Into the Silent Land: Travels in neuropsychology by Paul Broks, Atlantic Books, £14.99, ISBN 190380955X Reviewed by Lewis Wolpert
PAUL BROKS presents his personal experiences of patients with brain damage in his neuro-psychology clinic in poetic prose, spiced with imaginary conversations with spirits. It falls to these non-existent beings to accuse him of being a “Mysterian”, one who avers that the mind cannot be understood. Worse still, understanding may destroy the myth of selfhood and soul. Between the strange mental states we get Broks’s views on the nature of our brains, who we are and that dread word, consciousness.
Consciousness…
