Reflexive monism is, in essence, an ancient view of how consciousness relates to the material world that has, in recent decades, been resurrected in modern form. In this paper I discuss how some of its basic features differ from both dualism and variants of physicalist and functionalist reductionism, focusing on those aspects of the theory that challenge deeply rooted presuppositions in current Western thought. I pay particular attention to the ontological status and seeming “out-thereness” of the phenomenal world and to (...) how the “phenomenal world” relates to the “physical world”, the “world itself”, and processing in the brain. In order to place the theory within the context of current thought and debate, I address questions that have been raised about reflexive monism in recent commentaries and also evaluate competing accounts of the same issues offered by “transparency theory” and by “biological naturalism”. I argue that, of the competing views on offer, reflexive monism most closely follows the contours of ordinary experience, the findings of science, and common sense. (shrink)

John Searle begins his recent article “Dualism Revisited” by stating his belief that the philosophical problem of consciousness has a scientific solution. He then claims to refute dualism. It is therefore appropriate to examine his arguments against dualism from a scientific perspective.

The aim of this paper is to defend the causal efficacy of consciousness against two specters of epiphenomenalism. We argue that these challenges are best met, on the one hand, by rejecting all forms of consciousness-body dualism, and on the other, by adopting a dynamical systems approach to understanding the causal efficacy of conscious experience. We argue that this non-reductive identity theory provides the theoretical resources for reconciling the reality and efficacy of consciousness with the neurophysiology of the brain and (...) body. (shrink)

b>: Replacing faulty nineteenth century physics by its orthodox quantum successor converts the earlier materialist conception of nature to a structure that does not enforce the principle of the causal closure of the physical. The quantum laws possess causal gaps, and these gaps are filled in actual scientific practice by inputs from our streams of consciousness. The form of the quantum laws permits and suggests the existence of an underlying reality that is built not on substances, but on psychophysical events, (...) and on objective tendencies for these events to occur. These events constitute intrinsic mind-brain connections. They are fundamental links between brain processes described in physical terms and events in our streams of consciousness. This quantum ontology confers upon our conscious intentions the causal efficacy assigned to them in actual scientific practice, and creates a substance- free interactive dualism. This putative quantum ontology has previously been shown to have impressive explanatory power in both psychology and neuroscience. Here it is used to reconcile the existence of physically efficacious conscious free will with causal anomalies of both the Libet and Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky types. (shrink)

U članku se kroz višedisciplinarni pristup kognitivnih znanosti proučava osobito ljudsko iskustvo povezano s religioznim doživljajem stvarnosti, koje se u tradiciji discipline povijesti religija naziva ‘iskustvo svetoga’. U skladu s teorijom emergencije, predlaže se definicija iskustva svetoga kao stanja svijesti sa subjektivnom kvalitetom integracije, specifičnim neurološkim korelatom i funkcionalnim obilježjima. Emergentne teorije svijesti pružaju ontološki ujednačeno tumačenje iskustava svetoga nudeći »naravna« objašnjenja bez odricanja njihove fenomenološke subjektivnosti. Prijenos iskustva svetoga iz unitarnoga, svojevrsnog intencionalno neobojenoga stanja, u izrecivi jezični kôd intencionalno (...) relevantnih pojmova sa sveprožimajućim utjecajima na opojmljivanje svijeta razmatra se pomoću kognitivne jezične teorije u tradiciji Johnsona i Lakoffa. Sposobnost izricanja značenja iskustva svetoga sagledava se kao emergentno svojstvo pojmovnog procesuiranja metaforičkoga razmišljanja uvjetovanoga utjelovljenošću uma i kulturalnim odrednicama. Predloženi pristup omogućuje tumačenje nastanka složenih mitoloških i kulturalnih modela temeljem iskustva svetoga, ali i ukazuje na njegovu kulturalnu neuvjetovanost zadanu nediskurzivnom naravi samog iskustva.In this article a multidisciplinary approach of cognitive sciences is employed for the analysis of a special category of human experience related to the religious understanding of the world, termed according to the History of Religion as the ‘experience of sacred’. The experience of sacred is defined as the state of consciousness with a subjective quality of integration, a specific neural correlate and functional features. Emergentist theory of consciousness provides ontologically consistent perspective offering a “natural” explanation for this type of experience without denying its subjective phenomenology. The linguistic expression of the experience is examined in the light of Johnson’s and Lakoff’s cognitive linguistic theory. The linguistic competence enabling the expression of the sacred experience is defined as the emergent property of conceptual processing of metaphorical thinking shaped by the embodied mind. This approach explains the seminal role of the experience of sacred in the formation of complex mythological and cultural models, but also points to its non discursive nature. (shrink)

What makes the issue of causal relations between mental and cerebral events so special? And is there experimental evidence from neuroscience for this sort of causation? To answer these questions, the issue of brain-mind causation is considered against the background of the mind-brain problem and the theory of causation in general. Then, one empirical study from cognitive neuroscience is discussed as an example of how the correlations of mental and cerebral events and processes are investigated in current research. From the (...) prevailing empirical studies, it is obvious that neuroscience can only demonstrate concurrence of cerebral and mental events, not an additional causal relationship between them. The decision for a certain causal interpretation is based on precedent commitments to particular philosophical attitudes concerning, among other things, the mind-brain problem, scientific explanation, and the issue of reductionism. Finally, it will be argued that it may make sense to interpret brain-mind relations causally, provided that we do not understand causation in terms of some sort of physical connection. Current process theories are not applicable to the case of brain-mind causation, because they are largely conceptualized in terms of the physical, so that there is no conception of how they could be applied to an instance of causation that involves a non-physical relatum. (shrink)