Who am I? What is my true identity? What is the nature of self? Deepest self? What is the nature of the world? How are self and world related? What is the highest goal of life? These are the questions that Indian philosophy has wrestled with for millennia. Many of the answers it has produced are intimately involved with spirituality, both mystical and theistic. This work, called Self and World: Major Aspects of Indian Philosophy, by Ramesh N. Patel, explores (...) these time-tested answers that are deeply interesting, engrossing and enlightening. Yoga and Vedanta are two of the well-known philosophies of India that have attempted answers to the above questions about self and world. The classical Indian philosophy’s answers to questions about self and world span no less than three distinct religions and their spiritualities: Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. Besides yoga and vedanta, Hinduism has four other answers that have conversed with yoga and vedanta for centuries. Buddhism has four distinct answers that too have conversed with these philosophical and spiritual answers. These conversations have led to very productive exchanges by enriching the resulting development and evolution of each system’s answers. The exchange has made the philosophies stronger and diverse. The present work explores and describes these systems in their mature form which preserves their accumulated wisdom.Another feature of this work is its treatment of the philosophy of the ancient texts called the Vedas. Pandit Madhusudan Ojha has unearthed the lost philosophy contained in the Vedas. This Vedic philosophy sports a highly comprehensive yet coherent and relevant system of thought that is also important for its tremendous influence on all later Indian systems including yoga, vedanta and Buddhist systems. This book articulates Vedic philosophy and its historic influence on the thought on self and world in Indian philosophy. The deeply spiritual embedding of Indian philosophy’s thought about self and world is particularly relevant to today’s strife-torn and polarized world. We need themes of unity in diversity for healing current maladies. The spiritual thought systems of Indian philosophy narrated in the present work provide an array of choices which have great potential for this healing. For example, Buddhism is celebrated for its universal compassion, Jainism for its legendary non-violence and Hinduism for its tolerance of differences and respect for other faiths. This book shows how these positions are intellectually strengthened and secured by the Buddhist, Jain and Hindu thinkers. (shrink)

The phenomenon of dreamless sleep and its philosophical consequences, particularly deep sleep's relevance to such issues as Self, Consciousness, Personal Identity, Unity of Subject, and Disembodied Life, are explored through a discussion, in varying detail, of certain noted doctrines and views--for example of Advaita Vedānta, Hegel, and H. D. Lewis. Finally, with a cue from Leibniz and McTaggart, the suggestion is made that at no stage during sleep is the self without some perceptions, however indeterminate. Support for this hypothesis is (...) claimed from the current psychoanalytic opinion that mental activity does not cease during any part of sleep and that human beings continue to dream even in the so-called dreamless state. (shrink)

We share Nair-Collins and Joffe's (2023) concern with the accuracy of the “whole brain-death” diagnosis, which fails to take into account current understandings of residual brain function (neurohor...

Day-to-day lives are affected globally by the epidemic coronavirus 2019. With an increasing number of positive cases, India has now become a highly affected country. Chronic diseases affect individuals with no time identification and impose a huge disease burden on society. In this article, an Efficient Recurrent Neural Network with Ensemble Classifier is built using VGG-16 and Alexnet with weighted model to predict disease and its level. The dataset is partitioned randomly into small subsets by utilizing mean-based splitting method. Various (...) models of classifier create a homogeneous ensemble by utilizing an accuracy-based weighted aging classifier ensemble, which is a weighted model’s modification. Two state of art methods such as Graph Sequence Recurrent Neural Network and Hybrid Rough-Block-Based Neural Network are used for comparison with respect to some parameters such as accuracy, precision, recall, f1-score, and relative absolute error. As a result, it is found that the proposed ERNN-EC method accomplishes accuracy of 95.2%, precision of 91%, recall of 85%, F1-score of 83.4%, and RAE of 41.6%. (shrink)

Current EEG research emphasizes gamma band coherence as a signature of functional integration, that is, the solution to the binding problem. We note that spatial patterns of coherent neural activity are also observed at other EEG frequencies. If these oscillations reflect Nunez's resonant modes, they offer a solution to the binding problem that emerges naturally from the architecture of cortical connections.

This baseline study was conducted to find out the knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical ethics among the undergraduate medical interns who did not have structured ethics curriculum in their course. A descriptive, cross-sectional study was carried out using a self-administered structured questionnaire among the medical undergraduate interns of Maharajgunj Medical Campus, the pioneer medical college of Nepal which enrols 60 students in a year. A total of 46 interns participated in the study. The most common source of knowledge on (...) ethics was lectures/seminars (35.7%) followed by experience at work (24.5%), training (21.4%) and own reading (17.3%). The main contents of Hippocratic Oath were known to 98.8% while 60.9% knew the main contents of Nepal Medical Council (NMC) code of ethics. Great majority (91.3%) regard ethics as very important in medical profession. “Doctors know the best irrespective of patients’ opinion” was disagreed by only 39.1% indicating the paternalistic attitude. However, 78.3% were in favour of adhering to the patient’s wish. None of the participant agreed to abandon confidentiality. Only about one-fourth (26.1%) claim to encounter ethical dilemma every day while the highest number (43.5%) had once in a month. To deal with the situation of ethical dilemma, majority approached to immediate supervisor followed by head of the department and colleagues. Eighty-seven percent of participating interns were involved in research activities involving human subjects. Only one of the participants had encountered the ethical issue on end-of-life and it was do-not-resuscitate consent in a terminally ill patient. On implementation of the curriculum on medical ethics focus should be - principles of biomedical ethics, sensitive ethical dilemmas like end-of-life care and practical experiences with participation in deliberations of the ethics committee. (shrink)

Background The aim of the study is to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices among healthcare professionals in Barbados in relation to healthcare ethics and law in an attempt to assist in guiding their professional conduct and aid in curriculum development. Methods A self-administered structured questionnaire about knowledge of healthcare ethics, law and the role of an Ethics Committee in the healthcare system was devised, tested and distributed to all levels of staff at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados (a (...) tertiary care teaching hospital) during April and May 2003. Results The paper analyses 159 responses from doctors and nurses comprising junior doctors, consultants, staff nurses and sisters-in-charge. The frequency with which the respondents encountered ethical or legal problems varied widely from 'daily' to 'yearly'. 52% of senior medical staff and 20% of senior nursing staff knew little of the law pertinent to their work. 11% of the doctors did not know the contents of the Hippocratic Oath whilst a quarter of nurses did not know the Nurses Code. Nuremberg Code and Helsinki Code were known only to a few individuals. 29% of doctors and 37% of nurses had no knowledge of an existing hospital ethics committee. Physicians had a stronger opinion than nurses regarding practice of ethics such as adherence to patients' wishes, confidentiality, paternalism, consent for procedures and treating violent/non-compliant patients (p = 0.01) Conclusion The study highlights the need to identify professionals in the workforce who appear to be indifferent to ethical and legal issues, to devise means to sensitize them to these issues and appropriately training them. (shrink)

Study of Vivekacūḍāmaṇi of Śaṅkarācārya, work on Vedanta philosophy.

Any healthcare systems during a pandemic undergo tremendous pressure in pursuit of effective treatment to treat and limit the spread of the disease and its implications. Conducting clinical trials to find the potential therapy is the only way to battle the current coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic. The majority of the countries have joined the cause and are carrying out clinical studies in various capacities. As a result, the ethical committees have encountered a sudden inflow of a large number of trial proposals (...) that have placed them under pressure. Although ethical committees play a vital role in protecting patient safety and preserving research integrity, they need to make sure the efficiency and integrity of review are preserved and the standards of review are not relaxed. Thus, the participants’ dignity is well guarded while keeping a close check on their safety. (shrink)

Long‐range correlation is a general class of coordination pattern found to be common to the intrinsic dynamics of complex systems, including human behavior. Balasubramaniam, Hove, and Médé investigate intrinsic dynamics in repeated finger movements, and they find that different measures of movement dynamics yield different long‐range correlations. Results shed light on the way that coordination patterns are expressed as a function of measurement context.

The chromosomes undergo a condensation‐decondensation cycle within the life cycle of mammalian cells. Chromosome condensation is a complex and critical event that is necessary for the equal distribution of genetic material between the two daughter cells. Although chromosome condensation‐decondensation and segregation is mechanistically complex, it proceeds with high fidelity during the eukaryotic cell division cycle. Cell fusion studies have indicated the presence of chromosome condensation factors in mammalian cells during mitosis. If extracts from mitotic cells are injected into immature oocytes (...) of Xenopus laevis, they induce meiotic maturation (i.e. germinal vesicle breakdown and chromosome condensation) within 2–3 hours. Recently, we showed that the maturation‐promoting activity of the mitotic cell extracts is inactivated by certain protein factors present in cells during the G1 period. The activity of the G1 factors coincides with the process of chromosome decondensation that begins at telophase and continues throughout the G1 period. These studies have revealed that the mitotic factors and the G1 factors play a pivotal role in the regulation of condensation and decondensation of chromosomes. Furthermore, our studies strongly suggest that nonhistone protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation may mediate chromosome condensation and decondensation, respectively. (shrink)

The present book intends to approach the problem of mind, meaning and consciousness from a non-naturalist or transcendental point of view. The naturalization of consciousness has reached a dead-end. There can be no proper solution to the problem of mind within the naturalist framework. This work intends to reverse this trend and bring back the long neglected transcendental theory laid down by Kant and Husserl in the West and Vedanta and Buddhism in India. The novelty of this approach lies in (...) how we can make an autonomous space for mind and meaning without denying its connection with the world. The transcendental theory does not disown the embodied nature of consciousness, but goes beyond the body in search of higher meanings and values. The scope of this work extends from mind and consciousness to the world and brings the world into the space of mind and meaning with a hope to enchant the world. The world needs to be retrieved from the stranglehold of scientism and naturalism. This book will dispel the illusion about naturalism which has gripped the minds of our generation. The researchers interested in the philosophy of mind and consciousness can benefit from this work. (shrink)

In this paper an attempt has been made to understand the nature of spirituality and spiritual consciousness in the philosophy of Professor R. Balasubramanian, an eminent Advaitic thinker of our times. He not only expounded the intricate philosophy of Advaita but also developed his own spiritual philosophy that encompasses a complete view of man and the world. Professor Balasubramanian derives his philosophical insights from Vedanta in general and Advaita Vedanta in particular. Besides, he is influenced by the existentialist and humanist (...) philosophy of the West to brings out the comprehensive view of the universalistic ethics and spirituality modelled on the philosophy of the universal Spirit. (shrink)

Grush has proposed a fairly comprehensive version of the idea of internal models within the framework of the emulation theory of representation. However, the formulation suffers from assumptions that render such models biologically infeasible. Here I present some problems from physiological principles of human movement production to illustrate why. Some alternative views to emulation are presented.

It is proposed here that Webb's ideas about robots as possible models of animals need some rethinking. In our view, even though widely used biorobotics strategies are fairly successful at reproducing the macroscopic behavior of biological systems, there are still several problems unresolved on the side of robotics as well as biology. Both mathematical and hardware-like robotics models should be feasible physiologically. Control principles elaborated in robotics are not necessarily applied to biological control systems. Although observations of flying birds inspired (...) aerodynamics and thus modern airplanes, little knowledge has been added to the neurophysiological principles underlying flight in birds. Chess playing computers might outperform most chess players, but they cannot be considered as physiologically feasible models of human thinking. (shrink)

As part of the special issue on “The United Nations at Seventy-Five: Looking Back to Look Forward,” this essay connects the past of the United Nations to its future from the perspective of the Global South. When the UN was created, most developing countries were colonies that played no role in writing the rules and designing the architecture of the post-1945 UN-centric global multilateral order. Today, countries in the Global South command a majority of the UN membership, but still mostly (...) function as norm takers and are severely underrepresented in the UN Security Council—which functions as the geopolitical cockpit—and also in the senior ranks of the UN system, in the key posts in the Secretariat, and in the UN's funds and agencies. Gradually, however, these countries are using their numerical strength to give voice to their distinctive preferences, priorities, and values. This essay provides a broad-brush sketch of the changing nature of the North-South partnership on the UN's four overarching normative mandates of security, development, environment, and human rights. It includes a brief comment on the coronavirus pandemic within the framework of its main narrative of the continuing need for a UN-centric North-South partnership. (shrink)

We agree with Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland’s (2023) assessment that the Dead Donor Rule (DDR) should be viewed as an essential requirement of the organ donation process, and that the essence of the r...

The present paper entitled "Subaltern Language Games and Political Conditions: A Perspective on Applied Philosophy" attempts to streamline Wittgensteinian language games and political conditions. The expression `subaltern ` stands for the meaning as given in the concise oxford dictionary, that is, `of inferior rank`. Subaltern language game is the game of marginalized people. Language game is meaningful in the context of social and political relationship. My contention is that technical or symbolic language is an instrument to serve the end of (...) the affluent class. I think that any social and political change requires change in languagegame. By applied philosophy, I mean that philosophical theories are applicable in concrete human situation. In this sense, I have considered Wittgenstein as an applied philosopher because he holds that words are dead but assume life when it is used or applied in the concrete life situation. In order to make society free from exploitation and reduce inequality, we have to change the prevailing language game. The language game which I am proposing may be called as the "Subaltern Language Game". I have tried to understand Wittgenstein's language game in the light of Derrida's theory of deconstruction. The ordinary languagephilosophy as expounded in` Philosophical Investigation` deconstructs `technical language philosophy' of `Tractatus` because technical language gives an abstract system of symbols and lacks blood and flesh of lifeworld. My contention is that language game is inseparable from socio-political structure. As a matter of fact language game is the expression of forms of life. The language game of the affluent and the ruling class is different from the language game of the poor and downtrodden. The language game of one ethnic group is different from the language game of another ethnic group. The language game of the white people is different from the language game of the black. In Indian context, the language game of the upper caste is different from the language game of the lower caste. The possibility of inequality due to linguistic advantages of privileged class is a fact and not a fantasy. In order to develop linguistic capacity, it requires socio-political and socio-cultural mechanism. The social inequality due to linguistic handicap of individual can be lessened by a process of change in values. This process of change in value system is called culturalisation or sanskritisation. It can be helpful in changing the use of language and its meaning. Thus, in moving from theory to practice, philosophers work to change these words and rules for those philosophers who are trying to do applied philosophy. The language game of the applied philosopher should be fashioned in accordance with socio-political realities. It is not plausible to do applied philosophy with outdated mode of philosophising. (shrink)

The paper entitled ‘Anthropocentric teleological environmental ethics’ is quite suggestive. I have tried to pinpoint that environmental ethics is both anthropocentric and teleological. I contend that man is the sole bearer of values. Environment serves human purpose. Man gives values to environment or Mother Earth. Indians with their reverence for sacred rivers have always been close to nature. I propose integral teleological environmental ethical theory which integrates man and nature, deontological and teleological theories. It reconciles between anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric views (...) of environment. (shrink)

Speech perception has been a very productive and important area in psycholinguistics. In this review easy, I discuss Cutler's new book on native language listening. Cutler argues for a theory of speech perception, where all speech perception is accomplished by competence in native speech. I review this book and attempt to situate its main contributions in the broader context of cognitive science.

Philosophical Psychology, Volume 24, Issue 3, Page 427-435, 01Jun2011.

Numerous high-profile ethics scandals, rising inequality, and the detrimental effects of climate change dramatically underscore the need for business schools to instill a commitment to social purpose in their students. At the same time, the rising financial burden of education, increasing competition in the education space, and overreliance on graduates’ financial success as the accepted metric of quality have reinforced an instrumentalist climate. These conflicting aims between social and financial purpose have created an existential crisis for business education. To resolve (...) this impasse, we draw on the concept of moral self-awareness to offer a system-theoretical strategy for crowding-in a culture of ethics within business schools. We argue that to do so, business schools will need to (1) reframe the purpose of business, (2) reframe the meaning of professional success, and (3) reframe the ethos of business education itself. (shrink)

We welcome and applaud Wilkinson’s impressive and subtle exploration of the possible considerations of frailty as a criterion for triage in times of pandemic-dr...