Does natural selection favor veridical percepts—those that accurately depict objective reality? Perceptual and cognitive scientists standardly claim that it does. Here we formalize this claim using the tools of evolutionary game theory and Bayesian decision theory. We state and prove the “Fitness-Beats-Truth Theorem” which shows that the claim is false: If one starts with the assumption that perception involves inference to states of the objective world, then the FBT Theorem shows that a strategy that simply seeks to maximize expected-fitness payoff, (...) with no attempt to estimate the “true” world state, does consistently better. More precisely, the FBT Theorem provides a quantitative measure of the extent to which the fitness-only strategy dominates the truth strategy, and of how this dominance increases with the size of the perceptual space. The FBT Theorem supports the Interface Theory of Perception, which proposes that our perceptual systems have evolved to provide a species-specific interface to guide adaptive behavior, and not to provide a veridical representation of objective reality. (shrink)

Life and Vision of The Vedic Seer KavsaAilusa This book in the series of Life and Vision of Vedic Seers isanattempt to reconstruct the life and ideology of a RgvedicseerKavasa Ailusa noted for contributing four hymns to theSarhhitaparticularly the famous Gamblers Hymn which is unique initscontent inasmuch as instead of devoting itself to anyone ofthedeities it has been addressed to Die as its deity and devotedtoAksa an insignificant wild seed used in playing an ancientgamewhich happened to be decisive even to (...) kingships. Contents Introduction Life, Askesis and Attainment of Seerhood King Kurusravana and Mitratithi as Patrons of Kavasa Ailusa Kavasas Mode of Sadhana Kavasa Ailusa;s Contribution to the Central Theme oftheMahabharata Status of Space-Time in Kavasas Complexion of the Reality Gamblers Hymn as a Symbolic Form of Greed of Man Index of Words Satya Prakash Singh, SwamiMahesvarananda Professor Satya Prakash Singh is renowned Vedic scholar. He isaPh.D of the Banaras Hindu University and D.Litt of theAligarhMuslim University; former Chairman of the Department ofSanskritand Dean, Faculty of Arts, Aligarh Muslim University. Hehas beenan Editorial Fellow in the Centre for Studies inCivilisations, NewDelhi also Director of Dharam Hindu InternationalCentre of IndicResearch in Delhi and Director of Vedic ResearchCentre in NewDelhi. He is the recipient of a number of prestigious awardsincludingGanganath Jha Award of the Uttar Pradesh Sanskrit Academy,RajajiLiterary Award of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Swami PranavanadaBestBook of the Year Award in Psychology, Banbhatta PuraskaraofSanskrit Academy, Uttar Pradesh, besides President of IndiasAwardof Scholar of Eminence. His publications include: 1. SriAurobindoand Whitehead on the Nature of God, 2. Sri Aurobindo, JungandVedic Yoga, 3. Upanisadic Symbolism, 4. Vedic Symbolism, 5.Lifeand Vision of Vedic Seers: Visvamitra, 6. Life and Vision ofVedicSeers: Dirghatamas, 7. Vedic Cision of Consc. (shrink)

This book in the seies of Life and Vision of Vedic Seers is an attempt at reconstruction of the life-history of one of the most primeval seers of the Vedic age, who is known best to the academic circle but has remained an important source of inspiration to the Indian psyche throughout its history in determinig its moral courage for its sense of detachment, self-sacrifice in the cause of others and peace. This is the introduction to Dadhyan Atharvana, popularly better (...) known as Dadhivi, the same seer who is famous for having donated his back-bone to Indra for killing Vrtra, the embodiment of evils in the world, while living and meditating on the back of the river Sarasvati. He has been referred to in this capacity as many as eleven times in the Rgveda alone and has contributed five last chapters to the Yajurveda including the famous Santipatha which has received the acclaim of the United Nations also and is chanted in India as well as in countries wherever there is prevalence of the Vedic culture throughout the world on each sacred occasion. He is the seer also of the Isa Upanisad whose very first mantra has been acclaimed by Mahatma Gandhi amounting to our entire sacred literature including the Veda, Upanisads, Bhagavadgita and whatever follows from them. Worked out along with this background for the firs time, this book is expected to serve as the best commentary on the Isa Upanisad written by anyone so far. The book is valuable asset for scholars, students, researchers of Phylosophy, Yoga, Vedic studies and Indology. (shrink)

In the election of 17th Lok Sabha held in mid-2019, the Indian political parties tried hard to be a tie-up with each other against the present Modi-led NDA dispensation. In independent India, first, such attempt was made early in 1974 and started a new process of consolidation of opposition forces by the merger. In line, the Bharatiya Lok Dal was formed by the merger of seven political parties and in this process, the constituent units lost their identity in the BLD. (...) At the time although Congress and the Jana Sangh were ready to cooperate but refused to lose their existence. Their experiences of emergency proved a blessing for them and they came together and formed an alliance called Janata Party, to challenge the Congress leadership of the time. Likewise, as of today in 2018-19 the Bharatiya Janata Party is the country’s largest political party in terms of representation in the national parliament and state assemblies and all political parties of present-day India with Indian National Congress as forerunner with the help of regional party try a futile attempt first to challenge and then to defeat the BJP in various elections. Although with a great difference in the situation the motto of opposition parties has been one and only to give weighty protest to turn the events in their favour. This ups and downs of Indian politics may prove a path-breaking for other developing countries where political parties are struggling hard to gain power but did not succeed on account of causes best known to them. (shrink)

Innovation of Yoga in vedic saṁhitās -- Elaboration of yogic thought and practices in Brāhmaṇas, Āraṇyakas and Upaniṣads -- Continuation of the tradition in the Rāmāyaṇa and the Mahābhārata -- Deviation from the vedic tradition in Jainism and Buddhism -- Systematization of Yoga in Patañjali and Haṭha-yoga -- Yoga of Vedāntic ācāryas and yoga-vāsiṣṭha -- Bhakti-yoga of medieval saints -- Yogic sādhanā in Tantra, Śaivism and Sufism -- Revival of the spirit of Yoga in modern India -- Yogic capability in (...) the estimation of logic. (shrink)

Vedic Vision Of Consciousness And Reality Is An Attempt At A Systematic Presentation Of The Visions Of Vedic Seers Concerning Consciousness In Relationship To Reality. The Relevance Of This Attempt Has Got Enhanced Today Due To Latest Discoveries In Quantum Physics Tending To Accord Some Sort Of Substantiality To Consciousness. This Is The Position Vedic Seers Held Long Ago As Is Evident From The Vedanta. The Vedanta, However Has Ignored The Vedic Samhitas On Metaphusical Issues Including Consciousness. The Present Work (...) Has Come In Fulfillment Of This Lacuna In The Tradition Of Vedic Thought. It Has Been Shown Here Strictly On The Basis Of Textual Evidence How The Vedic Seers Were Involved In The Search For Consciousness In Its Purest Form Coinciding With Reality. The Coincidence Of The Modern Science In Its Latest Developments With The Vedic Viewpoint In This Regard, Suggests The Necessity Of A Paradigmatic Shift In The Human Thinking At This Juncture From Matter To Consciousness As The Most Fundamental Reality. These Issues Have Been Discussed Here From Various Viewpoints Including Scientific, Philosophical, Psychological, Theological And Epistemological. (shrink)

Porter and Kramer (Harv Bus Rev 84(12):78–92, 2006; Harv Bus Rev 89(1/2), 62–77, 2011) introduced ‘shared value’ as a ‘new conception of capitalism,’ claiming it is a powerful driver of economic growth and reconciliation between business and society. The idea has generated strong interest in business and academia; however, its theoretical precepts have not been rigorously assessed. In this paper, we provide a systematic and thorough analysis of shared value, focusing on its ontological and epistemological properties. Our review highlights that (...) ‘shared value’ has spread into the language of multiple disciplines, but that its current conceptualization is vague, and it presents important discrepancies in the way it is defined and operationalized, such that it is more of a buzzword than a substantive concept. It also overlaps with many other (related) concepts and lacks empirical grounding. We offer recommendations for defining and measuring the concept, take a step toward disentangling it from related concepts, and identify relevant theories and research methods that would facilitate extending the knowledge frontier on shared value. (shrink)

The Interface Theory of Perception, as stated by D. Hoffman, says that perceptual experiences do not to approximate properties of an “objective” world; instead, they have evolved to provide a simplified, species-specific, user interface to the world. Conscious Realism states that the objective world consists of ‘conscious agents’ and their experiences. Under these two theses, consciousness creates all objects and properties of the physical world: the problem of explaining this process reverses the mind-body problem. In support of the interface theory (...) I propose that our perceptions have evolved, not to report the truth, but to guide adaptive behaviors. Using evolutionary game theory, I state a theorem asserting that perceptual strategies that see the truth will, under natural selection, be driven to extinction by perceptual strategies of equal complexity but tuned instead to fitness. I then give a minimal mathematical definition of the essential elements of a “conscious agent.” Under the conscious realism thesis, this leads to a non-dualistic, dynamical theory of conscious process in which both observer and observed have the same mathematical structure. The dynamics raises the possibility of emergence of combinations of conscious agents, in whose experiences those of the component agents are entangled. In support of conscious realism, I discuss two more theorems showing that a conscious agent can consistently see geometric and probabilistic structures of space that are not necessarily in the world per se but are properties of the conscious agent itself. The world simply has to be amenable to such a construction on the part of the agent; and different agents may construct different structures as seeming to belong to the world. This again supports the idea that any true structure of the world is likely quite different from what we see. I conclude by observing that these theorems suggest the need for a new theory which resolves the reverse mind-body problem, a good candidate for which is conscious agent theory. (shrink)

Natural language meaning has properties of both (embodied) cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures. But it is not clear how they actually relate to one another. This article argues that how properties of cognitive representations and formal/mathematical structures of natural language meaning can be united remains one of the puzzles in cognitive science. That is primarily because formal/mathematical structures of natural language meaning are abstract, logical, and truth‐conditional properties, whereas cognitive/conceptual representations are embodied and grounded in sensory‐motor systems. After reviewing the (...) current progress, this work offers, in outline, the general formulations that show how these two different kinds of representations for semantic structures can (potentially) be unified and also proposes three desiderata for testing, in brain dynamics, the mathematical equivalence between formal symbolic representations (and their transitions), and neuronal population codes (and their transitions). (shrink)

Responsible Care is a voluntary code of conduct developed, enforced, and monitored by the Chemical Manufacturers Association. Voluntary codes could be designed and enforced by regulators, nonprofit groups, industry associations, and individual firms. They could vary in their scope, focusing on firms around the globe, in a given region, within a country, or in a given industry. This article focuses on Responsible Care’s self-regulatory services that pertain to establishing, monitoring, and enforcing industry-wide environmental, health, and safety standards. Employing insights from (...) the club theory, stakeholder theory, institutionalist theory, and the corporate social performance perspective, it examines the demand and supply sides of voluntary codes. Finally, it discusses theoretical implications and the key challenges faced by Responsible Care in the future. (shrink)

_Natural Language and Possible Minds: How Language Uncovers the Cognitive Landscape of Nature_ examines the intrinsic connection between natural language and the nature of mentality, offering to show how language can shed light on the forms of other types of mentality in non-humans.

Shambu is a member of staff at the MSM branch of a non-profit organisation in urban Bangalore, India, who works on HIV/sti awareness and prevention. His daily life is a careful balance between family responsibilities, his job, multiple sexual partners and sex work. This piece shares Shambu’s reflections on his early experiences with sexuality, his engagement in cruising sites, gender performance, engagement with male sex workers, non-consensual sex and the financial realities that shape his life, including his involvement in activism. (...) Defying rigid identity boundaries and societal expectations, he openly discusses his relationships with both men and his wife while expressing a desire to be transgender. He recalls a significant relationship with a man he called his ‘panthi’, marked by an intricate dynamic of emotions, sex, dominance, economic exchange and silence. His narrative offers a nuanced exploration of identity, gender, sexuality, activism, consent, morality and economic survival in Bangalore. It defies the hegemonic structure of society by challenging the binary construction of gender and sexuality. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt at exploring the possibility of reconciling the two interpretations of biolinguistics which have been recently projected by Koster(Biolinguistics 3(1):61–92, 2009). The two interpretations—trivial and nontrivial—can be roughly construed as non-internalist and internalist conceptions of biolinguistics respectively. The internalist approach boils down to a conception of language where language as a mental grammar in the form of I-language grows and functions like a biological organ. On the other hand, under such a construal consistent with Koster’s (Biolinguistics (...) 3(1):61-92, 2009), the non-internalist version does not necessarily have to be externalist in nature; rather it is a matter of mutual reinforcement of biology and culture under the rubric of a co-evolutionary dynamics. Here it will be argued that the apparent dichotomy between these two conceptions of biolinguistics can perhaps be resolved if we have a richer synthesis that accounts for both internalism and non-internalism. (shrink)

Fauji Banta Singh and Other Stories (2014) by Sadhu Binning is a captivating collection of narratives that delve into the complex and multifaceted experiences of Punjabi Sikh immigrants in Canada. The book explores the lives of characters from diverse backgrounds, each bound by their common immigrant heritage. Through these stories, Binning provides readers with profound insights into the challenges, aspirations, and cultural nuances that shape the identity of the Punjabi Sikh diaspora in a foreign land.

Modern Indian nationalist thought has dealt with political ideas such as freedom, equality, liberty, democracy, so on and so forth. The idea of freedom received enough attention on the part of most of the modern Indian political thinkers. However, the idea of freedom as envisaged by the nationalist thinkers did not receive positive response from the other stream of modern Indian thought. Dalit-Bahujan political thinkers questioned the narration of freedom as propagated by the nationalist thinkers. Nationalist thinkers aspired for universal (...) values and at the same time reaffirmed ancient religious principles. Such effort was questioned and doubted by the other thinkers of modern India. Thus, one can find different narrations of freedom, such as social, economic and political. The social categories such as caste, class and gender became bases for their narration on the idea of freedom. The ideas and arguments of B. G. Tilak, M. K. Gandhi, Pandita Ramabai, Jyotiba Phule, B. R. Ambedkar E. M. S. Namboodripad and others would help in larger understanding of the idea of freedom. (shrink)

This book examines linguistic expressions of emotion in intensional contexts and offers a formally elegant account of the relationship between language and emotion. The author presents a compelling case for the view that there exist, contrary to popular belief, logical universals at the intersection of language and emotive content. This book shows that emotive structures in the mind that are widely assumed to be not only subjectively or socio-culturally variable but also irrelevant to a general theory of cognition offer an (...) unusually suitable ground for a formal theory of emotive representations, allowing for surprising logical and cognitive consequences for a theory of cognition. Challenging mainstream assumptions in cognitive science and in linguistics, this book will appeal to linguists, philosophers of the mind, linguistic anthropologists, psychologists and cognitive scientists of all persuasions. Prakash Mondal is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and Cognitive Science at the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad. He is the author of Language, Mind and Computation (2014), Natural Language and Possible Minds (2016) and Language, Biology and Cognition (completed). (shrink)

In this fantastical, semi-autobiographical book, Vishwa Prakash addresses these questions.

This paper revisits the conception of intelligence and understanding as embodied in the Turing Test. It argues that a simple system of meaning relations drawn from words/lexical items in a natural language and framed in terms of syntax-free relations in linguistic texts can help ground linguistic inferences in a manner that can be taken to be 'understanding' in a mechanized system. Understanding in this case is a matter of running through the relevant inferences meaning relations allow for, and some of (...) these inferences are plain deductions and some can serve to act as abductions. Understanding in terms of meaning relations also supervenes on linguistic syntax because such understanding cannot be simply reduced to syntactic relations. The current approach to meaning and understanding thus shows that this is one way, if not the only way, of (re)framing Alan Turing's original insight into the nature of thinking in computing systems. (shrink)

Using Durkheim as an exemplary figure, this article takes up the problem of the entanglement of Orientalism with the social sciences. Durkheim is one of the classic theorists of the sociology of religion whose work remains relevant today. He drew on data relating to non-Western cultures, including India to a certain extent, in working out his theories of the division of labour and of religion. Durkheim's work is placed against the pioneering research programme of S. N. Balagangadhara on the comparative (...) science of cultures. In doing so, the article takes up the common points of focus in their work: theory of religion; India; its religion, Hinduism; its religious law; and its caste system. Durkheim, it is argued, exemplifies the tying of Orientalism into the social sciences such that their facts and theories become problematic. Balagangadhara's research programme provides a means of understanding how this happens, and why it is a problem, and offers an alternative framework. (shrink)

Subjectivity or the problem of ‘qualia’ tends to make the accessibility and comprehension of psychological events intangible especially for scientific exploration. The issue becomes even more complicated but interesting when one turns towards mystical experiences. Such experiences are different from other psychological phenomena in the sense that they don’t occur to every one, so are difficult to comprehend even for their qualifications of existence. We conducted a qualitative study on one such experience of inner-light perception. This is a common experience (...) reported by meditators of all kinds. However, we chose to study this phenomenon in Vihangam Yoga practitioners because of frequent occurrence of this experience in them as well as their reports of having it for hours at a stretch. During this study, it was noted that it arose many questions there we need to answer not only to explain such phenomena but also for having a better understanding of philosophy of science. In the search for these answers, we proceeded towards another complicated branch of science, quantum mechanics. Our present work is about creating an interface between a unique subjective phenomenon and principles of philosophy as well as of quantum mechanics. We explore the constructs of physical and critical realisms and their coincidence, quantum information theory and the measurement problem of Copenhagen interpretation and their possible applications in such an experience. In this endeavour, we also address the possibility that inner-light perception as experienced by Vihangam Yogis is a quantum event in brain. For this purpose, we specifically analyse the Zeilingers information concept and try to apply it to this phenomena. (shrink)

Headteachers in the community schools are responsible for academic and administrative activities. They are considered role models for integrity practices. However, the situation is different on some occasions. For instance, political interest plays more important roles than qualifications, training, work experience, etc., in school affairs. In this context, a qualitative study was carried out in the purposefully selected two schools – an urban and a rural – to explore the elements that influence school integrity practices. Data collected from the schools (...) were analyzed and interpreted. The findings show that nepotism, unhealthy party politics, and impunity influence the school integrity practices in Nepal. (shrink)

Values clarification (VC) continues to be criticized for its conception of the ends as well as the means of moral education. Responding to Dwight Boyd and Deanne Bogdan's recent critique of values clarification, this paper suggests a new perspective from which to reassess this approach to moral education. In doing so, it locates Values Clarification within a long and rich tradition of ethical and educational theory. Its critics, including Boyd and Bogdan, reflect viewpoints belonging to a competing tradition. The key (...) unresolved differences between these two competing traditions are highlighted with a view to showing that, contrary to the allegations of its critics, VC does not hold arbitrary or mistaken conceptions of ‘morality’ and ‘education’, but merely conceptions which are currently not as popular. While providing new grounds for the assessment of VC, this paper also attempts to expand the scope of the dialogue on moral education by drawing attention to a compelling, yet insufficiently studied tradition in ethics and education. (shrink)

David Orr's postmodern philosophical investigations begin with the recognition that our modern culture is not ecologically sustainable; and therefore threatens all life on earth in the long term, even as it continues to destroy sustainable cultures in the short term. Hopeful of redirecting our civic culture or morality, as well as our technologies towards postmodern sustainability, Orr proposes an education for ecological literacy. This paper examines Orr's account of ecological literacy. Following his attempts to take us beyond modern literacy, it (...) analyses Orr's conception of moral virtue. It concludes with some reflections on Orr's deconstruction of professional academic boundaries, including those that continue to separate ecological literacy from moral education. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to show that the biological foundations of language and language-cognition relations are rife with conundrums that are far deeper than is generally assumed among most researchers who delve into the connections obtaining between our biological infrastructure and linguistic cognition. First, this chapter looks into the ways in which the genetic foundations of language and cognition can be thought to shed light on the nature of linguistic cognition. Careful scrutiny of the arguments and the underlying methodology reveals perplexing (...) problems hidden inside. Then, the standard methods of neurobiological investigations into language structure and its processing such as brain imaging studies, lesion studies, and neurological disorders of language are examined to figure out how and in what ways the logical texture of linguistic cognition can be said to be neurobiologically instantiated. Finally, an outline of a positive relationship between linguistic cognition and neurobiology is presented. (shrink)

Discourse on the nature of the emotions and their role in moral life has been at the vortex of discussion in both Indian and Western philosophy for a long time. The concept of emotion has taken the centre stage in recent debates, connecting it with morality. In Indian philosophy, emotion plays a vital role in moral judgement and desire. The main aim of this article is to analyse whether there is any possibility of intentional intervention in an emotional state or (...) are we simply slaves to our emotions, which control our physical and mental activities. The main aim of this article is to analyse the concept of emotion in Vasubandhu’s text, Abhidharmakos´abhāyam. (shrink)

This article will provide a unifying perspective on perception and cognitionviathe route of linguistic representations of emotion. Linguistic representations of emotions provide a fertile ground for explorations into the nature and form of integration of perception and cognition because emotion has facets of both perceptual and cognitive processes. In particular, this article shows that certain types of linguistic representations of emotion allow for the integration of perception and cognition through a series of steps and operations in cognitive systems, whereas certain (...) other linguistic representations of emotion are not so representationally structured as to permit the unity of perception and cognition. It turns out that the types of linguistic representations of emotion that readily permit the desired unity of perception and cognition are exactly those that are linguistically encoded emotive representations of everyday objects, events, and things around us. It is these ordinary objects, events and things that provide the scaffolding for task-dependent or goal-oriented activities of cognitive systems including autonomous systems. In this way, cognitive systems can be saliently tuned to the outer world by being motivated and also subtly governed by emotion-driven representations. This helps not only tie together perceptual and cognitive processesviathe interface between language and emotive representations, but also reveal the limits of emotive representations in amalgamating perceptual and cognitive processes in cognitive systems. (shrink)

This paper aims to show that properties of cognitive/conceptual representations and formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning can be inter‐translated, recast, transformed into one another, and so united together, even though cognitive/conceptual representations and formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning are apparently distinct in ontology and divergent in their form or character. While cognitive/conceptual representations are ultimately rooted in sensory‐motor systems, formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning are abstractions detached from and independent of the actualized world. This paper sketches out the foundations of (...) how representations of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual structures in Cognitive/Conceptual Semantics can be unified with those in terms of formal‐logical structures in Formal Semantics. This is done by recasting cognitive/conceptual representations in terms of formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning and re‐encoding formal‐logical structures of linguistic meaning in terms of cognitive/conceptual representations. Then, these two types of semantic representations, thus shown representationally equivalent, will be related to a series of derivations across levels in neuronal networks and dynamics. The general discussion on unifying cognitive/conceptual representations of linguistic meaning with formal‐logical structures is contextualized within the broader context of theorizing in cognitive science. (shrink)

This book examines the relationship between human language and biology in order to determine whether the biological foundations of language can offer deep insights into the nature and form of language and linguistic cognition. Challenging the assumption in biolinguistics and neurolinguistics that natural language and linguistic cognition can be reconciled with neurobiology, the author argues that reducing representation to cognitive systems and cognitive systems to neural populations is reductive, leading to inferences about the cognitive basis of linguistic performance based on (...) assuming dependencies. Instead, he finds that biological implementations of cognitive rather than the biological structures themselves, are the driver behind linguistic structures. In particular, this book argues that the biological roots of language are useful only for an understanding of the emergence of linguistic capacity as a whole, but ultimately irrelevant to understanding the character of language. Offering an antidote to the current thinking embracing ‘biologism’ in linguistic sciences, it will be of interest to readers in linguistics, the cognitive and brain sciences, and the points at which these disciplines converge with the computer sciences. (shrink)

In view of the fact that we intend to understand the structure of (linguistic) cognition and also that the relation to the underlying biological infrastructure is not an intermediate link, language seems to be the most optimal bridge that can take us inside the arena of cognition. With this goal, this chapter advances the idea the linguistic structures are themselves cognitive structures (in a linguistic garb) and demonstrates this by taking into account a number of interesting and yet intricate linguistic (...) phenomena revealing the logical texture of linguistic cognition. Thus, a number of cases of linguistic phenomena such as variable binding, quantification, complex predicates, and word order that are logically intricate and defy a unifying linguistic explanation are examined in detail. Many of the principles underpinning the cognitive constitution of linguistic structures may also be taken to be the ‘laws’ of our underlying cognitive organization. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the readers to the core arguments that are to show that the transitions from biology to language and then from language to cognition are not only fraught with insuperable difficulties but also impregnated with hidden conundrums that put a brake on ambitious yet unfounded claims about the biological manifestation of language as it is coupled to cognition. While this forms the background of the critique to be developed in later chapters, the central purpose, as stated here, is (...) to demonstrate that cognition is not transparent to biology, contrary to the current climate of opinions on the relationship between biology and cognition. (shrink)

In this chapter, the exact role of language in cognition and of cognition in language is taken into consideration in order to understand whether the logical directionality of dependence is from language to cognition or the other way round. The assumption that the structure and nature of language can be bootstrapped from the basic format of cognition has been articulated in several theoretical circles. Different ways of looking at the cognitive presence behind linguistic constructions are examined in this section. Additionally, (...) that cognition in itself is derived from the structural format of language is not new since it has been propounded in many different versions in different theoretical frameworks. Closer scrutiny of both the logical directionalities of dependence between language and cognition reveals that it is not simply a matter of one-way dependence. Rather, all considerations lend credence to a co-emerging and co-creating relationship between language and the cognitive superstructure. (shrink)

This paper approaches the question of how to describe the higher-level internal structures and representations of cognitive systems across various kinds of nonhuman (neuro)cognitive systems. While much research in cognitive (neuro)science and comparative cognition is dedicated to the exploration of the (neuro)cognitive mechanisms and processes with a focus on brain-behavior relations across different non-human species, not much has been done to connect (neuro)cognitive mechanisms and processes and the associated behaviors to plausible higher-level structures and representations of distinct kinds of cognitive (...) systems in non-humans. Although the study of (neuro)cognitive mechanisms and processes can certainly be revealing, (neuro)cognitive mechanisms and processes are underspecified with respect to internal structures and representations of non-human cognitive systems because multiple such mechanisms can target, or be mapped onto, the same internal structure or vice versa. This paper outlines a biosemiotic approach to this linking problem in order to bridge the gap between functions of (neuro)cognitive systems in different species and the higher-level cognitive structures and representations. It is contended that the higher-level internal structures and representations of various cognitive systems are biosemiotic constraints on the (biological) functions of (neuro)cognitive systems that serve to restrict the range of functions (neuro)cognitive systems have or are selected for. This turns out to have implications for issues on the convergent evolution of cognitive traits. (shrink)

This chapter presents a comprehensive overview of the book that argues for literature as a discourse of resistance. By dividing the book into six sections, the chapter reveals the power politics of the dominant from the perspective of the dialectic of nation formation, multiculturalism, ethnicity, identity politics, racism, patriarchy, environmental degradation, globalism, and neo-imperialistic strategies. The chapter reviews the textual analyses dealt with in the following chapters of the book and evaluates the efforts of the contributors of the following chapters (...) to represent the dominant systems that operate to undermine the underprivileged and marginalized. The chapter argues that the following eighteen chapters in the book have enriched the anthology by exploring the meanings of Resistance and the therapeutic aspects of writing as a means of Resistance. (shrink)

This paper aims to characterize the relationship between information as defined in the information-theoretic approach and linguistic meaning by way of formulation of computations over the lexicon of a natural language. Information in its information theoretic sense is supposed not to be equivalent to linguistic meaning, whereas linguistic meaning has an intrinsic connection to information as far as the form and structure of the lexicon of a language (in a non-lexicological sense) is concerned. We argue that these two apparently conflicting (...) aspects of the relationship between information and linguistic meaning can be unified by showing that information conserves linguistic meaning, only insofar as computations of a certain kind are defined on the symbolic elements of a lexicon. This has consequences not merely for the nature of lexical learning – natural or artificial or otherwise – but also for the conservation of information in axiomatic systems. (shrink)