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NEITHER MIND NOR BRAIN

Author : CJ ROY

Publisher : CJ Roy

Page : 621 pages

File Size : 46,7 MB

Release : 2020-12-12

Category : Philosophy

ISBN :

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Book Description

This book is an interdisciplinary theoretical effort to explain the mind-body problem. Conscious mind is the hard problem to be explained and is the utmost existential question for any scientific mind. Neither a reductionist identity theory nor a commonsense-religious dualism can answer the problem. Human cognitive system can have a natural explanation rather than a religious description. To reduce the mind as what the brain does is too premature and to separate the mind and brain as two independent realities is too trivial. The hypothesis of the book identifies the conscious mind with the emergent functionality of the human brain. And, this is definitely an approximate guess. This informed guess is a challenge to many previously established theories and is an invitation for further research. It demystifies the age old homunculus mind and does not explains it away. To elaborate the theme, the author has incorporated themes such as complex system dynamics, evolution, cosmology, thermodynamics, information and emergence. The philosophical discussion on the first three chapters govern as an intuitive background for the theoretical development in further chapters. It affirms that the mind and brain are neither two dichotomized substances nor are they one and same substance. Chapters from four to eight deal with various themes from natural science with respect to the theme of mind-brain. they involve system dynamics, cosmology, thermodynamics, evolutionary theory and information model. Last chapter assimilates the discussions of previous chapters to propose the key hypothesis of the book viz. mind-brain is the emergent functionality of the human brain which is the matter-energy-information complex system. The universe, which itself is a matter-energy-information system, at least in one occasion, becomes conscious of itself through humans.



The Spontaneous Brain

Author : Georg Northoff

Publisher : MIT Press

Page : 533 pages

File Size : 45,58 MB

Release : 2024-08-06

Category : Psychology

ISBN : 0262552825

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Book Description

An argument for a Copernican revolution in our consideration of mental features—a shift in which the world-brain problem supersedes the mind-body problem. Philosophers have long debated the mind-body problem—whether to attribute such mental features as consciousness to mind or to body. Meanwhile, neuroscientists search for empirical answers, seeking neural correlates for consciousness, self, and free will. In this book, Georg Northoff does not propose new solutions to the mind-body problem; instead, he questions the problem itself, arguing that it is an empirically, ontologically, and conceptually implausible way to address the existence and reality of mental features. We are better off, he contends, by addressing consciousness and other mental features in terms of the relationship between world and brain; philosophers should consider the world-brain problem rather than the mind-body problem. This calls for a Copernican shift in vantage point—from within the mind or brain to beyond the brain—in our consideration of mental features. Northoff, a neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and philosopher, explains that empirical evidence suggests that the brain's spontaneous activity and its spatiotemporal structure are central to aligning and integrating the brain within the world. This spatiotemporal structure allows the brain to extend beyond itself into body and world, creating the “world-brain relation” that is central to mental features. Northoff makes his argument in empirical, ontological, and epistemic-methodological terms. He discusses current models of the brain and applies these models to recent data on neuronal features underlying consciousness and proposes the world-brain relation as the ontological predisposition for consciousness.



Neuropsychoanalysis in practice

Author : Georg Northoff

Publisher : OUP Oxford

Page : 400 pages

File Size : 35,82 MB

Release : 2011-06-23

Category : Medical

ISBN : 0191621188

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Book Description

Is the Ego nothing but our brain? Are our mental and psychological states nothing but neuronal states of our brain? Though Sigmund Freud rejected a neuroscientific foundation for psychoanalysis, recent knowledge in neuroscience has provided novel insights into the brain and its neuronal mechanisms. This has also shed light on how the brain itself contributes to the differentiation between neuronal and psychological states. In Neuropsychoanalysis in Practice , Georg Northoff discusses the various neuronal mechanisms that may enable the transformation of neuronal into psychological states, looking at how these processes are altered in psychiatric disorders like depression and schizophrenia. He focuses specifically on how the brain is organized and how this organization enables the brain to differentiate between neuronal and psychodynamic states, that is, the brain and the psyche. This leads him to discuss not only empirical issues but also conceptual problems, for instance, the concept of the brain. Neuropsychoanalysis in Practice applies these concepts and mechanisms to explain the various symptoms observed in psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. In addition to the empirical issues, he also discusses various conceptual and methodological issues that are relevant in linking neuroscience and psychoanalysis, developing a novel transdisciplinary framework for linking neuroscience, psychoanalysis and philosophy. This highly original new book will help foster new dialogues between neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and philosophy, and will be fascinating reading for anyone in these disciplines.





The Oxford Handbook of Lifelong Learning

Author :

Publisher : Oxford University Press

Page : 813 pages

File Size : 50,8 MB

Release : 2021-06-01

Category : Psychology

ISBN : 0197506720

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Book Description

This Handbook provides a comprehensive and up-to-date examination of lifelong learning. Across 38 chapters, including twelve that are brand new to this edition, the approach is interdisciplinary, spanning human resources development, adult learning (educational perspective), psychology, career and vocational learning, management and executive development, cultural anthropology, the humanities, and gerontology. This volume covers trends that contribute to the need for continuous learning, considers psychological characteristics that relate to the drive to learn, reviews existing theory and research on adult learning, describes training methods and learning technologies for instructional design, and explores current and future challenges to support continuous learning.



Self Comes to Mind

Author : Antonio Damasio

Publisher : Vintage

Page : 385 pages

File Size : 33,61 MB

Release : 2010-11-09

Category : Philosophy

ISBN : 0307379493

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Book Description

A leading neuroscientist explores with authority, with imagination, and with unparalleled mastery how the brain constructs the mind and how the brain makes that mind conscious. Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years researching and and revealing how the brain works. Here, in his most ambitious and stunning work yet, he rejects the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, and presents compelling new scientific evidence that posits an evolutionary perspective. His view entails a radical change in the way the history of the conscious mind is viewed and told, suggesting that the brain’s development of a human self is a challenge to nature’s indifference. This development helps to open the way for the appearance of culture, perhaps one of our most defining characteristics as thinking and self-aware beings.





Encyclopedia of Identity

Author : Ronald L. Jackson II

Publisher : SAGE Publications

Page : 1001 pages

File Size : 24,67 MB

Release : 2010-06-29

Category : Psychology

ISBN : 1452261733

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Book Description

The two volumes of this encyclopedia seek to explore myriad ways in which we define ourselves in our daily lives. Comprising 300 entries, the Encyclopedia of Identity offers readers an opportunity to understand identity as a socially constructed phenomenon - a dynamic process both public and private, shaped by past experiences and present circumstances, and evolving over time. Offering a broad, comprehensive overview of the definitions, politics, manifestations, concepts, and ideas related to identity, the entries include short biographies of major thinkers and leaders, as well as discussions of events, personalities, and concepts. The Encyclopedia of Identity is designed for readers to grasp the nature and breadth of identity as a psychological, social, anthropological, and popular idea. Key ThemesArtClassDeveloping IdentitiesGender, Sex, and SexualityIdentities in ConflictLanguage and DiscourseLiving EthicallyMedia and Popular CultureNationality Protecting IdentityRace, Culture, and EthnicityRelating Across CulturesReligionRepresentations of IdentityTheories of Identity



Sensationality

Author : William Clark

Publisher : iUniverse

Page : 530 pages

File Size : 24,82 MB

Release : 2006-10

Category : Body, Mind & Spirit

ISBN : 0595406173

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Book Description

If the contents of this publication were easy to understand, it would be a much shorter book. It's easy to wonder why being in love with someone or living in fear is so different from liking or being afraid of one thing or another. Differences arise, because what we "like", for example, is definable but who we "love" isn't. We assume that all words are definable, but love isn't, and neither is faith, appreciation, passion, or a host of other words which relate to love. In truth, we can't define the sensation of fear, sin, or temptation either. Why is it that we give such importance to words which can't be defined, and why is it that many of our "words", including mind, soul, and God, escape definition when we're certain that we "know what they mean?" It's only by "appreciating" certain words, that an "understanding" is achieved. Our relationship with God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are explored. Not in a theological context, but a "sensational" one-not so different from a "sixth sense" perspective. Contents of this book also include considerations of anger, addiction, homosexuality, pain management, and much more. An attempt is made to tie up all these seemingly diverse subjects into one tightly knit package.



The Social Construction of Mind

Author : Jeff Coulter

Publisher : Springer

Page : 197 pages

File Size : 31,85 MB

Release : 1987-09-29

Category : Social Science

ISBN : 1349093793

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Book Description

This book provides an original and provocative combination of ethnomethodological analysis and the concepts of linguistic philosophy with a breadth and clarity unusual in this field of writing. It is designed to be read by sociologists, psychologists and philosophers and concerns itself with the contributions of Wittgenstein, defending the claim for his relevance to the human sciences. However, this book goes some way beyond the usual limitations of such interdisciplinary works by outlining some empirical applications of ideas derived from the Wittgenstein tradition.