In the digital era, video games have become a major propaganda tool, used for political purposes by state agents and different organisations, including extremist groups. Similarly, some titles have structured their narratives with an educational and awareness-raising purpose, denouncing the senselessness and violence of different terrorist groups. In this article, we will present a general theoretical framework on how video games have been used in the virtual war on terrorism, either in favour of or against it, either by means of (...) special creations or through modifications of famous war games. Next, we will include a case study referring to Spain, analysing the representation in this video game format of the ETA problem or the 11-M jihadist attacks. As a preliminary result, we would like to highlight the importance of this interactive format today, whether from a propaganda, educational or informative point of view. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone indagar en la praxis de extrañamiento que lleva acabo Gómez de la Serna en El Rastro, praxis que será esencial de cara a comprender uno de los vectores fundamentales de la objetología surrealista. Dicha praxis comprende al menos ocho prácticas o posibilidades de deshacer que afectan al Límite, al Futuro, a la familiaridad hogareña burguesa, a la funcionalidad utilitaria, a la idealidad falsa, a la propiedad, a uno mismo, y al propio texto. Estas prácticas configuran (...) un extrañamiento masivo, aunque sereno, con una clara proyección de trascendencia poética, existencial y metafísica. (shrink)

El presente artículo se propone indagar en la praxis de extrañamiento que lleva acabo Gómez de la Serna en El Rastro (1914), praxis que será esencial de cara a comprender uno de los vectores fundamentales de la (ulterior) objetología surrealista. Dicha praxis comprende al menos ocho prácticas o posibilidades de deshacer que afectan al Límite (que discrimina y jerarquiza), al Futuro (ingenuo y dictatorial), a la familiaridad hogareña burguesa (que encarcela y amodorra), a la funcionalidad utilitaria (que banaliza), a la (...) idealidad falsa (de los prestigios de la ciudad), a la propiedad (de nuestras cosas), a uno mismo (praxis de desasimiento), y al propio texto. Estas prácticas configuran un extrañamiento masivo, aunque sereno, con una clara proyección de trascendencia poética, existencial y metafísica. (shrink)

Relationships between degree/area of academic formation and religious and Darwinian views are controversial. This study aimed to compare the religious beliefs and acceptance of Darwinian evolution between two contrasting South American scientific communities (Chile and Colombia), accounting for different degrees and areas of academic formation. In 2018, 115 last year bachelor students (surveyed as freshmen in 2014 for a previous study) from Chile, and 283 first/last year bachelor students, graduate students, and professors from Colombia, all belonging to biology, chemistry, or (...) physics, were surveyed. Chilean students/faculty were significantly more agnostic/atheist, more accepting of Darwinian evolution, and less creationist than their Colombian counterparts. Academic degree and area differently affected these views in both countries, as only in Chile there was a clear tendency among biologists and physicists with higher degrees to hold less religious and creationist views. Marked differences between the history, socioeconomic contexts, and especially in high school and university curricula of both countries might explain these results. (shrink)

Las interpretaciones ascética y vitalista del eidos son incapaces de pensar a fondo su relevancia fenomenológica. Siempre parece que se valora más su perímetro y cerco, al servicio de la clausura y la consolidación de la unidad, que la diversidad intraeidética, infinita o empíricamente abierta. Más allá de lo típico, las rutinas y asentamientos mundanos, la diversidad intraeidética es críticamente eficaz sobre todo en la periferia, al tiempo que propicia la flexibilidad y dilatación interior de cada eidos. Esta problemática es (...) decisiva cuando se trata de pensar la dimensión proteica e hibrida de la cultura humana, así como la posibilidad de diversidad y cordura en un mundo complejo y en expansión.The ascetic and vitalistic interpretations of eidos are unable to think thoroughly its phenomenological relevancy. It always seems that the perimeter and boundary of eidos, at the service of the closure and consolidation of the unity, is more valued than intraeidetic diversity, infinitely or empirically opened. Beyond the typical, mundane routines and settlements, intraeidetic diversity is critically effective especially in the periphery, while enabling the flexibility and inner expansion of each eidos. This problem is crucial when it comes to thinking about the protean and hybrid dimensions of human culture, as well as the possibility of diversity and sanity in a complex and expanding world. (shrink)

Partiendo del eje reflexivo que brinda la ambigüedad de la Cultura como atolladero y trascendencia de los individuos, el presente estudio toma dos circunstancias de nuestra situación cultural (hipersubjetividad y superconductividad) como base para una reflexión en torno a las posibles deformaciones del proceso postmoderno de personalización y sobre sus correspondientes enmiendas -mediación densa (resistencia), inspiración (recogimiento) y ruptura de la inmanencia (responsabilidad)-, que puedan reorientar el desarrollo del individuo como Uno entre Otros.

Tras reconocer el papel decisivo que juega en el pensamiento husserliano la intersubjetividad en su estructura trascendental, y, respecto a la Einfühlung y la Fremderfahrung, el importante papel que desempeña la Umfiktion, el presente artículo desarrolla la posibilidad experiencial y de senti-do que supone ese extraño personaje que es la Voz Narrativa heterodiegética. En concreto, la Voz Narrativa como Otro subsidiario en el caso de que los personajes duerman o hayan muerto. Esto permite pensar al Testigo como dativo de manifestación (...) en off en soporte último del continuum de la fenomenalidad. Con ello, se trata de profundizar en la tesis husserliana acerca de la inmortalidad de la subjetividad trascendental y extraer algunas conclusiones metafísicas y éticas. El artículo se basa en un texto de Muñoz Molina en el que comentaba un pasaje de Al faro, de V. Woolf.Recognizing the decisive role in Husserl's thought of the intersubjectivity in its transcendental structure, and, for the Einfühlung and Fremderfahrung, the important role of Umfiktion, this article develops the experiential possibility and the possibility of meaning that assumes the Strange character who is the heterodiegetic Narrative Voice. Specifically, the narrative voice as subsidiary Other in the event that the characters sleep or have died. This suggests the Witness as dative of manifestation in off as last stand of the continuum of phenomenality. With this, it is deepening the Husserlian thesis about the immortality of transcendental subjectivity and draw some metaphysical and ethical conclusions. The article is based on a text by Muñoz Molina that commented a passage from To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf. (shrink)

Against attempts to vacate silence of the possibility of expression, and empty the expression of its own silence, this article proposes as a task for our contemporary world that we should be silence-trackers. This task is not easy, since the decisive silence cannot be heard, but it is treasured within the words and works as their last and most inspired truth. To that end, it is taken as a guide the famous Letter of Lord Chandos (Hofmannsthal), who claims his silence-in-transit (...) (exceeded by a new experience of the overwhelming richness of reality), as well as Blanchot’s reflections on the relationship between silence and inspiration. In the second part, the article “tracks”, as “exemplary” examples, the silences of A. López (Dream of Light) and the one involved in the secret of “Rosebud” (Citizen Kane, Welles).Keywords: silence, inspiration, expression, Chandos, Hofmannsthal, Blanchot. (shrink)

In this paper, I intend to show the right concern of phenomenology (specially of husserlian type) in the exploration of the textures of consciousness that explain themselves in the noetic-noematic structure of the phenomenological-transcendentally reduced world (within inverted commas). Therefore, the undoubtfulness of “immanent perception” takes, for instance, great importance in the virtual realm, as long as, in that realm, consciousness opens itself more radically to the intentional “otherness” than to what natural attitude calls “reality”. Nevertheless, although phenomenology is able (...) to justify the emergence of virtual reality (or of “real virtuality”), phenomenology has strategies ruling out the possibility that virtualization becomes simulation (deception). In this paper, this situation is presented as the ideal of the technical-virtual manipulation of what is given to consciousness. For this very reason, virtual attitude must keep an indispensable distance (strangeness effect), so that the sense of “reality” can continue to be a valid one. (shrink)

Specific classes of cyberspaces emphasize different types of digital transactions given the user’s context, thus making it essential to take into account what these environments can afford. In this way, we can portray the niches of technological use as ecologies of particular possibilities and compare how they differ between distinct spheres of human life. The present research is focused on describing the conceptual integration of a taxonomic crossover between Virtual Learning Environments and Educational Affordances of Technology, while also performing empirical (...) testing and determining the psychometric properties in a scale regarding the aforementioned taxonomy. The study sample consisted of 320 students in the departments of foreign languages from three different universities in Sonora. Students were given a questionnaire of 21 items organized into four subscales with a Likert-type response option to measure the notions concerning their usage of Virtual Learning Environments. Internal consistency procedures and confirmatory factor analysis by means of Cronbach’s alpha and Structural modeling support the derived factorial structure, which contains Cyber-Communications, Virtual Behavior Settings, Virtual Communities, and Availability and Access to Connectivity. This structure traces the environmental properties perceived by learners in a virtual environment. Results sustain the initial conceptual construction regarding the proposed taxonomy, conclude that the ‘Virtual Learning Environments Questionnaire’ demonstrates adequate psychometric properties, and validate it as a fitting measure to assess the perceived psychological experience of students in a digital educational setting. (shrink)

Este ensayo, motivado por una crítica de Riccardo Guastini, ilustra el papel de la lógica en el derecho y precisamente: a) en la construcción de la teoría del derecho, b) en el razonamiento y en los discursos desarrollados por las disciplinas jurídicas positivas y c) en los razonamientos y en las operaciones de operadores jurídicos y en particular de los jueces.

Este ensayo, motivado por una crítica de Riccardo Guastini, ilustra el papel de la lógica en el derecho y precisamente: a) en la construcción de la teoría del derecho, b) en el razonamiento y en los discursos desarrollados por las disciplinas jurídicas positivas y c) en los razonamientos y en las operaciones de operadores jurídicos y en particular de los jueces.

El artículo aborda la fenomenología de la donación de Marion, especialmente por lo que se refiere a la crítica a la metafísica implícita en la defensa de la relevancia del fenómeno saturado, a fin de vislumbrar que aquella fenomenología no restringe su validez a aquella que podría concederle una experiencia en el horizonte de acontecimientos extraordinarios y, en concreto, de fe religiosa, lo que favorecería pensar que la donación tiene un alcance solo parcial y restringido (en el contexto del giro (...) teológico de la fenomenología francesa), y por tanto meramente regional, incluso sobre todo subjetivo. A modo de sugerencia, se propondrá aquí como hipótesis que, más allá de la diferencia ostensible entre Marion y Bataille, entre la experiencia de la donación y la experiencia interior de uno y otro, respectivamente, se puede descubrir una comunidad de base y fondo que precisamente puede ser esclarecida por la fenomenología de la donación, demostrándose así que ésta no encuentra su legitimidad meramente en el territorio del fenómeno de revelación (fe) ni en el extremismo de la donación, habiéndose Marion ya esforzado, en otro de los frentes críticos que ha debido abordar, en pensar la saturación de “baja intensidad” o banal. (shrink)

School environment refers to the set of relationships that occur among members of a school community that are determined by structural, personal, and functional factors of the educational institution, which provide distinctiveness to schools. The school environment is an important factor when evaluating student well-being. Previous findings have shown that variables such as physical, academic, and social dimensions influence school environments. This research seeks to explain the relationship between school environment and the well-being of primary education students. To carry out (...) this research, a total of 405 students from four public elementary schools in northwestern Mexico were selected to participate. The instrument used to measure the variables and the relationship of school environment and well-being is based on the three dimensions of school environment proposed by Kutsyuruba et al. (2015) : Physical, social, and academic. Statistical analyses were carried out to determine the reliability and validity of the measurement scales using SPSS V20 and EQS software. Confirmatory factor analysis models were tested to determine the construct validity of each scale; then, an analysis via structural equation modeling was made to form an explanatory model obtaining acceptable practical and statistical indicators. Among the relationships in this study, our research identified the variable of school environments as an outcome determined by physical, academic, and social factors. School environment and student well-being variables were also found to be correlated. (shrink)

Astrobiocentrism is a vision that places us in a scenario of confirmation of life in the universe, either as a second genesis or as an expansion of humanity in space. It manages to raise consistent arguments in relation to questions such as what would happen to knowledge if life were confirmed in the universe, how would this change the way we understand our place in the cosmos? Astrobiocentrism raises a series of reflections in the context of confirmed discovery, and it (...) develops concepts that work directly with what would happen after irrefutable evidence has been obtained that we are not alone in space. Unlike biocentrism or ecocentrism, the astrobiocentric view is not limited to the Earth-centric perspective, and for it incorporates a multi-, inter- and transdisciplinary understanding. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to make a reflection on the astrobiocentric issues related to the challenges and problems of the discovery of life in the universe and the expansion of mankind into space. Here we explore some aspects of the transition from biogeocentrism to astrobiocentrism, astrobiosemiotics, homo mensura, moral community, planetary sustainability and astrotheology. (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

Background: Pain has been associated with structural changes of the brain. However, evidence regarding white matter changes in response to acute pain protocols is still scarce. In the present study, we assess the existence of differences in brain white matter related to pain intensity reported by patients undergoing surgical removal of a mandibular impacted third molar using diffusion tensor imaging analysis.Methods: 30 participants reported their subjective pain using a visual analog scale at three postsurgical stages: under anesthesia, in pain, and (...) after the administration of an analgesic. The diffusion data were acquired prior to surgery.Results: DTI analysis yielded significant positive associations of fractional anisotropy in white matter areas related to pain processing with the differences in pain between the three postsurgery stages. Extent and location of these associations depended on the magnitude of the subjective pain differences. Tractography analysis indicated that some pain–tract associations are significant only when pain stage is involved in the contrast, while others are only when anesthesia is involved in the contrast.Conclusions: The association of white matter fractional anisotropy and connectivity, measured before the pain stages, with subjective pain depends on the magnitude of the differences in pain scores. (shrink)

La poesía como el reino de la miniatura, del modelo a escala relegado, a comienzos de milenio, a dar cuenta de una experiencia cosificada e intransferible, viene a coronar el repliegue que identificamos a partir de tres instantáneas de la poesía argentina contemporánea: el coloquialismo de Argentino hasta la muerte (1963) de César Fernández Moreno, la poesía “neobarrosa” de Néstor Perlongher y el objetivismo de Cosas (2008) de Edgardo Dobry. Del plano general revestido de inquietud sociológica por la identidad (...) nacional (Fernández Moreno), a un plano americano donde el cuerpo goza al ritmo de la aventura del significante liberado (Perlongher), y de allí al plano detalle enfocado directamente en objetos que guardan reminiscencias vivenciales intransferibles (Dobry), la poesía argentina acusa, veinte años de distancia entre cada período, un movimiento de repliegue y extravío. (shrink)

Cognitive scientists distinguish between automatic and controlled mental processes. Automatic processes are either innately involuntary or become automatized through extensive practice. For example, reading words is a purportedly automatic process for proficient readers and the Stroop effect is consequently considered the “gold standard” of automated performance. Although the question of whether it is possible to regain control over an automatic process is mostly unasked, we provide compelling data showing that posthypnotic suggestion reduced and even removed Stroop interference in highly hypnotizable (...) individuals. Drawing on a large sample of highly hypnotizable participants, we examined the effects of suggestion on Stroop performance both with and without a posthypnotic suggestion to perceive the input stream as meaningless symbols. We show that suggestion administered to highly hypnotizable persons significantly reduced Stroop interference and derailed a seemingly automatic process. (shrink)

One important limitation of the current renditions of interpretivism is that its emphasis on the moral dimension of sport has overlooked the aesthetic dimension lying at the core of this account of sport. The interpretivist’s failure to acknowledge and consider the aesthetic implicitly distances this realm from the moral. Marcia Muelder Eaton calls this distancing the separatist mistake. This paper argues that interpretivism presupposes not only moral but also aesthetic principles and values. What it sets out to demonstrate is that (...) interpretivism is an integralist, or nonseparatist, account of sport, one in which ethical and aesthetic values are not exclusive. Making explicit and specifying interpretivism’s combined moral-aesthetic approach to sport not only helps to better distinguish the whole range of values that make up sport as well as their interconnection but also encourages sportspeople to pursue more coherent sport and, thus, more enriching lives. (shrink)

I address the objection that the concept of racism has become overly inflated. Critics of the conceptual inflation of “racism” argue that theories of institutional racism engage in untoward conceptual inflation insofar as they undermine our moral understanding of racial phenomena, hinder our ability to explain the causes of racial inequality, and even undercut struggles for racial justice. I develop an original account of institutional racism and show that it is immune to all three versions of the conceptual inflation challenge.