cognitive psychology mind and brain 2007

Science has long treated religion as a set of personal beliefs that have little to do with a rational understanding of the mind and the universe. However, B. Alan Wallace, a respected Buddhist scholar, proposes that the contemplative methodologies of Buddhism and of Western science are capable of being integrated into a single discipline: contemplative science.

The science of consciousness introduces first-person methods of investigating the mind through Buddhist contemplative techniques, such as samatha, an organized, detailed system of training the attention. Just as scientists make observations and conduct experiments with the aid of technology, contemplatives have long tested their own theories with the help of highly developed meditative skills of observation and experimentation. Contemplative science allows for a deeper knowledge of mental phenomena, including a wide range of states of consciousness, and its emphasis on strict mental discipline counteracts the effects of conative (intention and desire), attentional, cognitive, and affective imbalances.

Just as behaviorism, psychology, and neuroscience have all shed light on the cognitive processes that enable us to survive and flourish, contemplative science offers a groundbreaking perspective for expanding our capacity to realize genuine well-being. It also forges a link between the material world and the realm of the subconscious that transcends the traditional science-based understanding of the self.

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In Neuroscience and Philosophy three prominent philosophers and a leading neuroscientist clash over the conceptual presuppositions of cognitive neuroscience. The book begins with an excerpt from Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker’s Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience (Blackwell, 2003), which questions the conceptual commitments of cognitive neuroscientists. Their position is then criticized by Daniel Dennett and John Searle, two philosophers who have written extensively on the subject, and Bennett and Hacker in turn respond.

Their impassioned debate encompasses a wide range of central themes: the nature of consciousness, the bearer and location of psychological attributes, the intelligibility of so-called brain maps and representations, the notion of qualia, the coherence of the notion of an intentional stance, and the relationships between mind, brain, and body. Clearly argued and thoroughly engaging, the authors present fundamentally different conceptions of philosophical method, cognitive-neuroscientific explanation, and human nature, and their exchange will appeal to anyone interested in the relation of mind to brain, of psychology to neuroscience, of causal to rational explanation, and of consciousness to self-consciousness.

In his conclusion Daniel Robinson (member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Georgetown University) explains why this confrontation is so crucial to the understanding of neuroscientific research. The project of cognitive neuroscience, he asserts, depends on the incorporation of human nature into the framework of science itself. In Robinson’s estimation, Dennett and Searle fail to support this undertaking; Bennett and Hacker suggest that the project itself might be based on a conceptual mistake. Exciting and challenging, Neuroscience and Philosophy is an exceptional introduction to the philosophical problems raised by cognitive neuroscience.

Best review for Neuroscience and Philosophy: Brain, Mind, and Language

Bringing mindfulness techniques to your psychotherapeutic work with clients.

An integrated state of mindful awareness is crucial to achieving mental health. Daniel J. Siegel, an internationally recognized expert on mindfulness and therapy, reveals practical techniques that enable readers to harness their energies to promote healthy minds within themselves and their clients. He charts the nine integrative functions that emerge from the profoundly interconnecting circuits of the brain, including bodily regulation, attunement, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear extinction, insight, empathy, morality, and intuition.

A practical, direct-immersion, high-emotion, low-techno-speak book, The Mindful Therapist engages readers in a personal and professional journey into the ideas and process of mindful integration that lie at the heart of health and nurturing relationships.
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Best review for The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician’s Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology)

We live in a time of vast changes. And those changes call for entirely new ways of learning and thinking. World-renowned for his theory of multiple intelligences, Gardner takes that thinking to the next level in this book, drawing from a wealth of diverse examples to illuminate his ideas. Concise and engaging, “Five Minds for the Future” will inspire lifelong learning in any reader as well as provide valuable insights for those charged with training and developing organizational leaders – both today and tomorrow.
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Best review for Five Minds for the Future

What distinguishes good explanations in neuroscience from bad? Carl F. Craver constructs and defends standards for evaluating neuroscientific explanations that are grounded in a systematic view of what neuroscientific explanations are: descriptions of multilevel mechanisms. In developing this approach, he draws on a wide range of examples in the history of neuroscience (e.g. Hodgkin and Huxleys model of the action potential and LTP as a putative explanation for different kinds of memory), as well as recent philosophical work on the nature of scientific explanation. Readers in neuroscience, psychology, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science will find much to provoke and stimulate them in this book.
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Best review for Explaining the Brain: Mechanisms and the Mosaic Unity of Neuroscience

The human brain is arguably the most complex object in the universe. With about 100 billion neurons, each of which makes perhaps 10,000 synapses, our incredible central processing unit is capable of roughly 1,000 trillion interconnections. What do scientists know about how this amazingly complex organ functions? Is it even possible to unravel all of its mysteries? In this comprehensive book on the science of the brain, distinguished neurophysiologist R. Grant Steen provides us with a crash course on how the brain works. As a researcher on the forefront of brain studies, Dr Steen explores the latest findings on a host of topics: Consciousness, unconsciousness, and brain death; Learning, memory, and role of genes; Motivation, aggression, and the range of emotions; The plasticity of the growing brain; Mental illness and treatment. He also delves into such stimulating questions as: Where does creativity come from? What is personality? Can we distinguish between the brain and the mind? Impressive in breadth and depth, yet written with clarity in an engaging, non-technical style, this fascinating tour of the brain provides the general reader with the latest information on one of the most intriguing and burgeoning areas of scientific research. No topic has more meaning or relevance than using our brains to understand the working of our own minds.
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Best review for The Evolving Brain: The Known and the Unknown

Written by one of the worldâ??s leading neuroscientists, Making Up the Mind is the first accessible account of experimental studies showing how the brain creates our mental world.

• Uses evidence from brain imaging, psychological experiments and studies of patients to explore the relationship between the mind and the brain
• Demonstrates that our knowledge of both the mental and physical comes to us through models created by our brain
• Shows how the brain makes communication of ideas from one mind to another possible

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Best review for Making up the Mind: How the Brain Creates Our Mental World

â??A stunning book.â?â??Oliver Sacks

Charting the intellectual history of the emerging biology of mind, Eric R. Kandel illuminates how behavioral psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and molecular biology have converged into a powerful new science of mind. This science now provides nuanced insights into normal mental functioning and disease, and simultaneously opens pathways to more effective healing.

Driven by vibrant curiosity, Kandelâ??s personal quest to understand memory is threaded throughout this absorbing history. Beginning with his childhood in Nazi-occupied Vienna, In Search of Memory chronicles Kandelâ??s outstanding career from his initial fascination with history and psychoanalysis to his groundbreaking work on the biological process of memory, which earned him the Nobel Prize.

A deft mixture of memoir and history, modern biology and behavior, In Search of Memory traces how a brilliant scientistâ??s intellectual journey intersected with one of the great scientific endeavors of the twentieth century: the search for the biological basis of memory.
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Best review for In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind