Ergo Sum Research Articles

Human Computer Interaction, Cognitive Cybernetic & Captological Education

This paper was inspired by the topics by Marshal McLuhan about cibernetisation media understanding, associated with new findings in intelligent systems that lead towards technological anthropomorphisation, and Larsen's model of cognitive controller mood. The results of research conducted from 1990 to the present day outlining the issues associated with captology are presented, and their transfer to specific areas in education outlined. The objective of the theory is to comprehend, interpret and describe the appearance of various disciplines in the natural and social sciences relating to cognitive cybernetics and Human Computer Interaction. In accordance with the unique principles, multidisciplinarity is replaced by pluriperspectivity, and an approach to integrating research methods with engineering design. The theory answers questions using cognitive cybernetics and its recognition and transformation of Descartes's saying: "cogito ergo sum", (I think, therefore I am). Work presents the relationship and correlation between man and technology as Human computer interaction with technological definitions Intelligent Systems and Captology. Special attention is focused on today's modern education with the use of virtual media and the cultural matrix within which the particular media is active. For intelligent educations systems to become more useful and acceptable, we need to consider the “system” as a synergistic composition of software behaviors, and the human interacting. Human interaction must be dominant and having considered the ruling. This cannot be achieved with today's captological educational media. Captological educational media stifles people, casts their most important, (social), role in education and makes them unhappy? Human Computer Interaction, as a strategy and philosophy, is the future of education!

«Cogito ergo sum» como conculcación al axioma A

The purpose of this work is to explain how, with the proposition «cogito ergo sum», Descartes contradicts the A axiom from the Theory of knowledge of Leonardo Polo, by accepting the pasivenness of the knowledge and denying it as an operation of knowing an object, in which the cognizant and the cognizance are one in act.

Edo, Ergo Sum. Anthropological, Ethical and Educational Considerations about Eating

Sostenemos que, siendo el acto de comer racional y relacional, también debe ser un tema educativo que tiene que ver con la sociedad y el ambiente, la política y la salud, los gustos y las tendencias, así como los factores genéticos y epigenéticos. Esta hipótesis tiene que ver con una cierta teoría del acto humano y una antropología basada en las especulaciones filosóficas de MacIntyre y Aristóteles. En este sentido, argumentamos que las opciones alimenticias son un “híbrido de libertad”, racionalidad, y elementos inconscientes y ambientales, y se relacionan con las dimensiones espirituales y biológicas de los seres humanos. Finalmente, sugerimos que debemos cambiar los hábitos humanos para transformar la forma humana de actuar, ya que cada acto humano puede cambiar la esencia humana y viceversa.

Cogito ergo sum: A grounded theory of the Filipino elderly transition experiences in third age education program

ABSTRACTA considerable number of studies have been carried out to explore the experiences of the elderly engaging in third age education, however, most of these investigations have focused on elderly motivation, the benefits accruing from their participation, and the barriers they have encountered during their lifelong learning experience. However, there has been little attempt to probe into the experiences of the elderly engaging in third age education and how they view themselves during that time. This grounded theory study purported to describe the processes through which a select group of Filipino elderly experienced community-based third age learning programs. A series of in-depth interviews were conducted on 24 Filipino elderly who participated in a 4-month third age education program. Interestingly, this study revealed four distinct and yet interrelated stages of Holding Back, Opening Up, Moving Forward and Empowering which were embedded in the model H.O.M.E: A Pulley Model of Elderly Participation in Third Age Education Program. The emerged model is a valuable compass for gerontologists as they provide meaningful and geriatric-friendly programs, projects and activities that not only address the growing needs of the elderly but also facilitate their smooth entry to and completion of their third age learning participation.

Logic of the Egotistical Sentence: A Reading of Descartes

This text is a translation of two extracts from Vincent Descombes' 2014 book Le parler de soi. The majority of the translation consists of the chapter (I.3) that Descombes dedicates to discussing Descartes extensively. In this text, Descombes analyzes “egotistical sentences,” or I-statements, beginning with the infamous example from Descartes (cogito ergo sum). From here, he develops a substantial meditation on the nature of the self and its inherent philosophical paradoxes. The “radical question” guiding Descombes is whether or not an egotistical sentence has or implies a subject in the metaphysical sense. The conclusion, ultimately supported in part by Anscombe’s work on “I-thoughts,” explains how it could be that a subject is not implied by an egotistical sentence.

On matters of mind and body: regarding Descartes.

In this paper the author considers Descartes' place in current thinking about the mind-body dilemma. The premise here is that in the history of ideas, the questions posed can be as significant as the answers acquired. Descartes' paramount question was 'How do we determine certainty?' and his pursuit of an answer led to cogito ergo sum. His discovery simultaneously raised the question whether mind is separate from or unified with the body. Some who currently hold that brain and subjectivity are unified contend that the philosopher 'split' mind from body and refer to 'Descartes' error'. This paper puts forward that Descartes' detractors fail to recognise Descartes' contribution to Western thought, which was to introduce the Enlightenment and to give a place to human subjectivity. Added to this, evidence from Descartes' correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia supports the conclusion that Descartes did in fact believe in the unity of mind and body although he could not reconcile this rationally with the certainty from personal experience that they were separate substances. In this Descartes was engaged in just the same dilemma as that of current thinkers and researchers, a conflict which still is yet to be resolved.

Connecto ergo sum! an exploratory study of the motivations behind the usage of connected objects

The Internet of Things seems about to revolutionize individuals' attitudinal and behavioral patterns and their habits. Increasingly, everyday objects will come with connected features and functions. In this context, it is crucial for companies to study motivations to use connected products and to understand the specific role played by user’s connectedness. On the basis of individual interviews with 43 users of various connected objects, this research explores such motivations and proposes a theoretical framework in which desirable attributes, perceived value, and psychological traits play a key role. The results are then discussed from both theoretical and managerial perspectives.

Scio Ergo Sum: Knowledge of the Self in a Nonhuman Primate

The pressures of developing and maintaining intricate social relationships may have led to the evolution of enhanced cognitive abilities in many social nonhuman species, particularly primates. Knowledge of the dominance ranks and social relationships of other individuals, for example, is important in evaluating one’s position in the prevailing affiliative and dominance networks within a primate society and could be acquired through direct or perceived experience. Our analysis of allogrooming supplants among wild bonnet macaques had revealed that individual females successfully evaluate social relationships among other group females and possess egotistical knowledge of their own positions, relative to those of others, in the social hierarchy. These individuals, therefore, appeared to have abstracted and mentally represented their own personal attributes as well as those of other members of the group. Bonnet macaques also seem to recognise that other individuals have beliefs that may be different from their own, manipulate another individual’s actions and beliefs in a variety of social situations, and selectively reveal or withhold information from others—capabilities displayed by certain individuals that became evident in the course of our earlier studies on tactical deception in the species. In conclusion, the ability to develop belief systems and form mental representations, generated by direct personal experience, suggests a rather early evolutionary origin for fairly sophisticated cognitive capabilities, characterised by an objectified self with limited regulatory control over more subjective levels of self-awareness, in cercopithecine primates, pre-dating those of the great apes. We, therefore, argue, in this review, that bonnet macaques might represent an intermediate stage in the evolution of self-awareness, a process which began with the subjective awareness that characterises most, if not all, higher animal species and culminates in the most sophisticated form of symbolic self-awareness, apparently the hallmark of the human species alone.

Kedudukan dan Sistematika Filsafat Ilmu dalam Rasionalisasi Ilmu Pengetahuan

Rationalization Science happened since Rene Descartes with a skeptical attitude-metodisnya doubting everything, except him who is hesitant (cogito ergo sum). This attitude continued in Auf Klarung, an era which is an attempt to reach a rational man about himself and nature. The purpose of this paper is to describe the position and systematic philosophy of science in the rationalization of science. Relates to a process of rationalization of knowledge derived from sensory experience, both of which have been declared a scientific or unscientific, using logic, everything that has been known empirically as well as on the basis of faith more easily accepted by common sense. Philosophy has the ability to add one's faith in religion, but "if either apply it" will make people doubt his belief in the teachings of the sacred. What according to religious teachings enough to be felt, the philosophies need to be considered, so the feeling for religion is an act of rational and logical.

Kedudukan dan Sistematika Filsafat Ilmu dalam Rasionalisasi Ilmu Pengetahuan

Rationalization Science happened since Rene Descartes with a skeptical attitude-metodisnya doubting everything, except him who is hesitant (cogito ergo sum). This attitude continued in Auf Klarung, an era which is an attempt to reach a rational man about himself and nature. The purpose of this paper is to describe the position and systematic philosophy of science in the rationalization of science. Relates to a process of rationalization of knowledge derived from sensory experience, both of which have been declared a scientific or unscientific, using logic, everything that has been known empirically as well as on the basis of faith more easily accepted by common sense. Philosophy has the ability to add one's faith in religion, but "if either apply it" will make people doubt his belief in the teachings of the sacred. What according to religious teachings enough to be felt, the philosophies need to be considered, so the feeling for religion is an act of rational and logical.

Bibi ergo sum: the effects of a placebo and contextual alcohol cues on motivation to drink alcohol

RationaleAcute ‘priming’ doses of alcohol reliably increase alcohol-seeking behaviour in social drinkers. However, the effects of the anticipated (rather than pharmacological) effects of alcohol, and their interaction with contextual alcohol cues, are not well understood.ObjectivesThis study aims to determine the extent to which an alcohol-placebo drink increases craving, subjective intoxication and beer consumption, while conjointly investigating the impact of contextual alcohol cues.MethodsOn a within-subject basis, 64 undergraduate social drinkers consumed both a placebo (which they believed to contain alcohol) and a control drink (which they knew did not contain alcohol) in different sessions. Participants completed the study procedures in a bar laboratory designed to look like a ‘pub’ or a standard psychology lab containing no alcohol-related cues. Craving (Desires for Alcohol Questionnaire) and subjective intoxication were measured pre- and post-drink, and a bogus taste test to measure ad-lib alcohol consumption was completed at the end of each session.ResultsCompared to the control drink, placebo significantly increased craving, ad-lib consumption and subjective intoxication, regardless of environmental context.ConclusionsIncreased craving and ad-lib alcohol consumption after consuming a priming dose of alcohol is at least partly attributable to the anticipated rather than the pharmacological effects of the priming dose.

Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind by George Makari

Reviewed by: Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind by George Makari Mary Bergstein (bio) Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind. George Makari. New York: W.W. Norton, 2015. 656 pp. In 2008, George Makari published Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis. Bruce Rudisch praised the book in American Imago as "an eye-opening paradigm shift in the telling of psychoanalytic history" (2009, p. 293). In that book Makari de-centered and de-mystified Freud as he mapped out the history of psychoanalysis from about 1870 through the end of the Second World War. When Revolution in Mind was first published, the eminent novelist Paul Auster declared on the cover, "George Makari [had] written nothing less than a history of the modern mind." Now with Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind, Makari, a renowned psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and historian, turns more exactly to that, continuing his endeavor in a history of the philosophy of mind in European thought. His topic is "the invention of the modern mind" in European history. Ending where Revolution in Mind began, Makari now takes his research from Plato and Aristotle through the medieval "Age of Faith" and the Counter Reformation into the "Age of Reason" and further into modernity to investigate the history of the mind-body problem. To give an idea of the historical time-period covered, I ought to note that the first mention of Sigmund Freud occurs on page 509 of this volume, and even then, in passing. Nothing seems more compelling these days than the mind-body problem. What is consciousness and where does it reside? Where is the ghost in the proverbial machine? Can contemporary brain science account biologically for every aspect of sentience in a purely reductive manner? Do spirit and organic matter combine to make humans think, or is the concept of spirit merely one of the many fictions that emanate from the biological mechanics of the brain? If we are trapped in the network of our own subjectivity then how are we to study subjectivity itself? Or perhaps words like consciousness and subjectivity are already outmoded in the second decade of the twenty-first century. To date (see George Johnson, New York Times, 2016, July 5) human beings cannot explain how the central nervous system [End Page 226] produces thought. Even less are we able to grasp the reverse, namely how our mind, spirit, or God catalyzes the bodily brain. Descartes's famous cogito ergo sum, which presupposes a mind-body dualism, is questioned by modern scientists and yet in Makari's book it remains at the heart of the question as a paradigmatic issue that is historically pertinent even in our own day. Soul Machine, you see, does not deal directly with the "hard problem," as explicated by David Chalmers in his writings (and videos made for the general public). This book is not an argument for or against the possible existence of any non-physical or spiritual entity. Rather, it is a sweeping history of the ideas concerning the seemingly intractable problem of mind-body dualism. As such it is scrupulously researched, almost encyclopedic, and very clearly written. Throughout the book, we see theological ideas clash with secular thought in historical questions about the body and mind or soul. Can inanimate forms such as natural or human-made objects possess consciousness? According to the precepts of contemporary Panpsychism, consciousness may exist ab initio as a plasma of unbound particles, a common stuff of the universe, as plastic as time and space, from which everything else is composed. But even Panpsychism can allow for the possibility of a deity, and this alone makes consciousness an anomaly to the world of objective science. Throughout Makari's book, I was constantly reminded that appending an innate morality, spirit, or mentis to our physical selves is, in fact, constitutive of our established ways of thinking. Indeed it is so bound to the common-sense vision of ourselves that we can hardly escape from it. Makari encounters this problem as he brings us through history chronologically, parading and contrasting the arguments of pertinent philosophers, churchmen, chemists, physicists, and physicians. Although he begins in Classical antiquity...

Desidero Ergo Sum (I Desire Therefore I Am): Towards a Psychoanalytic Reading of the Advertising of Perfume

Desidero Ergo Sum (I Desire Therefore I Am): Towards a Psychoanalytic Reading of the Advertising of Perfume

All You Need Is Sleep

In 21st century, the century when the humanity hopes to embark on interplanetary travel, we are yet to fully reach an understanding of our very own idiosyncratic terra incognita – the human sleep. Sleep is a highly conserved evolutionary process that constitutes approximately one third of our life, and the lack or inadequate sleep may lead to impairment across multiple cognitive domains (Tononi and Cirelli, 2014, Lim and Dinges, 2010). Sleep deprivation also leads to aberrant brain functioning, immunological and metabolic collapse, and if it is sufficiently prolonged it will ultimately lead to death (Tononi and Cirelli, 2014). Moreover, many sleep disorders are associated with major neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative disorders (Emamian et al., 2016, Rosenzweig et al., 2015), and the duality of this link is further evident from interrelated improvements, or refractoriness of both, during the treatment. In a landmark study by Kuhn et al. (2016) an increase in homeostatic plasticity (overall synaptic strength) and a partial occlusion of associative plasticity (transmission across single synapses) after sleep deprivation compared with sleep is demonstrated (Kuhn et al., 2016). This study adds another small but important step towards evidence for the synaptic homeostasis hypothesis of sleep–wake regulation (Tononi and Cirelli, 2014). Combined, its results indicate that sleep may act to recalibrate synaptic plasticity in the human cortex and hence, to enable further plasticity during ensuing wakefulness (Kuhn et al., 2016). Dormio ergo sum (Latin), or perhaps, I exist/think/feel because I sleep.

An Attempt at a Logical Refutation of Descartes’ Cogito Ergo Sum

In the development of Greek philosophy, the focus of the ancient philosophers on realities, trying to determine the ultimate principle of all things, begs the question as to what part or extent of reality is assessable to man’s knowledge. And a kind of skepticism was born, shifting the attention from the object [or the realities on which the ancient philosophers were focused on] to the observing or the knowing subject; man and the means through which he comes into contact with the known object. Thus, the possibility of attaining certain knowledge about realities was denied by the skeptics, giving the unreliable nature of the means by which such knowledge were acquired and the complexities of realities as powerful premises for their conclusion until the emergence of Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, proving that there was something that could be known for certain using their [or the skeptic’s] own method [doubting] to prove to them that in their own doubting, they confirm their own existence. This paper is concerned with whether or not the cogito is a suitable premise for the conclusion [“existence”] of his argument. However, my aim in this work is, not to refuse the truth of the existence of any reality, rather to show the inadequacies of Descartes’ argument for them, with particular focus on the context within which his argument proceeds, which might require a bit of logical analysis; perhaps to arrive at a better conclusion for his premises.

Rethinking the Cartesian subject in Latin America and Spain: decolonial theory and María Zambrano's philosophy

In this article, I argue that although María Zambrano's philosophy does not engage directly with decolonization as a historical process, her concept of “la razón poética” shares a similar concern with that expressed by recent decolonial theorists, regarding delinking subjectivity from an epistemology of power grounded in rationalist thought. Reading Zambrano's understanding of poetic language in tension with various strands of contemporary decolonial thought, such as Walter Mignolo's focus on the locus of enunciation as central to a Western production of a geopolitics of knowledge, or Aníbal Quijano's interest in a subject–object distinction that sustains a rationalist coloniality of power, the article explores the consequences of thinking about Zambrano's work as similarly invested in “epistemic delinking”. Within this context, Zambrano's focus on how metaphoric language relates to felt and experiential effects of power on individuals and communities that transcend place acquires new meaning. Through the poetic tropes of voids, secrets and metaphors, Zambrano broadens the seemingly transparent logic of the cogito ergo sum into a notion of self and community that includes affect and relationality with others and which may, at times, be viewed not only as what Alberto Moreiras calls “infrapolitical”, but also as decolonizing reason from within. Yet, as the article concludes, reading these thinkers’ works together in this way also reveals the discursive and material limitations of their intellectual projects.

About paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and difficulties in clinical practice. Dubito ergo sum

The differences in terms of cardioembolic risk of permanent and paroxysmal atrial fibrillation are reviewed. On the basis of the available literature, the authors suggest that their equivalence reported in the recent guideline for the management of patients with atrial fibrillation represents an oversimplification.

Brain, Mind, and Media

Brain, Mind, and Media

Pedagogical tools to explore Cartesian mind-body dualism in the classroom: philosophical arguments and neuroscience illusions.

A fundamental discussion in lower-level undergraduate neuroscience and psychology courses is Descartes’s “radical” or “mind-body” dualism. According to Descartes, our thinking mind, the res cogitans, is separate from the body as physical matter or substance, the res extensa. Since the transmission of sensory stimuli from the body to the mind is a physical capacity shared with animals, it can be confused, misled, or uncertain (e.g., bodily senses imply that ice and water are different substances). True certainty thus arises from within the mind and its capacity to doubt physical stimuli. Since this doubting mind is a thinking thing that is distinct from bodily stimuli, truth and certainty are reached through the doubting mind as cogito ergo sum, or the certainty of itself as it thinks: hence Descartes’s famous maxim, I think, therefore I am. However, in the last century of Western philosophy, with nervous system investigation, and with recent advances in neuroscience, the potential avenues to explore student’s understanding of the epistemology and effects of Cartesian mind-body dualism has expanded. This article further explores this expansion, highlighting pedagogical practices and tools instructors can use to enhance a psychology student’s understanding of Cartesian dualistic epistemology, in order to think more critically about its implicit assumptions and effects on learning. It does so in two ways: first, by offering instructors an alternative philosophical perspective to dualistic thinking: a mind-body holism that is antithetical to the assumed binaries of dualistic epistemology. Second, it supplements this philosophical argument with a practical component: simple mind-body illusions that instructors may use to demonstrate contrary epistemologies to students. Combining these short philosophical and neuroscience arguments thereby acts as a pedagogical tool to open new conceptual spaces within which learning may occur.

Utopia da vida religiosa no Brasil pós-moderno à luz do termo periocórese

No Brasil pós-moderno a lógica do "consumo, logo existo" é a que prevalece. O número de consagrados que se tornaram objetos de um sistema realmente consumista e imenso. Este sistema tem consumido as vidas desses homens e mulheres. Nesta era, considerando-se a economia atual, as palavras família e comunidade viva tornaram-se antiquadas. Aqueles que adotaram a comunidade viva como profissão já se decidiram pela mesma lógica e sistema. A pobreza, a obediência e a castidade estão relegadas a um segundo plano. Comunidades vivas são agora estruturadas nos moldes multinacionais.