One in three university students experiences mental health problems during their study. A similar percentage leaves higher education without obtaining the degree for which they enrolled. Research suggests that both mental health problems and academic underperformance could be caused by students lacking control and purpose while they are adjusting to tertiary education. Currently, universities are not designed to cater to all the personal needs and mental health problems of large numbers of students at the start of their studies. Within the (...) literature aimed at preventing mental health problems among students (e.g., anxiety or depression), digital forms of therapy recently have been suggested as potentially scalable solutions to address these problems. Integrative psychological artificial intelligence (AI) in the form of a chatbot, for example, shows great potential as an evidence-based solution. At the same time, within the literature aimed at improving academic success, the online life-crafting intervention in which students write about values and passions, goals, and goal-attainment plans has shown to improve the academic performance and retention rates of students. Because the life-crafting intervention is delivered through the curriculum and doesn’t bear the stigma that is associated with therapy, it can reach larger populations of students. But life-crafting lacks the means for follow-up or the interactiveness that online AI-guided therapy can offer. In this paper, we propose to integrate the current literature on chatbot interventions aimed at the mental health of students with research about a life-crafting intervention that uses an inclusive curriculum-wide approach. When a chatbot asks students to prioritize both academic as well as social and health-related goals and provides personalized follow-up coaching, this can prevent -often interrelated- academic and mental health problems. Right on-time delivery, and personalized follow-up questions enhance the effects of both -originally separated- intervention types. Research on this new combination of interventions should use design principles that increase user-friendliness and monitor the technology acceptance of its participants. (shrink)

A decade ago, Isham and Butterfield proposed a topos-theoretic approach to quantum mechanics, which meanwhile has been extended by Döring and Isham so as to provide a new mathematical foundation for all of physics. Last year, three of the present authors redeveloped and refined these ideas by combining the C*-algebraic approach to quantum theory with the so-called internal language of topos theory (Heunen et al. in arXiv:0709.4364). The goal of the present paper is to illustrate our abstract setup through the (...) concrete example of the C*-algebra M n (ℂ) of complex n×n matrices. This leads to an explicit expression for the pointfree quantum phase space Σ n and the associated logical structure and Gelfand transform of an n-level system. We also determine the pertinent non-probabilisitic state-proposition pairing (or valuation) and give a very natural topos-theoretic reformulation of the Kochen–Specker Theorem.In our approach, the nondistributive lattice ℘(M n (ℂ)) of projections in M n (ℂ) (which forms the basis of the traditional quantum logic of Birkhoff and von Neumann) is replaced by a specific distributive lattice $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ of functions from the poset $\mathcal{C}(M_{n}(\mathbb{C}))$ of all unital commutative C*-subalgebras C of M n (ℂ) to ℘(M n (ℂ)). The lattice $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ is essentially the (pointfree) topology of the quantum phase space Σ n , and as such defines a Heyting algebra. Each element of $\mathcal{O}(\Sigma_{n})$ corresponds to a “Bohrified” proposition, in the sense that to each classical context $C\in\mathcal{C}(M_{n}(\mathbb{C}))$ it associates a yes-no question (i.e. an element of the Boolean lattice ℘(C) of projections in C), rather than being a single projection as in standard quantum logic. Distributivity is recovered at the expense of the law of the excluded middle (Tertium Non Datur), whose demise is in our opinion to be welcomed, not just in intuitionistic logic in the spirit of Brouwer, but also in quantum logic in the spirit of von Neumann. (shrink)

Memoirs and papers presented at a conference held on the occasion of the 90th birthday of the Mongolian philosopher Ts. Balkhaajav.

Synaesthesia is a condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces photisms, i.e. mental percepts of colours. R is a 20 year old colour blind subject who, in addition to the relatively common grapheme-colour synaesthesia, presents a rarely reported cross modal perception in which a variety of visual stimuli elicit aura-like percepts of colour. In R, photisms seem to be closely related to the affective valence of stimuli and (...) typically bring out a consistent pattern of emotional responses. The present case study suggests that colours might be an intrinsic category of the human brain. We developed an empirical methodology that allowed us to study the subject's otherwise inaccessible phenomenological experience. First, we found that R shows a Stroop effect elicited by photisms despite the fact that he does not show a regular Stroop with real colours. Secondly, by manipulating the colour context we confirmed that colours can alter R's emotional evaluation of the stimuli. Furthermore, we demonstrated that R's auras may actually lead to a partially inverted emotional spectrum where certain stimuli bring out emotional reactions opposite to the normal ones. These findings can only be accounted for by considering R's subjective colour experience or qualia. Therefore the present paper defends the view that qualia are a useful scientific concept that can be approached and studied by experimental methods. (shrink)

The Birkhoff-Maltsev problem asks for a characterization of those lattices each of which is isomorphic to the lattice L(K) of all subquasivarieties for some quasivariety K of algebraic systems. The current status of this problem, which is still open, is discussed. Various unsolved questions that are related to the Birkhoff-Maltsev problem are also considered, including ones that stem from the theory of propositional logics.

The debate on realism in physics is usually focused on the reality of unobservable entities admitted in physical theories. This reality has been often denied (e.g., by Bas van Fraassen). The present book shows that observability is a very complex notion that does not really have direct implications on ontological issues related to the existence of the non-observable entities. This is shown through historical, philosophical and scientific considerations presented in the different parts of the book. Emphasis is also given to (...) the role of experiments, measurement procedures and computer-analyzed data as interface between the theoretical and experimental cultures. (shrink)

This book consists of a series of papers "read and discussed at the first Symposium of Exact Philosophy" at Montreal in 1971. "Exact philosophy," the editor says, means "mathematical philosophy, i.e., philosophy done with the explicit help of mathematical logic and mathematics." Judging from the contents, a more accurate statement would be that "exact philosophy" means formal semantics and modal logic. Two thirds of the papers are on these topics. The others include an essay on "Concepts of Randomness" by Peter (...) Kirschenmann; a characteristically difficult paper on "Plato’s Phaedo Theory of Relations" by Hector Castañeda; a somewhat inexact discursus on "Foundations as a Branch of Mathematics" by William Hatcher with a reply by Charles Castonguay; and a paper by Raimo Tuomela on "Deductive Explanation of Scientific Laws", or, more exactly, on Ohmer’s discussion of that topic. The subject’s are highly specialized and their treatment is complex. In addition to those mentioned, other essays are "Matters of Relevance" by Hugues Leblanc, with an answer by Brian Chellas; "Translation and Reduction" by Lars Svenonius; "A Program for the Semantics of Science" by Mario Bunge; "S-P Interrogatives" by Nuel Belnap; "The Logic of Conditional Obligation" by Bas C. Van Frassen with commentary by Harry Beaty; and "The Intuitive Background of Normative Legal Discourse and Its Formalization" by Carlos E. Alchourron.—M.H. (shrink)

We assume, in the first place, that two kinds of processes occur in nature: the strictly continuous and causal ones, which are governed by the Schrödinger equation and those implying discontinuities, which are ruled by probability laws. In the second place, we adopt a postulate ensuring the statistical sense of conservation laws. These hypotheses allow us to state a rule telling, in principle, in which situations and to which vectors the system's state can collapse, and which are the corresponding probabilities. (...) The way our proposed approach works is illustrated with some examples and with the analysis of the measurement problem. We obtain the exponential decay law. A comparison with other attempts to solve the measurement problem is performed. (shrink)

LetL(K) denote the lattice (ordered by inclusion) of quasivarieties contained in a quasivarietyK and letD 2 denote the variety of distributive (0, 1)-lattices with 2 additional nullary operations. In the present paperL(D 2) is described. As a consequence, ifM+N stands for the lattice join of the quasivarietiesM andN, then minimal quasivarietiesV 0,V 1, andV 2 are given each of which is generated by a 2-element algebra and such that the latticeL(V 0+V1), though infinite, still admits an easy and nice description (...) (see Figure 2) while the latticeL(V 0+V1+V2), because of its intricate inner structure, does not. In particular, it is shown thatL(V 0+V1+V2) contains as a sublattice the ideal lattice of a free lattice with free generators. Each of the quasivarietiesV 0,V 1, andV 2 is generated by a 2-element algebra inD 2. (shrink)

How ought Christians to approach moral problems? This is a question of method in moral theology. It is also a question of who is in authority to speak on matters of morality. In this essay, the moral methodology of Richard McCormick, S.J., one of the most powerful voices in contemporary Roman Catholic theology, is explored in depth. Attention is focused on its critical details, its development over time, and in particular McCormick's use of authorities in Roman Catholicism. It is argued (...) that his ethical theory is built around one central insight: that the human person in all its facets and dimensions is the criterion of the rightness and wrongness of human actions. (shrink)

This is a reply to Luckiesh's comments (see 18: 608) on Tinker's\nreview of Luckiesh and Moss' book, _Reading as a visual task_\n(see 17: 962). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all\nrights reserved).

Discusses some of the philosophical ideas about knowledge and applies them to organizational design and information processing in order to create new ideas and new ways of thinking. Explains how this can be achieved by a discussion of the issues surrounding organizational design and the impact of design on information processing. Reviews the ideas concerning the theory of knowledge proposed by rationalists, such as Descartes and empiricists, such as Locke and how these relate to other epistemological theories such as historicism (...) and pragmatism. Concludes by discussing the means by which philosophical theories of knowledge can assist towards new considerations of information processing. (shrink)

Documents as we encounter them in everyday life are complex and diverse things, whether on paper, computer disk or on the World Wide Web. They play many roles vis-à-vis human beings, and the humans engaged with them have diverse responsibilities that are not always easy to fulfil. Added to this is the issue of how a document or literary work can change and yet retain its identity, as found in maintenance, drafting and versioning of documents. This paper explores how the (...) meaning-oriented philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd may be used to understand the complex nature of documents, to throw light on the roles, responsibilities and culture surrounding them, and to tackle issues of identity and change. (shrink)

The same research proposal was submitted to 24 district health authority (DHA) research ethics committees in different parts of the country. The objective was to obtain permission for a multi-centre research project. The study of neonatal care in different types of unit (regional, subregional and district), required that four health authorities were approached in each of six widely separated health regions in England. Data were collected and compared concerning aspects of processing, including application forms, information required, timing and decision-making. The (...) key finding was that ethics committees received and processed the applications variably, reflecting individual factors and local problems. To improve consensus and facilitate multicentre studies, standard forms and instructions are suggested and the establishment of a national committee or advisory group advocated. (shrink)