scholarly journals From Murphy’s Christian Physicalism to Lowe’s Dualism

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mostyn Jones ◽  
Eric LaRock
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Experimental Support ◽  
Physical Information

Nancey Murphy argues that God created us as physical beings without immortal souls. She supports this Christian physicalism by arguing that neuroscience can better explain minds in terms of physical information processing than dualists can in problematic nonphysical terms. We reply that Murphy overestimates neuroscience and underestimates dualism. She doesn’t show how neuroscience can explain the mind’s characteristic qualia, unity, privacy, or causality. We argue that Lowe’s dualism can better explain minds, often with experimental support and in testable ways. Murphy’s physicalism thus serves to highlight the value of Lowe’s dualism today.

scholarly journals Cognition beyond the classical information processing model: Cognitive interactivity and the Systemic Thinking Model (SysTM)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gaëlle Vallée-Tourangeau ◽  
Frédéric Vallée-Tourangeau
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Short Term Memory ◽  
Memory Storage ◽  
Direct Perception ◽  
Mental Action ◽  
Information Processing Model ◽  
Classical Information ◽  
Cognitive Operations ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
Cognitive Event

In this chapter, we propose a systemic model of thinking (SysTM) to account for higher cognitive operations such as how an agent makes inferences, solves problems and makes decisions. The SysTM model conceives thinking as a cognitive process that evolves in time and space and results in a new cognitive event (i.e., a new solution to a problem). This presupposes that such cognitive events are emerging from cognitive interactivity, which we define as the meshed network of reciprocal causations between an agent’s mental processing and the transformative actions she applies to her immediate environment to achieve a cognitive result. To explain how cognitive interactivity results in cognitive events, SysTM builds upon the classical information processing model but breaks from the view that cognitive events result from a linear information processing path originating in the perception of a problem stimulus that is mentally processed to produce a cognitive event. Instead, SysTM holds that information processing in thinking evolves through a succession of deductive and inductive processing loops. Both loops give rise to transformative actions on the physical information layout, resulting in new perceptual inputs which inform the next processing loop. Such actions result from the enaction of mental action plans in deductive loops and from unplanned direct perception of action possibilities or affordances in inductive loops. To account for direct perception, we introduce the concept of an affordance pool to refer to a short term memory storage of action possibilities in working memory. We conclude by illustrating how SysTM can be used to derive new predictions and guide the study of cognitive interactivity in thinking.

scholarly journals Integrating information in the brain’s EM field: the cemi field theory of consciousness

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnjoe McFadden
Keyword(s):  
Field Theory ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Information Integration ◽  
Experimental Support ◽  
Artificial Consciousness ◽  
Em Field ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Integrated Information

Abstract A key aspect of consciousness is that it represents bound or integrated information, prompting an increasing conviction that the physical substrate of consciousness must be capable of encoding integrated information in the brain. However, as Ralph Landauer insisted, ‘information is physical’ so integrated information must be physically integrated. I argue here that nearly all examples of so-called ‘integrated information’, including neuronal information processing and conventional computing, are only temporally integrated in the sense that outputs are correlated with multiple inputs: the information integration is implemented in time, rather than space, and thereby cannot correspond to physically integrated information. I point out that only energy fields are capable of integrating information in space. I describe the conscious electromagnetic information (cemi) field theory which has proposed that consciousness is physically integrated, and causally active, information encoded in the brain’s global electromagnetic (EM) field. I here extend the theory to argue that consciousness implements algorithms in space, rather than time, within the brain’s EM field. I describe how the cemi field theory accounts for most observed features of consciousness and describe recent experimental support for the theory. I also describe several untested predictions of the theory and discuss its implications for the design of artificial consciousness. The cemi field theory proposes a scientific dualism that is rooted in the difference between matter and energy, rather than matter and spirit.

The Use of Category Information in Perception

Perception ◽  
1978 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 589-604 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glyn W Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Target Stimulus ◽  
Backward Masking ◽  
Pattern Mask ◽  
Inhibition Effect ◽  
Category Information ◽  
Active Model ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
Level Performance ◽  
Central Level

Three tachistoscopic experiments are reported in which presentation of the target stimulus in a letter/digit categorization task was preceded by a briefly exposed priming stimulus (letter or digit). The primer was subject to backward masking from either the target or a pattern mask, and observers were unaware of its occurrence. With a primer duration of 25 ms, when masking was presumed to be at a central level, performance deteriorated when the two items were from different categories. This inhibition effect was reduced when the characters were physically similar. In contrast, there was little evidence of facilitated processing when primers validly cued targets. At shorter primer durations, when masking is presumed to be peripheral in origin, between-condition differences were less marked. An interpretation in terms of an active model of information processing, with utilization of both categorical and physical information extracted from the primer, is proposed.

Language processing is not a race against time

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giosuè Baggio ◽  
Carmelo M. Vicario
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Cognitive Functions ◽  
Memory Systems ◽  
Language System ◽  
Moderating Factors

AbstractWe agree with Christiansen & Chater (C&C) that language processing and acquisition are tightly constrained by the limits of sensory and memory systems. However, the human brain supports a range of cognitive functions that mitigate the effects of information processing bottlenecks. The language system is partly organised around these moderating factors, not just around restrictions on storage and computation.

Attachment and Field Dependence: Individual Differences in Information Processing

2004 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrizia Vermigli ◽  
Alessandro Toni
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Individual Differences ◽  
Field Dependence ◽  
Attachment Styles ◽  
Close Relationships ◽  
Adult Age ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
Figure Test ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Measure Field

The present research analyzes the relationship between attachment styles at an adult age and field dependence in order to identify possible individual differences in information processing. The “Experience in Close Relationships” test of Brennan et al. was administered to a sample of 380 individuals (160 males, 220 females), while a subsample of 122 subjects was given the Embedded Figure Test to measure field dependence. Confirming the starting hypothesis, the results have shown that individuals with different attachment styles have a different way of perceiving the figure against the background. Ambivalent and avoidant individuals lie at the two extremes of the same dimension while secure individuals occupy the central part. Significant differences also emerged between males and females.

Hostility and Perceptions of Support in Ambiguous Social Interactions

2006 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Vranceanu ◽  
Linda C. Gallo ◽  
Laura M. Bogart
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Information Processing ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Information Processing ◽  
Perceived Social Support ◽  
Social Information ◽  
Inverse Association ◽  
Processing Bias ◽  
Information Processing Bias

The present study investigated whether a social information processing bias contributes to the inverse association between trait hostility and perceived social support. A sample of 104 undergraduates (50 men) completed a measure of hostility and rated videotaped interactions in which a speaker disclosed a problem while a listener reacted ambiguously. Results showed that hostile persons rated listeners as less friendly and socially supportive across six conversations, although the nature of the hostility effect varied by sex, target rated, and manner in which support was assessed. Hostility and target interactively impacted ratings of support and affiliation only for men. At least in part, a social information processing bias could contribute to hostile persons' perceptions of their social networks.

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