Vāc (Sanskrit: वाच्, vāc) a Vedic goddess is a personified form of speech. She enters into the inspired poets and visionaries, gives expression and energy to those she loves; she is called the "mother of the Vedas" and consort of Indra in Aitareya Aranyaka.[1] Elsewhere, such as in the Padma Purana, she is stated to be the wife of Vision (Kashyapa), the mother of Emotions, and the friend of Musicians (Gandharva).[1] She is identified with goddess Sarasvati in later Vedic literature and post-Vedic texts of Hindu traditions. Sarasvati has remained a significant and revered deity in Hinduism.[2]

Saraswati (Sanskrit: सरस्वती, IAST: Sarasvatī) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, wisdom, and learning.[2] She is a part of the trinity (Tridevi) of Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati. All the three forms help the trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva to create, maintain, and regenerate the Universe, respectively.[3]

The Saraswati Supercluster is a massive galaxy supercluster about 1.2 gigaparsecs (4,000 million light years) away within the Stripe 82 region of SDSS, in the direction of the constellation Pisces.[1][2] It is one of the largest structures found in the universe, with a major axis in diameter of about 200 Mpc (652 million light years). It consists of at least 43 galaxy clusters, and has the mass of 2 × 1016 M☉, forming a galaxy filament.[3]

Thoth was originally a moon god. The moon not only provides light at night, allowing time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology/astronomy. The cycles of the moon also organized much of Egyptian society's rituals and events, both civil and religious. Consequently, Thoth gradually became seen as a god of wisdom, magic, and the measurement and regulation of events and of time.[27] He was thus said to be the secretary and counselor of the sun god Ra, and with Ma'at (truth/order) stood next to Ra on the nightly voyage across the sky. Through the trueness of your voice, you are resurrected. http://gnosis.org/library/grs-mead/grms_hymn_hermes.htm the great central sun swallow (two close frequencies?) dominant notes: c, f The swallows, martins and saw-wings, or Hirundinidae, are a family of passerine birds found around the world on all continents, including occasionally in Antarctica. Highly adapted to aerial feeding, they have a distinctive appearance. The term Swallow is used colloquially in Europe as a synonym for the barn swallow. There are around 90 species of Hirundinidae,[1] divided into 19 genera, with the greatest diversity found in Africa, which is also thought to be where they evolved as hole-nesters.[2] They also occur on a number of oceanic islands. A number of European and North American species are long-distance migrants; by contrast, the West and South African swallows are non-migratory. As above, so below. Eta Carinae (η Carinae, abbreviated to η Car), formerly known as Eta Argus, is a stellar system containing at least two stars with a combined luminosity greater than five million times that of the Sun, located around 7,500 light-years (2,300 parsecs) distant in the constellation Carina. Previously a 4th-magnitude star, it brightened in 1837 to become brighter than Rigel, marking the start of its so-called "Great Eruption". It became the second-brightest star in the sky between 11 and 14 March 1843 before fading well below naked eye visibility after 1856. In a smaller eruption, it reached 6th magnitude in 1892 before fading again. It has brightened consistently since about 1940, becoming brighter than magnitude 4.5 by 2014. Eta Carinae is circumpolar from latitudes south of latitude 30°S, and it is never visible north of about latitude 30°N. C# d d# f# g a a# One early Buddhist text, the Pali Samaññaphala Sutta, lists the ability to create a “mind-made body” (manomāyakāya) as one of the "fruits of the contemplative life".[4]:117 Commentarial texts such as the Patisambhidamagga and the Visuddhimagga state that this mind-made body is how Gautama Buddha and arhats are able to travel into heavenly realms using the continuum of the mindstream (cittasaṃtāna) and it is also used to explain the multiplication miracle of the Buddha as illustrated in the Divyavadana, in which the Buddha multiplied his nirmita or emanated human form into countless other bodies which filled the sky. A Buddha or other realized being is able to project many such nirmitas simultaneously in an infinite variety of forms in different realms simultaneously.

Emanation bodies—nirmanakaya, sprulsku, sprul-pa and so on—are connected to trikaya, the Buddhist doctrine of the three bodies of the Buddha. They are usually emanation bodies of celestial beings, though "unrealized beings" such as humans may have their own emanation bodies or even be emanation bodies.[3] For example, the 14th Dalai Lama is considered by some followers to be an emanation-reincarnation or tulku of Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.[5] The 14th Dalai Lama mentioned in a public statement that his successor might appear via emanation while the current Dalai Lama is still alive. Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control. This, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when his body is completed and able to live apart, leaves its mother's womb. Bicameralism[Note 1] (the condition of being divided into "two-chambers") is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once operated in a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be "speaking", and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind. The term was coined by Julian Jaynes, who presented the idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,[1] wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality was the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind as recently as 3,000 years ago, near the end of the Mediterranean bronze age. According to Jaynes, ancient people in the bicameral state of mind would have experienced the world in a manner that has some similarities to that of a person with schizophrenia. Rather than making conscious evaluations in novel or unexpected situations, the person would hallucinate a voice or "god" giving admonitory advice or commands and obey without question: One would not be at all conscious of one's own thought processes per se. Jaynes's hypothesis is offered as a possible explanation of "command hallucinations" that often direct the behavior of those afflicted by first rank symptoms of schizophrenia, as well as other voice hearers.[2 Jaynes built a case for this hypothesis that human brains existed in a bicameral state until as recently as 3,000 years ago by citing evidence from many diverse sources including historical literature. He took an interdisciplinary approach, drawing data from many different fields.[3] Jaynes asserted that, until roughly the times written about in Homer's Iliad, humans did not generally have the self-awareness characteristic of consciousness as most people experience it today. Rather, the bicameral individual was guided by mental commands believed to be issued by external "gods"—commands which were recorded in ancient myths, legends and historical accounts. This is exemplified not only in the commands given to characters in ancient epics but also the very muses of Greek mythology which "sang" the poems. According to Jaynes, the ancients literally heard muses as the direct source of their music and poetry. Egregore (also egregor) is an occult concept representing a "thoughtform" or "collective group mind", an autonomous psychic entity made up of, and influencing, the thoughts of a group of people. The symbiotic relationship between an egregore and its group has been compared to the more recent, non-occult concepts of the corporation (as a legal entity) and the meme. In Finnish folklore, all places and things, and also human beings, have a haltija (a genius, guardian spirit) of their own. One such haltija is called etiäinen—an image, doppelgänger, or just an impression that goes ahead of a person, doing things the person in question later does. For example, people waiting at home might hear the door close or even see a shadow or a silhouette, only to realize that no one has yet arrived. Etiäinen can also refer to some kind of a feeling that something is going to happen. Sometimes it could, for example, warn of a bad year coming. In Roman religion, the genius (Latin: [ˈɡɛnɪ.ʊs]; plural geniī) is the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place, or thing.[1] Much like a guardian angel, the genius would follow each man from the hour of his birth until the day he died.[2] For women, it was the Juno spirit that would accompany each of them.

A servitor is an entity "specifically created by the magician to perform a set range of tasks".[1] Phil Hine writes that servitors are created "by deliberately budding off portions of our psyche and identifying them by means of a name, trait, symbol", after which "we can come to work with them (and understand how they affect us) at a conscious level."[2] Servitors can be created to perform a wide range of tasks, from the specific to the general, and may be considered as expert systems which are able to modify themselves to take into account new factors that are likely to arise whilst they are performing their tasks. They can be programmed to work within specific circumstances, or to be operating continually.[1] Servitors form part of a thoughtform continuum: from sigils, to servitors, to egregores, to godforms.[2][3] At the start of the continuum are "dumb, unintelligent sigils", which represent a particular desire or intention.[3] When a complex of thoughts, desires and intentions gains such a level of sophistication that it appears to operate autonomously from the magician's consciousness, as if it were an independent being, then such a complex is referred to as a servitor.[3][1] When such a being becomes large enough that it exists independently of any one individual, as a form of "group mind", then it is referred to as an egregore.[4] Alternatively, a magician may choose to create servitors from negative aspects of his/her psyche, such as "habits, shortcomings, faults, revulsions", rather than positive desires or intentions. In doing so, he/she can interact with those traits as personal demons, and bind or banish them to eradicate them from the psyche.[5]

A tutelary (/ˈtutlˌɛri/ or /ˈtjutlˌɛri/) (also tutelar) is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation. The etymology of "tutelary" expresses the concept of safety, and thus of guardianship. In late Greek and Roman religion, one type of tutelary deity, the genius, functions as the personal deity or daimon of an individual from birth to death. Another form of personal tutelary spirit is the familiar spirit of European folklore.

Animism (from Latin anima, "breath, spirit, life")[1][2] is the belief that objects, places and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence.[3][4][5][6] Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork and perhaps even words—as animated and alive. Animism is used in the anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many indigenous peoples,[7] especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organised religions.[8] Although each culture has its own different mythologies and rituals, "animism" is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion");[9] the term is an anthropological construct. Largely due to such ethnolinguistic and cultural discrepancies, opinion has differed on whether animism refers to an ancestral mode of experience common to indigenous peoples around the world, or to a full-fledged religion in its own right. The currently accepted definition of animism was only developed in the late 19th century (1871) by Sir Edward Tylor, who created it as "one of anthropology's earliest concepts, if not the first".[10][11] Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no hard and fast distinction between the spiritual and physical (or material) world and that soul or spirit or sentience exists not only in humans, but also in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers or other entities of the natural environment: water sprites, vegetation deities, tree sprites, ... . Animism may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the non-tribal world also consider themselves animists (such as author Daniel Quinn, sculptor Lawson Oyekan and many contemporary Pagans).

In Mesoamerican folk religion, a nagual or nahual (both pronounced [na'wal]) is a human being who has the power to shapeshift into an animal form. A widespread superstition holds that naguals must make a pact with the devil as well as make him an offering.[1] "Power animal" is a concept that was introduced in 1980 by Michael Harner in The Way of the Shaman.[16] While Harner took inspiration from his study of animistic beliefs in many different cultures, his concept of power animals is much like the familiar spirits of European occultism, which aid the occultist in their metaphysical work. In European folklore and folk-belief of the Medieval and Early Modern periods, familiar spirits (sometimes referred to simply as "familiars" or "animal guides") were believed to be supernatural entities that would assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic.[1] According to the records of the time, they would appear in numerous guises, often as an animal, but also at times as a human or humanoid figure, and were described as "clearly defined, three-dimensional… forms, vivid with colour and animated with movement and sound" by those alleging to have come into contact with them, unlike later descriptions of ghosts with their "smoky, undefined form[s]".[2] When they served witches, they were often thought to be malevolent, while when working for cunning folk they were often thought of as benevolent (although there was some ambiguity in both cases). The former were often categorised as demons, while the latter were more commonly thought of and described as fairies. The main purpose of familiars is to serve the witch or young witch, providing protection for them as they come into their new powers.[3] Since the 20th century some magical practitioners, including adherents of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, use the concept of familiars, due to their association with older forms of magic. These contemporary practitioners utilize pets or wildlife, or believe that invisible spirit versions of familiars act as magical aids. A totem (Ojibwe doodem) is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe. While the term totem is derived from the North American Ojibwe language, belief in tutelary spirits and deities is not limited to indigenous peoples of the Americas but common to a number of cultures worldwide. However, the traditional people of those cultures have words for their guardian spirits in their own languages, and do not call these spirits or symbols "totems".

Wayob is the plural form of way (or uay), a Maya word with a basic meaning of 'sleep(ing)', but which in Yucatec Maya is a term specifically denoting the Mesoamerican nagual, that is, a person who can transform into an animal while asleep in order to do harm, or else the resulting animal transformation itself.[1] Already in Classic Maya belief, way animals, identifiable by a special hieroglyph, had an important role to play. In Yucatec ethnography, the animal transformation involved is usually a common domestic or domesticated animal, but may also be a ghost or apparition, for example 'a creature with wings of straw mats'.[2] Moreover, in the 16th century, wild animals such as jaguar and grey fox are mentioned as animal shapes of the sorcerer, together with the ah uaay xibalba or 'underworld transformer'.[3] Some sort of 'devil's pact' seems to be implied. The Yucatec way has its counterparts among other Maya groups. In Tzotzil ethnography, the way (here called wayihel or chanul[4][5]) is more often an animal companion and refers not only to domestic animals, but also to igneous powers such as meteor and lightning. In Tzeltal Cancuc, the nagual animal companion is considered a 'caster of disease'.[6] Other names found are: Lab, labil, wayixelal or vayijelal, way and wayxel or wayjel. Tonal is a concept within the study of Mesoamerican religion, myth, folklore and anthropology. It is a belief found in many indigenous Mesoamerican cultures that a person upon being born acquires a close spiritual link to an animal, a link that lasts throughout the lives of both creatures. The person shows signs of whatever the animal's situation to include scratches and bruises if the animals get in fights, or illness if the animal is ill. It is in this way similar to the concept of Totem. Gestalt psychology or gestaltism is a school of psychology that emerged in Austria and Germany in the early twentieth century based on work by Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Köhler, and Kurt Koffka.[1] As used in Gestalt psychology, the German word gestalt (/ɡəˈʃtælt, -ˈʃtɑːlt, -ˈʃtɔːlt, -ˈstɑːlt, -ˈstɔːlt/ gə-SHTA(H)LT, -⁠STAHLT, -⁠S(H)TAWLT,[2][3] German: [ɡəˈʃtalt] ( listen); meaning "form"[4]) is interpreted as "pattern" or "configuration".[1] Gestalt psychologists emphasized that organisms perceive entire patterns or configurations, not merely individual components.[1] The view is sometimes summarized using the adage, "the whole is more than the sum of its parts."[5] Gestalt principles, proximity, similarity, figure-ground, continuity, closure, and connection, determine how humans perceive visuals in connection with different objects and environments. Amodal perception is the perception of the whole of a physical structure when only parts of it affect the sensory receptors. For example, a table will be perceived as a complete volumetric structure even if only part of it—the facing surface—projects to the retina; it is perceived as possessing internal volume and hidden rear surfaces despite the fact that only the near surfaces are exposed to view. Similarly, the world around us is perceived as a surrounding plenum, even though only part of it is in view at any time. Another much quoted example is that of the "dog behind a picket fence" in which a long narrow object (the dog) is partially occluded by fence-posts in front of it, but is nevertheless perceived as a single continuous object. Albert Bregman noted an auditory analogue of this phenomenon: when a melody is interrupted by bursts of white noise, it is nonetheless heard as a single melody continuing "behind" the bursts of noise. Cognitive grammar is a cognitive approach to language developed by Ronald Langacker, which hypothesizes that grammar, semantics, and lexicon exist on a continuum instead of as separate processes altogether.[1] This approach to language was one of the first projects of cognitive linguistics.[2] In this system, grammar is not a formal system operating independently of meaning. Rather, grammar is itself meaningful and inextricable from semantics. Gestaltzerfall (German for "shape decomposition" or Gestalt decomposition[1]) refers to a type of visual agnosia and is a psychological phenomenon where delays in recognition are observed when a complex shape is stared at for a while as the shape seems to decompose into its constituting parts. With regards to kanji, a study has shown that delays are most significant when the characters are of the same size. When characters to recognize are of different sizes, delays are observed only when they are of different patterns.[2] Gestaltzerfall has also been described as a phenomenon where the output signals from the brain go beyond their expected range.

Algorithmic composition is the technique of using algorithms to create music. Algorithms (or, at the very least, formal sets of rules) have been used to compose music for centuries; the procedures used to plot voice-leading in Western counterpoint, for example, can often be reduced to algorithmic determinacy. The term can be used to describe music-generating techniques that run without ongoing human intervention, for example through the introduction of chance procedures. However through live coding and other interactive interfaces, a fully human-centric approach to algorithmic composition is possible.[1] Some algorithms or data that have no immediate musical relevance are used by composers[2] as creative inspiration for their music. Algorithms such as fractals, L-systems, statistical models, and even arbitrary data (e.g. census figures, GIS coordinates, or magnetic field measurements) have been used as source materials.

Behavioral modernity is a suite of behavioral and cognitive traits that distinguishes current Homo sapiens from other anatomically modern humans, hominins, and primates.[1] Although often debating the concept, most scholars agree that modern human behavior can be characterized by abstract thinking, planning depth, symbolic behavior (e.g., art, ornamentation), music and dance, exploitation of large game, and blade technology, among others.[2][3][need quotation to verify] Underlying these behaviors and technological innovations are cognitive and cultural foundations that have been documented[by whom?] experimentally and ethnographically. These human universal patterns include cumulative cultural adaptation, social norms, language, and extensive help and cooperation beyond close kin.[4][5] It has been argued[by whom?] that the development of these modern behavioral traits, in combination with the climatic conditions of the Last Glacial Period and Last Glacial Maximum causing population bottlenecks, contributed to the evolutionary success of Homo sapiens worldwide relative to Neanderthals, Denisovans, and other archaic humans. Mythopoeic thought is a hypothetical stage of human thought preceding modern thought, proposed by Henri Frankfort and his wife Henriette Antonia Frankfort in the 1940s. According to this proposal, there was a "mythopoeic" stage, in which humanity did not think in terms of generalizations and impersonal laws: instead, humans saw each event as an act of will on the part of some personal being. This way of thinking supposedly explains the ancients' tendency to create myths, which portray events as acts of gods and spirits. A physiological motivation for this was suggested by Julian Jaynes in 1976 in the form of bicameralism. The neuroscience of religion, also known as neurotheology and as spiritual neuroscience,[1] attempts to explain religious experience and behaviour in neuroscientific terms.[2] It is the study of correlations of neural phenomena with subjective experiences of spirituality and hypotheses to explain these phenomena. This contrasts with the psychology of religion which studies mental, rather than neural, states. Proponents of the neuroscience of religion say there is a neurological and evolutionary basis for subjective experiences traditionally categorized as spiritual or religious.[3] The field has formed the basis of several popular science books

Dual consciousness is a theoretical concept in neuroscience. It is proposed that it is possible that a person may develop two separate conscious entities within their one brain after undergoing a corpus callosotomy. The idea first began circulating in the neuroscience community after some split-brain patients exhibited the alien hand syndrome, which led some scientists to believe that there must be two separate consciousnesses within the brain's left and right hemispheres in competition with one another once the corpus callosum is severed.[1] The idea of dual consciousness has caused controversy in the neuroscience community. It has not been conclusively proven or disproven. The first successful corpus callosotomies on humans were performed in the 1930s.[2] The purpose of the procedure was to alleviate the effects of epilepsy when other forms of treatment (medications) had failed to stop the violent convulsions associated with the disorder.[3] Epileptic seizures occur because of abnormal electrical discharges that spread across areas of the brain.[4] William Van Wagenen proposed the idea of severing the corpus callosum to eliminate transcortical electrical signals across the brain's hemispheres.[5] If this could be achieved, then the seizures should be reduced or even completely eliminated. The general procedure of a corpus callosotomy is as follows. The patient is put under anesthesia. Once the patient is in deep sleep, a craniotomy is performed. This procedure removes a section of the skull, leaving the brain exposed and accessible to the surgeon. The dura mater is pulled back so the deeper areas of the brain, including the corpus callosum, can be seen. Specialized instruments are placed into the brain that allows safe severing of the corpus. Initially, a partial callosotomy is performed, which only severs the front two thirds of the callosum.[6] It is important to note that because the back section of the callosum is preserved, visual information is still sent across both hemispheres. Though the corpus callosum loses a majority of its functioning during a partial callosotomy, it does not completely lose its capabilities. If this operation does not succeed in reducing the seizures, a complete callosotomy is needed to reduce the severity of the seizures. A similar type of procedure, known as a commissurotomy, involves severing a number of interhemispheric tracts (such as the anterior commissure, the hippocampal commissure and the massa intermedia of the thalamus) in addition to the corpus callosum.[7] After surgery, the split-brain patients are often given extensive neuropsychological assessments. An interesting finding among split-brain patients is many of them claim to feel normal after the surgery and do not feel that their brains are "split".[8] The corpus callosotomy and commissurotomy have been successful in reducing, and in some cases, completely eliminating epileptic seizures. Van Wagenen's theory was correct.

The theory of a division of consciousness was touched upon by Carl Jung in 1935 when he stated, "The so-called unity of consciousness is an illusion... we like to think that we are one but we are not."[1] Ernest Hilgard believed that hypnosis causes a split in awareness and a vivid form of everyday mind splits.[2] Drawing themes from Pierre Janet, Hilgard viewed hypnosis from this perspective as a willingness to divide the main systems of consciousness into different sectors. He argued that this split in consciousness can not only help define the state of mind reached during hypnosis, but can also help to define a vast range of psychological issues such as multiple personality disorder. In Hilgard's Divided Consciousness Reconsidered, he offers a great many examples of "dissociated" human behavior. With regard to theory, he does state that it is useful to assign two modes of consciousness, a receptive mode and an active mode—that is, a bimodal consciousness. In other places he mentions the concept of coconsciousness, wherein two or more states of consciousness may be equally receptive or active, as, for example, in some types of multiple personality.[3] Many psychological studies assume a unity of consciousness. Doubt is cast on this assumption by psychophysical studies in normal subjects and those with blindsight showing the simultaneous dissociation of different modes of report of a sensation, and by clinical studies of anosognosic patients showing dissociations of awareness of their own states.[citation needed] These and other phenomena are interpreted to imply two kinds of division of consciousness: the separation of phenomenal experience from reflexive consciousness and the non-unity of reflexive consciousness. Reflexive consciousness is taken to be necessary for report and is associated with the self as the subject of experience and agent of report. Reflexive consciousness is operative only when we attend to our own states. When we are involved in the world reflexivity intervenes less and our consciousness is more unified.

The mind–body problem is a debate concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind, and the brain as part of the physical body. It is distinct from the question of how mind and body function chemically and physiologically, as that question presupposes an interactionist account of mind–body relations.[1] This question arises when mind and body are considered as distinct, based on the premise that the mind and the body are fundamentally different in nature.[1] The problem was addressed by René Descartes in the 17th century, resulting in Cartesian dualism, and by pre-Aristotelian philosophers,[2][3] in Avicennian philosophy,[4] and in earlier Asian traditions. A variety of approaches have been proposed. Most are either dualist or monist. Dualism maintains a rigid distinction between the realms of mind and matter. Monism maintains that there is only one unifying reality, substance or essence, in terms of which everything can be explained. Each of these categories contains numerous variants. The two main forms of dualism are substance dualism, which holds that the mind is formed of a distinct type of substance not governed by the laws of physics, and property dualism, which holds that mental properties involving conscious experience are fundamental properties, alongside the fundamental properties identified by a completed physics. The three main forms of monism are physicalism, which holds that the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way; idealism, which holds that only thought truly exists and matter is merely an illusion; and neutral monism, which holds that both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of them. Psychophysical parallelism is a third possible alternative regarding the relation between mind and body, between interaction (dualism) and one-sided action (monism).[5] Several philosophical perspectives have been developed which reject the mind–body dichotomy. The historical materialism of Karl Marx and subsequent writers, itself a form of physicalism, held that consciousness was engendered by the material contingencies of one's environment.[6] An explicit rejection of the dichotomy is found in French structuralism, and is a position that generally characterized post-war Continental philosophy.[7] The absence of an empirically identifiable meeting point between the non-physical mind (if there is such a thing) and its physical extension (if there is such a thing) has proven problematic to dualism, and many modern philosophers of mind maintain that the mind is not something separate from the body.[8] These approaches have been particularly influential in the sciences, particularly in the fields of sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology, and the neurosciences.[9][10][11][12] An ancient model of the mind known as the Five-Aggregate Model, described in the Buddhist teachings, explains the mind as continuously changing sense impressions and mental phenomena.[13] Considering this model, it is possible to understand that it is the constantly changing sense impressions and mental phenomena (i.e., the mind) that experiences/analyzes all external phenomena in the world as well as all internal phenomena including the body anatomy, the nervous system as well as the organ brain. This conceptualization leads to two levels of analyses: (i) analyses conducted from a third-person perspective on how the brain works, and (ii) analyzing the moment-to-moment manifestation of an individual's mind-stream (analyses conducted from a first-person perspective). Considering the latter, the manifestation of the mind-stream is described as happening in every person all the time, even in a scientist who analyses various phenomena in the world, including analyzing and hypothesizing about the organ brain.

The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot be shown to have a "mind", "understanding" or "consciousness",[a] regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was first presented by philosopher John Searle in his paper, "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. It has been widely discussed in the years since.[1] The centerpiece of the argument is a thought experiment known as the Chinese room.[2] The argument is directed against the philosophical positions of functionalism and computationalism,[3] which hold that the mind may be viewed as an information-processing system operating on formal symbols. Specifically, the argument is intended to refute a position Searle calls strong AI: "The appropriately programmed computer with the right inputs and outputs would thereby have a mind in exactly the same sense human beings have minds."[b] Although it was originally presented in reaction to the statements of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers, it is not an argument against the goals of AI research, because it does not limit the amount of intelligence a machine can display.[4] The argument applies only to digital computers running programs and does not apply to machines in general.

In philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, cognitive closure is the proposition that human minds are constitutionally incapable of solving certain perennial philosophical problems.[1] Owen Flanagan calls this position anti-constructive naturalism or the "new mysterianism" and the primary advocate of the hypothesis, Colin McGinn,[2][3] calls it transcendental naturalism acknowledging the possibility that solutions may be an intelligent non-human of some kind. According to McGinn, such philosophical questions include the mind-body problem, identity of the self, foundations of meaning, free will, and knowledge, both a priori and empirical.[4]

In Finnish folklore, all places and things, and also human beings, have a haltija (a genius, guardian spirit) of their own. One such haltija is called etiäinen—an image, doppelgänger, or just an impression that goes ahead of a person, doing things the person in question later does. For example, people waiting at home might hear the door close or even see a shadow or a silhouette, only to realize that no one has yet arrived. Etiäinen can also refer to some kind of a feeling that something is going to happen. Sometimes it could, for example, warn of a bad year coming.[1] In modern Finnish the term has detached from its shamanistic origins and refers to premonition. Unlike clairvoyance, divination and similar practices, etiäiset (plural) are spontaneous and can't be induced. Quite the opposite, they may be unwanted and cause anxiety, like ghosts. Etiäiset need not be too dramatic and may concern everyday events, although ones related to e.g. deaths are common. As these phenomena are still reported today, they can be considered a living tradition, as a way to explain the psychological experience of premonition. In philosophy of mind, panpsychism is the view that mind or a mind-like aspect is a fundamental and ubiquitous feature of reality.[1] It has taken on a wide variety of forms. Contemporary academic proponents hold that sentience or subjective experience is ubiquitous, while distancing these qualities from complex human mental attributes;[2] they ascribe a primitive form of mentality to entities at the fundamental level of physics but do not ascribe it to most aggregates, such as rocks or buildings.[1][3] On the other hand, some historical theorists ascribed attributes such as life or spirits to all entities.[2] Panpsychism is one of the oldest philosophical theories, and has been ascribed to philosophers including Thales,[4] Plato,[4] Spinoza,[4] Leibniz,[4] William James,[4] Alfred North Whitehead,[1] and Galen Strawson.[1] During the nineteenth century, panpsychism was the default theory in philosophy of mind, but it saw a decline during the middle years of the twentieth century with the rise of logical positivism.[4][5] The recent interest in the hard problem of consciousness has revived interest in panpsychism.

Memetics is the study of information and culture based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution. Proponents describe memetics as an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. Memetics describes how an idea can propagate successfully, but doesn't necessarily imply a concept is factual.[1] Critics contend the theory is "untested, unsupported or incorrect".[2] The term meme was coined in Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene, but Dawkins later distanced himself from the resulting field of study.[3] Analogous to a gene, the meme was conceived as a "unit of culture" (an idea, belief, pattern of behaviour, etc.) which is "hosted" in the minds of one or more individuals, and which can reproduce itself in the sense of jumping from the mind of one person to the mind of another. Thus what would otherwise be regarded as one individual influencing another to adopt a belief is seen as an idea-replicator reproducing itself in a new host. As with genetics, particularly under a Dawkinsian interpretation, a meme's success may be due to its contribution to the effectiveness of its host. The Usenet newsgroup alt.memetics started in 1993 with peak posting years in the mid to late 1990s.[4] The Journal of Memetics was published electronically from 1997 to 2005.

Phenomenology within psychology (phenomenological psychology) is the psychological study of subjective experience.[1] It is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the phenomenological philosophical work of Edmund Husserl.[2] Early phenomenologists such as Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conducted philosophical investigations of consciousness in the early 20th century. Their critiques of psychologism and positivism later influenced at least two main fields of contemporary psychology: the phenomenological psychological approach of the Duquesne School (The Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology), including Amedeo Giorgi[2][3] and Frederick Wertz; and the experimental approaches associated with Francisco Varela, Shaun Gallagher, Evan Thompson, and others (embodied mind thesis). Other names associated with the movement include Jonathan Smith (interpretative phenomenological analysis), Steinar Kvale, and Wolfgang Köhler. But "an even stronger influence on psychopathology came from Heidegger (1963), particularly through Kunz (1931), Blankenburg (1971), Tellenbach (1983), Binswanger (1994), and others."[4] Phenomenological psychologists have also figured prominently in the history of the humanistic psychology movement. The experiencing subject can be considered to be the person or self, for purposes of convenience. In phenomenological philosophy (and in particular in the work of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty), "experience" is a considerably more complex concept than it is usually taken to be in everyday use. Instead, experience (or being, or existence itself) is an "in-relation-to" phenomenon, and it is defined by qualities of directedness, embodiment, and worldliness, which are evoked by the term "Being-in-the-World".[5] The quality or nature of a given experience is often referred to by the term qualia, whose archetypical exemplar is "redness". For example, we might ask, "Is my experience of redness the same as yours?" While it is difficult to answer such a question in any concrete way, the concept of intersubjectivity is often used as a mechanism for understanding how it is that humans are able to empathise with one another's experiences, and indeed to engage in meaningful communication about them. The phenomenological formulation of Being-in-the-World, where person and world are mutually constitutive, is central here.

In music, just intonation or pure intonation is the tuning of musical intervals as small whole number ratios (such as 3:2 or 4:3) of frequencies. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. Just intervals (and chords created by combining them) consist of members of a single harmonic series of a (lower) implied fundamental. For example, in the diagram at right, the notes G and middle C (labeled 3 and 4), are both members of the harmonic series of the lowest C and their frequencies will be 3 and 4 times, respectively, the fundamental frequency; thus, their interval ratio will be 4:3. If the frequency of the fundamental is 64 Hertz, the frequencies of the two notes in question would be 192 and 256. Instruments are not always tuned using these intervals. In the Western world, instruments of fixed pitch, such as pianos, are typically tuned using equal temperament, in which intervals other than octaves consist of irrational-number frequency ratios. The difference between a just interval and an equal-tempered interval (and sometimes between just intervals created using different overtone series) is called a comma.

Microtonal music or microtonality is the use in music of microtones—intervals smaller than a semitone, also called "microintervals". It may also be extended to include any music using intervals not found in the customary Western tuning of twelve equal intervals per octave. In other words, a microtone may be thought of as a note that falls between the keys of a piano tuned in equal temperament. The spectral approach to musical composition was first given a name in 1979 by Hugues Dufourt in an article he entitled, "Musique spectrale" [Spectral Music].[clarification needed][1] In spectral music, the spectrum – or group of spectra – replace harmony, melody, rhythm, orchestration and form. The spectrum is always in motion, and the composition is based on spectra developing through time and exerting an influence on rhythm and formal processes. Spectral music seeks to exteriorize the inner reality of sound, to project its inner dynamics into an acoustic space and time, and to transmit to the public the reality of sound in all its complexity.[2] Defined in technical language, spectral music is an acoustic musical practice where compositional decisions are often informed by sonographic representations and mathematical analysis of sound spectra, or by mathematically generated spectra. The spectral approach focuses on manipulating the spectral features, interconnecting them, and transforming them. In this formulation, computer-based sound analysis and representations of audio signals are treated as being analogous to a timbral representation of sound. The (acoustic-composition) spectral approach originated in France in the early 1970s, and techniques were developed, and later refined, primarily at IRCAM, Paris, with the Ensemble l'Itinéraire, by composers such as Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail. Murail has described spectral music as an aesthetic rather than a style, not so much a set of techniques as an attitude; as Joshua Fineberg puts it, a recognition that "music is ultimately sound evolving in time".[3] Julian Anderson indicates that a number of major composers associated with spectralism consider the term inappropriate, misleading, and reductive.[4] The Istanbul Spectral Music Conference of 2003 suggested a redefinition of the term "spectral music" to encompass any music that foregrounds timbre as an important element of structure or language.[5]