All of us involved in the mind and brain sciences, in whatever capacity, are increasingly aware of the importance of ensuring the credibility of our research. This credibility—which for experimental work turns on its reliability—is particularly salient for consciousness research, given the at-times precarious perception of consciousness science within the wider landscapes of psychology and...
All epistemic agents physically consist of parts that must somehow comprise an integrated cognitive self. Biological individuals consist of subunits (organs, cells, molecular networks) that are themselves complex and competent in their own context. How do coherent biological Individuals result from the activity of smaller sub-agents? To understand the evolution and function of metazoan bodies...
The most pressing worry for panpsychism is arguably the combination problem , the problem of intelligibly explaining how the experiences of microphysical entities combine to form the experiences of macrophysical entities such as ourselves. This chapter argues that the combination problem is similar in kind to other problems of mental combination that are problems for everyone: the problem of...
This is the first analysis of all of Gurdjieff’s published internal exercises, together with those taught by his students, George and Helen Adie. It includes a fresh biographical study of Gurdjieff, with groundbreaking observations on his relationships with P. D. Ouspensky and A. R. Orage (especially why he wanted to collaborate with them, and why that broke down). It shows that Gurdjieff was,...
Abstract Rationale 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine is a psychotropic substance found in various plant and animal species and is synthetically produced. 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine is used in naturalistic settings for spiritual exploration, recreation, or to address negative affect and mood problems. However, scientific knowledge on the effects of 5- methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine in...
This paper argues that a proper understanding of the epistemological and metaphysical issue of dualism can only be attained through a thoroughgoing analysis of human emotion. Indeed, it is no coincidence that three main thinkers on dualism, whether they were apparent proponents (Descartes), opponents (Spinoza), or had a somewhat ambiguous status (Sartre), were also heavily involved in...
An individual has no control even over her choices. Her choices are controlled by the neural substrate. The neural substrate is controlled by the physical laws. So, her choices are controlled by the physical laws. So, she is powerless to do anything other than what she actually does. This is the view of fatalism. Specifically, this is the view of a totally global fatalism, where people have no...
What triggered the emergence of uniquely human behaviors (language, religion, music) some 100,000 years ago? A non-circular, speculative theory based on the mother-infant relationship is presented. Infant "cuteness" evokes the infant schema and motivates nurturing; the analogous mother schema (MS) is a multimodal representation of the carer from the fetal/infant perspective, motivating fearless...
December 1, 2019A. Weiß, D. Caussade, V. Groff et al.
Resume L’objet de cette recherche est de questionner les potentiels effets de la meditation de pleine conscience sur la relation de soin dans le cadre de l’accompagnement de demence en EHPAD. Cet article est le prolongement de l’investigation faite sur le versant clinique de l’impact de la pratique de la meditation de pleine conscience sur le savoir-etre soignant en EHPAD. Six soignants ont...