How to Reveal the Meaning of Space in Vernacular Architecture?

Vernacular architecture is a modest style of building used to maintain the balance of human relations with nature. This architectural style is specific to a region and passed down from one generation to another to embody cultural values. However, its development is currently facing globalization and modernization challenges, thereby leading to a gradual shift of this ancestral heritage to modern buildings. Change is unavoidable due to continuous evolution, however, the meaning inherent architecture buildings need to be maintained because it contains the cultural and social values of the associated local community. Furthermore, vernacular building space is a place for social activities and contains historical meaning applicable to modern buildings. Its functionality responds to changes and the needs of times while maintaining the local essence. Therefore, this research aims to determine the suitable method needed to reveal the meaning of vernacular architectural space. Data were collected from the conscious mind of space users through in-depth interviews by applying epoche, which were further reduced, categorized, and integrated to determine its meaning. The data collected through a literature review were analyzed using the content analysis method. The results showed that transcendental phenomenology is the right method to determine the meaning of vernacular architectural space. Based on the results, it is concluded that the meaning passed down from one generation to another could be expressed through the conscious experience of space users. Furthermore, transcendental phenomenology helped reveal the meaning without the intervention of the author’s knowledge, therefore it is unbiased and applicable in modern buildings.

Eidetic Variation: a Self-Correcting and Integrative Account

Edmund Husserl’s eidetic phenomenology seeks a priori knowledge of essences and eidetic laws pertaining to conscious experience and its objects. Husserl believes that such eidetic knowledge has a higher epistemic status than the inherently fallible empirical knowledge, but a closer reading of his work shows that even eidetic claims are subject to error and open to modification. In this article, I develop a self-correcting account of Husserl’s method of eidetic variation, arguing that eidetic variation plays a critical role in both challenging and improving upon the eidetic results in phenomenology. More specifically, I argue that the self-correcting account of eidetic variation 1) is consistent with Husserl’s own formulations of his eidetic methodology and epistemic principles; 2) captures the dual epistemic function of eidetic variation as means for both testing and intuitively validating eidetic claims; and 3) offers methodological support for contemporary attempts to integrate eidetic variation with non-eidetic methods and resources. To substantiate these claims, I first contrast the self-correcting account with the falsificationist interpretations of eidetic variation. Then, I turn to three applications of eidetic variation in order to examine how eidetic phenomenology could draw from real-life deviations, artificial variations, and critical–historical reflection. The goal is to lay the methodological groundwork for a self-correcting and integrative account of eidetic variation and illustrate its usefulness in research practice.

Cerebral Oxygenation and Activity During Surgical Repair of Neonates With Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia: A Center Comparison Analysis

Background and aim: Neonatal brain monitoring is increasingly used due to reports of brain injury perioperatively. Little is known about the effect of sedatives (midazolam) and anesthetics (sevoflurane) on cerebral oxygenation (rScO2) and cerebral activity. This study aims to determine these effects in the perioperative period.Methods: This is an observational, prospective study in two tertiary pediatric surgical centers. All neonates with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia received perioperative cerebral oxygenation and activity measurements. Patients were stratified based on intraoperatively administrated medication: the sevoflurane group (continuous sevoflurane, bolus fentanyl, bolus rocuronium) and the midazolam group (continuous midazolam, continuous fentanyl, and continuous vecuronium).Results: Intraoperatively, rScO2 was higher in the sevoflurane compared to the midazolam group (84%, IQR 77–95 vs. 65%, IQR 59–76, p = < 0.001), fractional tissue oxygen extraction was lower (14%, IQR 5–21 vs. 31%, IQR 29–40, p = < 0.001), the duration of hypoxia was shorter (2%, IQR 0.4–9.6 vs. 38.6%, IQR 4.9–70, p = 0.023), and cerebral activity decreased more: slow delta: 2.16 vs. 4.35 μV2 (p = 0.0049), fast delta: 0.73 vs. 1.37 μV2 (p = < 0.001). In the first 30 min of the surgical procedure, a 3-fold increase in fast delta (10.48–31.22 μV2) and a 5-fold increase in gamma (1.42–7.58 μV2) were observed in the midazolam group.Conclusion: Sevoflurane-based anesthesia resulted in increased cerebral oxygenation and decreased cerebral activity, suggesting adequate anesthesia. Midazolam-based anesthesia in neonates with a more severe CDH led to alarmingly low rScO2 values, below hypoxia threshold, and increased values of EEG power during the first 30 min of surgery. This might indicate conscious experience of pain. Integrating population-pharmacokinetic models and multimodal neuromonitoring are needed for personalized pharmacotherapy in these vulnerable patients.Trial Registration:https://www.trialregister.nl/trial/6972, identifier: NL6972.

An Encounter With the Other: A Thematic and Content Analysis of DMT Experiences From a Naturalistic Field Study

Introduction:N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is an endogenous serotonergic psychedelic capable of producing radical shifts in conscious experience. Increasing trends in its use, as well as new trials administering DMT to patients, indicate the growing importance of a thorough elucidation of the qualitative content, over and above structure, which the drug occasions. This is particularly in light of the hyper-real, otherworldly, and often ontologically challenging yet potentially transformative, nature of the experience, not least encounters with apparently non-self social agents. Laboratory studies have been limited by clinical setting and lacking qualitative analyses of experiential content, while online surveys’ limitations lie in retrospective design, uncontrolled use, and both of which not guaranteeing ‘breakthrough’ experiences, i.e., producing very strong psychoactive effects.Methods: We report on the first naturalistic field study of DMT use including its qualitative analysis. Screened, healthy, anonymised and experienced DMT users were observed during their non-clinical use of the drug at home (40–75 mg inhaled). In-depth semi-structured interviews (inspired by the micro-phenomenological technique) were employed immediately after their experience. This paper reports on the thematic analysis of one major domain of the breakthrough experiences elicited, the ‘other’. Thirty-six post-DMT experience interviews with mostly Caucasian (83%) males (eight female) of average 37 years were predominantly inductively coded.Results: Invariably, profound and highly intense experiences occurred. The first overarching category comprised the encounter with other ‘beings’ (94% of reports), encompassing super-ordinate themes including the entities’ role, appearance, demeanour, communication and interaction; while the second overarching category comprised experiences of emerging into other ‘worlds’ (100% of reports), encompassing super-ordinate themes of the scene, the contents and quality of the immersive spaces. Many further mid-level themes and subthemes also illuminate the rich content of the DMT experience.Discussion: The present study provides a systematic and in-depth analysis of the nuanced content of the otherworldly encounter within the breakthrough DMT experience, as well as elaborating on the resonances both with previous DMT studies focusing on entity encounters and other types of extraordinary experiences entailing such encounters. These include the alien abduction, folkloric, shamanic and near-death experience. Putative neural mechanisms of these features of the DMT experience and its promise as a psychotherapeutic agent are discussed in light of such findings.

Current Understanding of the “Insight” Phenomenon Across Disciplines

Despite countless anecdotes and the historical significance of insight as a problem solving mechanism, its nature has long remained elusive. The conscious experience of insight is notoriously difficult to trace in non-verbal animals. Although studying insight has presented a significant challenge even to neurobiology and psychology, human neuroimaging studies have cleared the theoretical landscape, as they have begun to reveal the underlying mechanisms. The study of insight in non-human animals has, in contrast, remained limited to innovative adjustments to experimental designs within the classical approach of judging cognitive processes in animals, based on task performance. This leaves no apparent possibility of ending debates from different interpretations emerging from conflicting schools of thought. We believe that comparative cognition has thus much to gain by embracing advances from neuroscience and human cognitive psychology. We will review literature on insight (mainly human) and discuss the consequences of these findings to comparative cognition.

The Embodiment of Traditional Partería in the Colombian Pacific Region

A Traditional Partera refers to a woman who assists, by traditional practices, women during gestation, birth, and reproductive life, aside of the formal health care system. Their practice, Traditional Partería, is considered a key ancestral cultural component in marginalized communities in Colombia. A comprehensive description of the essence of Colombian Traditional Partería is currently missing, and this practice is facing the loss of its body of knowledge. Here, we describe the essence of being a Colombian Traditional Partera. Eight Traditional Parteras participated in phenomenological interviews and body maps focused on their embodied conscious experience of being a Traditional Partera in Colombia. Seventeen general meaning units were identified and grouped in three embodied components (Head, Heart, and Hands) related to practice, knowledge, feelings, perceptions, context, and culture. We discuss philosophical reflections and implications of knowing other’s world perspectives, describing a sensitive triad central in the Traditional Partería practice.

Representational ‘touch’ and modulatory ‘retouch’—two necessary neurobiological processes in thalamocortical interaction for conscious experience

Theories of consciousness using neurobiological data or being influenced by these data have been focused either on states of consciousness or contents of consciousness. These theories have occasionally used evidence from psychophysical phenomena where conscious experience is a dependent experimental variable. However, systematic catalog of many such relevant phenomena has not been offered in terms of these theories. In the perceptual retouch theory of thalamocortical interaction, recently developed to become a blend with the dendritic integration theory, consciousness states and contents of consciousness are explained by the same mechanism. This general-purpose mechanism has modulation of the cortical layer-5 pyramidal neurons that represent contents of consciousness as its core. As a surplus, many experimental psychophysical phenomena of conscious perception can be explained by the workings of this mechanism. Historical origins and current views inherent in this theory are presented and reviewed.

Consciousness as a multidimensional phenomenon: implications for the assessment of disorders of consciousness

Disorders of consciousness (DoCs) pose a significant clinical and ethical challenge because they allow for complex forms of conscious experience in patients where intentional behaviour and communication are highly limited or non-existent. There is a pressing need for brain-based assessments that can precisely and accurately characterize the conscious state of individual DoC patients. There has been an ongoing research effort to develop neural measures of consciousness. However, these measures are challenging to validate not only due to our lack of ground truth about consciousness in many DoC patients but also because there is an open ontological question about consciousness. There is a growing, well-supported view that consciousness is a multidimensional phenomenon that cannot be fully described in terms of the theoretical construct of hierarchical, easily ordered conscious levels. The multidimensional view of consciousness challenges the utility of levels-based neural measures in the context of DoC assessment. To examine how these measures may map onto consciousness as a multidimensional phenomenon, this article will investigate a range of studies where they have been applied in states other than DoC and where more is known about conscious experience. This comparative evidence suggests that measures of conscious level are more sensitive to some dimensions of consciousness than others and cannot be assumed to provide a straightforward hierarchical characterization of conscious states. Elevated levels of brain complexity, for example, are associated with conscious states characterized by a high degree of sensory richness and minimal attentional constraints, but are suboptimal for goal-directed behaviour and external responsiveness. Overall, this comparative analysis indicates that there are currently limitations to the use of these measures as tools to evaluate consciousness as a multidimensional phenomenon and that the relationship between these neural signatures and phenomenology requires closer scrutiny.

Apical Amplification – A Cellular Mechanism of Conscious Perception?

We present a theoretical view of the cellular foundations fornetwork-level processes involved in producing our conscious experience.Inputs to apical synapses in layer 1 of a large subset of neocortical cellsare summed at an integration zone near the top of their apical trunk. Theseinputs come from diverse sources, and provide a context within which thetransmission of information abstracted from sensory input to their basal andperisomatic synapses can be amplified when relevant. We argue that apicalamplification (AA) enables conscious perceptual experience and makes it moreflexible, and thus more adaptive, by being sensitive to context. AA providesa possible mechanism for recurrent processing theory that avoids strongloops. It makes the broadcasting hypothesized by global neuronal workspacetheories feasible while preserving the distinct contributions of theindividual cells receiving the broadcast. It also provides mechanisms thatcontribute to the holistic aspects of integrated information theory. As AAis highly dependent on cholinergic, aminergic, and other neuromodulators, itrelates the specific contents of conscious experience to global mental statesand to fluctuations in arousal when awake. We conclude that apical dendritesprovide a cellular mechanism for the context-sensitive selectiveamplification that is a cardinal prerequisite of conscious perception.

Multilayer networks as embodied consciousness interactions. A formal model approach.

An algebraic interpretation of multilayer networks is introduced in relation to conscious experience, brain and body. The discussion is based on a network model for undirected multigraphs with coloured edges whose elements are time-evolving multilayers, representing complex experiential brain-body networks. These layers have the ability to merge by an associative binary operator, accounting for biological composition. As an extension, they can rotate in a formal analogy to how the activity inside layers would dynamically evolve. Under consciousness interpretation, we also studied a mathematical formulation of splitting layers, resulting in a formal analysis for the transition from conscious to non-conscious activity. From this construction, we recover core structures for conscious experience, dynamical content and causal efficacy of conscious interactions, predicting topological network changes after conscious layer interactions. Our approach provides a mathematical account of coupling and splitting layers co-arising with more complex experiences. These concrete results may inspire the use of formal studies of conscious experience not only to describe it, but also to obtain new predictions and future applications of formal mathematical tools.