Contents
74 found
Order:
1 — 50 / 74
  1. The meta-problem and the transfer of knowledge between theories of consciousness: a software engineer’s take.Marcel Kvassay - manuscript
    This contribution examines two radically different explanations of our phenomenal intuitions, one reductive and one strongly non-reductive, and identifies two germane ideas that could benefit many other theories of consciousness. Firstly, the ability of sophisticated agent architectures with a purely physical implementation to support certain functional forms of qualia or proto-qualia appears to entail the possibility of machine consciousness with qualia, not only for reductive theories but also for the nonreductive ones that regard consciousness as ubiquitous in Nature. Secondly, analysis (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  2. Women's Ancient Stories: Archetype and Meaning.Maxson J. McDowell - manuscript
    The author interprets three stories from recently Neolithic cultures (Melanesian, African Bushman, and Inuit) and a fourth story from an oral tradition of Haitian women. All four are about women and perhaps, judging by their content, composed by women. The author trained with Edward Whitmont and developed his interpretation technique in decades of practice with dreams as a Jungian analyst. He adds a new tool, the use of repetition, in which the same point is made by a series of different (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  3. Evolution and mirror neurons. An introduction to the nature of self-consciousness (TSC 2005).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Self-consciousness is a product of evolution. Few people today disagree with the evolutionary history of humans. But the nature of self-consciousness is still to be explained, and the story of evolution has rarely been used as a framework for studies on consciousness during the 20th century. This last point may be due to the fact that modern study of consciousness came up at a time where dominant philosophical movements were not in favor of evolutionist theories (Cunningham 1996). Research on consciousness (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  4. Performances of self-awareness used to explain the evolutionary advantages of consciousness (TSC 2004).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    The question about evolution of consciousness has been addressed so far as possible selectional advantage related to consciousness ("What evolutionary advantages, if any, being conscious might confer on an organism ? "). But evidencing an adaptative explanation of consciousness has proven to be very difficult. Reason for that being the complexity of consciousness. We take here a different approach on subject by looking at possible selectional advantages related to the performance of Self Awareness that appeared during evolution millions of years (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  5. Information and meaning in life, humans and robots (FIS 2005).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Information and meaning exist around us and within ourselves, and the same information can correspond to different meanings. This is true for humans and animals, and is becoming true for robots. We propose here an overview of this subject by using a systemic tool related to meaning generation that has already been published (C. Menant, Entropy 2003). The Meaning Generator System (MGS) is a system submitted to a constraint that generates a meaningful information when it receives an incident information that (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  6. Introduction to a Systemic Theory of Meaning - March 2020 update.Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Information and meaning are present everywhere around us and within ourselves. Specific studies have been implemented to link information and meaning (Linguistic, Biosemiotic, Psychology, Psychiatry, Cognition, Artificial Intelligence... ). No general coverage is available for the notion of meaning. We propose to complement this lack by a system approach to meaning generation in an evolutionary background. That short paper is a summary of the system approach where a Meaning Generator System (MGS) based on internal constraint satisfaction has been introduced. The (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. Evolutionary advantages of inter-subjectivity and self-consciousness through improvements of action programs (TSC 2010).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Evolutionary advantages of consciousness and intersubjectivity are part of current philosophical debates on the nature of consciousness. Both are linked and intersubjectivity is sometimes considered as a form of consciousness [1]. Regarding the evolution of consciousness, studies tend to focus on phenomenal consciousness [2]. We would like here to bring the focus on self-consciousness and continue the build up of a corresponding evolutionary scenario. We also propose to introduce a possible evolutionary link between self-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Our starting point (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  8. Meaning generation for constraint satisfaction. An evolutionary thread for biosemiotics (Biosemiotics Gatherings 2016).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    One of the mains challenges of biosemiotics is ‘to attempt to naturalize biological meaning’ [Sharov & all 2015]. That challenge brings to look at a possible evolutionary thread for biosemiotics based on meaning generation for internal constraint satisfaction, starting with a pre-biotic entity emerging from a material universe. Such perspective complements and extends previous works that used a model of meaning generation for internal constraint satisfaction (the Meaning Generator System) [Menant 2003a, b; 2011]. We propose to look at such an (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  9. Evolution of representations and intersubjectivity as sources of the self. An introduction to the nature of self-consciousness (ASSC10 2006).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    It is agreed by most people that self-consciousness is the result of an evolutionary process, and that representations may have played an important role in that process. We would like to propose here that some evolutionary stages can highlight links existing between representations and the notion of self, opening a possible path to the nature of self-consciousness. Our starting point is to focus on representations as usage oriented items for the subject that carries them. These representations are about elements of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  10. Self-consciousness and human evil. Proposal for an evolutionary approach (ASSC 22, 2018).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Theories have been formulated to address the problem of evil [“The concept of Evil”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]. We look here at a possible origin of human evil in pre-human times by using an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness based on identifications with conspecifics [“Proposal for an evolutionary approach to self-consciousness”. Menant 2014]. The key point is that these identifications have also taken place with suffering or endangered conspecifics, thus creating in the minds of our ancestors a huge anxiety increase, a (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  11. Evolution of representations. From basic life to self-representation and self-consciousness (2006).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    The notion of representation is at the foundation of cognitive sciences and is used in theories of mind and consciousness. Other notions like ‘embodiment’, 'intentionality‘, 'guidance theory' or ‘biosemantics’ have been associated to the notion of representation to introduce its functional aspect. We would like to propose here that a conception of 'usage related' representation eases its positioning in an evolutionary context, and opens new areas of investigation toward self-representation and self-consciousness. The subject is presented in five parts:Following an overall (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Self-Consciousness, Anxiety Management and Foresight. An Evolutionary Approach (2022 ASSC 25 Poster).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    The ability to anticipate events, to foresight, is an adaptive advantage. We humans use it all the time. Animals have a limited access to it. Positioning foresight in human evolution is a complex subject (Suddendorf, 2013). Why and how are humans, and not chimpanzees, performant in anticipating events? We propose here to address that question with an evolutionary scenario that links self-consciousness to anxiety management (Menant, 2018). The scenario positions self-consciousness as “the capability to represent one’s own entity as existing (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13. Consciousness of oneself as object and as subject. Proposal for an evolutionary approach (TSC 2014).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    We humans experience ourselves as objects and as subjects. The distinction initiated by Kant between consciousness of oneself as object and consciousness of oneself as subject was a strict one. The rigidity of that distinction has been challenged by philosophers from the continental and the analytic traditions [1]. From another perspective, researches about animal self-awareness are widening the horizon of studies relative to the nature of self-consciousness [2]. These various perspectives introduce the interest about addressing consciousness of oneself as object (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  14. Proposal for a shared evolutionary nature of language and consciousness (Saint Petersburg 2010).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    It is pretty obvious that language and human consciousness entertain tight relations. We could not really be conscious of ourselves without the possibility to say “I” or “me”. And language is a key contributor in our capability to identify ourselves as conscious entities existing in the environment. But the relations linking language and consciousness are complex and difficult to analyze. Evolutionary origins of language are unknown as no fossil traces have been left by our ancestors. Sciences of consciousness however begin (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. Evolution of Self-Consciousness. Pan-Homo Split and Anxiety Management. (June 2023 ASSC 26 Poster. Not presented).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Primatology tells that about seven million years ago a split began in primate evolution, a split that led to chimpanzee and human lineages (the pan-homo split). During these millions of years our human lineage has developed performances that our chimpanzee cousins do not possess, like reflective self-consciousness and language. We present here an evolutionary scenario that proposes a rationale for the pan-homo split. It is based on a pre-human anxiety that may have barred access to self-consciousness for the chimpanzee lineage. (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Constraint satisfaction, agency and meaning generation as an evolutionary framework for a constructive biosemiotic (2019 update).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Biosemiotics deal with the study of signs and meanings in living entities. Constructivism considers human knowledge as internally constructed by sense making rather than passively reflecting a pre-existing reality. Consequently, a constructivist perspective on biosemiotics leads to look at an internal active construction of meaning in living entities from basic life to humans. That subject is addressed with an existing tool: the Meaning Generator System (MGS) which is a system submitted to an internal constraint related to the nature of the (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  17. Proposal for an evolutionary approach to self-consciousness (Feb 8th 2014).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    It is pretty obvious to most of us that self-consciousness is a product of evolution. But its nature is unknown. We propose here a scenario addressing a possible evolutionary nature of self-consciousness covering the segment linking pre-human primates to humans. The scenario is based on evolutions of representations and of inter-subjectivity that could have taken place within the minds of our pre-human ancestors . We begin by situating self-consciousness relatively to other aspects of human consciousness. With the help of anthropology, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  18. Evolutionary Scenario linking the Nature of Self-Consciousness to Anxiety Management (Dec 2017).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Anxiety is a main contributor to human psychological sufferings. Its evolutionary sources are generally related to alert signals for coping with adverse or unexpected situations [Steiner, 2002] or to hunter-gatherer emotions mismatched with today environments [Horwitz & Wakefield, 2012]. We propose here another evolutionary perspective that links human anxiety to an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. That approach introduces new relations between mental health and human mind. The proposed evolutionary scenario starts with the performance of primate identification with conspecifics [de Waal (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Evolution as connecting first-person and third-person perspectives of consciousness (ASSC12 2008).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    First-person and third-person perspectives are different items of human consciousness. Feeling the taste of a fruit or being consciously part of a group eating fruits call for different perspectives of consciousness. The latter is about objective reality (third-person data). The former is about subjective experience (first-person data) and cannot be described entirely by objective reality. We propose to look at how these two perspectives could be rooted in an evolutionary origin of human consciousness, and somehow be connected. Our starting point (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. Proposal for an evolutionary synergy linking anxiety management to self-consciousness (ESPP2021 Poster).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    Representing oneself as an existing entity and having intense fear of the unknown are human specificities. Self-consciousness and anxiety states are characteristics of our human minds. We propose that these two characteristics share a common evolutionary history during which they acted in synergy for the build-up of our human minds. We present that perspective by using an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness in which anxiety management plays a key role. Such evolutionary background can introduce new relations between philosophy of mind and (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. Information, Constraint and Meaning. From the pre-biotic world to a possible post human one. An evolutionary approach (IS4SI 2017).Christophe Menant - manuscript
    The presentation proposes to complement an existing development on meaning generation for animals, humans and artificial agents by looking at what could have existed at pre-biotic times and what could be a post-human meaning generation. The core of the approach is based on an existing model for meaning generation: the Meaning Generator System (MGS). The MGS is part of an agent submitted to an internal constraint. The MGS generates a meaning when it receives an information that has a connection with (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  22. Consciousness results when communication modifies the form of self-estimated fitness.J. H. van Hateren - manuscript
    The origin and development of consciousness is poorly understood. Although it is clearly a naturalistic phenomenon evolved through Darwinian evolution, explaining it in terms of physicochemical, neural, or symbolic mechanisms remains elusive. Here I propose that two steps had to be taken in its evolution. First, living systems evolved an intrinsic goal-directedness by internalizing Darwinian fitness as a self-estimated fitness. The self-estimated fitness participates in a feedback loop that effectively produces intrinsic meaning in the organism. Second, animals with advanced nervous (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  23. The evolved self has agency, purpose, and unity.J. H. van Hateren - manuscript
    Recently developed extensions of evolutionary theory are used to explain the human self as an evolved, unitary, and purposeful phenomenon. A basic mechanism that can generate life's agency and goal-directedness is combined with mechanisms that can account for awareness by and of the self, and for the social characteristics of humans. The new theory is largely consistent with major existing theories of the self, in particular theories centred on self-esteem, self-determination theory, and terror management theory. It can therefore be regarded (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. The new paradigm: quantum interbeing.Brian Wachter - manuscript
    It is the conclusion advanced in this paper that there is a necessary and sufficient causal relationship between theory of mind and the neurological creation of conscious and unconscious quantum logic existing in superposition in the human brain. It takes two intelligent agents to make one self-aware agent. -/- A key element of my reasoning is the instantiation of superposition by way of a logical device I call the “state-system.” The newly conscious human remains unaware of the inner transformation caused (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Causal potency of consciousness in the physical world.Danko D. Georgiev - forthcoming - International Journal of Modern Physics B:2450256.
    The evolution of the human mind through natural selection mandates that our conscious experiences are causally potent in order to leave a tangible impact upon the surrounding physical world. Any attempt to construct a functional theory of the conscious mind within the framework of classical physics, however, inevitably leads to causally impotent conscious experiences in direct contradiction to evolution theory. Here, we derive several rigorous theorems that identify the origin of the latter impasse in the mathematical properties of ordinary differential (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  26. Evolution of Consciousness.Danko D. Georgiev - 2024 - Life 14 (1):48.
    The natural evolution of consciousness in different animal species mandates that conscious experiences are causally potent in order to confer any advantage in the struggle for survival. Any endeavor to construct a physical theory of consciousness based on emergence within the framework of classical physics, however, leads to causally impotent conscious experiences in direct contradiction to evolutionary theory since epiphenomenal consciousness cannot evolve through natural selection. Here, we review recent theoretical advances in describing sentience and free will as fundamental aspects (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  27. Review of Tye's Vagueness and the Evolution of Consciousness. [REVIEW]Angela Mendelovici & David Bourget - 2023 - Philosophical Review 132 (2):338-343.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  28. Tracing the origins of consciousness.Jorge Morales - 2023 - Philosophical Psychology 36 (4):767-771.
    Darwin’s theory is often illustrated with depictions of different finch beaks or with lined-up skeletons displaying subtle bone-structure changes throughout evolutionary history. In The Deep Histor...
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  29. Natural Mutation and Human Catalysis - Philosophy After the Big Bang Theory.Yang I. Pachankis - 2023 - Biomedical Journal of Scientific and Technical Research 48 (3):39784-39786.
    Purpose: The purpose of the discussion is to call for an experimental trial in order to optimize the sociology of knowledge in the astronomical and cosmological sciences from a cognitive science and developmental psychology perspective. The potential of such experimental trial may also correlate developmental psychology with cosmology and astrophysics, therefore, contribute to public health from an astrobiological perspective. -/- Method: The discussion adopts a philosophizing method for the multidisciplinary and trans-disciplinary proposal, with the hypothesis that proton decay in cosmology (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  30. Complexity and the Evolution of Consciousness.Walter Veit - 2023 - Biological Theory 18 (3):175-190.
    This article introduces and defends the “pathological complexity thesis” as a hypothesis about the evolutionary origins of minimal consciousness, or sentience, that connects the study of animal consciousness closely with work in behavioral ecology and evolutionary biology. I argue that consciousness is an adaptive solution to a design problem that led to the extinction of complex multicellular animal life following the Avalon explosion and that was subsequently solved during the Cambrian explosion. This is the economic trade-off problem of having to (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  31. Is Time a Physical Unit?Yang I. Pachankis - 2022 - Science Set Journal of Physics 1 (1):1-4.
    The article approaches the epistemological question on the concept of time from an anthropological psychology perspective. The differentiation between imminent perceptions and existence beyond imminent perception has been the earliest conceptualization of time found so far in the traces of human civilizations. The research differentiated psychological time from modern physics and astronomy as the basic hypothesis in the inquiries on the concept of time in physics and modern astronomy – is the physical unit of time an ontological existence of things (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  32. Integrating Evolution into the Study of Animal Sentience.Walter Veit - 2022 - Animal Sentience 32 (30):1-4.
    Like many others, I see Crump et al. (2022) as a milestone for improving upon previous guidelines and for extending their framework to decapod crustaceans. Their proposal would benefit from a firm evolutionary foundation by adding the comparative measurement of life-history complexity as a ninth criterion for attributing sentience to nonhuman animals.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  33. Health, Agency, and the Evolution of Consciousness.Walter Veit - 2022 - Dissertation, The University of Sydney
    This goal of this thesis in the philosophy of nature is to move us closer towards a true biological science of consciousness in which the evolutionary origin, function, and phylogenetic diversity of consciousness are moved from the field’s periphery of investigations to its very centre. Rather than applying theories of consciousness built top-down on the human case to other animals, I argue that we require an evolutionary bottomup approach that begins with the very origins of subjective experience in order to (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  34. O Neuronaturalismo Biológico e a Consciência sob uma Perspectiva Neurobiológica e Evolutiva: Resenha do Livro Consciousness Desmystified (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018), de Todd. E. Feinberg & Jon M. Mallatt. [REVIEW]Victor Barcellos - 2021 - Revista Reflexões 10:248-254.
    Resenha crítica do livro Consciousness Desmystified (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018) de Todd. E. Feinberg e Jon M. Mallatt.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  35. Consciência e Evolução: Uma Análise do Naturalismo Biológico a partir do Debate Adaptacionista.Victor Barcellos, Sergio Farias de Souza Filho & Roberto Horácio Pereira - 2021 - Revista Reflexões 18 (10):183-200.
    The goal of this paper is to assess biological naturalism in light of the adaptationist debate. Searle is famous for explicity pursuing a biological foundation for his theory of consciousness. However, evolutionary biology receives little attention in his work, which results in crucial theoretical confusions over adaptationism. In this paper, we will propose two theses concerning Searle's approach to consciousness in the context of the adaptationist debate. First, Searle's attack on adaptationism only applies to its naive version, failing to touch (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  36. The Archeology of Qualia.Cosmin Visan - 2021 - Journal Of Anthropological And Archeological Sciences 4 (5):565-569.
    Researching into our past, scientists use different methods, from looking at the night sky to digging traces of our past and analyzing DNA. I propose here another method, that can have the potential of shedding more light into our history and the type of entities that we are. Working under philosophical idealism, I propose that evolution is in the first place the evolution of consciousness, and thus the traces of evolution are mostly not to be found in our physical bodies, (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  37. Dimensions of Animal Consciousness.Jonathan Birch, Alexandra K. Schnell & Nicola S. Clayton - 2020 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 24 (10):789-801.
    How does consciousness vary across the animal kingdom? Are some animals ‘more conscious’ than others? This article presents a multidimensional framework for understanding interspecies variation in states of consciousness. The framework distinguishes five key dimensions of variation: perceptual richness, evaluative richness, integration at a time, integration across time, and self-consciousness. For each dimension, existing experiments that bear on it are reviewed and future experiments are suggested. By assessing a given species against each dimension, we can construct a consciousness profile for (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  38. Meeting Report: the 18th Annual Biosemiotics Gathering at the University of California, Berkeley.Yogi Hale Hendlin - 2019 - Biosemiotics 12 (2):195-196.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  39. William James’s Objection to Epiphenomenalism.Alexander Klein - 2019 - Philosophy of Science 86 (5):1179–1190.
    James developed an evolutionary objection to epiphenomenalism that is still discussed today. Epiphenomenalists have offered responses that do not grasp its full depth. I thus offer a new reading and assessment of James’s objection. Our life-essential, phenomenal pleasures and pains have three features that suggest that they were shaped by selection, according to James: they are natively patterned, those patterns are systematically linked with antecedent brain states, and the patterns are “universal” among humans. If epiphenomenalism were true, phenomenal patterns could (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  40. Other Minds. [REVIEW]John Huss - 2018 - Quarterly Review of Biology 93 (2):159.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  41. The evolutionary argument for phenomenal powers.Hedda Hassel Mørch - 2017 - Philosophical Perspectives 31 (1):293-316.
    Epiphenomenalism is the view that phenomenal properties – which characterize what it is like, or how it feels, for a subject to be in conscious states – have no physical effects. One of the earliest arguments against epiphenomenalism is the evolutionary argument (James 1890/1981; Eccles and Popper 1977; Popper 1978), which starts from the following problem: why is pain correlated with stimuli detrimental to survival and reproduction – such as suffocation, hunger and burning? And why is pleasure correlated with stimuli (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   29 citations  
  42. Mental evolution: a review of Daniel Dennett’s From Bacteria to Bach and Back. [REVIEW]Charles A. Rathkopf - 2017 - Biology and Philosophy 32 (6):1355-1368.
    From Bacteria To Bach and Back is an ambitious book that attempts to integrate a theory about the evolution of the human mind with another theory about the evolution of human culture. It is advertised as a defense of memes, but conceptualizes memes more liberally than has been done before. It is also advertised as a defense of the proposal that natural selection operates on culture, but conceptualizes natural selection as a process in which nearly all interesting parameters are free (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  43. A very brief review of the life and work of neuroscientist, physician, psychoanalyst, inventor, animal rights activist and pioneer in dolphins, isolation tanks and psychedelics John C Lilly 1915-2001.Starks Michael - 2016 - In Michael Starks (ed.), Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization-- Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 2nd Edition Feb 2018. Michael Starks. pp. 577-580.
    Lilly was one of the greatest scientists and pioneers on the limits of human possibility but after his death a collective amnesia has descended and he is now almost forgotten. His Wiki is good but inevitably incomplete so here are a few missing details and viewpoints. Lilly was a generation (or more) ahead of his time. He is almost single-handedly responsible for the great interest in dolphins (which led to the Marine Mammal Protection Act in the USA and helped to (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  44. Heidegger and the Human Difference.Chad Engelland - 2015 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1 (1):175-193.
    This paper provides a qualified defense of Martin Heidegger’s controversial assertion that humans and animals differ in kind, not just degree. He has good reasons to defend the human difference, and his thesis is compatible with the evolution of humans from other animals. He argues that the human environment is the world of meaning and truth, an environment which peculiarly makes possible truthful activities such as biology. But the ability to be open to truth cannot be a feature of human (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  45. Cytoskeleton and Consciousness: An Evolutionary Based Review.Contzen Pereira - 2015 - Neuroquantology 13 (2).
    The fields of quantum biology and physics are now starting to unite to solve the mysteries associated with the field of evolutionary biology. One such question is the origination and propagation of consciousness which has always been ambiguous and in order to understand this concept, many theories have been proposed by several philosophers and scientists. This review paper agrees with the idea, that evolution is not a random process but hypothesizes, that its succession was managed by the expanding level of (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  46. Idols of the Mind vs. True Reality.Bhakti Madhava Puri - 2015 - Darwin Under Siege.
    The analytical understanding cannot deal with integral wholes and therefore cannot understand the soul or God. The material body is illusory in the sense that it cannot be understood in its true identity without knowing its relationship to God. Analyzing its composition in terms of separated molecules or neurons is also illusory. To understand how to go from an untrue or partially true part to its truth in the whole a method developed by Hegel called conceptual thinking is required. Reproduction (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  47. Origins of Self.Steve Brewer - 2014
    “I will show you fear in a handful of dust” (T. S. Eliot: The Wasteland) -/- How can dust and water become a conscious living person capable of fear? The way these elements are transformed into life is sketched out, but it's our conscious minds, our intensity of being in a flood of emotions; this is the big problem that science has so far failed to explain. Freya, a biologist, is dissatisfied with the way evolution has no explanation for her (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  48. Genetics, Epigenetics, Paragenetics: Getting Closer to Life.Bhakti Madhava Puri - 2014 - The Harmonizer.
    Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) was the first to explain that certain 'traits' were inherited in plants from one generation to the next. These would later become known as genes. Frederich Miescher in 1869 analyzed a substance from the nucleus of cells, which he therefore called nuclein. Further study of nuclein revealed that it contained elements like hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and phosphorous, with a specific ratio of nitrogen to phosphorous. Then in 1878 Albrecht Kossel determined that nuclein contained nucleic acid, from which (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  49. Aap zoekt zin. Waarom wij bewustzijn, vrije wil, cultuur e religie hebben. ISVW, 2014.Pouwel Slurink - 2014 - Leusden, the Netherlands: ISVW.
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  50. Daring to Defy Darwin.Bhakti Madhava Puri - 2013 - Darwin Under Siege.
    “Indeed, we now know that the proportion of genetic sequences on earth that belongs to visible organisms is negligible. Furthermore, only 15% of the genetic sequences found in the samples from the environment and from feces analyzed in metagenomic studies belong to the three domains of microbes currently recognized in the tree-of-life framework – bacteria, archaea, and eukaryotes. Viruses contain another 15-30% of these genetic sequences.” This means that the majority of unidentified genetic sequences pose an unresolved problem. Where do (...)
    Remove from this list   Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
1 — 50 / 74