Introduction
The world of science is very versatile in new innovations and investigations. These aspects of progress in modern world contemplate the further drive of knowledge and efforts for making still mysterious spheres of peoples’ observation more obvious and discovered. The analysis of a man’s brain from the side of cognitive science presupposes an outlook on its structural parts and behavioral reflection. In this respect the paper leans toward making an assertion about current brain studies based on the researches of two well-known authors. V. S. Ramachandran and Daniel Schacter moved the neuroscience in the straightforward learning of depths in a man’s brain. Their researches are the part of current heritage in the sphere of brain studies and development of scientific thought in this field. This is why Phantoms in the Brain and Searching for Memory are taken into consideration as main constituents of the comparative analysis. Both works represent the solely scientific findings in the experimental work of both authors while increasing the horizons of brain capacities and, what is more, their grounding. However, the book by Ramachandran is appealing to a specific circle of people with medical working experience; the second book is written in rather comprehensive, still scientific manner. Ramachandran and Schacter are apt to underline several disorders and abilities of brain in order to make the wholeness of mental research completed with scientific sharpness.
Discussion
First of all, it is vital to admit that both books are united in the mutual theme concerned with brain. Thereupon, the objectives and particular approaches are used by both authors, so that to make experiments and process of investigation apparent and reliable for rational framework. Phantoms in Brain actually provides a discussion based on different cases of mental disorders. The book is fulfilled with paradoxical facts which appeared as a result of Ramachandran’s long and thorough experiments on brain activity while a man (or a patient) is paralyzed, without some parts of the body (Limbs, particularly) or a victim of Capgras’s syndrome. The author is apt to identify the reasons for such reactions of brain reflected in peoples’ behaviors. Seeking for the explanation of such paradoxes of brain, the author implies the idea of scientific indulgence in contrast to Schacter’s work. Ramachandran develops an assumption that today’s science is still helpless to provide “grand unified” theoretical background for mental activity and its processes: “Every science has to go through an initial “experiment “ or phenomena-driven stage – in which its practitioners are still discovering the basic laws – before it reaches a more sophisticated theory-driven stage” (Ramachandran 4).
Daniel Schacter provides a vision of the significant peculiarity of brain, i.e. memory. Memory can personalize an individual. Memory develops a person in its beginnings and it promotes a success for those who actively use the opportunities given by this very part of brain activities. The author can be related to Ramachandran’s work in terms of the same field of investigation. Moreover, both authors find the primary background for interpretation of difficult mental process in past experience and the way it was accumulated, fixed and reflected in the memories. Still when looking at the thesis statements in Schacter’s book, a reader makes a psychological overlook on memory features. Brain is sharp in its functional evaluation. The author supports the idea of memory search which unintentionally develops the recollection and retrieving of gathered information. Schacter assumes: “Our subjective sense of remembering the past is such a familiar and frequent part of our inner lives that we may fail to see any need to examine it” (Schacter 5). All in all, the book touches upon the essence of memories and their influence on a man’s life with particular shape of space and things which are not observed anymore.
Cognitive neuroscience is applied in both works, so that to make more emphasis on the mental prescriptions and alleged messages of a man’s conscious or sub-conscious thoughts or actions. Memory and the brain are at a core for discussion provided in both books. This tendency is not new, but still it intrigues an ordinary reader with expressly new knowledge about the dimensions of brain and its extent of destination during the whole life and listing suchlike researches within different epochs. In fact, Ramachandran discloses the idea of the research with more personal experiments. This is why his research is not so devoted to the previous studies. Schacter makes an attempt to make a reader closer to the problem. Hence, the research showed that for self actions of individual memories make great and distinct impacts. In fact, Ramachandran highlights in the book the apparent and weighty presence of transreality which is far from reaching fr today’s science. Transreality is also mentioned in the work by Schacter when he points out the so-called “sins of memory” first described by William James. Some among them are: transience, absent-mindedness, blocking, bias, misattribution, suggestibility, and persistence (Schacter 75).
The point on so-called “phantoms” maintained in the brain represents rather argumentative assertion in both works about a mere extent of perception of such phenomena, but by virtues of other spatial and temporal survey on the human psyche. Ramachandran supports the variability of states in peoples’ psyche by means of neurobiological approach: ”The fact that visual input can eliminate the spasm of a nonexistent arm and then erase the associated memory of pain vividly illustrates how extensive and profound these interactions can be” (Ramachandran 56). In accordance with the relevance of time and space concepts for a man’s process to focus on past realities Schacter admits: “Remembering, for the rememberer, is mental time travel, a sort of reliving of something that happened in the past” (Schacter 8). There is a difference in both works maintained only in their field for research and methods which were used as well as the mechanism outlined for the functioning of this or that particular part of the brain perceived in its difficult and diverse nature. The point on predetermined character of actions and feelings which emerge in a man’s mind cannot but be reflected in soul. Thus, both papers are united in the idea that mental processes directly promote unintentional behavioral states which can be analyzed through the orifice of memory.
Conclusion
Thus, books by V. S. Ramachandran Phantoms in the Brain and D. Schacter Searching for Memory illuminate the hidden ability of the brain to restore the realities which were in the past with definite perception of them in terms of the wholeness and diversification of the process. However, Ramachandran intends in his book to deeper look into the sphere of brain with the scientific sharpness and attempts to work out the medical correct approach to hidden reality of mental processes being unexplained for scientists. Thus, his book can be valued as a scientific new approach to neuroscience. On the other hand, Schacter imposes in his research generally viewed phenomena of the memory functioning. His book is convenient for making first excurse in the domain of brain activity for immature readers.
Works cited
Ramachandran, Vilanayur S. Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind. New York: Harper Perennial, 1999.
Schacter, Daniel L. Searching For Memory: The Brain, The Mind, And The Past. New York: Basic Books, 1997.