The new science of consciousness : exploring the complexity of brain, mind, and self / Paul L. Nunez.
By: Nunez, Paul L.
Publisher: Amherst, New York : Prometheus Books, ©2016Description: 374 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.Content type: text Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781633886964.Subject(s): Consciousness -- Popular works | Brain -- Popular works | Neurosciences -- Popular works | SCIENCE -- Cognitive Science | SCIENCE -- Life Sciences -- Neuroscience | Brain | Consciousness | Neurosciences | Bewusstsein | Kognitionswissenschaft | Neuropsychiatrie | Neurowissenschaften | Consciousness | Brain -- physiologyGenre/Form: Popular works. | Popular Work. | Print books.Current location | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
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On Shelf | QP411 .N856 2016 (Browse shelf) | Available | AU00000000017322 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction to mind and brain -- The science and philosophy of mind -- A brief look into brain structure and function -- States of mind -- Signatures of consciousness -- Rhythms of the brain -- Brain synchrony, coherence, and resonance -- Networks of the brain -- Introduction to the hard problem -- Multiscale speculations on the hard problem.
This book explains in layperson's terms a new approach to studying consciousness based on a partnership between neuroscientists and complexity scientists. The author, a physicist turned neuroscientist, outlines essential features of this partnership. The new science goes well beyond traditional cognitive science and simple neural networks, which are often the focus in artificial-intelligence research. It involves many fields, including neuroscience, artificial intelligence, physics, cognitive science, and psychiatry. What causes autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer's disease? Do we enjoy genuine free will or are we slaves to unconscious systems? As the author shows, these important questions can be viewed in a new light when neuroscientists and complexity scientists work together. This cross-disciplinary approach also offers fresh insights into the major unsolved challenge of our age: the origin of self-awareness. Do minds emerge from brains? Or is something more involved? Using human social networks as a metaphor, the author explains how brain behavior can be compared with the collective behavior of large-scale global systems. Emergent global systems that interact and form relationships with lower levels of organization and the surrounding environment provide useful models for complex brain functions. By blending lucid explanations with illuminating analogies, this book offers the general reader a window into the latest exciting developments in brain research.
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