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Conscious Experience (conscious + experience)
Selected AbstractsKINDS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IT IS LIKE TO BE SOMETHING?METAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2008SIMON J. EVNINE Abstract: In this article I distinguish the notion of there being something it is like to be a certain kind of creature from that of there being something it is like to have a certain kind of experience. Work on consciousness has typically dealt with the latter while employing the language of the former. I propose several ways of analyzing what it is like to be a certain kind of creature and find problems with them all. The upshot is that even if there is something it is like to have certain kinds of experience, it does not follow that there is anything it is like to be a certain kind of creature. Skepticism about the existence of something that it is like to be an F is recommended. [source] Collective Conscious Experience Across TimeANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2002Axel A. Randrup The notion of collective conscious experience is here seen as an alternative or complement to themore familiar notion of individual conscious experience. Much evidence supports the concept of collective experience in the present. But what about time? Can a conscious experience which, whenregarded as individual, is referred to the past be considered a collectiveexperience extended in both past and present ? My answer is yes, and this answer is supported by evidence about conceptions of time and conscious experience in various cultures, including Western culture and science, and by evidence about the psychological Now. Egoless conscious experience is an alternative to both individual and collective experience; it is often connected with experience of timelessness, andis then unrestricted by time. [source] Automatic and controlled processes in behavioural control: Implications for personality psychologyEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY, Issue 5 2010Philip J. Corr Abstract This paper highlights a number of unresolved theoretical issues that, it is argued, continue to impede the construction of a viable model of behavioural control in personality psychology. It is contended that, in order to integrate motivation, emotion, cognition and conscious experience within a coherent framework, two major issues need to be recognised: (a) the relationship between automatic (reflexive) and controlled (reflective) processing and (b) the lateness of controlled processing (including the generation of conscious awareness),phenomenally, such processing seems to ,control' behaviour, but experimentally it can be shown to postdate the behaviour it represents. The implications of these two major issues are outlined, centred on the need to integrate theoretical perspectives within personality psychology, as well as the greater unification of personality psychology with general psychology. A model of behavioural control is sketched, formulated around the concept of the behavioural inhibition system (BIS), which accounts for: (a) why certain stimuli are extracted for controlled processing (i.e. those that are not ,going to plan', as detected by an error mechanism) and (b) the function of controlled processing (including conscious awareness) in terms of adjusting the cybernetic weights of automatic processes (which are always in control of immediate behaviour) which, then, influence future automatically controlled behaviour. The relevance of this model is illustrated in relation to a number of topics in personality psychology, as well related issues of free-will and difficult-to-control behaviours. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Coherence in consciousness: Paralimbic gamma synchrony of self-reference links conscious experiencesHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 2 2010Hans C. Lou Abstract A coherent and meaningful percept of the world is essential for human nature. Consequently, much speculation has focused on how this is achieved in the brain. It is thought that all conscious experiences have reference to the self. Self-reference may either be minimal or extended, i.e., autonoetic. In minimal self-reference subjective experiences are self-aware in the weak sense that there is something it feels like for the subject to experience something. In autonoetic consciousness, consciousness emerges, by definition, by retrieval of memories of personally experienced events (episodic memory). It has been shown with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that a medial paralimbic circuitry is critical for self-reference. This circuitry includes anterior cingulate/medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate/medial parietal cortices, connected directly and via thalamus. We here hypothesized that interaction in the circuitry may bind conscious experiences with widely different degrees of self-reference through synchrony of high frequency oscillations as a common neural event. This hypothesis was confirmed with magneto-encephalography (MEG). The observed coupling between the neural events in conscious experience may explain the sense of unity of consciousness and the severe symptoms associated with paralimbic dysfunction. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Timing of potential and metabolic brain energyJOURNAL OF NEUROCHEMISTRY, Issue 5 2007Jakob Korf Abstract The temporal relationship between cerebral electro-physiological activities, higher brain functions and brain energy metabolism is reviewed. The duration of action potentials and transmission through glutamate and GABA are most often less than 5 ms. Subjects may perform complex psycho-physiological tasks within 50 to 200 ms, and perception of conscious experience requires 0.5 to 2 s. Activation of cerebral oxygen consumption starts after at least 100 ms and increases of local blood flow become maximal after about 1 s. Current imaging technologies are unable to detect rapid physiological brain functions. We introduce the concepts of potential and metabolic brain energy to distinguish trans-membrane gradients of ions or neurotransmitters and the capacity to generate energy from intra- or extra-cerebral substrates, respectively. Higher brain functions, such as memory retrieval, speaking, consciousness and self-consciousness are so fast that their execution depends primarily on fast neurotransmission (in the millisecond range) and action-potentials. In other words: brain functioning requires primarily maximal potential energy. Metabolic brain energy is necessary to restore and maintain the potential energy. [source] THE TROUBLE WITH MARYPACIFIC PHILOSOPHICAL QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2003Victoria McGeer While anti-physicalists appeal to both arguments, this paper argues there is a methodological incoherence in jointly maintaining them: the modal argument supports the possibility of zombies; but the possibility of zombies undercuts the knowledge argument. At best, this leaves anti-physicalists in a considerably weakened rhetorical position. At worst, it shows that commonsense intuitions on which anti-physicalists rely mislead us about the true nature of conscious experience. [source] Politics and the numinous: evolution, spiritual emergency, and the re-emergence of transpersonal consciousnessPSYCHOTHERAPY AND POLITICS INTERNATIONAL, Issue 3 2008Mick Collins Abstract Philosopher Herbert Marcuse observed in 1964 that modern people's materialistic and consumer-based lifestyles have resulted in societies becoming more one dimensional, which has contributed to a growing attitude of ,uncritical conformity'. Marcuse advocated that in order to transcend a one-dimensional existence people will have to engage and actualize their human potential. The increasing environmental and ecological crisis that is confronting the world today identifies a pressing need for change and adaptation at all levels of society including governments, businesses, individual and collective consciousness. The transformation of a one-dimensional consumer-based society will require people and societies to engage different dimensions of conscious experience in order to bring about change. This article discusses how developments within human consciousness have evolved in conjunction with spiritual capacities and how collective ritual encounters with the numinous have contributed to developments in the human brain, mind and culture. I propose that the modern phenomenon of spiritual emergencies can be evaluated from an evolutionary perspective, which may be revealing transformational patterns within consciousness that go beyond a one-dimensional materialistic existence. Spiritual emergency reinforces the need for spiritual awareness to challenge the one-sided materialistic consciousness prevalent within modern consumer based societies. The process of psycho-spiritual transformation could lead to a resacralized socio-political vision and validation of a re-emergent transpersonal consciousness. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Leaps of faith: Is forgiveness a useful concept?THE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 5 2008Henry F. Smith Using detailed clinical vignettes, the author argues that, despite the current idealization of the concept of forgiveness, the term has no place in psychoanalytic work, and there are some hazards to giving it one. Clinically, the concept of forgiveness is seductive, implying that there should be a common outcome to a variety of injuries, stemming from different situations and calling for different solutions. Every instance of what we call forgiveness can be seen to serve a different defensive function. While the conscious experience of what is called forgiveness is sometimes confused with the unconscious process of reparation, the two can only be described at different levels of psychic life. Despite the fact that in ,the unconscious' there is no such thing as forgiveness, the term has an adhesive quality in our thinking that also blunts the analyst''s appreciation of the aggressive components in the work. In a final vignette, the author illustrates an analytic outcome that has the appearance of forgiveness, but is best understood as the complex result of the everyday work of analysis. [source] The logic of turmoil: Some epistemological and clinical considerations on emotional experience and the infiniteTHE INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, Issue 4 2008Pietro Bria The idea of the infinite has its origins in the very beginnings of western philosophy and was developed significantly by modern philosophers such as Galileo and Leibniz. Freud discovered the Unconscious which does not respect the laws of classical logic, flouting its fundamental principle of non-contradiction. This opened the way to a new epistemology in which classical logic coexists with an aberrant logic of infinite affects. Matte Blanco reorganized this Freudian revolution in logic and introduced the concept of bi-logic, which is an intermingling of symmetric and Aristotelic logics. The authors explore some epistemological and clinical aspects of the functioning of the deep unconscious where the emergence of infinity threatens to overwhelm the containing function of thought, connecting this topic to some of Bion's propositions. They then suggest that bodily experiences can be considered a prime source of the logic of turmoil, and link a psychoanalytic consideration of the infinite to the mind,body relation. Emotional catastrophe is seen both as a defect,a breakdown of the unfolding function which translates unconscious material into conscious experience,and as the consequence of affective bodily pressures. These pressures function in turn as symmetrizing or infinitizing operators. Two clinical vignettes are presented to exemplify the hypotheses. [source] Collective Conscious Experience Across TimeANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2002Axel A. Randrup The notion of collective conscious experience is here seen as an alternative or complement to themore familiar notion of individual conscious experience. Much evidence supports the concept of collective experience in the present. But what about time? Can a conscious experience which, whenregarded as individual, is referred to the past be considered a collectiveexperience extended in both past and present ? My answer is yes, and this answer is supported by evidence about conceptions of time and conscious experience in various cultures, including Western culture and science, and by evidence about the psychological Now. Egoless conscious experience is an alternative to both individual and collective experience; it is often connected with experience of timelessness, andis then unrestricted by time. [source] Impulsive versus premeditated aggression: implications for mens rea decisionsBEHAVIORAL SCIENCES & THE LAW, Issue 5 2003Ernest S. Barratt Ph.D. Science can provide more information about the nature of aggressive acts, and therefore the mens rea of criminal offenses, than is commonly assumed. For example, progress has been made in classifying aggression as impulsive or premeditated within the context of the role of conscious experience in controlling behavior. This review of the status of the scientific ability to distinguish conscious from unconscious acts and more specifically impulsive from premeditated aggressive acts is organized around four themes: (i) How is aggression defined and measured in general? (ii) How does the distinction between impulsive and premeditated aggression relate to the legal concept of mens rea? (iii) How do various scientific disciplines contribute to the mind/body discourse? (iv) What risk factors are associated with impulsive and premeditated aggression respectively? The authors conclude that the most promising approach to researching the nature of behavioral intention and motivation is to apply a discipline neutral model that integrates the data from multiple disciplines, collectively designated the cognitive neurosciences. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Coherence in consciousness: Paralimbic gamma synchrony of self-reference links conscious experiencesHUMAN BRAIN MAPPING, Issue 2 2010Hans C. Lou Abstract A coherent and meaningful percept of the world is essential for human nature. Consequently, much speculation has focused on how this is achieved in the brain. It is thought that all conscious experiences have reference to the self. Self-reference may either be minimal or extended, i.e., autonoetic. In minimal self-reference subjective experiences are self-aware in the weak sense that there is something it feels like for the subject to experience something. In autonoetic consciousness, consciousness emerges, by definition, by retrieval of memories of personally experienced events (episodic memory). It has been shown with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) that a medial paralimbic circuitry is critical for self-reference. This circuitry includes anterior cingulate/medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate/medial parietal cortices, connected directly and via thalamus. We here hypothesized that interaction in the circuitry may bind conscious experiences with widely different degrees of self-reference through synchrony of high frequency oscillations as a common neural event. This hypothesis was confirmed with magneto-encephalography (MEG). The observed coupling between the neural events in conscious experience may explain the sense of unity of consciousness and the severe symptoms associated with paralimbic dysfunction. Hum Brain Mapp, 2010. © 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source] Intuitions and introspections about imagery: the role of imagery experience in shaping an investigator's theoretical viewsAPPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 2 2003Daniel Reisberg Early in a scientific debate, before much evidence has accumulated, why are some scientists inclined toward one position and other scientists toward the opposite position? We explore this issue with a focus on scientists' views of the ,imagery debate' that unfolded in Cognitive Science during the late 1970s and early 1980s. We examine the possibility that, during the early years of this debate, researchers' views were shaped by their own conscious experiences with imagery. Consistent with this suggestion, a survey of 150 psychologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists showed that those who experienced their own visual imagery as vivid and picture-like recall being more sympathetic in 1980 to the view that, in general, images are picture-like. Similarly, those who have vivid images and who regularly use their images in cognition were more inclined to believe that issues of image vividness deserve more research. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||||||||