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Author: Francisco J. Varela
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262261234
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience. The authors argue that only by having a sense of common ground between mind in Science and mind in experience can our understanding of cognition be more complete. Toward that end, they develop a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology and situate it in relation to other traditions such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis.
Author: Francisco J. Varela
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262261234
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 336
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Book Description
The Embodied Mind provides a unique, sophisticated treatment of the spontaneous and reflective dimension of human experience. The authors argue that only by having a sense of common ground between mind in Science and mind in experience can our understanding of cognition be more complete. Toward that end, they develop a dialogue between cognitive science and Buddhist meditative psychology and situate it in relation to other traditions such as phenomenology and psychoanalysis.
Author: Francisco J. Varela
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262335506
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 390
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Book Description
A new edition of a classic work that originated the “embodied cognition” movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices. This classic book, first published in 1991, was one of the first to propose the “embodied cognition” approach in cognitive science. It pioneered the connections between phenomenology and science and between Buddhist practices and science—claims that have since become highly influential. Through this cross-fertilization of disparate fields of study, The Embodied Mind introduced a new form of cognitive science called “enaction,” in which both the environment and first person experience are aspects of embodiment. However, enactive embodiment is not the grasping of an independent, outside world by a brain, a mind, or a self; rather it is the bringing forth of an interdependent world in and through embodied action. Although enacted cognition lacks an absolute foundation, the book shows how that does not lead to either experiential or philosophical nihilism. Above all, the book's arguments were powered by the conviction that the sciences of mind must encompass lived human experience and the possibilities for transformation inherent in human experience. This revised edition includes substantive introductions by Evan Thompson and Eleanor Rosch that clarify central arguments of the work and discuss and evaluate subsequent research that has expanded on the themes of the book, including the renewed theoretical and practical interest in Buddhism and mindfulness. A preface by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the originator of the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, contextualizes the book and describes its influence on his life and work.
Author: Thomas R. Verny
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1643138006
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 220
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Book Description
As groundbreaking synthesis that promises to shift our understanding of the mind-brain connection and its relationship with our bodies. We understand the workings of the human body as a series of interdependent physiological relationships: muscle interacts with bone as the heart responds to hormones secreted by the brain, all the way down to the inner workings of every cell. To make an organism function, no one component can work alone. In light of this, why is it that the accepted understanding that the physical phenomenon of the mind is attributed only to the brain? In The Embodied Mind, internationally renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas R. Verny sets out to redefine our concept of the mind and consciousness. He brilliantly compiles new research that points to the mind’s ties to every part of the body. The Embodied Mind collects disparate findings in physiology, genetics, and quantum physics in order to illustrate the mounting evidence that somatic cells, not just neural cells, store memory, inform genetic coding, and adapt to environmental changes—all behaviors that contribute to the mind and consciousness. Cellular memory, Verny shows, is not just an abstraction, but a well-documented scientific fact that will shift our understanding of memory. Verny describes single-celled organisms with no brains demonstrating memory, and points to the remarkable case of a French man who, despite having a brain just a fraction of the typical size, leads a normal life with a family and a job. The Embodied Mind shows how intelligence and consciousness—traits traditionally attributed to the brain alone—also permate our entire being. Bodily cells and tissues use the same molecular mechanisms for memory as our brain, making our mind more fluid and adaptable than we could have ever imaged.
Author: Mark Johnson
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022650039X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265
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Book Description
Mark Johnson is one of the great thinkers of our time on how the body shapes the mind. This book brings together a selection of essays from the past two decades that build a powerful argument that any scientifically and philosophically satisfactory view of mind and thought must ultimately explain how bodily perception and action give rise to cognition, meaning, language, action, and values. A brief account of Johnson’s own intellectual journey, through which we track some of the most important discoveries in the field over the past forty years, sets the stage. Subsequent chapters set out Johnson’s important role in embodied cognition theory, including his cofounding (with George Lakoff) of conceptual metaphor theory and, later, their theory of bodily structures and processes that underlie all meaning, conceptualization, and reasoning. A detailed account of how meaning arises from our physical engagement with our environments provides the basis for a nondualistic, nonreductive view of mind that he sees as most congruous with the latest cognitive science. A concluding section explores the implications of our embodiment for our understanding of knowledge, reason, and truth. The resulting book will be essential for all philosophers dealing with mind, thought, and language.
Author: Mark J. Rowlands
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 026228894X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 260
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Book Description
An investigation into the conceptual foundations of a new way of thinking about the mind that does not locate all cognition "in the head." There is a new way of thinking about the mind that does not locate mental processes exclusively "in the head." Some think that this expanded conception of the mind will be the basis of a new science of the mind. In this book, leading philosopher Mark Rowlands investigates the conceptual foundations of this new science of the mind. The new way of thinking about the mind emphasizes the ways in which mental processes are embodied (made up partly of extraneural bodily structures and processes), embedded (designed to function in tandem with the environment), enacted (constituted in part by action), and extended (located in the environment). The new way of thinking about the mind, Rowlands writes, is actually an old way of thinking that has taken on new form. Rowlands describes a conception of mind that had its clearest expression in phenomenology—in the work of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. He builds on these views, clarifies and renders consistent the ideas of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended mind, and develops a unified philosophical treatment of the novel conception of the mind that underlies the new science of the mind.
Author: Evan Thompson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674736885
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 561
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Book Description
How is life related to the mind? The question has long confounded philosophers and scientists, and it is this so-called explanatory gap between biological life and consciousness that Evan Thompson explores in Mind in Life. Thompson draws upon sources as diverse as molecular biology, evolutionary theory, artificial life, complex systems theory, neuroscience, psychology, Continental Phenomenology, and analytic philosophy to argue that mind and life are more continuous than has previously been accepted, and that current explanations do not adequately address the myriad facets of the biology and phenomenology of mind. Where there is life, Thompson argues, there is mind: life and mind share common principles of self-organization, and the self-organizing features of mind are an enriched version of the self-organizing features of life. Rather than trying to close the explanatory gap, Thompson marshals philosophical and scientific analyses to bring unprecedented insight to the nature of life and consciousness. This synthesis of phenomenology and biology helps make Mind in Life a vital and long-awaited addition to his landmark volume The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience (coauthored with Eleanor Rosch and Francisco Varela). Endlessly interesting and accessible, Mind in Life is a groundbreaking addition to the fields of the theory of the mind, life science, and phenomenology.
Author: Thomas Fuchs
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199646880
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 371
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Book Description
Part 1: Criticism of neurobiological reductionism 1 Cosmos in the head? 1.1 The idealistic legacy of brain research 1.2 First criticism: embodied perception 1.2.1 Perception and motion 1.2.2 The coextension of lived body and physical body 1.3 Second criticism: The objectivity of the phenomenal world 1.3.1 The space of perception 1.3.2 The objectivising achievement of perception 1.4 Third criticism: the reality of colours 1.5 Summary 2 The brain as the subjects heir? 2.1 First critique: the irreducibility of subjectivity 2.1.1 Phenomenal consciousness 2.1.2 Intentionality 2.1.2.1 Intentionality and phenomenal consciousness 2.1.2.2 Intentionality and representation 2.2 Second criticism: category mistakes 2.2.1 The mereological fallacy 2.2.2 The localisation fallacy 2.3 Third criticism: the powerless subject? 2.3.1 The unity of action 2.3.2 The role of consciousness 2.4 Summary: the primacy of the lifeworld Part 2: Body, person, and the brain 3 Foundations: subjectivity and life 3.1 Embodied subjectivity 3.1.1 The body as subject 3.1.2 The dual aspect of subjective and physical body 3.1.3 The dual aspect of life 3.2 Ecological and enactive biology 3.2.1 Self-organisation and autonomy 3.2.2 Dependency and exchange between organism and environment 3.2.3 Subjectivity 3.2.4 Summary 3.3 The circular and integral causality of living beings 3.3.1 Vertical circular causality 3.3.2 Horizontal circular causality 3.3.3 Integral causality and its basis in capacities 3.3.4 The formation of capacities through body memory 3.3.5 Summary 4 The brain as organ of the living being 4.1 The brain in the context of the organism 4.1.1 The inner milieu 4.1.2 The feeling of being alive 4.1.3 Higher levels of consciousness 4.1.4 Embodied affectivity 4.1.4 Summary 4.2 The unity of brain, organism and environment 4.2.1 Linear versus circular organism-environment-relations 4.2.2 Consciousness as integral 4.2.3 Neuroplasticity and the incorporation of experience 4.2.4 Transformation and transparency: the brain as resonance organ 4.2.5 Information, representation and resonance 4.2.5.1 Information 4.2.5.2 Representation 4.2.5.3 Patterns and resonance 4.2.6 Conclusion: mediated immediacy 5 The brain as organ of the person 5.1 Primary intersubjectivity 5.1.1 Prenatal development 5.1.2 Intercorporeality and interaffectivity 5.1.3 Intercorporeal memory 5.2 Neurobiological foundations 5.2.1 The attachment system 5.2.2 The social resonance system (mirror neurons) 5.2.2.1 Foundations 5.2.2.2 Simulation or resonance? 5.3 Secondary intersubjectivity 5.3.1 The nine-month revolution 5.3.2 The embodied development of language 5.3.2.1 Language as social practice 5.3.2.2 Neurobiological foundations 5.3.3 Outlook: language, thought and perspective-taking 5.4 Summary: brain and culture 6 The concept of dual aspectivity 6.1 Mental, physical and life attributes 6.2 Differentiation from identity theories 6.3 Emergence 219 6.3.1 The primacy of function 219 6.3.2 Downward causality and dual aspectivity 6.4 Consequences for psychophysical relations 6.4.1 Intentional and psychological determination of physiological processes 6.4.2 Embodied freedom 6.4.2.1 A phenomenology of decision-making 6.4.2.2 Free will and integral causality 6.4.3 Psychosomatic and somatopsychic interrelations 6.5 Summary 7 Implications for psychiatry and psychological medicine 7.1 Neurobiological reductionism in psychiatry 7.2 Mental disorders as circular processes 7.2.1 Vertical circularity 7.2.2 Horizontal circularity 7.2.3 Synopsis 7.3 Circular causality in pathogenesis 7.3.1 Etiology of depression 7.3.2 The development of vulnerability 7.3.3 Summary 7.4 Circular processes in therapy 7.4.1 Somatic therapy 7.4.2 Psychotherapy 7.4.3 Comparison of therapeutic approaches 7.5 Summary: the role of subjectivity 8 Conclusion 8.1 Brain and person 8.2 The scope of neurobiological research 8.3 Naturalistic versus personalistic concept of the human being.
Author: Manuel DeLanda
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509519068
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 155
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Book Description
Until quite recently, almost no philosophers trained in the continental tradition saw anything of value in realism. The situation in analytic philosophy was always different, but in continental philosophy realism was usually treated as a pseudo-problem. That is no longer the case. In this provocative new book, two leading philosophers examine the remarkable rise of realism in the continental tradition. While exploring the similarities and differences in their own positions, they also consider the work of others and assess rival trends in contemporary philosophy. They begin by discussing the relation between realism and materialism, which DeLanda links closely but which Harman tries to separate. Part Two covers the many different meanings of realism, with the two authors working together to develop an expanded definition of the term. Part Three features a spirited exchange on the respective virtues and drawbacks of DeLanda's realism of attractors and singularities and Harman's object-oriented theory. Part Four shifts to the question of the knowability of the real, as the authors discuss whether scientific knowledge does full justice to reality. In Part Five, they shift the focus to space, time, and science more generally, and here Harman offers a defence of actor-network theory despite its obvious anti-realist elements. Lively, accessible and engaging, this book is the best attempt so far to clarify the different paths for realism in continental philosophy. It will be of great value to students and scholars of continental philosophy and to anyone interested in the cutting-edge debates in philosophy and critical theory today.
Author: Jeanette Bopry
Publisher: Imprint Academic
ISBN: 9780907845928
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 102
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Book Description
A volume dedicated to the life and work of Francisco Varela, this is an issue of the journal "Cybernetics and Human Knowing".
Author: Evan Thompson
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231538316
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 497
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Book Description
A renowned philosopher of the mind, also known for his groundbreaking work on Buddhism and cognitive science, Evan Thompson combines the latest neuroscience research on sleep, dreaming, and meditation with Indian and Western philosophy of mind, casting new light on the self and its relation to the brain. Thompson shows how the self is a changing process, not a static thing. When we are awake we identify with our body, but if we let our mind wander or daydream, we project a mentally imagined self into the remembered past or anticipated future. As we fall asleep, the impression of being a bounded self distinct from the world dissolves, but the self reappears in the dream state. If we have a lucid dream, we no longer identify only with the self within the dream. Our sense of self now includes our dreaming self, the "I" as dreamer. Finally, as we meditate—either in the waking state or in a lucid dream—we can observe whatever images or thoughts arise and how we tend to identify with them as "me." We can also experience sheer awareness itself, distinct from the changing contents that make up our image of the self. Contemplative traditions say that we can learn to let go of the self, so that when we die we can witness its dissolution with equanimity. Thompson weaves together neuroscience, philosophy, and personal narrative to depict these transformations, adding uncommon depth to life's profound questions. Contemplative experience comes to illuminate scientific findings, and scientific evidence enriches the vast knowledge acquired by contemplatives.
