cover image Breaking the Mind Barrier: Artscience of Neurocosmology

Breaking the Mind Barrier: Artscience of Neurocosmology

Todd Siler. Simon & Schuster, $24.95 (416pp) ISBN 978-0-671-69097-7

Artist and MIT research affiliate Siler offers a sketchy blueprint for ``neurocosmology,'' a new science that literally links microcosm to macrocosm. Figuring largely in his hypothesis are ``processmorphs,'' things that differ in outward form but are alike in process; as examples he cites humans, earthquakes, windstorms and stars as sharing similar patterns of energy phenomena. Juxtaposing a photograph of colliding galaxies with one of neural tissue, he attributes the visual likenesses to the possibility that the brain's individual neurons are like stars. While sometimes veering close to mysticism (``Gravitation is to galaxies what consciousness is to human beings''), this open-ended exploration, crammed with scores of intriguing illustrations, challenges and provokes as it cuts across many disciplines, from art and psychology to genetics, computer science, systems theory and cybernetics. (Dec.)