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Author: Paul M. Churchland
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262530743
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
In "Matter and Consciousness," Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues. Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism. "A Bradford Book"
Author: Paul M. Churchland
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262530743
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204
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Book Description
In "Matter and Consciousness," Paul Churchland clearly presents the advantages and disadvantages of such difficult issues in philosophy of mind as behaviorism, reductive materialism, functionalism, and eliminative materialism. This new edition incorporates the striking developments that have taken place in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence and notes their expanding relevance to philosophical issues. Churchland organizes and clarifies the new theoretical and experimental results of the natural sciences for a wider philosophical audience, observing that this research bears directly on questions concerning the basic elements of cognitive activity and their implementation in real physical systems. (How is it, he asks, that living creatures perform some cognitive tasks so swiftly and easily, where computers do them only badly or not at all?) Most significant for philosophy, Churchland asserts, is the support these results tend to give to the reductive and the eliminative versions of materialism. "A Bradford Book"
Author: Rupert Spira
Publisher: New Harbinger Publications
ISBN: 1684030021
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 198
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Book Description
“I’ve gained deeper understanding listening to Rupert Spira than I have from any other exponent of modern spirituality. Reality is sending us a message we desperately need to hear, and at this moment no messenger surpasses Spira and the transformative words in his essays.” —Deepak Chopra, author of You Are the Universe, Spiritual Solutions, and Super Brain Our world culture is founded on the assumption that the Big Bang gave rise to matter, which in time evolved into the world, into which the body was born, inside which a brain appeared, out of which consciousness at some late stage developed. As a result of this “matter model,” most of us believe that consciousness is a property of the body. We feel that it is “I,” this body, that knows or is aware of the world. We believe and feel that the knowing with which we are aware of our experience is located in and shares the limits and destiny of the body. This is the fundamental presumption of mind and matter that underpins almost all our thoughts and feelings and is expressed in our activities and relationships. The Nature of Consciousness suggests that the matter model has outlived its function and is now destroying the very values it once sought to promote. For many people, the debate as to the ultimate reality of the universe is an academic one, far removed from the concerns and demands of everyday life. After all, life happens independently of our models of it. However, The Nature of Consciousness will clearly show that the materialist paradigm is a philosophy of despair and, as such, the root cause of unhappiness in individuals. It is a philosophy of conflict and, as such, the root cause of hostilities between families, communities, and nations. Far from being abstract and philosophical, its implications touch each one of us directly and intimately. An exploration of the nature of consciousness has the power to reveal the peace and happiness that truly lie at the heart of experience. Our experience never ceases to change, but the knowing element in all experience—consciousness, or what we call “I”—itself never changes. The knowing with which all experience is known is always the same knowing. Being the common, unchanging element in all experience, consciousness does not share the qualities of any particular experience: it is not qualified, conditioned, or limited by experience. The knowing with which a feeling of loneliness or sorrow is known is the same knowing with which the thought of a friend, the sight of a sunset, or the taste of ice cream is known. Just as a screen is never disturbed by the action in a movie, so consciousness is never disturbed by experience; thus it is inherently peaceful. The peace that is inherent in us—indeed that is us—is not dependent on the situations or conditions we find ourselves in. In a series of essays that draw you, through your own direct experience, into an exploration of the nature of this knowing element that each of us calls “I,” The Nature of Consciousness posits that consciousness is the fundamental reality of the apparent duality of mind and matter. It shows that the overlooking or ignoring of this reality is the root cause of the existential unhappiness that pervades and motivates most people’s lives, as well as the wider conflicts that exist between communities and nations. Conversely, the book suggests that the recognition of the fundamental reality of consciousness is the first step in the quest for lasting happiness and the foundation for world peace.
Author: Trish Pfeiffer
Publisher: Iff Books
ISBN: 9781846940576
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
Materialism is the dominant worldview in the West today. But it is only one worldview, and it doesn't completely work, even, ironically, being gradually undermined by the science that gave rise to it. Containing the last unpublished writing of Pulitzer prize-winning author and scholar, the late John Mack, this anthology of essays from significant figures in the world of science and consciousness studies sketches the framework for a new model of realit--one based on the primacy of consciousness rather than of matter. It is a model we will need for survival on this planet. Mind Before Matter represents the first concerted salvo in a debate that could affect the worldview held by the modern, dominant culture.
Author: Gerald M. Edelman
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786722584
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 345
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Book Description
What goes on in our head when we have a thought? Why do the physical events that occur inside a fistful of gelatinous tissue give rise to the world of conscious experience? In The Universe of Consciousness , Gerald Edelman and Giulio Tononi present for the first time a full-scale theory of consciousness based on direct observation of the human brain in action. Their pioneering work, presented here in an elegant style, challenges much of the conventional wisdom about consciousness. The Universe of Consciousness has enormous implications for our understanding of language, thought, emotion, and mental illness.
Author: Frederique De Vignemont
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262036835
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 425
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Book Description
An interdisciplinary and comprehensive treatment of bodily self-consciousness, considering representation of the body, the sense of bodily ownership, and representation of the self. The body may be the object we know the best. It is the only object from which we constantly receive a flow of information through sight and touch; and it is the only object we can experience from the inside, through our proprioceptive, vestibular, and visceral senses. Yet there have been very few books that have attempted to consolidate our understanding of the body as it figures in our experience and self-awareness. This volume offers an interdisciplinary and comprehensive treatment of bodily self-awareness, the first book to do so since the landmark 1995 collection The Body and the Self, edited by José Bermúdez, Naomi Eilan, and Anthony Marcel (MIT Press). Since 1995, the study of the body in such psychological disciplines as cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, and neuropsychology has advanced dramatically, accompanied by a resurgence of philosophical interest in the significance of the body in our mental life. The sixteen specially commissioned essays in this book reflect the advances in these fields. The book is divided into three parts, each part covering a topic central to an explanation of bodily self-awareness: representation of the body; the sense of bodily ownership; and representation of the self. Contributors Adrian Alsmith, Brianna Beck, José Luis Bermúdez, Anna Berti, Alexandre Billon, Andrew J. Bremner, Lucilla Cardinali, Tony Cheng, Frédérique de Vignemont, Francesca Fardo, Alessandro Farnè, Carlotta Fossataro, Shaun Gallagher, Francesca Garbarini, Patrick Haggard, Jakob Hohwy, Matthew R. Longo, Tamar Makin, Marie Martel, Melvin Mezue, John Michael, Christopher Peacocke, Lorenzo Pia, Louise Richardson, Alice C. Roy, Manos Tsakiris, Hong Yu Wong
Author: Philip Goff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190677023
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
A core philosophical project is the attempt to uncover the fundamental nature of reality, the limited set of facts upon which all other facts depend. Perhaps the most popular theory of fundamental reality in contemporary analytic philosophy is physicalism, the view that the world is fundamentally physical in nature. The first half of this book argues that physicalist views cannot account for the evident reality of conscious experience, and hence that physicalism cannot be true. Unusually for an opponent of physicalism, Goff argues that there are big problems with the most well-known arguments against physicalismChalmers' zombie conceivability argument and Jackson's knowledge argumentand proposes significant modifications. The second half of the book explores and defends a recently rediscovered theory of fundamental realityor perhaps rather a grouping of such theoriesknown as 'Russellian monism.' Russellian monists draw inspiration from a couple of theses defended by Bertrand Russell in The Analysis of Matter in 1927. Russell argued that physics, for all its virtues, gives us a radically incomplete picture of the world. It tells us only about the extrinsic, mathematical features of material entities, and leaves us in the dark about their intrinsic nature, about how they are in and of themselves. Following Russell, Russellian monists suppose that it is this 'hidden' intrinsic nature of matter that explains human and animal consciousness. Some Russellian monists adopt panpsychism, the view that the intrinsic natures of basic material entities involve consciousness; others hold that basic material entities are proto-conscious rather than conscious. Throughout the second half of the book various forms of Russellian monism are surveyed, and the key challenges facing it are discussed. The penultimate chapter defends a cosmopsychist form of Russellian monism, according to which all facts are grounded in facts about the conscious universe.
Author: Larry Dossey, MD
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1401943772
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 385
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Book Description
In One Mind, New York Times best-selling author Larry Dossey, M.D., proposes an inspiring view of consciousness that may reshape our destiny. Dossey’s premise is that all individual minds are part of an infinite, collective dimension of consciousness he calls the One Mind. This state—which we can all access—explains phenomena as diverse as epiphanies, creative breakthroughs, premonitions of danger or disaster, near-death experiences, communication with other species and with the dead, reincarnation, the movement of herds, flocks, and schools, and remote healing.Dossey presents his theory in easily digestible, bite-sized vignettes. Through engaging stories, fascinating research, and brilliant insights from great thinkers throughout history, readers will explore the outer reaches of human consciousness, discover a new way to interpret the great mysteries of our experience, and learn how to develop the empathy necessary to engender more love, peace, and collective awareness. The result is a rich new understanding of what it means to be human and a renewed hope that we can successfully confront the challenges we face at this crossroads in human history.Even before publication One Mind drew praise from the finest minds of our time. It has been heralded as "landmark," "a brilliant synthesis," a "magnum opus," a "feast" of ideas, "compelling," "gripping," and "a major shift in our understanding of consciousness."
Author: Bernardo Kastrup
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1785357409
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 292
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Book Description
A rigorous case for the primacy of mind in nature, from philosophy to neuroscience, psychology and physics. The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from ten original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. The case begins with an exposition of the logical fallacies and internal contradictions of the reigning physicalist ontology and its popular alternatives, such as bottom-up panpsychism. It then advances a compelling formulation of idealism that elegantly makes sense of - and reconciles - classical and quantum worlds. The main objections to idealism are systematically refuted and empirical evidence is reviewed that corroborates the formulation presented here. The book closes with an analysis of the hidden psychological motivations behind mainstream physicalism and the implications of idealism for the way we relate to the world.
Author: Peter Carruthers
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199277362
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
Peter Carruthers's essays on consciousness and related issues have had a substantial impact on the field, and many of his best are now collected here in revised form. The first half of the volume is devoted to developing, elaborating, and defending against competitors one particular sort of reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness, which Carruthers now refers to as 'dual-content theory'. Phenomenal consciousness - the feel of experience - is supposed to constitute the 'hardproblem' for a scientific world view, and many have claimed that it is an irredeemable mystery. But Carruthers here claims to have explained it. He argues that phenomenally conscious states are ones that possess both an 'analog' (fine-grained) intentional content and a corresponding higher-orderanalog content, representing the first-order content of the experience. It is the higher-order analog content that enables our phenomenally conscious experiences to present themselves to us, and that constitutes their distinctive subjective aspect, or feel.The next two chapters explore some of the differences between conscious experience and conscious thought, and argue for the plausibility of some kind of eliminativism about conscious thinking (while retaining realism about phenomenal consciousness). Then the final four chapters focus on the minds of non-human animals. Carruthers argues that even if the experiences of animals aren't phenomenally conscious (as his account probably implies), this needn't prevent the frustrations and sufferings ofanimals from being appropriate objects of sympathy and concern. Nor need it mean that there is any sort of radical 'Cartesian divide' between our minds and theirs of deep significance for comparative psychology. In the final chapter, he argues provocatively that even insects have minds that include abelief/desire/perception psychology much like our own. So mindedness and phenomenal consciousness couldn't be further apart.Carruthers's writing throughout is distinctively clear and direct. The collection will be of great interest to anyone working in philosophy of mind or cognitive science.
Author: Philip Goff
Publisher: Pantheon
ISBN: 1524747963
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 258
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Book Description
From a leading philosopher of the mind comes this lucid, provocative argument that offers a radically new picture of human consciousness--panpsychism, an exciting alternative that could pave the way forward.ward.
