The Phenomena of Awareness


Book Description

This book draws on the work of Husserl, Cantor and Jung. It is a synthesis of phenomenology, mathematics and psychology exploring awareness and the concept of 'transfinite number'.




The Phenomena of Awareness


Book Description

What is awareness? How is dreaming different from ordinary awareness? What does mathematics have to do with awareness? Are different kinds of awareness related? “Awareness” is commonly spoken of as “mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, the unconscious, psyche, imagination, self, and other.” The Phenomena of Awareness is a study of awareness as it is directly experienced. From the start, Cecile T. Tougas engages the reader in reflective notice of awareness as it appears from moment to moment in a variety of ways. The book draws us in and asks us to focus on the flow of phenomena in living experience, not as a theoretical construct, nor an image, nor a biochemical product, but instead as phases, moments, or parts that cannot exist without one another. Tougas shows how these parts exist in mutual dependence as a continuum of awareness, as the flow of lived time, and how noticing time deepens psychological self-understanding and understanding of another. The Phenomena of Awareness is divided into four parts: • Seeking and Noticing Awareness • Observing and Understanding the Flow of Phenomena • Distinguishing Intentional Acts • Work in Progress Drawing on the work of E. Husserl, G. Cantor and C.G. Jung, this book is an original synthesis of phenomenology, mathematics and psychology that explores awareness and the concept of ‘transfinite number’. This book will be of interest to analytical psychologists, philosophers, mathematicians, feminist scholars, humanities teachers and students. Cecile T. Tougas teaches Latin at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham. She taught philosophy at the University of Southern Maine and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.




The Phenomena of Awareness


Book Description

What is awareness? How is dreaming different from ordinary awareness? What does mathematics have to do with awareness? Are different kinds of awareness related? "Awareness" is commonly spoken of as "mind, soul, spirit, consciousness, the unconscious, psyche, imagination, self, and other." The Phenomena of Awareness is a study of awareness as it is directly experienced. From the start, Cecile T. Tougas engages the reader in reflective notice of awareness as it appears from moment to moment in a variety of ways. The book draws us in and asks us to focus on the flow of phenomena in living experience, not as a theoretical construct, nor an image, nor a biochemical product, but instead as phases, moments, or parts that cannot exist without one another. Tougas shows how these parts exist in mutual dependence as a continuum of awareness, as the flow of lived time, and how noticing time deepens psychological self-understanding and understanding of another. The Phenomena of Awareness is divided into four parts: * Seeking and Noticing Awareness * Observing and Understanding the Flow of Phenomena * Distinguishing Intentional Acts * Work in Progress Drawing on the work of E. Husserl, G. Cantor and C.G. Jung, this book is an original synthesis of phenomenology, mathematics and psychology that explores awareness and the concept of 'transfinite number'. This book will be of interest to analytical psychologists, philosophers, mathematicians, feminist scholars, humanities teachers and students. Cecile T. Tougas teaches Latin at the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, Durham. She taught philosophy at the University of Southern Maine and the University of Massachusetts Lowell.




Learning and Awareness


Book Description

This book stems from more than 25 years of systematic research into the experience of learning undertaken by a research team trying to account for the obvious differences between more or less successful instances of learning in educational institutions. The book offers an answer in terms of the discovery of critical differences in the structure of the learner's awareness and critical differences in the meaning of the learner's world. The authors offer a detailed account of the empirical findings that give rise to theoretical insights, and discuss the particular form of qualitative research that has been employed and developed. The form of learning that is the object of study is considered to be the most fundamental form -- namely a change in the learner's way of seeing, experiencing, handling, and understanding aspects of the world. The need for rigorous analysis of learning of specific subject matter, the individual construction of knowledge, and its social and cultural embeddedness -- the defining features of rival approaches into research on learning -- are reconciled from the approach adopted here into an intertwined and whole experience of learning. The learner's experience is always one of learning something, in some way, and in some context; by holding the learner's experience of learning as the focus of study throughout -- and not studying the learning of the content and the acts and the context as separate and distinct focuses -- the content, the act, and the context remain united as constituents of the learner's experience. By empirically revealing critical differences in the ways of experiencing these aspects of learning, and by developing a theoretical framework for the dynamics through which change comes about in the learner's awareness, this book gradually leads the reader to a powerful new view of learning. Equipped with the analytical tools and conceptual apparatus to be found in this book, the reader will be empowered to learn and to assist others to learn by creating environments conducive to the most fundamental form of learning: experiencing aspects of the world in new ways.




Infinite Awareness


Book Description

Book Award of the Parapsychological Association,2017 Winner of the Eric Hoffer Book Awards 2017 (Spiritual) First Place, Nautilus Book Awards 2017 (Science, Cosmology and Expanding Consciousness) First Place, International Excellence Mind, Body Spirit Book Awards, 2017 (Human Consciousness) Bronze Medal, Feathered Quill Book Awards, 2017 (Best Religious/Spiritual) First Place, Great Northwest Book Festival, 2017 (Spiritual Books) First Place, New England Book Festival, 2016 (Spiritual Books) As a neuroscientist, Marjorie Woollacott had no doubts that the brain was a purely physical entity controlled by chemicals and electrical pulses. When she experimented with meditation for the first time, however, her entire world changed. Woollacott’s journey through years of meditation has made her question the reality she built her career upon and has forced her to ask what human consciousness really is. Infinite Awareness pairs Woollacott’s research as a neuroscientist with her self-revelations about the mind’s spiritual power. Between the scientific and spiritual worlds, she breaks open the definition of human consciousness to investigate the existence of a non-physical and infinitely powerful mind.




The Buddhist Theory of Self-Cognition


Book Description

This highly original work explores the concept of self-awareness or self-consciousness in Buddhist thought. Its central thesis is that the Buddhist theory of self-cognition originated in a soteriological discussion of omniscience among the Mahasamghikas, and then evolved into a topic of epistemological inquiry among the Yogacarins. To illustrate this central theme, this book explores a large body of primary sources in Chinese, Pali, Sanskrit and Tibetan, most of which are presented to an English readership for the first time. It makes available important resources for the study of the Buddhist philosophy of mind.




The Philosophy of Consciousness


Book Description

An investigation into the nature and evolution of consciousness through the lens of various philosophers, culminating with the experiential philosophy of Sri Aurobindo.




The Healthy Mind


Book Description

In The Healthy Mind, Dr. Henry M. Vyner presents the findings of twenty-seven years of research spent interviewing Tibetan lamas about their experiences of the mind. The interviews have generated a science of stream of consciousness that demonstrates that the healthy human mind is the egoless mind, given the paradox that the egoless mind has an ego. Vyner presents this science and also shows his readers how to cultivate a healthy mind. The Healthy Mind features extensive interview excerpts, theoretical maps of the egoless and egocentric mind, discussions of the history of science, and thought experiments that unpack the implications of his findings. This is a useful book for all those interested in the dialogue between Buddhism and psychology and in understanding the nature of the healthy mind.







The Child’s Conception of Language


Book Description

It is obvious that the growing child manifests an increasing understanding of his language and facility to use it. A major part of the child lan guage literature is concerned with the child's developing linguistic and communicative competence. Scattered evidence also shows, however, that children become progressively more aware of language as Zanguage. It is interesting to consider in what ways the internal structure and mechanisms of language become more accessible. Little is known about linguistic aware ness of this kind, the role it plays, or how it develops. When the new Projektgruppe fUr Psycholinguistik of the Max-Planck Gesellschaft was founded, "the child's conception .of language," in analogy to Piaget's "child's conception of the physical world," become one of the research unit's topics of study. As previous work on linguistic awareness was largely amorphous, we first organized a kind of conference workshop with some of those who had worked in the area. The aims of this meeting were to map out the field of study, detail the phenomena of interest, and define major theoretical issues. The meeting took place just after the creation of the project group, on May 3-7, 1977. The participants were psychologists and linguists who had either published work on metalinguistic issues in child language, or who could be expected to contribute substantially to the discussion. This book is a direct outcome of that conference, though it is not a complete reflection of the papers presented, or of the discussion that took place.