Did natural consciousness and intelligent systems arise out of a path that was co-evolutionary to evolution? Can we explain human self-consciousness as having risen out of such an evolutionary path? If so how could it have been? In this first part of a two-part paper (titled IXI), we take a learning system perspective to the problem of consciousness and intelligent systems, an approach that may...
This is the second part of a paper on Conscious Intelligent Systems. We use the understanding gained in the first part (Conscious Intelligent Systems Part 1: IXI (arxiv id cs.AI/0612056)) to look at understanding. We see how the presence of mind affects understanding and intelligent systems; we see that the presence of mind necessitates language. The rise of language in turn has important...
According to the majority of the textbooks, the history of modern, scientific psychology can be tidily encapsulated in the following three stages. Scientific psychology began with a commitment to the study of mind, but based on the method of introspection. Watson rejected introspectionism as both unreliable and effete, and redefined psychology, instead, as the science of behaviour. The...
: This study reports on the QEEG observations recorded from a yogi during tongue piercing in which he demonstrated voluntary pain control. The QEEG was recorded with a Lexicor 1620 from 19 sites with appropriate controls for impedence and artifacts. A neurologist read the data for abnormalities and the QEEG was analyzed by mapping, single and multiple hertz bins, coherence, and statistical...
Reviewed by: On Presence: Variations and Reflections Stephen Vicchio Ralph Harper. On Presence: Variations and Reflections. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006. x + 132 pages. On Presence first appeared from a small press in 1991 and won the esteemed Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion. It is, without doubt, the finest of Ralph Harper's thirteen books. In many ways, it is a conclusion, a...
In its recent history, the philosophy of mind has come to resemble an entry into the genre of Hammer horror or pulpy science fiction. These days it is unusual to encounter a major philosophical work on the mind that is not populated with bats, homunculi, swamp-creatures, cruelly imprisoned genius scientists, aliens, cyborgs, other-worldly twins, self-aware Computer programs,...
Cyclic meditation (CM) is a technique that combines "stimulating" and "calming" practices, based on a statement in ancient yoga texts suggesting that such a combination may be especially helpful to reach a state of mental equilibrium. The changes in the peak latency and peak amplitude of P300 auditory event-related potentials were studied before and after the practice of cyclic meditation...
Theory and research dealing with self-regulation have focused primarily on instances of self-regulation that involve high levels of self-reflection and effortful self-control. However, intentionally trying to control one's behavior sometimes reduces the likelihood of achieving one's goals. This article examines the process of hypo-egoic self-regulation in which people relinquish deliberate,...
Albert Hofmann’s early curiosity about nature’s wonders led him to the field of chemistry. He began his career by identifying the structure of the natural polysaccharide, chitin, and the cardiac-active Scilla glycosides. But it was his synthesis of LSD, an analogue of the ergot alkaloids, that led to a revolution in the pharmaceutical industry, inspiring researchers to understand how the...
Albert Hofmann’s discovery of LSD by “chance or by a higher plan” led to a revolution in the pharmaceutical industry, inspiring research to understand how a chemical’s structure is recognized and how this recognition triggers a physiological response. The incredible potency of this drug challenged the conventional lock-and-key model that Emil Fischer had proposed for enzymes. In fact, the...