Haeusermann et al. (Citation2023) draw three overall conclusions from their study on closed loop neuromodulation and self-perception in clinical treatment of refractory epilepsy. The first is that closed-loop neuromodulation devices did not substantially change epileptic patient’s personalities or self-perception postoperatively. The second is that some patients and caregivers attributed observed changes in personality and self-perception to the epilepsy itself and not to the DBS treatments. The third is that the devices provided participants with novel ways to make sense of their (...) illness. These findings further demonstrate a misalignment between some neuroethicists’ concerns about putative postoperative changes to personality, and the empirical evidence for such changes. Haeusermann et al. nonetheless concede that “neurotechnology directed at persisting rather than episodic clinical phenomena could have greater implications for personality or self-perception, either because they operate more continuously or are directed at clinical phenomena that are more stably integrated into patients’ self-concepts” (41). We acknowledge that the hypothesis that participants did not report changes because they were only episodically and not continually stimulated offers an interesting line for future investigation. Nonetheless, we would like to propose that potential postoperative personality changes might be correlated with the pathophysiology itself, rather than the stimulation effects of the technology. Generally, we advance the view that unintended effects solely induced by the technology cannot be excluded per se. Regardless, this comment aims to highlight that ethicists’ starting premise should be that patients suffering from diverse pathophysiology, or patients who are treated with stimulation in different brain regions and with differing parameters, would likely not react in the same way to treatment. (shrink)

Recent developments of three-dimensional printing of biomaterials in medicine have been portrayed as demonstrating the potential to transform some medical treatments, including providing new responses to organ damage or organ failure. However, beyond the hype and before 3D bioprinted organs are ready to be transplanted into humans, several important ethical concerns and regulatory questions need to be addressed. This article starts by raising general ethical concerns associated with the use of bioprinting in medicine, then it focuses on more particular ethical (...) issues related to experimental testing on humans, and the lack of current international regulatory directives to guide these experiments. Accordingly, this article considers whether there is a limit as to what should be bioprinted in medicine; examines key risks of significant harm associated with testing 3D bioprinting for humans; investigates the clinical trial paradigm used to test 3D bioprinting; analyses ethical questions of irreversibility, loss of treatment opportunity and replicability; explores the current lack of a specific framework for the regulation and testing of 3D bioprinting treatments. (shrink)

This essay illustrates senses in which linear time can be proven to be non existent. Yet, as the essay agrees, the practical use of linear time, as an organizational principle in life, is unquestionable. Do we live a lie by relying on the non existent to undergird our lives? Or is lie a misleading, and naïve, word for our solution to this state of affairs?

The two essays included here are parts of a longer study of temporality, and the genesis of the “religious.” The first part, “Multiple Nows,” depicts a universe in which a present to past relation is establishable from any and every point in consciousness. The resulting perspective differs from that offered by the linear timeline of chronological history. Remembering where I put my glasses is an historicizing act, as fully as is remembering when the Battle of Zama was fought or who (...) won there. On this alternate view of temporality the genesis of the historical perspective is the historicizing subject. The second essay, “The History of a House,” places the observer before an historical structure, then asks where the historicity in the structure is. We discover that the historicity is put there by the observer/subject. This discovery resembles our earlier discovery that historicity is generated by an infinite sequence of nows. The two essays converge on a description of historical cognition as subject-generated. (shrink)

The two essays included here are parts of a longer study of temporality, and the genesis of the “religious.” The first part, “Multiple Nows,” depicts a universe in which a present to past relation is establishable from any and every point in consciousness. The resulting perspective differs from that offered by the linear timeline of chronological history. Remembering where I put my glasses is an historicizing act, as fully as is remembering when the Battle of Zama was fought or who (...) won there. On this alternate view of temporality the genesis of the historical perspective is the historicizing subject. The second essay, “The History of a House,” places the observer before an historical structure, then asks where the historicity in the structure is. We discover that the historicity is put there by the observer/subject. This discovery resembles our earlier discovery that historicity is generated by an infinite sequence of nows. The two essays converge on a description of historical cognition as subject-generated. (shrink)

In their article published in Nanoethics, “Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Brain-Implants Using Nano-Scale Materials and Techniques”, Berger et al. suggest that there may be a prima facie moral obligation to improve neuro implants with nanotechnology given their possible therapeutic advantages for patients [Nanoethics, 2:241–249]. Although we agree with Berger et al. that developments in nanomedicine hold the potential to render brain implant technologies less invasive and to better target neural stimulation to respond to brain impairments in the near (...) future, we argue against presenting the development of nanobionic clinical devices in terms of a moral obligation to conduct this research. In the first part of the paper, we consider what a duty to pursue new technologies might mean, and in the second we explore some of the negative consequences of defending such development as a moral obligation based on potential benefit. We argue that promoting the advances available to brain implants through developments in nanotechnology and bionics could contribute to medical rhetoric that indirectly increases the risk of exposing patients to harm when participating in clinical trials. We argue that rather than there being a moral obligation to improve nanobionics implants because of their potential benefit, the pursuit of improved neuro implants must be balanced against the prima facie obligations to protect patients against harm and to promote and protect patient autonomy. (shrink)

The idea of creation as the free, spontaneous, and joyous play (līlā) of the gods has been a pervasive motif in Indian thought since Vedic times. In the tradition of Advaita Vedānta, however, where the sole Reality is Brahman alone, divine playfulness is given an illusionistic interpretation and līlā becomes an expression of the deceptive power of māyā.

Contemporary capitalism is in effect, if not in intent, Deleuzian. As a network of networks, it is rhizomatic, flexible, chaosmotic, evolving, expanding. In the negativist spirit that characterizes the work of the Frankfurt School, this article shows via an analysis of the goverment of the self, the commodification of culture and the modification of nature, how contemporary capitalism does colonize not only the life-world but also life itself.

L’utilisation de méthodes informatiques dans la conception pré-clinique de molécules thérapeutiques s’est développée à partir de 1970 dans le cadre d’une stratégie dite de « rational drug design ». Une analyse de cette approche est d’abord développée. Deux contextualisations de ces pratiques sont ensuite proposées. Certains résultats de l’historiographie des médicaments permettent, premièrement, de préciser la doctrine particulière du médicament à laquelle cette stratégie se rattache. Deuxièmement, puisque la rationalité déclarée de cette dernière s’appuie sur des outils scientifiques développés en (...) (bio)chimie, une analyse de leur statut épistémologique est conduite en étudiant leur émergence. Ceci permet de comprendre les spécificités que la rationalité véhiculée par ces outils computationnels comporte (représentation de la matière particulière dont la validité est uniquement pragmatique, emploi d’un grand nombre de données empiriques, réalisation d’estimations et approximations, diffusion de ces dernières sous forme de programmes informatiques). Nous soulignons l’importance de l’ordinateur dans la standardisation de ces méthodes. (shrink)

L’utilisation de méthodes informatiques dans la conception pré-clinique de molécules thérapeutiques s’est développée à partir de 1970 dans le cadre d’une stratégie dite de « rational drug design ». Une analyse de cette approche est d’abord développée. Deux contextualisations de ces pratiques sont ensuite proposées. Certains résultats de l’historiographie des médicaments permettent, premièrement, de préciser la doctrine particulière du médicament à laquelle cette stratégie se rattache. Deuxièmement, puisque la rationalité déclarée de cette dernière s’appuie sur des outils scientifiques développés en (...) (bio)chimie, une analyse de leur statut épistémologique est conduite en étudiant leur émergence. Ceci permet de comprendre les spécificités que la rationalité véhiculée par ces outils computationnels comporte (représentation de la matière particulière dont la validité est uniquement pragmatique, emploi d’un grand nombre de données empiriques, réalisation d’estimations et approximations, diffusion de ces dernières sous forme de programmes informatiques). Nous soulignons l’importance de l’ordinateur dans la standardisation de ces méthodes. (shrink)

Aristotle considered the plot the most important element in tragedy. By μῦθυς--from which our word "myth" comes--he meant an imitation of action--of action in the "real world," that is. Here, as elsewhere in Greek literary criticism, "imitation" does not mean simply "exact reproduction." To what extent it may mean something like "symbolic," or otherwise "oblique," representation, is hard to determine. It will be enough, for our purposes, to think of "imitation" as exact reproduction with allowance made simply for the transference--always (...) radically transforming--into another medium: from life into art. What, then, did Aristotle mean by "action"? The noun πρᾶξις takes us back to the verb πράττω. Action meant a "doing" to Aristotle, rather as poetry meant to him a "making." Such a "doing," then, is a time-crossing event, in fact an event whose nature is closely involved with its temporal status. Such an event has a personal agent, or vehicle, and transacts with other persons, or more generally, with the "other." In fact, the notion of a transaction is especially fitting to describe action, for that notion emphasizes the dialogue-like structure of action, which always involves its agent with "the world," whether of people or of things. Plot, for Aristotle, was the turning of such action into art. (shrink)