The Ego Trick (baggini, Julian) / quote 23 of 254

The fragility of our seemingly essential selves

Writers like Oliver Sacks, Paul Broks and Todd Feinberg have vividly described numerous other strange cases, often with detailed neurological explanations. Reading them, one is struck by the fragility of what we take to be permanent, essential features of our selves.

Saved 23 April 2015

#self #neuroscience #disorders

Related / other sources, sharing tags

Disease vs disorder

Disease: A disposition (i) to undergo pathological processes that (ii) exists in an organism because of one or more disorders in that organism. Epilepsy as a…

Toward An Ontological Treatment Of Disease And Diagnosis #disorders #organisms #blood #cells

Kerfuffle

noun [ in sing. ] informal, chiefly Brit. a commotion or fuss, esp. one caused by conflicting views: there was a kerfuffle over the chairmanship. ORIGIN early…

Osx Dictionary #disorders #cent #view

We must abandon causal concepts

Maturana's theory also indicates that we must abandon causal concepts such as those of the "purpose" of symptoms: the "function" of disorders: the…

Life, The Multiverse And Everything: An Introduction To The Ideas Of Humberto Maturana Interpreting Maturana #symptoms #disorders #purpose #function

Brain imaging's undefined computations

Within the more empirical fields of brain imaging and experimental cognitive neuroscience, the computational assumption is interwoven into most hypotheses…

Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) #neuroscience #computation #information #research

Dehaene studies mathematics in the brain

Compared to Penrose, Dehaene’s approach to the issues of consciousness and math is much more empirical. Dehaene uses the tools of cognitive psychology and the…

Beyond Zero and One (Andrew Smart) #neuroscience #mathematics #consciousness

Einstein had a fairly average brain

What did they discover? The most surprising finding was that there was nothing surprising. Einstein had a fairly average brain. The organ had a standard…

Brain Rules for Baby (John Medina) #brain #intelligence #neuroscience