This paper deals with an attempt of the mathematician Riemann to develop an outstandingly broad view of the philosophy of nature encompassing basic phenomena of both the material and the mental world. Riemann's draft is traced in its main aspects, and is accompanied by a comparison with certain chapters in the philosophical writings of Herbart that were particularly relevant to Riemann's conception of mathematics and science on the whole. This applies, in particluar, to the epistemological background and to Herbart's theory (...) of the Self. (shrink)

Are there relationships between consciousness and the material world? Empirical evidence for such a connection was reported in several meta-analyses of mind-matter experiments designed to address this question. In this paper we consider such meta-analyses from a statistical modeling perspective, emphasizing strategies to validate the models and the associated statistical procedures. In particular, we explicitly model increased data variability and selection mechanisms, which permits us to estimate 'selection profiles ' and to reassess the experimental effect in view of potential other (...) effects. An application to the data pool considered in the influential meta-analysis of Radin and Nelson (1989) yields indications for the presence of random and selection effects Adjustment for possible selection is found to render the,without such an adjustment significant, experimental effect non-significant. Somewhat different conclusions apply to a subset of the data deserving separate consideration. The actual origin of the data features that are described as experimental, random, or selection effects within the proposed model cannot be clarified y our approach and remains open. (shrink)