The essays in this collection have been written for Gerd Buchdahl, by colleagues, students and friends, and are self-standing pieces of original research which have as their main concern the metaphysics and philosophy of science of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They focus on issues about the development of philosophical and scientific thought which are raised by or in the work of such as Bernoulli, Descartes, Galileo, Kant, Leibniz, Maclaurin, Priestly, Schelling, Vico. Apart from the initial bio-bibliographical piece and (...) those by Robert Butts and Michael Power, they do not discuss Buchdahl or his ideas in any systematic, lengthy, or detailed way. But they are collected under a title which alludes to the book, Metaphysics and the Philosophy of Science: The Classical Origins, Descartes to Kant (1969), which is central in the corpus of his work, and deal with the period and some of the topics with which that book deals. (shrink)

Humans and animals make inferences about the world under limited time and knowledge. In contrast, many models of rational inference treat the mind as a Laplacean Demon, equipped with unlimited time, knowledge, and computational might. Following H. Simon's notion of satisficing, the authors have proposed a family of algorithms based on a simple psychological mechanism: one-reason decision making. These fast and frugal algorithms violate fundamental tenets of classical rationality: They neither look up nor integrate all information. By computer simulation, the (...) authors held a competition between the satisficing "Take The Best" algorithm and various "rational" inference procedures. The Take The Best algorithm matched or outperformed all competitors in inferential speed and accuracy. This result is an existence proof that cognitive mechanisms capable of successful performance in the real world do not need to satisfy the classical norms of rational inference. (shrink)

The Empire of Chance tells how quantitative ideas of chance transformed the natural and social sciences, as well as daily life over the last three centuries. A continuous narrative connects the earliest application of probability and statistics in gambling and insurance to the most recent forays into law, medicine, polling and baseball. Separate chapters explore the theoretical and methodological impact in biology, physics and psychology. Themes recur - determinism, inference, causality, free will, evidence, the shifting meaning of probability - but (...) in dramatically different disciplinary and historical contexts. In contrast to the literature on the mathematical development of probability and statistics, this book centres on how these technical innovations remade our conceptions of nature, mind and society. Written by an interdisciplinary team of historians and philosophers, this readable, lucid account keeps technical material to an absolute minimum. It is aimed not only at specialists in the history and philosophy of science, but also at the general reader and scholars in other disciplines. (shrink)

Heuristics are efficient cognitive processes that ignore information. In contrast to the widely held view that less processing reduces accuracy, the study of heuristics shows that less information, computation, and time can in fact improve accuracy. We review the major progress made so far: the discovery of less-is-more effects; the study of the ecological rationality of heuristics, which examines in which environments a given strategy succeeds or fails, and why; an advancement from vague labels to computational models of heuristics; the (...) development of a systematic theory of heuristics that identifies their building blocks and the evolved capacities they exploit, and views the cognitive system as relying on an “adaptive toolbox;” and the development of an empirical methodology that accounts for individual differences, conducts competitive tests, and has provided evidence for people’s adaptive use of heuristics. Homo heuristicus has a biased mind and ignores part of the available information, yet a biased mind can handle uncertainty more efficiently and robustly than an unbiased mind relying on more resource-intensive and general-purpose processing strategies. (shrink)

What is the nature of moral behavior? According to the study of bounded rationality, it results not from character traits or rational deliberation alone, but from the interplay between mind and environment. In this view, moral behavior is based on pragmatic social heuristics rather than moral rules or maximization principles. These social heuristics are not good or bad per se, but solely in relation to the environments in which they are used. This has methodological implications for the study of morality: (...) Behavior needs to be studied in social groups as well as in isolation, in natural environments as well as in labs. It also has implications for moral policy: Only by accepting the fact that behavior is a function of both mind and environmental structures can realistic prescriptive means of achieving moral goals be developed. (shrink)

What counts as human rationality: reasoning processes that embody content-independent formal theories, such as propositional logic, or reasoning processes that are well designed for solving important adaptive problems? Most theories of human reasoning have been based on content-independent formal rationality, whereas adaptive reasoning, ecological or evolutionary, has been little explored. We elaborate and test an evolutionary approach, Cosmides' social contract theory, using the Wason selection task. In the first part, we disentangle the theoretical concept of a “social contract” from that (...) of a “cheater-detection algorithm”. We demonstrate that the fact that a rule is perceived as a social contract — or a conditional permission or obligation, as Cheng and Holyoak proposed — is not sufficient to elicit Cosmides' striking results, which we replicated. The crucial issue is not semantic, but pragmatic: whether a person is cued into the perspective of a party who can be cheated. In the second part, we distinguish between social contracts with bilateral and unilateral cheating options. Perspective change in contracts with bilateral cheating options turns P & not-Q responses into not-P & Q responses. The results strongly support social contract theory, contradict availability theory, and cannot be accounted for by pragmatic reasoning schema theory, which lacks the pragmatic concepts of perspectives and cheating detection. (shrink)

“This is surely the ultimate expression of the top-down approach to consciousness, written with Sommerhoff's characteristic clarity and precision. It says far more than other books four times the size of this admirably concise volume. This book is destined to become a pillar of the subject.” —Rodney Cotterill, Technical University of Denmark The problem of consciousness has been described as a mystery about which we are still in a terrible muddle and in Understanding Consciousness: Its Function and Brain Processes, the (...) author attempts to unravel this mystery by offering a clarification of the main concepts related to consciousness, and positing a comprehensive biological explanation. Consequently, this book will be ideal for a wide-range of upper level undergraduate and postgraduate courses. The author interprets consciousness as a property that can be possessed by many creatures lacking a language faculty and comprises all of the following: awareness of the surrounding world; awareness of the self as an entity; and awareness of such things as thoughts and feelings. He argues that a biological approach can achieve both the necessary conceptual clarifications and a joint explanation of these divisions of awareness in terms of just two accurately defined concepts of 'internal representation' and two empirically supported assumptions about the functional architecture of a specific set of brain processes. Despite this striking simplicity, his model covers these divisions of awareness both as objective faculties of the brain and as subjective experience. These conclusions are applied to a broad range of fundamental questions, including the biological rationale of subjective experience and where consciousness resides in the neural networks. (shrink)

In this volume the author tackles this problem in a rigorous analysis which begins with the general dynamics of living systems and leads the reader step-by-step ...

This commentary argues that, in discussing the racial and cultural identities of cinematic representations of humanoid AI robots, nuances and differentiations are beneficial. It suggests that the essay on which the present text comments does not sufficiently acknowledge the range of identities found in AI films, in particular in Alex Garland's Ex Machina.

A response to Lindsay Craig's essay, The So-Called Extended Synthesis and Population Genetics.

The contrast between the two approaches alluded to in the title has gained a certain prominence in our own day. With the knowledge of hindsight it will be of interest therefore to study its incidence in an earlier period, in the writings of Whewell and Mill, Which may thus yield added significance for a later generation. Right at the start there is a difficulty. Not all inductivists agree on their principles, or their interpretation of the logic of scientific reasoning, and (...) the same is true of deductivism, and the differences can therefore be discussed only in connection with individual writers. When this is done, we do find moreover some considerable variations in the treatment of their respective doctrines by the members of each of our two schools. To define these differences, we need a finer structure of elements of classification, indicative of criteria for the acceptance of scientific hypotheses. (shrink)

The terms nested sets, partitive frequencies, inside-outside view, and dual processes add little but confusion to our original analysis (Gigerenzer & Hoffrage 1995; 1999). The idea of nested set was introduced because of an oversight; it simply rephrases two of our equations. Representation in terms of chances, in contrast, is a novel contribution yet consistent with our computational analysis System 1.dual process theory” is: Unless the two processes are defined, this distinction can account post hoc for almost everything. In contrast, (...) an ecological view of cognition helps to explain how insight is elicited from the outside (the external representation of information) and, more generally, how cognitive strategies match with environmental structures. (shrink)

Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart invites readers to embark on a new journey into a land of rationality that differs from the familiar territory of cognitive science and economics. Traditional views of rationality tend to see decision makers as possessing superhuman powers of reason, limitless knowledge, and all of eternity in which to ponder choices. To understand decisions in the real world, we need a different, more psychologically plausible notion of rationality, and this book provides it. It is about (...) fast and frugal heuristics--simple rules for making decisions when time is pressing and deep thought an unaffordable luxury. These heuristics can enable both living organisms and artificial systems to make smart choices, classifications, and predictions by employing bounded rationality. But when and how can such fast and frugal heuristics work? Can judgments based simply on one good reason be as accurate as those based on many reasons? Could less knowledge even lead to systematically better predictions than more knowledge? Simple Heuristics explores these questions, developing computational models of heuristics and testing them through experiments and analyses. It shows how fast and frugal heuristics can produce adaptive decisions in situations as varied as choosing a mate, dividing resources among offspring, predicting high school drop out rates, and playing the stock market. As an interdisciplinary work that is both useful and engaging, this book will appeal to a wide audience. It is ideal for researchers in cognitive psychology, evolutionary psychology, and cognitive science, as well as in economics and artificial intelligence. It will also inspire anyone interested in simply making good decisions. (shrink)

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore artificial moral agency by reflecting upon the possibility of a Moral Turing Test and whether its lack of focus on interiority, i.e. its behaviouristic foundation, counts as an obstacle to establishing such a test to judge the performance of an Artificial Moral Agent. Subsequently, to investigate whether an MTT could serve as a useful framework for the understanding, designing and engineering of AMAs, we set out to address fundamental challenges within (...) the field of robot ethics regarding the formal representation of moral theories and standards. Here, typically three design approaches to AMAs are available: top-down theory-driven models and bottom-up approaches which set out to model moral behaviour by means of models for adaptive learning, such as neural networks, and finally, hybrid models, which involve components from both top-down and bottom-up approaches to the modelling of moral agency. With inspiration from Allen and Wallace as well as Prior, we elaborate on theoretically driven approaches to machine ethics by introducing deontic tense logic. Finally, within this framework, we explore the character of human interaction with a robot which has successfully passed an MTT. Design/methodology/approach – The ideas in this paper reflect preliminary theoretical considerations regarding the possibility of establishing a MTT based on the evaluation of moral behaviour, which focusses on moral reasoning regarding possible actions. The thoughts reflected fall within the field of normative ethics and apply deontic tense logic to discuss the possibilities and limitations of artificial moral agency. Findings – The authors stipulate a formalisation of logic of obligation, time and modality, which may serve as a candidate for implementing a system corresponding to an MTT in a restricted sense. Hence, the authors argue that to establish a present moral obligation, we need to be able to make a description of the actual situation and the relevant general moral rules. Such a description can never be complete, as the combination of exhaustive knowledge about both situations and rules would involve a God eye’s view, enabling one to know all there is to know and take everything relevant into consideration before making a perfect moral decision to act upon. Consequently, due to this frame problem, from an engineering point of view, we can only strive for designing a robot supposed to operate within a restricted domain and within a limited space-time region. Given such a setup, the robot has to be able to perform moral reasoning based on a formal description of the situation and any possible future developments. Although a system of this kind may be useful, it is clearly also limited to a particular context. It seems that it will always be possible to find special cases in which a given system does not pass the MTT. This calls for a new design of moral systems with trust-related components which will make it possible for the system to learn from experience. Originality/value – It is without doubt that in the near future we are going to be faced with advanced social robots with increasing autonomy, and our growing engagement with these robots calls for the exploration of ethical issues and stresses the importance of informing the process of engineering ethical robots. Our contribution can be seen as an early step in this direction. (shrink)

In this article, I discuss my experiences of being an insider researching Laestadianism. I present my research, noting the advantages and disadvantages, ending with a conclusion in which I refer to the discussion among anthropologists and ethnologists, especially in the study of religion. The outcome is that even though the distinction insider–outsider researcher is complicated, both insider and outsider researchers will improve the research, contributing to its nuanced presentation.

In the study of judgmental errors, surprisingly little thought is spent on what constitutes good and bad judgment. I call this simultaneous focus on errors and lack of analysis of what constitutes an error, the irrationality paradox. I illustrate the paradox by a dozen apparent fallacies; each can be logically deduced from the environmental structure and an unbiased mind.

Mind and environment evolve in tandem—almost a platitude. Much of judgment and decision making research, however, has compared cognition to standard statistical models, rather than to how well it is adapted to its environment. The author argues two points. First, cognitive algorithms are tuned to certain information formats, most likely to those that humans have encountered during their evolutionary history. In par ticular, Bayesian computations are simpler when the information is in a frequency format than when it is in a (...) probability format. The author investigates whether fre quency formats can make physicians reason more often the Bayesian way. Second, cognitive algorithms need to operate under constraints of limited time, knowledge, and computational power, and they need to exploit the structures of their environments. The author describes a fast and frugal algorithm, Take The Best, that violates standard principles of rational inference but can be as accurate as sophisticated "optimal" mod els for diagnostic inference. Key words: Bayes' theorem; bounded rationality; infor mation format; probabilistic reasoning; satisficing; training; medical education. (shrink)

A modern form of narrative, comic books are used to communicate, discuss, and critique issues in business ethics and social issues in management. A description of comic books as a legitimate medium is followed by a discussion of the pedagogical uses of comic books and assessment techniques. The strengths of the pedagogy include crossing cultural barriers, understanding the complexity of individual decision-making and organizational influences, and the universality of dilemmas and values. We provide an initial source for educators on the (...) topics, comic books, plotlines, and other commentary for consideration of use in the classroom from high school to graduate business ethics and social issues in management courses. (shrink)

Tight control of the transcription process is essential for the correct spatial and temporal gene expression pattern during development and in homeostasis. Enhancers are at the core of correct transcriptional activation. The original definition of an enhancer is straightforward: a DNA sequence that activates transcription independent of orientation and direction. Dissection of numerous enhancer loci has shown that many enhancer‐like elements might not conform to the original definition, suggesting that enhancers and enhancer‐like elements might use multiple different mechanisms to contribute (...) to transcriptional activation. Here, we review methodologies to identify enhancers and enhancer‐like elements and discuss pitfalls and consequences for our understanding of transcriptional regulation. (shrink)

In this paper, the results of a pilot interview study with 19 subjects participating in an EEG-based non-invasive brain–computer interface (BCI) research study on stroke rehabilitation and assistive technology and of a survey among 17 BCI professionals are presented and discussed in the light of ethical, legal, and social issues in research with human subjects. Most of the users were content with study participation and felt well informed. Negative aspects reported include the long and cumbersome preparation procedure, discomfort with the (...) cap and the wet electrodes, problems concerning BCI control, and strains during the training sessions. In addition, some users reflected on issues concerning system security. When asked for morally problematic issues in this field of non-invasive BCI research, the BCI professionals stressed the need for correct information transfer, the obligation to avoid unrealistic expectations in study participants, the selection of study participants, benefits and strains of participation, BCI illiteracy, the possibility of detrimental brain modifications induced by BCI use, and problems that may arise at the end of the trials. Furthermore, privacy issues were raised. Based on the results obtained, psychosocial and ethical aspects of EEG-based non-invasive BCI research are discussed and possible implications for future research addressed. (shrink)

The well-known proposal to consider the Lüders-von Neumann measurement as a non-classical extension of probability conditionalization is further developed. The major results include some new concepts like the different grades of compatibility, the objective conditional probabilities which are independent of the underlying state and stem from a certain purely algebraic relation between the events, and an axiomatic approach to quantum mechanics. The main axioms are certain postulates concerning the conditional probabilities and own intrinsic probabilistic interpretations from the very beginning. A (...) Jordan product is derived for the observables, and the consideration of composite systems leads to operator algebras on the Hilbert space over the complex numbers, which is the standard model of quantum mechanics. The paper gives an expository overview of the results presented in a series of recent papers by the author. For the first time, the complete approach is presented as a whole in a single paper. Moreover, since the mathematical proofs are already available in the original papers, the present paper can dispense with the mathematical details and maximum generality, thus addressing a wider audience of physicists, philosophers or quantum computer scientists. (shrink)

This volume collects Gigerenzer's recent articles on the psychology of rationality. This volume should appeal, like the earlier volumes, to a broad mixture of cognitive psychologists, philosophers, economists, and others who study decision making.

Together, these collected papers develop the idea that human thinking - from scientific creativity to simply understanding what a positive HIV test means - "happens" partly outside the mind.".

The aim of the paper is to analyse whether and to what extent the network concept has become the Leitbild of an emerging new economy. The analysis is based on a company survey conducted in eight European territories. There is empirical evidence that only a minority of companies have applied the network concept as a dominant restructuring model, while various types of Fordism are still influencing companies' view on efficient techno-organisational forms. The regional analysis demonstrates that there is not only (...) one path into an informational economy. Some territories still stick to low-tech Fordism, while others apply a technology-based flexi-Fordism, in which ICT functions as a key mechanism to make Fordist structures more flexible. Only in a minority of territories is an informational network economy emerging in which ICT has the function of enabling and supporting communication and co-operation within decentralised organisational forms. (shrink)

Within the highly organized nuclear structure, specific nuclear domains (ND10) are defined by accumulations of proteins that can be interferon-upregulated, implicating ND10 as sites of a nuclear defense mechanism.Compatible with such a mechanism is the deposition of herpesvirus, adenovirus, and papovavirus genomes at the periphery of ND10. However, these DNA viruses begin their transcription at ND10 and consequently initiate replication at these sites, suggesting that viruses have evolved ways to circumvent this potential cellular defense and exploit it. Other ND10-associated proteins (...) belong to ubiquitin-related pathways. These findings, together with the accumulation of various overexpressed cellular and viral proteins, suggest that ND10 function as nuclear dumps or as nuclear depots. Consistent with the recruitment or deposition of various proteins and viral genomes adjacent to ND10, ND10 themselves may only be protein accumulations at specific but as yet undefined nuclear deposition sites. The concept of specific nuclear deposition sites may explain the juxtaposition of various nuclear bodies and allows testable predictions about a potential supramolecular regulatory mechanism whereby proteins are selectively segregated or released by global changes induced in nuclear functions such as viral infections, stress, or hormonal induction. BioEssays 20:660–667, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)

Within the highly organized nuclear structure, specific nuclear domains (ND10) are defined by accumulations of proteins that can be interferon-upregulated, implicating ND10 as sites of a nuclear defense mechanism.Compatible with such a mechanism is the deposition of herpesvirus, adenovirus, and papovavirus genomes at the periphery of ND10. However, these DNA viruses begin their transcription at ND10 and consequently initiate replication at these sites, suggesting that viruses have evolved ways to circumvent this potential cellular defense and exploit it. Other ND10-associated proteins (...) belong to ubiquitin-related pathways. These findings, together with the accumulation of various overexpressed cellular and viral proteins, suggest that ND10 function as nuclear dumps or as nuclear depots. Consistent with the recruitment or deposition of various proteins and viral genomes adjacent to ND10, ND10 themselves may only be protein accumulations at specific but as yet undefined nuclear deposition sites. The concept of specific nuclear deposition sites may explain the juxtaposition of various nuclear bodies and allows testable predictions about a potential supramolecular regulatory mechanism whereby proteins are selectively segregated or released by global changes induced in nuclear functions such as viral infections, stress, or hormonal induction. BioEssays 20:660–667, 1998.© 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)