This study concerns the ideas of one particular philosopher, Henri Bergson, whose views of time, intuition, and creativity have had a significant impact on art, literature, and the humanities, both in his time and in our own. Although it is generally recognized that Bergson's ideas have significantly impacted the arts and the humanities, it has not been recognized how they have also had a creative influence on the sciences as well. Nor has it been realized that this was one of (...) his most basic contentions. Bergson's conception of intuition--his fundamental insight into reality--was not limited to fugitive insights into human existence. By realizing previously unsuspected possibilities for research and discovery, his endeavors were also meant to make possible new advances in the sciences. If it enabled his cousin by marriage, Marcel Proust, to explore human memory in depth, it also inspired psychologists like Daniel Schachter to use Bergson's ideas to make real contributions to contemporary memory science. If his notion of creative evolution brought many thinkers to a belief in human creative freedom, it brought others (notably Alexis Carrel and Pierre Lecomte de Noüy) to a scientific study of biological time. Among his successful speculations was the theory of the Big Bang cosmology. 'Getting Bergson Straight' shows many points at which Bergson's ideas anticipated future developments in the sciences. This was seen clearly by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Luis de Broglie who viewed Bergson's physics as presaging quantum physics. Thus, the text is well situated for arts, humanities, social science, and natural science classrooms studying creative thinking and/or intellectual history. (shrink)

Audio recording of "a group of Philosophical and Environmental Songs," as described by Gunter.

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Extensive research has demonstrated that rs1360780, a common single nucleotide polymorphism within the FKBP5 gene, interacts with early-life stress in predicting psychopathology. Previous results suggest that carriers of the TT genotype of rs1360780 who were exposed to child abuse show differences in structure and functional activation of emotion-processing brain areas belonging to the salience network. Extending these findings on intermediate phenotypes of psychopathology, we examined if the interaction between rs1360780 and child abuse predicts resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) between the amygdala (...) and other areas of the salience network. We analyzed data of young European adults from the general population (N = 774; mean age = 18.76 years) who took part in the IMAGEN study. In the absence of main effects of genotype and abuse, a significant interaction effect was observed for rsFC between the right centromedial amygdala and right posterior insula (p <.025, FWE-corrected), which was driven by stronger rsFC in TT allele carriers with a history of abuse. Our results suggest that the TT genotype of rs1360780 may render individuals with a history of abuse more vulnerable to functional changes in communication between brain areas processing emotions and bodily sensations, which could underlie or increase the risk for psychopathology. (shrink)

This is a brief, clear, and vigorous reinterpretation of Bergson's philosophy. The author attempts to prove that, far from being an irrationalist, Bergson is a systematic metaphysician firmly committed to the concept of final cause.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Creativity and the Context of NoveltyPete A. Y. GunterAn article might have many virtues: breadth, novel perspective, conceptual background, to name a few. The strongest virtue of Professor Crosby's article is in the sharpening of arguments. In both his book, Novelty, and in the present article, he sharpens arguments which surround the concepts of determinism, novelty, and freedom. The end result is increased clarity; it is also, or so (...) it seems to this writer, the increased plausibility of arguments for novelty and indeterminism.I.It has often been argued that strict determinism (henceforth, determinism) has paradoxical implications. Thus William James protests that it leads inescapably to a "Block Universe": one in which everything is given at once—past, present, and future. In such a world, Crosby points out, nothing can happen at all. But Crosby adds to this a second, crucial point. If determinism is true, he insists, we must give up not only the belief that anything actually happens but also the commonsense belief that cause precedes effect. This result of strict determinism has not been stressed by either its opponents or its proponents.Quite probably, those who have argued for determinism have not reflected on the unpalatable idea that cause does not precede effect. Our ordinary experience exhibits the billiard ball falling into the side pocket after we have hit it with the cue stick. If we dive into a swimming pool, we enter the water dry and then become wet. And, the splash occurs after we separate ourselves from the board. Determinism, however useful in helping us to bring order out of our experience, radically conflicts with fundamental features in nature that lead us to think and examine cause and effect to begin with.There is another respect in which Crosby sharpens our assumptions. Ordinarily [End Page 60] we think of novelty and causality as contradictories. In fact, Crosby insists, they are correlatives. Neither is reducible to the other, nor is either alternative prior to the other. The two together constitute a primordial feature of the universe, such that where in some contexts indeterminism is reduced to a minimum, perhaps an infinitesimal, in others (presumably those in which creativity plays a major role) causality is reduced to a minimum and novelty predominates. Hence philosophy is not saddled with the task of trying to show how novelty can possibly find a place in an exclusively deterministic world. Novelty and determinism are, from the beginning, both present throughout.This viewpoint, if accepted, would obviate any attempt to graft indeterminism into a deterministic universe, so to speak, from without. It would also tend to dissolve the dualisms foisted on us by Descartes and, in another way, by Kant, which radically separate mind (or free will) from matter (or, in Kant's case, "phenomena") on the grounds that the former contains novelty and the latter does not. In Crosby's view some element of novelty is already present in matter. Equally, in his view, "mind" in many, perhaps most, contexts contains a strong element of determinism.There is still a further way of taking Crosby's arguments. It is this. Strict determinists must, he shows, hold that the universe is timeless. Past, present, and future coexist and, literally, nothing happens. It then follows that if one accepts the reality of motion, growth, and dissolution in the world, then in doing so one has decreed the falsehood of strict determinism. It does not (and on Crosby's grounds cannot) follow that there is no determinism in nature. There must, on his grounds, be degrees of causal determinism. But there must also be real novelty. One thus has a transcendental argument, beginning from the simple acceptance of real mobility in the world. That is, "If there is real transformation in the world, then strict determinism must be wrong. There is real transformation in the world. Therefore strict determinism must be wrong." This would make life very hard for the strict determinist, for whom the slightest lapse into a commonsense acceptance of the restless mobility of nature entails the denial of his or her basic thesis.A further argument of Crosby's, however, gives me difficulties. He argues that strict determinism... (shrink)

Beginning in the 1970s and culminating in the first two decades of the 21st century, there has been a marked shift in the sciences from a predominantly reductionist and mechanistic approach to a broader and more holistic viewpoint. It goes without saying that such a shift in point of view will have significant implications, not only for the sciences but for our concepts of nature and of human beings. The present essay is an attempt to assess the significance of this (...) change in the focus of the sciences and to describe the nature of its components. Originally, it had a far more limited scope, that of comparing two of the parts of the new nonreductionist stance: brain plasticity and biological systems theory. Unfortunately, my understanding of one of these factors (systems theory) turned out to be incorrect, while the section on brain plasticity was incomplete. The result of this dual realization is an essay of far greater scope, taking in both new developments in the sciences far beyond that of plasticity, and reassessing the content and impact of systems theory, which is greater than I had thought. I will begin with a study of systems theory, dealing first with the unexpected mathematics which made its present status possible. Then I will deal with its history, which reaches back over a century. One of the confusions into which we are liable to fall is to fail to distinguish the old systems theory from the new. This is even more likely because the two versions of the theory have many features in common. (shrink)

The following introduction offers a broad survey of the history of quantum physics. It then outlines the position of each contributor in this Special Focus Section concerning the collapse of the quantum wave function and defines three important terms (Hilbert space, Schrödinger’s cat, and decoherence) used in discussing this topic.

Objectives To investigate empirically the motivations for not consenting to DNA biobanking in a Swedish population-based study and to discuss the implications. Design Structured questionnaires and semistructured interviews. Setting A longitudinal epidemiological project (PART) ongoing since 1998 in Stockholm, Sweden. The DNA-collection wave took place during 2006–7. Participants 903 individuals completed the questionnaire (participation rate 36%) and 23 were interviewed. All individuals had participated in both non-genetic waves of the project, but refused to contribute saliva samples during the DNA-collection wave. (...) Main outcome measures Motivations behind refusing to consent to DNA biobanking, with subsequent focus on participants' explanations regarding this unwillingness. Results Public refusal to consent to DNA biobanking, as revealed by the questionnaire, was mainly explained by a lack of personal relevance of DNA contribution and feelings of discomfort related to the DNA being used for purposes other than the respective study. Interviews of individuals representing the second motivation, revealed a significant mistrust of DNA biobank studies. The underlying beliefs and attitudes were associated with concerns about integrity, privacy, suspiciousness and insecurity. However, most interviewees were supportive of genetic research per se and interpreted their mistrust in the light of distressing environmental influences. Conclusion The results suggest a need for guidelines on benefit sharing, as well as trustworthy and stable measures to maintain privacy, as a means for increasing personal relevance and trust among potential participants in genetic research. Measures taken from biobanks seem insufficient in maintaining and increasing trust, suggesting that broader societal measures should be taken. (shrink)

The author informs us that he would have preferred to title his book Time, the Forgotten Dimension. It is not, he cautions, that scientists fail to consider time or forget to include the term "t" in their equations. But, he insists, from Thales to Einstein and even to Planck and Schroedinger, Western thought has been dominated by the tendency to treat time as a kind of illusion or appearance cloaking a timeless reality. This tendency, taken at the extreme, would treat (...) past, present, and future as if they coexisted and deny to irreversibility, indeterminacy, and creativity the slightest shred of reality. The author, an important contributor to recent "nonequilibrium" thermodynamics, believes that this age-old tendency has finally run its course and needs to be supplemented by a newer and potentially more fruitful tendency to "take time seriously": that is, to study irreversibility and indeterminacy on their own terms, as fundamental features of the real world. The result, he argues, may be the resolution of many heretofore unresolvable problems. (shrink)