Being and becoming : a guide to act in the theatre of existence / Jose Luis Perez Velazquez, Vera Nenadovic.
Perez Velazquez, Jose Luis.; Nenadovic, Vera.
2021
RC343
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Title
Being and becoming : a guide to act in the theatre of existence / Jose Luis Perez Velazquez, Vera Nenadovic.
Author
Perez Velazquez, Jose Luis.
ISBN
9783030782641 (electronic bk.)
3030782646 (electronic bk.)
3030782638
9783030782634
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78264-1
Publication Details
Cham, Switzerland : Springer, 2021.
Language
English
Description
1 online resource
Item Number
10.1007/978-3-030-78264-1 doi
Call Number
RC343
Dewey Decimal Classification
612.801
Summary
Many people spend considerable time seeking a sense of purpose in life and, concomitant with that, a sense of personal identity. This book demystifies this search, revealing why this search is a fallacy. The purpose is to inform readers about results in neuroscience and biophysics that may guide us to some liberation needed in the current age of great complexity in life with a diverse burden of chores; a deliverance from some afflictions that prevent individuals from achieving the true purpose of our lives. Among these afflictions we find two primordial concerns: the belief and subsequent attachment to a self, and the conviction that life must have a deep purpose in which we are major players. While this is a scientific text, it can easily be read by a lay audience, written with minimal technical jargon and with references to scientific papers enough to satisfy the curious. We have tried to extract the essence of scientific observations such that we can glimpse at those aforementioned concerns about the self and life, observations which help us comprehend what we are and what we become, the being and becoming of our own selves and natural phenomena around us. Jose Luis Perez Velazquez received a PhD in Molecular Physiology & Biophysics. His research seeks principles of biological organisation. He worked at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto and was Professor at the University of Toronto. Currently he is a Research Scholar at the Ronin Institute and lives in the natural paradise of Asturias, in Northern Spain. Vera Nenadovic is a nurse practitioner, neuroscientist and entrepreneur. She has 30 years of experience in healthcare from First Nations communities to intensive care units. Her research focuses on predicting brain injury outcomes. She is a clinician and researcher at Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Hospital. Her startup company BrainsView is commercializing software that analyzes brainwaves to monitor brain function and recovery after head injury. She is married and lives in Toronto, with her husband and Rottweiler.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Access Note
Access limited to authorized users.
Source of Description
Online resource; title from PDF title page (SpringerLink, viewed September 13, 2021).
Added Author
Nenadovic, Vera.
Available in Other Form
Print version: 9783030782634
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Intro
Preface
Contents
Why You Should Read This Book
Part I: The Neuroscience Perspective
Where Is My Self?
Chapter 1: The Emergence of the Self
1.1 Perception Is Everything
1.2 The Usefulness of Brains
1.3 Cognition Without a Brain: The "Thinking" Slime Mould
1.4 A Brief Tour Through the Brain, for the Non-specialist Tourist
1.5 The Cognitive Powers of a Worm and its Extremely Primeval Selfhood
1.6 On the Essence of Selves: Properties All We Perceive
1.7 The Personal Identity of Animals: A Self Through the Looking Glass
1.7.1 The Mirror Test

1.8 Of Animals and Babies: The Development of Self-Awareness in Humans
1.8.1 The Body in the Brain
1.8.2 Our Starting Consciousness in Our Early Times
Chapter 2: The Origins and the Fallacy of a Central Commander in the Brain: The Emergence of Agency and the Demise of the Concept of Free Will
2.1 Incorrect Body Perceptions: Illusions of Ownership and Out-of-Body Experiences
2.1.1 The Mind Out of the Body: Out-of-Body Experiences
2.1.2 A Mini Science Project: Elucidating the Intriguing Phenomenon of OBEs in Blind Individuals
2.2 Free Will, or What Is Free in that Will?

2.2.1 The Making of Choices: In Search of the Last Ventriloquist
2.2.2 The Will in Epileptic Patients: What Seizures Reveal About Volition
Postscript to Chapter 2
Chapter 3: The Strange World of Split-brain Patients: In Search of the Interpreter of Our Actions
3.1 Closing the Coffin of Free Will
3.1.1 A Cry for Freedom
Chapter 4: Dissociative Identity Disorders. Are Multiple Personalities Ever Lonely, or Can a Psychiatrist Charge Twice a Person with Dual Personality?
Chapter 5: The Enduring Self, or How to Annihilate the Self

Chapter 6: A Recipe for High Cognition: Are Consciousness and Self-awareness a Matter of Numbers?
Chapter 7: Demystifying Consciousness
7.1 On Emergence
7.1.1 A Criticism and a Reply
7.2 Perception is Personal: The Essence and Source of the Mystery
7.2.1 Postscript to Part I
Part II: The Biophysics Perspective
What Is My Life?
Chapter 8: A Recipe for Interesting Things to Occur
8.1 Preparing to Cook Life
8.1.1 Global Regularity From Local Mess: The Beginnings of the Living
8.1.2 Noisy Surroundings: When Noise Really Makes Sense
8.1.3 A Fluctuating World

Chapter 9: Let There Be Life
9.1 Molecular Crowding: A Tale of the Most Probable
9.2 Biological Compartmentalisation: Good Borders Make Good Neighbours
9.3 Clarifying the Entropic Fallacy
9.3.1 And Furthermore, Clarifying Other Closest Relatives of Entropy
9.4 And Yet Another Fallacy: (Wo)Man and Machine
9.5 The Dance of the Genes
Chapters 10: The Special Ones
Chapter 11: The Enduring Life
Chapter 12: And Why There Is Something Instead of Nothing
12.1 Postscript to Part II
Part III: The Philosophical Perspective
How Do I Experience Reality?

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