Neuro-Philosophy & the Healthy Mind: Learning from the Unwell Brain

In applying philosophical questions to neuroscience and the study of how we think and feel, Georg Northoff’s new book is a game changer. Neuro-Philosophy and the Healthy Mind: Learning from the Unwell Brain applies philosophical questions to subjects such a consciousness, the self, the understanding of time, identity, the brain, and the mind. In it, Northoff, himself a neuroscientist, philosopher, and psychiatrist at the University of Ottawa, seeks to answer philosophical questions such as Where do thoughts begin? Does consciousness exist in the mind or the brain? How is the self defined and understood? and How is time determined? The conclusions that Northoff reaches are not just fascinating, but may shift our understanding of consciousness. Northoff begins with the classic debate of mind-body dualism. He draws upon studies of people in vegetative states to demonstrate how the abnormal state reveals something about the normal state. Among his findings: substance dualism (that the mind and brain exist separately) is better understood as interactive dualism (that the brain and mind exist in continuous and interactive relationship to one another). In this integrated relationship, the development of consciousness is bound by the degree to which information is linked and integrated in the brain. What forms, Northoff tells us, is an “organizational template” from which we produce a “spatial and temporal structure of the brain’s intrinsic activity.” To put it si...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Book Reviews Disorders General Psychiatry Psychology biological basis of the mind books on neurophilosophy emotions and the brain Georg Northoff how to define the self learning from the unwell brain neurophilosophy and the healthy mi Source Type: news