Who's in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain in Science and Inquiry

Feb 18, 2012 David Rubenstein rated it really liked it

Shelves: biology, philosophy, psychology, science

Michael Gazzaniga is a leading neuroscientist, and he has written a fascinating book on the subject of free will. Interestingly, we want to have free will ourselves, but we don't want others to have it. We want other people to act efficiently, and basically to think the same way that we do.

The book examines consciousness and free will from many different perspectives; emergence, evolution, epigenetics, neurons, quantum mechanics, morality, the justice system, split-brain patients, sociology and ...more

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Jan 16, 2020 bup rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, consciousness, 2020

I keep hoping to one day really understand that leap from "we're computers made of meat" to consciousness. Gazzaniga got me really close, and went through a lot of the same things other books I've read do: consciousness moves around in the brain constantly, and there is a part of the brain that decides which one or two of the hundreds of processes in the brain goes into the conscious 'slot', and consciousness often is post-facto (we do something, then become conscious of it).

Then, it seems like ...more

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Mar 09, 2016 Cassandra Kay Silva rated it really liked it

Shelves: psychology-sociology, science

This book didn't answer any questions about Free Will for me but I can't say it was uninteresting. I enjoyed each of his points in turn, it was worth the read as long as you are not expecting finality or a conclusion. ...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Timothy Finucane rated it really liked it

what exactly is the I we think we are? Where does it come from, and is it really in charge? These are the questions tackled in this book, along with issues such as responsibility and how the current neuroscience applies to our society and the law.

This is not a very long read, and there are other books out there that go more in-depth, but this one seems a great introduction to what we currently know of how the brain works and the dilemma of determinism over free will. The author explores why dete

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Jan 28, 2012 Clay rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

This book is filled with interesting neurological and psychological experiments, yet, I found the overall message underdeveloped and poorly asserted. Gassaniga tries to make an argument against determinism, but I feel like the real conclusion of the book is, "things are deterministic, but it does us no good to think of the world in those terms, and the brain is so complex that we do not yet understand how they are determined." I may have misunderstood the author, but that is the overall theme th ...more

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