Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain
E898994
Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain is a popular neuroscience and philosophy book by Patricia Churchland that argues our sense of self and mind is fundamentally rooted in the physical workings of the brain.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T11002522 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain Context triple: [Patricia Churchland, notableWork, Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain]
-
A.
The Self and Its Brain (excerpt)
The Self and Its Brain (excerpt) is a passage from the philosophical work by Karl Popper and John Eccles that explores the relationship between consciousness and the physical brain.
-
B.
Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind
"Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind" is a scholarly book that critically examines how contemporary neuroscience reshapes understandings of the mind, behavior, and social governance.
-
C.
The Emotion Machine
The Emotion Machine is a 2006 book by artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky that explores how human thinking and emotions can be understood as computational processes of the mind.
-
D.
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness is a popular science book by neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran that explores the neurological basis of perception, self-awareness, and unusual brain disorders to illuminate how the mind works.
-
E.
Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir
"Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir" is a critically acclaimed autobiographical work by cultural critic Margo Jefferson that blends personal history with reflections on race, class, gender, and art in American life.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain Target entity description: Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain is a popular neuroscience and philosophy book by Patricia Churchland that argues our sense of self and mind is fundamentally rooted in the physical workings of the brain.
-
A.
The Self and Its Brain (excerpt)
The Self and Its Brain (excerpt) is a passage from the philosophical work by Karl Popper and John Eccles that explores the relationship between consciousness and the physical brain.
-
B.
Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind
"Neuro: The New Brain Sciences and the Management of the Mind" is a scholarly book that critically examines how contemporary neuroscience reshapes understandings of the mind, behavior, and social governance.
-
C.
The Emotion Machine
The Emotion Machine is a 2006 book by artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky that explores how human thinking and emotions can be understood as computational processes of the mind.
-
D.
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness is a popular science book by neuroscientist V. S. Ramachandran that explores the neurological basis of perception, self-awareness, and unusual brain disorders to illuminate how the mind works.
-
E.
Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir
"Constructing a Nervous System: A Memoir" is a critically acclaimed autobiographical work by cultural critic Margo Jefferson that blends personal history with reflections on race, class, gender, and art in American life.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (47)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
book
ⓘ
neuroscience book ⓘ non-fiction book ⓘ philosophy of mind book ⓘ |
| author |
Patricia Churchland
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Patricia S. Churchland NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin |
United States of America
ⓘ
surface form:
United States
|
| discusses |
brain imaging studies
ⓘ
case studies of brain damage ⓘ implications of neuroscience for morality ⓘ implications of neuroscience for religion ⓘ |
| explores |
how brain disorders affect personality
ⓘ
how neuroscience informs ethics ⓘ neural basis of decision-making ⓘ neural basis of emotions ⓘ relationship between brain development and self ⓘ |
| field |
ethics
ⓘ
neuroscience ⓘ philosophy of mind ⓘ |
| genre |
neuroscience
ⓘ
philosophy ⓘ popular science ⓘ |
| hasForm |
audiobook
ⓘ
ebook ⓘ print ⓘ |
| hasPerspective |
naturalistic account of the self
ⓘ
scientific approach to questions about the mind ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
consciousness
ⓘ
free will ⓘ mind-brain relationship ⓘ moral responsibility ⓘ neural basis of behavior ⓘ neurophilosophy ⓘ personal identity ⓘ self ⓘ |
| philosophicalPosition |
materialism
ⓘ
neurophilosophy NERFINISHED ⓘ physicalism ⓘ |
| relatedWork |
Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy
NERFINISHED
ⓘ
Braintrust: What Neuroscience Tells Us about Morality NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general audience
ⓘ
readers interested in neuroscience ⓘ readers interested in philosophy of mind ⓘ |
| thesis |
mental states depend on neural processes
ⓘ
the self is fundamentally rooted in the physical brain ⓘ there is no non-physical soul separate from the brain ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain Description of subject: Touching a Nerve: The Self as Brain is a popular neuroscience and philosophy book by Patricia Churchland that argues our sense of self and mind is fundamentally rooted in the physical workings of the brain.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.