Self Comes to Mind

Self Comes to Mind PDF

Author: Antonio Damasio

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2010-11-09

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0307379493

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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 PDF

Author: Paul L. Nunez

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-05-24

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0199914648

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.

From Neurons to Self-consciousness

From Neurons to Self-consciousness PDF

Author: Bernard Korzeniewski

Publisher: Gateway Bookshelf

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781616142278

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In the end, the author suggests that as more is learned about the working of the brain, philosophical problems that have caused centuries of speculation will simply be resolved by the facts of neurophysiology. --Book Jacket.

How the SELF Controls Its BRAIN

How the SELF Controls Its BRAIN PDF

Author: John C. Eccles

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 364249224X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.

Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain

Self Control in Society, Mind, and Brain PDF

Author: Ran Hassin

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-04-12

Total Pages: 575

ISBN-13: 019974162X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book presents social, cognitive and neuroscientific approaches to the study of self-control, connecting recent work in cognitive and social psychology with recent advances in cognitive and social neuroscience. In bringing together multiple perspectives on self-control dilemmas from internationally renowned researchers in various allied disciplines, this is the first single-reference volume to illustrate the richness, depth, and breadth of the research in the new field of self control.

Neuroscience and Religion

Neuroscience and Religion PDF

Author: Volney P. Gay

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 9780739133927

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This is a unique set of multidisciplinary reflections on how the neurosciences shape our understanding of religious experience and religious institutions. Twelve scholars and scientists assess how advances in the neurosciences affect our traditional sense of mind, self, and soul.

The Mind Within the Brain

The Mind Within the Brain PDF

Author: A. David Redish

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-08

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 0199891885

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

The goal of this book is to present the science behind decision-making in humans. In particular, one of the main concepts the author puts forward in the book is that, if our brain is a decision-making machine, then that machine can break down; it can have a "failure" or "vulnerabilities." And that it is possible to understand that machinery (even to understand that it is a machinery), without losing the potential to appreciate all the things that make us human (including our decision-making ability). Here the author brings together cutting edge research in psychology, robotics, economics, neuroscience, and the new fields of neuroeconomics and computational psychiatry, to offer a unified theory of human decision-making. Most importantly, he shows how vulnerabilities, or "failure-modes," in the decision-making system can lead to serious dysfunctions, such as irrational behavior, addictions, problem gambling, and PTSD. Ranging widely from the surprising roles of emotion, habit, and narrative in decision-making, to the larger philosophical questions of how mind and brain are related, what makes us human, the nature of morality, free will, and the conundrum of robotics and consciousness, this work offers fresh insight into one of the most complex aspects of human behavior.

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

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

Author: Cordelia Fine

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2008-06-17

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0393343006

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"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.

The Self and Its Brain

The Self and Its Brain PDF

Author: Karl R. Popper

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2012-12-06

Total Pages: 749

ISBN-13: 364261891X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

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.