Our conscious experience seemingly involves the subjective sense or feeling of the passage of time. However, in recent years, several authors have denied that such an aspect or feature of experience can be found. If the experience of the flow of time exists, it remains elusive and intangible. My aim here is to try to pin it down. For this purpose, I will investigate acute disturbances of normal...
This text maps out a territory for political philosophy of mind, with emphasis on habit, affect and an expanded notion of the social niche. We first survey the historical development of classic philosophy of mind towards the articulation of political philosophy of mind and discuss further influences for the field. We then outline commitments to relationality, dynamism, and emergence, to adopt a...
In this article, my aim is to present panpsychism as a meta-view in the philosophy of mind rather than as a position that can be juxtaposed with leading positions such as materialism and dualism. I argue here that proponents of some versions of dualism, dual-aspect theory, some non-standard forms of physicalism, or idealism may be guided by the assumptions of panpsychism as a meta-view. For...
On the wave of intensive development of cognitive sciences we see the intensive physiology, psychology and philosophy studies in the Russian tradition. Philosophy discusses the analytical think and the problem of free will, logic, epistemology and enactivism; the orient studies with attention to experience are very rarely. Against this background, psychiatric neurophenomenology as one of the...
Using a combination of fMRI, EEG, and phenomenology ratings, we examined the neurophenomenology of advanced concentrative absorption meditation, namely jhanas (ACAM-J), in a practitioner with over 23,000 h of meditation practice. Our study shows that ACAM-J states induce reliable changes in conscious experience and that these experiences are related to neural activity. Using resting-state fMRI...
Serotonergic psychedelics induce altered states of consciousness and have shown potential for treating a variety of neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression and addiction. Yet their modes of action are not fully understood. Here, we provide a novel, synergistic understanding of psychedelics arising from systematic reviews and meta-analyses of three hierarchical levels of analysis: (1)...
Acta AnalyticaDecember 1, 2024Tobias A. Wagner-Altendorf
AbstractDavid Chalmers has distinguished the “hard” and the “easy” problem of consciousness, arguing that progress on the “easy problem”—on pinpointing the physical/neural correlates of consciousness—will not necessarily involve progress on the hard problem—on explaining why consciousness, in the first place, emerges from physical processing. Chalmers, however, was hopeful that refined...
We propose a new theory to explain the nature and function of subjective experience, as a mechanism that guides the organism towards beneficial outcomes. In simple animals, that guidance takes the form of an affect producing a fitness-enhancing response. In human consciousness, there is not a single response, but a range of potential developments allowing a free choice. That range can be...
Buddhist Jhāna meditation and the Christian practice of speaking in tongues appear wildly distinct. These spiritual techniques differ in their ethical, theological, and historical frames and seem, from the outside, to produce markedly different states of consciousness-one a state of utter calm and the other of high emotional arousal. Yet, our phenomenological interviews with experienced...