Enchanted Looms
Conscious Networks in Brains and Computers
£99.00
- Author: Rodney Cotterill, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby
- Date Published: November 1998
- availability: Available
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521624350
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The title of this 1998 book was inspired by a passage in Charles Sherrington's Man on his Nature. When that famous physiologist died in 1952, the prospects for a scientific explanation of consciousness seemed remote. Enchanted Looms shows how the situation has changed dramatically, and provides what is probably the most wide-ranging account of the phenomenon ever written. Rodney Cotterill bridges the gap between the bottom-up approach to understanding consciousness, anchored in the brain's biochemistry, anatomy and physiology, and the top-down strategy, which concerns itself with behaviour and the nervous system's interaction with the environment. The author argues that an explanation of consciousness is now at hand, and extends the discussion to include intelligence and creativity. This beautifully written and illustrated book will be valued for its easy access to one of science's last great challenges. It will change forever our view of consciousness, and our concept of the human being.
Read more- Glowing reviews of the hardback
- Beautifully written popular science account of consciousness and intelligence
- Author is widely recognised as having made important breakthroughs in the past few years in our understanding of the subject
Reviews & endorsements
'Rodney Cotterill has performed a greatly needed service … to clarify for readers freshly arriving on the scene the hundreds of threads making up the tapestry of current neuroscience … Cotterill is to be commended for bringing his work and person again to the fore.' Journal of Consciousness Studies
See more reviews' … three things about this book make it exceptional. First, that Rodney Cotterill is equipped to talk authoritatively about all three of the areas - neurophysiology, psychology and artificial intelligence … Second, that as a brilliant teacher he has an extraordinary gift not only for clear exposition but also for seeing analogies that force one to look at things anew … Finally … he has a humility in expressing it that is quite exceptional in a field dominated by egotistical dogmatists … where Cotterill absolutely stands out from other authors in the field is that he can actually write. He is a master of the well-balanced phrase, the appropriate epithet, the exact choice of word: much is almost poetry … it is full of novel insights and new ways of looking at old problems, to the extent that even the most-knowledgeable reader will come away with a feeling of having learnt a great deal from it.' Roger Carpenter, Trends in Neurosciences
'The book is well structured, moving easily between anatomical detail, functional theories, methodologies and the analyses of others, making it mandatory reading for those considering doing research on this topic.' The Times Higher Education Supplement
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×Product details
- Date Published: November 1998
- format: Hardback
- isbn: 9780521624350
- length: 524 pages
- dimensions: 255 x 181 x 31 mm
- weight: 1.209kg
- contains: 121 b/w illus.
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
1. Introduction
2. The ultimate black box
3. Under the lid
4. Games neurons play
5. Lasting impressions
6. From percept to concept
7. The grand design
8. The first half second
9. Midwives of reflection
10. The depth of reason
11. The message and the medium.
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