In this highly ambitious book, Glynn attempts to provide a
description of both how the brain works and how it has developed.
Taking an interdisciplinary approach (he is a physiologist by
training), he relies on insights from a wide number of disciplines,
including psychology, neurology, anthropology, linguistics,
artificial intelligence, psychiatry, physiology, and even philosophy.
He is interested in providing answers to some perennial and
interconnected questions that relate to the mind: “What kind
of thing is mind? What is the relation between our minds and our
bodies and, more specifically, what is the relation between what goes
on in our minds, and what goes on in our brains? How did brains and
minds originate? Can our brains be regarded as nothing more than
exceedingly complicated machines? Can minds exist without
brains” (p. 4). Although his arguments are rather technical,
the book is intended for a nonscientist audience.
Artificial intelligence as a challenge for the contemporary social analysis