1.

Record Nr.

UNISA996466750603316

Autore

Pinter Charles C. <1932->

Titolo

Mind and the cosmic order : how the mind creates the features & structure of all things, and why this insight transforms physics / / Charles Pinter

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cham, Switzerland : , : Springer, , [2021]

©2021

ISBN

3-030-50083-7

9783030500832

Edizione

[1st ed. 2021.]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (ix, 176 pages) : illustrations

Disciplina

591.188

Soggetti

Mind and reality

Physics - Philosophy

Neurobiology

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

The Visual World -- Gestalt Wholes -- The Animal Sensorium -- The Birth of Mind -- Brain as Machine: The Materialist View of Mind -- In Search of Reality -- The Universe Observed and Unobserved -- Life and the Observer.

Sommario/riassunto

The topic of this book is the relationship between mind and the physical world. From once being an esoteric question of philosophy, this subject has become a central topic in the foundations of quantum physics. The book traces this story back to Descartes, through Kant, to the beginnings of 20th Century physics, where it becomes clear that the mind-world relationship is not a speculative question but has a direct impact on the understanding of physical phenomena. The book’s argument begins with the British empiricists who raised our awareness of the fact that we have no direct contact with physical reality, but it is the mind that constructs the form and features of objects. It is shown that modern cognitive science brings this insight a step further by suggesting that shape and structure are not internal to objects, but arise in the observer. The author goes yet further by arguing that the meaningful connectedness between things — the hierarchical



organization of all we perceive — is the result of the Gestalt nature of perception and thought, and exists only as a property of mind. These insights give the first glimmerings of a new way of seeing the cosmos: not as a mineral wasteland but a place inhabited by creatures. .