FREE YOUR MIND: BUDDHISM,CAUSALITY, AND THE FREE WILL PROBLEM

The problem of free will is associated with a specific and significant kind of control over our actions, which is understood primarily in the sense that we have the freedom to do otherwise or the capacity for self-determination. Is Buddhism compatible with such a conception of free will? The aim of this article is to address three critical issues concerning the free will problem: (1) what role should accounts of physical and neurobiological processes play in discussions of free will? (2) Is a conception of mental autonomy grounded in practices of meditative cultivation compatible with the three cardinal Buddhist doctrines of momentariness, dependent arising, and no-self? (3) Are there enough resources in Buddhism, given its antisubstantialist metaphysics, to account for personal agency, self-control, and moral responsibility?     

Altered states of consciousness are related to higher sexual responsiveness

Altered states of consciousness lead to profound changes in the sense of self, time and space. We assessed how these changes were related to sexual responsiveness during sex. 116 subjects reported (a) intensity of awareness concerning body, space and time, and (b) satisfaction, desire, arousal, and orgasm occurrence. We differentiated vaginal intercourse orgasm from noncoital orgasm. Female vaginal intercourse orgasm was further differentiated as with or without concurrent clitoral masturbation. Overall, sexual responsiveness was related to greater body awareness and lesser time and space awareness. Satisfaction, desire, and arousal were especially associated with less time awareness in women. Female orgasms during vaginal intercourse were related to greater body awareness and lesser time awareness, but noncoital orgasms were unrelated. Our findings provide empirical support for the hypotheses that altered states of consciousness with attentional absorption are strongly related to sexual responsiveness in women, and to a lesser extent in men.     

Psychology of Science/Theology of Science: Reaching Out or Narrowing?

Formalizing a “psychology of science” today will constrain intellectual freedom in ways more likely stultifying than liberating. We should be more improvisational in seeking ideas from academic psychology to develop a more comprehensive purview. I suggest that a psychology of science should look at systematic theology and empirical theology. Liberal theologians have long experience trying to distill from religion those structural aspects that affirm openness in a search for truth. Science, as well as religion, has its myths and rituals, but theologians are more experienced than scientists at a large mythohistorical scale. There are distortions in the extreme degree to which psychological science has traditionally emphasized empiricism, positivism, hypothesis testing, and falsifiability. I argue for less critical reduction and more creative augmentation. This could include looking outside academia at cognitive competencies of people in trades. Exaggerated parsimony is an old story. This is illustrated by the opposition to David Hartley's 1749 theory of neural oscillations. There is an inexorable “margin of uncertainty” where scientific prediction and control can never outstrip the new uses to which human beings put ideas. Facts and values interact in this margin; theology has long made a home there, but scientists sometimes have been excessive in rejecting the “naturalistic fallacy.” There is also often a degree of disingenuousness in psychology's reluctance to take subjective phenomena seriously; here there may be lessons in how empirical theology has handled subjectivity, as well as in taking an honest look at the way much of the methodology of experimental psychology incorporates subjective assessments. Feist's book is a start, but these things need more thought before codifying a psychology of science.     

Fluctuations of answer and confidence rating in a general-knowledge problem task: Is confidence rating a result of direct memory-relevant output monitoring?

In order to examine whether confidence rating is a result of direct memory-relevant output monitoring, a general-knowledge test was used. A question set was answered in experimental session 1, and the same question set was employed in session 2. Subjects chose one answer from two alternatives. No significant difference in answer accuracy was found between sessions, which suggests that identical information processing was carried out, and that any difference between sessions was based on probabilistic fluctuation. The major results were as follows: (a) In both sessions, answer accuracy was an increasing function of confidence. (b) Answer-change rate (rate of different answers to the same question between sessions) decreased monotonically with confidence. (c) The distributions of confidence rating in session 2, conditional on the rating in session 1, were nearly identical in no-answer-change and answer-change cases. These results suggest that confidence rating is not a result of monitoring memory-relevant output itself but an estimation of possibility of answer fluctuation.     

Weigh(t)ing for Awareness

We wished to learn if weight perception can be extinguished by studying two patients with right hemisphere brain damage. When lifting weights simultaneously, a patient with right frontal damage was not biased in her judgments of which weight was heavier. By contrast, a patient with right parietal damage reported left-sided weights as being lighter than those on the right. Psychophysical power functions revealed that her awareness of increasing weights on the left was dampened compared to the right when lifting weights individually on each side. Strikingly, her awareness of weight changes on the left was completely abolished when she lifted weights in both hands simultaneously. She demonstrated an unusual split in awareness, being motorically aware of and actively engaged with left-sided weights while being unaware of their incremental changes.     

Artificial consciousness and the consciousness-attention dissociation

Artificial Intelligence is at a turning point, with a substantial increase in projects aiming to implement sophisticated forms of human intelligence in machines. This research attempts to model specific forms of intelligence through brute-force search heuristics and also reproduce features of human perception and cognition, including emotions. Such goals have implications for artificial consciousness, with some arguing that it will be achievable once we overcome short-term engineering challenges. We believe, however, that phenomenal consciousness cannot be implemented in machines. This becomes clear when considering emotions and examining the dissociation between consciousness and attention in humans. While we may be able to program ethical behavior based on rules and machine learning, we will never be able to reproduce emotions or empathy by programming such control systems—these will be merely simulations. Arguments in favor of this claim include considerations about evolution, the neuropsychological aspects of emotions, and the dissociation between attention and consciousness found in humans. Ultimately, we are far from achieving artificial consciousness.     

The unity of consciousness in pre-psychotic states. A phenomenological analysis / La unidad de la conciencia en estados pre-psicóticos. Un análisis fenomenológico

This paper explores the way in which the phenomenon called delusional moods — an alteration of consciousness that characterizes the moment that precedes the adoption of delusional beliefs — would challenge the claim that consciousness is necessarily deployed as an experiential unity. After exploring three basic characterizations of the unity of consciousness, it is concluded that during delusional moods only some of them are completely altered. Finally, after complementing the analysis with the examination of some psychotic states, it is concluded that, from the three dimensions of the unity of consciousness that are explored, only one seems to be fundamental.     

Nietzsche's Pluralism about Consciousness

In this paper I argue that Nietzsche's view on consciousness is best captured by distinguishing different notions of consciousness. In other words, I propose that Nietzsche should be read as endorsing pluralism about consciousness. First, I consider the notion that is preeminent in his work and argue that the only kind of consciousness which may fit the characterization Nietzsche provides of this dominant notion is self-consciousness (^Sconsciousness). Second, I argue that in light of Nietzsche's treatment of perceptions and sensations we should conclude that he takes each of such state types to involve a specific kind of consciousness which differs from ^Sconsciousness. I label these two additional kinds of consciousness perceptual consciousness (^Pconsciousness) and qualitative consciousness (^Qconsciousness), respectively. I conclude the paper with some remarks on how, in Nietzsche's picture, these three different kinds of consciousness might relate.     

青少年感恩与问题行为的关系:学校联结的中介作用

采用青少年感恩量表、学校联结量表、青少年外化问题行为调查表和焦虑抑郁量表对1217名中学生进行调查,考察了青少年感恩与其问题行为的关系,以及学校联结的同学支持、教师支持和学校归属感三大成分在其中的系列中介作用。结果表明:(1)青少年感恩与其外化问题行为和内化问题行为(以焦虑抑郁为指标)均显著负相关;(2)学校联结三大成分在感恩与其外化和内化问题行为之间均起着系列中介作用,即感恩对青少年学校归属感既有直接影响,也通过增强同学支持和教师支持间接促进其发展,进而学校联结的三成分共同作用减少青少年的外化和内化问题行为。     

大学生人格特质对道德认同的影响：法律意识的调节作用

为探讨大学生人格特质与道德认同的关系,及其法律意识在二者关系之间的调节作用,采用法律意识量表、道德认同量表和大五人格量表对1878名大学生进行了调查。结果显示：(1)尽责性、宜人性、开放性和外向性与道德认同、法律意识呈显著的正相关;神经质与道德认同、法律意识呈显著的负相关。(2)人格特质、道德认同、法律意识表现出了显著的性别差异,同时尽责性对道德认同的影响也存在着显著的性别差异。(3)法律意识在尽责性与宜人性对大学生道德认同的影响中起着负向调节作用。本研究结果提示,应该尊重人格特质的个体特异性,在高校进行专业的法制教育和法律意识培养,提高个体的道德认同水平。