Mental content

Fig. 3. Kinetic model of the retention and tissue distribution of l44Ce CL in CsCl aerosol particles. Interorgan exchange rates are expressed as fractions of the compart-mental contents transferred each day or for rates greater than unity, the number of times the contents are cleared per day.

All of these effects, as well as the desired relief of psychosis and aggressiveness, fit together to suggest that dreaming and psychosis are both states characterized by emotion-driven cognition as well as by false perceptions, and raise the possibility that the activation of the emotion and motivational systems of the limbic forebrain have a primary role in shaping the mental content of both abnormal and normal states with these formal features. 

The goals of transcendental meditation are similar to those of the relaxation response. Being derived from Eastern mystical practices, they have a distinctive philosophical and cultural spin. Instead of seeking to instill identifiable and tranquilizing mental content, transcendental meditation practitioners seek a state of consciousness that is devoid of content. This contentless consciousness is believed to be pre- or extra-existential, cosmic, or otherworldly hence the term transcendental. It is this reconnection with primordial, universal, preverbal awareness that confers the benefit of transcendental meditation. Here we are clearly in religious territory. 

Chapter 3 is about reference. The first section contains the details of my positive view, which is a version of verificationist semantics. The following two sections reply to possible objections. They will also treat some very familiar issues like Quine s thesis about the indeterminacy of reference, the Twin Earth argument and the recent discussions about mental content... 

In recent years there have been much discussion about mental content. The issue is this. How do mental items, like beliefs, desires and their constituents, concepts, come to refer to things outside the mind. This is obviously relevant for our concerns. Moreover, practically all parties to the discussion tacitly or explicitly endorse (MR1). It would be hopeless to do justice to the complexities of the discussion here. 

So, we may have to settle for sleep-onset dreaming if we want to see the effect of learning on mental content. If we are willing to accept this gift of nature, we may be able to learn from it, as our recent studies of novices learning the video games Tetris and Alpine Racer have taught us. 

Mackie, J. L. (1974). The Cement of the Universe. Oxford University Press. McGinn, C. (1989). Mental Content. Blackwell. 

The relational content leads one to ponder whether it is true or false or partially true or false. No need to say that the content of any proposition is subject to philosophical debate for possibly new idea generations, and hence, the overall meaning of a proposition becomes clearer after each discussion. Controversy is an imbedded property that may exist in any proposition with imprecise and vague information content. Only a set of assumptions cuts the way of controversy, because any proposition coupled with assumptions is regarded as absolute truth, which is never the case especially in scientific and engineering disciplines. The words statement and sentence are also used in the same sense of proposition subject to interpretations. Belief, desire, sense, etc. based configurations also lead to propositions, which are for exposed critical view for mote general acceptance by folks. Hence, they can be interpreted as mental content of attitudes. 

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