The Crucible of Consciousness: An Integrated Theory of Mind and Brain
"The world view of the blind and that of the sighted is likely different, shaped by the distinct perceptual experience and the brain plasticity involved in adaptation to the loss of sight. Zoltan Torey is blind. I cannot but believe that this fact has endowed him with the needed vision to address the complex relation between brain and mind. Zoltan Torey writes with the needed eloquence, freshness, and originality that assures readers will be moved to think, and will understand not only what is being said, but also gain new insights about themselves and others."-Alvaro Pascual-Leone, Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School, and Director, Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center"Torey's way of putting things sheds new light on just what is going on in the 'computational' brain, since he has to find alternative metaphors to stand in for the now somewhat overworked comparison with computers. Just as poets often find that the constraints of rhyme and meter force them to discover strikingly apt expressions of their thoughts, it turns out that couching a computational theory of the mind in resolutely noncomputational terms pays dividends. There is much to repay readers in this book: to the uninitiated, it is a graceful and wise introduction to many of the central problems and arguments; to the veterans, it is a quite bountiful source of arrestingly different slants on familiar topics."--Daniel C. Dennett, Director of the Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University and author of Sweet Dreams(Daniel C. Dennet)