Neuroscience investigates how neuronal processing circuits work, but it has problems explaining experiences this way. For example, it hasn’t explained how colour and shape circuits bind together in visual processing, nor why colours and other qualia are experienced so differently yet processed by circuits so similarly, nor how to get from processing circuits to pictorial images spread across inner space. Some theorists turn from these circuits to their electromagnetic fields to deal with such difficulties concerning the mind’s qualia, (...) unity, privacy, and causality. They include Kohler, Libet, Popper, Lindahl, Arhem, Charman, Pockett, John, McFadden, Fingelkurts, Maxwell, and Jones. They’re classifiable as computationalist, reductionist, dualist, realist, interactionist, epiphenomenalist, globalist, and localist. However, they’ve never been analysed together as a whole, which hinders evaluations of them. This article tries to rectify this. It concludes that while field theories face challenges, they aren’t easily dismissed, for they draw on considerable evidence and may avoid serious problems in neuroscience concerning the mind’s qualia, unity, causality, and ontology. (shrink)

How do brains create all our different colors, pains, and other conscious qualities? These various qualia are the most essential aspects of consciousness. Yet standard neuroscience (primarily based on synaptic information processing) has not found the synaptic-firing codes, sometimes described as the “spike code,” to account for how these qualia arise and how they unite to form complex perceptions, emotions, et cetera. Nor is it clear how to get from these abstract codes to the qualia we experience. But electromagnetic (...) field (versus synaptic) approaches to how qualia arise have been offered in recent years by Pockett, McFadden, Jones, Bond, Ward and Guevera, Keppler and Shani, Hunt and Schooler, et cetera. These EM-field approaches show promise in offering more viable accounts of qualia. Yet, until now, they have not been evaluated together. We review various EM field theories of qualia, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and contrast these theories with standard neuroscience approaches. -/- . (shrink)

In this chapter I examine seven clues to the nature of consciousness and explore what they reveal about the underlying physical substrate of consciousness. The consciousness clues are: it impacts upon the world; it is a property of living brains but no other structure; brain activity may be conscious or unconscious; the conscious mind appears to be serial; learning requires consciousness but recall doesn’t; conscious information is bound; and consciousness correlates with synchronous firing of neurons. I discuss field (...) theories of consciousness and introduce the conscious electromagnetic field (CEMI) theory that suggests that consciousness is a product of the brain’s electromagnetic field. I show that the CEMI field theory successfully accounts for each of the seven clues to the nature of consciousness. Finally, I show that although current quantum mechanical theories of consciousness are also field theories, they are physical untenable and should be discarded. (shrink)

Where is consciousness? Neurobiological theories of consciousness look primarily to synaptic firing and “spike codes” as the physical substrate of consciousness, although the specific mechanisms of consciousness remain unknown. Synaptic firing results from electrochemical processes in neuron axons and dendrites. All neurons also produce electromagnetic (EM) fields due to various mechanisms, including the electric potential created by transmembrane ion flows, known as “local field potentials,” but there are also more meso-scale and macro-scale EM fields present in the (...) brain. The functional role of these EM fields has long been a source of debate. We suggest that these fields, in both their local and global forms, may be the primary seat of consciousness, working as a gestalt with synaptic firing and other aspects of neuroanatomy to produce the marvelous complexity of minds. We call this assertion the “electromagnetic field hypothesis.” The neuroanatomy of the brain produces the local and global EM fields but these fields are not identical with the anatomy of the brain. These fields are produced by, but not identical with, the brain, in the same manner that twigs and leaves are produced by a tree’s branches and trunk but are not the same as the branches and trunk. As such, the EM fields represent the more granular, both spatially and temporally, aspects of the brain’s structure and functioning than the neuroanatomy of the brain. The brain’s various EM fields seem to be more sensitive to small changes than the neuroanatomy of the brain. We discuss issues with the spike code approach as well as the various lines of evidence supporting our argument that the brain’s EM fields may be the primary seat of consciousness. This evidence (which occupies most of the paper) suggests that oscillating neural EM fields may make firing in neural circuits oscillate, and these oscillating circuits. may help unify and guide conscious cognition. (shrink)

The human brain consists of approximately 100 billion electrically active neurones that generate an endogenous electromagnetic field, whose role in neuronal computing has not been fully examined. The source, magnitude and likely influence of the brain's endogenous em field are here considered. An estimate of the strength and magnitude of the brain's em field is gained from theoretical considerations, brain scanning and microelectrode data. An estimate of the likely influence of the brain's em field is (...) gained from theoretical principles and considerations of the experimental effects of external em fields on neurone firing both in vitro and in vivo. Synchronous firing of distributed neurones phase-locks induced em field fluctuations to increase their magnitude and influence. Synchronous firing has previously been demonstrated to correlate with awareness and perception, indicating that perturbations to the brain's em field also correlate with awareness. The brain's em field represents an integrated electromagnetic field representation of distributed neuronal information and has dynamics that closely map to those expected for a correlate of consciousness. I propose that the brain's em information field is the physical substrate of conscious awareness - the cemi field - and make a number of predictions that follow from this proposal. Experimental evidence pertinent to these predictions is examined and shown to be entirely consistent with the cemi field theory. This theory provides solutions to many of the intractable problems of consciousness - such as the binding problem - and provides new insights into the role of consciousness, the meaning of free will and the nature of qualia. It thus places consciousness within a secure physical framework and provides a route towards constructing an artificial consciousness. (shrink)

Computational neuroscience attributes coloured areas and other perceptual qualia to calculations that are realizable in multiple cellular forms. This faces serious issues in explaining how the various qualia arise and how they bind to form overall perceptions. Qualia may instead be neuroelectrical. Growing evidence indicates that perceptions correlate with neuroelectrical activity spotted by locally activated EEGs, the different qualia correlate with the different electrochemistries of unique detector cells, a unified neural-electromagnetic field binds this activity to form overall perceptions, (...) and this field interacts with sensory circuits to help attentively guide perception. The coloured areas in images may thus be seated in the electrochemistry of unique cells, while constancy mechanisms and other multiply realizable computations just help refine these images behind the scenes. This theory is ultimately testable. (shrink)

The ascription of desires or beliefs to other people is a milestone of human sociality. It allows us to understand, explain, and predict human behaviour. During the last years, research on children's knowledge about the mental world, better known as theory of mind research, has become a central topic in developmental psychology and the role of cultural impact is subject of various theoretical yet hitherto few empirical accounts. This book is the result of intensive collaboration between anthropologists and psychologists (...) in the field of cross-cultural research on social cognitive development. Five interdisciplinary research teams, coming from the University of Heidelberg, were investigating five Pacific Island societies. All together, they were interested in the question of how and when children in these different cultures come to assign mental states to others. This unique research project combines sound ethnography of different Pacific cultures with thoroughly conducted experimental work, done by developmental psychologists; it presents a shared, thoughtful analysis of the results and provides deeper insight into current debates on the ontogeny of theory of mind competencies. (shrink)

Theory of everything must include consciousness. In this Part I of the series of three articles, we introduce the subjective experience (SE) and/or proto‐experience (PE) aspect of consciousness in classical physics, where PEs are precursors of SEs. In our dualaspect‐ dual‐mode PE‐SE framework, it was hypothesized that fundamental entities (strings or elementary particles: fermions and bosons) have two aspects: (i) material aspect such as mass, charge, spin, and space‐time, and (ii) mental aspect, such as experiences. There are three competing hypotheses: (...) (1) superposition based H1 (SEs/PEs are superposed in the mental aspect of entities; when a specific stimulus is presented to the neural‐network, the associated specific SE is selected by the matching and selection process and experienced by this network), (2) superposition‐then‐integration based H2 (only PEs are superposed, which are integrated by neural‐Darwinism leading to specific SEs) and (3) integration based H3 (each entity has its own PE, which keeps on transforming appropriately as matter evolves from elementary particles to neuralnetworks; it is a dual‐aspect panpsychism). We found that the followings, in classical physics, are invariant under the PE‐SE transformation: electromagnetic strength tensor, electromagnetic stress‐energy tensor, the electromagnetic theory (Maxwell's equations), Newtonian gravitational field, the entropic force, Special and General Theory of Relativity. Our analysis suggests that (i) SEs are embedded in space‐time geometry for the structure of space‐time (empty space or the vacuum without matter). (ii) For matter field, SEs can move with spatiotemporal coordinates of matter because it is in the mental aspect of matter as both mental and material aspects are always together in the dual‐aspect‐dual‐mode optimal PE‐SE framework. (iii) Our specific SE is the result of matching and selection processes and can change with space and time. For example, the experience redness has V4/V8/VO‐red‐green neural‐network with rednessstate as neural correlates. When a subject moves, the specific SE redness also moves with the subject’s correlated neural‐network. In addition, SEs can change with time as stimuli change. In other words, SEs in a subject change with space‐time. We conclude that it is possible to introduce the SE/PE aspect of consciousness in classical physics. In Parts II and III, the SE aspect of consciousness will be introduced in orthodox quantum physics and modern quantum physics (such as loop quantum gravity and string theory), respectively. Thus, the introduction of the SE aspect of consciousness in physics leads us to unify consciousness with known four fundamental forces, which entails towards a theory of everything. (shrink)

In the April 2002 edition of JCS I outlined the conscious electromagnetic information field theory, claiming that consciousness is that component of the brain's electromagnetic field that is downloaded to motor neurons and is thereby capable of communicating its informational content to the outside world. In this paper I demonstrate that the theory is robust to criticisms. I further explore implications of the theory particularly as regards the relationship between electromagnetic fields, information, the phenomenology of (...) consciousness and the meaning of free will. Using cemi field theory I propose a working hypothesis that shows, among other things, that awareness and information represent the same phenomenon viewed from different reference frames. (shrink)

In recent years, the economics of emotions (EoE) field, which aims to create models of the human mind, has grown quickly. EoE models work well with simulation theory (ST), which is one of the main theories of mind. EoE models show how people's behavior and emotions change based on their knowledge and perception of others. It is hoped that by developing this model, it will be possible to quantitatively analyze not only the mental states of real (...) others, but also the subtleties of the minds of characters in novels in the future. Until now, the decision-making or the factual-reasoning mechanisms have been a black box in ST. This study analyzes how EoE models add to the understanding of ST. (shrink)

In earlier papers I described the conscious electromagnetic information (CEMI) field theory, which claimed that the substrate of consciousness is the brain’s electromagnetic (EM) field. I here further explore this theory by examining the properties and dynamics of the information underlying meaning in consciousness. I argue that meaning suffers from a binding problem, analogous to the binding problem described for visual perception, and describe how the gestalt (holistic) properties of meaning give rise to this binding problem. (...) To clarify the role of information in conscious meaning, I differentiate between extrinsic information that is symbolic and arbitrary, and intrinsic information, which preserves structural aspects of the represented object and thereby maintains some gestalt properties of the represented object. I contrast the requirement for a decoding process to extract meaning from extrinsic information, whereas meaning is intrinsic to the structure of the gestalt intrinsic information and does not require decoding. I thereby argue that to avoid the necessity of a decoding homunculus, conscious meaning must be encoded intrinsically — as gestalt information — in the brain. Moreover, I identify fields as the only plausible substrate for encoding gestalt intrinsic information and argue that the binding problem of meaning can only be solved by grounding meaning in this field-based gestalt information. I examine possible substrates for gestalt information in the brain and conclude that the only plausible substrate is the CEMI field. (shrink)

Several theories of consciousness first described about a decade ago, including the conscious electromagnetic information (CEMI) field theory, claimed that the substrate of consciousness is the brain’s electromagnetic (EM) field. These theories were prompted by the observation, in many diverse systems, that synchronous neuronal firing, which generates coherent EM fields, was a strong correlate of attention, awareness, and consciousness. However, when these theories were first described there was no direct evidence that synchronous firing (...) was actually functional, rather than an epiphenomenon of brain function. Additionally, any EM field-based consciousness would be a ‘ghost in the machine’ unless the brain’s endogenous EM field is also able to influence neuron firing. Once again, when these theories were first described, there was only indirect evidence that the brain’s EM field influenced neuron firing patterns in the brain. In this paper I describe recent experimental evidence which demonstrate that synchronous neuronal firing does indeed have a functional role in the brain; and also that the brain’s endogenous EM field is involved in recruiting neurons to synchronously firing networks. The new data point to a new and unappreciated form of neural communication in the brain that is likely to have significance for all theories of consciousness. I describe an extension of the CEMI field theory that incorporates these recent experimental findings and integrates the theory with the ‘communication through coherence’ hypothesis. (shrink)

Critique of Sarcastic Reason is a philosophical dissertation that combines several different fields in order to pave the way for those studying sarcasm at the neurobiological, communicative and socio-political levels of analysis where sarcasm appears, respectively, through associated brain activity, between two or more individuals with higher level metabeliefs, and as a method by which political, religious and other social ideologies are attacked (i.e., one form of "biting sarcasm"). The academic disciplines involved in Critique of Sarcastic Reason include social cognitive (...) and developmental psychology, neuroscience, critical theory, modern and contemporary philosophy of mind, evolutionary biology, logic, metaphysics and epistemology. Sarcasm is argued to only function at the highest levels of metacognition, and sarcasm occurs within social situations during which there are tendencies for two or more people to form desires and disgusts directly related to beliefs about beliefs. Sarcasm is compared to deception and is argued to be best analyzed as either spontaneous or rehearsed. (shrink)

Gravitation is interpreted to be an “ontomathematical” force or interaction rather than an only physical one. That approach restores Newton’s original design of universal gravitation in the framework of “The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy”, which allows for Einstein’s special and general relativity to be also reinterpreted ontomathematically. The entanglement theory of quantum gravitation is inherently involved also ontomathematically by virtue of the consideration of the qubit Hilbert space after entanglement as the Fourier counterpart of pseudo-Riemannian space. Gravitation can be (...) also interpreted as purely mathematical or logical “force” or “interaction” as a corollary from its ontomathematical (rather than physical) realization. The ontomathematical approach to gravitation is implicit in general relativity equating it to operators in pseudo-Riemannian space obeying the Einstein field equation and also well-known by the “geometrization of physics”. Quantum mechanics shares the same by the separable complex Hilbert space and defining “physical quantity” by the Hermitian operators on it. One can interpret special Minkowski space involved by special relativity and the qubit Hilbert space of quantum information as Fourier counterparts immediately noticing that general relativity means gravitation as the Fourier counterpart of non-Hermitian operators implying non-unitarity and the violation of energy conservation and thus destroying Pauli’s particle paradigm. Since the Standard model obeys it, this explains the impossibility of “quantum gravitation” in any framework conservatively generalizing the Standard model so that it would include gravitation along with electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions. Einstein’s geometrization of gravitation can be continued into a purely mathematical theory of it following Euclid’s realization for geometry to be exhaustively built in a deductive and axiomatic way as well as Riemann’s parametrization of all the class of Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometries by “space curvature”, then being generalized to Minkowski space as the operators on pseudo-Riemannian space as the Einstein field equation means gravitation. The transition from mathematical gravitation to logical one can rely on the historical lesson of the pair of Lobachevski’s and Riemann’s approaches now “reversely”, i.e., from the latter to the former. Logical gravitation is linkable to Hegel’s dialectical logic and ontological dialectics abandoning their interpretations as a new zero logic substituting classical propionyl logic. The approach of ontomathematics generalizing that of ontology, traceable even to Aristotle’s reformation of Plato’s doctrine, needs Hegel’s doctrine to be formalized as a first-order logic naturally containing Boolean algebra, isomorphic to both classical propositional logic and set theory being the class of all first-order logics, as a sub-logic along with Peano arithmetic as another sub-logic. The first-order logic at issue is called Hilbert arithmetic and elaborated in detail in other papers. It allows for both self-foundation of mathematics to be internally proved as complete and furthermore, quantum mechanics reinterpreted as quantum information to be included by the qubit Hilbert space interpretable in turn as a dual and physical counterpart of Hilbert arithmetic in a narrow sense, that is, both counterparts constitute Hilbert arithmetic in a wide sense, being mathematical and physical simultaneously and thus overcoming the Cartesian dualism of “body” gapped from “mind” by an abyss. Then, the proper philosophical interpretation of gravitation to be the fundamental ontomathematical force or interaction overcomes the ridiculous belief of the Big Bang wrongly alleged to be a scientific theory. Ontomathematical gravitation suggests an omnipresent and omnitemporal medium of “God’s” creation “ex nihilo” following only the natural necessity of quantum-information conservation particularly and locally manifested as energy conservation. (shrink)

Currently there are at least four sizeable projects going on to establish the gravitational acceleration of massive antiparticles on earth. While general relativity and modern quantum theories strictly forbid any repulsive gravity, it has not yet been established experimentally that gravity is attraction only. With that in mind, the Elementary Process Theory (EPT) is a rather abstract theory that has been developed from the hypothesis that massive antiparticles are repulsed by the gravitational field of a body of (...) ordinary matter: the EPT essentially describes the elementary processes by which the smallest massive systems have to interact with their environments for repulsive gravity to exist. In this paper we model a nonrelativistic, one-component massive system that evolves in time by the processes as described by the EPT in an environment described by classical fields: the main result is a semi-classical model of a process at Planck scale by which a non-relativistic onecomponent system interacts with its environment, such that the interaction has both gravitational and electromagnetic aspects. Some worked-out examples are provided, among which the repulsion of an antineutron by the gravitational field of the earth. The general conclusion is that the semi-classical model of the EPT corresponds to non-relativistic classical mechanics. Further research is aimed at demonstrating that the EPT has a model that reproduces the successful predictions of general relativity. (shrink)

Abstract: Standing half wave particles at light speed twice in expansion-contraction comprise a static universe where two transverse fields 90° out of phase are the square of distance from each other. The universe has a static concept of time since the infinite universe is a static universe without a beginning or end. The square of distance is a point of reversal in expansion-contraction between the fields as a means to conserve energy. Photons on expansion in the electric field create (...) matter energy while photons on contraction in the magnetic field create light energy and gravitational pull toward the higher frequency energy. Also, the universe with matter has a moving physical concept of time from gravitational pull on expansion-contraction. (shrink)

In recent years, the human ability to reasoning about mental states of others in order to explain and predict their behavior has come to be a highly active area of research. Researchers from a wide range of fields { from biology and psychology through linguistics to game theory and logic{ contribute new ideas and results. This interdisciplinary workshop, collocated with the Thirteenth International Conference on Theoretical Aspects of Rationality and Knowledge (TARK XIII), aims to shed light on models of social (...) reasoning that take into account realistic resource bounds. People reason about other people's mental states in order to understand and predict the others' behavior. This capability to reason about others' knowledge, beliefs and intentions is often referred to as theory of mind. Idealized rational agents are capable of recursion in their social reasoning, and can reason about phenomena like common knowledge. Such idealized social reasoning has been modeled by modal logics such as epistemic logic and BDI (belief, desire, intention) logics and by epistemic game theory. However, in real-world situations, many people seem to lose track of such recursive social reasoning after only a few levels. The workshop provides a forum for researchers that attempt to analyze, understand and model how resource-bounded agents reason about other minds. (shrink)

Philosophy of Mind is usualy seen as the theoretical field in which theories about the functioning of the mind are elaborated, to be afterwards empirically tested through Artificial Intelligence. But this empirical approach does not fit the human mind which is not simply a machine. It is therefore possible to see Philosophy of Mind as a necessary creation to empty AI of its philosophical charge.

Both mindreading and stereotyping are forms of social cognition that play a pervasive role in our everyday lives, yet too little attention has been paid to the question of how these two processes are related. This paper offers a theory of the influence of stereotyping on mental-state attribution that draws on hierarchical predictive coding accounts of action prediction. It is argued that the key to understanding the relation between stereotyping and mindreading lies in the fact that stereotypes centrally involve character-trait (...) attributions, which play a systematic role in the action–prediction hierarchy. On this view, when we apply a stereotype to an individual, we rapidly attribute to her a cluster of generic character traits on the basis of her perceived social group membership. These traits are then used to make inferences about that individual’s likely beliefs and desires, which in turn inform inferences about her behavior. (shrink)

The topic of this article is consciousness and, in it, I will theorize what consciousness is like and where it arises from. The work began to emerge and develop over time starting from my belief that consciousness is a physical self-referential phenomenon; thus, my attention was focused on the research for a self-referential process. I was confident that I could satisfy my curiosity through the reductionist method adopted by science. Unfortunately, neuroscientists and philosophers of mind realized that the attempts (...) to explain consciousness with this method have all proved inconclusive. For this reason, they are now trying to address the problem of consciousness with non-reductionist methods. As for me, I have always remained faithful to reductionism, but with the conviction that quantum mechanics, even though capable of making predictions with an extraordinary degree of accuracy, is a theory founded on wrong concepts. Thus, surprisingly, I have found a solution to the mystery of consciousness, perceiving a way to explain what it is like at its fundamental level in the field of quantum mechanics and, particularly, in one of its counterintuitive and generally less debated aspects among physicists today, but which aroused great interest in me: I am referring to the spin of the electron that will be described in this paper as a self-interacting process. This paper will also offer a rational explanation of the results obtainable in all experiments for measuring the spin of electrons through Stern-Gerlach magnets. In addition, my theory of consciousness is susceptible to experimental control. (shrink)

The review of the theory of electromagnetic field together with the special and general theories of relativity has been made. The similar theory of gravitation has been presented which has the property of Lorentz-invariancy in its own representation in which the information is transferred at the speed of propagation of the gravitational field. Generalization of the specified gravitation theory on noninertial reference systems has been made with the help of the mathematical apparatus of the general relativity. (...) It allows to avoid some drawbacks of the standard general relativity theory and to expand its applicability. The possibility of complementary descriptions of the physical phenomena with the help of simultaneous use of the theories of gravitational and electromagnetic fields has been shown. (shrink)

This physics note entails a summary of an extended form of Eccles-Cartesian Interactive Dualism mind-body-multiverse paradigm called Noetic Field Theory: The Quantization of Mind (NFT), distinguished as a paradigm because it is comprehensive and empirically testable. NFT posits not only that the brain is not the seat of awareness but also that neither classical nor quantum mechanics are sufficient to describe mind as the required regime entails the new physics associated with Unified Field, UF Mechanics. (...) This means that the brain is merely a transducer (form of quantum computer) mediating mentation, sensory data and metabolic function. The so-called ‘Hard Problem’ of cognitive science arises as a category error in philosophy of mind, i.e. an incorrect posit of the question “what processes in the brain give rise to awareness” which instead should simply be queried “what processes give rise to awareness”. In the history of science whenever a hard problem has arisen it has later been shown that the underlying principles had not been understood. NFT posits these underlying principles in a comprehensive empirically testable manner solving the ancient mind-body problem in a manner that enables breaking the 1st person 3rd person barrier able to explain Psi-phenomena. The premise is that the mind-body is a naturally occurring form of ‘conscious quantum computer’ (QC), not that the QC is conscious but that it is modelled after those principles. Such QC technologies could lead to routine telepathic effect devices. (shrink)

Unifying physics by describing a variety of interactions – or even all interactions – within a common framework has long been an alluring goal for physicists. One of the most ambitious attempts at unification was made in the 1910s by Gustav Mie. Mie aimed to derive electromagnetism, gravitation, and aspects of the emerging quantum theory from a single variational principle and a well-chosen Lagrangian. Mie’s main innovation was to consider nonlinear field equations to allow for stable particle-like solutions (now (...) called solitons), and he clarified the use of variational principles in the context of special relativity. The following brief introduction to Mie’s work has three main objectives. The first is to explain how Mie’s project fit into the contemporary development of the electromagnetic world view. Part of Mie’s project was to develop a relativistic theory of gravitation as a consequence of his generalized electromagnetic theory, and our second goal is to briefly assess this work, which reflects the conceptual resources available for developing a new account of gravitation by analogy with electromagnetism. Finally, Mie was a vocal critic of other approaches to the problem of gravitation. Mie’s criticisms of Einstein, in particular, bring out the subtlety and novelty of the ideas that Einstein used to guide his development of general relativity. (shrink)

I argue for a soft compatibilist theory of free will, i.e., such that free will is compatible with both determinism and indeterminism, directly opposite hard incompatibilism, which holds free will incompatible both with determinism and indeterminism. My intuitions in this book are primarily based on an analysis of meditation, but my arguments are highly syncretic, deriving from many fields, including behaviorism, psychology, conditioning and deconditioning theory, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, simulation theory, etc. I offer a causal/functional analysis (...) of meta-mental control, or 'metacausality', cashed out in counterfactual terms, to solve what I call the easy problem of free will. (shrink)

It presents the basics of the “Relativistic theory of gravitation”, with the inclusion of original texts, from various papers, published between 1987 and 2009, by theirs authors: S. S Gershtein, A. A. Logunov, Yu. M. Loskutov and M. A. Mestvirishvili, additionally, together with the introductions, summaries and conclusions of the author of this paper. The “Relativistic theory of gravitation” is a gauge theory, compatible with the theories of quantum physics of the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces, which defines (...) gravity as the fourth force existing in nature, as a static field equipped with the transmitter particles of the virtual gravitons of spins 2 and 0, within the spirit of Galilei's principle of relativity, in his generalization of Poincaré's Special Relativity that allowed the authors to universalize that the physical laws of nature are complied with regardless of the frames of reference where they apply, integrated into the Grossmann-Einstein Entwurf theory, in its further development, by those authors, therefore, this theory preserves the conservation laws of energy-impulse and angular impulse of the gravitational field jointly to the other material fields existing in nature, in the Riemann's effective spacetime, through its identity with Minkowski's pseudo Euclidean spacetime. (shrink)

It presents the basics of the “Relativistic theory of gravitation”, with the inclusion of original texts, from various papers, published between 1987 and 2009, by theirs authors: S. S Gershtein, A. A. Logunov, Yu. M. Loskutov and M. A. Mestvirishvili, additionally, together with the introductions, summaries and conclusions of the author of this paper. The “Relativistic theory of gravitation” is a gauge theory, compatible with the theories of quantum physics of the electromagnetic, weak and strong forces, which defines (...) gravity as the fourth force existing in nature, as a static field equipped with the transmitter particles of the virtual gravitons of spins 2 and 0, within the spirit of Galilei's principle of relativity, in his generalization of Poincaré's Special Relativity that allowed the authors to universalize that the physical laws of nature are complied with regardless of the frames of reference where they apply, integrated into the Grossmann-Einstein Entwurf theory, in its further development, by those authors, therefore, this theory preserves the conservation laws of energy-impulse and angular impulse of the gravitational field jointly to the other material fields existing in nature, in the Riemann's effective spacetime, through its identity with Minkowski's pseudo Euclidean spacetime. (shrink)

We show that in the Maxwell–Lorentz theory of classical electrodynamics most initial values for fields and particles lead to an ill-defined dynamics, as they exhibit singularities or discontinuities along light-cones. This phenomenon suggests that the Maxwell equations and the Lorentz force law ought rather to be read as a system of delay differential equations, that is, differential equations that relate a function and its derivatives at different times. This mathematical reformulation, however, leads to physical and philosophical consequences for the ontological (...) status of the electromagnetic field. In particular, fields cannot be taken as independent degrees of freedom, which suggests that one should not add them to the ontology. (shrink)

Evidence that minds are neural electromagnetic fields comes from research into how separate brain activities bind to form unified percepts and unified minds. Explanations of binding using synchrony, attention, and convergence are all problematic. But the unity of EM fields explains binding without these problems. These unified fields neatly explain correlations and divergences between synchrony, attention, convergence, and unified minds. The simplest explanation for the unity of both minds and fields is that minds are fields. Treating minds as the (...) fields' underlying, intrinsic nature has the further virtue of avoiding mind-body problems. There's also rising evidence that EM fields interact with brains. McFadden argues here that fields help shift the focus of attention by initiating synchrony in different neural networks, which boosts their own fields and thereby binds their activity. This evidence that minds are fields that bind and guide brain activities supports free will over epiphenomenalism and supervenience. (shrink)

How do separate brain processes bind to form unified, conscious percepts? This is the perceptual binding problem, which straddles neuroscience and psychology. In fact, two problems exist here: (1) the easy problem of how neural processes are unified, and (2) the hard problem of how this yields unified perceptual consciousness. Binding theories face familiar troubles with (1) and they do not come to grips with (2). This paper argues that neuroelectrical (electromagnetic-field) approaches may help with both problems. (...) Concerning the easy problem, standard accounts of neural binding by synchrony, attention, and convergence raise serious difficulties. These are avoided by neuroelectrical approaches in which the brain’s field binds distributed processes in myriad neurons. Concerning the hard problem, binding theories do not squarely address how to get from neural unity to unified consciousness. This raises metaphysical difficulties involving reductions, emergence, etc. Neuroelectrical (and Russellian) approaches may help avoid these difficulties too. These approaches may thus deserve further investigation as binding theories. (shrink)

This paper deals with the study of the nature of mind, its processes and its relations with the other filed known as logic, especially the contribution of most notable contemporary analytical philosophy Ludwig Wittgenstein. Wittgenstein showed a critical relation between the mind and logic. He assumed that every mental process is logical. Mental field is field of space and time and logical field is a field of reasoning (inductive and deductive). It is only with (...) the advancement in logic, we are today in the era of scientific progress and technology. Logic played an important role in the cognitive part or we can say in the ‗philosophy of mind‘ that this branch is developed only because of three crucial theories i.e. rationalism, empiricism, and criticism. In this paper, it is argued that innate ideas or truth are equated with deduction and acquired truths are related with induction. This article also enhance the role of language in the makeup of the world of mind, although mind and the thought are the terms that are used by the philosophers synonymously but in this paper they are taken and interpreted differently. It shows the development in the analytical tradition subjected to the areas of mind and logic and their critical relation. (shrink)

The study of animal cognition raises profound questions about the minds of animals and philosophy of mind itself. Aristotle argued that humans are the only animal to laugh, but in recent experiments rats have also been shown to laugh. In other experiments, dogs have been shown to respond appropriately to over two hundred words in human language. In this introduction to the philosophy of animal minds Kristin Andrews introduces and assesses the essential topics, problems and debates as they cut (...) across animal cognition and philosophy of mind. She addresses the following key topics: what is cognition, and what is it to have a mind? What questions should we ask to determine whether behaviour has a cognitive basis? the science of animal minds explained: ethology, behaviourist psychology, and cognitive ethology rationality in animals animal consciousness: what does research into pain and the emotions reveal? What can empirical evidence about animal behaviour tell us about philosophical theories of consciousness? does animal cognition involve belief and concepts; do animals have a ‘Language of Thought’? animal communication other minds: do animals attribute ‘mindedness’ to other creatures? moral reasoning and ethical behaviour in animals animal cognition and memory. Extensive use of empirical examples and case studies is made throughout the book. These include Cheney and Seyfarth’s ververt monkey research, Thorndike’s cat puzzle boxes, Jensen’s research into humans and chimpanzees and the ultimatum game, Pankseep and Burgdorf’s research on rat laughter, and Clayton and Emery’s research on memory in scrub-jays. Additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind, animal cognition. It will also be an excellent resource for those in fields such as ethology, biology and psychology. (shrink)

A key failing in contemporary philosophy of mind is the lack of attention paid to evolutionary theory in its research projects. Notably, where evolution is incorporated into the study of mind, the work being done is often described as philosophy of cognitive science rather than philosophy of mind. Even then, whereas possible implications of the evolution of human cognition are taken more seriously within the cognitive sciences and the philosophy of cognitive science, its relevance for cognitive science (...) has only been appreciated relatively recently, and the approach still comes in for some major criticism from prominent theorists within the field. This paper explores some of the reasons for this state of affairs and finds that it might have less to do with due consideration and well-founded scepticism about the relevance of evolutionary theory to these disciplines and more to do with historical accident and faulty assumptions on the part of key theorists in these disciplines. It is also noted that where cognitive scientists are taking evolution into account in their work on the mind, they straying more and more into domains that used to fall exclusively under the purview of philosophy of mind as it is traditionally conceived – qualia, consciousness, perception, intentionality and so forth. The point is made that in ignoring the work being done on the evolution of mind, philosophy of mind runs the risk of becoming obsolete. (shrink)

I respond to an argument presented by Daniel Povinelli and Jennifer Vonk that the current generation of experiments on chimpanzee theory of mind cannot decide whether chimpanzees have the ability to reason about mental states. I argue that Povinelli and Vonk's proposed experiment is subject to their own criticisms and that there should be a more radical shift away from experiments that ask subjects to predict behavior. Further, I argue that Povinelli and Vonk's theoretical commitments should lead them to (...) accept this new approach, and that experiments which offer subjects the opportunity to look for explanations for anomalous behavior should be explored. (shrink)

This challenging paper presents an ingenious argument for a functionalist theory of mind. Part of the argument: My visual cortex at the back of my brain processes the stimulation to my eyes and then causes other parts of the brain - like the speech centre and the areas involved in thought and movement - to be properly responsive to vision. According to functionalism the whole mental character of vision - the whole of how things look - is fixed purely (...) in the pattern of responses to vision and not in any of the initial processing of vision in the visual cortex. That this functionalist theory of vision is true can be proved with alarming ease. Imagine that just the left side of my visual cortex is replaced by a gadget that has precisely the same input/output relationship to the rest of the brain as the left visual cortex had. According to any view but functionalism, the character of my vision on the right side of my visual field (normally processed by the left visual cortex) would change radically with this change in all the intrinsic properties involved in the visual cortex, with this preservation of nothing but its functional role in bringing about my responses to vision. But, say I, we have enough here to be sure that in such a case there could be no change in the character of my vision. For we know by the stipulation of sameness of output that my responses in speech, thought and movement to the right side of my visual field will be precisely the same as they would have been with the natural left visual cortex and will harmonise just as they would have done with my responses to the other side of my vision. But if half my vision had disappeared or changed I’d be speaking, thinking and acting like someone with problems on the right side of his vision. It is impossible to separate my responses to vision from the character of my vision. The character of my vision is logically determined by the pattern of responses - by nothing but the functional role of my vision. (shrink)

The current technoscientific progress has led to a sectorization in the philosophy of science. Today the philosophy of science isn't is informal interested in studying old problems about the general characteristics of scientific practice. The interest of the philosopher of science is the study of concepts, problems and riddles of particular disciplines. Then, within this progress of philosophy of science, neuroscientific research stands out, because it invades issues traditionally addressed by the humanities, such as the nature of consciousness, action, knowledge, (...) normativity, etc. As a result, the new area of interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy arises: neurophilosophy. This emerging area applies neuroscientific concepts to traditional philosophical questions, limiting their responses to neuroscientific revelations about nervous systems. Neurophilosophy research focuses on problems related to the indirect nature of mind and brain, computational or representative analysis of brain process, relationships between psychological and neuroscientific research, adequate adaptations of physical and philosophical concepts in neuroscience and the place of cognitive functions. Now, the temporal representation of conscious experience and the types of the neural architecture to represent objects in time have aroused scientific interest. Under these interests, we focus on the studies on the temporary triadic structure of phenomenological consciousness in Dan Lloyd and Rick Grush. From Grush’s studies, the importance of Kantian ideas for cognitive neuroscience emerges, due to the active way in which Kant conceived space and time as forms of intuition, within which the mind interprets its experience. Under this perspective, the theoretical arguments of Dennett-Kinsbourne and Eagleman-Sejnowski represent winks in the direction of Kant-Husserl within the neuroscientific goal while considering that the contents provided by the mind included space, objects and perception of causal relationships. Then, theories of cognitive neuroscience are beginning to suggest that these elements are also, as Kant argued, interpretative elaborations provided by mind / brain, and not only content received from outside. In other words, current cognitive neuroscientific theories try to pass from its Humean phase to a Kantian phase. So, the challenge has been to explain that these elements are provided by the mind and the world itself, and how they have the content they have come from. These are lacking in current studies. Filling this gap helps to involve the analysis of the scientist’s experience in his theoretical attitude. In this sense, an investigation under the Kantian-Husserlian approach that involves pure intuitions a priori with the experience of the scientific and neuroscientific concepts represents a ground-breaking. At present, a neurophilosophical study about this does not exist. In this sense, one feasible proposal for research would be based on the application of neuroscientific results of Moser-Britt to philosophical problems of foundational notions in relativistic physics: space, time, space-time, field, etc., under the Kantian-Husserlian approach, which allows to demonstrate the multidisciplinary link between neurophilosophy and physics. This represents a ground-breaking area in current interests in scientific research, with a positive impact in the field of neuroscience, and contributing to the study of abstraction emphasizing the importance of Kant’s Copernican turn and Husserl’s phenomenological ideas in the construction of physical theories. -/- . (shrink)

Comparative cognition researchers have long been interested in the nature of nonhuman animal social capacities. One capacity has received prolonged attention: mindreading, or “theory of mind” as it’s also called, is often seen to be the ability to attribute mental states to others in the service of predicting and explaining behavior. This attention is garnered in no small measure from interest into what accounts for the distinctive features of human social cognition and what are the evolutionary origins of those (...) features. This entry surveys: (1) main hypotheses concerning the adaptive value of mindreading, (2) theoretical problems complicating our ability to determine whether nonhuman animals mindread, and finally (3) proposals that mindreading is a plural rather than unitary cognitive system. (shrink)

The boundary problem is related to the binding problem, part of a family of puzzles and phenomenal experiences that theories of consciousness (ToC) must either explain or eliminate. By comparison with the phenomenal binding problem, the boundary problem has received very little scholarly attention since first framed in detail by Rosengard in 1998, despite discussion by Chalmers in his widely cited 2016 work on the combination problem. However, any ToC that addresses the binding problem must also address the boundary (...) problem. The binding problem asks how a unified first person perspective (1PP) can bind experiences across multiple physically distinct activities, whether billions of individual neurons firing or some other underlying phenomenon. To a first approximation, the boundary problem asks why we experience hard boundaries around those unified 1PPs and why the boundaries operate at their apparent spatiotemporal scale. We review recent discussion of the boundary problem, identifying several promising avenues but none that yet address all aspects of the problem. We set out five specific boundary problems to aid precision in future efforts. We also examine electromagnetic (EM) field theories in detail, given their previous success with the binding problem, and introduce a feature with the necessary characteristics to address the boundary problem at a conceptual level. Topological segmentation can, in principle, create exactly the hard boundaries desired, enclosing holistic, frame-invariant units capable of effecting downward causality. The conclusion outlines a programme for testing this concept, describing how it might also differentiate between competing EM ToCs. (shrink)

In everyday life it is often important to have a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, desires, and intentions of other people. Sometimes it is even useful to to have a correct model of their model of our own mental states: a second-order Theory of Mind. In order to investigate to what extent adults use and acquire complex skills and strategies in the domains of Theory of Mind and the related skill of natural language use, we conducted an (...) experiment. It was based on a strategic game of imperfect information, in which it was beneficial for participants to have a good mental model of their opponent, and more specifically, to use second-order Theory of Mind. It was also beneficial for them to be aware of pragmatic inferences and of the possibility to choose between logical and pragmatic language use. We found that most participants did not seem to acquire these complex skills during the experiment when being exposed to the game for a number of different trials. Nevertheless, some participants did make use of advanced cognitive skills such as second-order Theory of Mind and appropriate choices between logical and pragmatic language use from the beginning. Thus, the results differ markedly from previous research. (shrink)

The birth of a new science is long, drawn out, and often fairly messy. Comparative psychology has its roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man, was fertilized in academic psychology departments, and has branched across the universities into departments of biology, anthropology, primatology, zoology, and philosophy. Both the insights and the failings of comparative psychology are making their way into contemporary discussions of artificial intelligence and machine learning (Chollett 2019; Lapuschkin et al. 2019; Watson 2019). It is the right time to (...) turn a philosophical lens onto the methodologies of comparative psychology. That is the aim of this Element. -/- Comparative psychology is the umbrella covering the different ways scientists study animal mind and behavior. Comparative psychologists study animal behavior and mentality, including the mechanisms and inner states that allow crows to form hooks, vervet monkeys to give warnings, crabs to make trade-off decisions, and humans to use language. While focus is on the similarities and differences between different species, capacities are often studied in terms of their evolutionary history, development, and current ecological or cultural context. What this entails is that comparative psychologists have a range of different kinds of training, different areas of expertise, and different research questions. One comparative cognition researcher compares children and dogs on causal reasoning abilities (Daphna Buchsbaum), another looks at memory in corvids (Nicola Clayton). An animal behaviorist examines raccoon territories in a city (Suzanne MacDonald). One anthropologist looks at war in wild chimpanzees (John Mitani), another looks at how innovations are adopted in capu- chin monkeys (Susan Perry). One ethologist looks at play in wolves (Marc Bekoff), and another looks at deception in birds (Carolyn Ristau). One biologist looks at male alliances in dolphins (Richard Connor), and another examines economic game performance in apes and monkeys (Sarah Brosnan). An animal welfare scientist studies the effect of enrichment on mink (Georgia Mason). A learning theorist looks at gambling in pigeons (Thomas Zentall). A zoologist studies social learning in bees (Lars Chittka). It is not easy to guess in which department you’ll find a comparative psychologist. -/- This Element aims to examine the methods of comparative psychology, which remains especially concerned about how to study animal minds and behavior without falling prey to fuzzy thinking. Animals can be cute, so humans are often intrinsically drawn to them; and this love of animals is sometimes taken to be at odds with being a careful scientist. The methods of comparative psychology reflect this worry with their special emphases on avoiding bias and on avoiding developing warm relationships with animal subjects. The first two sections analyze three textbooks to examine what young scientists are taught. Section 1 investigates three methodological principles students are taught to follow: Anti-anthropomorphism, Morgan’s Canon, and Anti-anthropocentrism. I argue that the first two principles should be discarded, and that developing relationships with animals should no longer be discouraged, as relationships promote understanding. Building on this critique, in Section 2 I challenge the common prohibition against including animal consciousness in comparative psychology by arguing that it does not harm the science, but promotes it. Setting aside the special prohibitions for comparative psychology, in Section 3 I examine how the quest for objectivity in comparative psychology introduces its own bias and argue that the different disciplines of comparative psychology will introduce different biases; the best scientists can do is identify the sources of bias. The quest to eliminate all bias is a misguided one. Section 4 applies these issues to recent debates in ape cognition research between scientists who work in the field and those who work in the lab, and suggests best practices for integrating knowledge from both sources. -/- I have had the opportunity to work with a number of comparative psychologists in a variety of contexts, including a stint at Lou Herman’s dolphin communication lab in the 1990s, collaborative studies with Peter Verbeek on the child’s theory of mind at the University of Minnesota’s Institute for Child Development, conducting research on orangutan pantomime communication with Anne Russon at her field sites in Borneo, research on rat social learning with Noam Miller at Wilfrid Laurier University, and co-teaching a field course in dolphin communication with Kathleen Dudzinski. As a philosopher of science who has been in the field and in the lab, I have a perspective from which to compare the comparative psychologists. This Element is my attempt to synthesize almost thirty years of experience and thinking about how to study animal minds. (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)

his article will focus on the mechanistic origins of the computer metaphor, which forms the conceptual framework for the methodology of the cognitive sciences, some areas of artificial intelligence and the philosophy of mind. The connection between the history of computing technology, epistemology and the philosophy of mind is expressed through the metaphorical dictionaries of the philosophical discourse of a particular era. The conceptual clarification of this connection and the substantiation of the mechanistic components of the computer metaphor (...) is the main goal of this article. The statement is substantiated that the invention of mechanical computing devices, having a long history in the European engineering tradition, formed the prerequisites for the emergence of machine functionalism in the modern philosophy of mind. The idea of multiple implementation stems from the principle that a formal symbol system prescribes rules for the use of rational abstractions through the physical architecture of a computational engine. The article considers the reasons for the conceptual shift and reveals the semantic foundations for the metaphorical transfer of the properties of abstract objects from the theory of automata to the field of modern philosophy of mind. The criticism and ways of protecting the philosophical program of machine functionalism are analyzed by changing the content of the metaphor “Mind as machine”. The reasons for the stability of the information-computer approach in cognitive sciences are also disclosed and explained. (shrink)

This book attempts to advance Donald Griffin's vision of the "final, crowning chapter of the Darwinian revolution" by developing a philosophy for the science of animal consciousness. It advocates a Darwinian bottom-up approach that treats consciousness as a complex, evolved, and multidimensional phenomenon in nature rather than a mysterious all-or-nothing property immune to the tools of science and restricted to a single species. -/- The so-called emergence of a science of consciousness in the 1990s has at best been a science (...) of human consciousness. This book aims to advance a true Darwinian science of consciousness in which its evolutionary origin, function, and phylogenetic diversity are moved from the field’s periphery to its very centre, thus enabling us to integrate consciousness into an evolutionary view of life. Accordingly, this book has two objectives: (i) to argue for the need and possibility of an evolutionary bottom-up approach that addresses the problem of consciousness in terms of the evolutionary origins of a new ecological lifestyle that made consciousness worth having and (ii) to articulate a thesis and beginnings of a theory of the place of consciousness as a complex evolved phenomenon in nature that can help us to answer the question of what it is like to be a bat, an octopus, or a crow. -/- A Philosophy for the Science of Animal Consciousness will appeal to researchers and advanced students interested in advancing our understanding of animal minds as well as anyone with a keen interest in how we can develop a science of animal consciousness. (shrink)

Traditionally, theories of mindreading have focused on the representation of beliefs and desires. However, decades of social psychology and social neuroscience have shown that, in addition to reasoning about beliefs and desires, human beings also use representations of character traits to predict and interpret behavior. While a few recent accounts have attempted to accommodate these findings, they have not succeeded in explaining the relation between trait attribution and belief-desire reasoning. On my account, character-trait attribution is part of a hierarchical (...) system for action prediction, and serves to inform hypotheses about agents’ beliefs and desires, which are in turn used to predict and interpret behavior. (shrink)

I argue that Stich's Syntactic Theory of Mind (STM) and a naturalistic narrow content functionalism run on a Language of Though story have the same exact structure. I elaborate on the argument that narrow content functionalism is either irremediably holistic in a rather destructive sense, or else doesn't have the resources for individuating contents interpersonally. So I show that, contrary to his own advertisement, Stich's STM has exactly the same problems (like holism, vagueness, observer-relativity, etc.) that he claims plague (...) content-based psychologies. So STM can't be any better than the Representational Theory of Mind (RTM) in its prospects for forming the foundations of a scientifically respectable psychology, whether or not RTM has the problems that Stich claims it does. (shrink)

Many social situations require a mental model of the knowledge, beliefs, goals, and intentions of others: a Theory of Mind (ToM). If a person can reason about other people’s beliefs about his own beliefs or intentions, he is demonstrating second-order ToM reasoning. A standard task to test second-order ToM reasoning is the second-order false belief task. A different approach to investigating ToM reasoning is through its application in a strategic game. Another task that is believed to involve the application (...) of second-order ToM is the comprehension of sentences that the hearer can only understand by considering the speaker’s alternatives. In this study we tested 40 children between 8 and 10 years old and 27 adult controls on (adaptations of) the three tasks mentioned above: the false belief task, a strategic game, and a sentence comprehension task. The results show interesting differences between adults and children, between the three tasks, and between this study and previous research. (shrink)

The ontology behind quantum mechanics has been the subject of endless debate since the theory was formulated some 100 years ago. It has been suggested, at one time or another, that the objects described by the theory may be individual particles, waves, fields, ensembles of particles, observers, and minds, among many other possibilities. I maintain that these disagreements are due in part to a lack of precision in the use of the theory’s various semantic designators. In particular, there is some (...) confusion about the role of representation, reference, and denotation in the theory. In this article, I first analyze the role of the semantic apparatus in physical theories in general and then discuss the corresponding ontological implications for quantum mechanics. Subsequently, I consider the extension of the theory to quantum fields and then analyze the semantic changes of the designators with their ontological consequences. In addition to the classical arguments to rule out a particle ontology in the case of non-relativistic quantum field theory, I show how the existence of black holes makes the proposal of a particle ontology in general spacetimes unfeasible. I conclude by proposing a provisional pluralistic ontology of fields and spacetime and discussing some prospects for possible future ontological economies. (shrink)

Background. The literature on Theory of Mind (ToM) in antisocial samples is limited despite evidence that the neural substrates of theory of mind task involve the same circuits implicated in the pathogenesis of antisocial behaviour. Method. Eighty-nine male DSM-IV Antisocial Personality Disordered subjects (ASPDs) and 20 controls (matched for age and IQ) completed a battery of ToM tasks. The ASPD group was categorized into psychopathic and non-psychopathic groups based on a cut-off score of 18 on the Psychopathy Checklist: (...) Screening Version. Results. There were no significant group (control v. psychopath v. non-psychopathic ASPD) dif- ferences on basic tests of ToM but both psychopathic and non-psychopathic ASPDs performed worse on subtle tests of mentalizing ability (faux pas tasks). ASPDs can detect and understand faux pas, but show an indifference to the impact of faux pas. On the face/eye task non-psychopathic ASPDs showed impairments in the recognition of basic emotions compared with controls and psychopathic ASPDs. For complex emotions, no significant group differences were detected largely due to task difficulty. Conclusions. The deficits in mentalizing ability in ASPD are subtle. For the majority of criminals with ASPD and psychopathy ToM abilities are relatively intact and may have an adaptive function in maintaining a criminal lifestyle. Our findings suggest the key deficits appear to relate more to their lack of concern about the impact on potential victims than the inability to take a victim perspective. The findings tentatively also suggest that ASPDs with neurotic features may be more impaired in mentalizing ability than their low anxious psychopathic counterparts. (shrink)

A number of cognitive and behavioral variables influence the performance in tasks of theory of mind (ToM). Since two of the most important variables, memory and explicit expression, are impaired in schizophrenic patients, the ToM appears inconsistent in these patients. An ideal instrument of ToM should therefore account for deficient memory and impaired ability of these patients to explicitly express intentions. If such an instrument is developed, it should provide information that can be used not only to understand the (...) pathophysiology but also to monitor patients. (shrink)

Gaston Bachelard is one of the indespensable figures in the history of 20th-century ideas. The broad scope of his work has had a lasting impact in several fields - notable philosophy, architecture and literature.

The field of mindfulness and the emerging science of heroism have a common interest in the causes and conditions of selfless altruism though up to this point there has been little cross-pollination. However, there is increasing evidence that mindfulness training delivers heroically relevant qualities such as increased attentional functioning, enhanced primary sensory awareness, greater conflict monitoring, increased cognitive control, reduced fear response, and an increase in loving kindness and self-sacrificing behaviors. Predicated on the notion of a “no self,” traditional (...) mindfulness and its focus on enlightenment and selfless service may in fact be ideally suited to the development of the elusive “trait” (predictable) versus “state” (intermittent) heroic character. Interweaving observations and questions drawn from the science of heroism, the article explores the relevant theory, practices, and scientific outcomes of mindfulness. It finds that there is evidence that heroically relevant qualities are trainable with the suite of mindfulness techniques and that an enduring experience of selflessness and service of others (the enlightened hero) may well be within the grasp of the serious practitioner. (shrink)