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Author: Bjørn Grinde
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319436856
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 246
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Book Description
This book gives the reader an understanding of what consciousness is about, and of how to make conscious experiences more pleasant. It expands on a new theory that describes the evolutionary trajectory leading to conscious life forms. In short, the evidence suggests that consciousness first evolved some 300 million years ago as a consequence of the introduction of feelings. Feelings offer a strategy for making behavioural decisions. Besides playing a crucial role in the evolution of the human mind, they are a key factor in regard to mental health and quality of life. Fortunately, the human brain is plastic. By exploiting available options for modulating the mind, it is therefore possible to impact on what sort of experiences the brain serves. More specifically, you can strengthen the capacity for positive feelings and reduce the sway of negative feelings. The text covers biological, neurological, psychological, and philosophical aspects of the mind.
Author: Bjørn Grinde
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319436856
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 246
Get Book
Book Description
This book gives the reader an understanding of what consciousness is about, and of how to make conscious experiences more pleasant. It expands on a new theory that describes the evolutionary trajectory leading to conscious life forms. In short, the evidence suggests that consciousness first evolved some 300 million years ago as a consequence of the introduction of feelings. Feelings offer a strategy for making behavioural decisions. Besides playing a crucial role in the evolution of the human mind, they are a key factor in regard to mental health and quality of life. Fortunately, the human brain is plastic. By exploiting available options for modulating the mind, it is therefore possible to impact on what sort of experiences the brain serves. More specifically, you can strengthen the capacity for positive feelings and reduce the sway of negative feelings. The text covers biological, neurological, psychological, and philosophical aspects of the mind.
Author: National Academy of Sciences
Publisher: Sackler Colloquium
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 388
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Book Description
The Arthur M. Sackler Colloquia of the National Academy of Sciences address scientific topics of broad and current interest, cutting across the boundaries of traditional disciplines. Each year, four or five such colloquia are scheduled, typically two days in length and international in scope. Colloquia are organized by a member of the Academy, often with the assistance of an organizing committee, and feature presentations by leading scientists in the field and discussions with a hundred or more researchers with an interest in the topic. Colloquia presentations are recorded and posted on the National Academy of Sciences Sackler colloquia website and published on CD-ROM. These Colloquia are made possible by a generous gift from Mrs. Jill Sackler, in memory of her husband, Arthur M. Sackler.
Author: Robert Evan Ornstein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671792245
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Based on his life's research, Robert Ornstein provides a look at the evolution of the mind. He explains that we are not rational but adaptive, and that it is Darwin, not Freud, who is the central scientist of the brain. Our minds have evolved to help us survive, not to reason. At the same time, our individual worlds have developed our minds and destroyed many of our natural abilities.
Author: Thomas Lombardo
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1782790705
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 834
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Book Description
How do our unique conscious minds reflect and amplify nature’s vast evolutionary process? This book provides a scientifically informed, psychologically holistic approach to understanding and enhancing our future consciousness, serving as a guide for creating a realistic, constructive, and ethical future. Thomas Lombardo reveals how we can flourish in the flow of evolution and create a prosperous future for ourselves, human society and the planet.
Author: M. G. Lockley
Publisher: Floris Books
ISBN: 9780863157325
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 358
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Book Description
A fascinating journey through our anthropological history which points towards an emerging collective awakening for the human race.
Author: Merlin Donald
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 9780393323191
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 396
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Book Description
Donald (psychology, Queen's University, Canada) challenges the prevailing view that seeks to explain away human consciousness and presents a theory on the origins of the modern mind. He describes the cultural and neuronal forces that power human modes of awareness, and proposes that the human mind is a hybrid product of the interweaving of the brain with an invisible symbolic web of culture to form a "distributed" cognitive network. Using evidence from brain and behavioral studies of humans and animals, he explains how an expansion of consciousness transcends the limitations of the mammalian mind, and elaborates the foundations of self-evaluation and self-reflection. c. Book News Inc.
Author: Michael Tye
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192637061
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
When Alice stepped through the looking-glass, she encountered a peculiar world where she meets animated chess pieces, characters from nursery rhymes, and talking animals. Everything there is inside out and upside down: so it is with consciousness. Reflecting on the inception of consciousness, it is natural to suppose that there are just two alternatives. Either consciousness appeared in living beings suddenly, like a light switch turning on, or it appeared gradually, like the biological development of life itself, through borderline cases which became the collective experience over time. For the former theory, consciousness is an on/off matter, but once it was there it became richer over time, like a beam of light becoming brighter and broader in its sweep. For the latter theory this is not the case, and there are shades of grey in how consciousness develops. Unfortunately, both alternatives face deep problems. The solution to these problems lies in the realization, strange as it may be, that a key element of consciousness itself was always here, as a fundamental feature of micro-reality. Varying conscious states were not, however: they appeared gradually. In Vagueness and the Evolution of Consciousness, Michael Tye addresses the questions that this raises. Where in the brain is consciousness located? How can consciousness be casually efficacious with respect to behaviour? What is the extent of consciousness in the animal world? How can all of this be so?
Author: John Hurrell Crook
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 472
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Book Description
"Crook has an extensive range of interests and writes with authority on the whole sociobiological spectrum. He discusses the behavior of insects, birds, primates, and so forth, with impressive thoroughness and detail. He ... introduces an equally expert and apparently firsthand discussion of Eastern philosophy, especially Zen Buddhism. His purpose is to emphasize the duality, or perhaps multiplicity, of consciousness, and the importance of society's more objective facets. A scholarly work complete with excellent bibliographies, index, and references." --Choice
Author: Simona Ginsburg
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262039303
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 665
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Book Description
A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness—to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, “the sensitive soul”? In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka propose a new theory about the origin of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the transition to basic consciousness. Using a methodology similar to that used by scientists when they identified the transition from non-life to life, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest a set of criteria, identify a marker for the transition to minimal consciousness, and explore the far-reaching biological, psychological, and philosophical implications. After presenting the historical, neurobiological, and philosophical foundations of their analysis, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose that the evolutionary marker of basic or minimal consciousness is a complex form of associative learning, which they term unlimited associative learning (UAL). UAL enables an organism to ascribe motivational value to a novel, compound, non-reflex-inducing stimulus or action, and use it as the basis for future learning. Associative learning, Ginsburg and Jablonka argue, drove the Cambrian explosion and its massive diversification of organisms. Finally, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose symbolic language as a similar type of marker for the evolutionary transition to human rationality—to Aristotle's “rational soul.”
Author: Barbara Marx Hubbard
Publisher: New World Library
ISBN: 1608681181
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
A Seminal Work of Visionary Hope, Updated for the 21st Century In this era of government gridlock, economic and ecological devastation, and seemingly intractable global violence, our future is ever more ripe for — and in need of — fresh, creative reimagining. With her clear-eyed, inspiring, and sweeping vision of a possible global renaissance in the new millennium, Barbara Marx Hubbard shows us that our current crises are not the precursors of an apocalypse but the natural birth pains of an awakened, universal humanity. This is our finest hour. Conscious Evolution highlights the tremendous potential of newfound scientific knowledge, technological advances, and compassionate spirituality and illustrates the opportunities that each of us has to fully participate in this exciting stage of human history. As we do, we will bring forth all that is within us and not only save ourselves, but evolve our world.
