Dr. Schwartz gives a well-written account of the struggle neuroplasticity has had coming into acceptance. The explanation of his research on OCD and how he has helped his patients overcome their OCD with mental force or "mindfulness" is inspiring! The chapters where he discusses the quantum physics of the mind/brain relationship get a little hairy and scary and he tends to belabor the differences between Mentalistic and Emergent Materialism, Epiphenomenalism, agnostic physicalism, and dualistic interactionism. He is all about Buddhist philosophy and the Quantum Zeno Effect. Other than the said drudgery, I really enjoyed the book.

This is a particularly interesting foray into the philosophy of mind, because it is based around psychological research into OCD. The author presents how he discovered a new treatment for OCD which involved a cognitive behavioural therapy, (the four step regimen) in which people are trained to think differently.

When people do think differently, it leads to observable physical changes in the brain itself (due to neuroplasticity), so the author views this treatment as an example (or even as evidence of) an immaterial thinking process changing a physical brain.

The reason why this is philosophically interesting is that it contributes to a long running philosophical problem about the nature of brain and mind. On one side of the debate are those who insist that there is both a brain and a mind which are linked ‘somehow’ in a dualist relationship. On the other side of the debate are various types of reductionism which essentially argue that there is just a brain and any human experiences of a ‘mind’ can and should be explained in terms of the biology of the brain – even if explanations are not yet quite ‘there.’

The author suggests that his discoveries with OCD support a version of dualist mind+brain philosophy. This is because he thinks that it is ‘infeasible and inappropriate’ to suggest that a materialist explanation of thinking can make sense of how thinking changes the biology of the brain (chp.2). Instead, he believes that there is a new kind of mental force, which arises from willful effort. The will (somehow) activates a neuronal circuit which changes the basal ganglia where the habitual behaviours associated with OCD arise.

This is a controversial conclusion because it is a rejection of the idea of ‘causal closure’ (which insists that a physical causal sequence must have physical explanations in all parts of the causal loop). The author is effectively asserting that immaterial causes can trigger material effects.

Things become a little more complex in chapter 8 where Quantum Mechanics are introduced, in an attempt to explain ‘how’ immateriality can change materiality. Following a long discussion about interpretations and explanations of quantum mechanics the author seems to think that it is significant that Copenhagen explanations of quantum mechanics view human consciousness as ‘somehow’ interacting to produce physical outcomes.

He states that ‘once… Newtonian physics… (is replaced) with quantum physics… it emerges naturally and inevitably that the mind has the power to act back on the brain…’ (Chp 8). But precisely what was being asserted or explained was not very clear. Appealing to weird interpretations of quantum mechanics to explain weird immaterial mental causation in changing the brains of OCD patients, was not particularly illuminating.

In chapter 9 Benjamin Libet’s work was discussed, and the idea was explored that free will is ‘free won’t’. Whereas traditional accounts of free will insist that an (immaterial) will triggers (material) actions, Libet’s research (or at least one interpretation of it) suggests that biological processes trigger the biological actions of human beings, but there is always an opportunity for the immaterial will to stop and re-shape processes. So free will is actually the capacity to not-act: hence its tongue in cheek name of ‘free wont’.

Explaining human action in terms of ‘free wont’ means that the concept of attention becomes particularly important. This is because people’s ability to act on the world becomes their ability to interfere with their actions, and people can only interfere with what they are aware of. So the exercise of the mental force, which the author depicts as causally significant, is ultimately dependent upon an application of attention

This was an interesting set of proposals, and the linkage of treatments for OCD to the philosophy of dualism was a particularly insightful and original set of ideas. Needless to say that there were quite a few rough edges in the explanations, especially when quantum mechanics was introduced. Nevertheless the fundamental ideas are significant because they represent experimental and observational factors which are relevant to what can otherwise all too easily become armchair philosophising about the relationship of minds to brains.

Textually the book is well divided into ten clearly distinct chapters which present a coherent argument. Around 20% of the book consists of footnotes and explanatory material.

Overall this is a book which should be of interest to anyone interested in consciousness and philosophy of mind. It doesn’t require specialist knowledge to appreciate the content, but the concepts and details are sometimes complex, so graduate readers would enjoy the book most.

Schwartz achieves tremendous success in detailing the concept of neuroplasticity and how the mind can act as a "force" to effect lasting neurological changes. This empowers the reader as much (and probably more) than any self-help book out there, since he extensively backs his ideas with research article after research article. The brain has the capacity to change itself via attention and conscious effort, effectively challenging the reader to, at the risking of sounding trite, be the change she wishes to see. At the heart of this practice lies the idea of mindfulness. Recognizing one's impulses when they arise as an objective spectator, i.e. exhibiting "bare" attention to one's thoughts and desires and considering them nonjudgmentally, forms the foundation of concerted volition. Only by recognizing one's problematic or intrusive impulses/desires can she then shift her focus and attend to more desirable and productive behaviors.

However, there was perhaps too much buildup for how little payoff was delivered in the closing chapters. Schwartz's foray of the quantum side of the brain, I think, should have been a more essential feature of this book, given his introduction, but it ends up coming out as a hastily scrawled footnote supposedly solidifying his theories of neuroplasticity. He fails to properly reify this soiree with sufficient precision, resulting in a disappointingly effete exploration of a quantum basis for the mind-brain interface that's more wishful and speculative than convincing and rigorous.

Despite the ineffectual quantum sojourn, Schwartz lays his arguments out effortlessly with engaging prose and amusing anecdotes, not to mention elucidating an important moment in the history of animal rights as they pertain to science. Ultimately, after giving it due consideration, I still disagree with his thesis of free will being resurrected by this "new" science of volitional neuroplasticity. I maintain it's just as likely that volitional effort arose via evolutionary processes concomitant with the exquisite development of our prefrontal cortices (and hence the executive functions contained therein) which allowed the brain a means of inspecting and subsequently altering its own behavior as a way of adapting to novel environments and stimuli.

This book goes back and forth between neuroscience super jargon and Buddhism ideals applied to neuroscience. The author delves into his new approaches to OCD using meditation strategies. Also offers great insight into the history of neuroscience (Silver Spring Monkeys) but then treads a little too far into the quantum physics realm than what I was prepared for. Book is good until you get to the last two chapters that deal with the quantum brain and then it becomes heavy handed with science jargon that is not easily followed.

Probably more like 3.5 stars but I'd give this book the benefit of the doubt. A seemingly 'easy' philosophical issue: is there a duality between mind and brain doesn't seem so simple to neuroscientist. Do mental forces affect the brain by altering wave functions causing us to act differently? The authors exhaustively explore this and other issues as it pertains to amputees, individuals with brain traumas as well as OCD patients. There also is a rather interesting chapter on the infamous (notorious) Silver Spring monkey experiments conducted in the 1980's and what was hoping to be accomplished. A bit erudite at times but a rather interesting introduction to the field of neuroplasticity.

It kept my attention, introduced me to new ways of thinking (at least for me) and pulled together disciplines in ways I would not have considered, e.g., psychiatry, philosophy and quantum physics.
He even relates quantum physics to OCD disorders.

I plan to read the book again and am recommending to my more scientifically oriented friends.

Great philosophical read. Definitely attempting to isolate the mind from the brain as a separate entity, one might argue successfully (philosophically) or unsuccessfully (biologically,) no evidence as of yet. "The mental force" is a scientific evidence of human free will and moral choice, according to Schwarz. Great read that leaves many open questions.

This book was fascinating and hopeful. I read the author's other book "You are Not Your Brain" and found the tone too cheesy and pop-self-helpish. It also left me with a question about the difference between the mind and the brain. When I found this title, it seemed it would answer my question--and it did.

The tone of this book is much more academic, though still intended for lay people. It wanders through the history of experiments that have led neuroscientists to their current understanding of neuroplasticity. It delves into the philosophical debate over the nature of the brain vs. the mind. It ends up in a discussion of quantum physics and how that creates a scientific basis for there being a mind independent of the brain, capable of acting on the brain.

All of this has implications for treating OCD and other disorders such as depression and anxiety that are for hopeful.

I was really excited to get into this book, expecting to learn a bit about how the brain, quantum mechanics, and Buddhist philosophy works. It turned out that the book wouldn't get much deeper than the working knowledge I already have of the later two, and the discussions of the former are so technical as to be difficult to grasp even after several re-listens.

This might not be a great book to listen to in Audiobook form, and it's also important to note that I'm very much a novice when it comes to neuroanatomy, but in my defense I felt like the book was aimed at people just like myself.

I did learn some things, and I found the discussion of the Silver Springs Lab's run in with PETA pretty interesting (and unexpected), but by the end I had to force myself to finish the book and I doubt I'll come back to it in the future.

Interesting read, though I'm not close to be sold on the thesis of the book. The author essentially argues for the idea of mental force as a way for mind to alter the brain. His main example is treating OCD patients through conscience, willful effort to change the neural circulatory of their brain. Attention, he argues, is mind's way of changing the brain. Attention gives rise to free will which is another word for volitional force! The author uses quantum theory and a long list of experiments to build his case. Towards the end I felt like I was reading for Deepak Chopra!

For better or worse, the book gives a great summary, though a little biased, of neuroscience and neuropsychiatry through the past hundred years or so. That summary earns the book three stars!

The flaws in this book are many. The primary author, Schwartz, is self-obsessed, whether describing his own research or simply describing his Mercedes and land holdings. He also wanders off topic for most of a chapter, recounting the controversy with PETA about the treatment of lab monkeys (not the point of the book, but it is an interesting chapter). He makes up misleading new terminology (like “mental force”), and summarizes decades of physics far less effectively than many who have popularized physics before him. He attempts to unite neuroplasticity research, quantum mechanics, the philosophy of William James, and the teachings of Buddhism and his efforts not surprisingly are doomed to disappoint experts in each of these fields, yet, in the end, I admired the effort. The main point of the book, to describe current research in brain plasticity and to demonstrate that the practice of mindfulness to treat illness, is both fascinating and immediately useful. If you just want to read about mindfulness practice, it might be easier to just read Pema Chodron or Thich Nhat Hanh. But if you think that those practices don't apply to treating stroke victims, dyslexia, OCD and other mental illnesses, or, even just tinnitus, this book may convince you otherwise.

This psychiatrist did some excellent work with OCD patients quite some time ago (20 years?). However, he over-interprets his data in this book and offers an argument in favor of mind/body dualism that is far from convincing. More recently, he has become a supporter of "intelligent design" and says that he is ostracized in academic and scientific settings because of his religious beliefs.