Journal of Neurophysiology
April 1, 2018
Shen-Mou Hsu, Yu-Fang Yang
An important issue facing the empirical study of consciousness concerns how the contents of incoming stimuli gain access to conscious processing. According to classic theories, facial stimuli are processed in a hierarchical manner. However, it remains unclear how the brain determines which level of stimulus content is consciously accessible when facing an incoming facial stimulus. Accordingly,...
Medical Hypotheses
April 1, 2018
Majid Beshkar
What is the nature of qualia? Why qualia are subjective? This article is an attempt to provide speculative answers to these questions based on what we know about thermodynamics. The proposed answer to the first question is that qualia are self-organized structures built by exported entropy. The proposed answer to the second question is that qualia are subjective because entropy-decreasing...
April 1, 2018
Anne Giersch, Brice Martin, Michel Cermolacce et al.
Background The feeling of being one continuous individual in time is a natural evidence, which seems to be lost for patients with schizophrenia who display ‘minimal’ or ‘bodily’ self disorders. The continuity in time is a property of the ‘minimal’ self and its alteration could disrupt the sense of self. It has long been proposed that patients with schizophrenia experience a breakdown of the...
Consciousness and Cognition
April 1, 2018
Sara Dell'Erba, David J Brown, Michael J. Proulx
11 citations
This case report offers rare insights into crossmodal responses to psychedelic drug use in a congenitally blind (CB) individual as a form of synthetic synesthesia. BP's personal experience provides us with a unique report on the psychological and sensory alterations induced by hallucinogenic drugs, including an account of the absence of visual hallucinations, and a compelling look at the...
Journal of Scientific Exploration
March 31, 2018
Roger D. Nelson
We have lost a friend, a valued colleague, and an inspirational mentor in the passing of Professor Robert G. Jahn, the founder and director of Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research (PEAR). He was one of the prominent academics who came together to create the Society for Scientific Exploration in the early 1980’s, and he served as SSE’s Vice President for more than three decades. His was a...
March 30, 2018
Luís Aguiar de Sousa, Ifilnova Post-doctoral Fellow
In this paper, I sketch out Merleau-Ponty’s theory of subjectivity as it is presented in the Phenomenology of Perception. I wil l start by showing that Merleau-Ponty’s theory presupposes Sartre’s notion of consciousness as anonymous and pre-reflective. Merleau-Ponty takes up these features and embeds them in the l ived body. The result is Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the “tacit cogito” as...
Universitas Philosophica
March 30, 2018
Rodolfo Bächler Silva
Se expone una reflexión acerca de los distintos tipos de propiedades fenomenológicas de algunos estados mentales, también conocidos como qualia, con el objetivo de identificar los roles que cumplen en la cognición. Para ello se releva primero el carácter cualitativo de la fenomenología, proponiéndose que conocer es un proceso que consiste en dar nuevos formatos a la experiencia a través de su...
Filozofija i Društvo
March 30, 2018
Nešić Janko
I will argue that accounts of mineness and pre-reflective self-awareness can be helpful to panpsychists in solving the combination problems. A common strategy in answering the subject combination problem in panpsychism is to deflate the subject, eliminating or reducing subjects to experience. Many modern panpsychist theories are deflationist or endorse deflationist accounts of subjects, such as...
March 29, 2018
Regina Pally, David D. Olds
30 citations
The majority of consciousness research is steeped in an evolutionary perspective and a fundamental assumption of ‘mind-brain unity’. Single-cell organisms do not need brains, because they interface directly with their environment through chemo-tactic receptors. Because the concept of consciousness is complex, it is studied much like the fabled elephant, in which one wise man touches the ear,...
March 26, 2018
Colin Stanley
5 citations
When Colin Wilson died in December 2013, it was suggested by one obituary writer that, despite the seemingly diverse subject matter of his books, his legacy lay in the field of consciousness studies. This is undoubtedly true and in Super Consciousness Wilson, nearing the end of his creative life, decided to summarise his major ideas. Although first published in Japanese in 2007 as The Search...