Thinking Beyond the Brain
Thinking Beyond the Brain

Author: David Lorimer

Publisher:

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Consciousness is the hot topic in scientific circles--its precise nature holding huge implications for the future of science as a viable discipline. And with so many recent advances in brain studies, questions of mind and consciousness have become critically important for both theorists and hard scientists. Are we "nothing but a pack of neurons" that will in due course reveal their secrets in the laboratory? Or do our conscious mind and self-awareness stem from some dimension beyond material investigation? How, too, are we to account for "parapsychological" phenomena in which consciousness seems to defy space and time boundaries? These latest contributions to the debate--selected from the annual "Beyond the Brain" conferences--show that it is time for radical rethinking of our theories and methods in investigating phenomena of the human mind.

The Extended Mind
The Extended Mind

Author: Richard Menary

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 0262014033

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Leading scholars respond to the famous proposition by Andy Clark and David Chalmers that cognition and mind are not located exclusively in the head.

Beyond the Brain
Beyond the Brain

Author: Louise Barrett

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-03-22

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0691165564

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world.

Mind Beyond Brain
Mind Beyond Brain

Author: David E. Presti

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0231548397

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Among the most profound questions we confront are the nature of what and who we are as conscious beings, and how the human mind relates to the rest of what we consider reality. For millennia, philosophers, scientists, and religious thinkers have attempted answers, perhaps none more meaningful today than those offered by neuroscience and by Buddhism. The encounter between these two worldviews has spurred ongoing conversations about what science and Buddhism can teach each other about mind and reality. In Mind Beyond Brain, the neuroscientist David E. Presti, with the assistance of other distinguished researchers, explores how evidence for anomalous phenomena—such as near-death experiences, apparent memories of past lives, apparitions, experiences associated with death, and other so-called psi or paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition—can influence the Buddhism-science conversation. Presti describes the extensive but frequently unacknowledged history of scientific investigation into these phenomena, demonstrating its relevance to questions about consciousness and reality. The new perspectives opened up, if we are willing to take evidence of such often off-limits topics seriously, offer significant challenges to dominant explanatory paradigms and raise the prospect that we may be poised for truly revolutionary developments in the scientific investigation of mind. Mind Beyond Brain represents the next level in the science and Buddhism dialogue.

Tales from Beyond the Brain
Tales from Beyond the Brain

Author: Jeff Szpirglas

Publisher: Orca Book Publishers

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 1459820819

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Imagine walking home from school one day and seeing a brain on the side of the road, a brain that, it turns out, is looking for a new home. Or instead of paying attention to the teacher, you shoot a paper airplane across the room and accidentally rip a hole in the fabric of the universe. And what would you do if you discovered that your class reading group was actually recruiting kids with telekinetic powers? Tales from Beyond the Brain is a collection of thirteen spooky stories that are as outrageous as they are terrifying. It's a throwback to the weird tales of yesteryear, in the vein of Tales from the Crypt and The Twilight Zone, but with contemporary characters and settings. Getting an education has never been more dangerous.

Beyond the Conscious Mind
Beyond the Conscious Mind

Author: Thomas R. Blakeslee

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1489945334

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Nobel Prize-winning work of Roger Sperry revolutionized our understanding of human consciousness by proving that separate thinking and knowledge could exist in the left and right halves of the brain. Now, popular science writer Thomas Blakeslee - author of the highly acclaimed The Right Brain - takes us to a new level of understanding based on the theory of neural Darwinism by Gerald Edelman, another Nobel Prize winner. Blakeslee explains that our neurons spontaneously organize into hundreds of groups called modules that compete to respond to every situation in our lives - from reading this paragraph to falling in love. A vast preponderance of this activity operates outside of our conscious awareness.

How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future
How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future

Author: James Olson

Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 1579830536

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Our brains have numerous functioning parts, all of which serve us at any one moment. But decades of research reveal the existence of two basic brain “operating systems”—two fundamental ways in which the whole brain processes incoming information. Because of this phenomenon of brain dominance, most of us tend to favor the input of either our “dualistic” left-brain (which focuses on parts instead of wholes) or our holistic right hemisphere. This means that typically only half of our innate intelligence informs our thinking—and since the left-brain operating system dominates most males, our culture has itself become left-brain dominant. How Whole Brain Thinking Can Save the Future explores this left-brain bias in our civilization, revealing it to be the root cause for centuries of war, racism, and political polarization—and eons of misunderstanding between the sexes. While most of our technological and scientific progress is driven by left-brain thinking, the great advances to come will require that we consciously harness both sides of our brain to greatly improve our cognition. Award-winning author James Olson goes on to explain how we can achieve greater internal harmony between the two operating systems of the brain—both as individuals and as a culture—thus showing us how ad why thinking with our whole brains will lead us to peace and to the ultimate healing of our relationships and our world.

Discovering the Brain
Discovering the Brain

Author: National Academy of Sciences

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1992-01-01

Total Pages: 195

ISBN-13: 0309045290

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."

Consciousness and the Brain
Consciousness and the Brain

Author: Stanislas Dehaene

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0698151402

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

WINNER OF THE 2014 BRAIN PRIZE From the acclaimed author of Reading in the Brain and How We Learn, a breathtaking look at the new science that can track consciousness deep in the brain How does our brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before. In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind a conscious state. We can now pin down the neurons that fire when a person reports becoming aware of a piece of information and understand the crucial role unconscious computations play in how we make decisions. The emerging theory enables a test of consciousness in animals, babies, and those with severe brain injuries. A joyous exploration of the mind and its thrilling complexities, Consciousness and the Brain will excite anyone interested in cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifying consciousness.

Out of Our Heads
Out of Our Heads

Author: Alva Noë

Publisher: Hill and Wang

Published: 2010-02-02

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1429957190

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

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.