Provides theories and techniques behind the investigations of intoxication and how subjective experiences relate to addictive potential, which should help ...
This article presents arguments and evidence that run counter to the widespread assumption among scholars that humans are intuitive Cartesian substance dualists. With regard to afterlife beliefs, the hypothesis of Cartesian substance dualism as the intuitive folk position fails to have the explanatory power with which its proponents endow it. It is argued that the embedded corollary assumptions of the intuitive Cartesian substance dualist position (that the mind and body are different substances, that the mind and soul are intensionally identical, (...) and that the mind is the sole source of identity) are not compatible with cultural representations such as mythologies, funerary rites, iconography and doctrine as well as empirical evidence concerning intuitive folk reasoning about the mind and body concerning the afterlife. Finally, the article
suggests an alternative and more parsimonious explanation for understanding intuitive folk representations of the afterlife. (shrink)
In this paper, I examine Wilfrid Sellars’ famous Myth of Jones. I argue the myth provides an ontologically austere account of thoughts and beliefs that makes sense of the full range of our folk psychological abilities. Sellars’ account draws on both Gilbert Ryle and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ryle provides Sellars with the resources to make thoughts metaphysically respectable and Wittgenstein the resources to make beliefs rationally criticisable. By combining these insights into a single account, Sellars is able to see reasons as (...) causes and, hence, to respect the full range of our folk psychological generalisations. This is achieved by modelling folk psychological practice on theoretical reasoning. But despite frequent misinterpretation, Sellars does not claim that thoughts and beliefs are theoretical concepts. Thus, folk psychological explanation is not theoretical, and hence, it is not replaceable by scientific theory. Hence, scientific concepts will not eliminate folk psychological concepts. Thus, Sellars avoids eliminativism. (shrink)
In a now famous thought experiment, Frank jackson asked us t0 imagine an omniscient scientist, Mary, who is coniincd in a black-and-white room and then released into the world 0f color (jackson 1982; jackson 1986; cf. Braddon—Mitch<-:11 and Jackson 1996). Assuming that she is omniscicnt in respect of all physical facts—roughiy, all the facts available to physics and all the facts that they in turn Hx or determine-physicalism would suggest that there is no new fact Mary can discover after (...) emancipation; physicalism holds that all facts are physical in the relevant sense (for a fuller statement scc Pettit 1993; jackson 1998). Yet we cannot help but feel that coming out of that room would be an occasion of dramatic enlightenment and, in particular, an occasion for learning facts to do with how red or yellow or blue 100ks or, as it is usually said, with what it is like t0 sec red or yellow or blue. Many in the black-and—whit<—: room knew all the physical facts about the world, where these may be taken to include three sorts of color facts: objcctual facts, as to what surface colors different objects have, assuming as I shall do throughout—that colors are properties of objects; intentional facts, as to which colors different objects 0r apparent objects are represented as having in the subjc-:ct’s experience, rightly or wrongly; and nonintentional facts, about what such color experiences are like in their effects on subiccts—wh<—:ther they are comforting, or arousing, or whatever. But, according to the argument, Mary didn’t know how any color looks or, equivalently, what color experience is like in itself, not just in its effects O1'1 subjects. This particular nonintentional fact about the quality of color c-zxpc-2ri<—:ncc-—this phenomenal fact, as it is often describcd—she did not.. (shrink)
The author argues for three interconnected theses which provide a cognitive account for why humans intuitively believe that others survive death. The first thesis, from which the second and third theses follow, is that the acceptance of afterlife beliefs is predisposed by a specific, and already well-documented, imaginative process - the offline social reasoning process. The second thesis is that afterlife beliefs are social in nature. The third thesis is that the living imagine the deceased as socially embodied in such (...) a way as to continue to fulfill on-going social obligations with others. The author further suggests six reasons why the fantasy/reality distinction breaks down for the imaginer such that the continued existence of the decedent in the afterlife is believed to be real. Finally, the author suggests avenues for further research which would support this cognitive account. (shrink)
Recent research in the cognitive science of religion suggests that humans intuitively believe that others survive death. In response to this finding, three cognitive theories have been offered to explain this: the simulation constraint theory (Bering, 2002); the imaginative obstacle theory (Nichols, 2007); and terror management theory (Pyszczynski, Rothschild, & Abdollahi, 2008). First, I provide a critical analysis of each of these theories. Second, I argue that these theories, while perhaps explaining why one would believe in his own personal immortality, (...) leave an explanatory gap in that they do not explain why one would intuitively attribute survival of death to others. To fill in the gap, I offer a cognitive theory based on offline social reasoning and social embodiment which provides for the belief in an eternal social realm in which the deceased survive?the afterlife. (shrink)
In response to those who have argued the Internet is amoral at best, and an instrument for immorality at worst, we show that the net can provide a forum for genuine ethical engagement and distinctive forms of wrongdoing. Without deriving the moral value of the Internet from its interface with the non-virtual world and in contrast to presentations of the net as an anarchic utopia or as an unethical or amoral dystopia, we apply a substantive moral test to a selection (...) of online examples and ask can the net accommodate resistance to oppression that is necessary, though not sufficient, for justice? More precisely, we will ask whether Gandhian non-violent action is available to Cyberpunks? (shrink)
The importance of online social spaces is growing. New Web 2.0 resources allow the creation of social networks by any netizen with minimal technical skills. These communities can be extremely narrowly focussed. In this paper, I identify two potential costs of membership in narrowly focussed virtual communities. First, that narrowly focussed communities can polarise attitudes and prejudices leading to increased social cleavage and division. Second, that they can lead sick individuals to revel in their illness, deliberately indulging in their disease (...) and denying the edicts of the medical profession. I specifically examine illness communities centred on the now defunct Multiple Personality Disorder. I highlight these potential problems and point to some technologies that may help combat them. (shrink)
Performance on the Wason selection task varies with content. This has been taken to demonstrate that there are different cognitive modules for dealing with different conceptual domains. This implication is only legitimate if our underlying cognitive architecture is formal. A non-formal system can explain content-sensitive inference without appeal to independent inferential modules.
Plagiarism is the misuse of and failure to acknowledge source materials. This paper questions common responses to the apparent increase in plagiarism by students. Internet plagiarism occurs in a context – using the Internet as an information tool – where the relevant norms are far from obvious and models of virtue are difficult to identify and perhaps impossible to find. Ethical responses to the pervasiveness of Internet-enhanced plagiarism require a reorientation of perspective on both plagiarism and the Internet as a (...) knowledge tool. Technological strategies to “catch the cheats” send a “don’t get caught” message to students and direct the limited resources of academic institutions to a battle that cannot be won. More importantly, it is not the right battleground. Rather than characterising Internet-enabled plagiarism as a problem generated and solvable by emerging technologies, we argue that there is a more urgent need to build the background conditions that enable and sustain ethical relationships and academic virtues: to nurture an intellectual community. (shrink)
This thesis has two main goals: (1) to argue that myths are natural products of human cognition; and (2) that structuralism, as introduced by Claude Levi-Strauss, provides an over-arching theory of myth when supplemented and supported by current research in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, and cognitive anthropology. With regard to (1), we argue that myths are naturally produced by the human mind through individuals’ interaction with their natural and social environments. This interaction is constrained by both the type of (...) body the individual has and the environment in which the individual is situated. From this interaction, we argue, is produced the human-body metaphor which plays an essential role in forming analogical mental models which humans use to navigate, predict, and think about their environment(s). With regard to (2), we argue that these analogical mental models are the structures from which myths are created, just as structural anthropology suggests. (shrink)
Since social skills are highly significant to the evolutionary success of humans, we should expect these skills to be efficient and reliable. For many Evolutionary Psychologists efficiency entails encapsulation: the only way to get an efficient system is via information encapsulation. But encapsulation reduces reliability in opaque epistemic domains. And the social domain is darkly opaque: people lie and cheat, and deliberately hide their intentions and deceptions. Modest modularity [Currie and Sterelny (2000) Philos Q 50:145–160] attempts to combine efficiency and (...) reliability. Reliability is obtained by placing social skills in un-encapsulated central cognition; efficiency by having the social system sensitive to encapsulated socially tagged cues. In this paper, I argue that this approach fails. I focus on eye-gaze as a plausible example of a socially significant encapsulated cue. I demonstrate contra modest modularity that eye-gaze is subject to influence from central cognition. (shrink)
Haikonen (2003) is an attempt to explicate a platform for modelling consciousness. The book sets out the foundational concepts behind Haikonen’s work in the area and proposes a particular modelling environment. This is developed in three parts: part 1 offers a brief analysis of the state of play in cognitive modelling; part 2 an extended treatment of the phenomena to be explained; part 3 promises a synthesis of the two preceding discussions to provide the necessary background and detail for the (...) proposed modelling environment. This final part covers a broad range of technical details from the nature of the representational-computational economy instantiated, to the control of motor output, to the means of implementing emotions in artefacts. Haikonen proposes an environment based on a distributed representational economy, instantiated in a neural network architecture and trained using associative learning regimes, but which also has symbolic processing abilities to handle the critical task of generating inner language. (shrink)
Common goods are notoriously vulnerable to destructive overuse. Indeed, certain online activities, such as spam, can jeopardize the very existence of the Internet. We defend an account of the net as a common good that provides the grounds for assessing various strategies for spam reduction.
Let κ R be the least ordinal κ such that L κ (R) is admissible. Let $A = \{x \in \mathbb{R} \mid (\exists\alpha such that x is ordinal definable in L α (R)}. It is well known that (assuming determinacy) A is the largest countable inductive set of reals. Let T be the theory: ZFC - Replacement + "There exists ω Woodin cardinals which are cofinal in the ordinals." T has consistency strength weaker than that of the theory ZFC + (...) "There exists ω Woodin cardinals", but stronger than that of the theory ZFC + "There exists n Woodin Cardinals", for each n ∈ ω. Let M be the canonical, minimal inner model for the theory T. In this paper we show that A = R ∩ M. Since M is a mouse, we say that A is a mouse set. As an application, we use our characterization of A to give an inner-model-theoretic proof of a theorem of Martin which states that for all n, every Σ * n real is in A. (shrink)
Recent research (Bering 2002, 2006) into what has become known as “the folk psychology of souls” demonstrates that humans intuitively believe that others survive death. Additional research (Harris & Gimenéz, 2005; Astuti & Harris, 2008) has demonstrated that this belief is highly context sensitive. In this thesis, the author presents this research and provides a critical analysis of the findings based on philosophical and empirical concerns. The author also presents and critically analyses several theories that have been proposed to explain (...) this intuitive belief: intuitive Cartesian substance dualism (Bloom, 2004); the simulation constraint theory (Bering, 2006); the imaginative obstacle theory (Nichols, 2007); and terror management theory (Pyszczynski, Rothschild, & Abdollahi, 2008; Vail III, et al., 2010). The author argues, based on philosophical concerns, and anthropological and psychological empirical evidence, that none of the proposed theories are up to the task of giving a cognitive account of the folk psychology of souls. The author then argues for three interconnected theses to provide a cognitive account for why humans intuitively believe that others survive death. The first thesis, from which the second and third theses follow, is that the acceptance of afterlife beliefs is predisposed by a specific, and already well-documented, imaginative process—the offline social reasoning process. The second thesis is that afterlife beliefs are social in nature. The third thesis is that the living imagine the deceased as socially embodied in such a way as to continue to fulfill on-going social obligations with others. The author further suggests six reasons why the fantasy/reality distinction breaks down for the imaginer such that the continued existence of the decedent in the afterlife is believed to be real. Finally, the author suggests avenues for further research that would support this cognitive account. (shrink)
