Author : Michael Gazzaniga
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 48,43 MB
Release : 1994-04-20
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780465048632
The co-discoverer of the “split brain” theory tells how science is recasting the age-old question of nature versus nurture to create a startling new view of human behavior. Recent discoveries suggest that natural selection affects not only physical characteristics but also mental processes, from learning to substance abuse.
Author : Michael S. Gazzaniga
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 274 pages
File Size : 31,50 MB
Release : 2018-04-03
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 0374128766
“The father of cognitive neuroscience” illuminates the past, present, and future of the mind-brain problem How do neurons turn into minds? How does physical “stuff”—atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells—create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness. The idea of the brain as a machine, first proposed centuries ago, has led to assumptions about the relationship between mind and brain that dog scientists and philosophers to this day. Gazzaniga asserts that this model has it backward—brains make machines, but they cannot be reduced to one. New research suggests the brain is actually a confederation of independent modules working together. Understanding how consciousness could emanate from such an organization will help define the future of brain science and artificial intelligence, and close the gap between brain and mind. Captivating and accessible, with insights drawn from a lifetime at the forefront of the field, The Consciousness Instinct sets the course for the neuroscience of tomorrow.
Author : Gregory Bateson
Publisher : Hampton Press (NJ)
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 22,22 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Ethnology
ISBN : 9781572734340
A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.
Author : Thomas Nagel
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 141 pages
File Size : 41,9 MB
Release : 2012-11-22
Category : Biography & Autobiography
ISBN : 0199919755
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Author : Hermann Weyl
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 112 pages
File Size : 48,16 MB
Release : 2015-09-30
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 1512819328
A new study of the mathematical-physical mode of cognition.
Author : Roger Duncan
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 209 pages
File Size : 26,85 MB
Release : 2018-07-03
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 042977575X
Nature in Mind explores a kind of madness at the core of the developed world that has separated the growth of human cultural systems from the destruction of the environment on which these systems depend. It is now becoming increasingly clear that the contemporary Western lifestyle not only has a negative impact on the ecosystems of the earth but also has a detrimental effect on human health and psychological wellbeing. The book compares the work of Gregory Bateson and Henry Corbin and shows how an understanding of the "imaginal world" within the practice of systemic psychotherapy and ecopsychology could provide a language shared by both nature and mind. This book argues the case for bringing nature-based work into mainstream education and therapy practice. It is an invitation to radically reimagine the relationship between humans and nature and provides a practical and epistemological guide to reconnecting human thinking with the ecosystems of the earth.
Author : Peter Godfrey-Smith
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 45,24 MB
Release : 1998-09-28
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780521646246
This book explains the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing links philosophy of mind to more general issues about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the general pattern of 'externalist' explanations. The author provides a biological approach to the investigation of mind and cognition in nature. In particular he explores the idea that the function of cognition is to enable agents to deal with environmental complexity. The history of the idea in the work of Dewey and Spencer is considered, as is the impact of recent evolutionary theory on our understanding of the place of mind in nature.
Author : Rachel Kaplan
Publisher :
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 43,66 MB
Release : 1998-03
Category : Architecture
ISBN :
Beginning with techniques for consulting the public, the authors describe and examine the natural areas, like parks and nature reserves, that so often vary in quality and show how to improve them in ways that are compatible with the environment.
Author : Florence Williams
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
Page : 206 pages
File Size : 49,79 MB
Release : 2017-02-07
Category : Science
ISBN : 0393242722
"Highly informative and remarkably entertaining." —Elle From forest trails in Korea, to islands in Finland, to eucalyptus groves in California, Florence Williams investigates the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain. Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.
Author : Jeffrey Hopkins
Publisher : Univ of California Press
Page : 682 pages
File Size : 41,64 MB
Release : 2002-08-05
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9780520920019
This is the second volume in Jeffrey Hopkins's valuable series on the Mind-Only School of Buddhism. Dzong-ka-ba (1357-1419) is generally regarded as one of the greatest Tibetan philosophers, and his "Mind-Only" discourse on emptiness is considered a landmark in Buddhist philosophy. In Volume 2, Emptiness in the Mind-Only School of Buddhism, Hopkins provided a translation of the introduction and section on the Mind-Only School in The Essence of Eloquence. The present volume places this enigmatic and influential exposition in its historical and philosophical contexts. Reflections on Reality conveys the intellectual vibrancy of the different cultural interpretations of this text and expands the key philosophical issues it addresses.
