The idea of applying the experience of cognitive analysis to visual works of art served as a prerequisite for studying the mental representations of hell and heaven on the basis of the most vivid cinematic images. Two films — “What Dreams May Come” (V. Ward, USA, 1998) and “Heavenly Judgement” (A. Zvantsova, Russia, 2011—2014) — were chosen as the research material. The center of scientific...
In this essay, I would like to suggest that the historical transition of psychedelics from an association with counter culture to becoming part of the mains tream is related to the rise of what late cultural theorist Mark Fisher termed “capitalist realism”—the notion that there is no alternative form of social organization and, as such, capitalism simply is reality. For Fisher, the economic and...
Georg Northoff is a philosopher, psychiatrist and neuroscientist working at the University of Ottawa in Canada. This, his most recent book, contributes to the now two-decade-old interdisciplinary attempt called neuropsychoanalysis to understand how neural activity in the brain transforms into psychic activity. Divided into nine chapters with titles inherently intriguing to psychoanalytic...
AI and EthicsSeptember 12, 2023Mois Navon6 citations
Abstract The dream of making conscious humanoid robots is one that has long tantalized humanity, yet today it seems closer than ever before. Assuming that science can make it happen, the question becomes: should we make it happen? Is it morally permissible to create synthetic beings with consciousness? While a consequentialist approach may seem logical, attempting to assess the potential...
Altered states of consciousness have long been a topic scientific investigation. They include states such as dreaming and hypnosis. Other altered states of consciousness, particularly those induced by psychedelics, include alterations in perception. These altered states of consciousness have seen an increase in academic research. Deep Dream is a popular computer vision algorithm that replicates...
This study analyzes the narrative structure of “Hujra”, a novel written by Saudi novelist Amal Al-Faran, by delving into the main character’s consciousness and world of dreams. By exploring the character’s dreams, which reflect and express their real world, the study aims to dissect and understand the novel’s narrative structure. Additionally, the study seeks to comprehend the technical...
The writings of the brothers Goncourt are eclectic to say the least, associated with schools ranging from naturalism to japonisme and with genres ranging from novels and plays to art criticism and biography. As Edmond, the longer-lived half of the duo, explained a year before his death in 1896, what unified these diverse efforts was his and Jules’s zealous “religion de la réalité, de la vérité...
AbstractThe northern Mexican Ralámuli people consider plants to be their kin. First‐ and secondhand ethnographies bring forth fundamental issues that convey the possibility of communicating with plants. For example, the notion of an interconnected world has to do with roots, with threads, and with thought or nátali (consciousness, remembrance, ancestral memory), all of which embrace the life...
This chapter offers a new scientific engagement with the idea of religious truth, suggesting that it is the prerogative of the scholar of religion to take emic ideas seriously and to be open to the possibility that religions access a true level of reality. So long as we deny any truth to religion, we are not scientific and only confirm our own assumptions. The approach suggested here emerges...