Although the brain enables us to perceive the external world and our body, it remains unknown whether brain processes themselves can be perceived. Brain tissue does not have receptors for its own activity. However, the ability of humans to acquire self-control of brain processes indicates that the perception of these processes may also be achieved by learning. In this study patients learned to control low-frequency components of their EEG: the so-called slow cortical potentials (SCPs). In particular ''probe'' sessions, the patients (...) estimated the quality of the SCP shift they had produced in the preceding trial. The correspondence between the recorded SCP amplitudes and the subjective estimates increased with training. The ability to perceive the SCPs was related to the ability to control them; this perception was not mediated by peripheral variables such as changes in muscle tonus and cannot be reduced to simple vigilance monitoring. These data provide evidence that humans can learn to perceive the neural activity of their brain. Alternative interpretations are discussed. (shrink)

The ArgumentPain has important biomedical socioanthropological, semiotic, and other facets. In this contribution pain and the experssion of pain are looked at from the perspective of evolutionary biology, utilizing, among others, cross-cultural data from field work in Melanesia.No other being cares for sick and suffering conspecifics in the way humans do. Notwithstanding aggression and neglect, common in all cultures, human societies can be characterized as empathic, comforting, and promoting the health and well-being of their members. One important stimulus triggering this (...) caring response in others is the expression of pain. The nonverbal channel of communication, particularly certain universal — i.e., culture-independent facial expressions, gestures, and body postures, convey much of the message from the painstricken person to the group.These behaviors signal the person's physical and psychical pain, sadness, grief, and despair in ways very similar to the signs given by infants and small children: the body loses tonus and sinks or drops to the ground, the gestures are those of helplessness. Pain and grief may be so strong that control is lost not only over the body's posture but also over the mind's awareness. In such cases the afflicted person may carry out actions endangering himself or others. In general, these behavior patterns resemble those of infants in situations of distress and danger, and it is not surprising that the response of the members of the group is basically parental: taking care, assisting and consoling.Perceptive and behavioral patterns which developed in the course of avian and mammalian phylogeny to serve the well-being of the young have proven, as was shown by Eibl-Eibesfeldt, to be powerful building blocks for actions in other spheres of human interaction. Love is one such field, the reactions to a conspecific suffering pain is another. (shrink)

Sheikh Halid Sufi, as a Sufi poet, addresses human being as the main subject of his sufist dicourse. He is an important figure of our recent history as he primarily adopted the goal of human perfection and revealed a doctrine of humanity in the school of knowledge. In advance of our current century, when human is seen just in physical respect, he lived as a man of heart who handled human being with an integrated approach within the aspects of matter (...) and spirituality, the world and the hereafter, individual and community, body and soul. In this communiqué, I will discuss Sheikh Halid Effendi’s ontology and his point of view on the place of human being in the realm of existence. He seeks human perfection and wishes people to free themselves of shabby desires and regain their disposition. He recommends people to achieve purity in order to reach the rank of being a mirror to God’s reflections. As a Sufi poet, he attaches importance to carrying out the education of divine journey, wrapping up in mystical ethics, having the identity of wisdom and gaining the aesthetics of love so as to reach the perfection. SUMMARY Sheikh Mehmed Halid was born in 1273/1856 in Sivas. He graduated from Ottoman Junior High School. He attended the 1893 War. In 1880, he started his professional career at a state office. Until 1899, he served in several positions, as assistant judge in Erbaa Lower Court, as Prosecuting Deputy Attorney in Sivas, as Prosecuting Judge assistant in Lower Court and head clerk in Darende, as head clerk in Lower Court in Tonus/Altınyayla, and as prosecuting judge in Kuruçay. He died in 1931 and was buried in Sivas Yukarı Tekke Graveyard. Sufism (tasawwuf) is an education for integrity towards maturity, in a way to prufiy the self from evils of nafs (self) and to reach the love of Allah. This spiritual educational journey is called ‘Seyr-u Suluk’. Sheikh Mehmed Halid completed his Seyr u Suluk as a dervish (student) of murshid (mentor) Kastamonulu Ganizade Mehmed Sadık Baba. Sheikh Mehmed Halid wrote three books called Hilafetnāme, Mektubāt, and Divan. He deals with issues of Sufism (mysticism) in these works. Primarily, his works dwells into the matters of morals, worship, good manners (adab), customary practices, ingenuity, existence, and love. Sheikh Mehmed Halid’s sole attempt is to explain the relationship among Allah, man and universe in an understandable way. According to Sheikh Mehmed Halid’s conception of Sufism, existence is unique and that existence is only Allah. The existence of Allah is absolute while the existence of assets is relative. Things do not exist on their own. Universe is like a mirror. What is reflected in the mirror of universe are the shadows of Allah the Omnipotent. The graces of The Divine are reflected in this mirror. All the things that exist in the universe proves the Self of Allah and his properties. Each of the things in the universe are the words of Allah. The existence of the universe is a result of Allah’s mercy. Man is the fruit of the tree of the Universe.Man is both the embodiment and the reflection of Allah. We want to discuss the position of man in between Allah and the universe with Sheikh Halid’s verses. Perceiving plurality in unity and unity in plurality, Sheikh Mehmed Halid attributes the variety of things and existence in the universe to the Divine beauties of Allah. For those who can comprehend, the plurality/ abundance in existing objects in the universe indicates singularity and uniqueness of Allah. According to Sheikh Halid, Allah is independent from and beyond all the entities that exist in the universe. However, Allah, manifests Himself in the things that he creates and the actions he takes through His divine names and properties. According to Sheikh Halid, each object is a reflection of Allah’s divine properties. Every entity in the universe glorifies Allah with all their existence. For Sheikh Halid, Seyr u Suluk is the journey from weakness to perfection, from substance to meaning, and from things to reality. Considering Seyr u Suluk education as distancing one’s self from other beings, reaching purity of heart, disposing of all signs explains these concepts with pilgrimage metaphor. As a response to those who asks him what he meant by seyr u suluk, he says seyr u suluk is servitude and submission to Allah. In order for Seyr u Suluk to be meaningful, a person should enter the way of a murshid-i kāmil (perfect religious mentor), and should have sincerity, purity (being deprived of all sins) and dhikr. According to Sheikh Halid, someone who is not in trouble is not given a remedy. So as to bother is necessary for remedy to be arisen. Nuisances of the universe are also ephemeral as the universe itself. Therefore, it is unnecessary to bother things that are ephemeral. Because remedy is not available without being mature. According to Sheikh Halid, the procedure of gaining advantage from being mature; getting rid of the ego, feeling the love, being pioneer of the mission, being modest, to attain soul pleasure, escaping from fame, leaving the claim, the glory of salvation, proceeding dhikr, reaching the conquests and escaping from friendship of worldly things. According to Sheikh Halid, being mature is not setting about affiliation ceremony. Asceticism cannot be a show and claim authority. Sincerity is needed on the basis of seyr u suluk education. Asceticism which is an effort of making the religion a specific of Allah is to make intimacy with Allah. Sheikh Halid wants his murids who take part in ṭarīqa (sufī path) to decide on the sincerity. Sincerity is said to be the unique factor that makes sense the membership. Seyr u suluk which begins with being membership of mature murshid, which makes sense with proceeding worship and respecting the sincerity arises by teaching manners to soul. Seyr u suluk is trying to reform the soul. Teaching manners to soul is a challenging and significant task. The most important factor that ensure teaching manners to the soul to be achieved is dhikr. Dhikr practice which makes successful the teaching manner to the soul of seyr u suluk training increases the prudence and foresight of dervish. The unique task that murshid expects from his murid during the membership process is to adjust his soul and parlance to the dhikr of Allah. Dhikr of Allah is a product of fondness. According to Sheikh Halid, one who wants to be remembered in heaven should himself learn to remember Allah. Sheikh Halid gives too much importance to disciplining the tariqa where sufi training takes place. A murid should qualify his murshid whom he intimated to. Followers should gain sufficient advantage from the spiritual atmosphere in the dergāh of their murshid. The murid must be at the service of the murshid who trains him and should obey tariqa manners. Salik who achieves seyr u suluk, who maturates the sufi ethics and who gains sincerity through dihkr of Allah tries to achieve the Gnosis. The intent of being a human is to know Allah. The biggest disaster for human is to come upon unawareness. Sheikh Halid who assumes the the Arifs as sultans of walayah makes a comparison between the Arifs and the Zahids and prefers the Arifs. He thinks that the Zahids pay attention to the appearance, cannot reach the basis and cannot go beyond Allahliness show. Sheikh Halid, who encourages the Zahids to avoid comparing themselves with the Arifs, warns the ones who combat with the Arifs and reminds that Allah proclaims warfare to those who has hostility towards those surrendering themselves to Allah. Sheikh Halid lines up the ways of being mature and having wisdom as godly grace, asceticism, love, the mind of leaving, battle with the self, humility, dikhr and being woeful. Salvation process which Marifetullah will guide is to achieve the love of Allah. Love is the way of achieving the reunion. The reality can just be gained through love. However, gaining the divine love requires to be loved. Because, the way of gaining the divine love is to remove everything except Allah from one’s heart. (shrink)

Like the human mind, the human body is the medium by which we represent ourselves, whether we are patients or healthcare providers. This paper concerns the significance of understanding the existential phenomenological side of a patient’s body within healthcare. To care for a patient’s body, one needs to be aware of how the body appears to itself, to others, and in a lager environmental reality. We think and feel and observe the world with our body, especially with the brain and (...) nervous system, but also with other dimensions of the body manifesting itself as a somatic tonus. The healthcare providers’ body does not only represent a profession, but also who they are as a person and what kind of environment they are affected by. The same applies to the patients' body. As a tool for experiencing, a tool inseparable from our very being, our physical body functions as a surface open to and in contact with the healthcare environment that surrounds it. In the modern healthcare regime, the human body is nearly always visible and under constant surveillance. In the environment of control and visibility bodies become psychologized and normalized to fit into sociocultural demands of economic adaption, social participation, and communication, which in certain situations seem hostile to the ideology of care, freedom, and humanity. We should realize that all our ethical concepts and norms, even the very notion of humanity that underwrites them, depend on social forms of life involving the ways we experience our bodies in different medical and sociocultural situations. (shrink)

Hunger seems, at first glance, to be primarily a biological state, emerging first incipiently and then with insistent, yet extremely varying, sharpness in the wide continuum of sentient and feeling beings. The pervasive lived through, but not necessarily attended to, tonus of somatic well-being is unbalanced by the experience of lack that initiates attempts to restore equilibrium in a cycle that continues until death or its equivalent. Hunger in this sense provokes appetite or appetition. It is satisfied by an (...) appropriate object or even, in extreme cases and with catastrophic consequences, inappropriate objects. Toxicity is specific to the organism. There is no guarantee that what can be ingested can be digested. .. (shrink)

La vieillesse constitue une pierre de touche pour toute théorie médicale : elle oblige à rendre raison de la temporalité à l’œuvre dans la vie. Aux yeux de Stahl, les iatromécaniciens méconnaissent la dimension temporelle de l’organisme ; en particulier, ils en ignorent la périodicité. Comprendre la vieillesse suppose donc la critique de la représentation linéaire du temps organique, que développe la mécanique et qui réduit le vivant au seul composé physique et chimique. Il reste alors à trouver la cause (...) de la périodicité organique : sur ce point, Georg Ernst Stahl critique Thomas Sydenham, qui reconnaît certes la périodicité du vivant mais nie la possibilité d’une médecine étiologique. Pour sa part, le médecin de Halle cherche à rendre compte du vieillissement en lien avec les actions organiques fondamentales : le tonus, la circulation, l’excrétion, la sécrétion. (shrink)

This book contains three essays: "The Mask and the Face: The Perception of Physiognomic Likeness in Life and Art" by Gombrich, the renowned art historian and critic; "The Representation of Things and People" by psychologist, Julian Hochberg; and "How Do Pictures Represent" by philosopher, Max Black. The book is based upon lectures delivered in the Johns Hopkins 1970 Thalheimer Lectures, where, taking off from the question "how there can be an underlying identity in the manifold and changing facial expression of (...) a single individual," there is an interdisciplinary attempt at clarifying the problem of representation. Gombrich’s central thesis is that the key to artistic representation is empathy and projection, which is guided by the interlocking display of the permanent and mobile features of the object represented. Perceptual activity and empathy rely more on the muscular imitation than on passive visual reception. He holds that what is singled out as the likeness-factor uniting the permanent and mobile features in, for example, the photograph of the four-year old Lord Russell and such factors in the ninety-year old Russell is the "general tonus, the melody of transition from given ranges of relaxations to forms of tenseness." Hochberg’s essay spells out the position that perception is purposive behavior, wherein the purpose is the information sought and behavior is the "succession of glances in different directions." Holding that perceptual activity is grounded in expectations, he lays aside Gombrich’s muscularity-thesis in favor of a learned expectation of feature characteristics. Black’s essay is a conceptual analysis of "depiction," or more precisely, of "P displays a subject S if and only if R, where R ‘will constitute the necessary and sufficient condition for P displaying S'." The essay, which proceeds in a Wittgensteinian Investigations-type fashion ends where the reader would hope it begin. He concludes that the problem can only be adequately answered by moving from logical investigation to the world of the artisan and art lover. To arrive at this conclusion he debunks six candidates that claim to meet the depiction conditions: causal history, selective information, intention, mimesis, resemblance, and "looking-like." At best, depiction may be considered a "cluster" concept of all six. Further determination, he holds, requires knowledge of the purpose of a particular depiction, and this takes us out of logic and into art; and so Black stops, unfortunately.—W. A. F. (shrink)

Between James Parkinson's 'shaking palsy' and the first report of the post-encephalitic manifestation — initially not recognizable as a complication of that incipient 'Spanish flu' epidemic — it took over a hundred years to arrive at a clear appreciation and differentiation of its most disabling feature: rigidity. This paper traces the development, step by hesitant or bold step, of the pertinent ideas and terms regarding muscle tone before and after Parkinson, their basis in neuropathological advances as they were made for (...) related syndromes of basal ganglia disorders, toward the eventual clinical correlation. Chief credits, after Sauvages, must go to Charcot for emphasizing the increase in muscle tone, and to Kinnier Wilson for establishing the extrapyramidal connection. (shrink)