Henry James and the “Laboratory Brain”: The Neuroscience of Cognitive Time-Travel

Abstract: Henry James’s skepticism about the “laboratory brain” is shared by much contemporary neuroscience. Both reject the notion that a brain detached from its embodied engagement with the social world could duplicate the experience of what it is like to be conscious. James’s understanding of how consciousness can cross temporal horizons and support collaborative interactions is consistent with and can be elucidated through scientific theories of embodied cognition. These theories help to explain how works of art and literature can cross historical distance and enable the past to speak to the present and the future.