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Emotion drives all cognitive processes, largely determining their qualitative feel, their structure, and in part even their content. Action-initiating centers deep in the emotional brain ground our understanding of the world by enabling us to imagine how we could act relative to it, based on endogenous motivations to engage certain levels of energy and complexity. Thus understanding personality, cognition, consciousness and action requires examining the workings of dynamical systems applied to emotional processes in living organisms. If an object's meaning depends on its action affordances, then understanding intentionality in emotion or cognition requires exploring why emotion is the bridge between action and representational processes such as thought or imagery; and this requires integrating phenomenology with neurophysiology. The resulting viewpoint, "enactivism," entails specific new predictions, and suggests that emotions are about the self-initiated actions of dynamical systems, not reactive "responses" to external events; consciousness is more about motivated anticipation than reaction to inputs. (Series A)
The papers in this volume of Consciousness & Emotion Book Series are organized around the theme of "enaction." Enactive emotional processes are not merely the recipients of information or the passive victims of input and learning. The organism first is engaged in an ongoing, complex pattern of self-organizational activity, for the purpose of maintaining a dynamical continuity of pattern across changes of subserving micro-constituents and environmental conditions, making use of multiple shunt mechanisms, feedback loops, and other complex dynamical features. Self-organizational structure is used to distinguish between action and mere reaction. Accordingly, the papers of this volume by leading students of emotion such as Jaak Panksepp, Luc Ciompi, Thomas Natsoulas, Farzaneh Pahlavan, Michela Balconi, Todd Lubart, Louise Sundararajan, Jordan Petersen and others address three main issues: I. Emotional influences on perception and thought II. Agency and choice III. Agency and moral value
Jesus was a king of Edessa 600 pages of gnosis. Colour Images. This is the book that the Catholic Church has been dreading for the last 1700 years. This is the book that will end Christianity as we know it. And this is not advertising hyperbole, this really is the end of the Christian fairytale. We now know who Jesus was. Visit his city, see the ruins of his citadel, gaze upon his statue, handle his coins. In reality, Jesus was a son of King Abgarus of Edessa, a king with a small realm, a large treasury, and even bigger ambitions. Thus Jesus' true history undermines much of the biblical fairystory that the gospel authors crafted, and so Christianity will never be the same again. The jacket image shows Jesus wearing his Crown of Thorns, the ceremonial crown of the Edessan monarchy. We suggest that readers start with 'Cleopatra to Christ' and then 'King Jesus'. The wait before arriving at the last episode in the trilogy will be worthwhile, for if a book could be valued on its 'eureka moments' then this final book would be priceless. The 'King Jesus Trilogy' Latest version v12.1 2024 Book three of the King Jesus Trilogy (in four parts). Followed by 'The Grail Cypher'. .
One of the most important theoretical and empirical issues in the scholarly study of emotion is whether there is a correct list of basic types of affect or whether all affective states are better modeled as a combination of locations on shared underlying dimensions. Many thinkers have written on this topic, yet the views of two scientists in particular are dominant. The first is Jaak Panksepp, the father of Affective Neuroscience. Panksepp conceptualizes affect as a set of distinct categories. The leading proponent of the dimensional approach in scientific psychology is James Russell. According to Russell all affect can be decomposed into two underlying dimensions, pleasure versus displeasure and low arousal versus high arousal. In this volume Panksepp and Russell each articulate their positions on eleven fundamental questions about the nature of affect followed by a discussion of these target papers by noted emotion theorists and researchers. Russell and Panksepp respond both to each other and to the commentators. The discussion leads to some stark contrasts, with formidable arguments on both sides, and some interesting convergences between the two streams of work.
"Questioning Consciousness" brings together neuroscientific, psychological and phenomenological research, combining in a readable format recent developments in image research and neurology. It reassesses the mind-body relation and research on 'mental models', abstract concept formation, and acquisition of logical and apparently 'imageless' inference skills. It is argued that to be conscious of an object is essentially to imagine in a habituated way what would happen if we were to perform certain actions in relation to the object; and that mental images fit together to build up abstract concepts. This analysis shows why conscious information processing is so structurally different from yet interrelated with non-conscious processing, and how mind and body interrelate as a process to its substratum in the way that a sound wave relates to the medium through which it passes. (Series A)
Pushing back against the potential trivialization of moral psychology that would reduce it to emotional preferences, this book takes an enactivist, self-organizational, and hermeneutic approach to internal conflict between a basic exploratory drive motivating the search for actual truth, and opposing incentives to confabulate in the interest of conformity, authoritarianism, and cognitive dissonance, which often can lead to harmful worldviews. The result is a new possibility that ethical beliefs can have truth value and are not merely a result of ephemeral altruistic or cooperative feelings. It will interest moral and political psychologists, philosophers, social scientists, and all who are concerned with inner emotional conflicts driving ethical thinking beyond mere emotivism, and toward moral realism, albeit a fallibilist one requiring continual rethinking and self-reflection. It combines 'basic emotion' theories (such as Panksepp) with hermeneutic depth psychology. The result is a realist approach to moral thinking emphasizing coherence rather than foundationalist theory of knowledge.
The classic guide to a powerful technique that can increase your mindfulness and lead to personal transformation Based on groundbreaking research conducted at the University of Chicago, the focusing technique has gained widespread popularity and scholarly acclaim. It consists of six easy-to-master steps that identify and change the way thoughts and emotions are held within the body. Focusing can be done virtually anywhere, at any time, and an entire “session” can take no longer than ten minutes, but its effects can be felt immediately–in the relief of bodily tension and psychological stress, as well as in dramatic shifts in understanding and insight. In this highly accessible guide, Dr...
With recent advances in artificial intelligence and neuroscience, the nature of consciousness and the relation between mind and brain have become the most hotly debated topics in philosophy. Yet agreement looks farther away than ever.Ellis and Newton explain and argue for a bold new approach, called enactivism, showing how it cuts through various difficulties which have stumped previous theories. At first glance, enactivism itself seems open to fatal objections, but the authors demonstrate in detail that these objections disappear on closer examination.How the Mind Uses the Brain represents a sharp break with the tradition which sees consciousness as the final step in a chain of causes and effects, with information processing going on in the intervening steps. This tradition has reduced consciousness to an appendage. According to Ellis and Newton, consciousness and emotions are central aspects of the organisms ongoing self-organizational activity, driving information processing rather than merely responding to it.
Science of art - commentary on Ramachandran and Hirstein - Art and the Brain - The Emergence of Art and Language in the Human Brain - Cave Art, autism, and the evolution of the human mind - On aesthetic perception