Psychophysical Interaction Research Articles

Consciousness and Everett's Many-Mind Interpretation

The original approach to the decision of a mind-body problem which basis on philosophically rethought of H. Everett’s multiworld interpretation of quantum mechanics and M. Mensky's idea about identity of consciousness with process of selection of quantum alternatives is offered. The explanation of visible psychophysical interaction and processes of a reduction of wave function in the quantum mechanics is offered.

Psychophysical dualism from the point of view of a working psychologist

Cognitive neuroscience constitutes the third phase of development of the field of cognitive psychophysiology since it was established about half a century ago. A critical historical overview is given of this development, focusing on recurring problems that keep frustrating great expectations. It is argued that psychology has to regain its independent status with respect to cognitive neuroscience and should take psychophysical dualism seriously. A constructive quantum physical model for psychophysical interaction is presented, based on a new stochastic interpretation of the quantum potential in the de Broglie–Bohm theory. This model can be applied to analyze cognitive information processing in psychological experiments. It is shown that the quantum potential shares several features with Duns Scotus’ notion of contingent causality.

Electricity as a medium of psychic life: electrotechnological adventures into psychodiagnosis in Weimar Germany.

When electricity became a commodity in 1900, it furnished Germany with new attractions and revolutionized everyday life with all kinds of tools and gadgets; it also opened up a new space for investigating psycho-physical interaction, reviving ideas of a close linkage between psychic life and electricity. The paper traces the emergence of this electro-psychological framework beyond "electroencephalography," the recording of electrical brain waves, to "diagnoscopy," personality profiling by electric phrenology. Diagnoscopy opens a window onto the scientific and public cultures of electricity and psychical processes in Weimar Germany. It garnered enormous attention in the press and was quickly taken up by several institutions for vocational guidance, because it offered a rapid and technological alternative to laborious psychological testing or "subjective" interviewing. Academic psychology and leading figures in brain research reacted with horror; forging counter measures which finally resulted in this technique being denounced as quackery. A few years later, the press celebrated electroencephalography as a mind-reading device, whereas the neuroscientists remained initially skeptical of its significance and the very possibility of an "electroencephalogram" (EEG) before they adapted electroencephalography as a tool for representing various neuro-psychiatric conditions in patterns of recorded signals. The blending of psychophysiology and electrical engineering marks the formation of an electric epistemology in scientific as well as public understanding of the psyche. The transformations of electrodiagnosis from diagnoscopy to the EEG are indicative of a cultural shift in which electricity changed its role from being the power source for experimental apparatuses to becoming a medium of psychic processes.

Popper and Eccles' Psychophysical Interaction Theses Examined

Popper and Eccles' Psychophysical Interaction Theses Examined

Mind-brain interaction. Mentalism, yes; dualism, no

A traditional working hypothesis in neuroscience holds that a complete account of brain function is possible, in principle, in strictly neurophysiological terms without invoking conscious or mental agents; the neural correlates of subjective experience are conceived to exert causal influence but not mental qualities per se. This long established materialist-behaviorist principle has been challenged in recent years by the introduction of a modified concept of the mind-brain relation in which consciousness is conceived to be emergent and causal. Psychophysical interaction is explained in terms of the emergence in nesting brain hierarchies of high order, functionally derived, mental properties that interact by laws and principles different from, and not reducible to those of neurophysiology. Reciprocal upward and downward, interlevel determination of the mental and neural action is accounted for on these terms without violating the principles of scientific explanation and without reducing the qualities of inner experience to those of physiology. Interaction of mind and brain becomes not only conceivable and scientifically tenable, but more plausible in some respects than were the older parallelist and identity views of the materialist position. This revised concept of consciousness as causal, with its recognition of mental phenomena as explanatory constructs in science, has brought a marked change during the past decade in the scientific status of consciousness and of mental and cognitive phenomena generally. Resultant mentalist trends within science have been accompanied also by a corollary rise in acceptance of various mentalist-related concepts and dualist beliefs in the supernatural, the paranormal, and in unembodied forms of conscious existence that receive no logical support from the new mind-brain concepts of neuroscience. Reasons are advanced to show that our latest mind brain model is fundamentally monistic and not only fails to support dualism, but serves to further discount fading prospects for finding dualist forms or domains of conscious experience not embodied in a functioning brain.

Mind-brain interaction: Mentalism, yes; dualism, no

A traditional working hypothesis in neuroscience holds that a complete account of brain function is possible, in principle, in strictly neurophysiological terms without invoking conscious or mental agents; the neural correlates of subjective experience are conceived to exert causal influence but not mental qualities per se. This long established materialist-behaviorist principle has been challenged in recent years by the introduction of a modified concept of the mind-brain relation in which consciousness is conceived to be emergent and causal. Psychophysical interaction is explained in terms of the emergence in nesting brain hierarchies of high order, functionally derived, mental properties that interact by laws and principles different from, and not reducible to those of neurophysiology. Reciprocal upward and downward, interlevel determination of the mental and neural action is accounted for on these terms without violating the principles of scientific explanation and without reducing the qualities of inner experience to those of physiology. Interaction of mind and brain becomes not only conceivable and scientifically tenable, but more plausible in some respects than were the older parallelist and identity views of the materialist position. This revised concept of consciousness as causal, with its recognition of mental phenomena as explanatory constructs in science, has brought a marked change during the past decade in the scientific status of consciousness and of mental and cognitive phenomena generally. Resultant mehtalist trends within science have been accompanied also by a corollary rise in acceptance of various mentalist-related concepts and dualist beliefs in the supernatural, the paranormal and in unembodied forms of conscious existence that receive no logical support from the new mind-brain concepts of neuroscience. Reasons are advanced to show that our latest mind-brain model is fundamentally monistic and not only fails to support dualism, but serves to further discount fading prospects for finding dualist forms or domains of conscious experience not embodied in a functioning brain.