The Crucible of Consciousness

The Crucible of Consciousness PDF Author: Zoltan Torey
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262261219
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
An interdisciplinary examination of the evolutionary breakthroughs that rendered the brain accessible to itself. In The Crucible of Consciousness, Zoltan Torey offers a theory of the mind and its central role in evolution. He traces the evolutionary breakthrough that rendered the brain accessible to itself and shows how the mind-boosted brain works. He identifies what it is that separates the human's self-reflective consciousness from mere animal awareness, and he maps its neural and linguistic underpinnings. And he argues, controversially, that the neural technicalities of reflective awareness can be neither algorithmic nor spiritual—neither a computer nor a ghost in the machine. The human mind is unique; it is not only the epicenter of our knowledge but also the outer limit of our intellectual reach. Not to solve the riddle of the self-aware mind, writes Torey, goes against the evolutionary thrust that created it. Torey proposes a model that brings into a single focus all the elements that make up the puzzle: how the brain works, its functional components and their interactions; how language evolved and how syntax evolved out of the semantic substrate by way of neural transactions; and why the mind-endowed brain deceives itself with entelechy-type impressions. Torey first traces the language-linked emergence of the mind, the subsystem of the brain that enables it to be aware of itself. He then explores this system: how consciousness works, why it is not transparent to introspection, and what sense it makes in the context of evolution. The “consciousness revolution” and the integrative focus of neuroscience have made it possible to make concrete formerly mysterious ideas about the human mind. Torey's model of the mind is the logical outcome of this, highlighting a coherent and meaningful role for a reflectively aware humanity.

The Crucible of Consciousness

The Crucible of Consciousness PDF Author: Zoltan Torey
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262261219
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Get Book

Book Description
An interdisciplinary examination of the evolutionary breakthroughs that rendered the brain accessible to itself. In The Crucible of Consciousness, Zoltan Torey offers a theory of the mind and its central role in evolution. He traces the evolutionary breakthrough that rendered the brain accessible to itself and shows how the mind-boosted brain works. He identifies what it is that separates the human's self-reflective consciousness from mere animal awareness, and he maps its neural and linguistic underpinnings. And he argues, controversially, that the neural technicalities of reflective awareness can be neither algorithmic nor spiritual—neither a computer nor a ghost in the machine. The human mind is unique; it is not only the epicenter of our knowledge but also the outer limit of our intellectual reach. Not to solve the riddle of the self-aware mind, writes Torey, goes against the evolutionary thrust that created it. Torey proposes a model that brings into a single focus all the elements that make up the puzzle: how the brain works, its functional components and their interactions; how language evolved and how syntax evolved out of the semantic substrate by way of neural transactions; and why the mind-endowed brain deceives itself with entelechy-type impressions. Torey first traces the language-linked emergence of the mind, the subsystem of the brain that enables it to be aware of itself. He then explores this system: how consciousness works, why it is not transparent to introspection, and what sense it makes in the context of evolution. The “consciousness revolution” and the integrative focus of neuroscience have made it possible to make concrete formerly mysterious ideas about the human mind. Torey's model of the mind is the logical outcome of this, highlighting a coherent and meaningful role for a reflectively aware humanity.

The Crucible of Consciousness

The Crucible of Consciousness PDF Author: Zoltan Torey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description


The Crucible of the Mind

The Crucible of the Mind PDF Author: Barrie M Biven
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784623091
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
This book is a stirring invitation to any reader who is interested in having a general sense of how the mind works and of the dominant role of mental conflict in everyday life. It is a topical reminder of the importance of Sigmund Freud the psychoanalyst, but also Freud the psychiatrist, neurologist, author and courageous natural scientist. However, this work is not a mere repetition or enumeration of Freud’s theories or descriptions of clinical cases. The book's primary purpose is to provide the reader with an introduction to important contemporary psychoanalytic ideas that modify and build on Freud’s classical theories.

The Crucible of Language

The Crucible of Language PDF Author: Vyvyan Evans
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107123917
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 379

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Book Description
In The Crucible of Language, Vyvyan Evans explains what we know and do when we communicate using language; he shows how linguistic meaning arises, where it comes from, and the way language enables us to convey the meanings that can move us to tears, or make us dizzy with delight.

The Way of the Crucible

The Way of the Crucible PDF Author: Robert Bartlett
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0615206824
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Our first book, Real Alchemy, provides a glimpse into the general theory and practices surrounding the Art of Alchemy as handed down in the Western World. This second work delves more deeply into "the why of the how" behind laboratory alchemy and elaborates greater detail on some of the mineral works of Alchemy both ancient and modern. Herein you will find a wealth of information concerning the practical art and science of alchemy that makes this arcane subject accessible to the modern student.

In and Out of Your Mind

In and Out of Your Mind PDF Author: Dale Bick Carlson
Publisher: Bick Publishing House
ISBN: 9781884158278
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
Provides an overview of the world of science and helps teens understand how science affects their lives.

Metaphysics, Or, The Philosophy of Consciousness, Phenomenal and Real

Metaphysics, Or, The Philosophy of Consciousness, Phenomenal and Real PDF Author: Henry Longueville Mansel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consciousness
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description


The Crucible of Experience

The Crucible of Experience PDF Author: Daniel Burston
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674002173
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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Book Description
One of the great rebels of psychiatry, R. D. Laing challenged prevailing models of madness and the nature and limits of psychiatric authority. In this brief and lucid book, Laing’s widely praised biographer distills the essence of Laing’s vision, which was religious and philosophical as well as psychological. The Crucible of Experience reveals Laing’s philosophical debts to existentialism and phenomenology in his theories of madness and sanity, family theory and family therapy. Daniel Burston offers the first detailed account of Laing’s practice as a therapist and of his relationships—often contentious—with his friends and sometime disciples. Burston carefully differentiates between Laing and “Laingians,” who were often clearer, more confident, and more simplistic than their teacher. While he examines Laing’s theories of madness, Burston focuses most provocatively on Laing’s views of sanity and normality and on his recognition, toward the end of his life, of the essential place of holiness in human experience. In a powerful last chapter, Burston shows that Laing foresaw the present commercialization of medicine and asked pointed questions about what the meaning of sanity and the future of psychotherapy in such a world could be. In this, as in other matters, Laing’s questions of a generation ago remain questions for our time.

The Crucible

The Crucible PDF Author: Arthur Miller
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101665017
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 512

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Book Description
A haunting examination of groupthink and mass hysteria in a rural community The place is Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, an enclave of rigid piety huddled on the edge of a wilderness. Its inhabitants believe unquestioningly in their own sanctity. But in Arthur Miller's edgy masterpiece, that very belief will have poisonous consequences when a vengeful teenager accuses a rival of witchcraft—and then when those accusations multiply to consume the entire village. First produced in 1953, at a time when America was convulsed by a new epidemic of witch-hunting, The Crucible brilliantly explores the threshold between individual guilt and mass hysteria, personal spite and collective evil. It is a play that is not only relentlessly suspenseful and vastly moving but that compels readers to fathom their hearts and consciences in ways that only the greatest theater ever can. "A drama of emotional power and impact" —New York Post

Global Overshoot

Global Overshoot PDF Author: doug cocks
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461462657
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Global Overshoot is a multidisciplinary analysis (including history and pre-history) from an ecological and evolutionary perspective of the contemporary world system. This book compares and critiques attitudes held by people with different world views to the hypothetical prospect of large widespread falls in quality of life. It also draws insights from these two analyses to develop and suggest a philosophy of Ecohumanism to people of good will who want to think constructively about the world’s converging problems, i.e. think altruistically and ‘think like an evolving ecosystem.’