Paul L. Nunez

In deciding between which neuro book to read next, Jeff Hawkin's [b:On Intelligence|27539|On Intelligence|Jeff Hawkins|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924656s/27539.jpg|1308] and this book by Nunez (whose older [b:Electric Fields of the Brain: The Neurophysics of Eeg|610121|Electric Fields of the Brain The Neurophysics of Eeg|Paul L. Nunez|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347331842s/610121.jpg|596602] I have long wanted to read), I read the prologues of both.

The Hawkins prologue is defensive and rather vague about the contents of the book, resulting in the author coming across as a bit of a crank.

The Nunez book prologue, in addition to being more informative, contains this gem:

Like most brain scientists, much of my time is spent in "day science", with its focus on essential experimental or mathematical details. Esoteric reflections on the nature and origins of consciousness are mostly relegated to "night science", the discussions among colleagues after the second round of beers has been consumed.

Being more of a night-scientist myself, I was sold.


The book covers a lot of territory, and unfortunately not very well. There are layman's explanations of probability, information theory, quantum physics, and so forth, but much better overviews can be found elsewhere. The remainder is an informal discussion of Nunez's insights over decades of brain research, and these are well worth reading.

The book presents the question: does the brain create the mind, or is the mind an external force which the brain receives like an antenna? Ultimately, the book provides a lot of justification for why the question is valid, and ends by asks you to consider this question seriously. There are no answers provided, and barely any theories. This makes the book more than a little disappointing.… (meer)

Oh boy. We got a good one.

Neuroscience - the last frontier of human physiology. This field is booming right now, as many try and discover the very nature of our consciousness. This is truly fascinating stuff, no question.

Nunez argues that a modern overview of neuroscience requires a wide array of knowledge from biochemistry, systems engineering, psychology, cell biology, mathematics, complexity theory, and even quantum physics. OK. Reasonable enough.

Moving from that, he states that consciousness, and the origins thereof, lie within the complex interactions between local and distant neurons in the brain. Nunez is a specialist in EEGs, and this part of the book is very sound, citing many studies and being very reasonable.

After that, he says that consciousness is an unknowable 'property of nature' or 'fundamental entity of space-time' that the human brain is attuned to, like some aspects of quantum physics?

Uh. What?

Granted, the author has the decency to admit this is a wacky idea. But I'm just baffled.

The book seems to be bursting with a wide degree of topics, from probability to Einsteinian relativity, and some of these are a bit oddly connected. The math may be a bit disconcerting for layman readers, and some of the simpler explanations are a bit too little for specialists. This is a book that isn't sure about a lot of things, much like the state of the field. Still not bad, though. Some neat ideas.… (meer)