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Author: Michael Spivey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190291036
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 448
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Book Description
The cognitive and neural sciences have been on the brink of a paradigm shift for over a decade. The traditional information-processing framework in psychology, with its computer metaphor of the mind, is still considered to be the mainstream approach, but dynamical-systems accounts of mental activity are now receiving a more rigorous treatment, allowing them to more beyond merely brandishing trendy buzzwords. The Continuity of the Mind will help to galvanize the forces of dynamical systems theory, cognitive and computational neuroscience, connectionism, and ecological psychology that are needed to complete this paradigm shift. In The Continuity of the Mind Michael Spivey lays bare the fact that comprehending a spoken sentence, understanding a visual scene, or just thinking about the days events involves the serial coalescing of different neuronal activation patterns, i.e., a state-space trajectory that flirts with a series of point attractors. As a result, the brain cannot help but spend most of its time instantiating patterns of activity that are in between identifiable mental states rather than in them. When this scenario is combined with the fact that most cognitive processes are richly embedded in their environmental context in real time, the state space (in which brief visitations of attractor basins are your thoughts) suddenly encompasses not just neuronal dimensions, but extends to biomechanical and environmental dimensions as well. As a result, your moment-by-moment experience of the world around you, even right now, can be described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional state space that is comprised of diverse mental states. Spivey has arranged The Continuity of the Mind to present a systematic overview of how perception, cognition, and action are partially overlapping segments of one continuous mental flow, rather than three distinct mental systems. The initial chapters provide empirical demonstrations of the gray areas in mental activity that happen in between discretely labeled mental events, as well as geometric visualizations of attractors in state space that make the dynamical-systems framework seem less mathematically abstract. The middle chapters present scores of behavioral and neurophysiological studies that portray the continuous temporal dynamics inherent in categorization, language comprehension, visual perception, as well as attention, action, and reasoning. The final chapters conclude with discussions of what the mind itself must look like if its activity is continuous in time and its contents are distributed in state space.
Author: Michael Spivey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190291036
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Get Book Here
Book Description
The cognitive and neural sciences have been on the brink of a paradigm shift for over a decade. The traditional information-processing framework in psychology, with its computer metaphor of the mind, is still considered to be the mainstream approach, but dynamical-systems accounts of mental activity are now receiving a more rigorous treatment, allowing them to more beyond merely brandishing trendy buzzwords. The Continuity of the Mind will help to galvanize the forces of dynamical systems theory, cognitive and computational neuroscience, connectionism, and ecological psychology that are needed to complete this paradigm shift. In The Continuity of the Mind Michael Spivey lays bare the fact that comprehending a spoken sentence, understanding a visual scene, or just thinking about the days events involves the serial coalescing of different neuronal activation patterns, i.e., a state-space trajectory that flirts with a series of point attractors. As a result, the brain cannot help but spend most of its time instantiating patterns of activity that are in between identifiable mental states rather than in them. When this scenario is combined with the fact that most cognitive processes are richly embedded in their environmental context in real time, the state space (in which brief visitations of attractor basins are your thoughts) suddenly encompasses not just neuronal dimensions, but extends to biomechanical and environmental dimensions as well. As a result, your moment-by-moment experience of the world around you, even right now, can be described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional state space that is comprised of diverse mental states. Spivey has arranged The Continuity of the Mind to present a systematic overview of how perception, cognition, and action are partially overlapping segments of one continuous mental flow, rather than three distinct mental systems. The initial chapters provide empirical demonstrations of the gray areas in mental activity that happen in between discretely labeled mental events, as well as geometric visualizations of attractors in state space that make the dynamical-systems framework seem less mathematically abstract. The middle chapters present scores of behavioral and neurophysiological studies that portray the continuous temporal dynamics inherent in categorization, language comprehension, visual perception, as well as attention, action, and reasoning. The final chapters conclude with discussions of what the mind itself must look like if its activity is continuous in time and its contents are distributed in state space.
Author: Michael Spivey Professor of Psychology Cornell University
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0198038151
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 446
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Book Description
The cognitive and neural sciences have been on the brink of a paradigm shift for over a decade. The traditional information-processing framework in psychology, with its computer metaphor of the mind, is still considered to be the mainstream approach, but dynamical-systems accounts of mental activity are now receiving a more rigorous treatment, allowing them to more beyond merely brandishing trendy buzzwords. The Continuity of the Mind will help to galvanize the forces of dynamical systems theory, cognitive and computational neuroscience, connectionism, and ecological psychology that are needed to complete this paradigm shift. In The Continuity of the Mind Michael Spivey lays bare the fact that comprehending a spoken sentence, understanding a visual scene, or just thinking about the days events involves the serial coalescing of different neuronal activation patterns, i.e., a state-space trajectory that flirts with a series of point attractors. As a result, the brain cannot help but spend most of its time instantiating patterns of activity that are in between identifiable mental states rather than in them. When this scenario is combined with the fact that most cognitive processes are richly embedded in their environmental context in real time, the state space (in which brief visitations of attractor basins are your thoughts) suddenly encompasses not just neuronal dimensions, but extends to biomechanical and environmental dimensions as well. As a result, your moment-by-moment experience of the world around you, even right now, can be described as a continuous trajectory through a high-dimensional state space that is comprised of diverse mental states. Spivey has arranged The Continuity of the Mind to present a systematic overview of how perception, cognition, and action are partially overlapping segments of one continuous mental flow, rather than three distinct mental systems. The initial chapters provide empirical demonstrations of the gray areas in mental activity that happen in between discretely labeled mental events, as well as geometric visualizations of attractors in state space that make the dynamical-systems framework seem less mathematically abstract. The middle chapters present scores of behavioral and neurophysiological studies that portray the continuous temporal dynamics inherent in categorization, language comprehension, visual perception, as well as attention, action, and reasoning. The final chapters conclude with discussions of what the mind itself must look like if its activity is continuous in time and its contents are distributed in state space.
Author: Ervin Laszlo
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 162055304X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 136
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Book Description
Scientific evidence for the continual presence of consciousness with or without connection to a living organism • Examines findings on the survival of consciousness beyond life, including near-death experiences, after-death communication, and reincarnation • Explains how this correlates precisely with cutting-edge physics theories on superstrings, information fields, and energy matrices • Reveals how consciousness manifests in living beings to continue its evolution Evidence now points to consciousness existing beyond the brain, such as when the brain is temporarily incapacitated, as well as to the survival of consciousness after death. Conventional science prefers to dismiss these findings because they cannot be accommodated by a materialist view of reality. Spirituality and religion embrace the continuity of consciousness and ascribe it to a nonmaterial spirit or soul that is immortal. As such, spirituality/religion and science continually find conflict in their views. But what if there truly is no conflict? Based on a new scientific paradigm in sync with experience-based spirituality, Ervin Laszlo and Anthony Peake explore how consciousness is continually present in the cosmos and can exist without connection to a living organism. They examine the rapidly growing body of scientific evidence supporting the continuity of consciousness, including near-death experiences, after-death communication, reincarnation, and neurosensory information received in altered states. They explain how the persistence of consciousness beyond the demise of the body means that, in essence, we are not mortal--we continue to exist even when our physical existence has come to an end. This correlates precisely with cutting-edge physics, which posits that things in our plane of time and space are not intrinsically real but are manifestations of a hidden dimension where they exist in the form of superstrings, information fields, and energy matrices. With proof that consciousness is basic to the cosmos and immortal in its deeper, nonmanifest realm, Laszlo and Peake reveal the purpose of consciousness is to manifest in living beings in order to continuously evolve.
Author: Michela Bella
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498560636
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
Ontology after Philosophical Psychology addresses the question of William James’s continuity of consciousness, with a view to its possible actualizations. In particular, Michela Bella critically delineates James's discourse. In the wake of Darwin's theory of evolution at the end of the nineteenth century, James's reflections emerged in the field of physiological psychology, where he developed for the case for a renewed epistemology and a new metaphysical framework to help us understand the most interesting theories and scientific discoveries about the human mind. Bella’s analysis of the theme of continuity makes it possible to appreciate, both historically and theoretically, the importance of James's gradual transition from making observations of experimental psychology on the continuity of thought to developing an epistemological and ontological argument that continuity is a characteristic of experience and reality. This analysis makes it possible both to clarify James's position in relation to his historical context and to highlight the most original results of his work.
Author: M.V. Slors
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401732760
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
vii 1 ~OOUCTIONANOOVERVlliW 1 2 SEITING THE STAGE: PERSONAL IDENTITY ANO THE MErAPHYSICS OFMIND 1. Introduction 6 2. The Problem of Personal Identity over Time 7 3. The Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity over Time 12 4. The Neo-Lockean Psychological Criterion of Personal Identity 16 5. The Circularity Objection 19 6. Problems of Logical Form 21 7. The Lack of a Third-Person Criterion for Reidentification 23 8. The Unity of the Mental Bundle 25 9. The Individuation ofPersons 26 10. The Neo-Lockean Criterion and Physicalism: a 'Natural' Alliance 28 11. One 'Solution' to Five Problems 35 3 PARFIT'S REDUcrIO OF A SUBSTRATUM-ORIENTEO CONCEPfION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUlTY 43 1. Introduction 2. Relation R 45 51 3. Relation R and the Neo-Lockian Paradigm 4. Psychological Atomism 56 61 5. The Central Place of Q-Memory in the Neo-Lockean Paradigm 64 6. The Trouble with Q-memory 74 7. Contents and Contexts. The Other Four Problems 79 8. Conclusions 4 A CON1ENT-ORIENTEO CONCEPTION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTINUITY 82 1. Introduction 83 2. Two Kinds of Psychological Continuity 91 3. Levels of N-Continuity 93 4. The Unity of N-Continuous Sequences. The Role of the Body 105 5. N-Continuity and Psychological Connectedness 109 6. Summary vi 5 A PSYCHOLOGICAL CRI1ERION OF PERSONAL IDENTITY: THE AVE PROBLEMS REVISITED 1. Introduction 111 2. Circularity, Q-Memory, and N-Continuity 112 119 3. Narrativity and Logical Form 127 4. Third-Person Criteria of Reidentification: The Role of the Body 5.
Author: Sergio Torres-Mart’nez
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359759874
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
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: Barry Dainton
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 9780415379298
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 304
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Book Description
An in-depth investigation into the phenomenology of conscious experience - the nature of awareness; introspection; phenomenal space and time consciousness. A fascinating and probing study.
Author: Michael Rutter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Child development
Languages : en
Pages : 436
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Book Description
This is a book about growing up - the process of development from the cradle to the coffin and all the life changes in between. It covers growth from infancy to adolescence and beyond including changes at puberty and responses to it, social relationships including attachment to parents and later to partners, family interaction, the development of language and intelligence, emotional development, psychosexual development, stress, aggression and work.
Author: Carrie Figdor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192537350
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256
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Book Description
Psychological terms are widely used to describe the biological world: plants, insects, bacteria colonies, even single cells are described as making decisions, anticipating rewards, and communicating with language. Carrie Figdor presents a comprehensive critical assessment of the interpretation of psychological terms across biological domains. She argues that we interpret these descriptions as literal claims about the capacities of such beings, and she argues against the anthropocentric attitude which takes human cognition as the standard for full-blooded capacities, to which nonhuman capacities are compared and found wanting. She offers an alternative view of what is required for a naturalistic explanation of the mind, and promotes finding a non-anthropocentric framework for determining distinctions in moral status. This is the first book to give a comprehensive theory of the interpretation of mental language throughout biology and to emphasize the role of mathematical modeling in the spread and revision of concepts.
