In recent times, Buddhist psychological concepts have become appealing to many psychotherapy theorists and practitioners. Included are such notions as mindfulness, the "acceptance" of experience, the nature and causes of suffering, and the use of "skillful means" behaviors and thoughts that are intentionally undertaken to reduce suffering both for oneself and others. While there are a number of...
Walter J. Freeman was a giant of the field of neuroscience whose visionary work contributed various experimental and theoretical breakthroughs to brain research in the past 60 years. He has pioneered a number of Electroencephalogram and Electrocorticogram tools and approaches that shaped the field, while "Freeman Neurodynamics" is a theoretical concept that is widely known, used, and respected...
The metaphysical view of Bertrand Russell, called neutral monism, is not widely known today, although its impact on the contemporary debate over mind-body problem is clearly visible. The aim of this paper is to answer the question: what was Russell’s neutral monism? Firstly, I present the views of Russell’s predecessors – Ernst Mach and William James. Then, I discuss Russell’s own thought which...
Ketamine was introduced into clinical practice in the 1960s and continues to be both clinically useful and scientifically fascinating. With considerably diverse molecular targets and neurophysiological properties, ketamine's effects on the central nervous system remain incompletely understood. Investigators have leveraged the unique characteristics of ketamine to explore the invariant,...
The awareness of God’s presence and the experience of his works – key notions in practices of prayer – find reasonable doubt in our secular age. Meanwhile, there are, worldwide, many communities of faith where people enthusiastically pray and hold that they hear the voice of God. How can we understand this sense of God’s presence? In prayer, people express their hope and fear, and they do so...
Archaeologists, neuroscientists and philosophers all aim to shed light on the holistic and coconstitutive role played by bodies and brains, objects and culture over the course of hominin cognitive evolution. Recent advances in neuroscience and brain imaging have enabled exploration of the foundation for tool using capacity in modern human brains. In tandem with this has been the development of...
The attentional blink (AB) effect is the reduced ability of subjects to report a second target stimuli (T2) among a rapidly presented series of non-target stimuli, when it appears within a time window of about 200-500 ms after a first target (T1). We present a simple dynamical systems model explaining the AB as resulting from the temporal response dynamics of a stochastic, linear system with...
The current philosophical discussion on the self and consciousness is characterized by a contrast or dilemma between the no-self (eliminativist) perspective, on the one hand, and the arguably naïve account that takes the self as a robust entity, on the other.in order to solve the dilemma, in this paper we suggest restoring a robust theory of the subject based on a bottom-up approach (fully...
This short essay attempts to flesh out the extended mind thesis by showing the nontrivial role of the body in skilled epistemic action. This is attempted by bringing Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the body schema together with Clark and Chalmers account of the extended mind. What the author hopes to show is that the incorporation of new habits into one’s body schema can make a meaningful difference...
Meditation and mindfulness are well known Buddhist coping resources [1]. The issue of academic stress and ways of coping much studied across many different cultures [2] but very few research has been conducted in a Buddhist context. The Buddhism is a dominating religion in Asian countries and rapidly spreading through the world. There are other coping resources also available in Buddhism. In...