The Human Biocomputer

This felt pretty chaotic. There were certainly some interesting parts, as well as some boring parts, but overall it’s not too bad considering the year it was written (1972). You’ll want some interest in the brain to read this book, as well as a tiny understanding of computers to follow the theme. The author thinks of the brain as a computer, which is a generally agreeable perspective but he doesn’t go too deep into the computer science aspect of things besides utilizing some computer-science-esque terminology.

He kind of jumped around, there wasn’t strong cohesion to the book’s progression. This isn’t a deal-breaker for me, it was just a bit jarring at times. The most interesting portion of this book for me was his reporting on psychoanalysis of patients who were in isolation / float chambers, deprived of sensation and then given LSD. He reports some interesting observations, and tries to remain objective and observant, but in the end he chalks up the LSD-braincomputer-interaction as basically LSD introduces noise into the computer system and that’s the cause of the LSD experiences. This might be a partial explanation but I didn’t think it was much of a conclusion. At least he attempted an observation I suppose. It was short so I don’t regret reading it.