Mind Beyond Brain

Mind Beyond Brain PDF

Author: David E. Presti

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2018-10-02

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0231548397

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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.

Mind Beyond Death

Mind Beyond Death PDF

Author: Dzogchen Ponlop

Publisher: Shambhala

Published: 2008-08-29

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 1559398469

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An indispensable guidebook through the journey of life and death, Mind Beyond Death weaves a synthesis of wisdom remarkable in its scope. With warm informality and profound understanding of the Western mind, the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche makes the mysterious Tibetan teachings on the bardos—the intervals of life, death, and beyond—completely available to the modern reader. Drawing on a breathtaking range of material, Mind Beyond Death shows us how the bardos can be used to conquer death. Working with the bardos means taking hold of life and learning how to live with fearless abandon. Exploring all six bardos—not just the three bardos of death—Mind Beyond Death demonstrates that the secret to a good journey through and beyond death lies in how we live. Walking skillfully through the bardos of dream meditation and daily life, the Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche takes us deep into the mysterious death intervals, introducing us to their dazzling mindscape. This tour de force gives us the knowledge to transform death, the greatest obstacle, into the most powerful opportunity for enlightenment. With both nuts-and-bolts meditation techniques and brilliant illumination, Mind Beyond Death offers a clear map and a sturdy vehicle that will safely transport the reader through the challenging transitions of this life and the perilous bardos beyond death.

Beyond the Conscious Mind

Beyond the Conscious Mind PDF

Author: Thomas R. Blakeslee

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 299

ISBN-13: 1489945334

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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.

Beyond the Brain

Beyond the Brain PDF

Author: Louise Barrett

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-03-22

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0691165564

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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.

Beyond Mind, Beyond Death

Beyond Mind, Beyond Death PDF

Author: Tat Foundation

Publisher:

Published: 2009-01

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780979963001

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This collection contains some of the best spiritual essays, poems, photographs and humor from seven years of the TAT Forum online magazine. These are practical, inspiring and challenging works of spiritual insight for anyone drawn to the silent spaces of life. With selections from over thirty contributors, including: William Samuel, Bob Fergeson, Douglas Harding, Franklin Merrell-Wolff, Art Ticknor, Bart Marshall, Coleman Barks, Bob Cergol and Bernadette Roberts; this book will be a valuable companion in that space where the questions of meaning, identity, ultimate reality and truth arise. Where, as Shakespeare said, "I have immortal longings in me."

The Extended Mind

The Extended Mind PDF

Author: Richard Menary

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 0262014033

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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 PDF

Author: Stanislav Grof

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1985-01-01

Total Pages: 488

ISBN-13: 9780873959537

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Beyond the Brain seriously challenges the existing neurophysiological models of the brain. After three decades of extensive research on those non-ordinary states of consciousness induced by psychedelic drugs and by other means, Grof concludes that our present scientific world view is as inadequate as many of its historical predecessors. In this pioneering work, he proposes a new model of the human psyche that takes account of his findings. Grof includes in his model the recollective level, or the reliving of emotionally relevant memories, a level at which the Freudian framework can be useful. Beyond that is perinatal level in which the human unconscious may be activated to a reliving of biological birth and confrontation with death. How birth experience influences an individual's later development is a central focus of the book. The most serious challenge to contemporary psycho-analytic theory comes from a delineation of the transpersonal level, or the expansion of consciousness beyond the boundaries of time and space. Grof makes a bold argument that understanding of the perinatal and transpersonal levels changes much of how we view both mental illness and mental health. His reinterpretation of some of the most agonizing aspects of human behavior proves thought provoking for both laypersons and professional therapists.

A Changed Mind

A Changed Mind PDF

Author: David Bayer

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2023-09-26

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1642939870

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The story of one man’s journey to go beyond self awareness and the science of how to actually change your mind. In his groundbreaking, seminal book, visionary leader and transformational teacher David Bayer offers a revolutionary approach to personal growth and spiritual evolution, taking complex concepts from the fields of behavioral psychology, neurophysiology, quantum field theory, and spiritual tradition and distilling them into a powerful, practical, integrative framework for reclaiming personal and emotional sovereignty and having what Bayer calls “a powerful living experience.” Through the authentic and vulnerable sharing of his own story of struggle, childhood trauma, addiction, and burnout, Bayer takes the reader on a journey of going beyond self awareness and self help to learn how to actually rewire your brain, downregulate your nervous system, and consciously create an extraordinary life. A Changed Mind is an instruction manual for understanding the human being operating system and how to reclaim control over your thoughts, emotions, and life at a time when emotional intelligence, self awareness, and spiritual connection are essential skills for navigating the increasingly complex and uncertain external dynamics of modern-day life. Whether you are new to personal growth or have been on a journey of growth for decades, wanting to overcome depression and anxiety or perform at a higher level, connect more deeply with a power greater than yourself or free yourself from the incessant negative chatter of the mind—A Changed Mind is the missing piece every growth-oriented and spiritually minded individual needs in order to achieve sustainable health, happiness, joy, and prosperity, and ultimately realize their full potential.