Objectives The present study aimed to determine the degree of stress relief and increase in mindfulness attributes experienced by 18 participants in an 8-week Mindful Practice for Teachers (MPT) program. Methods The mixed-methods study design included participant reflections collected throughout the study and self-report measures: Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), Positive Mindset Index (PMI), and...
In order to develop a true biological science of consciousness, we have to remove humans from the center of reference and develop a bottom-up comparative study of animal minds, as Donald Griffin intended with his call for a “cognitive ethology.” In this article, I make use of the pathological complexity thesis (Veit 2022a, b, c) to show that we can firmly ground a comparative study of animal...
medRxivAugust 28, 2022Dr. Rakesh Sarwal, R. Dhamija, K. Jain et al.
preprint
Background The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unparalleled challenges for health systems worldwide, the impact of which has also been borne by the Healthcare Professionals (HCPs). Numerous studies have revealed the positive effects of Pranayama and Meditation on mental health. The effect of Pranayama in improving mental health of frontline HCP exposed to Covid-19 patients has not been studied....
The goal of this article is to break down the dimensions of consciousness, attempt to reverse engineer their evolutionary function, and make sense of the origins of consciousness by breaking off those dimensions that are more likely to have arisen later. A Darwinian approach will allow us to revise the philosopher’s concept of consciousness away from a single “thing,” an all-or-nothing quality,...
In his technophilosophical investigation Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy, David J. Chalmers discusses the historical skepticism about the human capacity to recognize material reality.Already in the centuries before our era, Chinese, Indian, and Greek thinkers independently raised whether humans could distinguish between what was real and what was an illusion.Chalmers...
Abstract We approach the question ‘What is consciousness?’ in a new way, not as Descartes’ ‘systematic doubt’, but as how organisms find their way in their world. Finding one’s way involves finding possible uses of features of the world that might be beneficial or avoiding those that might be harmful. ‘Possible uses of X to accomplish Y’ are ‘affordances’. The number of uses of X is indefinite...
The tremendous advances of research into artificial intelligence as well as neuroscience made over the last two to three decades have given further support to a renewed interest into philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem. Especially the last decade has seen a revival of panpsychist and idealist considerations, often focused on solving philosophical puzzles like the so-called hard...
A recent paper in Nature Medicine found that psilocybin therapy in patients with depression decreased brain network modularity (measured with task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging), an effect supposedly not found with the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor S-citalopram. This decrease in network modularity also correlated with depression. Here, we raise several issues with this...
Abstract Analytic formulation and contribution to treatment of psychotic disorders have little application in modern psychiatry. The medical model, largely based on psychopharmacology and biological conceptualisation of illness, particularly dominates the treatment of psychosis. While many analysts have worked with patients in psychotic states, it is rare to find analytic approaches to...
How do experiences in nature or in spiritual contemplation or in being moved by music or with psychedelics promote mental and physical health? Our proposal in this article is awe. To make this argument, we first review recent advances in the scientific study of awe, an emotion often considered ineffable and beyond measurement. Awe engages five processes-shifts in neurophysiology, a diminished...