One of the defining characteristics of mystical experience posited by the psychologist and pragmatist philosopher William James in 1902 is that of ineffability, or indescribability. In this thesis my aim is to inquire into this notion of ineffability, indeed to problematize its understanding, by relating it to concepts of art and aesthetics. It is a preliminary attempt to apply the terminology...
The feeling of body ownership is a fundamental aspect of self-consciousness. The underlying neural mechanisms can be studied by using the illusion where a person is made to feel that a rubber hand is his or her own hand by brushing the person's hidden real hand and synchronously brushing the artificial hand that is in full view. Here we show that threat to the rubber hand can induce a similar...
Mysticism is one of the central sources of inspiration of religious thought. It is an attempt to decode the mystery of divine existence by penetrating to the depths of consciousness through language, memory, myth, and symbolism. By offering an alternative perspective on the world that gives expression to yearnings for freedom and change, mysticism engenders new modes of authority and...
This chapter aims to provide an overview of existing computational (mechanistic) models of cognition in relation to the study of consciousness, on the basis of psychological and philosophical theories and data. It examines various mechanistic explanations of consciousness in existing computational cognitive models. Serving as an example for the discussions, a computational model of the...
This chapter provides an overview of existing computational (mechanistic) models of cognition in relation to the study of consciousness, on the basis of psychological and philosophical theories and data. It begins by examining some foundational issues concerning computational approaches toward consciousness. Then, various existing models and their explanations of the conscious/unconscious...
Until recently fish welfare attracted little attention, but international and national legislation and standards of fish welfare are now emerging and an overview of these developments is presented in this study. Whereas animal welfare legislation is based on public morality, animal ethics does not automatically accept public morality as normative and elaborates arguments regarding the way...
This dissertation explores how contemporary, small-press, speculative fiction deviates from other genres in depicting the processes of consciousness in narrative. I study how the confluence of contemporary cognitive theory and experimental, small-press, speculative fiction has produced a new narrative mode, one wherein literature portrays not the product of consciousness but its process...
Abstract The science of consciousness begins with the search for the neural correlates of consciousness. I explain this notion and give examples of research in the field. I then discuss how different conceptions of consciousness may influence the search for the neural correlates. This includes the distinctions between access and phenomenal consciousness, and between conscious states and unified...
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio wrote a book entitled DESCARTES’ ERROR (1994) in order to address popular misconceptions about the mind, particularly those which relate to Cartesian philosophy. One of the author’s major goals for the book is to argue that emotion contributes to reason, that emotion is in fact necessary for rational thought to occur. In order to link emotion to reason, Damasio...
Abstract: In recent years, researchers in a variety of disciplines have outlined broad methodological strategies for approaching the scientific study of conscious experience, advocating the systematic inclusion of phenomenological data in ongoing research and the use of findings at the phenomenal level to constrain investigations at other, more objective levels of analysis (Baars, 1988;...