Converging and diverging views on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, perception, meditation, and other topics.
Buddhism shares with science the task of examining the mind empirically; it has pursued, for two millennia, direct investigation of the mind through penetrating introspection. Neuroscience, on the other hand, relies on third-person knowledge in the form of scientific observation. In this book, Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist monk trained as a molecular biologist, and Wolf Singer, a distinguished neuroscientist―close friends, continuing an ongoing dialogue―offer their perspectives on the mind, the self, consciousness, the unconscious, free will, epistemology, meditation, and neuroplasticity. 
Ricard and Singer's wide-ranging conversation stages an enlightening and engaging encounter between Buddhism's wealth of experiential findings and neuroscience's abundance of experimental results. They discuss, among many other things, the difference between rumination and meditation (rumination is the scourge of meditation, but psychotherapy depends on it); the distinction between pure awareness and its contents; the Buddhist idea (or lack of one) of the unconscious and neuroscience's precise criteria for conscious and unconscious processes; and the commonalities between cognitive behavioral therapy and meditation. Their views diverge (Ricard asserts that the third-person approach will never encounter consciousness as a primary experience) and converge (Singer points out that the neuroscientific understanding of perception as reconstruction is very like the Buddhist all-discriminating wisdom) but both keep their vision trained on understanding fundamental aspects of human life.

Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience

Politics & Social Sciences

RICARD, Matthieu

Singer, Wolf

Philosophy

The MIT Press

Beyond the Self: Conversations between Buddhism and Neuroscience (Mit Press)

Trompe l'oeil, French for "fool or deceive the eye", is a genre dating back to antiquity that has fascinated both painters and viewers from the Renaissance to the present day. Both witty and serious, it describes paintings that imitate natural appearances so convincingly that viewers momentarily mistake the objects depicted for the real thing. The moment of deception, however, is brief. Uncertainty over what is real and what is illusion is soon replaced by amusement at having been tricked and admiration for the artist's ingenuity and skill. Deceptions and Illusions explores the art of trompe l'oeil in more than 100 European and American paintings ranging in date from the fifteenth through the twentieth centuries by such practitioners as Samuel van Hoogstraten, William M. Harnett, John Haberle, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein. Organised thematically, the volume begins with works of art inspired by ancient prototypes and with paintings by early Renaissance artists whose close observation of nature was a prerequisite for eye-deceiving illusionism. It then presents the principal subjects of trompe l'oeil artists, beginning with images of letters, prints, dollar bills, and other essentially flat objects that appear to rest on the picture surface, and then moves to three-dimensional illusions in which objects appear to project or recede from the picture plane, blurring the boundary between real and fictitious space. Finally, the volume illustrates the legacy of the art of trompe l'oeil for twentieth-century artists. Five essays by experts in European and American art and in the science of seeing examine the phenomenon and persistence of trompe l'oeil over the centuries.

Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe L'Oeil Painting

Arts & Photography

Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille

Staiti, Paul

Veca, Alberto

Wheelock, Arthur K.

History & Criticism

Lund Humphries Pub Ltd

Cerveau & méditation

Religion & Spirituality

Pocket

Ein neues Menschenbild? Gespräche über Hirnforschung.

Suhrkamp

<div>Collecting work that the authors have spent years confronting, Ricard and Singer share their answers to the following questions: Does meditation modify neural circuits? How do emotions transform? Which different states modify the conscious? What is the "I"? Does free will exist? What can we say about the nature of consciousness? In this work, Ricard and Singer have a profound dialogue between contemplation and modern science in hopes of penetrating the mysteries of the human mind.</div>

Cerebro y meditación: Diálogo entre el budismo y las neurociencias (Spanish Edition)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Alternative Medicine

Editorial Kairos

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