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The Ghost in the Machine

Koestler, Arthur
Publisher:  Panm Books, London, United Kingdom
Year Published:  1975   First Published:  1967
Pages:  384pp  
Dewey:  153.43
Resource Type:  Book

An analysis of the relationship between reason and imagination.

Abstract: 
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Table of Contents

Preface

Part One: Order
1. The Poverty of Psychology
The Four Pillars of Unwisdom
The Rise of Behaviourism
The De-Humanisation of Man
How to Manipulate Tautologies
The Philosophy of Ratomorphism

2. The Chain of Words and the Tree of Language
The Chain
The Tree
'What Did You Say?'
The Postman and the Dog
'What Do You Mean by That?'
Rules, Strategies and Feedbacks

3. The Holon
The Parable of the Two Watchmakers
Enter Janus
Social Holons
The Basic Polarity

4. Individuals and Dividuals
A Note About Diagrams
Inorganic Systems
The Organism and its Spares
The Integrative Powers of Life

5. Triggers and Filters
Triggers
How to Build a Nest
Filters

6. A Memory for Forgetting
Abstractive Memory
A Speculative View
Two Types of Memory
Picture-Stip Memory
Images and Schemata
Learning by Rote

7. The Helmsman
Sensory-Motor Routines
Feedbacks and Homeostasis
Loops within Loops
A Holarchy of Holons

8. Habit and Improvisation
The Origins of Originality
The Mechanisation of Habits
One Step at a Time
The Challenge of Environment

Part Two: Becoming
9. The Strategy of Embryos
Docility and Determination
The Genetic Keyboard

10. Evolution: Theme and Variations
Internal Selection
The Case of the Eyeless Fly
The Puzzle of Homology
Archetypes in Biology
The Law of Balance
The Doppelgangers
The Thirty-Six Plots

11. Evolution CTD: Progress by Initiative
Acting Before Reacting
Once More Darwin and Lamarck

12. Evolution CTD: Undoing and Re-doing
Blind Alleys
Escape from Specialisation
Draw back to Leap

13. The Glory of Man
Forms of Self-Repair
Higher Forms of Self-Repair
Self-Repair and Self-Realisation
Science and the Unconscious
Association and Bisociation
The AHA Reaction
The HAHA Reaction
Laughter and Emotion
The AH Reaction
Art and Emotion
The Creative Trinity

14. The Ghost in the Machine
The 'Second Law'
The Swing of the Pendulum
The Stage and the Actors
Shifts of Control
The Serial View
The Flatworm's Ego
A Road to Freedom
A Sort of Maxim
The Open-Ended Hierarchy

Part Three: Disorder
15. The Predicament of Man
The ThreeDimensions of Emotion
The Perils of Aggression
The Pathology of Devotion
The Ritual of Sacrifice
The Observer from Mars
The Cheerful Ostrich
Integration and Identification
The Perils of Identification
Hierarchich Awareness
Induction and Hypnosis
Sweet Caesor's Wounds
The Structure of Beliefs
The Split
The Comforts of Double-Think
The Group Mind as a Holon

16. The Three Brains
Mistakes in Brain-Making
'A Tumorous Overgrowth'
The Physiology of Emotion
The Three Brains
Emotion and the Ancient Brain
'Schizophysiology'
A Taste of the Sun
Knowing with One's Viscera
Janus Revisited

17. A Unique Species
The Unsolicited Gift
Looking in Utter Darkness
The Peaceful Primate
The Harmless Hunter
The Curse of Language
The Discovery of Death

18. The Age of Climax
The Hinge of History
Two Curves
The New Calendar
'Tampering with Human Nature
Prometheus Unhinged
Mutating into the Future
A Plea to the Phantom Reader

Appendix One: General Properties of Open Hierarchical Systems (O.H.S.)
Appendix Two: On Not Flogging Dead Horses

References
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index

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