Does Your Brain Need You?

Does Your Brain Need You?

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  • Author: Clemens Lode
  • Publisher: Clemens Lode Verlag E.K.
  • ISBN: 9783945586419
  • Category :
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 310

Imagine one of our ancestors in the distant past, sitting near a lake, lost in thought. She looks into the water and sees her reflection. Then, for the first time in the evolutionary history of humans, the question is asked, "What is this experience I have of myself?" Unbeknownst to her, that question would vex humanity through modern times. Today, there is again an entity looking into a proverbial lake and examining its reflection: while artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, it is on the verge of recognizing itself and asking the same question, "Who am I?" The closer we come to a machine that seems to be as intelligent as a human being, the more we start to worry about our own subjective experience. If a computer eventually becomes indistinguishable from us, what makes humans special? What is our role in the universe if we are so similar to a computer program? Does your brain need "you" at all? In this book, I will examine, from the ground up, questions about consciousness. Many steps toward the understanding of the self will tell you nothing about the self-until your right hemisphere connects everything into one idea as you understand the concept. Such an insight is also called an epiphany. Using a brain scanner, we can actually observe someone having an epiphany when the brain's right hemisphere suddenly buzzes with activity. While the left hemisphere deals with concrete entities, the right hemisphere helps with looking for alternative meanings. For example, the left hemisphere might identify a "bank" as a financial institution, while the right hemisphere also considers it to be the edge of a river ("river bank"). In the Old Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit, an epiphany leading you to the answer about who you are is called "bodhi," which literally means "awakening" or "enlightenment." Similarly, the name "Buddha" means the "Awakened One" or the "Enlightened One." A similar idea can be found in Zen Buddhism as Satori which corresponds to a very sudden insight. This book shows some of the steps leading to Satori, combining the insights of philosophers and scientists into a new idea of what the "self" means. With this knowledge, we can better reflect on our own values and act according to reality rather than just blindly following someone else's belief. My goal with the book is to give you an introduction to neuroscience that is not scattered into different parts. I aim to focus on helping you to answer the following questions: What is the self? Does your brain even need a "self"? What is this seemingly mysterious subjective experience we share? How can we think, dream, plan, feel, and make decisions? The first part of the book discusses the evolutionary history of primates' brains using real-life examples. The second part builds a flowchart of consciousness (the so-called "loop of consciousness"). It concludes that consciousness must be an umbrella term for many of our brain's abilities: Sense data: Sense data is registered and pre-processed in the brain. Attention: The ability of the brain to focus on particular sense data using neural competition. Awareness: Contents of the working memory, including information of "what," "where," and "who." Attention schema: The ability to access the working memory to use it to update the prefrontal cortex's models and use those models to suppress or promote individual actions. Awareness schema: The ability of the brain to manipulate awareness to think about alternative scenarios. The working memory is used to manipulate future loops of consciousness. Philosophy: Abstract knowledge about awareness, enhancing the brain's ability to create habits.


Does Your Brain Need You? An Introduction to Neuroscience and Consciousness

Does Your Brain Need You? An Introduction to Neuroscience and Consciousness

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  • Author: Clemens Lode
  • Publisher: Clemens Lode Verlag e.K.
  • ISBN: 3945586429
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 248

This book is about the "neuroscience of you" and the mind-body connection. Starting with the evolution of awareness, the book will explain the theory of mind and how it relates to our ability to recognize ourselves in the mirror. In the second part, the book will discuss the philosophy of consciousness and how we could create consciousness with artificial intelligence. Who is this for? What is it about? What will it do for me? This book is for anyone interested in the inner mechanisms that make up "you", your consciousness, your perception of self, and your awareness. While it raises significant philosophic and scientific questions, it is an introductory book and can be read and understood by anyone new to the topic. The book explains how our brain evolved over millions of years, what damage to our brain can do to our conscious experience of the world, and how we could recreate human consciousness in a mechanical system. For you, the reader, the book will provide you with a new perspective on free will, consciousness, and philosophy. Imagine one of our ancestors in the distant past, sitting near a lake, lost in thought. She looks into the water and sees her reflection. Then, for the first time in the evolutionary history of humans, the question is asked, "What is this experience I have of myself?" Unbeknownst to her, that question would vex humanity through modern times. Today, there is again an entity looking into a proverbial lake and examining its reflection: while artificial intelligence is still in its infancy, it is on the verge of recognizing itself and asking the same question, "Who am I?" The closer we come to a machine that seems to be as intelligent as a human being, the more we start to worry about our own subjective experience. If a computer eventually becomes indistinguishable from us, what makes humans special? What is our role in the universe if we are so similar to a computer program? Does your brain need "you" at all? In this book, I will examine, from the ground up, questions about consciousness. Many steps toward the understanding of the self will tell you nothing about the self—until your right hemisphere connects everything into one idea as you understand the concept. Such an insight is also called an epiphany. Using a brain scanner, we can actually observe someone having an epiphany when the brain's right hemisphere suddenly buzzes with activity. While the left hemisphere deals with concrete entities, the right hemisphere helps with looking for alternative meanings. For example, the left hemisphere might identify a "bank" as a financial institution, while the right hemisphere also considers it to be the edge of a river ("riverbank"). In the Old Indo-Aryan language Sanskrit, an epiphany leading you to the answer about who you are is called "bodhi," which literally means "awakening" or "enlightenment." Similarly, the name "Buddha" means the "Awakened One" or the "Enlightened One." A similar idea can be found in Zen Buddhism as Satori which corresponds to a very sudden insight. This book shows some of the steps leading to Satori, combining the insights of philosophers and scientists into a new idea of what the "self" means. With this knowledge, we can better reflect on our own values and act according to reality rather than just blindly following someone else's beliefs. My goal with the book is to give you an introduction to neuroscience that is not scattered into different parts. I aim to focus on helping you to answer the following questions: What is the self? Does your brain even need a "self"? Is there a consciousness beyond the body? What is this seemingly mysterious subjective experience we share? How can we think, dream, plan, feel, and make decisions?


A Day in the Life of the Brain

A Day in the Life of the Brain

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  • Author: Susan Greenfield
  • Publisher: Allen Lane
  • ISBN: 9780141985046
  • Category : Brain
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 273

"Each of us has a unique, subjective inner world, one that we can never share directly with anyone else. But how does a tangle of brain cells conjure up this experience? Despite the remarkable progress that has been made in understanding the brain, consciousness still poses one of the greatest challenges to science. In this groundbreaking book, world-renowned neuroscientist Susan Greenfield illuminates the mystery of consciousness as she traces a single day in the life of the brain - from being awoken by an alarm to walking the dog, working in an open plan office to dreaming. Greenfield concludes that the answer to the enigma of consciousness may be found in neuronal assemblies - a process that her Oxford lab, along with others around the world, is investigating. Drawing on this pioneering research and on diverse findings from physics, philosophy and psychology, A Day in the Life of the Braingives us a bold new way of understanding who we are."


The Idea of the Brain

The Idea of the Brain

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  • Author: Matthew Cobb
  • Publisher: Basic Books
  • ISBN: 154164686X
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 496

An "elegant", "engrossing" (Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal) examination of what we think we know about the brain and why -- despite technological advances -- the workings of our most essential organ remain a mystery. "I cannot recommend this book strongly enough."--Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains.


Out of Our Heads

Out of Our Heads

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  • Author: Alva Noë
  • Publisher: Hill and Wang
  • ISBN: 1429957190
  • Category : Science
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 232

Alva Noë is one of a new breed—part philosopher, part cognitive scientist, part neuroscientist—who are radically altering the study of consciousness by asking difficult questions and pointing out obvious flaws in the current science. In Out of Our Heads, he restates and reexamines the problem of consciousness, and then proposes a startling solution: Do away with the two hundred-year-old paradigm that places consciousness within the confines of the brain. Our culture is obsessed with the brain—how it perceives; how it remembers; how it determines our intelligence, our morality, our likes and our dislikes. It's widely believed that consciousness itself, that Holy Grail of science and philosophy, will soon be given a neural explanation. And yet, after decades of research, only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious—how it gives rise to sensation, feeling, and subjectivity—has emerged unchallenged: We don't have a clue. In this inventive work, Noë suggests that rather than being something that happens inside us, consciousness is something we do. Debunking an outmoded philosophy that holds the scientific study of consciousness captive, Out of Our Heads is a fresh attempt at understanding our minds and how we interact with the world around us.


The Consciousness Instinct

The Consciousness Instinct

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  • Author: Michael S. Gazzaniga
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • ISBN: 0374128766
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 288

“The father of cognitive neuroscience” illuminates the past, present, and future of the mind-brain problem How do neurons turn into minds? How does physical “stuff”—atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells—create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the science of the brain, and yet the puzzles faced by the ancient Greeks are still present. In The Consciousness Instinct, the neuroscience pioneer Michael S. Gazzaniga puts the latest research in conversation with the history of human thinking about the mind, giving a big-picture view of what science has revealed about consciousness. The idea of the brain as a machine, first proposed centuries ago, has led to assumptions about the relationship between mind and brain that dog scientists and philosophers to this day. Gazzaniga asserts that this model has it backward—brains make machines, but they cannot be reduced to one. New research suggests the brain is actually a confederation of independent modules working together. Understanding how consciousness could emanate from such an organization will help define the future of brain science and artificial intelligence, and close the gap between brain and mind. Captivating and accessible, with insights drawn from a lifetime at the forefront of the field, The Consciousness Instinct sets the course for the neuroscience of tomorrow.


Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness

Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness

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  • Author: Bernard J. Baars
  • Publisher: Academic Press
  • ISBN: 0123814405
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 677

Cognition, Brain, and Consciousness, Second Edition, provides students and readers with an overview of the study of the human brain and its cognitive development.It discusses brain molecules and their primary function, which is to help carry brain signals to and from the different parts of the human body. These molecules are also essential for understanding language, learning, perception, thinking, and other cognitive functions of our brain. The book also presents the tools that can be used to view the human brain through brain imaging or recording.New to this edition are Frontiers in Cognitive Neuroscience text boxes, each one focusing on a leading researcher and their topic of expertise. There is a new chapter on Genes and Molecules of Cognition; all other chapters have been thoroughly revised, based on the most recent discoveries.This text is designed for undergraduate and graduate students in Psychology, Neuroscience, and related disciplines in which cognitive neuroscience is taught. New edition of a very successful textbook Completely revised to reflect new advances, and feedback from adopters and students Includes a new chapter on Genes and Molecules of Cognition Student Solutions available at http://www.baars-gage.com/ For Teachers: Rapid adoption and course preparation: A wide array of instructor support materials are available online including PowerPoint lecture slides, a test bank with answers, and eFlashcords on key concepts for each chapter. A textbook with an easy-to-understand thematic approach: in a way that is clear for students from a variety of academic backgrounds, the text introduces concepts such as working memory, selective attention, and social cognition. A step-by-step guide for introducing students to brain anatomy: color graphics have been carefully selected to illustrate all points and the research explained. Beautifully clear artist's drawings are used to 'build a brain' from top to bottom, simplifying the layout of the brain. For students: An easy-to-read, complete introduction to mind-brain science: all chapters begin from mind-brain functions and build a coherent picture of their brain basis. A single, widely accepted functional framework is used to capture the major phenomena. Learning Aids include a student support site with study guides and exercises, a new Mini-Atlas of the Brain and a full Glossary of technical terms and their definitions. Richly illustrated with hundreds of carefully selected color graphics to enhance understanding.


Act

Act

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  • Author: Clemens Lode
  • Publisher: Clemens Lode Verlag E.K.
  • ISBN: 9783945586235
  • Category :
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 282

Being a hero means standing up to false heroes. To gain this ability, we need to have a good grasp of the nature of the universe and to be able to understand our minds. This book is an introduction to the most current research in neurobiology and consciousness. It is easy to read, uses numerous examples, and introduces concepts from the ground up. After reading the book, you will be able to explain what it means to be conscious. The book's goal is to give an introduction to neuroscience focused on consciousness. It addresses the following questions: - What is the self?- Does the brain even need a "self"?- What is this seemingly mysterious subjective experience we share?- How can we think, dream, plan, feel, and make decisions?The first part of the book discusses the evolutionary history of primates' brains using real-life examples. The second part builds a flowchart of consciousness (the so-called "loop of consciousness"). It concludes that consciousness must be an umbrella term for many of our brain's abilities: - Sense data: Sense data is registered and pre-processed in the brain.- Attention: The ability of the brain to focus on particular sense data using neural competition.- Awareness: Contents of the working memory, including information of "what," "where," and "who."- Attention schema: The ability to access the working memory to use it to update the prefrontal cortex's models and use those models to suppress or promote individual actions.- Awareness schema: The ability of the brain to manipulate awareness to think about alternative scenarios. The working memory is used to manipulate future loops of consciousness.- Philosophy: Abstract knowledge about awareness, enhancing the brain's ability to create habits and strategies to adapt the id.What would lead a computer scientist and project manager to turn to philosophy for answers? Clemens Lode has a passion for solving problems by applying ideas from nature. In his examination into what could give lifeless machines a "heart," he found that the answer requires a holistic examination of the world.Becoming a hero requires gaining an understanding of what the greatest minds of history have pondered. Philosophy for Heroes summarizes their wisdom and connects it with the modern world.What would lead a computer scientist and project manager to turn to philosophy for answers? Clemens Lode has a passion for solving problems by applying ideas from nature. In his examination into what could give lifeless machines a "heart," he found that the answer requires a holistic examination of the world.With his book series Philosophy for Heroes, Lode bridges the gap between science, philosophy, psychology, and ultimately leadership. In this, the third of a five-book series, he takes the reader on a journey through topics at the forefront of science. How did humans evolve? How can we make decisions? What is consciousness, and why do we think it is within our heads? How could we give machines a human-like consciousness?


Feeling & Knowing

Feeling & Knowing

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  • Author: Antonio Damasio
  • Publisher: Vintage
  • ISBN: 1524747564
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 257

From one of the world’s leading neuroscientists: a succinct, illuminating, wholly engaging investigation of how biology, neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence have given us the tools to unlock the mysteries of human consciousness “One thrilling insight after another ... Damasio has succeeded brilliantly in narrowing the gap between body and mind.” —The New York Times Book Review In recent decades, many philosophers and cognitive scientists have declared the problem of consciousness unsolvable, but Antonio Damasio is convinced that recent findings across multiple scientific disciplines have given us a way to understand consciousness and its significance for human life. In the forty-eight brief chapters of Feeling & Knowing, and in writing that remains faithful to our intuitive sense of what feeling and experiencing are about, Damasio helps us understand why being conscious is not the same as sensing, why nervous systems are essential for the development of feelings, and why feeling opens the way to consciousness writ large. He combines the latest discoveries in various sciences with philosophy and discusses his original research, which has transformed our understanding of the brain and human behavior. Here is an indispensable guide to understand­ing how we experience the world within and around us and find our place in the universe.


Consciousness

Consciousness

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  • Author: Susan Blackmore
  • Publisher: Routledge
  • ISBN: 1317625862
  • Category : Psychology
  • Languages : en
  • Pages : 838

Is there a theory that explains the essence of consciousness? Or is consciousness itself an illusion? Am I conscious now? Now considered the 'last great mystery of science', consciousness was once viewed with extreme scepticism and rejected by mainstream scientists. It is now a significant area of research, albeit a contentious one, as well as a rapidly expanding area of study for students of psychology, philosophy, and neuroscience. This edition of Consciousness, revised by author team Susan Blackmore and Emily Troscianko, explores the key theories and evidence in consciousness studies ranging from neuroscience and psychology to quantum theories and philosophy. It examines why the term ‘consciousness’ has no recognised definition and provides an opportunity to delve into personal intuitions about the self, mind, and consciousness. Featuring comprehensive coverage of all core topics in the field, this edition includes: Why the problem of consciousness is so hard Neuroscience and the neural correlates of consciousness Why we might be mistaken about our own minds The apparent difference between conscious and unconscious Theories of attention, free will, and self and other The evolution of consciousness in animals and machines Altered states from meditation to drugs and dreaming Complete with key concept boxes, profiles of well-known thinkers, and questions and activities suitable for both independent study and group work, Consciousness provides a complete introduction to this fascinating field. Additional resources are available on the accompanying companion website: www.routledge.com/cw/blackmore