Complex systems and the brain ;-)

clipped from www.latimes.com Misreading the mind If neuroscientists want to understand the mystery of consciousness, they'll need new methods. Since its inception in the early 20th century, neuroscience has taught us a tremendous amount about the brain. The success of modern neuroscience represents the triumph of a method: reductionism. The premise of reductionism is that the best way to solve a complex problem -- and the brain is the most complicated object in the known universe -- is to study its most basic parts. The mind, in other words, is just a particular trick of matter, reducible to the callous laws of physics.