In this paper I want to introduce and defend what I call the "subject mode account" of collective intentionality. I propose to understand collectives from joint attention dyads over small informal groups of various types to organizations, institutions and political entities such as nation states, in terms of their self-awareness. On the subject mode account, the self-consciousness of such collectives is constitutive for their being. More precisely, their self-representation as subjects of joint theoretical and practical positions towards the world (...) – rather than as objects of such positions – makes them what they are. Members of such collectives represent each other as co-subjects of such positions and thus represent the world from the point of view of the collective. (shrink)

In the third Whitehead Psychology Nexus Studies, we have discussed (i) the dual-aspect-dual-mode proto-experience (PE)-subjective experience (SE)framework of consciousness based on neuroscience, (ii) its implication in war, suffering, peace, and happiness, (iii) the process of sublimation for optimizingthem and converting the negative aspects of seven groups of self-protective energy system (desire, anger, ego, greed, attachment, jealousy, and selfishlove)into their positive aspects from both western and eastern perspectives (Vimal, 2009b). In this article, we summarize the recent development since then as (...) follows. (1) In (Vimal, 2010), we rigorously investigated the classical and quantum matching and selection processes for precisely experiencing a specific SE in a specific neural-network. (2) In (Vimal, 2009i), we unpacked the quantum view of superposition related to the superposition-based hypothesis H1 of our framework in terms of subquantum dual-aspect primal entities (bhutatmas) and addressed the related explanatory gaps. (3) We developed alternative hypotheses of our framework, namely, the superposition-then-integration-emergence based H2, the integration-emergence based H3, the intelligent mechanism based H4, and the vacuum/Aether based H5. We concluded that our framework with H1 is the most optimal one because it has the least number of problems (Vimal, 2009j). (4) We found over 40 different but overlapping meanings attributed to the term ‘consciousness’ and suggested that authors must specify which aspect ofconsciousness they refer to when using this term to minimize confusion (Vimal, 2009f). (5) We proposed definitions of consciousness, qualia, mind, and awareness (Vimal, 2009h). (6) We investigated the necessary ingredients for access (reportable) consciousness: wakefulness, re-entry, attention, working memory and so on (Vimal, 2009g). (7) We discussed Nâgârjuna’s philosophy of dependent co-origination with respect to our PE-SE framework (Vimal, 2009a). (8) We linked dynamic systems theory and fractal catalytic theory with standard representation theory using our framework (Vimal, 2009d). (9) We introduce the PE-SE aspects of consciousness in theoretical classical and quantum physics including loop quantum gravity and string theory (Vimal, 2009k). (10) In (Vimal, 2009c), we proposed that the SE of subject or ‘self’ in self-related neural-network is tuned to the self-related SEs/PEs superposed in other innumerable entities during samadhi state via matching and selection processes. This leads to bliss, ecstasy, or exceptionally high degree of climax at samadhi state. We conclude that, so far, the dualaspect-dual-mode PE-SE framework with hypothesis H1 is the most optimal framework for explaining our conventional reality because it has the least number of problems. Keywords: Evolution of consciousness; Internal representation; Sensorimotor interaction; Dual-aspect model; Subjective experience; Protoexperiences, Explanatory gap; Mind-brain problem; Purusha; Prakriti; Eastern and Western perspectives; Yoga; Sublimation process; Whitehead; Process and Reality; Occasions of experience; Superposition; Subquantum dual-aspect primal entities (bhutatmas); Superposition-then-integration-emergence; Integration-emergence; Intelligent mechanism; Vacuum/Aether; qualia; Mind; Awareness; Nâgârjuna; Classical and quantum physics; Loop quantum gravity; String theory. (shrink)

Is there really such a thing as a masculine style of writing? What are its characteristics and why just these characteristics? Can we distinguish the masculine style from the explicit masculine content? The writers I will examine in this context are necessarily a selection from the number of those who might be included. They are all twentieth-century authors. Perhaps, as Woolf suggests in A Room of One's Own, it is because of the beginnings of the women's movement in the preceding (...) century that "virility has now become self-conscious."1 At any rate there seems to be little explicit questioning of the male role, in literature or outside it, until our own century. I do not mean to suggest, however, that these writers only question the received images of maleness; often they set out to validate those images or, through such images, to validate themselves. Their explorations of maleness are not abstract but intensely individual. They are not straightforward but riddled with contradictions and paradoxes. As a result, it is difficult to extract didactic points from their works. Always knowledge is rooted in experience and inseparable from it. The masculine mode is above all an attempt to render a certain maleness of experience. · 1. Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own , p. 105. Peter Schwenger, assistant professor of English at Mount St. Vincent University in Halifax, has written Phallic Critiques, which examines the relation between masculinity and literary styles. See also: "Virginia Woolf's Criticism: A Polemical Preface" by Barbara Currier Bell and Carol Ohmann in Vol. 1, No. 2. (shrink)

Research on the neuronal correlates of consciousness faces the problem that the explanandum is ill defined. An attempt is made to constrain the problem by contrasting conscious with non‐conscious processing modes. Evidence is reviewed that favors the notion that conscious processing is associated with a dynamical state that permits binding of widely distributed computational results by establishing large scale temporal coherence. It is proposed that the coexistence of conscious and non‐conscious processing modes is a general feature of (...) mammalian brains that is amenable to neurobiological exploration. By contrast it is argued that the phase transition between neuronal processes and the qualia experienced from the first person perspective defies purely neuroscientific reductionism because qualia have the ontological status of social realities. Hence, they can only be accounted for by including in addition the social interactions of agents endowed with the cognitive functions of humans. (shrink)

Resumen: En muchas lenguas las cláusulas adverbiales iniciales presentan una repetición del predicado de la oración anterior, lo que se conoce como enlace tail-head. Este trabajo busca describir las construcciones de eth del quichua santiagueño de acuerdo con dos parámetros: a) el grado de solapamiento semántico entre los predicados de la construcción de eth, y b) el grado de integración eventiva de la adverbial inicial con la cláusula principal. El primer parámetro permite identificar construcciones verbatim -con repetición exacta del verbo (...) anterior- y no verbatim -sin repetición exacta-. El segundo parámetro se manifiesta en la forma que adopta la cláusula “cabeza”. Así, se identificaron, por un lado, una forma converbal y, por el otro, cláusulas con los sufijos del sistema de conmutación de la referencia. La interacción entre estos dos parámetros muestra que las diferentes construcciones de eth poseen diversas funciones discursivas, en particular para la coherencia temática.: In many languages preposed adverbial clauses repeat the previous verb or predicate, which phenomenon has been termed tail-head linkage. This paper aims to describe THL constructions in Santiagueño Quichua according to two parameters: a) the degree of semantic overlap between the predicates of the THL constructions, and b) the degree of event integration of the preposed adverbial with its main clause. The first parameter allows the identification of verbatim constructions -with exact repetition of the previous predicate- and non verbatim constructions -without exact repetition-. The second parameter manifests itself in the form the head clause might adopt, where it is a converb or it takes switch reference suffixes. The interplay of both parameters shows that the different THL constructions possess diverse discourse functions, particularly regarding thematic coherence. (shrink)

This essay argues that Spinoza’s metaphysics offers a theoretical framework for dissolving the conceptual gap in contemporary consciousness studies. The conceptual origins of the gap have their roots in Cartesian substance dualism. If phenomenal experience is conceived as substantially distinct from correlated physical processes in the brain, an explanatory gap opens in our understanding of the mind/body relation. Spinoza’s metaphysics offers an ontology that preserves the qualitative difference between phenomenal experience and physiological processes while conceiving the ultimate numerical unity (...) of mind and its correlated physical processes. The notion of qualitative difference within substantial unity is deduced from Spinoza’s redefinition of the basic features of the Cartesian universe: substance, attribute, and mode. Redefinition results in a property dualism that is internally consistent and dissolves the conceptual gap in contemporary consciousness studies. This paper identifies and explains the central argument for qualitative distinction within substantial unity and recommends a framework for consciousness studies that views phenomenology and neuroscience as complementary disciplines. (shrink)

From the notion of “minor literature” proposed by Gilles Deleuze, the article comprises a general approach to the writings of the Chilean poets Tomás Harris and Nicolás Miquea, to raise the possibility of a “minor reading”, as an exercise of reflection on both authors. From a broad theoretical approach, the article also explores the identity of poetry as health event, otherness, and relational aesthetics for the conceptual development of a “poetic trafficker”.

Objectives: Recent fMRI studies have shown that it is possible to reliably identify the defaultmode network (DMN) in the absence of any task, by resting-state connectivity analyses in healthy volunteers. We here aimed to identify the DMN in the challenging patient population of disorders of consciousness encountered following coma. Experimental design: A spatial independent component analysis-based methodology permitted DMN assessment, decomposing connectivity in all its different sources either neuronal or artifactual. Three different selection criteria were introduced assessing anticorrelation-corrected connectivity (...) with or without an automatic masking procedure and calculating connectivity scores encompassing both spatial and temporal properties. These three methods were validated on 10 healthy controls and applied to an independent group of 8 healthy controls and 11 severely brain-damaged patients [locked-in syndrome (n ¼ 2), minimally conscious (n ¼ 1), and vegetative state (n ¼ 8)]. Principal observations: All vegetative patients showed fewer connections in the default-mode areas, when compared with controls, contrary to locked-in patients who showed nearnormal connectivity. In the minimally conscious-state patient, only the two selection criteria considering both spatial and temporal properties were able to identify an intact right lateralized BOLD connectivity pattern, and metabolic PET data suggested its neuronal origin. Conclusions: When assess-. (shrink)

As early as the ninth century, Muslim astronomers started refining the Ptolemaic astronomy which, by this time, had been fully adopted as the framework of their research. Already, in the early part of this century, refinements were based on improved observational techniques, and included a variety of phenomena such as the length of the seasons, the solar equation, mean motion parameters, and many others.

In his contribution to Human Senses and Perception, R. J. Hirst has made a number of important suggestions about perceptual consciousness, He has emphasised the need to describe ‘what the percipient is or may be conscious of’ from the percipient's own point of view. This mode of description is contrasted with stimulus or neurological description. Perceptual consciousness of one object is distinguished from perceptual consciousness of another object ‘only by or on the evidence of, the person concerned’. (...) The method of obtaining descriptions of perceptual consciousness is either to question a percipient or to reflect on our own experience, The second important point stressed by Hirst is that the end product of perceiving is ‘the conscious experience of external objects’. Such an obvious point is often lost sight of in behavioural, dispositional, or neurophysiological analyses, The third and final suggestion made by Hirst to which I want to call attention is the usefulness of a genetic hypothesis to explain and account for perceptual consciousness. Hirst feels that perceptual consciousness is ‘unanalysable at the conscious level’, meaning that it is ‘a unitary awareness of objects or scenes’ and that the ‘various interacting unconscious activities’ which coexist with awareness ‘cannot be brought forward into consciousness’. The various analytical theories of perception have been designed to break perceptual consciousness into its components. This has resulted in their being false to perceptual consciousness. A genetic explanation of awareness has several advantages, prime among them being its ability to explain the complexity and development of awareness. (shrink)

The search for mechanisms has been a common practice in scientific research. However, since the empiricist critique of causality, and especially during the second third of the twentieth century, other non-mechanistic perspectives—especially deductivism—gained predominance. But the sustained effort of authors such as Michael Scriven, Mario Bunge and especially Wesley Salmon contributed to restoring the respectability of causality and mechanisms in philosophy of science. Some members of the causal family, usually lumped under the name of “new mechanistic philosophy”, emphasize the description (...) of mechanisms, especially causal ones, as a central aspect of explanation and other research practices in several areas of science. This approach offers viable solutions to the various ontological and methodological objections that are opposed to the two traditional approaches. In this work the basic characteristics of three philosophies that highlight the description of mechanisms as a central element to explanation and their suitability for the science of ecology are discussed. (shrink)

I dispute that consciousness is generated by core circuitry in the forebrain, with predominance of motor areas, as Cotterillproposes in Enchanted Looms and other theorists do also. Ipropose instead that conscious contents are the momentary modeof action of the integrated cortical field, expressed as a point vector ( dominant focus ), to which, in varying degree, allsectors of the network contribute. Consciousness is the brain''saccess to its own activity space, and is identical with the moment''sdominant mode of activity. (...) The dominant focus is generally weightedtoward enactively encoded percepts. Anticipation and preparation,perception and action, inextricably interdigitate. I also dispute the view of Cotterill and others that consciousnesshas unique agency, which bestowed adaptive advantage when the brain evolved. Being identical with the activity of the network,consciousness can have no additional agency, and it can offerno adaptive advantages beyond those that characterize the network. (shrink)

What is a “historical” video game, let alone a successful one? It is difficult to answer this question because all our definitions of history have been constructed in a linear-narrative cultural context that is currently being challenged and in large part displaced by digital media, especially video games. I therefore consider this question from the point of view of historical semantics and in relation to the impact of digital technology on all aspects of the historiographical operation, from the establishment of (...) digital archives, to the production of e-texts, to the digital remediation of visual modes of historical representation. Seen from this dual perspective, video games appear to participate in a process of spatialization and virtualization of historical semantics. In the first place, video games have begun to detach the notion of history from its double reference to the past and to the real—“what essentially happened”—that it had acquired at the end of the eighteenth century. Second, they also challenge the semiotic production of “historic events” that has characterized the construction of modern historical consciousness. Historical video games, in other words, replace representation with simulation and presence with virtuality, thereby marginalizing the oscillation of the modern historical imagination between historical facts and historic events, transcendence and immanence, representation and presence. Although digital reworkings of historical semantics have not produced any grammatical transformation of the signifier, history—nor does this essay propose one—I do argue that the impact of video games on our contemporary historic culture is of paradigmatic proportions similar to those described by Reinhart Koselleck for the dawn of the modern age. Focusing on one of the most successful contemporary video games, Sid Meier’s Civilization, I show how the remediation of cinematic genres by video games is pushing the processes of de-temporalization and de-referentialization of history toward the formation of a new notion of the historical that may be conceptualized as the inversion of the classic Aristotelian paradigm: history has replaced poetry and philosophy as the realm of the possible. (shrink)

This study addresses the challenge of attitude tracking control for a rigid-flexible spacecraft with high-inertia rotating appendages. The Lagrange method was used to establish the kinematic and dynamic models of the spacecraft. The translation and rotation of the spacecraft, vibrations of solar panels, and imbalance caused by the rotating appendages, which cause a complex control problem, were considered. To address the complex control problem, a novel, fast nonsingular integral sliding mode control method is proposed to perform the attitude tracking function (...) of spacecraft. A sliding mode control law was established for the high-inertia appendages to maintain an appropriate angular velocity during rotation. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed attitude control law was verified by numerical simulations for a spacecraft with high-inertia rotating appendages and symmetrical flexible solar panels. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Council's Solar CalendarFrancis M. DunnIt is well known that for some time during the fifth century, the calendar used by the council in Athens to conduct its business ("prytany calendar") employed a year of a different length from that of the calendar used by the archon to schedule religious events ("festival calendar"). In the fourth century the archon's calendar consisted of twelve or thirteen lunar months, while the (...) council's calendar divided the same year of 354 or 383/4 days into ten prytanies, one for each tribe. For at least part of the fifth century, however, the two calendars ran for different periods, and began and ended at different times. The nature of this independent or noncoterminous year has been debated, and a consensus seems to be emerging that it was a schematic year of 366 days.1 In what follows I show that this schematic year is highly improbable and propose a new reconstruction of the council's calendar.In 1894 Bruno Keil demonstrated that in the late fifth century the archon's calendar of months did not begin or end at the same time as the council's calendar of prytanies.2 This finding was confirmed by subsequent scholars, who offered different explanations: Meritt (1928, esp. 72) argued that the council's calendar followed the solar year and was introduced by Cleisthenes, whereas Dinsmoor (1931, esp. 327–29) argued that it followed a precise astronomical scheme and was introduced by Meton. Meritt was able to show (1932, 152–58) that Dinsmoor's elaborate scheme was not consistent with known dates from the period, but he did not develop or explain his own hypothesis of approximate solar years. One crucial piece of evidence has been the Logistai Inscription (IG I3 369 [423/2]). From the accounts on this stone Kubicki and Meritt had shown that interest for the quadrennium 426/5 to 423/2 was calculated for 1,464 days, so that for those years the council's calendar averaged [End Page 369] 366 days.3 Meritt went on (1928, 70–71) to reconstruct four years of 366, 368, 365, and 365 days respectively for the period 426/5 to 423/2. This approximate solar year seemed to agree with the calendar equations for 423/2 ( = Prytany 10.2, IG I3 369 78–79) and 412/1 (Skirophorion 14 = Prytany 1.1, Arist. Ath. Pol. 32.1), from which he calculated an average of 365 4/11 days for the council's year during the period 423/2 to 412/1 (1928, 84–85). Meritt's view, in other words, was that the independent calendar of the council followed the solar (tropical) year, but because the council's calendar was not rigid or consistent, its agreement with the solar year was not exact.4Pritchett, however, has argued that the council's year consisted of fixed and regular prytanies.5 On this view, it follows that the quadrennium 426/5 to 423/2 consisted of four equal years, and Pritchett was able to show that the accounts on the Logistai Inscription were consistent with a schematic council calendar of 366 days comprising six 37–day prytanies followed by four 36–day prytanies in each year of the quadrennium.6 In support of this view, Pritchett added the negative argument (1964, 40–41, 49–50) that Meritt's average of 365 4/11 days for the subsequent period from 423/2 to 412/1 depends upon a contested reading of the Logistai Inscription and upon speculation concerning the calendar between 423/2 and 412/1. He added the positive argument (Pritchett and Neugebauer 1947, 95–96) that his own scheme is consistent with two additional inscriptions: rates of pay in the Erechtheum accounts imply that there were 37 days in Prytany 6 (IG I3 476 60–63 [408/7]) and 36 days in Prytany 8 (IG I3 476 266–70), while dates on the Choiseul Marble include Prytany 8.36, Prytany 9.36, and Prytany 10.36 (IG I3 375 29–34 [410/9]). The evidence is somewhat circumstantial, but taken as a whole it strongly... (shrink)

Raimo Tuomela’s most important contribution to the philosophy of collective intentionality was his development of the notion of the we-mode. In my chapter I extend the notion of we-mode to that of role-mode, the mode in which individual and collective subjects feel, think and act as occupants of roles within groups and institutional structures. I focus on how being in role-mode is manifest in the minds of subjects and on the following points. First, I argue that both we-mode and role-mode (...) are best thought of as further modifications of I-consciousness, respectively we-consciousness. Second, role-mode is further characterized by the fact that subjects will take positions as role occupants that they won’t take as mere individuals, or we-mode group members, or in other roles. Third, such divergences are only possible against a background of agreements between positions taken in different modes. Fourth, such divergences are also grounded in decision making procedures and the accessibility and admissibility of sources of evidence. Fifth, role-mode goes all the way down, that is, it is also manifest in how subjects feel, move and comport themselves when they occupy their roles. To put it into fashionable jargon, it is embodied and enacted. (shrink)

This paper suggests that autistic people relate to themselves via a third-person perspective, an objective and explicit mode of access, while neurotypical people tend to access the different dimensions of their self through a first-person perspective. This approach sheds light on autistic traits involving interactions with others, usage of narratives, sensitivity and interoception, and emotional consciousness. Autistic people seem to access these dimensions through comparatively indirect and effortful processes, while neurotypical development enables a more intuitive sense of self.

The principal temptation toward substance dualisms, or otherwise incorporating a question begging homunculus into our psychologies, arises not from the problem of consciousness in general, nor from the problem of intentionality, but from the question of our awareness and understanding of our own mental contents, and the control of the deliberate, conscious thinking in which we employ them. Dennett has called this "Hume's problem". Cognitivist philosophers have generally either denied the experiential reality of thought, as did the Behaviorists, or (...) have taken an implicitly epiphenomenalist stance, a form of dualism. Some sort of mental duality may indeed be required to meet this problem, but not one that is metaphysical or question begging. I argue that it can be solved in the light of Paivio's "Dual Coding" theory of mental representation. This theory, which is strikingly simple and intuitive (perhaps too much so to have caught the imagination of philosophers) has demonstrated impressive empirical power and scope. It posits two distinct systems of potentially conscious representations in the human mind: mental imagery and verbal representation (which is not to be confused with 'propositional' or "mentalese" representation). I defend, on conceptual grounds, Paivio's assertion of precisely two codes against interpretations which would either multiply image codes to match sense modes, or collapse the two, admittedly interacting, systems into one. On this basis I argue that the inference that a conscious agent would be needed to read such mental representations and to manipulate them in the light of their contents can be pre-empted by an account of how the two systems interact, each registering, affecting and being affected by developing associative processes within the other. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the extent to which nonhuman animals are conscious. Most important perhaps is what criteria should be used in making such a determination.

Visual conscious perception could be grounded in a nonconscious sensorimotor domain. Although invisible, information can be processed up to the level of response activation. Moreover, these nonconscious processes are modified by actual intentions. This notion bridges a gap in the theoretical framework of O'Regan & Noë.

The extensive involvement of nonconscious processes in human behaviour has led some to suggest that consciousness is much less important for the control of action than we might think. In this article I push against this trend, developing an understanding of conscious control that is sensitive to our best models of overt action control. Further, I assess the cogency of various zombie challenges—challenges that seek to demote the importance of conscious control for human agency. I argue that though nonconscious (...) contributions to action control are evidently robust, these challenges are overblown. (shrink)

Plotinus is the first Greek philosopher to hold a systematic theory of consciousness. The key feature of his theory is that it involves multiple layers of experience: different layers of consciousness occur in different levels of self. This layering of higher modes of consciousness on lower ones provides human beings with a rich experiential world, and enables human beings to draw on their own experience to investigate their true self and the nature of reality. This involves (...) a robust notion of subjectivity. However, it is a notion of subjectivity that is unique to Plotinus, and remarkably different from the Post-Cartesian tradition. Behind the plurality of terms Plotinus uses to express consciousness, and behind the plurality of entities to which Plotinus attributes consciousness, lies a theory of human consciousness. It is a Platonist theory shaped by engagement with rival schools of ancient thought. (shrink)

The Gestalt Bubble model of visual consciousness is a courageous attempt to take the first-person perspective as primary in the study of consciousness. I have developed similar ideas as the Virtual Reality Metaphor of consciousness (Revonsuo 1995; 2000). I can, hence, only agree with Lehar about the general shape of a proper research strategy for the study of consciousness. As to the metaphysical basis of the research program, I have, however, several reservations about panexperientialism.