The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul: A Phil...

Title: The Engine of Reason, The Seat of the Soul: A Philosophical Journey into the Brain

Description:

Pages: 344

A new picture of the mind is emerging, and explanations now exist for what has so long seemed

mysterious. This real understanding of how the biological brain works -- of how we work -- has

generated a mood of excitement that is shared in a half-dozen intersecting disciplines.

Philosopher Paul Churchland, who is widely known as a gifted teacher and expository writer,

explains these scientific developments in a simple, authoritative, and pictorial fashion. He

not only opens the door into the ongoing research of the neurobiological and connectionist

communities but goes further, probing the social and moral dimensions of recent experimental

results that assign consciousness to all but the very simplest forms of animals.

In a fast-paced, entertaining narrative, replete with examples and numerous explanatory

illustrations, Churchland brings together an exceptionally broad range of intellectual issues.

He summarizes new results from neuroscience and recent work with artificial neural networks

that together suggest a unified set of answers to questions about how the brain actually works;

how it sustains a thinking, feeling, dreaming self; and how it sustains a self-conscious

person.

Churchland first explains the science -- the powerful role of vector coding in sensory

representation and pattern recognition, artificial neural networks that imitate parts of the

brain, recurrent networks, neural representation of the social world, and diagnostic

technologies and therapies for the brain in trouble. He then explores the far-reaching

consequences of the current neurocomputational understanding of mind for our philosophical

convictions, and for our social, moral, legal, medical, and personal lives.

Churchland's wry wit and skillful teaching style are evident throughout. He introduces the

remarkable representational power of a single human brain, for instance, via a captivating

brain/World-Trade-Tower TV screen analogy. "Who can be watching this pixilated show?"

Churchland queries; the answer is a provocative "no one." And he has included a folded

stereoscopic viewer, attached to the inside back cover of the book, that readers can use to

participate directly in several revealing experiments concerning stereo vision.

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