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In recent years the clinical and cognitive sciences and neuroscience have contributed important insights to understanding the self. The neuroscientific study of the self and self-consciousness is in its infancy in terms of established models, available data and even vocabulary. However, there are neuropsychiatric conditions, such as schizophrenia, in which the self becomes disordered and this aspect can be studied against healthy controls through experiment, building cognitive models of how the mind works, and imaging brain states. In this 2003 book, the first to address the scientific contribution to an understanding of the self, an eminent, international team focuses on current models of self-consciousness from the neurosciences and psychiatry. These are set against introductory essays describing the philosophical, historical and psychological approaches, making this a uniquely inclusive overview. It will appeal to a wide audience of scientists, clinicians and scholars concerned with the phenomenology and psychopathology of the self.
An essential reference for the new discipline of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience that defines the field's approach of applying evolutionary theory to guide brain-behavior investigations. Since Darwin we have known that evolution has shaped all organisms and that biological organs—including the brain and the highly crafted animal nervous system—are subject to the pressures of natural and sexual selection. It is only relatively recently, however, that the cognitive neurosciences have begun to apply evolutionary theory and methods to the study of brain and behavior. This landmark reference documents and defines the emerging field of evolutionary cognitive neuroscience. Chapters by leadi...
The question of the self, of what the self is (or even if there is a self), has been one that has grown alongside humanity – has haunted humanity – throughout our history. Blurred: Selves Made and Selves Making guides the reader down these dark corridors, shining light on the specters of theories past and unveiling a new self-view to hover afresh, beckoning to roadways beyond. In this remarkably interdisciplinary study, philosophy of mind joins with contemporary neuroscience and cutting-edge psychology to lay bare the how of identity formation, judgment, and behavior generation. Drawing on thinkers from both the Continental and Analytic traditions, consciousness is explored and a uniquely realist self-concept presented that, if adopted, offers a life lived otherwise.
Yawning is a stereotyped phylogenetically ancient phenomenon that occurs in almost all vertebrates. As an emotional behavior and an expressive movement, yawning has many consequences; nevertheless, it has so far been poorly addressed in medical research and practice. Bringing together the latest research from many fields, this volume integrates current insights within embryology, ethology, neurophysiology, psychology, fMRI and pathology. The phylogenetic and ontogenetic aspects of yawning offer an interesting perspective on human development, and its occurrence in neurological diseases - an area explored by only a few investigators - may provide useful clinical information. This book will make valuable and fascinating reading to neurologists, sleep specialists, psychologists, ethologists and pharmacologists, as well as to anybody interested in uncovering the mystery of yawning.
The human mind is the most powerful game engine – but it can always use some help. This book is meant for developers who want to create games that will evoke richer and more memorable “gameworlds” in the minds of their players. We don’t just enter such unforgettable gameworlds when we play first-person 3D RPGs with high-resolution graphics; even relatively simple 2D puzzle or strategy games with 8-bit-style visuals can immerse players in worlds that are beautiful, terrifying, mysterious, or moving, that are brutally realistic or delightfully whimsical. Indeed, good video games can transport us to incredible new worlds. The process by which a particular gameworld emerges is a symbioti...
This study explores the current stage of generative linguistics, the Minimalist Program, and examines its philosophical implications, tracing the basic themes back to the seventeenth-century scientific revolutions and the nineteenth-century biological tradition of formalism. Expositions of the 'philosophy of biolinguistics' have previously been few and short, and exploring the insights of recent theoretical linguists and neurobiologists can shed some much needed light on the problems posed by analytical philosophy, such as traditional questions of 'reference' and 'truth.'
Oscar E. Jiménez opens up the multi-dimensional implications of Ephesians 2:11-22 for narrative and theological analysis, demonstrating that each metaphor in the text blends and creates a single, complex narrative. Concentric spatial places construct the text’s landscape on which the Gentiles move, each place representing increasing intimacy and familiarity through national, familial, architectural, and cultic images. Christ is the vehicle of that motion, and also the agent, breaking down walls and abolishing enmity, and ultimately building the structure as both builder and cornerstone. This will be an important book for New Testament scholars and scholars interested in the use of linguistics in Biblical studies, in particular literary and narrative analysis to the New Testament epistles.
The Medieval Worldview that Regarded Human Beings as at the Center of God's plans for His universe has long been regarded as obsolete; its synthesis of Christian theology and Greek philosophy having collapsed under the weight of Copernicus, Galileo, and Darwin. The popular stereotype is that Science, both in the Copernican revolution that dethroned the earth-centered view of the cosmos and in subsequent developments in evolutionary theory and general relativity, has marginalized and trivialized human existence, revealing humanity's "place in the cosmos" to be accidental, peripheral, and ultimately meaningless. However, an investigation into both modern Christian theology and contemporary twe...
The Oxford Handbook of the Self explores a fascinating diversity of questions about our understanding of self from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, ethics, psychology, neuroscience, psychopathology, narrative, and postmodern theories.
It seems at times unthinkable that a book like this would have to be written, although, I am relatively sure that Aldous Huxley foresaw its necessity, when he wrote Brave New World. But, the time has arrived where babies are manufactured in sterile facilities and tested for their fitness for life in the world. While we have not yet advanced sufficiently in biological sciences to entirely forego natural gestation in favor of prenatal programming process which Huxley describes, we have reached the point where those unwanted embryos are: set aside; freeze dried; and abandoned or destroyed when they do not meet the standard set for a child. This book affirms the intrinsic goodness of the life of each embryo and explores from the Catholic perspective the possibility of frozen embryo rescue by adoption. It looks at those arguments, which see the elements of in vitro fertilization as so contrary to the faith and the natural law as to be irrecoverably intrinsically evil, and rejects those in favor of a small and narrow path of adoption to fully re-incorporate a child, through the love of a mother and a father, into the society which abandoned it.