The Self and Its Brain
The Self and Its Brain

Author: Karl R. Popper

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 749

ISBN-13: 364261891X

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The problem of the relation between our bodies and our minds, and espe cially of the link between brain structures and processes on the one hand and mental dispositions and events on the other is an exceedingly difficult one. Without pretending to be able to foresee future developments, both authors of this book think it improbable that the problem will ever be solved, in the sense that we shall really understand this relation. We think that no more can be expected than to make a little progress here or there. We have written this book in the hope that we have been able to do so. We are conscious of the fact that what we have done is very conjectur al and very modest. We are aware of our fallibility; yet we believe in the intrinsic value of every human effort to deepen our understanding of our selves and of the world we live in. We believe in humanism: in human rationality, in human science, and in other human achievements, however fallible they are. We are unimpressed by the recurrent intellectual fashions that belittle science and the other great human achievements. An additional motive for writing this book is that we both feel that the debunking of man has gone far enough - even too far. It is said that we had to learn from Copernicus and Darwin that man's place in the universe is not so exalted or so exclusive as man once thought. That may well be.

How the SELF Controls Its BRAIN
How the SELF Controls Its BRAIN

Author: John C. Eccles

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 364249224X

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In this book the author has collected a number of his important works and added an extensive commentary relating his ideas to those of other prominentnames in the consciousness debate. The view presented here is that of a convinced dualist who challenges in a lively and humorous way the prevailing materialist "doctrines" of many recent works. Also included is a new attempt to explain mind-brain interaction via a quantum process affecting the release of neurotransmitters. John Eccles received a knighthood in 1958 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology in 1963. He has numerous other awards honouring his major contributions to neurophysiology.

Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self
Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self

Author: John C. Eccles

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-07-05

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1134968345

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Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives
A Mind of Its Own: How Your Brain Distorts and Deceives

Author: Cordelia Fine

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2008-06-17

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 0393343006

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"Provocative enough to make you start questioning your each and every action."—Entertainment Weekly The brain's power is confirmed and touted every day in new studies and research. And yet we tend to take our brains for granted, without suspecting that those masses of hard-working neurons might not always be working for us. Cordelia Fine introduces us to a brain we might not want to meet, a brain with a mind of its own. She illustrates the brain's tendency toward self-delusion as she explores how the mind defends and glorifies the ego by twisting and warping our perceptions. Our brains employ a slew of inborn mind-bugs and prejudices, from hindsight bias to unrealistic optimism, from moral excuse-making to wishful thinking—all designed to prevent us from seeing the truth about the world and the people around us, and about ourselves.

Brainstorm
Brainstorm

Author: Daniel J. Siegel, MD

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-01-07

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 110163152X

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In this New York Times–bestselling book, Dr. Daniel Siegel shows parents how to turn one of the most challenging developmental periods in their children’s lives into one of the most rewarding. Between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, the brain changes in important and, at times, challenging ways. In Brainstorm, Dr. Daniel Siegel busts a number of commonly held myths about adolescence—for example, that it is merely a stage of “immaturity” filled with often “crazy” behavior. According to Siegel, during adolescence we learn vital skills, such as how to leave home and enter the larger world, connect deeply with others, and safely experiment and take risks. Drawing on important new research in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, Siegel explores exciting ways in which understanding how the brain functions can improve the lives of adolescents, making their relationships more fulfilling and less lonely and distressing on both sides of the generational divide.

Big Brain Book
Big Brain Book

Author: Leanne Boucher Gill

Publisher: American Psychological Association

Published: 2021-06-01

Total Pages: 112

ISBN-13: 1433835789

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2022 KIDS' BOOK CHOICE AWARDS WINNER FOR BEST INFO MEETS GRAPHICS! Readers are welcomed to the Lobe Labs and Dr. Brain activities in this brightly illustrated, highly engaging book that uses science to answer interesting questions that kids have about the brain and human behavior. This is a fun primer on psychology and neuroscience that makes complex psychological phenomenon and neural mechanisms relatable to kids through illustrations, interesting factoids, and more. Chapters include: What is the brain made up of and how does it work? Why can’t I tickle myself? Why do they shine a light in my eyes when I hit my head in the game? Answers draw from both psychology and neuroscience, giving ample examples of how the science is relevant to the question and to the reader’s life experiences.

Self Comes to Mind
Self Comes to Mind

Author: Antonio Damasio

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-11-09

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0307379493

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A leading neuroscientist explores with authority, with imagination, and with unparalleled mastery how the brain constructs the mind and how the brain makes that mind conscious. Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years researching and and revealing how the brain works. Here, in his most ambitious and stunning work yet, he rejects the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, and presents compelling new scientific evidence that posits an evolutionary perspective. His view entails a radical change in the way the history of the conscious mind is viewed and told, suggesting that the brain’s development of a human self is a challenge to nature’s indifference. This development helps to open the way for the appearance of culture, perhaps one of our most defining characteristics as thinking and self-aware beings.

Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality
Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality

Author: Paul L. Nunez

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-05-24

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0199914648

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Does the brain create the mind, or is some external entity involved? This book synthesizes ideas borrowed from philosophy, religion, and science. Topics range widely from brain imagining of thought processes to quantum mechanics and the essential role of information in brains and physical systems.

Dynamic Patterns
Dynamic Patterns

Author: J. A. Scott Kelso

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 9780262611312

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foreword by Hermann Haken For the past twenty years Scott Kelso's research has focused on extending the physical concepts of self- organization and the mathematical tools of nonlinear dynamics to understand how human beings (and human brains) perceive, intend, learn, control, and coordinate complex behaviors. In this book Kelso proposes a new, general framework within which to connect brain, mind, and behavior.Kelso's prescription for mental life breaks dramatically with the classical computational approach that is still the operative framework for many newer psychological and neurophysiological studies. His core thesis is that the creation and evolution of patterned behavior at all levels--from neurons to mind--is governed by the generic processes of self-organization. Both human brain and behavior are shown to exhibit features of pattern-forming dynamical systems, including multistability, abrupt phase transitions, crises, and intermittency. Dynamic Patterns brings together different aspects of this approach to the study of human behavior, using simple experimental examples and illustrations to convey essential concepts, strategies, and methods, with a minimum of mathematics. Kelso begins with a general account of dynamic pattern formation. He then takes up behavior, focusing initially on identifying pattern-forming instabilities in human sensorimotor coordination. Moving back and forth between theory and experiment, he establishes the notion that the same pattern-forming mechanisms apply regardless of the component parts involved (parts of the body, parts of the nervous system, parts of society) and the medium through which the parts are coupled. Finally, employing the latest techniques to observe spatiotemporal patterns of brain activity, Kelso shows that the human brain is fundamentally a pattern forming dynamical system, poised on the brink of instability. Self-organization thus underlies the cooperative action of neurons that produces human behavior in all its forms.

A Sense of Self: Memory, the Brain, and Who We Are
A Sense of Self: Memory, the Brain, and Who We Are

Author: Veronica O'Keane

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2021-05-25

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0393541932

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How do our brains store—and then conjure up—past experiences to make us who we are? A twinge of sadness, a rush of love, a knot of loss, a whiff of regret. Memories have the power to move us, often when we least expect it, a sign of the complex neural process that continues in the background of our everyday lives. This process shapes us: filtering the world around us, informing our behavior and feeding our imagination. Psychiatrist Veronica O’Keane has spent many years observing how memory and experience are interwoven. In this rich, fascinating exploration, she asks, among other things: Why can memories feel so real? How are our sensations and perceptions connected with them? Why is place so important in memory? Are there such things as “true” and “false” memories? And, above all, what happens when the process of memory is disrupted by mental illness? O’Keane uses the broken memories of psychosis to illuminate the integrated human brain, offering a new way of thinking about our own personal experiences. Drawing on poignant accounts that include her own experiences, as well as what we can learn from insights in literature and fairytales and the latest neuroscientific research, O’Keane reframes our understanding of the extraordinary puzzle that is the human brain and how it changes during its growth from birth to adolescence and old age. By elucidating this process, she exposes the way that the formation of memory in the brain is vital to the creation of our sense of self.