Author: Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consciousness
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
New Developments in Consciousness Research
Author: New Developments in Consciousness Research
Author: Vincent W. FallioPublisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781600212475
Category : Consciousness
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Consciousness is a quality of the mind generally regarded to comprise qualities such as subjectivity, self-awareness, sentience, sapience, and the ability to perceive the relationship between oneself and one's environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of mind, psychology, neurology, and cognitive science. This book gathers a compilation of new and significant research on many facets of consciousness research. These include memory studies, evolution of consciousness, paranormal experiences, phenomenal consciousness, meditation, human emotion and psychopathology.
Investigating Phenomenal Consciousness
Author: Max VelmansPublisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027299994
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 395
Book Description
How can one investigate phenomenal consciousness? As in other areas of science, the investigation of consciousness aims for a more precise knowledge of its phenomena, and the discovery of general truths about their nature. This requires the development of appropriate first-person, second-person and third-person methods. This book introduces some of the creative ways in which these methods can be applied to different purposes, e.g. to understanding the relation of consciousness to brain, to examining or changing consciousness as such, and to understanding the way consciousness is influenced by social, clinical and therapeutic contexts. To clarify the strengths and weaknesses of different methods and to demonstrate the interplay of methodology and epistemology, the book also suggests a number of “maps” of the consciousness studies terrain that place different approaches to the study of consciousness into a broader, interdisciplinary context. (Series A).
Scientific Approaches to Consciousness
Author: Jonathan D. CohenPublisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 1317780922
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 551
Book Description
There are many ways to approach the understanding of consciousness. Questions about these ways have occupied philosophers and metaphysicians for centuries. During the early growth of cognitive science the problem of consciousness remained taboo, but an increasing number of studies have either implicitly or explicitly begun to bear on its nature. These have been inspired by a number of different different original questions, and focus on a variety of different empirical phenomena. Thus, studies of implicit memory, subliminal processing, strategic versus automatic processing, allocation of attention, and differences between information processes in the awake versus dreaming state all share a common assumption of a particular quality or state -- awakeness, awareness, alertness, namely consciousness -- that somehow can be distinguished from another type of state or states in which the subject is not aware of the information being processed. What distinguishes the cognitive psychological and cognitive neuroscience approach to the question of consciousness from that of philosophy and metaphysics is scientific methodology: a set of tools that permit the empirical study of a phenomenon in an objective and reproducible way. Recent developments in both the empirical and theoretical methodologies of these fields have made it possible to begin to study the phenomenon associated with -- if not directly underlying -- consciousness in a scientific fashion. This volume tries to resolve the difficulties associated with the scientific investigation of consciousness. The intent is to explore the extent to which consciousness can be the target of direct scientific inquiry, to get on the table some of the relevant work, and consider the degree to which this research can help inform our understanding of consciousness. It brings together a group of cognitive and neuroscientists to share relevant recent research in the fields of cognitive science and neuroscience and to determine whether any new strategies for the scientific pursuit of this question can be developed. A long-term goal is the development of a unified understanding of consciousness, scientific as well as philosophical perspectives. This volume takes the first step toward building the necessary local bridges.
Brain, Mind and Consciousness
Author: Petr BobPublisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9781461404361
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Book Description
Neuropsychological research on the neural basis of behavior generally asserts that brain mechanisms ultimately suffice to explain all psychologically described phenomena. This assumption stems from the idea that the brain consists entirely of material particles and fields, and that all causal mechanisms relevant to neuroscience can be formulated solely in terms of properties of these elements. Contemporary basic physical theory differs from classic physics on the important matter of how consciousness of human agents enters into the structure of empirical phenomena. The new principles contradict the older idea that local mechanical processes alone account for the structure of all empirical data. Contemporary physical theory brings directly into the overall causal structure certain psychologically described choices made by human agents about how they will act. This key development in basic physical theory is applicable to neuroscience. This book explores this new framework.
Experimental Phenomena of Consciousness
Author: Talis BachmannPublisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195393775
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 140
Book Description
Experimental Phenomena of Consciousness is the definitive collection of consciousness phenomena in which awareness emerges as an experimental variable. With its comprehensive yet succinct entries, arranged alphabetically, this dictionary will be a valuable reference tool for students, libraries, and researchers at all levels in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy who are investigating consciousness, cognition, perception, and attention. It will also be an important addition to the reading lists of courses on consciousness and cognition. Most entries include illustrations and a list of references where more thorough treatments of the topic can be found. The book is supported by a Web page that provides dynamic illustrations and other supplemental material. As the first reference book on the topic, Experimental Phenomena of Consciousness will be a valuable tool for undergraduates, graduate students, professional researchers, and anyone who has an interest in the subject of consciousness.
Consciousness and Self-Regulation
Author: Gary SchwartzPublisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1468425714
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 462
Book Description
The first and foremost concrete fact which every one will affirm to belong to his inner experience is the fact that consciousness of some sort goes on. I -William James, 1893 We are witnessing today a mounting interest among behavioral and biological scientists in problems long recognized as central to our understanding of human nature, yet until recently considered out of the bounds of scientific psychology and physiology. Sometimes thrown into the heading of "altered states of consciousness," this growing research bears directly upon such time-honored questions as the nature of conscious experience, the mind-body relationship, and volition. If one broadly views this research as encompassing the two interrelated areas of consciousness and self-regulation, one can find many relevant contemporary examples of creative and experimentally sophisticated approaches, including research on the regulation of perception and sensory experience, attention, imagery and thinking, emotion and pain; hypnosis and meditation; biofeedback and volun tary control; hemispheric asymmetry and specialization of brain func tion; drug-induced subjective states; and biological rhythms. Because the material is spread over many different kinds of publications and disciplines, it is difficult for anyone person to keep fully abreast of the significant advances. The overall aim of the new Plenum Series in Consciousness and Self-Regulation: Advances in Research is to provide a scholarly forum for discussing integration of these diverse areas by presenting some of the best current research and theory.
New Brain, New World
Author: Erik HoffmanPublisher: Hay House, Inc
ISBN: 1848508271
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249
Book Description
A fascinating insight into just how different our world could be if the human brain continues to evolve, allowing us to access higher levels of consciousness. New Brain, New World uses cutting edge brain research to show how the ongoing evolution of the human brain could bring about a shift in human consciousness, ultimately creating a better world. We all know that over millions of years the human brain has evolved in many significant ways - so why would we assume that this process is not still happening? Based on a lifetime of research into brain function, the science of consciousness, and brain wave training, this book looks at how our brains may yet evolve, and the exciting implications that these developments may have for human consciousness. The author maintains that the global crisis facing us is basically a crisis of consciousness, and it is the human ego with its destructive feelings and insatiable greed that stands in the way of a new and better world. He believes that the evolution of the human brain can make that world a reality. This book explores: the science of consciousness the evolution of the human brain - how it has developed over millions of years, and how there is a huge potential latent in the part of the brain called the frontal cortex expanding human consciousness - the effects on the brain of meditation, feeling release therapy, and the drinking of ayahuasca, the mind-expanding herbal tea kundalini: an evolutionary energy in man awareness as a driving force in consciousness development - how we can play our own parts in helping our brains to evolve and access higher levels of consciousness by using alpha brain wave training for body-awareness and 'grounding', and frontal gamma wave training for focus and presence the new human brain looking towards a new future - the exciting possibilities for positive change and increased peace, love and compassion in the world if the human brain evolves.
Consciousness Evolving
Author: James H. FetzerPublisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9781588111081
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 251
Book Description
A collection of stimulating studies on the past, the present, and the future of consciousness, "Consciousness Evolving" contributes to understanding some of the most important conceptual problems of our time. The advent of the modern synthesis together with the human genome project affords a platform for considering what it is that makes humans distinctive. Beginning with an essay that accents the nature of the problem within a behavioristic framework and concluding with reflections on the prospects for a form of immortality through serial cloning, the chapters are divided into three sections, which concern how and why consciousness may have evolved, special capacities involving language, creativity, and mentality as candidates for evolved adaptations, and the prospects for artificial evolution though the design of robots with specific forms of consciousness and mind. This volume should appeal to every reader who wants to better understand the human species, including its distinctive properties and its place in nature. (Series A)
Consciousness as a Scientific Concept
Author: Elizabeth IrvinePublisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400751737
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 187
Book Description
The source of endless speculation and public curiosity, our scientific quest for the origins of human consciousness has expanded along with the technical capabilities of science itself and remains one of the key topics able to fire public as much as academic interest. Yet many problematic issues, identified in this important new book, remain unresolved. Focusing on a series of methodological difficulties swirling around consciousness research, the contributors to this volume suggest that ‘consciousness’ is, in fact, not a wholly viable scientific concept. Supporting this ‘eliminativist‘ stance are assessments of the current theories and methods of consciousness science in their own terms, as well as applications of good scientific practice criteria from the philosophy of science. For example, the work identifies the central problem of the misuse of qualitative difference and dissociation paradigms, often deployed to identify measures of consciousness. It also examines the difficulties that attend the wide range of experimental protocols used to operationalise consciousness—and the implications this has on the findings of integrative approaches across behavioural and neurophysiological research. The work also explores the significant mismatch between the common intuitions about the content of consciousness, that motivate much of the current science, and the actual properties of the neural processes underlying sensory and cognitive phenomena. Even as it makes the negative eliminativist case, the strong empirical grounding in this volume also allows positive characterisations to be made about the products of the current science of consciousness, facilitating a re-identification of target phenomena and valid research questions for the mind sciences.