Helen’s Pharmakon as a Disguised Incantation

2021 ◽  
pp. 119-154
Author(s):  
Christopher Athanasious Faraone
Keyword(s):  

This chapter argues that incantation was another shorter hexametrical genre and it is framed around the description of the powers of Helen’s pharmakon in Odyssey 4. It shows that the key to understanding this enigmatic passage is the realization that the word pharmakon can refer to both an herbal drug that harms or heals the human body and to a verbal incantation that harms or heals the human mind or soul. It argues that the six-line boast about the power of Helen’s pharmakon reflects and perhaps even quotes a hexametrical incantation originally chanted in dactylic hexameters over wine and it surveys the ancient evidence for verbal pharmaka from Empedocles to Plato as well as the evidence for early hexametrical charms. It closes with a discussion of Theocritus’ mimetic Idyll 2 and a series of contemporary Hellinistic curse tablets that display many of the same features.

1996 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 27-40
Author(s):  
Fons Elders ◽  

The dialogue is a common search for truth, because its aim is to gain insight into reality through the interplay of its participants. The dialogue form, i.e. an exchange of thought processes, reflects the structure of the human mind which is involved in an ongoing process of reflections and constructions. This process mirrors consciously and unconsciously the centrifugal and centripetal movements of the human body and of all organic matter. For these reasons, I argue that the praxis of dialogue represents a truly human lifestyle, not limited to one specific worldview. Its form reveals implicitly various levels of meaning.


Author(s):  
Preksha Sharma

The science behind any kind of medical treatment is oriented around the effects of the psychology of humans with the corresponding therapeutic mechanism of the treatment. The human mind and its psychology is always an interesting and complex matter of discussion for researchers. The human mind is so powerful that it is even capable of healing the mental and physical health of the human body. To study this psychological concept of a healing mechanism, the Placebos effect is studied. This paper discusses the placebo effect and the physiology neuroscience involved in the whole concept of the Placebos and its mechanism. Because the placebos and its mechanism are so powerful that it is capable of even manipulating the human mind and the body as well the study discussed all the facts in an evidential manner.


Author(s):  
С. С. Бескаравайний

The article discusses the analogies between the formation of humanity as a collective subject, and the modern process of forming artificial intelligence, which should also have the features of a collective subject. It is shown that attempts to rely solely on the study of individual intelligence are unproductive. The isomorphism of anthroposociogenesis and the creation of AI is motivated by the following: AI is created by human civilization - therefore, its thinking will reproduce both the features of individual intelligence and the features of civilization that ensure the socialization of the individual. The problem of copying consciousness is difficult to analyze, therefore, the formation of subjectivity is considered. A technosubject is a collection of devices and programs that can determine their own future. It has been established that the bio-genetic law acts as a vector for the evolutionary variability of technical devices and sets the boundary conditions that must be met in the process of becoming a techno-subject. Copying the process of the emergence of the human mind and at the same time the practice of society in the accumulation and processing of information shows the path of development. Since now all functional mechanisms of the development of the mind and consciousness have not been revealed, it is necessary to correlate the new, computer mind with the form, with the external manifestations of the previous, natural, intelligence. There are also differences between these processes: 1) in comparison with the formation of human intelligence, the formation of AI is more reflexive, conscious, 2) the fundamentally different physicality of AI, due to the transfer of a large amount of information between machines, 3) the formation of techno-subject can be completely different in speed, since the learning ability of neural networks can exceed the learning ability of a person. Now, technological structures for storing information that we perceive in a socio-technological context can become elements of the body of a new subject. The Internet of things shows the possibility of a fundamentally new physicality, and communications in it are equivalent to unconscious biochemical processes in the human body. At the same time, copying the forms of the human body is redundant, but copying of manipulators and robot operators that can interact with the infrastructure created by man is necessary. It is shown that the Internet as a whole, as a single system, in modern conditions cannot become an AI carrier, it is more a medium than a subject. The carriers of AI should be the structural units of the technosphere, which will become the spokesmen of those contradictions that are sources of development. Probably, these will be technocenoses that will strive to achieve autotrophy, which will require extremely clear goal-setting from them, and, as a result, will lead them to the status of a techno-subject.


1988 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Van Den Beld

When we raise the question of whether the pleasures of the human body are as valuable as those of the human mind — whether, for example, pushpin is as good as poetry — it is quite possible that people will disagree on their answers. But we would also expect most people to agree with the assertion that the death of a human being would generally be a bad thing; whilst his continuing to live would be a good thing. Furthermore, we would expect most people to concede immediately that the death of five human beings is a worse evil than the death of one single individual: all other things being equal, I hasten to add. It seems to follow now, on the basis of this commonly held view, that saving the lives of five people, who would be doomed to a certain death without an intervention on the part of another, would be morally right, if not praiseworthy, even if the action which is necessary to save those five lives would also entail the death of another person. To liven up the proceedings, if you will pardon the expression in this context, let me put to you this specific case:organs distributed. In that case, there would be one dead but five saved.’


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Woelert

AbstractThis paper explores some of the cognitive-ecological dimensions of various manual forms of tool use occurring among human agents. In particular, it clarifies what such forms reveal about the intentionality of the human mind. Integrating phenomenological, philosophical and anthropological findings and perspectives, I argue that there exists not one but at least three different forms of operative types of intentionality that are associated with three specific forms of manual technical activity. First, there is the direct type of operative intentionality that realizes itself through a human agent’s concrete bodily movements. Second, there is a materially mediated form of operative intentionality, which is required for performing those technical activities where the external tool directly extends the movements of the human body. Third, there is a more complex variety of such materially mediated intentionality, which underpins those forms of tool use where the dynamics of the tool and those of the body significantly diverge. It is suggested that the relation between these three forms of operative intentionality is best conceived in terms of a structural hierarchy.


Semiotica ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Durst-Andersen ◽  
Stine Evald Bentsen

AbstractThe paper develops a new holistic theory of the word by integrating semiotic, linguistic, and psychological perspectives and introduces the Cogitative-Sensory Word Model, the CogSens Model, that unites the human mind and body. Saussure’s two-sided sign is replaced by a Peirce-inspired three-sided conception in which the expression unit mediates two content units, namely, an idea content connected to the human mind and an image content linked to the human body. It is argued that it is the word that makes human language a unique tool of communication. Moreover, it is demonstrated how words interact with grammar to create an utterance. Finally, it is suggested that speech perception, i.e., fission of idea and image content, is the mirror image of speech production, i.e., fusion of idea and image content.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 14-19
Author(s):  
VIKAS K. SHARMA ◽  
PRAGYA SAHARE ◽  
MANASVI SHRIVASTAV

It is well known that human mind possess unbounded power. It has numerous extrasensory potentials like precognition, psychokinesis, extrasensory perception etc. According to Sriram Sharma Acharya, human mind is indeed a miracle of consciousness that can visualize and traverse anywhere in the infinite expansion of the cosmos in nanoseconds. It can acquire unlimited knowledge and is endowed with super natural potentials. In this study, it is theorized that supernatural powers of the mind can be attained by activating some extrasensory centers of human body with the help of some yogic exercises such as meditation and sadhanas. According to yogic texts, Agya Chakra referred as the ‘third eye’ or the ‘sixth sense’. The yoga shastras describe the position of the Agya Chakra in the inner core of the brain deep behind the bhru-madhya (center between the two eyebrows). The view of the expert of yoga, clairvoyance, telepathy, extra-terrestrial communication etc. can be bestowed by the activation of agya chakra. The exponents of dhyan-yoga regard Agya Chakra as the core of self-realization and the centre for the linkage of individual consciousness with the omnipresent supreme-consciousness. Indian rishi-munis who, by has deep contemplation of yogic sadhanas, they had awakened the supernormal powers of their mind and become the masters of many ridhi-siddhis. In this paper, researchers have made an effort to explore the techniques that one could attain the superhuman siddhis from the dedicated yoga sadhanas through activation of agya chakra, these sages of yore had done.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-78
Author(s):  
Katarina Stepić ◽  
Danijela Kostić ◽  
Jovana Ickovski ◽  
Ivan Palić ◽  
Gordana Stojanović

Since the ancient times, people have used essential oils as a cure because they have noticed their beneficial effects on the human mind and body. What they did not know was how these essential oils actually affected the human body, as well as exactly what component or more of them were responsible for the activity of a particular oil. Therefore, a lot of attention has recently been paid to the detailed identification of the constituents of essential oil and determination of the biological activity of the essential oil itself, as well as of those identified constituents. The aim of this paper is to systematize the most used, most accessible and easily feasible techniques for determining the biological activity of essential oils. For this purpose, the following tests are mentioned in this paper: fumigation, insecticidal, pediculi-cidal, nematicidal, larvicidal, ovicidal, cytotoxic and antinociception bioassay.


2021 ◽  
pp. 107-128
Author(s):  
Hilary Kornblith

This chapter focuses on social factors in cognition. There is a puzzle about the human capacity to reflect on our beliefs. As argued in Chapter 4, this capacity, when exercised privately, does not make our belief acquisition more reliable. If we assume, however, that this capacity was selected for by evolution, like other features of the human body and human mind, then the question arises as to what it was selected for. This chapter focuses on a hypothesis due to Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber: that our capacity to reflect was selected for its role in cooperative activity. The upshot of this hypothesis, if it should prove correct, is that reflection does indeed contribute to greater reliability in belief acquisition, but only when it is used in cooperative problem-solving rather than private reflection.


Author(s):  
Don Garrett
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  

Spinoza’s central doctrines in Part 5 of the Ethics include the following: (1) there is in God an idea of the formal essence of each human body; (2) because this idea remains after the death of the body, a part of the human mind is eternal; and (3) the wiser and more knowing one is, the greater is this part of one’s mind that is eternal. Each doctrine seems to be inconsistent—indeed, each in two different ways—with the rest of Spinoza’s philosophy. Resolving these apparent inconsistencies requires an understanding of Spinoza’s theory of formal essences and its connection to his theories of intellect and consciousness. This chapter explains, for each doctrine, (i) why it must be attributed to Spinoza; (ii) why it seems difficult to reconcile with the rest of his philosophy; and (iii) how an understanding of his theory of formal essences can resolve the apparent inconsistencies.


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