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Author: Robin Cooper
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
ISBN: 1909314331
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
A study of the evolution of consciousness from the simplest organism, through the self-aware human being, to enlightenment. Viewing recent theories from a Buddhist standpoint, the book sees evolution as a process of perpetual self-transcendence.
Author: Robin Cooper
Publisher: Windhorse Publications
ISBN: 1909314331
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 329
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Book Description
A study of the evolution of consciousness from the simplest organism, through the self-aware human being, to enlightenment. Viewing recent theories from a Buddhist standpoint, the book sees evolution as a process of perpetual self-transcendence.
Author: A. Graham Cairns-Smith
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521637558
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 344
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Book Description
Evolving the Mind has two main themes: how ideas about the mind evolved in science; and how the mind itself evolved in nature. The mind came into physical science when it was realised, first, that it is the activity of a physical object, a brain, which makes a mind; and secondly, that our theories of nature are largely mental constructions, artificial extensions of an inner model of the world which we inherited from our distant ancestors. From both of these perspectives, consciousness is the great enigma. If consciousness evolved, however, it is in some sense a material thing whatever else may be said of it. Physics, chemistry, molecular biology, brain function and evolutionary biology - almost the whole of science - is involved, and there can be no expert in all these fields. So the style of the book is simple, almost conversational. The excitement is that we seem to be close to a scientific theory of consciousness.
Author: Christian de Duve
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199882614
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 485
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Book Description
In just a half century, humanity has made an astounding leap in its understanding of life. Now, one of the giants of biological science, Christian de Duve, discusses what we've learned in this half century, ranging from the tiniest cells to the future of our species and of life itself. With wide-ranging erudition, De Duve takes us on a dazzling tour of the biological world, beginning with the invisible workings of the cell, the area in which he won his Nobel Prize. He describes how the first cells may have arisen and suggests that they may have been like the organisms that exist today near deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Contrary to many scientists, he argues that life was bound to arise and that it probably only took millennia--maybe tens of thousands of years--to move from rough building blocks to the first organisms possessing the basic properties of life. With equal authority, De Duve examines topics such as the evolution of humans, the origins of consciousness, the development of language, the birth of science, and the origin of emotion, morality, altruism, and love. He concludes with his conjectures on the future of humanity--for instance, we may evolve, perhaps via genetic engineering, into a new species--and he shares his personal thoughts about God and immortality. In Life Evolving, one of our most eminent scientists sums up what he has learned about the nature of life and our place in the universe. An extraordinarily wise and humane volume, it will fascinate readers curious about the world around them and about the impact of science on philosophy and religion.
Author: John S. Allen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674069870
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
In this gustatory tour of human history, John S. Allen demonstrates that the everyday activity of eating offers deep insights into human beings’ biological and cultural heritage. We humans eat a wide array of plants and animals, but unlike other omnivores we eat with our minds as much as our stomachs. This thoughtful relationship with food is part of what makes us a unique species, and makes culinary cultures diverse. Not even our closest primate relatives think about food in the way Homo sapiens does. We are superomnivores whose palates reflect the natural history of our species. Drawing on the work of food historians and chefs, anthropologists and neuroscientists, Allen starts out with the diets of our earliest ancestors, explores cooking’s role in our evolving brain, and moves on to the preoccupations of contemporary foodies. The Omnivorous Mind delivers insights into food aversions and cravings, our compulsive need to label foods as good or bad, dietary deviation from “healthy” food pyramids, and cross-cultural attitudes toward eating (with the French, bien sûr, exemplifying the pursuit of gastronomic pleasure). To explain, for example, the worldwide popularity of crispy foods, Allen considers first the food habits of our insect-eating relatives. He also suggests that the sound of crunch may stave off dietary boredom by adding variety to sensory experience. Or perhaps fried foods, which we think of as bad for us, interject a frisson of illicit pleasure. When it comes to eating, Allen shows, there’s no one way to account for taste.
Author: Daniel D. Hutto
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262551772
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
An extended argument that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Evolving Enactivism argues that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Building on their earlier book Radicalizing Enactivism, which proposes that there can be forms of cognition without content, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin demonstrate the unique explanatory advantages of recognizing that only some forms of cognition have content while others—the most elementary ones—do not. They offer an account of the mind in duplex terms, proposing a complex vision of mentality in which these basic contentless forms of cognition interact with content-involving ones. Hutto and Myin argue that the most basic forms of cognition do not, contrary to a currently popular account of cognition, involve picking up and processing information that is then used, reused, stored, and represented in the brain. Rather, basic cognition is contentless—fundamentally interactive, dynamic, and relational. In advancing the case for a radically enactive account of cognition, Hutto and Myin propose crucial adjustments to our concept of cognition and offer theoretical support for their revolutionary rethinking, emphasizing its capacity to explain basic minds in naturalistic terms. They demonstrate the explanatory power of the duplex vision of cognition, showing how it offers powerful means for understanding quintessential cognitive phenomena without introducing scientifically intractable mysteries into the mix.
Author: Radu J. Bogdan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262261623
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Drawing on philosophical, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, Bogdan analyzes how primates create the resources for "metamentation"—the ability of the mind to think about its own thoughts. Mental reflexivity, or metamentation—a mind thinking about its own thoughts—underpins reflexive consciousness, deliberation, self-evaluation, moral judgment, the ability to think ahead, and much more. Yet relatively little in philosophy or psychology has been written about what metamentation actually is, or about why and how it came about. In this book, Radu Bogdan proposes that humans think reflexively because they interpret each other's minds in social contexts of cooperation, communication, education, politics, and so forth. As naive psychology, interpretation was naturally selected among primates as a battery of practical skills that preceded language and advanced thinking. Metamentation began as interpretation mentally rehearsed: through mental sharing of attitudes and information about items of common interest, interpretation conspired with mental rehearsal to develop metamentation. Drawing on philosophical, psychological, and evolutionary perspectives, Bogdan analyzes the main phylogenetic and ontogenetic stages through which primates' abilities to interpret other minds evolve and gradually create the opportunities and resources for metamentation. Contrary to prevailing views, he concludes that metamentation benefits from, but is not a predetermined outcome of, logical abilities, language, and consciousness.
Author: E. Fuller Torrey
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231544863
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 338
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Book Description
Religions and mythologies from around the world teach that God or gods created humans. Atheist, humanist, and materialist critics, meanwhile, have attempted to turn theology on its head, claiming that religion is a human invention. In this book, E. Fuller Torrey draws on cutting-edge neuroscience research to propose a startling answer to the ultimate question. Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods locates the origin of gods within the human brain, arguing that religious belief is a by-product of evolution. Based on an idea originally proposed by Charles Darwin, Torrey marshals evidence that the emergence of gods was an incidental consequence of several evolutionary factors. Using data ranging from ancient skulls and artifacts to brain imaging, primatology, and child development studies, this book traces how new cognitive abilities gave rise to new behaviors. For instance, autobiographical memory, the ability to project ourselves backward and forward in time, gave Homo sapiens a competitive advantage. However, it also led to comprehension of mortality, spurring belief in an alternative to death. Torrey details the neurobiological sequence that explains why the gods appeared when they did, connecting archaeological findings including clothing, art, farming, and urbanization to cognitive developments. This book does not dismiss belief but rather presents religious belief as an inevitable outcome of brain evolution. Providing clear and accessible explanations of evolutionary neuroscience, Evolving Brains, Emerging Gods will shed new light on the mechanics of our deepest mysteries.
Author: C. H. Vanderwolf
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 0387342303
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 110
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Book Description
This book presents a series of essays on neuroscientific aspects of human nature and instinctive behavior, individually acquired (learned) behavior, human bipedal locomotion, voluntary movement, and the general problem of how the brain controls behavior. The author argues that concepts of the mind based on ancient Greek philosophy are past usefulness, and that modern animal behavior studies provide a better guide to the functional organization of the brain.
Author: John Allman
Publisher: W. H. Freeman
ISBN: 9780716760382
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
How did the human brain with all its manifold capacities evolve from basic functions in simple organisms that lived nearly a billion years ago? John Allman addresses this question in Evolving Brains, a provocative study of brain evolution that introduces readers to some of the most exciting developments in science in recent years.
Author: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0061843148
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 490
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Book Description
The renowned author of Flow shares a “wise, humane inquiry” into the evolution of consciousness—and how we can rewire our minds for contemporary life (Publishers Weekly). In Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s bestselling Flow, he introduced readers to a radical new theory of happiness. Now in The Evolving Self—his breakthrough sequel—he demonstrates how we can understand and overcome our evolutionary shortcomings in order to build a stable, meaningful future for ourselves and each other. The Evolving Self covers the challenges associated with our cognitive evolutionary history; the distortions of reality we experience due to genes, culture, and our sense of self; and the central importance of “flow” from an evolutionary perspective. Erudite, insightful, and practical, The Evolving Self is a timely resource for anyone looking to improve our world for ourselves and for generations to come. “A book of singular importance and timeliness, one with momentous implications for the future.” —Howard Gardner
