The Mind and the Brain by Jeffrey Schwartz and Sharon Begley, Regan/HarperCollins, $27.50/£18.99, ISBN 0060393556 Reviewed by Itiel Dror
IS OUR essence as humans a collection of neurons, or is it a mind that does not exist in space and time? A fairy tale provides a good illustration of the latter: the story of Pinocchio. The wooden puppet is only an object. Regardless of how the carpenter constructs it, it is inanimate. It becomes animate when the fairy provides it with the “magic powder of mind”. Only then does Pinocchio have a mental life and all that it entails…
