The Mystery of Mind: A Systematic Account of the Human Mind Toward Understanding Its Own Realization

Peter M.K. Chan

iUniverse, Jun 10, 2003 - Philosophy - 296 pages

The Mystery of Mind is a systematic and critical introduction to the philosophy of mind. At issue is what is known as the mind-body problem. How does a body support a mind with its brain?

Pivotal to the book is the author's working out of an adverbial concept of mind that is user-friendly to the materialist cause. It is upon the strength of this adverbial concept that the author has come to hold that the conceptual gap between the neurobiological and the psych-cognitive could in fact be bridged. It is also the author's contention that despite shortcomings of other materialist approaches that have been taken in our time, an intelligible case for the truth of materialism could still be made in the form of a biological emergent two-aspect scenario, i.e., when the adverbial concept of mind he advocates is also brought to bear.

All in all, what The Mystery of Mind offers is a systematic introduction to one of the living philosophical issues that have engaged the human intellects for more than two thousand years. This is also the central issue that has motivated research in artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and the philosophy of mind in our time.

About the author

The author is schooled in philosophy and religion. But he is not an academic philosopher. This book is the fruit of his labor subsequent to retirement. It is his way of squaring himself with what has been left dangling in his mind for the last thirty years.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Mystery of Mind: A Systematic Account of the Human Mind Toward Understanding Its Own Realization
• Author: Peter M.K. Chan
• Publisher: iUniverse, 2003
• ISBN: 0595805841, 9780595805846
• Length: 296 pages
• Subjects: Philosophy / General