Evolving the mind : on the nature of matter and the origin of consciousness
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Evolving the mind : on the nature of matter and the origin of consciousness
Cambridge University Press, 1998
- : pbk
Available at 5 libraries
Note
Originally published: 1996
Bibliography: p. 299-315
Includes index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Evolving the Mind has two main themes: how ideas about the mind evolved in science; and how the mind itself evolved in nature. The mind came into physical science when it was realised, first, that it is the activity of a physical object, a brain, which makes a mind; and secondly, that our theories of nature are largely mental constructions, artificial extensions of an inner model of the world which we inherited from our distant ancestors. From both of these perspectives, consciousness is the great enigma. If consciousness evolved, however, it is in some sense a material thing whatever else may be said of it. Physics, chemistry, molecular biology, brain function and evolutionary biology - almost the whole of science - is involved, and there can be no expert in all these fields. So the style of the book is simple, almost conversational. The excitement is that we seem to be close to a scientific theory of consciousness.
Table of Contents
- 1. Material things
- 2. Life
- 3. Forms of intelligence
- 4. Places in the brain
- 5. Correlates of consciousness
- 6. Dreaming aware
- 7. Space time and substance
- 8. Making theories
- 9. Quantum theories of consciousness
- 10. Conversation and coda
- References
- Index.
by "Nielsen BookData"