Now 3/4 presentations have disappeared from the program. See post Accepted posters for the WPC 2026, Stockholm, September.
Categories
The employer, SLSO, Region Stockholm, Sweden, doesn’t support this research. The research is affiliated to Johan Gamper’s philosophical hobby project “Adalja”. This may lead to withdrawal of the posters but please reach out if you are interested in the content.
https://cslide.ctimeetingtech.com/wcp26/attendee/person/101
103 MUST THE EXPERIENCING SUBJECT BE NON-BIOLOGICAL FOR COMPASSION TO BE AN INTEGRATED PART OF THE PSYCHIATRIC SETTING?
Johan Gamper
Region Stockholm, Brandbergens vårdcentral, Brandbergen, Sweden
AS56 – PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANITIES IN PSYCHIATRY – WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHIATRY?
Abstract Submission
Objectives
In this submission I answer yes to the question posed in the title, building on Gamper, 2021). The possibility comes to a price though, an intricate redefinition of the notion of biological energy. An even higher price is the abandonment of the Aristotelian first philosophy.
Reference
Gamper, J. Biological Energy and the Experiencing Subject. Axiomathes 31, 497–506 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10516-020-09494-8
Methods
Deducation.
Results
It is shown that a biological object can have an experiencing subject. Since psychiatric condidtions per definition manifest themselves as part of subjective experiences clinicians must use their own subective exeperinces to use their compassion in the clinical setting.
Conclusions
The result is a turning point for psychiatry and psychiatrists now can use their experiences in their practise.
#111 FORMAL AND AXIOMATIC PSYCHIATRY
Johan Gamper
Region Stockholm, Brandbergens vårdcentral, Brandbergen, Sweden
AS56 – PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANITIES IN PSYCHIATRY – WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHIATRY?
Abstract Submission
Objectives
I just want to lay on the table two related but unexplored fields For future research. The first comes from an attempt to axiomatize the natural laws (Gamper 2023a) and the other from an attempt to find formal relations between very different fields (Gamper (2023b).
References
Johan Gamper. (2023a). On the Axiomatisation of the Natural Laws — A Compilation of Human Mistakes Intended to Be Understood Only By Robots. Qeios. doi:10.32388/KC9YAU.
Johan Gamper. (2023b). Formal Theology. Qeios. doi:10.32388/EMANI
Methods
Formal and axiomatic deduction.
Results
The axiomatical attempt is very sketchy but it if successfull the result would pull psychiatry closer to formal scences.
The formal approach is very promising. Among other things it identifies a formal link between self-consciousness and black hole singularities.
Conclusions
This could be a start for psychiatry to be really integrated with the other sciences.
#131 MACRO PSYCHOLOGY AND THE FOUNDATION OF PSYCHOTHERAPY
Johan Gamper
Region Stockholm, Brandbergens vårdcentral, Brandbergen, Sweden
AS56 – PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANITIES IN PSYCHIATRY – WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHIATRY?
Abstract Submission
Objectives
This work builds upon the paper Biological Energy and the Experiencing Subject (Gamper, J, Axiomathes, 2020). The focus is to show how the idea of an experiencing subject can be conceived of within modern psychotherapy. We follow the track from conditioning for animals (without concern for an experiencing subject), via behavioral therapy for humans with an experiencing subject and cognitive behavioral therapy for humans with an experiencing subject where we give the subject a rational for the behavioral modification, to psychodynamically oriented therapy where we confront the very subject without going via her behavior. The three methods are explained within the context of macro psychology. Conditioning concerns therapeutic methods that does not address subjective experiences of the patient and neither address subjective experiences methodologically. For instance, you do not give the patient instructions since you do not rely on the patients ability to understand them. Behavioral therapy concerns methods that that are mediated by instructions. The patient is told to follow a procedure. Cognitive behavioral therapy adds explanations to the behavioral therapy. Psychodynamically oriented therapy concerns thesubject’stendency to repress difficult inner material to feel better. This material is focused in the therapy and the patient is informed about how the therapist understands the dynamic. The framework, thus, that is presented, encompasses the major psychotherapeutic methods of today.
Methods
Deduction from clinical trial and error.
Results
An integrated view of modern psychotherapies.
Conclusions
Macro psychology can help bridge the gap between theoretical and clinical psychology.
#169 BIOLOGICAL PARTS AND BIOLOGICAL WHOLES — LESSONS FOR PSYCHIATRY
Johan Gamper
Region Stockholm, Brandbergens vårdcentral, Brandbergen, Sweden
AS56 – PHILOSOPHY AND HUMANITIES IN PSYCHIATRY – WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PHILOSOPHY IN PSYCHIATRY?
Abstract Submission
Objectives
Philosophically, it has been hard to determine how parts and wholes are related. Gamper (2024) suggests causal principles to solve the puzzle. For hundreds of years biology has discussed what the essential part of biological organisms is. Gamper (ibid.) makes a suggestion and uses it to compose living things, organisms. As biological objects this affects psychiatry too. Wee need to take into consideration the causal principles at hand and act accordingly. Psychiatrists don’t simulate flying. They fly.
Reference
Johan Gamper. (2024). Causal Principles in Material Constitution: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Composition of Objects. Qeios. doi:10.32388/H2B7NA.2. https://www.qeios.com/read/H2B7NA.2
Methods
We use a new mereological thesis to put psychiatry in perspective vis-a-vis other causal settings.
Results
Psychiatry, as having to do wih biological objects, is shown to be equally dealing with physical objects as other sciences.
Conclusions
This is a purely philosophical (mereological) study and may be used to inspire research into causal connections within psychiatry.
Categories
The Kind ‘Object’ | SpringerLink
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11406-018-9988-3
Full text on ResearchGate.
The vagueness objection seems to block any moderate answer to the Special Composition Question leaving us with the two extreme alternatives.
Categories
Scientific Ontology | SpringerLink
Categories
Causal-logical Ontology
Abstract
In this paper we begin categorizing a plurality of possible worlds on the basis of permitting or not permitting ontologically different things to be causally connected. We build the work on the dual principle that all universes are causally closed either because no universe causes anything outside itself or because no universe has anything in it that is caused by another universe.
1. Introduction
Philosophical ontology can be investigated via logic with help of the concept of causality. In this paper we do that from a standpoint of two broad views of causal closure. The first one is the view that causal closure (of a universe) forbids anything in a causally closed universe to cause anything outside the very universe. The second one forbids anything in a causally closed universe to be caused by anything originating in another universe. With help of these two notions we can begin categorizing a universe of ontologies.
2. One or more causally linked universes
Let us start with a simple assumption.
Assumption 1 (A1): Things that are causally linked have one and the same ontological status.
If we set aside all ontologies that permit causally parallel universes (universes that are not causally linked) A1 constitutes the basis for an ontology, traditional monism. If we in this context say that something is, for example, physical, then everything is physical. By this standard we have a first element in our ‘universe of ontologies’.
Postulate 1 (P1): All universes are causally linked.
Assumption 2 (A2): Things that are causally linked may not have one and the same ontological status.
To make A2 intelligible we should relate it to the notion of the causal closure of a universe. In Gamper (2017) we see an example of the second view of causal closure. Gamper utilizes the idea that a universe is causally closed if nothing from another universe causes anything in it. The difference between the two views is that the second permits interfaces between causally closed universes. Two things according to this view can be causally linked even though they have different ontological statuses. They cannot be causally linked directly but rather indirectly. Things of different ontological statuses can be indirectly causally linked if the universes they belong to are joined by interfaces.
A2, therefore, may generate ontologies that are based on the second view of causal closure, or, more precisely, may generate ontologies that are based on the assumption that there are interfaces between universes. Accordingly, A2 constitutes the basis for ontologies that permit classical dualism and pluralism.
3. Vertical and horizontal interfaces
Following A2 and the assumption that there are interfaces between universes we can focus the alternative that there are more than one universe and that they are joined by interfaces. In our categorization of ontologies we now are in position to define a group of ontologies that corresponds to there being two, three, and so on and forth universes, all joined by interfaces. We call such interfaces vertical interfaces. Vertical interfaces, according to this terminology, are interfaces caused by one universe and causing another universe.
We may now be more explicit in relation to what an interface would be. Relying on the concept of a universe encompassing all things of a specific ontological status, an interface is defined as something encompassing things of more than one ontological status. A concrete example would be the singularity inside a black hole would it be both mathematical (as in having no physical extension) and physical (as in having physical mass).
As black holes often are seen as products of physical processes, they should not pass as interfaces in the sense discussed. That is because they are not vertical interfaces. Instead they could be seen as horizontal interfaces. We simply define horizontal interfaces as interfaces between universes w+1 and w where interfaces between universes w and a+1 are caused by vertical interfaces. In our example the corresponding vertical interface would be the initial singularity related to the Big Bang.
In our categorization, thus, a new group of ontologies would correspond to an assumption that permitted horizontal interfaces.
Assumption 3 (A3): some interfaces cause universes (vertical interfaces) and some interfaces do not cause universes (horizontal interfaces).
4. A first cause
Since A2 permits interfaces per se, we actually are allowed to suggest that there may be a first cause to any series of universes. Only A1 rules out that possibility. We on this ground can add to our catalog of ontologies any ontology based on A2 with the addition of it having a first cause. The reason is that both our basic assumptions forbids a universe to cause another universe. The second assumption, however, permits an interface to cause a first universe.
5. Extended interfaces
A final add-on in this exposé is the possibility of what will be called extended interfaces. Extended interfaces are interfaces composed of things that have ontological statuses of more than one interface. There are two possible ways to conceptualize extended interfaces. The first is to permit a horizontal interface to be accompanied with yet other ontological statuses. To not complicate things more than necessary, we will assume extended interfaces to be composed of ontological statuses of two or more interfaces, not, for example, of the ontological statuses of one interface with the addition of only one additional ontological status.
Postulate 2 (P2): Extended interfaces have all the ontological statuses of at least two interfaces.
Assumption 4 (A4): Some interfaces may be composed of things of combinations of the ontological statuses of two or more interfaces.
A concrete example of an extended interface would be the eventually that the contents of a singularity inside a black hole would be physical, mathematical, and have the ontological statuses of the first cause (which by definition would have more than one ontological status).
The other possibility is to permit vertical interfaces to be accompanied with other ontological statuses. In our standard example that would entail that the singularity inside the Big Bang would have the ontological statuses of at least one more interface.
Before we sum things up we will forbid any universe to cause more than one interface.
Postulate 3 (P3): A universe can cause no more than one interface.
With P3 we ascertain that the number of universes corresponds to the number of interfaces.
6. Results
Our ontologies will be composed of universes and interfaces. The universes will have different ontological statuses while the interfaces will have different ontological statuses as well as be of different kinds; vertical, horizontal, and extended interfaces.
6.1 Ontologies based on A1
A1 entails either one and only one universe or no universe at all. These alternatives are the common pair of monism and nihilism.
6.2 Ontologies based on A2
6.2.1 A first cause
Since A2 allows a first cause any A2 based ontology comes in two flavors, with and without a first cause (except for Nihilism).
6.2.2 Consecutive interfaces
Given a first universe we gather consecutive universes with adjoining interfaces as one main group of ontologies. If we for instance have four universes our ontology on this stage gives us four universes and three interfaces adjoining them. These universes also may or may not have an initial first cause, constituting a fourth interface. So, four universes entail seven or eight different ontological realms.
6.2.3 Horizontal interfaces
Given the group of ontologies building on consecutive interfaces we have the opportunity to consider the class of horizontal interfaces in each individual case of a specific interface. Each vertical interface possibly has a horizontal twin. In the four universes case we have seven or eight ontological realms not considering horizontal interfaces. If we take in such interfaces we have three additional ontological realms to consider, one for each interface between two universes. Four universes, thus, may generate up to eleven ontological realms.
6.2.4 Extended interfaces
The extended interfaces are combinations of interfaces. If we look at the four universes case we have three vertical interfaces and three possible horizontal interfaces and also a first interface in the first cause case. If we look at the first vertical interface it may have its horizontal twin. In both cases the first cause interface could be combined with either interface. Without the first cause interface the first interface between universes does not correspond to an extended interface, nor its horizontal twin. The second interface between universes could be combined with the first interface between universes as well as with its horizontal twin. This applies also to the twin interface of the second interface between universes.
We see here the exponential character of the number of potential ontological realms as the number of consecutive interfaces raises.
7. Conclusion
Developing ontologies on the ground of permitting or not permitting ontologically different things to have causal links is a viable path towards establishing a robust manifold of ‘possible worlds’.
Reference
Gamper, J. (2017). On a Loophole in Causal Closure. Philosophia 45, 631–636.
Categories
The old question of the relation between body and mind recently has been reopened (Gamper 2017) by an attempt to show that the body possibly could affect a non-physical mind indirectly via an interface between the two ontological domains. This possibility was discovered as a result of a redefinition of the classical Principle of the causal closure of the physical universe. In the redefinition a universe is causally closed if it is not causally affected by anything from another universe. This definition of causal closure thus permits something in a universe to cause something that is not in a universe. Since something that is not in a universe is allowed to cause something in another universe that is causally closed, two causally closed universes can be causally linked via an interface between them.
Reference
Gamper, J. On a Loophole in Causal Closure. Philosophia 45, 631–636 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-016-9791-y.
Categories
Biological Energy
“A general definition of energy is that energy is tied to an object’s ability to do some work. So, biological energy would be the ability of a biological object to do some work. At closer inspection this can be further analyzed into two parts: the objects potential ability to do some work and the actual work being done by the object.
In physics we talk about an object’s potential energy and its kinetic energy. An object gains potential energy if it is positioned higher above the ground and it can use the energy to gain speed (kinetic energy). A steel ball that is moved in this way is intact and “has” and “loses” energy while remaining the same object. The opposite is true if we look at nuclear energy. When we extract nuclear energy the object losing energy does not remain the same. Obviously, therefore, there are two kinds of energy in regard to a system or an object. The one kind permits the object to gain and lose energy while being intact whereas the other kind of energy destroys the object carrying the energy if it is used.
Concerning biological objects this distinction is crucial but previously unnoticed in the literature. Traditional “biological “energy is mixed up with chemical energy. What we look for is a concept of biological energy that permits the object to do some work while remaining intact. It should therefore correspond to the concepts of potential and kinetic energy in physics. Since there is no concept of biological energy as such in the literature the first step towards such a concept is a leap into the unknown. From an abstract perspective, however, we can construe all biological activities as efforts of biological organisms to recover from load upon them. From here the next step is easy. We let biological energy be defined as the biological object’s ability to recover from load upon it.
The suggested definition of biological energy is that biological energy is the biological object’s ability to recover from load upon it. For practical reasons we will not say much about load as such. The basic assumption is that biological organisms constantly need to recover and they need to recover from the load that is put on them. One thing, however, must be sorted out immediately. We have discussed that ability to recover, or, energy, is related to load. We have also stated that the organism has an amount of energy, at any given moment, that it either uses or has to its disposal, or any mix of the two. The thing that has to be sorted out is the relation between load and energy.
As noted above the basic assumption is that biological organisms constantly need to recover and they need to recover from the load that is put on them. We can therefore postulate that load and need of recovery has a positive relation; the more load, the more need of recovery. We can now use the concept of need of recovery to link load to energy or ability to recover.
As need of recovery can be thought of as increasing with load up until a point where the organism simply collapses (dies), the organism’s level of kinetic energy will not increase in the same manner. An implicit basic assumption behind the energy-concept is that biological organisms allocate resources for recovery continuously. The organism allocates more resources for recovery purposes, if it can, the more it needs to, that is, the more load there is. At low levels of load, therefore, the kinetic energy is low whereas the potential energy is high. At intermediate levels of load the kinetic energy also is intermediate. At the same time the level of potential energy is intermediate.
The hypothesis is that need of recovery has a positive relation with load. At low and moderate levels of load the level of kinetic energy matches what is needed for recovery. When load exceeds what is possible to recover from right away the level of kinetic energy decreases.” (Revised excerpt from Gamper, 2021.)
Reference
Gamper, J (2021). Biological Energy and the Experiencing Subject. Axiomathes 31, 497–506.
Essay Abstract
I propose “scientific ontology” as a research program to determine what is “fundamental”. Since the publication of my article “On a Loophole in Causal Closure”, the perceived monism of the world is no longer certain. In the article, interfaces between universes are shown to be consistent with causal closure via an adjustment in the definition of causal closure. The old definition makes the veracity of a claim regarding what the universe “is” as likely as that of any other claim. For instance, the convincing claim of Tegmark in 2008 that the universe is mathematical is as likely as the claim that the universe is physical. However, according to the new definition, dualism is consistent with causal closure. Therefore, we may have both mathematical and physical universes, which are joined by an interface. Scientific ontology aims to theoretically account for that eventuality. In doing so, scientific ontology finds itself constituting an intermediate level of inquiry between the philosophy of physics and physics itself.
Link to PDF.
The manuscript Scientific ontology was published in 2019.
Adalja 