Shamanism is an ancient spiritual tradition rooted in the belief that certain individuals can communicate with the spirit world through altered states of consciousness. Shamanism emphasizes harmony with nature, and birds often serve as symbolic guides between earthly and spiritual realms. This paper explores Shamanism's defining traits, such as adaptivity and inclusivity, that contribute to its...
Medical history of psychopathology is, to some extent, the history of the overlapping traditions of Cartesian-Platonic dualism and physical reductionism looking for a taxonomic middle ground by means of diagnostic constructs. Building on such liminality, Freud first showed that traumatic memories could well be made of pure fantasy, a mind-only construct of experience, and still act...
Abstract This chapter focuses on how Spinoza’s and Cavendish’s commitment to explanatory systematicity in metaphysics manifests itself in their metaphysics of mind, and, in particular, as a commitment to panpsychism. I identify two explanatory problems that a systematic metaphysics of mind developed along either Cavendishian or Spinozistic lines must tackle, concerning, respectively, (i)...
Abstract I consider whether the Jungian account of synchronicity holds promise for solving the mind-body problem. The discussion begins by distinguishing two central variants of the mind-body problem: the Problem of Psycho-Physical Contingency (the “hard problem of consciousness”) and the Problem of Causal Closure (the classic difficulty of psycho-physical interaction). We then our turn our...
The mind-body problem is one of the main centers of reflexion of contemporary philosophy. Generally coming from the supposed failure of the Cartesian interactionist dualism, most philosophers of the mind adopt a physicalist ontology. However, according to Popper, this one seems to meet with insuperable difficulties: it can’t give physicalist explanation of rationality and freedom, of qualia; it...
In this paper I show that computational neuroscience provides an important new approach to traditional problems in philosophy such as the relation between mental states and brain states (the mind-body or mind-brain problem), to determinism and free will, and helps one with the ‘hard’ problem, the phenomenal aspects of consciousness.One of the themes of the paper and of my book Neuroculture: on...
The Cartesian meditations on first philosophy intended to demonstrate the existence of God. Wittgenstein’s private language argument is regarded as an attack on Cartesian dualism through the investigation of “private language” by a paradigm of sensation. This article explores how the “private language argument” bears on the Cartesian theory of mind. The mind and the body are not distinct and...
Abstract We surveyed attendees at two leading conferences on consciousness, asking for their views on central issues concerning infant consciousness. These include questions about whether newborns are conscious, when consciousness and self-consciousness emerge, where in the brain the neural basis of infant consciousness is found, what sorts of consciousness infants may have, and how best to...
CNS DrugsJanuary 17, 2026Gaëlle Rached, Anna Campana, Dimitri Fiani et al.1 citation
Monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) remain an important option for patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and other psychiatric conditions, despite potentially serious drug-drug interactions and associated dietary tyramine restrictions. However, they are rarely prescribed in patients with comorbid substance use disorders (SUDs) due to concerns about potential drug interactions and...
N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is a fast-acting psychedelic drug that induces a radical reorganization of conscious contents and brain dynamics. However, our understanding of how brain dynamics support psychedelic-induced conscious states remains unclear. We therefore present a repeated-measures dose-dependent study of the subjective and neural dynamics induced through DMT under naturalistic...