•  22
    COVID-19 and the selection problem in national cause-of-death statistics
    History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences 43 (2): 1-5. 2021.
    The World Health Organization has issued international instructions for certification and classification (coding) of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) as cause of death. Central to these instructions is the selection of the underlying cause of death for a public health preventive purpose. This article focuses on two rules for this selection: (1) that a death due to COVID-19 should be counted independently of pre-existing conditions that are suspected of triggering a severe course of COVID-19 an…Read more
  •  56
    Motor control and the causal relevance of conscious will: Libet’s mind–brain theory
    with Peter Århem
    Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology 39 (1): 46-59. 2019.
    This article examines three aspects of the problem of understanding Benjamin Libet’s idea of conscious will causally interacting with certain neural activities involved in generating overt bodily movements. The first is to grasp the notion of cause involved, and we suggest a definition. The second is to form an idea of by what neural structure(s) and mechanism(s) a conscious will may control the motor activation. We discuss the possibility that the acts of control have to do with levels of suppl…Read more
  • This entry provides a brief overview of the modern development of medical ethics in the Nordic countries: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The focus is primarily on the period after the beginning of the 1960s. The entry begins by giving an account of the establishment of ethics review committees and other medical ethics bodies and organizations. The changes in the educational and research situation are described, along with the establishment of special institutions for medical ethi…Read more
  •  60
    Goodbye and Challenges
    with David C. Thomasma
    Theoretical Medicine 9 (3): 245. 1988.
  •  10
  •  3
    Estimating Popper's Impact
    with A. Welljams-Dorof
    Nature 360 (Nov 19): 204. 1992.
  •  8
    Sweden: Growing Interest in Ethics
    Hastings Center Report 19 (4): 30-31. 1989.
  •  20
    Editorial
    with David C. Thomasma
    Theoretical Medicine 10 (1). 1989.
  •  25
    Editorial
    Theoretical Medicine 11 (1): 1-3. 1990.
  •  16
    Medical Ethics in Sweden
    Theoretical Medicine 9 (3): 309-335. 1988.
    In this article a brief overview is given of the field of medical ethics in Sweden in recent years. The presentation concentrates on the occurrence of official ethical norms for physicians, current ethical committees, the educational situation, legislation in force, and some essential features of the ethical debate on a few central issues.
  •  61
    Credit for discoveries: Citation data as a basis for history of science analysis
    with Aant Elzinga and Alfred Welljams-Dorof
    Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 19 (6): 609-620. 1998.
    Citation data have become an increasingly significant source of information for historians, sociologists, and other researchers studying the evolution of science. In the past few decades elaborate methodologies have been developed for the use of citation data in the study of the modern history of science. This article focuses on how citation indexes make it possible to trace the background and development of discoveries as well as to assess the credit that publishing scientists assign to particu…Read more
  •  143
    A discussion of the mind-brain problem
    with K. R. Popper and P. Århem
    Theoretical Medicine 14 (2): 167-180. 1993.
    In this paper Popper formulates and discusses a new aspect of the theory of mind. This theory is partly based on his earlier developed interactionistic theory. It takes as its point of departure the observation that mind and physical forces have several properties in common, at least the following six: both are located, unextended, incorporeal, capable of acting on bodies, dependent upon body, capable of being influenced by bodies. Other properties such as intensity and extension in time may be …Read more
  •  79
    Evolution of the Neural Basis of Consciousness: A Bird-Mammal Comparison.
    with Ann B. Butler, Paul R. Manger, and Peter Århem
    Bioessays 27 (9): 923-936. 2005.
    The main objective of this essay is to validate some of the principal, currently competing, mammalian consciousness-brain theories by comparing these theories with data on both cognitive abilities and brain organization in birds. Our argument is that, given that multiple complex cognitive functions are correlated with presumed consciousness in mammals, this correlation holds for birds as well. Thus, the neuroanatomical features of the forebrain common to both birds and mammals may be those that …Read more
  •  55
    Mind as a force field: Comments on a new interactionistic hypothesis
    with P. Århem
    Journal of Theoretical Biology 171 111-22. 1994.
    The survival and development of consciousness in biological evolution call for an explanation. An interactionistic mind-brain theory seems to have the greatest explanatory value in this context. An interpretation of an interactionistic hypothesis, recently proposed by Karl Popper, is discussed both theoretically and based on recent experimental data. In the interpretation, the distinction between the conscious mind and the brain is seen as a division into what is subjective and what is objective…Read more
  •  70
    Consciousness and biological evolution
    Journal of Theoretical Biology 187 (4): 613-29. 1997.
    It has been suggested that if the preservation and development of consciousness in the biological evolution is a result of natural selection, it is plausible that consciousness not only has been influenced by neural processes, but has had a survival value itself; and it could only have had this, if it had also been efficacious. This argument for mind-brain interaction is examined, both as the argument has been developed by William James and Karl Popper and as it has been discussed by C.D. Broad.…Read more
  •  37
    Evolution of Consciousness: Report on the Agora Workshop in Sigtuna, Sweden, on 11-13 August 2001.
    with Peter Århem and Hans Liljenström
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 9 (4): 81-84. 2002.
    Report on the Agora Workshop, in Sigtuna, Sweden, on 11-3 August 2001, Agora for Biosystems, P.O. Box 57, SE-193 22 Sigtuna, Sweden
  •  24
    Consciousness and Neural Force Fields
    with Peter Århem
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (7-8): 228-253. 2016.
    This article compares Wolfgang Köhler's pioneering field theory of the consciousness–brain relation with Benjamin Libet's conscious mental field theory and Karl Popper's mental force field hypothesis. In the discussion of Köhler's theory we devote special attention to his analysis of problems of sense perception and to his explanation of figural after-effects. Both Libet and Popper take consciousness to causally interact with the brain, and we argue that even Köhler presupposes an interactionist…Read more