The living brain

258 Pages·1961·35.141 MB·English

by  Walter, William Grey

The Living Brain
A Pelican Book
Desnutnd Tripp
William Grey Walter was born in 1910 at Kansas City. His
father was English and at seven he came here to school. He
was a promising classicist at Westminster School, but what
had started as a hobby at home developed into a strong bent
for scientific subjects. At Cambridge he read Natural
Sciences and, after taking a First, did four years of post­
graduate research in nerve physiology and conditioned re­
flexes. His career since then, most notably as Head of the
Burden Neurological Institute at Bristol, has been a succes­
sion of remarkable discoveries - ‘delta’ rhythms, new facts
about epilepsy, ‘alpha’ rhythms, and ‘theta’ waves. The
‘electro-mechanical animals’ which he devised over ten years
ago attracted much interest and he has conducted demon­
strations on TV.
Dr Grey Walter speaks French, German, and Italian, has
travelled widely and published many learned papers. He is
D.Sc.(Cambridge) and has been honoured by foreign uni­
versities. His only novel. Further Outlook, deals in fiction form
with the next hundred years. He is a qualified glider pilot
and interested in model-making and underwater exploration.
Cover design by Ian Bradbery, using a photograph
from the Mansell Collection
For a complete list of books available
please write to Penguin Books
whose address can be found on the
back of the title page
PELICAN BOOKS
A526
THE LIVING BRAIN
W. GREY WALTER
W. GREY WALTER
THE LIVING
BRAIN
\ ...an enchanted loom where millions
of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving
pattern, always a meaningful pattern
though never an abiding one ..
SIR CHARLES SHERRINGTON
PENGUIN BOOKS
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex
AUSTRALIA: Penguin Books Pty Ltd, 762 Whitehorse Road,
Mitcham, Victoria
First published by Duckworth 1953
Published in Penguin Books 1961
Copyright© W. Grey Walter, 1961
Made and printed in Great Britain
by Hazcll Watson & Viney Ltd
Aylesbury and Slough
This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade, be lent,
re-sold, hired out, or otherwise disposed
of without the publisher's consent,
in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which
it is published
TO MY FATHER
with whom this book
happily written
Contents
PREFACE TO PELICAN EDITION
FOREWORD
1 Lords of the Earth
In what Man differs from Ape - The living cell -
From nerve-net to ganglia - Distinction of plant
and animal - Sex orgies of the plants - Signifi­
cance of mobility - Feedback, physical and
metaphysical - Mutations and missing links -
Emergence of brain - Lords of the sea - The great
migration - Amphibian holocausts - Reptile and
bird - The double-brained dinosaur - His 100
million years reign - Survival of the mammals -
Origin of sleep - Mastery of fire - Homeostasis,
the inner calm.
2 A Mirror for the Brain
The unsuspected organ - Other seats of the
emotions - Foresight of Hobbes - Hartley’s ‘doc­
trine of mechanism’ - Galvani’s key to the brain
- Animal electricity - Experiments on a battlefield
- Pavlov and classical physiology - Verifications
at Cambridge - Berger discovers ‘the alpha
rhythm’ - Golla foresees its clinical value -
Adrian and Matthews demonstrate - Physiology
accepts the brain - Variety of rhythms - Their
cryptographic character - The toposcope ex­
hibits ‘the enchanted loom’ - From clinical tech­
nique to a science.
3 The Significance of Pattern
Mew horizons for old controversies - Neither
cocksureness nor defeatism - First notions of
pattern - The raw material of order - Pattern­
seeking origins of science - How sensation pat­
terns reach the brain - The cerebral apparatus -
Confusing taste and smell - Other hallucinations
- Pain a separate sense - Touch and the brain’s
handicap The art of touch - Refinement of the
blind - Why deafness is so hard to bear - Some
processes of vision - Why the eye must scan the
scene - Its million transmission cables - Projec­
tion room of the brain.
Contents
4 Revelation by Flicker 80
Four periods of research - Discovery of other
rhythms - Location of tumours - The flicker
technique - New light on epilepsy - A functional
atavism? - Maladies not diseases - Public flicker
incidents - A feedback flicker device - The
laboratory staff see visions - Illusions a clue to
reality - The sense of time distorted - Final pro­
cess of vision - Alpha and the moving image -
A scanning device - How the mechanism may
work - A general scanning theory possible.
5 Totems, Toys, and Tools 104
Magical and mechanical images - How they im­
press us - Some realities of Frankenstein - A new
Suestion for brain physiology - Interconnexion
leory - Seven modes of existence - Fresh
approach to working models - Such is life -
Computors and organ-grinders - Automatic trams
and other primitives - Ashby’s Homeostat, M.
sopora M. speculatrix, ‘tortoise’ to the profane
- Nine principles of organic construction - Un­
expected behaviour - Conditions of true mimicry.
6 Learning A bout Learning 119
Some theories summarized - The psychological
approach - Instinct or imprint - Learning by
repetition - The significance of failure - A long
dawn of learning - Meaning means association -
Pavlov’s discovery of inequality - His heterodox
theory of types - Little known aspects of his
work - How much? but not How? - Hints of
learning mechanism - Brain records as crypto­
grams - Illumination by toposcope - Function of
rhythms in learning process.
7 The Seven Steps from Chance to
Meaning 139
Converging paths of learning - The education of
M speculatrix - Guesswork of the brain - The
Black Box mystery - Rewards and punishments
- The mechanism of association - The seven
operations - God a mighty gambler - How the
brain picks a double - A learning box named
Cora - Some tests of validity - Breakdowns,
human and mechanical - The penalties of intel­
ligence - Abstraction and birth of an idea -
Brain propaganda - A toposcope mystery
solved - No learning not to learn.
8 Intimations of Personality 171
Crossing the frontier - Rhythms related to age -
Brainpnnts of the unborn - Rhythms of growing
children - Records of original sin? - Constancy
of frustration - Surprises in delinquent boys -
Records of self-control - Three ways of thinking
- Test your alpha grouping - Differentiation of
twins - Why Peggy and Michael quarrel -
Designations for diplomats - Sex disturbances
- Brainprints of genius - Old age and death -
Lack of psychological correspondence - Psycho­
surgery, symptomatic and other effects - Sum­
mary of intimations.
9 Beyond the Waking Scene
Vigilance and stability - Effect of closing eyes -
The various stages of sleep - Rhythmic changes
recorded - Utility of dreams - Patterns of
slumber - The origin of sleep - ‘Failure to safety’
- Relation to protective fits - A phylactic hypo­
thesis - Nature of hysteria - Mystery of fatigue -
Hypnotism and the learning process - Peculiar
forms of behaviour - Second sight and telepathy
- Is the brain a transmitter?
10 The Brain Tomorrow
Summary - The duty of prediction - Education
and the mind - A case for mentality - Meaning
and causality - Future of psychiatry - The
teacher’s Black Box - Dangers of one-way men­
tality - Greater aptitudes of the brain - Montcs-
sori method - A new deal for genius - Unreason
of ‘inherited’ or ‘acquired’ - Chances of a new
human species - An atomized world - More dele­
gation without specialization - Application to
better living.
An Electric Model of Nerve
appendix A.
appbndix b. The Design of M. speculatrix
appendix c. A Conditioned Reflex Analogue
A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
index