March 29, 2007
Irreducible Mind
In an interesting blog, Michael Prescott reviews this new and hefty tome that address a key question in modern philosophy, psychology, and epistemology, are mind and brain equivalent? Its worth reading his review, at least, if not purchasing the entire (and pricey) volume.
Practically every contemporary mainstream scientist presumes that all aspects of mind are generated by brain activity. We demonstrate the inadequacy of this picture by assembling evidence for a variety of empirical phenomena which it cannot explain. We further show that an alternative picture developed by F. W. H. Myers and William James successfully accommodates these phenomena, ratifies the common sense view of ourselves as causally effective conscious agents, and is fully compatible with contemporary physics and neuroscience.
The author is Edward F. Kelly currently Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatric Medicine at the University of Virginia. His central long term interests revolve around mind-brain relations and functional neuroimaging studies of unusual states of consciousness and associated cognitive phenomena.
Two links of interest:
