Brain Fiction: Self-deception And The Riddle Of Confabulation (philosophical Psychopathology)
by William Hirstein /
2004 / English / PDF
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CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2005
CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title for 2005
Some neurological patients exhibit a striking tendency to
confabulate—to construct false answers to a question while
genuinely believing that they are telling the truth. A stroke
victim, for example, will describe in detail a conference he
attended over the weekend when in fact he has not left the
hospital. Normal people, too, sometimes have a tendency to
confabulate; rather than admitting "I don't know," some people will
make up an answer or an explanation and express it with complete
conviction. In
Some neurological patients exhibit a striking tendency to
confabulate—to construct false answers to a question while
genuinely believing that they are telling the truth. A stroke
victim, for example, will describe in detail a conference he
attended over the weekend when in fact he has not left the
hospital. Normal people, too, sometimes have a tendency to
confabulate; rather than admitting "I don't know," some people will
make up an answer or an explanation and express it with complete
conviction. InBrain Fiction
Brain Fiction, William Hirstein examines
confabulation and argues that its causes are not merely technical
issues in neurology or cognitive science but deeply revealing about
the structure of the human intellect.
, William Hirstein examines
confabulation and argues that its causes are not merely technical
issues in neurology or cognitive science but deeply revealing about
the structure of the human intellect.
Hirstein describes confabulation as the failure of a normal
checking or censoring process in the brain—the failure to recognize
that a false answer is fantasy, not reality. Thus, he argues, the
creative ability to construct a plausible-sounding response and
some ability to check that response are separate in the human
brain. Hirstein sees the dialectic between the creative and
checking processes—"the inner dialogue"—as an important part of our
mental life. In constructing a theory of confabulation, Hirstein
integrates perspectives from different fields, including
philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology to achieve a natural mix
of conceptual issues usually treated by philosophers with purely
empirical issues; information about the distribution of certain
blood vessels in the prefrontal lobes of the brain, for example, or
the behavior of split-brain patients can shed light on the classic
questions of philosophy of mind, including questions about the
function of consciousness. This first book-length study of
confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive
science.
Hirstein describes confabulation as the failure of a normal
checking or censoring process in the brain—the failure to recognize
that a false answer is fantasy, not reality. Thus, he argues, the
creative ability to construct a plausible-sounding response and
some ability to check that response are separate in the human
brain. Hirstein sees the dialectic between the creative and
checking processes—"the inner dialogue"—as an important part of our
mental life. In constructing a theory of confabulation, Hirstein
integrates perspectives from different fields, including
philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology to achieve a natural mix
of conceptual issues usually treated by philosophers with purely
empirical issues; information about the distribution of certain
blood vessels in the prefrontal lobes of the brain, for example, or
the behavior of split-brain patients can shed light on the classic
questions of philosophy of mind, including questions about the
function of consciousness. This first book-length study of
confabulation breaks ground in both philosophy and cognitive
science.