Who's in Charge?: Free Will and the Science of the Brain

Resumen del libro

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"This exciting, stimulating, and sometimes even funny book challenges us to think in new ways about that most mysterious part of us-the part that makes us think we're us."-Alan Alda, actor and host of Scientific American Frontiers

"Gazzaniga is one of the most brilliant experimental neuroscientists in the world."-Tom Wolfe

There is no "you" consciously making decisions. Actions get underway before your brain is conscious of them. About this much, most neuroscientists agree. So how do we make decisions? How can we have free will if we don't pull the levers on our own behavior? What moral and legal implications follow if we don't have free will?

In this essential new book, the father of cognitive neuroscience, Michael S. Gazzaniga, reframes the age-old debate surrounding free-will to account for our new understanding of the brain. The issue is not whether we are "free" to make choices; rather it is whether there is a scientific reason that we should not hold people accountable for their actions. The mind, which is somehow generated by the physical processes of the brain, nevertheless "constrains" the brain just as cars are constrained by the traffic they create. Gazzaniga explores the ethical implications of this startling new science.

Who's in Charge? is a primer for a new era in the understanding of human behavior that ranges across neuroscience, psychology, ethics, and the law with a light touch but profound implications.

Biografía del autor

Michael S. Gazzaniga es director del Centro SAGE para el estudio de la mente de la Universidad de California en Santa Barbara, y también dirige la Universidad de Verano sobre Ciencia Cognitiva en la misma universidad. En 1964 realizó un doctorado en psicobiología del Instituto Tecnológico de California, donde trabajó bajo la dirección de Roger Wolcott Sperry, con la responsabilidad principal de iniciar la búsqueda de la división del cerebro y sus funciones. En sus trabajos posteriores ha logrado importantes avances para nuestro entendimiento de las funciones de lateralización en el cerebro y cómo los hemisferios cerebrales se comunican entre sí. Actualmente, está a cargo de un amplio programa de investigación e investigación de cómo el cerebro crea la mente. Es miembro de la Academy of Arts and Sciences y del Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. El doctor Gazzaniga es el autor de El cerebro ético, publicado por Paidós, y en la actualidad vive en California.