The Disembodied Brain

Photocopied zine of short stories inspired by the author's childhood and teen years. Topics explored include sexuality, bad friends, belief in magic and life's mundanities.

Leading scholars respond to the famous proposition by Andy Clark and David Chalmers that cognition and mind are not located exclusively in the head.

Until recently, brains in vats and animals with partly-human brains have been the realm of science fiction, but recent research is making them real. In Disembodied Brains, John H. Evans examines the viewpoints of professional ethicists and scientists on the implications of these new technologies, and how those viewpoints contrast with the fearful intuitions of the general public.

"Society has long been fascinated with mixes of humans and animals, and scientists have recently developed human-animal neuro-chimeras, which are animals with some component of a human brain. Society has also been fascinated by the "brain in the vat," and now scientists have developed human brain organoids, which are small parts of a human brain in a dish grown from cells from a person's body. The general reaction to these technologies is shock or disgust, and this book closely examines the public's response to these technologies. The public tends to believe in a foundational distinction between humans and animals, and the neuro-chimera violates this distinction, resulting in opposition. Similarly, the public tends to believe that disembodied human parts are not totally separate from the original human, and therefore a brain organoid in a dish retains the "essence" of the person from whom the cells originate. This too results in greater concern about the human brain organoid. The book also examines more general attitudes toward biotechnology that also impact the public's views of neuro-chimeras and organoids. The book concludes with a discussion of how to set a public policy so that limits on these technologies are possible - allowing the development of the technologies for medical research but stopping the technologies from reaching the public's dystopia of the very human animal or the organoid that is perceived as actually a part of another human"--

Great Myths of the Brain introduces readers to the field of neuroscience by examining popular myths about the human brain. Explores commonly-held myths of the brain through the lens of scientific research, backing up claims with studies and other evidence from the literature Looks at enduring myths such as “Do we only use 10% of our brain?”, “Pregnant women lose their mind”, “Right-brained people are more creative” and many more. Delves into myths relating to specific brain disorders, including epilepsy, autism, dementia, and others Written engagingly and accessibly for students and lay readers alike, providing a unique introduction to the study of the brain Teaches readers how to spot neuro hype and neuro-nonsense claims in the media

"What is the mind?" "What is the relationship between brain and mind?" These are common questions. But "What is the brain?" is a rare question in both the neurosciences and philosophy. The reason for this may lie in the brain itself: Is there a "brain problem"? In this fresh and innovative book, Georg Northoff demonstrates that there is in fact a "brain problem". He argues that our brain can only be understood when its empirical functions are directly related to the modes of acquiring knowledge, our epistemic abilities and inabilities. Drawing on the latest neuroscientific data and philosophical theories, he provides an empirical-epistemic definition of the brain. Northoff reveals the basic conceptual confusion about the relationship between mind and brain that has so obstinately been lingering in both neuroscience and philosophy. He subsequently develops an alternative framework where the integration of the brain within body and environment is central. This novel approach plunges the reader into the depths of our own brain. The "Philosophy of the Brain" that emerges opens the door to a fascinating world of new findings that explore the mind and its relationship to our very human brain. (Series A)

The universe may well have begun with an immense act of fragmentation, "the big bang," that sent particles flying in all directions to perform spectacular acts of creation and destruction. The fragment, volatile and unpredictable, is not simply the static part of a once-whole thing but itself something in motion. Drawing upon art history, archaeology, literature, numismatics, philosophy, and film, this book explores the significance of the fragment and addresses the powerful drives that have impelled it into the cultural mainstream. Book jacket.

From the author of How Emotions Are Made, a myth-busting primer on the brain, in the tradition of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

What are we exactly, when we are said to be our brain? This question leads Jan De Vos to examine the different metamorphoses of the brain: the educated brain, the material brain, the iconographic brain, the sexual brain, the celebrated brain and, finally, the political brain. This first, protracted and sustained argument on neurologisation, which lays bare its lineage with psychologisation, should be taken seriously by psychologists, educationalists, sociologists, students of cultural studies, policy makers and, above all, neuroscientists themselves.

Sunny Auyang tackles what she calls "the large pictures of the human mind," exploring the relevance of cognitive science findings to everyday mental life. Auyang proposes a model of an "open mind emerging from the self-organization of infrastructures," which she opposes to prevalent models that treat mind as a disembodied brain or computer, subject to the control of external agents such as neuroscientists and programmers. Although cognitive science has obtained abundant data on neural and computational processes, it barely explains such ordinary experiences as recognizing faces, feeling pain, or remembering the past. In this book Sunny Auyang tackles what she calls "the large pictures of the human mind," exploring the relevance of cognitive science findings to everyday mental life. Auyang proposes a model of an "open mind emerging from the self-organization of infrastructures," which she opposes to prevalent models that treat mind as a disembodied brain or computer, subject to the control of external agents such as neuroscientists and programmers. Her model consists of three parts: (1) the open mind of our conscious life; (2) mind's infrastructure, the unconscious processes studied by cognitive science; and (3) emergence, the relation between the open mind and its infrastructure. At the heart of Auyang's model is the mind that opens to the world and makes it intelligible. A person with an open mind feels, thinks, recognizes, believes, doubts, anticipates, fears, speaks, and listens, and is aware of I, together with it and thou. Cognitive scientists refer to the "binding problem," the question of how myriad unconscious processes combine into the unity of consciousness. Auyang approaches the problem from the other end—by starting with everyday experience rather than with the mental infrastructure. In so doing, she shows both how analyses of experiences can help to advance cognitive science and how cognitive science can help us to understand ourselves as autonomous subjects.