Complexity And The Function Of Mind In Nature PDF Download
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Author | : Peter Godfrey-Smith |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 332 |
Release | : 1998-09-28 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 9780521646246 |
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This book explains the relationship between intelligence and environmental complexity, and in so doing links philosophy of mind to more general issues about the relations between organisms and environments, and to the general pattern of 'externalist' explanations. The author provides a biological approach to the investigation of mind and cognition in nature. In particular he explores the idea that the function of cognition is to enable agents to deal with environmental complexity. The history of the idea in the work of Dewey and Spencer is considered, as is the impact of recent evolutionary theory on our understanding of the place of mind in nature.
Author | : Gregory Bateson |
Publisher | : Hampton Press (NJ) |
Total Pages | : 0 |
Release | : 2002 |
Genre | : Ethnology |
ISBN | : 9781572734340 |
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A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.
Author | : Thomas Nagel |
Publisher | : Oxford University Press |
Total Pages | : 141 |
Release | : 2012-11-22 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 0199919755 |
Download Mind and Cosmos Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.
Author | : Alan Jasanoff |
Publisher | : Basic Books |
Total Pages | : 304 |
Release | : 2018-03-13 |
Genre | : Psychology |
ISBN | : 154164431X |
Download The Biological Mind Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
A pioneering neuroscientist argues that we are more than our brains To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact. This blinds us to the physical realities of mental function. We ignore bodily influences on our psychology, from chemicals in the blood to bacteria in the gut, and overlook the ways that the environment affects our behavior, via factors varying from subconscious sights and sounds to the weather. As a result, we alternately overestimate our capacity for free will or equate brains to inorganic machines like computers. But a brain is neither a soul nor an electrical network: it is a bodily organ, and it cannot be separated from its surroundings. Our selves aren't just inside our heads--they're spread throughout our bodies and beyond. Only once we come to terms with this can we grasp the true nature of our humanity.
Author | : Klaus Mainzer |
Publisher | : Springer Science & Business Media |
Total Pages | : 329 |
Release | : 2013-11-11 |
Genre | : Science |
ISBN | : 3662030144 |
Download Thinking in Complexity Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Complexity and nonlinearity are prominent features in the evolution of matter, life, and human society. Even our mind seems to be governed by the nonlinear dynamics of the complex networks in our brain. This book considers complex systems in the physical and biological sciences, cognitive and computer sciences, social and economic sciences, and philosophy and history of science. An in terdisciplinary methodology is introduced to explain the emergence of order in nature and mind and in the econ omy and society by common principles. These methods are sometimes said to foreshadow the new sciences of complexity characterizing the scientific deve10pment of the 21 st century. The book critically an alyzes the successes and limits of this approach, its sys tematic foundations, and its historical and philosophical background. An epilogue discusses new standards of eth ical behavior which are demanded by the complex prob lems of nature and mind, economy and society.
Author | : Paul L. Nunez |
Publisher | : Prometheus Books |
Total Pages | : 376 |
Release | : 2016 |
Genre | : Health & Fitness |
ISBN | : 1633882195 |
Download The New Science of Consciousness Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
This book explains in laypersons' terms a new approach to studying consciousness based on a partnership between neuroscientists and complexity scientists. The author, a physicist turned neuroscientist, outlines essential features of this partnership. The new science goes well beyond traditional cognitive science and simple neural networks, which are often the focus in artificial intelligence research. It involves many fields including neuroscience, artificial intelligence, physics, cognitive science, and psychiatry. What causes autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease? How does our unconscious influence our actions? As the author shows, these important questions can be viewed in a new light when neuroscientists and complexity scientists work together. This cross-disciplinary approach also offers fresh insights into the major unsolved challenge of our age- the origin of self-awareness. Do minds emerge from brains? Or is something more involved? Using human social networks as a metaphor, the author explains how brain behavior can be compared with the collective behavior of large-scale global systems. Emergent global systems that interact and form relationships with lower levels of organization and the surrounding environment provide useful models for complex brain functions. By blending lucid explanations with illuminating analogies, this book offers the general reader a window into the latest exciting developments in brain research.
Author | : Klaus Mainzer |
Publisher | : Springer Science & Business Media |
Total Pages | : 491 |
Release | : 2007-09-07 |
Genre | : Science |
ISBN | : 3540722289 |
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This new edition also treats smart materials and artificial life. A new chapter on information and computational dynamics takes up many recent discussions in the community.
Author | : Gregory Bateson |
Publisher | : University of Chicago Press |
Total Pages | : 572 |
Release | : 2000 |
Genre | : Medical |
ISBN | : 9780226039053 |
Download Steps to an Ecology of Mind Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Gregory Bateson was a philosopher, anthropologist, photographer, naturalist, and poet, as well as the husband and collaborator of Margaret Mead. This classic anthology of his major work includes a new Foreword by his daughter, Mary Katherine Bateson. 5 line drawings.
Author | : George Ellis |
Publisher | : Springer |
Total Pages | : 482 |
Release | : 2016-05-31 |
Genre | : Science |
ISBN | : 366249809X |
Download How Can Physics Underlie the Mind? Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
Physics underlies all complexity, including our own existence: how is this possible? How can our own lives emerge from interactions of electrons, protons, and neutrons? This book considers the interaction of physical and non-physical causation in complex systems such as living beings, and in particular in the human brain, relating this to the emergence of higher levels of complexity with real causal powers. In particular it explores the idea of top-down causation, which is the key effect allowing the emergence of true complexity and also enables the causal efficacy of non-physical entities, including the value of money, social conventions, and ethical choices.
Author | : Sandra D. Mitchell |
Publisher | : Cambridge University Press |
Total Pages | : 264 |
Release | : 2003-09-15 |
Genre | : Philosophy |
ISBN | : 9780521520799 |
Download Biological Complexity and Integrative Pluralism Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle
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