In psychotherapy and psychiatry, mental illness diagnostics is limited to the description of symptoms and has nothing to do with assessing the state of the organ that performs the mental functions. In other branches of medicine, any diagnosis aims to answer the question about the physical disturbance of the internal technology of the body. But the Mind remains outside of this correct approach. As a result, all systemic mental pathologies are currently incurable. This absurd situation is due to the lack of a physically grounded theoretical model of the Mind. Without it, practical treatment of the disorders remains ‘wandering in the dark.’ How can we fix something if there is no understanding of what it is and how it works? Within the Teleological Transduction Theory developed in the previous volumes of the series, harmony of the Mind is a physical concept of normal functioning. Respectively, when the pathologies are described as dissonances, it is not a metaphor but a reference to the physical malfunction leading to the disintegration of the Mind. The book proposes a new approach to the diagnosis and classification of mental pathologies, based on an assessment of the state of the physical mechanism of the Mind and violations of the technological algorithm of the brain. The goal is to create the concept as a universal tool that can be used in various pathologies. The book offers a model of systemic pathologies such as autism and schizophrenia, which reveals the essence of the physical problem that causes the observed symptoms. This could be the beginning of a project that will overcome the current chaotic state of the field of psychopathology and harmonize our diagnosis and treatment of mental illness as disorders of the brain.

Based on a clear physical definition of the Mind given in the previous volume of the “Symphony of Matter and Mind” series, the author begins to formulate a unified concept of the Brain and Mind which will be developed in this and subsequent volumes. All mental phenomena, from basic sensory-motor to higher abstract-verbal, are the result of neural encoding of the external world signals and internal bodily signals into representations constituting the model of reality for the purpose of controlling the body and adapting to this reality. Thus, any theory of the brain faces the question of the nature of the neural code which could explain the observed speed and efficiency, scope and complexity of the computational process that we call the Mind. The mainstream theories of neuroscience that consider neural activity as trains of discrete identical spikes (various firing rate coding and temporal coding models) contradict the reality of the information density of neural computing. That is why, despite huge efforts by generations of researchers, this approach did not lead to deciphering the neural code. We know the details of the neural processes down to the molecular level but the brain remains a ‘black box’ that we cannot read. It is the outcome of the wrong theoretical assumption that should be revised. The author creates the concept of a neural code that overcomes the shortcomings of old models. There is another problem that cannot be avoided by any theory of consciousness. It is not enough to say that the brain creates the psyche as this leaves an explanatory gap. We need to show how this physiological system generates mental phenomena physically. The Mind is a technological process that works according to a certain algorithm based on physical laws. The author’s theory offers a fundamentally new approach to the nervous system that bridges physiology and psychology by illuminating the algorithm and the physics of the Mind from the intracellular to the system-wide level.

The brain is the source of sensations, emotions, desires, thoughts, memories, movement and behavior control. All these are aspects of the process we call the Mind. Despite a vast amount of data on the nervous system functioning down to the molecular level, no concept has yet uncovered the physical mechanism and the technology of this process. With this aim in sight, the author continues to develop the Teleological Transduction Theory. The book contains hypotheses about the physical nature of the Mind and provides examples of how physics manifests in the nervous system physiology. It also shows how the Mind’s algorithm produces a reality model with constant updating based on incoming data and performs the self-learning functions. The theory encompasses the physical processes that create the enormous capacity, speed and multi-level complexity of our memory. It solves the riddle of how the brain forms and reproduces a vast number of representations almost instantly. Building a model of reality is not an end to itself. The final goal is to act based on this model. The nervous system specializes in controlling the body and organizing purposeful movement. But how does it perform the function? The book contains hypotheses about the technology and physical mechanism that create the observed speed and efficiency of motion control. Taking all these aspects together, the proposed theory aims to cover the explanatory gap about the physical nature of the Mind.

Research in music is a multidisciplinary matter. Experts from very different fields in science report the most recent data from their own research and thereby show today's knowledge concerning music and neuropsychological sciences. This includes the developing and adult brain, neurological and psychiatric diseases as well as the battery of the most recent development in brain imaging techniques. This book offers an excellent introduction to new scientific efforts in understanding both neuronal and psychic mechanisms when listening to or performing music.

Blinded and guided by his unmentionable obsession, a photographer is forced to frame his life accordingly.

This is Volume V in a series of seven on the Philosophy of Religion and General Philosophy. Originally published in 1924. The trained musician may have made a thorough study of technical methods in composition, but yet have no knowledge either of the physical basis of music or of the philosophical reasons underlying accepted technical principles. There are various questions which any person interested in music may reasonably ask, but to which no satisfactory answers have as yet been given. What does music mean? What is the composer trying to express? What does music express to the listener? Why is one kind of music considered good and another bad? This study looks at music which is, which of all the arts, the most universally practised, the most complex and elaborate in its technique, the most direct in its emotional appeal and at the same time the least understood.

Using evidence and arguments from neuroscience and evolutionary psychology, Morris B. Hoffman describes how the judge and jury system evolved.

In "western" cultures, some people have chosen a dreadlock hairstyle, despite many in mainstream society looking at it in a negative light. This book deals with contradictions surrounding the hairstyle such as often representing a protest against the prevailing right-wing political systems, yet also emphasizing the white person’s power to appropriate any style. Based on interviews and close observations in social media, the book offers insights into the culture(s) surrounding dreadlocks and ultimately interprets the phenomenon as a postmodern form of individuality.

In recent decades, the relationship between music, emotions, health and well-being has become a hot topic. Scientific research and new neuro-imaging technologies have provided extraordinary new insights into how music affects our brains and bodies, and researchers in fields ranging from psychology and music therapy to history and sociology have turned their attention to the question of how music relates to mind, body, feelings and health, generating a wealth of insights as well as new challenges. Yet this work is often divided by discipline and methodology, resulting in parallel, yet separate discourses. In this context, The Routledge Companion to Music, Mind and Well-being seeks to foster truly interdisciplinary approaches to key questions about the nature of musical experience and to demonstrate the importance of the conceptual and ideological frameworks underlying research in this field. Incorporating perspectives from musicology, history, psychology, neuroscience, music education, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and music therapy, this volume opens the way for a generative dialogue across both scientific and humanistic scholarship. The Companion is divided into two sections. The chapters in the first, historical section consider the varied ways in which music, the emotions, well-being and their interactions have been understood in the past, from Antiquity to the twentieth century, shedding light on the intellectual origins of debates that continue today. The chapters in the second, contemporary section offer a variety of current scientific perspectives on these topics and engage wider philosophical problems. The Companion ends with chapters that explore the practical application of music in healthcare, education and welfare, drawing on work on music as a social and ecological phenomenon. Contextualising contemporary scientific research on music within the history of ideas, this volume provides a unique overview of what it means to study music in relation to the mind and well-being.