On the Generation of Animals (Contained in The Works of William Harvey)

"William Harvey was a very intelligent man around in the 17th century who wrote this book on embryology and comparative conception. The reason I chose this book is because Harvey was working at a time when there was virtually no background information or knowledge, and no microscope – he was simply a fabulously intelligent person with the skill to observe. He would take his enquiries as far as they would go with the technology available, and I’m sure that if he had had a microscope then he’d have worked it all out. In a way, though, the working it all out is the less interesting bit. The interesting point in science, the fun bit, is when you are just about to get there. As soon as it all falls into place, it’s suddenly not very interesting any more. Well the biggest area to work on is really neuroscience. I have just written a book, in fact, called Beyond the Zonules of Zinn, which is about our understanding of the human mind. I wrote it because I see so many books about the brain, and they all jump straight in with the vast and complex issues, like what consciousness and alertness are. But so much that the brain does is much simpler. The main segments in the human brain are the same as those in a cod’s brain, for example, only much bigger. The human brain is doing really simple things for the vast majority of time. People spend very little time using the conscious mind – anything that the brain can do without thinking consciously, it will do. The classic example is when you get up to go to work; you brush your teeth, you have a shower, you get to work, and sometimes think: My god, I haven’t thought consciously yet the whole time I’ve been awake."