Merab Konstantinovich [Mamardashvili] met with me immediately, as soon as I requested it, although he forewarned me that he could only dimly remember much of that distant past in which I was most interested. But evidently that past still perturbed him as well, since he agreed to speak with me even though he had not yet completely recovered from his illness, and hence his voice was feeble, at times subsiding to a whisper; he would pronounce his words indistinctly, constantly sticking (...) one onto another; on top of that, for technical reasons the dictaphone was situated a bit away from him. It was therefore very difficult to transcribe the text, and I raised many questions with the idea of asking Merab Konstantinovich about them at our next meeting and clearing up some things. But alas, there was no next meeting … Hence I am permitting myself now to publish only some of the most clearly enunciated fragments of my conversation with him, one of the four "forefathers" of the Moscow Methodological Circle, whose name for us, today's participants (and hence neophytes) in the methodological movement, is enveloped by legends handed down by word of mouth. I kept my questions to a minimum. Mamardashvili's reminiscences, arguments, and reflections will seem contentious to many. But no matter, one can dispute points of substance even with those who have passed on. (shrink)

Causal understanding is a defining characteristic of human cognition. Like many animals, human children learn to control their bodily movements and act effectively in the environment. Like a smaller subset of animals, children intervene: they learn to change the environment in targeted ways. Unlike other animals, children grow into adults with the causal reasoning skills to develop abstract theories, invent sophisticated technologies and imagine alternate pasts, distant futures and fictional worlds. In this Review, we explore the development of human-unique causal (...) learning and reasoning from evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives. We frame our discussion using an ‘interventionist’ approach. First, we situate causal understanding in relation to cognitive abilities shared with non-human animals. We argue that human causal understanding is distinguished by its depersonalized (objective) and decontextualized (general) representations. Using this framework, we next review empirical findings on early human causal learning and reasoning and consider the naturalistic contexts that support its development. Then we explore connections to related abilities. We conclude with suggestions for ongoing collaboration between developmental, cross-cultural, computational, neural and evolutionary approaches to causal understanding. (shrink)

This text explores how human beings construe experience: experience as a resource, as a potential for understanding, representing and acting on reality.

Background One of the objectives of medicine is to relieve patients' suffering. As a consequence, it is important to understand patients' perspectives of suffering and their ability to cope. However, there is poor insight into what determines their suffering and their ability to bear it. Purpose To explore the constituent elements of suffering of patients who explicitly request euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (EAS) and to better understand unbearable suffering from the patients' perspective. Patients and methods A qualitative study using in-depth (...) face-to-face interviews was conducted with 31 patients who had requested EAS. The grounded theory approach was used to analyse the data. Results Medical, psycho-emotional, socio-environmental and existential themes contributed to suffering. Especially fatigue, pain, decline, negative feelings, loss of self, fear of future suffering, dependency, loss of autonomy, being worn out, being a burden, loneliness, loss of all that makes life worth living, hopelessness, pointlessness and being tired of living were constituent elements of unbearable suffering. Only patients with a psychiatric (co)diagnosis suffered unbearably all the time. Conclusions Unbearable suffering is the outcome of an intensive process that originates in the symptoms of illness and/or ageing. According to patients, hopelessness is an essential element of unbearable suffering. Medical and social elements may cause suffering, but especially when accompanied by psycho-emotional and existential problems suffering will become ‘unbearable’. Personality characteristics and biographical aspects greatly influence the burden of suffering. Unbearable suffering can only be understood in the continuum of the patients' perspectives of the past, the present and expectations of the future. (shrink)

Judgment aggregation theory, which concerns the translation of individual judgments on logical propositions into consistent group judgments, has shown that group consistency generally cannot be guaranteed if each proposition is treated independently from the others. Developing the right method of abandoning independence is thus a high-priority goal. However, little work has been done in this area outside of a few simple approaches. To fill the gap, we compare four methods based on distance metrics between judgment sets. The methods generalize the (...) premise-based and sequential priority approaches to judgment aggregation, as well as distance-based preference aggregation. They each guarantee group consistency and implement a range of distinct functions with different properties, broadening the available tools for social choice. A central result is that only one of these methods (not previously considered in the literature) satisfies three attractive properties for all reasonable metrics. (shrink)

In this pioneering book Kasia Jaszczolt lays down the foundations of an original theory of meaning in discourse, reveals the cognitive foundations of discourse interpretation, and puts forward a new basis for the analysis of discourse processing. She provides a step-by-step introduction to the theory and its application, and explains new terms and formalisms as required. Dr Jaszczolt unites the precision of truth-conditional, dynamic approaches with insights from neo-Gricean pragmatics into the role of speaker's intentions in communication. She shows that (...) the compositionality of meaning may be understood as merger representations combining information from various sources including word meaning and sentence structure, various kinds of default interpretations, and conscious pragmatic inference. Among the applications the author discusses are constructions that pose problems in semantic analysis such as referring expressions, propositional attitude constructions, presupposition, modality, numerals, and sentential connectives. She proposes solutions to cutting edge problems in the semantics/pragmatics interface - for example, how many levels of meaning should be distinguished; the status of underspecification; how much contextual information should be placed in the representation of the speaker's meaning; whether there are default interpretations; the stage of utterance interpretation at which pragmatic inference begins; and whether compositionality is a necessary feature of the theory of meaning and if so how it is to be defined.The book is for students and researchers in semantics, pragmatics, computational linguistics, and philosophy of language at advanced undergraduate level and above. (shrink)

Continued concern for animal welfare may be alleviated when welfare would be monitored on farms. Monitoring can be characterized as an information system where various stakeholders periodically exchange relevant information. Stakeholders include producers, consumers, retailers, the government, scientists, and others. Valuating animal welfare in the animal-product market chain is regarded as a key challenge to further improve the welfare of farm animals and information on the welfare of animals must, therefore, be assessed objectively, for instance, through monitoring. Interviews with Dutch (...) stakeholder representatives were conducted to identify their perceptions about the monitoring of animal welfare. Stakeholder perceptions were characterized in relation to the specific perspectives of each stakeholder. While producers tend to perceive welfare from a production point of view, consumers will use visual images derived from traditional farming and from the animals’ natural environments. Scientists’ perceptions of animal welfare are affected by the need to measure welfare with quantifiable parameters. Retailers and governments (policy makers) have views of welfare that are derived from their relationships with producers, consumers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and scientists. All interviewed stakeholder representatives stated that animal welfare is important. They varied in the extent to which they weighted economic considerations relative to concern for the animals’ welfare. Many stakeholders emphasized the importance of communication in making a monitoring system work. Overall, the perspectives for the development of a sustainable monitoring system that substantially improves farm animal welfare were assessed as being poor in the short term. However, a reliable system could be initiated under certain conditions, such as integrated chains and with influential and motivated stakeholders. A scheme is described with attention points for the development of sustainable monitoring systems for farm animal welfare in the long term. (shrink)

Are values and social priorities universal, or do they vary across geography, culture, and time? This question is very relevant to Asia’s emerging economies that are increasingly looking at Western models for answers to their own outmoded health care systems that are in dire need of reform. But is it safe for them to do so without sufficient regard to their own social, political, and philosophical moorings? This article argues that historical and cultural legacies influence prevailing social values with regard (...) to health care financing and resource allocation, and that the Confucian dimension provides a helpful entry point for a deeper understanding of ongoing health care reforms in East Asia – as exemplified by the unique case of Singapore. (shrink)

Background: Hospital nurses are frequently the first care givers to receive a patient’s request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In France, there is no consensus over which medical practices should be considered euthanasia, and this lack of consensus blurred the debate about euthanasia and PAS legalisation. This study aimed to investigate French hospital nurses’ opinions towards both legalisations, including personal conceptions of euthanasia and working conditions and organisation. Methods: A phone survey conducted among a random national sample of 1502 (...) French hospital nurses. We studied factors associated with opinions towards euthanasia and PAS, including contextual factors related to hospital units with random-effects logistic models. Results: Overall, 48% of nurses supported legalisation of euthanasia and 29%, of PAS. Religiosity, training in pallative care/pain management and feeling competent in end-of-life care were negatively correlated with support for legalisation of both euthanasia and PAS, while nurses working at night were more prone to support legalisation of both. The support for legalisation of euthanasia and PAS was also weaker in pain treatment/palliative care and intensive care units, and it was stronger in units not benefiting from interventions of charity/religious workers and in units with more nurses. Conclusions: Many French hospital nurses uphold the legalisation of euthanasia and PAS, but these nurses may be the least likely to perform what proponents of legalisation call “good” euthanasia. Improving professional knowledge of palliative care could improve the management of end-of-life situations and help to clarify the debate over euthanasia. (shrink)

There is no doubt that custard apple diseases are among the important reasons that destroy the Custard Apple plant and its agricultural crops. This leads to obvious damage to these plants and they become inedible. Discovering these diseases is a good step to provide the appropriate and correct treatment. Determining the treatment with high accuracy depends on the method used to correctly diagnose the disease, expert systems can greatly help in avoiding damage to these plants. The expert system correctly diagnoses (...) Custard Apple disease to make it easier for farmers to find the right treatment based on the appropriate diagnosis. Objectives: A specialized syllable language system was established for the diagnosis of Custard Apple plant disease. (shrink)

The notion of a Sasaki projectionon an orthomodular lattice is generalized to a mapping Φ: E × E → E, where E is an effect algebra. If E is lattice ordered and Φ is symmetric, then E is called a Φ-symmetric effect algebra.This paper launches a study of such effect algebras. In particular, it is shown that every interval effect algebra with a lattice-ordered ambient group is Φ-symmetric, and its group is the one constructed by Ravindran in his proof that (...) every effect algebra that has the Riesz decomposition property is an interval algebra. It is shown that the doubling construction introduced in the paper is connected to the conditional event algebrasof Goodman, Nguyen, and Walker. (shrink)

This chapter explains the concept of effort on the basis of evidence from experimental and cognitive psychology, demonstrates how it has been used in conducting studies of brain activity, and goes on to examine the individual differences that play a role in determining the efficiency of brain networks associated with effortful control. It also reviews certain educational training methods; those when used among children can change these networks, along with conditional changes developed in adults through meditation training. The findings reveal (...) that meditation helps in producing better attentional performance and the subjective condition related to effort. The chapter also investigates how these training methods play a role in determining the concept of flow. (shrink)

Yoga is believed to have beneficial effects on cognition, attenuation of emotional intensity and stress reduction. Previous studies were mainly performed on eastern experienced practitioners or unhealthy subjects undergoing concomitant conventional therapies. Further investigation is needed on the effects of yoga per se, as well as its possible preventive benefits on healthy subjects. We investigated the effects of yoga on memory and psychophysiological parameters related to stress, comparing yoga practice and conventional physical exercises in healthy men . Memory tests, salivary (...) cortisol levels and stress, anxiety, and depression inventories were assessed before and after 6 months of practice. Yoga practitioners showed improvement of the memory performance, as well as improvements in psychophysiological parameters. The present results suggest that regular yoga practice can improve aspects of cognition and quality of life for healthy individuals. An indirect influence of emotional state on cognitive improvement promoted by yoga practice can be proposed. (shrink)

This paper inquires into the nature of intertheoretic relations between psychology and neuroscience. This relationship has been characterized by some as one in which psychological explanations eventually will fall away as otiose, overthrown completely by neurobiological ones. Against this view it will be argued that it squares poorly with scientific practices and empirical developments in the cognitive neurosciences. We analyse a case from research on visual perception, which suggests a much more subtle and complex interplay between psychology and neuroscience than (...) a complete take-over of the former by the latter. In the case of vision, cross-theory influences between psychology and neuroscience go back and forth, resulting in refinement in both disciplines. We interpret this case study as showing that: (1) Mutual co-evolution of psychological and neurobiological theories, exemplifying persisting top-down influences from psychology, is a more empirically adequate way to describe psychoneural theory relations than a view on co-evolution, favoured by reductionists, which regards the cross-theory contributions from psychology as merely heuristically useful with no enduring influence on neurobiological theorizing; (2) In research on vision, discovering (or hypothesizing) the neural basis of functions vindicates psychological approaches, it does not eliminate them; (3) Current work on vision shows that many perceptual phenomena must be understood in terms of dynamical interactions between an observer and his/her environment. Therefore, we argue that internalist characterizations of the visual system must be supplemented with externalist accounts that address these reciprocal observer-environment interactions involved in vision. Such processes seem quite different from (internal) cellular and molecular ones, and as such seem to lie outside the scope of neuroscientific inquiry. We conclude that psychoneural reduction or elimination is implausible as a meta-theoretical prediction of theory choice in empirical work. Instead, this case study of vision shows that both psychology and neuroscience contribute to, and complement one another in the study of visual perception. (shrink)

The mind is not structured anatomically, as emphasized by modern pathology. Instead, it is expanded as a whole in a subtle form behind the physical body. In the Indian system of medical philosophy, the mind is considered as the astral nerves made third body, which identified as the ‘Manomaya-sharira’ (subconscious mind). The mind is composed of millions of astralnadis, through which Pranic-energies circulate freely into the astral anatomy of mind. Seven-chakras are found parallel to the spine, serving as the major (...) seven innovation centres in the body. These Chakras facilitate the connection of the mind with the seven dimensions of the inner world. From these dimensions the Pranic-energies including Sattva, Raja, Tama are exported to the mind and its Nadi-tantras, influencing both the outer and inner subconscious minds. Subsequently, these elements, viz., Sattva, Raja and Tama are thrown from the mind to the outer world through the seven sense organs, manifesting as either constructive or destructive activities. Thus the mind exists due to ‘Prana’, (energy of Omkara) which increases through deeper meditation, sound sleep, and breathing exercises (O2). The positional behaviour of the mind shifts according to the physical and mental temperament, namely Triguna and Tridosha, or Panchavikara. The negative energy (Tama-guna) of the fourth dimension enters the astral Nadis-system of the mind via the interspace of the solar plexus, which crushes the mind’s structures, and consequently, all the Chakras are corrupted and the Nadis are blocked, so it generates a break in the circulation of ‘Prana’ into the Nadis. As a result, many socio-economic challenges and psychosomatic disorders occur. (shrink)

Non-fiction graphic novels about illness and death created by patients and their loved ones have much to teach all readers. However, the bond of empathy made possible in the comic form may have special lessons for healthcare providers who read these texts and are open to the insights they provide.

The description Ausonius has given us of his family and of the teachers and professors of Bordeaux in the mid-fourth century is exceptional among our sources because of its detail and completeness. There is no reason to suppose that the picture he gives is untypical of life in the provinces and it makes a welcome change from the histories of aristocratic politics at Rome or Constantinople. It provides an excellent opportunity for a pilot study in which we may see how (...) the conflicting elements of social status were in practice reconciled and applied. In the traditional, and still prevalent view, the society of the Later Roman Empire was ‘crushed … in the iron clamp of castes separated from one another by barriers which could not be passed’. The evidence of Ausonius suggests that this judgement should be qualified. The society of the fourth century may have been stable. It was not static. (shrink)

Notwithstanding fears of overly permissive approaches and related pleas to refuse euthanasia for psychological suffering, some Belgian hospitals have declared that such requests could be admissible. However, some of these hospitals have decided that such requests have to be managed and carried out outside their walls. Ghent University Hospital has developed a written policy regarding requests for euthanasia for psychological suffering coming from patients from outside the hospital. The protocol stipulates several due care criteria that go beyond the requirements of (...) the Belgian Euthanasia Law. For instance, the legally required first and second consulted physicians should all be psychiatrists and be affiliated with a psychiatry department of a Flemish university hospital. Moreover, euthanasia for psychological suffering can only be performed if the advices of these consulted physicians are positive. Importantly, preliminary reflection by the multidisciplinary Hospital Ethics Committee was introduced to discuss every request for euthanasia for psychological suffering coming from outside the hospital. In this way, the protocol supports psychiatrists faced with the complexities of assessing such requests, improves the quality of euthanasia practice by ensuring transparency and uniformity, and offers patients specialised support and guidance during their euthanasia procedure. Nevertheless, some concerns still remain. (shrink)

In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services proposed changes to the regulations that govern human subjects protection in federally funded research. The proposed changes involve modifying inclusion standards for minimal-risk research and removing the necessity of review from certain categories of noninvasive research. All studies would instead be required to comply with privacy protections as initiated by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act . We argue that relying on HIPAA to protect participants from participation-related risks in noninvasive (...) research is insufficient to protect the autonomy and psychological health of potential research participants. Instead, we suggest a streamlined review format for these categories of research. (shrink)

Using the mathematical notion of an entity to represent states in quantum and classical mechanics, we show that, in a strict sense, proper superpositions are possible in classical mechanics.

New trends in the economic systems management in the context of modern global challenges: collective monograph / scientific edited by M. Bezpartochnyi, in 2 Vol. // VUZF University of Finance, Business and Entrepreneurship. – Sofia: VUZF Publishing House “St. Grigorii Bogoslov”, 2020. – Vol. 1. – 309 p.

ABSTRACT Vague concepts are represented by L-fuzzy sets. It is argued that any vague concept carries with it an approximate identity which is a fuzzy equivalence relation. The relation also fulfills the criterion of ? indiscernibility of Identicals ?, which is called ? saturatedness ? in this context. An application in knowledge representation is indicated.

Doctor and patient meet in a circle of feelings determined by suffering. Sensitivity to the suffering is an axis determining the nature of the doctor and patient relationship. The patient's experience of an illness is individual, private, and very often difficult to describe. But the possibility to understand the suffering of another person comes from the fact that suffering is a universal feeling. We propose to enter the world of patient's experience by writing a letter to a doctor, which would (...) reflect their experiences and expectations towards him. This was the task required for 120 students of the second year of medicine and dentistry education. (shrink)

Context: Radical constructivism (RC) is seen as a fruitful way to teach innovation, as Ernst von Glasersfeld’s concepts of knowing, learning, and teaching provide an epistemological framework fostering processes of generating an autonomous conceptual understanding. Problem: Classical educational approaches do not meet the requirements for teaching and learning innovation because they mostly aim at students’ competent performance, not at students’ understanding and developing their creative capabilities. Method: Analysis of theoretical principles from the constructivist framework and how they can be used (...) as a foundation for designing a course in the field of innovation. The empirical results are based on qualitative journal entries that were coded and categorized according to Charmaz’s grounded theory approach. Results: It is shown that there is a close relationship between learning and innovation processes. The proposed investigated course design based on RC incorporates the following concepts: the course setting is understood as a framework to guide understanding; students work in teams and are subjective constructors of their own knowledge; instructors take on the role of coaches, guiding students through an innovation process as co-creators. Such a framework facilitates dynamic processes of assimilation and accommodation, as well as perturbation through the “other,” which potentially lead to novel, and viable, conceptual structures crucial for sustainable innovation. Constructivist Content: The paper argues in favor of RC principles in the context of teaching and learning. The proposed course setting is oriented at von Glasersfeld’s understanding of knowing, learning, and teaching (vs. training. It outlines theoretical and practical aspects of these principles in the context of a course design for innovation. Furthermore, it shows the importance of von Glasersfeld’s concept of intersubjectivity for processes of accommodation and the generation of (novel) autonomous conceptual structures. The interplay between creating coherence, perturbation, and irritation through interacting with the “other” (in the form of co-students and instructors) is assumed to be vital for such processes, as it leads to the creation of not only novel but also viable conceptual structures, therefore re-establishing a relative equilibrium critical for sustainable innovation. (shrink)