If V. S. Ramachandran is not the best known and most well-respected cognitive neuroscientist in the world, he is on the short list. Not many cognitive neuroscientists make Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world, but Ramachandran did in 2011, the same year he published The Tell-Tale Brain. He is best known for devising simple but powerful experiments to elucidate the causes of phantom-limb pain and also for using that knowledge to create effective treatments.

The Tell-Tale Brain is an ambitious, and therefore somewhat odd, book. It is odd because it is written by a researcher who is known for his methodological skill (and careful interpretation of the data), but who, in this book, wants to use those data ambitiously to look at the Big Questions. Each chapter explores a different topic, such as language, synesthesia, and autism, which Ramachandran uses to explore what makes human cognition unique. In order to address that question, he has to engage in more speculation than you would expect from a scientist of his standing. He will entertain sweeping ideas of the evolution of human thought and behavior, theories that go far beyond the data and which, unfortunately, he is not always sufficiently clear in marking as speculations. As a result, the “answers” to the Big Questions that motivate the book are vague at best.

Ultimately, however, Ramachandran is engaging in the best sorts of liberal arts conversations. He is interested in evolution, human cognition, and the ways in which humans are uniquely suited to exploring questions of meaning through artistic expression, and he believes that science should be involved in these conversations.