Changing Mind, Transitions in Natural and Artificial Environments F. Orsucci , Studies in Nonlinear Phenomena in Life Science, Vol. 9. World Scientific (2002). 210 pages. Price £35.00.
Reviewer: Ferdinand Verhulst, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Scientists, i.e. people working in the exact sciences, are often reluctant to acknowledge the value of other disciplines. It is even worse if ideas from the exact sciences are applied in other fields: this is typical for the World Scientific series on nonlinear phenomena in the life sciences.

Inspired by dynamical systems and complexity theory, this book tries to understand the structure of the human mind, its couplings and transitions.

The contents can not easily be summarized but we shall try. The first chapter is on E-Mergence which describes events and patterns arising from the interaction of components but which can not be reduced to individual components of the system (the sum is more than the parts). Chapter 2, Semiosis, is on the role of language in a wide sense, including computer language, smells and signs. Next, Icon, is on images which affect the mind by words, pictures, signs. Chapter 4, Couplings, starts with Huygens' pendulum clock and modern nonlinear oscillators going on to biological rhythms and mood disorders. Chapter 5, Co-Evolution, actually uses phase portraits and dynamical systems ideas on synchronization and control to describe love and learning patterns. The final chapter, Change, summarizes a number of used concepts. I was both intrigued and mildly frustrated by the book. A large amount of material is put together with the perspective of applying dynamical system ideas to understand aspects of the mind. This is a very interesting enterprise.

The mild frustration probably comes out of the sometimes sketchy descriptions: it is a very large subject for just 210 pages. Compare for instance a paper by Galatzer-Levy (2002) on 'Emergence'. This paper has a restricted scope, describing the emergence of new mental states in the psychoanalytic process, but it states clearly the usefulness of dynamical system concepts like bifurcations and other 'discontinuities'. See also Verhulst (1994).

Still, this book can certainly serve as a useful survey of ideas in theories of the mind inspired by dynamical systems.

R. M. Galatzer-Levy: Emergence, Psychoanalytic Inquiry 22, pp. 708-727, 2002.

F. Verhulst, Metaphors for Psychoanalysis, Nonlinear Science Today, 4, pp. 1-6 (1994).