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Philosophy July 1, 2014 Tyler Burge 25 citations
AbstractWhat are the earliest beings that have minds in evolutionary order? Two marks of mind are consciousness and representation. I focus on representation. I distinguish a psychologically distinctive notion of representation from a family of notions, often called ‘representation’, that invoke information, causation, and/or function. The psychologically distinctive notion implies that a...
PLoS One June 27, 2014 Kim P. C. Kuypers, Rafael de la Torre, Magı́ Farré et al. 88 citations
The present study aimed at investigating the effect of MDMA on measures of empathy and social interaction, and the roles of oxytocin and the 5-HT1A receptor in these effects. The design was placebo-controlled within-subject with 4 treatment conditions: MDMA (75 mg), with or without pindolol (20 mg), oxytocin nasal spray (40 IU+16 IU) or placebo. Participants were 20 healthy poly-drug MDMA...
Neuroimage June 25, 2014 Aaron Kucyi, Karen D. Davis 381 citations
Humans spend much of their time engaged in stimulus-independent thoughts, colloquially known as "daydreaming" or "mind-wandering." A fundamental question concerns how awake, spontaneous brain activity represents the ongoing cognition of daydreaming versus unconscious processes characterized as "intrinsic." Since daydreaming involves brief cognitive events that spontaneously fluctuate, we tested...
June 23, 2014 Eviatar Shulman
A cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy, the doctrine of the four noble truths maintains that life is replete with suffering, desire is the cause of suffering, nirvana is the end of suffering, and the way to nirvana is the eightfold noble path. Although the attribution of this seminal doctrine to the historical Buddha is ubiquitous, Rethinking the Buddha demonstrates through a careful examination...
June 5, 2014 Roger Bartra
In this unique exploration of the mysteries of the human brain, Roger Bartra shows that consciousness is a phenomenon that occurs not only in the mind but also in an external network, a symbolic system. He argues that the symbolic systems created by humans in art, language, in cooking or in dress, are the key to understanding human consciousness. Placing culture at the centre of his analysis,...
Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science June 2, 2014 William Simpson
For centuries, mystically inclined practitioners from various religious traditions have articulated anomalous and mystical experiences. One common aspect of these experiences is the feeling of the loss of the sense of self, referred to as “self‐loss.” The occurrence of “self‐loss” can be understood as the feeling of losing the subject/object distinction in one's phenomenal experience. In this...
Journal of Integrative Neuroscience June 1, 2014 Stuart Hameroff, Travis J A Craddock, Jack A Tuszynski
This paper presents a historical perspective on the development and application of quantum physics methodology beyond physics, especially in biology and in the area of consciousness studies. Quantum physics provides a conceptual framework for the structural aspects of biological systems and processes via quantum chemistry. In recent years individual biological phenomena such as photosynthesis...
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience May 30, 2014 Tereza Nekovářová, Iveta Fajnerová, Jiří Horáček et al.
Schizophrenia is a complex neuropsychiatric disorder with variable symptomatology, traditionally divided into positive and negative symptoms, and cognitive deficits. However, the etiology of this disorder has yet to be fully understood. Recent findings suggest that alteration of the basic sense of self-awareness may be an essential distortion of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. In addition,...
The Open Behavioral Science Journal May 30, 2014 Bjørn Grinde 2 citations
Buddhism is one of the oldest spiritual traditions that have retained considerable influence. The Tibetan version offers distinct advice as to the pursuit of happiness. The present text evaluates this advice in the context of a biological approach to understand what happiness is. Briefly, the notion that it is possible to develop the brain's capacity for positive feelings, and that meditative...
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience May 22, 2014 Bruno G Bara, Angela Ciaramidaro, Henrik Walter et al.
In this paper we show how we empirically tested one of the most relevant topics in philosophy of mind through a series of fMRI experiments: the classification of different types of intention. To this aim, firstly we trace a theoretical distinction among private, prospective and communicative intentions. Second, we propose a set of predictions concerning the recognition of these three types of...