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Author: Paul M. Churchland
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1995
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780262531429
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis work summarizes results from neuroscience and recent work with artificial neural networks that together suggest a unified set of answers to questions about how the brain actually works; how it sustains a thinking, feeling, dreaming self; and how it sustains a self-conscious person.
Author: Paul M. Churchland
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1988
Total Pages: 204
ISBN-13: 9780262530743
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn "Matter and Consciousness," Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues. Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism. "A Bradford Book"
Author: Gary Zukav
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2014
Total Pages: 384
ISBN-13: 147675540X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExplores a new phase of human evolution that reflects a growing understanding about authentic, spiritual power based on cooperative beliefs and a reverence for life.
Author: Patricia S. Churchland
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2002-10-02
Total Pages: 491
ISBN-13: 0262293064
DOWNLOAD EBOOKProgress in the neurosciences is profoundly changing our conception of ourselves. Contrary to time-honored intuition, the mind turns out to be a complex of brain functions. And contrary to the wishful thinking of some philosophers, there is no stemming the revolutionary impact that brain research will have on our understanding of how the mind works. Brain-Wise is the sequel to Patricia Smith Churchland's Neurophilosophy, the book that launched a subfield. In a clear, conversational manner, this book examines old questions about the nature of the mind within the new framework of the brain sciences. What, it asks, is the neurobiological basis of consciousness, the self, and free choice? How does the brain learn about the external world and about its own introspective world? What can neurophilosophy tell us about the basis and significance of religious and moral experiences? Drawing on results from research at the neuronal, neurochemical, system, and whole-brain levels, the book gives an up-to-date perspective on the state of neurophilosophy—what we know, what we do not know, and where things may go from here.
Author: Paul M. Churchland
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1992
Total Pages: 348
ISBN-13: 9780262531061
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"A Bradford book."Includes index. Bibliography: p. [305]-313.
Author: Dan Edward Lloyd
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2004
Total Pages: 380
ISBN-13: 9780262621939
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAn innovative theory of consciousness, drawing on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and supported by brain-imaging, presented in the form of a hardboiled detective story. Professor Grue is dead (or is he?). When graduate student/sleuth Miranda Sharpe discovers him slumped over his keyboard, she does the sensible thing--she grabs her dissertation and runs. Little does she suspect that soon she will be probing the heart of two mysteries, trying to discover what happened to Max Grue, and trying to solve the profound neurophilosophical problem of consciousness. Radiant Cool may be the first novel of ideas that actually breaks new theoretical ground, as Dan Lloyd uses a neo-noir (neuro-noir?), hard-boiled framework to propose a new theory of consciousness.In the course of her sleuthing, Miranda encounters characters who share her urgency to get to the bottom of the mystery of consciousness, although not always with the most innocent motives. Who holds the key to Max Grue's ultimate vision? Is it the computer-inspired pop psychologist talk-show host? The video-gaming geek with a passion for artificial neural networks? The Russian multi-dimensional data detective, or the sophisticated neuroscientist with the big book contract? Ultimately Miranda teams up with the author's fictional alter ego, "Dan Lloyd," and together they build on the phenomenological theories of philosopher Edmund Husserl (1859-1938) to construct testable hypotheses about the implementation of consciousness in the brain. Will the clues of phenomenology and neuroscience converge in time to avert a catastrophe? (The dramatic ending cannot be revealed here.) Outside the fictional world of the novel, Dan Lloyd (the author) appends a lengthy afterword, explaining the proposed theory of consciousness in more scholarly form. Radiant Cool is a real metaphysical thriller--based in current philosophy of mind--and a genuine scientific detective story--revealing a new interpretation of functional brain imaging. With its ingenious plot and its novel theory, Radiant Cool will be enjoyed in the classroom and the study for its entertaining presentation of phenomenology, neural networks, and brain imaging; but, most importantly, it will find its place as a groundbreaking theory of consciousness.
Author: Luciana Parisi
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2022-11-01
Total Pages: 391
ISBN-13: 0262546655
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA proposal that algorithms are not simply instructions to be performed but thinking entities that construct digital spatio-temporalities. In Contagious Architecture, Luciana Parisi offers a philosophical inquiry into the status of the algorithm in architectural and interaction design. Her thesis is that algorithmic computation is not simply an abstract mathematical tool but constitutes a mode of thought in its own right, in that its operation extends into forms of abstraction that lie beyond direct human cognition and control. These include modes of infinity, contingency, and indeterminacy, as well as incomputable quantities underlying the iterative process of algorithmic processing. The main philosophical source for the project is Alfred North Whitehead, whose process philosophy is specifically designed to provide a vocabulary for “modes of thought” exhibiting various degrees of autonomy from human agency even as they are mobilized by it. Because algorithmic processing lies at the heart of the design practices now reshaping our world—from the physical spaces of our built environment to the networked spaces of digital culture—the nature of algorithmic thought is a topic of pressing importance that reraises questions of control and, ultimately, power. Contagious Architecture revisits cybernetic theories of control and information theory's notion of the incomputable in light of this rethinking of the role of algorithmic thought. Informed by recent debates in political and cultural theory around the changing landscape of power, it links the nature of abstraction to a new theory of power adequate to the complexities of the digital world.
Author: Daniel H. Pink
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2006-03-07
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 1101157909
DOWNLOAD EBOOKNew York Times Bestseller An exciting--and encouraging--exploration of creativity from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the world, Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others) outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are absolute essentials for professional success and personal fulfillment--and reveals how to master them. A Whole New Mind takes readers to a daring new place, and a provocative and necessary new way of thinking about a future that's already here.
Author: Antonio Damasio
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2005-09-27
Total Pages: 338
ISBN-13: 014303622X
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince Descartes famously proclaimed, "I think, therefore I am," science has often overlooked emotions as the source of a person’s true being. Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.
Author: Casimir J. Bonk
Publisher: Trafford Publishing
Published: 2010-02-04
Total Pages: 455
ISBN-13: 1426940505
DOWNLOAD EBOOKChallenge the scientific denial of the soul's existence with a book that proves that the brain is not the sole explanation behind human thought and behavior. Casimir J. Bonk, a longtime engineer and student of metaphysics, has found physical scientific evidence of the nonphysical soul through his investigations of reincarnated subjects who can recall experiences from previous lives. Discover why Descartes Was Right! Souls Do Exist and Reincarnation Proves It. For instance: Dr. Ian Stevenson and others have shown that reincarnated subjects can recall details from past lives, proving that the brain is not the prime location of memory. If memory were physical, it would cease upon death. By contrasting metaphysical views of the world with scientific theories, an original description of human duality explains the true nature of humanity. Using an engineers approach, uncover how the brain really works and why science fails to explain the memories of the reincarnated. Close the gap between the physical and nonphysical worlds and answer the questions about human nature that have haunted the world forever in Descartes Was Right! Souls Do Exist and Reincarnation Proves It.
