Oxford University Press eBooks
October 28, 2010
Tim Bayne
This chapter examines three disorders of consciousness that are frequently said to involve breakdowns in the unity of consciousness: anosognosia, schizophrenia and Dissociative Identity Disorder (‘mulitiplicity’). There is some truth in such claims for in each of these conditions certain aspects of the unity of consciousness are impaired: in anosognosia we see a breakdown in the normal unity...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 7, 2010
David J. Chalmers
234 citations
This chapter analyzes aspects of the relationship between consciousness and intentionality. It focuses on the phenomenal character and the intentional content of perceptual states, canvassing various possible relations among them. It argues that there is a good case for a sort of representationalism, although this may not take the form that its advocates often suggest. By mapping out some of...
Oxford University Press eBooks
October 7, 2010
David J. Chalmers
38 citations
This chapter addresses the question: how can we isolate the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) in the absence of a “consciousness meter,” which measures consciousness directly? The obvious answer is that we rely on verbal reports and other behavioral indicators of consciousness. Importantly, the use of these indicators tacitly relies on pre-experimental principles that connect these...
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August 19, 2010
J. Kevin Ο’Regan
10 citations
This chapter discusses three problematic aspects of sensory experiences: their ineffability, structure, and ‘what it's like’ to undergo the experiences. It argues that these features of sensory experiences seem to admit of no explanation in terms of brain mechanisms. However, the sensorimotor account of phenomenal consciousness provides a satisfactory account of these puzzling features of...
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August 19, 2010
Dana H. Ballard
Much previous work has concentrated on finding a mechanistic explanation of how it feels to be conscious and, specifically, in trying to trace that feeling to the neural substrate. This chapter argues that the question of why consciousness exists may have a ready answer when compared to its useful partner, the unconscious. Unconscious programs represent repeated and reliable interactions...
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June 24, 2010
Murray Shanahan
1 citation
The Global Workspace Theory of Bernard Baars proposes that an individual's cognitive architecture hosts both the conscious and the unconscious but the conscious thoughts are generally given more acknowledgment. Nevertheless, the processes in the cognitive architecture are transmitted through a series of episodes of broadcasts wherein the information contained in the global workspace are...
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May 5, 2010
Matt J. Rossano
Chapter 7 argues that religion was a cultural adaptation. In its earliest form, religion was shamanism. A primary focus of shamanistic rituals was to bring about community and individual healing. Shamanism accomplished this by creating conditions that made placebo healing likely to occur. Shamanism brought together three important factors known to enhance placebo effects: confidence in healing...
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March 18, 2010
Euan Cameron
This chapter shows that literature on superstitions manifested constant concern with ritual performances intended to achieve beneficial effects. Good magic, like good spirits, was a much more fearsome adversary for the theological writers than evil magic or evil spirits, because it was so much more obviously seductive to ordinary, well-intentioned people. If we are to take even some of the...
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March 10, 2010
Paull Nunez
This chapter takes a highly speculative approach in which the hard problem of consciousness is approached with questions about a category beyond ordinary information; that is, Ultra-Information, defined broadly to include ordinary information, unknown physical processes, and consciousness. Thoughts, emotions, self-awareness, memory, and the contents of the unconscious are, by definition,...
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March 10, 2010
Paull Nunez
This chapter considers the general limits of scientific knowledge, and identifies probability and entropy as important measures of human ignorance; scientific predictions are shown to be severely limited in complex systems. It argues that fundamental limits on computer power may preclude the creation of artificial consciousness, even if natural brains actually do create minds, as assumed by...
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January 21, 2010
Michael N. Marsh
46 citations
What certainty is there for personal survival after death? Five key authors, critically analysed in this thesis, think that OB/ND experiences offer such assurances. Most OB/ND events follow severe clinical crises profoundly embarrassing cerebral function. At the nadir of brain function, invariably resulting in unconsciousness, authors aver that the escape of soul (Sabom), mind, or free...
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September 10, 2009
Dan Arnold
2 citations
This chapter draws connections between the idea of svasamvitti or svasamvedana (reflexive awareness, apperception), a phenomenon very controversial in Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy from the 6th through the 19th centuries, and the idea of methodological solipsism in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, made popular by Fodor in the late 20th century. It explores many...
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September 2, 2009
Mazviita Chirimuuta, Ian Gold
18 citations
Abstract This article examines the concept of the receptive field (RF) of visual neurons. It introduces the concept of visual RFs by discussing the classical picture of primary visual cortex (V1) physiology and discusses the psychophysics and computational vision of contrast discrimination to place the visual neurophysiology in context. It evaluates some recent data which questioned the...
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September 2, 2009
Charles Wallis, Wayne Wright
5 citations
Abstract This article aims to clarify the central commitment and the claimed advantages of enactivism, a theoretical approach for understanding the mind. The analysis reveals that there is no compelling reason to embrace either the enactivists' aim of completely revolutionizing vision science or their understanding of the character of that new vision science. There are also numerous serious...
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September 2, 2009
Olav Hammer
5 citations
Abstract The study of Western esotericism has come into its own in recent years. Because this tradition incubated a number of more recent movements—from Neopaganism to the New Age—contemporary studies of esotericism overlap studies of these related phenomena. This article articulates a concept of esotericism based on five characteristics: social formations, rituals, purported objectives,...
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August 28, 2009
Dale S. Wright
Chapter 5 is divided into two sections. The first section presents an overview of the Mahayana Buddhist teachings on the perfection of meditation, dhyānapāramitā. The second section inquires into various ways to conceive of contemplative practice in the contemporary, global world. It analyzes meditation at three levels of human consciousness—immediate experience, reflective experience, and...
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August 1, 2009
Uriah Kriegel
There are two major scientific questions surrounding consciousness: the neural correlate of consciousness and the function of consciousness. This chapter derives specific hypotheses about the neural correlate and function of consciousness from the self‐representational theory of consciousness.
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May 18, 2009
Barbara Hannan
In this chapter, the following are explained in detail and evaluated: (1) Schopenhauer's transcendental idealism; (2) Schopenhauer's metaphysics of Will, which may be described as a kind of animism or panpsychism; and (3) Schopenhauer's views on freedom and determinism, which are probably best described as compatibilist. Realism, anti-realism, and idealism are discussed. It is argued that...
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May 14, 2009
William Fish
This chapter develops a naive realist theory of veridical perception. It begins from the thought that the phenomenal character of our visual experiences is simply a matter of the scene before us but finds this to be open to criticism. In light of these criticisms, together with the empirical findings of change/inattentional blindness experiments and considerations concerning the conceptual...
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April 1, 2009
Grant R Gillett
The psychotic disorders pose the problem of rationality and normality in thought and the way in which we should understand them. The norms governing thought are determined in the intersubjective context in which mental content is defined, and they create cognitive skills in an individual that are used in attunement to the world and judgements about oneself. That analysis informs an...
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October 29, 2008
Benjamin D. Koen
Chapter 7 builds upon the concepts of unity and oneness, and the dynamics of balance and vibration, to frame the roles that music, sound, prayer, breath, movement, and meditation play in recalibrating one’s being from a state of imbalance or illness to one of health and vitality. Specifically, this chapter explores the physics and metaphysics of sound and music, linking the Heisenberg...
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October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
2 citations
This chapter examines the works of Paracelsus on alchemy and German Naturphilosophie and its relation to the history of Western esotericism. It suggests that alchemy played a large part in Renaissance esotericism and its rapid diffusion during the period 1550–1650 is directly related to its combination with Neo-Platonic and Hermetic approaches to nature, and especially to the controversy...
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October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
1 citation
This chapter examines the influence of mesmerism and spiritualism on the history of Western esotericism. It explores the relation between science and spirituality and traces the development of animal magnetism from the combination of the notion of fluid and the powers of the mind in science. It discusses the works of Franz Anton Mesmer and his doctoral dissertation concerning the influence of...
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October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the new paradigms of modern Western esotericism. Esotericism has responded to religious and cultural change in the West. This development is evident in its speculations about the emanations of God transformed into archetypes, from alchemical principles to symbols and from angels to electromagnetic frequencies. This chapter suggests that as long as the West upholds an image...
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October 14, 2008
Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke
This chapter examines the influence of Italian Renaissance magic and cabala on the history of Western esotericism. The history of Western esotericism during the Middle Ages is largely one of exotic transmission. The Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium became the principal channel of classical and Hellenistic civilization when the western part of the empire was engulfed by the mass migration of...