Conclusion

Author(s):  
Jack M. Gorman

This chapter concludes the book’s discussion of how experience changes the brain. It summarizes the positions that have been taken in the preceding chapters: that the human brain is unique even in comparison to our nearest genetic neighbors in the great ape family, that the mind is the organ of the brain and all of its functions can be explained by molecular activity within the brain, and that psychotherapy is an experience that changes the brain. It provides a discussion on how neuroscience and psychology are fundamentally intertwined, linking the mind and brain, and it emphasizes the rapidly evolving, changing nature of the field of neuroscience and argues the need for more research linking psychotherapy with neurobiology.

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-43
Author(s):  
Surjo Soekadar ◽  
Jennifer Chandler ◽  
Marcello Ienca ◽  
Christoph Bublitz

Recent advances in neurotechnology allow for an increasingly tight integration of the human brain and mind with artificial cognitive systems, blending persons with technologies and creating an assemblage that we call a hybrid mind. In some ways the mind has always been a hybrid, emerging from the interaction of biology, culture (including technological artifacts) and the natural environment. However, with the emergence of neurotechnologies enabling bidirectional flows of information between the brain and AI-enabled devices, integrated into mutually adaptive assemblages, we have arrived at a point where the specific examination of this new instantiation of the hybrid mind is essential. Among the critical questions raised by this development are the effects of these devices on the user’s perception of the self, and on the user’s experience of their own mental contents. Questions arise related to the boundaries of the mind and body and whether the hardware and software that are functionally integrated with the body and mind are to be viewed as parts of the person or separate artifacts subject to different legal treatment. Other questions relate to how to attribute responsibility for actions taken as a result of the operations of a hybrid mind, as well as how to settle questions of the privacy and security of information generated and retained within a hybrid mind.


2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur Cody

Brain research is intended to produce valuable results in medicine and information technology. All to the good. Nevertheless, the contentions made by both the BRAIN Initiative and the Human Brain Project are not only unproven, but indefensible. Their most egregious error lies in a doctrinal misconception of what the mind does. The mind is a matter of memory, belief, intention, desire, will, and the like—mentalities.


Author(s):  
Junaid Ahmad Malik

With the expanding use of wireless cellular networks, concerns have been communicated about the possible interaction of electromagnetic radiation with the human life, explicitly, the mind and brain. Mobile phones emanate radio frequency waves, a type of non-ionizing radiation, which can be absorbed by tissues nearest to where the telephone is kept. The effects on neuronal electrical activity, energy metabolism, genomic responses, neurotransmitter balance, blood–brain barrier permeability, mental psychological aptitude, sleep, and diverse cerebrum conditions including brain tumors are assessed. Health dangers may likewise develop from use of cellular communication, for instance, car accidents while utilizing the device while driving. These indirect well-being impacts surpass the immediate common troubles and should be looked into in more detail later on. In this chapter, we outline the possible biological impacts of EMF introduction on human brain.


2021 ◽  
pp. 42-84
Author(s):  
Susan B. Levin

“Basic-emotion” and “dual-process” theorists, joined by transhumanists, view the mind as a set of compartments whose functionality is explained by dedicated areas or systems in the brain. The two theoretical approaches reflect core misconceptions and have been supplanted by “appraisal theory.” Beyond capturing well the entwining of reason and emotion in our mental operations, Klaus Scherer’s version of appraisal theory is compatible with mounting evidence of the brain’s complexity. Having developed a scientific line of argument against transhumanists’ lens on the mind and brain, the author turns to Aristotle’s rational essentialism. Wrongly invoked to support transhumanists’ extreme version, Aristotle’s rational essentialism incorporates a necessary role for nonrational faculties and intrapsychic harmony. While transhumanists’ lens on the mind and brain is at odds with contemporary findings, Aristotle’s view of the mind shares important commitments with Scherer’s appraisal theory and is broadly compatible with an emerging picture of the brain’s complexity.


2017 ◽  
pp. 279-292
Author(s):  
Thomas Fuchs

The ‘Conclusion’ summarizes fundamental concepts and insights of the book. The brain is presented as an organ of mediation, transformation, and resonance. Its functions are integrated by the living organism as a whole, or by the embodied person, respectively: persons have brains, they are not brains. The deadlocks of the mind–body problem result from a short circuit between mind and brain which follows as a consequence from the systematic exclusion of life. A combination of phenomenological, embodied, and enactive approaches seems best suited to overcome this deficit. In contrast to naturalistic reductionism, this leads to a personalistic concept of the human being which has its basis in intercorporeality: it is in the concrete bodily encounter that we primarily recognize each other as embodied subjects or persons.


Author(s):  
Jack M. Gorman

Some scientists now argue that humans are really not superior to other species, including our nearest genetic neighbors, chimpanzees and bonobos. Indeed, those animals seem capable of many things previously thought to be uniquely human, including a sense of the future, empathy, depression, and theory of mind. However, it is clear that humans alone produce speech, dominate the globe, and have several brain diseases like schizophrenia. There are three possible sources within the brain for these differences in brain function: in the structure of the brain, in genes coding for proteins in the brain, and in the level of expression of genes in the brain. There is evidence that all three are the case, giving us a place to look for the intersection of the human mind and brain: the expression of genes within neurons of the prefrontal cortex.


2010 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-448 ◽  

Emotion and cognition have been viewed as largely separate entities in the brain. Within this framework, significant progress has been made in understanding specific aspects of behavior. Research in the past two decades, however, has started to paint a different picture of brain organization, one in which network interactions are key to understanding complex behaviors. From both basic and clinical perspectives, the characterization of cognitive-emotional interactions constitutes a fundamental issue in the investigation of the mind and brain. This review will highlight the interactive and integrative potential that exists in the brain to bring together the cognitive and emotional domains. First, anatomical evidence will be provided, focusing on structures such as hypothalamus, basal forebrain, amygdala, cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and insula. Data on functional interactions will then be discussed, followed by a discussion of a dual competition framework, which describes cognitive-emotional interactions in terms of perceptual and cognitive competition mechanisms.


2014 ◽  
Vol 46 (129) ◽  
pp. 215
Author(s):  
Renato Alves De Oliveira

O objetivo deste artigo é mostrar que a questão referente aos dois princípios metafísicos constitutivos da antropologia cristã, o corpo/matéria e a alma/espírito, e a forma de conceber a relação entre eles encontra-se presentes no subsolo das novas antropologias materialistas, mas com um novo verniz através da relação entre a mente e o cérebro. Para a antropologia cristã, a existência do binômio corpo-alma é uma questão resolvida. As discussões se concentram na forma de conceber a relação entre ambos os princípios. Analogamente, para algumas antropologias materialistas atuais, a existência da mente e do cérebro é uma questão fechada. Os confrontos encontram-se na forma de conceber as relações entre a mente e o cérebro: há uma identificação ou distinção entres ambas as realidades? A mente seria uma qualidade emergente do cérebro? ABSTRACT: The purpose of this article is to show that the question concerning the two constituent metaphysical principles of Christian anthropology, body/matter and soul/spirit, and the way of conceiving the relationship between them is presente in the basement of the new materialist anthropologies, but with a new varnish through the relationship between mind and brain. For Christian anthropology, the existence of the binomial soul/body is a settled issue. The discussions focus on how to design the relationship between the two principles. Similarly, for some current materialistic anthropologies, the existence of the mind and the brain is a closed question. The clashes are the way of conceiving the relationship between mind and brain: Is there an identification or a distinction between the two realities? Would be the mind an emergent quality of the brain?


2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 242-250
Author(s):  
Eduardo Giannetti

Abstract Modern science has undermined belief in countless imaginary causalities. What is the nature of the relation between mind and brain? Philosophers have debated the issue for millennia, but it is only in the last twenty years that empirical evidence has begun to uncover some of the secrets of this ancient riddle. This lecture explores the possiblity that advances in neuroscience will undermine and subvert our intuitive, mentalist understanding of the mind-body relationship. Recent findings in neuroscience seem to support the notions that (i) mental events are a subclass of neurophysiological events, and (ii) they are devoid of causal efficacy upon the workings of the brain. If physicalism is true then the belief in the causal potency of conscious thoughts and free will are bound to join company with countless other imaginary causalities exploded by the progress of science.


2013 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Erik Fenstad

Is a common approach to knowledge about man and nature possible? With Leonardo da Vinci as our starting point we will explore this question. Leonardo was much more than a painter; he was a sharp observer of man and nature. What he saw (structures) and what he did (using his miraculous left hand as syntax) was translated into insights and methods of constructions as recorded in his notebooks. His view was holistic, as witnessed by his study of the eye; from the anatomy of the eye he proceeded outwards to a theory of perspective, and inwards to an understanding how perception and the mind are grounded in the brain. In this we see similarities to current studies of language, mind and brain. It is possible to see a kind of proto-version of the art and science of mathematical modelling in Leonardo. This is a methodology of wide scope, extending far beyond physics and engineering. With a sufficiently broad understanding of the key concepts of structure, syntax and algorithms we have a method strong enough to allow for a common approach to knowledge of man and nature, to what there is and how we know.


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