Consciousness is the hot topic in scientific circles--its precise nature holding huge implications for the future of science as a viable discipline. And with so many recent advances in brain studies, questions of mind and consciousness have become critically important for both theorists and hard scientists. Are we "nothing but a pack of neurons" that will in due course reveal their secrets in the laboratory? Or do our conscious mind and self-awareness stem from some dimension beyond material investigation? How, too, are we to account for "parapsychological" phenomena in which consciousness seems to defy space and time boundaries? These latest contributions to the debate--selected from the annual "Beyond the Brain" conferences--show that it is time for radical rethinking of our theories and methods in investigating phenomena of the human mind.

Leading scholars respond to the famous proposition by Andy Clark and David Chalmers that cognition and mind are not located exclusively in the head.

When a chimpanzee stockpiles rocks as weapons or when a frog sends out mating calls, we might easily assume these animals know their own motivations--that they use the same psychological mechanisms that we do. But as Beyond the Brain indicates, this is a dangerous assumption because animals have different evolutionary trajectories, ecological niches, and physical attributes. How do these differences influence animal thinking and behavior? Removing our human-centered spectacles, Louise Barrett investigates the mind and brain and offers an alternative approach for understanding animal and human cognition. Drawing on examples from animal behavior, comparative psychology, robotics, artificial life, developmental psychology, and cognitive science, Barrett provides remarkable new insights into how animals and humans depend on their bodies and environment--not just their brains--to behave intelligently. Barrett begins with an overview of human cognitive adaptations and how these color our views of other species, brains, and minds. Considering when it is worth having a big brain--or indeed having a brain at all--she investigates exactly what brains are good at. Showing that the brain's evolutionary function guides action in the world, she looks at how physical structure contributes to cognitive processes, and she demonstrates how these processes employ materials and resources in specific environments. Arguing that thinking and behavior constitute a property of the whole organism, not just the brain, Beyond the Brain illustrates how the body, brain, and cognition are tied to the wider world.

Among the most profound questions we confront are the nature of what and who we are as conscious beings, and how the human mind relates to the rest of what we consider reality. For millennia, philosophers, scientists, and religious thinkers have attempted answers, perhaps none more meaningful today than those offered by neuroscience and by Buddhism. The encounter between these two worldviews has spurred ongoing conversations about what science and Buddhism can teach each other about mind and reality. In Mind Beyond Brain, the neuroscientist David E. Presti, with the assistance of other distinguished researchers, explores how evidence for anomalous phenomena—such as near-death experiences, apparent memories of past lives, apparitions, experiences associated with death, and other so-called psi or paranormal phenomena, including telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition—can influence the Buddhism-science conversation. Presti describes the extensive but frequently unacknowledged history of scientific investigation into these phenomena, demonstrating its relevance to questions about consciousness and reality. The new perspectives opened up, if we are willing to take evidence of such often off-limits topics seriously, offer significant challenges to dominant explanatory paradigms and raise the prospect that we may be poised for truly revolutionary developments in the scientific investigation of mind. Mind Beyond Brain represents the next level in the science and Buddhism dialogue.

The Nobel Prize-winning work of Roger Sperry revolutionized our understanding of human consciousness by proving that separate thinking and knowledge could exist in the left and right halves of the brain. Now, popular science writer Thomas Blakeslee - author of the highly acclaimed The Right Brain - takes us to a new level of understanding based on the theory of neural Darwinism by Gerald Edelman, another Nobel Prize winner. Blakeslee explains that our neurons spontaneously organize into hundreds of groups called modules that compete to respond to every situation in our lives - from reading this paragraph to falling in love. A vast preponderance of this activity operates outside of our conscious awareness.

Imagine walking home from school one day and seeing a brain on the side of the road, a brain that, it turns out, is looking for a new home. Or instead of paying attention to the teacher, you shoot a paper airplane across the room and accidentally rip a hole in the fabric of the universe. And what would you do if you discovered that your class reading group was actually recruiting kids with telekinetic powers? Tales from Beyond the Brain is a collection of thirteen spooky stories that are as outrageous as they are terrifying. It's a throwback to the weird tales of yesteryear, in the vein of Tales from the Crypt and The Twilight Zone, but with contemporary characters and settings. Getting an education has never been more dangerous.

The brain ... There is no other part of the human anatomy that is so intriguing. How does it develop and function and why does it sometimes, tragically, degenerate? The answers are complex. In Discovering the Brain, science writer Sandra Ackerman cuts through the complexity to bring this vital topic to the public. The 1990s were declared the "Decade of the Brain" by former President Bush, and the neuroscience community responded with a host of new investigations and conferences. Discovering the Brain is based on the Institute of Medicine conference, Decade of the Brain: Frontiers in Neuroscience and Brain Research. Discovering the Brain is a "field guide" to the brainâ€"an easy-to-read discussion of the brain's physical structure and where functions such as language and music appreciation lie. Ackerman examines: How electrical and chemical signals are conveyed in the brain. The mechanisms by which we see, hear, think, and pay attentionâ€"and how a "gut feeling" actually originates in the brain. Learning and memory retention, including parallels to computer memory and what they might tell us about our own mental capacity. Development of the brain throughout the life span, with a look at the aging brain. Ackerman provides an enlightening chapter on the connection between the brain's physical condition and various mental disorders and notes what progress can realistically be made toward the prevention and treatment of stroke and other ailments. Finally, she explores the potential for major advances during the "Decade of the Brain," with a look at medical imaging techniquesâ€"what various technologies can and cannot tell usâ€"and how the public and private sectors can contribute to continued advances in neuroscience. This highly readable volume will provide the public and policymakersâ€"and many scientists as wellâ€"with a helpful guide to understanding the many discoveries that are sure to be announced throughout the "Decade of the Brain."

An eminent psychologist offers a major new theory of human cognition: movement, not language, is the foundation of thought When we try to think about how we think, we can't help but think of words. Indeed, some have called language the stuff of thought. But pictures are remembered far better than words, and describing faces, scenes, and events defies words. Anytime you take a shortcut or play chess or basketball or rearrange your furniture in your mind, you've done something remarkable: abstract thinking without words. In Mind in Motion, psychologist Barbara Tversky shows that spatial cognition isn't just a peripheral aspect of thought, but its very foundation, enabling us to draw meaning from our bodies and their actions in the world. Our actions in real space get turned into mental actions on thought, often spouting spontaneously from our bodies as gestures. Spatial thinking underlies creating and using maps, assembling furniture, devising football strategies, designing airports, understanding the flow of people, traffic, water, and ideas. Spatial thinking even underlies the structure and meaning of language: why we say we push ideas forward or tear them apart, why we're feeling up or have grown far apart. Like Thinking, Fast and Slow before it, Mind in Motion gives us a new way to think about how--and where--thinking takes place.

Scientific evidence for the continual presence of consciousness with or without connection to a living organism • Examines findings on the survival of consciousness beyond life, including near-death experiences, after-death communication, and reincarnation • Explains how this correlates precisely with cutting-edge physics theories on superstrings, information fields, and energy matrices • Reveals how consciousness manifests in living beings to continue its evolution Evidence now points to consciousness existing beyond the brain, such as when the brain is temporarily incapacitated, as well as to the survival of consciousness after death. Conventional science prefers to dismiss these findings because they cannot be accommodated by a materialist view of reality. Spirituality and religion embrace the continuity of consciousness and ascribe it to a nonmaterial spirit or soul that is immortal. As such, spirituality/religion and science continually find conflict in their views. But what if there truly is no conflict? Based on a new scientific paradigm in sync with experience-based spirituality, Ervin Laszlo and Anthony Peake explore how consciousness is continually present in the cosmos and can exist without connection to a living organism. They examine the rapidly growing body of scientific evidence supporting the continuity of consciousness, including near-death experiences, after-death communication, reincarnation, and neurosensory information received in altered states. They explain how the persistence of consciousness beyond the demise of the body means that, in essence, we are not mortal--we continue to exist even when our physical existence has come to an end. This correlates precisely with cutting-edge physics, which posits that things in our plane of time and space are not intrinsically real but are manifestations of a hidden dimension where they exist in the form of superstrings, information fields, and energy matrices. With proof that consciousness is basic to the cosmos and immortal in its deeper, nonmanifest realm, Laszlo and Peake reveal the purpose of consciousness is to manifest in living beings in order to continuously evolve.

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.