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Mind in Science is both a substantial
contribution to the history of science and a major intellectual
achievement on a wider plane. Richard Gregory, an experimental
psychologist of outstanding originality, sets out to trace
the development of scientific thinking from the Sumerians
and Greeks onwards, and to chart the growth of psychology
in man's attempts to related Mind to Matter. He guides us
on a fascinating journey through critical questions of philosophy,
models of space, matter, and motion, the biology and evolution
of life, the nature and nurture of intelligence, language,
perception, and consciousness.
The scope of the book ranges from myth to
modern science, from abacus to computer, from Aristotle
to Popper. Professor Gregory examines the gradual separation
of concepts of Mind from the natural sciences. In earliest
times, explanations of events and laws of the world were
essentially psychological. Professor Gregory focuses attention
for the first time on the real sophistication of ancient
technology in particular, and on its influence in both constraining
and inspiring even the most abstract notions of philosophers.
He shows that over the last five thousand years physics
has exorcised Mind from the universe -- except for the unique
case of the brain. Past successes and failures in explanation
and experimentation point to a fundamental question: do
we need special concepts for understanding perception, thinking,
and other functions of mind, or can we apply the kinds of
physical concepts that have been so powerful for the natural
sciences? Perhaps, Professor Gregory suggests, recent developments
such as attempts to design intelligent machines will provide
new answers to the riddle of the phenomenon of knowledge.
Richard Gregory is Professor of Neuropsychology
and Director of the Brain and Perception Laboratory at the
University of Bristol. His earlier books include The
Intelligent Eye (1970), Concepts and Mechanisms of
Perception (1974), and Eye and Brain (3rd revised
edition, 1977). He is also the editor of the Oxford
Companion to the Mind (1981).
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