Electromagnetic Field Theories of Consciousness: Opportunities and Obstacles

Electromagnetic Field Theories of Consciousness: Opportunities and Obstacles
Author: Tam Hunt
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2024-03-27
Genre: Science
ISBN: 2832545963

This new Research Topic is, in part, a celebration of the 30th anniversary of the game-changing “neural correlates of consciousness” concept, first proposed as part of Crick and Koch’s 1990 “neurobiological theory of consciousness.” After thirty years of research and theory-building, scholars in the science of consciousness are perhaps not much closer to a widely-accepted theory of consciousness.

The Electromagnetic Brain

The Electromagnetic Brain
Author: Shelli Renée Joye
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2020-10-27
Genre: Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN: 164411092X

An exploration of cutting-edge theories on the electromagnetic basis of consciousness • Details, in nontechnical terms, 12 credible theories, each published by prominent professionals with extensive scientific credentials, that describe how electromagnetic fields may be the basis for consciousness • Examines practical applications of electromagnetic-consciousness theory, including the use of contemporary brain stimulation devices to modify and enhance consciousness • Explores the work of William Köhler, Susan Pockett, Johnjoe McFadden, Rupert Sheldrake, Ervin Laszlo, William Tiller, Harold Saxton Burr, Sir Roger Penrose, Stuart Hameroff, Mari Jibu, Kunio Yasue, Karl Pribram, Alfred North Whitehead, and James Clerk Maxwell, as well as the author's own theories In this scientific exploration of the origin of consciousness, Shelli Renée Joye, Ph.D., explores 12 credible theories, each published by prominent professionals with extensive scientific credentials, that describe how electricity in the form of electromagnetic fields is the living consciousness that runs through the brain. Each of these theories supports the idea that the electromagnetic field itself is the basis of consciousness and that this source of consciousness peers out into the space-time universe through our human sensory systems, flowing with awareness throughout the bloodstream and nervous system. Following her exploration of electromagnetic-consciousness theories, Joye then examines practical applications, describing how electric fields might be manipulated and controlled to modify and enhance the operation of consciousness in the human brain. She explores the use of contemporary brain stimulation devices that offer benefits such as decreased addiction cravings and anxiety, reduced depression and chronic pain, enhanced mathematical abilities, accelerated learning, and greater insight during mindfulness meditation. Revealing the cutting edge of consciousness studies, Joye shows that consciousness is not an isolated function of the individual brain but is connected to the larger electromagnetic field that not only encompasses the entire physical universe but also is deeply involved in the creation of matter and the material world.

Quantum Evolution

Quantum Evolution
Author: Johnjoe McFadden
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2002
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780393323108

Marrying physics and biology, McFadden theorizes that evolution may not be random but directed, and that quantum mechanics endows living organisms with the ability to initiate specific actions, including new mutations. Illustrations.

The Emerging Physics of Consciousness

The Emerging Physics of Consciousness
Author: Jack A. Tuszynski
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 500
Release: 2006-09-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 3540367233

Seeks answers to these questions using the underlying assumption that consciousness can be understood using the intellectual potential of modern physics and other sciences. There are a number of theories of consciousness, some based on classical physics while others require the use of quantum concepts. The latter ones have drawn criticism from the parts of the scientific establishment while simultaneously claiming that classical approaches are doomed to failure. The contributing authors presents a spectrum of opinions from both sides of this on-going scientific debate, allowing readers to decide for themselves which of the approaches are most likely to succeed.

Human and Machine Consciousness

Human and Machine Consciousness
Author: David Gamez
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2018-03-07
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1783743018

Consciousness is widely perceived as one of the most fundamental, interesting and difficult problems of our time. However, we still know next to nothing about the relationship between consciousness and the brain and we can only speculate about the consciousness of animals and machines. Human and Machine Consciousness presents a new foundation for the scientific study of consciousness. It sets out a bold interpretation of consciousness that neutralizes the philosophical problems and explains how we can make scientific predictions about the consciousness of animals, brain-damaged patients and machines. Gamez interprets the scientific study of consciousness as a search for mathematical theories that map between measurements of consciousness and measurements of the physical world. We can use artificial intelligence to discover these theories and they could make accurate predictions about the consciousness of humans, animals and artificial systems. Human and Machine Consciousness also provides original insights into unusual conscious experiences, such as hallucinations, religious experiences and out-of-body states, and demonstrates how ‘designer’ states of consciousness could be created in the future. Gamez explains difficult concepts in a clear way that closely engages with scientific research. His punchy, concise prose is packed with vivid examples, making it suitable for the educated general reader as well as philosophers and scientists. Problems are brought to life in colourful illustrations and a helpful summary is given at the end of each chapter. The endnotes provide detailed discussions of individual points and full references to the scientific and philosophical literature.

The Nature of Consciousness

The Nature of Consciousness
Author: Susan Pockett
Publisher: iUniverse
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2000-09
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0595122159

Book Description: Few books about consciousness get to the nitty gritty as quickly as this one. By the end of the preface, the essence of the novel hypothesis that is at the heart of the book is clear. The reader is then taken on a stimulating intellectual journey that ranges from ancient Hindu religious texts to the most up-to-the minute papers in the neuroscience literature as the author supports and defends the hypothesis. If you have any interest at all in the academic field of consciousness studies, don't miss this book!

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness
Author: Mark Solms
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 376
Release: 2021-02-16
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0393542025

A revelatory new theory of consciousness that returns emotions to the center of mental life. For Mark Solms, one of the boldest thinkers in contemporary neuroscience, discovering how consciousness comes about has been a lifetime’s quest. Scientists consider it the "hard problem" because it seems an impossible task to understand why we feel a subjective sense of self and how it arises in the brain. Venturing into the elementary physics of life, Solms has now arrived at an astonishing answer. In The Hidden Spring, he brings forward his discovery in accessible language and graspable analogies. Solms is a frank and fearless guide on an extraordinary voyage from the dawn of neuropsychology and psychoanalysis to the cutting edge of contemporary neuroscience, adhering to the medically provable. But he goes beyond other neuroscientists by paying close attention to the subjective experiences of hundreds of neurological patients, many of whom he treated, whose uncanny conversations expose much about the brain’s obscure reaches. Most importantly, you will be able to recognize the workings of your own mind for what they really are, including every stray thought, pulse of emotion, and shift of attention. The Hidden Spring will profoundly alter your understanding of your own subjective experience.

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Author: Julian Jaynes
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 580
Release: 2000-08-15
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0547527543

National Book Award Finalist: “This man’s ideas may be the most influential, not to say controversial, of the second half of the twentieth century.”—Columbus Dispatch At the heart of this classic, seminal book is Julian Jaynes's still-controversial thesis that human consciousness did not begin far back in animal evolution but instead is a learned process that came about only three thousand years ago and is still developing. The implications of this revolutionary scientific paradigm extend into virtually every aspect of our psychology, our history and culture, our religion—and indeed our future. “Don’t be put off by the academic title of Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. Its prose is always lucid and often lyrical…he unfolds his case with the utmost intellectual rigor.”—The New York Times “When Julian Jaynes . . . speculates that until late in the twentieth millennium BC men had no consciousness but were automatically obeying the voices of the gods, we are astounded but compelled to follow this remarkable thesis.”—John Updike, The New Yorker “He is as startling as Freud was in The Interpretation of Dreams, and Jaynes is equally as adept at forcing a new view of known human behavior.”—American Journal of Psychiatry

Biophysics Of Consciousness: A Foundational Approach

Biophysics Of Consciousness: A Foundational Approach
Author: Roman R Poznanski
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 665
Release: 2016-08-25
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9814644277

The problem of how the brain produces consciousness, subjectivity and 'something it is like to be' remains one of the greatest challenges to a complete science of the natural world. While various scientists and philosophers approach the problem from their own unique perspectives and in the terms of their own respective fields, Biophysics of Consciousness: A Foundational Approach attempts a consilience across disparate disciplines to explain how it is possible that an objective brain produces subjective experience.This volume unites the crème de la crème of physicists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists in the attempt to understand consciousness through a foundational approach encompassing ontological, evolutionary, neurobiological, and Freudian interpretations with the focus on conscious phenomena occurring in the brain. By integrating the perspectives of these diverse disciplines with the latest research and theories on the biophysics of the brain, the book tries to explain how consciousness can be an adaptive and causal element in the natural world.