The unborn healthy foetus is looked upon as a blessing by one and all. A plethora of thoughts arise in the brains of expectant parents. But what goes on in the brain of the yet unborn still remains a mystery. 'Foetal mind' is a reflection of functions of its organs of sense, an instrument of knowledge that may even be reduced to machine to demonstrate the effect of sense organs and brain contact. Testimony to this fact are the various waveform (...) patterns obtained non-invasively from the foetal Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA) by using Colour Doppler Ultrasound. Our study, conducted for evaluating the foetal MCA in a rural obstetric population in Maharashtra, India, explains how the MCA - a major artery supplying foetal brain, can give abundant information about foetal heart and foetal stress. When only the foetal heart is stressed by the presence of arrhythmias or ectopic beats, these changes are manifest in the foetal MCA velocity waveform pattern as seen on Colour Doppler study. When the entire foetus is under stress, as in cases of intra uterine growth retardation (IUGR), changes again manifest in the foetal MCA velocity waveform pattern and are designated as the foetal Brain Sparing Effect. Thus scientific evaluation of foetal MCA waveform can objectively demonstrate that the overtly non-communicating foetal brain indeed remains an internal organ of sense and a vital instrument of knowledge to clarify the various effects of sense organs and brain contact. Although the brain parenchyma or cerebral metabolism has not been studied here, cerebral vessels serve as a window to cerebral metabolism, as auto regulatory function of brain leads to changes in haemodynamics of cerebral vessels. Also, like other vessels, MCA mirrors foetal distress and IUGR; but unlike other vessels, e.g. the umbilical or uterine artery, which show these changes in the form of reduction or even reversal of diastolic flow, MCA shows an increase in diastolic component due to brain sparing effect. The unique connection between physical changes in the foetal heart, brain and mental operations are thus critically clarified to some extent, and this helps untangle and comprehend the lattice of mental operations. Although this preliminary study has its limitations, it still carries forward the present corpus of knowledge on the strength of its evidential and critical enquiry and helps unravel the concept of foetal consciousness. (shrink)

Alterations in dural venous sinus hemodynamics have recently been suggested as the major contributing factors in venous pulsatile tinnitus. Nevertheless, little is known about the association between real-time alterations in hemodynamics and the subjective perception of venous PT. This study aimed to investigate the hydroacoustic correlations among diverticular vortices, mainstream sinus flow, and PT using various Doppler ultrasound techniques. Nineteen venous PT patients with protrusive diverticulum were recruited. The mainstream sinus and diverticular hemodynamics before and after ipsilateral internal (...) jugular vein compression were investigated using an innovative retroauricular color-coded Doppler method to examine the correlation between the disappearance of PT and hemodynamic alterations. To reveal the hydroacoustic characteristics of disparate segments of venous return, a computational fluid dynamics technique combined with the transcranial color-coded Doppler method was performed. When the ipsilateral IJV was compressed, PT disappeared, as the mean velocity of mainstream sinus flow and diverticular vortex decreased by 51.2 and 50.6%, respectively. The vortex inside the diverticulum persisted in 18 of 19 subjects. The CFD simulation showed that the flow amplitude generated inside the transverse–sigmoid sinus was segmental, and the largest flow amplitude difference was 20.5 dB. The difference in flow amplitude between the mainstream sinus flow and the diverticular flow was less than 1 dB. In conclusion, the sensation of PT is closely associated with the flow of kinetic energy rather than the formation of a vortex, whereby the amplitude of PT is correlated to the magnitude of the flow velocity and pressure gradient. Additionally, the range of velocity reduction revealed by the RCCD method may serve as a presurgical individual baseline curative marker that may potentially optimize the surgical outcomes. (shrink)

In “Body, Cyborgs and the Politics of Incarnation,” Bruno Latour recounts the story of Professor Paul Churchland, his colleague, carrying a portrait of his wife. “Nothing unusual in this,” Latour writes. “No, except that this picture was an image produced by computed tomography, a CT scan of his wife’s inner brain, in full colour”. The image of Professor Church-land proudly showing off a full-color CT of his wife’s beautiful brain has a wonderful sense of absurdity to it, and its (...) punch line depends on the reader being jolted by the strangeness of medical imagery standing in place of portraiture—no matter how stunning the cerebellum.However.. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für kritische Sozialtheorie und Philosophie Jahrgang: 3 Heft: 1 Seiten: 108-130.

Conversing happily with my son we had been driving home when my mobile phone rang. Startled at the sound of my obstetrician's voice I had pulled off to the side of the road. At 18 weeks gestation I was told in a factual tone that the results from my serum screen had come back, indicating that our baby was at increased risk of Trisomy 18. Gripping the steering wheel my head had spun as he talked, explaining that Trisomy 18 was (...) worse than Trisomy 21 because our baby was not going to live. We had been thrilled when we heard the news of my pregnancy but now my temples throbbed and tears brimmed in my eyes. Suddenly my world was turned upside down and it had felt like someone reached into my chest and ripped my heart out.My husband and I decided that an amniocentesis was needed for a positive diagnosis and this was arranged for the following day. Studiously the sonographer performed the diagnostic ultrasound with a furrow across his brow. Watching the monitor I saw my baby moving as I watched the colours of red and blue flow through the heart and heard the regular, fast rhythm of the heartbeat. Quietly I hoped that the news was good but the creased brow had told me otherwise. Holding the amniotic fluid in his right hand the sonographer had glanced from it to me and empathetically informed me that the news wasn't good and that he didn't need to send the sample off for a positive diagnosis. Once again my world was crashing and all I wanted to do was bury my head in a pillow and sob. The following weekend dragged and had been filled with streams of tears and emotional turmoil. All I wanted to …. (shrink)

This article analyzes the moral relevance of technological artifacts and its possible role in ethical theory, by taking the postphenomenological approach that has developed around the work of Don Ihde into the domain of ethics. By elaborating a postphenomenological analysis of the mediating role of ultrasound in moral decisions about abortion, the article argues that technologies embody morality and help to constitute moral subjectivity. This technological mediation of the moral subject is subsequently addressed in terms of Michel Foucault’s ethical (...) position, in which ethics is about actively co-shaping one’s moral subjectivity. Integrating Foucauldian ethics and postphenomenology, the article argues that the technological mediation of moral subjectivity should be at the heart of an ethical approach that takes the moral dimensions of technology seriously. (shrink)

We ought to treat others’ moral views with respect, even when we disagree. But what does that mean? This paper articulates a moral obligation to make ourselves open to sincere moral persuasion by others. Doing so allows us to participate in valuable relationships of reciprocal respect for agency. Yet this proposal can sound tritely agreeable. To explore its full implications, the paper applies the general obligation to one of the most challenging topics of moral disagreement: the morality of abortion. I (...) consider and reject arguments that abortion decisions have special features exempting them from the obligation to be open to moral persuasion. Further, I argue that viewing fetal ultrasound images can accomplish morally persuasion. Accordingly, in at least some cases a woman seeking abortion has an obligation to view fetal ultrasound images as a means of being open to moral persuasion. However, this conclusion does not support recent laws compelling women seeking abortion to view ultrasound images; such laws are in fact incompatible with the respect for agency that underwrites the obligation to be open to persuasion. (shrink)

Obstetric ultrasound has become a significant tool in obstetric practice, however, it has been argued that its increasing use may have adverse implications for women’s reproductive freedom. This study aimed to explore Australian obstetricians’ experiences and views of the use of obstetric ultrasound both in relation to clinical management of complicated pregnancy, and in situations where maternal and fetal health interests conflict.

As several studies, along with a book and movie depicting the true story of a former clinic director, have recently brought to the public’s attention, fetal ultrasound images dramatically impact some viewers’ normative judgments: a small but non-negligible proportion of viewers attribute increased moral status to fetal humans and even form the belief that abortion is impermissible. I consider three types of psychological explanation for a viewer’s shift in beliefs: increased bonding or empathy, various forms of cognitive bias, and (...) type of cognitive processing involved. I consider the normative implications of each explanation, arguing that in each case the viewer’s judgment is presumptively rational. (shrink)

This paper explores the rhetoric of obstetric ultrasound technology as it relates to the abortion debate, specifically the interpretation given to ultrasound images by opponents of abortion. The tenor of the anti-abortion approach is precisely captured in the videotape, Ultrasound:A Window to the Womb. Aspects of this videotape are analyzed in order to tease out the assumptions about the (female) body and about the access to truth yielded by scientific technology (ultrasound) held by militant opponents of (...) abortion. It is argued that the ultrasound images do not offer transparent confirmation of the ontological status of the embryo and fetus. Rather, the window of ultrasound is constructed through a complex combination of visual and verbal devices: ultrasound images, photographic images, verbal argument, and emotional appeal. (shrink)

This paper articulates a case for supposing that all shades of colour are visually complex.

I will develop a new problem for almost all realist theories of colour. The problem involves fluctuations in our colour experiences that are due to visual noise rather than changes in the objects we are looking at.

Most philosophical or scientific theories suppose that colour composition judgments refer to the way colours appear to us. The dominant view is therefore phenomenalist in the sense that colour composition is phenomenally given to perceivers. This paper argues that there is no evidence for a phenomenalist view of colour composition and that a conventionalist approach should be favoured.

Requiring that a woman who is seeking an abortion be given the opportunity to view an ultrasound of her fetus has spread from anti-abortion “pregnancy resource centers” to state laws. Proponents of these laws claim that having access to the ultrasound image is necessary for a woman to make a medically informed decision. In this paper, we argue that ultrasound examinations frame fetuses visually and linguistically as persons and interpellate pregnant women as mothers, with all of the (...) cultural meaning invested in those two normative concepts. Presenting these judgments as medical information is misleading. Because women are being subjected to these cultural expectations unknowingly, mandatory ultrasound laws in fact undermine women’s autonomy. Fully informed consent would include a critical engagement with social norms around femininity and a recognition that such laws are meant to advance the state’s interest in preserving potential life. (shrink)

Is color real or illusory, mind independent or mind dependent? Does seeing in color give us a true picture of external reality? The metaphysical debate over color has gone on at least since the seventeenth century. In this book, M. Chirimuuta draws on contemporary perceptual science to address these questions. Her account integrates historical philosophical debates, contemporary work in the philosophy of color, and recent findings in neuroscience and vision science to propose a novel theory of the relationship between color (...) and physical reality. -/- Chirimuuta offers an overview of philosophy’s approach to the problem of color, finds the origins of much of the familiar conception of color in Aristotelian theories of perception, and describes the assumptions that have shaped contemporary philosophy of color. She then reviews recent work in perceptual science that challenges philosophers’ accounts of color experience. Finally, she offers a pragmatic alternative whereby perceptual states are understood primarily as action-guiding interactions between a perceiver and the environment. The fact that perceptual states are shaped in idiosyncratic ways by the needs and interests of the perceiver does not render the states illusory. Colors are perceiver-dependent properties, and yet our awareness of them does not mislead us about the world. Colors force us to reconsider what we mean by accurately presenting external reality, and, as this book demonstrates, thinking about color has important consequences for the philosophy of perception and, more generally, for the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The work reported in this monograph was begun in the winter of 1967 in a graduate seminar at Berkeley. Many of the basic data were gathered by members of the seminar and the theoretical framework presented here was initially developed in the context of the seminar discussions. Much has been discovered since1969, the date of original publication, regarding the psychophysical and neurophysical determinants of universal, cross-linguistic constraints on the shape of basic color lexicons, and something, albeit less, can now also (...) be said with some confidence regarding the constraining effects of these language-independent processes of color perception and conceptualization on the direction of evolution of basic color term lexicons. (shrink)

Martine Nida-Rümelin (1996) argues that color science indicates behaviorally undetectable spectrum inversion is possible and raises this possibility as an objection to functionalist accounts of visual states of color. I show that her argument does not rest solely on color science, but also on a philosophically controversial assumption, namely, that visual states of color supervene on physiological states. However, this assumption, on the part of philosophers or vision scientists, has the effect of simply ruling out certain versions of functionalism. While (...) Nida-Rümelin is quite right to search for empirical tests for claims about the nature of visual states, philosophical issues remain pivotal in determining the correctness of these claims. (shrink)

Despite FDA recommendations against the practice, keepsake fetal imaging centers have become more common in the United States. U.S. ultrasound regulations construct keepsake imaging in relation to medical practice, yet these centers blur the boundary between medical and nonmedical. Analyzing keepsake imaging centers in two U.S. states demonstrates how centers both appeal to medical expertise to promote their services and extend an intensive mothering ideal to the prenatal stage. To understand keepsake ultrasound, we must account for the role (...) of consumerism in creating pregnant mothers and how keepsake centers constitute ultrasound as a means of expressing mother-love before birth. (shrink)

The physical properties of color and its influence on the organism -- The source of the myths about experience : the principle of the being and thinking identity.

Should a principle of charity be applied to the interpretation of the colour concepts exercised in visual experience? We think not. We shall argue, for one thing, that the grounds for applying a principle of charity are lacking in the case of colour concepts. More importantly, we shall argue that attempts at giving the experience of colour a charitable interpretation either fail to respect obvious features of that experience or fail to interpret it charitably, after all. Charity (...) to visual experience is therefore no motive for resisting the natural, Galilean response to a scientific understanding of light and vision. The best interpretation of colour experience ends up convicting it of widespread and systematic error. (shrink)

It seems a compelling idea that experience of colour plays some role in our having concepts of the various colours, but in trying to explain the role experience plays the first thing we have to describe is what sort of colour experience matters here. I will argue that the kind of experience that matters is conscious attention to the colours of objects as an aspect of them on which direct intervention is selectively possible. As I will explain this (...) idea, it is a matter of being able to use experience to inform linguistic or conceptual thought about what would happen were there to be various interventions on an object. Against this background, I will review Locke’s fundamental argument that since we can change the colour of an almond by pounding it, there must be an error embodied in our ordinary concepts of colour: there is no such thing as intervening directly on the colour of an object. The analysis I present brings out the force of Locke’s argument. But I will propose a vindication of our commonsense conception of colour as an aspect of objects on which direct intervention is selectively possible. (shrink)

Is color experience cognitively penetrable? Some philosophers have recently argued that it is. In this paper, we take issue with the claim that color experience is cognitively penetrable. We argue that the notion of cognitive penetration that has recently dominated the literature is flawed since it fails to distinguish between the modulation of perceptual content by non-perceptual principles and genuine cognitive penetration. We use this distinction to show that studies suggesting that color experience can be modulated by factors of the (...) cognitive system do not establish that color experience is cognitively penetrable. Additionally, we argue that even if color experience turns out to be modulated by color-related beliefs and knowledge beyond non-perceptual principles, it does not follow that color experience is cognitively penetrable since the experiences of determinate hues involve post-perceptual processes. We conclude with a brief discussion of the implications that these ideas may have on debates in philosophy. (shrink)

The orthodox monadic determination thesis holds that we represent colour relations by virtue of representing colours. Against this orthodoxy, I argue that it is possible to represent colour relations without representing any colours. I present a model of iconic perceptual content that allows for such primitive relational colour representation, and provide four empirical arguments in its support. I close by surveying alternative views of the relationship between monadic and relational colour representation.

During a transverse acceleration of a light clock from rest, the mirrors must be tilted so as to retain the light pulse. The mirrors therefore have a normal velocity which increases the frequency of the pulse at each reflection. If a mirror is annihilated, the frequency of the escaping pulse, as a result of many reflections, is that of the relativistic Doppler effect. This holds for any acceleration, if the Fitzgerald contraction is assumed, thereby furnishing a new mechanism for (...) such frequencies. The traditional mechanism, in which the source (subject to the time dilation) generates a pulse modulated by the source motion, is therefore not a unique explanation of the Doppler effect. The new mechanism permits the speculation that radiation preexists in atomic sources, rather than being generated at the instant of release. (shrink)

Christian Doppler, an Austrian physicist, described in 1842 the apparent change in frequency of a wave when motion of the source or the observer is involved. Named after him, this change in observational frequencies is known as the Doppler Effect. The formula for calculating the frequency change is taught in universities, textbooks, Youtube, and on the internet. Understanding the Doppler effect is used in applications such as radar. Yet, the formula is wrong, yielding a different result when (...) applying the same velocity, once to the source, then to the observer. This article will show the formula, the error, the correction to the formula, and how it disproves Einstein’s theories of special and general relativity. (shrink)

For many Americans, the election of Barack Obama as the country's first black president signaled that we had become a post-racial nation - some even suggested that race was no longer worth discussing. Of course, the evidence tells a very different story. And while social scientists are fully engaged in examining the facts of race, normative political thought has failed to grapple with race as an interesting moral case or as a focus in the expansive theory of social justice. Political (...) thought's under participation in the debate over the status of blacks in American society raises serious concerns since the main academic task of political theory is to adjudicate discrepancies between the demands of ideal justice and social realities. Christopher J. Lebron contends that it is the duty of political thought to address the moral problems that attend racial inequality and to make those problems salient to a democratic polity. Thus, in The Color of Our Shame, he asks two major questions. First, given the success of the Civil Rights Act and the sharp decline in overt racist norms, how can we explain the persistence of systemic racial inequality? Second, once we have settled on an explanation, what might political philosophy have to offer in terms of a solution? In order to answer these questions Lebron suggests that we reconceive of racial inequality as a condition that marks the normative status of black citizens in the eyes of the nation. He argues that our collective response to racial inequality ought to be shame. While we reject race as a reason for marginalizing blacks on the basis of liberal democratic ideals, we fail to live up to those ideals - a situation that Lebron sees as a failure of national character. Drawing on a wide array of resources including liberal theory, virtue ethics, history, and popular culture, Lebron proposes a move toward a "perfectionist politics" that would compel a higher level of racially relevant moral excellence from individuals and institutions and enable America to meet the democratic ideals that it has set for itself. (shrink)

Colour has often been supposed to be a subjective property, a property to be analysed orretly in terms of the phenomenological aspects of human expereince. In contrast with subjectivism, an objectivist analysis of color takes color to be a property objects possess in themselves, independently of the character of human perceptual expereince. David Hilbert defends a form of objectivism that identifies color with a physical property of surfaces - their spectral reflectance. This analysis of color is shown to provide (...) a more adequate account of the features of human color vision than its subjectivist rivals. The author's account of colro also recognises that the human perceptual system provides a limited and idiosyncratic picture of the world. These limitations are shown to be consistent with a realist account of colour and to provide the necessary tools for giving an analysis of common sense knowledge of color phenomena. (shrink)

Many philosophers, especially in the wake of the 17th century, have favored an inegalitarian view of shape and color, according to which shape is mind-independent while color is mind-dependent. In this essay, I advance a novel argument against inegalitarianism. The argument begins with an intuition about the modal dependence of color on shape, namely: it is impossible for something to have a color without having a shape. I then argue that, given reasonable assumptions, inegalitarianism contradicts this modal-dependence principle. Given the (...) plausibility of the latter, I conclude that we should reject inegalitarianism in favor of some form of egalitarianism—either a subjective egalitarianism on which both shape and color are mind-dependent or an objective egalitarianism on which both shape and color are mind-independent. (shrink)

Colour constancy is a foundational and yet puzzling phenomenon. Standard appearance invariantism is threatened by the psychophysical matching argument, which is taken to favour variantism. This argument, however, is inconclusive. The data at best support a pluralist view: colour constancy is sometimes variantist, sometimes invariantist. I add another potential explanation of these data, complex invariantism, which adopts an atypical six-dimensional model of colour appearance. Finally I prospect for a unifying conception of constancy among two neglected notions: discriminatory (...) colour constancy and relational colour constancy. The former arguably marks a common core capacity that is present across widely differing viewing contexts. (shrink)

All representationalists maintain that there is a necessary connection between an experience’s phenomenal character and intentional content; but there is a disagreement amongst representationalists regarding the nature of those intentional contents that are necessarily connected to phenomenal character. Russellian representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of objects and/or properties, while Fregean representationalists maintain that the relevant contents are composed of modes of presentation of objects and properties. According to Fregean representationalists such as David Chalmers and Brad Thompson, the (...) Fregean variety of the view is preferable to the Russellian variety because the former can accommodate purported counterexamples involving spectrum inversion without illusion and colour constancy while the latter cannot. I maintain that colour constancy poses a special problem for the Fregean theory in that the features of the theory that enable it handle spectrum inversion without illusion cannot be extended to handle colour constancy. I consider the two most plausible proposals regarding how the Fregean view might be developed in order to handle colour constancy—one of which has recently been defended by Thompson —and argue that neither is adequate. I conclude that Fregean representationalism is no more able to accommodate colour constancy than is Russellian representationalism and, as such, ought to be rejected. (shrink)

Consider the distinctive qualitative property grass visually appears to have when it visually appears to be green. This property is an example of what I call sensuous color. Whereas early modern mechanists typically argue that bodies are not sensuously colored, Margaret Cavendish (1623–73) disagrees. In cases of veridical perception, she holds that grass is green in precisely the way it visually appears to be. In defense of her realist approach to sensuous colors, Cavendish argues that (i) it is impossible to (...) conceive of colorless bodies, (ii) the very possibility of color experience requires that bodies are sensuously colored, and (iii) the attribution of sensuous colors to bodies provides the best explanation of color constancy. Although some passages might suggest that Cavendish endorses a reductive account of sensuous color, according to which sensuous color reduces to a body's microscopic surface texture (or some other mechanistically respectable property), I argue that she accepts a nonreductive account, on which sensuous color is not thus reducible. (shrink)

The nature of the colors—what they are like, whether they are instantiated by objects or are projected by our minds, whether their nature is revealed to us in color perception, and whether there could be alien colors (e.g. reddish-green)—has been one of the central topics in philosophy for centuries. This entry focuses on the contemporary philosophical debate about the nature of the colors.

This expanded edition of C L Hardin's ground-breaking work on colour features a new chapter, 'Further Thoughts: 1993', in which the author revisits the dispute ...

This expanded edition of C L Hardin's ground-breaking work on colour features a new chapter, 'Further Thoughts: 1993', in which the author revisits the dispute ...

Colour vision plays a foundational explanatory role in the philosophy of colour, and serves as perennial quarry in the wider philosophy of perception. I present two contributions to our understanding of this notion. The first is to develop a constitutive approach to characterizing colour vision. This approach seeks to comprehend the nature of colour vision qua psychological kind, as contrasted with traditional experiential approaches, which prioritize descriptions of our ordinary visual experience of colour. The second (...) contribution is to argue that colour vision does not constitutively involve the ability to see colours, in a natural and categorically committed sense. I argue that two subjects exactly alike in respect of their constitutive colour vision abilities could differ in respect of whether or not they have categorical perception of colour. The argument is supported by thought experiment and dissociations observed in cognitive neuropsychology. The argument also bears connections to recent neo-Whorfian accounts of colour categorization. _1._ Introduction _2._ Colour Vision, Experience, and Natures _3._ The Central Argument _3.1._ Colour constancy and discrimination _3.2._ Dissociating colour vision and categorical perception for colour _4._ Whorf and the View from Cognitive Neuropsychology _5._ Conclusion. (shrink)