Richard Swinburne presents a powerful new case for substance dualism and for libertarian free will. He argues that pure mental events are distinct from physical events and interact with them, and claims that no result from neuroscience or any other science could show that interaction does not take place. Swinburne goes on to argue for agent causation, and claims that it is we, and not our intentions, that cause our brain events. It is metaphysically possible that each of us (...) could acquire a new brain or continue to exist without a brain; and so we are essentially souls. Brain events and conscious events are so different from each other that it would not be possible to establish a scientific theory which would predict what each of us would do in situations of moral conflict. Hence, we should believe that things are as they seem to be: that we make choices independently of the causes which influence us. It follows that we are morally responsible for our actions. (shrink)

: The idea of enhancing our mental functions through medical means makes many people uncomfortable. People have a vague feeling that altering our brains tinkers with the core of our personalities and the core of ourselves. It changes who we are, and doing so seems wrong, even if the exact reasons for the unease are difficult to define. Many of the standard arguments against neuroenhancements—that they are unsafe, that they violate the distinction between therapy and enhancements, that they undermine equality, (...) and that they will be used coercively—fail to show why the use of any such technologies is wrong in principle. Two other objections—the arguments that such changes undermine our integrity and that they prevent us from living authentic lives—will condemn only a few of the uses that are proposed. The result is that very few uses of these drugs are morally suspect and that most uses are morally permissible. (shrink)

This paper addresses what some view as a progressive and decades-long devaluing of the liberal arts in our educational institutions and society at large. It draws attention to symptoms of this trend and possible contributing factors, identifies benefits commonly attributed to the liberal arts, and then shows how insights from recent research on neuroplasticity provide good reason to believe that a traditional liberal education has positive effects on a person's brain. The paper supports the thesis that well-designed liberal arts (...) courses can literally transform students' minds and lives as a result of unique and synergistic brain processes activated and strengthened by the leaming experiences such courses provide. It finishes with recommendations to help reinvigorate and promote the value of liberal education. (shrink)

In this paper I explore systematically the relationship between Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) and their human users from a phenomenological and cognitive perspective. First, I functionally decompose BCI systems and develop a typology in which I categorize BCI applications with similar functional properties into three categories, those with (1) motor, (2) virtual, and (3) linguistic applications. Second, developing and building on the notions of an embodied tool and cognitive tool, I analyze whether these distinct BCI applications can be seen as (...) bodily or cognitive extensions. Contrary to some recent philosophical claims, I will argue that, although BCI technology may have the potential to become bodily and cognitive extensions for skilled users, at this stage they are not. And while the electrodes may to a variable degree be transparent and incorporated in the body schema, the BCI system as a whole is not. Moreover, BCIs do not have a functional role characteristic for cognition and are therefore not cognitive extensions. Third, based on concepts from the distributed cognition framework, I give a number of suggestions to improve the interface design of linguistic applications, i.e. BCIs that allow its user to spell words by selecting letters on a screen. These suggestions may result in cognitive extension and would enhance the autonomy and quality of life of its users. In sum, in this paper I develop a typology, analysis and critique on the current philosophical debate on BCIs, thereby providing a richer conceptual understanding of BCI systems which allows me to offer some suggestions for improving the interface design of linguistic applications. (shrink)

In their recent and influential book Rethinking Innateness, Jeffrey Elman and his co‐authors argue that evidence from neurobiology provides us with grounds to reject representational nativism (RN). I argue that Elman et al.’s argument fails because it makes a series of unwarranted assumptions about RN and about the extent to which neurobiological data constrain claims about the innateness of mental rep‐resentations. Moreover, I briefly discuss how we ought to understand RN and argue that on two prima facie plausible approaches, far (...) from refuting nativism, the evidence from neurobiology may not even be relevant to the question of whether or not RN is true. (shrink)

Philosophers have been talking about brain states for almost 50 years and as of yet no one has articulated a theoretical account of what one is. In fact this issue has received almost no attention and cognitive scientists still use meaningless phrases like 'C-fiber firing' and 'neuronal activity' when theorizing about the relation of the mind to the brain. To date when theorists do discuss brain states they usually do so in the context of making some other (...) argument with the result being that any discussion of what brain states are has a distinct en passant flavor. In light of this it is a goal of mine to make brain states the center of attention by providing some general discussion of them. I briefly look at the argument of Bechtel and Mundale, as I think that they expose a common misconception philosophers had about brain states early on. I then turn to briefly examining Polger's argument, as I think he offers an intuitive account of what we expect brain states to be as well as a convincing argument against a common candidate for knowledge about brain states that is currently "on the scene." I then introduce a distinction between brain states and states of the brain: Particular brain states occur against background states of the brain. I argue that brain states are patterns of synchronous neural firing, which reflects the electrical face of the brain; states of the brain are the gating and modulating of neural activity and reflect the chemical face of the brain. (shrink)

Background: The broad autism phenotype includes subclinical autistic characteristics found to have a higher prevalence in unaffected family members of individuals with autism. These characteristics primarily affect the social aspects of language, communication, and human interaction. The current research focuses on possible neurobehavioral characteristics associated with the broad autism phenotype. Methods: We used a face-processing task associated with atypical patterns of gaze fixation and brain function in autism while collecting brain functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and eye tracking (...) in unaffected siblings of individuals with autism. Results: We found robust differences in gaze fixation and brain function in response to images of human faces in unaffected siblings compared with typically developing control individuals. The siblings’ gaze fixations and brain activation patterns during the face processing task were similar to that of the autism group and showed decreased gaze fixation along with diminished fusiform activation compared with the control group. Furthermore, amygdala volume in the siblings was similar to the autism group and was significantly reduced compared with the control group. Conclusions: Together, these findings provide compelling evidence for differences in social/emotional processing and underlying neural circuitry in siblings of individuals with autism, supporting the notion of unique endophenotypes associated with the broad autism phenotype. (shrink)

In recent times we have seen an explosion in the amount of attention paid to the conscious brain from scientists and philosophers alike. One message that has emerged loud and clear from scientific work is that the brain is a dynamical system whose operations unfold in time. Any theory of consciousness that is going to be physically realistic must take account of the intrinsic nature of neurons and brain activity. At the same time a long discussion on (...) consciousness among philosophers has resulted in our distinguishing several kinds of consciousness. So when we ask where the place of consciousness is in nature we may mean several different things. In this chapter I will argue that it is plausible that all of the kinds of consciousness turn out to be nothing but patterns of synchronized neural activity in various frequencies against a dynamically changing chemical background. (shrink)

The definition of death as “irreversible coma” was introduced in 1968 by the Harvard University Medical School. It was developed largely in diagnostic terms as the “irreversible cessation of all functions of the entire brain, including the brainstem.” In its review of brain death in 1981, The President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine argued that brain death is consonant with circulatory death because the loss of certain brain functions results in the “loss (...) of integrative unity of the organism,” leading to cardiac arrest. This picture of a unified conception of death was challenged by subsequent clinical evidence suggesting that, with proper treatment, circulatory death is not the inevitable result of brain death. Here, it is argued that, if death, in the morally relevant sense, is defined as irreversible loss of consciousness, a unitary conception of death can be maintained. However, significant theoretical and methodological obstacles remain in diagnosing irreversible loss of consciousness. (shrink)

If conscious observers are to be included in the quantum mechanical universe, we need to find the rules that engage observers with quantum mechanical systems. The author has proposed five rules that are discovered by insisting on empirical completeness; that is, by requiring the rules to draw empirical information from Schrödinger's solutions that is more complete than is currently possible with the (Born) probability interpretation. I discard Born's interpretation, introducing probability solely through probability “current.” These rules tell us something about (...) brains. They require the existence of observer brain states that are neither conscious nor unconscious. I call them “ready” brain states because they are on stand-by, ready to become conscious the moment they are stochastically chosen. Two of the rules are selection rules involving ready brain states. The place of these rules in a wider theoretical context is discussed. (shrink)

Thought experiments involving The Matrix, brains-in-vats, or Cartesian demons have traditionally thought to describe skeptical possibilities. Chalmers has denied this, claiming that the simulations involved are real enough to at least sometimes defeat the skeptic. Through an examination of the meaning of kind terms in natural language I argue that, though the Chalmers view may be otherwise attractive, it is not an antidote to skepticism.

How does evolution grow bigger brains? It has been widely assumed that growth of individual structures and functional systems in response to niche-specific cognitive challenges is the most plausible mechanism for brain expansion in mammals. Comparison of multiple regressions on allometric data for 131 mammalian species, however, suggests that for 9 of 11 brain structures taxonomic and body size factors are less important than covariance of these major structures with each other. Which structure grows biggest is largely predicted (...) by a conserved order of neurogenesis that can be derived from the basic axial structure of the developing brain. This conserved order of neurogenesis predicts the relative scaling not only of gross brain regions like the isocortex or mesencephalon, but also the level of detail of individual thalamic nuclei. Special selection of particular areas for specific functions does occur, but it is a minor factor compared to the large-scale covariance of the whole brain. The idea that enlarged isocortex could be a a by-product of structural constraints later adapted for various behaviors, contrasts with approaches to selection of particular brain regions for cognitively advanced uses, as is commonly assumed in the case of hominid brain evolution. (shrink)

Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are "tuned" into neural networks in the brain and depend to a large extent on the characteristics of culture. Culture‐specific organizations exist in the structure of individual neurons and in the organizational formation of neural networks.

Prevention neuroscience investigates the brain basis of attitude and behavior change. Over the years, an increasingly structurally and functionally resolved “persuasion network” has emerged. However, current studies have only identified a small handful of neural structures that are commonly recruited during persuasive message processing, and the extent to which these (and other) structures are sensitive to numerous individual difference factors remains largely unknown. In this project we apply a multi-dimensional similarity-based individual differences analysis to explore which individual factors—including characteristics (...) of messages and target audiences—drive patterns of brain activity to be more or less similar across individuals encountering the same anti-drug public service announcements (PSAs). We demonstrate that several ensembles of brain regions show response patterns that are driven by a variety of unique factors. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for neural models of persuasion, prevention neuroscience and message tailoring, and methodological implications for future research. (shrink)

Although the use of ECT has declined dramatically from its inception, this decrease has recently shown signs of leveling out because of ECT's powerful therapeutic effect in severely ill depressed individuals who either do not respond to pharmacologic alternatives or are too ill to tolerate a relatively lengthy drug trial. Notwithstanding its therapeutic benefits, ECT has also remained a controversial treatment modality, particularly in the eye of the public. Given the unsavory qualities associated with the word “electroconvulsive,” claims of possible, (...) probable, or even certain brain damage with ECT have easily found listeners. A careful, nonselective assessment of data covering the areas of pathology, radiology, electrophysiology, biochemistry, and neuropsychology leads both to certain conclusions and to certain unanswered questions. ECT is not the devastating purveyor of wholesale brain damage that some of its detractors claim. For the typical individual receiving ECT, no detectable correlates of irreversible brain damage appear to occur. Still, there remains the possibility that either subtle, objectively undetectable persistent deficits, particularly in the area of autobiographic memory function, occur, or that a rarely occurring syndrome of more pervasive persistent deficits related to ECT use may be present. Clearly, more research directed toward answering these questions needs to be carried out so that the role of ECT can be more rigorously defined. While such research is pending, however, we cannot expect that the conditions that predispose to clinical referrals for ECT will disappear. Given the misery, anguish, and risk of death by suicide, starvation, or debilitation associated with severe depressive illness, for example, it still appears that ECT, at least for the present, must continue to be available. (shrink)

Social media platforms offer convenient, instantaneous social sharing on a mass scale with tremendous impact on public perceptions, opinions, and behavior. There is a need to understand why information spreads including the human motivations, cognitive processes, and neural dynamics of large-scale sharing. This study introduces a novel approach for investigating the effect social media messaging and in-person discussion has on the inter-brain dynamics within small groups of participants. The psychophysiological impact of information campaigns and narrative messaging within a closed (...) social media environment was assessed using 24-channel wireless EEG. Data were acquired from three- or four-person groups while subjects debated contemporary social issues framed by four scenarios of varying controversy: investing in ethical vs. unethical corporations, selecting travel destination based on social awareness, determining verdict in a murder trial and the punishment of life in prison or death penalty, and decision to vaccinate. Pre-/post-scenario questionnaires assess the effects of the social media information. Inter-brain coherence between subject pairs on each social issue discussed by subjects was analyzed by concordance, agreement vs. disagreement, and by group unanimity, unanimous vs. not unanimous. Subject pairs that agreed on the social issues raised in the scenarios had significantly greater inter-brain coherence in gamma frequency range than disagreeing pairs over cortical regions known to be involved in social interactions. These effects were magnified when comparing groups where subject pairs were unanimous in their stance on the social issues for some but not all scenarios. While there was considerable overlap between scenarios in what EEG channels were significant, there was enough variability to indicate the possibility of scenario-specific effects on inter-brain coherence. (shrink)

'Gilles Deleuze: A Reason to Believe in this World' Special Issue edited by Reda Bensmaia and Jalal Toufic _Discourse: Journal for Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture_ vol. 20 no. 3, Fall 1998 ISSN 0730-1081 249 pp.

The primary goal of this essay is to provide a comprehensive overview and analysis of the various relations between material artifacts and the embodied mind. A secondary goal of this essay is to identify some of the trends in the design and use of artifacts. First, based on their functional properties, I identify four categories of artifacts co-opted by the embodied mind, namely (1) embodied artifacts, (2) perceptual artifacts, (3) cognitive artifacts, and (4) affective artifacts. These categories can overlap and (...) so some artifacts are members of more than one category. I also identify some of the techniques (or skills) we use when interacting with artifacts. Identifying these categories of artifacts and techniques allows us to map the landscape of relations between embodied minds and the artifactual world. Second, having identified categories of artifacts and techniques, this essay then outlines some of the trends in the design and use of artifacts, focussing on neuroprosthetics, brain-computer interfaces, and personalisation algorithms nudging their users towards particular epistemic paths of information consumption. (shrink)

Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any implications follow (...) from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking--staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms--if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"--might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject.Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality. (shrink)

This article argues that mirror neurons originate in sensorimotor associative learning and therefore a new approach is needed to investigate their functions. Mirror neurons were discovered about 20 years ago in the monkey brain, and there is now evidence that they are also present in the human brain. The intriguing feature of many mirror neurons is that they fire not only when the animal is performing an action, such as grasping an object using a power grip, but also (...) when the animal passively observes a similar action performed by another agent. It is widely believed that mirror neurons are a genetic adaptation for action understanding; that they were designed by evolution to fulfill a specific socio-cognitive function. In contrast, we argue that mirror neurons are forged by domain-general processes of associative learning in the course of individual development, and, although they may have psychological functions, they do not necessarily have a specific evolutionary purpose or adaptive function. The evidence supporting this view shows that mirror neurons do not consistently encode action “goals”; the contingency- and context-sensitive nature of associative learning explains the full range of mirror neuron properties; human infants receive enough sensorimotor experience to support associative learning of mirror neurons ; and mirror neurons can be changed in radical ways by sensorimotor training. The associative account implies that reliable information about the function of mirror neurons can be obtained only by research based on developmental history, system-level theory, and careful experimentation. (shrink)

I offer support for the view that physicalist theories of cognition don't reduce to neurophysiological theories. On my view, the mind-brain relationship is to be explained in terms of evolutionary forces, some of which tug in the direction of a reductionistic mind-brain relationship, and some of which which tug in the opposite direction. This theory of forces makes possible an anti-reductionist account of the cognitive mind-brain relationship which avoids psychophysical anomalism. This theory thus also responds to the (...) complaint which arguably lies behind the Churchlands' strongest criticisms of anti-reductionism — namely the complaint that anti-reductionists fail to supply principled explanations for the character of the mind-brain relationship. While lending support to anti-reductionism, the view defended here also insures a permanent place for mind-brain reduction as an explanatory ideal analogous to Newtonian inertial motion or Aristotelian natural motion. (shrink)

The attempt to derive mental function from brain structure is highly constrained by study of the allometric changes among brain components with evolution. In particular, even if homologous structures in different species produce similar computations, they may be constituents of larger systems (e.g., cortical-subcortical loops) that exhibit different composite operations as a function of relative size and connectivity in different-sized brains. The resulting evolutionary constraints set useful and specific conditions on candidate hypotheses of brain circuit computation.

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) are an emerging and converging technology that translates the brain activity of its user into command signals for external devices, ranging from motorized wheelchairs, robotic hands, environmental control systems, and computer applications. In this paper I functionally decompose BCI systems and categorize BCI applications with similar functional properties into three categories, those with (1) motor, (2) virtual, and (3) linguistic applications. I then analyse the relationship between these distinct BCI applications and their users from an (...) epistemological and phenomenological perspective. Specifically, I analyse functional properties of BCIs in relation to the abilities (particularly motor behaviour and communication) of their human users, asking how they may or may not extend these abilities. This includes a phenomenological analysis of whether BCIs are experienced as transparent extensions. Contrary to some recent philosophical claims, I conclude that, although BCIs have the potential to become bodily as well as cognitive extensions for skilled users, at this stage they are not. And while the electrodes and signal processor may to a variable degree be transparent and incorporated, the BCI system as a whole is not. Contemporary BCIs are difficult to use. Most systems only work in highly controlled laboratory settings, require a high amount of training and concentration, have very limited control options, have low and variable information transfer rates, and effector motions are often slow, clumsy and sometimes unsuccessful. These drawbacks considerably limit their possibilities for transparency and incorporation into either the body schema or cognitive system which is essential for bodily and cognitive extension. Current BCIs can therefore only be seen as a weak or metaphorical extension of the human central nervous system. To increase their potential for cognitive extension, I give suggestions for improving the interface design of what I refer to as linguistic applications. (shrink)

In Reason, Truth and History, Putnam provides an influential argument for the materialist view that the supposition that we are all “actually” brains in a vat [BIV’s] is “necessarily false”. Putnam admits that his argument, inspired by insights in Wittgenstein’s later views, is “unusual”, but he is certain that it is a correct. He argues that the claim that we are BIV’s is self-refuting because, if we actually are BIV’s, then we cannot refer to real physical things like vats. Although (...) the present author agrees, fundamentally, with Heidegger’s view that we are essentially “in a world”, and, therefore, with Putnam’s conclusion that we cannot possibly be BIV’s, the paper argues that Putnam’s argument is fallacious. The proper conclusion to draw from Putnam’s argument is that asserting that one is a BIV is beyond the limits of a BIV’s language. That is, Putnam only shows that if we actually are BIV’s, then we cannot think or assert either that we are or that we are not BIV’s. It does not show that we are not “actually” BIV’s. The cogency of this criticism is illustrated with a concrete “science-fiction” example. (shrink)

In this paper, I describe how artifacts and autobiographical memory are integrated into new systemic wholes, allowing us to remember our personal past in a more reliable and detailed manner. After discussing some empirical work on lifelogging technology, I elaborate on the dimension of autobiographical dependency, which is the degree to which we depend on an object to be able to remember a personal experience. When this dependency is strong, we integrate information in the embodied brain and in an (...) object to reconstruct an autobiographical memory. In such cases, autobiographical memory is extended or distributed. (shrink)

A neurally plausible model of how the process of visually perceiving a letter in the context of a word is learned, and how such processing occurs in adults is proposed. The model consists of a collection of abstract letter feature detector neurons and their interconnections. The model also includes a learning rule that specifies how these interconnections evolve with experience. The interconnections between neurons can be interpreted as representing the spatially redundant, sequentially redundant, and transgraphemic information in letter string displays. (...) Anderson, Silverstein, Ritz, and Jones's (1977) “Brain‐State‐in‐a‐Box” (BSB) neural mechanism is then used to implement the proposed model. The resulting system makes explicit qualitative predictions using both letter recognition accuracy and reaction time as dependent measures. In particular, the model offers an integrated explanation of some experiments involving manipulations of orthographic regularity, masking, case alternations, and experience with words. The similarities and differences between the model and models proposed by Adams (1979) and McClelland and Rumelhart (1981) are also discussed. (shrink)

Clinicians have a convention whereby symptoms are subjective statements 'as told by' patients, whereas signs are outwardly observable facts. Yet both first-person reports and third-person observations are theory laden and can bias conclusions. Two aspects of the oft-mentioned unreliability of reports are the subject's interpretation of them and the experimenter's assumptions when translating introspective reports into scientifically useful characterizations. Meticulous training of introspectors can address their mischief, whereas investigators can become more attentive to their own theory-laden biases. In the case (...) of hallucinations, for example, ignoring some customary third-person constructs and focusing on the visual experience itself has led to fresh explanations of visual symptoms based on cortical physiology rather than conceptual categories. Constructs that historically have ignored the subject's state of mind are also problematic; an example is the so-called resting state during metabolic brain imaging, long believed to reflect a blank mental slate. Introspective reports, not accepted literally but properly interpreted and revised by investigators as necessary, are legitimate sources of data. (shrink)

One goal of this paper is to argue that autobiographical memories are extended and distributed across embodied brains and environmental resources. This is important because such distributed memories play a constitutive role in our narrative identity. So, some of the building blocks of our narrative identity are not brain-bound but extended and distributed. Recognising the distributed nature of memory and narrative identity, invites us to find treatments and strategies focusing on the environment in which dementia patients are situated. A (...) second goal of this paper is to suggest various of such strategies, including lifelogging technologies such as SenseCams, life story books, multimedia biographies, memory boxes, ambient intelligence systems, and virtual reality applications. Such technologies allow dementia patients to remember their personal past in a way that wouldn’t be possible by merely relying on their biological memory, in that way aiding in preserving their narrative identity and positively contributing to their sense of well-being. (shrink)

Suppose we transplant the left hemisphere of one person, Alexandra, into the skull of another person, Alex, from whom both cerebral hemispheres have been removed; and transplant Alexandra’s right hemisphere into the skull of another person, Sandra, both of whose cerebral hemispheres have been removed. Both of the resulting persons will then have some of Alexandra’s brain and probably almost all of her memories and character. But since at most only one of them can be Alexandra, being Alexandra must, (...) by the “principle of the identity of composites,” involve having another essential non-physical part—her soul. It is our soul and only our soul which makes us who we are. (shrink)

Since Freud, clinicians have understood that disturbing memories contribute to psychopathology and that new emotional experiences contribute to therapeutic change. Yet, controversy remains about what is truly essential to bring about psychotherapeutic change. Mounting evidence from empirical studies suggests that emotional arousal is a key ingredient in therapeutic change in many modalities. In addition, memory seems to play an important role but there is a lack of consensus on the role of understanding what happened in the past in bringing about (...) therapeutic change. The core idea of this paper is that therapeutic change in a variety of modalities, including behavioral therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy, emotion-focused therapy, and psychodynamic psychotherapy, results from the updating of prior emotional memories through a process of reconsolidation that incorporates new emotional experiences. We present an integrated memory model with three interactive components – autobiographical (event) memories, semantic structures, and emotional responses – supported by emerging evidence from cognitive neuroscience on implicit and explicit emotion, implicit and explicit memory, emotion-memory interactions, memory reconsolidation, and the relationship between autobiographical and semantic memory. We propose that the essential ingredients of therapeutic change include: (1) reactivating old memories; (2) engaging in new emotional experiences that are incorporated into these reactivated memories via the process of reconsolidation; and (3) reinforcing the integrated memory structure by practicing a new way of behaving and experiencing the world in a variety of contexts. The implications of this new, neurobiologically grounded synthesis for research, clinical practice, and teaching are discussed. (shrink)

The mental gap between man and ape is immense. As the brain is the organ of the mind, we must assume that throughout evolution there were changes in the brain that created this gap. This book is a search for those changes. Written in a lively style, the book is a far-reaching andrexciting quest for those things that make humans unique.

In this article, I outline various ways in which artifacts are interwoven with autobiographical memory systems and conceptualize what this implies for the self. I first sketch the narrative approach to the self, arguing that who we are as persons is essentially our life story, which, in turn, determines our present beliefs and desires, but also directs our future goals and actions. I then argue that our autobiographical memory is partly anchored in our embodied interactions with an ecology of artifacts (...) in our environment. Lifelogs, photos, videos, journals, diaries, souvenirs, jewelry, books, works of art, and many other meaningful objects trigger and sometimes constitute emotionally laden autobiographical memories. Autobiographical memory is thus distributed across embodied agents and various environmental structures. To defend this claim, I draw on and integrate distributed cognition theory and empirical research in human-technology interaction. Based on this, I conclude that the self is neither defined by psychological states realized by the brain nor by biological states realized by the organism, but should be seen as a distributed and relational construct. (shrink)

If we are to give a full history of the world, we need to count two properties as distinct, if possession of one does not entail possession of the other. Hence, mental properties are distinct from physical properties, and so mental events including sensations are distinct from physical events. So functionalism is rejected. And mental events do not supervene on, are not constituted by, or realized in, physical events.

What makes us human? Richard Swinburne presents new philosophical arguments, supported by modern neuroscience, for the view that we are immaterial souls sustained in existence by our brains.