[Bmi] brain-mind-society-culture

[Peter Walla]

dear hans,

i am not sure, but maybe the following book chapter will help:

http://www.intechopen.com/books/novel-frontiers-of-advanced-neuroimaging/neuroimaging-helps-to-clarify-brain-affective-processing-without-necessarily-clarifying-emotions


some bits and pieces may be useful. i think you have to look at your
problem from a neurobiologal perspective and this chapter introduces you
to an innovative human mind model focussing on affective processing. if
you find the time have a read.

all the best
peter

Head of Functional Neuroimaging Lab
Head of Neuroscience group
University of Newcastle
Callaghan 2308 NSW
Australia


>>> hans kuijper <j_kuijper at online.nl> 15/02/2013 9:38 am >>>
Dear BMILISTS,

Over the last three months or so, I have been following some of your
work with great interest, trying to understand it in the context of fast
developing cognitive science(s?). I do believe that the mind is embodied
and consequently biologists, particularly brain scientists, (will) have
a lot to say about this ill-defined 'thing'. 

However, educated in the humanities (I graduated in sinology from
Leyden University) and becoming increasingly interested in the science
of complexity, I believe that the mind is also embedded. For, as Lev
Vygotsky already argued in his book Mind in Society (1930): 'The mind
cannot be understood in isolation from the surrounding society', an
original idea revisited in Andrzej Nowak, Katarzyna Winkowska-Nowak and
David Brée (eds.), Complex Human Dynamics: From Mind to Society,
Springer, 2013.

Culture (that other notoriously difficult to describe 'thing', about
which many books have been written) seems to be the missing link between
mind and society. So the conundrum workers in the natural and cultural
(i.e. social and human) sciences should address collaboratively is the
identification, characterisation and understanding of the intimate
connection between mind's embodiedness and embeddedness. 

Arguably, there is nothing more complex than a country, or a culture,
being a hypercomplex system of complex systems in context (its outside
world). If 'a revolution is occurring in the social sciences', as the
editors of Complex Human Dynamics claim, that easily overlooked point is
to be taken into account. See the article 'Lifting the study of China
onto a higher plane' that I recently posted on the website
www.academia.edu.     

Since I am currently working on a book provisionally entitled The
Complexity of Countries, I wonder if anyone of you could suggest what I
should definitely read to be well-informed about the cutting edge
research not only on brain, mind, society and culture but also (and
perhaps in the first place) on the relationships between these
intricately patterned entities. 

Needless to say, I would be most grateful if you could help me.

Yours sincerely, 

Hans Kuijper
Joliotplaats 5
3069 JJ Rotterdam
The Netherlands