scholarly journals Assessing unlimited associative learning as a transition marker

2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Irvine
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Evolution Of Consciousness ◽  
Successful Transition ◽  
Target Paper ◽  
New Research

AbstractThe target paper (building on Ginsburg and Jablonka in JTB 381:55–60, 2015, The evolution of the sensitive soul: Learning and the origins of consciousness, MIT Press, USA, 2019) makes a significant and novel claim: that positive cases of non-human consciousness can be identified via the capacity of unlimited associative learning (UAL). In turn, this claim is generated by a novel methodology, which is that of identifying an evolutionary ‘transition marker’, which is claimed to have theoretical and empirical advantages over other approaches. In this commentary I argue that UAL does not function as a successful transition marker (as defined by the authors), and has internal problems of its own. However, I conclude that it is still a very productive anchor for new research on the evolution of consciousness.

scholarly journals Pavlovian Conditioning of Immunological and Neuroendocrine Functions

2020 ◽  
Vol 100 (1) ◽  
pp. 357-405 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Hadamitzky ◽  
Laura Lückemann ◽  
Gustavo Pacheco-López ◽  
Manfred Schedlowski
Keyword(s):  
Immune Responses ◽  
Associative Learning ◽  
Animal Studies ◽  
Research Field ◽  
Immune Functions ◽  
Humoral Immune ◽  
Central Nervous System Activity ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Neuroendocrine Functions

The phenomenon of behaviorally conditioned immunological and neuroendocrine functions has been investigated for the past 100 yr. The observation that associative learning processes can modify peripheral immune functions was first reported and investigated by Ivan Petrovic Pavlov and his co-workers. Their work later fell into oblivion, also because so little was known about the immune system’s function and even less about the underlying mechanisms of how learning, a central nervous system activity, could affect peripheral immune responses. With the employment of a taste-avoidance paradigm in rats, this phenomenon was rediscovered 45 yr ago as one of the most fascinating examples of the reciprocal functional interaction between behavior, the brain, and peripheral immune functions, and it established psychoneuroimmunology as a new research field. Relying on growing knowledge about efferent and afferent communication pathways between the brain, neuroendocrine system, primary and secondary immune organs, and immunocompetent cells, experimental animal studies demonstrate that cellular and humoral immune and neuroendocrine functions can be modulated via associative learning protocols. These (from the classical perspective) learned immune responses are clinically relevant, since they affect the development and progression of immune-related diseases and, more importantly, are also inducible in humans. The increased knowledge about the neuropsychological machinery steering learning and memory processes together with recent insight into the mechanisms mediating placebo responses provide fascinating perspectives to exploit these learned immune and neuroendocrine responses as supportive therapies, the aim being to reduce the amount of medication required, diminishing unwanted drug side effects while maximizing the therapeutic effect for the patient’s benefit.

Lexicography and the Evolution of Consciousness

2003 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph L. Subbiondo
Keyword(s):  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Evolution Of Consciousness ◽  
Language History ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Poetic Diction ◽  
Theory Of Language

Summary Owen Barfield (1898–1997), a cultural critic and historian, has been appreciated by literary scholars and artists including C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden, but he has been relatively unnoticed by linguists despite the fact that he advanced a thoughtfully reasoned and documented theory of language history throughout his many writings. In his theory of etymological semantics, Barfield asserted that the etymology of words reveals an evolution of human consciousness. Barfield’s relationship between language and consciousness is significant to the history of linguistics because he not only described what changed in a language’s history, but he also explained why it changed. In his seminal History in English Words (1926), a book written at the beginning of his nearly 70-year career as a scholar and writer, Barfield initially presented his theory with examples from the history of English beginning with its origins in Indo-European. This theory became a central and unifying theme in all of his work – a theory which he refined and expanded in many later writings, especially in Poetic Diction (1928), Speaker’s Meaning (1967), and History, Guilt, and Habit (1979).

scholarly journals Die ontwikkeling van die menslike bewussyn: Ken Wilber se AQAL-teorie

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius W. Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
United States Of America ◽  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Oklahoma City ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Ken Wilber ◽  
Evolution Of Consciousness ◽  
Kingdom Of Heaven ◽  
Five Phases

The development of the human consciousness: Ken Wilber’s AQAL theoryKenneth Earl Wilber III, an integral philosopher, psychologist and mystic with an intelligence quotient of 160, was born on 31 January 1949 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, in the United States of America, and is considered by some as one of the most important philosophers of the 21st century. He developed his integral philosophy over 30 years, which can be divided into five phases. The most important aspects of his philosophy for the purposes of this article are the AQAL integral map of reality, and the evolution of consciousness. AQAL stands for ‘all quadrants, all levels, lines and stages’. Wilber divides reality into singular and plural interiors and exteriors; or art, morals and science. Also deriving ideas from Developmental Psychology, he sees the evolution of consciousness unfolding in seven stages: archaic, magic, mythic, rational, pluralistic, holistic and transpersonal. This theory could add value to pastoral care by enabling pastors to support believers’ own spiritual growth in pursuit of the kingdom of heaven.

Evolutionary transitions in learning and cognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 376 (1821) ◽  
pp. 20190766 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simona Ginsburg ◽  
Eva Jablonka
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Brain Organization ◽  
Evolutionary Transitions ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Learning And Cognition ◽  
Virtual Events ◽  
Experimental And Theoretical Studies ◽  
Qualitative Changes

We define a cognitive system as a system that can learn, and adopt an evolutionary-transition-oriented framework for analysing different types of neural cognition. This enables us to classify types of cognition and point to the continuities and discontinuities among them. The framework we use for studying evolutionary transitions in learning capacities focuses on qualitative changes in the integration, storage and use of neurally processed information. Although there are always grey areas around evolutionary transitions, we recognize five major neural transitions, the first two of which involve animals at the base of the phylogenetic tree: (i) the evolutionary transition from learning in non-neural animals to learning in the first neural animals; (ii) the transition to animals showing limited, elemental associative learning, entailing neural centralization and primary brain differentiation; (iii) the transition to animals capable of unlimited associative learning, which, on our account, constitutes sentience and entails hierarchical brain organization and dedicated memory and value networks; (iv) the transition to imaginative animals that can plan and learn through selection among virtual events; and (v) the transition to human symbol-based cognition and cultural learning. The focus on learning provides a unifying framework for experimental and theoretical studies of cognition in the living world. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Basal cognition: multicellularity, neurons and the cognitive lens’.

scholarly journals Unlimited Associative Learning and the origins of consciousness: a primer and some predictions

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Birch ◽  
Simona Ginsburg ◽  
Eva Jablonka
Keyword(s):  
Associative Learning ◽  
Evolutionary Transition ◽  
Central Idea ◽  
The Past ◽  
Evolutionary Origins ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Clear Statement

AbstractOver the past two decades, Ginsburg and Jablonka have developed a novel approach to studying the evolutionary origins of consciousness: the Unlimited Associative Learning (UAL) framework. The central idea is that there is a distinctive type of learning that can serve as a transition marker for the evolutionary transition from non-conscious to conscious life. The goal of this paper is to stimulate discussion of the framework by providing a primer on its key claims (Part I) and a clear statement of its main empirical predictions (Part II).

scholarly journals Die ontwikkeling van die menslike bewussyn: Teorieë oor die ontwikkeling van menslike bewussyn – die ontdekking van die ‘misterie van die siel’

2009 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ignatius W. Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Integral Theory ◽  
Development Theory ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Ken Wilber ◽  
Evolution Of Consciousness ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
Christian Perspective ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Union With God

The development of the human consciousness: Theories of the development of human consciousness – discovering the ‘mystery of the soul’A number of theories on the development of human consciousness have tried to incorporate all views on the subject into one integral theory. However, Ken Wilber is the first philosopher who managed to combine the external with the internal fields of study. Using Wilber’s integral theory, a number of researchers developed their own theories in their field of speciality. Jim Marion used Wilber’s development theory to show the evolution of consciousness from a Christian perspective. Steve McIntosh, an integral philosopher, takes Wilber’s ideas further, and even criticises him on a few points. Another important researcher following Wilber is Andre Marquis, who developed an integral questionnaire to help pastors gauge clients’ problems. James Fowler, Clare Graves and Bill Plotkin also researched the evolution of human consciousness. This article examines each of these researchers, and concludes with a glance at several viewpoints on the soul and the mystical union with God.

scholarly journals ОД ГЛОБАЛНЕ БИОЕТИКЕ ДО НЕУРОЕТИКЕ/FROM GLOBAL BIOETHICS TO NEUROETHICS

TEME ◽  
2017 ◽  
pp. 1457
Author(s):  
Веселин Митровић
Keyword(s):  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Molecular Processes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Real Effects ◽  
Illness Prevention ◽  
Single Discipline ◽  
New Research ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Certain Answers

This paper is a sociological analysis of the development, possible range, and real effects of one of the latest disciplines to emerge - neuroethics as well as bioethics. The starting premise is that the humanities perspective to a medical and philosophical discipline contributes to the very research done by neuroethics itself. This premise is significant given that the study of the brain surpasses current epistemological frameworks, forcing the examination of whether we perhaps need a new “brain” epistemology. New research on the brain, consciousness, and artificial intelligence has presented the public at large with a myriad of benefits in medicine and illness prevention; however, at the same time, it has opened certain social and ethical questions. The projected possibilities in the development of brain medication and interventions have motivated certain scientists today to speak of neuroscience exclusively from the perspective of bioethics. In other words, the challenges to human survival are directly linked to artificially caused advancements in human consciousness, cognition, intelligence, and to an extent even morality, insofar as these characteristics and capacities depend on biochemical and molecular processes. Considering the potentially real societal consequences of such development of a single discipline, we thought it relevant to seek certain answers by analyzing dilemmas and particular medical cases, along with their effects, through the optics of social, humanities, and biomedical phenomena.

scholarly journals Fruitful Inspiration: Fresh View on Bakhtinian Dialogism in Some Fields of the Humanities

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. R1-6
Author(s):  
Vera Kirzhaeva ◽  
Elizaveta Maslova
Keyword(s):  
Natural Sciences ◽  
The Other ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Dialogical Approach ◽  
Internal Relations ◽  
Contemporary Cinema ◽  
New Research ◽  
Theory Of Literature ◽  
History And Theory

A review of Matthias Freise (ed.), 2018., Inspired by Bakhtin: Dialogic Methods in the Humanities, Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018. This review provides an analysis of a collection of articles that demonstrate the possibilities of applying dialogic methods in various fields of the humanities. The authors of these articles show how Bakhtinian dialogism functions in the history and theory of literature, sociology and design, in the study of Platonic dialogues, the image of the Other in contemporary cinema and in the practice of psychoanalysis. The reviewers emphasize that the book fits well with the Bakhtin Studies trend. The dialogical approach to the phenomena of human consciousness allows a new research paradigm that differs from the natural sciences. The emphasis should be placed on the internal relations among the objects of the humanities research. The latter should be considered as a form of dialogue and described within the framework of dialogic methods. Each of the authors gives their own answer to the questions formulated by M. Freise: “How can we define a dialogic method of research in the humanities in general, what would be the specific qualities of such a method?” As a result, reviewers believe, a convincing picture of the internal dialogism of the humanities is constructed in the book. Despite the fact that special articles on the dialogic method in pedagogy are not included in the book, reviewers believe that the book will be useful for theorists and practitioners of education.

Bidirectional Encoding Contextual Approach for Identification of Relevant Document in Corpus

2021 ◽  
pp. 2150014
Author(s):  
K. M. Shiva Prasad ◽  
T. Hanumantha Reddy
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Strong Association ◽  
Contextual Approach ◽  
Human Consciousness ◽  
Research Papers ◽  
Research Fields ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Experimental Findings ◽  
New Research

With the increasing advance of computer and information technologies, numerous documents have been published online as well as offline, and as new research fields have been continuingly created, users have a lot of trouble in finding their interesting documents. These documents can be in the form of blogs, research papers, and thesis. There is a heterogeneous set of documents which has information linked with each other. Traditional search is about taking an input of the query text from the user and checking if the subsequence is a part of any sentence in the set of documents and showing the set to the user. In this paper, we have proposed a Bidiection Encoding Contextual algorithm that can be applied to different types of documents and do a semantic search across the corpus. The algorithm used to understand the meaning of the word, their relative relationship between other words and provide the user with the documents that not just has the textual reference but also contain the relative meaning of the query. On the COVID-19 dataset, test been performed on the reliability of the interpretation through the function of linguistic similarities. The experimental findings demonstrate the strong association between the conceptual term interpretation of human consciousness in the role of measuring the similarity. Experiments show that the Bidirectional Encoding Contextual model has the best accuracy of 85.6% when compared with other traditional models like RNN, CNN and LSTM models.

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