IDENTITY AND THE BRAIN: THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF OUR SELF

This article reviews the neuroscientific understanding of the self and personal identity, focusing on various elements of inclusivity and exclusivity as well as engaging religious and spiritual perspectives. We will also consider how the identity is comprised of biological, social, and ideological or spiritual aspects, and how they are interconnected. We will consider how the brain helps us to construct and maintain our representation of the self and what happens when we have self-transcendent experiences. Such an evaluation will have implications for understanding the intersection between consciousness and the self. This information will be helpful from both the psychological and spiritual perspective for understanding human identity.     

Looking more masculine among females: Spatial context modulates gender perception of face and biological motion

Perception of visual information highly depends on spatial context. For instance, perception of a low-level visual feature, such as orientation, can be shifted away from its surrounding context, exhibiting a simultaneous contrast effect. Although previous studies have demonstrated the adaptation aftereffect of gender, a high-level visual feature, it remains largely unknown whether gender perception can also be shaped by a simultaneously presented context. In the present study, we found that the gender perception of a central face or a point-light walker was repelled away from the gender of its surrounding faces or walkers. A norm-based opponent model of lateral inhibition, which accounts for the adaptation aftereffect of high-level features, can also excellently fit the simultaneous contrast effect. But different from the reported contextual effect of low-level features, the simultaneous contrast effect of gender cannot be observed when the centre and the surrounding stimuli are from different categories, or when the surrounding stimuli are suppressed from awareness. These findings on one hand reveal a resemblance between the simultaneous contrast effect and the adaptation aftereffect of high-level features, on the other hand highlight different biological mechanisms underlying the contextual effects of low- and high-level visual features.     

论道家学派的音乐审美意识

道家学派理论面对忧患强调“天人合一”和解脱,因而具有浓郁的审美意识倾向。道家学派对“道”的体认也体现在对音乐本质的理解上。审美主体伴随着质态不尽相同的音乐过程,依次连缀形成“有声之乐”、“无怠之声”和“天乐”这三个层面的心理过程流时,这样的音乐才是老子所谓的“大音”,才是道家学派理想中的音乐。     

Varieties of the extended self

This article provides an overview and analysis of recent work on the extended self, demonstrating that the boundaries of selves are fluid, shifting across biological, artifactual, and sociocultural structures. First, it distinguishes the notions of minimal self, person, and narrative self. Second, it surveys how philosophers, psychologists, and cognitive scientists argue that embodiment, cognition, emotion, consciousness, and moral character traits can be extended and what that implies for the boundaries of selves. It also reviews and responds to various criticisms and counterarguments against the extended self. The main focus is on the link between the extended mind and extended self, which has received the most attention in recent literature. But accounts of the extended self developed independently of the extended mind are also briefly discussed. This article ends by drawing out some of the conceptual, methodological, and normative implications of the extended self and suggesting some directions for future research.     

The global workspace theory,the phenomenal concept strategy,and the distribution of consciousness

Peter Carruthers argues that the global workspace theory implies there are no facts of the matter about animal consciousness. The argument is easily extended to other cognitive theories of consciousness, posing a general problem for consciousness studies. But the argument proves too much, for it also implies that there are no facts of the matter about human consciousness. A key assumption is that scientific theories of consciousness must explain away the explanatory gap. I criticize this assumption and point to an alternative strategy for defending scientific theories of consciousness, one that better reflects the ongoing scientific practice. I argue there are introspectable inferential connections from phenomenal concepts to functional concepts that scientists can use to individuate the global workspace in terms of capacities that animals and humans share.     

Eschatology: Eternal Now or Cosmic Future?

Paul Tillich's eternal now is the ground from which all things emerge and perish in each and every moment. A Tillichean eschatology involves the gathering of all things finite into the eternity of the present moment, into God. Salvation is present moment. But is the “eternal now” enough? This essay offers biblical and theological critiques of Tillich's present eschatology and posits an eschatology that combines Tillich's “eternal now” with Wolfhart Pannenberg's “end‐oriented eschatology.” The result is an eschatology that recognizes the eternal now in which all things (including all time) belong to God yet with an eye toward the God‐given possibilities of the next moment, the future. The end of being is not cessation; rather, it is the fulfillment of time, the consummation of all things.     

Two Languages, One Vocabulary

Two cultures (scientific and clinical) speaking different theoretical languages reside in psychology. The categorical structure of scientific language is based on sensorially, linearly, and analytically formatted cognitive processes (common sense). The categorical structure of the clinical language is formatted for cognitive processes accommodating nonsensory, nonlinear information about purposive personality processes. Clinically and scientifically oriented psychologists have difficulty communicating with one another because of underlying paradigmatic differences in their languages. Unfortunately, both cultures use the same sensory-system–based vocabulary, which leads to the unwitting and confusing assumption that they are speaking the same language.     

Explanation and the Hard Problem

This paper argues that the form of explanation at issue in the hard problem of consciousness is scientifically irrelevant, despite appearances to the contrary. In particular, it is argued that the ‘sense of understanding’ that plays a critical role in the form of explanation implicated in the hard problem provides neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition on satisfactory scientific explanation. Considerations of the actual tools and methods available to scientists are used to make the case against it being a necessary condition, and work by J.D. Trout that exploits psychological research on the hindsight and overconfidence biases is used to show that it is not a sufficient condition. It is argued, however, that certain intellectual and moral concerns give us good reason to still try to meet the hard problem’s explanatory challenge, despite its extrascientific nature.     

Implicit–Explicit Relations

ABSTRACT— Mental process and mental experience are not the same thing. The former is the operation of the mind; the latter is the subjective life that emerges from that operation. In social evaluation, implicit and explicit attitudes express this distinction. Although it is clear that they are not the same, how they differ is not. Across content domains, implicit and explicit attitude measures show substantial variability in the strength of correspondence, ranging from near zero to strongly positive. Variation in controllability, intentionality, awareness, or efficiency is thought to differentiate implicit and explicit attitudes. Dual-process theories and empirical evidence for moderating influences of implicit–explicit attitude relations provide a framework for comprehending relations between the operation and the experience of the mind.     

How experienced phenomena relate to things themselves: Kant,Husserl, Hoche,and reflexive monism

What we normally think of as the “physical world” is also the world as experienced, that is, a world of appearances. Given this, what is the reality behind the appearances, and what might its relation be to consciousness and to constructive processes in the mind? According to Kant, the thing itself that brings about and supports these appearances is unknowable and we can never gain any understanding of how it brings such appearances about. Reflexive monism argues the opposite: the thing itself is knowable as are the processes that construct conscious appearances. Conscious appearances (empirical evidence) and the theories derived from them can represent what the world is really like, even though such empirical knowledge is partial, approximate and uncertain, and conscious appearances are species-specific constructions of the human mind. Drawing on the writings of Husserl, Hoche suggests that problems of knowledge, mind and consciousness are better understood in terms of a “pure noematic” phenomenology that avoids any reference to a “thing itself.” I argue that avoiding reference to a knowable reality (behind appearances) leads to more complex explanations with less explanatory value and counterintuitive conclusions—for example Hoche’s conclusion that consciousness is not part of nature. The critical realism adopted by reflexive monism appears to be more useful, as well as being consistent with science and common sense.