Consciousness Theory

What is consciousness? How do physical processes in the brain give rise to the self-aware mind and to feelings as profoundly varied as love or hate, aesthetic pleasure or spiritual yearning? These questions today are among the most hotly debated issues among scientists and philosophers. Philosopher David J. Chalmers offers a cogent analysis of this heated debate as he unveils a major new theory of consciousness, one that rejects the prevailing reductionist trend of science, while offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.

Here is a concise, comprehensive overview of Wilber's revolutionary thought and its application in today's world. In A Theory of Everything, Wilber uses clear, nontechnical language to present complex, cutting-edge theories that integrate the realms of body, mind, soul, and spirit. He then demonstrates how these theories and models can be applied to real-world problems in areas such as politics, medicine, business, education, and the environment.

In this eye-opening work, Graziano accessibly explores how this sense of an inner being led to empathy and formed us into social beings. The theory may point the way to engineers for building consciousness artificially. Graziano discusses what a future with artificial consciousness might be like, including both advantages and risks, and what AI might mean for our evolutionary future.

Recent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognised. These other beings are the animals, plants and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we've built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours.

In this thoughtful and brilliant new book, the internationally best-selling author of Happy considers the value of friction in our lives. In chapters revealing his own moments of anger and prejudice, anxiety and shyness, loneliness and loss, Derren Brown examines the means to a more rewarding life, be it saving yourself from small talk or navigating middle age.

The Hidden Messages in Water is an eye-opening theory about how water is deeply connected to people's individual and collective consciousness. Drawing from his own discoveries, scientific researcher, healer, and popular lecturer Dr. Masaru Emoto describes the ability of water to absorb, hold, and even retransmit human feelings and emotions. Using high-speed photography, he found that crystals formed in ice reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward it.

Awareness: The most profound, intimate, and collective experience human beings share turns out to be an absolute mystery. As universal a state as consciousness is to every person, it currently carries no agreed upon definition beyond its observable characteristics.... Robert A. Revel cuts through religious and academic dogma to posit something he senses is profoundly obvious: that consciousness is its own dimensional phenomenon - the fifth operational feature in our universe.

In Artificial You, Susan Schneider says that it is inevitable that AI will take intelligence in new directions but urges that it is up to us to carve out a sensible path forward. As AI technology turns inward, reshaping the brain, as well as outward, potentially creating machine minds, it is crucial to beware. Homo sapiens, as mind designers, will be playing with "tools" they do not understand how to use: the self, the mind, and consciousness.

Despite decades of research, remarkable imagery, and insights from a range of scientific and medical disciplines, the human brain remains largely unexplored. Consciousness has eluded explanation. Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness offers a brilliant overview of the state of modern consciousness research in twenty revealing chapters. Neuroscientist and author Patrick House describes complex concepts in accessible terms, weaving brain science, technology, gaming, analogy, and philosophy into a tapestry that illuminates how the brain works and what enables consciousness.

Since the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been seen as ground zero for debates about the appropriate role of government in the wake of the Great Recession. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall that brought thousands of protesters to Capitol Square, he was subsequently reelected. How could this happen? How is it that the very people who stand to benefit from strong government services not only vote against the candidates who support those services but are vehemently against the very idea of big government?

A new field of collective intelligence has emerged in the last few years, prompted by a wave of digital technologies that make it possible for organizations and societies to think at large scale. This "bigger mind" - human and machine capabilities working together - has the potential to solve the great challenges of our time. So why do smart technologies not automatically lead to smart results?

The question of artificial intelligence and how far we, as a people, should take the technology is one of our society's biggest debates at the moment; as AI generated art, texts, and even communications have increased as the technology grows altogether. The insight which each chapter provides into the concept of human consciousness and the evolution of that consciousness was so beautifully explored in this book, and the way evolution plays into the idea of adapting consciousness into the development of AI is remarkable.

Today's computers are composing music that sounds "more Bach than Bach", turning photographs into paintings in the style of Van Gogh's Starry Night, and even writing screenplays. But are computers truly creative - or are they merely tools to be used by musicians, artists, and writers? Miller, an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from "the need for introspection" to "the ability to discover the key problem." He talks to people on the cutting edge of artificial intelligence and explores the riches of computer-created art.

In science fiction, artificial intelligence takes the shape of computers that can speak like people, think for themselves, and sometimes act against us. Reality of course is vastly different, though in many ways computers surpass their fictional counterparts. This book reviews work in the field and covers topics from chess-playing to quantum computing. The writers tackle how to make computers more powerful, how we define consciousness, what the hard problems are, and even how computers might be built once the limits of silicon chips have been reached.

Consciousness and Shamanism is the result of the author's Ayahuasca voyage in 2004 to Ecuador, where he was drinking the sacred brew in the presence of an experienced Shuar shaman. He puts up the hypothesis that when the traditional Ayahuasca brew is ingested, it is not, or not directly, the plant's DMT that causes the spiritual voyage as it is assumed in the overwhelming part of the literature on shamanism and entheogens. It is the shaman's super-consciousness impacting directly upon the consciousness of the shaman's client, the seeker of truth who comes to drink the brew.

In an age where Artificial Intelligence (AI) evolves at a breakneck pace, the boundaries of machine capabilities are constantly being redefined. Propelled by advancements in deep learning and related technologies, AI is inching ever closer to mimicking human intellect. But can it achieve consciousness? And if so, at what cost to humanity?

This audiobook’s content and entertaining style will appeal equally to science-fiction enthusiasts and scholars, including cognitive and neuroscientists, as well as philosophers of mind. It is a refreshing romp through the science and science fiction of consciousness.

Die psychoanalytische Theorie nimmt an, dass der Ablauf der seelischen Vorgänge automatisch durch das Lustprinzip reguliert wird, das heißt, dass wir in unserer ganzen Existenz durch Vermeidung von Unlust oder Erzeugung von Lust getrieben sind. Aber es gibt darüber hinaus noch stärkere, unbekanntere "Triebe". Und Sigmund Freud geht auf die Suche nach jenen fundamentalen und kreatürlichen Dingen in der Seele, die ihm in der Arbeit als Therapeut begegnet sind, Wie zum Beispiel der Wiederholungszwang. Mit Hilfe von Hypothesen und in einer professoralen Sprache schlägt er sich Bahn.

Das Ich und das Es: Wie funktioniert die Psyche? Laut Freud wird das Seelenleben durch drei Instanzen bestimmt: Das Es, das Ich, das Über-Ich. Dieses genetische Strukturmodell der Psyche entwickelte Freud 1923 - es ist bis heute von großer Bedeutung für die psychoanalytische Theoriebildung.

Understanding Reality & the Theory of Expression is a remarkable and groundbreaking book that will leave you with a newfound perspective on life and the world around you. This book was written by John Ogunyanwo, a British-born Nigerian man who wrote it while serving a six-year sentence in solitary confinement in a Japanese prison at the young age of 21, just coming into the adult years of his life as a man.