How the Self Controls Its Brain

ISBN-13: 9783642492266 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 216 str.

John C. Eccles

Opis

In this book the author has collected a number of his important works and added an extensive commentary relating his ideas to those of other prominentnames in the consciousness debate. The view presented here is that of a convinced dualist who challenges in a lively and humorous way the prevailing materialist doctrines of many recent works. Also included is a new attempt to explain mind-brain interaction via a quantum process affecting the release of neurotransmitters. John Eccles received a knighthood in 1958 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine/Physiology in 1963. He has numerous other awards honouring his major contributions to neurophysiology.

Spis treści

1 The Problem.- 2 Dualist-interactionism—My Story.- 3 Recent Theoretical Studies on the Mind-Brain Problem.- 4 New Light on the Mind-Brain Problem: How Mental Events Could Influence Neural Events.- 5 Do Mental Events Cause Neural Events Analogously to the Probability Fields of Quantum Mechanics?.- 6 A Unitary Hypothesis of Mind-Brain Interaction in the Cerebral Cortex.- 7 The Evolution of Consciousness.- 8 The Evolution of Complexity of the Brain with the Emergence of Consciousness.- 9 Quantum Aspects of Brain Activity and the Role of Consciousness (F. Beck and J. C. Eccles).- 10 The Self and Its Brain: The Ultimate Synthesis.

O autorze

John Eccles, Nobel prize winner for Neurophysiology and collaborator of Sir Karl Popper, addresses here the ultimate human mystery of the mind-brain interaction. Recent scientific advances have led to a new wave of interest in this subject. This book will appeal to a broad audience of scientists as well as lay readers.