H/T to Pat Churchland for this in the Guardian:
How did Bob Dylan write “Like a Rolling Stone”? The pop-science writer Jonah Lehrer wasn’t there, but he pretends to know anyway.
Reaching a self-adoring climax, Lehrer writes: “For the first time in human history, it’s possible to learn how the imagination actually works. Instead of relying on myth and superstition, we can think about dopamine and dissent, the right hemisphere and social networks.” We can indeed think about such things, but an explanation of “how the imagination actually works” does not magically fall out of them, and hasn’t done so here.
manwithoutqualities 