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The Idea of the Brain

A History

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The Idea of the Brain

By: Matthew Cobb
Narrated by: Joe Jameson
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About this listen

A monumental, sweeping journey from the ancient roots of neurology to the most astonishing recent research.

This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe. Today we tend to picture the brain as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the brain's deepest secrets once and for all?

Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge. Our latest theories allow us to create artificial memories in the brain of a mouse, and to build AI programmes capable of extraordinary cognitive feats. A complete understanding seems within our grasp.

But to make that final breakthrough, we may need a radical new approach. At every step of our quest, Cobb shows that it was new ideas that brought illumination. Where, he asks, might the next one come from? What will it be?

©2020 Matthew Cobb (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK Biological Sciences History History & Philosophy Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Human Brain Mathematics Health Mental Health
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This is an amazing audiobook and a must-listen for anyone with an interest in artificial intelligence as well as a history of neuroscience more generally speaking. It is extremely accessible and also includes a brief discussion on the views of those in antiquity as well. In particular, the audiobook is narrated outstandingly well.

An amazing audiobook and a must-listen

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Overall, this book is a well written, entertaining and informative overview of our understanding of the brain which I recommend purchasing. About 75% of the book's content is historical and scientific. I am not expert but all this content seemed great- accessible yet informative. However, about 25% of it (concentrated mainly in the 'Consciousness' chapter concerns the philosophy of mind. I appreciate the attempt to include philosophical content and I know this book is not written by a philosopher but I was still unimpressed with it's poor handling. I am merely an undergraduate philosophy student with a particular interest in mind but Cobb's simplistic and misleading representation of philosophical views is blatant. This applies to a few areas like his poor coverage of emergence but biggest issue is his glibly dismissive attitude- justified by extremely weak arguments - towards dualism. I don't expect him to endorse the view but merely to treat it fairly. By contrast, he often misrepresents it, such as making it seem like all dualists believe minds are entities independent of the physical world, whereas people like David chalmers (who Cobb directly misrepresents) merely believe that consciousness is explained by the emergence of non-physical properties from physical brains. He also suggests that Chalmers and other dualists are simply defeatist by temperament about the possibility of reducing consciousness to physical phenomena. In reality they offer various arguments to suggest such a reduction is impossible in principle. I don't expect him to cover such arguments but maybe he should therefore show some humility about a field he is outside of and clearly lacks appreciation of. It's particularly ironic given his correct observation that understanding the brain requires conceptual as well as experimental progress, since he seems rather resistant to taking conceptual issues like the hard problem seriously.

Good Science, Bad Philosophy

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Knowing not so much about the brain, I really like reading books about science in general. This book managed to really put the point across in depth but was surprisingly a rather easy read. Couldn't put it down.

Fantastic Read

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Whilst this is billed as a history it is really an overview of the study of the brain with a lot of history. When I studied the brain at university many ideas made no sense. It turns out you need a detailed and critical history to understand a lot of the ideas about the brain.

Targeted at the general reader it provides a fascinating overview of the ideas used to try (and mostly fail) to understand the brain. Written in a clear and easy to understand style, it has changed my views on some important aspects of the science.

Easily the best science book I have read in the last decade.


Stunning overview and history of neuroscience

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Very informative and in the same way not complicated. It's great that such a complicated subject could be described as a storytell.

great book

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