A unifying theory of general anesthetic-induced unconsciousness must explain the common mechanism through which various anesthetic agents produce unconsciousness. Functional-brain-imaging data obtained from 11 volunteers during general anesthesia showed specific suppression of regional thalamic and midbrain reticular formation activity across two different commonly used volatile agents. These findings are discussed in relation to findings from sleep neurophysiology and the implications of this work for consciousness research. It is hypothesized that the essential common neurophysiologic mechanism underlying anesthetic-induced unconsciousness is, as with (...) sleep-induced unconsciousness, a hyperpolarization block of thalamocortical neurons. A model of anesthetic-induced unconsciousness is introduced to explain how the plethora of effects anesthetics have on cellular functioning ultimately all converge on a single neuroanatomic/neurophysiologic system, thus providing for a unitary physiologic theory of narcosis related to consciousness. (shrink)

We generalize two well-known model-theoretic characterization theorems from propositional modal logic to first-order modal logic. We first study FML-definable frames and give a version of the Goldblatt–Thomason theorem for this logic. The advantage of this result, compared with the original Goldblatt–Thomason theorem, is that it does not need the condition of ultrafilter reflection and uses only closure under bounded morphic images, generated subframes and disjoint unions. We then investigate Lindström type theorems for first-order modal logic. We show that FML has (...) the maximal expressive power among the logics extending FML which satisfy compactness, bisimulation invariance and the Tarski union property. (shrink)

In the coverage of the problems of war and peace in Catholicism, researchers sometimes omit the regional component of their manifestation. We are talking about local traditions in Catholicism, which have their own specific approach to solving this problem and sometimes may differ significantly from the "conventional" position. The study of this field is necessary because in the delineated field the position of those theologians who were on the "outskirts" of Catholicism in the intercultural dialogue, on the one hand, led (...) to a deviation from the humanistic orientation about Catholicism. the war. An example would be the concept of a "holy war" of the Crusades, which had the anti-Islamic rhetoric generated not only in the West but also in the East. (shrink)

This special issue of Journal of Consciousness Studies brings together work from a range of philosophers, neuroscientists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, behavioural scientists, and computer scientists who are all united in their approach to answering questions about consciousness. The contributions to this journal are inspired by work presented at the inaugural Designed Mind Symposium, held at the University of Edinburgh Informatics Forum on 7-8 November 2017.

This is my first systematic publication on fearism. It is a general theoretical study but does not itself remain un-affected. Based on experience and theorizing on fearism, I am convinced it is a deeply terrifying encounter, as would be the encounter critically of any harmful violent ideology. Fearism, arguably, is the most terrifying to encounter, which no doubt explains why it has not been spoken about in human history so directly until only this last decade....

The premise behind this paper is that "we" have a very serious Fear Problem. As a stream of inquiry in the larger In Search of Fearlessness Movement, the author pursues a long lingering question and concern about how the West has near neglected the call to examine "fearlessness" in contradistinction to the East. With the purpose to build a better understanding of fearlessness, theories about it, and how it fits into the author's most recent turn to co-developing a philosophy of (...) fearism.... (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for the modest claim that people's apparent indifference to animal pain may not be predicated upon speciesism. I defend that claim by developing an analogy between current attitudes toward at least some non‐human animal pain — that which pigs endure while having their tails ‘docked’— and our culture's indifference to the pain that male human infants experience while being circumcised. And I conclude that to convince more of their philosophical and social critics, ‘animal liberationists’ need (...) to spend more time analyzing the pain that non‐human animals experience and defending its moral significance, rather than assuming that such pain is significant and then simply arguing that unnecessary forms of it exist. (shrink)

There is a rather striking video currently used in police training. A firearms officer is caught on video shooting an armed suspect. The officer then gives his account of what happened, and there is no suggestion that he is tying to fabricate evidence. He says that he shot the suspect once; his partner says that he fired two shots. On the video we see four shots being deliberately fired. Memory, it seems, is an unreliable witness in situations of stress.

Of articles which are submitted for publication in Philosophy, a surprisingly large proportion are about the views of Richard Rorty. Some, indeed, we have published. They, along with pretty well all the articles we receive on Professor Rorty, are highly critical. On the perverse assumption that there must be something to be said for anyone who attracts widespread hostility, it is only right to see what can be said in favour of Rorty's latest collection of papers, entitled, Truth and Progress,.

The aim of this study was to test red - green dichromats' ability to discriminate between illuminant and surface-reflectance changes in natural scenes. Stimuli were simulations of natural scenes presented on a colour monitor with 10-bit resolution per gun. The natural scenes were obtained with a fast hyperspectral imaging system. Six different scenes (including rocks, foliage, and buildings) were tested. In each trial, two images were presented in sequence, each for 1 s, with no interval. The images differed in the (...) phase of daylight on the scene: first with correlated colour temperature 25 000 K, then 6 700 K. The spectral reflectance of a region in the second image was changed randomly, consistent with a local change in daylight. The observer's task was to decide whether a particular surface in the successive images was the same (pure illuminant change) or different (illuminant change with a surface-reflectance change). The performance of four deuteranopes and five protanopes varied considerably across the scenes tested, with mean colour constancy indices (± 1 SEM) of 0.48 (± 0.13) and 0.19 (± 0.10), respectively (1.0 representing ideal performance). Deuteranopes seemed less disadvantaged than protanopes, performing close to normal with some scenes. (shrink)

In a recently-published work of much learning and great interest, La Frontière de l'Euphrate de Pompée à la Conquète Arabe , M. Victor Chapot has dealt at some length with the history of the eastern legions. But neither he, nor, so far as I can find, any other writer, has attempted to fix their camps with full regard to chronology, and many points have been left uncertain. Although there is little direct evidence—less than for any other part of the Roman (...) Empire—it may be possible to construct with reasonable probability a more exact military map of the eastern frontier. (shrink)

The Plasmodium falciparum genome‐sequencing project has provided malariologists with vast amounts of new information pertinent to a multitude of cellular processes that previously were only guessed about. In exploring this morass of predicted genes and proteins, there is now a danger of simply re‐inventing the cell. Fortunately, new global transcriptional analyses reassure malariologists that they are not dealing with just “any old cell.” The informative papers on the plasmodial transcriptome by Le Roch et al. (2003)1 and Bozdech et al. (2003)2 (...) discussed below forge a bridge between the genomics and proteomics of P. falciparum. They are likely to act as a fulcrum upon which much future research will turn: for example, the study of regulation and feed‐back loops. BioEssays 26:339–342, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)