Precognition is an anomaly in information transmission and interpretation. Extant literature suggests that paranormal beliefs and gender may have significant influences on this unknown information process. This study examines the effects of these two factors, including their interactions, on precognition performance by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics. Using Bayesian analysis on secondary data of 60 participants, we found that men may have higher chances to score a hit in a precognition task compared to women. Interestingly, stronger beliefs in (...) the paranormal may decrease the success probability in performing precognition tasks. Considering the interactions between the two factors, the effect of paranormal beliefs on precognition task performance is stronger in men than women. Using mindsponge-based reasoning, we argue that paranormal beliefs may increase the interference of imagination in the reception of hypothetical precognitive information. Women tend to rely more on intuition, which may lessen the interference effect of imagination on hypothetical psi reception. Based on the findings, we suggest that researchers should be careful when assessing participants’ psi potential for experiments. We also demonstrate some advantages of utilizing the BMF in parapsychological research. (shrink)

Based on empirical evidence we discuss the nature of precognition, and address the questions whether retrocausation/ precognition violates causality, whether precognition implies determinism, the questions of actual or probable futures, from where does the information arise, and other observed properties of precognition. This is followed by a discussion on the primacy of precognition by examining the various categories of psi. In our analysis, precognition is most likely the only form of psi, subsuming within it clairvoyance, telepathy, micro-PK, and the survival (...) hypothesis. In this paper, we examine the various arguments for this assertion, the primary one being that it is impossible to close the precognition door. (shrink)

Do some people have a paranormal power to ‘see’ into the future? There are innumerable anecdotes of events foretold, of course. But is there any scientific evidence of the ability? Fiona Steinkamp, a leading investigator of the paranormal, believes there is.

C. D. Broad developed three different accounts of time over the course of his career. Emily Thomas has recently argued that the shift from the first to the second of these was motivated by his engagement with the philosophy of Samuel Alexander. In this paper, I argue that the shift from the second to the third was instigated by Broad’s engagement with precognitive dreams and with the thought of John William Dunne. Furthermore, I argue that fully appreciating Broad’s interest in (...) psychic research in general, and precognitions in particular, is required for understanding the theory of time he defended in the second volume of Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy. I also argue that interpreting the Examination in light of Broad’s engagement with Dunne can help remove the inconsistencies in Broad’s third account. (shrink)

It has been known for long time that intuition plays significant role in many professions and human life, including in entrepreneurship, government, and also in detective or law enforcement activities. Even women are known to possess better intuitive feelings or “hunch” compared to men. Despite these examples, such a precognitive interdiction is hardly accepted in established science. In this paper, we discuss briefly the advanced solutions of Maxwell equations, and then make connection between syntropy and precognition from classical perspective. It (...) is our hope that the new proposed method can be verified with experimental data. But we admit that our model is still in its infancy, more researches are needed to fill all the missing details. (shrink)

In this chapter, I aim to clarify the concept of ESP so that we can ask whether it is even logically possible for anything to satisfy this concept. If ESP is not logically possible, then it would be pointless to conduct experiments trying to discover whether it exists. If, on the other hand, it is logically possible, then its existence or otherwise is an empirical question, a question that can be decided only by looking at the empirical evidence for and (...) against. Questions concerning the logical possibility of ESP are most pressing in the case of precognition. Thus the latter part of this chapter will focus on precognition in particular. What’s more, because worries about precognition often revolve around the possibility of ‘backwards causation’—situations in which an effect comes before its cause—I will pay particular attention to the role that causation plays in the concept of ESP. (shrink)

Controlled research into alleged psychic functioning can aid our understanding of the nature and limits of consciousness. Some commentators have suggested that the decline in positive results from dream precognition studies might be due to the early experiments being carried out in sleep laboratories whilst later studies tested participants in their own homes. The present study assessed this argument. Twenty participants were selected for prior precognitive dream experience, and were invited to a sleep laboratory. Participants were asked to dream about (...) a target video they would later view. A judge rated participants' dreams against the target and decoys. No evidence was found for dream precognition. The study also tested the hypothesis that precognitive dream experiences may occur when a person subconsciously incorporates sensory information into their dream. A sound clip was played to sleeping participants and a judge rated the target and decoy clips against the participants' dream tran-scripts. The correlation between degree of sensory incorporation and prior precognitive dream experience was non-significant. Suggestions for future research in this area are discussed. (shrink)

There are various supernatural phenomena which hardly can be explained by the existing electromagnetic science, for instance non-locality interactions (may be associated with ESP etc), and also precognitive interdictions. And there are other problems such as how to include the Spirit in our consciousness. For example, it has been known for long time that intuition plays significant role in many professions and human life, including in entrepreneurship, government, and also in detective or law enforcement activities. Despite these examples, such a (...) precognitive interdiction is hardly accepted in established science. In this paper, we discuss non-locality interactions and also advanced solutions of Maxwell equations, and argue in favor of precognitive interdiction from classical perspective. We also discuss shortly on how “spirit” may be included in medicine, although we also make cautious remarks on the danger of “spiritism.” However, we admit that what we discuss here is quite rough, and more researches are needed to verify what we describe here. (shrink)

Laplacean Determinism (his so-called demon argument) is the thesis that every event that transpires in a closed universe is a physical event caused (i.e., determined) in full by some earlier event in accord with laws that govern their behavior. On this view, it is possible, in principle, to make perfect predictions of the state of the universe at any time Tn on the basis of complete knowledge of the state of the universe at time T1. Thus, if identity theory, epiphenomenalism (...) or any other instantiation of Laplacean Determinism is correct, mental events such as free will, intention and other forms of mental agency are tricks of the mind, misleading us into believing our volitional concerns have traction in a world ruled entirely by physical circumstance. Not surprisingly, advocates of free will and related acts of human volition have engaged in spirited debate with adherents to Laplacean orthodoxy, the results of which have been far from conclusive. Rather than join these deliberations, I wholly embrace the demon argument and then ask “what are the consequences of this allegiance?” As I hope to show, acceptance of this argument commits one to a belief in the existence of human precognition. This, I suggest, is a consequence that does not fit comfortably within a contemporary scientific worldview. (shrink)

Two experiments involving an international collaboration of experimenters sought to replicate and extend a previously published psi experiment on precognition by Daryl Bem that has been the focus of extensive research. The experiment reverses the usual cause–effect sequence of a standard psychology experiment using priming and reaction times. The preregistered confirmatory hypothesis is that response times to incongruent stimuli will be longer than response times to congruent stimuli even though the prime has not yet appeared when the participant records their (...) judgments. The confirmatory hypothesis for Experiment 1 was not supported. Exploratory analyses indicated that those participants who completed the English-language version rather than a translation showed a significant effect, as was the case in the original study; no significant departure from chance was found in data involving non-English translations. Experiment 2 sought to enhance the predicted effect by having each participant read either a pro-psi or an anti-psi statement at the beginning of the experiment to test the pre-recorded hypothesis that a pro-psi statement would produce a larger effect than an anti-psi statement. The results did not support the primary psi hypothesis and there was no effect in the English-language sample. However, there was mixed support for the effect of the psi statement on performance; those participants who received the pro-psi statement had a greater psi score than those who received the anti-psi statement. As in the original experiment, neither the experimenters’ nor participants’ beliefs were significantly associated with the dependent measure. In sum, the pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses were not supported. The importance of the personality variable Sensation Seeking, a component of extraversion, as a correlate of psi performance is discussed as are the challenges and implications for international collaborations and replication in controversial science. Keywords: priming; expectancy effect; retrocausation; consciousness; sociology; precognition; psi; replication Two experiments involving an international collaboration of experimenters sought to replicate and extend a previously published psi experiment on precognition by Daryl Bem that has been the focus of extensive research. The experiment reverses the usual cause-effect sequence of a standard psychology experiment using priming and reaction times. The preregistered confirmatory hypothesis is that response times to incongruent stimuli will be longer than response times to congruent stimuli even though the prime has not yet appeared when the participant records his or her judgments. The confirmatory hypothesis for Study 1 was not supported. Exploratory analyses indicated that those participants who completed the English-language version rather than a translation showed a significant effect, as was the case in the original study; no significant departure from chance was found in data involving non-English translations. Study 2 sought to enhance the predicted effect by having each participant read either a pro-psi or an anti-psi statement at the beginning of the experiment to test the pre-recorded hypothesis that a pro-psi statement would produce a larger effect than an anti-psi statement. The results did not support the primary psi hypothesis and there was no observed association between belief and experience of ESP and psi outcome. However, there was mixed support for the effect of the psi statement on performance; those participants who received the pro-psi statement had a greater psi score than those who received anti-psi statement. As in the original experiment, neither the experimenters’ nor participants’ beliefs or expectations were significantly correlated with the dependent measure. In sum, the pre-registered confirmatory hypotheses were not supported. The importance of the personality variable Sensation Seeking, a component of extraversion, as a correlate of psi performance is discussed as are the challenges and implications for international collaborations and replication in controversial science. (shrink)

This study explores the complex relationships between anomalous experiences, mental health, creativity, and psi within a sample of 113 visual artists in three art schools. The main objective was to assess whether psi could play a role in the emergence of anomalous experiences and their association with mental health and creativity. Participants took part in a retro-priming task, already used by Bem to assess unconscious precognitive abilities. They then completed three questionnaires evaluating anomalous experiences, mental health, and creativity. The results (...) show no significant effect on the retro-priming task, but the number of anomalous experiences reported by each participant was significantly correlated with their retro-priming performance. Creativity did not correlate with retro-priming, except for one subscale, the use of analogies. Anomalous experiences as a whole were correlated with mental health and creativity, in keeping with the high rate of unusual experiences previously reported in artistic populations. The theoretical implication of these findings and possible directions for future studies are discussed. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to situate imagination within consciousness complete with its own pre-cognitive, cognitive, and meta-cognitive domains. In the first sections we briefly review traditional philosophical and psychological conceptions of the imagination. The majority have viewed perception and imagination as separate faculties, performing distinct functions. A return to a phenomenological account of the imagination suggests that divisions between perception and imagination are transcended by precognitive factors of sense of reality and non-reality where perception and imagination play an indivisible (...) role. In fact, both imagination and perception define sense of reality jointly according to what is possible and not possible. Absorption in a possible world depends on the strengths of alternative possibilities, and the relationship between core and marginal consciousness. The model may offer a parsimonious account of different states and levels of imaginal consciousness, and of how “believed-in imaginings” develop and become under some circumstances “lived-in experiences.”. (shrink)

I conduct an empirical analysis of the temporally asymmetric character of our epistemic access to the world by providing an experimental scheme whose results represent the core empirical content of the epistemic asymmetry. I augment this empirical content by formulating a gedanken experiment inspired by a proposal from David Albert. This second experiment cannot be conducted using any technology that is likely to be developed in the foreseeable future, but the expected results help us to state an important constraint on (...) our ability to know the future. Finally, I show that a third experiment concerning precognition, described by Michael Scriven and John Mackie, does not characterize any additional empirical content but does help to illustrate why it is unlikely that any precognition exists. (shrink)

This book arrives with a reputation. Apparently, it is the first book on psi and other anomalous human experiences to be published by the rather traditionalist APA (American Psychological Association). If this is true, this is likely due to the fact that much of the book relies on carefully monitored and repeated experiments to demonstrate the statistical veracity of such things as precognition, remote viewing, clairvoyance, mental telepathy, and even psychokinesis. This is the key to the authors’ claim of empirical (...) testing and scientific proof. (shrink)

Dans sa précognition de toutes choses, le Créateur avait pris grand plaisir à lire les philosophes présocratiques. C'est ainsi qu'Il avait appris que, même en sa toute-puissance, Il ne disposerait que de deux modèles fondamentaux pour créer son univers. Alors Il se dit : "Je pourrais me laisser guider par la pure rationalité de Parménide, toute de clarté et de rigueur. C'est un système remarquablement simple. Une fois que j'aurais allumé la mèche du big-bang, je n'aurais plus à m'occuper de (...) rien. Qu'est-ce qui pourrait changer dans les lois que j'aurais établies? Et comment les entités que j'aurais créées pourraient-elles ne pas leur obéir? Je n'aurais plus qu'à assister au merveilleux spectacle dont j'aurais été le créateur et le régisseur. Oui, mais voilà, je connaîtrais d'avance et jusque dans ses moindres détails le spectacle qui se déroulerait ainsi devant mes yeux. Que vaut un spectacle dont la mise en scène, chaque tableau, chaque épisode sont connus du spectateur, pour finalement se confondre en l'instantanéité d'un moment? Quelle triste perspective d'un éternel ennui! Et dans ce monde parfaitement déterminé, même le serpent le plus malin ne saurait exercer son pouvoir tentateur sur ce premier couple, qui jamais ne connaîtrait la liberté de pécher. Du coup, l'autre voie qui m'est offerte paraît infiniment plus attrayante, cette voie qu'avait explorée Héraclite, voie hésitante, toute en contradiction, où être et n'être pas, c'est et ce n'est pas la même chose. Mais cette incertitude se mue en une infinité de possibles, où tout peut être, où rien n'est jamais donné d'avance. A chaque coup de dés de cet enfant toujours jeune qu'est le Temps, de nouvelles possibilités surgissent. Assister à la naissance d'un monde inachevé et toujours en gésine, voilà qui peut être captivant!" Et c'est ainsi que, se laissant guider par Héraclite, Dieu inventa la mécanique quantique, avec ce qui, en elle, dépend du hasard le plus authentique. Du coup le spectacle du monde devient fascinant et toujours inattendu. Depuis ce jour, Dieu se promène de planète en planète, de galaxie en galaxie, sûr d'y découvrir chaque fois quelque nouveauté à laquelle lui-même n'avait pas songé... (shrink)

Why are we interested in history at all? Why do we feel the need to distinguish between past and present? In this book, the author argues that the past originates from an experience of rupture separating past and present. Think of the radical rupture with Europe's past that was effected by the French and the Industrial Revolutions. Sublime Historical Experience investigates how the notion of sublime historical experience complicates and challenges existing conceptions of language, truth, and knowledge. These experiences of (...) rupture are paradoxical since they involve both the separation of past and present and, at the same time, the effort to overcome this separation in terms of historical knowledge. The experience unites feelings of loss/pain with those of love/satisfaction, and thus is in agreement with how sublime experience is ordinarily defined. The experience is also precognitive since it precedes historical knowledge. As such it is a challenge to traditional conceptions of the relationship between experience and truth or language. It compels us to disconnect the notions of experience and truth. (shrink)

Tacit knowledge is both a ubiquitous and puzzling notion, related to the idea of hidden assumptions. The puzzle is partly a result of the conflict between the idea that assumptions are in the mind and the apparent audience-relativity of the "fact" of possessing an assumption or of the tacit knowledge that is articulated. If we think of making the tacit explicit as constructing a certain kind of inference repairing explanation for a particular audience "on the fly" we come closer to (...) an explanation of what happens when we "make our tacit knowledge explicit." We can account for our capacity to construct such statements for particular audiences by reference to our non-conceptual capacities to understand others. This approach avoids problematic assumptions about shared representations that are common in cognitive science, and the equally problematic notion that tacit knowledge is sentence-like content that we retrieve when we articulate something based on our tacit knowledge. (shrink)

This article focuses on Bob Zajonc’s views on unconscious emotion, especially in the context of the debates about the independence of affect and cognition. Historically, Bob was always interested in the “mere”—basic, fundamental processes. His empirical demonstrations of precognitive and preconscious emotional processes, combined with his elegant expositions of them, sharply contrasted with cold and complex cognitive models. Interestingly, Bob tended to believe that whereas the causes of emotion can be unconscious, the emotional state itself tends to be conscious. However, (...) he reconsidered this assumption and in his later work showed that subjects in affective priming experiments do not experience conscious affect, but instead act on basic preferences. Today, Bob’s insights continue to inspire research on “unconscious emotion.”. (shrink)

This research investigates flow experiences and explores meaning construction for artistic practices that differ in haptic nature. In addition to the phenomenological analysis of interviews, videos of artistic practice and practice-based research were employed to obtain both retrospective and real-time records of the physicality of artistic practice. Drawing on authors who emphasise the automatisation of actions in flow and heightened body awareness flow is reconceptualised in non-representational terms as optimal precognitive engagement with the world. In this light meaning in flow (...) results not from bringing order to the mind as Csikszentmihalyi proposed, but through its embodied construction in activity. Analyses revealed that the sources of enjoyment and meaning, the relationship between artist, tools and artwork, and the nature and extent of self-differentiation differ between artists who work in two and three dimensions, and whose physical actions differ in the production of their artwork. 2D artists derive enjoyment from their creative process and meaning from capturing an atmosphere or place, and attribute artistic control to their artwork. 3D artists derive more enjoyment from the product of their artistic activity and meaning from the recreation of the self in material form, and do not attribute artistic control to the artwork. Consequently, embodied physicality of activity appears fundamental to similarities in flow experiences and meaning-making: accounts of flow and the meanings generated in activity differ between activities that differ in their haptic or performative nature but are similar among haptically similar activities. (shrink)

Quite often the compatibility of the EPR correlations with the relativity theory has been questioned; it has been stated that “the first in time of two correlated measurements instantaneously collapses the other subsystem”; it has been suggested that a causal asymmetry is built into the Feynman propagator. However, the EPR transition amplitude, as derived from the S matrix, is Lorentz andCPT invariant; the correlation formula is symmetric in the two measurements irrespective of their time ordering, so that the link of (...) the correlations is the Feynman zigzag, and that causality isCPT invariant at the microlevel; finally, although the Feynman propagator has theP andCT symmetries, no causal asymmetry follows from that. As for Stapp's views concerning “process” and “becoming,” and his Whiteheadean concept of an advancing front, I object that they belong to “factlike macrophysics,” and are refuted at the microlevel by the EPR phenomenology, which displays direct Fokker-like space-time connections. The reason for this is a radical one. The very blending of a space-time picture and of a probability calculus is a paradox. The only adequate paradigm is one denying objectivity to space-time—but this, of course, is also required by the complementary of the x and the k pictures, which only “look” compatible at the macrolevel. Therefore, the classical “objectivity” must yield in favor of “intersubjectivity.” Only the macroscopic preparing and measuring devices have “factlike” objectivity; the “transition” of the “quantal system” takes place beyond both thex and thek 4-spaces. Then, the intrinsic symmetries between retarded and advanced waves, and statistical prediction and retrodiction, entails that the future has no less (but no more) existence than the past. It is the future that is significant in “creative process,” the “elementary” forms of which should be termed “precognition” or “psychokinesis”—respectively symmetric to the factlike taboos that “we can neither know into the future nor act into the past.” It is gratifying that Robert Jahn, at the Engineering School of Princeton University, is conducting (after others) conclusive experiments demonstrating “low level psychokinesis”—a phenomenon implied by the very symmetry of the negentropy-information transition. So, what pierces the veil of “maya” is the (rare) occurrence of “paranormal phenomena.” The essential severance between “act” and “potentia” is not a spacelike advancing front, but the “out of” and the “into” factlike space-time. Finally, I do not feel that an adequate understanding of the EPR phenomenology requires going beyond the present status of relativistic quantum mechanics. Rather, I believe that the potentialities of this formalism have not yet been fully exploited. (shrink)

The founder of Psychical Research, though he has not yet received the honour due to him, seems to have been King Croesus of Lydia, who reigned from 560 to 546 B.C. He carried out an interesting experiment, recorded in detail by Herodotus,2 to test the clairvoyant powers of a number of oracles. He sent embassies to seven oracles, six Greek and one Egyptian. They all started on the same day. On the hundredth day each embassy was instructed to ask its (...) oracle, “What is King Croesus, the son of Alyattes, now doing?” The answer was to be written down and brought back. The oracle of Delphi replied as follows, in hexameters, as its custom was: “I know the number of the sands and the measures of the sea. I understand the dumb, and I hear him who does not speak.” Then it went on: “There comes to my mind the smell of a strong-shelled tortoise, which is being cooked along with lamb's flesh in a brazen vessel; brass is spread beneath it, and with brass it is covered.” As a matter of fact, this answer was perfectly correct. Herodotus tells us that “having considered what would be the most difficult thing to discover and to imagine,” Croesus “cut up a tortoise and a lamb, and himself boiled them together in a brazen pot.” What happened afterwards illustrates the difficulties of this sort of investigation, difficulties which still perplex us to this day. Croesus argued, reasonably enough, that if the Delphic priestess had clairvoyant powers, she probably also had the precognitive powers, she probably also had the precognitive powers which she claimed to have. But when he consulted the oracle later about his forthcoming expedition against the Persians, he received two answers, one of which was ambiguous—“When Croesus crosses the Halys he shall destroy a great empire”—and the other correct, but too obscure to be easily interpreted. (shrink)

Human by Design invites you on a journey beyond Darwin's theory of evolution, beginning with the fact that we exist as we do, even more empowered, and more connected with ourselves and the world, than scientists have believed possible. In one of the great ironies of the modern world, the science that was expected to solve life's mysteries has done just the opposite. New discoveries have led to more unanswered questions, created deeper mysteries, and brought us to the brink of (...) forbidden territory when it comes to explaining our origin and existence. These discoveries reveal the following facts: Fact 1. Our origin--Modern humans appeared suddenly on earth approximately 200,000 years ago, with the advanced brain, nervous system, and capabilities that set them apart from all other known forms of life already developed, rather than having developed slowly and gradually over a long periods of time. Fact 2. Missing physical evidence--The relationships shown on the conventional tree of human evolution are speculative connections only. While they are believed to exist, a 150-year search has failed to produce the physical evidence that confirms the relationships shown on the evolutionary family tree. Fact 3. New DNA evidence--The comparison of DNA between ancient Neanderthals, previously thought to be our ancestors, and early humans tells us thatwe did not descend from the Neanderthals. Fact 4. A rare DNA fusion--Advanced genome analysis reveals that the DNA that sets us apart from other primates, including in our advanced brain and nervous system, is the result of an ancient and precise fusion of genes occurring in a way that suggests somethingbeyondevolution made our humanness possible. Fact 5. Our extraordinary abilities--We are born with the capacity to self-heal, to self-regulate longevity, to activate an enhanced immune response, and to experience deep intuition, sympathy, empathy, and, ultimately, compassion--and to do each of these on demand. In this book, New York Timesbest-selling author and 2017 Templeton Award nominee Gregg Braden crosses the traditional boundaries of science and spirituality to answer the timeless question at the core of our existence--Who are we?--and to reveal science-based techniques that awaken our uniquely human experiences of deep intuition, precognition, advanced states of self-healing, and much more! Beyond any reasonable doubt, Human by Design reveals that we're not what we've been told, and much more than we've ever imagined. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 125-142 [Access article in PDF] Hölderlin's Poetic Self-consciousness James H. Donelan Nur ihren Gesang sollt' ich vergessen, nur diese Seelentöne sollten nimmer wiederkehren in meinen unaufhörlichen Träumen. I should forget only her song, only these notes of the soul should never return in my unending dreams. Hölderlin, Hyperion I FOR MANY YEARS, Friedrich Hölderlin has occupied a crucial position in both literary and philosophical (...) history. Well-known literary theorists, such as Walter Benjamin, Peter Szondi, and Paul de Man, have described him as the poet who made the transition from German Classicism to Romanticism. Several major philosophers, including Dieter Henrich and Manfred Frank, claim that Hölderlin's insights into Kantian and Fichtean metaphysics were vital to Schelling's and Hegel's far more famous accounts of subjectivity. Either contribution alone would make Hölderlin an important figure in intellectual history; it is almost miraculous that he managed both, especially when one considers the brevity of his career, a span of only ten or twelve productive years.What accounts for this remarkable dual achievement? Historical accident and tremendous talent give us only a partial answer. Hölderlin was fortunate to have Hegel and Schelling as close friends at the Tübinger Stift, and to move to Jena precisely when it had become a center for new thinking in both literary and philosophical circles. He had enormous ability both for ancient Greek and poetic meter, allowing him to benefit from his predecessors and his contemporaries [End Page 125] in remarkable ways. However, his parallel accomplishments in philosophy and poetry are linked by more than just happenstance and genius. In my view, they represent the continuous development of a solution to a single problem, that of self-consciousness, realized in poetic form through an idea of music. For Hölderlin, making the transition from philosopher to poet required him to establish a connection between Idealist theories of self-consciousness and the material world. To meet this challenge, he constituted himself as a self-conscious poet through both theoretical and actual poetic creations, and constituted a musical-poetic voice, or Gesang, within his poetry as a means of joining the abstractions of philosophy with the concrete voice of the poet.The background of this transformation lies in the complex history of the idea of self-consciousness, or subjectivity. In the early Idealist accounts of self-consciousness of Kant and Fichte, the subject recognizes its existence by juxtaposing itself with an object. However, the nature of this object, and the connection between the abstract, theoretical construction of the subject and the actual, practical experience of the conscious self posed a problem that neither philosopher solved definitively. For Kant, self-consciousness emerges from a pre-reflective sense of the self's existence as the subject of different experiences of phenomena over time; self-consciousness therefore arises from a deduction of empirical experience. However, this formulation contains a surprisingly belated and unmotivated version of the self, with no clear account of its origin.Fichte answered the question about the origin of the self by stating that the self posits itself through its opposition to a material object, a non-self he calls the Nicht-ich, and becomes self-conscious by differentiating the Ich from the Nicht-ich and declaring "I am I." Fichte's explanation of self-consciousness as an act rather than an entity nevertheless relies on a kind of solipsism and still does not sufficiently address the ultimate cause of the process. The Ich that declares its own existence must distinguish itself from the Nicht-ich somehow; the relation between the two terms presupposes a subject that already possesses sensory apprehension to create the distinction between Ich and Nicht-ich necessary for the initial positing of the self.Either explicitly or implicitly, both Kant's and Fichte's versions of subjectivity rely on the category of the aesthetic, defined as the experience of precognitive sensation in general, to mediate the encounter between subject and object. Kant later expanded his inquiry [End Page 126] into... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Neo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary EntertainmentTheodore GracykNeo-Baroque Aesthetics and Contemporary Entertainment, by Angela Ndalianis. Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 2004, 323 pp., $34.95 cloth.Like the cliché about not judging a book by its cover, the prominence of the term "aesthetics" in a book's title is no indication of what one will find inside. Has the term become so elastic that it will now cover everything cultural? Or is (...) it the case, as in Angela Ndalianis's discussions of theme park rides and computer games, that the term applies to anything that has a parallel in earlier practices covered by this rubric? Ndalianis may be stretching it too far, for the book in question emphasizes parallels with baroque practices that predate Alexander Baumgarten's 1735 proposal to use "aesthetics" as the name of an emerging discipline concerned [End Page 115] with perception. We are alternately informed that the book explores the poetics, semiotics, and the "logic of contemporary media." But because Ndalianis holds that recent visual media involve a "specific system of perception" that arises from a "radical cultural transformation" (22-23), the term "aesthetics" may be as good as any other in conveying her purposes. For she is not concerned with artistic style—presumably the province of art historians. She is theorizing broadly about visual media by examining an assortment of media strategies found in the two eras and aims to identify their common "morphology" (19). Her sources are Fredric Jameson, Walter Benjamin, and Gilles Deleuze rather than, say, Kendall Walton, Noël Carroll, or Gregory Currie.Ndalianis's main idea is that there is a strong but not exact parallel between our own times and the visual forms favored in the seventeenth century. (For Ndalianis, the baroque period stretches from 1492 to the 1680s.) The two epochs involve similar cultural sensibilities and artistic practices, so if we understand baroque art and visual media, we will better understand what is going on in contemporary media. In short, the framing assumption is Shelley's dictum that art is the expression of the spirit of its time. More specifically, the design of modern entertainment media is argued to be very similar to a wide range of baroque entertainment and representational practice. But the similarity is not due to either awareness or imitation of baroque style. Each "logically emerged as a result of systemic and cultural transformations" peculiar to its own time (17). The similar "logic" of each period is thus seen as evidence that there are parallels in the "general tendencies" and consequent "dominant cultural sensibilities" of the two periods (17-21). Because hindsight is more reliable than precognition, a backward glance at the baroque may help us to better grasp our own historical and cultural context.Having outlined these proposals in a lengthy introduction, Ndalianis offers five chapters, each devoted to a specific parallel. All five chapters share a similar strategy. A different aspect of neo-baroque communication is highlighted, and one type of baroque art or entertainment is compared and contrasted with its neo-baroque counterpart, with at least one neo-baroque example explored in considerable detail.The introduction focuses on Jurassic Park (both the film and the theme park ride). Chapter 1 focuses on neo-baroque "narrative strategies," as first Don Quixote and its sequel and then the palace at Versailles are compared to the various Alien films and comic books. The main focus is "serial" art as an outgrowth of capitalism, generating "an aesthetics of repetition" enriched by its "rampant self-reflexivity" (69). Chapter 2 shifts to the baroque love of labyrinthine structure, with its "enforced circuitousness, planned chaos, choice among paths, intricacy, complexity, and an invitation to the audience to engage reflexively" in exploring the labyrinth (84). Ndalianis's baroque case is Pietro de Cortona's elaborate painted ceiling for the Palazzo Barberini in Rome. The neo-baroque counterpart is the Doom video game and its sequel, Doom II. Inexplicably, for a book with numerous illustrations, there are no visuals to display Doom for those unfamiliar with such games. Chapter 3 examines baroque cartography as a background for discussing geographic discovery and colonization, leading to the neo-baroque... (shrink)

Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit illustrates with true stories that we live in an interactive, aware world in which the creatures around us in our neighborhoods know us and sometimes reach across to us, empathically and helpfully. Implications are that all beings live in a possible "common mind" from which our mass culture has disconnected, but which is only a heartbeat and some concentrated attention away. This mind encompasses microbial life and insects as well as creatures and extends to nonmaterial intelligence (...) as well-that is to say, spirit. Creatures as varied as a collaborating dragonfly, ants rescuing each other, a sympathetic lizard, an empathic coyote, gift-giving squirrels, crazed birds, and lots of very mysteriously smart cats inhabit the stories. Precognition, dreams, paranormal experiences with birds, psychic communications with cats, visitations from ghosts with messages, rolling earth spirits-not supernatural, they seem natural enough but not visible to everyone. The intention of this book is to help people catch interactions they themselves experience with nonhuman and even disembodied beings, and who could use some support for recalling since these interactions make clear we live in a sentient world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Non-Cartesian Frameworks”James Phillips (bio)Whither psychoanalytic theory and practice? This is the question raised by Louis Berger as he confronts psychoanalysis’s response to the collapse of Cartesianism that has shaken the foundations of other humanist disciplines (as well as the natural sciences) and has finally caught up with Freud’s heirs. Anyone wanting evidence of this shakeup in psychoanalysis need only consult the final 1994 issue of the International (...) Journal of Psycho-Analysis. For the seventy-fifth anniversary edition of the journal, the editors organized a symposium on “The Conceptualization and Communication of Clinical Facts in Psychoanalysis.” In his foreword to the 300-page issue, the editor, David Tuckett (1994, 865–70), evokes the theoretical pluralism that has beset the field and asserts what is the presupposition of all the articles that follow: There are no theory-free facts, and the challenge now is to deal with this reality.I think I can assume, however, that for Berger these papers would mostly fall into his category of “not going far enough.” He invokes a Cartesian representationalism, critiqued variously by Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and Castoriadis, that continues to infect even such discussions of fact and theory in psychoanalysis as those in the landmark volume of the International Journal. Thus, though that volume may represent the official announcement of the death of positivism in psychoanalysis, it stops short of announcing the profession’s entry into the postmodern era. Indeed, it should be noted that in much contemporary discussion, an awareness of the issues of theoretical pluralism and fact/theory dilemmas rests quite comfortably with the most blatant examples of representational thinking. The object-relations tradition, for instance, remains such a dominant force that most of us would have a hard time giving up our talk of internal objects and internal representations.Berger’s presentation of the three critics of representational thought is clear and enlightening. The inclusion of Castoriadis is important because he, unlike Heidegger and Wittgenstein, is a clinician. Berger’s application of this critique of representation to psychoanalysis, and specifically to the question of the theory/practice relationship, is also developed in a meaningful way. (For a development of the critique of representational thinking that emphasizes the role of Locke in expanding the Cartesian tradition, see Nasser 1994.) Since I am in agreement with the thrust of Berger’ s presentation and have little to add to it, I will focus my comments on one area that I think does warrant further discussion—the relations between the postmodern and other postempiricist or postpositivist traditions. Although some writers (e.g., Leary 1994; Silverman 1994) tend to group movements such as postmodernism, hermeneutics, [End Page 187] and social constructionism together, Berger’s argument singles out postmodernism as the only truly nonrepresentational postempiricist movement.Of the other non-Cartesian traditions, Berger says that “their tacit retention of representationalism (including its concomitant, the theory/practice dichotomy) demonstrates their failure to identify, adequately understand, or avoid key Cartesian difficulties and limitations. They fail to appreciate the effects which accompany enframing.” He adds later: “I have been making my point with examples drawn mostly from the American Middle School, but I submit that any analytic position that invokes models or analogous logical formalisms—e.g., hermeneutic, self-psychological, constructionist, action linguistic—is subject to the identical criticisms.” I wish to take up the case of hermeneutics and question whether its differentiation from postmodernism does indeed revolve around the issue of representational thought. Sorting this issue out will bear on the final conclusions of Berger’s paper. It is true, as Berger points out, that hermeneutic discussion in psychoanalysis often involves a comparison of (representationally articulated) models; but that is not the whole story regarding hermeneutics. Remember, after all, that Heidegger—directly in Being and Time (1962, 62), and indirectly through his profound influence on Gadamer—was a pivotal figure in the development of hermeneutics. Heidegger considered his analysis of man’s precognitive enmeshment in the world to be a “hermeneutic of Dasein.” For his part, Gadamer’s analysis of man’s relations to others and to the world concludes in a relationship that is mediated through a language that is fully dialectical and... (shrink)

What does God know about future contingents? – according to some fourteenth-century English thinkers The paper is concerned with the problem of God’s knowledge aboutfuture contingents, which has raised many doubts connected with the incompatibility of certainty and necessity of God’s knowledge and contingency of future events, or, even more, with the incompatibility of God’s precognition causing necessary events with human’s free choice guaranteed by his free will. From the very beginning of the Middle Ages theologians tried to find solutions (...) to these questions, but—in my opinion—the most interesting ones were those expressed by John Duns Scotus. This paper presents mostly the theories of some English thinkers who were active at Oxford Universityin the 14th century and who criticized or agreed with Scotus’s ideas. They introduced new terminology and clarified particular problems initiating original logico-theological debates, in which the problem of God’s action with regard to His potentiaabsoluta et ordinataplayed the main role. Keywords: Middle Ages theologians, English thinkers, God’s knowledge, future contingents. (shrink)

Sartre considers the rise of spontaneous not cognitive consciousness or prereflexive cogito as a subject. Without any conditions, without any nature or essence can be determined. The awareness event as an absolute necessity is indeed unjustifiable that refers to the world, is pure intentionality. The abstract ideal of freedom for Sartre is a conscience without any determination. Man is free because it is free of any determination by precognitive structure of consciousness.

In his brief comments on “Siddhis and Psi Research: An Interdisciplinary Analysis,” Ed Kelly expresses disappointment that the paper does not mirror his worldview, which includes questioning the reality of psi—especially precognition, accepting post-mortem survival and observational evidence for macro-PK including levitation. In this brief response to Kelly, I provide arguments in support of informational psi, particularly precognition, and in favor of a physicalist, signal-based approach to psi, with brief points against the validity of micro-PK and post-mortem survival.