Aristotle's Laptop: The Discovery of Our Informational MindAristotle's convincing philosophy is likely to have shaped (even indirectly) many of our current beliefs, prejudices and attitudes to life. This includes the way in which our mind (that is, our capacity to have private thoughts) appears to elude a scientific description. This book is about a scientific ingredient that was not available to Aristotle: the science of information. Would the course of the philosophy of the mind have been different had Aristotle pronounced that the matter of mind was information? This "mind is information" assertion is often heard in contemporary debates, and this book explores the verities and falsehoods of this proposition. |
Contents
From Aristotle to the Bits of an Informational Mind | 1 |
The Reluctant Hero of the Information Age | 19 |
Guesses and Models | 39 |
Chapter 4 Imagination in the Circles of a Network | 63 |
The World and Neural States | 87 |
The Key to Consciousness? | 109 |
Gathering Visual Information | 131 |
Oxymoron or New Science? | 155 |
Freuds Influential Vision | 173 |
Chapter 10 Aristotles Living Soul | 195 |
Appendix | 211 |
Author Index | 221 |
225 | |
Other editions - View all
Aristotle's Laptop: The Discovery Of Our Informational Mind Igor Aleksander,Helen B Morton Limited preview - 2012 |
Aristotle's Laptop: The Discovery of Our Informational Mind Igor Aleksander,Helen Morton Limited preview - 2012 |
Common terms and phrases
activity Aleksander analysis areas Aristotle Aristotle’s Laptop attractors automaton axon bandwidth behavior Bell Labs bits brain called cells Chapter circuit Claude Elwood Shannon Claude Shannon consciousness created defined described Discovery discussion dreams emotions engineer entity example experience extrastriate firing Floridi footnote foveal Freud function human Husserl iconic learning ideas information integration Information Theory Informational Mind input integrated information isomorphic Karl Lashley Lashley lead liveliness living logical look Luciano Floridi machine mathematical McCulloch and Pitts measure mechanisms memory mental messages neural net neural networks neuromodulators neurons neurophilosophy noise object output patterns perceptual phenomenal phenomenology philosophy Philosophy of Information possible psychology qualia random represent representation result scientific sequence Shannon signals soul structure suggested Susan Greenfield switches synapses Tallis thought tion Tononi transmitted unconscious understanding unique and indivisible University vector visual cortex visual system Walter Pitts