So far as we know, we are the only species capable of introspection, and thus, sometimes, of insight into our own individual and collective nature. Arguably, the entire discipline of philosophy and, much more recently, of psychology, is premised on this simply stated but complicated fact. We are also a social species, each of us desiring – perhaps, even needing – to live as one among others. Taken together, these perfectly trite observations invite a number of questions regarding the nature (...) of the self and self-consciousness, and about the possibility of successful intersubjective communication. One line of enquiry among these questions, one that is vigorously pursued in The Five Obstructions, concerns the extent to which an individual’s self-understanding depends on the availability to that person of a genuinely second-person perspective. In order properly to understand oneself, does one need to see oneself through another’s eyes – in particular, the eyes of another who is in relation with us? If the answer is affirmative, what obligations do we have to each other to provide secondperson perspectives? How is such a perspective to be achieved? How is it best achieved, morally speaking? As I will try to show here, The Five Obstructions provides a very powerful example of self-revelation facilitated by another. Towards the end.. (shrink)

• Conventional data mining infers relations among e.g. the fraction of supermarket baskets with diapers also contain beer. • Phenomenal data mining concerns relations between data and the phenomena underlying the data, e.g. y married couples keeping old friends buy diapers and • Example: The sales receipts of a supermarket usually not identify the customers. Grouping baskets by customer is possible and useful but requires new techniques.

The fundamental question of the ethics of belief is "What ought one to believe?" According to the traditional view of evidentialism, the strength of one's beliefs should be proportionate to the evidence. Conventional ways of defending and challenging evidentialism rely on the idea that what one ought to believe is a matter of what it is rational, prudent, ethical, or personally fulfilling to believe. Common to all these approaches is that they look outside of belief itself to determine what one (...) ought to believe. In this book Jonathan Adler offers a strengthened version of evidentialism, arguing that the ethics of belief should be rooted in the concept of belief—that evidentialism is belief's own ethics. A key observation is that it is not merely that one ought not, but that one cannot, believe, for example, that the number of stars is even. The "cannot" represents a conceptual barrier, not just an inability. Therefore belief in defiance of one's evidence (or evidentialism) is impossible. Adler addresses such questions as irrational beliefs, reasonableness, control over beliefs, and whether justifying beliefs requires a foundation. Although he treats the ethics of belief as a central topic in epistemology, his ideas also bear on rationality, argument and pragmatics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and social cognitive psychology. (shrink)

Freedom is Schleiermacher's key ethical concept. Human life in general, however, is causally determined. Freedom is actualized only in the inner life, in feeling and imagination. Inner life, however, is the domain of religion, of consciousness of the infinite, and the source of free human fellowship. Thus freedom is tied to religion. This paper analyzes Schleiermacher's concept of religion and relates it to freedom in its connection with determinism. It attempts to demonstrate that religion is the foundation of the moral (...) life in a way that does not compromise the relative autonomy of morality, but rather makes moral life possible. (shrink)

A fundamental question in causal inference is whether it is possible to reliably infer the manipulation effects from observational data. There are a variety of senses of asymptotic reliability in the statistical literature, among which the most commonly discussed frequentist notions are pointwise consistency and uniform consistency (see, e.g. Bickel, Doksum [2001]). Uniform consistency is in general preferred to pointwise consistency because the former allows us to control the worst case error bounds with a finite sample size. In the sense (...) of pointwise consistency, several reliable causal inference algorithms have been established under the Markov and Faithfulness assumptions [Pearl 2000, Spirtes et al. 2001]. In the sense of uniform consistency, however, reliable causal inference is impossible under the two assumptions when time order is unknown and/or latent confounders are present [Robins et al. 2000]. In this paper we present two natural generalizations of the Faithfulness assumption in the context of structural equation models, under which we show that the typical algorithms in the literature are uniformly consistent with or without modifications even when the time order is unknown. We also discuss the situation where latent confounders may be present and the sense in which the Faithfulness assumption is a limiting case of the stronger assumptions. (shrink)

S There is a long tradition of representing causal relationships by directed acyclic graphs (Wright, 1934 ). Spirtes ( 1994), Spirtes et al. ( 1993) and Pearl & Verma ( 1991) describe procedures for inferring the presence or absence of causal arrows in the graph even if there might be unobserved confounding variables, and/or an unknown time order, and that under weak conditions, for certain combinations of directed acyclic graphs and probability distributions, are asymptotically, in sample size, consistent. These (...) results are surprising since they seem to contradict the standard statistical wisdom that consistent estimators of causal effects do not exist for nonrandomised studies if there are potentially unobserved confounding variables. We resolve the apparent incompatibility of these views by closely examining the asymptotic properties of these causal inference procedures. We show that the asymptotically consistent procedures are ‘pointwise consistent’, but ‘uniformly consistent’ tests do not exist. Thus, no finite sample size can ever be guaranteed to approximate the asymptotic results. We also show the nonexistence of valid, consistent confidence intervals for causal effects and the nonexistence of uniformly consistent point estimators. Our results make no assumption about the form of the tests or estimators. In particular, the tests could be classical independence tests, they could be Bayes tests or they could be tests based on scoring methods such as  or . The implications of our results for observational studies are controversial and are discussed briefly in the last section of the paper. The results hinge on the following fact: it is possible to find, for each sample size n, distributions P and Q such that P and Q are empirically indistinguishable and yet P and Q correspond to different causal effects. (shrink)

The bare theory is the standard von Neumann·Dirac formulation of quantum mechanics without the collapse postulate but with the eigenvalueeigenstate link. Albert (1992, 1i6-125) presented the bare theory as one way of understanding EverettRi7;s relative-state interpretation. At first glance, it looks as if the bare theory cannot possibly account for our experience. After all, at the end of a measurement an observer will typically be in a superposition of having recorded mutually incompatible results, which on the standard interpretation of states (...) (the interpretation provided by the eigenvalue-eigenstate.. (shrink)

Use of narrative metaphors in moral theory makes possible an account of public worship as the ground for Christian moral life. By enabling us to picture how our moral agency acknowledges the living God, such worship grounds the principle that Christian moral endeavor takes shape in God's living presence. The community professes that, in its worship, its heritage of images of human life under God-creation, redemption, church, and eternal life-effectively reshapes our lives. Thus worship empowers us to see and to (...) shape our moral agency as a response of praise to God as Creator and Lord. (shrink)

Recent advances in string theory and inflationary cosmology have led to a surge of interest in the possible existence of an ensemble of cosmic regions, or “universes”, among the members of which key physical parameters, such as the masses of elementary particles and the coupling constants, might assume different values. The observed values in our cosmic region are then attributed to an observer selection effect (the so-called anthropic principle). The assemblage of universes has been dubbed “the multiverse”. In this paper (...) we review the multiverse concept and the criticisms that have been advanced against it on both scientific and philosophical grounds. (shrink)

We present a general method for obtaining all Bell inequalities for a given experimental setup. Although the algorithm runs slowly, we apply it to two cases. First, the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger setup with three observers each performing one of two possible measurements. Second, the case of two observers each performing one of three possible experiments. In both cases we obtain hundreds of inequalities. Since this is the set of all inequalities, the one that is maximally violated in a given quantum state must (...) be among them. We demonstrate this fact with a few examples. We also note the deep connection between the inequalities and classical logic, and their violation with quantum logic. (shrink)

One of the outstanding achievements of recent cosmology has been to offer some prospect of a unified explanation of temporal asymmetry. The explanation is in two main parts, and runs something like this. First, the various asymmetries we observe are all thermodynamic in origin – all products of the fact that we live in an epoch in which the universe is far from thermodynamic equilibrium. Second, this thermodynamic disequilibrium is associated with the condition of the universe very soon after the (...) Big Bang – the essential point being that in the rapidly expanding universe of the time, gravity is able to create organisation much faster than other processes can destroy it. The stars, galaxies and other forms of organisation we find in the present universe are all products of this early period. Such concentrated energy sources themselves make possible the kinds of asymmetric phenomena with which we are most familiar, such as life itself. If this explanation proves to be right it will surely rank as one of the most impressive achievements in the whole of natural philosophy. Where else do we find this breathtaking scale, this extraordinary conjunction of fundamental physics, the first moments of Creation, the possibility of life and the basic character of human experience? And it is very much a contemporary achievement: even if its roots go back on one side to the investigation of time asymmetry in nineteenth century statistical mechanics, and on the other to Hubble's discovery in the 1920's of the expansion of the universe, the body of the picture has only begun to be filled in in the last twenty or thirty years. This fascinating story has recently been given some well-deserved publicity in Stephen Hawking's bestseller, A Brief History of Time – well-deserved, not least, because Hawking himself is responsible for a considerable part of the story as it presently stands. (shrink)

When observing or measuring phenomena, errors are inevitable, one can only aspire to reduce these errors as much as possible. An obvious strategy to achieve this reduction is by using more precise instruments. Another strategy was to develop a theory of these errors that could indicate how to take them into account. One of the greatest achievements of statistics in the beginning of the 19th century was such a theory of error. This theory told the practitioners that the best (...) thing they could do is taking the arithmetical mean of their observations. This average would give them the most accurate estimate of the value they were searching for. Soon after its invention, this method made a triumphal march across various sciences. However, not in all sciences one stood waving aside. This method, namely, only worked well when the various observations were made under similar circumstances and when there were very many of them. And this was not the case for e.g. meteorology and actuarial science, the two sciences discussed in this paper. (shrink)

A typical difference between social science and natural science is the degree in which control is possible. Strategies in both sciences to obtain true facts are consequently different. Measurement errors are due to background noise. Laboratories are environments in which background conditions can be controlled. As a result, accurate observations { measurement results close to the true values of the measurands { can only be obtained in laboratories. Therefore, measuring instruments are built such that they function as mini laboratories. However, (...) observations in social science are usually passive, in the sense that control of background conditions is impossible. Models are built to solve this problem of (lack of) control. They function as nonmaterial laboratories by aiming at precision, that is reducing the spread of the measurement errors. The application of models as measuring instruments necessitates a shift of the requirement of accuracy to the requirement of precision, which is a feature of the instrument and not of the environment. (shrink)

While philosophers have, for centuries, pondered upon the relation between mind and brain, neuroscientists have only recently been able to explore the connection analytically — to peer inside the black box. This ability stems from recent advances in technology and emerging neuroimaging modalities. It is now possible not only to produce remarkably detailed images of the brain’s structure (i.e. anatomical imaging) but also to capture images of the physiology associated with mental processes (i.e. functional imaging). We are able to see (...) how specific regions of the brain ‘light up’ when activities such as reading this book are performed, and how our neurons and their elaborate cast of supporting cells organize and coordinate their tasks. As demonstrated in the other chapters of this book, the mapping of the human mind (mostly by measuring regional changes in blood flow, initially by positron emission tomography (PET) and recently by functional magnetic resonance imaging or (fMRI)) has provided insight into the functional neuroanatomy of neuropsychiatric diseases. Amazingly, the idea that regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) is related intimately to brain function goes back more than a century. As is often the case in science, this idea was initially the result of unexpected observations. The Italian physiologist Angelo Mosso first expressed the idea while studying pulsations of the living human brain that keep pace with the heartbeat (Mosso, 1881). These brain pulsations can be observed on the surface of the fontanelles in newborn children. Mosso believed that they reflected blood flow to the brain. He observed similar pulsations in an adult with a post-traumatic skull defect over the frontal lobes. While studying this subject, a peasant named Bertino, Mosso observed a sudden increase in the magnitude of the ‘brain’s heart-beats’ when the church bells signalled 12 o’clock, the time for a required prayer. The changes in brain pulsations occurred independently of any change in pulsations in the forearm.. (shrink)

The Fast Casual Inference (FCI) algorithm searches for features common to observationally equivalent sets of causal directed acyclic graphs. It is correct in the large sample limit with probability one even if there is a possibility of hidden variables and selection bias. In the worst case, the number of conditional independence tests performed by the algorithm grows exponentially with the number of variables in the data set. This affects both the speed of the algorithm and the accuracy of the algorithm (...) on small samples, because tests of independence conditional on large numbers of variables have very low power. In this paper, I prove that the FCI algorithm can be interrupted at any stage and asked for output. The output from the interrupted algorithm is still correct with probability one in the large sample limit, although possibly less informative (in the sense that it answers “Can’t tell” for a larger number of questions) than if the FCI algorithm had been allowed to continue uninterrupted. (shrink)

predators stalk their chosen prey, and so forth. The genius of “instinct†comes in abundant variety, and breeds true. “It must be in the genesâ€â€“that’s what we tend to conclude. But when we do, we may be jumping to conclusions, because there are other possibilities: the clever behavior we observe could be the do-it-yourself invention or discovery of the individual behaver or it could be a clever trick copied from an elder member of its species, most likely one of (...) its parents. This last possibility is an ancient doctrine, enshrined in folklore about animal parents sternly but lovingly training their young, and in countless anecdotes, but this appealing idea of animals benefitting from hand-me-down wisdom from earlier generations much the way we do has recently languished in the shadow of the genes, an oversight this book seeks to correct. The folklore is not all fanciful; some of it can be supported by good science, which moreover will open up surprising vistas on the role of individual behavior in evolution. The book is fascinating on at least three levels: first, it provides a vivid and insightful survey.. (shrink)

According to current cognitive linguistic theory, the abstract notion of TIME in many languages of the world is expressed through a metonymic relation involving direc-tion, irreversibility, continuity, segmentation, and measurability and one of two possible versions of the TIME AS ORIENTATION IN SPACE metaphor: either the observer moves or time does. In Phenomenology of Perception (1945), Merleau-Ponty argues for the possibility of understanding what he calls 'our primordial experience'of time through an exploration, analysis, comparison, and evaluation of the different metaphors (...) for time, not as they exist in themselves but as they are grounded in what other cognitive linguists have explored with respect to subjectivity, concept formation, and conceptual integration. This 'primordial experience' of time is possible because of the embodiment of ourselves in the world and gives rise to Merleau-Ponty’s theory of an ontology of the flesh; the fact that we are 'of' rather than 'in' the world gives rise to his theory of time as depth. In this paper, I show how Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of time might 1) clarify the picture Lakoff and Johnson give of the existence of time and 2) provide a philosophical foundation that integrates various contemporary cognitive linguistic theories. (shrink)

Objectives: Recent fMRI studies have shown that it is possible to reliably identify the defaultmode network (DMN) in the absence of any task, by resting-state connectivity analyses in healthy volunteers. We here aimed to identify the DMN in the challenging patient population of disorders of consciousness encountered following coma. Experimental design: A spatial independent component analysis-based methodology permitted DMN assessment, decomposing connectivity in all its different sources either neuronal or artifactual. Three different selection criteria were introduced assessing anticorrelation-corrected connectivity with (...) or without an automatic masking procedure and calculating connectivity scores encompassing both spatial and temporal properties. These three methods were validated on 10 healthy controls and applied to an independent group of 8 healthy controls and 11 severely brain-damaged patients [locked-in syndrome (n ¼ 2), minimally conscious (n ¼ 1), and vegetative state (n ¼ 8)]. Principal observations: All vegetative patients showed fewer connections in the default-mode areas, when compared with controls, contrary to locked-in patients who showed nearnormal connectivity. In the minimally conscious-state patient, only the two selection criteria considering both spatial and temporal properties were able to identify an intact right lateralized BOLD connectivity pattern, and metabolic PET data suggested its neuronal origin. Conclusions: When assess-. (shrink)

A passenger boards a fast train. It takes her some distance, makes a u-turn, and returns to the starting platform. She reports that according to her clock, the trip took n seconds. An observer who remained behind on the platform gets a different reading. Using his clock, he records a longer time interval m. These claims are compatible with the clocks being in perfect order. Modern Physics tells us that time is relative. The duration of the trip, understood as the (...) temporal distance between the departure and the return events, will depend on the chosen frame of reference. The passenger and the observer belong to different frames. This is the source of the discrepancy. Suppose that the passenger and the observer speak a language that is like ours with possible differences arising from the assumption that no one in their community knows about modern physics. Let us call this language '19th Century English'. Imagine that the agents, in different conversations, utter sentences (1) and (2) respectively. (shrink)

This paper presents the observation that negative non-wh-questions with inverted negation do not have an alternative (alt-)question reading. In English, a simple question like (1) has two possible readings: a yes-no (yn-)question reading, paraphrased in (1a), and an alt-question reading, disambiguated in (1b). Under the yn-question reading, the question can be answered as in (2); under the alt-question reading, acceptable answers are (3).

The main concern of these notes is objectivity. The demand of traditional rationalism for absolute objectivity is excessive; the license of hermeneuticists and post-modernists to replace objectivity by frank ethnocentrism by endorsing local prejudices is unfortunate. Most social observers still attempt to overcome ethnocentrism, by the use of statistics and of the field method of participant observation and of other means, knowing that no guarantee is possible. As the volume at hand concerns the sociology of one religion in one place, (...) it may serve as a case study. A little objectivity should prevent the camouflage of the deterioration of religious life caused by discrimination. (shrink)

The proponents of strong lexicalism hold the view that “words” are formed in the lexicon and are opaque for the syntax ((Dowty 1979), (DiSciullo and Williams 1987), (Jackendoff 1990) and many others). Modular morphology, on the other hand, offers the possibility that at least some words are partially formed in the syntax ((Baker 1988), (Borer 1988), (Hale and Keyser 1994), (Chomsky 1995) and many others). In (Stechow 1995) and (Stechow 1996) it has been argued that facts observed with German wieder (...) “again” cannot be accounted for within the framework of strong lexicalism and therefore favour the second position. The authors of this paper want to check these claims by investigating the behaviour of the German adverb fast “ almost”, the other classical adverb to which the method of decomposition has been applied in the linguistic literature (cf. (McCawley 1971)). Most adverbs cannot look into lexical decomposition structures, but some can. In order to have a suitable name, let us call these D-adverbs. Again and almost are the prototypical representatives of this class. The method adopted is to investigate whether fast has access to different aspects of verbal meaning depending on its position. Following (Dowty 1979), resultative verbs and prepositions are decomposed into BECOME + XP, where XP is the result state. Agentive verbs contain an additional AGENT part. Other thematic relations connecting the subject and the event are HOLDER and cause. If the syntax tells us that an adverb like wieder or fast must have wide scope with respect to BECOME, then we expect other readings than in a configuration where fast can have narrow scope with respect to BECOME. In other words, the motivation for decomposition is syntactic and semantic. The idea is that certain function projections in the classical VP have a meaning and hence scopally interact with adverbs. (shrink)

The word “theodicy” comes from the Greek words for God (theos) and justice (diké). Although coined by Leibniz, the attempt it represents is far older. In the Jewish tradition, it stretches to the beginning—that is to the stories of Genesis with their attempts to explain how evil could exist in a world created by God. God, after each creative act, sees that his creations are “good.” Women, however, bear their children in pain (Gn 3:16) and the ground, sprouting “thorns and (...) thistles,” can at times appears “cursed” to the farmer (Gn 3:18). How do we explain this? How is it compatible with God’s justice? Is it, in fact, possible to “justify God’s ways to man”? Beginning with Genesis’s account of man’s disobedience, there is a whole tradition of efforts to answer this question. It includes Isaiah’s notion of the “suffering servant”—the person who suffers for the sins of others—and the Maccabean notion of the “martyr”—the innocent and just sufferer who serves as a witness for the truth. As the philosopher, Hans Jonas, observes, the “event of Auschwitz” marks an important challenge to this tradition. “Auschwitz” names not just the setting in which over a million Jews, Gypsies and Poles perished. It also signifies the dehumanization of its victims. In the “factory-like working of its machine” for extermination, even the gesture of martyrdom and witness was not left to the dying. In Jonas’s words, “Not fidelity or infidelity, belief or unbelief, not guilt or punishment, not trial, witness and messianic hope, nay, not even strength or weakness, heroism or cowardice, defiance or submission had a place there. .... Of all this, Auschwitz, which also devoured the infants and babes, knew.. (shrink)

Advances in the underlying theory of a subdiscipline of AI can result in an apparently impressive improvement in the performance of a system that incorporates the advance. This impression typically comes from observing improved performance of the new system on some test problems. However, the improvement in performance may be for only the problems used in the testing, and performance on other problems may be degraded, possibly resulting overall in an degradation of the system’s performance. This comes about typically (...) when the incorporation of the new feature increases the resources required overall, but the feature has bene- fits on only some problems (e.g., those used to test the new new system). In general, a localized theoretical advance is only rarely sufficient to increase the overall performance of any complex system. Therefore, researchers who make theoretical advances, also need some way to demonstrate that an advance really does have general, overall positive consequences for system.. (shrink)

The Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem shows that, in any Hilbert space of dimension of at least 3, it is impossible to assign noncontextual definite values to all observables in such a way that the quantum-mechanical predictions are reproduced. This leaves open the issue of what subsets of observables may be assigned definite values. Clifton has shown that, for a system of at least two continuous degrees of freedom, it is not possible to assign simultaneous noncontextual values to two coordinates and their conjugate (...) momenta. In this Letter, it is shown that, for a system of a single continuous degree of freedom, it is not possible to assign noncontextual values to the coordinate and its conjugate momenta that satisfy a continuity assumption herein called the ‘ -Product Rule’.  2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

This paper investigates what the source of time asymmetry is in thermodynamics, and comments on the question whether a time-symmetric formulation of the Second Law is possible.

Imagine a gadget, call it “brain-ovision,” for brain scanning that doesn’t create pictures of brains at all. That’s right, no orbs spattered with colorful “activations” that need to be interpreted by neuroanatomists. Instead, with brain-o-vision, what a brain sees is what you get—an image of what that brain is experiencing. If the person who owns the brain is envisioning lunch, up pops a cheeseburger on the screen. If the person is reading a book, the screen shows the words. For that (...) matter, if the brain owner is feeling pain, perhaps brain-o-vision could reach out and swat the viewer with a rolled-up newspaper. Brain-ovision could give us access to another person’s consciousness. Technologies for brain-o-vision are beginning to seem possible. We are learning how brain activations map onto emotions, memories, and mental processes, and it won’t be long before we might translate activations into Google searches for images of what the brain is thinking. There is a specific brain area linked with face perception, for instance, and even a neuron that fires when it sees Jennifer Aniston. So why, in principle, shouldn’t we be able to scan a brain and discover when it is looking at her—and eventually even learn what she’s wearing? Of course, it may be many years to the beta version. But imagine that everything works out and brain-o-vision goes on sale at Wal- Mart. Could the device solve the problem of whether consciousness causes behavior? With direct evidence of a person’s consciousness, we could do science on the question. We could observe regularities in the relation between consciousness and behavior. If the consciousness always preceded the behavior, we could arrive at the inductive inference of causation and, as scientists, be quite happy that we had established a causal connection. (shrink)

alone, in a reclining posture in his drawing-room. He was lean, ghastly, and quite of an earthy appearance. … He was quite different from the plump figure which he used to present … He seemed to be placid and even cheerful … He said he was just approaching to his end … I had a strong curiosity to be satisfied if he persisted in disbelieving a future state even when he had death before his eyes. I was persuaded from what (...) he said, and from his manner of saying it, that he did persist. I asked him if it was not possible that there might be a future state. He answered it was possible that a piece of coal put upon the fire would not burn; and he added that it was a most unreasonable fancy that we should exist for ever … I asked him if the thought of annihilation never gave him any uneasiness. He said not the least; no more than the thought that he had not been, as Lucretius observes. … He said he had no pain, but was wasting away. I left him with impressions which disturbed me for some time. (shrink)

Good Morning! When I was asked to talk on the subject of Dying in America at a breakfast meeting, It occurred to me that I might get to make some wisecracks about how we eat, at a breakfast where we would be served croissants, butter, sausage and eggs, and berries served with Devonshire cream: certainly the most tasteful form of dying in America! Nor have we been disappointed: quiche and ham should do quite nicely. Then, after last Tuesday’s election, someone (...) approached me and asked if my talk was gong to be on Democratic Party politics. I suppose the title “Dying in America: might fit that subject very nicely! Another wag asked whether I was going to discuss the Buffalo Bills’ current football season . . . . All of these possible applications of the phrase “Dying in America” point to the enormous importance we attach to the idea of dying, and the ways we use that idea in our very metaphorical language. That kind of richness of language is a sure sign, as Joseph Campbell would remind us, that culturally pervasive myths are constructed around the idea of dying. Now, I don’t intend to talk about Campbell’s views at all today, and I will avoid a short course on myths. But I will make just one or two observations about myths so that you are not uncomfortable with my later use of the term. For one of our myths about myths is that, in this educated and scientifically literate society, we don’t have any myths; myths are supposed to be the glue of fictional beliefs that holds primitive societies together, and we certainly are not primitive. Well, let me explain how I intend to use the idea of myth to illuminate some of our values and practices associated with the idea of dying in America. First, by a myth I mean a culturally pervasive set of beliefs and values that tends to center on a single, simple archetypal image or scenario. And second, by calling something mythic I mean to invoke perhaps a number of myths operating as a cluster of culturally important determinants of attitudes and behaviors.. (shrink)

PHILOSOPHIQUE, 2016 NOTE : DELEUZE ET LES SCIENCES DE L’ÉDUCATION Yoann Barthod Malat Université de Franche-Comté L’œuvre deleuzienne ne traite pas directement de l’éducation, pourtant sa pensée semble parfaitement transposable aux sciences de l’éducation puis­qu’elle remet fondamentalement en cause l’idée de transmission, l’idée du maitre détenteur d’un savoir absolu, du vrai comme produit d’une transcen­dance mystique. Si la notion d’éducation n’est pas un objet deleuzien, il est possible d...

(PDF of penultimate draft; please don’t quote from or cite this version.) Forthcoming in Synthese. Generalizations of Fitch’s paradox of knowability motivate the thesis that in saying that a truth is knowable, or that it could be known, we do not mean that it is possible that it is known. Instead, I argue, claims about knowability express capacities to know. The paper concludes by explaining the requisite sense of “capacity” at work here, and by showing how the paradox of knowability (...) and its generalizations are solved. (shrink)

One of the more fundamental questions raised by the generalism–particularism debate in ethics is just what a right-making factor (or reason) is. I contrast two possible conceptions of such factors and defend the second. The first understands right-making factors in terms of moral laws, and variants of it are advanced by writers on either side of the generalism–particularism debate. The second understands right-making factors in terms of right-making properties conceived dispositionally—i.e., as powers, capacities, etc. I defend the latter, dispositionalist conception (...) on the basis of its ability to elucidate and explain various features that right-making factors are widely taken to have, including the ability to contribute to the overall moral status of an action without determining it. I also offer dispositionalist conceptions of other morally relevant factors, including defeaters, intensifiers, and disablers. And I deploy these conceptions to elucidate and defend moral holism (or the holism of the right-making relation). (shrink)

I provide a fairly systematic analysis of when quantities that are variant under a dynamical symmetry transformation should be regarded as unobservable, or redundant, or unreal; of when models related by a dynamical symmetry transformation represent the same state of affairs; and of when mathematical structure that is variant under a dynamical symmetry transformation should be regarded as surplus. In most of these cases the answer is `it depends': depends, that is, on the details of the symmetry in question. A (...) central feature of the analysis is that in order to draw any of these conclusions for a dynamical symmetry it needs to be understood in terms of its possible extensions to other physical systems, in particular to measurement devices. (shrink)

Chelebi (Çelebi) Sulṭān is a Ṣūfī poet. Due to poor and limited sources, there is a hardness in finding accurate and sufficient information about him. Abdülbaki Gölpınarlı claimed that this anonymous poet could be Oğlan Sheikh İsmāʿil-i Maʿşūḳī (d. 1539) from Bayramī-Melāmī by relying on the unanimous ghazal recorded in Ḥālet Efendi 800 in Suleymaniye Library. However, the fact that the aforementioned ghazal with simple copy variations published in Eşrefoğlu Rūmī Diwan weakens the credibility of his argument that Chelebi Sulṭān (...) could be Oğlan Sheikh İsmāʿil-i Maʿşūḳī. Though the acknowledgment of this data, Gölpınarlı still insisted on the credibility of his claim that the ghazal belongs to Oğlan Sheikh. Moreover he argued that the claims suggesting that the ghazal belongs to Eşrefoğlu Rūmī (d. 1469) should be questioned. Other than this ghazal, there is one more qasida (ḳasīde) with having gizlidir word after the rhyme associate to Chelebi Sulṭān, and an annotation to this qasida by Āyīne-zāde Meḥmed Şemseddīn-i Sirozī (d. 1688/89). However, neither the qasida and ghazal attributed Chelebi Sulṭān nor the Āyīne-zāde’s annotation provide satisfying information to identify the identity of the poet. Therefore, it can be claimed that Chelebi Sulṭān’s identification is based on weak arguments. No more evidence can develop these estimations into evidence-based arguments. This article tries to provide a virtual framework for the identity of Chelebi Sulṭān. In this context, the article firstly discusses Chelebi Sulṭān’s disposition and popularity on Ṣūfī groups by considering the contents of the manuscripts mentioning him. Then, it analyzes whether Chelebi Sulṭān is associated with Ḥurūfīs or not by focusing on the ism-musemmā subject in the two first couplets of the qasida attributed to the Ṣūfī poet. Finally, the article speculates whether the poet called Chelebi Sulṭān in literature could be Misālī (d. 1577), or not, who is one of the Ḥurūfī poets. The subject of Chelebi Sulṭān's connection with Ḥurūfīsm is examined under two titles in the article. The possibility of Chelebi Sulṭān to be Misālī, one of the Ḥurūfī poets, was discussed based on the qasida with nedür rhyme. In this regard, there are two assumptions. The first one is that the pseudonym Misālī is mentioned in the qasida, and the second evidence is that there is a qasida with nedür word after rhyme belonging to Chelebi Sulṭān in the two copies of the Misālī Diwan. However, although the mentioned qasida exists in the recent copies, this qasida is not found in the oldest copies of the diwan. Therefore it is possible to conclude that this lack weakens the possibility that Chelebi Sulṭān could be Misālī, one of the Ḥurūfī poets. The second title is related to the issue of the ism-musemmā in the first two couplets of the qasida with nedür word after rhyme. Through this analysis, it was discussed whether Chelebi Sulṭān could be Ḥurūfī or not. At this point, it is revealed that there is a similarity between the two couplets of Chelebi Sulṭān in the qasida with nedür word after rhyme on the issue of ism-musemmā and some other couplets of Ḥurūfī poets (Nesīmī / Ḫalîlî, Misālī, et al.) on the same issue. Besides, the views of a few groups, apart from the Ḥurūfī Poets, that discussed ism-musemmā issue in their poetry, were evaluated. The article refers to the Ṣūfī poet's qasida with nedür word after rhyme while discussing the issue of which groups favored Chelebi Sulṭān more and it also tried to determine which groups read this qasida at that period. To discuss the general content of the manuscript, the manuscript registered in Suleymaniye Library Mihrisah Sultan number 185, the corpus cataloged in Suleymaniye Library, Galata Mevlevihanesi 233, and the manuscript cataloged in Millet Library Ali Emiri Collection (AEArb) 4341, were examined. Thus it can be claimed both Chelebi Sulṭān and his qasida were popular among heterodox groups, as it was observed that the qasida also exists in the works of Ḥurūfī, Alevi-Bektashi, and Bayramī-Melāmī groups. Despite all this, there is no clear conclusion regarding the identity of Chelebi Sulṭān. Nevertheless, it is possible to say that Chelebi Sulṭān was popular among heterodox Ṣūfī groups and that some Ḥurūfī views influenced him. (shrink)

It has been suggested by Clark Glymour that the spatio-temporal structure of the universe might be underdetermined by all observational data that could ever, theoretically, be gathered. It is possible for two spacetimes to be observationally indistinguishable (OI) yet topologically distinct. David Malament extended the argument for the underdetermination of spacetime structure by showing that under quite general conditions (such as the absence of any closed timelike curves) a spacetime will always have an OI counterpart (at least in weak sense). (...) Because the plight of the cosmologist seemed to be so discouraging in this regard, Malament considered the relationship between global properties and OI spacetimes. This information is helpful to the cosmologist. It allows, in principle, one to reject some spacetime models based on observational evidence. In this paper, I consider the relationship between variants of geodesic incompleteness and different senses (some old and some new) of OI. In light of the findings, it seems that (for the most part) the predicament of the cosmologist is not good. Quite generally, versions of geodesic incompleteness are not conserved even under the strongest formulations of OI. (shrink)

Preference formation and choice are dynamic cognitive processes arising from interactions between decision-makers and their immediate choice environment. This thesis examines how preferences and decisions are played out in visual attention, captured by eye-movements, as well as in group contexts. Papers I-II make use of the Choice Blindness paradigm. Paper I compares participants’ eye movements and pupil dilation over the course of a trial when participants detect and fail to detect the false feedback concerning their choices. Results indicate objective markers (...) of detection with important implications for questions concerning possible demand effect or cognitive dissonance explanations of choice blindness. Paper II examines another aspect of the choice environment, namely, the social context. Choice blindness is demonstrated in small groups for the first time. It is shown that preferential change can be induced in dyads by manipulating the group’s beliefs about their choices, thus extending the preference change through choice effects beyond individuals for the first time. Paper III examines how visual attention differentially supports both decision and memory processes depending on the amount of task-relevant information available to participants. Participants’ performance and visual attention dynamics was found to vary depending on the amount of information available to them, and the results indicate that decision outcomes are heavily influenced by encoding prior to traditional choice phases used in decision research. Papers IV-VII concern decision-making in the moral domain. Paper IV investigates visual attention when participants choose between difficult moral dilemmas, showing asymmetries in how participants distribute their attention depending on making utilitarian or deontological choices. Paper V introduces a novel paradigm for influencing decision based manipulating the timing of decision by measuring the direction of gaze while the participant deliberates. Using this method participants’ moral decisions were biased without their knowledge to a randomly chosen alternative. This shows that moral decision and visual attention are highly coupled and that by simply knowing where someone is looking it is possible to influence their decision process. Papers VI&VII build on the links between gaze direction and moral choice and present the first computational decision models based on eye gaze applicable to the moral domain. Paper VI for choices between abstract principles and Paper VII for donations to charitable organizations. Together the papers advance novel methodological solutions to understanding preferences and decisions across a number of domains, both highlighting the important contributions of social and sensorimotor interactions to the content of our decisions as they develop over time, as well as demonstrating how decisions can be influenced by leveraging those interactions. (shrink)

[email protected] http://bruce.edmonds.name Abstract. Two kinds of problem are distinguished: the first of finding processes which produce complex outcomes from the interaction of simple parts, and the second of finding which process resulted in an observed complex outcome. The former I call the easy complexity problem and the later the hard complexity problem. It is often assumed that progress with the easy problem will aid process with the hard problem. However this assumes that the “reverse engineering” problem, of determining the process (...) from the outcomes is feasible. Taking a couple of simple models of reverse engineering, I show that this task is infeasible in the general case. Hence it cannot be assumed that reverse engineering is possible, and hence that most of the time progress on the easy problem will not help with the hard problem unless there are special properties of a particular set of processes that make it feasible. Assuming that complexity science is not merely an academic “game” and given the analysis of this paper, some criteria for the kinds of paper that have a reasonable chance of being eventually useful for understanding observed complex systems are outlined. Many complexity papers do not fare well against these critieria. (shrink)

This is a philosophical `position paper' (html and pdf versions), starting from the observation that we have an intuitive grasp of a family of related concepts of ``possibility'', ``causation'' and ``constraint'' which we often use in thinking about complex mechanisms, and perhaps also in perceptual processes, which according to Gibson are primarily concerned with detecting positive and negative affordances, such as support, obstruction, graspability, etc. We are able to talk about, think about, and perceive possibilities, such as possible shapes, (...) possible pressures, possible motions, and also risks, opportunities and dangers. We can also think about constraints linking such possibilities. If such abilities are useful to us (and perhaps other animals) they may be equally useful to intelligent artefacts. All this bears on a collection of different more technical topics, including modal logic, constraint analysis, qualitative reasoning, naive physics, the analysis of functionality, and the modelling design processes. The paper suggests that our ability to use knowledge about ``de-re'' modality is more primitive than the ability to use ``de-dicto'' modalities, in which modal operators are applied to sentences. The paper explores these ideas, links them to notions of ``causation'' and ``machine'', suggests that they are applicable to virtual or abstract machines as well as physical machines. Some conclusions are drawn regarding the nature of mind and consciousness. (shrink)

All statements describing physical reality are derived through interpretation of measurement results that requires a theory of the measuring instruments used to make the measurements. The ultimate measuring instrument is our body which displays its measurement results in our mind. Since a physical theory of our mind-body is unknown, the correct interpretation of its measurement results is unknown. The success of the physical sciences has led to a tendency to treat assumption in physics as indisputable facts. This tendency (...) hampers the development of new theories capable of addressing the foundations of mind. To show the possibility that false interpretations of experimental results have lead to equally false projections onto physical reality may have happened, the double slit experiment and special relativity experiments are examined in detail. I will show that strongly held a-priory beliefs characterizing measurement instruments have lead to unjustified but widely held concepts in physical theories. For example the assumption that material bodies have minds can change the interpretation of experiments to produce alternative physical theories. Since some material bodies have minds this paper calls for a review of the conscious observer’s role in the execution and interpretation of fundamental physics experiments in order to verify or challenge the basic beliefs adopted in standard physical theories. (shrink)

The increasing availability of passively observed data has yielded a growing interest in “data fusion” methods, which involve merging data from observational and experimental sources to draw causal conclusions. Such methods often require a precarious tradeoff between the unknown bias in the observational dataset and the often-large variance in the experimental dataset. We propose an alternative approach, which avoids this tradeoff: rather than using observational data for inference, we use it to design a more efficient experiment. We consider the (...) case of a stratified experiment with a binary outcome and suppose pilot estimates for the stratum potential outcome variances can be obtained from the observational study. We extend existing results to generate confidence sets for these variances, while accounting for the possibility of unmeasured confounding. Then, we pose the experimental design problem as a regret minimization problem subject to the constraints imposed by our confidence sets. We show that this problem can be converted into a concave maximization and solved using conventional methods. Finally, we demonstrate the practical utility of our methods using data from the Women’s Health Initiative. (shrink)

Here I shall call elements (1)-(3) the quantum state (or the “state”), since they give the quantum state of the universe that obeys the dynamical laws and is written in terms of the kinematic variables, and I shall call elements (4)-(6) the probability rules (or the “rules”), since they specify what it is that has probabilities (here taken to be the results of observations, Oj, or “observations” for short), the rules for extracting these observational probabilities from the quantum state, and (...) the meaning of the probabilities. What I shall write below is largely independent of the meaning of the probabilities, though personally I view them in a rather Everettian way as objective measures for the set of observations with positive probabilities. Usually it is implicitly believed that the observational probabilities depend strongly upon the quantum state. (Sometimes the Everett interpretation [2] is taken to mean that all of physical reality is determined purely by the quantum state, without the need for any additional rules to extract probabilities, but this extreme view seems untenable [4] and will not be adopted here. Instead, I shall discuss the opposite view, that the probabilities are independent of the quantum state.) However, some advocates of inflation[5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22] often claim that our observations do not depend upon the quantum state at all, but rather that inflation acts as an attractor to give the same statistical distribution of observations from any state. In this note, I shall use the framework of state plus rules to discuss this possibility that observational probabilities might be independent of the quantum state. I shall show that this indeed is logically possible, but apparently only if the probability rules are rather ad hoc. If indeed the rules are this ad hoc, so that the probabilities of our observations do not depend upon a quantum state at all, it would seem to leave it mysterious why many of our observations can be simply interpreted as if our universe really were quantum.. (shrink)

A possible mechanism of nonlinear quantum evolution is introduced and its implications for quantum communication are investigated. First, it is demonstrated that an appropriate combination of wavefunction collapse and the consciousness of observer may permit the observer to distinguish nonorthogonal quantum states in principle, and thus consciousness will introduce certain nonlinearity into quantum dynamics. Next, it is shown that the distinguishability of nonorthogonal states can be used to achieve quantum superluminal communication, by which information can be transmitted nonlocally and faster (...) than the speed of light. Finally, the issue of apparent incompatibility between superluminal communication and special relativity is briefly addressed. (shrink)

We present five studies investigating the effects of approach and avoidance behaviours when individuals do not enact them but, instead, learn that others have performed them. In Experiment 1, when participants read that a fictitious character (model) had approached a previously unknown product, they ascribed to this model a liking for the object. In contrast, they ascribed to the model a disliking for the avoided product. In Experiment 2, this result emerged, with a smaller effect size, even when it (...) was clear that the behaviours followed specific instructions from a third party. The model had been a mere executor instead of behaving autonomously. Finally, in Experiments 3, 4, and 5, we showed, with direct and indirect measures of attitudes, that reading that the model had approached vs avoided products was sufficient to create preferences in the participant for the approached one, regardless of whether it was explained that the model was a mere executor. This research highlights the largely unexplored effects of vicarious approach/avoidance behaviours. Theoretical and practical implications and possible developments of this line of research are discussed. (shrink)

Numerous approaches to a quantum theory of gravity posit fundamental ontologies that exclude spacetime, either partially or wholly. This situation raises deep questions about how such theories could relate to the empirical realm, since arguably only entities localized in spacetime can ever be observed. Are such entities even possible in a theory without fundamental spacetime? How might they be derived, formally speaking? Moreover, since the fundamental entities can't be smaller than the derived by assumption and so can't 'compose' them in (...) any ordinary sense, would a formal derivation actually show the physical reality of localized entities? We address these questions via a survey of a range of theories of quantum gravity, and generally sketch how they may be answered positively. (shrink)

This paper argues that our current best cosmological theories, according to which cosmos is very big are compatible with all possible evidence. The problem is unrelated to the Quine-Duhem underdetermination thesis. The compatibility to which this paper draws attention is much more radical: it appears as if all of our best cosmological theories are perfectly probabilistically compatible with all possible evidence and that no empirical discovery could give us any reason whatever to favor one such theory over another. This consequence (...) is absurd. In order to create an evidential link between cosmological theory and observation, a new methodological principle is needed. A candidate for such a principle is proposed, using a Bayesian framework that takes account of observation selection effects. Various applications in other scientific fields are considered. (shrink)

The main aim of this book is to introduce the topic of limited awareness, and changes in awareness, to those interested in the philosophy of decision-making and uncertain reasoning.

This paper differs from any previous view in discussing quantum pure possibilities as individuals, existing independently of any observer or mind. These pure possibilities are also absolutely independent of any metaphysical or logical view that endorses the notion of possible worlds. In my view, the relationship between quantum possibilities and classical physical reality is not between reality as such, as it is in itself, and its phenomena. It is rather between fundamental or primary reality, consisting of quantum (...) pure possibilities, on the one hand, and its actualization in what classical physics has discovered so far, on the other. As individual pure possibilities, quantum entities must be, at least ontologically, distinct and different from one another, regardless of the epistemological standing of quantum physics. Hence, quantum metaphysics is committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Finally, I analyze the two-slit experiment, interference, and entanglement in the light of my approach. (shrink)

Most models of rational action assume that all possible states and actions are pre-defined and that preferences change only when beliefs do. But several decision and game problems lack these features, calling for a dynamic model of preferences: preferences can change when unforeseen possibilities come to light or when there is no specifiable or measurable change in belief. We propose a formally precise dynamic model of preferences that extends an existing static model. Our axioms for updating preferences preserve consistency (...) while minimising change, like Hansson’s :1–28, 1995). But unlike prior models of preference change, ours supports default reasoning with partial preference information, which is essential to handle decision problems where the decision tree isn’t surveyable. We also show that our model avoids problems for other models of preference change discussed in Spohn. (shrink)