now for something completely
different.........
Some day I will write a more organized account of
the Dead Hand of Plato and how it guides physical scientists and mathematicians
even today. For now I only point here and here for a few comments on these
matters, but suggest that Ernst Mayr's book The Growth of Biological
Thought is a good place to get started on an investigation of why physicists
tend to have such a hard time cooperating with biologists in the study
of life. I suggest Murray Gell-Mann (see his book The Quark and the Jaguar) as an example of a physicist who knows the correct way to deal
with biology. Below are four books that illustrate the attempt by physical
scientists to avoid Consilience (see E. O. Wilson's book by that
name) and place the study of consciousness within the restricted world
of physics. For the most balanced account of quantum consciousness by a
physical scientist, see Alwyn
Scott's book.
The
Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose. Brain Physics for Mystics.
Now I have to read his new
book, too? Check out another view.
Elemental
Mind by Nick
Herbert. He may go where others fear to venture, but does that mean
we should follow? Teaser.
Evolving
the Mind: on the nature of matter and the origin of consciousness
by A.G. Cairns-Smith.
A real mind trip to go for 175 pages of the physics-to-minds hierarchy
and then fall off into oblivion.
The Creative Loop by Erich Harth.
This book is sub-titled, How the Brain Makes a Mind, but it is really
about the how results of Harth's personal introspection combines with the
anti-determinist's interpretation of quantum mechanics to create something
completely different. My comments on Harth's book.
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