Representationalism is the view that the phenomenal character of experiences is identical to their representational content of a certain sort. This view requires a strong transparency condition on phenomenally conscious experiences. We argue that affective qualities such as experienced pleasantness or unpleasantness are counter-examples to the transparency thesis and thus to the sort of representationalism that implies it.

There is no large number of very small bads that is worse than a small number of very large bads – or so, some maintain, it seems plausible to say. In this article, I criticize and reject two recently proposed vindications of the above intuition put forth by Dale Dorsey and Alex Voorhoeve. Dorsey advocates for a threshold marked by the interference with a person's global life projects: any bad that interferes with the satisfaction of a life project is worse (...) than any number of bads that don't interfere with such a life project. Such thresholds, I argue, are broadly implausible. Voorhoeve gives a contractualist account for the irrelevance of minor bads. His account, I argue, does not, among other things, provide the right kind of reason in defence of the above intuition. (shrink)

Chancy counterfactuals are a headache. Dylan Dodd (2009) presents an interesting argument against a certain general strategy for accounting for them, instances of which are found in the appendices to Lewis (1979) and in Williams (2008). I will argue (i) that Dodd’s understates the counterintuitiveness of the conclusions he can reach; (ii) that the counterintuitiveness can be thought of as an instance of more general oddities arising when we treat vagueness and indeterminacy in a classical setting; and (iii) the underlying (...) source of discontent which animates Dodd’s complains is to be found in a certain general constraint one might impose on conditionals—what I’ll call the counterfactual Ramsey bound. Unfortunately, the counterfactual Ramsey bound is just as problematic as its famous indicative cousin. The moral is that there’s no comfortable resting place in this area; for violations of the counterfactual Ramsey bound are going to lead to prima facie surprising results. (shrink)

According to expressivists, normative language expresses desire‐like states of mind. According to noncognitivists, normative beliefs have a desire‐like functional role. What is the relation between these two doctrines? It is widely assumed that expressivism commits you to noncognitivism, and vice versa. This paper opposes that assumption. I advance a view that combines a noncognitivist psychology with a descriptivist semantics for normative language. While this might seem like an ungainly hybrid, I argue that it has important advantages over more familiar metaethical (...) positions. The noncognitivist aspect of the theory captures all of the explanatory benefits standardly associated with expressivism. At the same time, the descriptivist element allows us to avoid the semantic headaches for expressivism. (shrink)

Our beliefs, intentions, desires, regrets, and fears are evaluable for fit—they can succeed or fail to be fitting responses to the objects they are about. Can our headaches and heartrates be evaluable for fit? The common view says ‘no’. This chapter argues: sometimes, yes. First, it claims that when a racing heart accompanies fear it seems to have the typical characteristics of fit-evaluable items. Then, it suggests that suspicion of this initial impression is explained by the assumption that whether (...) an item is ever fit-evaluable is determined by the type of item it is. Fear is the type of thing that can be fit-evaluable, a racing heart is not. The chapter then proposes an alternative whereby the same type of item can be fit-evaluable on one occasion but not on another. What explains the difference, it is argued, is that only in the former occasion the item is explained by the agent’s narrative as an element of a fit-evaluable response. (shrink)

Background: Dengue Disease is a mosquito-borne tropical disease caused by the dengue virus, symptoms typically begin three to fourteen days after infection. This may include a high fever, headache, vomiting, muscle and joint pains, and a characteristic skin rash. Dengue serology is applied in different settings, such as for surveillance, in health care facilities in endemic areas and in travel clinics in non-endemic areas. The applicability and quality of serological tests in dengue endemic regions has to be judged against a (...) background of potential cross reactivity with other flavi-viruses, difficulties in distinguishing primary from secondary infections and technological problems related to the fact that most dengue endemic regions are relatively poor of resources .Objectives: to help doctors and patients in diagnosing Dengue Disease and give them the information of how to prevent Dengue Disease and to be able to understand the signs and symptoms of Dengue Disease. Methods: We collected all relevant material for Dengue Disease. Then we designed and implemented a knowledge based system for diagnosing Dengue Disease using SL5 Object Language. Results: The knowledge based system was evaluated by a group of Patients and specialized doctors and they found it very friendly and easy to use. (shrink)

Many of us believe (1) Saving a life is more important than averting any number of headaches. But what about risky cases? Surely: (2) In a single choice, if the risk of death is low enough, and the number of headaches at stake high enough, one should avert the headaches rather than avert the risk of death. And yet, if we will face enough iterations of cases like that in (2), in the long run some of those (...) small risks of serious harms will surely eventuate. And yet: (3) Isn't it still permissible for us to run these repeated risks, despite that knowledge? After all, if it were not, then many of the risky activities that we standardly think permissible would in fact be impermissible. Nobody has yet offered a principle that can accommodate all of 1-3. In this paper, I show that we can accommodate all of these judgements, by taking into account both ex ante and ex post perspectives. In doing so, I clear aside an important obstacle to a viable deontological decision theory. (shrink)

The notion of rigidity looms large in philosophy of language, but is beset by difficulties. This paper proposes a simple theory of rigidity, according to which an expression has a world-relative semantic property rigidly when it has that property at, or with respect to, all worlds. Just as names, and certain descriptions like The square root of 4, rigidly designate their referents, so too are necessary truths rigidly true, and so too does cat rigidly have only animals in its extension. (...) After spelling out the theory, I argue that it enables us to avoid the headaches that attend the misbegotten desire to have a simple rigid/non-rigid distinction that applies to expressions, giving us a simple solution to the problem of generalizing the notion of rigidity beyond singular terms. (shrink)

Malaria is a life-threatening disease spread to humans by some types of mosquitoes. It is mostly found in tropical countries. It is preventable and curable. The infection is caused by a parasite and does not spread from person to person. Symptoms can be mild or life-threatening. Mild symptoms are fever, chills and headache. Severe symptoms include fatigue, confusion, seizures, and difficulty breathing. Infants, children under 5 years, pregnant women, travelers and people with HIV or AIDS are at higher risk of (...) severe infection. Discovering this disease is a good step for proper and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used in the diagnosis. Correctly, expert systems can greatly help to avoid spreading this disease. The expert system diagnoses malaria disease correctly to facilitate doctors to find the correct treatment based on the appropriate diagnosis. Objectives: An expert system has been established based on CLIPS to diagnose malaria disease. (shrink)

We sometimes experience pleasures and displeasures simultaneously: whenever we eat sfogliatelle while having a headache, whenever we feel pain fading away, whenever we feel guilty pleasure while enjoying listening to Barbara Streisand, whenever we are savouring a particularly hot curry, whenever we enjoy physical endurance in sport, whenever we are touched upon receiving a hideous gift, whenever we are proud of withstanding acute pain, etc. These are examples of what we call " mixed feelings ". Mixed feelings are cases in (...) which one and the same person experiences pleasure and displeasure at the same time. Mixed feelings raise two questions: (1) If pleasure and displeasure are contraries, how can mixed feelings be possible? (2) Does the excess of pleasure (or displeasure) that we feel when experiencing mixed feelings itself constitute a new feeling, that results from the co-occurrence of the first two? I will argue (1) that mixed feelings are possible and that their existence does not threaten the contrariety of pleasure and displeasure, and (2) that there are no resultant feelings: having a lot of pleasure and a little displeasure does not result in having additional mild pleasure. Finally, I will suggest (3) that although both false, scepticism towards the existence of mixed feelings, as well as the idea according to which resultant feelings exist, are inspired from a single and correct idea: that pleasure and displeasure do fuse in some cases. (shrink)

Interpersonal aggregation involves the combining and weighing of benefits and losses to multiple individuals in the course of determining what ought to be done. Most consequentialists embrace thoroughgoing interpersonal aggregation, the view that any large benefit to each of a few people can be morally outweighed by allocating any smaller benefit to each of many others, so long as this second group is sufficiently large. This would permit letting one person die in order to cure some number of mild (...) class='Hi'>headaches instead. Most non-consequentialists reject thoroughgoing interpersonal aggregation despite also believing it is permissible to let one person die in order to prevent many cases of paraplegia instead. Non-consequentialists defend this asymmetry largely on the basis of intuition, and some rely on the notion of relevance to formalize the grounding intuitions. This article seeks to clarify and strengthen the non-consequentialist notion of relevance by engaging with three objections to it. (shrink)

Most of us have experienced some, probably many, forms of bodily pain. Unless you were born with congenital insensitivity to pain, you’ve likely experienced at least toothaches, headaches, or backaches. -/- Pain experiences differ in intensity, quality, and duration. A toothache might be sharp and intense but fleeting, while a backache might be dull and aching yet more enduring. Despite these differences, there seems to be a common thread that unites toothaches, backaches, and so on—something that makes them all (...) pains. -/- This raises interesting philosophical questions: is pain physical or mental? What is the role of the pain system? And, is pain always unpleasant? -/- These questions are the focus of this essay. (shrink)

The notion of Hegel's Dialectic has been largely critiqued and thoroughly regarded as largely a headache in the realm of metaphysics. In this work, I made the attempt to navigate and substantiate the complexity of an adapted reiteration of those fundamental Dialectical notions in conjunction with a more focused description of Idealism that attempts to substantiate itself within the bounds of our current understanding of physics and QM. This papers goal is to serve more than anything as an entry point (...) for a discussion of metaphysical prospects in the vein of Hegelian Phenomenology and ways in which we can restructure such notions into a theory compatible with current understandings of material reality such that we may be able to make meaningful progress to unraveling more of the mysteries on the composition and unfolding of our reality. (shrink)

It is plausible to think that it is wrong to cure many people’s headaches rather than save someone else’s life. On the other hand, it is plausible to think that it is not wrong to expose someone to a tiny risk of death when curing this person’s headache. I will argue that these claims are inconsistent. For if we keep taking this tiny risk then it is likely that one person dies, while many others’ headaches are cured. In (...) light of this inconsistency, there is a conflict in our intuitions about beneficence and chance. This conflict is perplexing. And I have not been able to find a satisfactory way of resolving it. Perhaps you can do better? (shrink)

Migraine is a complex neurological disorder characterized by recurrent moderate to severe headaches, accompanied by additional symptoms such as nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, and visual disturbances. Accurate and timely diagnosis of migraines is crucial for effective management and treatment. However, the diverse range of symptoms and overlapping characteristics with other headache disorders pose challenges in the diagnostic process. In this research, we propose the development of an expert system for migraine diagnosis using artificial intelligence and the CLIPS (...) (C Language Integrated Production System) framework. The expert system utilizes a rule-based inference engine to analyze patient-reported symptoms and provide reliable diagnoses or probability scores indicating the likelihood of migraine. The knowledge base of the expert system is designed based on expert knowledge obtained from medical professionals specializing in migraines. The collected knowledge is translated into a structured format suitable for the CLIPS inference engine, incorporating rules and facts to represent the diagnostic criteria and associated symptoms. The system prompts users to provide relevant information about their symptoms, medical history, and potential triggers. It applies the defined rules and facts to evaluate the likelihood of migraine and generate accurate diagnoses or probability scores. Preliminary evaluation results demonstrate the potential of the expert system as a valuable tool for diagnosing migraines. A dataset of anonymized patient records with confirmed migraine cases was used to test the system. The diagnoses generated by the expert system were compared against the known diagnoses, and a high level of accuracy was observed, with 90% of cases correctly diagnosed as migraines. These results highlight the effectiveness and reliability of the system in assisting medical professionals in the diagnosis of migraines. The proposed expert system offers several advantages for migraine diagnosis. It leverages the collective knowledge and expertise of experienced migraine specialists, providing a standardized and consistent approach to diagnosis. The system can handle large amounts of patient data and effectively analyse complex relationships between symptoms, risk factors, and diagnostic criteria. Furthermore, it offers real-time feedback and recommendations, supporting medical professionals in their clinical decision-making process. Future work involves refining the expert system based on feedback from medical experts, expanding the knowledge base to encompass a wider range of symptoms and risk factors, and conducting further evaluations to enhance its accuracy and applicability in clinical settings. The development of an expert system for migraine diagnosis has the potential to improve the diagnostic process, leading to more effective management and treatment strategies for individuals suffering from migraines. (shrink)

Strawson (1994) and Peacocke (1992) introduced thought experiments that show that it seems intuitive that there is, in some way, an experiential character to mental events of understanding. Some (e.g., Siewert 1998, 2011; Pitt 2004) try to explain these intuitions by saying that just as we have, say, headache experiences and visual experiences of blueness, so too we have experiences of understanding. Others (e.g., Prinz 2006, 2011; Tye 1996) propose that these intuitions can be explained without positing experiences of understanding. (...) Call this the debate between Realism and Anti-Realism about experiences of understanding. This paper aims to advance that debate in two ways. In the first half, I develop more precise characterizations of what Realists and Anti-Realists propose. In the second half, I distinguish the four most plausible versions of Anti-Realism and argue that Realism better explains the target intuition than any of them does. (shrink)

Introduction: The Faculty of Medicine, University of Moratuwa, established during the COVID-19 pandemic, was compelled to conduct the teaching activities online for the first intake of students until their first bar examination. Online learning is known to be linked to several health issues. This study aims to explore the academic performance and perceived health effects related to online learning in the Faculty of Medicine, Moratuwa. Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among all 104 first-intake students using an anonymous online (...) self-administered questionnaire to explore health effects and academic performance after ethical clearance. Results: Out of 104 students, 82 students responded (response rate=78.85%). Majority participated from home using their own laptop (74.4%) and personal Wi-Fi (69.5%) and spent 5-10 hours daily for online academic activities (72%). Majority complained of related physical (86.6%), and psychological (81.7%) health issues: eye problems (69.5%), headache (47.6%), backache (43.9%), stress (46.3%) and concentration difficulties (45.1%). The first bar examination was cleared by 84.1% with the majority (52.4%) obtaining classes. There was a statistically significant positive association (p< .05) between physical and psychological health concerns with the average screen-time spent on academic activities, but not with the academic performance. There was also no statistically significant association between screen-time and academic performance. Conclusions: Majority of students using online learning had related physical and psychological health issues which were positively associated with the screen-time though not with academic performance. Designing online activities with less screen time may be considered as a strategy to minimise health effects related to online learning. (shrink)

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 (...) found the animal rights movement). In 1958 he noted that the brains of elephants and cetaceans were larger than ours, that we should not abuse them and that it was one our most important projects to communicate with them. He invented sensory isolation tanks (at NIMH in 1954) and used them extensively with and without powerful psychoactive drugs at a time when it was thought that either the brain would shut down or one would go insane if external stimuli were eliminated. He created methods for implanting electrodes in mammal brains and was planning to do it to himself. He was one of the first to make serious use of computers in bioscience research and created the hardware and software to make the first attempts to communicate with dolphins. He self experimented with dangerous physiological investigations in high altitude medicine for the military during WW2, took LSD with dolphins and movie stars, submitted himself to the rigors of various forms of yoga and of Arica training, and taught classes at Esalen. He was a computer pioneer who forsaw the rapid advances in A.I. and it's inevitable clash with humans. He was the first one to investigate the bizarre psychedelic ketamine (" vitamin K "), and his results (published in the two last chapters of his book `The Scientist`) are still the best data on the dose/effect relation of any psychedelic on one person. It cured his lifelong daily migraine headaches (see http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/UFOs/Gorightly.htm). And all this happened before most of us were born! He had courage, honesty and integrity that is rare anywhere and almost nonexistent in science. His goal was to find the ultimate truth about everything and he went about as far as anyone ever has. He had little patience with the stupid and hypocritical games one has to play to fit into monkey society. Of course the reaction of the establishment was predictable. He left the NIMH and was never given any government or academic support for the last 35 years of his life. His paper and comments at a conference on sensory deprivation were removed from the published version. He was not invited to government sponsored symposia on dolphins (he had refused to help develop them as weapons), though he clearly knew more about them than anyone in the world. He liked to live and work on the edge and few could keep up with him, as his books make clear. If you have read some of his other books it will be much easier going. He was a pioneer in consciousness research and pushed the boundaries of our understanding of who we are and what we might become. Among other things he catalogs the various states reached by drugs, meditation, and isolation, tries to determine their significance, and suggests how to use them. I very briefly review and comment on his life and work. -/- Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX -/- . (shrink)

This first piece of 2024 introduces some ideas concerning the role of non-linear thinking in today's fight against the climate crisis. More exactly, it is about the potential power of serendipity, artificial intelligence and the information deluge (that is causing headaches, too) when it comes to humankind's efforts to find solutions for the sake of surviving the paramount crisis.

According to pure imperativism, pain experiences are experiences of a specific phenomenal type that are entirely constituted by imperative content. As their primary argument, proponents of imperativism rely on the biological role that pain experiences fulfill, namely, the motivation of actions whose execution ensures the normal functioning of the body. In the paper, I investigate which specific types of action are of relevance for an imperative interpretation and how close their link to pain experiences actually is. I argue that, although (...) imperative theories constitute an apparently promising version of strong intentionalism, they cannot provide an imperative content that meets their own criteria of both sufficiency and necessity. I further argue that this issue cannot be solved by impure imperative theories either. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to obtain a baseline for clinical application of electroencephalography (EEG) in children and to evaluate the EEG findings in children with various acute and chronic central nervous system disorders and nonepileptic events. EEG records of 250 patients were studied in Neurophysiology Departments of Queen Rania Al-Abdullah Hospital for Children in Jordan. For each patient who had undergone EEG the following data were recorded: age, sex, source of referral (inpatient or outpatient department), reason for EEG, (...) diagnostic impressions, clinical presentation, the result of the EEG examinations and clinical correlation between the seizure type and EEG finding. Males (55%) were slightly outnumbered than females. The majority of cases were between 6-12 years. Total of 63.2% of all referrals for EEG were from outpatient clinics while inpatients accounted for 36.8% of referred cases, with Pediatric Neurology Department referrals being the highest (28.8%). Majority of diagnosis at referral were suspected epilepsy (80%) with epileptiform EEG abnormalities in 32%. Over all 64% the EEG records were normal, including all EEG records of children with syncope and headache. We conclude that there are many unnecessary routine EEG recordings in children. Investigation of epilepsy and acute encephalopathies appear to be the most valuable indications for routine pediatric EEG. EEG can be helpful in classification of seizures. Finding a way to reduce EEG requests is recommended. (shrink)

The bruxism is a medical sleep syndrome it is the remedial span for crushing the tines and gritting the jowl. Human rarely chore their tines and jowl, slightly than crushing their teeth lacking it producing any signals. The symptoms of bruxism are arduousness in the jowl joint, breakable teeth, headache, earache and difficulty in open in mouth etc. The causes of bruxism are snooze sickness, pressure and nervousness. The REM is a rapid eye movement it's a stages of sleep. The (...) EEG signal are used in the measurement of neuron, the alpha, beta, gamma, theta and delta wave are used in the prognostic of bruxism syndrome. It's used in MATLAB coding by the six steps in prognostic in bruxism. Md Belal Bin Heyat | Faijan Akhtar | Shadab Azad "Comparative Analysis of Original Wave & Filtered Wave of EEG signal Used in the Prognostic of Bruxism medical Sleep syndrome" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-1 | Issue-1 , December 2016,. (shrink)

“Avowals” are utterances that “ascribe [current] states of mind”; for instance utterances of ‘I have a terrible headache’ and ‘I’m finding this painting utterly puzzling’ (Bar-On 2004: 1). And avowals, “when compared to ordinary empirical reports…appear to enjoy distinctive security” (1), which Bar-On elaborates as follows: A subject who avows being tired, or scared of something, or thinking that p, is normally presumed to have the last word on the relevant matters; we would not presume to criticize her self-ascription or (...) to reject it on the basis of our contrary judgement. Furthermore, unlike ordinary empirical reports, and somewhat like apriori statements, avowals are issued with a very high degree of confidence and are not easily subjected to doubt. (3) The project of this ambitious, original, and challenging book is to explain why avowals have this distinctive security. Bar-On’s guiding idea is that avowals “can be seen as pieces of expressive behavior, similar in certain ways to bits of behavior that naturally express subjects’ states” (227). Crying and moaning are natural expressions of pain, yawning is a natural expression of tiredness, reaching for beer is a natural expression of the desire for beer, and so on. In some important sense, avowals are supposed to be like that. In what sense, though? It will be useful to begin with the simplest answer. (shrink)

Aims: The Research Diagnostic Criteria for Temporomandi¬bular Disorders (RDC/TMD) Axis I diagnostic algorithms were demonstrated to be reliable but below target sensitivity and specificity. Empirical data supported Axis I algorithm revisions that were valid. Axis II instruments were shown to be both reliable and valid. An international consensus workshop was convened to obtain recommendations and finalization of new Axis I diagnostic algorithms and new Axis II instruments. Methods: A comprehensive search of published TMD diagnostic literature was followed by review and (...) consensus via a formal structured process by a panel of experts for revision of the RDC/TMD. Results: The recommended Diagnostic Criteria for TMD (DC/TMD) Axis I protocol includes both a valid screener for pain diagnoses and valid criteria for the most common pain-related TMDs and for one intra-articular disorder. The Axis II protocol retains selected RDC/TMD screening instruments augmented with new instruments to better assess the interactions between pain and psychosocial functioning. A comprehensive classification system is also presented. Conclusion: The recommended evidence-based DC/TMD protocol is appropriate for use in both the clinical and research settings. Simple Axis I and II screening tests augmented by validated Axis I and Axis II instruments allow for identification of simple to complex TMD patients. (shrink)