Mind-body problem

This paper provides an initial, multidimensional map of the complex relationships among consciousness, mind, brain and the external world in a way that follows both the contours of everyday experience and the findings of science. It then demonstrates how this reflexive monist map can be used to evaluate the utility and resolve some of the oppositions of the many other “isms” that currently populate consciousness studies. While no conventional, one-dimensional “ism” such as physicalism can do justice to this web of relationships, physicalism, functionalism, dualism, neutral monism, and dual-aspect monism can all be seen to provide useful ways of understanding different aspects of the relationships among consciousness, mind, brain and the external world when these are viewed in either a first- or a third-person way from within this web of relationships by sentient creatures such as ourselves. For example, physicalism and functionalism provide a useful understanding of consciousness, mind, brain and external world when viewed from a third-person perspective, while neutral monism provides a useful way of understanding first- versus third-person views of external phenomena. On the other hand, dual-aspect monism provides a useful way of understanding first- versus third-person views of mind, including Eastern versus Western views of mind.  Dual-aspect monism also provides a useful understanding of the “unconscious ground of being” that gives rise to, supports and embeds all these observable phenomena. For an integrated understanding one needs to understand how these phenomena and relationships combine into an integrated whole.

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.

Descartes regularly claims that questions concerning the possibility of causal interaction between mind and body due to their heterogeneous natures are based on a misunderstanding of how mind and body are united. To illustrate this point, Descartes draws an analogy with the scholastic notion of heaviness in an effort to clear up this misunderstanding and to dispel their concerns about mind to body causal interaction. This paper examines the heaviness analogy in some detail. The main conclusions are that Descartes maintains a holenmeric notion of mind-body union such that the whole mind is in the whole body and wholly in each one of its parts while also exercising its function primarily in the pineal gland. This, for Descartes, implies a teleological rather than a mechanistic understanding of how the mind moves the body and thereby avoids this version of the problem entirely. The paper concludes with a short discussion of what these considerations may mean for Paul Hoffman's hylomorphic understanding of Descartes' theory of mind-body union.

Current events in science imply that a new scientific revolution in physics is unfolding. This new revolution will be as much about mind and consciousness as it is about matter and physics. It will bring a new theory of physical reality that includes the consciousness that senses, interprets and interacts with physical reality. The new theory of consciousness will lead to explanatory models of the paranormal as well as explain how consciousness survives death. This prediction is not an optimistic 'pipe dream', but our present and future. A theory of this type has already been developed. It is based on a five-dimensional Einstein-Kaluza model of the space-time continuum. ‘Single field theory' or SOFT can easily account for paranormal phenomena and the survival of consciousness. Whatever theory finally succeeds in bridging the gap between mind and matter, indications are that it will have many of the characteristics of SOFT if it is not SOFT. Whatever the case may be, a valid theory that combines physical reality and consciousness is truly a theory to die for!

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.

Chapters: The Presence of Sensory Qualities; The Absence of Qualities in Physics; The Mind-Body Problem; Relations and Structure; Space-time as Causal Structure; The Physical Location of Mental Events; Scientific Knowledge Characterized; The Solution.  The solution owes to the event ontology of Russell and Whitehead, as documented by passages from Human Knowledge and Adventures of Ideas.  The first edition in 2004 introduced the discovery that time can make frequency ratios.  That eventually led to the graphical construction of physics using time diagrams as quantum schematics.  These are included in the second edition.

The mind-body problem is a philosophical dilemma that concerns the relationship between the mind and body of humans  (Garcia-Albea, 2018).  This question arises when the mind is viewed as a metaphysical construct, separate from the body in its entirety (Descartes, 1953). Theories ranging from the early Greeks philosophers to modern day neuroscientists aim to show how the mind works in tandem with the physical body and if they are indeed separate entities.
This mind-body problem was first defined by Descartes (1953), as the relationship between the immaterial, thinking mind and the material, non-thinking and reactionary body. However, this concept was debated long before Descartes’s (1953) theory, with the likes of Aristotle and Plato both proposing that the mind and body are comprised of two entirely separate entities. This thesis will discuss the development of the mind-body problem as well as its comparison to other theories and disciplines, such as the neuroscientific approach and functionalism  (Brysbaert & Rastle, 2013).

Neuroscientist Donald Hoffman proposed a bold theory-that objects do not exist independently of us perceiving them and that all that really exists is conscious agents. In this critical review, Leslie Allan examines the three core components of Hoffman's new idealism: Fitness Beats Truth (FBT) Theorem, Interface Theory of Perception (ITP) and Conscious Realism. Allan proposes solutions to linguistic absurdities suffered by Hoffman's idealism before considering its most serious problems. These include oversimplifications and misunderstandings of evolutionary theory, self-refutation, heuristic sterility and dependence on the successes of scientific realism.

This paper will explore the aesthetic strategies of Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal (NBC, 2013-15) in the context of film-philosophy and what appears as a sort of methodological Cartesian dualism – which is to say, approaches that posit film as mind and/or film as body – in order to suggest the possibilities for (re)introducing psychoanalytic theory into such psyche-soma-screen debates. Identifying a recurring stylistic motif throughout the series – which I will designate the “shudder-image” – I will ask whether established models such as Frampton’s (2006) concept of “filmind”, on the one hand, or Sobchack’s (1992) encounter with perceiving bodies, on the other, are sufficient for understanding the audio-visual techniques of Hannibal, and what scope there might be to bring notions such as “unconscious” and “symptom” into this conversation.  Where Adorno (1970) famously described the “shudder” provoked by the work of art, I will consider what is at stake when it is the image itself that convulses. This analysis will be framed in terms of the mind-body relation expressed in psychoanalysis, and developed with reference to Freud’s (1900) emphasis on the priority of form in the interpretation of dreams and Žižek’s (2019) dialectical understanding of the relationship between style and story. In short, in dialogue with phenomenology and affect theory, I ask: What contribution can Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalysis make to the study of aesthetics in general and Hannibal in particular?

This book is about the identity theory in contemporary philosophy of mind containing a long essay of mine and the italian translations of some remarkable contributions by Place. Armstrong, Smart, Lewis, McGinn, Jackson. The book has been published by Le Monnier, Firenze, 2005.

N.T. Wright has offered a proposal to Christian philosophers where it is apparently possible to hold the belief in the intermediate state-resurrection of the body and an ontological holism in the same sense at the same time. I argue that this not only creates a basic contradiction in Wright's ontological paradigm, but also it is not a coherent and tenable proposal despite the fact one might eventually find a potential solution to such a quandary.

A collection of fifty essays on Descartes and his influence in the seventeenth century. The first section is devoted to various aspects of Descartes’s philosophy (biography, epistemology, metaphysics, natural philosophy (science), mathematics, philosophical theology, etc.). The second section is devoted to Descartes’s influence, especially Cartesians and the Cartesian movement, in France, the Netherlands, Italy, England and elsewhere. The third section is devoted to the critics and opponents of Descartes and Cartesianism.

Prendendo le mosse dagli scritti e dalle varie fonti di Campanella (bibliche, neoplatoniche, tomiste e naturaliste), questo contributo traccia la sua concezione triadica dell’uomo composto di corpo, spirito e anima-mente. Nel sistema campanelliano lo spiritus serve ad affrontare il problema anima-corpo e, al contempo, a delineare il quadro entro cui si articola la concezione teologica e antropologica della libertà: da una prospettiva etico-psicologica, poi, la libertà viene identificata con la natura ‘divina’ dell’uomo che ha l’abilità e la possibilità di agire secondo la ragione per giungere al proprio fine, e cioè il sommo bene dell’autoconservazione. Le virtù che conducono l’uomo verso questa finalità e i vizi a essi contrapposti collegano l’agire dell’uomo – oggetto dell’etica – con il suo essere triadico.

Parole chiave: autoconservazione – libertà – sommo bene – spirito – virtù

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

Pixellence - 20-07-18 14:55:10
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Traite de l’homme - GF - Dynamic layout 108 × 178 mm

    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

"Скотт, как Вам пришла мысль преобразовать лекции Дэна в симфоническое произведение?", - после концерта в музее MET в Нью-Йорке спрашиваю композитора Скотта Джонсона. Он смущается: "Понимаете, это самый мелодичный голос, который я слышал. Когда я нашел эти лекции по философии, я просто не мог их забыть". Мы в лобби-баре одной из Нью-Йоркских гостиниц, обсуждаем концерт.

For a long time, one of my dreams was to describe the nature of uncertainty axiomatically, and it looks like I've finally done it in my co∼eventum mechanics! Now it remains for me to explain to everyone the co∼eventum mechanics in the most approachable way. This is what I'm trying to do in this work. The co∼eventum mechanics is another name for the co∼event theory, i.e., for the theory of experience and chance which I axiomatized in 2016 [1, 2]. In my opinion, this name best reflects the co∼event-based idea of the new dual theory of uncertainty, which combines the probability theory as a theory of chance, with its dual half, the believability theory as a theory of experience. In addition, I like this new name indicates a direct connection between the co∼event theory and quantum mechanics, which is intended for the physical explanation and description of the conict between quantum observers and quantum observations [4]. Since my theory of uncertainty satises the Kolmogorov axioms of probability theory, to explain this co∼eventum mechanics I will use a way analogous to the already tested one, which explains the theory of probability as a theory of chance describing the results of a random experiment. The simplest example of a random experiment in probability theory is the " tossing a coin ". Therefore, I decided to use this the simplest random experiment itself, as well as the two its analogies: the " "flipping a coin " and the " spinning a coin " to explain the co∼eventum mechanics, which describes the results of a combined experienced random experiment. I would like to resort to the usual for the probability theory " coin-based " analogy to explain (and first of all for myself) the logic of the co∼eventum mechanics as a logic of experience and chance. Of course, this analogy one may seem strange if not crazy. But I did not come up with a better way of tying the explanations of the logic of the co∼eventum mechanics to the coin-based explanations that are commonly used in probability theory to explain at least for myself the logic of the chance through a simple visual " coin-based " model that clarifies what occurs as a result of a combined experienced random experiment in which the experience of observer faces the chance of observation. I hope this analogy can be useful not only for me in understanding the co∼eventum mechanics.

Here I bewail the slapdash and confusing way in which philosophers bandy about the word ‘incoherent’ (and ‘incoherence’ and ‘incoherently’).  To some it appears to mean: inconsistent; to others: pragmatically self-defeating; and to yet others: nonsensical, i.e. meaningless.  And often one is left guessing.

Focusing on the Western intellectual lineage, this essay traces the human archetypal metaphor for the universe as it shifts three times, from that of a great mind, to a great machine, to the modern-day transition toward an organismic view of the universe. We explore how the way we talk about nature can ultimately be scaled to a grounding cosmic metaphor, which itself comes to serve as the lens through which we interpret our deepest questions, - about what we are, and our place in reality. Discussed are the implications of the emerging organismic paradigm to the fundamental orientation of the self to the world, to other beings, and its place in reality.

From a social and critical historiographical framework, the analysis of convergences between James and Brentano regarding their psychological proposals is presented. The relevance of these authors to the history of psychology, including Argentinian psychology, is first justified. From the analysis of primary and contemporary sources, the similarities between the programs of these authors are described. Both authors' links with philosophy are analyzed, as well as their biased recepit by later generations in the history of psychology. POsitions taken by the authors regarding the mind-body problem are then linked. The authors' conception of consciousness is then described, as well as their references to the phenomenon of intentionality and finally the psychological methodology they accepted. Some characteristics of the receipt of both authors in the early periods of the history of psychology in Argentina are then outlined. It is then concluded that the proposals and arguments present in the works from both authors, are current and relevant for a critical history of psychology, including the history of psychology in Argentina.

Do we live in an information universe, a “Matrix,” in which what we experience – whether waking or dreaming - has little or no direct correspondence to what actually takes place?

This workshop will present a series of brief overviews of various theories and concepts that look at reality in a radically different way than the materialist-reductionist worldview, as well as both waking and dreaming experiential exercises designed so that participants can better understand them through direct experience.  Participants will have an opportunity to explore the possibilities and potentialities of our living in an information universe through phenomenological exercises, thought experiments, and meditations while both mindfully awake and when lucidly asleep.

A broad pattern of correlations between mechanisms of brain function impairment and self-transcendence is shown. The pattern includes such mechanisms as cerebral hypoxia, physiological stress, transcranial magnetic stimulation, trance-induced physiological effects, the action of psychoactive substances and even physical trauma to the brain. In all these cases, subjects report self-transcending experiences o en described as ‘mystical’ and ‘awareness-expanding,’ as well as self-transcending skills o en described as ‘savant.’ The idea that these correlations could be rather trivially accounted for on the basis of disruptions to inhibitory neural processes is reviewed and shown to be implausible. Instead, this paper suggests that an as-of-yet unrecognized causal principle underlying the entire pattern might be at work, whose further elucidation through systematic research could hold great promise.

This essay explores how the Broadway musical of The Phantom of the Opera blurs the traditional distinction between cognition and emotion with the use of operatic music and librettos. Over the years, the musical has outshone the novel in its immediacy to exert a direct influence on the audience. The overall popularity of the musical points to the successful use of music supported by visual feast and narration. The general effect of Phantom over the audience also contributes to the problematization of mind-body dualism in affect theory and literary criticism, which also surfaces in cognitive psychology as emotion–cognition interaction. It is self-evident that music constitutes the fundamental unit of musical theatres. Thus, the main analysis dwells on the intertwined relationship between music and affect studies in order to explain the underlying reason why Leroux’s literary work has taken a back seat to Webber’s musical theatre, though the former provides an undeniably rich source for the latter and originally frames the debate on consciousness and the mind-body problem.

Acting methodologies have long been divided into two simplistic streams: “outside-in” and “inside-out.” These reductionist models fail to account for the range and synergistic nature of the elements integral to an actor’s work. Exploring these elements I discovered a personal tendency toward favouring an intellect removed from its source in breath, body, and imagination, and disengaged from sensation and emotion. Undertaking an exploration of deep embodiment through the practices of Syntonics©, Linklater voice work, Middendorf Breathexperience, and Batdorf Technique, and applied in Theatre@York’s production Oh What a Lovely War! I discovered a rich new source of information arising not from intellect, but from an intelligent, unified, physical being, or body-mind. This experience has revealed a new understanding of how to approach acting, in which every element becomes a potential entry point into a holistically integrated, reciprocal system, and in which visceral, sensate awareness births true presence and performance.

From the conference proceedings of the 2016 ISSEI Conference (University of Lodz, July 13, 2016). Submitted version. Now published in: Kujawińska Courtney K., T. Fisiak, A. Miksza, and G. Zinkiewicz (eds.), What’s new in the New Europe? Redefining Culture, Politics, Identity, 332-353. Łódź: Łódź University Press, 2019. Available online at http://repozytorium.uni.lodz.pl:8080/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11089/31810/332-353-marrama.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y https://wydawnictwo.uni.lodz.pl/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Kujawinska-Courtney_Whats-New-.pdf

The philosopher, Emanuel Levinas, noted that: “The face of the other is always what I am not, and therefore is always an enigma.”
We know very little about the ways in which our brain works, and less than nothing about what goes on in another person's mind.
It is very important for everyone to understand how other people grasp events, and how they react to them. Unfortunately, this is no easy task.
Allow me to invite you on a research journey into that mysterious terrain of “the face of the other”, in the hope that by the journey’s end, we will have at least a slightly better understanding of how others think and react.
Our thinking and the way we grasp the reality around us is influenced by many factors. In general, we have to take into account the traits of the
individual (in Chapter 1), the community in which he lives (details in Chapter 3), as well as the relationship between the two (as will be expanded in Chapter 2).
I'll present some theories, in order to draw a complete picture of the way in which I think our brain functions. Some of them are known theories, others are my hypotheses.
Scientists study how the brain works; here we'll try a different approach. We'll try to explore why the brain functions as it does, rather than in some other way. We will do this by investigating which brain mechanisms were developed to meet the challenges that humans face, in spite of the brain's organic structural limitations.

Thomas Nagel in ‘What is it like to be a bat?’ suggests that we don’t yet have much idea of how mental entities could be identical with physical ones (though he wisely stops short of accusing physicalists of not meaning ANYTHING WHATSOEVER by their identity-claims).  Colin McGinn goes further by suggesting that we may forever remain in this state of ignorance and incomprehension because of the inherent limitations of the human intellect.  I argue that the mere possibility that McGinn is right shows that it is over-hasty to conclude from philosophy’s failure to solve its problems that there must be something wrong with the problems themselves.  I also try to relate Nagel’s and McGinn’s view to David Stove’s response to philosophy’s apparent failure to make much progress.  He seems pessimistic about whether we will ever fully understand what is wrong with some philosophical claims.

The thought about the body and the body-mind relationship, declined in various ways, crosses the whole of Nietzsche's philosophical journey and represents a decisive stage. This paper will try to focus on it through the reading of a limited constellation of posthumous fragments that are closely interconnected and follow  one of the most well-known passages on the theme of the body in the published works, the section of Thus Spake Zarathustra entitled "About the despisers of the body " [Von den Verächtern des Leibes].
By the reading of the fragments should emerge how the approach to the problem of the body in Nietzsche is i) coupled with a constant reflection on the limits of the language as a device of definition and exploration of the bodily universe; ii ) characterized by a constant methodological caution, revealing that the body remains an open question. The Nietzschean research seems to outline a notion of the body articulated on two levels: the epistemological and the ontological one. On the epistemological level, both "body" and "mind" are conceivable for Nietzsche as "beliefs", as devices to represent the reality: it is therefore to establish which one of the two is more believable as "prerequisite" of the heuristic method. On the ontological level, the body is framed within a naturalist perspective, however not in the sense of a crude substantial materialism, which is likely to appear as a form of metaphysical dogmatism of inverted sign, but rather in the direction of a dynamic and moving vision, where the body is not reduced to a rigid mechanism or a "thing", but should rather manifest itself as multiple and plural event and process, always in becoming and formation, as a place where history, phylogenetic and ontogenetic condense and settle, as embodied and punctual track of surplus and transcendence respect to temporally determined individuals.

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.

This is a brief introduction to the book "The Soul/Body Problem in Plato and Aristotle": it can be useful to have a look at it, for those who are interested in the topic (they could check the presentations of each paper included in the book).

In this paper we present and discuss the main Romanian attempts in philosophical psychology in the first decades of the 19th century, with a special focus on the mind–body problem. Whereas the issue of the relationship between the mind or soul and the body, comprising the existence or inexistence of the soul, its materiality or immateriality, its mortality or immortality etc. is discussed in sufficient detail by the authors of this epoch, the narrow mind–body problem, concerning the difficulty for a material thing and an immaterial thing to causally interact, is curiously underestimated and unsatisfactorily treated. We explain this by the interplay of a sensualist philosophical outlook and a pre-modern, basically religion-informed, world-view. The resulting thought, we argue, misses the modern concept of Spirit, hence of mind as spiritual. Therefore, the narrow mind–body problem does not arise for it.

.....the double bind as constituting an entirely new, non-material, principle of evolution, major conceptual revisions may need to be made in our general understanding of evolution as contained within the “modern evolutionary synthesis”.

KEYWORDS:
behavior, communication, context, contradiction, deutero-learning, double bind, epistemology, evolution, incompleteness theorum, kinesics, learning, logical type theory, metacommunication, metamessages, metatheory, mystification, paradox, relationships, schismogenesis, schizophrenia,  scientific elegance, symmathesy, teleology, temporality, transcontextual, transdisciplinary, trauma

Though most neomaterialists share a commitment to the Copernican decentring of humans from the world stage, there is disagreement on the purposes of such an endeavour. The polemic stems from a fundamental discrepancy about what the return to materiality entails: is matter the principle of the non-thinking as such, or is it always already imbued with some sort of subjectivity? Is the new materialism's goal to come to terms with the non-living origin of life? Or is it rather to recognize that seemingly dead materials are always in some sense incipiently alive? For convenience , we can think of two neomaterialist perspectives: the rationalist or elim-inative neomaterialism, and the vitalist or panpsychist neomaterialism. I explore some of the conceptual problems faced by both camps and, drawing from the recently developed theory of consciousness as integrated information (Tononi), as well as its quantum physical construal by Max Tegmark, I suggest some provisional ways to address those issues.