Dark Cognition - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Dark Cognition write by David Vernon. This book was released on 2020-10-01. Dark Cognition available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. *Winner of the Parapsychological Association Book Award 2021* Outlining the scientific evidence behind psi research, Dark Cognition expertly reveals that such anomalous phenomena clearly exist, highlighting that the prevailing view of consciousness, purely as a phenomenon of the brain, fails to account for the empirical findings. David Vernon provides essential coverage of information and evidence for a variety of anomalous psi phenomena, calling for a paradigm shift in how we view consciousness: from seeing it as something solely reliant on the brain to something that is enigmatic, fundamental and all pervasive. The book examines the nature of psi research showing that, despite claims to the contrary, it is clearly a scientific endeavour. It explores evidence from telepathy and scopaesthesia, clairvoyance and remote viewing, precognition, psychokinesis, fields of consciousness, energy healing, out of body experiences, near-death experiences and post death phenomena, showing that not only do these phenomena exist, but that they have significant implications for our understanding of consciousness. Featuring discussion on scientific research methods, reflections on the fields of dark cognition and end-of-chapter questions that encourage critical thinking, this book is an essential text for those interested in parapsychology, consciousness and cognitive psychology.
Casting Light on the Dark Side of Brain Imaging
Casting Light on the Dark Side of Brain Imaging - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Casting Light on the Dark Side of Brain Imaging write by Amir Raz. This book was released on 2019-02-15. Casting Light on the Dark Side of Brain Imaging available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Most people find colorful brain scans highly compelling—and yet, many experts don’t. This discrepancy begs the question: What can we learn from neuroimaging? Is brain information useful in fields such as psychiatry, law, or education? How do neuroscientists create brain activation maps and why do we admire them? Casting Light on The Dark Side of Brain Imaging tackles these questions through a critical and constructive lens—separating fruitful science from misleading neuro-babble. In a breezy writing style accessible to a wide readership, experts from across the brain sciences offer their uncensored thoughts to help advance brain research and debunk the craze for reductionist, headline-grabbing neuroscience. This collection of short, enlightening essays is suitable for anyone interested in brain science, from students to professionals. Together, we take a hard look at the science behind brain imaging and outline why this technique remains promising despite its seldom-discussed shortcomings. Challenges the tendency toward neuro-reductionism Deconstructs hype through a critical yet constructive lens Unveils the nature of brain imaging data Explores emerging brain technologies and future directions Features a non-technical and accessible writing style
Dark Matter of the Mind
Dark Matter of the Mind - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Dark Matter of the Mind write by Daniel L. Everett. This book was released on 2017-11-06. Dark Matter of the Mind available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Is it in our nature to be altruistic, or evil, to make art, use tools, or create language? Is it in our nature to think in any particular way? For Daniel L. Everett, the answer is a resounding no: it isn’t in our nature to do any of these things because human nature does not exist—at least not as we usually think of it. Flying in the face of major trends in Evolutionary Psychology and related fields, he offers a provocative and compelling argument in this book that the only thing humans are hardwired for is freedom: freedom from evolutionary instinct and freedom to adapt to a variety of environmental and cultural contexts. Everett sketches a blank-slate picture of human cognition that focuses not on what is in the mind but, rather, what the mind is in—namely, culture. He draws on years of field research among the Amazonian people of the Pirahã in order to carefully scrutinize various theories of cognitive instinct, including Noam Chomsky’s foundational concept of universal grammar, Freud’s notions of unconscious forces, Adolf Bastian’s psychic unity of mankind, and works on massive modularity by evolutionary psychologists such as Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Jerry Fodor, and Steven Pinker. Illuminating unique characteristics of the Pirahã language, he demonstrates just how differently various cultures can make us think and how vital culture is to our cognitive flexibility. Outlining the ways culture and individual psychology operate symbiotically, he posits a Buddhist-like conception of the cultural self as a set of experiences united by various apperceptions, episodic memories, ranked values, knowledge structures, and social roles—and not, in any shape or form, biological instinct. The result is fascinating portrait of the “dark matter of the mind,” one that shows that our greatest evolutionary adaptation is adaptability itself.
The Psychopath Inside
The Psychopath Inside - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Psychopath Inside write by James Fallon. This book was released on 2014-10-28. The Psychopath Inside available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. “Compelling, essential reading for understanding the underpinnings of psychopathy.” — M. E. Thomas, author of Confessions of a Sociopath For his first fifty-eight years, James Fallon was by all appearances a normal guy. A successful neuroscientist and professor, he’d been raised in a loving family, married his high school sweetheart, and had three kids and lots of friends. Then he learned a shocking truth that would not only disrupt his personal and professional life, but would lead him to question the very nature of his own identity. While researching serial killers, he uncovered a pattern in their brain scans that helped explain their cold and violent behavior. Astonishingly, his own scan matched that pattern. And a few months later he learned that he was descended from a long line of murderers. Fallon set out to reconcile the truth about his own brain with everything he knew as a scientist about the mind, behavior, and personality.
Black-and-White Thinking
Black-and-White Thinking - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Black-and-White Thinking write by Kevin Dutton. This book was released on 2021-01-05. Black-and-White Thinking available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A groundbreaking and timely book about how evolutionary biology can explain our black-and-white brains, and a lesson in how we can escape the pitfalls of binary thinking. Several million years ago, natural selection equipped us with binary, black-and-white brains. Though the world was arguably simpler back then, it was in many ways much more dangerous. Not coincidentally, the binary brain was highly adept at detecting risk: the ability to analyze threats and respond to changes in the sensory environment—a drop in temperature, the crack of a branch—was essential to our survival as a species. Since then, the world has evolved—but we, for the most part, haven’t. Confronted with a panoply of shades of gray, our brains have a tendency to “force quit:” to sort the things we see, hear, and experience into manageable but simplistic categories. We stereotype, pigeon-hole, and, above all, draw lines where in reality there are none. In our modern, interconnected world, it might seem like we are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges we face—that living with a binary brain is like trying to navigate a teeming city center with a map that shows only highways. In Black-and-White Thinking, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton pulls back the curtains of the mind to reveal a new way of thinking about a problem as old as humanity itself. While our instinct for categorization often leads us astray, encouraging polarization, rigid thinking, and sometimes outright denialism, it is an essential component of the mental machinery we use to make sense of the world. Simply put, unless we perceived our environment as a chessboard, our brains wouldn’t be able to play the game. Using the latest advances in psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, Dutton shows how we can optimize our tendency to categorize and fine-tune our minds to avoid the pitfalls of too little, and too much, complexity. He reveals the enduring importance of three “super categories”—fight or flight, us versus them, and right or wrong—and argues that they remain essential to not only convincing others to change their minds but to changing the world for the better. Black-and-White Thinking is a scientifically informed wake-up call for an era of increasing extremism and a thought-provoking, uplifting guide to training our gray matter to see that gray really does matter.
