THE WORLD-BRAIN AND THE WATERSHED

Ecospatiality ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 128-168
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
World Brain

Barriers to the Use of Neurologic Criteria to Declare Death in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 104990912110069
Author(s):  
Ariane Lewis ◽  
Andrew Kumpfbeck ◽  
Jordan Liebman ◽  
Sam D. Shemie ◽  
Gene Sung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Death ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Developing Regions ◽  
Healthcare Facilities ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Perspectives ◽  
World Brain ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Death By Neurologic Criteria

There are varying medical, legal, social, religious and philosophical perspectives about the distinction between life and death. Death can be declared using cardiopulmonary or neurologic criteria throughout much of the world. After solicitation of brain death/death by neurologic criteria (BD/DNC) protocols from contacts around the world, we found that the percentage of countries with BD/DNC protocols is much lower in Africa than other developing regions. We performed an informal review of the literature to identify barriers to declaration of BD/DNC in Africa. We found that there are numerous medical, legal, social and religious barriers to the creation of BD/DNC protocols in Africa including 1) limited number of healthcare facilities, critical care resources and clinicians with relevant expertise; 2) absence of a political and legal framework codifying death; and 3) cultural and religious perspectives that present ideological conflict with the idea of BD/DNC, in particular, and between traditional and Western medicine, in general. Because there are a number of unique barriers to the creation of BD/DNC protocols in Africa, it remains to be seen how the World Brain Death Project, which is intended to create minimum standards for BD/DNC around the world, will impact BD/DNC determination in Africa.

Copernican Revolution in Physics and Cosmology: Vantage Point from beyond Earth

2018 ◽  
pp. 351-376
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Logical Space ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Pulling Forces ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind

Why do we so stubbornly cling to the assumption of mind? Despite the so far presented empirical, ontological, and conceptual-logical evidence against mind, the philosopher may nevertheless reject the world-brain problem as counter-intuitive. She/he will argue that we need to approach the question for the existence and reality of mental features in terms of the mind-body problem as it is more intuitive than the world-brain problem. Our strong adherence to mind is thus, at least in part, based on what philosophers describe as “intuition”, the “intuition of mind” as I say. How can we resist and escape the pulling forces of our “intuition of mind”? The main focus in this chapter and the whole final part is on the “intuition of mind” and how we can avoid and render it impossible. I will argue that we need to exclude the mind as possible epistemic option from our knowledge, i.e., the “logical space of knowledge”, as I say. The concept of “logical space of knowledge” concerns what we can access in our knowledge, i.e., our possible epistemic options that are included in the “logical space of knowledge”, as distinguished from what remains inaccessible to us, i.e., impossible epistemic options, as they are excluded from the “logical space of knowledge”. For instance, the “logical space of knowledge” presupposed in current philosophy of mind and specifically mind-body discussion includes mind as possible epistemic option while world-brain relation is excluded as impossible epistemic option. This, as I argue, provides the basis for our “intuition of mind” and the seemingly counterintuitive nature of world-brain relation. How can we modify and change the possible and impossible epistemic options in our “logical space of knowledge”? I argue that this is possible by shifting our vantage point or viewpoint - that is paradigmatically reflected in the Copernican revolution in cosmology and physics. Copernicus shifted the “vantage point from within earth” to a “vantage point beyond earth”; this enabled him to take into view that the earth (rather than the sun) moves by itself which provided the basis for his shift from a geo- to a helio-centric view of the universe. Hence, the shift in vantage point modified his epistemic options and thus expanded the presupposed “logical space of knowledge”. I conclude that we require an analogous shift in the vantage point we currently presuppose in philosophy of mind. This will expand our “logical space of knowledge” in such way that makes possible to include world-brain relation as possible epistemic option while, at the same time, excluding mind as impossible epistemic option. That, in turn, will render the world-brain problem more intuitive while the mind-body problem will then be rather counter-intuitive. Taken together, this amounts to nothing less than a Copernican revolution in neuroscience and philosophy – that shall be the focus in next chapter.

Is Our Brain an Open or Closed System? Prediction Model of Brain and World–Brain Relation

2018 ◽  
pp. 55-76
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Model ◽  
Closed System ◽  
Neural Activity ◽  
Resting State ◽  
Clinical Symptoms ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
The World ◽  
World Brain ◽  
The Brain

Some recent philosophical discussions consider whether the brain is best understood as an open or closed system. This issue has major epistemic consequences akin to the scepticism engendered by the famous Cartesian demon. Specifically, one and the same empirical theory of brain function, predictive coding, entailing a prediction model of brain, have been associated with contradictory views of the brain as either open (Clark, 2012, 2013) or closed (Hohwy, 2013, 2014). Based on recent empirical evidence, the present paper argues that contrary to appearances, these views of the brain are compatible with one another. I suggest that there are two main forms of neural activity in the brain, one of which can be characterized as open, and the other as closed. Stimulus-induced activity, because it relies on predictive coding is indeed closed to the world, which entails that in certain respects, the brain is an inferentially secluded and self-evidencing system. In contrast, the brain’s resting state or spontaneous activity is best taken as open because it is a world-evidencing system that allows for the brain’s neural activity to align with the statistically-based spatiotemporal structure of objects and events in the world. This model requires an important caveat, however. Due to its statistically-based nature, the resting state’s alignment to the world comes in degrees. In extreme cases, the degree of alignment can be extremely low, resulting in a resting state that is barely if at all aligned to the world. This is for instance the case in schizophrenia. Clinical symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations in schizophrenics are indicative of the fundamental delicateness of the alignment between the brain’s resting-state and the world’s phenomena. Nevertheless, I argue that so long as we are dealing with a well-functioning brain, the more dire epistemic implications of predictive coding can be forestalled. That the brain is in part a self-evidencing system does not yield any generalizable reason to worry that human cognition is out of step with the real world. Instead, the brain is aligned to the world accounting for “world-brain relation” that mitigates sceptistic worries.

Conclusion: Copernican Revolution—Is the Brain’s Spontaneous Activity an Empirical, Epistemic, and Ontological Game Changer in Neuroscience and Philosophy?

2018 ◽  
pp. 435-438
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Spontaneous Activity ◽  
Body Problem ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Game Changer

Are the brain and its spontaneous activity a “game changer” in our pursuit of the question of the existence and reality of mental features? A game changer is something that allows to take something into view that hitherto remained invisible and was not yet discovered. That, for instance, makes it possible to raise a novel question or problem replacing the previous one. I argue that the brain’s spontaneous activity is indeed a game changer in this sense, an “empirical and ontological game changer” in that it allows us to replace the mind–body problem with the world–brain problem....

Ontology I: From Brain to World–Brain Relation

2018 ◽  
pp. 239-268
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Data ◽  
Structural Realism ◽  
Relational View ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
The World ◽  
Ontological Dimension ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mental Properties ◽  
The Brain

How can we account for the brain’s existence and reality? I now shift my focus from the empirical (Part I and II) context in the previous chapters to the ontological dimension. Specifically, I focus on an “ontology of brain” as part of a wider “philosophy of brain” (Northoff 2004). Based on the empirical data, I argue that the brain’s existence and reality is based on structure and relation rather than elements like properties. This makes possible to determine the brain’s existence and reality by world-brain relation rather than physical or mental properties within the brain itself. That is well compatible with ontic structural realism (OSR). More specifically, the world-brain relation can be understood in spatiotemporal terms entailing what I describe as “spatiotemporal ontology”. Time and space are here no longer understood in observational terms, e.g., “observational time and space”, but rather as relational in the sense of OSR, i.e., “relational time and space”. Taken together, I ontologically characterize the brain by world-brain relation presupposing relation and structure as in OSR. This amounts to a “relational view” of the brain in our “ontology of brain”. Such relational view of the brain’s existence and reality can be specified by “relational time and space” (as I say) as distinguished from “observational time and space”. That opens the door for a novel ontological characterization of consciousness in the terms of world-brain relation and OSR – this shall be the focus in the next chapter.

The World-Brain and the Watershed

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 156
Author(s):  
Wyse
Keyword(s):  
The World ◽  
World Brain

Copernican Revolution in Neuroscience and Philosophy: Vantage Point from beyond Brain

2018 ◽  
pp. 403-434
Author(s):  
Georg Northoff
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Logical Space ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
World Brain ◽  
Mind Body Problem

How can we eliminate the “intuition of mind”? I demonstrated that the “intuition of mind” can be traced to our pre-Copernican vantage point from within mind or brain (chapter 20). Analogous to Copernicus, we need to radically shift our vantage point to eliminate the intuition of mind and take into view the necessary ontological connection between brain and mental features. For that, we need shift our vantage point from within either mind or brain to a “vantage point from beyond brain”. My main argument in the present chapter is that, analogous to Copernicus with regard to earth, we need to replace the pre-Copernican “vantage point from within mind” (or from within brain) by a post-Copernican “vantage point from beyond brain”. Unlike the “vantage point from within mind” (or brain), the “vantage point from beyond brain” includes relation, i.e., world-brain relation, as possible epistemic option within its “logical space of knowledge”. This allows us to take into view the necessary ontological connection between brain and mental features through world-brain relation as ontological predisposition of consciousness (chapter 10). Most importantly, this renders superfluous if not impossible both “intuition of mind” and mind-body problem which then can be replaced by world-brain relation and world-brain problem. I conclude that such “vantage point from beyond brain” with the world-brain problem amounts to nothing less than a Copernican revolution in neuroscience and philosophy.

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