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This text originates from the second of two conferences discussing the concept of consciousness. In 15 sections, this book demonstrates the broad range of fields now focusing on consciousness.
This book results from a group meeting held at the Institute for Scientific Exchange in Torino, Italy. The central aim was for scientists to “think together” in new ways with those in the humanities inspired by quantum theory and especially quantum brain theory. These fields of inquiry have suffered conceptual estrangement but now are ripe for rapprochement, if academic parochialism is put aside. A prevalent theme of the book is a moving away from individual elements and individual actors acting upon each other, toward a coordinate hermeneutic dynamics that manifests as a coherent totality. Among the topics covered are image in photography and in neuroscience; language; time; brain and mathematics; quantum brain dynamics and quantum communication.
This volume is the result of the third Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics which focused on the problem of scale in conscious experience. Set against the philosophical view of "eliminative materialism," the purpose of this conference was to facilitate communication among investigators who approach the study of consciousness and conscious phenomena from a variety of analytical levels. One speculative outcome of the conference is that the columnar arrangement within primary sensory cortices may provide the local isolation necessary for nonlocal interactions to occur. In addition, the relationship between unit activity and field potentials within a circumscribed region of cortex may provide the other enigmatic aspect of neurophysiological nonlocality, namely, the common context in the macro scale. So instead of a problem looking for a solution, scale becomes a solution to a problem. Only further research will determine the utility of the ideas expressed here.
The book analyses the differences between the mathematical interpretation and the phenomenological intuition of the continuum. The basic idea is that the continuity of the experience of space and time originates in phenomenic movement. The problem of consciousness and of the spaces of representation is related to the primary processes of perception. Conceived as an interplay between cognitive science, linguistics and philosophy, the book presents a conceptual framework based on a dynamic and experimental approach to the problem of the continuum. Besides presenting the primitives of a theory of cognitive space and time, it presents a theory of the observer, analyzing the relationship among perspective, points of view and unity of consciousness. The book's chapters deal with the dynamic elaboration and recognition of forms from the lower to the higher processes in the various perceptual fields. Experimental analysis from visual, auditory and tactile perception outline the basic structures of intentionality and its counterpart in language and gesture. (Series B)
The 210 articles which are divided into 18 sections in this new reference work represent the most recent findings in cybernetics and systems research. It brings together contributions from leading scientists from all over the world — Europe, North America, South America, Asia, Africa and Australia. This volume therefore gives a broad spectrum of the ongoing research worldwide.Topics covered in the 18 sections are: General Systems Methodology; Mathematical Systems Theory; Computer Aided Process Interpretation; Fuzzy Sets, Approximate Reasoning and Knowledge-based Systems; Designing and Systems; Biocybernetics and Mathematical Biology; Cybernetics in Medicine; Cybernetics of Socioeconomic Systems; Systems, Management and Organization; Cybernetics of National Development; Communication and Computers; Connectionism and Cognitive Processing; Intelligent Autonomous Systems; Artificial Intelligence; Impacts of Artificial Intelligence.
Self-consciousness is a topic of considerable importance to a variety of empirical and theoretical disciplines such as developmental and social psychology, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, and philosophy. This volume presents essays on self-consciousness by prominent psychologists, cognitive neurologists, and philosophers. Some of the topics included are the infants' sense of self and others, theory of mind, phenomenology of embodiment, neural mechanisms of action attribution, and hermeneutics of the self. A number of these essays argue in turn that empirical findings in developmental psychology, phenomenological analyses of embodiment, or studies of pathological self-experiences point to the existence of a type of self-consciousness that does not require any explicit I thought or self-observation, but is more adequately described as a pre-reflective, embodied form of self-familiarity. The different contributions in the volume amply demonstrate that self-consciousness is a complex multifaceted phenomenon that calls for an integration of different complementary interdisciplinary perspectives. (Series B)
The result of the second Appalachian conference on neurodynamics, this volume focuses on the problem of "order," its origins, evolution, and future. Central to this concern lies our understanding of time. Both classical and quantum physics have developed their conceptions within a framework of time symmetry. Divided into four major sections, this book: * provides refreshingly new approaches to the problem of the evolution of order, indicating the directions that need to be taken in subsequent conferences which will address learning and memory more directly; * addresses the issue of how information becomes transmitted in the nervous system; * shows how patterns are constructed at the synaptod...
This book searches for the sources and means for a disciplined practical approach to exploring human experience. The spirit of this book is "pragmatic" and relies on a Husserlian phenomenology primarily understood as a "method" of exploring our experience. The authors do not aim at a neo-Kantian "a priori" new theory of experience but instead they describe a concrete activity: how we examine what we live through, how we "become aware" of our own mental life. The range of experiences of which we can become aware is vast: all the normal dimensions of human life (perception, motion, memory, imagination, speech, everyday social interactions), cognitive events that can be precisely defined as tas...
"The Transparent Becoming of World undertakes a penetrating inquiry into the quotidian world we take for granted and the brain that silently hoists our bubbles of world-thrownness. This highly original interdisciplinary book may be of interest to philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, consciousness researchers, indeed anyone attracted to the enigma of their own lived existence." --Book Jacket.
The analogies that are used to describe the brain are juvenile. Why are we even trying to understand what we understand with, that we are using to understand and to breathe and to live. How does a body know to keep breathing? What is a thought?Dendrite: Noun A short branched extension of a nerve cell, along which impulses received from other cells at synapses are transmitted to the cell body.2. A crystal or crystalline mass with a branching, treelike structure.3. A research incorporated poetry chapbook that explores themes of neuroscience, astrology, psychology, and physics.