Len Yabloko's List: Books

REVIEW OF: Francis Crick (1994) The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. xiv+317pp. Price: $US 12.60 pbk. ISBN:0684801582.

This book is a challenging attempt to give a reductionist model of mental processes by one of the leading biologists in the world, Francis Crick. It is not surprising that the Noble laureate who discovered the reductionist explanation of DNA should extend this method to the mind-brain problem.

"The philosophy of mind is unique among contemporary philosophical subjects," writes John Searle, "in that all of the most famous and influential theories are false." In Mind, Searle dismantles these famous and influential theories as he presents a vividly written, comprehensive introduction to the mind. Here readers will find one of the world's most eminent thinkers shedding light on the central concern of modern philosophy. Searle begins with a look at the twelve problems of philosophy of mind--which he calls "Descartes and Other Disasters"--problems which he returns to throughout the volume, as he illuminates such topics as the freedom of the will, the actual operation of mental causation, the nature and functioning of the unconscious, the analysis of perception, and the concept of the self.

The term cognition is used in several different loosely related ways. In psychology it is used to refer to the mental processes of an individual, with particular relation to a view that argues that the mind has internal mental states (such as beliefs, desires and intentions) and can be understood in terms of information processing, especially when a lot of abstraction or concretization is involved, or processes such as involving knowledge, expertise or learning for example are at work.

"Cambridge University Press, 2008 - 201 pages
John R. Searle has made profoundly influential contributions to three areas of philosophy: philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and philosophy of society. This volume gathers together in accessible form a selection of his essays in these areas. They range widely across social ontology, where Searle presents concise and informative statements of positions developed in more detail elsewhere; artificial intelligence and cognitive science, where Searle assesses the current state of the debate and develops his most recent thoughts; and philosophy of language, where Searle connects ideas from various strands of his work in order to develop original answers to fundamental questions"

Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, "I" arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here?
I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop"-a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called "I." The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.

""Deely's book, the only successful modern English introduction to semiotics, is a clear, creative, and provocative synthesis of major trends, past and present" -- Thomas A Sebeok, Indiana University (1990)"

Downward Causation and the Neurobiology of Free Will
By Nancey Murphy, George F. R. Ellis, Timothy O'Connor

Solomon Feferman ASL 2011 Annual Meet UC Berkeley, March 27, 2011

Gödel was younger than Einstein and far less famous, but those in the know considered him Princeton's second greatest genius. Johnny von Neumann, inventor of the computer, called Gödel's work "singular and monumental." Oppenheimer, scientific director of the project that built the atomic bomb, called Gödel "the greatest logician since Aristotle." Gödel earned his reputation with airtight proofs of unexpected results. There has never been another mathematician like him before or since.

Gödel's modal ontological argument is the centrepiece of an extensive examination of intensional logic. First, classical type theory is presented semantically, tableau rules for it are introduced, and the Prawitz/Takahashi completeness proof is given. Then modal machinery is added, semantically and through tableau rules, to produce a modified version of Montague/Gallin intensional logic. Extensionality, rigidity, equality, identity, and definite descriptions are investigated. Finally, various ontological proofs for the existence of God are discussed informally, and the Gödel argument is fully formalized. Objections to the Gödel argument are examined, including one due to Howard Sobel showing Gödel's assumptions are so strong that the modal logic collapses. It is shown that this argument depends critically on whether properties are understood intensionally or extensionally.Parts of the book are mathematical, parts philosophical. A reader interested in (modal) type theory can safely skip ontological issues, just as one interested in Gödel's argument can omit the more mathematical portions, such as the completeness proof for tableaus. There should be something for everybody (and perhaps everything for somebody).

Jack Parker, Hailman Harvard University Press, 2008 - 257 pages

Cognitive science approaches the study of mind and intelligence from an interdisciplinary perspective, working at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, linguistics, and anthropology. With Mind, Paul Thagard offers an introduction to this interdisciplinary field for readers who come to the subject with very different backgrounds. It is suitable for classroom use by students with interests ranging from computer science and engineering to psychology and philosophy.

As no other anthology currently does, "The Nature of Consciousness" provides a substantial introduction to the field, and imposes structure on a vast and complicated literature, with sections covering stream of consciousness, theoretical issues, consciousness and representation, the function of consciousness, subjectivity and the explanatory gap, the knowledge argument, qualia, and monitoring conceptions of consciousness. Of the 49 contributions, 18 are either new or have been adapted from a previous publication.

Burgeoning advancements in brain science are opening up new perspectives on how we acquire knowledge. Indeed, it is now possible to explore consciousness--the very center of human concern--by scientific means. In this illuminating book, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman offers a new theory of knowledge based on striking scientific findings about how the brain works. And he addresses the related compelling question: Does the latest research imply that all knowledge can be reduced to scientific description? Edelman's brain-based approach to knowledge has rich implications for our understanding of creativity, of the normal and abnormal functioning of the brain, and of the connections among the different ways we have of knowing. While the gulf between science and the humanities and their respective views of the world has seemed enormous in the past, the author shows that their differences can be dissolved by considering their origins in brain functions. He foresees a day when brain-based devices will be conscious, and he reflects on this and other fascinating ideas about how we come to know the world and ourselves.

How does the firing of neurons give rise to subjective sensations, thoughts, and emotions? How can the disparate domains of mind and body be reconciled? The quest for a scientifically based understanding of consciousness has attracted study and speculation across the ages. In this direct and non-technical discussion of consciousness, Dr. Gerald M. Edelman draws on a lifetime of scientific inquiry into the workings of the brain to formulate answers to the mind-body questions that intrigue every thinking person.

Scientific understanding of consciousness in neural terms requires the acceptance of a number of constraints. Any account of consciousness must reject extraphysical tenets such as dualism, and thus be physically based as well as evolutionarily sound. Consciousness is not a thing but rather, as William James pointed out (6), a process that emerges from interactions of the brain, the body, and the environment.

Series: Understanding Complex Systems
Murphy, Nancey; Ellis, George F.R.; O'Connor, Timothy (Eds.)
2009, VIII, 292 p. 24 illus., 5 in color.

How is free will possible in the light of the physical and chemical underpinnings of brain activity and recent neurobiological experiments? How can the emergence of complexity in hierarchical systems such as the brain, based at the lower levels in physical interactions, lead to something like genuine free will? The nature of our understanding of free will in the light of present-day neuroscience is becoming increasingly important because of remarkable discoveries on the topic being made by neuroscientists at the present time, on the one hand, and its crucial importance for the way we view ourselves as human beings, on the other. A key tool in understanding how free will may arise in this context is the idea of downward causation in complex systems, happening coterminously with bottom up causation, to form an integral whole.