The understanding of the brain

Medical Books

Eccles, John C.

Medicine

McGraw=Hill

The human brain is the inner universe through which all external events are perceived. That fact alone should ensure that neuroscience will eventually receive top priority in the list of human endeavors. The brain represents the pinnacle of sophistication in the realm of living systems. Yet it is an imperfect organ, whose failures in disease processes lead to the occupation of more than half of all hospital beds and whose variable performance in the healthy state contributes in undetermined degree to the world's social problems. Every significant advance in or understanding of the brain has yielded enormous practical dividends. There is every reason to believe the future holds even greater promise. In the preface to our first edition, we drew attention to the establishment of graduate programs in dozens of universities around the world and the emergence of numerous international journals devoted to interdisciplinary work on the brain. The discoveries that have flowed from this activity have required extensive updating of the details of this book, which is a testimony to the fruitfulness of neuroscience research. Yet the basics remain the same. It is more important than ever that the neuroscientist be presented with the fundamental subdisciplines that together make up the total of brain research in an integrated manner.

Molecular Neurobiology of the Mammalian Brain

Science & Math

McGeer, Patrick L.

McGeer, Edith G.

Biological Sciences

Springer

Under the terms of the endowment by Lord Gifford, the Gifford Lectures have been an annual event in the University of Edin burgh since 1887, and also in three other Scottish universities. According to the will of Lord Gifford they were set up " ... to promote and diffuse the study of Natural Theology in the widest sense of that term - in other words, the knowledge of God". The assignment is for ten lectures, and I delivered them from 20 February, to 13 March, 1978. I chose the theme of the Human Mystery because I believe that it is vitally important to emphasize the great mysteries that confront us when, as scientists, we try to understand the natural world including ourselves. There has been a regrettable tendency of many scientists to claim that science is so powerful and all pervasive that in the not too distant future it will provide an explantation in principle of all phenomena in the world of nature including man, even of human consciousness in all its manifesta tions. When that is accomplished scientific materialism will then be in the position of being an unchallengable dogma accounting for all experience.

The Human Mystery

Springer International

In February and March 1978 I delivered my first series of Gifford Lectures in the University of Edinburgh. These lectures have been published under the title The Human Mystery. The second series of ten lectures were delivered from April 18 to May 4 1979 under the title The Human Psyche. As with the first series, the printed text is actually the manuscript prepared for those lectures, not some later compilation. The lectures were delivered informally, but based strictly on this manuscript. It is hoped that the printed text will convey the dramatic character of a lecture presenta tion. This book must not be regarded as a definitive text in neuroscience, psychology and philosophy, but rather as a series of 'adventures of ideas', to revive a Whiteheadean title. The brain-mind problem has been the theme of three recent books: The Self and Its Brain; The Human Mystery (in its latter part); and now The Human Psyche. In this book there is critical discussion in the first lecture of the materialist hypotheses of the relationship of the self-con scious mind to the brain. In the subsequent lectures the strong dualist-interactionism developed in The Self and Its Brain is explored in depth in relation to a wide variety of phenomena relating to self-consciousness. The aim has been to demonstrate the great explanatory power of dualist interactionism in contrast to the poverty and inadequacy of all varieties of the materialist theories of the mind.

The Human Psyche (Gifford Lectures)

Springer-Verlag New York

Sir John Eccles, distinguished scientist and Nobel prize winner, tells the story of how we came to be. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of biological and cultural evolution, neurological science, education, anthropology, philosophy, religion.

Evolution of the brain: Creation of the self

Politics & Social Sciences

Philosophy

Routledge

Evolution of the Brain: Creation of the Self

Sir John Eccles tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as humans possessed of reflective consciousness.

An in-depth exploration of dualist-interactionism, a concept Sir John Eccles developed with Sir Karl Popper in "The Self and its Brain", in the context of a wide variety of brain activities relating to self-consciousness. Opening with a critical discussion of material hypotheses on the relationship of mind and brain, it aims to demonstrate the explanatory power of dualist-interactionism in contrast to the poverty and inadequacy of materialist theories of the mind. The "mind" is accepted as an entity of divine origin which interacts with and controls the material brain. Sir John shows that dualist-interactionism offers valuable insights into the higher levels of human experience that cannot be accommodated to materialist theories of the mind - for example: the whole range of values; freedom of the will and moral responsibility; the uniqueness of the human person; the quest of meaning and for hope in the context of the inevitable end in death of this, our life on earth. This book is intended for undergraduates, postgraduates and academics in the fields of neurological science, anthropology, philosophy of the mind and philosophy of religion.

The Human Psyche: The Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, 1978-9

255p white paperback, slightly creased spine, minor shelfwear to cover, otherwise very good condition with clean, unmarked pages

The Human Mystery (Gifford Lectures)

Routledge& Kegan Paul

At one time, scientific method seemed to satisfy the need for universality and necessity on which modern science was based. It was possible for everyone to retrace the same methodological itinerary, with the assurance of reaching certain results. Today, owing to the complexity of reality, this conviction seems to be no longer tenable. But it would be a great mistake, nevertheless, to maintain that it is pointless to talk about method.Even disorder itself, when disassembled according to a criterion, shows some possibilities of order, and thanks to the help of variables, can be understood and represented graphically. We find ourselves faced with a paradox: from apparent casuality, order begins to emerge little by little - certainly not a static order of the Aristotelian or scholastic type, but a dynamic order which, once a certain threshold is passed, runs the risk of hurling itself back into chaos, and, often, of preparing once again for some forms of order.It seems almost like meeting with some kind of "logical unpredictability", which nevertheless proves possible to measure, even if at times only approximately. To speak of "logical unpredictability" may seem almost a contradiction in terms, but as has been amply demonstrated by a series of experiments, among all the possible trajectories of disorder, nature only favours certain ones.

Dynamic Order: The Problem of Method in Evolving Nature : With Letters from N. Rescher, L. Pauling, J. Eccles, and K.R. Popper (Millennium (Series), 6.)

RESCHER, NICHOLAS

PAULING, LINUS

Popper, Karl Raimund

Pezzimenti, Rocco

Politics & Government

Fowler Wright Books Ltd

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