THE EMERGING MIND
THE
REITH LECTURES 2003 BBC and Profile books
“This is Vintage Ramachandran. Packed with ideas that are bold,
irreverent, original and ingenious. People who have never thought
much about the brain will be intrigued but so will those who, like me,
have spent most of their lives thinking about the brain. Truly a breath
of fresh air”
-David Hubel , Nobel Laureate
“Ramachandran is a latter-day Marco Polo journeying the silk
roads
of science to strange and exotic Cathays of the mind. He returns laden
with phenomenological treasures, travelers tales whose weirdness
you could dine out on but which in his subtle and expert telling yield
more satisfying riches of scientific understanding”
-Richard Dawkins
“Dazzling performances given by the sort of charismatic
academic
at whose feet every parent dreams their student children will have
the good fortune to sit. His delivery was so powerful, so fiery, you
could imagine lightning shooting from his fingertips as … he told a
rapt audience about the latest research into the complex
evolutionary development of the brain”
-Observer
“‘Dr Ramachandran has a brilliant bedside manner. This
week’s
lecture gets really colourful as the great brain researcher discusses
such conditions as Capgras’ delusion (you believe your mother is
an imposter)”
-Independent
“They are riveting. Professor Ramachandran is one of the
world’s
foremost neuroscientists. His erudition, however, is married to his
ability to be lucid, informative and slyly witty … his researches
into the workings of the brain may bring about a revolution …
Unquestionably … one of the best years in this long
established
series”
-Guardian
“The eminent neuroscientist and incumbent of the Reith lectures
... continues to energize listeners”
-Herald
“Novel methodology that allows observation of functional relations
between various locations of the brain lead an unusually clever
neuroscientist to explain baffling cases in neurology and
neuropsychiatry and to conclude that brain science can now
resolve many of the age-old quandaries of philosophers. A
thought-provoking, wonderful book.”
-Roger Guillemin, Nobel Laureate
“V. S. Ramachandran is one of our most gifted physicians and
expositors, he illuminates everything he touches on – whether it is
phantom limbs or how the brain can generate illusions and
delusions, or synesthesia and its relation to metaphor, creativity and
art, or the ultimate questions of how brain relates to mind. The
Emerging Mind belongs to that rare category of scientific book –
one as accessible as it is deep.”
-Dr Oliver Sacks MD
“Praise for Phantoms in the Brain by VS Ramachandran”
-William Morrow New York
“‘This is a splendid book … The patients he describes
are fascinating,
and his experiments on them are both simple and ingenious … If
you are at all interested in how your brain works, this is the book
you must read”
-Francis Crick, Nobel Laureate
“‘The book is enthralling not only for its clear and
eloquent
descriptions of neurological phenomena … but also for its portrait of
Dr Ramachandran, the enthusiast in search of the secrets of the
human mind. Phantoms in the Brain is about both the brain and V. S.
Ramachandran, and he is a splendid subject indeed”
-Mickey Goldberg MD, Chief, Neuropsychology, National Institute for
Health, in New York Times Book Review
“Ingenious theories, elegant experiments,
and, in the end a deeper
understanding”
-The Economist (selected as one of the best books in 1998 )
“Phantoms in the Brain grips from
start to finish … Dr Ramachandran
is to be congratulated for writing so thrillingly about the deep
architecture of our most precious, mysterious organ”
-Guardian
“One of the most original and accessible
neurology books of our
generation”
-Dr. Oliver Sacks MD