External Reality Research Articles

Envisioning the World Within or Without Limits: on Representation and Creativity in the Aesthetics of 17th Century China

AbstractThis essay examines a number of statements on painting and visual perception by Chinese literati artists of the late Ming – early Qing periods. It argues that the approaches to pictorial representation and creativity entailed in these statements reveal a considerable impact of Buddhist theories of consciousness. In the theories analyzed, pictorial representation is discussed in terms of ways and modes of how the mind relates to the world. As will be demonstrated, the function of expressing cognitive organization in representation is given more prominence than the function of rendering an external reality. The view of pictorial representation as being essentially what the mind produces in its relation to the world provides a basis for the assumption of a fundamental affinity between the creation of an image and the process how phenomenal reality unfolds by virtue of cognitive operations. This assumption seems to broadly underpin the painting theories discussed. And it is this assumption that provides a clue how and why the literati artists adopt Buddhist theories of cognition to the understanding of art. In the last section of the essay, we turn to the sources which cast still another perspective on artistic practice, namely a practice which captures a single moment of pure direct perception.

Some psychoanalytic reflections: femininity, feminism and fantasy in “APPLE TREE YARD”

This paper examines the interplay between femininity, feminism, and fantasy, based on the analysis of the protagonist of Apple Tree Yard, a British television mini series (2017) adapted by Amanda Coe from the novel of the same name by Louise Doughty (Apple Tree Yard. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2013). This examination addresses the following questions: What causes a married, 52-year-old woman, with two grown children to engage in a reckless and perverse affair with a man she does not know? What unconscious fantasies have been evoked by the traumas of her childhood and of her adult life, and how do these unconscious fantasies encroach upon her external reality?

Mirror- and Eye-Gazing: An Integrative Review of Induced Altered and Anomalous Experiences

We critically reviewed the protocols, results, and potential implications from empirical studies ( n = 44) on mirror-gazing (including the “psychomanteum”) and eye-to-eye gazing, both in healthy individuals and clinical patients, including studies of hypnotic mirrored self-misidentification, mirror-gazing in body dysmorphic disorder and schizophrenia. We found these methods to be effective for eliciting altered states or anomalous experiences under controlled conditions and in non-clinical samples. Mirror-gazing and eye-to-eye-gazing produced anomalous experiences almost exclusively in the visual, bodily, and self-identity modalities, whereas psychomanteum experiences tended also to involve voices, smells, and bodily touches. The complexity, diversity, and specificity in contents across these anomalous experiences suggest mechanisms beyond perceptual distortions or illusions. We argue that mirror- and eye-gazing anomalous perceptions implicate different mechanisms that induce (i) Derealization (anomalous perceptions of external reality); (ii) Depersonalization (anomalous perceptions of the body), and (iii) Dissociated identity (anomalous perceptions of another identity in place of the self in mirror-gazing or in place of the other in eye-to-eye gazing). These interpretations suggest directions for future researches.

Tanguy Viel et la vitre spectrale

After a long metamorphosis dedicated to transparency, passage and opening, the window becomes obscure and, under the grip of the opacity announced by Andreea Del Lungo, we propose to articulate a study of the imaginary of the window - a spectral window - as we can find in two novels by Tanguy Viel, while exploiting several occurrences intimately related to this topos that has become a palimpsest object. By recurrence, we will try to analyze a device that we identify as renewed and multiplied in postmodernism, folded to the twists and turns of the individual, a device that can be imagined in the form of different scopic objects, such as the car window, the binoculars, the television. For an outraged character whose life has changed from one moment to the next, the window seems to be deprived of its modern functions linked to the gaze. This spectral window does not open on a landscape, a natural topography (external reality), but on the existential void resulting from a painful retrospection. After all consideration, the window misted by the Viel’s character is part of an enclosed space, even a cloister, condemning the inhabitant to loneliness and seclusion.

Bierce, Bioy Casares, and Borges: The Mirrors and Labyrinths of Intertextuality

This article analyzes the intersection of works by Ambrose Bierce, Adolfo Bioy Casares, and Jorge Luis Borges as mirror images of themes and descriptions in describing a miraculous occurrence, albeit only in the labyrinthine mind of the protagonist, often categorized within the genre of the fantastic. The article’s intertextual approach focuses on sensorial perceptions that only grant validity to an internal reality (what the mind interprets) rather than to an external reality (what the eyes see). All three works in this study are concerned with a criminal condemned to death who seeks to prolong his life. The protagonists have similar responses, although their motivations are different.

The ‘Choice’ between Illusory Life and Acceptance of the Death of One’s Love Object

The ability to remain alive psychically often requires that we let go of a lost love object. When separation is unbearable, a form of adjustment may develop in which the patient’s attachment to their lost love object may staunch the desire to live his or her own life. In such instances, the patient may prefer to deaden major aspects of mental and emotional life in the effort not to leave the beloved object. Reality is then experienced as being at odds with the patient’s survival, so they may fight, vigorously to avoid the apprehension of external reality. The author presents an analysis of a young woman who lost her mother at the young age of seven.

The Psychoanalytical Boundaries of the Ego: Freud, Klein, Winnicott, Lacan

ObjectivesThe commonly accepted boundaries between the ego and the non-ego are naturally weakened by the experience of psychoanalysis, as is revealed by the Freudian Wo Es war, soll Ich werden. This article sets out to map the boundaries of the ego in psychoanalytic theory. The aim is twofold. First, to provide a metapsychological portrait of the ego by way of a consideration of its genesis, its outlines, and its limits as theorized by the main authors of the analytic corpus. Second, to show how this theory can provide new insights in approaching the concept of the ego. MethodBesides considering Freud's work, this article weaves together three threads by reappraising the writings of Melanie Klein, Donald W. Winnicott, and Jacques Lacan. While Freud raises a number of crucial points relating to the boundaries of the ego, a comparative reading of these three authors highlights how their work reconsiders, elaborates on, or goes beyond Freud's views. ResultsFrom a reading of the Freudian corpus emerges a threefold definition of the boundaries of the ego: (1) intrasubjective: the ego opens onto the id, but is strictly separate from the repressed; (2) extrasubjective: the ego is established through opposition to external reality; (3) intersubjective: the ego, as it relates to the other, is experienced both as separated from the object while at the same time being the object of a series of identifications. Each in their own way, Klein, Winnicott, and Lacan shed new light on these questions according to their particular readings of different aspects of Freud's work. DiscussionThe aim of this paper is to underline the originality of these four authors by pointing out what they have in common and, then, where their thinking diverges. It also sheds light on a whole set of questions (the separation between the ego as agency and the subject of the unconscious, between the ego and reality, between the outside and the inside, between the subject and the object, between the ego and the alter ego) that pervade psychoanalytical theory. ConclusionsUltimately it is the fragmentation of the Freudian Ich – as revealed by its diverse readings by the post-Freudians according to their respective clinical paradigms – that is the key to understanding the extent of the problem of the ego in psychoanalysis.

EMOTIONALITY IN THE DIGITAL SPACE

The article discusses the problem of expressing emotions in social networks as a special case of adapting the digital space to the needs of users. Emotions, representing an integral (mental and physiological) reaction of a personality to a phenomenon or event, are an integral part of everyday life, reflecting a person's attitude to objects of external and internal reality in the direct form of experiences. The digital environment, expanding its influence, presupposes significant changes in many aspects of communicative behavior, including the manifestation of emotions. The main question posed in the article is whether in the digital space the “natural” is absorbed by the “artificial” through a fundamental transformation of traditional forms of communication? The article presents the results of an empirical study carried out by a questionnaire survey among students in Moscow. The research goal is to study the possibilities, methods, feasibility and features of expressing emotions in social networks. The subject of the research is the forms, nature, features of emotionality manifestations in the digital space. The research hypothesis is as follows: despite the main characteristics of digital communications (speed, brevity, promptness of information, accessibility), emotions inherent in ordinary human communication also find expression and transmission channels; at the same time, the manifestation of emotions with an obviously necessary change in the form and tools does not lose its significance while communicating in social networks. The results of the research presented in the article show that the emotional component of communication does not lose its relevance in the digital space. The need for the expression of emotions by users was quickly recorded by the creators and developers of social networks, who proposed a number of symbolic expressions of emotions to fulfill the need that arose. By the analysis of methods and possibilities of expressing emotions during communications in social networks, the article concludes about the adaptive characteristics of the digital environment for usual and, at the same time, necessary for a person communication attributes.

Is the Moon There If Nobody Looks: Bell Inequalities and Physical Reality

Various Bell inequalities are trivial algebraic properties satisfied by each line of particular data spreadsheets.It is surprising that their violation in some experiments, allows to speculate about the existence of nonlocal influences in Nature and to doubt the existence of the objective external physical reality. Such speculations are rooted in incorrect interpretations of quantum mechanics and in a failure of local realistic hidden variable models to reproduce quantum predictions for spin polarisation correlation experiments. These hidden variable models use counterfactual joint probability distributions of only pairwise measurable random variables to prove the inequalities. In real experiments Alice and Bob, using 4 incompatible pairs of experimental settings, estimate imperfect correlations between clicks, registered by their detectors. Clicks announce detection of photons and are coded by 1 or -1. Expectations of corresponding ,only pairwise measurable, random variables are estimated and compared with quantum predictions. These estimates violate significantly the inequalities. Since all these random variables cannot be jointly measured , a joint probability distribution of them does not exist and various Bell inequalities may not be derived. Thus it is not surprising that they are violated. Moreover,if contextual setting dependent parameters describing measuring instruments are correctly included in the description, then imperfect correlations between the clicks may be explained in a locally causal way. In this paper we review and rephrase several arguments proving that the violation of various Bell inequalities may neither justify the quantum nonlocality nor allow for doubt regarding the existence of atoms, electrons and other invisible elementary particles which are building blocks of the visible world around us including ourselves.

Complex dynamics in psychosocial work with unaccompanied minor refugees with uncertain future prospects: A case study

AbstractThis case study explores the arriving process of an unaccompanied minor refugee in Germany and his perception of the psychosocial support he received. The aim is to elaborate possibilities to support refugee adolescents' arrival processes adequately. Two interviews—theme‐centered and narrative—were conducted and afterwards examined by a group of five researchers who used experts' validation as the analyzing tool. Four main dimensions were identified contributing to the complex dynamics in psychosocial work with unaccompanied minor refugees: (a) the distinct need for self‐determination and idealization, (b) the fight for state recognition as a legal refugee, (c) the attempt of achieving recognition by the society, and (d) the inability of building trusting and affective relationships with friends and caregivers in the host country. Thus, professionals working with unaccompanied minor refugees need to consider the adolescents' demand for self‐determination and perceive idealization not only as a defense mechanism but also as a coping strategy to survive in an unpredictable environment. Being a reliable object that can be used by the adolescent can help to establish a trusting basis for the relationship. This case study indicates that approaches of psychosocial support with unaccompanied minor refugees need to acknowledge and work with the interrelation between the inner world and the external reality of refugee adolescents.

Consumer Complaining Behavior: a Paradigmatic Review

Consumer complaining behavior (CCB) is an important stream of research and practice, as it links the domains of service failure and service recovery. CCB research, although extensive and temporally wide, exhibits a lack of concern for the underlying assumptions of scholarly inquiry. Researchers neither explicitly mention, nor consciously indicate their ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions. We systematically identify the extant CCB literature and map it to two well-accepted paradigmatic classifications (Burrell and Morgan 1979; Deetz Organization Science 7(2): 191–207, 1996). Normative or functionalist paradigm with the assumptions of an objective external reality, a positivist epistemology, a determinist view of human nature, and nomothetic methodology emerges as the dominant CCB research paradigm. The implications of this dominance are discussed as a barometer of the future of CCB research and practice.

Sabahattin Ali’nin "Hanende Melek", "Yeni Dünya" ve "Çilli" Öykülerinde Düşmüş Kadın İmgesi

Şiir, roman gibi türlerde de eserler vermiş olan Sabahattin Ali, öykücü kimliği ön planda olan önemli bir yazardır. Eserlerinde Anadolu insanının yaşam mücadelesini yansıtırken ezen-ezilen çatışmasını sıkça ele almıştır. Öykülerinde zengin-yoksul ve şehir-köy karşıtlığını işleyen yazarın ezilen ve haksızlığa uğrayan çaresiz insanlardan yana bir tutum sergilediği görülmektedir. Sanatın toplumu iyiye ve güzele sevk etme rolüne dikkat çeken yazar, Anadolu insanının çileli yaşamını tüm çıplaklığı ile yansıtırken sınıfsal eşitsizliğin altını çizmektedir. Sabahattin Ali’nin öykülerinde toplumsal koşullar, karakterlerin söz ve davranışlarına büyük etki eder. Kadın karakterlerin ön planda olduğu “Hanende Melek” ve “Çilli” gibi öykülerde acı çeken kadın karakterler anlatılırken toplumsal konumları vurgulanır. Çalışmamızda yazarın öykülerinde sevecen bir tavırla yaklaştığı “düşmüş” kadınların, eğlence dünyasında çalışan çilekeş kadınların anlatıldığı “Hanende Melek”, “Yeni Dünya” ve “Çilli” öyküleri incelenmektedir. Esere dönük eleştiri yöntemi ile erkek yazarın kaleminde kadın karakter kurgusu değerlendirilmektedir. “Hanende Melek” ve “Çilli” öyküsünde olduğu gibi biyografik unsurlara dikkat çekilmektedir. Konya Halkevi’nde konferansta sunduğu kadın konulu metin başta olmak üzere Sabahattin Ali’nin düşüncelerini ortaya koyan yazıları çalışmamızın kaynakları arasındadır. Öykülerde kadın imgesinin izi sürülürken kadını nesne olarak gören erkeğin toplumsal konumuna da ayna tutulmaktadır. Düşmüş kadınların onurlu ve vefalı duruşlarına dikkat çeken yazar, toplumsal gerçekleri vurgulamaktadır. Yazar, toplumcu gerçekçiliğin ilkelerini bu metinlere yansıtmış mıdır? Kadın karakterlerin kendi hemcinsleri ile ilişkilerinde bir dayanışma söz konusu mudur? Çalışmamızda bu sorulara yanıt aranmaktadır. Yazar, bencil ve duyarsız erkekler yüzünden hayatları mahvolmuş kadınların hayata tutunma çabalarına ayna tutarken erkek egemen toplumun ikiyüzlü ahlak anlayışını eleştirmektedir. Hem karakterlerin hem de toplumun yaralarına ışık tutarken dış gerçeklik ve iç gerçeklik bir arada ele alınır. Öykülerde dışlanan/horlanan/ötekileştirilen kadın karakterlerin hem bireysel hem de toplumsal kimlikleri irdelenmektedir. Çalıştıkları karanlık ve boğucu mekânların ruhu ile karakterlerin kendi ruhlarının özdeşliği dikkat çekmektedir. Öykülerin mekân kurgusunun tahlili önemlidir. Bu nedenle kadın- mekân ilişkisi de çalışmamızda önemli yer tutmaktadır.

A virtual reality based psychosis simulation for education of medical students: An ongoing project

Psychosis, which is defined as the loss of contact with external reality, is a subjective and complex experience that has two major presentations: delusions and hallucinations. Delusions are defined in a spectrum from overvalued ideas that can be considered as the upper extreme of normal limits, to the presence of crystallised, systematic ideas, without any external proof that clearly interferes with the experiencer’s life. The same is true for hallucinations, as it can be experienced by any person in some point of their life or it can be multimodal which dominates the thinking process and leads to verbal or behavioural response. Despite the prevalence of both experiences, and even though medical students participate in theory-based education as well as apprenticeship in psychiatric wards, they find the experience non-tangible and difficult to digest. Improvement in technology has led to development of computer programmes, such as virtual reality (VR), by which the sense of immersion is induced in a simulated environment through combining sensory inputs with computer-generated graphics and effects and mostly is used through a head-mounted display. Constructivist movements have placed emphasis on active learning and visual-spatial abilities in education and VR has paved the way for its practical application. In this research project, along with producing an authentic virtual psychotic experience according to patients’ real-life experiences, we aim to assess its efficacy in improving knowledge, attitude and empathy towards people with psychotic experience, in comparison with the current method of education.
 
 Keywords: Virtual reality, psychotic experience, simulation, medical education, e-learning.

The evolutionary dynamics of social systems via reflexive transformation of external reality

One of the main challenges of the social sciences is to explain metasystem transitions from biological to social systems in the process of evolution. These transitions correspond to the emergence of the structure of the subject in which the external world is internalized as a symbolic image. This structure has the potential of rationally reflecting the external world and encoding it in human language. The structure of the subject was defined by Freud and Lacan within the framework of psychoanalysis and modeled by Vladimir Lefebvre using the algebra of simple relations. In that context, the binary oppositions of the Western (W) and Eastern (E) types of cognitive reflection generate not only opposite types of societies but also form the spatiotemporal pattern within a society as a whole underlying its homeostasis and internal dynamics. This opposition between Western and Eastern types is not identical to, but mirrors the probably genetically determined opposition between individuals with primarily selfish or altruistic behavior. The structure of the reflexive subject represents the basis of a sociotype that can be considered as the third component of biosocial being in addition to genotype and phenotype; it is defined a social form of the individual bonded by the social environment and social interactions. The transition to a different type of social relations and structure is based on an anticipated reflexive choice by an individual that is accompanied by a coherent response from the society. This change is defined as a “social transaction” and can be modeled by the logic of the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics. In the history of human civilization, social transactions have resulted in the advancement and distribution of new knowledge and technologies, and in the formation, merging, splitting and decline and re-emergence of particular types of societies.

Overcoming Word-Centrism: Towards a New Foundation for the Philosophy of Language

This article attempts to rethink the understanding of language as a “set of words” that correspond to the “objects” of external reality, which is characteristic of Western philosophy and lay perception. The following arguments are offered against this approach: the concept of “word” (like the actual division into morphology and syntax) has no metalinguistic status; the classification of parts of speech is languagespecific, so that the prototypical referential function of a “noun” cannot lay claim to the status of a universal linguistic function; and the idea of language as a “set of words” only reflects the specific metapragmatic awareness of speakers of European languages. Through examining the facts of linguistic diversity and linguistic functions in light of grammatical typology, the author shows that the most adequate interpretation of the relationship between language and reality is an understanding that characterizes language as a large-scale device for forcing its users towards a specific depiction of events. The author also emphasizes the fundamental specificity of the grammatical structure and usage models of each concrete linguistic system. In order to promote a philosophical understanding of language, it is necessary to move from a naïve model that operates with “word – reference – object” to a more realistic model involving “language (as a set of morphosyntactic patterns of conceptualization) – correspondence – event (as a complex situation involving meaning).”

Singularidade: metáfora e a possibilidade do conhecimento sensível

Este artigo se inicia com uma breve história, que remete à cena inaugural da cultura ocidental. Essa epopeia começa com o projeto de Platão de manter a unidade da polis helênica submetendo o indivíduo ao coletivo. Diferente de outras culturas da época, os antigos Gregos buscavam as causas dos fenômenos físicos não nas divindades, mas nos próprios eventos da natureza. Entretanto, as “ilusões dos sentidos” enfraqueceriam nossa confiança na cognição baseada na experiência individual. Esta concepção está na base da epistemologia proposta séculos depois por Kant. Segundo ele, somente o pensamento independente de toda experiência sensível, isto é, a razão pura, poderia nos familiarizar com a “realidade externa”, resgatando a necessária confiança no processo cognitivo. Segundo Maffesoli, o fim da modernidade aponta sinais que mostram o advento de um racionalismo abstrato, que não mais se baseia na representação, mas na razão sensível. Fica então a questão: é possível o conhecimento sensível.

Dreaming and Experiencing in the Potential Space

The author presents some clinical sequences from two sessions in order to illustrate his thoughts about dreaming, about experiencing in analysis, and about the clinical realization of the potential space. When the dreamer’s conscious and unconscious relationship with her own dream turns the latter into a living psychic object, the experience that the dreamer can have of the dream occupies an intermediate area, placing itself between the internal world and external reality. When the dreamer lets the dream-experience affect the experience of external reality, a further transformation can take place in the analysis, since this intermediate intrapsychic area can become a transitional area between the patient and the analyst. The analyst and the patient were able to create a potential space in which, in addition to the transference repetition of cumulatively traumatic situations, an experience was generated that gave rise to embryonic processes of integration between dissociated aspects of the patient.

Between thought and action: symbolization in depressive position and its external expressions

Aim. The paper will revisit nature of symbolization in depressive position with respect to its realization in external reality. Base for the analysis will be Hanna Segal paper Delusions and artistic creativity: some reflections on reading “The Spire” by William Golding (Segal, 1974/1988), enriched with findings she presented in her later paper Acting on phantasy and acting on desire (Segal, 1992/2007), context for the analysis will be provided by Kleinian psychoanalytic framework.
 Methods. Psychoanalysis core interest is thinking and thought formation. In the paper I will try to move this emphasis on examining pure thinking into exploration of mixture that thought and action create. I will therefore analyse on what tokens mind content can be put into action, and conversely how action is being incorporated into thought. I will perform the study using Hanna Segal interpretation of The Spire by William Golding, which she issued on 1974. I will also reach out to her other papers to broaden the interpretation, including the paper she wrote almost twenty years later on Festschrift for her colleague, philosopher Richard Wollheim (Segal, 1992/2007), that actually proposes the solid linkage between thinking and its expressions in the world. The study will be performed with reference to Kleinian psychoanalytic framework, it will be centred around object relation and anxieties the object arouses (paranoid schizoid and depressive positions), with respect to their impact on thought formation (symbolization, sublimation).
 Results and conclusions. Analysis of relationship between symbolisation and action enhances understanding of two main responses to depressive position: sublimation and maniac defences, for it explores the extent to which ego benefits/refuses to benefit from internal and external reality. While the rereading Segal interpretation of The Spire allows to spot how creative act enables capturing most difficult internal and external truths, it also reveals – when put in context of Wollheim’s concept of acting on phantasy and acting on desire- that maniac response is less a form of protection and more a direct attack on receptivity and penetrating exploration for their associations to primary scene.
 Cognitive value. Studying depressive symbolization as a vehicle for acting on either phantasy or desire reveals, that employment of behavioural component forces to revisit maniac defences in light of their actual aftermath in external world. Such refined view onto depressive defences further contributes to improved differentiation of symbolization in depressive position, for it puts under scrutiny relation between ego and performed action. It allows to recognize that in addition to symbol proper (formed by anxiety for object) and symbolic equation (defined by anxiety of object), there is also partly malformed form of symbol shaped by maniac defences (and so by absence of anxiety for object), which disfiguration is best examinable in changes to external reality it makes.

John Foster’s phenomenalistic idealism under scrutiny

The article discusses John Foster’s last attempt at refutation of physical realism and defence of phenomenalistic idealism. Main Foster’s arguments against physical realism, the argument from «the problem of perception» and the argument from the inscrutability of intrinsic content of the external reality are scrutinized and found wanting. The argument from «the problem of perception» is shown to fail against «the decompositional view» because it falsely assumes that the perception of an object, if it is mediated by some processes and states, requires the perception of those mediating processes and states. The argument from the inscrutability of intrinsic content is found unsuccessful because physical realism can accommodate Kantian agnosticism about intrinsic contents, while holding that physical reality is knowable in all structural and dynamical respects that in fact constitute the realm of study of natural sciences. Foster’s further argument that involves the spatial swap scenario is shown to beg the question: a physical realist can plausibly and arguably deny either the logical possibility of such a scenario, or Foster’s idealism-favouring construal of it. On the other hand, it is pointed out that Foster’s treatment of the timing of the prehuman history of the Universe is gravely unsatisfactory and suggests the refutation of phenomenalistic idealism.

Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ

Gospel Allegiance: What Faith in Jesus Misses for Salvation in Christ