The Postmodern BrainThis interdisciplinary work discloses an unexpected coherence between recent concepts in brain science and postmodern thought. A nonlinear dynamical model of brain states is viewed as an autopoietic, autorhoetic, self-organizing, self-tuning eruption under multiple constraints and guided by an overarching optimization principle which insures conservation of invariances and enhancement of symmetries. The nonlinear dynamical brain as developed shows quantum nonlocality, undergoes chaotic regimes, and does not compute. Heidegger and Derrida are appropriated as dynamical theorists who are concerned respectively with the movement of time and being ("Ereignis") and text ("Differance"). The chasm between postmodern thought and the thoroughly metaphysical theory that the brain computes is breached, once the nonlinear dynamical framework is adopted. The book is written in a postmodern style, making playful, opportunistic use of marginalia and dreams, and presenting a nonserial surface of broken complexity. (Series A) |
Contents
Deconstructing the Chinese Room | 13 |
The Continental Tradition and Cognitive Science | 34 |
The SelfTuning Brain | 60 |
1 | 84 |
29 | 97 |
Postmodern and the Dream | 114 |
The Excision From Discourse | 135 |
Notes | 156 |
| 179 | |
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Common terms and phrases
action potential activity attractors attunement autre behavior Biological brain functioning brain science Cambridge chaos chaotic chapter Chinese Room Churchland classical cognitive science complex computation concept connection weights connectionism connectionist constraints continental philosophy cortical Dasein deconstruction Derrida différance dimension discourse discussion doubly-embedded dream Dreyfus dynamical system energy eruption evolution flow Fodor fractal Freud global Globus Heidegger Heidegger's hyperspace influence information processing input instinctual interaction Jibu machine meaning memory trace metaphysical modulation neural nets neural networks neurochemical neurons neuroscience nodes noncomputational nonlinear dynamical nonlinear dynamical system nonlocal output participation patient perception philosophy polarity postmodernism potential present principle psychiatry psychology psychotherapy quantum reality representations resonance schizophrenia Searle Searle's Sejnowski self-organizing process self-tuning semantic relation sensory settlement settles silicon situatedness space spontaneous symbols symmetry synaptic syntax techne theory therapist thought topology tradition trajectory transfer function tuning University Press unpredictable Varela waking whole Yasue