COGNITIVE SCIENCE AND HATHAYOGA

Abstract. Cognitive science and hathayoga both make emphatic claims about the relationship between the body and the mind. To examine this complementary relationship I draw upon the five main approaches currently being used by cognitive science and then consider their implications within the context of three specific points of contact with hathayoga theory: the rejection of dualism, the nature of consciousness, and the role of the nervous and circulatory systems in religious experience. This type of comparative analysis can provide additional information about the nature of consciousness and the potential practices that heighten our awareness or knowledge of it. Consequently, cognitive science offers a new and provocative way to dialogue with Indian yoga traditions in terms of the methods and theories of modernity.     

论"以人为本"的新大众保健观--提高全民健康素质的重要话题

21世纪的新大众保健观,应及时反映科学发展的新成就,以更好地服务于大众不断提高健康需求.为此,高度重视重构和宣传"以人为本"的新大众保健观,理应成为全面小康社会公共卫生建设的一个重要话题.     

伸手拦截启动中的信息利用

通过两项实验考察时空信息对拦截运动启动的影响: 实验一为知觉估计实验, 通过释放匀速小球模拟拦截过程; 实验二为特定拦截路线情景下的拦截行为实验, 即固定手的拦截方向, 但容许拦截速度自由控制。结果发现, 拦截行为的启动基于综合信息, 在所拦截物体作慢速运动的情景下拦截行为启动偏早, 而在快速运动的情景下启动偏晚, 结果不支持单纯用tau理论解释启动行为。本研究对手的速度伴随效应提出了新的解释。     

Body,environment and adventure: experience and spatiality

The purpose of this article is to investigate human spatiality and perception in general, with the experience of adventure sports as its background. These activities highlight especially our strong relationship with the world when we consider the specific way in which the environment participates in the development of human potential. We first analyse the notions of risk and instability as important elements in adventure sports. Then we explore the notion of experience and spatiality, considering the way in which we establish our relationship with the world. The theoretical background is found in the phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty and Bachelard’s phenomenology of imagination to investigate perspectives of space among adventurers. We hold that more than a different range of corporeal techniques, adventure sports can teach us a way of interrogating and looking at the world. They require a peculiar sensibility that allows our body to experience the environment in favour of a corporeal wisdom. Alternative sports indicate the possibility that we have to build up different ways of inhabiting the world and comprehending it.     

以科学发展观研究新兴宗教

19世纪末、特别是自进入20世纪以来涌现出一些不同于传统宗教的新兴宗教之涌现。这种异军突起的新兴宗教现象立意不同、形态各异、变化多样、影响复杂,为宗教研究者提供了一个重要且必要的全新研究课题。笔者认为,应以科学发展观为指导思想来研究新兴宗教,这主要表现为,第一,应该从社会、时代的发展来看新兴宗教的产生及其展示的新特色。第二,应该从人们精神生活的普遍性及其神圣或神秘表达的独特性来观察、区分不同宗教的共性和特性。第三,应该从人类丰富多元的精神及社会生活来看待新兴宗教反应、适应、回应这种生活的形式及效果,论及其张力与和谐、正面与负面、消极与积极。     

Cognitive and emotional processes during dreaming: a neuroimaging view

Dream is a state of consciousness characterized by internally-generated sensory, cognitive and emotional experiences occurring during sleep. Dream reports tend to be particularly abundant, with complex, emotional, and perceptually vivid experiences after awakenings from rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. This is why our current knowledge of the cerebral correlates of dreaming, mainly derives from studies of REM sleep. Neuroimaging results show that REM sleep is characterized by a specific pattern of regional brain activity. We demonstrate that this heterogeneous distribution of brain activity during sleep explains many typical features in dreams. Reciprocally, specific dream characteristics suggest the activation of selective brain regions during sleep. Such an integration of neuroimaging data of human sleep, mental imagery, and the content of dreams is critical for current models of dreaming; it also provides neurobiological support for an implication of sleep and dreaming in some important functions such as emotional regulation.     

Religious Change and Stability: Seasonality in Church Attendance from the 1940s to the 2000s

Using attendance data from a declining Episcopal church and a growing Lutheran church in a medium‐sized midwestern city, we explore the issue of seasonality in church attendance from the 1940s to the late 2000s. Our central concern is whether month‐to‐month variation in church attendance has remained the same or changed over the period of time under consideration. We find remarkable consistency in the overall month‐to‐month attendance pattern over the course of the past seven decades but less variation in attendance from month to month in more recent decades in both churches. We argue that the findings demonstrate the presence of a “committed core” of church members who attend regularly and the departure of nominal members who have swelled the ranks of the “nones” in recent decades.     

Baring Their Souls in Online Profiles or Not? Religious Self‐Disclosure in Social Media

This study measured the prevalence of religious self‐disclosure in public MySpace profiles that belonged to a subsample of National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) wave 3 respondents (N = 560). Personal attributes associated with religious identification as well as the overall quantity of religious self‐disclosures are examined. A majority (62 percent) of profile owners identified their religious affiliations online, although relatively few profile owners (30 percent) said anything about religion outside the religion‐designated field. Most affiliation reports (80 percent) were consistent with the profile owner's reported affiliation on the survey. Religious profile owners disclosed more about religion when they also believed that religion is a public matter or if they evaluated organized religion positively. Evangelical Protestants said more about religion than other respondents. Religiosity, believing that religion is a public matter, and the religiosity of profile owners’ friendship group were all positively associated with religious identification and self‐disclosure.     

BECOMING BELIEVERS: STUDYING THE CONVERSION PROCESS FROM WITHIN

Abstract Employing an extended case method ethnography ( Burawoy 1998 ), the researcher joined five new members forming a spiritualist's group under the leadership of an experienced advocate. Over a period of eighteen months, the researcher attended all the group's activities and events. Data were collected to reflexively interrogate the process theory of conversion proposed by Lewis Rambo (1993) . The data revealed conversion to be a multifaceted and dynamic process of cognitive change, mediated by structural, and contextual forces. The results provide a reconceptualization of Rambo's theory, presenting a theoretical expansion of the model emphasizing its mechanisms of action. The paper details the composition of the “Interaction‐Commitment” mechanism, operationalized within four submechanisms emanating from Rambo's roles, rituals, rhetoric, and relationships. This longitudinal study shows that most of the hard work toward conversion occurs before any formal interaction with a conversion advocate. Conversion operates most effectively under conditions of cognitive economy wherein the belief path follows a path of least cognitive expenditure.     

THE PLACEBO EFFECT: WHAT'S INTERESTING FOR SCHOLARS OF RELIGION?

Abstract. The placebo effect these days is no longer merely the insubstantial, subjective response that some patients have to a sham treatment, like a sugar pill. It has been reconceived as a powerful mind‐body phenomenon. Because of this, it has also emerged as a complex reference point in a number of high‐stakes conversations about the metaphysical significance of experiences of religious healing, the possible health benefits of being religious, and the feasibility of using double‐blind placebo‐controlled trials to investigate the efficacy of prayer. In each of these conversations, the placebo effect is always pointing toward some larger issue, serving some larger agenda. The agendas, though, tend to pull in different directions, leading to a situation that feels at once fractured and stalemated. This essay reviews the main areas of interest, and proposes some specific issues where humanistic scholars of religion in particular might be able to introduce constructive and creative new perspectives.