The unconscious and consciousness of the memory: A contribution from neuroscience

Abstract

By integrating data from general psychology and perinatal clinical psychology with neuroscience and psychoanalysis, the author discusses the relations between memory and consciousness, the aim being a unitary definition of the concept of unconscious. Nobody has a brain that can be the same as any other person's: the biology of memory lies in neural networks that have been constructed in the brain of that specific person by their experience. From the fetal stage, each brain progressively learns its own individual functions during its relational neuropsychic development. The author underlines how the continuous emotional biological work of the brain, together with a person's entire relational life, produces the construction of the whole functional and individual mindbrain. The whole construction is memory and this is unconscious; indeed it may be the true unconscious. From the continuous silent work of the mindbrain of a person, some forms of conscious level may emerge in his individual's subjectivity: some functioning of mindbrain makes what an individual person can consciously remember. The unconscious is only what appears in some form in an analyst's consciousness, at some specific moment in his relationship with a patient, and which the analyst translates into some form of his verbal interpretation.     

A relational theory of self-deception

The authors argue that the fragmentary model of consciousness implied in the term ‘self-deception’ has provided the chief metaphor for explaining the apparent discrepancies that can arise between the evaluation of a motivated observer and the evaluation of a less interested external observer. Though self-deception models have explained these discrepancies in terms of both a dualistic opaque consciousness and in terms of cognitive and affective processes, all of these accounts seem to rest on the same essential fragmentation of the psyche. The authors argue that a relational model of consciousness, one that claims the indissolubility of cognition and affect, object and perception, and of past, present, and future can account for the apparent discrepancies involved in the paradigmatic cases of self-deception in a more parsimonious and phenomenologically faithful way than more objectivist and fragmented accounts of self-deception.     

From behaviour to consciousness: Translating what animals do to what animals think

Cognitive ethology, an interdisciplinary and comparative branch of zoology, is concerned with the influence of conscious awareness and intention on animal behaviour. It enquires into the evolutionary value of consciousness. However, consciousness is hard to define and any account of animal behaviour based on it will need to take into account both the physical mechanisms that allow for consciousness, and also consider whether we can have knowledge of the phenomenal experience of consciousness in other species. While the first consideration can be investigated scientifically, phenomenal experience needs to be inferred from behaviour, since most animals are not capable of communicating this experience directly. In fact, many accounts of animal behaviour, behavioural ecology in particular, argue that we cannot accurately explain animal behaviour with relation to thoughts or feelings and conscious awareness of them. Rather, we must concern ourselves with what can be objectively observed and measured. Cognitive ethology, however, argues that we cannot give accurate accounts of complex animal behaviour, for example social interactions or tool use, without taking consciousness into account. In this article I will argue that one can justifiably assign and study consciousness in animals through their behaviour, and that an account of certain animals’ behaviour is incomplete without reference to conscious awareness. In other words, behavioural ecology is essentially flawed as it gives, in certain cases, ultimately incorrect accounts of animal behaviour. Firstly it cannot distinguish between behaviour of more and less conscious animals, and secondly, by avoiding any mention of consciousness, it narrows its own scope, and finally cannot explain complex behaviours such as learning in any meaningful way.     

Leibniz on Memory and Consciousness

In this article, I develop a higher-order interpretation of Leibniz's theory of consciousness according to which memory is constitutive of consciousness. I offer an account of Leibniz's theory of memory on which his theory of consciousness may be based, and I then show that Leibniz could have developed a coherent higher-order account. However, it is not clear whether Leibniz held (or should have held) such an account of consciousness; I sketch an alternative that has at least as many advantages as the higher-order theory. This analysis provides an important antecedent to the contemporary discussions of higher-order theories of consciousness.     

CHRIST AND EVOLUTION: A DRAMA OF WISDOM?1

Abstract This paper argues that a genuine engagement of Christianity with evolution needs to include a discussion of Christology. Further, it develops a particular approach to Christology through a theo‐dramatic account of incarnation. The somewhat static post‐Chalcedon theological categories of divine and human natures are hard to square with contemporary evolutionary accounts of human origins. Once the divine Logos is portrayed in the active categories of Wisdom it becomes easier to envisage divine and creaturely wisdom coexisting in the person of Christ. I argue, in particular, that a focus on God's agency through a modified version of Hans Urs von Balthasar's account of theo‐drama invites participation and affirms human agency in a way that grand narratives do not. More particularly, drawing on examples from hominid evolution, contemporary discussion of paleontology and cooperative evolutionary theories, I suggest that the most convincing accounts of evolutionary biology fit into this theo‐dramatic account more readily than alternatives. As such, in the spirit of Robert Boyle, this paper deliberately blurs the categories of revealed and natural theology by arguing that we can make sense of the former through concentration on the latter.     

Book Review: “Dimensions of Apeiron: A Topological Phenomenology of Space,Time, and Individuation”

This article suggests that it may be timely to action the relationship between design and evolution. While this view is not particularly new, the form of its expression here may be. It is noted that the exponential (possibly double exponential) rate of technological change, and the merging of the technological evolutionary lineage with those of biology, cognition, and socioculture is causing greatly accelerated evolution in these latter lineages. So rapid are these change processes that the attendant evolutionary time frames are becoming consonant with those of human design activities. Implications of these developments are outlined.     

The Map of Relational-Cultural Theory

SUMMARY

Psychological theory-building has long been dominated by White, European-male perspectives, perspectives that fail to account for the multifaceted experiences of diverse and marginalized populations. Feminist theory seeks to explore, encompass, and understand the wide range of human experience, a territory that is viewed as broad and complex and dynamic. Relational-Cultural Theory as it addresses the critical importance of relational exchange related to development and health provides an elaboration of some of the most basic feminist principles. Perhaps not surprisingly, this evolving theoretical model has emerged out of the relational work of five women and continues now within an ever-expanding and diverse network of women. This paper will present several elements of this work, its relevance to the larger work of feminist theory, and some of the major contributions of the founding “Monday Night Group.”     

The Evolutionary Challenge for Technology

The evolutionary challenge for technology in the third millennium is one of designing the vehicles for sustainable human and societal development in partnership with earth. The challenge calls for the conscious creation of evolutionary systems-not through the "hard technologies" that shape and mold the physical infrastructure of our planet, but through "soft technologies" that augment creative and constructive processes of human interaction. Through them, humanity has the opportunity to create the conditions for the emergence of a true learning society at both regional and global levels. The meaning of key terms such as evolution, technology, and development must be explored if we are to create a shared understanding of the contemporary survival challenges faced by humanity. This paper explores both the promise and the threat faced by a techno-civilization such as is emerging on our planet in the early twenty-first century.     

A LITERARY TRINITY FOR COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND RELIGION

The cognitive sciences may be understood to contribute to religion‐and‐science as a metadisciplinary discussion in ways that can be organized according to the three persons of narrative, encoding the themes of consciousness, relationality, and healing. First‐person accounts are likely to be important to the understanding of consciousness, the “hard problem” of subjective experience, and contribute to a neurophenomenology of mind, even though we must be aware of their role in human suffering, their epistemic limits, and their indirect causal role in human behavior and subsequent experience. Second‐person discussions are important for understanding the empathic and embodied relationality upon which an externalist account of mind is likely to depend, increasingly uncovered and supported by social neuroscience. Third‐person accounts can be better understood in uncovering the us/them distinctions that they encode and healing the dangerous tribalisms that put an interdependent and communal world increasingly at risk.     

Reasoning strategies with rational numbers revealed by eye tracking

Recent research has begun to investigate the impact of different formats for rational numbers on the processes by which people make relational judgments about quantitative relations. DeWolf, Bassok, and Holyoak (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 144(1), 127–150, 2015) found that accuracy on a relation identification task was highest when fractions were presented with countable sets, whereas accuracy was relatively low for all conditions where decimals were presented. However, it is unclear what processing strategies underlie these disparities in accuracy. We report an experiment that used eye-tracking methods to externalize the strategies that are evoked by different types of rational numbers for different types of quantities (discrete vs. continuous). Results showed that eye-movement behavior during the task was jointly determined by image and number format. Discrete images elicited a counting strategy for both fractions and decimals, but this strategy led to higher accuracy only for fractions. Continuous images encouraged magnitude estimation and comparison, but to a greater degree for decimals than fractions. This strategy led to decreased accuracy for both number formats. By analyzing participants’ eye movements when they viewed a relational context and made decisions, we were able to obtain an externalized representation of the strategic choices evoked by different ontological types of entities and different types of rational numbers. Our findings using eye-tracking measures enable us to go beyond previous studies based on accuracy data alone, demonstrating that quantitative properties of images and the different formats for rational numbers jointly influence strategies that generate eye-movement behavior.     

The Making of Mind

To understand how human beings come to have the mental faculties that they do, one would do well to consider the making of mind in at least two senses. First, an evolutionary perspective promises to specify what distinguishes Homo sapiens from nonhuman primate kin, and to set whatever is unique against a background of psychological abilities that we share with our ancestral relatives. Second, an account of individuals’ development from infancy onwards should enable one to see how humans’ species-specific biological endowment dovetails with what the environment provides to yield specifically human psychological capacities. In this article, I argue that to arrive at an overarching theoretical explanation, we should set the capacity to identify with the attitudes of other people at the very core of evolutionary and developmental accounts.     

Do we image God on-line? The opportunities and challenges for authentic relationships in cyberspace

ABSTRACT

Genesis 1 states that we are created in the image of God. While Biblical scholars have taken a performative approach, viewing God's image in our actions, systematic theologians have viewed God's image in relational terms. Thus, the quality of our relationships is crucial, not only for the health of our day to day lives but for our very identity. What makes a relationship authentic? Karl Barth suggests four criteria: that we look the other in the eye, speak to and hear the other, aid the other, and do it gladly. We look ?rst at how our authentic relationships function to make God present among us and then use Barth's criteria to examine the quality of relationships that exist primarily in cyberspace. Social media, in particular, present unique opportunities and challenges for forming authentic relationships and raise fundamental questions about who we are and where God is found among us.     

Dissociation between magnitude comparison and relation identification across different formats for rational numbers

ABSTRACT

The present study examined whether a dissociation among formats for rational numbers (fractions, decimals, and percentages) can be obtained in tasks that require comparing a number to a non-symbolic quantity (discrete or else continuous). In Experiment 1, college students saw a discrete or else continuous image followed by a rational number, and had to decide which was numerically larger. In Experiment 2, participants saw the same displays but had to make a judgment about the type of ratio represented by the number. The magnitude task was performed more quickly using decimals (for both quantity types), whereas the relation task was performed more accurately with fractions (but only when the image showed discrete entities). The pattern observed for percentages was very similar to that for decimals. A dissociation between magnitude comparison and relational processing with rational numbers can be obtained when a symbolic number must be compared to a non-symbolic display.     

The unity of moral attitudes: recipe semantics and credal exaptation*

Abstract

This paper offers a noncognitivist characterization of moral attitudes, according to which moral attitudes count as such because of their inclusion of moral concepts. Moral concepts are distinguished by their contribution to the functional roles of some of the attitudes in which they can occur. They have no particular functional role in other attitudes, and should instead be viewed as evolutionary spandrels. In order to make the counter-intuitive implications of the view more palatable, the paper ends with an account of the evolution of normative judgments as exaptations of the cognitive structures that underlie beliefs.     

Searching for the Self: Early Phenomenological Accounts of Self-Consciousness from Lotze to Scheler

Abstract

Phenomenological accounts of self-consciousness are often said to combine two elements by means of a necessary connection: the primitive and irreducible subjective character of experiences and the idealist transcendental constitution of consciousness. In what follows I argue that this connection is not necessary in order for an account of self-consciousness to be phenomenological, as shown by early phenomenological accounts of self-consciousness – particularly in Munich phenomenology. First of all, I show that the account of self-consciousness defended by these phenomenologists was not influenced as much by Husserl as by two important figures in the prehistory of phenomenology: their teacher Theodor Lipps, and – indirectly, through Lipps’ influence – Hermann Lotze. Second, I show that their account of self-consciousness takes the metaphysical realism underlying Lotze’s and Lipps’ views on the distinction between feeling and sensations seriously. I argue that this distinction played a central role in the development of many early phenomenological accounts of self-consciousness.     

Lending a hand to signed language acquisition: Enactment and iconicity enhance sign recall in hearing adult American Sign Language learners

Abstract

Evidence over the last 15 years has suggested that dual (imagery and verbal) coding explanations of concreteness effects in memory for word lists do not generalise well to memory for sentences and paragraphs. In contrast, an alternative framework based on relative differences in relational and distinctive processing has been shown to account for the effects of imagery and concreteness in these contexts and others. This paper describes recent research on free and cued recall of word lists and evaluates it with respect to the two models. The evidence suggests that whereas dual processing systems may be involved in the encoding of verbal materials, dual memory codes are insufficient to explain concreteness effects in recall. Better memory for high-as compared to low-imagery words depends on the use of paradigms that facilitate inter-item relational processing, independent of whether or not imagery is involved.     

The ethics of intergenerational relationships

Abstract

According to the relational approach we have obligations to members of future generations not because of their interests or properties but because, and only because, they are our descendants or successors. Common accounts of relational duties do not explain how we can have obligations to people who do not yet exist. In this defence of the relational approach I examine three sources of intergenerational obligations: the concern of parents for their children, including their future children; the desire of community members to pass on a heritage to their descendants; and the relationship of citizens in an intergenerational polity.     

The cognitive foundations of visual consciousness: Why should we favour a processing approach?

How can we investigate the foundations of consciousness? In addressing this question, we will focus on the two main strategies that authors have adopted so far. On the one hand, there is research aimed at characterizing a specific content, which should account for conscious states. We may call this the content approach. On the other hand, one finds the processing approach, which proposes to look for a particular way of processing to account for consciousness. . Our aim, in this paper, is to develop arguments for the latter approach. We focus on a criticism of Jesse Prinz’s AIR theory of consciousness. We have chosen Prinz’s theory because it incorporates features of both the content and processing approaches, and discussing it will therefore allow us to compare the advantages and downsides of both. Our argument will focus in particular on the notion of intermediate-level. We will discuss how Prinz characterizes the intermediate-level according to a content approach, and argue that such a characterization is inadequate. Finally, we will argue in favor of processing approach to the problem of consciousness, which also accounts for the massive interaction of top-down and bottom-up processes in the brain. Even though consciousness remains an unsolved riddle, we claim that this is the best path towards a solution.     

Human rights and the rights of states: a relational account

What is the relationship between human rights and the rights of states? Roughly, while cosmopolitans insist that international morality must regard as basic the interests of individuals, statists maintain that the state is of fundamental moral significance. This article defends a relational version of statism. Human rights are ultimately grounded in a relational norm of reciprocal independence and set limits to the exercise of public authority, but, contra the cosmopolitan, the state is of fundamental moral significance. A relational account promises to justify a limited conception of state sovereignty while avoiding the familiar cosmopolitan criticisms of statist accounts.