Life And Mind

Download or read book Mind in Life written by Evan Thompson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.

Download or read book The Life of the Mind written by Christine Smallwood and published by Hogarth. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR, The Atlantic, Electric Lit, Thrillist, LitHub, Kirkus Reviews • A witty, intelligent novel of an American woman on the edge, by a brilliant new voice in fiction—“the glorious love child of Ottessa Moshfegh and Sally Rooney” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) “[A] jewel of a debut . . . abundantly satisfying.”—Jia Tolentino, The New Yorker As an adjunct professor of English in New York City with little hope of finding a permanent position, Dorothy feels “like a janitor in the temple who continued to sweep because she had nowhere else to be but who had lost her belief in the essential sanctity of the enterprise.” No one but her boyfriend knows that she’s just had a miscarriage—not her mother, her best friend, or her therapists (Dorothy has two of them). She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be a mother. So why does Dorothy feel like a failure? The Life of the Mind is a book about endings—of youth, of ambition, of possibility, but also of the meaning that an inquiring mind can find in the mess of daily experience. Mordant and remorselessly wise, this jewel of a debut cuts incisively into life as we live it, and how we think of it.

Download or read book Mind and Life written by Pier Luigi Luisi and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2010-12-20 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists, philosophers and Buddhist scholars discuss the nature of reality in a book that goes inside a Mind and Life Institute conference. For over a decade, members of the Mind and Life Institute have gathered to discuss questions that are both fundamental and profound: can physics, chemistry, and biology explain the mystery of life? How do our philosophical assumptions influence science and the ethics we bring to biotechnology? And how does an ancient spiritual tradition throw new light on these questions? In Mind and Life, Pier Luigi Luisi reproduces this stimulating cross-cultural dialogue in which world-class scientists, philosophers, and Buddhist scholars develop a holistic approach to the exploration of reality. He also adds scientific background to their presentations, as well as supplementary discussions with prominent participants and attendees. Interviews with His Holiness the Karmapa, the Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, and the actor and longtime human rights advocate Richard Gere further enrich the material with personal viewpoints. Conversation topics range from the origin of matter to the nature of evolution, the ethics of genetic manipulation, and the question of consciousness and ethics.

Download or read book Mind, Life and Universe written by Lynn Margulis and published by Chelsea Green Publishing. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly forty of the world's most esteemed scientists discuss the big questions that drive their illustrious careers. Co-editor Eduardo Punset—one of Spain's most loved personages for his popularization of the sciences—interviews an impressive collection of characters drawing out the seldom seen personalities of the world's most important men and woman of science. In Mind, Life and Universe they describe in their own words the most important and fascinating aspects of their research. Frank and often irreverent, these interviews will keep even the most casual reader of science books rapt for hours. Can brain science explain feelings of happiness and despair? Is it true that chimpanzees are just like us when it comes to sexual innuendo? Is there any hard evidence that life exists anywhere other than on the Earth? Through Punset's skillful questioning, readers will meet one scientist who is passionate about the genetic control of everything and another who spends her every waking hour making sure African ecosystems stay intact. The men and women assembled here by Lynn Margulis and Eduardo Punset will provide a source of endless interest. In captivating conversations with such science luminaries as Jane Goodall, James E. Lovelock, Oliver Sachs, and E. O. Wilson, Punset reveals a hidden world of intellectual interests, verve, and humor. Science enthusiasts and general readers alike will devour Mind, Life and Universe, breathless and enchanted by its truths.

Download or read book Cooperation and Its Evolution written by Kim Sterelny and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2024-08-06 with total page 587 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays from a range of disciplinary perspectives show the central role that cooperation plays in structuring our world. This collection reports on the latest research on an increasingly pivotal issue for evolutionary biology: cooperation. The chapters are written from a variety of disciplinary perspectives and utilize research tools that range from empirical survey to conceptual modeling, reflecting the rich diversity of work in the field. They explore a wide taxonomic range, concentrating on bacteria, social insects, and, especially, humans. Part I ("Agents and Environments") investigates the connections of social cooperation in social organizations to the conditions that make cooperation profitable and stable, focusing on the interactions of agent, population, and environment. Part II ("Agents and Mechanisms") focuses on how proximate mechanisms emerge and operate in the evolutionary process and how they shape evolutionary trajectories. Throughout the book, certain themes emerge that demonstrate the ubiquity of questions regarding cooperation in evolutionary biology: the generation and division of the profits of cooperation; transitions in individuality; levels of selection, from gene to organism; and the "human cooperation explosion" that makes our own social behavior particularly puzzling from an evolutionary perspective. Bradford Books imprint

Download or read book Mind written by John Rowan Wilson and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sigmund Freud written by Helen W. Puner and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-02-13 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freud's development of psychoanalysis is one of the great fault lines of twentieth-century cultural history. The field as such provides one of the great professional dramas of our time: a classic struggle between a new, vital idea and the ignorance, prejudice and refusal that so often attend major breakthroughs and innovations. Helen Puner's biography is far more than a professional appreciation. It is the story of a complex, by no means flawless individual, whose personal characteristics helped sow the seeds of controversy as well as ultimately establish a new field. Upon its initial appearance, the Herald Tribune identified the book as "the first authoritative and profoundly perceptive biography of the man who more than any other has shaped the thinking of the Western World." It was summarized as a "brilliant performance, done without fear."Puner did precisely what irritated Freud most: probe the sources, social no less than personal, religious no less than scientific, that made Freud such a towering figure. Dorothy Canfield caught the spirit of this work when she noted that in this book, we see Freud "as we never saw him before, as most of us never knew he was, a rigidly virtuous, deeply troubled, upright, dutiful Jewish son, husband and father. We see him tracing the significance of clues he hit upon in the practice of medicine, and then fit these clues into the bewildering mastery of human behavior."In his Foreword, Erich Fromm indicates that Puner looks at Freud with genuine admiration, but without idolatry. "She understands his own psychological problems and has a full appreciation of the pseudo-religious nature of the movement which he created." And the late Ernest Becker, in The Denial of Death, seconded this estimate by calling the Helen Walker Puner effort "a brilliant critical biography." This new edition contains a new introduction by Paul Roazen; with this, and the appreciation of the author by her husband, Samuel Puner, we can better locate the author of the book as well as the famous object of her analysis.