Brain Text, Brain-to-Text, and the Mind Style of Literature

• Main Author: Wang, Songlin
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2024
• Subjects: ethical literary criticism; neurotechnologies; mind-brain interaction; cognitive stylistics
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/kk/vol1/iss37/24; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/kk/article/1895/viewcontent/KK_2037_2C_202021_2024_20Forum_20Kritika_20on_20Ethical_20Literary_20Criticism_2C_20Brain_20Text_20and_20New_20Readings_20of_20World_20Literature_20__20Wang.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Zhenzhao Nie’s ethical literary criticism, specifically his theory of brain text and ethical selection, envisions an innovative and energetic understanding of the psychological and ethical processing of literature in the brain. This is evidenced by a survey of the ontological controversy between dualism and monism and a review of contemporary research in neuroscience, together with an investigation of the concept of brain text. Based on a comparative study of the neurolinguistic and neuroethical approaches and Nie’s theory of brain text, the paper endorses Nie in his proposal of the brain text as the source of literature and his advocating of the teaching function of brain text (and literature). Meanwhile, the paper finds that the fruits of modern neuroscience contribute to Nie’s stance: Brain text is a biological and material form with moral attributes. The idea of brain text coincides well with the findings of neuroscientists who have developed a system called brain-to-text that transforms brain activity into corresponding textual representation and have demonstrated that human behavior can be ethically energized in the strata of the brain. Cognitively, Nie’s theory of brain text can be employed to decode the mind style of a writer, specifically a particular writer’s ethical orientation as embodied in their choice of the order of words and syntax, which consciously and unconsciously represents the writer’s world view.