Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Networks of Meaning: A Bridge Between Mind and Matter

Networks of Meaning: A Bridge Between Mind and Matter

Hardy, Christine

Hardcover

PhilosophyGeneral Psychology

ISBN10: 0275960358
ISBN13: 9780275960353
Publisher: Praeger
Published: Oct 28 1998
Pages: 232
Weight: 1.02
Height: 0.88 Width: 6.22 Depth: 9.30
Language: English

The generation of meaning is the most fundamental process of the mind. It underlies all major mental functions, such as intelligence, memory, perception, and communication. Not surprisingly, it has been one of the most difficult processes to understand and represent in a model of human cognition. Dr. Christine Hardy introduces two fundamental concepts to address the complexity and richness of meaning. First, she discusses Semantic Constellations, which constitute the basic transversal network organization of mental and neural processes. Second, she addresses a highly dynamic connective process that underlies conscious thought and constantly gives birth to novel emergents or meanings.

Taken together, Hardy asserts, the mind's network architecture and connective dynamics allow for self-organization, generativity, and creativity. They can also account for some of the most interesting facets of mental processes, in particular, nonlinear shifts and breakthroughs such as intuition, insights, and shifts in states of consciousness. This connective dynamic does not just take place within the mind. Rather, it involves a continuously evolving person-environment interaction: meaning is injected into the environment, and then retrojected, somewhat modified, back into the psyche. This means that, simultaneously, we are both perceiving reality and subtly influencing the very reality we perceive: objects, events, and other individuals. The way in which we think and feel, both individually and collectively, interacts with the physical world and directly shapes the society in which we live. The very same connective dynamic, Hardy shows, is the foundation for those rare yet striking transpersonal experiences known as synchronicity and psychic phenomena. We live in a world in which we interact with reality at a very fundamental level. Hardy's work is a major analysis for scholars and researchers in the cognitive sciences, psychology, and parapsychology.

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