Susan Blackmore

What is a meme? First coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene , a meme is any idea, behavior, or skill that can be transferred from one person to another by stories, fashions, inventions, recipes, songs, ways of plowing a field or throwing a baseball or making a sculpture. Thememe is also one of the most important--and controversial--concepts to emerge since The Origin of Species appeared nearly 150 years ago.In The Meme Machine Susan Blackmore boldly "Just as the design of our bodies can be understood only in terms of natural selection, so the design of our minds can be understood only in terms of memetic selection." Indeed, Blackmore shows that once our distant ancestors acquired thecrucial ability to imitate, a second kind of natural selection began, a survival of the fittest amongst competing ideas and behaviors. Ideas and behaviors that proved most adaptive--making tools, for example, or using language--survived and flourished, replicating themselves in as many minds aspossible. These memes then passed themselves on from generation to generation by helping to ensure that the genes of those who acquired them also survived and reproduced. Applying this theory to many aspects of human life, Blackmore offers brilliant explanations for why we live in cities, why wetalk so much, why we can't stop thinking, why we behave altruistically, how we choose our mates, and much more.With controversial implications for our religious beliefs, our free will, our very sense of "self," The Meme Machine offers a provocative theory everyone will soon be talking about.

Consciousness, 'the last great mystery for science', has now become a hot topic. How can a physical brain create our experience of the world? What creates our identity? Do we really have free will? Could consciousness itself be an illusion? issues, and the field has now expanded to include biologists, neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers. This controversial book clarifies the potentially confusing arguments, and the major theories using illustrations, lively cartoons, and experiments.Topics include vision and attention, theories of self and will, experiments on action and awareness, altered states of consciousness, and the effects of brain

In Conversations on Consciousness, Susan Blackmore interviews some of the great minds of our time, a who's who of eminent thinkers, all of whom have devoted much of their lives to understanding the concept of consciousness. The interviewees, ranging from major philosophers to renowned scientists, talk candidly with Blackmore about some of the key philosophical issues confronting us in a series of conversations that are revealing, insightful, and stimulating. They ruminate on the nature of consciousness (is it something apart from the brain?) and discuss if it is even possible to understand the human mind. Some of these thinkers say no, but most believe that we will pierce the mystery surrounding consciousness, and that neuroscience will provide the key. Blackmore goes beyond the issue of consciousness to ask other intriguing questions: Is there free will? (A question which yields many conflicted replies, with most saying yes and no.) If not, how does this effect the way you live your life; and more broadly, how has your work changed the way you live?Paired with an introduction and extensive glossary that provide helpful background information, these provocative conversations illuminate how some of the greatest minds tackle some of the most difficult questions about human nature.

Susan Blackmore combines the latest scientific theories about mind, self, and consciousness with a lifetime’s practice of Zen.Framed by ten critical questions that are derived from Zen’s teachings, Zen and the Art of Consciousness explores how intellectual enquiry and meditation can expand your understanding and experience of consciousness and tackle some of today’s greatest scientific mysteries.

Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand their own mind and to find a spiritual path that is compatible with scienceAs an impressionable young student, Susan Blackmore had an intense, dramatic and life-changing experience, seeming to leave her body and travel the world. With no rational explanation for her out-of-body experience (OBE) she turned to astral projection and the paranormal, but soon despaired of finding answers. Decades later, a Swiss neurosurgeon accidentally discovered the spot in the brain that can induce OBEs and everything changed; this crucial spot is part of the brain's self-system and when disturbed so is our experience of self. Blackmore leaped back into OBE research and at last began to unravel what had happened to her. Seeing Myself describes her long quest for answers through spirituality, religion, drugs, meditation, philosophy and neuroscience.Anyone can have an OBE, indeed 15 per cent of us have. Even more have experienced sleep paralysis, lucid dreaming and the creepy sense of an invisible presence. At last, with the advent of brain stimulation, fMRI scanning and virtual reality, all these phenomena are beginning to make sense. Long relegated to the very fringes of research, the new science of out-of-body experiences is now contributing to our understanding of consciousness and our very selves.

Progress in medical science has increased our understanding of what happens when the brain begins to fail. Psychology delves ever more deeply into the nature of the self. In Dying to Live, Blackmore, a leading expert in near-death experiences, explores what psychology, biology, and medicine have to say about this extraordinary aspect of death and dying.

About one person in ten claims to have left his or her body at some time. Some were close to death; others had under-gone an accident or shock. Dr Blackmore's explanation for out-of-body experiences is based on historical and anecdotal material, surveys, and laboratory experiments.

"True skepticism has nothing to do with disbelief," says Susan Blackmore. "It is about taking people's claims seriously and trying to understand them." As a starry-eyed student, Blackmore was convinced of the reality of astral planes, telepathy, and life after death. She was determined to devote her life to parapsychology, but what she found wasn't what she had bargained for. None of her cleverly devised experiments revealed a hint of the psi she was seeking. In a determined effort to find it somehow, she tested young children in play groups, trained students in imagery and altered states of consciousness, and even put Tarot cards to the test. She visited haunted houses and was regressed to a "past life." Finally, accused of being a "psi-inhibitory experimenter" with the power of abolishing paranormal effects, she visited other, more successful, experimenters. Here she found only errors in their experiments.In this new and updated edition of The Adventures of a Parapsychologist, Blackmore is at last at liberty to explain just what she found in those ill-fated experiments at Cambridge. She brings her story up to date in a lively and personal account of one scientist's never-ending search for the paranormal.

The telephone rings and you already know who's calling. A dream forewarns of imminent danger and you alter plans accordingly. You know what someone is going to say next. Mere coincidence, or the work of psychic powers? This guide to psychic phenomena lets you find out for yourself whether or not you have this gift. Whether skeptical, curious, or already a practitioner, you'll find information and activities on many of the psychic disciplines, from telepathy, astrology, and crystals to the ouija board and psychokinesis. 168 pages 6 x 9.

Ce este constiinta si ce face ea mai exact, in masura in care face ceva? Cum se poate ca activitatea electrica a milioane de celule cerebrale sa genereze experienta noastra asupra lumii? Constiinta, ultimul mare mister al stiintei, a devenit in momentul de fata un subiect disputat, cercetarile noi si incitante din stiintele cognitive facand acest domeniu accesibil biologilor, neurologilor, psihologilor si filosofilor. Aceasta captivanta introducere in domeniu ia in discutie problema masurii in care dispunem cu adevarat de liber arbitru, precum si pe cea a factorilor responsabili cu generarea sentimentului identitatii, analizand o parte dintre teoriile cheie din domeniu, laolalta cu experimente recente asupra actiunii si constiintei, vederii si atentiei, starilor alterate ale constiintei sau cu cele care tin de efectele leziunilor cerebrale si drogurilor. Intrebandu-se daca nu cumva si constiinta insasi este o iluzie, Susan Blackmore explica dificultatile majore cu care oamenii de stiinta si filosofii se confrunta in incercarea de a acoperi prapastia enorma dintre lumea fizica si trairile dumneavoastra intime legate de aceasta.

什么是意识？意识有什么作用？物质的大脑怎么会产生对世界的主观体验？意识本身会不会只是一个幻觉？《斑斓阅读·外研社英汉双语百科书系：破解意识之谜》作者根据当前心理学、神经科学等领域的最新研究发现，运用简明的图示、生动的漫画和大量有趣的实验深入探讨了意识的特征及其核心理论，并详细剖析了各种理论所面临的问题，为我们重新认识科学家和哲学家在填补客观物质世界和个体精神体验之间的鸿沟时所面临的巨大困难提供了崭新的视角。