Awareness or consciousness in the context of stimulus perception can directly be assessed in well controlled test situations with humans via the persons' reports about their subjective experiences with the stimuli. Since we have no direct access to subjective experiences in animals, their possible awareness or consciousness in stimulus perception tasks has often been inferred from behavior and...
The external clinical manifestations (psychopathology) and internal subjective experience (phenomenology) of catatonia are of clinical importance but have received little attention. This study aimed to use a large dataset to describe the clinical signs of catatonia; to assess whether these signs are associated with underlying diagnosis and prognosis; and to describe the phenomenology of...
Plotinus’ theology is often viewed from a mystical aspect. He is considered an experienced contemplator rather than a discursive theologian. But recently, works have appeared that reveal moments of the philosopher’s positive theology. Plotinus’ henology is a theology, but the One, being transcendental, excludes any cataphatics. Noology is also a theology, as the philosopher calls the Intellect...
This article researches the proof of the exist-ence of God that does not fall under any of the categories of rational proof of His exist-ence. This proof does not correspond to any of the five categories of Thomas Aquinas and does not correspond to any of the three cate-gories of Immanuel Kant. The meaning of this proof is reduced to the knowing of God and, therefore, to the recognition of His...
Abstract:Although Sufism, Ishrāqī philosophy, and other forms of esoteric Islamic spirituality are frequently labelled “mysticism,” scholars of Islam and case studies of Muslim mystics are largely absent from the debates that shape the conceptual understanding of mysticism in religious studies. As a result, Sufi and Ishrāqī models of piety often do not adhere to these scholarly understandings....
What do psychedelics reveal about consciousness? What impact have psychedelics had on philosophy? In this rapidly growing area of study, this is the first volume to explore the philosophy of psychedelic experience, from a range of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural perspectives. In doing so, Philosophy and Psychedelics reveals just why the place of psychedelics in our societies should not be...
The role of the primate prefrontal cortex (PFC) in conscious perception is debated. The global neuronal workspace theory of consciousness predicts that PFC neurons should contain a detailed code of the current conscious contents. Previous research showed that PFC is indeed activated in paradigms of conscious visual perception, including no-report paradigms where no voluntary behavioral report...
Mindfulness-based interventions are associated with improved health and wellbeing. Online mindfulness interventions offer potential scalability and cost advantages over face-to-face interventions. However, little is known about the experiences of learners, what they identify as being helpful to developing a practice of mindfulness and what outcomes they experience from undertaking an online...
Survey-based studies suggest naturalistic psychedelic use provides mental health benefits similar to those observed in clinical trials. The current study sought to confirm these findings in a large group of psychedelic users and to conduct a novel examination of associations between amount of psychedelic use and behavioral outcomes, as well as frequency of harms ascribed to psychedelic use. A...
Psychopharmacology to treat major mental illnesses and trauma-related disorders has been around since the 1950s and peaked around the 1980s, without substantial advancement since that time.Subsequently the psychiatric understanding and treatment of mental illness radically changed over the span of those 30 years (Braslow, 2019).Despite our understanding of trauma continuing to advance, and the...