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Astonishing Hypothesis
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Book Synopsis Astonishing Hypothesis by : Francis Crick
Download or read book Astonishing Hypothesis written by Francis Crick and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1995-07 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readers will come to appreciate the strength and dignity of Berneta Ringer, a true Western heroine as Doig celebrates his mother's life after finding a cache of her letters, photographs, and childhood writings. It begins with her first winter living in a tent in Montana's Crazy Mountains to the ravages of the Depression on a ranch on Falkner Creek.
Download or read book Out of Our Heads written by Alva Noë and published by Hill and Wang. This book was released on 2010-02-02 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alva Noë is one of a new breed—part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist—who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the two hundred-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain. Our culture is obsessed with the brain—how it perceives; how it remembers; how it determines our intelligence, our morality, our likes and our dislikes. It's widely believed that consciousness itself, that Holy Grail of science and philosophy, will soon be given a neural explanation. And yet, after decades of research, only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious—how it gives rise to sensation, feeling, and subjectivity—has emerged unchallenged: We don't have a clue. In this inventive work, Noë suggests that rather than being something that happens inside us, consciousness is something we do. Debunking an outmoded philosophy that holds the scientific study of consciousness captive, Out of Our Heads is a fresh attempt at understanding our minds and how we interact with the world around us.
Download or read book Life Itself written by Francis Crick and published by . This book was released on 1981 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The Soul Fallacy by : Julien Musolino
Download or read book The Soul Fallacy written by Julien Musolino and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2015-01-06 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most Americans believe they possess an immaterial soul that will survive the death of the body. In sharp contrast, the current scientific consensus rejects the traditional soul, although this conclusion is rarely discussed publicly. In this book, a cognitive scientist breaks the taboo and explains why modern science leads to this controversial conclusion. In doing so, the book reveals the truly astonishing scope and power of scientific inquiry, drawing on ideas from biology, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, and the physical sciences. Much more than chronicling the demise of the traditional soul, the book explores where soul beliefs come from, why they are so widespread culturally and historically, how cognitive science offers a naturalistic alternative to religious conceptions of mind, and how postulating the existence of a soul amounts to making a scientific claim. Although the new scientific view of personhood departs radically from traditional religious conceptions, the author shows that a coherent, meaningful, and sensitive appreciation of what it means to be human remains intact. He argues that we do not lose anything by letting go of our soul beliefs and that we even have something to gain. Throughout, the book takes a passionate stand for science and reason. It also offers a timely rejoinder to recent claims that science supports the existence of the soul and the afterlife.
Book Synopsis The Consciousness Instinct by : Michael S. Gazzaniga
Download or read book The Consciousness Instinct written by Michael S. Gazzaniga and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2018-04-03 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The father of cognitive neuroscience” illuminates the past, present, and future of the mind-brain problem How do neurons turn into minds? How does physical “stuff”—atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells—create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness. The idea of the brain as a machine, first proposed centuries ago, has led to assumptions about the relationship between mind and brain that dog scientists and philosophers to this day. Gazzaniga asserts that this model has it backward—brains make machines, but they cannot be reduced to one. New research suggests the brain is actually a confederation of independent modules working together. Understanding how consciousness could emanate from such an organization will help define the future of brain science and artificial intelligence, and close the gap between brain and mind. Captivating and accessible, with insights drawn from a lifetime at the forefront of the field, The Consciousness Instinct sets the course for the neuroscience of tomorrow.
Book Synopsis The Quest for Consciousness by : Christof Koch
Download or read book The Quest for Consciousness written by Christof Koch and published by Roberts Publishers. This book was released on 2004 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Consciousness is the major unsolved problem in biology. Written as an introduction to the field and drawing upon clinical, psychological and physiological observations, this book seeks to answer questions of consciousness within a neuroscientific framework.
Book Synopsis Anatomy of an Epidemic by : Robert Whitaker
Download or read book Anatomy of an Epidemic written by Robert Whitaker and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-08-02 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news. In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why can’t such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public? Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up. Praise for Anatomy of an Epidemic “The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better.”—Salon “Anatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.”—TIME “Lucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers.” —Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx
Book Synopsis The Feeling of Life Itself by : Christof Koch
Download or read book The Feeling of Life Itself written by Christof Koch and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking argument that consciousness—more widespread than previously assumed—is the feeling of being alive, not a type of computation or a clever hack In The Feeling of Life Itself, Christof Koch offers a straightforward definition of consciousness as any subjective experience, from the most mundane to the most exalted—the feeling of being alive. Psychologists study which cognitive operations underpin a given conscious perception. Neuroscientists track the neural correlates of consciousness in the brain, the organ of the mind. But why the brain and not, say, the liver? How can the brain—three pounds of highly excitable matter, a piece of furniture in the universe, subject to the same laws of physics as any other piece—give rise to subjective experience? Koch argues that what is needed to answer these questions is a quantitative theory that starts with experience and proceeds to the brain. In The Feeling of Life Itself, Koch outlines such a theory, based on integrated information. Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it has been used to build a clinically useful consciousness meter. The theory predicts that many, and perhaps all, animals experience the sights and sounds of life; consciousness is much more widespread than conventionally assumed. Contrary to received wisdom, however, Koch argues that programmable computers will not have consciousness. Even a perfect software model of the brain is not conscious. Its simulation is fake consciousness. Consciousness is not a special type of computation—it is not a clever hack. Consciousness is about being.
Book Synopsis Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience by : M. R. Bennett
Download or read book Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience written by M. R. Bennett and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-03-14 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of the seminal work in the field—revised, updated, and extended In Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience, M.R. Bennett and P.M.S. Hacker outline and address the conceptual confusions encountered in various neuroscientific and psychological theories. The result of a collaboration between an esteemed philosopher and a distinguished neuroscientist, this remarkable volume presents an interdisciplinary critique of many of the neuroscientific and psychological foundations of modern cognitive neuroscience. The authors point out conceptual entanglements in a broad range of major neuroscientific and psychological theories—including those of such neuroscientists as Blakemore, Crick, Damasio, Dehaene, Edelman, Gazzaniga, Kandel, Kosslyn, LeDoux, Libet, Penrose, Posner, Raichle and Tononi, as well as psychologists such as Baar, Frith, Glynn, Gregory, William James, Weiskrantz, and biologists such as Dawkins, Humphreys, and Young. Confusions arising from the work of philosophers such as Dennett, Chalmers, Churchland, Nagel and Searle are subjected to detailed criticism. These criticisms are complemented by constructive analyses of the major cognitive, cogitative, emotional and volitional attributes that lie at the heart of cognitive neuroscientific research. Now in its second edition, this groundbreaking work has been exhaustively revised and updated to address current issues and critiques. New discussions offer insight into functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the notions of information and representation, conflict monitoring and the executive, minimal states of consciousness, integrated information theory and global workspace theory. The authors also reply to criticisms of the fundamental arguments posed in the first edition, defending their conclusions regarding mereological fallacy, the necessity of distinguishing between empirical and conceptual questions, the mind-body problem, and more. Essential as both a comprehensive reference work and as an up-to-date critical review of cognitive neuroscience, this landmark volume: Provides a scientifically and philosophically informed survey of the conceptual problems in a wide variety of neuroscientific theories Offers a clear and accessible presentation of the subject, minimizing the use of complex philosophical and scientific jargon Discusses how the ways the brain relates to the mind affect the intelligibility of neuroscientific research Includes fresh insights on mind-body and mind-brain relations, and on the relation between the notion of person and human being Features more than 100 new pages and a wealth of additional diagrams, charts, and tables Continuing to challenge and educate readers like no other book on the subject, the second edition of Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience is required reading not only for neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers, but also for academics, researchers, and students involved in the study of the mind and consciousness.
Book Synopsis God: The Failed Hypothesis by : Victor J. Stenger
Download or read book God: The Failed Hypothesis written by Victor J. Stenger and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2010-08-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout history, arguments for and against the existence of God have been largely confined to philosophy and theology, while science has sat on the sidelines. Despite the fact that science has revolutionized every aspect of human life and greatly clarified our understanding of the world, somehow the notion has arisen that it has nothing to say about the possibility of a supreme being, which much of humanity worships as the source of all reality. This book contends that, if God exists, some evidence for this existence should be detectable by scientific means, especially considering the central role that God is alleged to play in the operation of the universe and the lives of humans. Treating the traditional God concept, as conventionally presented in the Judeo-Christian and Islamic traditions, like any other scientific hypothesis, physicist Stenger examines all of the claims made for God's existence. He considers the latest Intelligent Design arguments as evidence of God's influence in biology. He looks at human behavior for evidence of immaterial souls and the possible effects of prayer. He discusses the findings of physics and astronomy in weighing the suggestions that the universe is the work of a creator and that humans are God's special creation. After evaluating all the scientific evidence, Stenger concludes that beyond a reasonable doubt the universe and life appear exactly as we might expect if there were no God. This paperback edition of the New York Times bestselling hardcover edition contains a new foreword by Christopher Hitchens and a postscript by the author in which he responds to reviewers' criticisms of the original edition.
Download or read book Mind Is Flat written by Nick Chater and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a radical reinterpretation of how the mind works, an eminent behavioral scientist reveals the illusion of mental depth Psychologists and neuroscientists struggle with how best to interpret human motivation and decision making. The assumption is that below a mental “surface” of conscious awareness lies a deep and complex set of inner beliefs, values, and desires that govern our thoughts, ideas, and actions, and that to know this depth is to know ourselves. In this profoundly original book, behavioral scientist Nick Chater contends just the opposite: rather than being the plaything of unconscious currents, the brain generates behaviors in the moment based entirely on our past experiences. Engaging the reader with eye-opening experiments and visual examples, the author first demolishes our intuitive sense of how our mind works, then argues for a positive interpretation of the brain as a ceaseless and creative improviser.
Download or read book Mind Time written by Benjamin Libet and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our subjective inner life is what really matters to us as human beings--and yet we know relatively little about how it arises. Over a long and distinguished career Benjamin Libet has conducted experiments that have helped us see, in clear and concrete ways, how the brain produces conscious awareness. For the first time, Libet gives his own account of these experiments and their importance for our understanding of consciousness. Most notably, Libet's experiments reveal a substantial delay--the mind time of the title--before any awareness affects how we view our mental activities. If all conscious awarenesses are preceded by unconscious processes, as Libet observes, we are forced to conclude that unconscious processes initiate our conscious experiences. Freely voluntary acts are found to be initiated unconsciously before an awareness of wanting to act--a discovery with profound ramifications for our understanding of free will. How do the physical activities of billions of cerebral nerve cells give rise to an integrated conscious subjective awareness? How can the subjective mind affect or control voluntary actions? Libet considers these questions, as well as the implications of his discoveries for the nature of the soul, the identity of the person, and the relation of the non-physical subjective mind to the physical brain that produces it. Rendered in clear, accessible language, Libet's experiments and theories will allow interested amateurs and experts alike to share the experience of the extraordinary discoveries made in the practical study of consciousness.
Download or read book Zuni Origins written by David A. Gregory and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2009-12-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Zuni are a Southwestern people whose origins have long intrigued anthropologists. This volume presents fresh approaches to that question from both anthropological and traditional perspectives, exploring the origins of the tribe and the influences that have affected their way of life. Utilizing macro-regional approaches, it brings together many decades of research in the Zuni and Mogollon areas, incorporating archaeological evidence, environmental data, and linguistic analyses to propose new links among early Southwestern peoples. The findings reported here postulate the differentiation of the Zuni language at least 7,000 to 8,000 years ago, following the initial peopling of the hemisphere, and both formulate and test the hypothesis that many Mogollon populations were Zunian speakers. Some of the contributions situate Zuni within the developmental context of Southwestern societies from Paleoindian to Mogollon. Others test the Mogollon-Zuni hypothesis by searching for contrasts between these and neighboring peoples and tracing these contrasts through macro-regional analyses of environments, sites, pottery, basketry, and rock art. Several studies of late prehistoric and protohistoric settlement systems in the Zuni area then express more cautious views on the Mogollon connection and present insights from Zuni traditional history and cultural geography. Two internationally known scholars then critique the essays, and the editors present a new research design for pursuing the question of Zuni origins. By taking stock and synthesizing what is currently known about the origins of the Zuni language and the development of modern Zuni culture, Zuni Origins is the only volume to address this subject with such a breadth of data and interpretations. It will prove invaluable to archaeologists working throughout the North American Southwest as well as to others struggling with issues of ethnicity, migration, incipient agriculture, and linguistic origins. CONTENTS Foreword by William H. Doelle Preface: Constructing and Refining a Research Design for the Study of Zuni Origins David A. Gregory and David R. Wilcox Acknowledgments Part I Large-Scale Contexts for the Study of Zuni Origins: Language, Culture, and Environment 1. Introduction: The Structure of Anthropological Inquiry into Zuni Origins David R. Wilcox and David A. Gregory 2. Prehistoric Cultural and Linguistic Patterns in the Southwest since 5 BC Cynthia Irwin Williams (1967) 3. The Zuni Language in Southwestern Areal Context Jane H. Hill 4. Archaeological Concepts for Assessing Mogollon-Zuni Connections Jeffery J. Clark 5. The Environmental Context of Linguistic Differentiation and Other Cultural Developments in the Prehistoric Southwest David A. Gregory and Fred L. Nials 6. Zuni-Area Paleoenvironment Jeffrey S. Dean Part II Placing Zuni in the Development of Southwestern Societies: From Paleoindian to Mogollon 7. The Archaic Origins of the Zuni: Preliminary Explorations R. G. Matson 8. Zuni Emergent Agriculture: Economic Strategies and the Origins of Zuni Jonathan E. Damp 9. A Mogollon-Zuni Hypothesis: Paul Sidney Martin and John B. RinaldoÕs Formulation David A. Gregory 10. Adaptation of Man to the Mountains: Revising the Mogollon Concept David A. Gregory and David R. Wilcox (1999) 11. Mogollon Trajectories and Divergences Michael W. Diehl Part III Zuni in the Puebloan World: Mogollon-Zuni Connections 12. Zuni in the Puebloan and Southwestern Worlds David R. Wilcox, David A. Gregory, and J. Brett Hill 13. A Regional Perspective on Ceramics and Zuni Identity, AD 200--1630 Barbara J. Mills 14. Mogollon Pottery Production and Exchange C. Dean Wilson 15. R
Book Synopsis The Mystery of Consciousness by : John R. Searle
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.
Book Synopsis The Better Angels of Our Nature by : Steven Pinker
Download or read book The Better Angels of Our Nature written by Steven Pinker and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2012-09-25 with total page 834 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think this is the most violent age ever seen. Yet as bestselling author Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true.
Book Synopsis Of Molecules and Men by : Francis Crick
Download or read book Of Molecules and Men written by Francis Crick and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In his third lecture Crick anticipates events and trends that have in fact come to pass in the past four decades, including the increasing use of computer technology and robotics in mind-brain research, explorations into right-side versus left-side uses of the brain, and controversies surrounding the existence of the soul."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book The Great Illusion written by Paul Singh and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "'The Great Illusion' takes a scientific look at the brain itself, presenting research that supports the naturalistic stance that the mind is identical to the brain. Singh argues that if we take seriously the idea that the mind is the brain then it follows logically that free will must be an illusion, that there can be no consciousness independent of the brain, and that there can be no substantial self that exists independently from the brain. He further argues that there can be no such thing as absolute moral responsibility"--Back cover.
