Dialogue
September 1, 2009
Jeff Foss
ABSTRACT: Qualia, the subjectively known qualities of conscious experience, are judged by many philosophers and scientists to lie beyond the domain of scientific explanation, thus making the conscious mind partly incomprehensible to the objective physical sciences. Some, like Kripke and Chalmers, employ modal logic to argue that explanations of qualia are impossible in principle. I argue that...
Journal of Analytical Psychology
September 2009
Caifang Jeremy Zhu
This paper provides a historical, religious-philosophical context for the study of the Daoist text known as The Secret of the Golden Flower. An updated study is conducted into the controversy over the source of the text including the editions translated by Richard Wilhelm and Thomas Cleary. The main teachings of the text and the basics of two major denominations of Daoism are introduced to...
Journal of Palliative Medicine
August 21, 2009
Anthony L. Back, Susan Bauer-Wu, Cynda Hylton Rushton et al.
118 citations
In trying to improve clinician communication skills, we have often heard clinicians at every level admonished to "use silence," as if refraining from talking will improve dialogue. Yet we have also noticed that this "just do it," behavior-focused "use" of silence creates a new, different problem: the clinician looks uncomfortable using silence, and worse, generates a palpable atmosphere of...
BioPsychoSocial Medicine
August 13, 2009
Pailoor Subramanya, Shirley Telles
BackgroundA yoga practice involving cycles of yoga postures and supine rest (called cyclic meditation) was previously shown to improve performance in attention tasks more than relaxation in the corpse posture (shavasana). This was ascribed to reduced anxiety, though this was not assessed.MethodsIn fifty-seven male volunteers (group average age ± S.D., 26.6 ± 4.5 years) the immediate effect of...
Developing world bioethics
August 2009
Andrew Fenton
This paper integrates some Buddhist moral values, attitudes and self-cultivation techniques into a discussion of the ethics of cognitive enhancement technologies - in particular, pharmaceutical enhancements. Many Buddhists utilize meditation techniques that are both integral to their practice and are believed to enhance the cognitive and affective states of experienced practitioners....
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
August 2009
Paul J Rosch
The concept of a "life energy" can be found in many cultures in the present time, as well as in past eras reaching back to the ancients. Variously called qi (chi), ki, the "four humors,"prana, "archaeus,""cosmic aether,""universal fluid,""animal magnetism," and "odic force," among other names, this purported biofield is beginning to yield its properties and interactions to the scientific...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
August 2009
Joseph J. Loizzo, Leslie J Blackhall, Lobsang Rapgay
Traditional medical systems are challenging because their theories and practices strike many conventionally trained physicians and researchers as incomprehensible. Should modern medicine dismiss them as unscientific, view them as sources of alternatives hidden in a matrix of superstition, or regard them as complementary sciences of medicine? We make the latter argument using the example of...
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
August 1, 2009
Joseph J. Loizzo
This overview surveys the new optimism about the aging mind/brain, focusing on the potential for self-regulation practices to advance research in stress-protection and optimal health. It reviews recent findings and offers a research framework. The review links the age-related biology of stress and regeneration to the variability of mind/brain function found under a range of conditions from...
arXiv Preprint Archive
July 26, 2009
Gilberto de Paiva
preprint
I propose that pattern recognition, memorization and processing are key concepts that can be a principle set for the theoretical modeling of the mind function. Most of the questions about the mind functioning can be answered by a descriptive modeling and definitions from these principles. An understandable consciousness definition can be drawn based on the assumption that a pattern recognition...
July 17, 2009
Athanassios Raftopoulos
An argument that there are perceptual mechanisms that retrieve information in cognitively and conceptually unmediated ways and that this sheds light on various philosophical issues. In Cognition and Perception, Athanassios Raftopoulos discusses the cognitive penetrability of perception and claims that there is a part of visual processes (which he calls “perception”) that results in...