Visions Of Mind

"What is mind?" "Can we build synthetic or artificial minds?" Think these questions are only reserved for Science Fiction? Well, not anymore. This collection presents a diverse overview of where the development of artificial minds is as the twenty first century begins. Examined from nearly all viewpoints, Visions of Mind includes perspectives from philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, social studies and artificial intelligence. This collection comes largely as a result of many conferences and symposiums conducted by many of the leading minds on this topic. At the core is Professor Aaron Sloman's symposium from the spring 2000 UK Society for Artificial Intelligence conference. Authors from that symposium, as well as others from around the world have updated their perspectives and contributed to this powerful book. The result is a multi-disciplinary approach to the long term problem of designing a human-like mind, whether for scientific, social, or engineering purposes. The topics addressed within this text are valuable to both artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and also to the academic disciplines that they draw on and feed. Among those disciplines are philosophy, computer science, and psychology.

This collection presents a diverse overview of advances in the development of artificial minds as the 21st century begins. Authors from the 2000 UK Society for Artificial Intelligence conference and others from around the world contributed to this multi-disciplinary approach to the long-term problem of designing a human-like mind for scientific, social or engineering purposes.

Science has always created problems for traditional ways of seeing things, but now the very attributes that make us human--free will, the permanence of personal identity, the existence of the soul--are threatened by the science of the mind. If the mind is the brain, and therefore a physical object subject to deterministic laws, how can we have free will? If most of our thoughts and impulses are unconscious, how can we be morally responsible for what we do? If brains and bodies undergo relentless change, how can our identities be constant? The Problem of the Soul shows the way out of these paradoxes. Framing the conflict in terms of two dominant visions of the mind--the "manifest image" of humanistic philosophy and theology, and the scientific image--Owen Flanagan demonstrates that there is common ground, and that we need not give up our ideas of moral responsibility and personal freedom in order to have an empirically sound view of the human mind. This is a profoundly relevant work of philosophy for the common reader.

An exquisite exploration of the dark, self-transformative power of the tarot archetypes from a world-renowned artist and tarot enthusiast This is tarot deck and book that will help you plumb the depths of your soul, expose the powerful even frightening aspects of the human psyche, and teach you to cultivate self-realization. Arthur Taussig, the creator of the Alchemical Visions Tarot, is a renowned artist and polymath: a physicist, photographer, filmmaker, and musician whose artwork has been exhibited in 300 exhibitions worldwide. His complex imagery explores the theme of the Hero's Journey throughout the major and minor arcana and reveals often overlooked psychological implications of many of the tarot archetypes. Each card is presented as a key to cultivating self-awareness and self-realization. While the Alchemical Visions Tarot falls in the tradition of the Waite and Marseilles decks, it moves past preconceived notions of race of and gender. It is a deck that all serious tarot enthusiasts and spiritual seekers will want to explore for themselves.

Using novel symbols, the Author studies if there are tangible, meaningful constituents within the fabric of the Mind and Vision are, and in doing so, he seeks to find a deeper meaning to what our ultimate Reality is. Is there a functioning, operating connection between Mind and Vision? What is the relationship and relevance between self-awareness and Mind and Vision? The Author argues that we only exist when we are being self conscious of our minds, and that without self awareness we do not and cannot physically exist.

Materialism is the dominant worldview in the West today. But it is only one worldview, and it doesn't completely work, even, ironically, being gradually undermined by the science that gave rise to it. Containing the last unpublished writing of Pulitzer prize-winning author and scholar, the late John Mack, this anthology of essays from significant figures in the world of science and consciousness studies sketches the framework for a new model of realit--one based on the primacy of consciousness rather than of matter. It is a model we will need for survival on this planet. Mind Before Matter represents the first concerted salvo in a debate that could affect the worldview held by the modern, dominant culture.

In The Mind’s Eye, Oliver Sacks tells the stories of people who are able to navigate the world and communicate with others despite losing what many of us consider indispensable senses and abilities: the power of speech, the capacity to recognize faces, the sense of three-dimensional space, the ability to read, the sense of sight. For all of these people, the challenge is to adapt to a radically new way of being in the world. There is Lilian, a concert pianist who becomes unable to read music and is eventually unable even to recognize everyday objects, and Sue, a neurobiologist who has never seen in three dimensions, until she suddenly acquires stereoscopic vision in her fifties. There is Pat, who reinvents herself as a loving grandmother and active member of her community, despite the fact that she has aphasia and cannot utter a sentence, and Howard, a prolific novelist who must find a way to continue his life as a writer even after a stroke destroys his ability to read. And there is Dr. Sacks himself, who tells the story of his own eye cancer and the bizarre and disconcerting effects of losing vision to one side. Sacks explores some very strange paradoxes—people who can see perfectly well but cannot recognize their own children, and blind people who become hyper-visual or who navigate by “tongue vision.” He also considers more fundamental questions: How do we see? How do we think? How important is internal imagery—or vision, for that matter? Why is it that, although writing is only five thousand years old, humans have a universal, seemingly innate, potential for reading? The Mind’s Eye is a testament to the complexity of vision and the brain and to the power of creativity and adaptation. And it provides a whole new perspective on the power of language and communication, as we try to imagine what it is to see with another person’s eyes, or another person’s mind.