Active Consciousness

Active Consciousness

Author: Amy L. Lansky

Publisher: R.L.Ranch Press

Published: 2011-09-01

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780972751452

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Can you create the future of your dreams? Are paranormal abilities like seeing into the future or affecting objects with your mind really possible? And how do energetic systems of healing actually work? In this exciting and far-ranging book, former NASA computer scientist Amy Lansky, the author of Impossible Cure (www.impossiblecure.com), takes you on a voyage of discovery that weaves all of these strands together. Get ready for an exploration of the esoteric, grounded in an intriguing model of reality based on higher dimensions in space. Comprehensive, yet at the same time accessible and personal, this book invites you to not only learn about these mysterious subjects, but to develop the power of active consciousness for yourself. By including a series of exercises and experiments in meditation and self-inquiry, this book provides an experience that will transform your life and help you evolve to a new level of awareness. (For more information, see www.activeconsciousness.com.) Endorsements for Active Consciousness: Awakening the Power Within - "Amy Lansky leads us on an inspiring and thought-provoking romp through a panoply of portals to our higher dimensional selves. She's an entertaining travel guide to the minds of great scientists, mystics, and philosophers as she argues convincingly that we really can bring the improbable futures we want for ourselves into reality. Let her alter your consciousness and take you higher!" -Jane Katra, author of The Heart of the Mind and Miracles of Mind (www.janekatra.org) "This is a delightful book. Well written and intensely packed with interesting information. It made my head spin-in a good way!" -Dean Radin, author of The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds (www.deanradin.com) "Amy Lansky's new book is an inspiring and far-ranging investigation of contemporary consciousness research. In her program to spare us from the madness around us, she draws on Rudolf Steiner, Gurdjieff, Rupert Sheldrake, Dean Radin, and many others. She is also encouraging us to explore the transformation of our consciousness as a way to increase our peace of mind, happiness, and what the Buddhists call liberation from the wheel of suffering. Who would not want that?" -Russell Targ, author of Limitless Mind: A Guide to Remote Viewing and Transformation of Consciousness (www.espresearch.com)


Neural Correlates of Consciousness

Neural Correlates of Consciousness

Author: Thomas Metzinger

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 374

ISBN-13: 9780262133708

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book brings together an international group of neuroscientists and philosophers who are investigating how the content of subjective experience is correlated with events in the brain. The fundamental methodological problem in consciousness research is the subjectivity of the target phenomenon--the fact that conscious experience, under standard conditions, is always tied to an individual, first-person perspective. The core empirical question is whether and how physical states of the human nervous system can be mapped onto the content of conscious experience. The search for the neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) has become a highly active field of investigation in recent years. Methods such as single-cell recording in monkeys and brain imaging and electrophysiology in humans, applied to such phenomena as blindsight, implicit/explicit cognition, and binocular rivalry, have generated a wealth of data. The same period has seen the development of a number of theories about NCC location. This volume brings together the leading experimentalists and theoreticians in the field. Topics include foundational and evolutionary issues, global integration, vision, consciousness and the NMDA receptor complex, neuroimaging, implicit processes, intentionality and phenomenal volition, schizophrenia, social cognition, and the phenomenal self. Contributors Jackie Andrade, Ansgar Beckermann, David J. Chalmers, Francis Crick, Antonio R. Damasio, Gerald M. Edelman, Dominic ffytche, Hans Flohr, N.P. Franks, Vittorio Gallese, Melvyn A. Goodale, Valerie Gray Hardcastle, Beena Khurana, Christof Koch, W.R. Lieb, Erik D. Lumer, Thomas Metzinger, Kelly J. Murphy, Romi Nijhawan, Joëlle Proust, Antti Revonsuo, Gerhard Roth, Thomas Schmidt, Wolf Singer, Giulio Tononi


Active Inference

Active Inference

Author: Thomas Parr

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2022-03-29

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0262362287

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The first comprehensive treatment of active inference, an integrative perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior used across multiple disciplines. Active inference is a way of understanding sentient behavior—a theory that characterizes perception, planning, and action in terms of probabilistic inference. Developed by theoretical neuroscientist Karl Friston over years of groundbreaking research, active inference provides an integrated perspective on brain, cognition, and behavior that is increasingly used across multiple disciplines including neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. Active inference puts the action into perception. This book offers the first comprehensive treatment of active inference, covering theory, applications, and cognitive domains. Active inference is a “first principles” approach to understanding behavior and the brain, framed in terms of a single imperative to minimize free energy. The book emphasizes the implications of the free energy principle for understanding how the brain works. It first introduces active inference both conceptually and formally, contextualizing it within current theories of cognition. It then provides specific examples of computational models that use active inference to explain such cognitive phenomena as perception, attention, memory, and planning.


Mind

Mind

Author:

Publisher:

Published: 1908

Total Pages: 622

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A quarterly review of philosophy.


Perplexities of Consciousness

Perplexities of Consciousness

Author: Eric Schwitzgebel

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2011-01-28

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0262295083

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A philosopher argues that we know little about our own inner lives. Do you dream in color? If you answer Yes, how can you be sure? Before you recount your vivid memory of a dream featuring all the colors of the rainbow, consider that in the 1950s researchers found that most people reported dreaming in black and white. In the 1960s, when most movies were in color and more people had color television sets, the vast majority of reported dreams contained color. The most likely explanation for this, according to the philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, is not that exposure to black-and-white media made people misremember their dreams. It is that we simply don't know whether or not we dream in color. In Perplexities of Consciousness, Schwitzgebel examines various aspects of inner life (dreams, mental imagery, emotions, and other subjective phenomena) and argues that we know very little about our stream of conscious experience. Drawing broadly from historical and recent philosophy and psychology to examine such topics as visual perspective, and the unreliability of introspection, Schwitzgebel finds us singularly inept in our judgments about conscious experience.


The Race for Consciousness

The Race for Consciousness

Author: John G. Taylor

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2001-08-24

Total Pages: 396

ISBN-13: 9780262700863

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.


Consciousness and the World

Consciousness and the World

Author: Brian O'Shaughnessy

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 724

ISBN-13: 9780199256723

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Brian O'Shaughnessy presents a theory of consciousness, one of the most fascinating but puzzling aspects of human existence. He investigates what consciousness is and how it engages, through perception, with the world.