Which Comes First: Consciousness or Aspartate Receptors?

This paper is a critique of Karl Jansen's hypothesis that near-death and ketamine experiences are caused by blockade of N-methyl-D-aspartate receptors. An assumption that consciousness and its alterations are merely the product of neuronal activity is only one of many possible beliefs about reality. An alternative, which can be verified through one's own direct experience, is that consciousness is always a subject and body is only its object. The objects come and go; consciousness remains.     

RESPONSE REDUCTION THROUGH THE SUPERIMPOSITION OF CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT: A SYSTEMATIC REPLICATION

Prior clinical research suggests that superimposition and subsequent removal of a schedule of continuous reinforcement (CRF) may be a viable rate-decreasing procedure in that an extinction-like condition is arranged. The arrangement of similar conditions in the laboratory, however, resulted in the quick recovery of baseline rates. Lever-pressing patterns of eight male rats maintained by different schedules of variable-ratio and variable-interval food reinforcement were examined in an A-B-A experimental design of CRF food superimposition and removal. Responding was substantially reduced during the superimposition of CRF. Upon removal of the superimposed schedule, responding quickly approached presuperimposition baseline rates.     

Hintikka’s Independence-Friendly Logic Meets Nelson’s Realizability

Inspired by Hintikka’s ideas on constructivism, we are going to ‘effectivize’ the game-theoretic semantics (abbreviated GTS) for independence-friendly first-order logic (IF-FOL), but in a somewhat different way than he did in the monograph ‘The Principles of Mathematics Revisited’. First we show that Nelson’s realizability interpretation—which extends the famous Kleene’s realizability interpretation by adding ‘strong negation’—restricted to the implication-free first-order formulas can be viewed as an effective version of GTS for FOL. Then we propose a realizability interpretation for IF-FOL, inspired by the so-called ‘trump semantics’ which was discovered by Hodges, and show that this trump realizability interpretation can be viewed as an effective version of GTS for IF-FOL. Finally we prove that the trump realizability interpretation for IF-FOL appropriately generalises Nelson’s restricted realizability interpretation for the implication-free first-order formulas.     

Accuracy and performance of the state-based Φ and liveliness measures of information integration

A number of people have suggested that there is a link between information integration and consciousness, and a number of algorithms for calculating information integration have been put forward. The most recent of these is Balduzzi and Tononi’s state-based Φ algorithm, which has factorial dependencies that severely limit the number of neurons that can be analyzed. To address this issue an alternative state-based measure known as liveliness has been developed, which uses the causal relationships between neurons to identify the areas of maximum information integration. This paper outlines the state-based Φ and liveliness algorithms and sets out a number of test networks that were used to compare their accuracy and performance. The results show that liveliness is a reasonable approximation to state-based Φ for some network topologies, and it has a much more scalable performance than state-based Φ.     

Manual assisted cognitive treatment for deliberate self-harm in borderline personality disorder patients

This study examines the efficacy of a short-term individual therapy, Manual Assisted Cognitive Treatment (MACT), which was developed to treat parasuicidal (suicidal or self-harming) patients. In this trial, MACT was modified to focus on deliberate self-harm (DSH) in patients with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Thirty BPD patients who were engaged in DSH while in ongoing treatments, i.e., treatment-as-usual (TAU), were randomly assigned to receive MACT (N = 15) or not. DSH and level of suicide ideation were assessed at the baseline, at completion of the MACT intervention, and six months later. Results indicated that MACT was associated with significantly less frequent DSH upon completion of the intervention and with significantly decreased DSH frequency and severity at the six months follow-up. Moreover, MACT's contribution to reducing DSH frequency and severity was greater than the contribution by the amount of concurrent treatments. In contrast, MACT did not affect the level of suicide ideation and time-to-repeat of DSH. In conclusion, MACT seems to be a promising intervention for DSH in patients with BPD. More definitive studies are needed.     

The role of nonautomatic processes in activity regulation: from Lipps to Galperin

The authors present the historical analysis of one of the central questions in psychology: how and why the nonautomatic, psychological level of regulation (in contrast to automatic physiological processes) emerges both in evolution and in everyday context of activity. They discuss several approaches (by Lipps, Groos, Stern, James, Dewey, Claparède, Pavlov, and Leontiev) that culminated in the system of ideas developed by Galperin, one of the key figures in the cultural -historical activity theory. The authors analyze the relation of Galperin's ideas to Vygotsky's theoretical framework and then focus on Galperin's account of the origin and functions of mental activity. Galperin's contribution is highly relevant for understanding the role of psychological regulation and for contemporary research on cognition, consciousness, and conscious awareness.     

Can the World Help Us in Fixing the Reference of Natural Kind Terms?

According to Putnam the reference of natural kind terms is fixed by the world, at least partly; whether two things belong to the same kind depends on whether they obey the same objective laws. We show that Putnam's criterion of substance identity only “works” if we read “objective laws” as “OBJECTIVE LAWS”. Moreover, at least some of the laws of some of the special sciences have to be included. But what we consider to be good special sciences and what not depends upon our values. Hence, “objective laws” cannot be read as “OBJECTIVE LAWS”. It follows that the reference of natural kind terms cannot be fixed by the world, not even partly. The final conclusion applies to a variety of realisms. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Earman on Underdetermination and Empirical Indistinguishability

Earman (1993) distinguishes three notions of empirical indistinguishability and offers a rigorous framework to investigate how each of these notions relates to the problem of underdetermination of theory choice. He uses some of the results obtained in this framework to argue for a version of scientific anti- realism. In the present paper we first criticize Earman's arguments for that position. Secondly, we propose and motivate a modification of Earman's framework and establish several results concerning some of the notions of indistinguishability in this modified framework. Finally, we interpret these results in the light of the realism/anti- realism debate. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rest and function rheoencephalographic parameters for the identification of cerebral vasculopathy

In patients with a cerebral vascular process, parameters for the loss in distensibility and the remaining regulation with of sclerotically changed cerebral vessels were obtained by employing a special complex rest and function rheoencephalographic investigation method.