The human genome project's lasting legacies are the emerging insights into human physiology and disease, and the ascendance of biology as the dominant science of the 21st century. Sequencing revealed that >90% of the human genome is not coding for proteins, as originally thought, but rather is overwhelmingly transcribed into non‐protein coding, or non‐coding, RNAs (ncRNAs). This discovery initially led to the hypothesis that most genomic DNA is “junk”, a term still championed by some geneticists and evolutionary biologists. In contrast, (...) molecular biologists and biochemists studying the vast number of transcripts produced from most of this genome “junk” often surmise that these ncRNAs have biological significance. What gives? This essay contrasts the two opposing, extant viewpoints, aiming to explain their bases, which arise from distinct reference frames of the underlying scientific disciplines. Finally, it aims to reconcile these divergent mindsets in hopes of stimulating synergy between scientific fields. (shrink)

Views from one of the most original cultural critics of the twentieth century, Walter Benjamin.

The idea that consciousness and complexity are closely related has been a major driver of the popularity of integrated information theory of consciousness, despite its major formal, phenomenological, and neuroscientific shortcomings. Here, I argue that we can recover this intuition by replacing its biologically neutral notion of complexity with an evolutionary one that I shall dub “pathological complexity.”.

Benenson et al. provide a compelling case for treating greater investment into self-protection among females as an adaptive strategy. Here, we wish to expand their proposed adaptive explanation by placing it squarely in modern state-based and behavioural life-history theory, drawing on Veit'spathological complexityframework. This allows us to make sense of alternative “lifestyle” strategies, rather than pathologizing them.

"Local History/Global Designs" is one of the most important books in the historical humanities to have emerged since the end of the Cold War University. This is vintage Mignolo: packed with insights, breadth, and intellectual zeal.

Argument for the role of the human conscience in determining right and wrong, good and evil.

A translation of the main text for only published version J. G. Fichte's later WL. (Hitzig: Berlin 1810). It excludes Fichte's Preface.

Starting from the study of the physical world, we develop the concept of a dual pair, Comparing dual pairs is known as duality. We show that duality is a basic mechanism for our intellectual curiosity.

Walter applies the methodology of neurophilosophy to one of philosophy's centralchallenges, the notion of free will. Neurophilosophical conclusions are based on, and consistentwith, scientific knowledge about the brain and its functioning.

Renaissance logician, philosopher, humanist, and teacher, Peter Ramus (1515-72) is best known for his attack on Aristotelian logic, his radical pedagogical theories, and his new interpretation for the canon of rhetoric. His work, published in Latin and translated into many languages, has influenced the study of Renaissance literature, rhetoric, education, logic, and--more recently--media studies. Considered the most important work of Walter Ong's career, Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue is an elegant review of the history of Ramist scholarship (...) and Ramus's quarrels with Aristotle. A key influence on Marshall McLuhan, with whom Ong enjoys the status of honorary guru among technophiles, this challenging study remains the most detailed account of Ramus's method ever published. Out of print for more than a decade, this book--with a new foreword by Adrian Johns--is a canonical text for enthusiasts of media, Renaissance literature, and intellectual history. (shrink)

Mental causation, our mind's ability to causally affect the course of the world, is part and parcel of our ‘manifest image’ of the world. That there is mental causation is denied by virtually no one. How there can be such a thing as mental causation, however, is far from obvious. In recent years, discussions about the problem of mental causation have focused on Jaegwon Kim's so-called Causal Exclusion Argument, according to which mental events are ‘screened off’ or ‘preempted’ by physical (...) events unless mental causation is a genuine case of overdetermination or mental properties are straightforwardly reducible to physical properties. (shrink)

L'etude menee par Walter Biemel ne pretend nullement isoler et epuiser un concept de la philosophie de Heidegger, mais s'attache tout au contraire a suggerer une interpretation originales d'une pensee a partir de l'un de ses concepts fondamentaux. Pour saisir le probleme du monde, il apparait en effet necessaire de comprendre la structure fondamentale du Dasein. Que la problematique du monde soit intimement liee a celle de l'Etre, c'est ce qui se manifeste clairement dans la definition que donne Heidegger (...) du Dasein, au troisieme chapitre de Sein und Zeit, comme etre-dans-le-monde. De la comprehension de cette modalite d'etre ve dependre la saisie adequate des elements structurels du Dasein. Walter Biemel releve l'importance de cette nouvelle facon de concevoir le Dasein et le changement qu'elle apporte par rapport a la conception traditionnelle partant de l'ego pur. L'expression etre-dans-le-monde, loin de se resumer a une constatation de fait, possede pour Heidegger la signification d'une these ontologique. Bien plus qu'une simple determination spatiale s'epuisant dans l'extensio cartesienne, il s'agit la d'une attitude de familiarite, qui se decline selon divers types de reference du Dasein au monde. Etre-dans-le-monde signifie au fond: etre ouvert a l'Etre, se trouver placer dans l'eclaircie de l'Etre. (shrink)