A lexicon of attention: from cognitive science to phenomenology

This article tries to create a bridge of understanding between cognitive scientists and phenomenologists who work on attention. In light of a phenomenology of attention and current psychological and neuropsychological literature on attention, I translate and interpret into phenomenological terms 20 key cognitive science concepts as examined in the laboratory and used in leading journals. As a preface to the lexicon, I outline a phenomenology of attention, especially as a dynamic three-part structure, which I have freely amended from the work of phenomenologist and Gestalt philosopher Aron Gurwitsch (1901–1973). As a conclusion, I discuss the nature of subjectivity in attention and attention research, and whether attention might be the same as consciousness.     

意识和无意识权衡现象的四个特征

本实验以探讨意识和无意识之间的复杂关系为目的 ,采用 5 (年龄 :老年、中年、大学生、初三和高小 )× 2 (贡献来源 :意识和无意识 )的两因素混合设计 ,通过加工分离程序 (PDP)的包含和排除测验 ,计算意识和无意识的贡献大小。结果表明在对具体图片的记忆中 ,1)意识和无意识贡献出现了发展上的分离 ;2 )老年组的无意识贡献高于意识贡献 ,但未达到显著水平 ,其余四个组别则表现出意识贡献水平极其显著地高于无意识贡献水平。在此基础上 ,本研究对意识和无意识的权衡现象的四个特征 (相互独立、相互作用、互为主次、互相依存 )分别进行了阐述     

Review

Book reviewed in this article:
Jean Porter, Natural and Divine Law: Reclaiming the Tradition for Christian Ethics     

Consciousness and Self in Animals: Some Reflections

In this essay I argue that many nonhuman animal beings are conscious and have some sense of self. Rather than ask whether they are conscious, I adopt an evolutionary perspective and ask why consciousness and a sense of self evolved—what are they good for? Comparative studies of animal cognition, ethological investigations that explore what it is like to be a certain animal, are useful for answering this question. Charles Darwin argued that the differences in cognitive abilities and emotions among animals are differences in degree rather than differences in kind, and his view cautions against the unyielding claim that humans, and perhaps other great apes and cetaceans, are the only species in which a sense of self‐awareness has evolved. I conclude that there are degrees of consciousness and self among animals and that it is likely that no animal has the same highly developed sense of self as that displayed by most humans. Many animals have a sense of “body‐ness” or “mine‐ness” but not a sense of “I‐ness.” Darwin's ideas about evolutionary continuity, together with empirical data (“science sense”) and common sense, will help us learn more about consciousness and self in animals. Answers to challenging questions about animal self‐awareness have wide‐ranging significance, because they are often used as the litmus test for determining and defending the sorts of treatments to which animals can be morally subjected.     

Integral Spirituality, Deep Science, and Ecological Awareness

There is a growing understanding that addressing the global crisis facing humanity will require new methods for knowing, understanding, and valuing the world. Narrow, disciplinary, and reductionist perceptions of reality are proving inadequate for addressing the complex, interconnected problems of the current age. The pervasive Cartesian worldview, which is based on the metaphor of the universe as a machine, promotes fragmentation in our thinking and our perception of the cosmos. This divisive, compartmentalized thinking fosters alienation and self‐focused behavior. I aim to show in this essay that healing the fragmentation that is at the root of the current world crises requires an integrated epistemology that embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the inner knowledge of spiritual experience. This “deep science” transcends the illusion of separateness to discern the unity, the unbroken wholeness, that underlies the diverse forms of the universe. Our perception of connectedness, of our integral place in the web of life, emerges as an attribute of our connection with the eternal, beatific source of all existence. This awakened spiritual vision “widens our circle of understanding and compassion, to embrace all living creatures in the whole of nature” (Einstein, quoted in Goldstein [1976] 1987). Our behavior, as it emerges naturally out of our perception of the sacredness of the natural world, will naturally embody love and respect for all life forms. This vision promotes the healing of our long‐standing alienation from the natural world and offers hope for renewal in the midst of widespread cultural deterioration and environmental destruction.     

论卢卡奇社会存在整体性思想的新意

卢卡奇晚期探讨社会存在本体论达到了对社会历史哲学研究的高度。其中一个令人瞩目的观点是关于社会存在整体性思想。理论的新意之处：从一般存在的角度对社会存在进行探讨,指出社会存在具有多样性、整体性特征;社会存在是因果性和目的性的统一;劳动是阐述社会存在中相互联系各因素发生关系的中心概念;确认社会存在整体性,论证了社会存在本体的思想;社会存在本体论是集劳动、实践、意识、价值四个特点于一体的现代本体论。     

What we must Accomplish in the coming Decades

Abstract. In order to survive as a species and grow in complexity, humanity must adopt a new image of what it means to be human, rediscover a reward system beyond the merely material, and see that young people find joy in challenges and in cooperating with others.     

Well‐Being Blindness

Why are we still studying well‐being? We have a vested interest in understanding the good life, and the relevant data seem to be accessible to us all. The challenge is to explain why well‐being is one lasting philosophical topic among others in spite of our special epistemic relationship to it. This article argues that human nature renders us well‐being blind. On one side this is due to the heterogeneous nature of our interests. Some are directly mediated by conscious thought, others are not. Some are individualistically realized, others relationally. On the other side we suffer from cognitive biases that lead us to undervalue, indeed, to miss entirely, the important aspects of human life that do not depend on conscious attention. Consequently, there is reason to think that we shall never be satisfied with a theory of well‐being.     

Neurodynamics of time consciousness: An extensionalist explanation of apparent motion and the specious present via reentrant oscillatory multiplexing

This paper situates an original model of reentrant oscillatory multiplexing within the philosophy of time consciousness to argue for an extensionalist theory of the specious present. I develop a detailed differential latency model of apparent motion to show how the ordinality of experiential content is isomorphic to the ordinality of relevant brain processes. I argue that the theory presented has resources to account for other key features of the specious present, including the representational discreteness between successive conscious moments as well as the phenomenological continuity between them. This work not only shows the plausibility of an extensionalist philosophical theory, it also illustrates the utility of differential latency views in squaring temporal illusions with empirically supported neurodynamics.