Proust Was a Neuroscientist

The story of how the arts influence scientists in the search for truth.
The idea that art is art and science is science — and ne'er the twain shall meet — is still an article of faith in some ivory towers. Nonetheless, Jonah Lehrer utilizes the lives of eight modernist artists to locate their meeting places in his brilliant, entertaining Proust Was a Neuroscientist. Lehrer eloquently critiques the ideology that holds only science can provide accurate knowledge, insisting artists have just as valuable a role to play as scientists in the search for truth.

Lehrer masterfully shows how Proust intuited the way we molecularly alter every memory; and how Whitman moved science to demonstrate the inseparability of consciousness from the body. He discusses how Gertrude Stein anticipated Chomsky's discovery of the deep structure of grammar, and how George Elliot and Virginia Woolf set the stage for the discovery of neural plasticity and the scientific study of consciousness. His takes on Cezanne’s vision and Stravinsky’s decisions to break the brain’s aural patterning habits are equally informative. Lehrer's fluid prose is poetically delivered, pulsing with colorful cadences, making each chapter a revelation of insights and interconnections, which might be difficult to decipher without such a skillful guide.