| Vendor | |
|---|---|
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Fritz Agency
Christian Dittus |
| Original language | |
| English | |
THE SPREAD MIND
Why Consciousness and the World Are One
Once we came out of the jungle and found time to think of something besides food, sex, and shelter, we confronted the fundamental questions: what are we? who are we? Is a person a body or a soul? How do we access the external world if we are nothing but brains encased in bodies?
As neuroscientists map the most detailed aspects of the human brain and its interplay with the rest of the body, they remain baffled by what is essentially human: our selves. In most of the existing scientific literature, information processing has taken the place of the soul. Yet thus far, no convincing account has been presented of exactly where and how consciousness is stored in our bodies.
In The Spread Mind, Riccardo Manzotti convincingly argues that our bodies do not contain subjective experience. Yet consciousness is real, and like any other real phenomenon, is physical. Where is it, then? Manzotti's radical hypothesis is that consciousness is one and the same as the physical world surrounding us.
Drawing on Einstein's theories of relativity, evidence about dreams and hallucination, and the geometry of light in perception, and using vivid, real-world examples to illustrate his ideas, Manzotti argues that consciousness is not a movie in the head: it is the actual world we move in.
Riccardo Manzotti is a Professor of Psychology at the Institute of Human, Language and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan. He holds a PhD. in robotics and is the author of more than 50 scientific papers. A former Fulbright Visiting Scholar at MIT, Manzotti is associate editor for the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Medicine. Over a period of many months, The New York Review of Books has posted an extended series of conversations between Manzotti and the novelist Tim Parks on the nature of consciousness: http://www.nybooks.com/topics/on-consciousness/
As neuroscientists map the most detailed aspects of the human brain and its interplay with the rest of the body, they remain baffled by what is essentially human: our selves. In most of the existing scientific literature, information processing has taken the place of the soul. Yet thus far, no convincing account has been presented of exactly where and how consciousness is stored in our bodies.
In The Spread Mind, Riccardo Manzotti convincingly argues that our bodies do not contain subjective experience. Yet consciousness is real, and like any other real phenomenon, is physical. Where is it, then? Manzotti's radical hypothesis is that consciousness is one and the same as the physical world surrounding us.
Drawing on Einstein's theories of relativity, evidence about dreams and hallucination, and the geometry of light in perception, and using vivid, real-world examples to illustrate his ideas, Manzotti argues that consciousness is not a movie in the head: it is the actual world we move in.
Riccardo Manzotti is a Professor of Psychology at the Institute of Human, Language and Environmental Sciences at the University of Milan. He holds a PhD. in robotics and is the author of more than 50 scientific papers. A former Fulbright Visiting Scholar at MIT, Manzotti is associate editor for the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Medicine. Over a period of many months, The New York Review of Books has posted an extended series of conversations between Manzotti and the novelist Tim Parks on the nature of consciousness: http://www.nybooks.com/topics/on-consciousness/
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Book
Published 2018-01-01 by OR Books |