Each member of
the small groups should briefly
indicate what they found most striking in the reading; the group as a whole should ultimately
formulate a question for full seminar.
Q1 Discuss the following neurological conditions found in the reading and the video: phantom limbs, chronic regional pain (including pain in phantom limbs), visual hemineglect, blindsight and the Capgras delusion. What are they? How does Ramachandran explain them? How compelling do you find his explanation?
Q2 What does Ramachandran see as the implications of each of these explanations for the understanding of human consciousness. What problems, if any do you see, with his suggestions?
Q3 Ramachandran states that his “overall strategy has been the intensive investigation of neurological syndromes that have been regarded as “oddities” in the past (p. 118 endnote 7). Compare or contrast his approach to the cases to that of Sachs. To what extent do either of them exhibit the experimental approach that Bernard recommended for biology and medicine?
Q4 In chapter 3 and the endnotes that accompany it, Ramachandran examines the biological underpinnings for at least some types of art—in particular the 10% driven by aesthetic “universals” (p. 41) Do you find his account plausible? He attempts to deflect the criticism that discussion of mental functions in terms of brain activities is “reductionism.” Does his counter argument make the case?
Q5 What is Ramachandran’s explanation of various synesthesia. How does he use this account as a basis for explaining creativity and even language?
Q6 At several points in the reading and in the videos Ramachandran makes an appeal to evolution. Discuss some examples of this appeal and assess his use of evolution. Are you persuaded by his appeal to evolutionary arguments? Why or why not?
Q7. In the final chapter of the reading, Ramachandran speculates that “what sets us apart from other mammals, including other primates, is not any single structure…but a set of circuits that includes the temporo-parieto-occipital junction (especially the angular and supramarinal gyri), the Wernickes area (concerned with semantics) and the anterior cingular with its limbic connections …These structures are for consciousness what chromosomes and DNA were for heredity.” How does he see this as a solution to what David Chalmers called the “hard problem” of neuroscience, i.e. why we have qualia or conscious mental states rather than act like “zombies”?