Communicative & Integrative Biology
September 1, 2012
Tam Hunt
THIS ESSAY PROVIDES A CRITICAL REVIEW OF TWO RECENT BOOKS ON EVOLUTION: Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, and Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, as well as a critique of mainstream evolutionary theory and of natural selection. I also suggest a generalization of sexual selection theory that acknowledges mind as pervasive in nature. Natural selection, as the primary theory of how...
Science and Engineering Ethics
September 1, 2012
Terence A McGoldrick
Catholic theology's traditional understanding of the spiritual nature of the human person begins with the idea of a rational soul and human mind that is made manifest in free will--the spiritual experience of the act of consciousness and cause of all human arts. The rationale for this religion-based idea of personhood is key to understanding ethical dilemmas posed by modern research that...
Science and Engineering Ethics
September 1, 2012
Karma Lekshe Tsomo
14 citations
As scientists advance knowledge of the brain and develop technologies to measure, evaluate, and manipulate brain function, numerous questions arise for religious adherents. If neuroscientists can conclusively establish that there is a functional network between neural impulses and an individual's capacity for moral evaluation of situations, this will naturally lead to questions about the...
Revista Colombiana de psiquiatria
September 1, 2012
Andrés Segovia-Cuellar
4 citations
Since the middle of 20(th) Century, cognitive science has been recognized as the genuine convergence field for all scientific advances in human mind studies with the mechanisms enabling knowledge. Since then, it has become a multidisciplinary area where several research disciplines and actors have acquired citizenship, allowing new expectations on the scientific study of human uniqueness....
Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices
August 30, 2012
Kim Sargent-Wishart
This article presents a contemplative dance/movement research practice, based in the somatic approach of Body-Mind Centering® (BMCSM), exploring the dynamics of the five elements (space, air, fire, water and earth) according to Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. This research practice is a component of the author's current doctoral study in performance, which includes a dialogue between Tibetan...
Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine
August 15, 2012
Out-of-body experiences are the phenomena of seeing the image of one's body from an external perspective. We report the case of a patient affected by psychophysiological insomnia who presents hallucinatory phenomenon, successfully treated with haloperidol.We hypothesize that these hallucinations during psychophysiological insomnia are expression of an alteration of specific neurocognitive...
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Julian Kiverstein, Mirko Farina
Is the brain the biological substrate of consciousness? Most naturalistic philosophers of mind have supposed that the answer must obviously be “yes” to this question. However, a growing number of philosophers working in 4e (embodied, embedded, extended, enactive) cognitive science have begun to challenge this assumption, arguing instead that consciousness supervenes on the whole embodied animal...
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Nivedita Gangopadhyay
The extended mind hypothesis (EM) (Clark & Chalmers 1998; Clark 2008) is an influential hypothesis in philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In this paper I discuss the support waiting for EM in social cognition, particularly in some cases of embodied intersubjective interactions or action-understanding. A main claim to be defended by way of defending EM is the elimination of the boundary...
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Antonio Lamarra
The idea of consciousness, as subjective awareness of the self and of its mental contents, appeared in European culture only in the late 17th century as resulting from a relatively rapid process of conceptual development, which had started in the framework of the post-Cartesian culture. It was rooted in the ancient idea of moral conscience insofar it requested as a condition the existence of a...
Advances in Consciousness Research
August 7, 2012
Bryony Pierce
The mind-body problem – how conscious experience can arise from a physical system – is commonly taken to be the problem of how phenomenal properties could come to accompany psychological or behavioural functions, which, being functional and attainable by non-conscious entities in virtue of their physical features, are not viewed as part of the ‘hard problem’. This implies that there is a...