Secrets of the Mind: A Tale of Discovery and Mistaken Identity

ISBN-13: 9780387986920 / Angielski / Twarda / 1999 / 230 str.

A. G. Cairns-Smith

Opis

How can we reconcile Shakespeare's account of human behavior and that of modern brain science? That's the central question addressed by the noted Glasgow chemist A.G. Cairns-Smith in this provocative, witty, and highly accessible discussion of conscious awareness, free will, and science. Written in a conversational style, Secrets of the Mind is not only a splendid introduction for the general reader to the central questions of consciousness and brain science, but a contribution to answering some of them. In the author's view, our feelings and sensations are not simply alternative descriptions of neural events but have themselves evolved and have physical effects in the brain as well as physical causes. In Secrets of the Mind we arrive at a vision of the world as it may come to be seen by a future science. Sand, sea water, air, and the atoms from which such materials are made are now well understood by science. These elements of our world, physicists and chemists tell us, are different forms of quantum energy. But what of our personal feelings, our sensations and emotions? Science tells us that these too must be forms of quantum energy if they evolved. But science is only beginning to explain how.

Spis treści

1 Open Secrets.- 1 Doing as we like.- 2 The two of me.- 3 Qualia en croûte.- 2 An Ominous Secret.- 4 It’s a funny old world.- 5 The light of evolution.- 6 Straight talk, double talk, fast talk.- 3 Secrets Unfolding.- 7 How might brains have feelings?.- 8 Switches.- 9 Arrows and desires.- 10 Humpty Dumpty.- 11 Together again.- 4 The Secret Agent.- 12 Why a phenomenal world?.- 13 A working image.- 14 A strange device.- 15 The fabrics of the world.- Recapitulation.- Coda.- Notes & References.

O autorze

How can we reconcile Shakespeare's account of human behavior and that of modern brain science? That's the central question addressed by the noted Glasgow chemist and writer A.G. Cairns-Smith in this brief, witty, provocative, and highly accessible discussion of conscious awareness, free will, science, and the likely central role of quantum energy in understanding the mind. Secrets of the Mind is not only a splendid discussion of the central questions of consciousness and brain science, but a contribution to answering some of them.