151. Neurobiologist, Philosopher, and Addict

Set 20 years after the first novel, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy follows Bridget as she emerges from the grief of her husband Mark Darcy's death. She is now a single mother of two, dealing with the challenges of modern life, including social media, dating younger men, and managing her children. The novel explores themes of widowhood, aging, and the complexities of contemporary relationships. Despite receiving mixed reviews, the book topped sales charts upon its release.

The Big Book is the basic text of Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Bill W. and first published in 1939. It outlines the Twelve Steps program for recovery from alcoholism and includes personal stories of recovery, advice for spouses, family members, and employers, as well as counsel for agnostics. The book emphasizes the importance of admitting powerlessness over alcohol, seeking help from a higher power, and community support in achieving and maintaining sobriety. It has been widely influential and has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.

In 'Consciousness Reconsidered,' Owen Flanagan presents a broad and engaging argument that we are on the way to understanding consciousness within the natural order. He advocates for 'constructive naturalism,' a methodology that integrates first-person reports of phenomenal experiences, psychological models, and neurophysiological data to explain consciousness. The book addresses various philosophical positions, including eliminativism and non-naturalism, and argues for the importance of subjective consciousness in the natural world. Flanagan draws on insights from cognitive neuroscience, neural Darwinism, and connectionist brain architecture to provide a synthetic theory of consciousness that emphasizes its essential role in human intelligence and purposeful behavior.

In this book, Dr. Carl L. Hart presents a radically different vision of drug use, arguing that when used responsibly, drugs can be beneficial for human health and functioning. Hart draws on his over 25 years of research and his own personal experiences to debunk popular myths about drug addiction. He argues that the greatest damage from drugs comes from their illegal status and the resultant stigma and racialized policies. The book emphasizes that many adults use drugs responsibly without becoming addicts, and it advocates for a shift towards drug policies based on scientific evidence and human rights rather than fear and sensationalism.

In this book, Owen Flanagan offers a state-of-the-art assessment of addiction science and proposes a new ecumenical model for understanding and explaining substance addiction. He argues that substance addictions comprise a heterogeneous set of 'psychobiosocial' behavioral disorders, influenced by multifarious cultural, social, psychological, and neural features. Flanagan explores the ways addicts can take responsibility for their addiction, the role of shame in healing, and the collective shame society bears for its indifference to the psychological and social causes of addiction. The book provides new insights for understanding and treating addiction, integrating the sciences with a sophisticated view of the consciousness-brain/body relation.

In this book, Owen Flanagan argues that it is possible to discover in Buddhism a rich, empirically responsible philosophy that could point to a path of human flourishing. He critiques recent 'science of happiness' literature that correlates happiness with Buddhism based on neurological studies, and instead proposes a fully naturalistic and comprehensive philosophy that is compatible with the rest of knowledge. The book examines the intersection between religion, neuroscience, and moral philosophy, and it challenges traditional Buddhist doctrines to align with scientific findings and cognitive science.