The existence of group agents is relatively widely accepted. Examples are corporations, courts, NGOs, and even entire states. But should we also accept that there is such a thing as group consciousness? I give an overview of some of the key issues in this debate and sketch a tentative argument for the view that group agents lack phenomenal consciousness. In developing my argument, I draw on integrated information theory, a much-discussed theory of consciousness. I (...) conclude by pointing out an implication of my argument for the normative status of group agents. (shrink)

Are corporations and other complex groups ever morally responsible in ways that do not reduce to the moral responsibility of their members? Christian List, Phillip Pettit, Kendy Hess, and David Copp have recently defended the idea that they can be. For them, complex groups (sometimes called collectives) can be irreducibly morally responsible because they satisfy the conditions for morally responsible agency; and this view is made more plausible by the claim (made by Theiner) that collectives can have minds. In this (...) paper I give a new argument against the idea that collectives can be irreducibly morally responsible in the ways that individuals can be. Drawing on recent work in the philosophy of mind (what Uriah Kriegel calls "the phenomenal intentionality research program") and moral theory (David Shoemaker's tripartite theory of moral responsibility), I argue that for something to have a mind, it must be phenomenally conscious, and that the fact that collectives lack phenomenal consciousness implies that they are incapable of accountability, an important form of moral responsibility. (shrink)

If we were to connect two individuals’ brains together, how would this affect the individuals’ conscious experiences? In particular, it is possible for two people to share any of their conscious experiences; to simultaneously enjoy some token experiences while remaining distinct subjects? The case of the Hogan twins—craniopagus conjoined twins whose brains are connected at the thalamus—seems to show that this can happen. I argue that while practical empirical methods cannot tell us directly whether or not the twins share conscious (...) experiences, considerations about the locality of content processing in the brain entails that they most likely do so. (shrink)

The aim of this exploratory paper is to review an under-appreciated parallel between group agency and artificial intelligence. As both phenomena involve non-human goal-directed agents that can make a difference to the social world, they raise some similar moral and regulatory challenges, which require us to rethink some of our anthropocentric moral assumptions. Are humans always responsible for those entities’ actions, or could the entities bear responsibility themselves? Could the entities engage in normative reasoning? Could they even have rights (...) and a moral status? I will tentatively defend the (increasingly widely held) view that, under certain conditions, artificial intelligent systems, like corporate entities, might qualify as responsible moral agents and as holders of limited rights and legal personhood. I will further suggest that regulators should permit the use of autonomous artificial systems in high-stakes settings only if they are engineered to function as moral (not just intentional) agents and/or there is some liability-transfer arrangement in place. I will finally raise the possibility that if artificial systems ever became phenomenally conscious, there might be a case for extending a stronger moral status to them, but argue that, as of now, this remains very hypothetical. (shrink)

Many theorists have defended the claim that collective entities can attain genuine agential status. If collectives can be agents, this opens up a further question: can they be conscious? That is, is there something that it is like to be them? Eric Schwitzgebel argues that yes, collective entities, may well be significantly conscious. Others, including Kammerer, Tononi and Koch, and List reject the claim. List does so on the basis of Tononi’s Integrated Information Theory of consciousness. I argue here (...) that List’s rejection is too quick, and that groups can, at least in principle, display the kind of informational integration we might think is necessary for consciousness. However, group consciousness will likely differ substantially from the individual experiences that give rise to it. This requires the defender of group consciousness to face up to a similar combination problem as the panpsychist. (shrink)

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 and as subject in an evolutionary background. We propose here to follow that path by using an existing scenario about the evolutionary nature of self-consciousness based on evolutions of representations and of inter-subjectivity [3, 4]. The scenario presents an evolutionary approach that can introduce self-consciousness as an acting body and self-consciousness as a thinking and feeling entity. These two aspects of self-consciousness are then compared to consciousness of oneself as object and as subject. The scenario proposes that an evolution of inter-subjectivity brought our pre-human ancestors to reach the capability of identifying with their conspecifics. This process coupled with an evolution of representations led our ancestors to build up representations of themselves as entities existing in the environment, like the conspecifics they identified with were represented. As conspecifics were perceived as existing and acting in the environment, identifying with them led to an elementary version of self-consciousness as an acting body, close to self-consciousness as object. Also, as different conspecifics could display very different behaviors like dominant or submitted, it was not possible to identify with them spontaneously. Knowing and understanding one's own identity as perceived by other members of the group was necessary for a pertinent identification with conspecifics. Such need to think about one's own characteristics and identity introduced self-consciousness as a thinking and feeling entity, close to an elementary version of self-consciousness as subject. In addition, the mental states of the thinking and feeling subject monitoring the actions of the body object address the common evolutionary source for consciousness of oneself as object and as subject. We present here that evolutionary approach to consciousness of oneself as object and as subject with the corresponding phylogenetic outcomes relative to the mind-body problem. Continuations are proposed. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemology (Lorenz, Vollmer) and value-driven decision theory (Pugh) are used to explain the fundamental properties of consciousness. It is shown that this approach is compatible with global workspace theory (Baars) and global neuronal workspace theory (De Haene). The emotions are, however, that what drives consciousness. A hypothetical evolutionary tree of the emotions is given – intended to show that consciousness evolves and is probably qualitatively different in different groups of animals.

This dissertation aims to analyze, clarify, and reconstruct the concept of class consciousness by developing a dialectical account of political agency at work in the concept. I defend a dialectical account of agency, that includes both the way in which individuals come together to form groups, but also the capacity of a collective to transform social conditions. I argue that this account of political agency is necessary in order to understand the possibility of social transformation or change. I trace (...) the development of the relationship between consciousness and agency in the early tradition of Western Marxism, focusing primarily on the account of class consciousness given by Georg Lukács in History and Class Consciousness. Against his account of the world historical agency of a unified proletariat, however, I defend Theodor Adorno’s insistence on nonidentity, and the importance of unreconciled groups in capitalist society. In order to understand these groups, such as the vanguard, party, or proletariat, we must understand the way in which individuals form groups, as well as their inherent collectivity. -/- My account of the political agency at work in the concept of class consciousness is broadly speaking pluralist. I argue that a multiplicity of methodologies is needed in order to arrive at a complete picture of the concept. I defend an account of class consciousness that is neither reductive nor deflationary with respect to other dimensions of social domination. This class forward approach seeks to build intersectional political coalitions in order to undertake revolutionary action. Successful revolutionary social transformation is never guaranteed in advance; however, the concept of class consciousness, reconstructed through the lens of political agency, offers conceptual resources to address the problems of today, for the sake of a better tomorrow. (shrink)

Treating groups as agents is not at all difficult; teenagers and social scientists do it all the time with great success. Reading Group Agency, though, makes it look like rocket science. According to List and Pettit, groups can be real, and such real groups can cause, as well as bear ethical responsibility for, events. Apparently, not just any collective qualifies as an agent, so a lot turns on how the attitudes and actions of individual members are aggregated. Although I (...) am unsure who will read this book, I can envisage four relatively distinct population segments: philosophers, decision theorists, activists, and social scientists. Philosophers who take questions of ontology seriously will likely find this book evasive. Decision theorists who enjoy axiomatic model building for its own sake will find much to keep them occupied. Activists who have taken it upon themselves to “raise group consciousness” (193) will probably skip ahead to the third part and feel emboldened by the thought that the model builders are busy with the first two. However, since the normative questions (about responsibility and so on) are answerable to prior metaphysical questions for which Group Agency supplies vacillating answers at best, a transition to advocacy would seem hasty. As for social scientists, either they will glance at the book’s dust jacket and (wrongly) assume that philosophers have now “proven” the existence of the groups they study, or they will engage with List and Pettit’s model only to discover that, unless they happen to specialize in commercial corporations, the model’s many stipulations impede rather than facilitate/elucidate their usual group intentional ascriptions. (shrink)

We all agree that our human minds are results of primate evolution. We humans are self conscious. The separation of our human lineage from the chimpanzee one began about 7MY ago (pan homo split). Specificities of human self consciousness have been created during that time. Besides interesting approaches differing from the one proposed here [1], little is known about how these specificities came up [2, 3]. We propose here to address that subject with an evolutionary scenario using meaningful representations, (...) identifications with conspecifics and anxiety management. Taking the beginning of the pan-homo split as a starting point we look at how an evolutionary scenario could have led to our present human self consciousness as object and as subject. An evolutionary anxiety is highlighted as having been a key contributor to the evolutionary scenario with perspectives on a possible future of self consciousness. Human self consciousness is defined here as the meaningful representation of one’s own entity, with the capability to think and talk about it. The evolutionary scenario proposed here is an extension of a previous version [11] that uses an evolution of meaningful representations introduced in previous works [8]. The scenario starts with two types of meaningful representations carried by our non self-conscious pre-human ancestors: representations of parts of themselves (seen hands, heard shouting, actions, …) and representations of conspecifics as entities existing in the environment. The next step uses elementary versions of inter-subjectivity and of identifications with conspecifics that our primate ancestors were capable of. It is proposed that these performances have brought the two types of representations to merge and bring our ancestors to progressively represent their own entity as existing in the environment like conspecifics were represented. We consider such evolutionary approach as introducing an elementary form of self consciousness as object and a s subject, both coming in together. We group them into an “ancestral self consciousness” which was to evolve into our human self consciousness [4]. Such approach avoids the need of a pre-reflective self consciousness [7]. The scenario considers that such identifications took place also with suffering or dying conspecifics. These identifications were sources of specific new fears and anxieties that the scenario groups in an “evolutionary anxiety”, source of important mental sufferings that our ancestors had to limit. Different possibilities were available for that. The scenario proposes that the chimpanzee lineage may have limited what was an unbearable mental suffering by stopping the development of identifications with conspecifics, and by this also stopping a possible evolution toward self-consciousness. This would have led to today chimpanzees. On the other side, our human lineage may have developed anxiety limitation tools like caring, pleasure, anticipation, communication and imitation; such tools also favoring the evolution of our lineage toward human minds . This is illustrated in the scenario by the introduction of an ”evolutionary engine”. In addition, the capacity for anticipation attached to self consciousness has amplified the evolutionary anxiety, leading it to become an overall “ancestral anxiety” which is still present and active in our human minds (with anxiety limitations as a key constraints to satisfy). The many anxiety limitation processes introduced in our lineage during the pan homo split were interrelated. Many came up in addition to the few ones listed here above. Most remain in our human minds at an unconscious level and are active in our everyday lives, much more than assumed so far. Considering a possible future of human self consciousness, nothing tells that human evolution is terminated. Also, the evolutionary scenario introduces the possibility for some anxiety limitation processes to be sources of evil behaviors, more precisely related to a possible pleasure procured by the suffering of others [9]. That (disturbing) background could introduce a better understanding of human mind, and so be an entry point to its future in terms of potential improvements of human nature. The scenario also introduces an evolutionary nature of reflectivity [10] which can question the philosophical need for a pre-reflective self consciousness. Such perspective can also introduce a naturalization of introspection, and then allow to consciously question the nature and content of our mental states. This could open a path for a tentative naturalization of the “what it is like” question for humans and make available an evolutionary link between self consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. A last point to highlight is that the proposed evolutionary scenario uses performances of life like intersubjectivity. This brings to note that a full understanding of the proposed scenario needs an understanding about the nature of life which is not available today. A lot remains to be done on these subjects. Continuations are introduced. (shrink)

What is Consciousness? When one looks up what the group called Project Consciousness (private group in Facebook) is all about, one finds the above question. As such, I find this group as a forum to share scientific information and our own ideas about what the nature of Consciousness is. Therefore, I would like to share my own ideas on the subject for your consideration. After much research and reflection, IMHO, I propose consciousness as (...) an objective reality of quantum neuro dynamics whose manifestations are conveyed along the cooperative activity between the cognitive, sensorial, and volitional faculties. As such, consciousness would be an attribute inherent to the individual nature solely intrinsic to human beings. (shrink)

Different cultures show different understandings of consciousness, soul, and spirit. Native indigenous traditions have recently seen a resurgence of interest and are being used in psychotherapy, mental health counselling, and psychiatry. The main aim of this review is to explore and summarize the native indigenous concepts of consciousness, soul, and spirit. Following a systematic review search, the peer-reviewed literature presenting research from 55 different cultural groups across regions of the world was retrieved. Information relating to native concepts of (...) consciousness, soul, and spirit were excerpted from the sources and contrasted. Contrasting these indigenous concepts revealed important implications for understanding consciousness within a cross-cultural perspective and has practical implications for applied approaches utilizing native indigenous traditions. (shrink)

Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural (...) distortions of reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents. But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness allows us to see how having it does not eo ipso render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 anti-suffragist manifesto “An Appeal Against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterisation is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal. (shrink)

The extended dual-aspect monism framework of consciousness, based on neuroscience, consists of five components: (1) dual-aspect primal entities; (2) neural-Darwinism: co-evolution and co-development of subjective experiences (SEs) and associated neural-nets from the mental aspect (that carries the SEs/proto-experiences (PEs) in superposed and unexpressed form) and the material aspect (mass, charge, spin and space-time) of fundamental entities (elementary particles), respectively and co-tuning via sensorimotor interaction; (3) matching and selection processes: interaction of two modes, namely, (a) the non-tilde mode that is (...) the material and mental aspect of cognition (memory and attention) related feedback signals in a neural-network, which is the cognitive nearest past approaching towards present; and (b) the tilde mode that is the material and mental aspect of the feed forward signals due to external environmental input and internal endogenous input, which is the nearest future approaching towards present and is a entropy-reversed representation of non-tilde mode; (4) the segregation and integration of information, and (5) the necessary ingredients of SEs (such as wakefulness, attention, re-entry, working memory, stimulus at or above threshold level, and neural-net PEs). This framework leads to structural and functional coherence between the mind and the brain, bridges the explanatory gap (the gap between SEs and their neural-correlates), and leads to our mundane subjective experiences. This extended dual-aspect monism (eDAM) framework (Vimal, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015a, 2015b) could be the fundamental basis of various religions and philosophies. This is a Western perspective. On the other hand, Eastern perspectives emphasize the practical methods for achieving altered experience at samadhi state. An important corollary of these methods (such as yogic method) is the sublimation of negative aspects of seven groups of self-protective energy system (desire, anger, ego, greed, attachment, jealousy, and selfish-love) into their positive aspects. Their negative aspects create war and suffering, whereas their positive aspects advance science and technology, family values, peace, and happiness. Here, the Western perspective framework is extended to include the concepts of the sublimation process to encompass Eastern perspectives. The four elements (war, suffering, peace, and happiness) are ubiquitous in both space and time because they are essential contributors to the variations for natural selection in our evolutionary system. The sublimation process optimizes the system: minimizes war and suffering, maximizes peace and happiness, and enhances family values and individual progress. This is consistent with both Eastern and Western perspectives. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Eric Schwitzgebel argues that if materialism about consciousness is true, then the United States is likely to have its own stream of phenomenal consciousness, distinct from the streams of conscious experience of the people who compose it. Indeed, most plausible forms of materialism have to grant that a certain degree of functional and behavioral complexity constitutes a sufficient condition for the ascription of phenomenal consciousness – and Schwitzgebel makes a case to show that (...) the United States as a whole fulfills this condition. One way to avoid this counter-intuitive consequence of materialism about consciousness is to adopt what Schwitzgebel calls an “anti-nesting principle”: a principle that states that there can be no nested forms of phenomenal consciousness and that therefore a conscious whole cannot have parts that are themselves conscious. However, Schwitzgebel then proceeds in his paper to draw up various objections, notably based on thought experiments, in order to dismiss these kinds of “anti-nesting” principles. My aim in this paper is to present a version of a sophisticated anti-nesting principle that avoids Schwitzgebel’s objections. This principle is reasonable, intuitive, and as non-arbitrary as possible. Moreover, it can resist the objections mounted by Schwitzgebel against simple anti-nesting principles. This principle helps materialists avoid the implication that the United States has its own stream of consciousness, while granting consciousness to some entities which, in many cases, are intuitive instantiators of phenomenal consciousness. This principle therefore constitutes a way out for a materialist who wants to deny that the United States is conscious. (shrink)

The point of departure for Perceiving Reality is the idea that per- ception is an embodied structural feature of consciousness whose function is determined by phenomenal experiences in a corresponding domain (of visible, tangibles, etc.). In Perceiving Reality, I try to develop a way of conceiving of our most basic mode of being in the world that resists attempts to cleave reality into an inner and outer, a mental and a physical domain. The central argument of the book is (...) that what we apprehend in perception are not, to paraphrase J.L. Austin, the external, mind-independent, medium-sized dry goods that populate the realist’s ontology. Rather, to paraphrase Husserl and a group of Buddhist philosophers in league with Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, the objects apprehended in perception are the intentional or aspectual object. (shrink)

In this paper I want to introduce and defend what I call the "subject mode account" of collective intentionality. I propose to understand collectives from joint attention dyads over small informal groups of various types to organizations, institutions and political entities such as nation states, in terms of their self-awareness. On the subject mode account, the self-consciousness of such collectives is constitutive for their being. More precisely, their self-representation as subjects of joint theoretical and practical positions towards the world (...) – rather than as objects of such positions – makes them what they are. Members of such collectives represent each other as co-subjects of such positions and thus represent the world from the point of view of the collective. (shrink)

MacDonald argues that a suite of genetic and cultural adaptations among Jews constitutes a “group evolutionary strategy.” Their supposed genetic adaptations include, most notably, high intelligence, conscientiousness, and ethnocentrism. According to this thesis, several major intellectual and political movements, such as Boasian anthropology, Freudian psychoanalysis, and multiculturalism, were consciously or unconsciously designed by Jews to promote collectivism and group continuity among themselves in Israel and the diaspora and undermine the cohesion of gentile populations, thus increasing the competitive advantage (...) of Jews and weakening organized gentile resistance. By developing and promoting these movements, Jews supposedly played a necessary role in the ascendancy of liberalism and multiculturalism in the West. While not achieving widespread acceptance among evolutionary scientists, this theory has been enormously influential in the burgeoning political movement known as the “alt-right.” Examination of MacDonald’s argument suggests that he relies on systematically misrepresented sources and cherry-picked facts. It is argued here that the evidence favors what is termed the “default hypothesis”: Because of their above-average intelligence and concentration in influential urban areas, Jews in recent history have been overrepresented in all major intellectual and political movements, including conservative movements, that were not overtly anti-Semitic. (shrink)

In this condensed survey, I look to recent perspectives on evolution suggesting that cultural change likely alters the genome. Since theories of development are nested within assumptions about evolution (evo-devo), I next review some oft-cited developmental theories and other psychological theories of the 20th century to see if any match the emerging perspectives in evolutionary theory. I seek theories based neither in nature (genetics) nor nurture (the environment) but in the creative play of human communication responding to necessity. This survey (...) finally looks to more recent work to do with the appearance of independent self-consciousness in the individual following empathic group awareness. The result of such self-created group awareness and symbolic communication is seen to be cultural consciousness, unique to humanity, from which individual consciousness and personhood derive. I conclude by noting the general implications for these approaches in our schools, politics, and in ultimate ontological questions. (shrink)

A computational theory of consciousness should include a quantitative measure of consciousness, or MoC, that (i) would reveal to what extent a given system is conscious, (ii) would make it possible to compare not only different systems, but also the same system at different times, and (iii) would be graded, because so is consciousness. However, unless its design is properly constrained, such an MoC gives rise to what we call the boundary problem: an MoC that labels a (...) system as conscious will do so for some – perhaps most – of its subsystems, as well as for irrelevantly extended systems (e.g., the original system augmented with physical appendages that contribute nothing to the properties supposedly supporting consciousness), and for aggregates of individually conscious systems (e.g., groups of people). This problem suggests that the properties that are being measured are epiphenomenal to consciousness, or else it implies a bizarre proliferation of minds. We propose that a solution to the boundary problem can be found by identifying properties that are intrinsic or systemic: properties that clearly differentiate between systems whose existence is a matter of fact, as opposed to those whose existence is a matter of interpretation (in the eye of the beholder). We argue that if a putative MoC can be shown to be systemic, this ipso facto resolves any associated boundary issues. As test cases, we analyze two recent theories of consciousness in light of our definitions: the Integrated Information Theory and the Geometric Theory of consciousness. (shrink)

This proposed study would seek to test for a causal relationship between theory of mind (ToM) and consciousness by conducting a single-variable experiment. Further, the theory proposed to explain this relationship includes that it must exist as a quantum superposition. The independent variable of ToM would be manipulated by randomly assigning participants to two groups. The two groups would represent a higher and lower level of the ToM variable by exposing participants to dramatic material chosen, in the first (...) class='Hi'>group, to evoke ToM at a high level; and in the second group, at a lower level. After viewing the material, subjects would receive the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) for theory of mind, demonstrating a higher and lower level of ToM corresponding to which material they viewed. The participants would then complete the Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI). The researcher would then compare the scores on the PCI between the two groups, using appropriate statistical tests. If there is a statistically significant difference between the groups, it would suggest that the presence of theory of mind causes the existence of consciousness. (shrink)

A general definition of consciousness is: ‘consciousness is a mental aspect of a system or a process, which is a conscious experience, a conscious function, or both depending on the context’, where the term context refers to metaphysical views, constraints, specific aims, and so on. One of the aspects of visual consciousness is the visual subjective experience (SE) or the first person experience that occurs/emerges in the visual neural-network of thalamocortical system (which includes dorsal and ventral visual (...) pathways and frontal cortex) during dynamic interactions among widely distributed neuronal groups. In this article, however, consciousness and SE are interchangeably used unless noted. Consciousness can be either access (reportable) or phenomenal consciousness. For access consciousness, the interactions are between feed forward stimulus dependent signals and fronto-parietal feedback attentional signals. The necessary ingredients for access (reportable) consciousness are (i) wakefulness, (ii) reentrant interactions among neural populations, (iii) fronto-parietal and thalamic-reticular-nucleus attentional signals that modulate consciousness, (iv) working memory that retains information for consciousness, (v) stimulus at or above threshold level, and (vi) neural-network proto-experiences (PEs) that are superposed SEs embedded in a neural-network. Attention and the ability to report are not necessary for phenomenal consciousness. The neural source for the arousal system is the ascending reticular activating system in the brain stem, which brings the thalamocortical neural networks to wakeful state as a baseline for consciousness to occur. Reentrant interactions among neural populations bind stimulus attributes (such as location and features) and entail consciousness. Attention could be the results of reentry and competitive interactions, and modulates the stimulus related feed forward signal and consciousness. The ‘sources’ of attention may be thalamic reticular nucleus for bottom-up or frontal cortex for top-down direction. The ‘target’ of visual attention is ‘V4/V8/VO’ for Red-Green (R-G) channel. The neural correlates of the psychophysical entity R-G channel appear to be ‘V4/V8/VO’-neural-network (retina → LGN ↔ V1 ↔ V2 ↔ ‘V4/V8/VO’, and areas for attention, memory, and wakefulness). The psychophysical Red-Green Channel, its neurophysiological correlates V4/V8/VO-neural-network, and related experience (such as redness) are integrated. The dual-aspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework (Vimal, J Integr Neurosci 7:49–73, 2008) was used to address the explanatory gap problem of materialism. Neural-network and related SEs are the results of the co-evolution and co-development of the material aspect (mass, charge, spin, force, quanta, and space-time) and the mental aspect of fundamental particles (strings or elementary particles (fermions and bosons)). Their mental aspects are considered as the carriers of superposed multiple possible experiences (SEs/PEs) in unexpressed form. These possibilities are actualized when neural-networks are formed via neural Darwinism, and a specific SE is selected by a matching process when the necessary ingredients of consciousness/SE are satisfied. A simple experimental design is suggested to address the necessary and sufficient attributes of consciousness. (shrink)

Lloyd Jones’s *The Book of Fame*, a novel about the stunningly successful 1905 British tour of the New Zealand rugby team, represents both skilled group action and the difficulty of capturing it in words. The novel’s form is as fluid and deceptive, as adaptable and integrated, as the sweetly shaped play of the team that became known during this tour for the first time as the All Blacks. It treats sport on its own terms as a rich world, a (...) set of bodily skills, and an honest profession in itself. A reading of *The Book of Fame* can contribute to the interdisciplinary study of literature and cognition, exemplifying two-way ‘exchange values’. On the one hand, we gain insights into the nature of skilful group agency, of distinct forms and at distinct timescales, by focussing on the precise forms taken by the All Blacks’ creation of space. Here, we treat The Book of Fame as a brilliant evocation of features of collective thought, movement, and emotion that both everyday and scientific inquiry can easily miss. On the other hand, we also read back into the novel a subtle, fascinated interrogation of the mechanisms by which small groups form, evolve, and act. In this more ambitious mode of analysis, we use independently motivated theoretical concerns to help us see real features of the literary work that might otherwise remain invisible. We focus on the relationship between skilful performance and collective action. These topics fall outside the ambit of much current work by literary theorists using cognitive research, who tend to focus on theory of mind and modularity, metaphor and blending, emotion and empathy, consciousness and concepts, representation and so on. But skilled performance and collective action comprise surprisingly lively research fields across the sciences, from neuropsychology to philosophy of mind and cognitive anthropology. These areas of inquiry may provide even more productive avenues for future work in the interfield of literary and cultural theory and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

In the contemporary era, we identify ourselves based on what we consume or what we possess. Besides, various advertisements, celebrities, and other influential personalities encourage and make us believe that we can make a new identity by consuming a specific brand, or relating to a particular institution or connecting with an extraordinary group, etc. Hence, we tend to identify ourselves with consumer goods. In such conditions, Srimad Bhagwat Gita becomes significantly relevant to look for alternative way of life. This (...) paper attempts to explore the concept of Self in Gita as a model for realizing environmental consciousness. Largely, it will analyse the concepts of Nishkama Karma (Detached Action) and the Self to see what it may contribute in developing an apt environmental consciousness. With the analysis of these concepts the paper tries to probe for an epistemological and metaphysical alternative to the Ecology understanding. (shrink)

Introduction: The objective of this investigation is to analyse the informational circuits of the brain connections with the body from neurologic and neuroscience point of view, on the basis of the concepts of information promoted by the Informational Model of Consciousness. Analysis: Distinguishing between the virtual and matter-related information promoted by the Informational Model of Consciousness, the main specific features of consciousness are analyzed from the informational perspective, showing that the informational architecture of consciousness consists in (...) seven groups of specific activities, defined as cognitive centres, each of them with specific distinct tasks, but correlated each other: centre of acquisition and storing of information (memory), centre of decision and command (decision), centre of the emotional states (emotions), centre of the body maintenance (power and health), centre of the genetic elaboration/transmission (reproduction) and the info-genetic generator, inherited from the parents (predispositions, talents and skills). A special centre, dedicated to the connectivity with some extra-power properties of the mind is also introduced, assuring an intimate supra-sensitive detection of the world to explain the associated phenomena of the near-death experiences. Result: The activity of all these centres should be supported neurologically by the brain neuro-connectivity to the body and to external and internal info-signals. On the basis of the informational analysis, the neuro-connections of the brain regions associated to the main characteristics of the cognitive centres are highlighted, showing the anatomic and neuro-functional relation between the distinct components of the brain and the specific operating body regions. These connections describe in terms of information the brain-body neuro-activities as informational specific circuits, composed by the info-operational subsystems managed by the brain, and sensors, transducer and execution elements. Conclusion: The components and connections mind-body stipulated by the Informational Model of Consciousness are supported by the neurologic/neuroscience evidence. (shrink)

EEG signals are records of nonlinear solitary waves in human brains. The waves have several types (e.g., α, β, γ, θ, δ) in response to different levels of consciousness. They are classified into two groups: Group-1 consists of complex storm-like waves (α, β, and γ); Group-2 is composed of simple quasilinear waves (θ and δ). In order to elucidate the mechanism of EEG wave formation and propagation, this paper extends the Vlasov-Maxwell equations of Plasma Brain Dynamics (PBD) (...) to a set of two-fluid, self-similar, nonlinear solitary wave equations. Numerical simulations are performed for different EEG signals. Main results include: (1) The excitation and propagation of the EEG wave packets are dependent of electric and magnetic fields, brain aqua-ions, electron and ion temperatures, masses, and their initial fluid speeds; (2) Group-1 complex waves contain three ingredients: the high-frequency ion-acoustic (IA) mode, the intermediate-frequency lower-hybrid (LH) mode, and, the low-frequency ion-cyclotron (IC) mode; (3) Group-2 simple waves fall within the IA band, featured by one or a combination of the three envelopes: sinusoidal, sawtooth, and spiky/bipolar. The study proposes an alternative model to Quantum Brain Dynamics (QBD) by suggesting that the formation and propagation of the nonlinear solitary EEG waves in the brain have the same mechanism as that of the waves in space plasmas. (shrink)

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 is a scenario describing how evolution could have transformed a non self-conscious auto-representation into a conscious self-representation (Menant 2006). The scenario is based on the performance of inter-subjectivity existing among non human primates (Gardenfors 2006). A key item of the scenario is the identification of the auto-representation of a subject with the representations that the subject has of her conspecifics, the latter feeding the former with the meaning: “existing in the environment”. So during evolution, pre-human primates were brought to perceive their auto-representation as existing in the environment. Such process could have generated the initial elements of a conscious self-representation. We take this scenario as providing a possible rooting of human consciousness in evolution. We develop here a part of this scenario by expliciting the inward and outward components of the non self-conscious auto-representation. Inward components are about proprioception and interoception (thirst, pain, …). Outward components cover the sensory information relative to the perception of the body (seen feet, … ) and of its effects on the environment. We consider that the initial elements of a conscious self-representation have been applied to both inward and outward components of the auto-representation. We propose that the application to inward components made possible some first-person information, and that the application to outward components brought up third-person information. Relations between the two perspectives are highlighted. Such approach can root first-person and third-person perspectives in the same slot of human evolution. We conclude by a summary of the above and introduce a possible application of this approach to the concepts of bodily self and of pre-reflexive self-consciousness (Legrand, 2006). (shrink)

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 based on Phenomenology or on Analytic Philosophy has been mostly taking the characteristics of humans as starting points. Relatively little has been done with bottom-up approaches, using performances of animals as a simpler starting point to understand the generation of consciousness through evolution. But this status may be changing, thanks to new tools coming from recent discoveries in neurology. The discovery of mirror neurons about ten years ago (Gallese et al. 1996, Rizzolatti et al. 1996) has allowed the built up of new conceptual tools for the understanding of intersubjectivity within humans and non human primates (Gallese 2001, Hurley 2005). Studies in these fields are still in progress, with discussions on the level of applicability of this natural intersubjectivity to non human primates (Decety and Chaminade 2003). We think that these subject/conspecific mental relations made possible by mirror neurons can open new paths for the understanding of the nature of self-consciousness via an evolutionist bottom-up approach. We propose here a scenario for the build up of self-consciousness through evolution by a specific analysis of two steps of evolution: first step from simple living elements to non human primates comparable to chimpanzees, and second step from these non human primates to humans. We identify these two steps as representing the evolution from basic animal awareness to body self-awareness, and from body self-awareness to self-consciousness. (we consider that today non human primates are comparable to what were pre-human primates). We position body self-awareness as corresponding to the performance of mirror self recognition as identified with chimpanzees and orangutans (Gallup). We propose to detail and understand the content of this body self-awareness through a specific evolutionist build up process using the performances of mirror neurons and group life. We address the evolutionary step from body self-awareness to self-consciousness by complementing the recently proposed approach where self-consciousness is presented as a by-product of body self-awareness amplification via a positive feedback loop resulting of anxiety limitation (Menant 2004). The scenario introduced here for the build up of self-consciousness through evolution leaves open the question about the nature of phenomenal-consciousness (Block 2002). We plan to address this question later on with the help of the scenario made available here. (shrink)

Our approach is based on a tri-partite method of integrating psychodynamic hypotheses, cognitive subliminal processes, and psychophysiological alpha power measures. We present ten social phobic subjects with three individually selected groups of words representing unconscious conflict, conscious symptom experience, and Osgood Semantic negative valence words used as a control word group. The unconscious conflict and conscious symptom words, presented subliminally and supraliminally, act as primes preceding the conscious symptom and control words presented as supraliminal targets. With alpha power as (...) a marker of inhibitory brain activity, we show that unconscious conflict primes, only when presented subliminally, have a unique inhibitory effect on conscious symptom targets. This effect is absent when the unconscious conflict primes are presented supraliminally, or when the target is the control words. Unconscious conflict prime effects were found to correlate with a measure of repressiveness in a similar previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). Conscious symptom primes have no inhibitory effect when presented subliminally. Inhibitory effects with conscious symptom primes are present, but only when the primes are supraliminal, and they did not correlate with repressiveness in a previous study (Shevrin et al., 1992, 1996). We conclude that while the inhibition following supraliminal conscious symptom primes is due to conscious threat bias, the inhibition following subliminal unconscious conflict primes provides a neurological blueprint for dynamic repression: it is only activated subliminally by an individual's unconscious conflict and has an inhibitory effect specific only to the conscious symptom. These novel findings constitute neuroscientific evidence for the psychoanalytic concepts of unconscious conflict and repression, while extending neuroscience theory and methods into the realm of personal, psychological meaning. (shrink)

Introduction: the objective of this investigation is to analyses the advances of understanding in the epigenetic processes and to extract conclusions concerning the information-based evolution from the perspective of the Informational Model of Consciousness (IMC). Analysis of epigenetic mechanisms: it is shown that the study of the epigenetic mechanisms are of increasing interest not only to discover the responsible mechanisms of some diseases, but also to observe the acquisition and transmission mechanisms of some traits to the next generation/ transgenerations, (...) without affecting the DNA sequences. These advances were especially supported by the spectacular progresses in the high technological tools like digital microfluidic techniques and semiconductor-based detection systems, allowing to apply sequencing methods of DNA and to observe its structural modifications. The specific typical steps of the epigenetic mechanisms are analysed, showing that these mechanisms could be fully described in terms of information, as signal transmission agents embodying or disembodying information in three different stages and under specific conditions, including especially the signal persistence as a main conditional epigenetic factor. Results concerning the information-assisted evolution from the perspective of IMC: the epigenetic mechanisms are discussed as a function of each component of the informational system of the organism, consisting in memory, decisional operability, emotional reactivity, metabolic driving processes, genetic transmission, genetic info-generator and the info-connection explaining the special extra-power properties of the mind. It is shown that the epigenetic mechanisms could be related to the specific functions of each informational component, mainly exhibiting five levels of integration of information as matter-related information, culminating with the stable integration in the procreation cells and transmission to the next generation. The results were extended to explain the transgenerational adaptive processes of isolated population groups. Conclusion: the epigenetic mechanisms discussed within IMC allow to understand the transgenerational adaptation as an information-assisted proces. (shrink)

This philosophical anthropology tries to explore the basic categories of man’s being in the worlds using a special quantum meta-ontology that is introduced in the book. Quantum understanding of space and time, consciousness, or empirical/nonempirical reality elicits new questions relating to philosophical concerns such as subjectivity, free will, mind, perception, experience, dialectic, or agency. The authors have developed an inspiring theoretical framework transcending the boundaries of particular disciplines, e.g. quantum philosophy, metaphysics of consciousness, philosophy of mind, phenomenology of (...) space and time, and ontological relativity. (shrink)

Little is know about factors that influence the development of public self-consciousness. One potential factor is exposure to audiences: being repeatedly aware of one's object status could create a high disposition to focus on public self-aspects. To explore this hypothesis public self-consciousness was assessed in two groups of subjects: 62 professors and actors (high exposure to audiences) and 39 people without audience experience. Analysis show that significant differences exist for public self-consciousness in men only. Also, history of (...) frequent exposure to audience is significantly but weakly correlated with high public self-consciousness in men. This supports previous observations indicating that self-consciousness seems to develop differently for men and women. (shrink)

The Vienna Circle was a group of scientifically-minded philosophers, many physicists by training, who in the 1920s and 30s developed the cluster of philosophical doctrines known as Logical Positivism. Among the Circle’s most distinguished members were Rudolf Carnap and Herbert Feigl, each of whom emigrated to America during the Nazi era. It is said that Feigl, the author of an important 1958 monograph defending a materialist approach to the mind-body problem, once gave a visiting lecture on the problem of (...) consciousness at UCLA, where Carnap was teaching. Feigl argued that although there were good reasons for believing that the mind is fundamentally physical, the physical explanation of the ‘qualia’ of sensory experience – the ineffable sensory qualities involved in, say, smelling coffee – was still a mystery to science. Now the story becomes apocryphal. Carnap is supposed to have interrupted, ‘But Feigl, there is something missing from your lecture. Science is beginning to explain qualia in terms of the alpha factor!’. We can imagine Feigl somewhat alarmed by this interjection from the great Carnap: ‘But Carnap, please tell me: what is the alpha factor?’. ‘Well, Feigl’ Carnap replied ‘if you tell me what qualia are, I’ll tell you what the alpha factor is’. (shrink)

ABSTRACT -/- In this dissertation I make a case for how mental health care, specifically disordered eating, is in need of an adjunctive field of discourse, that being theories on philosophy of consciousness, cosmology, and the new epistemology of science based on physics. Without psychological inquiry and education on new theories about consciousness and new perspectives on the nature of reality, mental health treatment is incomplete and outdated. I bring these topics to the eating disorder field in three (...) ways: by choosing the scientific and philosophical discourse to be added into treatment; by translating the complex and abstract topics into psychologically relevant, lay public coursework; and, finally, through the creation of actual processes that help bring the material into direct experience. The science and philosophy discourse topics that will transform disordered eating are presented through lecture, inquiry for consideration, and discussion options. Consciousness, cosmology, and the new epistemology of science based on physics is simplified with examples of how it can be implemented within individual sessions, group sessions, or workshops for disordered eating treatment and with application to other mental health problems. The psychological application of the material is further enhanced through my description of a variety of experiential processes, from writing assignments and guided visualizations to storytelling, rituals, encounters in nature, and embodiment activities. I have created the lectures, inquiry, and experiential processes within a dynamic body of work, named the Emergence Courses, that have been introduced to professionals treating disordered eating and to clients for use. (shrink)

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 before consciousness as we know it for humans. The interest of such an approach is that the analysis of selectional advantage is done at an evolution step sigificantly simpler that the step of Human Consciousness. We analyse how evolutionary advantages have resulted from this specific Self Awareness step. This is done by taking into consideration the possibility for a subject to identify with a conspecific at this level of evolution. We use the results made available by Mirror Neuron researchs where intersubjectivity and some level of identification with conspecifics have been evidenced for non human primates. Selectional advantages related to Self Awareness are analysed two ways: - Reformulating the performances of imitation and of development of language. - Showing that Self Awareness within group life can naturaly produce an important increase in fear/anxiety for a subject, and that the means implemented by the subject to overcome this fear/anxiety can act as significant evolution advantages opening the road to Human Consciousness. Such approach brings new elements supporting the view that consciousness is grounded in emotions. It also proposes some more evolutionist explanations to the widely dicussed subject of Empathy (S. Preston & F. de Waal) in terms of specific behaviour implemented to limit fear/anxiety increase. This approach also provides some explanation for limited anxiety within dolphins and introduces a basis for a possible phylogenesis of emotions. (shrink)

It is commonly believed that human perceptual experiences can be, and usually are, multimodal. What is more, a stronger thesis is often proposed that some perceptual multimodal characters cannot be described simply as a conjunction of unimodal phenomenal elements. If it is the case, then a question arises: what is the additional mode of combination that is required to adequately describe the phenomenal structure of multimodal experiences? The paper investigates what types of audio–visual experiences have phenomenal character that cannot be (...) analysed as a mere conjunction of visual and auditory elements; and how can we properly characterise the required, additional mode of perceptual combination. Three main modes of combination are considered: instantiation, parthood, and grouping. It is argued that some phenomena involving intermodal relations, like spatial and temporal ventriloquism, can be analysed in terms of audio–visual, perceptual grouping. On the other hand, cases of intermodal binding need a different treatment. Experiences involving audio–visual binding should be analysed as experiences presenting objects or events which instantiate, or which have a proper part instantiating, both visually and auditorily determined properties. (shrink)

We present a hypothetical process of mind coalescence, where arti cial connections are created between two or more brains. This might simply allow for an improved form of communication. At the other extreme, it might merge the minds into one in a process that can be thought of as a reverse split-brain operation. We propose that one way mind coalescence might happen is via an exocortex, a prosthetic extension of the biological brain which integrates with the brain as seamlessly as (...) parts of the biological brain integrate with each other. An exocortex may also prove to be the easiest route for mind uploading, as a person's personality gradually moves away from the aging biological brain and onto the exocortex. Memories might also be copied and shared even without minds being permanently merged. Over time, the borders of personal identity may become loose or even unnecessary. (shrink)

Air pollution is a pressing global issue, demanding swift and practical solutions across nations. Polluted air is not only harmful to physical health but also to mental well-being. Research has consistently shown that air pollution is linked to respiratory and cardiovascular problems, both in the short and long term. Short-term effects include coughing, asthma, and difficulty breathing, while long-term exposure can lead to chronic asthma, impaired lung function, cardiovascular diseases, and even death. Beyond physical health, air pollution can also negatively (...) impact mental well-being, contributing to depression, anxiety, and even suicide. -/- A recent study by a group of researchers led by Tomoaki Nakaishi, a researcher at Kyushu University, has gone further, examining how air pollution affects moral perception and unethical behavior. Unethical behavior refers to actions that are either illegal or deemed morally wrong by society. This study focuses on five types of unethical behavior: fatal actions (e.g., murder, terrorism, and suicide), assault (e.g., prostitution, rape, child abuse, and domestic violence), discrimination (e.g., gender and racial discrimination), financial misconduct (e.g., fraud and bribery/corruption), and organized misconduct. (shrink)

In this article, I defend the pragmatic relevance of race in history. Kant and Hegel's racist development thesis assumes that nonwhite, non-European racial groups are defective practical agents. In response, philosophers have opted to drop race from a theory of history and progress. They posit that denying its pragmatic relevance amounts to anti-racist egalitarianism. I dub this tactic “colorblind cosmopolitanism” and offer grounds for its rejection. Following Du Bois, I ascribe, instead, a pragmatic role to race in history. Namely, Du (...) Bois argues that race is an “instrument of progress” that advances emancipatory struggle. He appeals to the writing of history—or historiography—to cultivate group consciousness of historical memory in order to strengthen intragroup bonds among the racially oppressed, especially black Americans, and create intergroup bonds that reconstruct the republic on the basis of universal ideals. I detail Du Bois's defense of the black struggle for freedom in the wake of the U.S. Civil War to provide a concrete illustration of “spirit” in American history. (shrink)

For many years, the human need for the group, social life, and the impact of this form of life on mental health and body have been discussed. This is said to be less about loneliness and the role played by human beings. Loneliness is a global issue experienced by all humans more or less and with their lives. In other words, many people with races, cultures, social classes, and at different ages and times each experience some kind of loneliness. (...) It is true that human being is an absolute social being and we always hear from the benefits of communication and satisfaction from it, But this should not be overlooked by the constructive and positive aspects of being alone, especially in education systems; Hence, this article was conducted with the aim of examining the opinions and views of Eric Forum on loneliness and analyzing its consequences in education. This research is part of qualitative research, which is done by analytical-deductive method. Findings indicate that Any social person with extensive communication does not necessarily have mental health; On the other hand, loneliness is not always a sign for malicious and anti-social characters, In other words, what is important is the difference between antisocial people and a group consciously choosing loneliness. Therefore, loneliness is an emotional feeling that in the case of balance, it can be constructive and lead to self-knowledge, the development of reflection thinking, self-consciousness and if it is to be extreme, there will be plenty of harm in the community, especially education systems. (shrink)

The journal of Cognitive Computation is defined in part by the notion that biologically inspired computational accounts are at the heart of cognitive processes in both natural and artificial systems. Many studies of various important aspects of cognition (memory, observational learning, decision making, reward prediction learning, attention control, etc.) have been made by modelling the various experimental results using ever-more sophisticated computer programs. In this manner progressive inroads have been made into gaining a better understanding of the many components of (...) cognition. Concomitantly in both science and science fiction the hope is periodically re-ignited that a manmade system can be engineered to be fully cognitive and conscious purely in virtue of its execution of an appropriate computer program. However, whilst the usefulness of the computational metaphor in many areas of psychology and neuroscience is clear, it has not gone unchallenged and in this article I will review a group of philosophical arguments that suggest either such unequivocal optimism in computationalism is misplaced—computation is neither necessary nor sufficient for cognition—or panpsychism (the belief that the physical universe is fundamentally composed of elements each of which is conscious) is true. I conclude by highlighting an alternative metaphor for cognitive processes based on communication and interaction. (shrink)

Some research suggests that moral behavior can be strongly influenced by trivial features of the environment of which we are completely unaware. Philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists have argued that these findings undermine our commonsense notions of agency and responsibility, both of which emphasize the role of practical reasoning and conscious deliberation in action. We present the results of four vignette-based studies (N = 1,437) designed to investigate how people think about the metaphysical and moral implications of scientific findings that reveal (...) our susceptibility to automaticity and situational influences. When presented with lightly fictionalized narratives about these findings, participants exhibit no tendency toward changing judgments of freedom and responsibility compared to control groups. This suggests that people seem unwilling to adopt skeptical attitudes about agency on the basis of these scientific findings. (shrink)

Some metaphysics are provided showing that what is commonly called ‘the physical world’ can be deconstructed into three ‘levels’: a single, unified ‘noumenal world’ on which everything supervenes; a ‘phenomenal world’ that we each privately experience through direct perception of phenomena; and a ‘collective world’ that people in any given ‘language using group’ experience through learning, using and adapting that group’s language. This deconstruction is shown to enable a clear account of qualia and of how people can hold (...) some things to be physically real even when it is clear no one can ever directly experience those things as phenomena. It is further shown to enable a single, internally consistent, largely empirically supported conceptual framework – a ‘metacosmology’ – able to encompass not only the physical world as people conceive of it for everyday purposes, and as scientists conceive of it for scientific purposes, but also people’s first person phenomenal experience of a physical world and, prospectively, the mechanisms by which such first person, conscious experiences can be generated. (shrink)

Currently, one of the most influential theories of consciousness is Rosenthal's version of higher-order-thought (HOT). We argue that the HOT theory allows for two distinct interpretations: a one-component and a two-component view. We further argue that the two-component view is more consistent with his effort to promote HOT as an explanatory theory suitable for application to the empirical sciences. Unfortunately, the two-component view seems incapable of handling a group of counterexamples that we refer to as cases of radical (...) confabulation. We begin by introducing the HOT theory and by indicating why we believe it is open to distinct interpretations. We then proceed to show that it is incapable of handling cases of radical confabulation. Finally, in the course of considering various possible responses to our position, we show that adoption of a disjunctive strategy, one that would countenance both one-component and two-component versions, would fail to provide any empirical or explanatory advantage. (shrink)

Although quantum mechanics can accurately predict the probability distribution of outcomes in an ensemble of identical systems, it cannot predict the result of an individual system. All the local and global hidden variable theories attempting to explain individual behavior have been proved invalid by experiments (violation of Bell’s inequality) and theory. As an alternative, Schrodinger and others have hypothesized existence of free will in every particle which causes randomness in individual results. However, these free will theories have failed to quantitatively (...) explain the quantum mechanical results. In this paper, we take the clue from quantum biology to get the explanation of quantum mechanical distribution. Recently it was reported that mutations (which are quantum processes) in DNA of E. coli bacteria instead of being random were biased in a direction such that the chance of survival of the bacteria is increased. Extrapolating it, we assume that all the particles including inanimate fundamental particles have a will and that is biased to satisfy the collective goals of the ensemble. Using this postulate, we mathematically derive the correct spin probability distribution without using quantum mechanical formalism (operators and Born’s rule) and exactly reproduce the quantum mechanical spin correlation in entangled pairs. Using our concept, we also mathematically derive the form of quantum mechanical wave function of free particle which is conventionally a postulate of quantum mechanics. Thus, we prove that the origin of quantum mechanical results lies in the will (or consciousness) of the objects biased by the collective goal of ensemble or universe. This biasing by the group on individuals can be called as “coherence” which directly represents the extent of life present in the ensemble. So, we can say that life originates out of establishment of coherence in a group of inanimate particles. (shrink)

The ability of a group of adults with high functioning autism (HFA) or Asperger Syndrome (AS) to distinguish moral, conventional and disgust transgressions was investigated using a set of six transgression scenarios, each of which was followed by questions about permissibility, seriousness, authority contingency and justification. The results showed that although individuals with HFA or AS (HFA/AS) were able to distinguish affect-backed norms from conventional affect-neutral norms along the dimensions of permissibility, seriousness and authority-dependence, they failed to distinguish moral (...) and disgust transgressions along the seriousness dimension and were unable to provide appropriate welfare-based moral justifications. Moreover, they judged conventional and disgust transgressions to be more serious than did the comparison group, and the correlation analysis revealed that the seriousness rating was related to their ToM impairment. We concluded that difficulties providing appropriate moral justifications and evaluating the seriousness of transgressions in individuals with HFA/AS may be explained by an impaired cognitive appraisal system that, while responsive to rule violations, fails to use relevant information about the agent’s intentions and the affective impact of the action outcome in conscious moral reasoning. (shrink)

Humans are cognitive entities. Our ongoing interactions with the environment are threaded with creations and usages of meaningful information. Animal life is also populated with meaningful information related to survival constraints. Information managed by artificial agents can also be considered as having meanings, as derived from the designer. Such perspective brings us to propose an evolutionary approach to cognition based on meaningful information management. We use a systemic tool, the Meaning Generator System (MGS), and apply it consecutively to animals, humans (...) and artificial agents [1, 2]. The MGS receives information from its environment and compares it with its constraint. The generated meaning is the connection existing between the received information and the constraint. It triggers an action aimed at satisfying the constraint. The action modifies the environment and the generated meaning. Meaning generation links agents to their environments. The MGS is a system: a set of elements linked by a set of relations. Any system submitted to a constraint and capable of receiving information can lead to a MGS. Animals, humans and robots are agents containing MGSs dealing with different constraints. Similar MGSs carrying different constraints will generate different meanings. Cognition is system dependent. Contrary to approaches on meaning generation based on psychology or linguistics, the MGS approach is not based on human mind. We want to avoid the circularity of taking human mind as a starting point. Free will and self-consciousness participate to the management of human meanings. They do not exist for animals or robots. Staying alive is a constraint that we share with animals. Robots ignore that constraint. We first use the MGS for animals with “stay alive” and “group life” constraints. The analysis of meaning and cognition in animals is however limited by our un-complete understanding of the nature of life (the question of final causes). Extending the analysis of meaning generation and cognition to humans is complex and has some true limitations as the nature of human mind is a mystery for today science and philosophy. The natures of our feelings, free will or self-consciousness are unknown. Approaches to identify human constraints are however possible, where the MGS can highlight some openings [3, 4]. Modeling meaning management in artificial agents is rather straightforward with the MGS. We, the designers, know the agents and the constraints. The derived nature of constraints, meaning and cognition is however to be highlighted. We define a meaningful representation of an item for an agent as being the networks of meanings relative to the item for the agent, with the action scenarios involving the item. Such meaningful representations embed the agents in their environments and are far from the GOFAI type of representations. Cognition, meanings and representations exist by and for the agents. We finish by summarizing the points presented here and highlight possible continuations . [1] “Information and Meaning” [2] “Introduction to a systemic theory of meaning” [3] “Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations. An Evolutionary Approach” [4] “Proposal for a shared evolutionary nature of language and consciousness”. (shrink)

We present a theory of human artistic experience and the neural mechanisms that mediate it. Any theory of art has to ideally have three components. The logic of art: whether there are universal rules or principles; The evolutionary rationale: why did these rules evolve and why do they have the form that they do; What is the brain circuitry involved? Our paper begins with a quest for artistic universals and proposes a list of ‘Eight laws of artistic experience’ -- a (...) set of heuristics that artists either consciously or unconsciously deploy to optimally titillate the visual areas of the brain. One of these principles is a psychological phenomenon called the peak shift effect: If a rat is rewarded for discriminating a rectangle from a square, it will respond even more vigorously to a rectangle that is longer and skinnier that the prototype. We suggest that this principle explains not only caricatures, but many other aspects of art. Example: An evocative sketch of a female nude may be one which selectively accentuates those feminine form-attributes that allow one to discriminate it from a male figure; a Boucher, a Van Gogh, or a Monet may be a caricature in ‘colour space’ rather than form space. Even abstract art may employ ‘supernormal’ stimuli to excite form areas in the brain more strongly than natural stimuli. Second, we suggest that grouping is a very basic principle. The different extrastriate visual areas may have evolved specifically to extract correlations in different domains , and discovering and linking multiple features into unitary clusters -- objects -- is facilitated and reinforced by direct connections from these areas to limbic structures. In general, when object-like entities are partially discerned at any stage in the visual hierarchy, messages are sent back to earlier stages to alert them to certain locations or features in order to look for additional evidence for the object . Finally, given constraints on allocation of attentional resources, art is most appealing if it produces heightened activity in a single dimension rather than redundant activation of multiple modules. This idea may help explain the effectiveness of outline drawings and sketches, the savant syndrome in autists, and the sudden emergence of artistic talent in fronto-temporal dementia. In addition to these three basic principles we propose five others, constituting a total of ‘eight laws of aesthetic experience’. (shrink)

I introduce a novel multidimensional framework tailored to investigate a set of phenomena that might appear intractable and render them amenable to scientific inquiry. In particular, I focus on examining altered states of consciousness that appear to the experiencing subject as “contentless” or “objectless” states in some form, either by having disrupted or reduced content of awareness, or content that appears as missing altogether. By drawing on empirical research, I propose a cluster of phenomenological dimensions aimed at enhancing our (...) understanding of this group of experiences of minimal awareness, including “Richness of the Content”, “Bodily-Awareness”, “Passage of Time”, “Attentional Focus”, and “Self-Revelation”. The result is a robust framework that provides precise scientific terminology, facilitating its operationalisation and adaptability for future empirical work. I show the explanatory power of this framework through a case study of the state of clear light sleep—a state widely reported by Indo-Tibetan Buddhist traditions as an instance of pure awareness during sleep, a state of consciousness-as-such. This rare phenomenon has gained increasing attention in contemporary analytic philosophy of mind for the study of the nature of consciousness. However, we still lack consensus on its characterisation and potential identity with other associated states. I end the paper by illustrating how the state of clear light sleep can be situated in relation to other associated states and more ordinary ones as regions of a multidimensional state space. (shrink)

Many people now recognize that the challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss are rooted in how and to what extent humans consume goods in the Anthropocene era. Consumerism has driven natural resource exploitation to its peak, and resource depletion is becoming more common. The beauty and personal care industry has an enormous market and substantial profitability, particularly in the high-income category. However, this benefit comes with the risk of being scrutinized, investigated, and criticized by civil society groups, environmental activists, (...) and consumers. More than anyone else, the industry is aware of the risks of negative society appraisals, notably the consequences of consumer-led boycott activities. In this paper, we suggest that, given the current situation, global beauty firms need to play a proactive role in directing resources toward the development of sustainable uses of biodiversity and agriculture methods. This includes advocating for the wider use of environmentally conscious sourcing of raw materials, avoiding excessive and wasteful packaging, and devoting resources to research and innovation in environmentally friendly manufacturing procedures. The proactiveness would allow them to demonstrate their environmental commitment and actively give customers persuasive evidence of their social responsibility through emission reduction and biodiversity protection actions, gradually building an environmental-healing culture in the beauty industry. (shrink)