Towards an Ecology of Brain

ISBN-13: 9789401198387 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 192 str.

R. Walsh

Opis

Let us then consider, for a moment, the world as described by the physicist. It consists of a number of fundamental particles which ...appear bound by certain natural laws which indicate the form of their relationship_ Now the physicist himself who describes all this, is in his own account, himself constructed of it. He is, in short, made of a conglomeration of the very particulars he describes, no more, no less, bound together by and obeying such general laws as he himself has managed to find and to record. Thus we cannot escape the fact that the world we know is constructed in order (and thus in such a way as to be able) to see itself. This is indeed amazing. Not so much in view of what it sees, although this may appear fantastic enough, but in respect of the fact that it can see at all. But in order to do so, evidently it must first cut itself up into at least one state which sees and at least one other state which is seen. In this severed and mutilated condition, what- ever sees is only partially itself. We may take it that the world undoubtedly is itself (i.e., is indistinct from itself), but, in any attempt to see itself as an object, it must, equally undoubtedly, act so as to make itself distinct from, and therefore false to, itself. In this condition it will always partially elude itself.

Spis treści

1. Introduction.- 2. A History of the Changing Brain.- 3. Towards a Model of an Ecology of the Brain.- 4. Conceptualizing Sensory Environments.- 5. Environmental Complexity and Isolation.- 6. Effects of Social Environment on Cerebral Morphology, Chemistry and Pharmacology.- 7. Sensory Environments and Brain Damage.- 8. Mechanisms Mediating the Production of Environmentally Induced Brain Changes.- 9. The Tao of Brain: Suggestions of Cross Disciplinary Parallels.- 10. An Overview and Glimpse at the Future of the Ecology of the Brain.- References.