Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
I recently finished the book Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman (a birthday present from my dad).
I found it fairly interesting overall, although I was familiar with a a lot of the research he discussed. The most interesting part of the book, to me, were his thoughts on criminal behavior.
One of the examples he cited was the case of a man who had been happily married for many years, but suddenly took an obsessive interest in viewing child pornography. He also developed terrible headaches. His wife took him to the doctor, where they discovered he had a tumor at the base of his spinal column. The tumor was removed, he stopped looking at child porn. Then, he started up again. Back to the doctor, and they found they hadn’t removed quite everything. They got the last bit out, and he was “normal” again.
What if other criminal behavior can be linked to brain health? Maybe that guy who stole your purse has an abnormal frontal cortex, and has poor impulse control. He knows it’s wrong to steal a purse–just as you know you’re better off not drinking that 1000-calories milkshake–but he (and you) do it anyway.
The author does not argue that we should not punish people who commit crimes, but instead says we need to find better way to determine sentencing (perhaps based on likelihood of recidivism, calculated with actuarial data) and more importantly, better methods of rehabilitation. For example cognitive behavior can potentially be used to improve impulse control. He argues that things like schizophrenia have moved into the “medical” side of things, and are taken into consideration for criminal cases. Maybe other brain differences will move to that side as well.
I started thinking what this could lead to in the extreme. Let’s say you’re a thief or you’re violent–go into the brain rehab clinic for a tuneup. But how far would we go? Maybe you have a bad temper.. off to brain rehab for you! Maybe your spouse thinks the house should be cleaner than you do–go to rehab, get retrained to want a clean house. You want to stop telling crude jokes.. get up earlier.. exercise more.. pick out better presents for your loved ones… all solvable with a little brain tune-up!
Scary stuff.
