Before Consciousness

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Before Consciousness

Author : Zdravko Radman
Publisher : Andrews UK Limited
ISBN 13 : 1845409361
Total Pages : 456 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (454 download)

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Book Synopsis Before Consciousness by : Zdravko Radman

Download or read book Before Consciousness written by Zdravko Radman and published by Andrews UK Limited. This book was released on 2017-04-24 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Without consciousness we would not have the experientially flavoured world we have, but without the non-conscious we would not have it at all; for we would not be able to breathe, eat, move, walk, feel, mimic, gesture, laugh, etc., and even see, talk, remember, reason, understand, think, imagine, and make myriad spontaneous decisions as we continuously do in all life situations, from trivial to existential ones. Without consciousness we would not be the kind of creatures we are, but what makes us really unique is our specific non-conscious constellation - a basis from which all mentality germinates and which is irreducible, that is, not representable or in any way simulable. This collection of essays by leading scholars in consciousness aims to show that in order to understand mind as a whole we have to also consider its non-conscious part. Obtaining a more thorough insight into the non-conscious is indispensable for a better understanding of consciousness - the two spheres are to be perceived not as separated but rather as interconnected. The non-conscious is habitually associated with automatized motor behaviour, skills, and habits, but even in their most elementary forms these aspects of mind require a high level of sophistication and cognitive competence. Most complex cognitive tasks, such as perception, memory, decision making, etc. also rely heavily on non-conscious processing, which is not only faster but also proves to be in many respects more fundamental. The investigations included in this volume point to the conclusion that we can behave in a cognitively competent way without recourse to consciousness; that we may act in a reasoned manner even away from awareness; that thinking can be instantiated without engaging the sober conscious reasoner; that our coping in the world is meaningful and fulfilling even when conscious control and volition are dormant. This book aims to integrate the non-conscious as a constitutive dimension of the mind and also to outline how it is indispensable in virtually everything we do.

Mind Before Matter

Author : Trish Pfeiffer
Publisher : Iff Books
ISBN 13 : 9781846940576
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis Mind Before Matter by : Trish Pfeiffer

Download or read book Mind Before Matter written by Trish Pfeiffer and published by Iff Books. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Materialism is the dominant worldview in the West today. But it is only one worldview, and it doesn't completely work, even, ironically, being gradually undermined by the science that gave rise to it. Containing the last unpublished writing of Pulitzer prize-winning author and scholar, the late John Mack, this anthology of essays from significant figures in the world of science and consciousness studies sketches the framework for a new model of realit--one based on the primacy of consciousness rather than of matter. It is a model we will need for survival on this planet. Mind Before Matter represents the first concerted salvo in a debate that could affect the worldview held by the modern, dominant culture.

The Illusion of Conscious Will

Author : Daniel M. Wegner
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262290553
Total Pages : 725 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (622 download)

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Book Synopsis The Illusion of Conscious Will by : Daniel M. Wegner

Download or read book The Illusion of Conscious Will written by Daniel M. Wegner and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2003-08-11 with total page 725 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Author : Julian Jaynes
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 0547527543
Total Pages : 580 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (475 download)

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Book Synopsis The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by : Julian Jaynes

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

Prior to Consciousness

Author : Nisargadatta
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780893860240
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Prior to Consciousness by : Nisargadatta

Download or read book Prior to Consciousness written by Nisargadatta and published by . This book was released on 1997-03 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

The River of Consciousness

Author : Oliver Sacks
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0385352573
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (853 download)

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Book Synopsis The River of Consciousness by : Oliver Sacks

Download or read book The River of Consciousness written by Oliver Sacks and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the best-selling author of Gratitude, On the Move, and Musicophilia, a collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks's passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. Oliver Sacks, a scientist and a storyteller, is beloved by readers for the extraordinary neurological case histories (Awakenings, An Anthropologist on Mars) in which he introduced and explored many now familiar disorders--autism, Tourette's syndrome, face blindness, savant syndrome. He was also a memoirist who wrote with honesty and humor about the remarkable and strange encounters and experiences that shaped him (Uncle Tungsten, On the Move, Gratitude). Sacks, an Oxford-educated polymath, had a deep familiarity not only with literature and medicine but with botany, animal anatomy, chemistry, the history of science, philosophy, and psychology. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.

Consciousness and the Brain

Author : Stanislas Dehaene
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0698151402
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (981 download)

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Book Synopsis Consciousness and the Brain by : Stanislas Dehaene

Download or read book Consciousness and the Brain written by Stanislas Dehaene and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2014-01-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE 2014 BRAIN PRIZE From the acclaimed author of Reading in the Brain and How We Learn, a breathtaking look at the new science that can track consciousness deep in the brain How does our brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state. We can now pin down the neurons that fire when a person reports becoming aware of a piece of information and understand the crucial role unconscious computations play in how we make decisions. The emerging theory enables a test of consciousness in animals, babies, and those with severe brain injuries. A joyous exploration of the mind and its thrilling complexities, Consciousness and the Brain will excite anyone interested in cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifying consciousness.

Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit

Author : Donna E. West
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319459201
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (194 download)

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Book Synopsis Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit by : Donna E. West

Download or read book Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit written by Donna E. West and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-09-12 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. Peirce’s unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who picked up the baton from classical scholars, principally Aristotle. Most prominent among the pragmatists thereafter is Charles Sanders Peirce. In our vernacular, habit connotes a pattern of conduct. Nonetheless, Peirce’s concept transcends application to mere regularity or to human conduct; it extends into natural and social phenomena, making cohesive inner and outer worlds. Chapters in this anthology define and amplify Peircean habit; as such, they highlight the dialectic between doubt and belief. Doubt destabilizes habit, leaving open the possibility for new beliefs in the form of habit-change; and without habit-change, the regularity would fall short of habit – conforming to automatic/mechanistic systems. This treatment of habit showcases how, through human agency, innovative regularities of behavior and thought advance the process of making the unconscious conscious. The latter materializes when affordances (invariant habits of physical phenomena) form the basis for modifications in action schemas and modes of reasoning. Further, the book charts how indexical signs in language and action are pivotal in establishing attentional patterns; and how these habits accommodate novel orientations within event templates. It is intended for those interested in Peirce’s metaphysic or semiotic, including both senior scholars and students of philosophy and religion, psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as mathematics, and the natural sciences.

Altered States of Consciousness

Author : Marc Wittmann
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262347741
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Altered States of Consciousness by : Marc Wittmann

Download or read book Altered States of Consciousness written by Marc Wittmann and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-09-04 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking study of what altered states of consciousness—the dissolution of feelings of time and self—can tell us about the mystery of consciousness, perfect for readers interested in psychedelics, brain science, and meditation. During extraordinary moments of consciousness—shock, meditative states and sudden mystical revelations, out-of-body experiences, or drug intoxication—our senses of time and self are altered; we may even feel time and self dissolving. These experiences have long been ignored by mainstream science, or considered crazy fantasies. Recent research, however, has located the neural underpinnings of these altered states of mind. In this book, neuropsychologist Marc Wittmann shows how experiences that disturb or widen our everyday understanding of the self can help solve the mystery of consciousness. Wittmann explains that the relationship between consciousness of time and consciousness of self is close; in extreme circumstances, the experiences of space and self-intensify and weaken together. He considers the emergence of the self in waking life and dreams; how our sense of time is distorted by extreme situations ranging from terror to mystical enlightenment; the experience of the moment; and the loss of time and self in such disorders as depression, schizophrenia, and epilepsy. Dostoyevsky reported godly bliss during epileptic seizures; neurologists are now investigating the phenomenon of the epileptic aura. Wittmann describes new studies of psychedelics that show how the brain builds consciousness of self and time, and discusses pilot programs that use hallucinogens to treat severe depression, anxiety, and addiction. If we want to understand our consciousness, our subjectivity, Wittmann argues, we must not be afraid to break new ground. Studying altered states of consciousness leads us directly to the heart of the matter: time and self, the foundations of consciousness.

Tracking Consciousness Before Birth and Beyond

Author : Jaroslav Vlcek DSc.
Publisher : FriesenPress
ISBN 13 : 1460285050
Total Pages : 314 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Tracking Consciousness Before Birth and Beyond by : Jaroslav Vlcek DSc.

Download or read book Tracking Consciousness Before Birth and Beyond written by Jaroslav Vlcek DSc. and published by FriesenPress. This book was released on 2017-04-13 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracking Consciousness Before Birth and Beyond is based on the author’s recollection of his conscious life before birth. In the 1st part of the book, the author narrates the memories. In the 2nd part, he explains and analyses the narrative from the adult point of view and shows its relationship to the scientific and empirical knowledge of life. In the 3rd, he discusses in depth the various events in the prenatal period such as conception, recognition of food as a source of energy and body building substance, starting the heart, building the brain and body, power of the life force, tree of life, the unborn’s innate intelligence in the timing and execution of its birth and others. Going “beyond”, the author reveals a plausible theory of the origin of life on Earth based on the quantum concept of the sun’s energy as its life force and its awareness as consciousness, evolution as a creative act and more. The book should be of interest to life scientists as well as laymen and those seeking life understanding and self-realization.

Inner Speech

Author : Peter Langland-Hassan
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198796641
Total Pages : 349 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (987 download)

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Book Synopsis Inner Speech by : Peter Langland-Hassan

Download or read book Inner Speech written by Peter Langland-Hassan and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inner speech lies at the chaotic intersection of several difficult questions in contemporary philosophy and psychology. On the one hand, these episodes are private mental events. On the other, they resemble speech acts of the sort used in interpersonal communication. Inner speech episodes seem to constitute or express sophisticated trains of conceptual thought but, at the same time, they are motoric in nature and draw on sensorimotor mechanisms for speech production and perception more generally. By using inner speech, we seem to both regulate our bodily actions and gain a unique kind of access to our own beliefs and desires. Inner Speech: New Voices explores this familiar and yet mysterious element of our daily lives, bringing together contributions from leading philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists. In response to renewed interest in the general connections between thought, language, and consciousness, these leading thinkers develop a number of important new theories, raise questions about the nature of inner speech and its cognitive functions, and debate the current controversies surrounding the 'little voice in the head.'

Before You Know It

Author : John Bargh
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1501101234
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Before You Know It by : John Bargh

Download or read book Before You Know It written by John Bargh and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. John Bargh, the world’s leading expert on the unconscious mind, presents a “brilliant and convincing book” (Malcolm Gladwell) cited as an outstanding read of 2017 by Business Insider and The Financial Times—giving us an entirely new understanding of the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behavior. For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has conducted revolutionary research into the unconscious mind, research featured in bestsellers like Blink and Thinking Fast and Slow. Now, in what Dr. John Gottman said was “the most important and exciting book in psychology that has been written in the past twenty years,” Dr. Bargh takes us on an entertaining and enlightening tour of the forces that affect everyday behavior while transforming our understanding of ourselves in profound ways. Dr. Bargh takes us into his labs at New York University and Yale—where he and his colleagues have discovered how the unconscious guides our behavior, goals, and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behavior, and addiction. With infectious enthusiasm he reveals what science now knows about the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind in who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more. Because the unconscious works in ways we are completely unaware of, Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as useful tricks to help you remember items on your to-do list, to shop smarter, and to sleep better. Before You Know It is “a fascinating compendium of landmark social-psychology research” (Publishers Weekly) and an introduction to a fabulous world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to knowing yourself and unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Being You

Author : Anil Seth
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1524742880
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (247 download)

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Book Synopsis Being You by : Anil Seth

Download or read book Being You written by Anil Seth and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A Best Book of 2021—Bloomberg Businessweek; A Best Science Book of 2021—The Guardian; A Best Science Book of 2021—Financial Times; A Best Philosophy Book of 2021—Five Books; A Best Book of 2021—The Economist Anil Seth's quest to understand the biological basis of conscious experience is one of the most exciting contributions to twenty-first-century science. What does it mean to “be you”—that is, to have a specific, conscious experience of the world around you and yourself within it? There may be no more elusive or fascinating question. Historically, humanity has considered the nature of consciousness to be a primarily spiritual or philosophical inquiry, but scientific research is now mapping out compelling biological theories and explanations for consciousness and selfhood. Now, internationally renowned neuroscience professor, researcher, and author Anil Seth is offers a window into our consciousness in BEING YOU: A New Science of Consciousness. Anil Seth is both a leading expert on the neuroscience of consciousness and one of most prominent spokespeople for this relatively new field of science. His radical argument is that we do not perceive the world as it objectively is, but rather that we are prediction machines, constantly inventing our world and correcting our mistakes by the microsecond, and that we can now observe the biological mechanisms in the brain that accomplish this process of consciousness. Seth has been interviewed for documentaries aired on the BBC, Netflix, and Amazon and podcasts by Sam Harris, Russell Brand, and Chris Anderson, and his 2017 TED Talk on the topic has been viewed over 11 million times, a testament to his uncanny ability to make unimaginably complex science accessible and entertaining.

Consciousness

Author : Christof Koch
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 0262301032
Total Pages : 195 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis Consciousness by : Christof Koch

Download or read book Consciousness written by Christof Koch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2012-03-09 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of the human brain that combines “the leading edge of consciousness science with surprisingly personal and philosophical reflection . . . shedding light on how scientists really think”—this is “science writing at its best” (Times Higher Education). In which a scientist searches for an empirical explanation for phenomenal experience, spurred by his instinctual belief that life is meaningful. What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. This engaging book—part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation—describes Koch’s search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest—his instinctual (if “romantic”) belief that life is meaningful. Koch describes his own groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of consciousness (once considered a “fringy” subject) as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues, including Ned Block, David Chalmers, Stanislas Dehaene, Giulio Tononi, Wolf Singer, and others. Aiding and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells, clinical studies, and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the human brain in action. Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between attention and awareness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Homer Simpson, the physics and biology of free will, dogs, Der Ring des Nibelungen, sentient machines, the loss of his belief in a personal God, and sadness. All of them are signposts in the pursuit of his life's work—to uncover the roots of consciousness.

In the Light of Evolution

Author : National Academy of Sciences
Publisher : Sackler Colloquium
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 388 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis In the Light of Evolution by : National Academy of Sciences

Download or read book In the Light of Evolution written by National Academy of Sciences and published by Sackler Colloquium. This book was released on 2007 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.

The Race for Consciousness

Author : John G. Taylor
Publisher : MIT Press
ISBN 13 : 9780262700863
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis The Race for Consciousness by : John G. Taylor

Download or read book The Race for Consciousness written by John G. Taylor and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001-08-24 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists may be approaching the finish-line in the race to understand consciousness. John Taylor introduces the contending theories, including his own. There is a sense among scientists that the time is finally ripe for the problem of consciousness to be solved once and for all. The development of new experimental and theoretical tools for probing the brain has produced an atmosphere of unparalleled optimism that the job can now be done properly: The race for consciousness is on! In this book, John Taylor describes the complete scene of entries, riders, gamblers, and racecourses. He presents his own entry into the race, which he has been working on for the past twenty-five years—the relational theory of consciousness, according to which consciousness is created through the relations between brain states, especially those involving memories of personal experiences. Because it is an ongoing and adaptive process, consciousness emerges from past brain activity. It is this highly subtle and delicate process of emergence that leads to the complexity of consciousness. Taylor does not just present another theory of consciousness, but makes comprehensible the nuts-and-bolts methodology behind the myriad attempts to win the race.

Waking, Dreaming, Being

Author : Evan Thompson
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231538316
Total Pages : 497 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (315 download)

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Book Synopsis Waking, Dreaming, Being by : Evan Thompson

Download or read book Waking, Dreaming, Being written by Evan Thompson and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2014-11-18 with total page 497 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined self into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep, the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as dreamer. Finally, as we meditate—either in the waking state or in a lucid dream—we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge acquired by contemplatives.