Download or read book Mind and World written by John Henry McDowell and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1996-09 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Modern philosophy finds it difficult to give a satisfactory picture of the place of minds in the world. In Mind and World, one of the most distinguished philosophers writing today offers his diagnosis of this difficulty and points to a cure.
Download or read book Mind and the World order written by Clarence Irving Lewis and published by Courier Corporation. This book was released on 1956-01-01 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theory of "conceptual pragmatism" takes into account both modern philosophical thought and modern mathematics. Stimulating discussions of metaphysics, a priori, philosophic method, much more.
Download or read book World Wide Mind written by Michael Chorost and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-02-15 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if digital communication felt as real as being touched? This question led Michael Chorost to explore profound new ideas triggered by lab research around the world, and the result is the book you now hold. Marvelous and momentous, World Wide Mind takes mind-to-mind communication out of the realm of science fiction and reveals how we are on the verge of a radical new understanding of human interaction. Chorost himself has computers in his head that enable him to hear: two cochlear implants. Drawing on that experience, he proposes that our Paleolithic bodies and our Pentium chips could be physically merged, and he explores the technologies that could do it. He visits engineers building wearable computers that allow people to be online every waking moment, and scientists working on implanted chips that would let paralysis victims communicate. Entirely new neural interfaces are being developed that let computers read and alter neural activity in unprecedented detail. But we all know how addictive the Internet is. Chorost explains the addiction: he details the biochemistry of what makes you hunger to touch your iPhone and check your email. He proposes how we could design a mind-to-mind technology that would let us reconnect with our bodies and enhance our relationships. With such technologies, we could achieve a collective consciousness—a World Wide Mind. And it would be humankind’s next evolutionary step. With daring and sensitivity, Chorost writes about how he learned how to enhance his own relationships by attending workshops teaching the power of touch. He learned how to bring technology and communication together to find true love, and his story shows how we can master technology to make ourselves more human rather than less. World Wide Mind offers a new understanding of how we communicate, what we need to connect fully with one another, and how our addiction to email and texting can be countered with technologies that put us—literally—in each other’s minds.
Download or read book The World in My Mind My Mind in the World written by Igor Aleksander and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2013-11-19 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Not consciousness, but knowledge of consciousness: that is what this book communicates in a fascinating way. Consciousness is the thread that links the disappearing gorilla with the octopus suffering from a stomach ache, and the person under anaesthetic with a new born baby. How these are different, yet illustrative of consciousness, is revealed in this accessible book by one of the world's leading thinkers and neural computing engineers. Igor Aleksander addresses this enigmatic topic, by making us understand the difference between what happens to us when thinking consciously and when sort of thinking when dreaming or when not conscious at all, as when sleeping, anaesthetised or knocked out by a blow on the head. The book also tackles the larger topics of free will, choice, God, Freud (what is 'the unconscious'?), inherited traits and individuality, while exploding the myths and misinformation of many earlier mind-hijackers. He shares the journey towards building a new model of consciousness, with an invitation to understand 5 axioms or basic ideas, which we easily recognise in ourselves.
Download or read book World Without Mind written by Franklin Foer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-09-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 • One of the best books of the year by The New York Times, LA Times, and NPR Franklin Foer reveals the existential threat posed by big tech, and in his brilliant polemic gives us the toolkit to fight their pervasive influence. Over the past few decades there has been a revolution in terms of who controls knowledge and information. This rapid change has imperiled the way we think. Without pausing to consider the cost, the world has rushed to embrace the products and services of four titanic corporations. We shop with Amazon; socialize on Facebook; turn to Apple for entertainment; and rely on Google for information. These firms sell their efficiency and purport to make the world a better place, but what they have done instead is to enable an intoxicating level of daily convenience. As these companies have expanded, marketing themselves as champions of individuality and pluralism, their algorithms have pressed us into conformity and laid waste to privacy. They have produced an unstable and narrow culture of misinformation, and put us on a path to a world without private contemplation, autonomous thought, or solitary introspection—a world without mind. In order to restore our inner lives, we must avoid being coopted by these gigantic companies, and understand the ideas that underpin their success. Elegantly tracing the intellectual history of computer science—from Descartes and the enlightenment to Alan Turing to Stewart Brand and the hippie origins of today's Silicon Valley—Foer exposes the dark underpinnings of our most idealistic dreams for technology. The corporate ambitions of Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon, he argues, are trampling longstanding liberal values, especially intellectual property and privacy. This is a nascent stage in the total automation and homogenization of social, political, and intellectual life. By reclaiming our private authority over how we intellectually engage with the world, we have the power to stem the tide. At stake is nothing less than who we are, and what we will become. There have been monopolists in the past but today's corporate giants have far more nefarious aims. They’re monopolists who want access to every facet of our identities and influence over every corner of our decision-making. Until now few have grasped the sheer scale of the threat. Foer explains not just the looming existential crisis but the imperative of resistance.
Download or read book The Book of Minds written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.
Download or read book On Thinking and the World written by Sandra M. Dingli and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John McDowell's Mind and World has, since its publication in 1994, become a seminal text, putting forward many new ideas on the manner in which concepts mediate the relation between minds and the world. Yet McDowell's ideas are not easy to comprehend. In this book Sandra Dingli both elaborates and simplifies McDowell's ideas in order to give greater clarity to them and to assist in the understanding and appreciation of his work. Dingli selects five particular contemporary philosophical topics which McDowell deals with and investigates in detail the implications of particular points of view, analysing the current literature on each topic and drawing out shortcomings and possibilities for overcoming them. This work is, then, both a critique and complement to McDowell's text. McDowell's project is to dissolve a number of dualisms such as sensibility and understanding, conceptual and non conceptual content, scheme and content, and reason and nature. Dingli critically analyses each of these and claims that a proper understanding of the philosophical method of quietism is important for a correct understanding of this text, concluding that McDowell does not go far enough in his attempt to attain peace for philosophy as traditional dichotomies such as that of realism and anti-realism still appear to exert a grip on his thinking.
Download or read book The Spontaneous Brain written by Georg Northoff and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Mind and World in Aristotle s De Anima written by Sean Kelsey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-16 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This innovative new reading of Aristotle's De Anima sheds new light on a most important and difficult ancient philosophical text.
Download or read book Mind in a Physical World written by Jaegwon Kim and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind--in particular, the mind-body problem, mental causation, and reductionism. This book, based on Jaegwon Kim's 1996 Townsend Lectures, presents the philosopher's current views on a variety of issues in the metaphysics of the mind--in particular, the mind-body problem, mental causation, and reductionism. Kim construes the mind-body problem as that of finding a place for the mind in a world that is fundamentally physical. Among other points, he redefines the roles of supervenience and emergence in the discussion of the mind-body problem. Arguing that various contemporary accounts of mental causation are inadequate, he offers his own partially reductionist solution on the basis of a novel model of reduction. Retaining the informal tone of the lecture format, the book is clear yet sophisticated.
Download or read book The Mind written by E. Bruce Goldstein and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible and engaging account of the mind and its connection to the brain. The mind encompasses everything we experience, and these experiences are created by the brain--often without our awareness. Experience is private; we can't know the minds of others. But we also don't know what is happening in our own minds. In this book, E. Bruce Goldstein offers an accessible and engaging account of the mind and its connection to the brain. He takes as his starting point two central questions--what is the mind? and what is consciousness?--and leads readers through topics that range from conceptions of the mind in popular culture to the wiring system of the brain. Throughout, he draws on the latest research, explaining its significance and relevance.
Download or read book The Spread Mind written by Riccardo Manzotti and published by . This book was released on 2018-01-23 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Italian philosopher, psychologist and robotics engineer, Manzotti presents an alternative and ecological hypothesis about how consciousness exists in the real world.
Download or read book The Distracted Mind written by Adam Gazzaley and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2016-09-16 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “brilliant and practical” study of why our brains aren’t built for media multitasking—and how we can learn to live with technology in a more balanced way (Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart) Most of us will freely admit that we are obsessed with our devices. We pride ourselves on our ability to multitask—read work email, reply to a text, check Facebook, watch a video clip. Talk on the phone, send a text, drive a car. Enjoy family dinner with a glowing smartphone next to our plates. We can do it all, 24/7! Never mind the errors in the email, the near-miss on the road, and the unheard conversation at the table. In The Distracted Mind, Adam Gazzaley and Larry Rosen—a neuroscientist and a psychologist—explain why our brains aren't built for multitasking, and suggest better ways to live in a high-tech world without giving up our modern technology. The authors explain that our brains are limited in their ability to pay attention. We don't really multitask but rather switch rapidly between tasks. Distractions and interruptions, often technology-related—referred to by the authors as “interference”—collide with our goal-setting abilities. We want to finish this paper/spreadsheet/sentence, but our phone signals an incoming message and we drop everything. Even without an alert, we decide that we “must” check in on social media immediately. Gazzaley and Rosen offer practical strategies, backed by science, to fight distraction. We can change our brains with meditation, video games, and physical exercise; we can change our behavior by planning our accessibility and recognizing our anxiety about being out of touch even briefly. They don't suggest that we give up our devices, but that we use them in a more balanced way.
Download or read book Rebuilt written by Michael Chorost and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2005 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chorost chronicles his journey from deafness to hearing, from human to cyborg, and how it transformed him. Written with self-deprecating, dry wit this volume explores hearing, sound, and software that can now mend the senses.
Download or read book The Unity of Mind Brain and World written by Alfredo Pereira (Jr.) and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-12 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book on consciousness spans the relation of individuals with the world and the individual's constitution at different organizational levels. Covering a diversity of perspectives and presenting a theoretical synthesis, the book will stimulate the current debate on the nature of consciousness, strengthening a more systematic approach to the phenomenon.
Download or read book Change Your Mind Change Your World written by Richard Gillett and published by Touchstone. This book was released on 1992 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We know that our beliefs influence our behavior and people's responses to us. Now, Dr. Richard Gillett explores the psychological origins of our belief system, explaining how self-limiting beliefs can be dislodged and replaced with positive beliefs that can, in fact, change our world.
Download or read book Mind Body World written by Michael R. W. Dawson and published by Athabasca University Press. This book was released on 2013 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cognitive science arose in the 1950s when it became apparent that a number of disciplines, including psychology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy, were fragmenting. Perhaps owing to the field's immediate origins in cybernetics, as well as to the foundational assumption that cognition is information processing, cognitive science initially seemed more unified than psychology. However, as a result of differing interpretations of the foundational assumption and dramatically divergent views of the meaning of the term information processing, three separate schools emerged: classical cognitive science, connectionist cognitive science, and embodied cognitive science. Examples, cases, and research findings taken from the wide range of phenomena studied by cognitive scientists effectively explain and explore the relationship among the three perspectives. Intended to introduce both graduate and senior undergraduate students to the foundations of cognitive science, Mind, Body, World addresses a number of questions currently being asked by those practicing in the field: What are the core assumptions of the three different schools? What are the relationships between these different sets of core assumptions? Is there only one cognitive science, or are there many different cognitive sciences? Giving the schools equal treatment and displaying a broad and deep understanding of the field, Dawson highlights the fundamental tensions and lines of fragmentation that exist among the schools and provides a refreshing and unifying framework for students of cognitive science.
