Chris Abel

The Self-Field

Mind, Body and Environment

• Broschiertes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

In this incisive study of the biological and cultural origins of the human self, the author challenges readers to re-think ideas about the self and consciousness as being exclusive to humans. In their place, he expounds a metatheoretical approach to the self as a purposeful system of extended cognition common to animal life: the invisible medium maintaining mind, body and environment as an integrated 'field of being'. Supported by recent research in evolutionary and developmental studies together with related discoveries in animal behaviour and the neurosciences, the author examines the factors that have shaped the evolution of the animal self across widely different species and times, through to the modern, technologically enmeshed human self; the differences between which, he contends, are relations of degree rather than absolute differences. We are, he concludes, instinctive and 'fuzzy individuals' clinging to fragile identities in an artificial and volatile world of humanity's own making, but which we now struggle to control. This book, which restores the self to its fundamental place in identity formation, will be of great interest for students and academics in the fields of social, developmental and environmental psychology, together with readers from other disciplines in the humanities, especially philosophy, cultural theory and architecture.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Routledge
• Seitenzahl: 348
• Erscheinungstermin: 16. März 2021
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 234mm x 156mm x 19mm
• Gewicht: 529g
• ISBN-13: 9780367740726
• ISBN-10: 0367740729
• Artikelnr.: 60594708

Autorenporträt

Chris Abel is an award-winning author of numerous interdisciplinary publications on the built environment and identity theory. He has taught at universities around the world, most recently at the University of Sydney and the University of Ulster, Belfast.

Inhaltsangabe

Preface Introduction PART I: The background 1. The nature
nurture debate Personality traits
Cognitive abilities
Epigenetic factors
Gene regulation
New terms of debate
Neural plasticity
Embodied development 2. Inheritance systems Evo
Devo
Homological thinking
Niche construction
Sociocultural learning
Cooperative behavior
Gene
culture coevolution
Interacting dimensions
Novel behavior PART II: The metatheory 3. Self
organization Order of a complex sort
Hierarchical model
Emergentism
Strong versus weak emergence
Levels of description
Autopoiesis
Structure and organization
Diachronic emergence 4. The invisible self Science and common sense
The self that won't go away
Psychological connectedness
Field theory
Boundary conditions
Social dimensions
The self as a self
organizing system
Some propositions 5. Mapping the field Brain
body schemas
Spatial extensions
Unity of perception and action
Social cues
Self
agency
Mirror images
Emotional signals
Self
regulation of emotions 6. The evolving self Metamorphosis
Memory and consciousness
Knowing and feeling
The three
stage self
The core
self across species
Evolutionary continuity
Subjective experience
The cultural ratchet 7. Tacit nexus Overlapping brain functions
Stringing things together
Rapid sequencing
Practical intelligence
Dexterous hands
Science and praxis
Artifactual knowledge PART III: The self in the world 8. Technically extended selves Nature's home builders
Animal tool use
Knowledge in common
Cumulative technology
Artificial versus natural selection
Self
producing technologies
Promethean gifts 9. Self
images Good impressions
Bodily idioms
Reciprocal perspectives
Home
making as self
actualization
Attachments to things
Material culture matters
Fashion conscious
Automania 10. Self and group identity Tribal ties
Discomfort with inconsistent beliefs
Self and the out
group other
Group dynamics
Sectarian conflict
Effects of spatial segregation 11. Occupational identity Creation of a modern workforce
Class division and unionization
Fordism
Automation
The vanishing workplace
The encroachment of AI
Social groups most affected 12. Selves online Cultivating the narcissistic personality
Bidirectional media
Hooked on the Internet
Games designed to keep players playing
The networked self
Promoting the self 13. Transformations Turning points
Perpetual connectivity
Treating people as objects
Cultural shift
The threat to critical thinking
Rewiring the brain
Augmented reality 14. Loss of the private self A cautionary tale of the digital age
Mining the data
Engineering social change
Winning tactics
Selves for sale
The fightback Part IV: Summation 15. Instinctive and fuzzy selves Resistance to change
Not just a collection of neurons
Relations of degree
Techno
cultural coevolution
The profligate species
Existential crisis Pandemic postscript Notes and references Bibliography Index