On Beauty or solving the mind-body problem
On Beauty or solving the mind-body problem

Author: Margriet Hovens

Publisher: Gompel&Svacina

Published: 2020-10-12

Total Pages: 110

ISBN-13: 9463712461

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This book about Beauty and its deep philosophical meaning serves an ambitious goal. The two authors point to a possibility to transcend the philosophical duality between body and mind. The concept of Beauty is part of the Platonic trinity that also includes the concepts of the Good and the Truth. These are the three attibutes of the Spirit. The Spirit or divine Soul is a binary unity that contains the material and immaterial character of being. The question is a single source of the Spirit is thinkable, leads to a metaphysical speculation which also is the end of the book. The analysis of the concept of Beauty is echoed in two other concepts: the Good and the Truth. But on the level of natural physics, this analysis treats the structure of time-space and the deep structure of matter. Quantum physics, the behaviour of light and the laws of gravity and entropy find their place in this edifice which we call material reality. This knowledge of physics also contains the building blocks of a theory of mind. Mind and matter are inseparably built into each other. Physics and metaphysics imply each other on the level of a living, organic and inorganic reality. This book is written for everybody who looks for answers to the fundamental question of what life is: who and what are we as human beings; what could be the meaning of life and what is the structure of our reality? The essence of these writings is the question into the value of beauty, the value of human culture and the question how we are part of the wonderful order of nature. Philosophical and scientific jargon is explained in parts where it was inevitable to use.

The Mind-Body Problem and Its Solution (Second Edition)
The Mind-Body Problem and Its Solution (Second Edition)

Author: Carey R. Carlson

Publisher: Go to Publish

Published: 2019-11-06

Total Pages: 168

ISBN-13: 9781950073924

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OVER THE LAST CENTURY scientists have made tremendous strides in understanding the physical nature of the universe and the biochemical nature of life. Yet the most salient feature of individual lives--our day-to-day consciousness and experience of the world, or "sentience"--remains stubbornly immune to scientific explanation. This divide is called the "mind-body problem," and it is centuries old. In this book, author Carey Carlson performs two valuable tasks. First, he lays out the mind-body problem in crystalline common-sense prose. Second, he proposes an intriguing solution based on the work of early-twentieth-century philosophers Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. This book will be of interest both to general readers of science and philosophy and to those steeped in the literature. The second edition includes additional arrow diagrams in Chapter 5 that fortify Russell and Whitehead's view of physics as a causal web of time-ordered events.

Representation and the Mind-body Problem in Spinoza
Representation and the Mind-body Problem in Spinoza

Author: Michael Della Rocca

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0195095626

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This book offers a powerful new reading of Spinoza's philosophy of mind, the aspect of Spinoza's thought often regarded as the most profound and perplexing. Michael Della Rocca argues that interpreters of Spinoza's philosophy of mind have not paid sufficient attention to his causal barrier between the mental and the physical. The first half of the book shows how this barrier generates Spinoza's strong requirements for having an idea about an object. The second half of the book explains how this causal separation underlies Spinoza's intriguing argument for mind-body identity. Della Rocca concludes his analysis by solving the famous problem of whether for Spinoza the distinction between attributes is real or somehow merely subjective.

Knowledge and the Body-mind Problem
Knowledge and the Body-mind Problem

Author: Karl Raimund Popper

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 176

ISBN-13: 9780415115049

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First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Mind in a Physical World
Mind in a Physical World

Author: Jaegwon Kim

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 9780262611534

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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.

Soul Dust
Soul Dust

Author: Nicholas Humphrey

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2012-11-11

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0691156379

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A radically new view of the nature and purpose of consciousness How is consciousness possible? What biological purpose does it serve? And why do we value it so highly? In Soul Dust, the psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, a leading figure in consciousness research, proposes a startling new theory. Consciousness, he argues, is nothing less than a magical-mystery show that we stage for ourselves inside our own heads. This self-made show lights up the world for us and makes us feel special and transcendent. Thus consciousness paves the way for spirituality, and allows us, as human beings, to reap the rewards, and anxieties, of living in what Humphrey calls the "soul niche." Tightly argued, intellectually gripping, and a joy to read, Soul Dust provides answers to the deepest questions. It shows how the problem of consciousness merges with questions that obsess us all—how life should be lived and the fear of death. Resting firmly on neuroscience and evolutionary theory, and drawing a wealth of insights from philosophy and literature, Soul Dust is an uncompromising yet life-affirming work—one that never loses sight of the majesty and wonder of consciousness.

The Mind-Body Problem
The Mind-Body Problem

Author: Jonathan Westphal

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2016-09-30

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 0262529564

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An introduction to the mind–body problem, covering all the proposed solutions and offering a powerful new one. Philosophers from Descartes to Kripke have struggled with the glittering prize of modern and contemporary philosophy: the mind-body problem. The brain is physical. If the mind is physical, we cannot see how. If we cannot see how the mind is physical, we cannot see how it can interact with the body. And if the mind is not physical, it cannot interact with the body. Or so it seems. In this book the philosopher Jonathan Westphal examines the mind-body problem in detail, laying out the reasoning behind the solutions that have been offered in the past and presenting his own proposal. The sharp focus on the mind-body problem, a problem that is not about the self, or consciousness, or the soul, or anything other than the mind and the body, helps clarify both problem and solutions. Westphal outlines the history of the mind-body problem, beginning with Descartes. He describes mind-body dualism, which claims that the mind and the body are two different and separate things, nonphysical and physical, and he also examines physicalist theories of mind; antimaterialism, which proposes limits to physicalism and introduces the idea of qualia; and scientific theories of consciousness. Finally, Westphal examines the largely forgotten neutral monist theories of mind and body, held by Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell, which attempt neither to extract mind from matter nor to dissolve matter into mind. Westphal proposes his own version of neutral monism. This version is unique among neutral monist theories in offering an account of mind-body interaction.

The Mind–Body Problem
The Mind–Body Problem

Author: Mario Bunge

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-05-09

Total Pages: 267

ISBN-13: 1483150127

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The Mind–Body Problem: A Psychobiological Approach examines the mind-body problem from a psychobiological perspective. It intends to show that the idea of a separate mental entity is not only unwarranted by the available data and the existing psychological models, but collides head-on with the most fundamental ideas of all modern science and is thus a stumbling block to progress. The book abandons ordinary language in favor of the state space language, which is mathematically precise and is shared by science and scientific philosophy. Comprised of 10 chapters, this monograph begins with an overview of the mind-body problem and its main proposed solutions, classified into main genera: psychophysical monism and psychophysical dualism. In particular, ten views on the mind-body problem are analyzed, along with three main varieties of materialism with regards to the problem: eliminative, reductive (or leveling), and emergentist. The discussion then turns to the notion of a concrete or material system, based on the assumption that behavior is an external manifestation of neural processes. Subsequent chapters explore the specific functions of the central nervous system; sensation and perception; behavior and motivation; memory and learning; thinking and knowing; and consciousness and personality. The book also considers sociality and social behavior in animals before concluding with an assessment of a psychological explanation of the mind, with emphasis on dualism and monism. This work will be of interest to students, academicians, practitioners, and investigators in the fields of psychobiology, psychology, neurophysiology, and philosophy.

Galileo's Error
Galileo's Error

Author: Philip Goff

Publisher: Pantheon

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1524747963

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From a leading philosopher of the mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that offers a radically new picture of human consciousness--panpsychism, an exciting alternative that could pave the way forward.ward.

Mind and Cosmos
Mind and Cosmos

Author: Thomas Nagel

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-11-22

Total Pages: 141

ISBN-13: 0199919755

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The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.