"People take balance for granted until they start to lose it. This book explains how the brain balances the body and why failures sometimes result in vertigo, nausea, and falls. Paul Thagard breaks new ground by explaining how balance and imbalance generate conscious experiences. Moreover, balance metaphors illuminate all areas of human life, from work/life balance to tipping points in climate change. Economists debate whether budgets should be balanced, and politicians worry about the balance of powers.The traditional visual symbol for the law is the balance scale. People fret over whether they are eating a balanced diet and managing an appropriate work-life balance. Reflective equilibrium is an influential concept in philosophy. What unites the literal and metaphorical uses of balance is that they enable people to make sense of perception and action. Unlike physiological balance, metaphorical balance can be toxic because it obstructs medicine, science, and social understanding."--
Paul Thagard explores the physiological workings and metaphorical resonance of balance in the brain, the body, and society. Bridging philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Balance shows how an unheralded concept’s many meanings illuminate the human condition.
Living is a balancing act. Ordinary activities like walking, running, or riding a bike require the brain to keep the body in balance. A dancer’s poised elegance and a tightrope walker’s breathtaking performance are feats of balance. Language abounds with expressions and figures of speech that invoke balance. People fret over work-life balance or try to eat a balanced diet. The concept crops up from politics—checks and balances, the balance of power, balanced budgets—to science, in which ideas of equilibrium are crucial. Why is balance so fundamental, and how do physical and metaphorical balance shed light on each other?Paul Thagard explores the physiological workings and metaphorical resonance of balance in the brain, the body, and society. He describes the neural mechanisms that keep bodies balanced and explains why their failures can result in nausea, falls, or vertigo. Thagard connects bodily balance with leading ideas in neuroscience, including the nature of consciousness. He analyzes balance metaphors across science, medicine, economics, the arts, and philosophy, showing why some aid understanding but others are misleading or harmful. Thagard contends that balance is ultimately a matter of making sense of the world. In both literal and metaphorical senses, balance is what enables people to solve the puzzles of life by turning sensory signals or an incongruous comparison into a coherent whole.Bridging philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, Balance shows how an unheralded concept’s many meanings illuminate the human condition.