Download or read book Neurobiology of Human Values written by Jean-Pierre P. Changeux and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2006-03-30 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Man has been pondering for centuries over the basis of his own ethical and aesthetic values. Until recent times, such issues were primarily fed by the thinking of philosophers, moralists and theologists, or by the findings of historians or sociologists relating to universality or variations in these values within various populations. Science has avoided this field of investigation within the confines of philosophy. Beyond the temptation to stay away from the field of knowledge science may also have felt itself unconcerned by the study of human values for a simple heuristic reason, namely the lack of tools allowing objective study. For the same reason, researchers tended to avoid the study of feelings or consciousness until, over the past two decades, this became a focus of interest for many neuroscientists. It is apparent that many questions linked to research in the field of neuroscience are now arising. The hope is that this book will help to formulate them more clearly rather than skirting them. The authors do not wish to launch a new moral philosophy, but simply to gather objective knowledge for reflection.
Download or read book Beyond a World Divided written by Erika Erdmann and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1991 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For ages there has been a gap between the two cultures of the sciences and religions. According to Roger Sperry, science can now bridge the gap between the cold hard facts of the sciences and humanitarian and religious values. Sperry won the Nobel Prize in 1981 for his work on the differences between the left and right halves of the brain. For the past twenty years he has been campaigning for human consciousness and values to be investigated scientificlly. This book describes Sperry's work and his struggle to guide humanity beyond a world divided. terms such as consciousness, value, love and joy are scientifically meaningful, just like terms referring to brain physiology, such as neural pathways and electrical impulse. The split between mind matter, or religion, and science can be removed, says Sperry, by expanding scientific research. Now, conscious experiences must be taken into account as scientific information about the brain. Our values, beliefs and goals can directly affect our brain states and physiology.
Download or read book Shaping the Future written by Steve Olson and published by . This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Looks at developments in genetics, cell growth, neurobiology, and evolution, and ethical issues raised by biological research
Download or read book Decision Neuroscience written by Jean-Claude Dreher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2016-09-27 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decision Neuroscience addresses fundamental questions about how the brain makes perceptual, value-based, and more complex decisions in non-social and social contexts. This book presents compelling neuroimaging, electrophysiological, lesional, and neurocomputational models in combination with hormonal and genetic approaches, which have led to a clearer understanding of the neural mechanisms behind how the brain makes decisions. The five parts of the book address distinct but inter-related topics and are designed to serve both as classroom introductions to major subareas in decision neuroscience and as advanced syntheses of all that has been accomplished in the last decade. Part I is devoted to anatomical, neurophysiological, pharmacological, and optogenetics animal studies on reinforcement-guided decision making, such as the representation of instructions, expectations, and outcomes; the updating of action values; and the evaluation process guiding choices between prospective rewards. Part II covers the topic of the neural representations of motivation, perceptual decision making, and value-based decision making in humans, combining neurcomputational models and brain imaging studies. Part III focuses on the rapidly developing field of social decision neuroscience, integrating recent mechanistic understanding of social decisions in both non-human primates and humans. Part IV covers clinical aspects involving disorders of decision making that link together basic research areas including systems, cognitive, and clinical neuroscience; this part examines dysfunctions of decision making in neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, behavioral addictions, and focal brain lesions. Part V focuses on the roles of various hormones (cortisol, oxytocin, ghrelin/leptine) and genes that underlie inter-individual differences observed with stress, food choices, and social decision-making processes. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in decision making neuroscience. With contributions that are forward-looking assessments of the current and future issues faced by researchers, Decision Neuroscience is essential reading for anyone interested in decision-making neuroscience. - Provides comprehensive coverage of approaches to studying individual and social decision neuroscience, including primate neurophysiology, brain imaging in healthy humans and in various disorders, and genetic and hormonal influences on decision making - Covers multiple levels of analysis, from molecular mechanisms to neural-systems dynamics and computational models of how we make choices - Discusses clinical implications of process dysfunctions, including schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease, eating disorders, drug addiction, and pathological gambling - Features chapters from top international researchers in the field and full-color presentation throughout with numerous illustrations to highlight key concepts
Download or read book Braintrust written by Patricia S. Churchland and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in a behavior common to all mammals--the caring for offspring. The evolved structure, processes, and chemistry of the brain incline humans to strive not only for self-preservation but for the well-being of allied selves--first offspring, then mates, kin, and so on, in wider and wider "caring" circles. Separation and exclusion cause pain, and the company of loved ones causes pleasure; responding to feelings of social pain and pleasure, brains adjust their circuitry to local customs. In this way, caring is apportioned, conscience molded, and moral intuitions instilled. A key part of the story is oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule that, by decreasing the stress response, allows humans to develop the trust in one another necessary for the development of close-knit ties, social institutions, and morality. A major new account of what really makes us moral, Braintrust challenges us to reconsider the origins of some of our most cherished values.
Download or read book Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality Evolution Culture and Wisdom Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology written by Darcia Narvaez and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-10-20 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the William James Book Award Winner of the inaugural Expanded Reason Award A wide-ranging exploration of the role of childhood experiences in adult morality. Moral development has traditionally been considered a matter of reasoning—of learning and acting in accordance with abstract rules. On this model, largely taken for granted in modern societies, acts of selfishness, aggression, and ecological mindlessness are failures of will, moral problems that can be solved by acting in accordance with a higher rationality. But both ancient philosophy and recent scientific scholarship emphasize implicit systems, such as action schemas and perceptual filters that guide behavior and shape human development. In this integrative book, Darcia Narvaez argues that morality goes “all the way down” into our neurobiological and emotional development, and that a person’s moral architecture is largely established early on in life. Moral rationality and virtue emerge “bottom up” from lived experience, so it matters what that experience is. Bringing together deep anthropological history, ethical philosophy, and contemporary neurobiological science, she demonstrates where modern industrialized societies have fallen away from the cultural practices that made us human in the first place. Neurobiology and the Development of Human Morality advances the field of developmental moral psychology in three key ways. First, it provides an evolutionary framework for early childhood experience grounded in developmental systems theory, encompassing not only genes but a wide array of environmental and epigenetic factors. Second, it proposes a neurobiological basis for the development of moral sensibilities and cognition, describing ethical functioning at multiple levels of complexity and context before turning to a theory of the emergence of wisdom. Finally, it embraces the sociocultural orientations of our ancestors and cousins in small-band hunter-gatherer societies—the norm for 99% of human history—for a re-envisioning of moral life, from the way we value and organize child raising to how we might frame a response to human-made global ecological collapse. Integrating the latest scholarship in clinical sciences and positive psychology, Narvaez proposes a developmentally informed ecological and ethical sensibility as a way to self-author and revise the ways we think about parenting and sociality. The techniques she describes point towards an alternative vision of moral development and flourishing, one that synthesizes traditional models of executive, top-down wisdom with “primal” wisdom built by multiple systems of biological and cultural influence from the ground up.
Download or read book Neuroexistentialism written by Gregg D. Caruso and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Existentialisms arise when the foundations of being, such as meaning, morals, and purpose come under assault. In the first-wave of existentialism, writings typified by Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Nietzsche concerned the increasingly apparent inability of religion, and religious tradition, to support a foundation of being. Second-wave existentialism, personified philosophically by Sartre, Camus, and de Beauvoir, developed in response to similar realizations about the overly optimistic Enlightenment vision of reason and the common good. The third-wave of existentialism, a new existentialism, developed in response to advances in the neurosciences that threaten the last vestiges of an immaterial soul or self. Given the increasing explanatory and therapeutic power of neuroscience, the mind no longer stands apart from the world to serve as a foundation of meaning. This produces foundational anxiety. In Neuroexistentialism, a group of contributors that includes some of the world's leading philosophers, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and legal scholars, explores the anxiety caused by third-wave existentialism and possible responses to it. Together, these essays tackle our neuroexistentialist predicament, and explore what the mind sciences can tell us about morality, love, emotion, autonomy, consciousness, selfhood, free will, moral responsibility, law, the nature of criminal punishment, meaning in life, and purpose.
Download or read book So Human a Brain written by HARRINGTON and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WALTER A. ROSENBLITH Footnotes to the Recent History of Neuroscience: Personal Reflections and Microstories The workshop upon which this volume is based offered me an opportunity to renew contact fairly painlessly with workers in the brain sciences, not just as a participant/observer but maybe as what might be called a teller of microstories. I had originally become curious about the brain by way of my wife's senior thesis, in which she attempted to relate electroencephalography to certain aspects of human behavior. As a then-budding physicist and communications engineer, I had barely heard about brain waves, nor had I studied physiology in a systematic way. My work on noise dealt with the effects of certain acoustical stimuli on biological structures and entire organisms. This was the period immediately after World War II when many scientists and engineers who had done applied work in the war effort were trying to find their way among the challenging new fields that were opening up. Francis Crick, among others, has described such a search taking place in the cafes of the "other" Cambridge, the one on the Cam. At that time the brain sciences, in his opinion, offered much less promise than molecular biology. However, he was sufficiently attracted by what they might eventually have to offer to keep an eye on them, and several decades later his work turned toward the brain.
Download or read book Braintrust written by Patricia S. Churchland and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-22 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative new account of how morality evolved What is morality? Where does it come from? And why do most of us heed its call most of the time? In Braintrust, neurophilosophy pioneer Patricia Churchland argues that morality originates in the biology of the brain. She describes the "neurobiological platform of bonding" that, modified by evolutionary pressures and cultural values, has led to human styles of moral behavior. The result is a provocative genealogy of morals that asks us to reevaluate the priority given to religion, absolute rules, and pure reason in accounting for the basis of morality. Moral values, Churchland argues, are rooted in a behavior common to all mammals—the caring for offspring. The evolved structure, processes, and chemistry of the brain incline humans to strive not only for self-preservation but for the well-being of allied selves—first offspring, then mates, kin, and so on, in wider and wider "caring" circles. Separation and exclusion cause pain, and the company of loved ones causes pleasure; responding to feelings of social pain and pleasure, brains adjust their circuitry to local customs. In this way, caring is apportioned, conscience molded, and moral intuitions instilled. A key part of the story is oxytocin, an ancient body-and-brain molecule that, by decreasing the stress response, allows humans to develop the trust in one another necessary for the development of close-knit ties, social institutions, and morality. A major new account of what really makes us moral, Braintrust challenges us to reconsider the origins of some of our most cherished values.
Download or read book On The Contexts Of Things Human An Integrative View Of Brain Consciousness And Freedom Of Will written by Ronald J Macgregor and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2006-04-11 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is unique in expanding the boundaries of neuroscience, while remaining solidly grounded within it. In this, it outlines a new plateau of wider integrative understanding both within and beyond neuroscience. The book advances the view and implications of an integrated functional unity of consciousness and brain, inclusive of freedom of will. It reaches from first principles of human awareness and apprehension and the physical foundations of consciousness, through a structured integrative view of consciousness and the brain, to outlines of the ambient contextual influences of human living. Comprehensive overviews of brain theory and theoretical neuroscience are given. Fundamental brain functions of human apprehension, language, value, aesthetics, rational and extrarational knowing, biological primals, and adaptive integrations are seen to operate within such ambient influences as whole of nature, human plight, circumstances, personal life, good and evil, inner depths, worlds of man, and enlightenments.Prof Ronald MacGregor has published extensively in theoretical neuroscience since 1965, consistently advocating the foundationality of physiology and physical law in brain-mind function. His work has helped ground neuroelectric signaling within physical science and characterize the neuroelectric patterns of neurons and neural networks.
Download or read book Discovering the Brain written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."
Download or read book Neurobiology of Sensation and Reward written by Jay A. Gottfried and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2011-03-28 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing coverage of sensation and reward into a comprehensive systems overview, Neurobiology of Sensation and Reward presents a cutting-edge and multidisciplinary approach to the interplay of sensory and reward processing in the brain. While over the past 70 years these areas have drifted apart, this book makes a case for reuniting sensation a
Download or read book The Neurobiology of Values written by Bruce Miller and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2024-03-12 with total page 142 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Evolved Morality The Biology and Philosophy of Human Conscience written by Frans de Waal and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2014-02-20 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Morality is often defined in opposition to the natural "instincts," or as a tool to keep those instincts in check. New findings in neuroscience, social psychology, animal behavior, and anthropology have brought us back to the original Darwinian position that moral behavior is continuous with the social behavior of animals, and most likely evolved to enhance the cooperativeness of society. In this view, morality is part of human nature rather than its opposite. This interdisciplinary volume debates the origin and working of human morality within the context of science as well as religion and philosophy. Experts from widely different backgrounds speculate how morality may have evolved, how it develops in the child, and what science can tell us about its working and origin. They also discuss how to deal with the age-old facts-versus-values debate, also known as the naturalistic fallacy. The implications of this exchange are enormous, as they may transform cherished views on if and why we are the only moral species. These articles are also published in Behaviour, Volume 151, Nos. 2/3 (February 2014). Suitable for course adoption!
Download or read book Brain and Values written by Karl H. Pribram and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2018-01-17 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 5th volume of the Appalachian Conference discusses how the brain processes information, the role of memory and value, and models of creativity. It pursues aspects of cognitive neuroscience and behavioral neurodynamics, such as the topic of values and quantum-distributed processing in the brain.
Download or read book Neuroeconomics written by Paul W. Glimcher and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2013-08-13 with total page 606 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years since it first published, Neuroeconomics: Decision Making and the Brain has become the standard reference and textbook in the burgeoning field of neuroeconomics. The second edition, a nearly complete revision of this landmark book, will set a new standard. This new edition features five sections designed to serve as both classroom-friendly introductions to each of the major subareas in neuroeconomics, and as advanced synopses of all that has been accomplished in the last two decades in this rapidly expanding academic discipline. The first of these sections provides useful introductions to the disciplines of microeconomics, the psychology of judgment and decision, computational neuroscience, and anthropology for scholars and students seeking interdisciplinary breadth. The second section provides an overview of how human and animal preferences are represented in the mammalian nervous systems. Chapters on risk, time preferences, social preferences, emotion, pharmacology, and common neural currencies—each written by leading experts—lay out the foundations of neuroeconomic thought. The third section contains both overview and in-depth chapters on the fundamentals of reinforcement learning, value learning, and value representation. The fourth section, "The Neural Mechanisms for Choice, integrates what is known about the decision-making architecture into state-of-the-art models of how we make choices. The final section embeds these mechanisms in a larger social context, showing how these mechanisms function during social decision-making in both humans and animals. The book provides a historically rich exposition in each of its chapters and emphasizes both the accomplishments and the controversies in the field. A clear explanatory style and a single expository voice characterize all chapters, making core issues in economics, psychology, and neuroscience accessible to scholars from all disciplines. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in neuroeconomics in particular or decision making in general. - Editors and contributing authors are among the acknowledged experts and founders in the field, making this the authoritative reference for neuroeconomics - Suitable as an advanced undergraduate or graduate textbook as well as a thorough reference for active researchers - Introductory chapters on economics, psychology, neuroscience, and anthropology provide students and scholars from any discipline with the keys to understanding this interdisciplinary field - Detailed chapters on subjects that include reinforcement learning, risk, inter-temporal choice, drift-diffusion models, game theory, and prospect theory make this an invaluable reference - Published in association with the Society for Neuroeconomics—www.neuroeconomics.org - Full-color presentation throughout with numerous carefully selected illustrations to highlight key concepts
Download or read book So Human a Brain written by Anne Harrington and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congress has declared the 1990s to be the "Decade of the Brain," reflecting even high-level government's acknowledgement of the pervasiveness of disorders and disabilities of the brain and the need for research, treatment, and rehabilitation. This remarkable collection of essays (from a Woods Hole conference, date not stated) encompasses many disciplines, tackling philosophical issues connected with brain research, animal awareness, and human sensibility; the therapeutic experience; gender and the brain; ethnographic and sociohistorical perspectives in the brain sciences; and language, neuropsychology, and moral tradition, among other topics. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
