San Antonio College Library

Annotation

For more than a century, neurology and psychology have been dominated by the idea that the brain's principal activities are unconscious and unknown to us, that consciousness is but a small factor in mental function. Israel Rosenfield's bold new argument in The Strange, Familiar, and Forgotten is that consciousness is in fact the major business of the brain. And he shows for the first time how memories, language, and the thoughts and drives responsible...

"Consciousness matters. Arguably it matters more than anything. The purpose of this book is to build toward an explanation of just what the matter is." "Nicholas Humphrey begins this exploration of the biggest of big questions with a challenge to the reader, and himself. What's involved in "seeing red"? What is it like for us to see someone else seeing something red?" "Seeing a red screen tells us a fact about something in the world. But it also creates...

Integrating concepts from physics, neuroscience, and other disciplines, Dr. Powell offers an insightful and intriguing explanation of ESP, provocatively claiming that the existence of psychic abilities expands the understanding and appreciation of consciousness.

"The Oxford Companion to Consciousness is the most complete authoritative survey of contemporary research on consciousness. Five years in the making and including over 250 concise entries written by leaders in the field, the volume covers both fundamental knowledge as well as more recent advances in this rapidly changing area." "Structured as an easy-to-use dictionary and extensively cross-referenced, the Companion offers contributions from philosophy...

Suggests how the psychological systems of the West can be integrated with the contemplative traditions of the East to achieve a new level of consciousness.

"The author provides here a scholarly, yet accessible, account of research into blushing, relating it to embarrassment, shame and shyness, and proposing an explanation in terms of self-consciousness and exposure of the self. He reviews what is known about the physiology of the blush, considers evidence for its universality, and evaluates explanations in terms of a nonverbal signal of apology and a reaction to unwanted social attention. He goes on...

"In Brain, Mind, and the Structure of Reality, Paul Nunez discusses the possibility of deep connections between relativity, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, and consciousness: all entities involved with fundamental information barriers. Dr. Nunez elaborates on possible new links in this nested web of human knowledge that may tell us something new about the nature and origins of consciousness. In the end, does the brain create the mind? Or is the...

This book thoroughly examines how the self-conscious emotions differ from other emotions, why they might have evolved, and the many ways they help (and hurt) the self. It addresses their underlying social, cognitive, physiological, and neural mechanisms, as well as developmental contexts and processes. Several chapters explore cross-cultural differences and similarities. State-of-the-science research is presented on each of the specific emotions,...