Mind, Brain, Behavior: An Audio Course on Consciousness

By: Kevin Corcoran

Narrated by: Kevin Corcoran

Length: 5 hrs

Publisher's summary

Named one of America's top 300 professors by the Princeton Review, Kevin Corcoran is an expert on consciousness and the philosophy of the mind. Translating complex topics into 12 accessible audio lectures, he’ll help you unlock the secrets of the human brain.

Our world teems with the unexpected: marsupial wolves, carnivorous plants, flocks of starlings, and many more surprising phenomena. In this audio course, you’ll explore the most fascinating of these natural wonders: consciousness. Have you ever watched a fiery sunset or heard a Mozart concerto? Human beings could soak up such sights and sounds in the same predictable ways computers or car engines do. But our minds go beyond processing information. We have conscious experiences filled with vibrant colors, thorny textures, pungent smells, and tangy flavors.

Under Prof. Corcoran’s tutelage, you’ll take a journey filled with vivid examples, philosophical reflections, and astonishing insights from scientific research that will help you understand the unique phenomenon of consciousness. Along the way, you’ll answer big questions about the self, the human mind, and the world. Each lecture will amaze and inform you. From competing theories of consciousness to the meaning of life itself, you’ll tackle compelling topics about existence.

If you’re looking for an illuminating guide to the universe’s most important questions, you’ll love this course.

This course is part of the Learn25 collection.

©2019 Now You Know Media (P)2019 Now You Know Media

Fascinating, Informative, and Thought-Provoking

Have you watched Breaking Bad? Do you remember Walter White when he said: "There's nothing but chemistry here."?
Have you watched Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey? Do you remember when the monkey at the beginning of the movie started using tools? Kubrick tried to capture the moment when our first moment of consciousness started.

Being raised in a religious environment, I believed, for a very long time, that there was a soul. I also believed for a long time that there was an afterlife. However, I am not sure anymore if there is a soul and of course, if there is an afterlife.

I am a medical student; this makes biology for me more than a science. I believe in biology, Evolution, Charles Darwin, and that life is connected from the very beginning. We are nothing but stardust, aren't we?

This introduction is essential to be able to tell why this course is one of the most interesting and informative courses I have ever listened to. I asked myself most of the questions in this course and tried to find answers but I did not find something as informative as this course.

We all have brains. By “We” I mean all living creatures. Why are humans conscious? Why other living creatures are not conscious? What is so unique about our brains that make us conscious? In addition to these questions, we can mention a long list of philosophical and religious questions.
All these questions are answered or at least discussed in this course.

Professor Kevin Corcoran’s performance in this course is EXCEPTIONAL. His voice is clear and he managed to make all the topics connected. At the beginning of each chapter, he briefly reminds you of what he was talking about in the last chapter and then continue.

No words can explain how great this course is. If you are interested in consciousness, brains, evolution, philosophy of life and the afterlife, etc., this course is for you.

Thank you, professor Kevin, and learn 25!

Truly exceptional!

The most lucid, engaging exploration I have encountered on this fascinating topic. Corcoran strikes the right balance between the science and the philosophical questions. This series will give you much to ponder and debate. Nice presentation style.

A little too philosophically focused for me

The beginning was quite interesting with a review of several famous psychological experiments and a discussion of neural plasticity. I also appreciated that the author had a broader approach than many scientists in considering the relationship between consciousness and souls and afterlife, for instance.

However, large sections of it were of a more philosophical nature than I was expecting. For instance (paraphrasing), "is consciousness to the body like a statue is to its bronze?", and if so, "what's the weight of the statue vs the weight of the bronze?".

I felt like it dived too much into semantics and nitpicking on vocabulary, where I would was hoping for more on experimental data and medical/psychological theories.