Download or read book Consciousness Explained written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Brilliant...as audacious as its title....Mr. Dennett's exposition is nothing short of brilliant." --George Johnson, New York Times Book Review Consciousness Explained is a a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life-of people, animal, even robots--are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book.
Download or read book Radical Knowing written by Christian de Quincey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2005-08-16 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A radical reassessment of what we mean by "consciousness" and how we experience it in relation to others • Shows the importance of integrating different ways of knowing--such as feeling and intuition, reason and the senses--in our approach to life • Discusses the technique of Bohmian Dialogue where you can learn not only to "feel your thinking," but also to experience true communion with others In Radical Knowing Christian de Quincey makes a provocative claim: We are not who we think we are. Instead, we are what we feel. Giving disciplined attention to feelings reveals the most fundamental fact of life and reality: We are our relationships. Most of us think we are individuals first and foremost who then come together to form relationships. De Quincey turns this "obvious fact" on its head and shows that relationship comes first, and that our individual sense of self--our "private" consciousness--actually arises from shared consciousness. This shared, collective consciousness is at the heart of indigenous ways of life and their worldviews. De Quincey explains that participating in shared consciousness literally builds the fabric of reality, and that understanding this process is key to unlocking our potential for higher consciousness and spiritual evolution. He presents the technique of Bohmian Dialogue, developed by groundbreaking quantum physicist David Bohm, as one method for experiencing this powerful process. He also explores the mystery of synchronicity, offering a new understanding of the relationship between matter and mind and the underlying nature of reality.
Download or read book Feeling Knowing written by Antonio Damasio and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the world’s leading neuroscientists: a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of how biology, neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence have given us the tools to unlock the mysteries of human consciousness “One thrilling insight after another ... Damasio has succeeded brilliantly in narrowing the gap between body and mind.” —The New York Times Book Review In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In the forty-eight brief chapters of Feeling & Knowing, and in writing that remains faithful to our intuitive sense of what feeling and experiencing are about, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large. He combines the latest discoveries in various sciences with philosophy and discusses his original research, which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior. Here is an indispensable guide to understanding how we experience the world within and around us and find our place in the universe.
Download or read book The Wonder of Consciousness written by Harold L. Langsam and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2011 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An argument that what makes consciousness wonderful is its intelligibility.
Download or read book The Hidden Spring A Journey to the Source of Consciousness written by Mark Solms and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A revelatory new theory of consciousness that returns emotions to the center of mental life. For Mark Solms, one of the boldest thinkers in contemporary neuroscience, discovering how consciousness comes about has been a lifetime’s quest. Scientists consider it the "hard problem" because it seems an impossible task to understand why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain. Venturing into the elementary physics of life, Solms has now arrived at an astonishing answer. In The Hidden Spring, he brings forward his discovery in accessible language and graspable analogies. Solms is a frank and fearless guide on an extraordinary voyage from the dawn of neuropsychology and psychoanalysis to the cutting edge of contemporary neuroscience, adhering to the medically provable. But he goes beyond other neuroscientists by paying close attention to the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated, whose uncanny conversations expose much about the brain’s obscure reaches. Most importantly, you will be able to recognize the workings of your own mind for what they really are, including every stray thought, pulse of emotion, and shift of attention. The Hidden Spring will profoundly alter your understanding of your own subjective experience.
Download or read book Understanding Phenomenal Consciousness written by William S. Robinson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2004-03-29 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William S. Robinson has for many years written insightfully about the mind-body problem. In Understanding Phenomenal Consciousness he focuses on sensory experience (e.g., pain, afterimages) and perception qualities such as colours, sounds and odours to present a dualistic view of the mind, called Qualitative Event Realism, that goes against the dominant materialist views. This theory is relevant to the development of a science of consciousness which is now being pursued not only by philosophers but by researchers in psychology and the brain sciences. This provocative book will interest students and professionals who work in the philosophy of mind and will also have cross-disciplinary appeal in cognitive psychology and the brain sciences.
Download or read book Zen and the Brain written by James H. Austin and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1999-06-04 with total page 876 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A neuroscientist and Zen practitioner interweaves the latest research on the brain with his personal narrative of Zen. Aldous Huxley called humankind's basic trend toward spiritual growth the "perennial philosophy." In the view of James Austin, the trend implies a "perennial psychophysiology"—because awakening, or enlightenment, occurs only when the human brain undergoes substantial changes. What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.
Download or read book The Mystery of Consciousness written by John R. Searle and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 1990-01-01 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It has long been one of the most fundamental problems of philosophy, and it is now, John Searle writes, "the most important problem in the biological sciences": What is consciousness? Is my inner awareness of myself something separate from my body? In what began as a series of essays in The New York Review of Books, John Searle evaluates the positions on consciousness of such well-known scientists and philosophers as Francis Crick, Gerald Edelman, Roger Penrose, Daniel Dennett, David Chalmers, and Israel Rosenfield. He challenges claims that the mind works like a computer, and that brain functions can be reproduced by computer programs. With a sharp eye for confusion and contradiction, he points out which avenues of current research are most likely to come up with a biological examination of how conscious states are caused by the brain. Only when we understand how the brain works will we solve the mystery of consciousness, and only then will we begin to understand issues ranging from artificial intelligence to our very nature as human beings.
Download or read book The Neurology of Consciousness written by Steven Laureys and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2015-08-12 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of The Neurology of Consciousness is a comprehensive update of this ground-breaking work on human consciousness, the first book in this area to summarize the neuroanatomical and functional underpinnings of consciousness by emphasizing a lesional approach offered by the study of neurological patients. Since the publication of the first edition in 2009, new methodologies have made consciousness much more accessible scientifically, and, in particular, the study of disorders, disruptions, and disturbances of consciousness has added tremendously to our understanding of the biological basis of human consciousness. The publication of a new edition is both critical and timely for continued understanding of the field of consciousness. In this critical and timely update, revised and new contributions by internationally renowned researchers—edited by the leaders in the field of consciousness research—provide a unique and comprehensive focus on human consciousness. The new edition of The Neurobiology of Consciousness will continue to be an indispensable resource for researchers and students working on the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness and related disorders, as well as for neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists contemplating consciousness as one of the philosophical, ethical, sociological, political, and religious questions of our time. New chapters on the neuroanatomical basis of consciousness and short-term memory, and expanded coverage of comas and neuroethics, including the ethics of brain death The first comprehensive, authoritative collection to describe disorders of consciousness and how they are used to study and understand the neural correlates of conscious perception in humans. Includes both revised and new chapters from the top international researchers in the field, including Christof Koch, Marcus Raichle, Nicholas Schiff, Joseph Fins, and Michael Gazzaniga
Download or read book Understanding Consciousness written by Max Velmans and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 723 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding Consciousness, 2nd Edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense. Building on the widely praised first edition, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last 10 years. The book is divided into three parts; Part one surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part two reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part three deals with some of the fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into to the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers. Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such, will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.
Download or read book Consciousness and Moral Status written by Joshua Shepherd and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-05-23 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It seems obvious that phenomenally conscious experience is something of great value, and that this value maps onto a range of important ethical issues. For example, claims about the value of life for those in Permanent Vegetative State (PVS); debates about treatment and study of disorders of consciousness; controversies about end-of-life care for those with advanced dementia; and arguments about the moral status of embryos, fetuses, and non-human animals arguably turn on the moral significance of various facts about consciousness. However, though work has been done on the moral significance of elements of consciousness, such as pain and pleasure, little explicit attention has been devoted to the ethical significance of consciousness. In this book Joshua Shepherd presents a systematic account of the value present within conscious experience. This account emphasizes not only the nature of consciousness, but also the importance of items within experience such as affect, valence, and the complex overall shape of particular valuable experiences. Shepherd also relates this account to difficult cases involving non-humans and humans with disorders of consciousness, arguing that the value of consciousness influences and partially explains the degree of moral status a being possesses, without fully determining it. The upshot is a deeper understanding of both the moral importance of phenomenal consciousness and its relations to moral status. This book will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, bioethics, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science.
Download or read book Actual Consciousness written by Ted Honderich and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it for you to be conscious? There is no consensus in philosophy or science: it has remained a mystery. Ted Honderich develops a brand new theory of consciousness, according to which perceptual consciousness is external to the perceiver.
Download or read book Ontology of Consciousness written by Helmut Wautischer and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-04-11 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scholars from many different disciplines examine consciousness through the lens of intellectual approaches and cultures ranging from cosmology research and cell biophysics laboratories to pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and Tibetan Tantric Buddhism in a volume that extends consciousness studies beyond the limits of current neuroscience research. The "hard problem" of today's consciousness studies is subjective experience: understanding why some brain processing is accompanied by an experienced inner life. Recent scientific advances offer insights for understanding the physiological and chemical phenomenology of consciousness. But by leaving aside the internal experiential nature of consciousness in favor of mapping neural activity, such science leaves many questions unanswered. In Ontology of Consciousness, scholars from a range of disciplines—from neurophysiology to parapsychology, from mathematics to anthropology and indigenous non-Western modes of thought—go beyond these limits of current neuroscience research to explore insights offered by other intellectual approaches to consciousness. These scholars focus their attention on such philosophical approaches to consciousness as Tibetan Tantric Buddhism, North American Indian insights, pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilization, and the Byzantine Empire. Some draw on artifacts and ethnographic data to make their point. Others translate cultural concepts of consciousness into modern scientific language using models and mathematical mappings. Many consider individual experiences of sentience and existence, as seen in African communalism, Hindi psychology, Zen Buddhism, Indian vibhuti phenomena, existentialism, philosophical realism, and modern psychiatry. Some reveal current views and conundrums in neurobiology to comprehend sentient intellection. Contributors Karim Akerma, Matthijs Cornelissen, Antoine Courban, Mario Crocco, Christian de Quincey, Thomas B. Fowler, Erlendur Haraldsson, David. J. Hufford, Pavel B. Ivanov, Heinz Kimmerle, Stanley Krippner, Armand J. Labbé, James Maffie, Hubert Markl, Graham Parkes, Michael Polemis, E Richard Sorenson, Mircea Steriade, Thomas Szasz, Mariela Szirko, Robert A.F. Thurman, Edith L.B. Turner, Julia Watkin, Helmut Wautischer
Download or read book Understanding Consciousness written by Gerd Sommerhoff and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2000-06-27 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: `This is surely the ultimate expression of the top-down approach to consciousness, written with Sommerhoff′s characteristic clarity and precision. It says far more than other books four times the size of this admirably concise volume. This book is destined to become a pillar of the subject′ -Rodney Cotterill, Technical University of Denmark The problem of consciousness has been described as a mystery about which we are still in a terrible muddle and in Understanding Consciousness: Its Function and Brain Processes, the author unravels this mystery through a clarification of the main concepts related to consciousness, followed by a comprehensive biological explanation. Consequently, this book will be ideal for a wide-range of upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The author interprets consciousness as a property that can also be possessed by creatures lacking a language faculty and comprises all of the following: awareness of the surrounding world; awareness of the self as an entity; and awareness of such things as thoughts and feelings. He argues that a biological approach can achieve both the necessary conceptual clarifications and a joint explanation of these divisions of awareness in terms of just two accurately defined concepts of ′internal representation′ and two empirically supported assumptions about the functional architecture of a specific set of brain processes. Despite this striking simplicity, his model covers these divisions of awareness, both as objective faculties of the brain and as subjective experience. These conclusions are applied to a broad range of fundamental questions, including the biological rationale of subjective experience and where consciousness resides in the neural networks.
Download or read book The Embodied Mind written by Thomas R. Verny and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As groundbreaking synthesis that promises to shift our understanding of the mind-brain connection and its relationship with our bodies. We understand the workings of the human body as a series of interdependent physiological relationships: muscle interacts with bone as the heart responds to hormones secreted by the brain, all the way down to the inner workings of every cell. To make an organism function, no one component can work alone. In light of this, why is it that the accepted understanding that the physical phenomenon of the mind is attributed only to the brain? In The Embodied Mind, internationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas R. Verny sets out to redefine our concept of the mind and consciousness. He brilliantly compiles new research that points to the mind’s ties to every part of the body. The Embodied Mind collects disparate findings in physiology, genetics, and quantum physics in order to illustrate the mounting evidence that somatic cells, not just neural cells, store memory, inform genetic coding, and adapt to environmental changes—all behaviors that contribute to the mind and consciousness. Cellular memory, Verny shows, is not just an abstraction, but a well-documented scientific fact that will shift our understanding of memory. Verny describes single-celled organisms with no brains demonstrating memory, and points to the remarkable case of a French man who, despite having a brain just a fraction of the typical size, leads a normal life with a family and a job. The Embodied Mind shows how intelligence and consciousness—traits traditionally attributed to the brain alone—also permate our entire being. Bodily cells and tissues use the same molecular mechanisms for memory as our brain, making our mind more fluid and adaptable than we could have ever imaged.
Download or read book Understanding Consciousness written by Max Velmans and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First Published in 2009. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Download or read book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind written by Julian Jaynes and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2000-08-15 with total page 580 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry
