Splendors and Miseries of the Brain

The brain is an evolutionary triumph of neural engineering. Its capacity to seek knowledge and form generalized concepts is boundless. In this ground-breaking new study, Semir Zeki explores the enormously elegant and efficient machinery of the brain to analyze its products in creative disciplines, and discover whether or not this intricate system brings different solutions to bear in solving problems in disparate fields. Splendors and Miseries of the Brain, which is derived from Balzac's novel of the same name, delves into the brain's key functions of obtaining knowledge and forming concepts about the world. While these functions have been more thoroughly documented in neurobiology's traditional disciplines -physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, pharmacology, mathematics, and computer science to name but a few - Zeki goes beyond these fields to scientifically study the products of the brain in literature, music, art, and other fields. By studying these fields, Zeki shows that we can reach important conclusions about how the brain functions and its common processes. He also examines the heavy price to be paid in terms of human happiness that comes with the exquisite capacity of the brain, and shows how misery can ultimately be turned to advantage, due to its intimate link to creativity.

Semir Zeki is a visual neurobiologist in the Department of Cognitive Neurology at University College London. Zeki has pioneered the study of the primate visual brain and furthered research on how affective states are generated by visual inputs. He has published extensively in his field, including the books Inner Vision: an Exploration of Art and the Brain (1999) and A Vision of the Brain (Wiley-Blackwell, 1993), and has also co-authored a book with the late French painter Balthus, entitled La Quête de l'essentiel (1995).

List of Figures vii Note to the Reader ix Acknowledgments x Introduction 1 Part I Abstraction and the Brain 7 1 Abstraction 9 2 The Brain and its Concepts 21 3 Inherited Brain Concepts 26 4 The Distributed Knowledge-Acquiring System of the Brain 35 5 The Acquired Synthetic Brain Concepts 42 6 The Synthetic Brain Concept and the Platonic Ideal 46 7 Creativity and the Source of Perfection in the Brain 50 Part II Brain Concepts and Ambiguity 59 8 Ambiguity in the Brain and in Art 61 9 Processing and Perceptual Sites in the Brain 65 10 From Unambiguous to Ambiguous Knowledge 73 11 Higher Levels of Ambiguity 87 Part III Unachievable Brain Concepts 99 Introduction 101 12 Michelangelo and the Non finito 102 13 Paul Cézanne and the Unfinished 111 14 Unfinished Art in Literature 120 Part IV Brain Concepts of Love 129 Conte by Arthur Rimbaud 131 15 The Brain's Concepts of Love 132 16 The Neural Correlates of Love 137 17 Brain Concepts of Unity and Annihilation in Love 150 18 Sacred and Profane 158 19 The Metamorphosis of the Brain Concept of Love in Dante 170 20 Wagner and Tristan und Isolde 182 21 Thomas Mann and Death in Venice 193 22 A neurobiological analysis of Freud's Civilization and its Discontents 203 Notes 213 Index 227