This article aims to account for the elusive phenomenon of consciousness from the original perspective neurophenomenology of Francisco Varela, who from concepts such as neuroplasticity, enaction and emergency explains how occur brain processes that underlie consciousness and "unity" of the experience. Describing as consciousness appears in living flesh: in regulation with the whole body; in...
Abstract In this paper, I investigate the non-rational, affective dimension of religious experience that Rudolf Otto attempted to address with his notion of the numinous. I argue that this notion is best understood in terms of an atmospheric quality impacting on the subject’s feeling body. Therefore, I draw on discussions in phenomenology and pragmatism, despite the fact that Otto’s own...
This paper is a pioneering attempt to draw attention to the connection between meditation and creativity. The author compares the creative process to the process of meditation. Meditation, just like the creative process, results in a piece of creative work, which informs us about the possibility of using meditation as a creative technique with the aim of improving our creativity. The first part...
Illusionism about consciousness is the thesis that phenomenal consciousness does not exist, but merely seems to exist. Embracing illusionism presents the theoretical advantage that one does not need to explain how consciousness arises from purely physical brains anymore, but only to explain why consciousness seems to exist while it does not. As Keith Frankish puts it, illusionism replaces the...
According to the free energy principle biological agents resist a tendency to disorder in their interactions with a dynamically changing environment by keeping themselves in sensory and physiological states that are expected given their embodiment and the niche they inhabit (Friston in Nat Rev Neurosci 11(2):127–138, 2010. doi:10.1038/nrn2787). Why would a biological agent that aims at...
Quantification of complexity in neurophysiological signals has been studied using different methods, especially those from information or dynamical system theory. These studies have revealed a dependence on different states of consciousness, and in particular that wakefulness is characterized by a greater complexity of brain signals, perhaps due to the necessity for the brain to handle varied...
If there is content that we reason on, cognitive content, it is in the head and accessible to reasoning mechanisms. This paper discusses the phenomenal theory of cognitive content, according to which cognitive contents are the contents of phenomenal consciousness. I begin by distinguishing cognitive content from the closely associated notion of narrow content. I then argue, drawing on prior...
The path Merleau-Ponty followed from the development of a phenomenology of embodied perceptual consciousness towards a phenomenological ontology, with all its attendant themes, is an example of highly original philosophical thinking which, quite rightly, has attracted, and continues to attract, a good deal of serious inquiry. Merleau-Ponty pursues a discussion in which he explains how...
Transpersonal psychology can be understood as a transformative psychology of the whole person embedded within a diverse, interconnected, and evolving world that pays particular attention to states of consciousness and developmental stages reflecting expansion beyond conventional notions of self. The journal is dedicated to the cultivation and publication of careful scholarship in second wave...
Is activity in prefrontal cortex (PFC) critical for conscious perception? Major theories of consciousness make distinct predictions about the role of PFC, providing an opportunity to arbitrate between these views empirically. Here we address three common misconceptions: (1) PFC lesions do not affect subjective perception; (2) PFC activity does not reflect specific perceptual content; and (3)...