MInd-Body Medicine

Understanding Consciousness, second edition provides a unique survey and evaluation of consciousness studies, along with an original analysis of consciousness that combines scientific findings, philosophy and common sense.

Building on the widely praised first edition of the book, this new edition adds fresh research, and deepens the original analysis in a way that reflects some of the fundamental changes in the understanding of consciousness that have taken place over the last ten years.

The book is divided into three parts; Part I surveys current theories of consciousness, evaluating their strengths and weaknesses. Part II reconstructs an understanding of consciousness from first principles, starting with its phenomenology, and leading to a closer examination of how conscious experience relates to the world described by physics and information processing in the brain. Finally, Part III deals with fundamental issues such as what consciousness is and does, and how it fits into the evolving universe. As the structure of the book moves from a basic overview of the field to a successively deeper analysis, it can be used both for those new to the subject and for more established researchers.

Understanding Consciousness tells a story with a beginning, middle and end in a way that integrates the philosophy of consciousness with the science. Overall, the book provides a unique perspective on how to address the problems of consciousness and as such will be of great interest to psychologists, philosophers, neuroscientists and other professionals concerned with mind/body relationships, and all who are interested in this subject.

The article substantiates the prospects of using a holistic approach to maintaining and strengthening the human psycho somatic health. The holistic approach is associated here with evidence based clinical medicine, rather than, as is often the case, with alternative medical practices. The author demonstrates that the holistic approach is closely connected with the systemic vision of the human organism, its consideration as a complex system or a risky structure in accordance with the conception of self organized criticality within the framework of systems science. To understand psychosomatic health, the methodological significance of the conception of enactivism in modern cognitive science is also shown.
В статье обосновывается перспективность применения холистического подхода к поддержанию и укреплению пси хосоматического здоровья человека. Холистический подход связывается с доказательной клинической медициной, а не, как часто бывает, с альтернативными медицинскими практиками. Демонстрируется, что холистический под ход тесно взаимосвязан с системным видением человеческого организма, рассмотрением человека как сложной си стемы или рискованной структуры в соответствии с концепцией самоорганизованной критичности в рамках науки о системах. Показывается также, что для понимания психосоматического здоровья методологически значима кон цепция энактивизма в современной когнитивной науке. Ключевые слова: энактивизм, проблема сознания и тела, психосоматика, самоорганизованная критичность, слож ные системы, холизм, холистическая медицина.

Research suggests that the immune system may be adversely affected by chronic stress. There is some evidence that relaxation-based practices may effect an increase in immune functioning, but recent findings suggest that acute stress may lead to similar increases. Given this, we used a counterbalanced within-subjects design to directly compare the effects of a stressful mental arithmetic task and a relaxation-based task on secretory immunoglobulin A (S-IgA). Thirty participants were seen in small groups of two or three where they were administered both a mental arithmetic (stress) task and a relaxing hypnosis task. Four-minute timed saliva samples were obtained immediately following the two experimental tasks and following two baseline periods. Results demonstrated that, compared with baseline, S-IgA concentration and secretion rate were significantly higher following both the relaxation-based task and stress task. Additionally, our data showed that the increases were short-lived, decreasing significantly within 8 min following the completion of each task. Our results indicate that both stress-reducing and stress-inducing tasks can increase S-IgA levels, and these results are discussed with reference to the potential differential mechanisms and clinical significance of such changes. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

"Although numerous books and articles have recently talked about the gut instincts as valuable in giving us useful hunches in the decision-making process, "What's Behind Your Belly Button?" goes much further and explains how gut feelings not only have a psychological intelligence of their own, but are also understandably rational in their functioning. The authors explore how gut feelings are like a gas gauge in our guts indicating through an emotional feeling of emptiness or fullness how well the two instinctive human needs for acceptance (attention from others) and of control of one's own responses (freedom) in our lives are being met and how our behavior attempts to keep these two instinctive needs in balance at all times. They explore how these two instinctive needs motivate nearly all our behaviors all through our lives and that the feeling memory of how well these needs are met from moment-to-moment may be accessed through somatic awareness of our gut feelings of empty and full by using the Somatic Reflection Process the authors have developed.

In 1998, neurological research at Columbia University published the work of Dr. Michael Gershon that identified the enteric nervous system as a center of feeling-intelligence in the gut, which he called the "Second Brain". The authors carefully examined this material and accepted the research findings as pointing to the same universal feeling intelligence they experienced in counseling with hundreds of people. Utilizing the research of Dr. Gershon, the work of Dr. Lise Eliot who charts the development of children from conception through the first five years of life, recent research of their own in the Psychology Department at Sonoma State University, and their vast clinical experience, the authors have presented an interpretation of recent medical research into a Gut Psychology and a more accurate behavioral understanding of the Self and human nature than has previously been available. They share a complete protocol and results of clinical research findings for the Somatic Reflection Process that they have created and used successfully, with themselves and hundreds of people, to assist the process of getting in touch with the voice of the gut and learning to follow its wisdom toward a healthy life--unifying the body-mind split in the individuation process.

Over a period of 45 years, there has been a utilization of further graduate studies in Depth Psychology and Religious Education on the part of the authors, and giant steps forward in the fields of Neurology and Human Psychology, which help form a new more accurate image of human nature. The authors present this new image of human nature and the meaning of its understanding in making positive changes in our lives. They suggest that we are at the beginning of a Renaissance in human consciousness and that understanding our true human nature is the way to thrive in this present era. This book also discusses the implications of this new image of human nature in education and for rehabilitation of those incarcerated. The authors suggest that early in the child learning process, care be taken to offer the experience of freedom and acceptance to the preschool child to form a positive self-concept and to self-regulate his and her behavior as part of the learning process in becoming a loving, caring person.

After careful examination of life's processes, they conclude that of all the mammals in the animal kingdom, humans seem to be the only species that has been denied the open use of their natural instincts. Out of ignorance, fear or wanton control by others--"we are denied the use of the brains we were born with". This awareness is of growing concern since the absence of the use of the feeling intelligence of the body interferes with a major stabilizing force--built into the human system--that can affect human behavior, provide a sense of well-being, and the ability of the body to combat disease."

Paris, Garnier Flammarion. Sortie en librairie le 29 août 2018.

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    TABLE
Avertissement ............................................................ 7
Présentation .............................................................. 9
L’HOMME
Préface ...................................................................... 71
Extrait du privilège du roi........................................ 123
L’Homme de René Descartes................................... 125
La Description du corps humain ............................. 227
Remarques de Louis de La Forge ............................ 289
Préface de M. Schuyl ............................................... 489
Chronologie............................................................... 525
Bibliographie sélective commentée............................. 531 Table......................................................................... 535

No d’édition : L.01EHPN000126.N001 Dépôt légal : août 2018

A growing body of literature supports the notion that psychological stress negatively impacts physical health. In parallel to this programme of stress/health investigations, researchers are demonstrating the deleterious health effects of poor sleep. The current study simultaneously examines the association of both stress and sleep with health. Two hundred and eighteen subjects completed an anonymous survey packet that included stress, sleep and health measures. Psychological stress (as assessed by both life-events and by self-perceived stress), daytime sleepiness and poor sleep quality, but not sleep quantity, were all negatively associated with health. A regression model that integrated both stress measures was a statistically significant predictor of health. Adding the sleep measures to the stress-health model accounted for a statistically significantly greater proportion of the variance in health scores, with the stress + sleep model accounting for 39–56 per cent of the variance in health scores depending on the health measure used. These results suggest that studies of stress and health may benefit from the inclusion of sleep measures and that, from a practical standpoint, poor sleep might be best understood not simply as a sequela of psychological stress but rather as a factor that should be actively addressed as part of the treatment programme. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[Expanded version that includes two "Warming-Up" exercises]    "We live in a technological society that systematically manipulates and disempowers us, through disinformation and misinformation designed to control what we think, what we believe, how we behave, and of course, what we buy!  Mainstream media relentlessly promotes fear of disease, feelings of vulnerability, the belief that our bodies cannot protect us, and that we need to let appointed “experts” do our thinking and make our decisions for us.

In contrast, experiments in modern physics have repeatedly shown that consciousness plays a fundamental role in the universe, and prominent scientists have concluded that the universe seems primarily mental, not physical. With respect to the body, replicated research has repeatedly confirmed that our minds can and do have profound effects on our bodies, that go far beyond the limits of a reductionist-materialist paradigm.  Through first-hand experience lucid dreaming demonstrates that our assumptions, beliefs, and expectations not only affect what we think and feel, but what we can experience, and provides a much-needed antidote to the learned helplessness and malaise that so many suffer from today. 

This workshop will share methods for empowering individuals through developing and enhancing both lucid dreaming and lucid waking skills, and will discuss how to understand and apply the psychological “Laws of Sympathetic Magic” in both our dreaming and waking lives. Participants will have an opportunity to explore the possibilities and potentialities of our living in a magical universe through exercises, experiments, and meditations, while both mindfully awake and when lucidly asleep."

Yoga and breathing techniques have become increasingly popular in recent decades. Sudarshan Kriya (SK) is a type of rhythmic and controlled breathing that involves cyclic breathing in which long breaths are followed by medium and short breaths. Scientific research has been conducted to study the effects of SK on different physiological parameters. Various studies have shown that the technique is simple and cost effective and can be used as a complementary therapy, together with ongoing conventional treatments, to help people suffering from extreme levels of stress, anxiety, and other physical problems. Studies have demonstrated that SK can play an important role in promoting a healthy lifestyle by improving immunity, antioxidant status, hormonal status, and brain functioning. Through available scientific evidence and research, the current article aims to review the complementary role of rhythmic breathing (ie, SK) as a practical and effective tool to alleviate stress, improve health...

Descartes argued that the passions of the soul were immediately felt in the body, as the animal spirits, affected by the movement of the pineal gland, spread through the body. In Leibniz the effect of emotions in the body is a different question as he did not allow the direct interaction between the mind and the body, although maintaining a psychophysical parallelism between them.

In general, he avoids discussing emotions in bodily terms, saying that general inclinations, passions, pleasures and pains belong only to the mind or to the soul (NE II, xxi, §72). He is also keen to point out that our passions derive mostly from our bodies. However, like Spinoza (Ethics III, prop. XI, Scholium) he thought that some emotions such as joy can produce pleasures which can be described also in bodily terms. For example, in a short memoir Felicity he says that music can be a pleasure for the ears and symmetry can be a pleasure for the eyes. These more intellectual emotions are actions in the sense that they represent perfection emanating from their source, the absolutely perfect being, that is, God. The feeling of perfection may produce a state of well-being which concerns both the soul and the body.

In my paper I will trace instances of Leibniz’s remarks on how these kind of emotions affect the body. I will also discuss the different ways the body gives rise to passions in the soul. My primary source is Nouveaux essais, book II, chapter xx and xxi, but I will also discuss various other writings by Leibniz.

The inability to effectively process and heal trauma is one of the defining marks of Western civilization and one of the primary problems that all of global culture is afflicted with. Arguably, most of us are sick. If given a chance to really take a closer look, nearly everyone one has something physiologically, biologically, psychologically, emotionally or environmentally out of balance.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the classical literature of clinical hypnosis used as therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and apply it to the research gaps in today’s mission to heal PTSD. Clinical hypnosis has been shrouded in a history of mysticism that still effects modern perception. Another reason why much of its research was dismissed was that the patients consisted mostly of women. Surely, we can look at these reasons and see that a new perception of clinical hypnosis needs to be formed and that it should instead be based on its long history of effectiveness. One healthcare system that could benefit from this research is the military’s Veterans Affairs (VA) system. With the large population of veterans returning from the battlefield with PTSD and becoming dependent on dangerous conventional medicines, such as opioids, it is dire that we consider time-tested, evidence-based therapies such as clinical hypnosis to facilitate the healing process and avoid grave side effects. 
Keywords: Mind-Body Medicine, hypnosis, hypnotherapy, PTSD

This dissertation is the first historical monograph on somatics, a field of practices and related network of professions offering applied methods for mind-body awareness and integration. Although somatics has most commonly been associated with the Human Potential Movement of the 1960s, this study demonstrates the existence of related intellectual and practice genealogies that form the nineteenth-century background to somatics, and that themselves show continuity with forms of mind-body thought and practice in the early modern era. Using the tools of intellectual history, the research project covers a range of figures and schools from the 1820s through the 1950s, laying the groundwork for future projects in the history of somatics. Standout themes from the study include overlaps between the history of somatics and the history of Western esotericism; the syncretic quality of somatic worldviews, which has led to both creativity and instability in the relationships between somatics, science, and spirituality; the reciprocal flows of influence between somatics and the performing arts; and the prominent role played by women in the formation of early somatic methods in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

We propose to read Francis Bacon's doctrine of the idols of the mind as an investigation firmly entrenched in his mental-medicinal concerns and we argue that an important role therein is played by the imagination. Looking at the ways in which the imagination serves to pinpoint several crucial aspects of the idolic mind permits us to signal the explicit or implicit cross-references between what in Bacon's tree of knowledge appear as distinct branches: the various faculties and their arts; the mind, the body, and their league; natural philosophy, moral philosophy, and the philosophy of man. The consequence of this rich picture of the diagnosis of the mind is an equally rich conception of the cure, which comprises both epistemic and physiological aspects. We extract the features of this integrated view out of Bacon's epistemological and medical natural historical writings, which we propose to read in tandem. We also propose a number of sources for Bacon's views on the imagination, whose variety accounts for the multivalent, sometimes elusive, but surely pervasive role of the imagination in the Baconian diagnosis and cure of the mind.

As the evidence base for mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) grows, there is considerable interest in what the "next wave" of MBIs might look like. In the following article, the rationale, development, and initial implementation of a mindful movement-based intervention, body in mind training (BMT), is described. BMT is a mindfulness training approach informed by neuroscience data and using embodied learning that can be used for both individuals and groups in the clinical setting. It provides an alternative methodology for working mindfully with clients who might struggle, for whatever reason, to engage with the currently available MBI protocols. The BMT Framework provides a guide to therapists and health care workers to implement mindfulness in their personal and professional lives and from this, support clients in their exploration of mindfulness.

The intention of this article is to share, in Part I, the underlying theoretical concepts and research underpinning this predominantly body and movement based mindfulness training method. Part II details how the BMT framework and BMT group protocol evolved from trainings and consultations with a variety of health care workers. Part III provides further details about the implementation of the BMT framework in the clinical environment. This article is not a review of mindfulness but rather a presentation of a model alongside the early observations of its implementation.

It is hoped that this paper might inspire others to consider how to integrate mindful movement into their work and stimulate research and debate in this different route to mindfulness. Working from neurological principles this approach has transdiagnostic appeal. If the principles of mindfulness and neuroscience knowledge are combined, the BMT Framework can be used in any setting.

Once the positivistic/escapist interpretation that human consciousness is epiphenomenal, i.e., accidental, is dismissed there are two possible approaches to the scientific study of consciousness. Bottom-up consciousness, from the individual organism or being to the universe, and Consciousness from the top-down, from the universe to the individual. These two approaches mark the outer boundaries of the present scientific search for a theoretical model of consciousness, even though Consciousness goes beyond science and moves into the realm of metaphysics. In any case, everything in between these two approaches is seriously muddled and clouded with speculations and metatheories that cannot be possible, which is common to the period preceding a scientific revolution. Some of those speculations and metatheories sound rather esoteric and even spiritual, which allows them to appeal to many people, but they would normally be considered non-scientific by definition if they were expressed for anything other than consciousness, which in itself presents a total mystery to science and the scientists who are willing to attempt to explain consciousness. On the other hand, what little concrete information science has at its disposal about consciousness does seem to match ideas in eastern mystical thought and in some cases earlier western ideas in Natural Philosophy that have been rejected by science, which further muddles the scientific quest for understanding consciousness. These ideas and concepts fit the qualitative aspects of mind that science normally associates with consciousness even better as well as the direct characteristics of consciousness, at least to the extent that such characteristics are known. Science needs to find a balance between them so it can maximize the effect of the next scientific revolution as well as the corresponding evolutionary leap in consciousness that is coming, but physics must simultaneously develop a working unified field theory to better define the universe in which consciousness of any kind, shape or form can and has developed.

I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO SAY THIS PROPERLY.

WE, THE HUMAN PUPPETS, ARE MICRO-CONTROLLED BY THE HIVE MIND MOVIE CONCOCTED BY OUR PURE CONSCIOUSNESSES VIA DREAMS IN DARKNESS. 

IT’S LIKE KIDS RIDING SLEDS, WE, AS PURE CONSCIOUSNESSES, SET THE MOVIE IN MOTION, WE THEN JUMP ON AND GO FOR THE RIDE – YOU CAN SEE THE SHADOW SELF WITH YOUR OWN EYES IN HERE:

One of the major philosophical aspirations in contemporary consciousness research is to find a framework of explanation that could successfully address the problem of mind-body relations. Descartes is often regarded as the father of dualism in modern philosophy of mind. Phenomenology and embodiment may dissolve the problem of dualism in the waters of the experiential features of the life-world and the subject.
Recent findings in psychoneuroimmunology have shown that somato-psychic mechanisms exist through which bodily stimuli
are translated into neuropsychological events resulting in alterations in certain behavioral patterns. These may as well include changes in the qualitative features of the lived body (Leib) resulting in an overall change in the subjective experience. The application of modern embodiment theories
in life sciences has the potential to create a novel, fruitful and heuristic approach, which may help us unveil features of the
“mind-body phenomenon” that have been hidden so far. In this paper, I will try to briefly outline a possible analytical framework
on the grounds of classic – Husserlian and Merleau-Pontian – phenomenology and biomedical sciences.

There is a central human experience, which alters all other experiences ... not just an experience among others, but rather the very heart of the human experience. It is the center that gives understanding to the whole. Once found, life is altered because the very root of human identity is deepened. LSD and the Enlightenment of Zen Wilson Van Dusen ===========================================

A considerable amount of research has reported on the effects of Taiji exercise on physical health, which also benefits psychological welfare.  The present comprehensive review delves into the effectiveness of Taiji on mental well-being from 21 projects (n=13 in English, n=8 in Chinese) conducted in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Results indicate marked outcomes of this body-mind exercise, as associated with mental wellness across various age groups, including general mental health and particular mental illnesses.  They therefore reveal practical, theoretical and methodological implications, which also hint at future research directions.  In conclusion, Taiji is likely applicable to mental health promotion in the sense of both curative and preventive purposes, although further exploration is proposed.

This paper examines how the teaching of embodied practices of transnational Buddhist meditation has been designated for healing depression explicitly in contemporary Chinese Buddhist communities with the influences of Buddhist modernism in Southeast Asia and globalization. Despite the revival of traditional Chan school meditation practices since the Open Policy, various transnational lay meditation practices, such as vipassanā and mindfulness, have been popularized in monastic and lay communities as a trendy way to heal physical and mental suffering in mainland China. Drawing from a recent ethnographic study of a meditation retreat held at a Chinese Buddhist monastery in South China, this paper examines how Buddhist monastics have promoted a hybrid mode of embodied Buddhist meditation practices, mindfulness and psychoanalytic exercises for healing depression in lay people. With analysis of the teaching and approach of the retreat guided by well-educated Chinese meditation monastics, I argue that some young generation Buddhist communities have contributed to giving active responses towards the recent yearning for individualized bodily practices and the social trend of the "subjective turn" and self-reflexivity in contemporary Chinese society. The hybrid inclusion of mindfulness exercises from secular programs and psychoanalytic exercises into a vipassanā meditation retreat may reflect an attempt to re-contextualize meditation in Chinese Buddhism.

The story of L’Homme is a true novel. Its plot weaves itself along three intersecting points: an unfinished text, a copied or plagiarised text, and a corrected text. Telling this whole and complex story helps us to understand the true place of Descartes in the history of modern anthropology and in the contemporary attempt to explain cognition, memory, sensation and human health. In a nutshell, it is probably the best way to understand the Cartesian contribution to the vast philosophical programme of seeking to know oneself.

To grasp the connectedness of our thoughts, feelings and senses as they are implicated in embodied movement we need more nuanced ways of thinking sport and physical culture as phenomena that materialize through complex biopsychosocial relations (as distinct from biopsy models of illness and treatment). In this chapter I take up the question of how embodied movement matters in mental health with respect to the materiality of all knowledge practices (science and social science, qualitative and quantitative research). I argue through a diffractive analysis that embodied movement practices can be thought of as phenomena that are co-implicated in the performance of recovery from depression. I draw together several trajectories of thought that emerge from Karen Barad’s (2007, 2003) diffractive analysis as well as Deleuze and Guattari and feminist readings concerned with affective relations and assemblages (Fox & Alldred, 2016; Deleuze and Guattari, 1987; Coleman and Ringrose, 2013). Through post-qualitative inquiry I explore how embodied movement is co-implicated in the affective, entangled relations that shape women’s recovery from depression in an Australian study.

Chronic pain (CP) and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) pose a particular challenge for the individual. While biomedicine inevitably plays a role in the reduction or control of some symptoms for people living with chronic pain, directed self-management is also increasingly recognized as an important tool. Self-management can address pain associated symptoms of CP and RA and often has broader aims, such as promoting positive well-being. Forty-six interviews with people experiencing CP and 46 interviews with those living with RA associated pain were analysed. Our analysis uncovered three broad strategies adopted by participants: body management, mind management and mind-body management. The analysis demonstrated that for those living with pain, a sense of well-being is achieved not through pain control alone, but also through various mind/body techniques for managing pain, accepting new limits, and adjusting the way people relate to themselves. These self management strategies are an important adjunct to biomedical care for those experiencing chronic pain.

While the psychical sciences and parapsychology have languished over the decades and failed to produce a viable theoretical basis for their observations, great strides have been made in the neurosciences especially in the areas of neurophysiology and neurophysics. The object of these researches goes beyond just discovering how the brain functions, but to actually discover the neural correlates of mind and consciousness. Understanding how brain and consciousness relate to one another has opened a new door to understanding psi and how consciousness survives death. The new physical model of consciousness presented below goes a long way toward explaining the paradoxical nature of mind and consciousness that psi and survival present.

This article discusses the Tibetan notion of rlung, usually translated as: ‘wind’, but perhaps better understood as a close equivalent of pneuma in the Greek tradition, or qi in the Chinese tradition. The article focuses on the way rlung provides a useful prism through which concepts of health, illness and disease may be observed in a cross-cultural perspective. An analysis of syndromes linked with rlung in a Tibetan cultural context illuminates some of the ways in which culture determines particular syndromes. The article raises a number of questions which are relevant for a more general multicultural approach to concepts of health, illness and disease.The article argues that notions of rlung/pneuma/wind/ qi constitute a particularly interesting area for an exploration of culture-bound syndromes, as they reside in the meeting point between material and non-material, physical and mental, as well as the psychological, spiritual and religious. They are hence fundamental for a more cross-cultural approach to the mind-body problem.The article also deals with the significance of history of medicine, particularly histories of medicine, which attempt to widen the scope of the traditional Eurocentric narrative of the history of medicine, in dealing with questions such as concepts of health and illness. Allowing alternative narratives—whether narratives of patients, other cultures or historical ones—can enhance our understanding of what health, illness and disease are. Discussing perceptions of the body as culturally defined is not only important from a philosophical or historical point of view, but also has important practical ramifications, which are particularly crucial in our global age.

In everyday life we take it for granted that we have conscious control of some of our actions and that the part of us that exercises control is the conscious mind.  Psychosomatic medicine also assumes that the conscious mind can affect body states, and this is supported by evidence that the use of imagery, hypnosis, biofeedback and other ‘mental interventions’ can be therapeutic in a variety of medical conditions.  However, there is no accepted theory of mind/body interaction and this has had a detrimental effect on the acceptance of mental causation in science, philosophy and in many areas of clinical practice. Biomedical accounts typically translate the effects of mind into the effects of brain functioning, for example, explaining mind/body interactions in terms of the interconnections and reciprocal control of cortical, neuroendocrine, autonomic and immune systems.  While such accounts are instructive, they are implicitly reductionist, and beg the question of how conscious experiences could have bodily effects.  On the other hand, non-reductionist accounts have to cope with three problems: 1) The physical world appears causally closed, which would seem to leave no room for conscious intervention. 2) One is not conscious of one’s own brain/body processing, so how could there be conscious control of such processing? 3) Conscious experiences appear to come too late to causally affect the processes to which they most obviously relate.  This paper suggests a way of understanding mental causation that resolves these problems. It also suggests that “conscious mental control” needs to be partly understood in terms of the voluntary operations of the preconscious mind, and that this allows an account of biological determinism that is compatible with experienced free will.

One Knower: Different Modes of Knowing In all philosophical and psychological traditions knowing has many different meanings. In Tibetan Buddhism there is nondual Dzogchen and in Hinduism there is nondual Kashmir Shaivism. In both these nondual traditions there is profound understanding that there is one knower with two different modes of knowing. My Mind Knowing You and Things One mode of our knowing is the conventional subject object knowing which is the mind knowing as the perceiver and the perceived. This is our ordinary knowing of mind, my mind knowing you and things. This is my mind knowing of all the various forms of otherness. This is my mind knowing of singular aspects of phenomena and my mind knowing, by discrimination, the differences within phenomena. This is my mind knowing of the reality of objects, and the actuality of events and situations. This is my mind knowing the reality of persons and sentient beings as well as non-sentient beings and things. This is my mind's natural mode of dualistic knowingness. My Knowing as Direct Perception As humans knowing we both have and are this wonderful other mode of knowing. In Dzogchen this is the great knowing of awareness and through awareness, and this knowing described as direct perception is often called gnosis, or jnana, or ye she. Kashmir Shaivism names this dimension of knowing of this vast field of awareness/consciousness vimarsa. This vast

What if the decision making, learning and evaluations of a robot or any AI system had a compassionate intelligence?  Our project shows programming a computer to have compassionate intelligence is possible. The symbiotic and influential relations between human, machine and society is well documented primarily due to Nass and team.    The way we interact with machines rubs off on us. So the more time we spend with our machines, the more we begin to treat one another in the same way we interact with our machines. But many people report they are so frustrated they have shouted at, thrown or hit their gadgets. That means there's a lot of frustrated people walking around. Yikes. What would happen if we designed our gadgets to support us, to give kindness and compassion when we needed it?    If being less grumpy wasn't motivation enough, new discoveries in neuroscience, psychoimmunology, endocrinology and cardiology are linking positive emotion, kindness and compassion to health benefits.  What we did is a first step.  We invite programmers and designers, manager, funding agents to take this to the next level.  Let’s get started.

Many scientists have come to believe that any true unification model in physics must include a concept of consciousness as well as a model for the mind that interprets the external physical/material world. And, that number is growing. This particular physical model does just that. In fact it goes much further. Since Beichler's single field model includes a physical model of the neural net and explains how Mind and Consciousness can emerge from the physics of living organisms, it assimilates more intuitive models such as Andrews' 0-D point Void which witnesses and co-creates higher-dimensional Riemannian geometrical realities as well as other more generalized physical models of consciousness to form a truly synergistic model of reality. This synergistic model goes well beyond the notion of Mind and Consciousness as mere perceivers and interpreters of the external material/physical world. It clearly demonstrates that the precursors to our experience of Consciousness are fundamental elements and active participants in creating the physical world that we perceive and scientifically interpret through the application of physics. Andrews' intuitive approach to consciousness science It is well known that intuitives are often the very people who intimately experience first-hand knowledge of consciousness. Their views of consciousness and the inner workings of the world in general greatly differ from those of ordinary people and especially scientists. Even the word 'intuition' has been looked down upon in science as recently as a few decades ago. Scientists consider their own worldview above reproach, believing their insights are based upon acute observations of the external world around them. In general, scientists have historically looked down upon all types of intuitive knowledge and have obstinately refused to consider intuitive knowledge of consciousness and how it works in relation to the world as a whole. They view intuitive data with suspicion as no more than anecdotal evidence, without any scientific validity. Yet that evidence or data, anecdotal or not, can provide valid observations of consciousness and how consciousness works in the world at large. So to those few scientists willing to seriously consider information from intuitives, it can seem as though conservative scientists are wrong on this issue, as well as overly biased by acting completely in an unscientific manner within the broader meaning of science itself. Keeping this in mind, it is both interesting and informative to consider insights brought forward by Sperry Andrews whose undergraduate degree in science has been enhanced as a Near Death Experiencer (NDEr) from the age of four, nearly sixty years ago. Andrews has proposed a speculative bottom-up theory of everything in physics originating from nothing, including how top-down theories, such as general relativity and quantum mechanics, might approximate Jim Beichler's single field theory as well as theoretical models that posit a consciousness space or universe. Andrews asks if the solution to this question may be found in Bernhard Riemann's original conception of space curvature, whereby an n-dimensional space is embedded in an n+1 dimensional manifold: i.e., all 3-D points are united at

In the late nineteenth century, many Americans embraced François Delsarte’s “Laws of Expression” as a scientific study of emotion. Believing that his theories established universal principles about the union of mind, body, and spirit, American elocutionists cited Delsarte’s laws as they created norm-defying physical exercises designed to help women overcome nervousness and strengthen their powers of self-expression. “Delsarte” classes typically featured breathing, relaxing, and energizing exercises, often conducted in a loose-fitting Grecian-styled robe. This article follows the experiences of Black women who practiced these exercises in the Black churches and community centers of Indianapolis, Indiana. Through their stories, I demonstrate how Black women engaged “Delsarte’’ exercises in ways that united personal wellbeing with projects of social activism. In doing so, this article brings visibility to longstanding erasures of Black women’s practices for self-expression and health.

In this paper I scrutinize the so-called China Brain thought experiment famously articulated by Ned Block (1978) to see whether it refutes functionalism as a theory of consciousness. I argue that it does not. Block’s case rests on a single premise, P, in the following argument: (P) a creature with a China Brain would lack qualitative experience, despite its being (R) a functional replica of you or me, and working under the assumption that we have (M) rich mental life complete with qualia. Yet if a China Brain-creature (Mr. Li) were truly and completely R, and yet P were true as the thought experiment purports to show, functionalism would have to be false. Since I want to reject that conclusion, I must do one of the following: (1) deny that Mr. Li is (or, stronger, could even in principle be) truly R in the first place; (2) grant that Mr. Li is (or could in principle be) truly R and grant that P, but deny that we have M; or (3) grant that Mr. Li is (or could in principle be) truly R and grant that we have M, but deny that P. I opt for the third option. First, I paint a picture according to which Mr. Li's having M would not seem as implausible as it does at first. That is, I try to make the premise P seem less intuitive. But in case I am unpersuasive in this first approach, I employ a second tactic as well. This one is to suggest that we cannot know, even in principle whether P, so it is an irrelevant intuition upon which to base the China Brain attack. In any case, the China Brain fails to provide a true counterexample to functionalism.

In Job’s speeches, metaphors to expose the status of his mind and emotion are recurrently connected to his physical body parts that are significant instruments in expressing his unimaginable mental anguish (7:15a; 9:27-31; 14:21; 16:15). His broken body parts signify the foremost reason of his suffering, namely the fact that God’s enmity against Job is destroying human body (6:4, 9; 16:7; 30:19, 21; 7:12; 10:8-13, 16-17; 16:14; 9-11, 13). Because of this, Job’s sensibility malfunctions, and God’s presence is hidden from Job’s sight (9:11; 23:8-9; 16:20; 10:4; 19:25-27). Moreover, Job’s body metaphors are sometimes used for vindicating his innocence and are suggested as faithful witnesses in a court (9:17, 20; 16:8, 17-18; 19:20-24; 23:11; 27:4, 6; 31:35-36). This paper, therefore, will show how Job’s body parts and sensibility denote his cognitive dissonance and mental turmoil and will indicate that irrelevant to the physical suffering from the Adversary (2:7), Job is experiencing a sort of “somatic symptom disorder” (SSD) which means that persons focus on physical symptoms such as fatigue, fragility, and pain according to their particular cognitive schematic in terms of property loss, extreme anxiety, and the absence of God that lead them to chief anguish and agony in their daily lives. The inter-relationship between body and mind/spirit of Job plays a central role in resisting the retribution principle of Job’s friends and in doubting the justice of God.