The social brain: discovering the networks of the mind

THIS IS A STORY about a scientific discovery, about its evolution and ultimately its effect on m y personal understanding of social process. Looking back over the last twenty-five years, I see how little we can foretell our future. From personal habits to scientific pursuits, our year-to-year endeavors change in ways that are totally unpredictable. What do not change are initial unanswered questions and, for me, those centered o n how brain science might address problems of personal consciousness and through those a wider understanding of social processes. Some highly intelligent people can marvel over the elucidation of a phenom- enon and are quite happy to leave it hanging in a factual capsule. Others are plagued with the secondary question of how a fact relates to a value, or t o a personal understanding of life. While most scientific facts do not directly relate to broader social realities, some do. I think I have c o m e across such connections, which is one reason for my writing this book.