Ramachandran (A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness), director of the Center
for Brain and Cognition at UCSD, explores why humans, who are "anatomically,
neurologically and genetically, physiologically apes," are not "merely" apes.
While animals can communicate with sound and gesture, and chimpanzees can
even use words to express immediate needs, humans have developed the ability
to speak in structurally complex sentences, and often speak in metaphor.
Ramachandran speculates that, as we can map another's actions and intuit
their thoughts, we also map our own sensory apparatus, perceiving our
surroundings.and perceiving ourselves perceiving our surroundings. We imagine
the future and speculate about the past and seek to understand our place in
the universe, laying the foundation for our the sense of free will; we not
only envisage future actions, but are aware of their potential consequences
and the responsibility for our choices. Richard Dawkins has called
Ramachandran "the Marco Polo of neuroscience," and with good reason.
He offers a fascinating explanation of cutting-edge-neurological research
that deepens our understanding of the relationship between the perceptions
of the mind and the workings of the brain.

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