BRAVE_NEURO_WORLD? NEUROSCIENCE, NEW ANSWERS, NEW QUESTIONS
September – November 2007
Articles in this Magazine
THE ENCHANTED LOOM
by Diane Ackerman
With sensuous and inventive prose, this celebrated author-poet reminds us that the brain is not just a machine to be probed but a phenomenon to be marveled at. A “dream factory,” a “chemistry lab,” a “hall of mirrors”–the brain and mind beguile us into thinking we know who we are.
PEERING INTO OUR POTENTIAL
by Matthew Solan
From the placebo effect and meditating monks to the adolescent brain and food cravings, the tools of neuroscience keep penetrating the nature of being human. And as they do, new insights are revealed about our physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being.
NEUROTECHNOLOGY’S SHADOW
by Byron Belitsos
For all the promise of neuroscience, there is plenty of peril. While most attention is focused on its positive applications, other more unsettling purposes are quietly moving forward. Are the secrets of the brain falling into the wrong hands?
OUR EVOLVING GLOBAL BRAIN
by Steven Vedro
Rapid advances in media and communication technology are rewiring our brains while challenging our capacity to process a relentless onslaught of new stimuli. More than a “stew of electromagnetic noise,” it’s a sign that we’re moving toward cooperative intelligence and planetary cocreation.
CONSCIOUSNESS: STILL A MYSTERY
by John Hick
The brain is not the mind, argues this eminent UK scholar, despite what the majority of neuroscientists are concluding. In fact, there are still far more questions than answers in the quest to understand consciousness.
