Merab Konstantinovich [Mamardashvili] met with me immediately, as soon as I requested it, although he forewarned me that he could only dimly remember much of that distant past in which I was most interested. But evidently that past still perturbed him as well, since he agreed to speak with me even though he had not yet completely recovered from his illness, and hence his voice was feeble, at times subsiding to a whisper; he would pronounce his words indistinctly, constantly sticking (...) one onto another; on top of that, for technical reasons the dictaphone was situated a bit away from him. It was therefore very difficult to transcribe the text, and I raised many questions with the idea of asking Merab Konstantinovich about them at our next meeting and clearing up some things. But alas, there was no next meeting … Hence I am permitting myself now to publish only some of the most clearly enunciated fragments of my conversation with him, one of the four "forefathers" of the Moscow Methodological Circle, whose name for us, today's participants (and hence neophytes) in the methodological movement, is enveloped by legends handed down by word of mouth. I kept my questions to a minimum. Mamardashvili's reminiscences, arguments, and reflections will seem contentious to many. But no matter, one can dispute points of substance even with those who have passed on. (shrink)

Causal understanding is a defining characteristic of human cognition. Like many animals, human children learn to control their bodily movements and act effectively in the environment. Like a smaller subset of animals, children intervene: they learn to change the environment in targeted ways. Unlike other animals, children grow into adults with the causal reasoning skills to develop abstract theories, invent sophisticated technologies and imagine alternate pasts, distant futures and fictional worlds. In this Review, we explore the development of human-unique causal (...) learning and reasoning from evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives. We frame our discussion using an ‘interventionist’ approach. First, we situate causal understanding in relation to cognitive abilities shared with non-human animals. We argue that human causal understanding is distinguished by its depersonalized (objective) and decontextualized (general) representations. Using this framework, we next review empirical findings on early human causal learning and reasoning and consider the naturalistic contexts that support its development. Then we explore connections to related abilities. We conclude with suggestions for ongoing collaboration between developmental, cross-cultural, computational, neural and evolutionary approaches to causal understanding. (shrink)

Which systems/organisms are conscious? New tests for consciousness (‘C-tests’) are urgently needed. There is persisting uncertainty about when consciousness arises in human development, when it is lost due to neurological disorders and brain injury, and how it is distributed in nonhuman species. This need is amplified by recent and rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), neural organoids, and xenobot technology. Although a number of C-tests have been proposed in recent years, most are of limited use, and currently we have no (...) C-tests for many of the populations for which they are most critical. Here, we identify challenges facing any attempt to develop C-tests, propose a multidimensional classification of such tests, and identify strategies that might be used to validate them. (shrink)

Background One of the objectives of medicine is to relieve patients' suffering. As a consequence, it is important to understand patients' perspectives of suffering and their ability to cope. However, there is poor insight into what determines their suffering and their ability to bear it. Purpose To explore the constituent elements of suffering of patients who explicitly request euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (EAS) and to better understand unbearable suffering from the patients' perspective. Patients and methods A qualitative study using in-depth (...) face-to-face interviews was conducted with 31 patients who had requested EAS. The grounded theory approach was used to analyse the data. Results Medical, psycho-emotional, socio-environmental and existential themes contributed to suffering. Especially fatigue, pain, decline, negative feelings, loss of self, fear of future suffering, dependency, loss of autonomy, being worn out, being a burden, loneliness, loss of all that makes life worth living, hopelessness, pointlessness and being tired of living were constituent elements of unbearable suffering. Only patients with a psychiatric (co)diagnosis suffered unbearably all the time. Conclusions Unbearable suffering is the outcome of an intensive process that originates in the symptoms of illness and/or ageing. According to patients, hopelessness is an essential element of unbearable suffering. Medical and social elements may cause suffering, but especially when accompanied by psycho-emotional and existential problems suffering will become ‘unbearable’. Personality characteristics and biographical aspects greatly influence the burden of suffering. Unbearable suffering can only be understood in the continuum of the patients' perspectives of the past, the present and expectations of the future. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1920 Edition.

Are values and social priorities universal, or do they vary across geography, culture, and time? This question is very relevant to Asia’s emerging economies that are increasingly looking at Western models for answers to their own outmoded health care systems that are in dire need of reform. But is it safe for them to do so without sufficient regard to their own social, political, and philosophical moorings? This article argues that historical and cultural legacies influence prevailing social values with regard (...) to health care financing and resource allocation, and that the Confucian dimension provides a helpful entry point for a deeper understanding of ongoing health care reforms in East Asia – as exemplified by the unique case of Singapore. (shrink)

The article examines the algorithms for JPEG and JPEG-2000 compression of various graphic images. The main steps of the operation of both algorithms are given, their advantages and disadvantages are noted. The main differences between JPEG and JPEG-2000 are analyzed. It is noted that the JPEG-2000 algorithm allows re-moving visually unpleasant effects. This makes it possible to highlight important areas of the image and improve the quality of their compression. The features of each step of the algorithms are considered and (...) the difficulties of their implementation are compared. The effectiveness of each algorithm is demonstrated by the example of a full-color image of the BSU emblem. The obtained compression ratios were obtained and shown in the corresponding tables using both algorithms. Compression ratios are obtained for a wide range of quality values from 1 to ten. We studied various types of images: black and white, business graphics, indexed and full color. A modified LZW-Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm is presented, which is applicable to compress a variety of information from text to images. The modification is based on limiting the graphic file to 256 colors. This made it possible to index the color with one byte instead of three. The efficiency of this modification grows with increasing image sizes. The modified LZW-algorithm can be adapted to any image from single-color to full-color. The prepared tests were indexed to the required number of colors in the images using the FastStone Image Viewer program. For each image, seven copies were obtained, containing 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256 colors, respectively. Testing results showed that the modified version of the LZW algorithm allows for an average of twice the compression ratio. However, in a class of full-color images, both algorithms showed the same results. The developed modification of the LZW algorithm can be successfully applied in the field of site design, especially in the case of so-called flat design. The comparative characteristics of the basic and modified methods are presented. (shrink)

In St. Francis Regional Medical Center v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Kansas ), the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit upheld Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Kansas's anti-assignment requirement, on the grounds that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempted a hospital's claim against Blue Cross. The court also held that public policy supported anti-assignment requirements in health plans not covered under ERISA.When drafting ERISA, Congress did not explicitly address assignability of health care benefits. According to (...) the court of appeals, congressional silence constituted an intent to allow the parties to negotiate freely the assignment of health care benefits. Examining non-ERISA health plans, the court adopted a balancing test to determine the validity of anti-assignment clauses; it found that anti-assignment requirements promote freedom of contract and may include medical costs. (shrink)

The notion of a Sasaki projectionon an orthomodular lattice is generalized to a mapping Φ: E × E → E, where E is an effect algebra. If E is lattice ordered and Φ is symmetric, then E is called a Φ-symmetric effect algebra.This paper launches a study of such effect algebras. In particular, it is shown that every interval effect algebra with a lattice-ordered ambient group is Φ-symmetric, and its group is the one constructed by Ravindran in his proof that (...) every effect algebra that has the Riesz decomposition property is an interval algebra. It is shown that the doubling construction introduced in the paper is connected to the conditional event algebrasof Goodman, Nguyen, and Walker. (shrink)

The roots of much of Western medicine lie in the Christian monastic tradition and its commitment to nonstigmatizing compassionate care throughout the life cycle and to the ideal of empathic personal connection between physicians, patients, and the communities and relationships in which both of these are embedded. In the modern West, these Christianly informed aspects of medicine are increasingly being undercut as medical care becomes ever more specialized, technologized, and depersonalized. At the same time, there exist a variety of efforts (...) to counter these tendencies and to foster a practice of medicine that is more sensitive to the personal, relational, familial, and narrative dimensions of health, illness, and medical care. There are, in particular, considerable numbers of physicians, psychologists, and psychotherapists working at the intersections of biomedical and psychosocial care, of care for individuals and care for families, and of the body and the mind. Given the natural affinity that Christian bioethicists might be expected to have to communitarian, narrative, and family-oriented approaches to health care, it is thus remarkable that there appears to be no work of Christian bioethics that interacts in any discernible way with this psychotherapeutic literature concerning health, illness, families, and the mind-body interface. Instead, Christian bioethicists appear to endorse a narrowly reductionistic biomedical view of health and illness while either ignoring the psychosocial, integrative, and collaborative literature, or actively blaming and shaming those pastors or lay Christians who might have anything to do with psychotherapy or psychosocial care. This is unbecoming and unhelpful. In the fragmented, complex, and potentially dehumanizing world that is modern medical care, those who would think Christianly about the care of the sick cannot afford to despise psychology and psychosocial care. On the contrary, the church needs psychotherapy. In this article, I will thus consider, first, what the state of the conversation is where Christian bioethics and psychosocial and psychotherapeutic care are concerned. I will then turn to some of the principal landmarks in the professional literature concerning psychotherapeutic work with the sick, the disabled, the dying, and the bereaved, particularly as these are considered in contexts that include families and lay and professional caregivers. I will then identify a few opportunities for practical and theological reflection that present themselves in this literature, and will conclude with a few comments on the substance and relationship of salvation and health. (shrink)

This is a collection of lectures and papers, written during the past ten years. They are all concerned with the logical properties of the Absolute and to this extent are a denial of the author's 1948 argument designed to disprove the existence of an Absolute Being. The first three lectures on Absolute-theory are a systematic account of the notion of a unique, necessary Existent and the repercussions such a notion has upon other philosophical problems such as space and time, substance (...) and causality, life and mind, value and evil, etc., and finally, the relation of logical necessity between this notion and a rational eschatology. The twelve remaining lectures cumulatively demonstrate the path toward a revisionary metaphysics which is logically founded upon Absolute-theory. Each is a complete essay in itself and the titles are largely descriptive of the contents. "The Teaching of Meaning" is an interchange between the author and other contemporary philosophers interested in the subject. "Some Reflections on Necessary Existence" concerns the propriety of affirming a categorically necessary existent and searches for a feasible ontological argument in the realm of value. "Freedom and Value" explores the relation between the two, while "Metaphysics and Affinity" explores the relation between thought and being, between the realities of our environment and our metaphysical approaches to them. "Hegel's Use of Teleology" is a thoroughgoing study of teleology in the works of Hegel. A description of our fragmentational approach to reality is contained in "The Diremptive Tendencies of Western Philosophy." The "Logic of Mysticism" is a refutation of Stace's account and a sketch of mysticism as a logical matter, i.e., as a frame of mind connected with some sort of absolute. "Essential Probabilities" is an attempt to formulate and connect the eidetic method in philosophy with modalities, especially probability, considering its role in an a priori framework. "The Logic of Ultimates" sets out the important theorems in an absolutist logic, refutes common candidates for absolute status, and finally proposes some sort of 'infinite' teleology as a viable form of absolutism. "The Systematic Unity of Value" is an analysis of the ways and means of asserting common values and of relating them to their logical keystone found in Absolute-theory. "Intentional Inexistence" establishes intentionality as categorical and defines its working mode which culminates in a picture of 'unitive logic'. The final paper, "Toward a Neo-Neo-Platonism," is the delineation of what a metaphysic ought to envisage through a unifying, living logic which embodies the absolute. All in all, this is a refreshing, meaty reconsideration of some very out-of-vogue topics.--G. M. K. (shrink)

In the article three tragedies: ‘The Battle of Arminius‘ by Christian Dietrich Grabbe, ‘Nibelungs‘ by Friedrich Hebbel, ‘The Ring of the Nibelung‘ by Richard Wagner are considered. The aim of this paper is to investigate how history reception and mythological material correlates with the idea of national identity. The comparative-historical, typological and historical-genetic methods are applied in this publication. The genres of historical, philosophical and mythological tragedy became the most popular genres in the socio-political conditions in the 30s of the (...) 19th century in Germany. Grabbe underlines the idea of the presence of the ‘local‘ regional history within the framework of the ‘big‘ and significant one. Grabbe paid attention to the historical process and historical figures, not to any particular historical event. In his last work, tragedy ‘The Battle of Arminius‘, Grabbe showed his understanding of the country’s historical origins and the creation of a national myth. F. Hebbel and R. Wagner comprehend the images and motifs of Norse mythology as a universal model of human existence. While interpreting the story of Nibelungs, F. Hebbel notes not only its national roots but its universal source; he models the image of the world through the prism of the microcosm of Burgundians/Nibelungs. Wagner’s tetralogy is not so much an interpretation as a creation of the ‘new myth‘. The images of Arminius and Siegfried have the features of the archaic primal forefather, ‘cultural hero‘ of the nation, who intimately related with Nature and home ground. Myth and mythological history are not only the tools of attainment of national identity but the means of reversion the modern man to the lost harmony of the Universe, which pertains to the mythological mind. (shrink)

Background: Hospital nurses are frequently the first care givers to receive a patient’s request for euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide (PAS). In France, there is no consensus over which medical practices should be considered euthanasia, and this lack of consensus blurred the debate about euthanasia and PAS legalisation. This study aimed to investigate French hospital nurses’ opinions towards both legalisations, including personal conceptions of euthanasia and working conditions and organisation. Methods: A phone survey conducted among a random national sample of 1502 (...) French hospital nurses. We studied factors associated with opinions towards euthanasia and PAS, including contextual factors related to hospital units with random-effects logistic models. Results: Overall, 48% of nurses supported legalisation of euthanasia and 29%, of PAS. Religiosity, training in pallative care/pain management and feeling competent in end-of-life care were negatively correlated with support for legalisation of both euthanasia and PAS, while nurses working at night were more prone to support legalisation of both. The support for legalisation of euthanasia and PAS was also weaker in pain treatment/palliative care and intensive care units, and it was stronger in units not benefiting from interventions of charity/religious workers and in units with more nurses. Conclusions: Many French hospital nurses uphold the legalisation of euthanasia and PAS, but these nurses may be the least likely to perform what proponents of legalisation call “good” euthanasia. Improving professional knowledge of palliative care could improve the management of end-of-life situations and help to clarify the debate over euthanasia. (shrink)

The description Ausonius has given us of his family and of the teachers and professors of Bordeaux in the mid-fourth century is exceptional among our sources because of its detail and completeness. There is no reason to suppose that the picture he gives is untypical of life in the provinces and it makes a welcome change from the histories of aristocratic politics at Rome or Constantinople. It provides an excellent opportunity for a pilot study in which we may see how (...) the conflicting elements of social status were in practice reconciled and applied. In the traditional, and still prevalent view, the society of the Later Roman Empire was ‘crushed … in the iron clamp of castes separated from one another by barriers which could not be passed’. The evidence of Ausonius suggests that this judgement should be qualified. The society of the fourth century may have been stable. It was not static. (shrink)

I should like to begin with an observation of a biographical character. I hope this will facilitate discussion of the exceedingly complex task set for me here, the attempt to unify the theory of consciousness with my relationship to philosophy, that is, with what I think about it and what it means to me.