Unifying the Mind

Unifying the Mind PDF Author: David Danks
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262325454
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
A novel proposal that the unified nature of our cognition can be partially explained by a cognitive architecture based on graphical models. Our ordinary, everyday thinking requires an astonishing range of cognitive activities, yet our cognition seems to take place seamlessly. We move between cognitive processes with ease, and different types of cognition seem to share information readily. In this book, David Danks proposes a novel cognitive architecture that can partially explain two aspects of human cognition: its relatively integrated nature and our effortless ability to focus on the relevant factors in any particular situation. Danks argues that both of these features of cognition are naturally explained if many of our cognitive representations are understood to be structured like graphical models. The computational framework of graphical models is widely used in machine learning, but Danks is the first to offer a book-length account of its use to analyze multiple areas of cognition. Danks demonstrates the usefulness of this approach by reinterpreting a variety of cognitive theories in terms of graphical models. He shows how we can understand much of our cognition—in particular causal learning, cognition involving concepts, and decision making—through the lens of graphical models, thus clarifying a range of data from experiments and introspection. Moreover, Danks demonstrates the important role that cognitive representations play in a unified understanding of cognition, arguing that much of our cognition can be explained in terms of different cognitive processes operating on a shared collection of cognitive representations. Danks's account is mathematically accessible, focusing on the qualitative aspects of graphical models and separating the formal mathematical details in the text.

Unifying the Mind

Unifying the Mind PDF Author: David Danks
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262325454
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book

Book Description
A novel proposal that the unified nature of our cognition can be partially explained by a cognitive architecture based on graphical models. Our ordinary, everyday thinking requires an astonishing range of cognitive activities, yet our cognition seems to take place seamlessly. We move between cognitive processes with ease, and different types of cognition seem to share information readily. In this book, David Danks proposes a novel cognitive architecture that can partially explain two aspects of human cognition: its relatively integrated nature and our effortless ability to focus on the relevant factors in any particular situation. Danks argues that both of these features of cognition are naturally explained if many of our cognitive representations are understood to be structured like graphical models. The computational framework of graphical models is widely used in machine learning, but Danks is the first to offer a book-length account of its use to analyze multiple areas of cognition. Danks demonstrates the usefulness of this approach by reinterpreting a variety of cognitive theories in terms of graphical models. He shows how we can understand much of our cognition—in particular causal learning, cognition involving concepts, and decision making—through the lens of graphical models, thus clarifying a range of data from experiments and introspection. Moreover, Danks demonstrates the important role that cognitive representations play in a unified understanding of cognition, arguing that much of our cognition can be explained in terms of different cognitive processes operating on a shared collection of cognitive representations. Danks's account is mathematically accessible, focusing on the qualitative aspects of graphical models and separating the formal mathematical details in the text.

Cortex and Mind

Cortex and Mind PDF Author: Joaquin M. Fuster
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190293772
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
This book presents a unique synthesis of the current neuroscience of cognition by one of the world's authorities in the field. The guiding principle to this synthesis is the tenet that the entirety of our knowledge is encoded by relations, and thus by connections, in neuronal networks of our cerebral cortex. Cognitive networks develop by experience on a base of widely dispersed modular cell assemblies representing elementary sensations and movements. As they develop cognitive networks organize themselves hierarchically by order of complexity or abstraction of their content. Because networks intersect profusely, sharing commong nodes, a neuronal assembly anywhere in the cortex can be part of many networks, and therefore many items of knowledge. All cognitive functions consist of neural transactions within and between cognitive networks. After reviewing the neurobiology and architecture of cortical networks (also named cognits), the author undertakes a systematic study of cortical dynamics in each of the major cognitive functions--perception, memory, attention, language, and intelligence. In this study, he makes use of a large body of evidence from a variety of methodologies, in the brain of the human as well as the nonhuman primate. The outcome of his interdisciplinary endeavor is the emergence of a structural and dynamic order in the cerebral cortex that, though still sketchy and fragmentary, mirrors with remarkable fidelity the order in the human mind.

Unifying the Mind

Unifying the Mind PDF Author: David Danks
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262027992
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
A novel proposal that the unified nature of our cognition can be partially explained by a cognitive architecture based on graphical models. Our ordinary, everyday thinking requires an astonishing range of cognitive activities, yet our cognition seems to take place seamlessly. We move between cognitive processes with ease, and different types of cognition seem to share information readily. In this book, David Danks proposes a novel cognitive architecture that can partially explain two aspects of human cognition: its relatively integrated nature and our effortless ability to focus on the relevant factors in any particular situation. Danks argues that both of these features of cognition are naturally explained if many of our cognitive representations are understood to be structured like graphical models. The computational framework of graphical models is widely used in machine learning, but Danks is the first to offer a book-length account of its use to analyze multiple areas of cognition. Danks demonstrates the usefulness of this approach by reinterpreting a variety of cognitive theories in terms of graphical models. He shows how we can understand much of our cognition—in particular causal learning, cognition involving concepts, and decision making—through the lens of graphical models, thus clarifying a range of data from experiments and introspection. Moreover, Danks demonstrates the important role that cognitive representations play in a unified understanding of cognition, arguing that much of our cognition can be explained in terms of different cognitive processes operating on a shared collection of cognitive representations. Danks's account is mathematically accessible, focusing on the qualitative aspects of graphical models and separating the formal mathematical details in the text.

Unify Your Mind: Connecting the Feelers, Thinkers, and Doers of Your Brain

Unify Your Mind: Connecting the Feelers, Thinkers, and Doers of Your Brain PDF Author: Phd Earl Grey
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557722136
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 86

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Book Description
This book is written for anyone who can read English, understand analogies, or has a brain. This book is for you. You are the construction worker, the cashier, the hairdresser, the secretary, the homemaker, the business executive, the plumber, the grandparent, the truck driver, or the dancer. This book takes overly complex information about our brains and our behavior, and makes it all user-friendly. There are quite a few books already available on the brain and changing our lifestyles. This book is very different. It takes all of these big words to describe the brain and make them come to life using everyday experiences. You will walk through a plan to change. It could be anything from spending less money to maintaining better relationships. This is all possible once you Unify Your Mind.

Soul Mind Body Science System

Soul Mind Body Science System PDF Author: Zhi Gang Sha
Publisher: BenBella Books, Inc.
ISBN: 1940363993
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
What is a soul? Are miracles real? When the soul is healed, how does the body respond? Throughout history, there have been countless cases of "miracle" healings, unexplainable by modern science. Dr. and Master Zhi Gang Sha has personally healed thousands of patients, usually in front of dozens of witnesses. Hundreds of videos of these healings can be seen on YouTube. But how can these healings be explained? Soul Mind Body Science System is the first book to explore the scientific explanations for why soul healing miracles are genuine. Written with Dr. Rulin Xiu, an expert on string theory and quantum physics who trained at The University of California, Berkeley, Dr. Sha shares, for the first time, the scientific theories that explain why all actions on Earth are guided by the reality of the soul. In Soul Mind Body Science System, the complex and fascinating relationships present between matter, density, information, soul, and consciousness are thoroughly examined. Written for armchair and professional scientists alike, this book makes a significant contribution to the ongoing debate about the true nature of reality. As the lines between "science" and "spirit" blur, this investigation becomes ever more important. The groundbreaking Soul Mind Body Science System is for all readers who have contemplated the fundamental scientific laws of the universe and sought answers beyond those offered by popular science and mainstream faith.

Integral Consciousness and Sport

Integral Consciousness and Sport PDF Author: Scott Ford
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN: 1478769262
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 229

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Book Description
Every so often, a rather remarkable disclosure reveals itself that can change our worldview. It can occur through contemplation, reverie, insight, revelation, reading, writing, or for many, actual physical practice. Scott Ford has had such a moment of practice, and his world has never been the same. After reading Scott’s book, perhaps our world will be permanently altered as well. In using his Parallel Mode Process, we are taken into one of the most revered and hallowed places in sports. Ford’s work allows us to abide in the living, breathing essence of the zone, dance in the flow state, and train into it. The book is both a technical as well as intuitive discussion of a new way of contextualizing one’s athletic experience, engaging both left and right brain consciousness, and resulting in nothing less than a satori experience. By engaging in the practice of living in ever-present moment-to-moment awareness, the author creates a non-local consciousness experience that is life-changing. Thus, through Scott’s highly refined work, we enter into the Witness state, a revered state of consciousness that is both unitive and integrated. Sport is the great Western metaphor, a potent medium that teaches us how to realize our sometimes dormant capacities, and at the same time translate the learning into everyday situations. The lessons learned from this book apply directly to all walks of life. Hence, Scott’s discoveries take us into the union of East and West, the spirit and the flesh, through tennis, sport and life. You may never look at a tennis ball in the same way. Barry Robbins, Vice President of ITP International- Senior Teacher and Lineage Holder of ITP (Integral Transformative Practice) Founding Member: Sports, Energy, and Consciousness Group

Quantum Mind and Social Science

Quantum Mind and Social Science PDF Author: Alexander Wendt
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107082544
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
A unique contribution to the understanding of social science, showing the implications of quantum physics for the nature of human society.

Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain

Conscious Mind, Resonant Brain PDF Author: Stephen Grossberg
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190070552
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 771

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Book Description
How does your mind work? How does your brain give rise to your mind? These are questions that all of us have wondered about at some point in our lives, if only because everything that we know is experienced in our minds. They are also very hard questions to answer. After all, how can a mind understand itself? How can you understand something as complex as the tool that is being used to understand it? This book provides an introductory and self-contained description of some of the exciting answers to these questions that modern theories of mind and brain have recently proposed. Stephen Grossberg is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who has, for the past 50 years, modelled how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. This research has led to a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. The work embodies revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarify how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved. It provides mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, including symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, autism, amnesia, and sleep disorders; biological bases of morality and religion, including why our brains are biased towards the good so that values are not purely relative; perplexing aspects of the human condition, including why many decisions are irrational and self-defeating despite evolution's selection of adaptive behaviors; and solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence that provide a blueprint for autonomously intelligent algorithms and robots. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about shared laws that are found in all living cellular tissues, from the most primitive to the most advanced, notably how the laws governing networks of interacting cells support developmental and learning processes in all species. The fundamental brain design principles of complementarity, uncertainty, and resonance that Grossberg has discovered also reflect laws of the physical world with which our brains ceaselessly interact, and which enable our brains to incrementally learn to understand those laws, thereby enabling humans to understand the world scientifically. Accessibly written, and lavishly illustrated, Conscious Mind/Resonant Brain is the magnum opus of one of the most influential scientists of the past 50 years, and will appeal to a broad readership across the sciences and humanities.

Self Comes to Mind

Self Comes to Mind PDF Author: Antonio Damasio
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307379493
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
A leading neuroscientist explores with authority, with imagination, and with unparalleled mastery how the brain constructs the mind and how the brain makes that mind conscious. Antonio Damasio has spent the past thirty years researching and and revealing how the brain works. Here, in his most ambitious and stunning work yet, he rejects the long-standing idea that consciousness is somehow separate from the body, and presents compelling new scientific evidence that posits an evolutionary perspective. His view entails a radical change in the way the history of the conscious mind is viewed and told, suggesting that the brain’s development of a human self is a challenge to nature’s indifference. This development helps to open the way for the appearance of culture, perhaps one of our most defining characteristics as thinking and self-aware beings.

The Multitasking Mind

The Multitasking Mind PDF Author: Dario D. Salvucci
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199733562
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
This book presents the theory of threaded cognition, a theory that aims to explain the multitasking mind. The theory states that multitasking behavior can be expressed as cognitive threads-independent streams of thought that weave through the mind's processing resources to produce multitasking behavior, and sometimes experience conflicts to produce multitasking interference. Grounded in the ACT-R cognitive architecture, threaded cognition incorporates computational representations and mechanisms used to simulate and predict multitasking behavior and performance.