Category: Uncategorized
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The restitution of function. Do new things happen in the brain, or are old things just repurposed?
“The restitution of (brain) function” is James’ phrase, and it’s a somewhat cumbersome one. Today we’d just refer to the underlying idea as the brain’s “plasticity.” James is a phenomenal writer, so I’m inclined to believe that if he could have gotten his intent across with a two dollar word instead of a ten dollar…
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Ejective consciousness
“It may be called the theory of polyzoism or multiple monadism; and it conceives the matter thus: Every brain-cell has its own individual consciousness, which no other cell knows anything about, all individual consciousnesses being ‘ejective’ to each other. There is, however, among the cells one central or pontifical one to which our consciousness is attached.” William James,…
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The localization question, part II
After summarizing the evidence for localized motor function in the brain (the cortex in particular), James does the same for sensory function. Again, I’m impressed by how much this view from 1890 could be ported over to an Intro Neuro class in 2024. That’s not to say nothing here is wrong or dated. Just that…
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The localization question, part I
Having dispatched with the phrenologists, James next considers the question of localization of brain function — one of the most enduring and important in neuroscience. This section of the Principles is a tour of Neurology in the nineteenth century, and reading it, I’m impressed by how much of it holds up. It can be easy…
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On Phrenology
In introductory neuroscience courses it’s customary to give the phrenologists a good thrashing whenever the topic of cortical localization comes up. Phrenology was the once enthralling, but now maligned enterprise of matching specific psychological traits and mental attributes to specific bumps on the head. The intent was good and grounded in a real and serious…
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On “The Education of the Hemispheres”. Why “the burnt child dreads the fire.”
The view of the brain that James is teeing up for us so far is basically a “reflexological” one. That is, we’re essentially bundles of simple reflexes that are blindly pinging across the brain’s lower centers, with the cortex (the ‘hemispheres’) sitting on top, chaining these reflexes together and making them contingent on one another…
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On “the hemispheres”. Also, on headless copulating frogs.
James is definitely trending into Neurophilosophy here, and tries to map some moral and ethical notions onto considerations of brain circuitry. Quite conveniently, the brain he describes seems designed to instantiate 19th century New England Protestant virtues. I think he’s getting a bit intellectually greedy and ahead of himself here, but the tone isn’t pushy,…
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A frog brain dissection with Professor James
In the previous section on the nervous system, James gave us permission to think teleologically about the brain (i.e. the brain executes actions that are ‘appropriate’ for a useful outcome). He also urged us to think about the brain in a hierarchical way, supporting behaviors ranging from completely automatic (reflexes) to fully volitional (complex acts…
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A hierarchy of acts
Summary of The Principles, Ch2, part 1. A neuroscientist friend of mine once said “trees don’t need a retina”, and it stuck with me. It was a pithy way of stating the idea that the senses are only important in so far as they provide data to act upon. If you’re literally planted in place,…
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To understand minds, look at actions and goals
Summary of ‘The Principles’ — Chapter 1, part 2. James barters a truce between the associationists and spiritualists and essentially says: hey, I think we can all agree that the brain has something to do with mental life, regardless of what our philosophical commitments are. Whatever other sort of ‘ists’ we are, we are all…
The Excitable Membrane 