Sensible Quantum Mechanics or Mindless Sensationalism is a framework for relating consciousness to a quantum universe. It states that each conscious perception has a measure that is given by the expectation value of a corresponding quantum "awareness operator" in a fixed quantum state of the universe. The measures can be interpreted as frequency-type probabilities for a large set of perceptions...
Liberal acceptance, overconfidence, and increased activity of the neurotransmitter dopamine have been proposed to account for abnormal sensory experiences, for instance, hallucinations in schizophrenia. In normal subjects, increased sensory experience in Yoga Nidra meditation is linked to striatal dopamine release. We therefore hypothesize that the neurotransmitter dopamine may function as a...
It can be seen that, although psychoanalytic pluralism is widespread, there is still a spirit of intolerance among the different theoretical schools. Matte Blanco's work allows us to think about these questions in a fresh way. Direct psychic experience, felt to be an indivisible whole, is characterized by the symmetrical mode (close to the unconscious) and projects itself in a multiple and...
This brief essay emerges from an ongoing study of relations between imaginative writing and liminal states or movements of consciousness, especially those on the threshold between waking and sleep, or between consciousness and its loss or inhibition. In the examples considered here, such writing is meditative and self-reflective, and brings the first person into the centre of its concern. Its...
The default mode network (DMN) is a set of brain regions that consistently shows higher activity at rest compared to tasks requiring sustained focused attention toward externally presented stimuli. The cognitive processes that the DMN possibly underlies remain a matter of debate. It has alternately been proposed that DMN activity reflects unfocused attention toward external stimuli or the...
The purpose of this paper is to initiate a broader dialogue on the use of integrated intelligence (or INI) in formal research.The application of INI in research is referred to as integrated inquiry.The idea of integrated intelligence, and its specific applications, can be viewed as genuine cognitive processes, or for the more skeptical, as provocations to inspire the researcher toward greater...
February 8, 2011H. Schmitz, R. O. Müllan, J. Slaby
The following text is the first ever translation into English of a writing by German phenomenologist Hermann Schmitz (*1928). In it, Schmitz outlines and defends a non-mentalistic view of emotions as phenomena in interpersonal space in conjunction with a theory of the felt body’s constitutive involvement in human experience. In the first part of the text, Schmitz gives an overview covering some...
In this paper I identify a link between the problem of explaining anomalous access to information ('psi' or 'psychic ability') and the problem of giving an account of the nature of consciousness ('the mind-body problem'). I argue that progress with understanding psi requires selecting a suitable ontological model for dealing with the mind-body problem. I review alternatives and argue, on...
Abstract This chapter profiles three notable twentieth-century occultists—Dion Fortune, Austin Osman Spare, and Rosaleen Norton. All three can be regarded as key bridging figures linking earlier generations of magical practitioners with the contemporary neopagan movement. Dion Fortune (1890–1946) studied psychoanalysis at the University of London. Through her friend Maiya Curtis-Webb, Violet...