The purpose of this paper is to show that the logical form of action sentences are dependent upon the concept of 'agent' that one takes. A thing type of agent leads to the extensional form while a thinking type of agent leads to intentional form of action sentences. Consequently, it is important to note the locus of the describer who himself is also an agent. If the describer is someone other than theagent, the ascription of action is based on a (...) tacit counterfactual. The agent could have done otherwise, implying the agent to be a being-of-the-world, who acts on the things of the world to bring about a change which could not have occurred otherwise. (shrink)

This is a response to Michael Dyer's Commentary on Goswami's Quantum-Based Theory of Consciousness and Free Will, a theory that I will call idealist science - a science based on the primacy of consciousness rather than matter. First, I review Dyer's main points: there is no need for idealist science since cognitive science can explain whatever human phenomena idealist science purports to explain; and idealist science offers nothing new, such as, new methodology or experimental prediction. I then review some (...) of the inadequacies of the cognitive science model of consciousness stemming in part from its impoverished ontology of physical realism. It is shown that cognitive science follows from the new idealist science in the limit of a correspondence principle. In this way, idealist science is seen to support cognitive science while generalizing the scope of science itself to include the subjective aspects of reality. Next, I point out what idealist science gains for us: treatment within science of the subjective aspects of creativity, ethics, free will, and spirituality ; and integration of all the forces of psychology, and also of physics and biology. Finally, I discuss possible experiments to distinguish between realist and idealist models of reality. (shrink)

Commentary on Avayava, portion of Tattvacintāmaṇi dealing with syllogism (avayava) work of the Navya-nyaya school in Indic philosophy by Gaṅgeśa, 13th cent.

"This is the most complete book available on the practices, techniques and philosophy of Kriya Yoga. It is an invaluable guide which takes the student step by step through the eight stages of Patanjali, from the yamas and the practice of ahimsa to samadhi, the ultimate realization of the yogic path.

Selections from Puranas on Hindu cosmology; Sanskrit text with English translation.

This book contains 82 questions and answers on the inner life, talks on reincarnation and the soul's evolution, sin, science, individuality, morality, inner peace, God's plan, and the universality of religion.

Argues for postcoloniality as a model for philosophical practice. In this ambitious book, Namita Goswami draws on continental philosophy, postcolonial criticism, critical race theory, and African American and postcolonial feminisms to offer postcoloniality as a model for philosophical practice. Moving among and between texts, traditions, and frameworks, including the work of Gayatri Spivak, Theodor Adorno, Barbara Christian, Paul Gilroy, Neil Lazarus, and Hortense Spillers, among others, she charts a journey that takes us beyond Eurocentrism by understanding postcoloniality as the (...) pursuit of heterogeneity, that is, of a non-antagonistic understanding of difference. Recognizing that philosophy, feminism, and postcolonial theory share a common concern with the concept of heterogeneity, Goswami shows how postcoloniality empowers us to engage more productively the relationships between these disciplines. Subjects That Matter confronts the ways Eurocentrism, an identity politics that considers difference as inherently oppositional, relegates minority traditions to a diagnostic and/or corrective standpoint to prevent their general implications from playing a critical and transformative role in how we understand subjectivity and agency. Through unexpected, often surprising, and thought-provoking analytic connections and continuities, this book’s interdisciplinary approach reveals a postcolonial pluralism that expands philosophical resources, confounds and limits our habitual disciplinary lexicons, and opens up new areas of inquiry. “This is a groundbreaking contribution to a number of distinct but intersecting fields.” — Amy Allen, author of The End of Progress: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. (shrink)

Brings together the most recent discoveries in quantum physics and provides a powerful argument for transforming not only the way we view nature, but also how we view our own personal reality. The book also challenges readers to give up their prejudices regarding material realism.

The quantum functionalist model of mentation provides an explanation of conscious and unconscious perception without the postulation of a central processing unit . Based on Goswami's idealist interpretation of quantum mechanics, the quantum model posits a dual quantum/classical system for the mind-brain with which consciousness is linked via self-reference. A comparative analysis of word-sense disambiguation data is conducted with a cognitive science model derived from the Posner and Snyder facilitation and inhibition and the Rummelhart, McClelland, and PDP group's parallel-distributed-processing (...) theories. A new line of experiments is proposed which distinguishes between the two models. (shrink)

Student support services are the cardinal features of the Open and Distance Learning System. In India, the Indira Gandhi National Open University, 13 state open universities and over 200 Distance Education Institutes attached to conventional universities and private/autonomous institutes offering programmes through the distance mode have all created adequate provisions for learner support services and the systems, rules, regulations and norms have been put in place. However, it is significant that a learner in the ODL system remains away from the (...) teacher and the peer group. Thus, the learner feels isolated and needs the empathy of all the functionaries concerned. It has been our experience at IGNOU that more often than not the functionaries fail to realize the value of a learner and the learner fails to understand the value attributed to him by the ODL system. Without such realization the rules and regulations lose their significance. Hence, inculcation of values is of paramount importance in the functioning of the ODL system. In this article we have discussed about ‘inculcation of values’ among the ‘learners’ as well as the ‘functionaries’ for developing ‘best practices’ in learner support services in the ODL system. The inputs are based primarily on direct experiences of the authors. (shrink)

The issue of abstractness raises two distinct questions. First, is there a format-independent magnitude representation? Second, does analogue magnitude really play a crucial role in the development of human mathematics? We suggest that neither developmental nor cultural studies support this notion. The field needs to redefine the properties of the core number representation as used in human arithmetic.

Today, organizations are facing a high rate of attrition which is a serious issue for human resource managers. Gaining the commitment of employees towards their organization, though challenging, is rewarding as organizational commitment (OC) is a precursor to employee engagement. Another challenge is about maintaining an ethical climate. Ethical misconduct by organizations not only brings them a heavy monetary price but also incurs non-monetary price in terms of customer and employee attrition and diminished business reputation. In the new workplace with (...) greater emphasis on flexibility, teams and a strong customer orientation, we feel that development of emotional intelligence (EI) of the workforce can be the key to meet these challenges. This paper explores these three critical constructs viz., EI, workplace ethics and OC together, and tests whether workplace ethics mediates the EI–OC relationship using structural equation modelling. We conducted an empirical study in Guwahati, a fast-growing tier II city in India and a business hub for north-east India, on a sample of 400 managers working in the service sector. Our study found that emotional intelligence is a strong predictor of ethical perception and organization commitment. Also, ethical perception significantly affects organizational commitment. Although we reject the hypothesis that ethics mediates the EI–OC relationship, the importance of workplace ethics cannot be undermined as it can build intangible organizational assets such as goodwill and public image. Since individual ethical standards create ethical climate, organizations need to teach their people how to recognize morally questionable situations and the consequence of unethical conduct. (shrink)

This essay responds to the polyphonic and prismatic reflections stemming from Subjects That Matter: Philosophy, Feminism, and Postcolonial Theory (2019), especially as the connective and creative works included in this forum seek holistic, profoundly interdisciplinary, and transcontinental discussions on intersectionality and philosophical practice. I seek vibrant, productive connections between diverse projects by attempting to engage a few salient aspects of these contributions as they intersect with the book’s overall stated aims, primarily because my interlocutors’s work leads out of the book (...) rather than burrows into it. This is precisely the forum’s aspirational trajectory, for it showcases multiplicity, discontinuity, divergence, plurality, and profusion, not to dubiously claim the mantle of radicalism, but to move toward systemic change through the precarious, difficult, and essentially historical task of building coalitions. My hope remains that through these lovingly orchestrated moments of exegetical exchange, which confound and limit rather than insulate our habitual disciplinary lexicons, we may roil Eurocentric identity politics and its impoverished understanding of difference. (shrink)

Spivak refers to “originary queerness” as a concept she cannot yet theorize. If concepts convey and uphold heterogeneous lived experience, then the paradoxical missing-ness of a corresponding “what...

Here we use two filtered speech tasks to investigate children’s processing of slow (.

The problem of moral luck is a genuine moral problem faced by all of us where the conflict arises on how and upon whom one should place the burden of moral responsibility when the situation is beyond one‟s control. On one hand, people commonly think that a person cannot be justly praised or blamed for his actions unless he controls them. On the other hand, ordinary moral judgments of persons routinely vary based on the actual consequences caused by the person, (...) even when partly or wholly beyond his control. The problem lies in the apparent conflict between the idea that a morally responsible agent must control his actions and the standard practice of blaming people more simply for causing worse results even when the factors are beyond his control. My paper will focus on the various types of moral luck as explained by Thomas Nagel and analyze that the seemingly hopeless situations in the various cases of moral luck can be satisfactorily resolved by a proper theory of moral responsibility. (shrink)

Literature reviews have repeatedly emphasized the need to further investigate relationships between corporate social responsibility and micro-organizational variables. The present research attempts to address this call by examining the direct and indirect relationship between individual perceptions of CSR and employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors. Multiphasic data from 207 workplace supervisor–subordinate dyads recruited from an online panel were analyzed to show that organizational identification mediated the relationship between CSR and OCBs. Furthermore, supervisor transformational leadership style moderated the mediation, such that the indirect (...) effect of the organizational identification on the relationship between CSR and OCBs became nonsignificant under low transformational leadership. Based on these results, we make suggestions for using embeddedness programs to improve perceptions of CSR. (shrink)

In Nagaland, a state in India’s North-East region, the morung is a tribal institution that serves as an educational portal through which all young men passed as the means of learning their living heritage. Described by anthropological accounts, for a century until the 1950s, as a ‘dormitory’ for boys and young men, it is in fact much more. It is a school, both vocational and law, a premises in which tribal elders dispense wisdom, a crafts centre, a barracks, and embodies (...) other functions too. Moreover, it is one of the most important, if not the most important, social institution that maintains instruction about what may be called a pre-materialist worldview, one that was widespread when indigenous societies were free from a science hegemony that defined what counts as knowledge. From the 1990s, a combination of factors caused the decline of the institution, and as tribal youth have moved into the ‘mainstream’, the morung and all that it stands for is close to being extinguished. Yet it is irreplaceable. For Naga adolescents and youth, the morung was physically where part of an unique worldview became manifest, one which valued cooperation far above competition. While there, the youth learned within sight of all that was dear to them, a learning immersion complete in many respects. Their learning used the medium of material mastery and intimacy with material laws to transport the youth, so that their awareness of nature abundant became awareness of its invisible forces both subtle and great. (shrink)

Paul Gilroy's subtle use of Theodor Adorno in Postcolonial Melancholia misses the opportunity to forge for the postcolonial world a sense of responsibility for the colonial cultures that this postcolonial world helped to create. Gilroy rightly emphasizes the naïveté often associated with attempts to “dwell convivially with difference”. His negatively dialectical reading of the deterministic logics of racial difference brings into view an already present demotic multiculturalism. He neglects, however, how Adorno's conception of negative dialectics can be understood as postcolonial (...) in its understanding of difference. In other words, both Adorno and Gilroy focus on recuperating a conception of non-antagonistic difference, that is, an understanding of difference as heterogeneity. Yet, Gilroy maintains an a priori sense of cultural difference from Adorno in spite of Postcolonial Melancholia's trajectory of positing a negative dialectics of conviviality. This conviviality is the “fragile, emergent substance of vital planetary humanism” that refuses to render postcoloniality synonymous with the maintenance of nation-state boundaries. Thus, Gilroy forfeits the prospect of conducting a radical postcolonial reading of Adorno, which would demonstrate precisely how colonial history provides “an opening onto the multicultural promise of the postcolonial world”. (shrink)

We investigate the Peres–Horodecki positive partial transpose criterion in the context of conserved quantities and derive a condition of inseparability for a composite bipartite system depending only on the dimensions of its subsystems, which leads to a bi-linear entanglement witness for the two qubit system. A separability inequality using generalized Schrodinger–Robertson uncertainty relation taking suitable operators, has been derived, which proves to be stronger than the bi-linear entanglement witness operator. In the case of mixed density matrices, it identically distinguishes the (...) separable and non separable Werner states. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience aims to improve our understanding of aspects of human learning and performance by combining data acquired with the new brain imaging technologies with data acquired in cognitive psychology paradigms. Both neuroscience and psychology use the philosophical assumptions underpinning the natural sciences, namely the scientific method, whereby hypotheses are proposed and tested using quantitative approaches. The relevance of 'brain science' for the classroom has proved controversial with some educators, perhaps because of distrust of the applicability of so-called 'medical models' (...) to education. Nevertheless, the brain is the main organ of learning, and so a deeper understanding of the brain would appear highly relevant to education. Modern science is revealing the crucial role of biology in every aspect of human experience and performance. This does not mean that biology determines outcomes. Rather, there is a complex interplay between biology and environments. Improved knowledge about how the brain learns should assist educators in creating optimal learning environments. Neuroscience can also identify 'biomarkers' of educational risk, and provide new methodologies to test the effects of educational interventions. (shrink)

Following the lead of von Neumann and Wigner, Goswami has developed a paradox-free interpretation of quantum mechanics based on the idealistic notion that consciousness collapes the quantum wave function. This solution of quantum measurement theory sheds a considerable amount of light on the nature of consciousness. Quantum theory is applied to the mind-brain problem and a solution is proposed for the paradox of the causal potency of the conscious mind and of self-reference. Cognitive and neurophysiological data in support of (...) the present theory are also reviewed. (shrink)

A clash of two worldviews -- Consciousness and the science of experience -- The physics of the subtle -- Zen and quantum physics -- Thought, feeling, and intuition -- The world of archetypes -- The ego and the quantum self -- Free will and creativity -- Involution and evolution -- A tale of two domains -- The creative principle -- Quantum reincarnation -- The meaning and purpose of life -- The meaning of dreams -- Enlightenment -- Spiritual professions; spiritual society.

Study of Vīraśaiva commentary on Brahmasutra along with the fundamentals of other systems on Hindu philosophy.

It is shown that if quantum physics is interpreted according to the philosophy of monistic idealism--that consciousness is the ground of all being--then some of the important dualisms of philosophy can be integrated.

What parameters determine brain size? This question is of particular interest for humans because our large brains confer outstanding cognitive abilities. The answer has long been sought in comparative analyses of brain size relative to body size (herein termed ‘brain size’) in our fellow homeothermic vertebrates – namely other mammals and birds. Unfortunately, brain size is an idiosyncratic trait corresponding to a seemingly miscellaneous collection of traits ranging from gestation length to deception behaviour. Some order can be established by attributing (...) brain size correlates to categories of constraint (‘what traits permit or limit increased brain sizes?’) and selection (‘what traits select for increased brain sizes?. Even so, the vast number of potential correlates has lead to a plethora of (frequently mutually exclusive) hypotheses regarding avian and mammalian brain size evolution. This confusion has recently prompted calls for better integration of brain size correlates. In this article we argue that the latest advances in the field of brain size constraints, combined with modern techniques for tracing brain development, put an integrated framework of brain size evolution within our reach. (shrink)