We applaud Brown, Elliott, and Paine (2013) for their overarching goal of providing ethical justification for decisions to withdraw nonfutile life-sustaining medical treatments in some cases after...

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 5, Page 8-9, May 2012.

The adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is widely used in healthcare settings and can be applied to the work of institutional clinical ethics committees. The model of clinical ethics consultation, however, is inherently reactive: a crisis or question emerges, and ethics experts are called to help. In an effort to employ a proactive component to the model of clinical ethics consultation (as well as to standardize our educational interventions), we developed ethics pocket cards. The (...) purpose of this article is to: (1) describe the rationale for using ethics pocket cards, (2) provide examples of our cards, and (3) begin a dialogue about the potential uses of ethics pocket cards. In doing so, we hope to explore how such portable, economical devices can advance the goals of ethics consultation as well as the educational aims of ethics committees. (shrink)

This paper poses the question, “what are providers’ obligations to patients who lie?” This question is explored through the lens of a specific case: a 26–year–old woman who requests prophylactic bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction reports a significant and dramatic family history, but does not want to undergo genetic testing. Using a conversational–style discussion, the case is explored by a breast surgeon, genetic counselor/medical geneticist, clinical psychologist, chair of a hospital ethics committee and director of a clinical ethics consultation service.

Mr. Galanas, an eighty‐six‐year‐old man, intentionally shot himself in the chest and abdomen. Surprisingly, the bullet damaged only his distal pancreas and part of his colon, requiring a diverting colostomy to prevent leakage of bowel fluids into his abdomen. After being admitted, he lies intubated in the intensive care unit awaiting surgery to repair his colon. He is responsive but does not demonstrate clear decision‐making capacity. He grudgingly accepts pain medications but refuses antibiotics and antidepressants. He has a living will (...) that gives his wife durable power of attorney and also explicitly states a desire to refuse all medical interventions if he is permanently unconscious or in an end‐stage condition. Mrs. Galanas reports frequent conversations in which her husband said he would not want to be sustained on life support. She also says that he often mentioned he would not want an ostomy bag—a likely, albeit temporary, outcome of the proposed surgery. His physicians are nervous about withholding medical interventions when Mr. Galanas's injury is the result of a suicide attempt and his prognosis is good. Should the care team surgically repair his injured colon, regardless of the patient's capacity, his advance directive, and his wife's statement that he would not want surgery or other life‐sustaining treatment? (shrink)

Current neuroimaging techniques with high spatial resolution constrain participant motion so that many natural tasks cannot be carried out. The aim of this paper is to show how a time-locked correlation-analysis of cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) lateralization data, obtained with functional TransCranial Doppler (fTCD) ultrasound, can be used to infer cerebral activation patterns across tasks. In a first experiment we demonstrate that the proposed analysis method results in data that are comparable with the standard Lateralization Index (LI) for within-task (...) comparisons of CBFV patterns, recorded during cued word generation (CWG) at two difficulty levels. In the main experiment we demonstrate that the proposed analysis method shows correlated blood-flow patterns for two different cognitive tasks that are known to draw on common brain areas, CWG, and Music Synthesis. We show that CBFV patterns for Music and CWG are correlated only for participants with prior musical training. CBFV patterns for tasks that draw on distinct brain areas, the Tower of London and CWG, are not correlated. The proposed methodology extends conventional fTCD analysis by including temporal information in the analysis of cerebral blood-flow patterns to provide a robust, non-invasive method to infer whether common brain areas are used in different cognitive tasks. It complements conventional high resolution imaging techniques. (shrink)

Brain evolution is a complex weave of species similarities and differences, bound by diverse rules and principles. This book is a detailed examination of these principles, using data from a wide array of vertebrates but minimizing technical details and terminology. It is written for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and more senior scientists who already know something about “the brain,” but want a deeper understanding of how diverse brains evolved. The book's central theme is that evolutionary changes in absolute brain size (...) tend to correlate with many other aspects of brain structure and function, including the proportional size of individual brain regions, their complexity, and their neuronal connections. To explain these correlations, the book delves into rules of brain development and asks how changes in brain structure impact function and behavior. Two chapters focus specifically on how mammal brains diverged from other brains and how Homo sapiens evolved a very large and “special” brain. Key Words: basal ganglia; cladistics; development; hippocampus; homology; lamination; mammal; neocortex; neuromere; parcellation; primate. (shrink)

PART The Origins of a Philosophy of Reality "When you have listened, not to me, but to the Law (Logos), it is wise to agree that all things are one. ...

George F. Dole, Harvard Ph.D., has translated and arranged by theme a selection of passages from Swedenborg's works on life, heaven and hell, and the nature of God. This book is an accessible introduction for the reader new to Swedenborg, as well as a concise reference for those familiar with his philosophy. [Swedenborg's] philosophy is about as practical as one could ask. Ascetism is not the way to God.... A good person can be saved with any religion or with (...) no religion. "George F. Dole... has done us a great service in bringing Emanuel Swedenborg back to the attention of our distracted age." -from the foreword by Huston Smith. (shrink)

Is there really a hell? Should we be good simply to avoid punishment in the life hereafter? Just asking these questions theoretically doesn't get us far, George F. Dole suggests, but examining the works of someone who has been there may help. Dole refers to Emanuel Swedenborg, the eighteenth-century Swedish scientist and statesman who over the last twenty-seven years of his life had the privileged status of an observer of non-physical worlds, including hell. Swedenborg wrote that we are unconscious (...) residents of the spiritual world as well as the material world, and the hells he encountered have mirrors in our everyday lives. Within this framework, Dole examines questions about evil and hell that have plagued thinkers for centuries: Do we have freedom of choice? Do our spirits exist after death? Does an all-loving God condemn us to hell? If not, can we ourselves become irredeemably evil? What distinguishes Dole's approach to these questions is his open-mindedness and his hopefulness. Freedom and Evil brings us face to face with a God of mercy, and it is easy to believe, with Dole, that the gates of hell are not to keep people in but to keep people out. (shrink)

This short work is a collection of four essays by nineteenth-century author and transcendentalist Samson Reed. "A Dissertation: On the Evidence from the Light of Nature of a Future Retribution" is a religious treatise that laid the groundwork for his aesthetic theory; the "Oration on Genius" is a vibrant speech which is probably America's earliest Romantic manifesto; "Observations on the Growth of the Mind" reflects the aesthetic theory embraced by Ralph Waldo Emerson and the New England transcendentalists; and Reed's preface (...) to the 1838 edition of "Observations," which showed his growing disenchantment with the transcendentalist movement he helped to inspire. Edited by George F. Dole, the collection contains a preface by Sylvia Montgomery Shaw giving the historical context to these writings. (shrink)

Microphysical laws are time reversible, but macrophysics, chemistry and biology are not. This paper explores how this asymmetry arises due to the cosmological context, where a non-local Direction of Time is imposed by the expansion of the universe. This situation is best represented by an Evolving Block Universe, where local arrows of time emerge in concordance with the Direction of Time because a global Past Condition results in the Second Law of Thermodynamics pointing to the future. At the quantum level, (...) the indefinite future changes to the definite past due to quantum wave function collapse events. (shrink)

Swedish scientist and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg wrote volumes upon volumes based on the understanding he gained through visits to the spiritual world and from conversations with its inhabitants. For new readers of Swedenborg, knowing where to start and what to read can present an insurmountable task. This volume is a good starting point and provides samples of some of his most powerful writings, now available in new, contemporary translations. What happens to our souls after we die? What is the afterlife (...) like? What is the nature of God? Of evil? What can we do during our lives to help guide us to heaven? What kinds of answers can we find in the Bible? Selections from some of Swedenborg’s most popular works—_Heaven and Hell_, _Divine Love and Wisdom_, _Divine Providence_, _Secrets of Heaven_, and _True Christianity_—answer these questions and more. Ideal for those new to Swedenborg’s theology, _A Swedenborg Sampler_ offers tastes from a rich smorgasbord of spiritual insight. (shrink)

_Divine Love and Wisdom_ has been called the most profound work of the Enlightenment scientist and seer Emanuel Swedenborg. It demonstrates how God’s love, wisdom, and humanity are reflected in creation and in ourselves, and suggests that the act of Creation is not a mystery of the past, but a miracle ongoing in every instant of the present. Like a blueprint of things unseen, _Divine Love and Wisdom_ makes visible the hidden design of the universe, as well as the qualities (...) of its Architect. Its vivid depiction of the spiritual mechanism of the world has impressed thinkers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry James Sr. The New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg is a modern-language, scholarly translation of Swedenborg’s theological works. The series’ easy-to-read style retains the dignity, variety, clarity, and gender-inclusive language of Swedenborg’s original Latin, bringing his thought to life. This portable edition contains the text of the New Century Edition translation, but not the introduction, annotations, or other supplementary materials found in the deluxe edition. (shrink)

_Divine Love and Wisdom_ has been called the most profound work of the Enlightenment scientist and seer Emanuel Swedenborg. It demonstrates how God’s love, wisdom, and humanity are reflected in creation and in ourselves, and suggests that the act of Creation is not a mystery of the past, but a miracle ongoing in every instant of the present. Like a blueprint of things unseen, _Divine Love and Wisdom_ makes visible the hidden design of the universe, as well as the qualities (...) of its Architect. Its vivid depiction of the spiritual mechanism of the world has impressed thinkers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry James Sr. _Divine Providence_ is one of Emanuel Swedenborg's major works. It provides a coherent and satisfying solution to what has been called “the problem of evil”: How are God’s goodness and power reconcilable with evil’s presences in the larger world and in the human mind and heart? By tackling an array of issues that commonly undermine belief in God, including war, suffering, and inequality—and by revealing the wise and loving laws that lie hidden behind these seemingly senseless phenomena—_Divine Providence _aims to restore our faith in the meaningfulness of the world. Despite its universal focus, _Divine Providence_ is also a highly practical book on the personal level, demonstrating how we can put aside negative attitudes and behaviors and grow into positive thought and action. This volume, which contains both works, also has an introduction by Gregory R. Johnson that puts these ideas in the context of the history of philosophy. The New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg is a modern-language, scholarly translation of Swedenborg’s theological works. The series’ easy-to-read style retains the dignity, variety, clarity, and gender-inclusive language of Swedenborg’s original Latin, bringing his thought to life. Introductions and annotations by eminent, international scholars place Swedenborg’s writings in their historical context and illuminate obscure references within the text, enabling readers to understand and trace Swedenborg’s influence as never before. (shrink)

_Divine Love and Wisdom_ has been called the most profound work of the Enlightenment scientist and seer Emanuel Swedenborg. It demonstrates how God’s love, wisdom, and humanity are reflected in creation and in ourselves, and suggests that the act of Creation is not a mystery of the past, but a miracle ongoing in every instant of the present. Like a blueprint of things unseen, _Divine Love and Wisdom_ makes visible the hidden design of the universe, as well as the qualities (...) of its Architect. Its vivid depiction of the spiritual mechanism of the world has impressed thinkers such as William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry James Sr. This volume contains an introduction by Gregory R. Johnson that puts the work in the context of the history of philosophy. The New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg is a modern-language, scholarly translation of Swedenborg’s theological works. The series’ easy-to-read style retains the dignity, variety, clarity, and gender-inclusive language of Swedenborg’s original Latin, bringing his thought to life. Introductions and annotations by eminent, international scholars place Swedenborg’s writings in their historical context and illuminate obscure references within the text, enabling readers to understand and trace Swedenborg’s influence as never before. (shrink)

_Divine Providence_ is one of the major works of the Enlightenment scientist and religious seer Emanuel Swedenborg. It provides a coherent and satisfying solution to what has been called “the problem of evil”: How are God’s goodness and power reconcilable with evil’s presences in the larger world and in the human mind and heart? By tackling an array of issues that commonly undermine belief in God, including war, suffering, and inequality—and by revealing the wise and loving laws that lie hidden (...) behind these seemingly senseless phenomena—_Divine Providence _aims to restore our faith in the meaningfulness of the world. Despite its universal focus, _Divine Providence_ is also a highly practical book on the personal level, demonstrating how we can put aside negative attitudes and behaviors and grow into positive thought and action. The New Century Edition of the Works of Emanuel Swedenborg is a modern-language, scholarly translation of Swedenborg’s theological works. The series’ easy-to-read style retains the dignity, variety, clarity, and gender-inclusive language of Swedenborg’s original Latin, bringing his thought to life. This portable edition contains the text of the New Century Edition translation, but not the introduction, annotations, or other supplementary materials found in the deluxe editions. (shrink)

A biogenetic structural explanation is offered for the cross‐culturally common mystical experience called portalling, the experience of moving from one reality to another via a tunnel, door, aperture, hole, or the like. The experience may be evoked in shamanistic and meditative practice by concentration upon a portalling device (mirror, mandala, labyrinth, skrying bowl, pool of water, etc.). Realization of the portalling experience is shown to be fundamental to the phenomenology underlying multiple reality cosmologies in traditional cultures and is explained in (...) terms of radical re‐entrainment of the neurological systems mediating experience in the brain. Phenomenological experiments with mirror portalling devices from both the Tibetan and the Tsimshian religious traditions are reported. (shrink)

This chapter responds to claims that causal closure of the underlying microphysics determines brain outcomes as a matter of principle, even if we cannot hope to ever carry out the needed calculations in practice. The reductionist position is that microphysics alone determines all, specifically the functioning of the brain. Here I respond to that claim in depth, claiming that if one firstly takes into account the difference between synchronic and diachronic emergence, and secondly takes seriously the well established nature of (...) biology in general and neuroscience in particular, downward causation enables genuine causal powers to occur at higher emergent levels in biology and that causal closure is in reality an interlevel affair involving even social levels. (shrink)

It has been just over 100 years since the birth of Alan Turing and more than 65 years since he published in Mind his seminal paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. In the Mind paper, Turing asked a number of questions, including whether computers could ever be said to have the power of “thinking”. Turing also set up a number of criteria—including his imitation game—under which a human could judge whether a computer could be said to be “intelligent”. Turing’s paper, as (...) well as his important mathematical and computational insights of the 1930s and 1940s led to his popular acclaim as the “Father of Artificial Intelligence”. In the years since his paper was published, however, no computational system has fully satisfied Turing’s challenge. In this paper we focus on a different question, ignored in, but inspired by Turing’s work: How might the Artificial Intelligence practitioner implement “intelligence” on a computational device? Over the past 60 years, although the AI community has not produced a general-purpose computational intelligence, it has constructed a large number of important artifacts, as well as taken several philosophical stances able to shed light on the nature and implementation of intelligence. This paper contends that the construction of any human artifact includes an implicit epistemic stance. In AI this stance is found in commitments to particular knowledge representations and search strategies that lead to a product’s successes as well as its limitations. Finally, we suggest that computational and human intelligence are two different natural kinds, in the philosophical sense, and elaborate on this point in the conclusion. (shrink)

The causal closure of physics is usually discussed in a context free way. Here I discuss it in the context of engineering systems and biology, where strong emergence takes place due to a combination of upwards emergence and downwards causation. Firstly, I show that causal closure is strictly limited in terms of spatial interactions because these are cases that are of necessity strongly interacting with the environment. Effective Spatial Closure holds ceteris parabus, and can be violated by Black Swan Events. (...) Secondly, I show that causal closure in the hierarchy of emergence is a strictly interlevel affair, and in the cases of engineering and biology encompasses all levels from the social level to the particle physics level. However Effective Causal Closure can usefully be defined for a restricted set of levels, and one can experimentally determine Effective Theories that hold at each level. This does not however imply those effective theories are causally complete by themselves. In particular, the particle physics level is not causally complete by itself in the contexts of solid state physics, digital computers, or biology. Furthermore Inextricably Intertwined Levels occur in all these contexts. (shrink)