A dazzling intellectual inquiry into the nature of truth and the relationship between art and science.
In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling and original book, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first. Taking a group of artists-a painter, a poet, a chef, a composer and a handful of novelists-Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the human mind that science is only now rediscovering. We learn, for example, how Proust first revealed the fallibility of memory; how George Eliot discovered the brain's malleability: how the French chef Escoffier discovered umami (the fifth taste); how Cezanne worked out the subtleties of vision; and how Gertrude Stein exposed the deep structure of language-a full half-century before Chomsky. It's the ultimate tale of art trumping science. An ingenious blend of biography, criticism, and first rate science writing, Proust Was a Neuroscientist urges science to listen more closely to art, for the willing mind can combine the best of both to brilliant effect.
