How do brains create all our different colors, pains, and other conscious qualities? These various qualia are the most essential aspects of consciousness. Yet standard neuroscience (primarily based on synaptic information processing) has not found the synaptic-firing codes, sometimes described as the “spike code,” to account for how these qualia arise and how they unite to form complex perceptions, emotions, et cetera. Nor is it clear how to get from these abstract codes to the qualia we experience. But electromagnetic field (versus synaptic) approaches to how qualia arise have been offered in recent years by Pockett, McFadden, Jones, Bond, Ward and Guevera, Keppler and Shani, Hunt and Schooler, et cetera. These EM-field approaches show promise in offering more viable accounts of qualia. Yet, until now, they have not been evaluated together. We review various EM field theories of qualia, highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and contrast these theories with standard neuroscience approaches.

Where is consciousness? Neurobiological theories of consciousness look primarily to synaptic firing and “spike codes” as the physical substrate of consciousness, although the specific mechanisms of consciousness remain unknown. Synaptic firing results from electrochemical processes in neuron axons and dendrites. All neurons also produce electromagnetic (EM) fields due to various mechanisms, including the electric potential created by transmembrane ion flows, known as “local field potentials,” but there are also more meso-scale and macro-scale EM fields present in the brain. The functional role of these EM fields has long been a source of debate. We suggest that these fields, in both their local and global forms, may be the primary seat of consciousness, working as a gestalt with synaptic firing and other aspects of neuroanatomy to produce the marvelous complexity of minds. We call this assertion the “electromagnetic field hypothesis.” The neuroanatomy of the brain produces the local and global EM fields but these fields are not identical with the anatomy of the brain. These fields are produced by, but not identical with, the brain, in the same manner that twigs and leaves are produced by a tree’s branches and trunk but are not the same as the branches and trunk. As such, the EM fields represent the more granular, both spatially and temporally, aspects of the brain’s structure and functioning than the neuroanatomy of the brain. The brain’s various EM fields seem to be more sensitive to small changes than the neuroanatomy of the brain. We discuss issues with the spike code approach as well as the various lines of evidence supporting our argument that the brain’s EM fields may be the primary seat of consciousness. This evidence (which occupies most of the paper) suggests that oscillating neural EM fields may make firing in neural circuits oscillate, and these oscillating circuits may help unify and guide conscious cognition.

Beginning in 1999, BP and its co-lessees embarked on an ambitious program to develop four major fields in deepwater regions of the Gulf of Mexico. Along with presenting a brief summary of each development's unique features, this paper describes the primary challenges facing BP's management in planning and executing this string of major projects and the associated pipeline transportation system project. Contracting approaches and associated issues such as standardization are discussed, along with constraints imposed by service industry limitations and available human resources. BP's approach to technology selection and technology development, in light of limited industry experience and specific Gulf of Mexico environment challenges, are also addressed.

We pose a foundational problem for those who claim that subjects are ontologically irreducible, but causally reducible (weak emergence). This problem is neuroscience’s notorious binding problem, which concerns how distributed neural areas produce unified mental objects (such as perceptions) and the unified subject that experiences them. Synchrony, synapses, and other mechanisms cannot explain this. We argue that this problem seriously threatens popular claims that mental causality is reducible to neural causality. Weak emergence additionally raises evolutionary worries about how we have survived the perils of nature. Our emergent subject hypothesis (ESH) avoids these shortcomings. Here, a singular, unified subject acts back on the neurons it emerges from and binds sensory features into unified mental objects. Serving as the mind’s controlling center, this subject is ontologically and causally irreducible (strong emergence). Our ESH draws on recent experimental evidence, including the evidence for a possible correlate (or “seat”) of the subject, which enhances its testability.

Interest in imagination dates back to Plato and Aristotle, but only since Sartre have full-length works been devoted to the topic. Despite their length and variety, however, these current theories take overly narrow views of this dauntingly complex, multifaceted phenomenon. Their definitions of imagination neglect the complexity of its meanings and tend to focus narrowly upon the power of imaging alone. Also, their explanations and evaluations of its functions neglect the other, more dynamic powers shaping and transforming it. They are thus beset with real problems in three main areas of the theory of imagination: (1) imagination's definition, (2) its psychological functions, and (3) its strengths and weaknesses. We will see how a broader, more adequate theory can remedy these problems. INADEQUACIES IN CURRENT DEFINITIONS OF IMAGINATIONThe narrow perspectives of current theories are evident from the start in their definition of imagination. They are narrowly preoccupied with imagistic notions like imagery (mental and figurative images), imaging (image making) and imagistic thought (thinking dominated by images). This prevents them from doing full justice to imagination's most common senses. They a r e theories of imagery, not of imagination in the full sense. Imagination's senses can be unified into a whole only by focusing more broadly on creativity, which is a dynamic synergy whose roots include imagery. Mostyn W. Jones received his Ph.D. from the University of Manchester (England) in 1995, and now lectures in philosophy at Washington & Jefferson College in Pennsylvania. His research interests are mainly in philosophy of psychology, with special reference to cognition, imagination, and creativity. 313 Mostyn W. Jones