The Assemblage Brain

The Assemblage Brain PDF Author: Tony D. Sampson
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452953295
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Once upon a time, neuroscience was born. A dazzling array of neurotechnologies emerged that, according to popular belief, have finally begun to unlock the secrets of the brain. But as the brain sciences now extend into all corners of cultural, social, political, and economic life, a yet newer world has taken shape: “neuroculture,” which goes further than ever before to tackle the profound ethical implications we face in consequence. The Assemblage Brain unveils a major new concept of sense making, one that challenges conventional scientific and philosophical understandings of the brain. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, Tony D. Sampson calls for a radical critical theory that operates in the interferences between philosophy, science, art, and politics. From this novel perspective the book is structured around two questions: “What can be done to a brain?” and “What can a brain do?” Sampson examines the rise of neuroeconomics in informing significant developments in computer work, marketing, and the neuropharmaceutical control of inattentiveness in the classroom. Moving beyond the neurocapitalist framework, he then reestablishes a place for proto-subjectivity in which biological and cultural distinctions are reintegrated in an understanding of the brain as an assemblage. The Assemblage Brain unravels the conventional image of thought that underpins many scientific and philosophical accounts of how sense is produced, providing a new view of our current time in which capitalism and the neurosciences endeavor to colonize the brain.

The Assemblage Brain

The Assemblage Brain PDF Author: Tony D. Sampson
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452953295
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Get Book

Book Description
Once upon a time, neuroscience was born. A dazzling array of neurotechnologies emerged that, according to popular belief, have finally begun to unlock the secrets of the brain. But as the brain sciences now extend into all corners of cultural, social, political, and economic life, a yet newer world has taken shape: “neuroculture,” which goes further than ever before to tackle the profound ethical implications we face in consequence. The Assemblage Brain unveils a major new concept of sense making, one that challenges conventional scientific and philosophical understandings of the brain. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari, Tony D. Sampson calls for a radical critical theory that operates in the interferences between philosophy, science, art, and politics. From this novel perspective the book is structured around two questions: “What can be done to a brain?” and “What can a brain do?” Sampson examines the rise of neuroeconomics in informing significant developments in computer work, marketing, and the neuropharmaceutical control of inattentiveness in the classroom. Moving beyond the neurocapitalist framework, he then reestablishes a place for proto-subjectivity in which biological and cultural distinctions are reintegrated in an understanding of the brain as an assemblage. The Assemblage Brain unravels the conventional image of thought that underpins many scientific and philosophical accounts of how sense is produced, providing a new view of our current time in which capitalism and the neurosciences endeavor to colonize the brain.

Mind Wide Open

Mind Wide Open PDF Author: Steven Johnson
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743258797
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
BRILLIANTLY EXPLORING TODAY'S CUTTING-EDGE BRAIN RESEARCH, MIND WIDE OPEN IS AN UNPRECEDENTED JOURNEY INTO THE ESSENCE OF HUMAN PERSONALITY, ALLOWING READERS TO UNDERSTAND THEMSELVES AND THE PEOPLE IN THEIR LIVES AS NEVER BEFORE. Using a mix of experiential reportage, personal storytelling, and fresh scientific discovery, Steven Johnson describes how the brain works -- its chemicals, structures, and subroutines -- and how these systems connect to the day-to-day realities of individual lives. For a hundred years, he says, many of us have assumed that the most powerful route to self-knowledge took the form of lying on a couch, talking about our childhoods. The possibility entertained in this book is that you can follow another path, in which learning about the brain's mechanics can widen one's self-awareness as powerfully as any therapy or meditation or drug. In Mind Wide Open, Johnson embarks on this path as his own test subject, participating in a battery of attention tests, learning to control video games by altering his brain waves, scanning his own brain with a $2 million fMRI machine, all in search of a modern answer to the oldest of questions: who am I? Along the way, Johnson explores how we "read" other people, how the brain processes frightening events (and how we might rid ourselves of the scars those memories leave), what the neurochemistry is behind love and sex, what it means that our brains are teeming with powerful chemicals closely related to recreational drugs, why music moves us to tears, and where our breakthrough ideas come from. Johnson's clear, engaging explanation of the physical functions of the brain reveals not only the broad strokes of our aptitudes and fears, our skills and weaknesses and desires, but also the momentary brain phenomena that a whole human life comprises. Why, when hearing a tale of woe, do we sometimes smile inappropriately, even if we don't want to? Why are some of us so bad at remembering phone numbers but brilliant at recognizing faces? Why does depression make us feel stupid? To read Mind Wide Open is to rethink family histories, individual fates, and the very nature of the self, and to see that brain science is now personally transformative -- a valuable tool for better relationships and better living.

Unthought

Unthought PDF Author: N. Katherine Hayles
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022644788X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
N. Katherine Hayles is known for breaking new ground at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities. In Unthought, she once again bridges disciplines by revealing how we think without thinking—how we use cognitive processes that are inaccessible to consciousness yet necessary for it to function. Marshalling fresh insights from neuroscience, cognitive science, cognitive biology, and literature, Hayles expands our understanding of cognition and demonstrates that it involves more than consciousness alone. Cognition, as Hayles defines it, is applicable not only to nonconscious processes in humans but to all forms of life, including unicellular organisms and plants. Startlingly, she also shows that cognition operates in the sophisticated information-processing abilities of technical systems: when humans and cognitive technical systems interact, they form “cognitive assemblages”—as found in urban traffic control, drones, and the trading algorithms of finance capital, for instance—and these assemblages are transforming life on earth. The result is what Hayles calls a “planetary cognitive ecology,” which includes both human and technical actors and which poses urgent questions to humanists and social scientists alike. At a time when scientific and technological advances are bringing far-reaching aspects of cognition into the public eye, Unthought reflects deeply on our contemporary situation and moves us toward a more sustainable and flourishing environment for all beings.

How the Brain Got Language

How the Brain Got Language PDF Author: Michael A. Arbib
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199896682
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
Unlike any other species, humans can learn and use language. In this book, Michael Arbib presents the Mirror System Hypothesis, which suggests how complex imitation supported the breakthrough to pantomime, protosign and protospeech and then, through cultural evolution, to fully fledged languages.

Catalyst of Power

Catalyst of Power PDF Author: Jon Whale
Publisher: DragonRising Publishing
ISBN: 1873483058
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Discusses the topics such as: experience your own Assemblage Point, a crucial energy vortex of our Energy Body; discover how the position of the Assemblage Point controls how we feel and behave; learn how to shift and relocate the Assemblage Point to improve mental and physical performance and accelerate personal growth; and more.

Nouns of Assemblage

Nouns of Assemblage PDF Author: Riley Michael Parker
Publisher: Housefire
ISBN: 9781937395001
Category : Organisms
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
NOUNS OF ASSEMBLAGE collects sixty-three of the strongest voices in small press fiction, from J. A. Tyler to xTx, from Kevin Sampsell to Cameron C. Pierce, with stories ranging from romantic to absurd to over-the-top violent and back again, covering the full gamut of what small press has to offer. Every story in this collection was written from a different collective noun, or "noun of assemblage," such as A MURDER OF CROW (by Tyler Gobble), or A LITTER OF PUPS (by Joseph Riippi), or A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS (by Frank Hinton), and none of these stories are available anywhere else. This is the first official title from HOUSEFIRE, the innovative and groundbreaking publishing company located in Portland Oregon.

African Paleoecology and Human Evolution

African Paleoecology and Human Evolution PDF Author: Sally C. Reynolds
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107074037
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 597

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Book Description
A comprehensive account of hominin fossil sites across Africa, including the environmental and ecological evidence central to our understanding of human evolution.

Decentering Subjectivity in Everyday Eating and Drinking

Decentering Subjectivity in Everyday Eating and Drinking PDF Author: Ali Lara
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000208745
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 164

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Book Description
This important book offers a model to analyze the configurations of reality as manifested in everyday practices of eating and drinking in relation to the development of human subjectivity. The author uses concrete examples from daily life related to eating and drinking habits such as "eating tacos" or "taking a shot of mezcal", to offer an interface of interaction between body/mind and material entities connecting all scales of reality. Borrowing scientific insights from molecular biology and neuroscience, combined with a touch of decolonial spirit, the author examines specific 'processes' and/or 'objects' triggered by eating and drinking events, such as the production of heat as you eat a taco, or the interchange of knowledge while drinking mezcal. The book develops an approach to human subjectivity informed by material and aesthetic encounters beyond the analysis of language, representation, and social structures and aims to contribute to the contemporary landscape of efforts decentering our understanding of both human and non-human affairs. With its multidimensional exploration of our relationship with food, this is thought-provoking reading for scholars and students in critical psychology, philosophy, and the social sciences.

The Mystery of Spirit

The Mystery of Spirit PDF Author: George Robbins
Publisher: Balboa Press
ISBN: 1982233796
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 569

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Book Description
Focusing on techniques of spiritual development and awareness of the presence of spirit in ordinary life, Robbins challenges the reader to move beyond spiritual blockages and obstacles and raise the vibrational frequencies that bring us to greater enlightenment. This reduces negative emotions such as despair, meaninglessness, and unhappiness. Robbins wants to help us increase our pro-social activity thereby contributing to a more open-minded service towards others. In this book he shows how to use effective techniques for practical and spiritual change while following a path of heart.

Brain, Self and Consciousness

Brain, Self and Consciousness PDF Author: Sangeetha Menon
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 8132215818
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This book discusses consciousness from the perspectives of neuroscience, neuropsychiatry and philosophy. It develops a novel approach in consciousness studies by charting the pathways in which the brain challenges the self and the self challenges the brain. The author argues that the central issue in brain studies is to explain the unity, continuity, and adherence of experience, whether it is sensory or mental awareness, phenomenal- or self-consciousness. To address such a unity is to understand mutual challenges that the brain and the self pose for each other. The fascinating discussions that this book presents are: How do the brain and self create the conspiracy of experience where the physicality of the brain is lost in the subjectivity of the self?