Philip Gerrans's Books

The Measure of Madness

Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Delusional Thought

By: Philip Gerrans

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The Measure of Madness

Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Delusional Thought

By: Philip Gerrans

Drawing on the latest work in cognitive neuroscience, a philosopher proposes that delusions are narrative models that accommodate anomalous experiences. In The Measure of Madness, Philip Gerrans offers a novel explanation of delusion. Over the last two decades, philosophers and cognitive scientists have investigated explanations of delusion that interweave philosophical questions about the nature of belief and rationality with findings from cognitive science and neurobiology. Gerrans argues that once we fully describe the computational and neural mechanisms that produce delusion and the way in which conscious experience and thought depend on them, the concept of delusional belief retains only a heuristic role in the explanation of delusion. Gerrans proposes that delusions are narrative models that accommodate anomalous experiences. He argues that delusions represent the operation of the Default Mode Network (DMN)—the cognitive system that provides the raw material for humans' inbuilt tendency to provide a subjectively compelling narrative context for anomalous or highly salient experiences—without the “supervision” of higher cognitive processes present in the nondelusional mind. This explanation illuminates the relationship among delusions, dreams, imaginative states, and irrational beliefs that have perplexed philosophers and psychologists for over a century. Going beyond the purely conceptual and the phenomenological, Gerrans brings together findings from different disciplines to trace the flow of information through the cognitive system, and applies these to case studies of typical schizophrenic delusions: misidentification, alien control, and thought insertion. Drawing on the interventionist model of causal explanation in philosophy of science and the predictive coding approach to the mind influential in computational neuroscience, Gerrans provides a model for integrative theorizing about the mind.

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Page Count

299

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262320983

ISBN 13

9780262320986

Anatomy of an Avatar

The virtual self in pathologies of self awareness

By: Philip Gerrans

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Anatomy of an Avatar

The virtual self in pathologies of self awareness

By: Philip Gerrans

This book applies a powerful framework in computational neuroscience (predictive coding and active inference) to explain psychiatric disorders that are characterised by pathologies of self-awareness. It shows how the self is best conceived of as an avatar or model made by the brain for the fundamental purpose of optimising basic bodily function. That avatar integrates and coordinates neurocomputation across the mind. It allows the mind to anticipate and respond to sensory information that bears on the organism’s prospects. The self is thus a model (avatar) made by the brain to allow the body to play the game of life. When activity in circuitry that implements the avatar is compromised a variety of psychiatric disorders result. Anatomy of an Avatar provides a theoretical framework for theories of embodied selfhood anchored in homoestatic regulation, as well as exploring psychiatric disorders involving the self and the empirical application of concepts of free energy minimisation, active inference and predictive processing. The book also includes key case studies in the cognitive neuropsychiatry of self awareness and test cases for philosophical concepts of self representation and the experience of self awareness. The book will be essential reading for those in the fields of psychology and consciousness, psychiatry, and philosophy.

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Page Count

236

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0198886659

ISBN 13

9780198886655

The Measure of Madness

Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Delusional Thought

By: Philip Gerrans

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The Measure of Madness

Philosophy of Mind, Cognitive Neuroscience, and Delusional Thought

By: Philip Gerrans

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299

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MIT Press

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ISBN 10

0262320983

ISBN 13

9780262320986

The Commonsense of Political Economy

Volume One

By: Philip H. Wicksteed

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The Commonsense of Political Economy

Volume One

By: Philip H. Wicksteed

This is Volume XXI of twenty-three in a collection on the History of Economic Thought. Originally published in 1933, this volume offers selected papers and reviews on economic theory as the first volume of two.

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Page Count

437

Publisher

Routledge

Published Date

ISBN 10

1136510303

ISBN 13

9781136510304

Philip's Driver's Atlas Britain 2007

By: George Philip & Son

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Philip's Driver's Atlas Britain 2007

By: George Philip & Son

An excellent value atlas featuring fully updated cartography from Philip's digital database, which has been voted Britain's clearest and most detailed mapping in an independent consumer survey and now includes speed camera locations. This atlas includes all the mapping features normally included only in more expensive road atlases.The front section includes route-planner, distance table, legend, London street map, chart of motorway junctions with restricted access, and key map.The road map section includes 96 pages of large-scale mapping covering Britain at 3 miles to 1 inch (north Scotland at 4 miles to 1 inch), marking all fixed speed cameras as well as full road network and town and village details.The town plan section includes 53 town centre maps, marking car parks and places of interest.The comprehensive index includes 28,000 namesMain map scale: 3 miles to 1 inch

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Page Count

152

Published Date

ISBN 10

054008882X

ISBN 13

9780540088829

Book's by Philip Gerrans

The Measure of Madness

The Measure of Madness

Anatomy of an Avatar

Anatomy of an Avatar

The Measure of Madness

The Measure of Madness

The Commonsense of Political Economy

The Commonsense of Political Economy

Philip's Driver's Atlas Britain 2007

Philip's Driver's Atlas Britain 2007

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