Summary of Mark Solms's The Hidden Spring

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

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#1 I was born on the Skeleton Coast of the former German colony of Namibia, where my father administered a small South African-owned company called Consolidated Diamond Mines. The holding company, De Beers, had created a virtual country within a country, known as the Sperrgebiet.

#2 The nature of consciousness is the most difficult topic in science. It matters because you are your consciousness, but it is controversial because of two puzzles that have bedevilled thinkers for centuries. The first is the mind/body problem, which asks how the physical brain produces your phenomenal experience. The second is the problem of other minds, which asks how we can know if other people have minds.

#3 The experimental method is used to generate best guesses about what might plausibly explain the observed phenomena. Then predictions are made based on those hypotheses. If those predictions are confirmed, the hypothesis is considered to be provisionally true.

#4 The behaviorist approach was able to accommodate internal mental processes, but they did not consider them acceptable scientific data. The cognitive revolution was spurred on by the advent of computers, which allowed psychologists to treat the mind as though it were a computer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Mar 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669372431

IRB Media

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Insights on Mark Solms's The Hidden Spring

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

I was born on the Skeleton Coast of the former German colony of Namibia, where my father administered a small South African-owned company called Consolidated Diamond Mines. The holding company, De Beers, had created a virtual country within a country, known as the Sperrgebiet.

#2

The nature of consciousness is the most difficult topic in science. It matters because you are your consciousness, but it is controversial because of two puzzles that have bedevilled thinkers for centuries. The first is the mind/body problem, which asks how the physical brain produces your phenomenal experience. The second is the problem of other minds, which asks how we can know if other people have minds.

#3

The experimental method is used to generate best guesses about what might plausibly explain the observed phenomena. Then predictions are made based on those hypotheses. If those predictions are confirmed, the hypothesis is considered to be provisionally true.

#4

The behaviorist approach was able to accommodate internal mental processes, but they did not consider them acceptable scientific data. The cognitive revolution was spurred on by the advent of computers, which allowed psychologists to treat the mind as though it were a computer.

#5

The third major scientific response to mind/body metaphysics is cognitive neuroscience, which focuses on the hardware of the mind. It arose with the development of a plethora of physiological techniques that make it possible for us to observe and measure the dynamics of the living brain directly.

#6

The brain is different from any other part of the body, because it is capable of sensing, feeling, and thinking things. Yet in the 1980s, scientists were beginning to ignore this fact, and instead just focus on the brain’s function.

#7

The brain mechanism of wakefulness versus sleep was a respectable scientific topic in the 1980s. The only aspect of consciousness that was a respectable scientific topic was the brain mechanism of dreaming. Dreams are a paradoxical intrusion of consciousness into sleep.

#8

The brain goes into what is now called slow wave sleep, and the eyes move rapidly. The body below the neck is temporarily paralysed. There are dramatic autonomic changes, and dream reports are elicited by awakenings