Book Review : Thoughtful Study of the Busy Brain

The Mind by Richard M. Restak MD (Bantam: $29.95; 328 pages; illustrated)

The most complicated and the most mysterious object in the universe is the object closest to us: our brains, and the consciousness that comes with them, mind. Mind and consciousness--the awareness of mind--are what distinguish us from animals, and yet we know very little about them. We have continuous and intimate contact with thinking and thought, but how it happens is virtually unknown.

“Despite our best efforts, we can’t simply peer into ourselves and observe how we think,” Richard Restak says in “The Mind,” an extremely good, lucid, challenging survey of current knowledge and theories about the brain at work. “Nothing about thinking leads itself to simplistic explanations or relationships,” he concludes.

Mind, Brain Are Same

Restak is a neurologist and a psychiatrist, which tells a great deal about his overall approach to understanding the mind. In his view, and in the view of modern thought, mind and brain are the same. There is no separate spirit, or soul, that occupies our brains and is responsible for our experience of awareness.

Mind is not something tacked on to brain. It is brain. The notion that a physical problem should be treated by a neurologist while a mental problem should be treated by psychiatrist is a fundamental error.

As a result, much of Restak’s book deals with physiology, as well it should. Since every mental state, conscious and unconscious, corresponds to a physical state of the brain, Restak lays out what is known about the physical states and about the connections between the two.

He explores the development of the brain from conception through aging and the effects of the changes on our mental processes and skills. The excellent and illuminating chapter on depression links this widespread human malady to physical disorders of the brain, both genetic and developmental.

But Restak does not make a complete one-to-one correspondence between spirit and biology. “We human beings need to believe that we are free despite increasing scientific evidence that our freedom operates within the bounds of biologically determined constraints,” he writes. “Depression is a disease of the mind, not only the brain. It involves our sense of purpose, destiny, autonomy, dignity--considerations that extend well beyond biology to fundamental issues of who we are, why we are here, and where we are going.”

Spinal Fluid Chemicals

There may be a biological predisposition to mental disorder. But it requires the circumstances of life to bring them to fruition. Restak cites the work of Dr. Marie Asberg, a psychiatrist in Stockholm, who observed that the spinal fluid of a large number of depressed patients, including several suicides, contained low levels of a certain chemical. Despite this physical condition, she says, “A suicide attempt is unlikely to occur unless the individual finds himself in a situation which he conceives of as desperate or when he is without hope for the future.”

The key ingredient in suicide is hopelessness, not physiology.

But Restak’s chapter on violence leans much more to the physical side of things. “Our rationality is dependent on the normal functioning of tissue within our skulls,” he writes. “In the presence of a barely measurable electrical impulse within the limbic system, our much vaunted rationality can be replaced by savage attacks and seemingly inexplicable violence.”

This observation calls into serious question our notions of punishment and criminal law. We believe that crime requires intent and that people should not be punished if they are not responsible for their acts. Appropriately, and accurately, Restak throws up his hands in dismay:

“Despite the most thorough evaluation, the inner world of another person’s mind cannot be divined beyond a certain point. There is always room for doubt, reason for suggesting that the law will never be able to know with absolute certainty whether or not a person intended the violent act for which he is charged.”

Companion to PBS Series

Depression and violence are but two of the nine chapters in Restak’s book, which is the companion volume to the current PBS series on “The Mind.” Given the inherent limitations of television, it is not surprising that the book is much better, much deeper, much richer, much more provocative than the TV episodes.

Restak hits just the right level, neither too simple nor too technical. He is fascinated by the mysteries of mind, and he conveys that fascination. Mind is what makes possible all that we are--as individuals and as a species. The challenge is to figure out how. Restak faces that challenge and is invigorated by it.

You will be too.