Category Archives: consciousness
The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths
By Anna Abraham (2024)
Drawing on theoretical and empirical work in cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Anna Abraham offers an examination of human creativity that reveals the true complexity underlying our conventional beliefs about the brain. The chapters in the book explore the myth of the right brain as the hemisphere responsible for creativity; the relationship between madness and creativity, psychedelics and creativity, atypical brains and creativity, and intelligence and creativity; the various functions of dopamine; and lastly, the default mode revolution, which theorized that the brain regions most likely to be involved in the creative process are those areas of the brain that are most active during rest or mind-wandering.
Posted in consciousness, history, myth, science
Hallucinations
By Oliver Sacks (2013)
To many people, hallucinations imply madness, but in fact they are a common part of the human experience. These sensory distortions range from the shimmering zigzags of a visual migraine to powerful visions brought on by fever, injuries, drugs, sensory deprivation, exhaustion, or even grief. Hallucinations doubtless lie behind many mythological traditions, literary inventions, and religious epiphanies. Drawing on his own experiences, a wealth of clinical cases from among his patients, and famous historical examples ranging from Dostoevsky to Lewis Carroll, the legendary neurologist Oliver Sacks investigates the mystery of these sensory deceptions: what they say about the working of our brains, how they have influenced our folklore and culture, and why the potential for hallucination is present in us all.
Posted in consciousness, culture, myth, science
Expanded Cinema
By Gene Youngblood (1970)
Author Gene Youngblood argues that a new, expanded cinema is required for a new consciousness. He describes various types of filmmaking utilising new technology, including film special effects, computer art, video art, multi-media environments and holography. Forward by R. Buckminster Fuller. Also available for download at http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/ExpandedCinema.html
Posted in art, cinema, consciousness, culture, media, technology, theory
The Portable Jung
Edited by Joseph Campbell (1971)
In making this masterful selection from the vast corpus of Carl Jung’s writings, Joseph Campbell has aimed to introduce the elementary terms and themes of analytical psychology and to provide an overall understanding of the scope and direction of Jung’s entire works.
Posted in consciousness, myth, psychology
The Poetics of Space
By Gaston Bachelard (1964)
The classic book on how we experience intimate spaces. A magical book. A prism through which all worlds from literary creation to housework to aesthetics to carpentry take on enhanced—and enchanted-significances. Every reader of it will never see ordinary spaces in ordinary ways. Instead the reader will see with the soul of the eye, the glint of Gaston Bachelard.
Posted in architecture, art, consciousness, language, philosophy
A Natural History of the Senses
By Diane Ackerman (1990)
An exciting multidiscipline book that crosses the lines of literature, history, anthropology, music, psychology, sociology, and philosophy and that flows with grace and reason. The theme is expressed in such a way as to draw readers into experiential thought and, therefore, impacts heavily upon the way one looks at the issue of sensing and its role for humanity. It is sure to raise readers’ consciousness level while providing researched and analyzed information on this topic. In addition, the language is clear and concise, which makes the book valuable to a large cross section of readers. The generous use of cultural and historical examples adds to the readability.
Posted in consciousness, history, language, music, philosophy, science
A Pictorial History of Psychology
Edited by Wolfgang G. Bringmann (1997)
Compendium of 107 historical essays and illustrations. Expanded version of a translated German title (1993). Includes 50 new English language essays.
Posted in consciousness, history, psychology, science
Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again
By Andy Clark (1996)
Brain, body, and world are united in a complex dance of circular causation and extended computational activity. In Being There, Andy Clark weaves these several threads into a pleasing whole and goes on to address foundational questions concerning the new tools and techniques needed to make sense of the emerging sciences of the embodied mind. Clark brings together ideas and techniques from robotics, neuroscience, infant psychology, and artificial intelligence. He addresses a broad range of adaptive behaviors, from cockroach locomotion to the role of linguistic artifacts in higher-level thought.
Posted in consciousness, language, science, technology
Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet Of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology
By Lawrence Weschler (1995)
In the non-Aristotelian, non-Euclidean, non-Newtonian space between the walls of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles exist bats that can fly through lead barriers, spore-ingesting pronged ants, elaborate theories of memory, and a host of other off-kilter scientific oddities that challenge the traditional notions of truth and fiction. Lawrence Weschler’s book, expanded from an article for Harper’s, is, at turns, a tour of the museum, a profile of its founder and curator, David Wilson, and a meditation on the role of imagination and authority in all museums, in science and in life. Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder is an exquisite piece of “magic realist nonfiction” that will prove utterly captivating.
Posted in art, biography, consciousness, exhibition, philosophy, science
Martin Heidegger: Basic Writings
By Martin Heidegger
Heidegger’s most popular collection of essential writings, now revised and expanded — includes the 10 key essays plus the introduction to Being and Time.
Posted in art, consciousness, language, philosophy