De la Mettrie’s Ghost
A powerful new view of the human brain and free will DE LA METTRIE’S GHOST The Story of Decisions by Chris Nunn This book is about how we make choices. It is a compelling analysis of the nature of free will, drawing together evidence from chemistry, literature, politics, history and beyond. In DE LA METTRIE’S […]
A powerful new view of the human brain and free will
DE LA METTRIE’S GHOST
The Story of Decisions
by Chris Nunn
This book is about how we make choices. It is a compelling analysis of the nature of free will, drawing together evidence from chemistry, literature, politics, history and beyond.
In DE LA METTRIE’S GHOST, psychiatrist Chris Nunn elegantly explores the revolutions in medicine, genetics, bioethics and neuroscience spurred by Julien de la Mettrie’s 300-year-old tract Man the Machine. Nunn concludes that a mechanistic view of the human brain, though once fruitful, is now moribund. He proposes a powerful alternative: that stories, recorded in our memories throughout life, are the mediators of free choice. Nunn demonstrates how this original approach could reconcile the latest
brain-imaging results and our seemingly contradictory intuition about decision making and responsibility.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHRIS NUNN is Associate Editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. He has written numerous papers, articles and book reviews. His first book, AWARENESS, was an examination of current scientific thinking about the nature of consciousness. He has spent 30 years as a consultant psychiatrist and researcher specializing in manic-depression and the senses, most recently at Southampton University in the UK.
DE LA METTRIE’S GHOST
The Story of Decisions
Chris Nunn
ISBN: 1-4039-9495-1; $24.95; 256 pages; hardcover
Macmillan Science (dist. by Palgrave Macmillan)
