In Early Christian Ethics in Interaction with Jewish and Greco-Roman Contexts experts from various fields analyze the process of transformation of early Christian ethics because of the ongoing interaction with Jewish, Greco-Roman and ...

Individuals make decisions under uncertainty every day based on incomplete information concerning the potential outcome of the choice or chance levels. The choices individuals make often deviate from the rational or mathematically objective solution. Accordingly, the dynamics of human decision-making are difficult to capture using conventional, linear mathematical models. Here, we present data from a two-choice task with variable risk between sure loss and risky loss to illustrate how a simple nonlinear dynamical system can be employed to capture the dynamics (...) of human decision-making under uncertainty (i.e., multi-stability, bifurcations). We test the feasibility of this model quantitatively and demonstrate how the model can account for up to 86% of the observed choice behavior. The implications of using dynamical models for explaining the nonlinear complexities of human decision-making are discussed, as well as the degree to which nonlinear dynamical systems theory might offer an alternative framework for understanding human decision-making processes. (shrink)

The author has recently proposed a “quasi-classical” theory of particles and interactions in which particles are pictured as extended periodic disturbances in a universal field χ(x, t), interacting with each other via nonlinearity in the equation of motion for χ. The present paper explores the relationship of this theory to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics; as a first step, it is shown how it is possible to construct from χ a configuration-space wave function Ψ(x 1,x 2,t), and that the theory requires that (...) Ψ satisfy the two-particle Schrödinger equation in the case where the two particles are well separated from each other. This suggests that the multiparticle Schrödinger equation can be obtained as a direct consequence of the quasi-classical theory without any use of the usual formalism (Hilbert space, quantization rules, etc.) of conventional quantum theory and in particular without using the classical canonical treatment of a system as a “crutch” theory which has subsequently to be “quantized.” The quasi-classical theory also suggests the existence of a preferred “absolute” gauge for the electromagnetic potentials. (shrink)