In making analogical arguments about actions, is more similarity between the source and target cases always better? No: _all things considered_, more similarity is not always better, even if the similarities are all relevant. The reason is that the context of the argument, including emotional considerations, modulates the selection of the source case to service the goals of the argument. If the goals of the argument include persuasion and even modifying someone’s emotional state, increasing the overall similarity between the source (...) and target may be counterproductive. (shrink)

Bruce Waller has defended a deductive reconstruction of the kinds of analogical arguments found in ethics, law, and metaphysics. This paper demonstrates the limits of such a reconstruction and argues for an alternative. non-deductive reconstruction. It will be shown that some analogical arguments do not fit Waller's deductive schema, and that such a schema does not allow for an adequate account of the strengths and weaknesses of an analogical argument. The similarities and differences between the account defended herein and the (...) Trudy Govier's account are discussed as well. (shrink)

Bruce Waller has defended a deductive reconstruction of the kinds of analogical arguments found in ethics, law, and metaphysics. This paper demonstrates the limits of such a reconstruction and argues for an alternative. non-deductive reconstruction. It will be shown that some analogical arguments do not fit Waller's deductive schema, and that such a schema does not allow for an adequate account of the strengths and weaknesses of an analogical argument. The similarities and differences between the account defended herein and the (...) Trudy Govier's account are discussed as well. (shrink)

‘Particularism’ and ‘generalism’ refer to families of positions in the philosophy of moral reasoning, with the former playing down the importance of principles, rules or standards, and the latter stressing their importance. Part of the debate has taken an empirical turn, and this turn has implications for AI research and the philosophy of cognitive modeling. In this paper, Jonathan Dancy’s approach to particularism (arguably one of the best known and most radical approaches) is questioned both on logical and empirical grounds. (...) Doubts are raised over whether Dancy’s brand of particularism can adequately explain the graded nature of similarity assessments in analogical arguments. Also, simple recurrent neural network models of moral case classification are presented and discussed. This is done to raise concerns about Dancy’s suggestion that neural networks can help us to understand how we could classify situations in a way that is compatible with his particularism. Throughout, the idea of a surveyable standard—one with restricted length and complexity—plays a key role. Analogical arguments are taken to involve multidimensional similarity assessments, and surveyable contributory standards are taken to be attempts to articulate the dimensions of similarity that may exist between cases. This work will be of relevance both to those who have interests in computationally modeling human moral cognition and to those who are interested in how such models may or may not improve our philosophical understanding of such cognition. (shrink)

Work on analogy has been done from a number of disciplinary perspectives throughout the history of Western thought. This work is a multidisciplinary guide to theorizing about analogy. It contains 1,406 references, primarily to journal articles and monographs, and primarily to English language material. classical through to contemporary sources are included. The work is classified into eight different sections (with a number of subsections). A brief introduction to each section is provided. Keywords and key expressions of importance to research on (...) analogy are discussed in the introductory material. Electronic resources for conducting research on analogy are listed as well. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of training an artificial neural network (ANN) to classify moral situations. The ANN produces a similarity space in the process of solving its classification problem. The state space is subjected to analysis that suggests that holistic approaches to interpreting its functioning are problematic. The idea of a contributory or pro tanto standard, as discussed in debates between moral particularists and generalists, is used to understand the structure of the similarity space generated by the ANN. A (...) spectrum of possibilities for reasons, from atomistic to holistic, is discussed. Reasons are understood as increasing in nonlocality as they move away from atomism. It is argued that contributory standards could be used to understand forms of nonlocality that need not go all the way to holism. It is also argued that contributory standards may help us to understand the kind of similarity at work in analogical reasoning and argument in ethics. Some objections to using state space approaches to similarity are dealt with, as are objections to using empirical and computational work in philosophy. (shrink)

A simple recurrent artificial neural network is used to classify situations as permissible or impermissible. The trained ANN can be understood as having set up a similarity space of cases at the level of its internal or hidden units. An analysis of the network’s internal representations is undertaken using a new visualization technique for state space approaches to understanding similarity. Insights from the literature on moral philosophy pertaining to contributory standards will be used to interpret the state space set up (...) by the ANN as being structured by implicit reasons. The ANN, on its own, is not capable of explicitly representing or offering reasons to itself or others. That said, the low level similarity space set up by the network could be made available to higher order processes that exploit it for case-based reasoning. It is argued that for normative purposes, similarity could be seen as a contributor to procedural coherence in case-based reasoning and local forms of substantive coherence, but not to global forms of coherence given the computational complexity of managing those more ambitious forms of coherence. (shrink)

David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics yields a quantum potential, Q. In his early work, the effects of Q are understood in causal terms as acting through a real (quantum) field which pushes particles around. In his later work (with Basil Hiley), the causal understanding of Q appears to have been abandoned. The purpose of this paper is to understand how the use of certain metaphors leads Bohm away from a causal treatment of Q, and to evaluate the use of (...) those metaphors. (shrink)

This paper identifies a type of multi-source (case-based) reasoning and differentiates it from other types of analogical reasoning. Work in cognitive science on mental space mapping or conceptual blending is used to better understand this type of reasoning. The type of argument featured herein will be shown to be a kind of source-blended argument. While it possesses some similarities to traditionally conceived analogical arguments, there are important differences as well. The triple contract (a key development in the usury debates of (...) the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries) will be shown to make use of source-blended arguments. (shrink)

In "Representations without Rules, Connectionism and the Syntactic Argument'', Kenneth Aizawa argues against the view that connectionist nets can be understood as processing representations without the use of representation-level rules, and he provides a positive characterization of how to interpret connectionist nets as following representation-level rules. He takes Terry Horgan and John Tienson to be the targets of his critique. The present paper marshals functional and methodological considerations, gleaned from the practice of cognitive modelling, to argue against Aizawa's characterization of (...) how connectionist nets may be understood as making use of representation-level rules. (shrink)

David Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics yields a quantum potential, Q. In his early work, the effects of Q are understood in causal terms as acting through a real (quantum) field which pushes particles around. In his later work (with Basil Hiley), the causal understanding of Q appears to have been abandoned. The purpose of this paper is to understand how the use of certain metaphors leads Bohm away from a causal treatment of Q, and to evaluate the use of (...) those metaphors. (shrink)

Terence Horgan and John Tienson claim that folk psychological laws are different in kind from basic physical laws in at least two ways: first, physical laws do not possess the kind of ceteris paribus qualifications possessed by folk psychological laws, which means the two types of laws have different logical forms; and second, applied physical laws are best thought of as being about an idealized world and folk psychological laws about the actual world. I argue that Horgan and Tienson have (...) not made a persuasive case for either of the preceding views. (shrink)

In making analogical arguments about actions, is more similarity between the source and target cases always better? No: all things considered, more similarity is not always better, even if the similarities are all relevant. The reason is that the context of the argument, including emotional considerations, modulates the selection of the source case to service the goals of the argument. If the goals of the argument include persuasion and even modifying someone’s emotional state, increasing the overall similarity between the source (...) and target may be counterproductive. (shrink)

Theories of moral, and more generally, practical reasoning sometimes draw on the notion of coherence. Admirably, Paul Thagard has attempted to give a computationally detailed account of the kind of coherence involved in practical reasoning, claiming that it will help overcome problems in foundationalist approaches to ethics. The arguments herein rebut the alleged role of coherence in practical reasoning endorsed by Thagard. While there are some general lessons to be learned from the preceding, no attempt is made to argue against (...) all forms of coherence in all contexts. Nor is the usefulness of computational modelling called into question. The point will be that coherence cannot be as useful in understanding moral reasoning as coherentists may think. This result has clear implications for the future of Machine Ethics, a newly emerging subfield of AI. (shrink)

This dissertation is a work in the philosophical foundations of cognitive modelling. To a significant extent, it is presented as a response to a critique of connectionist modelling originated by Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn. The essence of the critique is that either connectionist models implement classical models of cognition, or if connectionist models are not implementational, then they are incapable of modelling cognition. I argue that barring an implausible interpretation of "implementation," there exists a subset of connectionist models which (...) cannot be implementations of classical models, and while no connectionist researcher has met all the demands Fodor and Pylyshyn placed on adequate models of cognition, the properties possessed by some non-implementational connectionist models provide reason to think that these demands can be met in principle, and that connectionist models are capable of kinds of processing which classical models are not capable of, processing which makes connectionist models worth developing in spite of some of their present limitations. ;Many have responded to the Fodor and Pylyshyn critique. However, the responses have not payed sufficient attention to key notions such as implementation and rule. One of the principal contributions of this dissertation will be an analysis of the notion of implementation. The notion of a tacit rule also will be defined. Many have suggested that the difference between connectionist and classical models of cognition is that connectionist nets do not have explicit rules. I argue that the preceding is incorrect; I also argue that there is a certain kind of rule which connectionist nets cannot be understood as implementing--a tacit rule. ;Chapters one through four respond to the Fodor and Pylyshyn argument against connectionism. Chapter five takes up a critique of connectionist models made by Andy Clark. Chapter six responds to an argument by Terrence Horgan and John Tienson which aims to show that folk psychological laws make use of a type of ceteris paribus clause not possessed by physical laws. Horgan and Tienson are shown not to have made a persuasive case. (shrink)

This paper responds to criticisms levelled by Fodor, Pylyshyn, and McLaughlin against connectionism. Specifically, I will rebut the charge that connectionists cannot account for representational systematicity without implementing a classical architecture. This will be accomplished by drawing on Paul Smolensky's Tensor Product model of representation and on his insights about split-level architectures.

One form of analogical argument proceeds by comparing a disputed case with an agreed upon case to try to resolve the dispute. There is a variation on preceding form of argument not yet identified in the theoretical literature. This variation involves multiple sources, and it requires that the sources be combined or blended for the argument to work. Arguments supporting the Triple Contract are shown to possess this structure.

I argue that a basic similarity analysis of analogical reasoning handles many apparent cases of visual analogy. I consider how the visual and verbal elements interact in analogical cases. Finally, I offer two analyses of visual elements. One analysis is evidential. The visual elements are evidence for their ver-bal counterparts. One is non-evidential: the visual elements link to verbal elements without providing evi-dence for those elements. The result is to make more room for the logical analysis of visual argumentation.

When subjects view stimulation of a rubber hand while feeling congruent stimulation of their own hand, they may come to feel that the rubber hand is part of their own body. This illusion of body ownership is termed ‘Rubber Hand Illusion’ . We investigated sensitivity of RHI to spatial mismatches between visual and somatic experience. We compared the effects of spatial mismatch between the stimulation of the two hands, and equivalent mismatches between the postures of the two hands. We created (...) the mismatch either by adjusting stimulation or posture of the subject’s hand, or, in a separate group of subjects, by adjusting stimulation or posture of the rubber hand. The matching processes underlying body ownership were asymmetrical. The illusion survived small changes in the subject’s hand posture, but disappeared when the same posture transformations were applied to the rubber hand. Mismatch between the stimulation delivered to the subject’s hand and the rubber hand abolished the illusion. The combination of these two situations is of particular interest. When the subject’s hand posture was slightly different from the rubber hand posture, the RHI remained as long as stimulation of the two hands was congruent in a hand-centred spatial reference frame, even though the altered posture of the subject’s hand meant that stimulation was incongruent in external space. Conversely, the RHI was reduced when the stimulation was incongruent in hand-centred space but congruent in external space. We conclude that the visual–tactile correlation that causes the RHI is computed within a hand-centred frame of reference, which is updated with changes in body posture. Current sensory evidence about what is ‘me’ is interpreted with respect to a prior mental body representation. (shrink)

Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. Such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. This paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. After analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, (...) we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity. (shrink)

Modern biology has not yet come to terms with the presence of many organic codes in Nature, despite the fact that we can prove their existence. As a result, it has not yet accepted the idea that the great events of macroevolution were associated with the origin of new organic codes, despite the fact that this is the most parsimonious and logical explanation of those events. This is probably due to the fact that the existence of organic codes in all (...) fundamental processes of life, and in all major transitions in the history of life, has enormous theoretical implications. It requires nothing less than a new theoretical framework, and that kind of change is inevitably slow. There are too many facts to reconsider, too many bits of history to weave together in a new mosaic. But this is what science is about, and the purpose of the present paper is to show that it can be done. More precisely, it is shown that the whole natural history of the brain can be revisited in the light of the organic codes. What is described here is only a bird’s-eye view of brain macroevolution, but it is hoped that the extraordinary potential of the organic codes can nevertheless come through. The paper contains also another message. The organic codes prove that life is based on semiosis, and are in fact the components of organic semiosis, the first and the most diffused form of semiosis on Earth, but not the only one. It will be shown that the evolution of the brain was accompanied by the development of two new types of sign processes. More precisely, it gave origin first to interpretive semiosis, mostly in vertebrates, and then to cultural semiosis, in our species. (shrink)

The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

Brain–computer interfacing technologies are used as assistive technologies for patients as well as healthy subjects to control devices solely by brain activity. Yet the risks associated with the misuse of these technologies remain largely unexplored. Recent findings have shown that BCIs are potentially vulnerable to cybercriminality. This opens the prospect of “neurocrime”: extending the range of computer-crime to neural devices. This paper explores a type of neurocrime that we call brain-hacking as it aims at the illicit access to and manipulation (...) of neural information and computation. As neural computation underlies cognition, behavior and our self-determination as persons, a careful analysis of the emerging risks of malicious brain-hacking is paramount, and ethical safeguards against these risks should be considered early in design and regulation. This contribution is aimed at raising awareness of the emerging risk of malicious brain-hacking and takes a first step in developing an ethical and legal reflection on those risks. (shrink)

The use of Intelligent Assistive Technology in dementia care opens the prospects of reducing the global burden of dementia and enabling novel opportunities to improve the lives of dementia patients. However, with current adoption rates being reportedly low, the potential of IATs might remain under-expressed as long as the reasons for suboptimal adoption remain unaddressed. Among these, ethical and social considerations are critical. This article reviews the spectrum of IATs for dementia and investigates the prevalence of ethical considerations in the (...) design of current IATs. Our screening shows that a significant portion of current IATs is designed in the absence of explicit ethical considerations. These results suggest that the lack of ethical consideration might be a codeterminant of current structural limitations in the translation of IATs from designing labs to bedside. Based on these data, we call for a coordinated effort to proactively incorporate ethical considerations early in the design and development of new products. (shrink)

The genetic code appeared on Earth at the origin of life, and the codes of culture arrived almost four billion years later. For a long time it has been assumed that these are the only codes that exist in Nature, and if that were true we would have to conclude that codes are extraordinary exceptions that appeared only at the beginning and at the end of the history of life. In reality, various other organic codes have been discovered in the (...) past few decades and it is likely that more will come to light in the future. The existence of many organic codes in Nature is therefore an experimental fact, but also more than that. It is one of those facts that have extraordinary implications. In this book it is shown that the genetic code was a precondition for the origin of the first cells, the signal transduction codes divided the first cells into three primary kingdoms (Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya), the splicing codes were instrumental to the origin of the eukaryotic nucleus, the histone code provided a new regulation system in eukaryotic genomes, and the cytoskeleton codes allowed the Eukarya to perform internal movements, including those of mitosis and meiosis. It is shown, furthermore, that organic codes had a key role in multicellular life, in particular in the origin of animals, the origin of mind and the origin of language. The great events of macroevolution, in other words, were associated with the appearance of new organic codes, and we can easily understand why. The reason is that a new code brings into existence something that has never existed before because it creates arbitrary associations, relationships that are not determined by physical necessity. Another outstanding implication is the fact that codes involve meaning and we need therefore to introduce in biology, with the standard methods of science, not only the concept of biological information but also that of biological meaning. The research on biological codes, in conclusion, is bringing to light new mechanisms in evolution and new fundamental concepts in science. This research is the field of Code Biology, the study of all codes of life, from the genetic code to the codes of culture, from the origin of life to the origin of man. (shrink)

[1] Contributi -- [2] Rassegne bibliografiche.

This book explores how we can measure consciousness. It clarifies what consciousness is, how it can be generated from a physical system, and how it can be measured. It also shows how conscious states can be expressed mathematically and how precise predictions can be made using data from neurophysiological studies.

The genetic code appeared on Earth with the first cells. The codes of cultural evolution arrived almost four billion years later. These are the only codes that are recognized by modern biology. In this book, however, Marcello Barbieri explains that there are many more organic codes in nature, and their appearance not only took place throughout the history of life but marked the major steps of that history. A code establishes a correspondence between two independent 'worlds', and the codemaker (...) is a third party between those 'worlds'. Therefore the cell can be thought of as a trinity of genotype, phenotype and ribotype. The ancestral ribotypes were the agents which gave rise to the first cells. The book goes on to explain how organic codes and organic memories can be used to shed new light on the problems encountered in cell signalling, epigenesis, embryonic development, and the evolution of language. (shrink)