Consciousness

Consciousness-raising (CR) task is a new way of teaching grammar developed in communicative contexts although little has been written on the effectiveness of CR tasks in EFL setting. The present study is an attempt to investigate the impact of CR tasks in Iranian EFL setting by comparing them with deductive، grammar lessons common in the Iranian schools. The subjects of this study were 80 EFL pre-university male students who were randomly assigned to an experimental group and a control one. The control group received three ordinary teacher-fronted، deductive lessons، a common way of teaching methodology in Iran، on three grammatical structures (adverb placement، indirect object placement and the use of relative clause). The experimental group، however، was treated with three ‘consciousness-raising’ (CR) tasks dealing with the same target structures. The results showed that in the short-run، CR tasks were as effective as deductive approach in promoting the learners’ grammatical knowledge while in the long-run، the CR group maintained their gains more effectively than the deductive group. The conclusion is that CR tasks can function more effectively than deductive approach if the following conditions are met: (a) performing the consciousness-raising tasks in learners’ L1; (b) providing the learners with feedback whenever they encounter a problem in solving the tasks; (c) grouping the learners in such a way that at least one learner in each group would be more proficient than the other members to help the less proficient ones understand and discover the rules more effectively.

We use the term “good” in two contexts: as the most general term of evaluation, and to refer to the final ends of life and action. I start from the question what evaluative and final goodness have to do with each other. Do we use the same term because when we talk about final goods, we are evaluating ends and lives? If so, how do we go about doing that? Most things are evaluated with respect to their fitness to perform their function, but ends and lives do not have functions. I contrast three theories of the final good: the intrinsic value theory, the hedonist theory, and Aristotle’s account, which identifies a being’s final good with its well-functioning, a form of evaluative goodness. Aristotle’s theory suggests an illuminating relationship between evaluative and final goodness: a conscious being has a final good when she functions by having conscious states that track, and so enable her to pursue, her functional or evaluative goodness. It is therefore the nature of an animal to have a final good, and there are such things as final goods because there are animals. This theory explains the existence of final goods without any metaphysical appeal to intrinsic values.

Since old times the two dimensionalities of human beings, i.e., their having a material body and an immaterial soul (spirit), has been a controversial problem. In the Abrahamic religions, the human soul is considered to be immaterial and in interaction with the body. Furthermore, it is considered to be a special effusion of God to each individual human being. During the modern times, with the dominance of empiricism, the prevalent view considers human soul a byproduct of matter. In fact, from the naturalistic viewpoint of modern science, there is no place for mind or consciousness as a novel and immaterial subject, but there are some important ideas about this subject, and some eminent scientists of our time believe that the human soul is immaterial and is never explainable by science. Among the latter group, there are some celebrated scientists who believe that human soul is God’s special effusion to human beings. In this article, we mention and analyze some of these important ideas.

What this essay is to discuss is Mullā Ṣadrā and John Hick’s viewpoint about the "nature of the soul". Mullā Ṣadrā considers the real nature of human beings to be "the immaterial soul" based on his own principles in the science of the soul. He explains the nature of the soul with respect to substantial motion that the human being is corporeal in coming into being and the immateriality of the human soul in survival and afterlife. John Hick considers the consciousness as the most basic characteristic of mind, which is identical with the soul. He considers the nature of the soul as “human self” which forms his truth. Most of the viewpoints of both thinkers are similar or close to each other such as belief in the existence of the soul and being two-dimensional, quality of Genesis, substantiality, incorporeity, and corporeality of coming into the soul.

The problem of personal identity among others may stem from the following question—what does be the person that you are, from one day to the next, necessarily consist of? The diachronic problem of personal identity raises question on the necessary and sufficient conditions for the identity of the person over time. The synchronic problem is grounded in the question of what features or traits characterize a given person at one time. To answer these questions, John Locke discarded the soul and the body as necessary and sufficient substances for personal identity over time. He accepted consciousness as the only criterion for personal identity; the only thing capable of remaining the same and preserving personal identity through change. Though Locke’s argument is somewhat clear and coherent but what remains vague and incoherent is embedded in the question—what exactly is consciousness? How and why should it be the basis or criterion for the determination of personal identity? Using the method of critical analysis, I argue that Locke’s choice of consciousness as the determinant of personal identity, though quite novel, is incoherent and vague. Secondly, Locke had already presumed and anticipated clearly though fallaciously the very thing he wishes to substantiate. I therefore conclude that Locke’s argument is just another way of trying to escape but inadvertently prolonging the difficulty of apparently articulating a distinction between the psychological approach and physiological approach to the problem of personal identity. However, in my submission, I propose the concept of the “other” as alternative approach— a sort of an extrinsic-intrinsic approach to the problem of personal identity.

This study delves into the concept of consciousness in the Qur'an, comparing it with cognitive science. While cognitive science views consciousness as a function of the brain, the Qur'an employs various terms such as soul (al-<em>nafs</em>), heart (<em>al-qalb</em>, <em>al-ṣadr</em> and <em>al-af</em><em>ʾidah</em>), hearing (<em>al-samʿ</em>), sight (<em>al-baṣar</em>), etc. to describe tools of consciousness. In order to explore the Qur'anic perspective on consciousness and its compatibility with cognitive science, an in-depth analysis of relevant areas pertaining to human consciousness, as well as the capacities of the heart and brain, is essential. Employing an analytical-comparative method with an extra-religious perspective, we extract cognitive terminology associated with consciousness from the Qur'an. By employing graph-based tools to create and analyze a conceptual map of these terms, we find that soul, heart, hearing, and sight emerge as crucial tools for generating consciousness. Of these, the Qur'an highlights the human soul as the primary tool for acquiring and processing consciousness, distinct from the spirit (<em>al-rūḥ</em>). This soul is balanced in such a way that it can collaborate with the body and brain of the human to achieve consciousness.

The existence of subjective facts in the epistemic sense defined by Thomas Nagel’s famous article, “What is it like to be a bat?” might be taken to support an anti-physicalist conclusion. I argue that it does not. The combination of nonreductive physicalism and teleo-pragmatic functionalism is not only consistent with such subjective facts but predicts their existence. The notion that conscious minds are self-understanding autopoietic systems plays a key role in the argument. Global Neuronal Workspace Theory is assessed in terms of its potential to answer David Chalmers’ Hard Problem of consciousness. A suggestion is made for augmenting the theory that involves another sense in which facts about conscious experience are subjective. The idea of conscious minds as self-understanding systems again plays an important role.

Contemporary theology is realizing the importance of integrating the knowledge of modern/contemporary physics into the metaphysical and ontological categories used to consider God and the God-world relationship. Time is a complex notion with different meanings, characterized by a plurality of uses. The concept of time opens up to broader conceptions than those of physics, mathematics, and philosophy and reveals that the human being, the earth, and the cosmos are not the center of space or time. The concepts of space, time, and matter, to which the concept of vacuum is connected, are of central importance in any modern physical theory, and particularly in the theories of unification. It is being discovered that spacetime is absent at the most fundamental level and only emerges at an appropriate limit. This emerging image of time leads to new conceptual challenges that must be faced in parallel with philosophy and theological researchto achieve its correct understanding. It is a comparison of the viewpoints of the three investigative domains concerned with understanding the nature of consciousness, namely science, philosophy, and metaphysics. This thought process is connected to the intuitions of the contemplative and mystical traditions and seems to be in line with current scientific thought, which can be mathematically expressed. Recent scientific research struggles to grasp the subjective aspect of consciousness; subjective experience is in conflict with the figure of the observer classically understood in the scientific sense. The evolution of life and the relationship with the transcendent could have their information basis in a hyper-complex multi-dimensional space; recent efforts try to explain how mental states exist in the higher dimensions of this hyperspace; some recent models of unification integrate matter and consciousness through the use of this primordial multi-dimensional dynamic space. Ontological interpretations of quantum theory have been given, leading to patterns of bidirectional flow of consciousness between an explicate and an implicate order, supporting both local and non-local phenomena in the cosmos. The paper aims to offer an overview of the indicated issues with a trans-disciplinary method and through interesting hints for thought.

The aim of this paper is to dissociate Metaphysics and Theology. In Metaphysics, I propose a Neutral Monist foundation of the Being of Reality, which is, therefore, not material or ideal, but a cosmic field of possibilities that generates both domains. God is conceived as one possibility embedded in the Being of Reality that may or may not become actual, depending on conditions established by the evolution of the Cosmos.As far as we know, the conditions for the actualization of God are satisfied by human consciousness. The relation between the Being of Reality and its outcomes, as the realization of God in human society, is one of actualization of potentialities, as in Aristotelian philosophy. This approach leads to a Feuerbachian view of God as emergent in social conscious experience, achieving embodied expression in human social practices, from the legitimate symbolic message of prophets, in sacred texts, rituals, images, buildings, and social institutions implemented by religious organizations.

It is usually, and without much disagreement, regarded that ‘knowing one’s own consciousness’ is strikingly and fundamentally different from ‘knowing other things’. The peculiar way in which conscious subjects introspectively know their own consciousness in their immediate awareness is of immense importance with regard to the understanding of consciousness insofar as it has a direct bearing upon consciousness’ fundamental existence. However, when it comes to the understanding of consciousness, the role of consciousness’ introspective knowledge is rather downplayed or not given much importance with regard to its ontology. With this in the background, the whole purpose of this paper is, first, to make the rather obvious point that the very existence of consciousness in its most fundamental form is constituted by this introspective knowledge of it or its epistemic dimension, whereby its ontology gets its epistemological or epistemic nature. Second, it aims to strengthen the explanatory gap argument by appealing to our enhanced understanding of consciousness in terms of its epistemic ontology.

Neuroscience and its attendant subdisciplines, including, so it supposes, philosophy, hold that there is nothing more to self and society than what is in the brain. Yet two centuries have not resolved the philosophical objections to such claims, much less resolved the binding problem that would link mind and brain, or arrive at a general, materialist explanation of consciousness. Just as ideological and economic blinders beset this discipline, so they limit philosophy to account for the nature of this ‘thinking organ’ – what that means and if it can even exist. Taking the work of Hegel, Heidegger, Deleuze, neuroscientific results, I consider the phenomenology of the organ. I argue that an understanding of this object requires distinguishing concepts such as function and activity, capacity and regulation, surface and recognition. Results show that the ability to arrive at a thinking organ as organ is uncertain but worth the pursuit for the services done to science and ethics.

Background: This study aimed to identify factors contributing to the creation of intellectual capital in the organization of education. The research method is a descriptive and exploratory factor analysis method. A sample: directors and deputies of the second period Secondary Education Department of Tehran Province. Based on stratified random sampling method and based on a sample of 500 was calculated size formula. The research made questionnaire constitutes a measurement tool through which factors in the creation of intellectual capital was identified by the sample. Validity to help them with the help of factor analysis and reliability was confirmed by Cronbach's alpha equal to 78/0. And finally analyzed by factor analysis of main components were analyzed. The findings suggest that the amount of KMO is close to 1 is equal to 881/0. Bartlett test of sphericity is also characterized by a significant level of zero, which is smaller than the 05/0 show statistically significant. And the final outcome of the 9 extracted with PC using varimax rotated in total by performing factor analysis identified nine factors: Self-conscious, value-based and central vision, holistic and systemic approach, independence, spontaneity, sense of mission, altruism, accountability, change frame of mind Factors identified in order to create intellectual capital could have a significant relationship with the studied variables. So successful, in order to strengthen each of these factors will lead to the creation of intellectual capital in educational organizations.