The general topic of this book is the metaphysics of the subject in Kantian transcendental philosophy. A critical appreciation of Kant's achievements requires that we be able to view Kant's positions as transformations of pre-Kantian philosophy, and that we understand the ways in which contemporary philosophy changes the letter of Kantian thought in order to be true to its spirit in a new philosophical horizon. Descartes is important in two respects. One the one hand, he institutes a philosophical movement which (...) can be said to culminate in Kant; on the other hand, Descartes is one of the major opponents against whom Kant argues in establishing his own position. In either case, the Cartesian cogito is a central concern. Wilfred Sellars restates and transforms Kantian positions in the context of contemporary philosophy after the "linguistic turn", using the Platonic metaphor that thought is similar to discourse. (shrink)

The component structures of two distinct neuropsychological systems are described. "System-Y" depends upon "system-X" which, on the other hand, can operate independently of system-Y. System-X provides a matrix upon which system-Y must operate, and, system-Y is transformed by the operations of system-X. In addition these neuropsychological structures reverberate in political history and in the cosmos. The most fundamental structure in the soul, in society, and in the cosmos, has the form of a conical spiral. It can be described mathematically as (...) an harmonic system and mythologically in terms of the birth, marriage and death of the divine-king. ;System-Y corresponds to the neocortex. System-X corresponds to the region below the cortex including the limbic brain. Many of the essential structures of system-Y are captured by Plato's image of the helmsman: orientation, locomotion, manual control and dexterity, visual guidance, verbal command, intention, and volition. System-X on the other hand has been systematically neglected by Western culture, beginning with Plato. ;The dissertation builds upon Yakovlev's distinction between "teleokinesis," "ectokinesis" and "endokinesis." "Teleokinesis" refers to goal-directed action in external space, and belongs to system-Y. Ectokinesis and endokinesis are components of system-X. "Endokinesis" refers to movements within the body. "Ectokinesis" refers to the emotions, which are expressions of endokinesis. The mechanics of ectokinesis is that of an harmonic or vibrational system, as is the mechanics of a musical instrument. ;Within a trance the structure of system-Y is temporarily altered, such that system-X enters the foreground of awareness. Because ectokinesis is analogous to music cultures inspired by trance experience understand the universe in terms of music. The structure of ectokinesis in a trance is that of a conical spiral. Plato inherited the mystical traditions of the ancient Near East but replaced the spiral of emotions with a spiral of ideas , by understanding the axis of the cone as the paradigmatic dimension, and the angular rotation of the spiral as the syntagmatic dimension, of language. Finally I explain how the mythology and political structure of theocratic society imitated the neuropsychological structures of trance experience. (shrink)

An exploratory pilot study with a small homogenous sample of Christian English speaking participants provided support for an alternative research hypothesis that a Christ consciousness contemplation with Heart Prayer of HeartMath techniques was significantly associated with increasing psychophysiological coherence, sense of coherence, spirituality and health perceptions. Participants described feelings of a peaceful place in oneness and connection with Christ. Integrative findings point towards Christ consciousness as an ultimately non-dual process of sensing vibrational resonance radiating from the human heart. Implications for (...) further research are discussed. (shrink)

This integral investigation explored phenomenological and neurophysiologic, individual and collective dimensions of Christian Trinitarian meditation experiences in a volunteer, convenience sample of 10 practicing Christians, 6 men and 4 women, with a mean age of 48 years and an age range from 21 to 85 years. Participants meditated for a minimum period of 15 minutes, during which neurophysiologic data in the form of electroencephalographic (EEG), electromyographic (EMG), blood volume pulse (BVP) and respiratory activity were recorded. A phenomenological analysis indicated that (...) the meditation process generally involved a movement from body to mind to spirit as evident in reports of an increasingly relaxed, contented and focused state of consciousness characterised by Christian Trinitarian imagery, wonder, surrender, peace, bliss, openness and formlessness. The neuropsychological findings indicated significant increases, from baseline to meditation recordings, in the alpha and beta range, accompanied by increasing mean trends in the theta and gamma range, and decreasing mean trends in the delta range, EMG, BVP and respiration. Integrative findings indicated the practical theological value of small doses of Christian Trinity meditation to enhance spiritual life for those forms of waking, thinking, conscious behaviour needed in everyday world involvement and healing. Findings were discussed in relation to further integrative investigations and interventions with practical theological implications. (shrink)

The research was generally motivated by a dearth of studies on joy, and particularly inspired by a book of joy celebrating the inter-spiritual dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. Its aim was to investigate whether the direct contemplation of joy would be associated with improvements in psychophysiological coherence, spirituality and various positive emotions and feelings. Integrative quantitative and qualitative findings emerging from a small pilot study, including a convenience sample of six participants with a mean age of 42 (...) years and age range of 25-69 years, supported the research hypothesis. Significant quantitative increases in psychophysiological coherence, spirituality and positive feelings were coherently and consistently supported by participants' individual and collective experiences. Integrative discussion amplified the paradoxical theme of joy through suffering in human emotional and spiritual life. (shrink)

It is my hope that the book will be widely read and debated."--Axel Leijonhufvud, UCLA and the University of Trento "This is a major and controversial contribution to macroeconomics that cannot fail to make an impact in several areas.

Pregnancy involves puzzling aversions to nutritious foods. Although studies generally support the hypotheses that such aversions are evolved mechanisms to protect the fetus from toxins and/or pathogens, other factors, such as resource scarcity and psychological distress, have not been investigated as often. In addition, many studies have focused on populations with high-quality diets and low infectious disease burden, conditions that diverge from the putative evolutionary environment favoring fetal protection mechanisms. This study tests the fetal protection, resource scarcity, and psychological distress (...) hypotheses of food aversions in a resource-constrained population with high infectious disease burden. The role of culture is also explored. In the first of two studies in Tamil Nadu, India, we investigated cultural explanations of pregnancy diet among non-pregnant women (N = 54). In the second study, we conducted structured interviews with pregnant women (N = 94) to determine their cravings and aversions, resource scarcity, indices of pathogen exposure, immune activation, psychological distress, and emic causes of aversions. Study 1 found that fruits were the most commonly reported food that pregnant women should avoid because of their harmful effects on infants. Study 2 found modest support for the fetal protection hypothesis for food aversions. It also found that pregnant women most commonly avoided fruits as well as “black” and “hot” foods. Aversions were primarily acquired through learning and focused on protecting the infant from harm. Our findings provide modest support for the fetal protection hypothesis and surprisingly strong support for the influence of cultural norms and learning on dietary aversions in pregnancy. (shrink)

Many cognitive and evolutionary theories of religion argue that supernatural explanations are byproducts of our cognitive adaptations. An influential argument states that our supernatural explanations result from a tendency to generate anthropomorphic explanations, and that this tendency is a byproduct of an error management strategy because agents tend to be associated with especially high fitness costs. We propose instead that anthropomorphic and other supernatural explanations result as features of a broader toolkit of well-designed cognitive adaptations, which are designed for explaining (...) the abstract and causal structure of complex, unobservable, and uncertain phenomena that have substantial impacts on fitness. Specifically, we argue that (1) mental representations about the abstract vs. the supernatural are largely overlapping, if not identical, and (2) when the data-generating processes for scarce and ambiguous observations are complex and opaque, a naive observer can improve a bias-variance trade-off by starting with a simple, underspecified explanation that Western observers readily interpret as “supernatural.” We then argue that (3) in many cases, knowledge specialists across cultures offer pragmatic services that involve apparently supernatural explanations, and their clients are frequently willing to pay them in a market for useful and effective services. We propose that at least some ethnographic descriptions of religion might actually reflect ordinary and adaptive responses to novel problems such as illnesses and natural disasters, where knowledge specialists possess and apply the best available explanations about phenomena that would otherwise be completely mysterious and unpredictable. (shrink)

This report describes the rationale, approaches, organization, and resource development leading to a large-scale deletion bin map of the hexaploid wheat genome. Accompanying reports in this issue detail results from chromosome bin-mapping of expressed sequence tags representing genes onto the seven homoeologous chromosome groups and a global analysis of the entire mapped wheat EST data set. Among the resources developed were the first extensive public wheat EST collection. Described are protocols for sequencing, sequence processing, EST nomenclature, and the assembly of (...) ESTs into contigs. These contigs plus singletons were used for selection of distinct sequence motif unigenes. Selected ESTs were rearrayed, validated by 5′ and 3′ sequencing, and amplified for probing a series of wheat aneuploid and deletion stocks. Images and data for all Southern hybridizations were deposited in databases and were used by the coordinators for each of the seven homoeologous chromosome groups to validate the mapping results. Results from this project have established the foundation for future developments in wheat genomics. (shrink)

Here we argue that the concept of strategies, as it was introduced into biology by John Maynard Smith, is a prime illustration of the four dimensions of theoretical biology in the post-genomic era. These four dimensions are: data analysis and management, mathematical and computational model building and simulation, concept formation and analysis, and theory integration. We argue that all four dimensions of theoretical biology are crucial to future interactions between theoretical and empirical biologists as well as with philosophers of biology.

Kant, Fichte, and the Legacy of Transcendental Idealism contains ten new essays by leading and rising scholars from the United States, Europe, and Asia who explore the historical development and conceptual contours of Kantian and post-Kantian philosophy.

Researchers, including Boyer & Petersen (B&P), commonly use experimental economic studies to draw their conclusions. These studies conventionally strip away context and present participants only with abstract rules. Because context is a strictly necessary component of the decision-making process, it is not clear that inferences about high-level folk psychological concepts (e.g., rationality) can be drawn from decontextualized economic games.

This is a book grounded in the real ethical challenges of modern business practice, with a world-religious perspective so necessary in an era of globalization.

The focus of this study was to analyze the content, distribution, and comparative genome relationships of 996 chromosome bin-mapped expressed sequence tags accounting for 2266 restriction fragments on the homoeologous group 3 chromosomes of hexaploid wheat. Of these loci, 634, 884, and 748 were mapped on chromosomes 3A, 3B, and 3D, respectively. The individual chromosome bin maps revealed bins with a high density of mapped ESTs in the distal region and bins of low density in the proximal region of the (...) chromosome arms, with the exception of 3DS and 3DL. These distributions were more localized on the higher-resolution group 3 consensus map with intermediate regions of high-mapped-EST density on both chromosome arms. Gene ontology classification of mapped ESTs was not significantly different for homoeologous group 3 chromosomes compared to the other groups. A combined analysis of the individual bin maps using 537 of the mapped ESTs revealed rearrangements between the group 3 chromosomes. Approximately 232 of the consensus mapped ESTs matched sequences on rice chromosome 1 and revealed large- and small-scale differences in gene order. Of the group 3 mapped EST unigenes ∼21 and 32% matched the Arabidopsis coding regions and proteins, respectively, but no chromosome-level gene order conservation was detected. (shrink)