An account of the different ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body, from prehistory to the present. An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or “all in the head.” This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, he considers how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory definitively adds materiality—the world of things, artifacts, and material signs—into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.

In this ground-breaking theory, the mechanisms behind parapsychological phenomena are analysed and logical proof is provided for the truth of astrology and the existence of the soul and spirit. The personal conscious is revealed to be motivated by a metaphysical intelligence, known as the “god within,” which is the root of all paranormal phenomena. The theory also introduces the concept of “psycho-plasma,” a medium that connects all life past and present and is the source of telepathy and other paranormal phenomena. The existence of intelligent design is proposed as a complement to natural selection, with ID providing the motive force for change and NS serving as the template for design. Atheism is rejected and the existence of a supreme being and the afterlife is affirmed.

" The theory is basically an analysis of the physical and metaphysical mechanisms involved in the generation of paranormal or, more scientifically expressed, parapsychological phenomena. It includes a logical and undeniable proof that there is truth in astrology as in all the divinatory arts to a greater or lesser degree. It also contains a proof of the existence of the soul or spirit and explains that the personal unconscious is motivated by a metaphysical intelligence, the generator of enthusiasm which I, along with the ancient Greeks, know as the god within, the mischievous root and origin of all parapsychological phenomena. The theory also explains that all life, past or present, is joined by or immersed in a subtle fluid which I call psychoplasma. This is the medium of telepathy and much, if not all, other paranormal phenomena. All life, past or present implies that there is an afterlife, which I have found to be true. Psychoplasma is a mixture or compound of conscious, metaphysical spirit and physical bioplasma that is secreted in the cells of all living matter and is the reason for the theorys title of material mind. My theory, which incorporates metaphysical entities, comes down strongly in support of intelligent design as a complement to natural selectionthe two of them work together, ID providing the motive force for change and NS the template for design. Atheism is rejected as no longer tenable, though the existence of a supreme being is denied, for as well as the metaphysical god within, it would appear that there are indeed mysteries probably responsible for the origin of the universe, which science will never explain. The theory is extremely subversive and strikes at the roots, though not invalidating, all of established science, including evolutionary theory and physics. "

Breaking new ground in the debate about the relation of mind and body, David Armstrong's classic text - first published in 1968 - remains the most compelling and comprehensive statement of the view that the mind is material or physical. In the preface to this new edition, the author reflects on the book's impact and considers it in the light of subsequent developments. He also provides a bibliography of all the key writings to have appeared in the materialist debate.

The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

Computing Methodologies -- Artificial Intelligence.

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