Quantifying Consciousness

Abstract

All rights reservedNo part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher To my parents, John and Susan Pekala PrefaceThis book presents an approach to quantifying consciousness and its various states. It represents over ten years of work in developing, testing, and researching the use of relatively simple self-report questionnaires in the retrospective assessment of subjective or phenomenological experience. While the simplicity of the method allows for subjective experience to be reliably and validly assessed across various short stimulus conditions, the flexibility of the approach allows the cognitive psychologist, consciousness researcher, and mental health professional to quantify and statistically assess the phenomenological variables associated with various stimulus conditions, altered-state induction techniques, and clinical procedures.The methodology allows the cognitive psychologist and mental health professional to comprehensively quantify the structures and patterns of subjective experience dealing with imagery, attention, affect, volitional control, internal dialogue, and so forth to determine how these phenomenological structures might covary during such stimulus conditions as free association, a sexual fantasy, creative problem solving, or a panic attack. It allows for various phenomenological processes to be reported, quantified, and statistically assessed in a rather comprehensive fashion that should help shed greater understanding on the nature of mind or consciousness.The methodology also allows for states of consciousness associated with hypnosis, progressive relaxation, biofeedback, drug-intoxicated states, shamanistic trances, psi-related experiences, and various other altered-state induction procedures to be not only accurately measured, vii viii Preface but also statistically assessed and visually displayed. Hence, it provides a heretofore unavailable phenomenological methodology for mapping and diagraming the structures and patterns of consciousness and identity, discrete, and altered states of consciousness (Tart, 1975).The approach espoused in this book can be useful not only to those individuals interested in quantifying and mapping the terrain of inner space, but to psychologists, psychiatrists, other mental health professionals, artificial intelligence researchers, computer scientists, anthropologists, and related individuals interested in how the mind processes, stores, and retrieves phenomenological data and organizes and structures those data into states and altered states of consciousness. Byasking subjects what they experience during varlous stimulus conditions, the researcher or clinician can determine how the mind processes phenomenological information and compare this information with neurological, psychological, electrophysiological, and/or c1inical data.The book is divided into four parts: Backg...

The Role of Trait and State Absorption in the Enjoyment of Music

“…One solution, albeit at the expense of losing the kinds of experiences in which absorption occurs, is to adopt an equally reductive, quantitative measure of state absorption. For example, Pekala [11] included a scale of state absorption in his Phenomenology of Consciousness Inventory (PCI) that measures “how intensely involved in the object of attention the subject is” (p. 145) through direct probing of the subjective experience of being absorbed.…”

Control of Mesoporous Structure of Aerogels Derived from Cresol–Formaldehyde

“…Generally, carbon aerogels can be obtained by the pyrolysis of organic aerogels based mainly on resorcinolformaldehyde (RF) precursors via an aqueous sol-gel process catalyzed by sodium carbonate and supercritical drying with carbon dioxide (6,7). The influence of the catalyst content and the degree of dilution on the porous structures of RF organic and carbon aerogels has been widely investigated in detail (8)(9)(10)(11)(12).…”

Microporous and Mesoporous Materials in Decontamination of Water Process

“…Aerogels refer to dried gels with a very high relative pore volume [6]. Pekala succeeded in the preparation of carbon aerogels, which are carbonized from organic polymer aerogels in an inert atmosphere such as nitrogen [7,8]. Due to large surface area and easily tunable nanoporosities, these materials have potential applications in various fields, such as hydrogen fuel storage, catalysis, supercapacitors, electrodes, and anodes in rechargeable lithium ion batteries [9].…”