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- A mind for math: A part of the brain associated with making memories may also predict success in learning math
- Teens take home science gold: A low-cost, self-driving vehicle; battery alternatives and analyses of galaxy clusters claim top prizes at a global high school science competition
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Web edition: April 10, 2009
Print edition: April 25, 2009; Vol.175 #9 (p. 30)
Alva Noë wants to knock the brain off its scientific pedestal, where it reigns as maestro of mind and king of consciousness. In his new book, the University of California, Berkeley philosopher offers an often thought-provoking explanation of why neuroscientists won’t make headway in understanding conscious experience until they drop their brain-
centric attitudes.
Noë rejects the traditional assumption that consciousness depends on the brain compiling sensory information to create its own internal pictures of the world — pictures bearing a tenuous relationship with what’s really out there. Consciousness doesn’t happen in the brain, like digestion happens in the gut, Noë argues. The brain is an equal player with the body and the environment. Interactions among all three allow an individual to understand the world and accomplish goals — from making a cup of coffee to designing a business plan for a coffee company.
This is not a new idea. Noë notes that fields such as philosophy, artificial intelligence and developmental psychology already take seriously the possibility that consciousness depends on actions taken and goals sought in context.
Marshaling recent findings, Noë outlines why his approach best explains how vision works, how people learn to speak native languages and why individuals experience various illusions of self-perception. His book may not change many neuroscientists’ minds, but it will likely get them thinking. -- Bruce Bower
Hill and Wang, 2009, 214 p., $25
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A. "Out of Our Heads: Why You Are Not Your Brain, and Other Lessons from the Biology of Consciousness" by Alva Noe
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Review by Bruce Bower
B. "Memory, Sentience and Consciousness"
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As gravity is THE manifestation of the onset of the cosmic inflation cataclysm and consequent universe evolution, so sentience is the manifestation of the onset of consciousness and its consequent neural system evolution.
My definitions, from Merriam-Webster:
Sentience = state of elementary or undifferenciated consciousness as distinguished from perception and thought.
Consciousness = the quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself and/or of an external object, state, or fact.
I suggest that ALL forms of life possess the attribute of sentience, and that from the base towards the most evolved life forms sentience has been evolving into ever more complex form, consciousness.
C. "Life Is Simpler Than They Tell Us"
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Evolution of Earth life:
Genes to Genomes to Monocellular to Multicellular Organisms;
Direct Sunlight Only To Metabolic Energy, Too;
Triptophan To Serotonin To Melatonin To Neural System.
Now we can appreciate the fractal nature of life's evolution. It is ever-continuous ever-enhanced ever-complexed cooperation. Now we can understand why, and grosso modo how, all the organs and processes and signals found in multicelled organisms have their origins in the monocells communities. And this includes the functions of serotonin and melatonin and, yes, the evolution of neural cells and the neural systems with their intricate cellular outer-membrane shapes and functionings and with their high energy consumption requirements.
D. "Life And Culture Are Virtual Realities"
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Culture is the totality of ways of the organisms' dealing with (reaction to, manipulation of, exploitation of) its environment. Culture is a biological entity selected for survival of the genome as means of extending its exploitation capabilities of the out-of-cell circumstances, consequent to the earlier evolution and selection of the genome's organ, its outermost cell membrane, for controlling the inside-of-cell genes'-commune environmental circumstances.
Culture is the ubiqitous biological entity that drives Earth life evolution, by imprinting genetics, by continuously modifying genes' expressions.
"Spiritual matters" are virtual reality affairs. They are feasible only for living organisms that have a culture, i.e. that have a pattern of sensings and reactions to the sensings. Genes, and therefore also genomes, are organisms and display virtual reality phenomena, therefore also multicelled organisms,including humans, display such "spiritual" phenomena.
Dov Henis
(Comments From The 22nd Century)
Life's Manifest
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EVOLUTION Beyond Darwin 200
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