The Problem Of The Soul

The Problem Of The Soul PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465024610
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book

Book Description
A reconciliation of two conflicting visions of what a person is--one embedded in our humanistic traditions, the other advanced by mind science--from one of the most influential philosophers of our time

Visions of Mind

Visions of Mind PDF Author: Darryl N. Davis
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 1591404827
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 360

Get Book

Book Description
"What is mind?" "Can we build synthetic or artificial minds?" Think these questions are only reserved for Science Fiction? Well, not anymore. This collection presents a diverse overview of where the development of artificial minds is as the twenty first century begins. Examined from nearly all viewpoints, Visions of Mind includes perspectives from philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, social studies and artificial intelligence. This collection comes largely as a result of many conferences and symposiums conducted by many of the leading minds on this topic. At the core is Professor Aaron Sloman's symposium from the spring 2000 UK Society for Artificial Intelligence conference. Authors from that symposium, as well as others from around the world have updated their perspectives and contributed to this powerful book. The result is a multi-disciplinary approach to the long term problem of designing a human-like mind, whether for scientific, social, or engineering purposes. The topics addressed within this text are valuable to both artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and also to the academic disciplines that they draw on and feed. Among those disciplines are philosophy, computer science, and psychology.

The Problem Of The Soul

The Problem Of The Soul PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher:
ISBN: 0465024610
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book

Book Description
A reconciliation of two conflicting visions of what a person is--one embedded in our humanistic traditions, the other advanced by mind science--from one of the most influential philosophers of our time

Visions of Discovery

Visions of Discovery PDF Author: Raymond Y. Chiao
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0521882397
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 827

Get Book

Book Description
World-leading researchers, including Nobel Laureates, explore the most basic questions of science, philosophy, and the nature of existence.

Visions of Mind

Visions of Mind PDF Author: Darryl N. Davis
Publisher: IGI Global
ISBN: 9781591404835
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 364

Get Book

Book Description
This collection presents a diverse overview of advances in the development of artificial minds as the 21st century begins. Authors from the 2000 UK Society for Artificial Intelligence conference and others from around the world contributed to this multi-disciplinary approach to the long-term problem of designing a human-like mind for scientific, social or engineering purposes.

Visions of the Night

Visions of the Night PDF Author: Kelly Bulkeley
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780791442845
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book

Book Description
This wide-ranging exploration of the spiritual and scientific dimensions of dreaming offers new connections between the ancient wisdom of the world's religious traditions, which have always taught that dreams reveal divine truths, and the recent findings of modern psychological research. Drawing upon philosophy, anthropology, sociology, neurology, literature, and film criticism, the book offers a better understanding of the mysterious complexity and startling creative powers of human dreaming experience. For those interested in gaining new perspectives on dreaming, the powers of the imagination, and the newest frontiers in the dialogue between religion and science, Visions of the Night promises to be a welcome resource.

Inner Vision

Inner Vision PDF Author: Semir Zeki
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780198505198
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Get Book

Book Description
Beautifully illustrated and vividly written, "Inner Vision" explores how different areas of the brain shape responses to visual arts. 84 color illustrations. 8 halftones. 30 line illustrations.

The Mind's Eye

The Mind's Eye PDF Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307594556
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Get Book

Book Description
In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties. There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read. And there is Dr. Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side. Sacks explores some very strange paradoxes—people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper-visual or who navigate by “tongue vision.” He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery—or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading? The Mind’s Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person’s eyes, or another person’s mind.

The Problem Of The Soul

The Problem Of The Soul PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 0786725311
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Get Book

Book Description
Science has always created problems for traditional ways of seeing things, but now the very attributes that make us human--free will, the permanence of personal identity, the existence of the soul--are threatened by the science of the mind. If the mind is the brain, and therefore a physical object subject to deterministic laws, how can we have free will? If most of our thoughts and impulses are unconscious, how can we be morally responsible for what we do? If brains and bodies undergo relentless change, how can our identities be constant? The Problem of the Soul shows the way out of these paradoxes. Framing the conflict in terms of two dominant visions of the mind--the "manifest image" of humanistic philosophy and theology, and the scientific image--Owen Flanagan demonstrates that there is common ground, and that we need not give up our ideas of moral responsibility and personal freedom in order to have an empirically sound view of the human mind. This is a profoundly relevant work of philosophy for the common reader.

Visions of Glory

Visions of Glory PDF Author: John M. Pontius
Publisher: CFI
ISBN: 9781462128433
Category : RELIGION
Languages : en
Pages :

Get Book

Book Description


Dreaming Souls

Dreaming Souls PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019534958X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Get Book

Book Description
What, if anything, do dreams tell us about ourselves? What is the relationship between types of sleep and types of dreams? Does dreaming serve any purpose? Or are dreams simply meaningless mental noise--"unmusical fingers wandering over the piano keys"? With expertise in philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Owen Flanagan is uniquely qualified to answer these questions. And in Dreaming Souls he provides both an accessible survey of the latest research on sleep and dreams and a compelling new theory about the nature and function of dreaming. Flanagan argues that while sleep has a clear biological function and adaptive value, dreams are merely side effects, "free riders," irrelevant from an evolutionary point of view. But dreams are hardly unimportant. Indeed, Flanagan argues that dreams are self-expressive, the result of our need to find or to create meaning, even when we're sleeping. Rejecting Freud's theory of manifest and latent content--of repressed wishes appearing in disguised form--Flanagan shows how brainstem activity during sleep generates a jumbled profusion of memories, images, thoughts, emotions, and desires, which the cerebral cortex then attempts to shape into a more or less coherent story. Such dream-narratives range from the relatively mundane worries of non REM sleep to the fantastic confabulations of deep REM that resemble psychotic episodes in their strangeness. But however bizarre these narratives may be, they can shed light on our mental life, our well being, and our sense of self. Written with clarity, lively wit, and remarkable insight, Dreaming Souls offers a fascinating new way of apprehending one of the oldest mysteries of mental life.