Mind-life continuity: a qualitative study of conscious experience

There are two fundamental models to understanding the phenomenon of natural life. One is thecomputational model, which is based on the symbolic thinking paradigm. The other is the biologicalorganism model. The common difficulty attributed to these paradigms is that their reductive tools allowthe phenomenological aspects of experience to remain hidden behind yes/no responses (behavioraltests), or brain ‘pictures’ (neuroimaging). Hence, one of the problems regards how to overcome meth-odological difficulties towards a non-reductive investigation of conscious experience. It is our aim in thispaper to show how cooperation between Eastern and Western traditions may shed light for a non-reductive study of mind and life. This study focuses on the first-person experience associated withcognitive and mental events. We studied phenomenal data as a crucial fact for the domain of livingbeings, which, we expect, can provide the ground for a subsequent third-person study. The interventionwith Jhana meditation, and its qualitative assessment, provided us with experiential profiles based uponsubjects' evaluations of their own conscious experiences. The overall results should move towards anintegrated or global perspective on mind where neither experience nor external mechanisms have thefinal wor

The spectrum of a vertex model and related spin one chain sitting in a genus five curve

We derive the transfer matrix eigenvalues of a three-state vertex model whose weights are based on a $\mathrm{R}$-matrix not of difference form with spectral parameters lying on a genus five curve. We have shown that the basic building blocks for both the transfer matrix eigenvalues and Bethe equations can be expressed in terms of meromorphic functions on an elliptic curve. We discuss the properties of an underlying spin one chain originated from a particular choice of the $\mathrm{R}$-matrix second spectral parameter. We present numerical and analytical evidences that the respective low-energy excitations can be gapped or massless depending on the strength of the interaction coupling. In the massive phase we provide analytical and numerical evidences in favor of an exact expression for the lowest energy gap. We point out that the critical point separating these two distinct physical regimes coincides with the one in which the weights geometry degenerate into union of genus one curves.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure

Simulated Coevolution in a Mutating Ecology

The bit-string Penna Model is used to simulate the competition between an asexual parthenogenetic and a sexual population sharing the same environment. A new-born of either population can mutate and become a part of the other with some probability. In a stable environment the sexual population soon dies out. When an infestation by fastly mutating genetically coupled parasites is introduced however, sexual reproduction prevails, as predicted by the so-called Red Queen hypothesis for the evolution of sex.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, minor revision in text and 2 added reference