Consciousness Explained
Consciousness Explained

Author: Daniel C. Dennett

Publisher: Hachette+ORM

Published: 2018-02-06

Total Pages: 707

ISBN-13: 0316439487

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Daniel Dennett's "brilliant" exploration of human consciousness — named one of the ten best books of the year by the New York Times — is a masterpiece beloved by both scientific experts and general readers (New York Times Book Review). Consciousness Explained is a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life — of people, animal, even robots — are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book. "Dennett is a witty and gifted scientific raconteur, and the book is full of fascinating information about humans, animals, and machines. The result is highly digestible and a useful tour of the field." —Wall Street Journal

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness
The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness

Author: Mark Solms

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2021-02-16

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 0393542025

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A revelatory new theory of consciousness that returns emotions to the center of mental life. For Mark Solms, one of the boldest thinkers in contemporary neuroscience, discovering how consciousness comes about has been a lifetime’s quest. Scientists consider it the "hard problem" because it seems an impossible task to understand why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain. Venturing into the elementary physics of life, Solms has now arrived at an astonishing answer. In The Hidden Spring, he brings forward his discovery in accessible language and graspable analogies. Solms is a frank and fearless guide on an extraordinary voyage from the dawn of neuropsychology and psychoanalysis to the cutting edge of contemporary neuroscience, adhering to the medically provable. But he goes beyond other neuroscientists by paying close attention to the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated, whose uncanny conversations expose much about the brain’s obscure reaches. Most importantly, you will be able to recognize the workings of your own mind for what they really are, including every stray thought, pulse of emotion, and shift of attention. The Hidden Spring will profoundly alter your understanding of your own subjective experience.

Zen and the Brain
Zen and the Brain

Author: James H. Austin

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1999-06-04

Total Pages: 876

ISBN-13: 9780262260350

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A neuroscientist and Zen practitioner interweaves the latest research on the brain with his personal narrative of Zen. Aldous Huxley called humankind's basic trend toward spiritual growth the "perennial philosophy." In the view of James Austin, the trend implies a "perennial psychophysiology"—because awakening, or enlightenment, occurs only when the human brain undergoes substantial changes. What are the peak experiences of enlightenment? How could these states profoundly enhance, and yet simplify, the workings of the brain? Zen and the Brain presents the latest evidence. In this book Zen Buddhism becomes the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness. In order to understand which brain mechanisms produce Zen states, one needs some understanding of the anatomy, physiology, and chemistry of the brain. Austin, both a neurologist and a Zen practitioner, interweaves the most recent brain research with the personal narrative of his Zen experiences. The science is both inclusive and rigorous; the Zen sections are clear and evocative. Along the way, Austin examines such topics as similar states in other disciplines and religions, sleep and dreams, mental illness, consciousness-altering drugs, and the social consequences of the advanced stage of ongoing enlightenment.

Feeling & Knowing
Feeling & Knowing

Author: Antonio Damasio

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1524747564

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From one of the world’s leading neuroscientists: a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of how biology, neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence have given us the tools to unlock the mysteries of human consciousness “One thrilling insight after another ... Damasio has succeeded brilliantly in narrowing the gap between body and mind.” —The New York Times Book Review In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In the forty-eight brief chapters of Feeling & Knowing, and in writing that remains faithful to our intuitive sense of what feeling and experiencing are about, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large. He combines the latest discoveries in various sciences with philosophy and discusses his original research, which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior. Here is an indispensable guide to understand­ing how we experience the world within and around us and find our place in the universe.

Consciousness and the Brain
Consciousness and the Brain

Author: Stanislas Dehaene

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2014-01-30

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0698151402

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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.

Consciousness Demystified
Consciousness Demystified

Author: Todd E. Feinberg

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2018-09-25

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 0262038811

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Demystifying consciousness: how subjective experience can be explained by natural brain and evolutionary processes. Consciousness is often considered a mystery. How can the seemingly immaterial experience of consciousness be explained by the material neurons of the brain? There seems to be an unbridgeable gap between understanding the brain as an objectively observed biological organ and accounting for the subjective experiences that come from the brain (and life processes). In this book, Todd Feinberg and Jon Mallatt attempt to demystify consciousness—to naturalize it, by explaining that the subjective, experiencing aspects of consciousness are created by natural brain processes that evolved in natural ways. Although subjective experience is unique in nature, they argue, it is not necessarily mysterious. We need not invoke the unknown or unknowable to explain its creation. Feinberg and Mallatt flesh out their theory of neurobiological naturalism (after John Searle's biological naturalism) that recognizes the many features that brains share with other living things, lists the neural features unique to conscious brains, and explains the subjective–objective barrier naturally. They investigate common neural features among the diverse groups of animals that have primary consciousness—the type of consciousness that experiences both sensations received from the world and affects such as emotions. They map the evolutionary development of consciousness and find an uninterrupted progression over time, without inserting any mysterious forces or exotic physics. Finally, bridging the previously unbridgeable, they show how subjective experience, although different from objective observation, can be naturally explained.

Consciousness and the Social Brain
Consciousness and the Social Brain

Author: Michael S. A. Graziano

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-08-01

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0199928657

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What is consciousness and how can a brain, a mere collection of neurons, create it? In Consciousness and the Social Brain, Princeton neuroscientist Michael Graziano lays out an audacious new theory to account for the deepest mystery of them all. The human brain has evolved a complex circuitry that allows it to be socially intelligent. This social machinery has only just begun to be studied in detail. One function of this circuitry is to attribute awareness to others: to compute that person Y is aware of thing X. In Graziano's theory, the machinery that attributes awareness to others also attributes it to oneself. Damage that machinery and you disrupt your own awareness. Graziano discusses the science, the evidence, the philosophy, and the surprising implications of this new theory.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

Author: Julian Jaynes

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 2000-08-15

Total Pages: 580

ISBN-13: 0547527543

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National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Radical Knowing
Radical Knowing

Author: Christian de Quincey

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2005-08-16

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1594777160

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A radical reassessment of what we mean by "consciousness" and how we experience it in relation to others • Shows the importance of integrating different ways of knowing--such as feeling and intuition, reason and the senses--in our approach to life • Discusses the technique of Bohmian Dialogue where you can learn not only to "feel your thinking," but also to experience true communion with others In Radical Knowing Christian de Quincey makes a provocative claim: We are not who we think we are. Instead, we are what we feel. Giving disciplined attention to feelings reveals the most fundamental fact of life and reality: We are our relationships. Most of us think we are individuals first and foremost who then come together to form relationships. De Quincey turns this "obvious fact" on its head and shows that relationship comes first, and that our individual sense of self--our "private" consciousness--actually arises from shared consciousness. This shared, collective consciousness is at the heart of indigenous ways of life and their worldviews. De Quincey explains that participating in shared consciousness literally builds the fabric of reality, and that understanding this process is key to unlocking our potential for higher consciousness and spiritual evolution. He presents the technique of Bohmian Dialogue, developed by groundbreaking quantum physicist David Bohm, as one method for experiencing this powerful process. He also explores the mystery of synchronicity, offering a new understanding of the relationship between matter and mind and the underlying nature of reality.

The Neurology of Consciousness
The Neurology of Consciousness

Author: Steven Laureys

Publisher: Academic Press

Published: 2015-08-12

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 0128011750

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The second edition of The Neurology of Consciousness is a comprehensive update of this ground-breaking work on human consciousness, the first book in this area to summarize the neuroanatomical and functional underpinnings of consciousness by emphasizing a lesional approach offered by the study of neurological patients. Since the publication of the first edition in 2009, new methodologies have made consciousness much more accessible scientifically, and, in particular, the study of disorders, disruptions, and disturbances of consciousness has added tremendously to our understanding of the biological basis of human consciousness. The publication of a new edition is both critical and timely for continued understanding of the field of consciousness. In this critical and timely update, revised and new contributions by internationally renowned researchers—edited by the leaders in the field of consciousness research—provide a unique and comprehensive focus on human consciousness. The new edition of The Neurobiology of Consciousness will continue to be an indispensable resource for researchers and students working on the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness and related disorders, as well as for neuroscientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists contemplating consciousness as one of the philosophical, ethical, sociological, political, and religious questions of our time. - New chapters on the neuroanatomical basis of consciousness and short-term memory, and expanded coverage of comas and neuroethics, including the ethics of brain death - The first comprehensive, authoritative collection to describe disorders of consciousness and how they are used to study and understand the neural correlates of conscious perception in humans. - Includes both revised and new chapters from the top international researchers in the field, including Christof Koch, Marcus Raichle, Nicholas Schiff, Joseph Fins, and Michael Gazzaniga