Making up the Mind

Written by one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, Making Up the Mind is the first accessible account of experimental studies showing how the brain creates our mental world.

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• Uses evidence from brain imaging, psychological experiments and studies of patients to explore the relationship between the mind and the brain
  
• Demonstrates that our knowledge of both the mental and physical comes to us through models created by our brain
  
• Shows how the brain makes communication of ideas from one mind to another possible

List of Abbreviations ix

Preface x

Acknowledgments xi

Prologue: Real Scientists Don’t Study the Mind 1

The Psychologist’s Fear of the Party 1

Hard Science and Soft Science 3

Hard Science – Objective; Soft Science – Subjective 5

Can Big Science Save Soft Science? 7

Measuring Mental Activity 9

How Can the Mental Emerge from the Physical? 15

I Can Read Your Mind 16

How the Brain Creates the World 16

Part I Seeing through the Brain’s Illusions 19

1 Clues from a Damaged Brain 21

Sensing the Physical World 21

The Mind and the Brain 22

When the Brain Doesn’t Know 24

When the Brain Knows, But Doesn’t Tell 27

When the Brain Tells Lies 29

How Brain Activity Creates False Knowledge 31

How to Make Your Brain Lie to You 34

Checking the Reality of Our Experiences 36

How Do We Know What’s Real? 37

2 What a Normal Brain Tells Us about the World 40

Illusions of Awareness 40

Our Secretive Brain 44

Our Distorting Brain 48

Our Creative Brain 50

3 What the Brain Tells Us about Our Bodies 61

Privileged Access? 61

Where’s the Border? 61

We Don’t Know What We Are Doing 64

Who’s in Control? 66

My Brain Can Act Perfectly Well without Me 68

Phantoms in the Brain 70

There’s Nothing Wrong with Me 74

Who’s Doing It? 75

Where Is the “You”? 77

Part II How the Brain Does It 83

4 Getting Ahead by Prediction 85

Patterns of Reward and Punishment 85

How the Brain Embeds Us in the World and Then Hides Us 100

The Feeling of Being in Control 105

When the System Fails 107

The Invisible Actor at the Center of the World 109

5 Our Perception of the World Is a Fantasy That Coincides with Reality 111

Our Brain Creates an Effortless Perception of the Physical World 111

The Information Revolution 112

What Can Clever Machines Really Do? 116

A Problem with Information Theory 117

The Reverend Thomas Bayes 119

The Ideal Bayesian Observer 123

How a Bayesian Brain Can Make Models of the World 125

Is There a Rhinoceros in the Room? 125

Where Does Prior Knowledge Come From? 127

How Action Tells Us about the World 130

My Perception Is Not of the World, But of My Brain’s Model of the World 132

Color Is in the Brain, Not in the World 134

Perception Is a Fantasy That Coincides with Reality 134

We Are Not the Slaves of Our Senses 135

So How Do We Know What’s Real? 136

Imagination Is Extremely Boring 137

6 How Brains Model Minds 139

Biological Motion: The Way Living Things Move 140

How Movements Can Reveal Intentions 141

Imitation 144

Imitation: Perceiving the Goals of Others 145

Humans and Robots 148

Empathy 149

The Experience of Agency 151

The Problem with Privileged Access 155

Illusions of Agency 156

Hallucinating Other Agents 157

Part III Culture and the Brain 161

7 Sharing Minds – How the Brain Creates Culture 163

The Problem with Translation 163

Meanings and Goals 165

Solving the Inverse Problem 166

Prior Knowledge and Prejudice 167

What Will He Do Next? 168

Other People Are Contagious 169

Communication Is More Than Just Speaking 170

Teaching Is Not Just a Demonstration To Be Imitated 171

Closing the Loop 173

Fork Handles: The Two Ronnies Close the Loop (Eventually) 174

Fully Closing the Loop 175

Knowledge Can Be Shared 175

Knowledge Is Power 177

The Truth 179

Epilogue: Me and My Brain 184

Chris Frith and I 184

Searching for the Will in the Brain 185

Where Is the Top in Top-Down Control? 186

The Homunculus 188

This Book Is Not About Consciousness 189

Why Are People So Nice (as Long as They Are Treated Fairly)? 190

Even an Illusion Has Responsibilities 191

The Evidence 194

Illustrations and Text Credits 218

Index 226

“This book presents a clear description of the current neuroscientific view of the relationship between the brain and the mind.” (Brain Science Podcast, May 2009)

"Neuroscience and psychology often struggle to answer the really interesting questions about the mind, but in this fascinating book, Chris Frith shows that science can finally start explaining how and why we experience the world as we do. Anyone interested in human nature - not just the nuts and bolts of neural circuits - will find his storytelling compelling. Frith delves into topics such as delusions, illusions, imagination and imitation, bringing clarity and insight to the simplest abservations and most complex experiments alike." (New Scientist)

"Making up the Mind is an interesting book to everybody who wants to learn more about how the brain gives rise to our mental experiences...As Frith himself depicts in a sort of framing story, you will easily find yourself talking about these ideas at your next dinner party, as well as use it for serious considerations on the brain or as a toolbox for next term's essay. A stimulating new book by a distinguished scientist who knows what he is talking about." (Metapsychology Online Reviews)

"Frith has produced an enthralling discussion on the subtle links between mind and brain, sometimes with humorous liaisons between himself, as narrator, and others who might be labelled as sceptics, unbelievers." (Psychologist)

“Stands apart from many that have been written lately … For those who have time to read only one book … this should be it. Essential.” (Choice Reviews)

Chris Frith is Professor in Neuropsychology at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London. His publications include Schizophrenia: A Very Short Introduction (2003, with Eve C. Johnstone) and The Neuroscience of Social Interaction (2004, edited with Daniel Wolpert). Inside your head there is an amazing labor-saving device; more effective than the latest high-tech computer. Your brain frees you from the everyday tasks of moving about in the world around you, allowing you to concentrate on the things that are important to you: making friends and influencing people. However, the ‘you’ that is released into this social world is also a construction of your brain. It is your brain that enables you to share your mental life with the people around you.

Making up the Mind is the first accessible account of experimental studies showing how the brain creates our mental world. Using evidence from brain imaging, psychological experiments, and studies with patients, Chris Frith, one of the world’s leading neuroscientists, explores the relationship between the mind and the brain.

Oliver Sacks"Making up the Mind is a fascinating guided tour through the elusive interface between mind and brain written by a pioneer in the field. The authors obvious passion for the subject shines through every page."
–V. S. Ramachandran

"I soon made up my mind that this is an excellent, most readable and stimulating book. The author is a distinguished neuroscientist working especially on brain imaging."
–RL Gregory, Experimental Psychology

"Chris Frith, one of the pioneers in applying brain imaging to study mental processes, has written a brilliant introduction to the biology of mental processes for the general reader. This superb book describes how we recreate in our brains a representation of the external world. Clearly and beautifully written, this book is for all who want to learn about how the brain gives rise to the mental phenomenon of our lives. A must read!"
–Eric R. Kandel, M.D.

"Important and surprising. The brain will never seem the same again."
–Lewis Wolpert, University College London

"Frith’s luminously intelligent book...raises interesting questions about how it is possible to make serious scientific progress, on the borders of metaphysics, while still thinking inside a framework that is an ontological and epistemological muddle."
–Raymond Tallis, Brain