The visual brain consists of several parallel, functionally specialized processing systems, each having several stages (nodes) which terminate their tasks at different times; consequently, simultaneously presented attributes are perceived at the same time if processed at the same node and at different times if processed by different nodes. Clinical evidence shows that these processing systems can act fairly autonomously. Damage restricted to one system compromises specifically the perception of the attribute that that system is specialized for; damage to a given (...) node of a processing system that leaves earlier nodes intact results in a degraded perceptual capacity for the relevant attribute, which is directly related to the physiological capacities of the cells left intact by the damage. By contrast, a system that is spared when all others are damaged can function more or less normally. Moreover, internally created visual percepts-illusions, afterimages, imagery, and hallucinations-activate specifically the nodes specialized for the attribute perceived. Finally, anatomical evidence shows that there is no final integrator station in the brain, one which receives input from all visual areas; instead, each node has multiple outputs and no node is recipient only. Taken together, the above evidence leads us to propose that each node of a processing-perceptual system creates its own microconsciousness. We propose that, if any binding occurs to give us our integrated image of the visual world, it must be a binding between microconsciousnesses generated at different nodes. Since any two microconsciousnesses generated at any two nodes can be bound together, perceptual integration is not hierarchical, but parallel and postconscious. By contrast, the neural machinery conferring properties on those cells whose activity has a conscious correlate is hierarchical, and we refer to it as generative binding, to distinguish it from the binding that might occur between the microconsciousnesses. (shrink)

The article defines the function of the visual brain as a search for constancies with the aim of obtaining knowledge about the world, and claims that it is applicable with equal vigour to the function of art. We define the general function of art as a search for the constant, lasting, essential, and enduring features of objects, surfaces, faces, situations, and so on, which allows us not only to acquire knowledge about the particular object, or face, or condition represented on (...) the canvas but to generalize, based on that, about many other objects and thus acquire knowledge about a wide category of objects or faces. In this process, the artist must also be selective and invest his work with attributes that are essential, discarding much that is superfluous. It follows that one of the functions of art is an extension of the major function of the visual brain. Indeed, philosophers and artists often spoke about art in terms that are extremely similar to the language that a modern neurobiologist of vision would use, except that he would substitute the word ‘brain’ for the word ‘artist.’. (shrink)

One of the primordial functions of the brain is the acquisition of knowledge. The apparatus that it has evolved to do so is flexible enough to allow it to acquire knowledge about unambiguous conditions on the one hand, and about situations that are capable of two or more interpretations, each one of which has equal validity with the others. However, in the latter instance, we can only be conscious of one interpretation at any given moment. The study of ambiguity thus (...) gives us some insights into how activity at different stations of the brain can result in a micro-consciousness for an attribute, and also tell us something about interactions between different cerebral areas that result in several potential micro-conscious correlates, though only one predominates at any given time. Finally, the study of ambiguity also gives us insights into the neurological machinery that artists have tapped to create the ambiguity that is commonly a hallmark of great works of art. (shrink)

What is art? What constitutes great art? Why do we value art so much and why has it been such a conspicuous feature of all human societies? These questions have been discussed at length though without satisfactory resolution. This is not surprising. Such discussions are usually held without reference to the brain, through which all art is conceived, executed and appreciated. Art has a biological basis. It is a human activity and, like all human activities, including morality, law and religion, (...) depends upon, and obeys, the laws of the brain. To understand the biological foundations of art, we must enquire into the biological foundations of knowledge, for art constitutes a form of knowledge; indeed is knowledge. We are still far from knowing the neural basis of the laws that dictate artistic creativity, achievement and appreciation, but spectacular advances in our knowledge of the visual brain allow us to make a beginning in trying to formulate neural laws of art and aesthetics; in short, to study neuroaesthetics. In this essay, I try to discuss the art of three Titanic figures in Western culture — Dante, Michelangelo and Wagner — in neurological terms. I try to show that we can trace the origins of their art to a fundamental characteristic of the brain, namely its capacity to form concepts. This capacity is itself the by-product of an essential characteristic of the brain. That characteristic is abstraction, and is imposed upon the brain by one of its chief functions, namely the acquisition of knowledge. (shrink)

Moutoussis, K., A. Maier, S. Zeki and N. K. Logothetis: Seeing invisible motion: responses of area V5 neurons in the awake-behaving macaque. Soc. for Neurosci. Abstr. 390.11, 1.

Summary Humans know when they themselves experience beauty, even though the term itself has been difficult to define adequately for a variety of reasons. Given this centuries’ old failure to give an adequate definition of beauty, perhaps the time has come to enquire whether the experience of beauty, regardless of its source, can be defined in neural terms.

Applying our new found knowledge from neuroscience to the discipline of law seems a natural development - the making, considering, and enforcing of law of course rests on mental processes. However, there are real issues that the legal system will face as neurobiological studies continue to relentlessly probe the human mind. This volume represents the first serious attempt to address questions of law as reflecting brain activity, emphasizing that it is the organization and functioning of the brain that determines how (...) we enact and obey laws. (shrink)

In his paper, 'Neural Concept Formation and Art: Dante, Michelangelo, Wagner' Semir Zeki writes 'we can trace the origins of art to a fundamental characteristic of the brain, namely its capacity to form concepts' . He proposes that 'this capacity is itself the by-product of an essential characteristic of the brain. That characteristic is abstraction, and is imposed upon the brain by one of its chief functions, namely the acquisition of knowledge.' . Then, centring his argument around 'the (...) ideal of love', he claims that Dante, Michelangelo and Wagner 'had created in their brains', he further asserts that 'none of the three found that ideal in real life, and each was impelled in a different way to create works of art in response to that gap'. (shrink)

The interview is based on some thesis of Semir Zeki’s last book, Splendours and Miseries of the Brain. The founder of the International Institute of Neuroaesthetics (London 2001) wrote that a very different kind of knowledge can be acquired by the brain in the experience of art. It seems that he recognizes there can be a kind of “intelligence” in perception, while he writes about microcosciences of perception being located in the same areas where the information coming from (...) the outside is elaborated and perceived. He explains the distinction between inherited “concepts” and acquired synthetic “concepts” of the visual brain. The theory of acquired concepts could also help in explaining the problem of taste: it seems that what we like in our lives is determined by the result (the synthesis) of those probabilities coming from our acquired synthetic brain concepts. Thus there wouldn’t be any free will in our aesthetical and love choices. (shrink)

L'œuvre de René Magritte est très populaire, c'est sûr. Pourtant, les théoriciens de la peinture affichent parfois à son égard un certain dédain. Mauvaise peinture, ose-t-on dire. Chacun en juge comme il l'entend... mais ces critiques ont-ils saisi l'intention attachée à cette œuvre? Car un travail de la pensée la traverse. J'irais jusqu'à dire que l'œuvre de Magritte est cela même : l'exercice d'une pensée en images. Dans ce livre, je propose une enquête. Prenant appui sur les dits et écrits (...) du peintre, je tente de retrouver cette pensée en images. En eux-mêmes les tableaux 'y donnent pas accès : on aurait beau les interpréter, on ne découvrirait pas encore leur nécessité. Alors je les mets en rapport avec des concepts philosophiques. Je montre, à partir de sept études, que les images créées par Magritte sont comparables à des arguments et qu'elles témoignent, au sein de l'œuvre, d'une ressemblance avec la réflexion de philosophes tels que Platon, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein ou Sartre, sans compter Michel Foucault."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

This volume is a comprehensive introduction to the study of the meaning of linguistic expressions in English: words and sentences. In conducting the analysis, it draws on two sources. First, it relies on the assumptions of Cognitive Linguistics, which describes language as being non-modular, symbolic, usage-based, meaningful and creative. Second, it hinges on the assumptions of Cognitive Semantics, which describes meaning as being embodied, motivated, dynamic, encyclopaedic and conceptualised. It explicates these assumptions clearly and applies them to diverse areas of (...) language. Ultimately, it enables students to recognise the complexity of the English linguistic system, and trains them to solve the intricate puzzles characterising its nature. (shrink)

As quantum technologies (QT) advance, their potential impact on and relation with society has been developing into an important issue for exploration. In this paper, we investigate the topic of democratization in the context of QT, particularly quantum computing. The paper contains three main sections. First, we briefly introduce different theories of democracy (participatory, representative, and deliberative) and how the concept of democratization can be formulated with respect to whether democracy is taken as an intrinsic or instrumental value. Second, we (...) give an overview of how the concept of democratization is used in the QT field. Democratization is mainly adopted by companies working on quantum computing and used in a very narrow understanding of the concept. Third, we explore various narratives and counter-narratives concerning democratization in QT. Finally, we explore the general efforts of democratization in QT such as different forms of access, formation of grassroot communities and special interest groups, the emerging culture of manifesto writing, and how these can be located within the different theories of democracy. In conclusion, we argue that although the ongoing efforts in the democratization of QT are necessary steps towards the democratization of this set of emerging technologies, they should not be accepted as sufficient to argue that QT is a democratized field. We argue that more reflexivity and responsiveness regarding the narratives and actions adopted by the actors in the QT field and making the underlying assumptions of ongoing efforts on democratization of QT explicit, can result in a better technology for society. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

We give an analysis over a variation of causal sets where the light cone of an event is represented by finitely branching trees with respect to any given arbitrary dynamics. We argue through basic topological properties of Cantor space that under certain assumptions about the universe, spacetime structure and causation, given any event x, the number of all possible future worldlines of x within the many-worlds interpretation is uncountable. However, if all worldlines extending the event x are ‘eventually deterministic’, then (...) the cardinality of the set of future worldlines with respect to x is exactly ℵ0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\aleph _0$$\end{document}, i.e., countably infinite. We also observe that if there are countably many future worldlines with respect to x, then at least one of them must be necessarily ‘decidable’ in the sense that there is an algorithm which determines whether or not any given event belongs to that worldline. We then show that if there are only finitely many worldlines in the future of an event x, then they are all decidable. We finally point out the fact that there can be only countably many terminating worldlines. (shrink)

This volume aimed to highlight narrative identities of European cities or city neighbourhoods that have been overlooked, such as mid-sized cities. These cities are neither small towns nor metropolises, cities that are now unveiling their appeal or specificity. The present special issue thus covers a range of representations of cities. The articles investigate more systematically how different texts deal with various cities from different experiential and fictional perspectives. The issue covers the geographical scope across Europe, from east to west or (...) vice versa, as well as a range of different works of national literature(s), but with a clear emphasis on mid-sized European cities that have until now been deemed as lesser-known, secondary, peripheral, ‘other’ cities that are in the focus of the research of the COST project Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, within which this journal issue is being published. (shrink)

Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print.

Résumé La culture peut-elle être un objet d'étude à part entière? Les sciences de la culture le donnent implicitement à penser par leur intitulé même. Néanmoins, les caractères définitoires de la culture – à la fois totalité et singularité – dérogent à l'objectivité scientifique ordinaire. On considérera d'abord trois tentatives d'objectivation de la culture menées en sémiotique, sous le rapport de la sémiosphère (Lotman), de l'esthésie (Rastier) et de la langue (Benveniste). Le crédit accordé à la troisième tentative nous invitera (...) ensuite à interroger le rapport entre langue, texte et culture à partir de la distinction théorique proposée par Hjelmslev entre analyse et fragmentation. (shrink)

Résumé On enquête dans cet article sur le concept de modalité comme il a été élaboré dans la théorie sémiotique, distinctement des approches linguistique et logique, à l’instigation d’A. J. Greimas, puis largement employé dans l’analyse des textes. Si la modalité répond tout d’abord de la possibilité de présence d’un verbe modal (pouvoir, vouloir, savoir), bientôt l’effort théorique des sémioticiens a tendu à rendre compte des différentes modalités au moyen d’une structure sémantique. L’exposé de cinq travaux poursuivant cet effort de (...) systématisation (Rengstorf. 1976. Pour une quatrième modalité narrative. Langages 43. 71–77 ; Greimas et Courtés. 1979. Sémiotique. Dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage. Paris: Hachette ; Greimas et Fontanille. 1991. Sémiotique des passions. Paris: Seuil ; Fontanille et Zilberberg. 1998. Tension et signification. Liège: Mardaga ; et Fontanille. 2003 [1999]. Sémiotique du discours. Limoges: PULIM) nous permettra de proposer, dans un premier temps, un bilan. On remarquera, dans un second temps, que les extensions et justifications successives n’ont pas toutefois été sans introduire des contradictions dans la conception théorique de la modalité. Nous mènerons alors les développements nécessaires en vue d’une définition plus raisonnée du concept de modalité et d’une refonte générale du système des modalités. (shrink)