It is standardly assumed in discussions of quantum theory that physical systems can be regarded as having well-defined Hilbert spaces. It is shown here that a Hilbert space can be consistently partitioned only if its components are assumed not to interact. The assumption that physical systems have well-defined Hilbert spaces is, therefore, physically unwarranted.

It is standardly assumed in discussions of quantum theory that physical systems can be regarded as having well-defined Hilbert spaces. It is shown here that a Hilbert space can be consistently partitioned only if its components are assumed not to interact. The assumption that physical systems have well-defined Hilbert spaces is, therefore, physically unwarranted.

Subgraph matching on a large graph has become a popular research topic in the field of graph analysis, which has a wide range of applications including question answering and community detection. However, traditional edge-cutting strategy destroys the structure of indivisible knowledge in a large RDF graph. On the premise of load-balancing on subgraph division, a dominance-partitioned strategy is proposed to divide a large RDF graph without compromising the knowledge structure. Firstly, a dominance-connected pattern graph is extracted from a pattern (...) graph to construct a dominance-partitioned pattern hypergraph, which divides a pattern graph as multiple fish-shaped pattern subgraphs. Secondly, a dominance-driven spectrum clustering strategy is used to gather the pattern subgraphs into multiple clusters. Thirdly, the dominance-partitioned subgraph matching algorithm is designed to conduct all isomorphic subgraphs on a cluster-partitioned RDF graph. Finally, experimental evaluation verifies that our strategy has higher time-efficiency of complex queries, and it has a better scalability on multiple machines and different data scales. (shrink)

Emotion recognition systems have been of interest to researchers for a long time. Improvement of brain-computer interface systems currently makes EEG-based emotion recognition more attractive. These systems try to develop strategies that are capable of recognizing emotions automatically. There are many approaches due to different features extractions methods for analyzing the EEG signals. Still, Since the brain is supposed to be a nonlinear dynamic system, it seems a nonlinear dynamic analysis tool may yield more convenient results. A novel approach in (...) Symbolic Time Series Analysis for signal phase space partitioning and symbol sequence generating is introduced in this study. Symbolic sequences have been produced by means of spherical partitioning of phase space; then, they have been compared and classified based on the maximum value of a similarity index. Obtaining the automatic independent emotion recognition EEG-based system has always been discussed because of the subject-dependent content of emotion. Here we introduce a subject-independent protocol to solve the generalization problem. To prove our method’s effectiveness, we used the DEAP dataset, and we reached an accuracy of 98.44% for classifying happiness from sadness. It was 93.75% for three, 89.06% for four, and 85% for five emotional groups. According to these results, it is evident that our subject-independent method is more accurate rather than many other methods in different studies. In addition, a subject-independent method has been proposed in this study, which is not considered in most of the studies in this field. (shrink)

This article proposes a model for route description dialogues based on the integration of the theories about route directions with those related to specific spatial instructions. This proposal is based empirically on a corpus of spoken Italian. The analysis of the corpus has shown that the basic dialogue strategy proposed by previous researchers requires further integration and elaboration. Also the model of spatial language developed in cognitive linguistics applies to the description of the giver's instructions and directions, despite the fact (...) that the literature in the field often overlooks this approach. This way of accounting for route descriptions is suitable to explain the lexicalization of the conceptualization of the displacements the follower must accomplish. A model of dialogue partitions integrated with the cognitive modelling of spatial language is proposed and supported by examples from the linguistic data. (shrink)

We provide a methodology for the creation of ontological partitions in biomedicine and we test the methodology via an application to the phenomenon of blood pressure. An ontology of blood pressure must do justice to the complex networks of intersecting pathways in the organism by which blood pressure is regulated. To this end it must deal not only with the anatomical structures and physiological processes involved in such regulation but also with the relations between these at different levels of granularity. (...) For this purpose our ontology offers a variety of distinct partitions � of substances, processes and functions � and integrates these together within a single framework via transitive networks of part-whole and dependence relations among the entities in each of these categories. The paper concludes with a comparison of this methodology with the approaches of GOTM, KEGG, DIP and BIND and provides an outline of how the methodology is currently being applied in the field of biomedical database integration. (shrink)

Kuhn's distinction of within- and between-paradigm thinking can be extended using his notion of a problem-field. Hull's notion of populational variation applies within paradigms; his type specimen approach allows one to analyze disagreement and identify the problem-field. Categories of questions or problem frames can also partition debate, establishing interparadigm variation. A case where multiple simultaneous paradigms compete highlights the role of empirical domains. The Ox-Phos Controversy in bioenergetics (1961-1977) serves as a case study. Conclusions are framed as strategies (...) for scientists. (shrink)

On the basis of these findings, I suggest that the structure and organisation of the field of Hungarian economics under state socialism should be described as a case of “partitioned bureaucracy”.9 The compromise between research economists and the political elite in the New Course era between 1953 and 195510 survived the post-1956 reaction in so far as political economy, with its predominantly legitimatory and ideological functions, remained partitioned from the other sectors in the field through the remainder of (...) the state-socialist period. This secured considerable protection both for Marxist-Leninist political economy—which faced the destabilising effects of exposure to the findings of serious empirical research—and for the other sectors, which were professionally oriented and earnestly interested in the pursuit of unbiased empirical research, free from stifling agitprop interference. Our data concerning the reputational control of the field reflects only one, although very important, aspect of this partitioning. Another and much plainer aspect is that, from the early 1960s, the Agitation and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee no longer exercised control over the field, except in the political economy sector.The proposition about the “mechanism paradigm” should not be taken seriously as a statement of a Kuhnian type of intellectual organisation of Hungarian economics, with “reform economics” at its “hard theoretical core”. But it should certainly be taken seriously as a reflection of the sociopolitical structure which emerged and developed from the mid-1950s onwards. Neither the politicians nor the economists saw as necessary or even contemplated the integration of Hungarian economic research with Western mainstream economic thought. In exchange for the professional expertise and socio-economic intelligence necessary for the exercise of power, Hungary's state-socialist political class offered their economists relative autonomy and freedom from interference. The price the economists had to pay was partly to refrain from openly and systematically challenging the beliefs perpetuated by the political economy of socialism, and partly to accept in their research the paramountcy of policy orientation. But this burden they assumed willingly since it made them the only group within Hungary's academic intelligentsia—indeed, the only group in Hungarian society outside the political class—with the privilege of being coopted to the institutions with power over some restricted domains of policymaking. After 1989, especially under the conservative Antall government, this proved less than advantageous.11 Although the benevolence of many critics is open to question, it could greatly benefit the field if the economists' expulsion from contemporary politics went hand in hand with provision of the material, intellectual and institutional conditions for a new approach where a fundamentally scientific orientation is paramount. (shrink)

Let (K, v) be a henselian valued field of characteristic 0. Then K admits a definable partition on each piece of which the leading term of a polynomial in one variable can be computed as a definable function of the leading term of a linear map. The main step in obtaining this partition is an answer to the question, given a polynomial f(x) ∈ K[x], what is v(f(x))? Two applications are given: first, a constructive quantifier elimination relative to the (...) leading terms, suggesting a relative decision procedure; second, a presentation of every definable subset of K as the pullback of a definable set in the leading terms subjected to a linear translation. (shrink)

The main topics of this second part of a two-part essay are some consequences of the phenomenon of vacuum polarization as the most important physical manifestation of modular localization. Besides philosophically unexpected consequences, it has led to a new constructive “outside-inwards approach” in which the pointlike fields and the compactly localized operator algebras which they generate only appear from intersecting much simpler algebras localized in noncompact wedge regions whose generators have extremely mild almost free field behavior. -/- Another consequence (...) of vacuum polarization presented in this essay is the localization entropy near a causal horizon which follows a logarithmically modified area law in which a dimensionless area (the area divided by the square of dR where dR is the thickness of a light-sheet) appears. There are arguments that this logarithmically modified area law corresponds to the volume law of the standard heat bath thermal behavior. We also explain the symmetry enhancing effect of holographic projections onto the causal horizon of a region and show that the resulting infinite dimensional symmetry groups contain the Bondi–Metzner–Sachs group. This essay is the second part of a partitioned longer paper. (shrink)

This chapter considers the ways in which whiteness as a skin color and ideology becomes a dominant level that sets the background against which all things, people and relations appear. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, it takes up a series of films by Bruce Nauman and Marlon Riggs to consider ways in which this level is phenomenally challenged providing insights into the embodiment of racialization.

A novel algebraic structure of the genetic code is proposed. Here, the principal partitions of the genetic code table were obtained as equivalent classes of quotient spaces of the genetic code vector space over the Galois field of the four DNA bases. The new algebraic structure shows strong connections among algebraic relationships, codon assignment and physicochemical properties of amino acids. Moreover, a distance function defined between the codon binary representations in the vector space was demonstrated to have a linear (...) behavior respect to physical variables such as the mean of amino acids interaction energies in proteins. It was also noticed that the distance between wild type and mutant codons approach to smaller values in mutational variants of four genes, i.e., human phenylalanine hydroxylase, human β-globin, HIV-1 protease and HIV-1 reverse transcriptase. These results strongly suggest that deterministic rules must be involved in the genetic code origin. (shrink)

This book helps understand Plato’s writings by describing the circumstances in which they were produced. The author begins with an account of Plato’s life and development and a brief analysis of some of the more difficult points arising from the criticism of Plato’s writings. The remainder of the work considers the total setting – political, literary and philosophical – in which Plato’s writings were produced. There are extensive appendices on the Platonic Epistles, Aristotle and the Theory of Ideas, and on (...) the post-Aristotelian tradition. The result is both a lucid account of Plato himself and a comprehensive view of culture in fifth century Greece. (shrink)

Science Without Numbers caused a stir in 1980, with its bold nominalist approach to the philosophy of mathematics and science. It has been unavailable for twenty years and is now reissued in a revised edition with a substantial new preface presenting the author's current views and responses to the issues raised in subsequent debate.

A selective background -- Broadly classical approaches -- Paracompleteness -- More on paracomplete solutions -- Paraconsistent dialetheism.

What are people who disagree about logic disagreeing about? The paper argues that (in a wide range of cases) they are primarily disagreeing about how to regulate their degrees of belief. An analogy is drawn between beliefs about validity and beliefs about chance: both sorts of belief serve primarily to regulate degrees of belief about other matters, but in both cases the concepts have a kind of objectivity nonetheless.

Both in dealing with the semantic paradoxes and in dealing with vagueness and indeterminacy, there is some temptation to weaken classical logic: in particular, to restrict the law of excluded middle. The reasons for doing this are somewhat different in the two cases. In the case of the semantic paradoxes, a weakening of classical logic (presumably involving a restriction of excluded middle) is required if we are to preserve the naive theory of truth without inconsistency. In the case of vagueness (...) and indeterminacy, there is no worry about inconsistency; but a central intuition is that we must reject the factual status of certain sentences, and it hard to see how we can do that while claiming that the law of excluded middle applies to those sentences. So despite the different routes, we have a similar conclusion in the two cases. (shrink)

1. Of what use is the concept of causation? Bertrand Russell [1912-13] argued that it is not useful: it is “a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.” His argument for this was that the kind of physical theories that we have come to regard as fundamental leave no place for the notion of causation: not only does the word ‘cause’ not appear in the advanced sciences, but the (...) laws that these sciences state are incompatible with causation as we normally understand it. But Nancy Cartwright has argued [1979] that abandoning the concept of causation would cripple science; her conclusion was based not on fundamental physics, but on more ordinary science such as the search for the causes of cancer. She argues that Russell was right that the fundamental theories of modern physics say nothing, even implicitly, about causation, and concludes on this basis that such theories are incomplete. It is with this cluster of issues that I will begin my discussion. (shrink)

This book offers a detailed study of the political philosophies of Thomas Hobbes and Benedict de Spinoza, focussing on their concept of power as potentia, concrete power, rather than power as potestas, authorised power. The focus on power as potentia generates a new conception of popular power. Radical democrats–whether drawing on Hobbes's 'sleeping sovereign' or on Spinoza's 'multitude'–understand popular power as something that transcends ordinary institutional politics, as for instance popular plebsites or mass movements. However, the book argues that these (...) understandings reflect a residual scholasticism which Hobbes and Spinoza ultimately repudiate. Instead, on the book's revisionist conception, a political phenomenon should be said to express popular power when it is both popular (it eliminates oligarchy and encompasses the whole polity), and also powerful (it robustly determines political and social outcomes). Two possible institutional forms that this popular power might take are distinguished: Hobbesian repressive egalitarianism, or Spinozist civic strengthening. But despite divergent institutional proposals, the book argues that both Hobbes and Spinoza share the conviction that there is nothing spontaneously egalitarian or good about human collective existence. From this point of view, the book accuses radical democrats of pernicious romanticism; the slow, meticulous work of organizational design and maintenance is the true centre of popular power. Three minute video summary available via HPBin3. Extended discussion on The Political Theory Review podcast. First chapter open access available via Oxford Scholarship Online. Videos of book talks at National University of Singapore (Centre for Legal Theory) and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani) available via YouTube. (See links below.). (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the debate between substantival and relational theories of space-time, and discusses two difficulties that beset the relationalist: a difficulty posed by field theories, and another difficulty called the problem of quantities. A main purpose of the paper is to argue that possibility can not always be used as a surrogate of ontology, and that in particular that there is no hope of using possibility to solve the problem of quantities.

The term ‘social capital’ is a way of defining the intangible resources of community, shared values and trust upon which we draw in daily life. It has achieved considerable international currency across the social sciences through the very different work of Pierre Bourdieu in France and James Coleman and Robert Putnam in the United States, and has been widely taken up within politics and sociology as an explanation for the decline in social cohesion and community values in western societies. It (...) has also been adopted by policy makers, particularly in international governmental bodies such as the World Bank. (shrink)

The paper presents a kind of normative anti-realist view of epistemology, in the same ballpark as recent versions of expressivism. But the primary focus of the paper is less on this meta-epistemological view itself than on how it should affect ground-level issues in epistemology: for instance, how it should deal with certain forms of skepticism, and how it allows for fundamental revision in epistemic practices. It is hoped that these methodological consequences will seem attractive independent of the normative anti-realism. Indeed, (...) some normative realists seem to embrace the view on skepticism, but it is argued that their position is unstable: the realism undermines the methodology. The general theme of the paper is that the issue of normative realism is deeply entwined with issues of methodology, in strong contrast to the common claim that meta-epistemological views in the tradition of expressivism have no first order impact. (shrink)

Presenting a selection of thirteen essays on various topics at the foundations of philosophy--one previously unpublished and eight accompanied by substantial new postscripts--this book offers outstanding insight on truth, meaning, and propositional attitudes; semantic indeterminacy and other kinds of "factual defectiveness;" and issues concerning objectivity, especially in mathematics and in epistemology. It will reward the attention of any philosopher interested in language, epistemology, or mathematics.

It is “the received wisdom” that any intuitively natural and consistent resolution of a class of semantic paradoxes immediately leads to other paradoxes just as bad as the first. This is often called the “revenge problem”. Some proponents of the received wisdom draw the conclusion that there is no hope of any natural treatment that puts all the paradoxes to rest: we must either live with the existence of paradoxes that we are unable to treat, or adopt artificial and ad (...) hoc means to avoid them. Others (“dialetheists”) argue that we can put the paradoxes to rest, but only by licensing the acceptance of some contradictions (presumably in a paraconsistent logic that prevents the contradictions from spreading everywhere). (shrink)

Incoherence is usually regarded as a bad thing. Incoherence suggests irrationality, confusion, paradox. Incoherentism disagrees: incoherence is not always a bad thing, sometimes we ought to be incoherent. If correct, Incoherentism has important and controversial implications. It implies that rationality does not always require coherence. Dilemmism and Incoherentism both embrace conflict in epistemology. After identifying some important differences between these two ways of embracing conflict, I offer some reasons to prefer Incoherentism over Dilemmism. Namely, that Incoherentism allows us to deliberate (...) about what we ought to believe using ordinary epistemology, and it does a better job of accommodating the positive features of incoherence. (shrink)

While non-classical theories of truth that take truth to be transparent have some obvious advantages over any classical theory that evidently must take it as non-transparent, several authors have recently argued that there's also a big disadvantage of non-classical theories as compared to their “external” classical counterparts: proof-theoretic strength. While conceding the relevance of this, the paper argues that there is a natural way to beef up extant internal theories so as to remove their proof-theoretic disadvantage. It is suggested that (...) the resulting internal theories should seem preferable to their external counterparts. (shrink)

The paper tries to spell out a connection between deductive logic and rationality, against Harman's arguments that there is no such connection, and also against the thought that any such connection would preclude rational change in logic. One might not need to connect logic to rationality if one could view logic as the science of what preserves truth by a certain kind of necessity (or by necessity plus logical form); but the paper points out a serious obstacle to any such (...) view. (shrink)