Joseph Bogen

Background

Was born on July 13, 1926, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Education

He was raised in Ohio, moved to Southern California at 16 and graduated from Monrovia High School, Monrovia, California in 1943. He completed his undergraduate education at Whittier College and received a Bachelor of Arts in Economics in 1949.

Career

July 13, 1926 – April 22, 2005) was a neurophysiologist who specialized in split brain research and focused on theories of consciousness. He was a clinical professor of neurosurgery at the University of Southern California, Adjunct Professor of Psychology at University of California, Los Angeles, and a visiting professor at Caltech. “Joe” Bogen, Doctor of Medicine He began undergraduate studies at Caltech in 1943, but left to join the United States Navy in 1944.

He was deployed to the South Pacific and was honorably discharged in 1946.

He enrolled in the University of Cincinnati and University of California, Los Angeles, followed by the University of Southern California School of Medicine. Doctor Bogen received his Doctor of Medicine from the University of Southern California in 1956.

From 1956-1957 he completed an internship in Surgery at the New York Hospital Cornell, from 1957-1958, he completed his residency in Surgery at that institution. From 1958-1959, he was a Fellow in Medical Sciences at the National Research Council.

From 1959-1963, he was a Resident in Neurosurgery, at White Memorial Hospital.

In 1966, he received his board certification and was a Diplomate, American Board of Neurological Surgery. Bogen was part of a research team at Caltech with Roger Sperry and H. G. Gordon which conducted the first split brain study. His early surgical interventions to control epilepsy laid the foundation for the development of modern ideas about the unique identities of the right and left brains.

Bogen argued that consciousness is subjectivity, that looking for consciousness is like looking for the wind, you can only see its effects.

Bogen suggested that scientists look for a center (a nucleus) that has distributivity (ie widespread inward and outward connectivity) as a site that produces subjectivity as consciousness. At the time of his death, Bogen had been researching the site in the brain where consciousness is located and was preparing a book about his findings.

Bogen lent his expertise in Wernicke"s area to Julian Jaynes, assisting Jaynes in the development of the bicameral hypothesis. Bogen is quoted in Philip K. Dick"s novel, A Scanner Darkly.

The software development book, Python Foreign Unix and Linux System Administration was dedicated to him, by a co-author whom he mentored.

Achievements

• His work played a crucial role in the development of the split-brain experiments that won Caltech’s Roger Sperry the 1981 Nobel Prize in physiology.

Works

• Other Work

  • Publications Voluminous list of books and journal articles: 1954-1987 1988-2005 Co-Author Bogen, Joseph and Glenda, De Zure, R., Tenhouten, W.D., a. THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRAIN.