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CONSCIOUSNESS STREAMED:

William James’Pure Experience Worldview

Ming Singer (April 2015)

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Unit 1:The Perennial and Universal Efficacy of

William James’Worldview

James’Worldview Concomitantly Returns Western Philosophy to its Origin whilst Anticipating Every Philosophic Discourse to Come

William James’worldview culminates in radical empiricism,which is a mosaic or piece-meal philosophy,and is also known as the pure experience theory.Radical empiricism is regarded as the DNA of James’pragmatism (McDermott).It also subserves James’all-embracive philosophic thoughts including“pluralistic universe”,“reality/consciousness as pure experience”,“direct experience as individual consciousness”,“the selfsame will/belief and intention/attention”,or his dynamogenic psychology of infinite possibilities.

Radical empiricism considers each and every“mosaic fact”a legitimate explanadum that makes up an open and ever evolving Reality.In the context of human consciousness,mosaic fact may refer to any of an individual’s direct experience,acquainted knowledge,or any of the continually emerging possible experience hitherto unknown to the individual.In the“universes of discourse”,mosaic fact may refer to any existing philosophic thought or any future discursive analyses to come.

Throughout its millennia history,western philosophy has been hallmarked by diverse ways of dividing/deconstructing its subject matter and subsequent bridging/reconstructing attempts.These dialectic tasks have been described in contrasting terms including“intrinsic/inner v.extrinsic/outer”,“rationality/reason v.sentience/sense”,“physical/material v.mental/spiritual”,“absolute v.particular”,“monistic v.pluralistic”,“enlightenment v.romanticism”,modernism v.postmodernism”,or“constructionism v.deconstructionism”.

The“implicate order”of William James’worldview virtually identifies with panpsychism and its related mental-construction perspective.As such,his worldview also underscores the selfsameness of Reality,Nature,and Consciousness.This feature is core to not only the western founding philosophies of Pythagoras and Parmenides but also all eastern philosophic traditions.In this context,James’worldview thus returns western philosophy to its universal origin.

In legitimising every mosaic fact in the discursive universes,James’worldview naturally anticipates all future discursive possibilities.In light of its perennial and universal significance,James’worldview can perhaps best be described as all embracing or ever-including;hence it is also unceasingly boundary-dissolving,horizon-extending,probability-actualising,sphere-outstretching,or perspective-widening.

During James’lifetime,the most consequential of philosophic and discursive transitions are the scientific/linguistic turn in its empirical tradition and the many constructivist/pluralistic turns in its humanistic,social-political and anthropological traditions.Over the century after James’passing,the postmodern deconstructing trend has been continuing along multifaceted discursive trajectories.Most notably is the cultural critical theory’s further elimination of academic philosophy from its critique endeavours.

The central task common to these deconstructionist discourses is the rejection of any absolute/totalising/unifying truth/ethos and the subsequent replacement with one that privileges a“particular”.This at times is achieved without due considerations being given to the chosen particular’s“true reasoned moral worth”.These intellectual transitions are finding full existential expressions in social/economic/political and art/theatre/literary arenas.

During the recent decades,such intellectual endeavours have been co-evolving alongside the ever accelerating/expanding information and communication technologies.With the former becomes increasingly subsumed under the latter,the technology/entertainment/design (TED) culture has emerged as the prevailing existential and intellectual zeitgeist.

James’worldview speaks to the ever-expansive and hence never-ending progression of Reality/Nature/Consciousness.In order to gain a fuller understanding of human consciousness,it becomes necessary,at the very least,to take account of each emerging mosaic discourse in the discursive universes.

From Philosophy and Literary Critical Theory to TED Culture

The deconstruction/elimination of reflective philosophy from literary critical theory,coupled with the surge of cyber-technologies,has fostered a great many TED-related discourses:

●Professor Mark Edmundson (1995),“Literature against Philosophy:Plato to Derrida:A defence of poetry”

This book focuses on the deconstructionist goal in recent literary critical theories:the elimination of traditional philosophy’s influences over art/literary activities.

●Professor Louis Menand (2014),“The de Man Case:Does a critic’s past explain his criticism?”The New Yorker,March 24.

Professor Menand,a most prominent culture historian and literary critic,writes in this article,

“Deconstruction is a‘via negativa’.It’s good for getting down to…the mechanical level of language.But it can’t bring anything substantive back,because anything substantive is subject to the rigors of deconstruction all over again.Deconstruction started to run into the sands when it got used to interpret texts in conformance with the political views of the interpreter (a type of self-fulfilling prophecy that afflicts many schools of criticism).Deconstruction is not a train you can get off of at the most convenient station.”

Please read the full text of this article:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/03/24/the-de-man-case

●Also,Professor Louis Menand’s talk (2010),“Re-imagining the Academy”(on his book,“The Marketplace of Ideas:Reform and Resistance in the American University”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaWjN2uQdmA

●James’worldview has profound influence over recent research in (social) psychology,anthropology,and literary critiques:

Professor Paul Stenner,(2011),“James and Whitehead:Assemblage and Systematisation of a Deeply Empiricist Mosaic Philosophy”,European Pragmatism and American Philosophy,3(1)

This paper“mapped”James’“energetic,perceptual,conceptual and discursive modes of experience”onto four progressively integrated factors of“power ,image,proposition and enunciation.”

http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/stenner.pdf

Dr.Maria Teixeira (2011),“The Stream of Consciousness and the Epochal Theory of Time”,European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy,Vol.3

This paper argues that James’philosophy inspired“a new literary genre:the stream-of-consciousness novel.We can count Virginia Woolf,James Joyce and Marcel Proust as some of the most illustrious writers who have explored this technique.”

http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/teixeira.pdf

William James can thus be considered as one of the forefathers of process

Mimesis,Mimetics,Generative Anthropology,Literary Critique and TED culture

In literary critical theory,the notion“mimesis”refers to the deterministic human nature in imitating others.The term first appeared in the writings of Jacques Derrida,who had applied William James’pluralistic philosophy to art/literary critical theories.The habitual practice of mimesis (“mimetics”) is the core dynamics underlying art/literary/communicative activities as well as social/political/ecological movements.

Recently,Rene Girard,following the Levi-Strauss literary critique tradition,used negative human desires (deceit,rivalry,jealous,violence,scapegoating) in the accounting of all social-political conflicts.Girard coined the term“mimetic negative desires”to mean that such negative desires are mimetically learned through cultural socialization.

It has been pointed out that Girard’s framework places little emphasis on positive aspects of human habitual tendencies.Regardless,his idea has gained currency in recent social-anthropological,media communication and TED-culture discourses:

●Eric Gans (2011)“A new Way of Thinking”:Generative Anthropology of Arts,films,religion

●Dr.Duncan Morrow on“Girard,Peace building and the North of Ireland”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gALLLBoIVLs

Gills Deleuze is another continental postmodern literary critic who has a profound influence over current media communication and TED culture communities.Apart from film/novel critiques,Deleuze has written on various subjects including“rejecting conventional philosophy”,“capitalism and schizophrenia”and“anti-Oedipus”.

●Professors Gary Hall,et.al.(2010),“Deleuzes's Postscript on the Societies of Control”,University of Coventry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I60yI8NpesM

●Professor Alexander R.Galloway (2011),“Deleuze and Computers”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBZPJNoJWHk

“Non-Philosophy”,Hermetology/Hermeneutics and the Sensorial-focused TED Culture and Mass Media Communication

Professor Daniel C.Barber (Jan 2014),“Deleuze and the Naming of God:Post-Secularism and the Future of Immanence”

The author invokes Francois Laruelle’s notion of Non-philosophy,which focuses on“a One”that is“indifferent to the division between being and alterity”.The author writes,“If this One remains central to non-philosophy,or if it remains unthought by philosophy,this is because philosophy constitutes itself through division and continues itself by generating connections across the divide it has first created.”

●Professor Alexander R.Galloway (Oct,2014),“Laruelle:Against the Digital Possibilities”

The author also elaborates on Laruelle’s Non-philosophy in this book,“Of course it is technically incorrect and certainly overly simplistic to assert that Laruelle is“against the two”or“for the one.”The subtitle of the book“Against the Digital”is not strictly in accordance with the non-standard method,I’ll admit.Laruelle thinks that philosophy generally enforces a‘law of the two’based in bifurcation,reflection,auto-position,etc.Yet non-philosophy cannot be understood as a simple rejection of the two and a return to the one.Laruelle describes non-philosophy as a theory of the immanent one and the unilateral two.This preserves a notion of the one that is not transcendental,and a notion of the two that is not representational.”

●Professor Francois Laruelle (1987),“Truth According to Hermes:Theorems on the Secret and Communication”(translated by Professor A.R.Galloway 2010):

Francois Laruelle’s 1987 book focuses on Non-philosophy,conventional hermeneutics,hermetology and the“Secret”(as embedded within the Hermetica).The theme is also of immediate relevance to current TED-culture’s non-reflective,excessive and exteriorised mass-communication focus.The following passage is from the English translation (by A.R.Galloway):

“If there is any urgency,it is not to try to enhance dialogue and the transparency of communication.With excess communication come opacity and inhibition,which is a perverse effect of hermetology.Rather,the task of the hermetician is to turn the communication decision,the meaning and interpretation decision,in the immediate data of the One or of the Non-interpretable,into a pre-hermetological experience that in the last instance determines communication.”

Please read the text translated by Professor Galloway:

http://www.parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia09/parrhesia09_laruelle.pdf

Mass Media Communication,Extreme Social Constructivism and the Deconstruction of“Scientific Method”

●Professor Bruno Latour (1992),“One More Turn after the Social Turn:Easing Science Studies into the Non-Modern World”,In E.McMullin (ed.),“The Social Dimensions of Science”

The socio-anthropologist Bruno Latour argues that“social critiques must embrace empiricism”and the“empiricism”pertains to his“actor-network theory”(a media-generated inquiry into“knowledge/Gaia”).The media-driven data-generating process involves“reader-mediator-negotiator”cycles that involve“ordinary actors or non-moderns as researchers”.His decades-old practice of“science”aims at the mapping of mosaic pieces vis-a-vis“the worlds of knowledge/Gaia”and the creation of what he referred to as“Middle Kingdom”.

Latour’s“media-driven actor-network”approach to“science”has been well critiqued by Professors John Searle and Margret C.Jacob.

Primitivism in certain“Ontological Turns”within Socio-Anthropological discourses

●Professor Jordana Rosenberg (2014),“The molecularization of sexuality:On Some Primitivisms of the Present”,Theory and Event,Vol 17:

The author writes,“I argue that molecular ontologies mediate a dual intensification specific to the present:that of neoliberal forms of settler colonialism and financialized capital accumulation”and that“the ontological turn is a kind of theoretical primitivism that presents itself as a methodological avant-garde”

●TED’s Posthuman Kissingers,lovotics or sextechnology

Michael Hauskeller,(2014),“Sex and the Posthuman Condition”

The book focuses on the“singular significance”of sex and advanced TED-creations that provide basal sensorial gratification in the posthuman era.The author also points out that William James in“the Meaning of Truth”has already anticipated the possibility of future person’s“automatic sweetheart”(i.e.,a perfect-sex-action-generating automaton devoid of sentient feelings).This only speaks to the anticipatory efficacy of James’worldview.

http://www.academia.edu/6770432/Sex_and_the_Posthuman_Condition

●A“Reconciliatory Commonsense”Turn/Move in Anthropological and Socio-Cultural Critical Discourses

Professors James Laidlaw&Paolo Heywood,(2013),“One More Turn and You Are There”,Anthropology of This Century,Vol 7:

http://aotcpress.com/articles/turn/

Post-Humanism,Cultural-Media Communication,and Digital Posthumanities

●Cary Wolfe (Dec2009),“What is Posthumanism?”

The author invokes Derrida’s notion of“the living”and argues that for posthumanism,man has multifaceted complex relations with the ecological and technological environments.This new order demands a“rethink of traditional humanism’s conceptual,methodological and ethical definitions”.

However,the many ethicists focusing on bio/animal ethics and environmental ethics have been the harbingers of the positive aspects of this TED-era ethics (as in posthumanism,anthropocene,digital/machine sentience).

● Professor Peter Singer argues that evolution itself is value-free;hence it is erroneous to infer from Darwinian Theory that human nature is primarily egoistic and self-interested.His earlier book on ethics,“The Ever-Expanding Circle”speaks in the same spirit as James’“ever-inclusive concerns for others”.Professor Singer is instrumental in the worldwide animal welfare movements:

Please watch this recent talk by Professor Singer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDcf2GuNZfw

●Professor Noel Castree (2014),The anthropocene and the Environmental humanities:Extending the Conversation”,Environmental Humanities,Vol.5:

This paper discusses the many complex issues surrounding the field of anthropocene (a term used by the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen to denote his research in atmospheric chemistry and the thinning of ozone layers).The author takes not only the perspectives of the geological and ecological scientists but also those of the social-anthropological and environmental humanists in his analysis.

Please read Professor Castree’s paper:

http://environmentalhumanities.org/arch/vol5/5.13.pdf

Media Mass Communication in the Ideosphere,Cyberconsciousness

●From“Genesis of Cybersphere”to“TED culture:

Issues of“differential original Intent”,“public v.private good”,“external control v.self regulation”,“designer/marketer v.consumer/user”

Please listen to this 6 Oct 2014 interview of Walter Isaacson about his book,“The Innovators:How a Group of Hackers,Geniuses,and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution”,Oct 2014.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/10/06/353269811/how-the-cold-war-and-george-orwell-helped-make-the-internet-what-it-is

●“Immortality of Cyberconsciousness”:Individual Mindfile and Digital-Clones in the Cloud and the Ethics of Mindclones

Dr.Martine Rothblatt (Sept 2014),“Virtually Human:The Promise---and the Peril---of Digital Immortality”

Please listen to this interview of Dr.Rothblatt:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/09/11/martine-rothblatt

●Robot Economics:

The Feb 2014 article by Colin Lewis,“Why Machine Learning and Big Data Need Behavioural Economists?”:

Analysts of Big Data are susceptible to“human inherent biases in decision making under uncertainty”(e.g.,use of decision heuristics that may result in less optimal decisions).Kahneman&Tversky’s pioneer work (e.g.,prospect theory) identified these natural decision-biasing tendencies (rationalists’term,“irrationality”).Statistical data analysts and machine learning programmers need to understand these issues so as to be able to mitigate such tendencies in their work (e.g.,interpreting big data on consumer behaviour,predicting and forecasting socio-econo-political trends)

http://robotenomics.com/2014/02/03/why-machine-learning-and-big-data-need-behavioral-economists/

●From early Ergonomics to Computational Simulations and“Sentient Sciences”:Imbibing Machines with aspects of Human Sentience

Please read this Dec 2014 article on the transition from ergonomics to sentient sciences:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/teradata/2014/12/17/the-ergonomics-of-human-data-interaction/

“Sentience Science”refers to an emerging commercial enterprise for making biotechnological devices,genomic products,or any mechanical tools for multifaceted applications,in fields such as Sentient Cities,Sentient Schools,Sentient Economics,Sentient Robotics,Computational Love or Computational Commerce.

These works typically require synergistic efforts in integrating mathematics,engineering&computing sciences,artificial intelligence,Informatics,life and physical sciences,as well as social and psychological sciences in commerce,business,and marketing.

Example of a newly established centre of“Sentience Enterprise”in New York,USA:

http://www.buffalo.edu/ccr/research/research-highlights.host.html/content/shared/www/ccr/research-highlights/ccr-sentient-science.detail.html

Examples of related research areas:

●In-vitro to In-silico brain chips and brain-machine interaction:

Bonifazi,P.Et.al.(2013),“In vitro large-scale experiment and theoretical studies for the realization of bi-directional brain-prostheses”,Frontiers in Neural Circuits,7.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3596784/

●Genomics/Astrobiology:David Warmflash’s article (Dec 2014)“Searching for messages from ET in life’s Genetic Code”:

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/12/18/searching-for-messages-from-et-in-lifes-genetic-code/

●Big Data,Genomics,Big Agriculture:Implications for epigenetics,biomedicine or immunology.

http://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2014/12/17/what-happens-when-big-data-meets-big-ag/

●“Big Data Transcriptome Profiling”of peanuts:a specific example

Xia,H.,et.al.(2013).“Transcriptome profiling of peanut gynophores revealed global reprogramming of gene expression during early pod development in darkness”,BMC Genomics,14.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/14/517

Ethical Considerations:Humanity/Science/TED

●Pieter Boeder (2005),“Habermas’Heritage:The Future of the Public Sphere in the Network Society”,First Monday (Sept.):

This essay takes account of several key co-evolving parameters (e.g.,pluralistic communication sphere,multifaceted techno-capitalism,etc) in its analysis of macro social dialogues in the post-deconstructionist era:

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1280/1200

●Wendell Wallach coins the term“moral machines”in his June 2010 book,“Moral Machines:Teaching Robots Right from Wrong”

Below is Wallach’s talk at the Dec 2013 conference on“Animal/Human/Corporation/Robot:Appropriating‘Personhood’for Different Purposes”,Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies,Yale University:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Nd0r8LF9XU

●Lin,P.,Abney,K.,&Bekey,G.A.(Eds.) (2011),“Robot Ethics:The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics”(In“Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents Series”),MIT Press.

●Barrat,J.(Oct 2013),“Our Final Invention:Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era”.

●Dr.Paul Root Wolpe (2010) on questioning the ethics of Bioengineering:

(Biomolecular computation,DNA Nanotechnology,Biomedicine/biotechnology,Inter-species Genomics)

Please listen to Dr.Wolpe’s ted talk:

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_root_wolpe_it_s_time_to_question_bio_engineering?language=en

●Professor Luciano Floridi (2013),“The Ethics of Information”Oxford University Press.

Professor Floridi on the philosophy of information ethics (this is his 2013 talk at Oxford Internet Institute):“The gardener,the dentist,and the long-jumper:Ethics in the age of information”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOOIYTEX80Y

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Unit 2:James’Worldview is Foundationing on“A Habitual Moral Living with Upward-Spiralling Pragmatic Consequences”

“Moral Sentiment”and“Habitual Moral Living”

Despite its pluralistic fluidity,James’worldview is uniquely distinguishable from that of virtually all existing philosophic thoughts.Its uniqueness lies with his pragmatism.Whilst his radical empiricism legitimises each mosaic fact (e.g.,a fact in the discursive,physical or mental universes),his pragmatism dictates that it is the consequence that informs the truthfulness and the meaningfulness of that mosaic fact.

James’voluminous writings unfailingly ooze a passional conviction to a“moral sentiment”,which he identifies with“religious sentiment”and“intellectual sentiment”.Moral sentiment is not,for James,an abstract ideal,but a way of life continually lived.A habitual moral living carries with it“good consequences”as in the individual’s own character development in the first place and further in the transformation of larger collective consciousness.This James variously refers to as“upward-spiralling affective state”,“passional or energetic nature”,“higher-order consciousness”,and similar other terms.

James talks,with obvious urgency and earnest,about the upward-spiralling consequences of moral sentiment:

“…and I shall be well content if I have brought my point home to you this evening in even a slight degree.‘There are compensations’:and no outward changes of condition in life can keep the nightingale of its eternal meaning from singing in all sorts of different men’s hearts.That is the main fact to remember.If we could not only admit it with our lips,but really and truly believe it,how our convulsive insistencies,how our antipathies and dreads of each other,would soften down! If the poor and the rich could look at each other in this way,sub specie aeternatis,How gentle would grow their disputes! what tolerance and good humor,what willingness to live and let live,would come into the world!”

Pivotal to James’dynamogenic psychology is the notion of an individual self’s“centre of psychic energy”complete with its unique quantity and quality.A habitual moral living would constitute a continual upward-spiralling habituating of the self’s core energy.

However,there can be no uniformed or absolute way of moral living.James writes about the individual-specific nature of living in terms of the self’s core energy dynamics:

“Wherever a process of life communicates an eagerness to him who lives it,there the life becomes genuinely significant.Sometimes the eagerness is more knit up with the motor activities,sometimes with the perceptions,sometimes with the imagination,sometimes with reflective thought.But,wherever it is found,there is the zest,the tingle,the excitement of reality;and there is 'importance' in the only real and positive sense in which importance ever anywhere can be.”

For a habitual moral living,James would emphasise the importance of choosing (“willing/intending) the upward-spiralling option at each transitioning phase of living;for such choosing inevitably leads to a positively greater consequence and significance for a life.The following important passage in“What Makes a Life Significant”,though in a much broader context,also illuminates the present discussion:

“…The altered equilibriums and redistributions only diversify our opportunities and open chances to us for new ideals.But,with each new ideal that comes into life,the chance for a life based on some old ideal will vanish;and he would needs be a presumptuous calculator who should with confidence say that the total sum of significances is positively and absolutely greater at any one epoch than at any other of the world…”

And more specifically on each individual’s own will and intent for a habitual moral living,James stresses the importance of the individual’s conviction to significant“inner ideals”:

“If there were any such morally exceptional individuals,however,what made them different from the rest? It can only have been this,—that their souls worked and endured in obedience to some inner ideal,while their comrades were not actuated by anything worthy of that name.These ideals of other lives are among those secrets that we can almost never penetrate,although something about the man may often tell us when they are there.”

James speaks of the importance of“hope”in practical life

(from Postscript of VRE)

“For practical life at any rate,the chance of salvation is enough.No fact in human nature is more characteristic than its willingness to live on a chance.The existence of the chance makes the difference,as Edmund Gurney says,between a life of which the keynote is resignation and a life of which the keynote is hope…”

Hope is one of the three questions asked of Dante at gate of Paradise and the only one that Beatrice vouched to St.James (!) for Dante’s possession of it.

Hope is the most pivotal in Immanuel Kant’s three questions that every man needs to reflect on (“What could I know? What ought I do? And What may I hope?).

Hope embodies all the positive and upward-spiralling psychic energies in“the world of pure experience”.And each person has the option to“choose it”(“will it”,“intend upon it”) to be one’s habitual centre of psychic energy.

James not only speaks of“focusing our Inner thoughts/energies on hope”but also of a“habitual ascetic or heroic”living at the behavioural level

(Principles of Psychology,Ch 4)

“Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day.That is,be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points…So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention,energetic volition,and self-denial in unnecessary things,he will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him,and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast…The hell to be endured hereafter,of which theology tells,is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioning our characters in the wrong way.”

Morality as Core of Philosophy,Education and Living

As a pragmatist,James’interest is primarily in the“ethical and educational applications”of his worldview (e.g.,Ralph Barton Perry).For James,education centers on the educator’s own moral character and the learning by role modeling.James writes on retiring from Harvard in 1907,

“A professor has two functions:(1) to be learned and distribute bibliographical information;(2) to communicate truth.The 1st is the essential one,officially considered.The 2nd is the only one I care for.Hitherto I have always felt like a humbug as a professor,for I am weak in the first requirement.Now I can live for the second with a free conscience”.

On the pivotal role of a professor’s own character in education:

“What doctrines students take from their professors are of little consequence provided they catch from them the living,philosophic attitude of mind,the independent,personal look at all the data of life,and the eagerness to harmonize them”.

And for James,this serves to“habituate”the students to be“always seeing an alternative,of not taking the usual for granted,of making conventionalities fluid again,of imagining foreign states of mind.”

James Places Moral Living at the Center of Moral Philosophy

●In a lecture at the Yale Philosophical Club,James made explicit this point.The text of this talk was printed in the April 1891 issue of the“International Journal of Ethics”.

Please read the text of William James talk,“The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life”:

https://archive.org/stream/jstor-2375309/2375309_djvu.txt

●The urgency to place morality at the centre of education is also plainly evident in the concluding paragraph of James’“Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals”.There,James first quotes from Spinoza’s Ethics in teasing apart an upward-spiralling ,from a downward-spiralling,habitual pattern of behaviour:

“He who habitually acts sub specie mali,under the negative notion,the notion of the bad,is called a slave by Spinoza.To him who acts habitually under the notion of good he gives the name of freeman.”

James then concludes his entire series of talks to teachers by asking the teachers to always go with the upward-spiralling moral sentiment in educating their students:

“See to it now,I beg you,that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act,whenever possible,under the notion of a good.Get them habitually to tell the truth,not so much through showing them the wickedness of lying as by arousing their enthusiasm for honour and veracity.Wean them from their native cruelty by imparting to them some of your own positive sympathy with an animal’s inner springs of joy.And,in the lessons which you may be legally obliged to conduct upon the bad effects of alcohol,lay less stress than the books do on the drunkard’s stomach,kidneys,nerves,and social miseries,and more on the blessings of having an organism kept in lifelong possession of its full youthful elasticity by a sweet,sound blood,to which stimulants and narcotics are unknown,and to which the morning sun and air and dew will daily come as sufficiently powerful intoxicants.”

Please refer to chapter 15 of the text:

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/james/william/talks/complete.html

●James’influence over present-day educational psychology is described in Professor Frank Pajares’s most fitting tribute to James:

Pajares,F.(2009),“William James:Our Father Who Begat Us”,In Zimmerman,B.J.,&Schunk,D.H.(Eds.),“Educational Psychology:A Century of Contributions:A Project of Division 15 of the APA”:

http://www.uky.edu/~eushe2/Pajares/PajaresJames.PDF

These key themes are also explicitly brought out in the two following analyses of James’moral philosophy and ethics:

●Dr.Sergio Franzese (2008),“The Ethics of Energy:William James’Moral Philosophy in Focus”

Professor Kenneth W.Stikkers (2009)“Review of Sergio Franzese’s book”,in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.

Professor Stikkers highlights Dr.Franzese’s writings:

“Ethics,for James...is about the organization of energy,especially into habits,in the service of personal,aesthetic ideals..."Energy"meant for him no metaphysical substance but rather activity -- living itself...-- and for James the pluralist there could be no singular,universal form of right living...”.

He further points out that the word energy,"can be taken both in an impersonal,cosmic form and in the form of personal consciousness”;and that it“accounts for the sense of aliveness from which all experience feels itself emanating.It thus corresponds to Bergson's notion ofélan vital,life-urge,and later as‘the impulse of life’.”

https://ndpr.nd.edu/news/23999-the-ethics-of-energy-william-james-s-moral-philosophy-in-focus/

●Professor Jeff Polet (2001 ),“William James and the Moral Will”,Humanitas,Vol.14(2):

This paper also focuses on James’idea of moral good and his respect for pluralistic forms of moral will that have pragmatic consequences for“invigorating rather than attenuating morality”.

http://www.nhinet.org/polet14-2.pdf

Moral Sentiment embodies the“non-orthodox&non-delegitimising”

Religious Sentiment

Professor Jeremy Carrette (2012),“William James’s Hidden Religious Imagination:A Universe of Relations”,Rutledge

This is an informative book on James’worldview with a focus on“religion”.Professor Carrette explains James’implicit“religious imagination”thus,

“James’s theory of sensations and relations is important because it positions thought and ideas within‘feeling’,a sensory order of the body.It allows an immediacy to challenge intermediary constructions that can be oppressive and limiting of life.It opens the world to its changing,varied and unfinished nature and celebrates an active sense of life before the second-order reflection...James’s thinking allows movement and difference to be central in appreciating the world...by privileging an area of experience outside of known order.”

“A Habitual Moral Living”and“Moral Holidays”

James’light-hearted yet deeply thought-provoking notion of“Moral Holidays”is meant only for those“over and constantly self-disciplined moral souls”.Professor John Lachs explains this notion in his contrast between two grand (moral) philosophers (James and the“absolute idealist”Josiah Royce).

James treats good/evil as a correlative of each individual’s unique state of consciousness.In his worldview,if evil were to exist at all,it would be construed as an individual’s own unfulfilled desires and the“ideals”that the individual ascribed to those desires.Its creation or negation lies solely with the individual’s own will and habitual thought pattern.

However,James persistently places key premium on positive upward-spiralling aspects of consciousness.Professor Lachs also points out that James’moral philosophy ultimately rests on the ethos of“affirming the fundamental goodness that everything strives”.

Please listen to Professor John Lachs’most delightful lecture on“William James and Josiah Royce:Moral Holidays”

(2007,Harvard Divinity School):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q477-3U222Y

The Genesis of“the Fundamental Goodness that Everything Strives”:

Morality as Exaptation in Human Evolution

Stephen J.Gould’s work on Junk Genes,Pseudogenes,Noncoding Genes:Human Traits as“Evolution through Ex-aptation and not just Adaptation”

●Stephen J.Gould’s Exaptation Hypothesis of the Evolution of Human Behavioural Traits

Professors J.Brosius&Stephen .J.Gould (1992),“On‘genomenclature’:A comprehensive (and respectful) taxonomy for pseudogenes and other‘junk DNA’”,PNAS,89

http://www.pnas.org/content/89/22/10706.full.pdf

●Professor Francesca J.Ayala (2010),“The Difference of Being Human:Morality”,Proceedings of National Academy of Science,May.

This paper argues that human moral trait is the result of human evolution through (Stephen J.Gould’s idea of) environment-marked“exaptation”,rather than completely through Social Darwinist idea of gene-determined“adaptation”.Further,moral sentiment and conscience accompanies the exercise of reason in making moral judgements and in anticipating moral consequences associated with alternative courses of actions.

Here is the abstract of the paper:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20445091

●Cellular and Molecular Evidence Consistent with Stephen J.Gould’s exaptation hypothesis of the evolution of human traits

Professors A Barve&A Wagner (2013),“A latent capacity for evolutionary innovation through exaptation in metabolic systems”,Nature,Aug 8.

This is one of the empirical studies from this research team and it provides empirical support to Stephen J.Gould’s thesis of the exaptation origin of behavioural traits.The paper shows that the most fundamental biological adaptation system,the metabolism networks with carbon-sourced biochemical reactions,may have multiple latent potentials for exaptational innovations in biological evolution.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23851393

Brain Processing Mechanism Underlying Moral Reasoning/Judgement

●Greene,J.,&Haidt,J.(2002),“How (and where) does moral judgment work?’Trends in Cognitive Sciences,6.

This is an earlier review paper on neural networks that are correlatives of moral judgement.The emotional and cognitive networks contribute significantly but differentially (both quantity/quality) towards moral judgement.The authors concluded that,“The amygdala...appears,however,to be relatively stimulus-driven and biased towards the visual,suggesting that its influence on moral judgement is likely to be rather crude.Less crude influences might come from classically‘cognitive’areas in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes,which have been implicated in impersonal moral judgement.These activations may represent the application of domain-neutral reasoning to moral judgement”.

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/GreeneWJH/Greene-Haidt-TiCS-02.pdf

●George Mobus (2010),“Is Brodmann Area 10 the key to human evolution?”

This article covers a wide-ranging basic and applied issues pertaining to human evolution;but the paper’s focus on Ba10 makes it directly relevant to the present discussion of human morality (see previous article for the correspondence between brain’s cyto-architectural and anatomy-structural regions).Ba10 includes the far anterior regions of the neocortex (major areas of prefrontal cortex,PFC).The uniqueness of Ba10 lies with its deep interconnectivities with other PFC regions for executive functioning,but much less downstreaming connectivity with primary sensory/motor areas.Ba10 regions are among the key structural/anatomical correlatives of moral judgement.

http://questioneverything.typepad.com/question_everything/2010/04/is-brodmann-area-10-the-key-to-human-evolution.html

Marazziti,D.,et.al.(2013),“The neurobiology of moral sense:Facts or hypothesis? Annals of General Psychiatry,12.

This more recent paper provides a review of past few decades’neurobiological research on the genesis of“moral sense”.The findings converge in suggesting the existence of“a main integrative centre for innate morality,in particular the ventromedial prefrontal cortex,with its multiple connections with the limbic lobe,thalamus and brainstem”.Damages to these networks are associated with personality changes and criminal behavior.The authors concluded that subjective moral sense is primarily associated with the individual’s“social emotions and interpretation of others’behaviours and intentions.”

http://www.annals-general-psychiatry.com/content/12/1/6

●Avram,M.et.al.(2014),“Neural correlates of moral judgements in first- and third- person perspectives:Implications for neuroethics and beyond”,BMC Neuroscience,15.

This paper addresses the role of the“perspective”that study subjects take in approaching the experimental tasks.Two perspectives are operationalised:the“first-person,rational,environment-focused attribution style) versus the“third-person,emotional,actor-focused attribution style).Results show that,whilst both perspectives activated the anterior mPFC,only the third-person perspective involved the hippocampus and visual cortical areas.The results thus reveal the role of hippocampus in the“empathic understanding of others’emotion/behaviour”in moral reasoning.

The authors provided a critique of existing neuroscience research and called for“prudence in interpretation”.They also suggested an“engagement of neuroethics’second tradition,namely,an analysis of the ways that neuroscience and neurotechnology are,can,and should be employed to gain understanding of cognitions,emotions and behaviours,and how such information is used (in medicine,law and the public sphere).”

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/15/39

Morality at Planck-Level as Neuron Synaptic Dynamics

Quantum-State Collapses inside Cytoskeletal Microtubules

Sir Roger Penrose and Professor Stuart Hameroff’s decades-long Orch-OR hypothesis of human consciousness has recently received empirical support (ref in Unit 3).The Hameroff-Penrose research is also uniquely significant in its implications for morality and intrinsic good.They argue that quantum consciousness has intrinsic quality,which Penrose calls the“Platonic value”(of‘math’truth,aesthetics and ethical moral values).Such intrinsic quality is built into the Planck-scale neuronal level as patterns and it significantly influences human conscious thoughts.

Please read this earlier 2002 article,“Morality at the Planck Scale:A chat with Stuart Hameroff”on this specific subject;

http://www.metanexus.net/essay/morality-planck-scale-chat-stuart-hameroff

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Unit 3:Research Supportive of James’Worldview of Selfsame Reality/Nature/Consciousness

Key philosophical and scientific literatures have been converging in suggesting a selfsame Reality/Nature/Consciousness.This idea is at the core of James’worldview and it is also explicit in his many writings.

●James writes on the selfsame“Reality/Consciousness”(or“Things/Thoughts”),(Essay 5,Radical Empiricism,137-139)

“In opposition to this dualistic philosophy,I tried,in (the first essay) to show that thoughts and things are absolutely homogeneous as to their material,and that their opposition is only one of relation and of function.There is no thought-stuff different from thing-stuff,I said;but the same identical piece of 'pure experience' (which was the name I gave to the materia prima of everything) can stand alternately for a 'fact of consciousness' or for a physical reality,according as it is taken in one context or in another.For the right understanding of what follows,I shall have to presuppose that the reader will have read that essay”.

●James considers“the streams of consciousness”as the“ultimate fact”for empirical psychology.However,he also sees the limitation of science in explaining this ultimate fact.The key reason is that the explanation of consciousness“must lie where all real reasons lie,in the total sense or meaning of the world”.James writes in Principles of Psychology:

“If anyone urge that I assign no reason why the successive passing thoughts should inherit each other's possessions,or why they and the brain-states should be functions (in the mathematical sense) of each other,I reply that the reason,if there be any,must lie where all real reasons lie,in the total sense or meaning of the world.If there be such a meaning,or any approach to it (as we are bound to trust there is),it alone can make clear to us why such finite human streams of thought are called into existence in such functional dependence upon brains…”

●This passage from the VRE not only speaks to the selfsame Reality/Consciousness,it also illuminates on three aspects of the primal property of Reality/Consciousness:“pluralistic or multiversed”,“meaningfulness”,and“energy as relational dynamics”.

“The whole drift of my education goes to persuade me that the world of our present consciousness is only one out of many worlds of consciousness that exist,and that those other worlds must contain experiences which have a meaning for our life also;and that although in the main their experiences and those of this world keep discrete,yet the two become continuous at certain points,and higher energies filter in.“

●James sees the empirical or scientific method to Reality/Consciousness as a necessary yet insufficient tool.His maxim of non-delegitimisation openly embraces other known alternative sense-making tools as equal partners in the search for a fuller explanation of Reality/Consciousness.

James’worldview requires no middle man or any intermediary notion.There is no need to postulate the notion of“a knower”in explaining“pure experience”(Reality /Consciousness),as“the knower”and“the known”are mutually constitutive within pure experience.

However,James writes (as a scientific psychologist and naturalistic philosopher) that if this unnecessary intermediate notion of“the knower”were to be introduced by the dualists,their sense-making tools must then be considered as equal and complementary partners to the scientific and naturalistic methods.

“…and the problem who that knower is would have become a metaphysical problem.With the question once stated in these terms,the spiritualist and transcendentalist solutions must be considered as prima facie on a par with our own psychological one,and discussed impartially.But that carries us beyond the psychological or naturalistic point of view.”

Recent References pertaining to the Selfsame Reality/Nature/Consciousness

Earlier relevant references can be found in“Unbounded Consciousness:Qualia,Mind and Self”(2001) and“Sentience:Companion to Reason”(2003).

●First,a much needed call for“open-mindedness”in order to understand the ultimate efficacies of James’worldview:

Professor David C.Lamberth (1999/2009),“William James and the Metaphysics of Experience”(Cambridge Studies in Religion and Critical Thought)

This is an excellent book on the perennial and universal influence of James’lifework.Professor Lamberth provides a comprehensive critique of present-day mainstream philosophical/religious/empirical thoughts:

“Considering James closely suggests that we should not adopt a theoretical stance that presumptively protects dominant metaphysical assumptions concerning‘scientific’or‘realistic’explanations”,and only this would lead to“the productive reopening of a range of presumptively foreclosed questions for novel reconsideration”.

●Mutual Constitutiveness of the Observer/Observed in Reality/Nature/Consciousness:the Grandest Bootstrapping Task

Professors Bruce Rosenblum&Fred Kuttner (2011,2nd ed),“Quantum Enigma:Physics Encounters Consciousness”:

This book focuses on the mutual-constitutiveness of quantum reality and consciousness.The authors consider“free will and anthropic principles”as central issues underlying the“connection of consciousness with the cosmos”.

●On the theories of Time/Space:Central to James’worldview

Professor John-Francis Phipps (2004),“Henri Bergson and the Perception of Time”,Philosophy Now.

This article points out that the Bergsonian notion of an“Élan-Vital embodied growing universe”was first articulated by William James.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/48/Henri_Bergson_and_the_Perception_of_Time

Professor J.Michael Tilley (2012) article on“William James:Living Forward and Development of Radical Empiricism”:

This paper traces aspects of James’radical empiricism to the influence of Kierkegaard (via Hoffding).The analysis focuses on Kierkegaard’s idea that“life is lived forward and understood backward”.

http://www.academia.edu/908635/William_James_Living_Forward_and_the_Development_of_Radical_Empiricism

●Ecological Affordances filtered through individual’s“will/belief”as perceived reality

Professor Harry Heft (2001),“Ecological Psychology in Context:James Gibson,Roger Barker,and the Legacy of William James’Radical Empiricism”.

The book points out that James’radical empiricism and direct experience worldview has a profound influence over James Gibson.This influence is evident in the main Gibsonian notions of“ecological affordances”and“perception as direct knowing of meaningful stimuli present in the perceivers’dynamic ecological spheres”.

Gibson’s ecological approach to human perception captures the essence of William James’empiricist approach to Realty/Nature/Consciousness.With reference to individual’s“perception of reality”,James has detailed its ongoing entanglements and relational dynamics with the individual’s“psychology of will/belief”.

●Human organisms as active“Informative Filters”of Reality:

Professor Robert A.M.Gregson (2006).“Informative Psychometric Filters”,Canberra,Australia:ANU E Press.

Professor Gregson presents a critical analysis of present-day psychophysical and psychosocial research from system dynamic perspectives.The author argues that human organisms,including their data-analysis methods,are“Filters”of the information state;and as a result,human perceptions of information reality are often distorted.

Professor Gregson’s book is available from:

http://press.anu.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/prelims16.pdf

●The Holographic&Multiversed property of Reality/Nature/Consciousness is central to James’worldview and related issues including qualia

Dr.Stephen Earle Robbins (2005)“Bergson and the Holographic Theory of Mind”

Please read the full text of this article:

http://www.theassc.org/files/assc/Bergson-Phenomenology-2.pdf

Dr.Stephen E.Robbins (April 2012),“Time and Memory:A Primer on the Scientific Mysticism of Consciousness”

Dr.Stephen E Robbins (March 2014),“Collapsing the Singularity:Bergson,Gibson and the Mythologies of Artificial Intelligence”

The author writes,“...For coherence,Gibson must be placed within the remarkable model of time,mind and brain of Henri Bergson”:

http://www.amazon.com/Collapsing-Singularity-Mythologies-Artificial-Intelligence/dp/1494947641

Dr.Stephen E Robbins (April 2014),“The future of something…not the mind”(This is Dr.Robbins’s detailed review of Kaku,M.“The future of the mind”):

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2MIRYU41NNHV0/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt/189-2865358-3676262#R2MIRYU41NNHV0

●Probable“holographic origin of quantum space-time/primordial singularity”? Please read the following two articles on the development of this argument:

http://www.nature.com/news/theoretical-physics-the-origins-of-space-and-time-1.13613

and this Sept 2014 article:

http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/09/21/planck-speaks-bad-news-for-primordial-gravitational-waves/

●Current infinite multiverse hypothesis as implicated in James’worldview

Professor David H.Nov 2014 article,“What is the multiverse,and what is its significance?”

The author writes,“The‘multiverse’is a term for the totality of physical reality,extending beyond the observable universe to a larger realm that encompasses other regions.It is curious that the term‘multiverse’...was coined by American philosopher William James in 1896...although his usage of the term was quite different than that of modern scientists.”

Please read the article here:http://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/physics/multiverse.php

●Research from Biosphere,Evolutionary Dynamics and Physical Sciences on the selfsame
Consciousness/Nature/Reality:

Dr.Ervin Laszlo (Oct 2014)“The immortal Mind:Science and the Continuity of Consciousness beyond the Brain”

Dr.Ervin Laszlo (March 2014)“The Self-Actualizing Cosmos:The Akasha Revolution in Science and Human Consciousness”

Please listen to this interview of Dr.Laszlo about his work:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gxFOCFK5j70

Professor Stuart Kauffman (2008),“Reinventing the Sacred:A New View of Science,Reason,and Religion”

Please listen to this talk by Professor Kauffman on“The Re-Enchantment of Humanity”(2 Dec 2011,The Vermont Complexity Systems Centre,UV):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bn1gqxvwN1k

Kauffman,S.(Oct 2014),“Beyond the Stalemate:Conscious Mind-Body-Quantum Mechanics-Free Will-Possible Panpsychism-Possible Interpretation of Quantum Enigma”:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.2127

John Horgan (Feb 2015),“Scientific seeker Stuart Kauffman on free will,God,ESP and other mysteries”,Scientific American.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/2015/02/04/scientific-seeker-stuart-kauffman-on-free-will-god-esp-and-other-mysteries/

●On Intentionality of Reality/Consciousness

Professor Robert Shaw (2001)“processes,acts,and experiences:Three stances on the problem of Intentionality”,Ecological Psychology Commentaries

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/ecopsyc/shaw/process_act.pdf

Shaw,R.,&Kinsella-Shaw,“Intentional Quantum Dynamics:Entangling Choices and Goals”(full article below)

http://www.trincoll.edu/depts/ecopsyc/shaw/Quantum_Entanglement.pdf

●The selfsame Reality/Consciousness:Individual consciousness as limited version of universal consciousness,

From Professor Michael Presinger research group on Consciousness:

Hu,H.&Wu,M (2013),“The relationship between human consciousness and universal consciousness”:Experimental results supportive of Presinger’s notion that human consciousness represents a“limited version of universal consciousness”

http://sedonanomalies.com/HuPersinger.pdf

●Collaboration of Physicists and Brain Neuroscientists:Holographic Reality/Nature/Consciousness:

David Bohm&Karl Pribram:

Please watch Professor David Bohm in an interview in Copenhagen,1989:

(Physical Reality and Consciousness as a coherent whole;the mplicate/explicate order reality)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI66ZglzcO0

Professor Karl Pribram,widely considered the father of present-day neurocognitive science,worked with David Bohm on the early development of the holonomic model of the brain (later version:the holographic brain).His 2013 book (The Form Within:My Point of View) provides a history of two centuries of brain research that is supportive of the model.

Please watch this 2012 video interview of Professor Pribram:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBhEGgzyylg

Roger Penrose and Stuart Hameroff:

This is a 2014 interview with the two Nobel Prize candidates:

(Whitehead proto-consciousness,findings on quantum consciousness)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfdsGpTHIkw

●Dr.Stuart Hameroff and Professor Roger Penrose (2013),“Consciousness in the universe:A review of the‘Orch OR’theory”,Physics of Life Reviews.

This paper provides evidence that shows quantum vibrations are evident within neuron’s protein molecules in the cytoskeletal microtubules.The paper also reveals that the EEG measurement-taking tool,acting as an external“interference agent”,causes the neutral indeterminate coherent quantum state to collapse,which results in the manifestation of a definite state,the“beat frequencies,seen as EEG”.

In addition,the paper identifies the microtubule quantum dynamics in which“anaesthetics erase consciousness”as the neuronal mechanisms associated with the anaesthetics-induced altered states of conscious awareness.The authors conclude that the observed Orch-OR activities link brain consciousness to“processes in fundamental space–time geometry”.

This paper together with expert reviews can be found:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1571064513001188

Penrose and Hameroff’s work on consciousness has significant implications for“qualia”(Penrose suggested that mathematical insights,as an example of qualia,cannot be fully explained by any computational brain models that rest on a physical/mental dichotomy).Their work is also significant for“morality”(ref in Unit 2) and various“spiritual laws”including“cause-effect”and“immortality of consciousness”.

Please watch this July 2013 talk in which Professor Stuart Hameroff and Dr.Deepak Chopra discuss these issues in the context of the holographic universe,holographic memory/consciousness and the holographic nature.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erSd5xep30w

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Unit 4:Neurocognitive and Neurophysiological Research

on Consciousness

For James,the selfsame Reality/Nature/Consciousness exists in a neutral ground state of“pure experience”.This pure experience is the“materia prima of everything”and it can stand for either consciousness or physical reality,pending the perspective taken.From the perspective of individuals,individual consciousness constitutes all“directly experienced mosaic facts”that embody the entire cognitive/affective spectrums of mental activities.

Philosophy aside,James’Principles of Psychology details the physiological dynamics (including sensorial feels and blood-flow mechanisms) that are co-occurring with all mental activities (streams of consciousness).An individual experiences directly his/her mental activity’s qualitative features as subjective sensorial feels;the mental activity’s quantitative features can concomitantly be measured by various (currently available) tools including EEG,fMRI,PET,fIRI,EKG,Galvanic-skin-response instrument.

The energy dynamics of all mental activities are intricately interconnected and thoroughly entangled at various levels:first,at the level of the brain’s structure/anatomy,function/behaviour and physiology/biochemistry;second,at the level of brain/CNS/whole physical body;and third,at the level of physical body and its ecological/ideological workspaces.The energy dynamics that operate at all levels are also inseparably connected and entangled.

The pattern of these interacting energy dynamics are expressed in different forms at different levels.At the atomic level of the brain,this pattern is expressed as the brain’s electromagnetic wave field.At the brain’s cellular/neuronal level,it is expressed as the inhibitory versus excitatory potentials associated with relevant neurotransmitters’modulating and signalling functions.At the behavioural/functional level,this energy pattern is expressed as overall adaptive/maladaptive behaviours.

As a physical processing machine,the body/brain also has in-built self-organising dynamics that underlie the body’s autoimmune system,the neuron’s self-correcting function,and the brain’s intrinsic and self-selective processing mechanisms.These self-organising dynamics are correlatives of not only the body/brain’s intrinsic workings but also the individual’s interactions with his/her ecological/ideological environments.

Each Individual’s Habitual Affective State Underlies

the Individual’s Streams of Consciousness (Mental Life)

In the context of his overall worldview,James identifies consciousness with physical reality (pending the context taken) and places key premium on our affective reactions in“our commerce with the physical nature”.This point is clear in his essay“The place of affectional facts in a world of pure experience”.An individual’s affective state refers to“the whole collection of our appreciative attributes of things”.James writes,

“It is by the interest and importance that experiences have for us,by the emotions they excite,and the purposes they subserve,by their affective values,in short,that their consecution in our several conscious streams,as 'thoughts' of ours,is mainly ruled.Desire introduces them;interest holds them;fitness fixes their order and connection.”

Each of our single attribute of things is a mosaic“affectional fact”(e.g.,joy,pain).The collective pattern of these mosaic affectional facts shapes the macro affective state (e.g.,typical temperament as sanguine,joyfulness,melancholy).

As every mosaic fact in James’worldview (pure experience theory) embodies transitioning dynamics of the mosaic’s ongoing relations with its larger surroundings,the current/transient mosaic affectional facts are also continually shaped by the larger and more stable affective state.In dynamogenic terms,the more persistent/stable affective state would identify with the individual self’s“habitual centre of psychic energy”(the general disposition of the self/personality).

In the individual’s continual interaction with the ecological and ideological environments,it is the overall/habitual affective state (complete with the core energy) that subserves its entire information filtering and processing dynamics.As the workings of these multifaceted dynamics have pragmatic consequences for physical/psychological equilibrium,the fundamental importance of an individual’s habitual affective state can never be overstated.

The remaining sections of this Unit briefly review neuroscience research pertaining to consciousness.The research will highlight the intricate interconnectivity underlying the body/brain’s structure/anatomy,function/behaviour,and physiology/biochemistry.The review also aims to highlight the fundamental role of affective state in the entire spectrums of emotional/cognitive mental activities.

Mapping of the brain’s“structure/anatomy,function/behaviour and biochemistry”interconnectivity and entanglement

Tools for neurocognitive&celluarbiological research:Brain Imaging&Gene Sequencing

●The neuroimaging scanners used in brain science research (e.g.,fMRI) record blood-oxidation-level-dependent signals that are co-occurring with mental thoughts.

Professor Marcus Raichle is regarded as the original inventor of today’s PET and fMRI brain scanners,but he pointed out that William James (in his 1890“Principles of Psychology”) had already discussed details of blood flow changes in the brain that are co-occurring with mental and neuronal activities:

http://ai.ato.ms/MITECS/Entry/raichle.html

●The DTI for brain research:

Mori,S.,&Zhang,J.(2006),“Principles of Diffusion Tensor Imaging and its applications to basic neuroscience research”,
Neuron,51:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627306006349

●Protein sequencing tools refined:

Gygi,S.,et.al.(1999),“Protein analysis by mass spectrometry and sequence database searching:Tools for cancer research in the Post-Genomic era”,Electrophoresis,20.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1522-2683(19990201)20:2%3C310::AID-ELPS310%3E3.0.CO;2-M/abstract;jsessionid=3FF34F7E927061B7B2535076E6AED7D1.f03t01

Brain Imaging,Default Mode Networks (DMN) and Brain Mapping of Structure/Function Interconnectivity

●Professor Marcus Raichle (2009),Paradigm shift in functional brain imaging Journal of Neuroscience,Vol 29.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/29/41/12729.full

Raichle,M.(2007)“A default mode of brain function:A brief history of an evolving idea:Mind-wandering”:DMN and its relevance to research into mental activities/consciousness.

http://www.appliedneuroscience.com/Default%20mode-a%20brief%20history.pdf

●Emeritus Professor Michael Corballis,(May 2014),“The Wandering Mind:What the brain does when you are not looking”

In his most recent book,the prominent neuroscientist Professor Corballis explains the mind’s holistic mental activities including its habitual“wandering into past,future,and other’s mind”,while its owner may not be consciously aware of what it is doing.

Please watch this 2014 video of Professor Corballis’talk on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I24srQ6XGVE

Research on the extremely intricate interconnectivity and thoroughgoing entanglement among neurons throughout the whole brain and the whole CNS:structure/function/biochemistry Interconnectivity

●Cellular Inter-Synaptic evidence:Please read this early review article on the dynamic processes of neural dendrite growth associated with dendrite density.Dendrite growth is one key aspect of the super-complex neuronal
interconnectivity in the entire CNS:

McAllister,A.K.(2000),“Cellular and Molecular Mechanisms of Dendrite Growth”,Cerebral Cortex (vol.10)

http://cercor.oxfordjournals.org/content/10/10/963.full

●More recent (2013) research evidence on the intricate and interwoven connectivity in trans-synaptic neuronal activities:The“Synaptic Multi-Modal”

Smythies,J.,&Edelstein,L.(2013)“The Trans-synaptic modality codes in the brain:Possible involvement of synchronized spike timing,microRNAs,exosomes and epigenetic processes”,Frontiers in Integrative Neuroscience:

Most cellular/molecular research examining the brain’s information transfer processes has taken the local-synaptic perspective,in that information transfers between neurons are limited to local interactions within the local synapse.This paper suggests that the transfer may involve the postsynaptic neuron as a whole,as information transfer may be mediated by various extra-synaptic mechanisms widely spread throughout all brain regions.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnint.2012.00126/full

Research Evidence on the brain’s intricate structure/function interconnectivities

●Connectome and The Default Mode Networks:Whole brain’s structure-function interconnectivities most evident in the default mode networks:

Horn,A.et.al.(Nov 2014),“The structural-functional connectome and the default mode network of the human brain”,
NeuroImage,Vol.102

“Connectome”refers to an emerging field of brain imaging research aiming at a comprehensive mapping of the“structural-functional connectivity”within the entire human brain.This paper estimates such connectivity for every voxel of the cerebral cortex;all voxels that are connected both structurally and functionally to same brain regions are identified.Results show that the structure-function connectivity is most evident in“default mode network”(DMN) areas.The data therefore suggest that the DMN is“the functional brain network as it uses the most direct structural connections”.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053811913010057

Brain’s Intrinsic and Natural Self-Organising Mechanisms for Natural Physical/Psychological Equilibrium

Brain’s self-organising mechanisms for the Memory System in both Waking and Sleeping Conscious States

●Natural inhibitory system against Normal forgetting:Distributed Pattern of brain’s memory mechanisms

This Aug 2011 fMRI study shows that normal forgetting is related to proactive interference (PI) among items in long-term store (hippocampus memory circuits),and that the brain also has its own self-correcting mechanism (in this context,the mechanism that mitigates the interference) leading to successful retrieval.Using the experimental procedure involving fMRI scanning of subject recall task (i.e.,the PI-release paradigm),and the multi-voxel pattern classification analysis,the study maps the cortical regions of the self-correcting anti-interference (or anti-forgetting) mechanisms.

This and other related studies have mapped the brain’s self-correcting and anti-forgetting mechanisms for a variety of memory categories (e.g.,semantic,episodic,etc) around the ventrolateral PreFrontalCortex,or in anatomical terms,Ba44,45 or 47 areas.

Oztekin and Badre (2011),“Distributed patterns in Brain activities that leads to Forgetting”.Frontiers in Human Neuroscience.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3159082/

●Natural inhibitory system against Remembering:Motivated/Intentional Forgetting of Unwanted Memory:

Anderson,M.C,Hanslmayr,S.(2014)“Neural mechanisms of motivated forgetting”,Trends in Cognitive Science (vol 18).

This review of neuroimaging studies shows that the inhibitory neural circuitry (e.g.,lateral PFC) regulates in disrupting,suppressing or distorting“unwanted information”;this motivated forgetting mechanism starts with the encoding,throughout the retention and retrieval processing stages.

(However,an earlier study from this research team suggested that such inhibition mechanism deteriorates with normal ageing).

http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/publications/pubInfo.php?foreignId=pubmed%3A24747000

●Brain’s natural memory mechanisms in the Normal Dreaming Brain:Natural“Intentional Remembering and Forgetting mechanisms”in Sleeping State:

Stickgold,R.,and Walker,M.P.(2013),Sleep-dependent memory triage:evolving generalization through selective processing.
Nat.Neurosci.16

The authors suggested a“memory triage processing mechanism operating in the sleeping brain.The sleeping brain naturally processes and selects new information“in a discriminatory manner,and assimilates it into the brain's vast armamentarium of evolving knowledge”.Such brain mechanisms can“guide each organism through its own,unique life”.

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v16/n2/full/nn.3303.html

Brain’s Self-Organising Mechanisms as Patterns of Structure/Function Interconnectivity

In neural network terms,the center of consciousness has been variously mapped as the“thalamus-cortex reverberating circuitry”(Crick),as the“reticular formation-thalamus nuclei circuitry”(Baars),as the“hypothalamus-cortical re-entry circuitry”(Edelman) or the hypothalamus-centred brain’s system dynamics”(Hardcastle).

In terms of cellular dendrite density,the gradient of consciousness has been conceptualised as the size of neural assemblies spreading from“epicentre”throughout brain regions (Greenfield).Consciousness has also been conceptualised in terms of neuron/synaptic quantum-mechanic dynamics (Bohm&Pribram;Eccles&Beck;Penrose&Hameroff).

In network Interconnectivity terms,research has focused on the connectivity between the prefrontal cortices (PFC) and subcortical regions.In general,a“Normal Reduction in PFC-Subcortical connectivity”is associated with focused-attentive mental states (e.g.,exteroceptive attention,external tasks/activities,executive cognitive functions).Conversely,an“Increased PFC-Subcortical Interconnectivity”is associated with non-focused resting mental states (e.g.,interoceptive attention,relaxed mind-wandering,sleeping,deep sleep).The following two studies illustrate this key structure/function interconnectivity pattern in normal states of consciousness (normal deep-sleep state and normal waking state respectively)

●Normal Deep-Sleep State:Structure/function connectivity in Normal deep sleep:“PFC-Dissociation”and natural Reduction in Interconnectivity

Horovitz,S.,et.Al.(2009),“Decoupling of the brain’default mode network during deep sleep”,PNAS,Vol.106.

Using fMRI and human subjects,the study shows that“natural deep-sleep consciousness”is associated with the frontal cortex’s functional dissociation from the“remaining posterior areas of the default mode networks”(e.g.,posterior and anterior cingulated cortices,inferior Parietal Cortex,angular gyri).Further,the activity levels within each individual network component are preserved during deep sleep.The authors also pointed out that conscious awareness is the product of the coherent activation of all parts within the DMN.

http://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/11376.full

●Normal Waking Mental States:Differential Interconnectivity for“exteroceptive attention”,“interoceptive attention and free mind-wandering”

Barttfeld,P.,et.al.(2013),“Distinct patterns of functional brain connectivity correlate with objective performance and subjective beliefs”,PNAS,110.

This study measured functional network connectivity in three different attention states:external task-focused“exteroceptive attention”,internal respiration- focused“interoceptive attention”,and typical resting state (free mind-wandering mode).Low volume masking tones were present in all three experimental conditions.Results showed that the three waking conscious states are associated with differential network interconnectivity patterns.The study also demonstrated that the two“interoceptive”conscious states (the body-respiration-focused and the free mind-wandering) are associated with partially overlapping brain functional circuitries.

http://www.pnas.org/content/110/28/11577.full.pdf+html

Self’s Will/Belief/Intention/Attention is“Pre-Awareness”

●This fMRI study from the Max Planck Institute shows that decision to act is made at the subconscious level before individual’s conscious awareness:

Soon,C.S.,et.al.(2008),“Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain”,Nature neuroscience.

http://www.mpg.de/567905/pressRelease20080414

●Libet,B.EEG study on the pre-awareness of individual’s wilful response:Professor Susan Greenfield as“experimental subject”(2009):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ4nwTTmcgs

“Act of Measurement Per-Se”Changes Subject/Respondent’s Behaviour in scientific study/experiment

Nunn,C.M.H.,et.al.(1994).“Collapse of a quantum field may affect brain function”.J.Consciousness Studies,Vol.1

Roger Penrose’s hypothesis of“the Orch-OR”quantum dynamics in the human brain underlie consciousness”was tested in this study with a simple task-evoked EEG technique.Two predominantly left hemisphere tasks (number discrimination and right-hand response) were paired with a predominantly right hemisphere task (listening to background music).Subjects’EEG was taken from either the left or the right hemispheres,as determined only by the experimenter and unknown to the subjects.Results were consistent with the hypothesis in showing that the very act of measurement (i.e.,the EEG taken either from LH or RH) significantly interfered and negatively affected the corresponding hemisphere’s task performance.

Unawared/subliminal perceptual dynamics have consequences for behaviour/function

This is a well-established perceptual phenomenon,just one recent example on consequences for decision-making:

Laura Cacciamani,Andrew J.Mojica,Joseph L.Sanguinetti,Mary A.Peterson.Semantic access occurs outside of awareness for the ground side of a figure.Attention,Perception,&Psychophysics,2014

Individual’s“Affective State”(Self/Personality Disposition”

Determines Neural Assembly/Network Activation Pattern:

Research on“Personality Disposition”:

Personality disposition modulates the“Self Infiltration”dynamics of the Right and Left Hemisphers

The study explored the hemispheric activation dynamics that underlie the self’s interactions with its environment.Specifically,the interaction between the values held by the core self and that of the external experience.Previous research suggested that when external experience is congruent with the core values of the self,self regulation results.However when experience is incongruent with the core values of the self,self infiltration occurs.

Results of this study showed that self infiltration dynamics are associated with left hemisphere activation;but right hemisphere activation prevents the self infiltration process.The authors concluded that“the personality disposition of action orientation after failure is conceived of as the ability to retain access to right-hemisphere processes even under stress”.

Baumann,N.Et.al.(2005),“Left hemisphere activation and self-infiltration:Testing a neuropsychological model of Internalization”,Motivation and Emotion,29.

https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb1/prof/PSY/PGA/bilder/BaumannKuhlKazen_ME_2005_Self-InfiltrationHemi.pdf

Research on“Implicit Personality Theories”:

“Implicit personality theories”are typically the functional specialty of the Right Hemisphere,most studies however do not specifically account for this dimension in their experimental designs.Research on“differential brain structure/function activations with human,non-human and non-living“personalities”

●Human Contents of Implicit personality theories in social cognition and mPFC activation

In adult social perception of another person’s“personality”,the medial prefrontal cortices (mPFC) have been shown to regulate the construction of an“implicit theory”about the person (e.g.,general personality,specific traits,etc),which is then used for later judgements about,and action towards,that person.This mPFC activation is also evident in the social cognitive processing in early childhood:

Grossmann,T.(2013),“The role of medial prefrontal cortex in early social cognition”Frontiers in Human Neuroscience,vol 7 (1).

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/90641648/role-medial-prefrontal-cortex-early-social-cognition

●Anthropomorphic attribution Contents (non-human,non-living) associated with differential brain activations:

Previous research of anthropomorphic attributions to non-human animals have shown that these thinking patterns are associated with higher brain activations in the TP junction or medial PFC regions.However,Kuhn et al.found anthropomorphic attribution concerning non-living contents (cars) is associated with higher FFA activation and not with the TPj or mPFC areas:

Kuhn,S.,et.al.(Dec 2014),“Is this car looking at you? How Anthropomorphism predicts fusiform face area activation when seeing cars”

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0113885

“Dynamics of Affective State”(e.g.,expectation,motivation,emotion)

&“the Modulating role of Amygdale/Limbic lobe”

●“Expectation”&the modulating role of amygdala’s neural aggregates

Belova,M.A.,et.al.,(2007),Expectation modulates neural responses to pleasant and aversive stimuli in primate amygdale”,
Neuron,Sept.

The amygdale has been shown to be the central neural assemblies for both positive/joy and negative/fear processing.Both positive-emotion-eliciting and negative-emotion-eliciting stimuli lead to arousal and attention,and the stimuli’s salience or intensity increases when they occur unexpectedly.

This study aims to explore the neural circuits responsible for“computing”the stimulus value and stimulus intensity.Results showed that neurons in amygdala responded differently to expected and unexpected reinforcements in primate learning behaviour.Some amygdale neuron aggregates may respond to either unexpected pleasant or unexpected aversive stimuli,but not both.In parallel fashion,other amygdale neuron aggregates respond to expected rewards and punishments.

These different neuron aggregates in amygdale may mediate different function/behaviour processes.The paper thus shows that amygdala’s functions are modulated by differential expectations.

http://salzmanlab.neuroscience.columbia.edu/belovaetal2007.pdf

●Motivation&the modulating role of“amygdala-striatal complex”

Corbit,L.H.,et.al.(2013),“The role of the amygdale-striatal pathway in the acquisition and performance of goal-directed instrumental actions”.Journal of Neuroscience,Nov.

The study identifies the crucial role of the basolateral complex

of the amygdala (BLA) in motivated/intentional or goal-directed behaviours.

The BLA has been shown to be responsible for assigning motivational significance to stimuli (e.g.,subjective value,objective intensity) and functional/behavioural responses.

The Striatum and BLA have intricate interconnectivity that correlates with the density of the BLA projections into sub-striatal regions.These projections are less dense into“the most anterior and lateral region”,as compared to“the medial and posterior region”,of the dorsal (medial) striatum.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/33/45/17682.full.pdf

●“Music-induced Emotion”and the modulating role of“amygdala-hippocampus complex”

Koelsch,S.,&Skouras,S.(Nov 2013),“Functional centrality of amygdala,striatum and hypothalamus in a“small-world”network underlying joy:An fMRI study with music”,Human Brain Mapping,35

This study refines recent research into the“small-world network”interconnectivity underlying Emotions (both positive&negative).It used T-fMRI (music-evoked joy/fear),ECM (eigenvector centrality mapping and functional connectivity analysis to identify network connectivity underlying music-induced emotions of joy and fear.The interconnected networks (involving amygdale,striatum,hypothalamus,thalamus and nucleus accumbens) modulated positive emotions associated with joyful music.Specifically,the amygdale nuclei“play a central role for the modulation of emotion-specific activity within this network.”

The results underscore the importance of the striatum in induced-joy emotions.Striatum has complex interconnectivity with all brain regions including hippocampus.The study also underscores the intricate interconnectivities among hippocampus,hypothalamus as well as thalamus.With respect to the brain’s inseparable structure/function and physiology/biochemistry dynamics,the authors stated that the observed structure/function interconnectivity“suggests that hypothalamic endocrine activity is modulated by hippocampal and thalamic activity during sustained periods of music-evoked emotion.”

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.22416/abstract

“Will/Intent”determines Brain’s structure/function Activation Pattern

“Intent to be judgemental”v.“Intent to be relaxed/non-judgemental):Differential Activation of the Left v.Right Cerebral Hemispheres

The two brain hemispheres have symmetrical structure/anatomy but differential function/biochemistry:LH consciousness (judgemental,discriminating) v.RH consciousness (joy,here-and-now)

The milestone case of Professor Jill Bolte-Taylor:Self-willed/intentional“splitting of LH from RH functioning”(the corpus collosum still intact)

Professor Taylor’s talk on“My Stroke of Insight”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyyjU8fzEYU

Different“Contents of Intent”are associated with Differential brain structure/function Mechanisms

Decety,J.,et.al.(1997),“Brain activity during observation of actions:Influence of action content and subject’s strategy”

This PET scan study shows that different neural circuitry is associated with different intents:experimenter’s instruction as Induced intent.While observing others’actions,subjects with“intent to just recognise the observed action”showed brain activities in the RH’s Occipitoparietal circuits;subjects with“intent to imitate the observed action”exhibit brain activities in the LH’s frontal and temporal neural pathways:

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/120/10/1763

Same Content of“Intent and Action”:Near-identical Brain structure/function/physiology Activation Pattern

Existing research shows that near-identical brain activations are associated with“thinking/intending/imagining”and“actual acting”.An example of this (“thinking of playing piano”and“actual leaning of playing piano”associated with similar brain activation pattern) is explained by Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield in the following lecture on brain processing in neuroscience research (for general audience):

Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield’s 2013 talk on Leadership at the Travel Convention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq1CqqiHfkA

The Self’s“Wilfulness/Intent”in“Minimally Conscious Brains”

The brains of some minimally-conscious or coma persons have wakefulness/awareness cycles.During such cycles,the neuroimaging pattern of their“mental image/thought content”is identical to the normal brain pattern associated with similar“mental image/thought content”(e.g.,“father’s name”,“walking around house”).However these minimally-conscious persons’“wilfulness”is essential in establishing“communication”and in obtaining their neuroimaging responses.The“personal meaningfulness”of the stimuli appears to be pivotal to their wilfufness.

Professor Adrian Owen’s Annual Quinn Memorial Lecture on vegetative/minimally-conscious brain states with wakefulness/awareness cycles:The pivotal role of“wilfulness/meaningfulness”in successful neuroimaging communications:

http://www.owenlab.uwo.ca/research/lectures.html

The Naturally-Occurring Normal Patterns of“Structure/Function/Biochemistry Interconnectivities”Can be Externally-Induced

Dexmedetomidine-Induced“Unconsciousness/Non-Awareness”DMN Interconnectivity Pattern (similar to Normal Pattern of Deep-Sleep)

The Nobel laureate Francis Crick proposed (1994) that conscious awareness is the result of synchronised firing of the“thalamus-cortex reverberating circuitries”.This 2014 article provides evidence suggesting that the de-activation of the thalamus-cortex looping is the“sufficient”condition for the loss of conscious awareness associated with anaesthesia.The article speaks to the key role of DMN brain regions in conscious awareness.

Oluwaseun,A.,et.al.(2014),“Disruption of thalamic functional connectivity is a neural correlate of dexmedetomidine-induced unconsciousness”,eLife,Nov.

Using a combination of positron emission tomography (PET) and fMRI,the study examined the anesthesia-induced unconsciousness and its recovery.Unconsciousness was associated with decreased blood flow in the thalamus,the default mode network (DMN),and the bilateral frontoparietal networks (FPN).While the cortico-cortical functional connectivity within both the DMN and FPN was preserved during the loss of consciousness,the DMN thalamo-cortical functional connectivity was disrupted.The authors concluded that“loss of thalamo-cortical functional connectivity is sufficient to produce unconsciousness”.http://elifesciences.org/content/early/2014/11/27/eLife.04499#sthash.Jmsc5XXL.dpuf

Epilepsy-Induced DMN Interconnectivity Pattern (similar to Normal Pattern of Deep-Sleep):The General Network Inhibition Hypothesis

Danielson,N.B.,et.al.(2011),“The default mode network and altered consciousness in epilepsy”,Behavioural Neurology,24 (1).

This review study identifies decreased activity in the default mode network associated with different types of epileptic seizures.The authors argued that seizure-related loss of consciousness“is due to active inhibition of subcortical arousal systems that normally maintain default mode network activity in the awake state”.

More importantly,the authors proposed a“general network inhibition hypothesis:active inhibition of arousal systems by seizures in certain cortical regions leads to cortical deactivation in other cortical areas”.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21447899

Drug-induced Changes in DMN Interconnectivity:“right dosage”psychedelic drugs,by imitating“targeted”neurotransmitters’modulating/signaling effects,can temporarily induce Similar“DMN Interconnectivity Patterns associated with Naturally-Occurring Emotions of high/joy)

Roseman,L.et.al.(2014),“The effects of psilocybin and MDMA on between-network resting state functional connectivity in healthy volunteers”,Frontiers Human Neuroscience,May.

This study reported similar findings regarding the typical psychedelic drug effects:reduced“normal separation”between PFC and rest of DMN regions;between-network functional connectivity also increases with drug-use.As expected,there was decreased functional connectivity between visual and sensori-motor brain networks.There were minor differences between classic psychedelic drugs and MDMA drugs.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00204/full

“Psychedelic Drug”- induced Sensorial Feels of high/fix:Identical Structure/Function/Biochemistry Activation Pattern as in Naturally-Occurring sensorial feels of high/fix

Professor Presinger pointed out that psychedelic substances imitate and modulate the brain bio-chemical activities and that the same temporary feels of high/fix can be induced by either small-dose serotonin-based psychedelic drugs or low-band electromagnetic wave brain stimulation.

Please watch his lecture,“Nature of Psychotropic Drugs and Nature of Reality”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUsEVZHBfL0

“Electromagnetic Wave Stimulation”-induced Sensorial Feels of high/fix:Identical Activation Pattern as in Naturally-Occurring sensorial feels of ecstasy/joy

(Co-occurring of Brain’s micro-level“biochemical neuronal activation”and macro-level“electromagnetic field dynamics”:Synergistic System dynamics of structure/function and biochemical/bioelectrical interconnectivities and entanglements)

Professor Michael Presinger’s 1974 book (ELF and VLF Electromagnetic Field Effects”proposed possible“functional connectivities”between brain’s neuronal activation and nature’s biosphere propagation dynamics.This connectivity was assumed to be via the coherent synchronisation within low spectrum of electromagnetic wavelength (1-7 Hz).

The author showed that inter-hemispheric“interferences”of electromagnetic-field wavefunction resulted in feels of high/fix.Such interferences can also be induced from“non-drug,non-intrusive”low-wave hemispheric stimulation tools (God Helmet,Octopus) (Many other sound hemi-synch tools are based on similar principles).

Professor Presinger’s talk on“Consciousness and the Interconnectivity of the geomagnetic field and the brain’s electromagnetic field”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZXN5rWtW-c

Conceptual Suggestions for More Integrated Neuroscience Research on Consciousness

Differential Hemispheric Dynamics underlying Cognitive-Emotional processing:Accounting for hemispheric functional differentials in Neuroscience research

Grimshaw,G.&Carmel,D.(2014),“An asymmetric inhibition model of hemispheric differences in emotional processing”,
Frontiers in Pychology

The authors identify the limitations of current hemispheric-differential models:the emotion-based versus the action/motivation-based differential functions of the left/right frontal cortex.As a result,the authors argue for an integrative approach by focusing on hemispheric executive functional asymmetry and propose the asymmetric inhibition model.The model stipulates that“right-lateralized executive control”inhibits the processing of positive or approach-related emotional distractors that prevent the maintaining hence achieving current goals;Conversely left-lateralized control inhibits negative or withdrawal-related emotional distractors.Applying this model to neuroscience research would provide a fuller account of hemispheric functional asymmetries that underlie cognition-emotion interactions.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00489/full

Moral Reasoning:Differential hemisphere-strategic mode?

Marinsek,N.,et.al.(2014),“Divergent hemispheric reasoning strategies:Reducing uncertainty versus Resolving inconsistency”,
Frontiers in Human Neuroscience,Oct.

Specifically restricted to the“domain of inferential reasoning”,the paper suggested a hemispheric strategic difference regarding moral reasoning and moral deliberations:the left hemisphere specialises in creating causal hypotheses for specific moral dilemma whilst the right hemisphere,in the evaluation of the generated hypotheses against selected evidence.Overall,the left hemisphere aims to reduce uncertainty and the right hemisphere aims to resolve inconsistency in processing moral reasoning.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4204522/

Basal Ganglia’s actor-critic hypotheses:structure/function/biochemistry interconnecting dynamics

Joel,D.,et.al.(2001/2002),“Actor-critic models of the basal ganglia:New anatomical and computational perspectives”,Neural Networks,15.

This early paper critiqued and refined the then“actor-critic hypotheses of basal ganglia”that aim to account for the complex interconnected dynamics underlying this brain region’s structure/anatomy (basal ganglia circuitry interconnectivity with striatum,thalamus-cortical,frontal cortical regions),function/behavior (reinforcement-driven learning,inhibitory-excitatory behavior,associated with neural-net dynamics),and neurophysiology/biochemistry (dual signaling role of dopamine-related neurotransmitter dynamics).

The authors also identified the many constraints of their basal ganglia model:“the exclusion of several known neuro-anatomical facts governing the‘compartmental organization of the dorsal striatum’and the‘topographical organization’of the level/stream features of the ganglia-associated neural projections”.

https://www.princeton.edu/~yael/Publications/NN2002.pdf

William James’dynamic notions of“habit”,“habitual centre of psychic energy”in mental life:

Professor Bernard Baars pointed out the significance of William James’original idea of“habit”(in Baars’commentary on the Bernacer&Murillo paper that focused on Aristotle’s notion of habit).Professor Baars writes,

“I should defend William James and the Gestalt psychologists,who discussed these issues under the concept of (habitual) preparatory set.”

Bernacer,J.&Murillo,J.I.(2014),“The Aristotalian conception of habit and his contribution to human neuroscience”,Frontiers in human Neuroscience,8.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4217385/

The brain’s intrinsic“active inhibition mechanisms”corresponding to visual perception networks:The filtering-off of“un-chosen perceptual alternatives”

Professor Bernard Baars’Nov 2014“Perspective article”on“The Proactive Brain and the Fate of Dead Hypotheses:commentary on Tal&Bar”:

Professor Baars writes,“Reviewing evidence from different research areas of neuroscience,it seems that activation of numerous options,followed by coincided facilitation of one and inhibition of the rest,is characteristic of normal brain functioning.We hope future research will build on this proposal and elaborate it,as we believe further scientific study of this phenomenon will improve our understanding of efficient strategies for visual and non-visual information processing,and of human perception in general.”

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fncom.2014.00138/full

The Dreaming Self/Consciousness as Continuing Streams of Waking Self/Consciousness:Dynamics of“Habitual centre of psychic energy”(“Habitual affective state”)

Recent research into dream state consciousness has been dominated by the psychopathology/medication/electroshock-based approach framed in neuroscientific terms (e.g.,Hobson,Voss,etc).However,many researchers have pointed out the limitations of such an approach to“dreams and dream state consciousness”.Three critiques are given below:

●Domhoff,G.W.(2005),“Refocusing the neurocognitive approach to dreams:A critique of the Hobson versus Solms debate”.Dreaming,15

The author summarises,“Hobson and Solms already had been refuted on several of their theoretical points of concern by the accumulation of systematic evidence on the actual nature of dreaming and dream content.None of their neurophysiological speculations,which also turn out to be dubious on neurophysiological grounds alone,has much credibility,because the main findings on dream content are at odds with them.”

http://www2.ucsc.edu/dreams/Library/domhoff_2005b.html

●Professor Don Kuiken’s 2010 paper also identifies the flaws and limitations of Hobson’s psychopathology-based AIM model of lucid dreaming consciousness.

Kuiken,D.(2010),“Primary and Secondary Consciousness during Dreaming:Commentary on‘The neurobiology of consciousness:Lucid dreaming wakes up’by J.A.Hobson”.International Journal of Dream Research,Vol.3.

This is a much needed“perspective-widening”critique of the prevailing neuro-psychiatric approach to normal dreaming consciousness.Kuiken argues that Hobson’s psychopathology-based AIT model focuses narrowly on the role of brain’s executive functions during lucid dreaming.However,“an unequivocal commitment to such executive functions would put in jeopardy a conception of dreaming that respects its distinctive form of cognitive functionality,i.e.,a functionality that may more nearly be a model of musical improvisation or of involuntary poetry than of psychopathology.”

To rectify such a narrow and misleading focus on rational agency and conscious control in lucid dreaming,the author further points out that“it may be important to articulate further the openness and responsiveness to‘what comes’that characterizes non-lucid dreaming”

Please read Professor Kuiken’s paper:

https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/IJoDR/article/viewFile/594/pdf_17

●40-Hz electroshock-induced“awareness”of lucid dreaming:Inefficacy of 40 Hz electric shock intervention in“control of dream content”:

Francis Crick first identified that the 40-Hz neuralnet synchronised firing is responsible for“conscious awareness”.By delivering 40-hz electroshocks to the dreaming brain,its PFC is essentially“made connected”to lower brain areas for necessary conscious awareness (of dreaming).However,these gamma-band electroshocks are ineffectual in exerting control over dream contents.

Electroshock study by the Hobson,Voss group:

Voss,U.et.al.(2014)“Induction of self awareness in dreams through frontal low current stimulation of gamma activity”,Nature neuroscience

Also,Voss,U.&Hobson,A.(2015),“What is the State-of-the-Art on Lucid Dreaming:Recent Advances and Questions for Future Research”In T.Metzinger&J.M.Windt (Eds).Open Mind,38.

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v17/n6/full/nn.3719.html

Please read this May 2014 critique on Voss et al.(2014):

http://neurocritic.blogspot.com/2014/05/does-gamma-tacs-really-induce-lucid.html

Neurocognitive,Neurophysiology and Consciousness Research

(“Mind is the Privatisation of the Brain”&“Emotions are the Abrogation of the Self”:Gradience of Consciousness and Size of Neural Assemblies)

Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield’s consciousness model focuses on the holistic brain’s structure/function/biochemistry interconnectivities.Her ideas on the role of emotion,self,mind and brain reflect closely James’pure experience theory and affective consciousness.Professor Greenfield has proposed key testable hypotheses concerning consciousness:

●This is her August 2010 lecture,“How does brain generate Consciousness”,

At the John Curtin School of Medical Research,Australian National University,Australia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WN5Fs6_O2mY

●Professor Greenfield on“The Neuroscience of Consciousness”,This is her Nov 2012 lecture at the Melbourne Neuroscience Institute,Melbourne University,Australia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_ZTNmkIiBc

●Also her Dec 2014 lecture,“Mind Change”at University of South Australia,Adelaide,Australia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MlP65jbAWc

Structure/Anatomy,Function/Behaviour,physiology/biochemistry Correlatives:A Quick Summary of Brain’s Network System Dynamics concerning Consciousness

●Typically,external-task focused attention is associated with“normal separation”between mPFC and rest of brain regions (e.g.,rest of DMN);whereas internal-focused introspective attention is associated with reduced separation (greater interconnectivity).

The mPFC is central to brain’s top executive and integrative functions including deep-cognitive processing,conceptual abstraction,(social) action-consequence thinking and forward planning.The mPFC is also core to the neocortex,which is the most highly developed brain structure in humans.The mPFC regions have wide-ranging structural/functional interconnectivities with other neocortical and subcortical brain regions.

Most importantly,the mPFC regions are also core to moral reasoning,moral judgement,and moral behaviour:the most unique human trait/behaviour.

●The default mode network (DMN) and the limbic lobe network systems have been the most researched brain regions in consciousness studies.

The limbic lobe cortex refers to the cortical regions of the limbic system:part of neocortex (cortical insular,subcallosal/cingulated/parahippocampal gyri) as well as the hippocampus.The limbic lobe also forms the areas enveloping the corpus collosum (nerve fibres connecting left and right cerebral hemispheres) The subcortical limbic networks include the hypothalamus,amygdala,areas of the thalamic and the reticular formation nuclei.

The pattern of functional interconnectivities among sub-regions of these networks change with the self’s“willing/believing/intending/attending”processing dynamics.These processing dynamics of the self pertain to the entire spectrums of consciousness states.It is the self’s overall habitual affective pattern,modulated by temporal context-dependent affectional facts,that subserves the entire spectrums of cognitive/emotional mental activities.

●The self’s will/intent-regulated behaviours (including goal seeking/pursuing) are the core functions of the mid-brain stratum regions,in particular,the ventral stratum region of the nucleus accumbens.

The striatum has most wide-ranging interconnectivities with basal ganglia-brainstem regions as well as the cortex-thalamus looping systems.Such interconnectivities also underlie all sensory-motor reflexive/non-reflexive behaviours as well as waking-sleeping brain states.

The ventral striatum or the nucleus accumbens has most synaptic receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine (an excitatory signalling neurotransmitter for expectation/reward/pleasure or movement) as well as the neurotransmitters serotonin and Ach (inhibitory signalling feels of satiation).Studies have shown that addiction spectrum behaviours are typically associated with dopamine release increasing and serotonin/Ach release decreasing.(More on addiction spectrum in Unit 5)

●The intricate neuronal interconnectivities among all brain regions underlie the inseparability and interconnectedness of cognition and emotion.

Research has shown a persistent co-occurrence of cognitive deficits with emotional disorders in neurodegenerative diseases,in“mental illness”spectrums and in“clinical behaviour”symptoms.However,the exact pattern of the co-occurring emotional/cognitive malfunctions is individual-specific.Unit 5 also covers the“co-morbidities”of clinically-defined symptoms and the associated co-occurrences of cognitive/emotional disturbances.

********************************************************************************************************

Unit 5:The Self’s“Direct Experience”as

“Individual Consciousness”

Naturally-Occurring versus Externally-Induced Direct Experience of Ecstasy/High:Similar body/brain dynamics yet Divergent mental/behavioural Consequences

James’VRE provides many examples of the intrinsic or naturally-occurring personal experiences of ecstasy/high.These cases are mostly reported in his discussions of saintliness,mysticism,conversion,healthy-mindedness and other similar topics.James also gives details of the experiencer’s own description of such natural experience with intense sensorial feels of ecstasy/high.The key features that are common to the naturally-occurring direct experience include“sudden unexpected onset and short lasting duration”,“the absence of thinking or conscious awareness for that duration”,“feels of expansion of the self”,“a sense of empathy with all existence”,and most importantly,"the subsequent long lasting meaningful and transformative consequences”.

Such sensorial feels of ecstasy/high can also be externally induced by various stimuli including drug,sex or alcohol.However,the naturally-occurring experiences of ecstasy/high without exception would result in persistent beneficial consequences,most notably in the experiencer’s character and consciousness transformation.On the contrary,the externally-induced types often lead to stimulus dependence,substance addiction and related clinical behaviour symptoms.

Addiction Spectrum and“Structure/Behaviour/Biochemistry”Correlatives

The addiction spectrum includes a variety of obsessive/compulsive behaviours.These behavioural symptoms are typically associated with over-activities in the brain’s reward-activating system for sensorial stimuli (digital images.palatable foods,sex-arousal stimuli,stimulants,drugs,medications,etc).

Two of the brain’s mechanistic processing dynamics that are directly involved in addiction deserve noting.One concerns the memory-emotion functional processing circuitries.Habitual or repetitive stimulant-use enhances the hippocampus-amygdala circuitry that leads to memory recall (hippocampus core function) of“feels of pain-free/pleasure/reward/joy/high/fix”(amygdala core function).Such memory recall triggers desire/need to seek repetitively the same stimulant (e.g.,psychedelic drug,sexual act,pain-relieving medicine,palltable food,etc).

The other brain mechanism associated with addition concerns the biochemical dynamics of sensorial adaptation.The quantity/dosage of the addiction-inducing substance typically determines the modulating/signalling functions of that substance’s“target neurotransmitters”.The sensorial adaptation dynamics associated with repetitive substance use lead to a reduction in sensorial feels;as a result,a greater substance quantity/dosage is needed to reach the same sensorial level gratification.

Also,addiction spectrum behaviours are typically associated with the“over-activation of subcortical sensorial (excitatory/inhibitory) circuitries”that co-occurs with the“under-activation of the prefrontal cortex”.The PFC regions are core to executive and higher-level cognitive processes including abstract thinking,analytic reasoning,deep and meaningful reflecting,action-consequence-foreseeing or action planning.

Overall,the individual’s genetic makeup interacts with his/her cumulative direct experiences,from prenatal environment throughout lifespan,in determining the individual’s unique addictive behaviour symptoms (e.g.,the exact pattern of co-occurrence of cognitive/emotional disorders) as well as subsequent addiction recovery dynamics.

Addiction and Memory

Use of drug/substance creates specific neural pathways that encode/store memory of“substance-induced feels”(feels of pain relief,high/fix,etc).Repeated exposure consolidates same neural pathways and concomitantly reduces drug/substance efficacy.

Nestler,E.J.,(2013),“Cellular Basis of Memory for addiction”,Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience,15.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3898681/

●Addiction and Attention

Hester,R.&Luijten,M.(2013),“Neural correlates of attentional bias in addiction”:

http://www.academia.edu/3723211/Neural correlates of attentional bias in addiction

●“Dopamine”Drugs and“Clinical Spectrum of Impulse Control Disorders”:

Please read this Dec 2014 article on“Pathological Gambling,Hypersexuality,and Compulsive Shopping Associated with Dopamine Receptor Agonist Drugs”:

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1916909

●“Compulsive Sexual behaviour”(“Sex Addiction”?) Induced Brain Changes

Controversy over the concept/term of“sexual addiction”:Please read the following three related articles on this controversy in psychiatry:

Steele.V.R.,et.al.(2013),“Sexual desire,not hypersexuality,is related to neurophysiological responses elicited by sexual images”,Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology (July)

http://www.socioaffectiveneuroscipsychol.net/index.php/snp/article/view/20770/28995

Hilton,D.(2014),“’High desire’,or‘merely’and addiction? A response to Steele et.al.”,Socioaffective Neuroscience and Psychology (Feb)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975913/

Voon,V.et al.(2014),“Neural Correlates of Sexual Cue Reactivity in Individuals with and without Compulsive Sexual Behaviours”.PLoS ONE,9.

This article shows that the processing of sexual cues involves activation in brain regions associated with physiological and emotional arousal,visual-spatial attention,and motivation.Compared to female subjects,males typically show greater brain activation in subcortical and primary sensorial regions (amygdala,hypothalamus).The study also shows a desire/wanting and liking dissociation,commonly observed in both compulsive sexual behaviour and drug-induced addictive symptoms.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0102419

●Digital technology Induced Brain changes

Professor Greenfield:Jan 2014 Ted-Oxford lecture:“Technology and the Human Mind”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc7ZYj4CCdM

Professor Baroness Susan Greenfield (Aug 2014),“Mind Change:How digital technologies are leaving their mark on our brain”:A most informative book on this timely and important subject.

Please watch this video of Professor Greenfield’s Lecture delivered at the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts,Manufactures and Commerce:The UK RSA,Oct 2014:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ljK0TvRujk

●Smoking or drug related addiction and consequences:

Nov 2014 information from the (USA) Institute of Behaviour and Health:

http://www.ibhinc.org/newsandpubs.html

●Synthetic drug use on the brain and social cultural consequences:Some well-known common effects of synthetic drugs:

http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/the-truth-about-drugs.html

Co-Morbidities of“Mental Disorders”and Co-Occurrences of Cognitive -Emotional Symptoms:

Spectrums of Schizophrenia,Synaesthesia or Autism

Existing research suggests that similar brain network dynamics may be associated with diversely labelled clinical disorders or behavioural symptoms.

This early (1999) article reviewed clinical cases from both perspectives of the brain’s electromagnetic and network dynamics.The review concerned a wide-ranging spectrum of“personality disorders”(e.g.,depressive,narcissistic,controlling,
violent) that are often observed with various“mental illnesses”(e.g.,schizophrenia).The paper pointed out that a similar pattern of brain mechanisms (expressed as either EEG or neural circuitry connectivity pattern),underlies a variety of clinical disorders.From the neural circuitry perspective,the disorders are typically associated with a disconnection of inhibitory neural pathways and an over-activated excitatory circuitry.Such abnormal network- connectivity thus leads to excessive high level of emotional instability.

http://www.eeginfo.com/research/articles/general_17.htm

“Schizophrenia Spectrum disorders”

●Hypo-(Under-)activity in prefrontal cortex (PFC) associated with observed Cognitive Impairments in schizophrenia;Hyper-activity in subcortical substantial nigra areas,which typically is associated with emotional disorders (through excessive dopamine release).

Yoon,J.H.,et.Al.(2013),“Impaired prefrontostriatonigra functional connectivity and substantia nigra hyperactivity in schizophrenia”:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3620727/

●Schizophrenia spectrum disorders are associated with an“experience-based disorder of the self”.This study explored“self-disorders”(SD) with the EASE scale (“examination of anomalous self-experiences”) and concluded that SD constitutes an“experiential vulnerability phenotype of the schizophrenia spectrum disorders”.

Nordgaard,J.,&Parnas,J.(2014)“Self-disorders and the schizophrenia spectrum:A study of 100 first hospital admissions”,
Schizophrenia Bulletin:

http://www.academia.edu/6901157/self-disorders

Synaesthesia Spectrum Disorders:Co-Morbidities and Co-Occurrences with Emotional Disorders/Symptoms

(Synaesthesia’s major cause:Neuronal Over-connectivity of Multiple Sensorial/Perceptual-level Pathways)

Studies for decades have pointed to the role of the subcortical limbic system in brain’s neural interconnectivity.The neurological basis for synaesthesia concerns the over-connectivity (i.e.,“insufficient pruning”) of the neural circuits for different sensory modalities.A related misfunctioning in neural network connectivity concerns the“uninhibited”re-entrant neural circuitries between higher cortical regions and subcortical sensorial networks.This failure of cortical area (parietal lobe) in inhibiting irrelevant sensorial activation is likely due to the“over-activities of excitatory neurons”in the synaesthesia brain.

Synaesthesia has often been diagnosed as autism or schizophrenia.Whilst there are vast individual differences in the exact“co-morbidity and co-occurrence”patterns,synaesthesia is variously associated with high levels of emotional instability,violent outbursts,or obsessive controlling behavior patterns:

●This 2013 paper from the University of Cambridge research team showing a“significant”link between Autism and Synaesthesia:via Neuronal Over-Connectivity

Baron-Cohen S.,et.al.,(2013)“Is synaesthesia more common in autism?”Mol Autism 4(1):40

http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/publications/pubInfo.php?foreignId=pubmed%3A24252644

●Also,statistical data showing the co-morbidity rates of Synaesthesia and Autism:

http://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/blog/2013/sense-jumbling-synesthesia-often-accompanies-autism

●Anger with Synaesthesia:colour-emotion Synaesthesia

Also on this site:DSMiii-Vi development with regard to Autism

http://crackingtheenigma.blogspot.com/2011/11/case-of-colour-emotion-synaesthesia.html

●Major Affective Disorders as Co-morbidities of Synaesthesia:

McKane,J.P.&Hughes,A.M.(1988),“Synaesthesia and Major Affective Disorder”,Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica,77.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3389190

●Synaesthesia’s physiological Co-Morbidity:Irritable bowel syndrome (see also later reference on“synaesthesia and immune deficiency hypothesis”)

Carruthers,H.R.,et.al.(2012),“Synaesthesia,pseudo-synaesthesia and irritable bowel syndrome”,Digestive Disease and Sciences,57.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22290344

Spectrum of“INTPs”(introvert-intuitive-thinking- personality types):

Individual differences in exact pattern of co-occurrence of cognitive and emotional mis-functioning

High Functioning Genius-Savant Behaviour Spectrum:Co-Occurrences with Emotional Disorders/Symptoms

Many books have been written about the idiosychratic emotional states among some“high functioning”people.It has long been argued that a great number of famous historical people were possibly“misdiagnosed”as having epileptic seizures.In a scholarly“retro-analysis”of past historical high functioning personalities,it is suggested that these past figures may have had psychogenic,alcohol-withdrowing,or fear-anxiety-panic,attacks.Many also had life-threatening illness in early developmental or childhood years

Professor Hughes,J.R.(2005),“Did all those famous people really have epilepsy?”,Epilepsy and Behaviour,6.

http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/swneurosurg/Did_all_those_famous_people_really_have_epilepsy.pdf

●A recent USA empirical study of emotional instability among“famous/ creative”subjects (writers,philosophers and scientists):

Professor Nancy Andreasen’s study shows that these famous writers and scientists sampled in the study have (1) a greater activation of the Association Cortices (as expected for higher functioning individuals) ,and (2) a higher rate of showing clinical symptoms including mood disorder,alcoholism,depression,schizophrenia.

Please watch this video of Professor Andreasen’s talk at the Aspen Institute on“The Secrets of the Creative Brain”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unAbERa0otY

●Autism Spectrum high functioning Syndrome (Asperger’s):Co-Occurrences with Emotional Disorders

Intense focus of attention on single subject of high personal interest;Predominately“visualisers”;often co-occurring with other cognitive ability deficit;underdeveloped social/interpersonal skills,unable to express personal feelings leading often to emotional blankness,violent tantrum or extreme mood instability (again,vast individual differences in exact co-occurrence pattern)

●Dr.Temple Grandin (Apr 2013),“The Autistic Brain:Thinking Across the Spectrum”(her own story)

Please watch her Jan 2014 talk concerning the vast individual differences in mind,thought and consciousness:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IA4tE3_2qmI

●“Savant Syndromes”:Induced by Medication or Brain Injury:

There are vast Individual differences in response to psychiatric drugs or brain injuries.In rare cases,some individuals develop exceptional abilities.

This 2013 popular report covers several known cases:

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/when-brain-damage-unlocks-genius-within

●Coma-induced Foreign Language Savant:Australian youth&Mandarin Chinese Language savant:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIUrtuFS9zk

●Math/linguistic savant Daniel Tammet’s 2011 TED talk,“Different ways of knowing”:from the experiencer’s own perspective

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_tammet_different_ways_of_knowing?language=en

Please read this critique of Savant Syndrome,from the perspective of human memory:

Joshua Foer (2012)“Moonwalking with Einstein:The art and Science of Remembering everything”:Foer explains in this 2012 video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF0OmIO18-8

●Brain injury induced Math Savant (Jason Padgett):“Affective”co-occurrences?

Please read Tim Worstall’s (April 2014) critique:“What worries me about the Jason Padgett Story”:

http://pando.com/2014/04/22/what-worries-me-about-the-jason-padgett-story/

Possible Brain Mechanisms Underlying“Co-Morbidity&Co-Occurrence”of wide-ranging“Clinical Behavioural Symptoms”

As concluded in Unit 4,the brain’s information processing mechanisms are extremely complicated in terms of neuronal-level entanglement and interconnectivity.In clinical context,existing research further shows that“abnormal or malfunctioning in neuronal interconnectivity”is the key faulty brain mechanism underlying most known co-morbidities of clinical symptoms and co-occurrences of cognitive-emotional disorders.

Malfunctioning in Network Interconnectivity Underlying Neurological&Mental Disorders

●Spatial Neglect:Hemispheric-Level Malfunctioning in DMN and other Brain Networks Interconnectivity

Baldassarre,A.,et.al.(2014),Large-scale changes in network interactions as a physiological signature of spatial neglect,Brain

The study compared the pattern of functional and behavioural correspondence between patients with right-hemisphere and left-hemisphere damages.The study focused on“spatial neglect”behavioural deficit typically associated with damage to right cerebral hemisphere (specialising in visual-spatial processing).

The study involves the activation analyses of 10 resting state networks (169 brain areas).

The result showed that spatial neglect behavioural deficits were associated with abnormal functional interconnectivity among large scale cortex brain regions:

First,there was a reduction in Inter-hemispheric functional connectivity corresponding to“dorsal attention and sensory-motor networks”.Second,in the Right Hemisphere,there is a reduction in the DMN’s normal functional separation between its FPC regions and the rest DMN regions;that is,a greater FPC-rest DMN intra-connectivity in Right Hemisphere.Third,there was an increased intra-hemispheric connectivity with the basal ganglia.

All three“spatial neglect”related abnormal network-connectivity patterns were more pronounced among patients with right-hemisphere damage,as compared to those with left-hemisphere damage.The authors concluded that their findings“identify large-scale changes in resting state network interactions that are a physiological signature of spatial neglect and may relate to its right hemisphere lateralization.”

http://brain.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/10/31/brain.awu297

●Schizophrenia:System-Level Malfunctioning in Network Under/Dis-Connectivity

Anticevic,A.,et.al.(2013),“Connectivity,pharmacology,and computation:Towards a mechanistic understanding of neural system dysfunction in schizophrenia”,Frontier in Psychiatry,4.

●Synaesthesia and Autism:Sensorial-Level Malfunctioning in Network Over-Connectivity

The brain-development mechanism“apoptosis”(i.e.,the natural pruning processes) occurs during early childhood development.The authors stated that“...we are programmed to lose many of our infant neural connections.In both autism and synaesthesia apoptosis may not occur at the same rate,so that these connections are retained beyond infancy.”

●Baron-Cohen S.,et.al.,(2013)“Is synaesthesia more common in autism?”Mol Autism 4(1):40

http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/publications/pubInfo.php?foreignId=pubmed%3A24252644

Possible Causes for“the Abnormal Neuronal Interconnectivity”(shown to be key brain mechanism underlying“Co-Morbidity&Co-Occurrence”of wide-ranging Clinical Behavioural Symptoms

Synaesthesia and“The Immune System Deficiency Hypothesis”

(a possible root cause for Abnormal Cortical Interconnectivity,and hence observed Co-Morbidity/Co-Occurrence of symptoms)

One example of this general immune deficiency hypothesis that has been studied with reference to synaesthesia (see other references on the wide-ranging co-morbidity and co-occurrence of physical,mental and emotional disorders in synaesthesia,though exact pattern may be individual-dependent):

●Carmichael,D.A.,&Simner,J.(2013),“The immune hypothesis of synesthesia”,Frontiers in Human Neuroscience,
Vol.7

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3769635/

●“Immune and Auto-immune Disorders”Co-Occurring with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (Glandular Fever as the viral trigger) or HIV illnesses

Lashley,F.R.(2003),“A review of sleep in selected immune and autoimmune disorders”,Holistic Nursing Practices,17(2).

This paper gave a comprehensive review of the“reciprocal role of the immune system and Sleep”.It reviews the possible causal relationship between sleep disorders and various autoimmune disorders,chronic fatigue syndrome,HIV,fibromyalgia,and other immune-related syndromes.

http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/files/sleep-in-selected-ai.pdf

●“Glandular Fever”as“most common viral trigger for chronic fatigue syndrome (infectious mononucleosis:glandular fever).

http://simmaronresearch.com/2014/03/1591/

Neuroinflammation,Immune Deficiency,Chronic Stress (depression,chronic negative affective state)

●Setiawan,E.,et.al.(2015),“Role of translocator protein density,a marker of neuroinflammation,in the brain during major depressive episodes”,JAMA Psychiatry,March.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25629589

●Negative affective states and brain’s physiology/biochemistry correlatives

The classical Yerkes-Dodson law shows the non-linear inverted U-curve relation between“motivation/arousal”and“performance”.At micro biochemical level,research has specified the neurotransmitters’signalling and modulating dynamics that underlie macro-level subjective negative emotions (e.g.,feels of pain,stress,depression,etc.).Chronic stress,chronic physical pain or deep-sleep deprivation may disrupt DMN and limbic lobe network dynamics,which are also associated with negative physiological/biochemical consequences.

Many popular writings describe well such negative dynamics:an essay by M.Randall (2010),“The physiology of stress:Cortisol and the hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis”,DUJS,Fall:

http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/fall-2010/the-physiology-of-stress-cortisol-and-the-hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal-axis

“Immune Deficiency”Implicated as underlying abnormal cortical interconnectivity (and hence observed co-morbidity/co-occurrence of symptoms most notably in synaesthesia)

It has long been known that,(1) human body’s general immune system is its self-correcting mechanism in the body’s capacity in healing itself,(2) this self-healing mechanism is much impaired under“chronic stress”,(3) chronic stress results in excessively high cortisol level;and in this context,cortisol has been shown to be the“generator of cellular inflammation”,(4)“cellular inflammation”has been shown to have 100% association with“protein misfolding”in Alzheimer’s sufferers,(5) prolonged/chronic psychological stress (as negative unresolved or unfinished emotions) is a major correlative (cause?) of common psychosomatic symptoms (e.g.,asthma,hay-fever,allergies,rheumatism,stomach cancer,etc”)

The efficacy of medication typically varies with the vast individual-difference parameters that include“immune system flexibility”,“early experience-induced brain processing pattern”,“habitual affective state”,or“drug/medication use history”.

Synaesthesia is clearly due to the malfunctioning in neuronal over-connectivity (under pruning) at Sensorial-level circuitries.The immune deficiency hypothesis speaks to the observed multiple co-morbidities of synaesthesia and immune-related physical illnesses including glandular fever.

Co-Morbidities of Mental/Physical illnesses in General

●Noncommunicable Physical illness (e.g.,diabetics,cardiovascular,cancers,respiratory disorders,obstructive pulmonary disease) Co-occurring with Mental Illness;exact pattern of co-morbidity varies in individual cases:

“Editorials:Bulletin of World Health Organisation”(2013),Kolappa,K.,et.al.,“No physical health without mental health:Lessons unlearned?”

In light of existing evidence,the authors raised the question,“how can we possibly address the burgeoning epidemic of noncommunicable diseases without tackling co-morbid mental illnesses?”

http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/91/1/12-115063.pdf

Natural Deep Sleep Co-Occurring with Physical/Mental Health:Consequences of Deep-Sleep Deprivation for Mental/Physical Health

●Deep-Sleep Deprivation:Genesis and Consequences

This review paper deals with the holistic nature of“deep sleep”in its account of the body/brain’s structure/function as well as the physiology/biochemistry interconnectivity associated with natural deep sleep state (see also aforementioned consequences of natural deep sleep for the body/brain self-organising/regulating/correcting functions including memory,and hence consciousness in general)

Specifically,the paper focuses on the deprivation of deep sleep (the OSAH syndrome),its modulating effects on the body/brain processing dynamics and its corresponding negative function/behavior consequences.The authors wrote,“We address the concept of the disease and the influence of sleep on respiration,as well as the interaction of anatomical,functional,genetic and neural factors in its genesis”

Martins,A.B.,et.al.(2007),“Physiopathalogy of obstructive sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome”,Journal Brasileiro de Pneumologia,33.

http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?pid=s1806-37132007000100017&script=sci_arttext&tlng=en

●Deep sleep deprivation and Neurodegenerative disorders

This (2014) media article summaries recent relevant findings for general readers:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/04/03/sleep-loss-alzheimers-disease.aspx

“The PAE Generalized Deficit Hypothesis”:

“Prenatal Parental Alcohol Use”as a Correlative (cause?) of all aspects of“foetal alcohol spectrum disorders”(FASD) in cognitive deficits (abstract concept,attention span,memory,language,etc) and emotional disorders (adaptive social behaviour,emotional functioning,social cognition,etc).

This 2013 USA study shows the long-lasting negative effects of“prenatal parental alcohol use”(PAE) on foetal and early childhood development;such prenatal parental effects are also evident among higher functioning children aged 6-12;and the negative effects include all aspects of“foetal alcohol spectrum disorders”(FASD).

Most importantly,this study supports the"PAE Generalized Deficit Hypothesis”,hence extended earlier results for PAE’s“restricted deficit effects on children”to greater PAE generalisability.

Please read this research report:

Quattlebaum.J.L.&O’Connor,M.J.(2013),”Higher functioning children with prenatal alcohol exposure:Is there a specific neurocognitive profile?”Child Neuropsychology,19(6):

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22905880

In terms of treatment for children labelled with FASD,this study is significant in that it underscores (1) the negative consequences of societal and generational widespread alcohol ab(use),and (2) the brain’s highly diffused information processing mechanisms.This thus leads to more fundamental questions concerning“psychiatric treatments”for these children.

In terms of brain development,existing research consistently shows that the overall cognitive-emotive functioning equilibrium at the neural circuitry level is not reached until early (to mid) 20s.Considering the higher degree of brain plasticity in pre-adulthood,psychiatric drug/medication inevitably results in diverse/complex consequences for the developing brain.Other social-psychological and epigenetic research further points to the negative consequences of“social stigma”attached to the labelling of psychiatric/ mental illnesses.

“Nurture-Trumps-Nature”:

(Pertinent to both“the Immune Deficiency”and“the PAE Generalised Deficit”Hypotheses)

Nurture-over-Nature:Epigenetics on the issue of“Nurture trumps Nature over Generations”

●A fair 2014 media article on this debate:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/sep/07/epigenetics-heredity-diabetes-obesity-increased-cancer-risk

●The following is an example of how subjective emotional reactions can affect genetic coding (possibly in one generation):“Childhood abuse leaving genetic marks”:

http://epigenome.eu/en/1,65,0

Nurture-over-Nature:Prenatal/Postnatal environments on foetal/later development:

●Postnatal early life experiences modulating the brain’s structure/function interconnectivity:Individual differences in stress adaptability

McEwen,B.S.,et.al.(2014),“Recognising resilience:Learning from the effects of stress on the brain”,Neurobiology of Stress,Vol.1.

This paper identified networks of biological changes (e.g.,gene pathways,epigenetic factors,brain structural changes) underlying individuals’flexibility in adapting to life stress.The authors argued that,“early life experiences determine individual differences in such capabilities via epigenetic pathways and laying down of brain architecture that determine the later capacity for flexible adaptation or the lack thereof.”

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352289514000022

●Prenatal Environment:

The Helsinki research team on“Foetal Learning”in music,language:

Please read these two representative papers:

Partanen,E.,et al.(2013),“Parental music exposure induces long-term neural effects”:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0078946

Professor Mari Tervaniem’s 2014 summary of research on sound and music processing in the brains of fetus,children,and adults:

http://www.kulturskoleradet.no/upload/bruker/dokumenter/Dokumentarkiv/10_Forskning/2014_Tervaniemi_summary.pdf

Nurture-over-Nature:Enriched environment may delay onset of neurological diseases in animal and human subjects:

●Professor Anthony Hannan (Oct 2013),“Environmental enrichment and experience-dependent plasticity in mouse models of brain disorders”,Florey institute of Neuroscience and mental Health ,University of Melbourne,Australia.

http://www.animalethics.org.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/508243/AJ-Hannan-Effects-of-enrichment-on-mouse-models-of-brain-disorders-.pdf

●Enriched experiences may delay onset of dementia from Alzheimer’s disease:

Professors D.Selkoe&S.Li (2013) study:Summary below

http://scitechdaily.com/alzheimers-research-suggests-exposure-to-new-activities-may-delay-onset-of-dementia/

“The Protein Hypothesis”

Excessive Protein Chemical in the growing brain as another possible root cause(?) for Abnormal Cortical Interconnectivity

(and hence observed Co-Morbidity/Co-Occurrence of symptoms)

This recent animal research suggests that an excessive level of protein chemical from the NOS1AP gene may be responsible for the abnormal cortical interconnectivity in the developing brain:

Please read this Nov 24,2014 report in Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News:

http://www.genengnews.com/gen-news-highlights/schizophrenia-linked-to-excess-protein-during-brain-development/81250632/

Possible Non-Psychiatric Therapy for the“protein hypothesis”:

Proteomics,Protein Therapeutics for Personalised Medicine:

●Please read this early (2001) article on protein therapeutics from the molecular-biology field of proteomics,
personalised regenerative and rejuvenative medicine:

Grant,S.G.N.,&Blackstock,W.P.(2001),“Proteomics in Neuroscience:From Protein to Network”.Journal of Neuroscience,Nov:

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/21/21/8315.full.pdf

Please listen to this 2013“Brain Science Podcast”interview with Professor Seth Grant’s research in neuroproteomics (most research is carried out with lab mice):

http://brainsciencepodcast.com/bsp/2013/synapse-evolution-with-seth-grant-bsp-101

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Unit 6:Self-Identity as the“Non-Divided Self”:

Self’s Transitioning Dynamics Underlie Individual Differences in Direct Experiences

The word“id-entity”constitutes the word/prefix“id”and the word“entity”.As a linguistic prefix/suffix,id conveys the meaning“belonging to a collective”or“being a member of a group”.The word entity is consistently used in the humanistic literatures to denote the non-divided self (the holistic self/soul/psyche/spiritus).

In this linguistic/symbolic play,the word id-entity could be referred to as“a particular form of the holistic self”.On the one hand,this could be suggestive of a holographic nature of the self;and on the other hand,this could also mean either“the physical body is part of the holistic self”or“each human form is one particular manifestation of a larger selfsame entity”.

William James’worldview of Reality/Nature/Consciousness embodies the ever transitioning“conjunction and disjunction”dynamics.Such dynamics are the workings of“the psychic/physical energies of Man”that underlie individual developmental process as well as human evolutionary progression.Casting in these transitioning dynamics,the word identity/self would also carry both developmental and evolutionary implications.

In the developmental context,the transitioning dynamics during the course of one lifetime could have various consequences for the non-divided self (e.g.,the durable self-transitions as in“character transformation”or in“foreign accent syndrome”).In the evolutionary context,the transitioning dynamics may underlie the phenomenon of“re-incarnation”(an entity/soul’s physical manifestations in different lifetimes).

The Non-Divided Self

The holistic consciousness/self/self-identity and its transitioning dynamics will always remain inexplicable if approached from any divided perspective (e.g.,mental/physical,thought/brain,organic/mechanistic).A holistic conceptual framework is essential for a fuller understanding of human development and evolution.

The following references pertain to the point that self-identity/self/consciousness goes beyond all forms of conceptual dichotomy.

●Complementarities of“Extrinsic-focused Meliorism versus Intrinsic-focused Mysticism”:The inseparable Agency/Sentience of the non-divided self

Gale.M.R.(1999),“The Divided Self of William James”,and

Schlecht,L.F.(Dec 2001),“Mysticism and Meliorism:The Integrated Self of William James”,Philosophical Forum,Vol.3

The philosophical notion of meliorism typically refers to a belief that it is“human agency/human effort”that leads to the betterment of human condition.However,the non-divided self may represent an integration of the agentic meliorism and the experienced mysticism.

●The non-dualised Eastern perspective to Reality/Nature/Consciousness is also reflected in early Pythagoras-Parmenides thoughts.James’worldview returns western perspectives to their universal origin.However,this“ontological turn”(if it be so called) involves no“primitivism”regression;rather,it entails an enlightened reinvigoration of the ontological thesis of good/moral.

Professor Anand C.Paranjpe in his 2000 book,“Self and Identity in Modern Psychology and Indian Thought”,discusses the non-dualised Eastern perspective to the notion consciousness/self:

Please listen to Professor Paranjpe’s talk at the Jan 2012 International Conference on“Looking Within:Interdisciplinary Approaches to Consciousness”,NIAS Consciousness Studies Programme,India:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpafTRWCjBE

Immortality of Individual Self/Consciousness as Immortality of“Affective State”

●Complementarities of the physical/mental in human development and evolution

Professor Bruce Greyson (2011),“Does Consciousness need a brain?—Evidence for Reincarnation”,paper at“Cosmology and Consciousness Conference”,Dharamsala,India.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yosn_GHYiR4

James is well versed in Oriental spiritual teachings and believes the pragmatic and consequence-based notion of“cause-and–effect”:a notion grounded in the inseparable entanglements of individual self’s developmental and evolutionary dynamics.

James’dynamogenic psychology focuses on the self’s habitual centre of psychic energy,expressed as its unique affective state.Cases of“re-incarnation”are typically associated with the holistic self’s desire to work out imbalanced negative affective energies.The ultimate overall evolutionary consequence is always tending towards non-violence and the larger good.

This is a centuries-old empirical research area that concerns the immortality or the eternal validity of consciousness/mind/self.James’empirical work with the early British/American Psychic Societies also focused on this subject.Despite his relentless efforts in applying empirical standards to this work,James was unable to provide empirical proofs on the existence of the holistic self (psyche/soul).

●Recent research on the non-divided self’s“transition”in the evolutionary context (always propagating towards a“reconciliation/unity”self/consciousness)

“Re-incarnation”cases of Cause-and-effect and Consequences of Unfinished Affective/Emotional Energies:

Professors Jim Tucker&Ivan Stevenson (2008),“Life before life:Children’s memories of previous lives”;also 2015 reprint of“Return to life:Extraordinary cases of children who remembered past lives”:

Please listen to this 2014 interview with Professor Tucker about his work:

http://www.npr.org/2014/01/05/259886077/searching-for-science-behind-reincarnation

Immortality of Thought&Continuity of Psychic Energy of the Self:“William James’“unfinished lifework”on Reality/Nature/Consciousness/Mind/Self

●“The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher:The worldview of William James.”,automatically written by Jane Roberts (25 Jan to 11 Aug 1977)

http://audiovisualtools.com/the-afterdeath-journal-of-an-american-philosopher

Unlimited Individual Direct Experiences as“Self-Transitions”

(“Transitions within the Non-divided Self”)

Individuals’“habitual affective state”subserves individual differences in the entire spectrums/streams of consciousness

The multiversity of individuals’direct experiences is constitutive of the limitless affordances of nature.James broadly identifies“the perception of reality”with“the psychology of belief”.Each individual’s own will/belief/intent serves as filters of the informational/ecological affordances.

James’psychology is also a psychology of limitless possibilities/potentialities.Each of individuals’direct experiences is a legitimate explanadum of human consciousness;its“truth”can be discerened through its pragmatic consequences.And consistent with his emphasis on upward-spiralling“unity consciousness”,every direct experience would also carry potential positive results for the experiencer self.

James reviews systematically the vast spectrums of individual direct experiences in the VRE and argues that these are variations of consciousness/self and hence need to be understood as such.

James writes about the many possible or parallel streams of consciousnesses in Principles of Psychology:“the total possible consciousness may be split into parts which co-exist but mutually ignore each other”.Later in the VRE James writers,“what we consider as normal conscious state is but one kind...all about it,parted by the flimsiest of screens are such other forms...we may go through life without suspecting their existence;but apply the requisite stimulus,and at a touch they are there in all their completeness,definite types of mentality”.

Other known Types of Individual Unique Direct Experiences as“Transitions within the Non-divided Self”

In addition to those recorded in the VRE,the virtually limitless varieties of direct experiences are continuously known throughout human history.Many examples are referred to in Unit 5 in the context of the brain’s network/biochemical dynamics;this section will record several more cases from the perspective of the non-divided self and its transitioning dynamics.

Individual lifespan development constitutes continual self-transitions with the goal towards upward-spiralling expansion of self/consciousness.All individual direct experiences carry this probable potential;with its actualisation resting mainly on the individual’s own will/belief/intent that leads to decisions/choices.

As James has articulated,the physical/mental reality continually affords each individual with fascinating and unique opportunities/challenges (including new life style,study,friends or new inexplicable mystical experiences).Self-transitions at each of these junctures inevitably occur,irrespective of its origin (nature/nurture),associated intrinsic affective intensity (wanted/unwanted) or consequences (short-/long-term).

Virtually all“unique”individual direct experiences,though some perhaps are rare or currently inexplicable,could also be conceptualised as transitions within the non-divided self.

●“Foreign Accent Syndrome”:Coma/Medication Induced Self-Transitions?

Please watch these“Foreign Accent”cases (14 Oct 2012 Australian Broadcasting“60 Minutes”reporting):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR_HyIyTSZg

●Gender-Transitioning/ Transgender;Asexuality;Sexual Orientation

Laura Erickson-schroth (2014),“Trans Bodies,Trans Selves:A Resource for the Transgender Community”

Please listen to this July 2014 interview with the author:

http://www.npr.org/2014/07/17/332051691/trans-bodies-trans-selves-a-modern-manual-by-and-for-trans-people

●Chimerism and Chimeras:“To value Lived Experience than Genetic Coding”:

Norton,A.T.,&Zehner,O.,“Which half is mommy? Tetragametic chimerism and trans-subjectivity”.Article on-line:

http://www.academia.edu/202539/Which_Half_Is_Mommy_Tetragametic_Chimerism_and_Trans-Subjectivity

●Obsessive Painting:Brain surgery-induced Self-Transition?

Nutt,A.(2011)“Shadows Bright as Glass:The Remarkable Story of One Man’s Journey from Brain Trauma to Artistic Triumph”:

The book describes the Jon Sarkin case:brain surgery turns him into obsessive compulsive painter.Implication for consciousness/self:“During surgery,Sarkin suddenly cried out,“…leave my soul alone…”?

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135509114/jon-sarkin-when-brain-injuries-transform-into-art

●Hypergraphia (with Emotional Disturbances):Epileptic seizure-induced Self-Transition?

Arthur Imen (in the movie Hypergraphia):Co-morbidities with Anger and lack of Morals? Dr.M.Mendez’s 2005 paper of an“angry hypergraphic”induced by epileptic seizures.

●Temporary hypergraphia:Medication-induced Transient Self-Transition?

The Sept 2014 UK“Lady Hypergraphic”:Medication-Induced Compulsive poem writing,6 months before symptom subsiding? Please read this media report:

http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2014/09/how-an-epileptic-woman-became-a-compulsive-poet.html

●“Irrational Phobia”:Unlimited individual differences in clinical fear/anxiety of specific insect/animal,of various diseases,of open or enclosed space,of height,etc.

David Adam (20 14),“The Man who could’t Stop”:A case of fearing catching HIV.

Please note the author’s own explanation of his anxiety-focused mindset,possibly rooted in his many significant early childhood negative emotional experiences.Please read this April 2014 news report:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/apr/20/the-man-who-couldnt-stop-review-david-adam-ocd-review

●Direct experiences of“Hearing Unwanted Harming Voices”:

Hearing voices are also special examples of individual differences in direct conscious experience.Many have been recorded in James’VRE (chapters including saintliness,conversion,healthy-mindedness,mysticism);virtually all these cases are accompanied with deepest sense of joy as well as long-term upward-spiralling transformative consequences.However,there also exist examples that belong to James’downward-spiralling type of having negative consequences (e.g.,self-harming).

James would argue that these direct experiences are but different states of the holistic self/consciousness.Considering that it is an individual’s habitual affective state that primarily determines his/her physical/mental equilibrium,and considering that it is the will/belief/intent that habituates the affective state;such unwanted direct experience as hearing harmful voices can be remedied through“wilful habit-reforming”.

Dr.Leff’s paper below introduces a primarily non-medication intervention in correcting the negative consequences of“hearing self-harming voices”:

Leff,J.,et.al.(2013/4),“Avatar therapy for persecutory auditory hallucinations:What is it and how does it work?”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4066885/

●Direct Experience of“Nightmare Dreams”:

Nightmare dreams are deep emotional disturbances brought out or triggered by“traumatic experiences”(e.g.,horrific experiences such as war,natural and unexpected events“perceived/believed by the experiencer”as being negative),

Dreams are mostly natural extensions of a person’s waking habitual affective state.As such,PTSD or early abuse related nightmares are likely due to the person’s waking conscious thoughts being persistently centred upon war/killing/survival,and other fear-related deep negative affections.

●Direct Experience of“alien encounter”:

Professor Eugene Taylor speaks to a group of individuals with such direct experience in March,1995.Please listen to this scholarly,practical as well as compassionate talk by Eugene Taylor on“What William James would have thought about alien encounter?”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Tzqdbp2wFA

Non-Psychiatric/Medicating Approaches to Unwanted Unique Direct Experiences:

●Hypnosis:verbal suggestions as“compassionate communication”by“Self or a Trustworthy-other”with Unconditional good intent.

This method (when the above criteria are met) has been effective in changing emotional disturbances (e.g.panic stress,phobias) or unwanted behaviours (e.g.,smoking,gambling,other obsessive urges,etc).

●For Autism Spectrum symptoms:Animal/pet bonding encourages autistic children to make eye-contact and social interaction.

A touching example written/recorded by a mother:Louis Booth (2014):“When Fraser met Billy”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOcyUTjYGn4

●Dr.Oliver Sacks on epilepsy,autism,Tourette's syndrome,blind/deaf.

In his book,Awakenings,Dr.Sacks argues that the drug is a"chimerical concept”which indignifies human condition.His key point is that“illnesses”are in a true sense“our only friend”.

This is an audio (2010) interview of Dr.Oliver Sacks about his other book,“The Mind’s Eye”:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130732146

●Dr.Dale Archer,(March 2013),“Better than Normal:How What Makes you different can make you exceptional”

This book is written by a practicing psychiatrist,who has ADHD but“has never used medication”.The book focuses on the possible positive aspects of behavioural symptoms.From certain perspectives,it is indeed important to tease apart the upward-spiralling from the downward-spiralling aspects of any behavioural/clinical symptoms.This would change the typical and lopsided“pathology/medication”-focused ethos of psychiatry,and hence ease the prevailing negative effects of social stigma the field has generated (details in Unit 7).Focusing on possible positive co-traits of clinical behavioural symptoms is also essential in helping the experiencer/sufferer.

However,as clearly suggested (Unit 4 and 5),the spectrum of clinical symptoms may be co-occurring with a variety of emotional disorders;though the exact co-morbidity/co-occurrence pattern is individual-dependent.Because of this,it is also imperative to consider the commonly observed negative co-occurrences of clinical symptoms that may include persistent emotional and behavioural violence.Such violence is often directed at a significant and unconditional care-giver/cheer-leader who remains silent of the violence.

William James on“Unwanted Direct Experiences”in Mental Life

Despite his lifelong“direct experience”of melancholy,James is widely known as being the co-founder of the Alcoholic Anonymous movement.The AA Manual was inspired by James' philosophy and it reflects the will/intent /belief/faith-based principle of healing/caring.

●A special example of alcoholic addiction:

Professor John McDermott,a preeminent William James Scholar,delivered this breathtaking lecture in which he relates his own recovery from alcohoic addiction:

Please watch Professor McDermott delivering this lecture,

“A Jamesian Personscape:The Fringe as Messaging to the‘Sick Souls’”,HDS,Annual William James Lecture on Religious Experience,6 May 2010:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LP6bppSOeoQ

●William James’profound influence over Professor Eugene Taylor:Integrating the self and unique direct private experiences in non-pathology-based humanistic therapy/counselling

Taylor,E.(1982),“William James on exceptional mental states:the 1986 Lowell lectures”.New York,NY:Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Taylor,E.(1991),“William James and the humanistic tradition”,Journal of Humanistic Psychology,31.

Taylor,E.(1993),“Our roots:The American visionary tradition”,Noetic Sciences Review,27.

Taylor,E.(1996),“William James on consciousness beyond the margin”,Princeton,NJ:Princeton University Press.

●William James’written words as key to unlock the limitless self-healing will/energy within:James on“Yes,I will even have it so!”

James habitually uses questions to get every reader to reflect on key issues of human existence and consciousness.These questions inevitably centre on the psychological notion of the self’s will/belief/intention/attention.His habitual upward-spiralling moral sentiment unfailingly shines forth in all his writings,which have been a source of high inspiration for generations of readers.

Please listen to this 2010 short talk by Professor Robert D.Richardson (James’more recent biographer) on“Will you or Won’t you have it so?”(August 2010,James’100th anniversary celebrations):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7mYv-X0pLs

●Professor John McDermott also narrated a film,which brings various aspects of William James’ideas under“a psychology of Possibilities”:

Here is the study guide to the film,“William James:The Psychology of Possibilities”(2011)

http://digital.films.com/HTTP/44900/44902_DiscussionTopics.pdf

Mysticism as Nature’s Affordances and Man’s Heritage:

The Naturally-Occurring Upward-Spiralling Direct Experiences of the Self

Mysticism has been defined as“knowledge of the unknown through direct self knowledge/experience”.“Know (thy)self”is held as the core human task in perennial philosophies,as knowledge of the self naturally leads to knowledge of Reality/Nature/Consciousness.

Mysticism in religion/belief/faith/(a)theism

James’worldview sees each person’s belief/religion/faith ((a)theism) in terms of a unique one-to-one relation (“eachfulness”).As each person is a unique filter of nature’s unlimited affordances,so each person may will/intent or choose a different religion/faith/belief/(a)theism.James persistently points out that there are enormous individual differences in such a relation.Intolerance of other’s chosen relation because it differs from one’s own may lead to all sorts of downward-spiralling consequences (e.g.,intra-/inter-,personal/group conflicts)

James speaks of the need for pluralistic forms of religion/faith/belief as he concludes in the Postscript of VRE:

“…I think,in fact,that a final philosophy of religion will have to consider the pluralistic hypothesis more seriously than it has hitherto been willing to consider it.”

James asks each of us to reflect on these pertinent questions:

“...Ought it to be assumed that in all men the mixture of religion with other elements should be identical? Ought it,indeed,to be assumed that the lives of all men should show identical religious elements? In other words,is the existence of so many religious types and sects and creeds regrettable?”

James then gives his own answers and reasons:

“To these questions I answer 'No' emphatically.And my reason is that I do not see how it is possible that creatures in such different positions and with such different powers as human individuals are,should have exactly the same functions and the same duties.No two of us have identical difficulties,nor should we be expected to work out identical solutions.Each,from his peculiar angle of observation,takes in a certain sphere of fact and trouble,which each must deal with in a unique manner.”

For James,each person’s faith,belief,religion or (a)theism,is at once a fundamental right and a basic need.And as such,James gives this advise in“What makes a life significant?”

“...The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy,provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.No one has insight into all the ideals.No one should presume to judge them off-hand.The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties,and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.”

Mysticism in other intimate relations of“true love”:

Similarly for interpersonal relationship of true love,James writes amusingly in the beginning section of the essay,“What Makes a Life Significant?”

“Every Jack sees in his own particular Jill charms and perfections to the enchantment of which we stolid onlookers are stone-cold.And which has the superior view of the absolute truth,he or we? Which has the more vital insight into the nature of Jill's existence,as a fact? Is he in excess,being in this matter a maniac? Or are we in defect,being victims of a pathological anaesthesia as regards Jill's magical importance? Surely the latter;surely to Jack are the profounder truths revealed;surely poor Jill's palpitating little life-throbs are among the wonders of creation,are worthy of this sympathetic interest”

James continues in speaking to each spectator:

“and it is to our shame that the rest of us cannot feel like Jack.For Jack realizes Jill concretely,and we do not....Where would any of us be,were there no one willing to know us as we really are or ready to repay us for our insight by making recognizant return? We ought,all of us,to realize each other in this intense,pathetic,and important way…”

Naturally-Occurring,Upward-spiralling Direct Mystical Experiences as“Intellectual Mystery”,“Moral Mystery”and“Doorway to the larger and more blessed life”

Naturally-occurring upward-spiralling experiences of ecstasy/joy typically lead to long-term transformative consequences for the experiencer;this upward-spiralling pragmatic consequence is totally absent from the substance-induced and potentially-addictive emotional experience of ecstasy/high/fix (Unit 4,5).As the naturally-occurring types are typically associated with observable moral and intellectual invigoration,James observes that“this moral mystery intertwines and combines with the intellectual mystery in all mystical writings”(VRE,mysticism).

James also emphasises the centrality and certitude of direct experience for the experiencer him/herself and noted that any spectator is likely to be blind to that fact.James writes in“On Certain Blindness in Human Beings”,after quoting an example of“cosmic consciousness of joy”from a certain Mr.Hudson:

“…For the spectator,such hours as Mr.Hudson writes of form a mere tale of emptiness,in which nothing happens,nothing is gained,and there is nothing to describe.They are meaningless and vacant tracts of time.To him who feels their inner secret,they tingle with an importance that unutterably vouches for itself.“

James continues with the passage that is reminiscent of the aforementioned quote on Jill and Jack:

“I am sorry for the boy or girl,or man or woman,who has never been touched by the spell of this mysterious sensorial life,with its irrationality,if so you like to call it,but its vigilance and its supreme felicity…”

Habitual Moral Living leading to Upward-spiralling Affective State:

“Preparatory”Ground Consciousness State for Naturally-Occurring Guiding Mystical Experiences

James’worldview is foundationing upon morality/good/conscience.His philosophic way of life constitutes a moral living that inevitably leads to a habitual positive“affective state”.This state naturally attracts/unfolds all upward-spiralling (mystical) affordances of Reality/Nature/Consciousness.

As“moral sentiment”embodies the essence of man’s intrinsic good,James also speaks of man’s ever-expansive capacity for a“genuine sense of inclusion,tolerance and compassion”;this is what James refers to as“love”in the following passage,

“If you say…that we cannot be in love with everyone at once,I merely point out to you that,as a matter of fact,certain persons do exist with an enormous capacity for friendship and for taking delight in other people's lives;and that such persons know more of truth than if their hearts were not so big.”

Naturally-Occurring Upward-spiralling Mystical experiences are Nature’s Unlimited Affordances:They serve as Guiding Symbols for Direct Self-Knowledge (Not for any downward-spiralling external or id/egoistic applications)

Mysticism-related literatures as Guiding Symbols for direct self knowledge

●Mysticism in I-Ching:Richard Wilhelm’s translations of the ancient texts in the Chinese mystical tradition:“I-Ching”(“The Book of Change/Transition”),“The Gin-Hwa Ching”(“The Book of the Light”or“The Secret of the Golden Flowers”.

●Western Thoth“taroh system”or any suit/card system dealing with“cycles of transitions”(I-Ching also ends with“Transition”)

●Neuroscience relating to“Mysticism Theology”:

The late Eugene D’Aquile’s pioneer work in Biogenetic Structuralism (1974) and the neurological correlates of“upward-spiralling and transformative mystical experiences”have been integrated into the new term neurotheology in this paperback edition:

Newberg,A.,E.D’Aquili,&Rause,V.(2002)“Why God Won’t Go Away:Brain Science and the Biology of Belief”.

This article provides a plain summary of neuroscience research in mysticism theology,as well as a speculatative theoretical framework:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/newberg.html

●Heinz R.Pagels (2012),“The Cosmic Code:Quantum Physics as the Language of Nature”

●Chuck Missler (1999),“Cosmic Codes:Hidden Messages from the Edge of Eternity

Written language as guiding symbols for Direct Self Knowledge

●Traditional Egyptian Hieroglyphs,Traditional Chinese Pictographs,Pictophonetics,and“Indicative-,Associative-Compound-,Mutually-Explanatory-,Phonetic-Loan-“Characters)

●Etymology helps us to deduce the common origin and the evolutionary dynamics of known forms of written language (e.g.,“root”,“prefix”,“suffix”,etc) with the goal to better understand the“essence of symbolic communication”.

An etymological research in proto-linguistics”:

Professor Donald Ringe (2006),“From Proto-Indo-European to Proto-Germanic:A Linguistic History of English”,OUP.

●Hermeneutics:

This Nov 2006 article from the University of Stanford gives an overview of interpretive hermeneutics:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hermeneutics/

Alberto Martinengo (2013),“From the Linguistic Turn to the Pictorial Turn---Hermeneutics Facing the‘Third Copernican Revolution’”,Proceedings of the European Society for Aesthetics,Vol 5.

Please read this article below:

http://www.eurosa.org/volumes/5/MartinengoESA2013.pdf

●Semiotics:as communicative symbols for self-knowledge

Charles S.Peirce’s Semiotics and his use of symbolic language:It is said that the mystery surrounding Peirce’s middle names (Sanders /Santiago) was unlocked by his widow/biographer:Peirce was deeply indebted to William James hence adopted the new middle name Santiago (“St.James” in Spanish).James was also grateful to Peirce for the original idea of Pragmatism,as he dedicated his“Will to Belief”to Peirce.

Semiotics and Symbolism (as in Sherlock Holmes)

Professor Thomas Sebeok (1979/ 1980/1981/2006) (with Jean Umiker Sebeok),“You Know My Method”:A Juxtaposition of Charles S.Peirce and Sherlock Holmes”:

Please read this informative and fun paper:

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/short/abduction.html

Paul Cobley’s book (2009),“The Routledge Companion to Semiotics”

For a quick read:Daniel Chandler’s article,“Semiotics for Beginners”:

http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/S4B/sem02.html

A James-inspired“Multilinear Semiotics”

Professor Edmundo Balsmao Pires (2011) (Ed.),“Symposia on Contemporary Reassessment of William James a Century Later”,European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy,vol 3.

Multilinear Semiotics refers to a technique that involves concomitant mapping and coupling of mosaic facts in the dynamically living/evolving ecological,psychic,and communicative spheres.

Please read Professor Pier’s article here:

http://lnx.journalofpragmatism.eu/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/EJPAP_2011_III_1.pdf

●Numbers as“linguistic symbols”:the communicative symbols of Pythagorean numbers:

The following represents the affirming view from the Theosophy tradition:“Ancient Landmarks:The Pythagorean Science of Numbers”(1939):

http://www.wisdomworld.org/additional/ancientlandmarks/PythagScienceOfNumbers.html

A Mystic Life is“A Habitual Moral Living”:“Mysticism”is a Misnomer

In the context of consciousness,James’worldview is in essence that of a non-divided self complete with fascinating varieties of upward-spiralling direct experiences.This ubiquitously uplifting theme of James’lifework can never be over-emphasised.The downward-spiralling examples of direct experience given in Unit 4&5 are by no means representative of the multiversed Reality/Nature/Consciousness.An abundantly rich literature on upward-spiralling Naturally-Occurring direct experiences has been in existence throughout recorded human history;their positive consequences for good/moral are also plainly evident.

“Mysticism”as“Upward-spiralling Consequential Lifeworks”

The Need to tease apart“Original good intent”from“Reconstructed negative applications”

In this larger context of Mysticism/Reality/Nature/Consciousness,one of the most precious gifts that Nature affords man is the inspiring heritage from the lifeworks of many accomplished/recognised historical figures.The perennial and upward-spiralling consequences of these lifeworks are correlatives of the“original good/moral intent”of these larger-than-life figures.James’lifework is arguably the grandest of such examples;yet its original obvious good/moral intent often has been misread or reinterpreted otherwise.

The following is a richly informative article on the lifeworks of some consequential composers/philosophers.However,in the present discussion,this article also has examples that illuminate the upward-spiralling elements of some“consequential lifeworks”.For instance,Nietzsche’s notions of“will to power”or“master race”were inspired by and intended for good/moral:Not downward-spiralling anti-Semitism,but man’s capacity for upward-spiralling transformative consciousness.

Professor Ralph Blumenau (Apr/May 2015),“Wagner and Philosophy by Bryan Magee”,Philosophy Now:A Magazine of Ideas.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/34/Wagner_and_Philosophy_by_Bryan_Magee

Ode to“Mysticism/Reality/Nature/Consciousness”:

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HOPE—BRIDGE—MUSIC

(9 August 2012 for the BBC Proms)

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Since time immemorial the Mayan gods have willed,so they say,our human world to end on the second solstice of the twenty-twelveth year.

Seven months to that day above the Olympia mists,Apollo the Sun God sends a flaming fire through his High Priestess into young Alex’s hands.

A torch in hand,like a rainbow bridge in the sky,unites greater land and fulfils loftier dreams,than a sword in hand as in the bygone days of Alexander of Macedon.

The Torch illuminates each Olympian’s way,destined for that long-awaited-and-awe-inspiring Game in the east end of London town.

Everywhere that flame breathes,the majestic and uplifting music of East-Western Divan beautifully and lovingly resounds.

The angelic choir in heaven,leaping joyfully down by our Commonwealth-Queen’s side,joins our finest musicians in the Albert Hall.

Truly no small matter this unprecedented descent,during this year of Her Majesty’s diamond jubilee.

For,since the beginning of time the ancient Vedas so design:the 60th year marks the spiritual rebirth of each human soul.

Wise Chinese elders speak also the secret workings of“6-TienGan-10-DeeZe”in 60-year-cycles of a mortal life.

Befittingly so,this historical year heralds our Collective Souls’glorious new dawning:For humanity too has come of age in turning Sixty.

Beauty,they say,means“calling”;and verily,only music’s sublime beauty lifts man to fulfil that high calling.

This,Said and Barenboim know all too well:A call to build bridges wherever mighty guns or eloquent words fail;and wherever Ego’s ignorance regrettably divides.

Let our ancient wisdom and hard-learned understanding begin to chart our ways away from greed,pride and other shadowy sides.

Lest ignorance should recreate tragic loves of Shakespeare or Scheherazade alike.

Lest Psychology’s Father James should speak the truth only through the mouthpiece of Seth Jane.

And lest“the Darwinian crane”and“our inner skyhook”should remain un-bridged for any longer time.

For,this perennial truth needs be told:

Soul-destroying losses must unfold life’s true magnum opus:Healing and transcending for self and all other souls:

Fur Elise,Ode to Joy,Last Four Songs and Before Thy Throne:Examples par excellence as 2012 Proms just taught.

So now,let us bravely seize this moment from the grips of the Mayan gods,and in one wilful voice we vow:

May the stupendous sound of music forever sing in every troubled soul and land;like the purest translucent Light eternally embraces each heavenly being and court.

And in every corner of all James’worlds,may the sublime and mesmerising melodies of Love softly softly speak and cheerily cheerily promenade.

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Unit 7:Present-Day Prevailing Collective Consciousness:

The TED Culture and Consequences

The system perspective to James’worldview centres on the relational dynamics between a“mosaic particular”(e.g.,individual person) and a“collective”(e.g.,society).In the context of human thought and consciousness,an individual’s thought patterns and the collectively shared thought patterns are also mutually-constitutive and co-evolving.

The mosaic-collective relations are governed by the conjunction/disjunction transitional dynamics.The collective’s continual group dynamics may variably facilitate,inhibit,or alter an individual’s thought and behaviour.Such dynamics include mimetic practices (imitating other group members’actions) and implicit theories (imagining other members’thoughts/actions).

As a result,an individual’s systematic mental schemas (mental sets) may reflect the predominant collective consciousness,which Whitehead described as“unsuspected and unchallenged”.These shared mental sets typically exert significant influence over the individual’s entire affective state and information processing,as in selective attention/perceiving,selective encoding/memory,or selective reasoning/comprehension.These selective and filtering dynamics,though most of which are operating at the pre-awared subconscious level,often result in undesirable attitudinal and behavioural consequences.

In my 2003 book (Sentience:Companion to Reason),I reviewed the then prevailing collective consciousness of new capitalism.As the deconstructionist philosophy and the Info-Tech advancements converge in exteriorising and deconstructing the self’s intrinsic aspects,the new capitalist collective climate also had adverse consequences for the pillars of human civilisation (freedom/dignity,education and morality).These transitioning dynamics have been continuing without abating.The following sections aim to record the key developments concerning collective consciousness since that earlier review.

TED (Technology-Entertainment-Design) Collective Consciousness

and its Multifaceted Societal Consequences

Indicators of TED Collective Consciousness

(Socio-Cultural,Moral-Religious-Spiritual,Econo-Political)

Socio-Cultural Indicators to Collective Consciousness

(“Culture of Cynicism/Snarky”,“User-Demand Drug Culture”,“Lying,Violence-as-Entertainment”,“Privacy in TED Culture”,“Gentrification as Transition” ,“Sensorial-based Attitude Stereotyping”,and“Shifting Linguistic Dynamics”

William James’profound influence over the Socio-Cultural Collective Consciousnss

●Professor James T.Kloppenberg delivered this keynote lecture,“William James’Pragmatism and American Social Thought 1907-2007”:Harvard University,May 2007

Please watch the video of Professor Kloppenberg’s lecture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp5PIqGefJ0

TED Pop Culture of Snarky/Cynicism

●From“sarcasm,snarky and cynicism”to“Pure Innocent Joy and Sincerity”:Collective cultural legacy of Mad Magazine (since 1952)

It is said that the Mad comics shaped today’s dominant culture of sarcasm and snarky.But one staff writer recently commented on the downside to this legacy:“It supports the idea that it’s better to be cynical than to really feel something…there is such a thing as innocent joy…there’s something to be said for sincerity.”

Please listen to this July 2014 historical review of Mad Magazine

http://www.studio360.org/story/american-icons-mad-magazine/

●Applying James’notions of the transitional/relational dynamics of conjunction/disjunction:a possible resolution of the co-occurring social conflicts and individual cynicism:

Review of Professor Megan Mustain (2011) book,“Overcoming cynicism:William James and the metaphysics of engagement”,Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews,11 (reviewed by R.DiSilverstro):

http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/27539-overcoming-cynicism-william-james-and-the-metaphysics-of-engagement/

TED Pop Culture:A User-Demand Drug Culture

●“Trimmigrants”and TED-correlative Drug culture:User Demand

The user-demand drug culture may underlie a host of social ills (e.g.,psychedelic drug/substance addiction,domestic violence,mental illness,work/ campus sexual abuse,trimmigrants,homelessness,international drug trafficking):

Please listen to this 2014 report on drug demands and trimmigrants:

http://www.npr.org/2014/12/04/368440223/with-harvest-season-trimmigrants-flock-to-californias-pot-capital

●User Demand of Drug in TED culture:a global issue

The pervasive drug use and TED culture:“Drug use in Pop Culture Infographic”,from Rehab International:

http://rehab-international.org/blog/drug-use-in-pop-culture

TED Pop Culture:Lying and Violence-as-Entertainment

Professor Sissela Bok (1978),“Lying:Moral Choice in Public and Private Life”

Professor Sissela Bok (1998),“Mayhem:Violence as Public Entertainment”

Professor Bok’s informative writings (e.g.,“the Open MindMayhem”,“Secrets”,“lying”,“violence”) are highly relevant for a fuller understanding of today’s TED pop-culture consciousness.

●Charles Seife (June 2014),“Virtual Unreality:Just because the Internet told you,How Do you know it’s true?”

Please listen to this 30 June 2014 interview of Charles Seife on“Truth,Faking and Lying on Tweeter,Facebook:

http://www.wnyc.org/story/just-because-its-internet-it-doesnt-mean-its-true/

●Criminality of IT/ET tech companies:Robert Hannigan 4 Nov,in Financial Times:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-29891285

●Finn Brunton,(2013)“Spam:A Shadow history of the Internet”,MIT Press.

The May 2013 Guardian newspaper review of the book:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/31/spam-shadow-history-internet-review

“Privacy”in TED Culture

●Dr.Tom Keenan’s August 2014 book,“Technocreep”:The Surrender of Privacy and the Capitalization of Intimacy”

Please listen to this 6 Nov 2014 CBS interview of Dr.Keenan on how IT/ET/DT erodes“privacy”“intimacy”and morality:

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/satire-online-creeping-and-the-fascinating-facts-about-twins-1.2906987/technocreep-author-exposes-just-how-much-creeping-goes-on-online-1.2906990

●Please listen to this Jan 2015 report on Digital medical data for improved(?) medical/health care

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/05/375201444/big-data-not-a-cure-all-in-medicine

●Buckee,C.O.(2014),“Society:Protect Privacy of Mobile Data”Nature,Vol.514

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7520/full/514035c.html

“Gentrifications”as Transitions in Socio-Cultural Collective Consciousness

The term“deconstructionism”traces its original use to architectural style in the postmodern Design culture.All social transitions are gentrifications (e.g.,business gentrification,art-culture gentrification,housing gentrification) that involve the deconstruction of existing thought/expression patterns.The new emerging pattern embodies and shapes relevant sub-group consciousness.

Social transitions and gentrifications may lead to significant shifting in collective consciousness.Using housing and architecture gentrification as an example,the central issue concerns the balancing of business profit with humane justice.This theme is clear in the following refs:

●Tom Slater (Sept 2010),“Missing Marcuse:On gentrification and displacement”:

Please read this paper on housing gentrification and the need to balance private/business profit and public/social justice:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13604810902982250

●This March 2014 Connexion article concerns the global phenomenon of housing gentrification via“tourist rentals”:“New Housing Law due to go ahead”(Paris):

http://www.connexionfrance.com/new-housing-law-due-to-go-ahead-11943-news-article.html

●This Sept 2014 article by Gavin Mueller,“Liberalism and Gentrification:Gentrification isn’t a cultural phenomenon—It’s a class offensive by powerful capitalists”:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/liberalism-and-gentrification/

“Sensorial-based Attitude Stereotyping”in Socio-Cultural Collective Consciousness (collectively shared Mental Set)&Mitigating Approaches

The Power of Appearance (e.g.,skin colour,physical shape,age,gender,clothing,etc)

●Medical Doctors’“Obesity Stereotyping”affecting their patient care practices:

Please read this 2014 article from Psychology Today:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/eating-mindfully/201412/is-my-doctor-fat-phobic

●G.&D.Fosty (Feb 2015),“Black Ice:The lost history of the coloured hockey league of the Maritimes”,1895-1925”:

http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/viewpoints/eye-on-history-blacks-overcame-bias-to-play-hockey-in-nova-scotia-20150201

●Persistency of Covert Mental set:Visual v.auditory cues about the performing musician in the perception/judgement of“music quality”:

Please read this Aug 2013 article,“Appearance means more than sound when judging music:Research finds”

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-08-music.html

●(In)Efficacy of“Standardised Procedures”in mitigating negative consequences of social stereotyping?

Peter Dobrin (Inquirer Classical Music Critic) (Jan 2010) on“Blind Auditions at Orchestras? Hardly”:

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/artswatch/Blind_Auditions_at_Orchestra_Hardly.html?c=r

●The Education approach to mitigation with Jane Elliott (on“A Class Divided”:Direct Experience of attitude stereotyping):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0qKDiq1fNw

●The TED-Comedy approach to mitigation with Tina Fey

http://www.npr.org/blogs/codeswitch/2015/03/26/395127808/why-its-so-hard-for-us-to-agree-about-dong-from-the-unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt

“Shifting Linguistic Dynamics”as transitions of Socio-Cultural Collective Consciousness

Language and words are explicit/implicit symbolic tools for human thought and consciousness.Various weak and strong linguistic relativity theories contend that language and culture are co-constitutive and co-evolving.Also,the words an individual habitually uses may directly reflect his/her overall affective state or consciousness.This is because the meaning and associations of those words tend to preoccupy the workspace of the brain and hence“continually habituating”its structure/function/biochemistry dynamics (e.g.,dendrite density relating to affective-cognitive networks and the corresponding physiology/biochemistry)

As the consciousness of the individual and the collective are co-constructive and co-evolving,the shifting dynamics of language and culture are also indicative of emerging collectively-shared thought patterns.

●The top 10 trending words and their Source-Associations in 2014 (web search engine statistics):The“pattern of meaning”conveyed by these sources?

“Maleficent”(source:media/film celebrity),“OK”(digital tech/film),Misogynistic”(Santa Barbara shooting),“Sociopath”(psychopath,narcissist) (sources:“all over TV and films”),“Caliphate”(“terrorists”),“Ebola”(deadly disease),“Asphyxiation”(police killing),“Elementary”(TV/film),“Redskin”(group stereotyping),“tinder”:(digital dating app/celebrity):

http://blog.dictionary.com/trending-words-2014/

●“Lexicon of Addiction”:Motivators for taking part in certain TED community

Daren Brabham (2010),“Moving the crowd at Threadless”,Information,Communication&Society,13.

This paper concerns the“crowdsourcing model”of mass online communication and digital media.Using an online interview method,the author identified the major motivators for taking part in online communities (e.g.,Threadless community):Making money,developing own skills,getting freelance work,loving the Threadless community.The author also noted a uniform feature in the interview data:interviewees’use of“language of addiction”in describing their online activities/emotions/motivation.

https://dbrabham.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/threadless-publication.pdf

Global-Level Moral-Religious-Spiritual Indicators to Collective Consciousness

(“Individual Moral Actions/Thoughts in the Shaping of Global Collective Consciousness)

●2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureates:Oct 2014 interview with Satyarthi and Yousafzai:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2014/satyarthi-interview.html

●Austen Ivereigh (June 2014),“The Great Reformer:Francis and the Making of a Radical Pope”:Please listen to this audio interview of the author:

http://www.npr.org/2014/11/30/366368633/pope-francis-as-reformer-evangelizer-and-doctrinal-conservative

●The Dalai Lama speaks on“Beyond religion:Ethics for the Whole World”(3 March 2014,Washington National Cathedral)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9XzUpKWp6s

●The 2015 Templeton Prize winner,Jean Vanier’s talk on the spiritual/moral meaning of“physical/mental disabilities”:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/11/jean-vanier-templeton-prize_n_6842884.html

●On Professor Kathleen Vaughan Wilkes:Dubrovnik's Inter-University Centre (2003)and international conflict/justice:

http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/sep/19/guardianobituaries.obituaries

●Professor Noam Chomsky’s (Feb 2015) talk,“The Emerging New World Order,Its Roots,Our Legacy”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ccNt4Dzyfg

Econo-Political Indicators to Collective Consciousness

(“Collective Discontent&Dissent”,“State-level Corruption”,“Business Profit v.Public Good”,“Economic and wealth Discrepancy”,“global competition/cooperation”)

Collective Discontent & Dissent:

●Bob Herbert (Oct 2014),“Losing Our Way:An Intimate Portrait of a Troubled America”

Please listen to this interview of Bob Herbert discussing the nation’s major econo-political problems

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2014/12/26/how-america-has-lost-its-way-bob-herbert

●Wallace,R.&Fullilove,M.(2008),“Collective Consciousness and Its Discontents:Institutional Distributed Cognition,racial Policy,and Public Health in the United States”:

A scholarly book on the potentially traumatic influences of (institutional) collective consciousness over the individual’s cognitive,affectional as well as physical health:

Please get details of this book from the publisher’s site:

http://www.springer.com/public+health/book/978-0-387-76764-2

●“Dissent”as transitioning dynamics of econo-political collective consciousness:

Professors Ronald Collins&David Skover are the authors of (April 2014) book,“When Money Speaks:The McCutcheon Decision,Campaign Finance Laws,and the First Amendment”.

Please watch this video of their discussions about the earlier 2013 book,“On Dissent”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PO5qGAS0oI8

State-Level Corruption:Consequences for collective consciousness

●The UK national economic analyses include national income generated in drug-dealing and prostitution enterprises:

Please read this May 2014 report in the Guardian newspaper:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/29/drugs-prostitution-uk-national-accounts

●The USA Supreme Court Ruling on“Money in Politics”:The 5-year effects on“Big Money in Democracy”

Please listen to this Jan 2015 audio on the consequences of this ruling:

http://www.npr.org/2015/01/20/378525627/5-years-after-citizens-united-ruling-secret-money-floods-into-u-s-politics

●Sarah Chayes (2015),"Thieves Of State:Why Corruption Threatens Global Security”:on the driving force behind econo-political corruption (individuals’unsatiable egoistic desire for money/power)

Please listen to this 27 Jan 2015 interview with the author:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/audio/#/shows/2015-01-27/sarah_chayes_thieves_of_state_why_corruption_threatens_global_security/@00:00

●The OECD report on International Business Bribery (1999-2014)

“Changing forms of international business Bribery”(released 2 Dec 2014):

http://www.oecd.org/corruption/launch-foreign-bribery-report.htm

Monetary Profit & ;Public Good:Consequences for“Education&Health”(Private good?)

●An early 2005 NPR media report on“Medical Schools and Drug Firm Dollars”

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4696316

●Article summarising the 2010 US Institute of Medicine Forum on“Drug Discovery,Development and Translation”,National Academies Press,Washington,DC,USA:

“Transforming clinical research in the United States:Challenges and opportunities (Workshop Summary),text below:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK50888/

●Please read this May 2014 Reuter article on iWatch:“Individualised”yet global networked medical system

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-apple-hiring-insight-idUSBREA4409020140505

●A Feb 2015 investigative media reporting on“Big Pharma is America’s New Mafia”

Daniela Drake,“Pharmaceutical companies have more power than ever,and the American people are paying the price-too often with our lives”:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/21/big-pharma-is-america-s-new-mafia.html#

Widening Economic Inequality and Wealth Discrepancy

●In an open letter to the panellists at the forthcoming 2015 meeting on“Global Millennium Development Goals”,leading econo-political experts urge the decision makers to“...put inequality at the heart of any potential post-2015 framework...”,because of the widening global wealth gap between the haves and have-nots:“...the world’s top 1.75% earners now exceed those of the bottom 77%.”

Please read this short document here:

http://post2015.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/inequality-letter-final-190313.pdf

Please watch this Feb 2011 lecture by Professor Branco Milanovic on his book,“The Haves and Have Nots”,(London School of Economics):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS2vuLCXVPU

Three more recent (Feb 2014) lectures on“global wealth inequality”by Professors Branko Milanovic,James K.Galbraith,and Joseph E.Stieglitz,:(also discussants:Professors Michele Alacevich,Sanjay Reddy)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vR-64q_hkzo

Global Econo-Political Competition/Cooperation

(International bailouts/embargoes,natural resources monopolies,“goods”/information dealings)

●Professor Jagdish N.Sheth (Oct 2011),“Chindia Rising:Implications for Global Competitiveness”

Please watch Professor Sheth’s talk at the 2012 International Conference on Futurology,“Getting ready for the next revolutions:World experts discuss new forces and power shifts that are changing the government,business and societies”:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9hoIvT_Pbs

●Micklethwait,John,&Wooldridge,Adrian (2014),“The Fourth revolution:The global race to reinvent the state”

Please listen to this interview of the authors:

http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-05-20/john-micklethwait-adrian-wooldridge-fourth-revolution

●Evan Osnos (May 2014),“Age of Ambition:Chasing Fortune,Truth,and Faith in the New China”

Please listen to this June 2014 interview of E.Osnos:

http://www.npr.org/2014/06/03/318557263/a-new-yorker-writer-s-take-on-china-s-age-of-ambition

●Professor Karen Dawisha (Sept 2014,“Putin’s Kleptocracy:Who Owns Russia?”A Russian scholar’s research into the personal Intentions of Vladmir Putin in restoring the Greater Russia.

Consequences of TED Collective Consciousness

(“Over-Belief in Science/Technology”;“Over-Belief in Medication/Psychiatry”;“Co-Shifting of Behavioural and Generational Dynamics”)

“Over-Belief in Science/Technology”as prevailing mental set:Limitations of the scientific approach

(“Scientific Orthodoxy”;“Human Filters&Perceptual Distortions”;“Limitations of Scientific Experimentation”)

Scientific Orthodoxy,Scientism or Intellectualism

●William James on“Scientific Orthodoxy”:

James is often misunderstood as being anti-science.Having founded empirical psychology,James nonetheless anticipated the limitations of psychological science in providing an adequate account for human mind and consciousness.What James is cautioning is a continual narrowing of perspectives and its related egoistic tendency in delegitimising probable alternative approaches that are perhaps of equal deep-reasoned worth.

In concluding his critique of the then psychophysics,James writes amusingly:

“It is surely in some such way as this that Weber's law is to be interpreted,if it ever is.The Fechnerian Maasformel and the conception of it as an ultimate 'psychophysic law' will remain an 'idol of the den,' if ever there was one.Fechner himself indeed was a German Gelehrter of the ideal type,at once simple and shrewd,a mystic and an experimentalist,homely and daring,and as loyal to facts as to his theories.But it would be terrible if even such a dear old man as this could saddle our Science forever with his patient whimsies,and,in a world so full of more nutritious objects of attention,compel all future students to plough through the difficulties,not only of his own works,but of the still drier ones written in his refutation.Those who desire this dreadful literature can find it;it has a 'disciplinary value;' but I will not even enumerate it in a footnote.The only amusing part of it is that Fechner's critics should always feel bound,after smiting his theories hip and thigh and leaving not a stick of them standing,to wind up by saying that nevertheless to him belongs the imperishable glory of the first formulating them and thereby turning psychology into an exact science (!).

“'And everybody praised the duke

Who this great fight did win.'

'But what good came of it at last?'

Quoth little Peterkin.

Why,that I cannot tell,said he,

'But 'twas a famous victory!'”

(The Principles of Psychology,1890,Chapter 13“Discrimination and Comparison”),please read the chapter text below:http://psychclassics.asu.edu/James/Principles/prin13.htm

●James’1903 article,“The Ph.D.Octopus”reflects his concerns over the increasingly narrowing vision of higher education,the educator and the educated:

http://www.srs-pr.com/ESSAYS/james-phd-octopus.pdf

●Please also read Professor Richard Nordquist’s commentary on James’essay:

http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/The-Ph-D-Octopus-By-William-James-Classic-Essays.htm

●The multifaceted limitations of empirical approaches to consciousness are also spelled out in the following 1949 Nobel Prize address:

Nobel laureate Walter Hess (physiology 1949) on ergotropic/dynamogenic organism system and on empirical methods’“necessary yet non-sufficient”contribution towards a gestalt picture of human organism:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1949/hess-lecture.html

●Henry Bergson on orthodox“intellectualism”:

It is widely recognised that William James has a profound influence over many major European thinkers including Bergson,Merleau-Ponty,Sartre,and Lévinas.Below is Professor David Buchanan’s April 2014 essay on“William James finding in Bergson an intellectual companion in his critique of orthodox intellectualism”:

http://www.partiallyexaminedlife.com/2014/04/15/henri-bergson-and-william-james-on-vicious-intellectualism/

The point is that,in order to avoid over-belief,over-use and mis-use of scientific findings,we need to better understand what science“is”and“is-not-yet”.Hypotheses and Designs of scientific/laboratory experiments involve the value judgements of the experimenter.The experiments and measurements“per se”are in themselves silent on value.Interpretations and Applications of experimental findings are also value-laden (e.g.,result interpretations that are“going-beyond-data-given”,unjustified conclusions regarding educational,econo-political,medical applications)

Human Organisms as“Dynamic Filters”of Information Affordances:Distortions in human perception of reality”

James’pure experience theory,which identifies“perception of reality”with“psychology of belief”,has a significant influence over James Gibson’s ecological approach to human perception.This influence is evident in the main Gibsonian notions of“information affordances”and“perception as direct knowing of meaningful stimuli that are available in the perceivers’dynamic ecological spheres”.Robert A.M.Gregson also argues that human organisms (and their“data-analysis methods”) are“filters”of the Information state.

Such distorting biases inherent in human perception inevitably lead to scientific blunders.Scientific experimenters’own values (socialised mental sets or individual-specific values) continually underlie hence orient their research endeavours (e.g.,hypothesising,designing,analysing,interpreting,generalising).

Whilst such biasing effects may vary in degree pending the type of the objective science,they are still found among the most believed and significant discoveries in physical and biological sciences:

●Professor Mario Livio (2013),“Brilliant Blunders:From Darwin to Einstein”.

Please listen to this interview with the author:

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/17/184775928/when-great-scientists-got-it-wrong

●“human filter”-generated Distortions in social sciences

However,such distorting effects are more common in social and psychological research/survey findings.Below is a recent international survey on citizen perceptual accuracy.These individual and collective misperceptions can have significant,often negative,consequences for human societies.

Please read this Oct 2014 report of an international survey on collective misperceptions of key social issues:

https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3466/Perceptions-are-not-reality-10-things-the-world-gets-wrong.aspx

Regarding scientific experimentation,the experimenters’own perspectives may play a role in the often observed inconsistencies in research findings.Below are two examples:

●“Failures in replicating experimental results”

Given that replicability is one key criterion of scientific method,the pragmatic consequences of study irreplicability may be multifaceted.However,the exact reason(s) for such failures may also be multifaceted.This point is relevant in this recent case of author disagreements over failure to replicate.

Please read one of many reply/rejoinder papers on“Johnson et.al.V.Schnall et.al.”

https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1810/246235/JOHNSONcommentaries.pdf?sequence=1

Failure in Replication may at times involve genuine and necessary perspective-widening breakthroughs.The following may be such an example in cellular bio-medical research.

Human Neurons have cell protection mechanisms,which can be silenced by nucleus“REST”or“NRSF”(neuron-restrictive silencer factor present in normal ageing neurons in cortical/hippocampus regions).This study shows that REST presence can be protective of neurodegenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s.

Note the comments (at end of the article) regarding the opposite finding that increased REST might enhance vulnerability in Huntington’s disease (Cattaneo,et.al).

Lu,T.,et.al.(2014),“REST and stress resistance in ageing and Alzeimer’s disease”:

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v507/n7493/full/nature13163.html

●Gender parity in“subject sampling”and negative consequences for practical applications:Dr.Virginia Miller has provided clear evidence on persistent bias of subject sampling in animal and human medical research.

●Generalising animal-based genomic results to human health issues

Please read this Nov 2011 commentary article by Slate staff reporter Daniel Engber,“How one roden rules the lab:The danger of using one lab animal to study every disease”http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/the_mouse_trap/2011/11/
lab_mice_are_they_limiting_our_understanding_of_human_disease_.html

●“Empirical Neuroenchantment”:how learned stereotypic attitude about science can inhibit critical thinking:

Please read this article on a brain-scanning study using a“mock”imaging tool that was created from“discarded odds and ends including a scrap salon hair dryer”.This is a fun yet fair critique from Professor Raz and his research team at McGill University.

Ali,S.,Lifshitz,M.&A.Raz (2014),“Empirical Neuroenchantment:From Reading Minds to Thinking Critically”,Frontiers in Human Neuroscience:

http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fnhum.2014.00357/abstract

●“Blobology and Reverse Engineering”:Simple visual images in the brain reconstructed back from pixel patterns of fMRI data:

Can fMRI data in the form of pixels be“reversed”so as to reveal a human being’s original intent or thought:One future possibility? This question is closely related to William James’“direct experience”,the“qualia”issue and individual differences in‘inner life’.A review in 2013 summarising the status quo regarding,“Can fMRI Read Your Mind”:

http://www.nature.com/news/brain-decoding-reading-minds-1.13989

“Over-Belief in Medication/Psychiatry”as prevailing mental set:Limitations of psychiatry

(“Conceptual/Practical Limitations”;“”Drug Demand/Manufacturing”;“Questionable Efficacy of Psychiatric Medication”;“Problems with Psychiatric Profiling”)

Conceptual&practical limitations

●“The Harmful Dysfunctional Construction”of“Mental Illness”:The“Deconstruction of Human Normality”and“Harmful Reconstructions in Mental Illness”

Professor Horwiz takes the“harmful dysfunction”conception of the social constructivist perspective to psychiatry.This point is clear in many of his books:

●Horwitz,A.,&Wakefield,J.,(2007),“The loss of sadness:How psychiatry transformed Normal sorrow into depressive disorder”

●Horwitz,A.&Grob,G.,(2010),“Diagnosis,Therapy and Evidence:Conundrums in modern American medicine”

●Wakefield,J.,(2012),“All we have to Fear:Anxiety and the Boundaries of Normality”

This is a short article on the“harmful-dysfunctional construction”origin of“mental illness”:

Professor Allan Horwitz (2012),“Social Construction of Mental Illness”,in H.Kincaid (Ed.),“The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science”

Abstract of this paper:

http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195392753.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195392753-e-23

●The genesis of“Psychiatry”:Its conceptual and practical foundation is rooted in the limiting/lopsided Freudian ideas (e.g.,psychosexual development,pathology-based psychotherapy,drug-influenced beginning)

Howard Markel (2011),“An Anatomy of Addiction:Sigmund Freud,William Halsted,and the Miracle Drug Cocaine”

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/22/138610592/a-tale-of-two-addicts-freud-halsted-and-cocaine

●Early“science practitioners”in clinical psychology and psychiatry in the USA were returned soldiers from the two World Wars.The GI Bills granted veterans preferential access to university education.These pioneers were instrumental in creating the field and setting its curriculum,training,diagnostic and treatment directions.

This is a recent 2010 article,published by the American Psychological Association:

http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/11/veterans.aspx

●This Psychology Today article focuses on the mental health of practitioners in clinical psychology and psychiatry:

Epstein,R.,Bower,T.(1997/2012),“Why Shrinks Have Problems”,Psychology Today:

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200909/why-shrinks-have-problems

●“Mental Illness Construction”in Psychiatry’s earlier DSM-IV/TR:

http://debatewise.org/debates/1543-is-mental-illness-socially-constructed/

●For general readers,a wide-ranging critique of the American Psychiatry Association’s definitive diagnostic manual,DSMs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders

●A 2012 scholarly critique focusing on the psychiatric interview,from both a psychometric and a mind/consciousness perspective:

Nordgaard,J.,et.al.(2012),“The psychiatric interview:Validity,structure and Subjectivity”,European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00406-012-0366-z/fulltext.html

●Increasing Over-diagnosis of Asperger’s in the latest 2013 edition of DSM-V:

http://crackingtheenigma.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-evolution-of-autism-comparing-dsm.html

●The Less-is-More Hypothesis of Medical Doctors”:A collection of articles in JAMA April 2015 including the 2014 article on Cardiology care)

Is this hypothesis more likely to be validated for psychiatry and“mental health”?

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/collection.aspx?categoryid=6017

●Problems with Psychiatry as a medical profession:A Global effort in“rethinking of psychiatry”:

http://www.cchr.org/quick-facts/introduction.html

Prevailing Drug Culture Corroborating with Psychiatry’s Medicating Approach

●Genesis of synthetic drugs,third culture/flower era

An article on“the Pharmaceutical Century:The Decades of Drug Discovery”from The American Chemical Society:

http://www2.uah.es/farmamol/The%20Pharmaceutical%20Century/Ch5.html

●The prevalent drug culture:the shaping of many current mental sets and the unfolding of Generational legacies

Many youth in current TED culture equate“creativity”with core aspects of“drug-sex-rock/roll-money-fame-power”

“Medication mentality”:this is one example of recent books that focus on the“psychiatric efficacy”of potent synthetic drugs in treating war veterans):Shroder, T.(2014),“Acid Test:LSD,Ecstasy,and the Power to Heal”

(The term“acid tests”originates from the psychedelic drug/sex/party scene prevalent in mid-1900s)

A Dec 2014 media report on“Higher suicidal rates among older white males”:Could the major cause cited (depression) be part of the unfolding legacies?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/the-high-suicide-rate-among-elderly-white-men-who-may-suffer-from-depression/2014/12/05/2bad6ea0-222e-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

Problematic Issues with Psychiatric Drug/Medication:

●Psychiatric drugs have“major side-effects”

As one example:the widely prescribed antidepressant drugs may lead to suicide.

Professor Joseph Glenmullen (Jan 2006),“The antidepressant solution:A step-by-step Guide to safely overcoming antidepressant withdrawal,dependence and‘Addiction’”

Please listen to Professor Glenmullen’s talk at a 2006 Press Conference on research findings on this subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzLQ1QmNYUg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1_aroXn01Q

●Dr.Peter Breggin:the efficacy of psychiatric medication and the current practice of psychiatry.Please watch Dr.Breggin’s 2014 videos on problems with psychiatric assessment and medication:

http://www.breggin.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=297

●Neuropsychiatry research findings:the“brain-shrinking”effects of psychiatric drugs

This 2011 commentary article in Psychology Today covers Professor Nancy Andreasen’s study on this effect;the article also asks this question,“Should the prescribing of antipsychotics to children be banned?”

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/mad-in-america/201102/andreasen-drops-bombshell-antipsychotics-shrink-the-brain

●WHO (World Health Organisation) 2004 Report on neuroscientific findings regarding“psychoactive drug use and addiction”:

http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/en/Neuroscience_E.pdf

Problematic Issues with Medical/Psychiatric Profiling

●Genome Profiling:Over-Belief in genomic science?

Please read this 2014 Sept interview with the Nobel Laureate Walter Gilbert (1980 Chemistry Prize for DNA Sequencing),“Nobel Laureate:Big data and full-genome analysis not all they’re cracked up to be”.

http://theconversation.com/nobel-laureate-big-data-and-full-genome-analysis-not-all-theyre-cracked-up-to-be-31992

●Brain–Scan Profiling:Mismatching of“psychopath brain profile”with“a neuroscientist’s brain profile”

Professor James Fallon (2013),“The Psychopath Inside:A Neuroscientist’s Personal Journey into the Dark Side of the Brain”Please read the Original paper:

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/can_a_psychopath_learn_feel_pain

Or listen to this earlier June 2010 interview of James Fallon:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127888976

The Co-Shifting of“Behavioural and Generational Dynamics”

(“Changing Behavioural Pattern”,“Early Puberty Onset”,“Millennial/Boomer Attitude Differentials”)

TED culture and changing behavioral patterns:

●“Multi-tasking”:a Myth

Please listen to this May 2013 interview of Professor Clifford Nass,author of Nass&Yen (2012),“The Man Who Lied to His Laptop:What we can learn about ourselves from our machines”:

http://www.npr.org/2013/05/10/182861382/the-myth-of-multitasking

●“Inattention Blindness”:Texting/Driving and Multitasking

Richtel,M.(Sept 2014),“A Deadly wandering:a tale of tragedy and redemption in the Age of Attention”

Please listen to this Nov 2014 interview

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/11/18/texting-driving-richtel

●Shifts in“TED business marketing strategy”and the Millennial consumers

Jeff Fromm&Christie Garton (2013),“Marketing to Millennials:Reach the Largest and Most influential Generation of Consumers Ever.”

Early onset of Puberty&“Generational”thought/behaviour Shifts

●Professor Laurence Steinberg ,“Age of Opportunity:Lessons from the New Science of Adolescence”:On early onset of puberty,brain development in cognitive-emotion equilibrium and behavioural/environmental issues

Please listen to this Dec 2014 interview with the author:

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/12/01/science-adolescence-steinberg

●Paul Taylor and the Pew Research Centre,(2014),“The next America:Boomers,Millennials,and the looming generational showdown”

Based on the Pew statistics from socio/cultural/economic/political research,the authors presented their near-future forecast for the multifaceted thought/behaviour shifts in USA.

A short March 2014 interview of the author on one issue,“Millennials to bear the burden of Boomer’s social safety net”

http://www.npr.org/2014/03/04/285581006/millennials-to-bear-burden-of-boomer-s-social-safety-net

Full Pew Research report (2014),“Millennials in Adulthood”,Pew Research Centre:Social and Demographic Trends.

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/

“Futuristic TED Pop Culture”:

“Probable Future Collective Consciousness and Self-Identity”

●“What pop culture will look like 300 years from now,According to Star Trek”,written by“Wired Staff”,Entertainment,(Sept 2013)

The authors,deeply immersed and well versed in the TED pop culture,predict its probable future trajectories along these lines:video gaming,music,movie, communication,manual games,literature,sports,and live theatre.The authors covered perspectives of manufacturer/provider and consumer/user;and noted the two groups’differential goals (e.g.,addiction-induction versus sensorial/perceptual gratification).The likely social consequences of this probable future collective consciousness are also discussed.

http://www.wired.com/2013/09/star-trek-pop-culture/

●“Unbeatable yet Inability to Adapt”:Programming-based chess/poker gaming with TED creations

(cheating in competitive gaming or living)

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jan/08/poker-program-cepheus-unbeatable

●A Series of most thought-provoking analyses from a world leading neuroscientist:

Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield’s informed insights into the downward-spiralling sensorial-focused TED culture and its consequences for the human brain,human identity/consciousness and human society:

(please also refer to Unit 4&5 for Professor Greenfield’s video talks on recent neuroscience research)

Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield (2009),“ID:The Quest for Meaning in the 21st Century”

Greenfield,S.(Nov 2011),“You and Me:The Neuroscience of Identity”

Greenfield,S.(2014),“2121:A tale from the next century”(a thought-provoking science fiction)

http://www.susangreenfield.com/about-susan/books

●Governmental report relating TED culture and Changing Self Identity

A Jan 2013 UK government report on TED culture,social media and possible identity change in the nation:

“Future identities:Changing identities in the UK-the next 10 Years,DR3:Social Media and Identity”Report published by UK Government Office for Science,written by Nicole Ellison,Michigan State University,USA

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/275752/13-505-social-media-and-identity.pdf

Mitigation of Unethical TED Practices

And

Prevention of Negative Consequences of TED Creations

(“Government Regulatory Legislations”,“Cyberpsychology Behavioural Modifications”,“Conscience Self-regulations”,“Content-Shifts in Cybersphere”,”Content-Shifts in Workspace of the Mind”,“Positive Affective State”&“Meaning of a‘Happy/Good’Life”)

Government Regulatory Legislations on TED-related issues

●“Net Neutrality”and prospective 2015 updates of Title II legislations on public utilities:Regulating varieties of Internet activities including“fast lanes”(supplier profit-making,consumer user-demand)

Please listen to this short intro to one aspect of this complex issue:

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2015/02/04/debate-over-net-neutrality

●“Digital agenda for Europe:A Europe 2020 Initiative”:An introduction

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/en/cybersecurity

●Drones as TED Creation:Ethics of“posthuman”war in international relations

Professor Christian Enemark (Aug 2013),“Armed Drones and the Ethics of War:Military Virtue in a post-heroic Age (war,conflict and Ethics)”

Also related:Enemark,C.&Seigelid,M.(Nov 2012),“Ethics and security aspects of infectious disease control:Interdisciplinary perspectives (Global health)”

This is Professor Enemark’s 2011 talk on“Predators,reapers and post-heroic war”,at Australian National University’s National Security College:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLBDqy6pj28

●“Private /Public Sky”:US Supreme Court 2014 Ruling over“drone flights over private properties”:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/05/30/317074394/drone-wars-who-owns-the-air

http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/02/23/388503640/now-you-can-sign-up-to-keep-drones-away-from-your-property

●European Parliamentary Research Service on“Civil Drones in the EU”,

March 2015 article by A.Di Tella&R.Hirsh:

http://epthinktank.eu/2015/03/12/civil-drones-in-the-eu/

●User-demand of“Recreational”Drug&2015 Legislations in USA

http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2015/03/16/393444049/obama-2016-contenders-deal-with-changing-attitudes-on-marijuana

●EMCDDA (2015) short report on“New psychactive substances in Europe:An update from the EU Early Warning System”:

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/2015/new-psychoactive-substances

“Behaviour Modification”and Cyberpsychology

●Cyberpsychology in TED pop culture:“Mitigating Cybercrimes”or“Fostering Fear”?

A March 2015 article on probable shifting of the TED pop consciousness:“Virtual insanity:Cyberpsychology and online obsession”:

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/virtual-insanity-cyberpsychology-and-online-obsession-30312594.html

Role of Self-Regulation in“Conscience-Generated”Shifting (away from negative TED consequences):

Applied at all levels of Education,Language,Business,Society,and“Individual”(professors,scientists,media reporters)

●Beryl W.Holtam (Aug 2012),“Let’s Call it What it is:A Matter of Conscience:A New Vocabulary for Moral Education”

This book returns education to its foundation of human intrinsic good/moral and stresses the positive pragmatic consequences of the“voices of conscience”.

●Krista Tippett on“Reconnecting with moral words”:

https://www.ted.com/talks/krista_tippett_reconnecting_with_compassion?language=en

●“Moral Imagination”as Business/Corporate Social Responsibility:Conscience and Profit in TED business culture

Professor Patricia Werhane coins the term“moral imagination”,a pivotal notion in applied ethics.Please listen to her Jan 2013 talk on her book,“Corporate Responsibility:The American Experience”(Oct 2012)

(Co-authours:Carroll,A.,Lipartiti,K.,and Post,J.):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Do6Fmhji1w

●Collective Consciousness of Society (CCS) as“Conscience Collective”:The“revenging/criminating”collective mental set and the Litigation Mentality

Professor Kenneth Smith (Aug 2014),“Emile Durkheim and the Collective Consciousness of Society:A Study in Criminology”

The prevailing stereotypic“revenging/criminating/litigating”mentality is addressed in this recent book from Durkheim’s social construction perspective.

This book underscores the pivotal importance of moral conscience and civic virtue in the ubiquitous TED social climate.Equally importantly,the book draws our attention to the role of an individual’s entire socialisation history (e.g.,family upbringing,social networking,societal pop-culture,etc.) in the dynamic shaping of the individual’s habitual thought/behaviour patterns.

Below is Professor Smith’s summary of his book at the ATINER’s Conference,(Athens Institute for Education and Research):

http://www.atiner.gr/papers/SOC2014-1237.pdf

Educator’s own Self-Regulation

●Professor Laurie Fendrich‘s Nov 14,2014 controversial article in The Chronicle of Higher Education:“The Forever Professors”:

In the present context,this article can be seen as a needed call for“educators’own reflection”from multiple perspectives (e.g.,limited societal resources,occupation v.vocation).One key perspective concerns professors’own character,which often falls short in serving as a role model for students.

Please read Professor Fendrich’s recent essay here:

http://chronicle.com/article/Retire-Already-/149965/

Scientists’own Self-Regulation (“Oppenheimer v.Einstein”Revisited?)

Probable Moratorium on controversial“TED Creations”:

(Human DNA Reprogramming,Germline Genomics:Post-Dolly/Bonnie era)

●This area of genomics research in technology/design is summarised in the MIT Technology Review article by Antonio Regalado on,“Scientists call for a summit on gene-edited babies:Nobel Prize winners raise alarm over genetic engineering of humans”(Biomedical News,March 2015)

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/536021/scientists-call-for-a-summit-on-gene-edited-babies/

Media Reporter’s own Self-Regulation

●“Mass Media Journalistic Reporting”:Morality and Social Responsibility of Media Reporters (as“educators”)

William James places pivotal emphasis on educators’own character in education.As the notion of education is increasingly subsumed under the TED cultural milieu,media reporters are increasingly assuming the role of educators.The following article focuses on one aspect of media reporters’own professional conduct in truth reporting.

Craig Silverman (Feb 2015)“How lies spread faster than Truth:A study of Viral content”,PBS.

http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2015/02/how-lies-spread-faster-than-truth-a-study-of-viral-content/

“Deep Reflective Moral Reasoning”as Means in Mitigating the TED-related Reflexive/Impulsive Behaviour:

“Moral Equivalent”,“Ethical Generosity”,and“Slow-Mode Moral Reasoning”

●William James’notion of“Moral Equivalent”is relevant not only to war but also to all negative thoughts/behaviours involving violence (harming self or other)

James argues in this paper that,perhaps by finding alternative behaviours that allow the expression of positive human virtues associated with war (e.g.,valour,strength,altruism),humans can avoid war’s multifaceted negative consequences.

This is an audio recording:

https://librivox.org/the-moral-equivalent-of-war-by-william-james/

●William James’notion of“Affectional Energy”as“Ethical Generosity”in International Relations:

Professor Andrew Ross (2006),“Coming in from the cold:Constructivism and Emotion”,European Journal of International Relations,Vol.12.

This paper stresses the importance of Affective Identity in political and international relations.Professor Ross argues that,“The challenge for those committed to global ethics is to develop modes of expression that appropriate affective energies and apply them to projects and policies conducive to ethical generosity…(to) cultivate affective identities without chauvinism,patriotism,and other all too-familiar markers of exclusion.”

http://www.ohio.edu/PEOPLE/rossa/Ross/Research_files/Ross-EJIR.pdf

●Professor Joshua Greene (Oct 2013),“Moral Tribes:Emotion,Reason,and the Gap between Us and Them”.

Professor Greene emphasises the importance of the time-consuming self-reflective deep reasoning (“the slow manual mode”) in moral deliberations.Such reflective reasoning involves questioning“the gut feeling of intuitive reflexes”.Professor Greene’s work is important to applied ethics:Its fundamental principle is of equal significance to global-level and individual-level conflict resolution.

Please watch this video on his 2014 talk at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YxmuUUpuy4

Upward-Spiralling Shift in“Cybersphere Contents”:Towards an“Uplifting-Facts-Filled Cybersphere”

●Arianna Huffington’s Feb 2015 Initiative on Positive Reporting,“What’s Working”:

When a reflective/philosophic way of life becomes unattainable in the fast-pacing sensorial-driven cyberspheres,could Huffington’s initiative be the most practical media solution in countering TED’s downward-spiralling trend?

Please read this news item,“Arianna Huffington:We need more Happy Stories for Facebook”:

http://tktk.gawker.com/arianna-huffington-we-need-more-happy-stories-for-face-1683289365

Upward-Spiralling Shift in“Thinking/Consciousness Contents”:Towards an“Uplifting-Thoughts-Filled Workspace of the Brain/Mind”

●Positive affective state as habitual consciousness

Professor Sissela Bok (2010):“Exploring Happiness:From Aristotle to Brain Science”,Yale University Press

Professor Bok explores key philosophical thoughts on happiness,including the Nozick idea of a“Happiness Machine”(like in the movie Matrix).The book also focuses on the pragmatic consequences of finding/living a meaningful/happy life.Please listen to this Aug 2010 interview with the author:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129379708

●“Happiness”in TED Consciousness

It has long been said that the present time is the“Time of Economics”.It has also been said,ever since the early philosophers,that the ultimate human purpose is the attainment of“happiness”.It is in both contexts that Adam Smith has been“credited”with the popular notion of“a single-minded pursuit of $ wealth brings happiness”.However,Smith had meant that this notion is but an illusion;yet such an illusion may serve as the driving force behind humanity’s many materialistic/scientific/technological advancements.

The prominent moral philosopher Patricia Werhane has written extensively on the subject;below is a related short paper:

Professor Pat Werhane (2006),“Adam Smith’s legacy for Ethics and Economics”,Tijdschrift voor Economie en Management”:

https://feb.kuleuven.be/rebel/jaargangen/2001-2010/2006/TEM%202006-2/TEM_2006-2_01_Werhane.pdf

“The Meaning of Existence”:Man and Machine

●Future Scientists and Inventors:the Upward-Spiralling Consequences of the TED culture on today’s youngest generation

President Obama speaks of the purpose of science and learns from the many aspiring/inspiring young scientists at the 5th Annual White house Science fair (23 March,2015):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2LSXc-fBbg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvPEhk5v7nc

●Fear of the Unknown (and hence of Physical Mortality):An aspect of the TED-Reinforced“Fear Mentality”?

Commander Chris Hadfield’s upward-spiralling and delightful message to a scientifically well-informed child about Voyager One’s journey into the interstellar-sphere:On the meaning of life and true happiness

Please listen to their phone conversation here:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/The+Current/ID/2530849070/

In the context of human consciousness,James’idea of moral sentiment embodies both affectional and intellectual sentiment.Good/moral is to be understood in terms of the emotion/cognition balancing dynamics:It is in essence Shakespeare’s“mercy-seasoned justice”or Gilligan’s“care-based morality”.

Lifespan theories stress the key developmental task of actualizing the self’s good/conscience through the expansion of the self’s understanding of others’perspective and its empathic concerns for others’emotion.This human task is also aided by the evolutionary fostering of the neocortex in serving as a unique tool for deep reflection.A pertinent metaphor exists in the western religious/spiritual literature:the Ten Commandments were replaced millennia later with the single one of“treating others as oneself”.Humanity is supposed to have come of age even then.

The ubiquitous TED culture is rooted in the joint legacies of deconstructionist philosophies and literary critical theories.The former has left behind an“exteriorised self”devoid of intrinsic meaning;the elimination of (reflective) philosophy from the latter corroborates in furthering the deconstruction of the self.

For individual life,the TED culture’s trending focus on the“egoistic-I”and“sensorial-id”is antagonistic to the core human developmental task of“self-lessness”.For collective consciousness,the TED culture’s main consequence lies with the equating of good/moral with outcomes of regulations,legislations and litigations.Good/Moral’s correlatives,beauty/aesthetics and truth/wisdom,are now deeply entrenched in the pervading TED mentalities (“drug-sex-rock&roll as creativity/celebrity”,“money-fame-power as success”,“technology-entertainment-design as knowledge/truth”).

As the TED culture holds the key to humanity’s present and future,to avoid its many foreseeable negative consequences,James’idea of habitual moral living is of even greater relevance today.For it is in each self’s informed reflections and decision choices that the present and future human consciousness is taking shape;and it is in this sense alone that the self’s“free will”owes its existence.

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Singer,M.(2015),“Consciousness Streamed:William James’Pure Experience Worldview”