Incognito: The secret lives of the brain by David Eagleman is a book written about the brain for the lay reader by a neuroscientist.
Started: 9/9/2019
Completed: 9/13/2019
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody
Review:
This book is pretty darn good and introduces a slew of questions. Near the end, however, the author looks at judicial proceedings and concludes that a sentencing process which looks at the likelihood of recidivism is the best way to move forward. The author suggests that the prison sentence should be based on the risk of future criminal activity. While this may have a lot of meaning from neuropsychology, it is pretty scary to have prison sentences not based on the action that occurred, but based on the risk of that person committing future crimes. This is a pretty bad thing for the judiciary. Your genetics determine your sentence. Or your brain tumor. Or your exposure to some kind of virus that changes the expression of your genetics. Or, chillingly, your poverty.
The other side, equally chilling, is that criminal behavior is subject to medical treatment. Certainly, to an extent, this is true. One wonders, however, how it is possible to treat an individual based on a sociological statistical analysis. The implications are pretty scary. Would criminals be allowed to reproduce and pass on their dangerous genetics (the author frequently notes that the single highest genetic prediction of criminal activity is to have a "Y" chromosome--be male)? We have seen this attempt at "forward thinking" (considering a current action in terms of likely future outcomes) with sterilization in the 1920s...
The conclusion of the book kind of throws shade at the judicial section. The author argues that simply looking at the structures of the brain (at whatever level of detail) is probably insufficient to understanding how the brain works. If that approach is accurate, then the judicial component of the book is woefully misguided. It is almost as though two different people wrote the book (or there was a lack of "full thinking" in applying the conclusion to the arguments made previously). Of course, the author would be comfortable with the concept that one actual brain could posit multiple different overlapping and conflicting opinions--what he refers to as a "team of rivals"--as he argues that this is how the brain operates (many different approaches to the same problem rattle around in the brain until a single approach wins). The downside, however, to his demonstrating one of his basic concepts is that the intent of the book is to elucidate how an understanding of the brain is important, not demonstrate how a brain might appear if the "controls" were peeled back and the seething maelstrom of potential actions were exposed.
This book is pretty darn good and introduces a slew of questions. Near the end, however, the author looks at judicial proceedings and concludes that a sentencing process which looks at the likelihood of recidivism is the best way to move forward. The author suggests that the prison sentence should be based on the risk of future criminal activity. While this may have a lot of meaning from neuropsychology, it is pretty scary to have prison sentences not based on the action that occurred, but based on the risk of that person committing future crimes. This is a pretty bad thing for the judiciary. Your genetics determine your sentence. Or your brain tumor. Or your exposure to some kind of virus that changes the expression of your genetics. Or, chillingly, your poverty.
The other side, equally chilling, is that criminal behavior is subject to medical treatment. Certainly, to an extent, this is true. One wonders, however, how it is possible to treat an individual based on a sociological statistical analysis. The implications are pretty scary. Would criminals be allowed to reproduce and pass on their dangerous genetics (the author frequently notes that the single highest genetic prediction of criminal activity is to have a "Y" chromosome--be male)? We have seen this attempt at "forward thinking" (considering a current action in terms of likely future outcomes) with sterilization in the 1920s...
The conclusion of the book kind of throws shade at the judicial section. The author argues that simply looking at the structures of the brain (at whatever level of detail) is probably insufficient to understanding how the brain works. If that approach is accurate, then the judicial component of the book is woefully misguided. It is almost as though two different people wrote the book (or there was a lack of "full thinking" in applying the conclusion to the arguments made previously). Of course, the author would be comfortable with the concept that one actual brain could posit multiple different overlapping and conflicting opinions--what he refers to as a "team of rivals"--as he argues that this is how the brain operates (many different approaches to the same problem rattle around in the brain until a single approach wins). The downside, however, to his demonstrating one of his basic concepts is that the intent of the book is to elucidate how an understanding of the brain is important, not demonstrate how a brain might appear if the "controls" were peeled back and the seething maelstrom of potential actions were exposed.
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