Creativity is fundamental to human experience. In On Creativity David Bohm, the world-renowned scientist, investigates the phenomenon from all sides. This is a remarkable and life-affirming book by one of the most far-sighted thinkers of modern.

The article surveys the development of james' views on the status of the psychological subject (self); the uncertainties and hesitations in james' views are pointed out. But, Contrary to the prevailing view, Upheld especially by john dewey and ralph b perry, James' article "does consciousness exist?" in 1904 does not represent the final stage of his thought. This can be found only in his last book "a pluralistic universe" six years later in which the existence of the "full self" is (...) reasserted. James reached this conclusion after the period of intense intellectual struggle which can be traced in the private notes and drafts published by r b perry. The idea of dynamic self was consonant with the process philosophy which james finally adopted. (shrink)

In this paper I shall suggest that philosophy which bases itself firmly inlife is incompatible with idealism. The example of such a philosophy to be discussed is the later work of Wittgenstein, and I shall define in what sense this is ‘based in life’, with particular reference to his concept of ‘Lebensform’, or ‘life-form’. I shall understand idealism to be, in general terms, the doctrine that idea is the primary, or the only, category of being. Various kinds of idealism may (...) then be distinguished according to the precise definition each gives of ‘idea’, and of the category, if any, which is held to be less fundamental. Thus, in brief, in Platonic idealism, absolute immaterial being is ontologically prior to the changing world given to sense-experience; in the idealistic systems of more modern thought, mind is more fundamental than matter; or again, subject, or spirit, is more fundamental than object. While the various systems of idealism are properly classed together so far as they assign priority to the concept idea , it is clear that they differ in their interpretations of the concept. When one has in mind these differences, it is of course misconceived to speak of idealism as a single doctrine; nevertheless, it is plausible to suppose that philosophers have been led to apply the term ‘idealism’ to various systems despite their differences, because there is indeed a common tendency of thought to be found in them. The present paper takes this supposition as a working hypothesis, with the particular aim of establishing that philosophy based in life is incompatible with philosophy based in idea, whatever be reasonably meant by ‘idea’. In brief my argument will be this: that life is no idea. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The term “fallacy of simple location” was coined by A. N. Whitehead in 1925 in his book Science and the Modern World; the two passages of the book that deal with this problem are worth being quoted in full and may serve as an introduction into our topic.

This book is a major attempt to reconcile the empirical basis of linguistic science with the a priori nature of philosophical reasoning. Its purpose is to show how the methods and findings of linguistic science, especially of transformational grammar, can be used to cast light upon central problems of analytic philosophy. After dealing with recent objections to the use of linguistic techniques in philosophy, the author shows, with great force and clarity, how these techniques can be applied to such problems (...) as the analysis of singular terms, the concepts of fact, event, and causality, and the meaning of the word "good.". (shrink)

Tractatus, 5.62 famously says: ‘… what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language mean the limits of my world.’ The later part of this repeats what was said in summary at 5.6: ‘the limits of my language mean the limits of my world’. And the key to the problem ‘how much truth there is in solipsism’ has (...) been provided by the reflections of TLP, 5.61. (shrink)

In this book, which contains several of his key papers as well as new material, he focuses on the problem of consciousness and explains how quantum mechanics...

Persons have a curious dual nature. On the one hand, they are subjects, whose actions must be explained in terms of beliefs, desires, plans, and goals. At the same time, however, they also are physical objects, whose actions must be explicable in terms of physical laws. So far no satisfying account of this duality has been offered. Both Cartesian dualism and the modern materialist alternatives (reductionist and antireductionist) have failed to capture the full range of our experience of persons. I (...) argue that an exciting new approach to this difficulty can be found by considering developments in clinical psychology. The clinical debate between those endorsing biological models of mental illness and those endorsing psychodynamic models mirrors broader debates in the philosophy of mind. The possible resolution of this debate through the development of integrated psychobiological models suggests a promising way to reconcile the dual nature of persons in a far more appealing way than any yet proposed. (shrink)

Recently some philosophers have proposed that the later philosophy of Wittgenstein tends towards idealism, or even solipsism. The solipsism is said to be of a peculiar kind. It is characterized as a ‘collective’ or ‘aggregative’ solipsism. The solipsism or idealism is also said to be ‘transcendental’. In the first part of this paper I will be examining a recent essay by Professor Bernard Williams, in which he presents what he takes to be the grounds for such an interpretation of Wittgenstein. (...) After that I will try to offer convincing evidence that no tendency towards any form of idealism is to be found in Wittgenstein's later philosophy. (shrink)

Certain properties of the Bell-type correlations and, in particular, the impossibility of using them to transmit signals faster than light, are investigated from the point of view of the conceptual structure of quantum mechanics and of Whitehead's process philosophy. The collapses of quantum states are shown to correspond to perspectives of different frames of reference on a Whiteheadian process of self-creation of actual entities. The analysis suggests a fundamental limitation on the capacity to describe the propagation of influences among the (...) results of measurements at space-like separation. It is further shown that, if Whitehead's framework is modified in a specific way, it accounts very well for the apparent existence of superluminal influences, and for the impossibility of using them for superluminal communication. (shrink)

Attempts to lay a foundation for the sciences based on modern mathematics are questioned. In particular, it is not clear that computer science should be based on set-theoretic mathematics. Set-theoretic mathematics has difficulties with its own foundations, making it reasonable to explore alternative foundations for the sciences. The role of computation within an alternative framework may prove to be of great potential in establishing a direction for the new field of computer science.Whitehead''s theory of reality is re-examined as a foundation (...) for the sciences. His theory does not simply attempt to add formal rigor to the sciences, but instead relies on the methods of the biological and social sciences to construct his world-view. Whitehead''s theory is a rich source of notions that are intended to explain every element of experience. It is a product of Whitehead''s earlier attempt to provide a mathematical foundation for the physical sciences and is still consistent with modern physics. (shrink)

Reissued with an additional preface to sit alongside the volume on Stanley Cavell in Contemporary Philosophy in Focus this famous collection of essays covers a remarkably wide range of philosophical issues and extends beyond philosophy into discussions of music and drama.

In this classic collection of wide-ranging and interdisciplinary essays, Stanley Cavell explores a remarkably broad range of philosophical issues from politics and ethics to the arts and philosophy. The essays explore issues as diverse as the opposing approaches of 'analytic' and 'Continental' philosophy, modernism, Wittgenstein, abstract expressionism and Schoenberg, Shakespeare on human needs, the difficulties of authorship, Kierkegaard and post-Enlightenment religion. Presented in a fresh twenty-first century series livery, and including a specially commissioned preface, written by Stephen Mulhall, illuminating its (...) continuing importance and relevance to philosophical enquiry, this influential work is now available for a new generation of readers. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

"The Quantum Brain is the first great book of the 21st century-and the first definitively 21st century book. It will be read with admiration and amazement."-George Gilder, bestselling author and publisher of the Gilder Technology Report "Many authors have written about one or two of the topics covered in The Quantum Brain. Jeffrey Satinover's book is unique in trying to tie everything together."-Michael E. Kellman, Professor of Theoretical Chemistry, University of Oregon "Thoroughly researched... and told as a gripping tale, thanks (...) to Dr. Satinover's... gift for the narrative. A marvelous introduction to the most fascinating question the human brain can address: its own working."-R. Shankar, Professor of Physics and Applied Physics, Yale University "A thrilling journey through the world of brain research. The author has set new standards for popular science writing by making arcane topics... easy to follow. A tapestry of insights."-Jack Tuszynski, Professor of Physics, University of Alberta "I wish I had written this visionary book."-Professor Hugo de Garis, Head, Starbrain Project, Starlab's Artificial Brain Project. (shrink)

At last his students and colleagues, his friends and his friendly critics, his fellow-scientist and fellow-philosophers, have the works of Milic Capek before them in one volume, aside from his books of course. Now the development of his interests and his thoughts, always led centrally by his concern to understand 'the philosophical impact of contemporary physics', becomes clear. In the nearly 90 essays and papers, and in his book on the philosophical impact as well as his classical restatement of process (...) philosophy in his Bergson and Modern Physics, Professor Capek establishes one of the fundamental alternatives to the comprehension of human experience, and thereby of the world. Capek is certainly to be seen with respect and admiration, for he has dealt with the deepest and toughest of scientific as well as metaphysical problems: his major efforts in the philosophy of mind focussed upon the time of experience, and in the philosophy of physics focussed upon continuity, causality and again the temporal, now in the world-picture. (shrink)

In our daily lives we conceive of our surroundings as an objectively given reality. The world is perceived through our senses, and ~hese provide us, so we believe, with a faithful image of the world. But occ~ipnally we are forced to realize that our senses deceive us, e. g., by illusions. For a while it was believed that the sensation of color is directly r~lated to the frequency of light waves, until E. Land (the inventor of the polaroid camera) showed (...) in detailed experiments that our perception of, say, a colored spot depends on the colors of its surrounding. On the other hand, we may experience hallucinations or dreams as real. Quite evidently, the relationship between the "world" and our "brain" is intricate. Another strange problem is the way in which we perceive time or the "Now". Psychophysical experiments tell us that the psychological "Now" is an extended period of time in the sense of physics. The situation was made still more puzzling when, in the nineteen-twenties, Heisenberg and others realized that, by observing processes in the microscopic world of electrons and other elementary particles, we strongly interfere with that world. The outcome of experiments - at least in general - can only be predicted statistically. What is the nature ofthis strange relationship between "object" and "observer"? This is another crucial problem of the inside-outside or endo-exo dichotomy. (shrink)

Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's preeminent biologists, has revolutionized scientific thinking with his vision of a living, developing universe--one with its own inherent memory. In The Rebirth of Nature, Sheldrake urges us to move beyond the centuries-old mechanistic view of nature, explaining why we can no longer regard the world as inanimate and purposeless. Sheldrake shows how recent developments in science itself have brought us to the threshold of a new synthesis in which traditional wisdom, intuitive experience, and scientific (...) insight can be mutually enriching. (shrink)

Wieso hat Whitehead bei seinem Hintergrund in Logik, Mathematik und Physik in dieser Situation der Entdeckung der Relativitatsheorien, der Entstehung der Quantentheorie und der Evolutionstheorie diese organismische Prozess-Philosophie entwickelt? Die Revision der Grundlagen der Naturphilosophie wurde durch die Einsteinische Revolution notwendig. Von der wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Situation ausgehend, wird mit dem philosophischen Kovarianzprinzip eine systematische Tiefenstruktur in der Entwicklung Whiteheads rekonstruiert. Die Kritik an den materialistischen Grundbegriffen der klassischen Physik erweitert sich zu einer grundsatzlichen Kritik an den naturphilosophischen Grundlagen der Neuzeit. Daruber (...) hinaus sollte Whitehead als wichtiger Beitrag zur gegenwartigen Diskussion uber die Idee einer naturalistischen Anthropologie ohne physikalische Reduktion gesehen werden.". (shrink)

The strangeness of modern physics has sparked several popular books--such as The Tao of Physics--that explore its affinity with Eastern mysticism. But the founders of quantum mechanics were educated in the classical traditions of Western civilization and Western philosophy. In Nature Loves to Hide, physicist Shimon Malin takes readers on a fascinating tour of quantum theory--one that turns to Western philosophical thought to clarify this strange yet inescapable explanation of reality. Malin translates quantum mechanics into plain English, explaining its origins (...) and workings against the backdrop of the famous debate between Niels Bohr and the skeptical Albert Einstein. Then he moves on to build a philosophical framework that can account for the quantum nature of reality. He shows, for instance, how Platonic and Neoplatonic thought resonates with quantum theory. He draws out the linkage between the concepts of Neoplatonism and the more recent process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. The universe, Whitehead wrote, is an organic whole, composed not of lifeless objects, but "elementary experiences." Beginning with Whitehead's insight, Malin shows how this concept of "throbs of experience" expresses quantum reality, with its subatomic uncertainties, its constituents that are waves and also particles, its emphasis on acts of measurement. Once any educated person could explain the universe as a vast Newtonian web of cause and effect, but since quantum theory, reality again appears to be richer and more mysterious than we had thought. Writing with broad humanistic insight and deep knowledge of science, and using delightful conversations with fictional astronauts Peter and Julie to explain more difficult concepts, Shimon Malin offers a profound new understanding of the nature of reality--one that shows a deep continuity with aspects of our Western philosophical tradition going back 2500 years, and that feels more deeply satisfying, and truer, than the clockwork universe of Newton. (shrink)

[Time, the fundamental dimension of our existence, has fascinated artists, philosophers, and scientists of every culture and every century. All of us can remember a moment as a child when time became a personal reality, when we realized what a "year" was, or asked ourselves when "now" happened. Common sense says time moves forward, never backward, from cradle to grave. Nevertheless, Einstein said that time is an illusion. Nature's laws, as he and Newton defined them, describe a timeless, deterministic universe (...) within which we can make predictions with complete certainty. In effect, these great physicists contended that time is reversible and thus meaningless. (shrink)

Whitehead est une énigme : mathématicien, logicien, il est aussi un métaphysicien de première grandeur. Pour ce scientifique, le but de la pensée spéculative est l'édification de la cosmologie.

One of the foremost scientists and thinkers of our time, David Bohm worked alongside Oppenheimer and Einstein. In Science, Order and Creativity he and physicist F. David Peat propose a return to greater creativity and communication in the sciences. They ask for a renewed emphasis on ideas rather than formulae, on the whole rather than fragments, and on meaning rather than mere mechanics. Tracing the history of science from Aristotle to Einstein, from the Pythagorean theorem to quantum mechanics, the authors (...) offer intriguing new insights into how scientific theories come into being, how to eliminate blocks to creativity and how science can lead to a deeper understanding of society, the human condition and the human mind itself. Science, Order and Creativity looks to the future of science with elegance, hope and enthusiasm. (shrink)

Order and Organism shows how Alfred North Whitehead's thought can reconcile some of the most insistent demands of common sense with the esoteric results of modern physics and mathematics.

Focus, Organization, and Content This book, like the first edition, deals with the mass transport processes that take place in living systems, with a focus on the normal behavior of eukaryotic cells and the - ganisms they constitute, in their normal physiological environment. As a consequence of this focus, the structure and content of the book differ from those of traditional transport texts. We do not start with the engineering principles of mass transport (which are well presented elsewhere) and then (...) seek biological applications of these principles; rather, we begin with the biological processes themselves, and then - velop the models and analytical tools that are needed to describe them. This approach has several consequences. First of all, it drives the content of the text in a direction distinctively different from conventional transport texts. This is - cause the tools and models needed to describe complex biological processes are often different from those employed to describe more well-characterized inanimate systems. Many biological processes must still be described phenomenologically, using me- odologies like nonequilibrium thermodynamics. Simple electrical analogs employing a paucity of parameters can be more useful for characterization and prediction than complex theories based on the behavior of more well-defined systems on a laboratory bench. By allowing the biology to drive the choice of analysis tools and models, the latter are consistently presented in the context of real biological systems, and analysis and biology are interwoven throughout. (shrink)

This collection of research papers explores the implications of quantum cosmology and the status of the laws of nature for theological and philosophical issues regarding God's action in the world. The main goal is to contribute to constructive theology as it engages current research in the natural sciences, and to investigate the philosophical and theological elements in ongoing theoretical research in the natural sciences.

It appears as the Proceedings of the Course of the International School of Biocybernetics on "Neuronal Bases and Psychological Aspects of Consciousness", ...

This volume is the result of the third Appalachian Conference on Behavioral Neurodynamics which focused on the problem of scale in conscious experience.

In this sweeping survey, acclaimed science writers Paul Davies and John Gribbin provide a complete overview of advances in the study of physics that have revolutionized modern science. From the weird world of quarks and the theory of relativity to the latest ideas about the birth of the cosmos, the authors find evidence for a massive paradigm shift. Developments in the studies of black holes, cosmic strings, solitons, and chaos theory challenge commonsense concepts of space, time, and matter, and demand (...) a radically altered and more fully unified view of the universe. (shrink)

This international selection of 34 papers from the Tokyo '99 conference held at the United Nations University gives a valuable state of the art overview of consciousness research. Not only the recognized European and American approaches but also the distinguishing approaches from many Japanese researchers are presented. It will provide a world-wide audience with a comprehensive outlook for the remarkable potential contribution in the future scene of consciousness research.The Tokyo '99 declaration to promote scientists' ethical warning against the thoughtless aiming (...) of consciousness research at warfare is also included.(Series B). (shrink)

Consciousness ... The Physical Nature of Consciousness Edited by Philip Van Loocke.