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The Idea of the Brain

A History

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The Idea of the Brain

By: Matthew Cobb
Narrated by: Joe Jameson
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About this listen

A monumental, sweeping journey from the ancient roots of neurology to the most astonishing recent research.

This is the story of our quest to understand the most mysterious object in the universe. Today we tend to picture the brain as a computer. Earlier scientists thought about it in their own technological terms: as a telephone switchboard, or a clock, or all manner of fantastic mechanical or hydraulic devices. Could the right metaphor unlock the brain's deepest secrets once and for all?

Galloping through centuries of wild speculation and ingenious, sometimes macabre anatomical investigations, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb reveals how we came to our present state of knowledge. Our latest theories allow us to create artificial memories in the brain of a mouse, and to build AI programmes capable of extraordinary cognitive feats. A complete understanding seems within our grasp.

But to make that final breakthrough, we may need a radical new approach. At every step of our quest, Cobb shows that it was new ideas that brought illumination. Where, he asks, might the next one come from? What will it be?

©2020 Matthew Cobb (P)2020 Hachette Audio UK Biological Sciences History History & Philosophy Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Science Human Brain Mathematics Health Mental Health

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All stars
Most relevant  
Very clever history of the brain, the mind and consciousness. Great overview and leaves you want to research many areas further.

Excellent listen

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I've read many popularising science books and have gained great enjoyment from them all but none of them have made me feel I was now knowledgeable enough to consider myself and expert in the subject in the way that reading this one has. OK, that might be my brain playing tricks but I'm ready to start some research of my own on this topic and I'd never even thought about it much before. Anyway, I think you will be delighted by the clarity and comprehensiveness of what is laid out before you in this excellent book and though sometimes audible books can be difficult to maintain focus on as the narration proceeds this kept me concentrating in anticipation of the next nugget of information and detail.

Prepare to become an expert

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Maybe it's my inner science nerd coming through but I thoroughly enjoyed this historical romp through our developmental understanding of how we came to know what we know about the brain, what we used to think and what we're still hoping to crack in our understanding.
There were a few parts that made me really laugh and I'll never think of Jennifer Aniston the same way again.

A fascinating read

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I thought I had bought the wrong book - over half is dedicated to pre 1950 ideas and it was only in the last few chapters that we reached the more recent research and thinking that I was most interested in. However, these last few chapters almost made it worthwhile. As well as debunking some myths that I had inadvertently taken on board (reptilian brain, localisation of function, serotonin inhibitors etc), the incredible complexity of saying anything about how the brain, mind and consciousness work and designing experiments to test it was clear. I hope I will not be taken in too easily now about populised theories about how the brain works.

Mind blowing!

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Very informative and in the same way not complicated. It's great that such a complicated subject could be described as a storytell.

great book

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.....but it still could have been just a little smidge of a bit more romantic

Astonishing chronicling of brain science

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Knowing not so much about the brain, I really like reading books about science in general. This book managed to really put the point across in depth but was surprisingly a rather easy read. Couldn't put it down.

Fantastic Read

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Whilst this is billed as a history it is really an overview of the study of the brain with a lot of history. When I studied the brain at university many ideas made no sense. It turns out you need a detailed and critical history to understand a lot of the ideas about the brain.

Targeted at the general reader it provides a fascinating overview of the ideas used to try (and mostly fail) to understand the brain. Written in a clear and easy to understand style, it has changed my views on some important aspects of the science.

Easily the best science book I have read in the last decade.


Stunning overview and history of neuroscience

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Overall, this book is a well written, entertaining and informative overview of our understanding of the brain which I recommend purchasing. About 75% of the book's content is historical and scientific. I am not expert but all this content seemed great- accessible yet informative. However, about 25% of it (concentrated mainly in the 'Consciousness' chapter concerns the philosophy of mind. I appreciate the attempt to include philosophical content and I know this book is not written by a philosopher but I was still unimpressed with it's poor handling. I am merely an undergraduate philosophy student with a particular interest in mind but Cobb's simplistic and misleading representation of philosophical views is blatant. This applies to a few areas like his poor coverage of emergence but biggest issue is his glibly dismissive attitude- justified by extremely weak arguments - towards dualism. I don't expect him to endorse the view but merely to treat it fairly. By contrast, he often misrepresents it, such as making it seem like all dualists believe minds are entities independent of the physical world, whereas people like David chalmers (who Cobb directly misrepresents) merely believe that consciousness is explained by the emergence of non-physical properties from physical brains. He also suggests that Chalmers and other dualists are simply defeatist by temperament about the possibility of reducing consciousness to physical phenomena. In reality they offer various arguments to suggest such a reduction is impossible in principle. I don't expect him to cover such arguments but maybe he should therefore show some humility about a field he is outside of and clearly lacks appreciation of. It's particularly ironic given his correct observation that understanding the brain requires conceptual as well as experimental progress, since he seems rather resistant to taking conceptual issues like the hard problem seriously.

Good Science, Bad Philosophy

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