaningful "political" debate - i.e., the "political" as "that which concerns us all"), this book is some kind of touchstone - and a dozen similar books should be following it on a dozen different science/philosophy topics. For starters, who is informed enough at this level (which this wise people make so accessible to the willing reader) on: stem cell research, the origins of the universe, surveillance technologies, and so many other scientific "advances".

If this is the standard of public discourse in France, we are all sadly stupid in comparison.

We need such before we perish from our ignorance.

Although this book is written by an accomplished scientist about an intrinsically fascinating topic, I found it to be quite disappointing. The title would seem to offer more - a discussion which connects the neurons of our brains with ourselves as people. Nope, not in this book.

The main shortcoming of this book is it's focus on the lower levels of brain function - physiology and chemistry. This makes some sense, given the authors own ground-breaking research on synaptic transmission. Unfortunately, this emphasis also means that any systems-level understanding of the brain and of behavior is almost completely missing. There is virtually no neuropsychological content. There's no real discussion of language, human learning, perception, cognition, etc. The whole affair is decidely reductionistic.

As an example of the magnitude of the mismatch between what the reader might expect and what Changeux offers: "consciousness" is discussed on two brief pages, and what he writes about is consciousness as in sleeping or staying awake!

There are an increasing number of excellent books on the human brain written by leading scientists. For example, please don't confuse this book with the far-better and similarly titled work by Joseph LeDoux, called "The Synaptic Self." Read that book instead "Neuronal Man." If you're feeling ambitious, try Steven Pinker's "How the Mind Works." If you're into the more philosophical questions, try Antonio Damnasio's "The Feeling of What Happens." Now, that's a book which really connects our minds to our bodies!

I found this a bit of a slog. Needs more helpful diagrams -- color would help -- and a little more life. Despite the mass of info here, I don't quite know how much I really learned from this, although there certainly was a lot in it to learn, but because it didn't really do the trick for me. Better for hard core biology types I expect.