If we are looking for an Ur-explanation for the persistence of the Ur-myth, or any other myth, in our literature, could we not more directly find it in the structure of a mind which does not have to remember in order to imitate? The occasion of both myth and literature is the social life of the species which, in Starobinski's sense, is a history of continual eviction; but as regards the apparatus of thought by which this social life is reflected (...) in art it is more a history of assimilation and repetition. "The work of the brain," to cite a recent article in Scientific American, "is to create a model of a possible world rather than to record and transmit to the mind a world that is metaphysically true…Different worlds are presumably constructed by similar species."1 And, presumably, similar worlds are constructed by similar species. Weisinger hints briefly at something like this in his essay "The Mythic Origins of the Creative Process," but one has the clear impression, as his title suggests, that he would like to have the [myth/ritual] cart before the creative horse.2 However much this may satisfy our longing to crown our literature, if not creativity itself, with a mythic genealogy, it seems a wistful hypothesis. One might just as well look upon the remains of early man's shelters, marvel that they too had roofs, just like ours, and conclude that therefore our roofs have their origin in theirs.· 1. Harry J. Jerison, "Paleoneurology and the Evolution of Mind," Scientific American, January 1976, p. 99.· 2. Herbert Weisinger, The Agony and the Triumph: Papers on the Use and Abuse of Myth , p. 250.Bert O. States, professor of dramatic arts at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is the author of Irony and Drama: A Poetics and The Shape of Paradox: An Essay on "Waiting for Godot.". (shrink)

Altered state theories of hypnosis posit that a qualitatively distinct state of mental processing, which emerges in those with high hypnotic susceptibility following a hypnotic induction, enables the generation of anomalous experiences in response to specific hypnotic suggestions. If so then such a state should be observable as a discrete pattern of changes to functional connectivity (shared information) between brain regions following a hypnotic induction in high but not low hypnotically susceptible participants. Twenty-eight channel EEG was recorded (...) from 12 high susceptible (highs) and 11 low susceptible (lows) participants with their eyes closed prior to and following a standard hypnotic induction. The EEG was used to provide a measure of functional connectivity using both coherence (COH) and the imaginary component of coherence (iCOH), which is insensitive to the effects of volume conduction. COH and iCOH were calculated between all electrode pairs for the frequency bands: delta (0.1–3.9Hz), theta (4–7.9Hz) alpha (8–12.9Hz), beta1 (13–19.9Hz), beta2 (20–29.9Hz) and gamma (30–45Hz). The results showed that there was an increase in theta iCOH from the pre-hypnosis to hypnosis condition in highs but not lows with a large proportion of significant links being focused on a central-parietal hub. There was also a decrease in beta1 iCOH from the pre-hypnosis to hypnosis condition with a focus on a fronto-central and an occipital hub that was greater in high compared to low susceptibles. There were no significant differences for COH or for spectral band amplitude in any frequency band. The results are interpreted as indicating that the hypnotic induction elicited a qualitative change in the organization of specific control systems within the brain for high as compared to low susceptible participants. This change in the functional organization of neural networks is a plausible indicator of the much theorized “hypnotic-state”. (shrink)

As states increasingly use algorithms to improve the legibility of society, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is common for concerns about the expanding power of the algorithm or the state to be raised in a deterministic manner. However, how are the algorithms for states’ legibility projects enacted, contested, and reconfigured? Drawing on interviews and media data, this study fills this gap by examining Health Code, the Chinese contact tracing and risk assessment algorithmic system that serves as the COVID-19 (...) health passport. I first explore the intensive and invisible work and infrastructures that enact and stabilize Health Code’s sociotechnical assemblage. I then show how this assemblage is frequently challenged and destabilized by errors, breakdowns, and exclusions. Facing unintended engagements from heterogeneous social actors, local interests, and power hierarchies, Health Code reassembles into multiple and contradictory assemblages at different periods and social localities. Finally, I examine how people game and bypass the algorithm’s surveillance with their agencies. Recognizing this messiness and heterogeneity contributes to a more nuanced and realistic understanding of states’ use of algorithms, including the risks. Doing so also urges us to rethink the politics of citizenship and inequality in the digital age beyond inclusion. (shrink)

"One of the most profound and illuminating studies of this century to have been published in recent decades."--John Gray, New York Times Book Review Hailed as "a magisterial critique of top-down social planning" by the New York Times, this essential work analyzes disasters from Russia to Tanzania to uncover why states so often fail--sometimes catastrophically--in grand efforts to engineer their society or their environment, and uncovers the conditions common to all such planning disasters. "Beautifully written, this book calls into sharp (...) relief the nature of the world we now inhabit."--New Yorker "A tour de force."-- Charles Tilly, Columbia University. (shrink)

While Quine’s linguistic behaviorism is well-known, his Kant Lectures contain one of his most detailed discussions of behaviorism in psychology and the philosophy of mind. Quine clarifies the nature of his psychological commitments by arguing for a modest view that is against ‘excessively restrictive’ variants of behaviorism while maintaining ‘a good measure of behaviorist discipline…to keep [our mental] terms under control’. In this paper, I use Quine’s Kant Lectures to reconstruct his position. I distinguish three types of behaviorism in psychology (...) and the philosophy of mind: ontological behaviorism, logical behaviorism, and epistemological behaviorism. I then consider Quine’s perspective on each of these views and argue that he does not fully accept any of them. By combining these perspectives we arrive at Quine’s surprisingly subtle view about behaviorism in psychology. (shrink)

State laws dictating “informed consent” about surgical and chemical abortions sometimes ensnare emergency contraceptives, as the science surrounding EC shows. Courts evaluating mandated disclosures gravitate to professional norms rather than the information most women would value: basic factual information about EC so that they can decide for themselves whether to use these drugs.

The intuitive view that memories are characterized by a feeling of pastness, perceptions by a feeling of presence, while imagination lacks either faces challenges from two sides. Some researchers complain that the “feeling of pastness” is either unclear, irrelevant or isn’t a real feature. Others point out that there are cases of memory without the feeling of pastness, perception without presence, and other cross-cutting cases. Here we argue that the feeling of pastness is indeed a real, useful feature, and although (...) this feeling does not define memory ontologically, it is a characteristic marker which helps us easily categorise a mental state first-personally. We outline several cognitive features that underlie this experience, including the feeling of past accessibility, ergonomic significance, immersion, objectivity and mental strength. Our account is distinctly phenomenal, rather than doxastic, although our web of beliefs may contribute to this experience. (shrink)

The concept of jus post bellum deals with moral considerations in the aftermath of conflict and is concerned with how a just peace should look like. This paper analyses the concept of jus post bellum as developed by contemporary Just War theorists. Its aim is to provide a critical perspective on the proposed substantial scope of this concept. In other words, it will consider the question: in restoring peace after war, is it justified for just combatants to change the political (...) structure of a defeated aggressor? The piece will be divided into two main parts. First, through a review of the literature, I define the current state of the art on jus post bellum thinking in relation to a number of key aspects of this concept. What does241 it entail? Which principles is it made of? What sort of activities do just war theorists speak about when they speak of creating a just peace? Second, I focus on the principle of ?political rehabilitation? of the defeated state: is it permissible? Under what circumstances? While considering these questions and authors' views on this matter, the paper will provide a critical reappraisal of the current debate on the justifiability of political reconstruction in post-conflict states. (shrink)

After a long time, people are still debating over “Cartesian-like Dualism” (CLD), i.e. towards the separation of “res-extensa” from “res-cogitans”. Since we suspect that this is due to a general attraction of mind towards the darkness of metaphysics, we have investigated the mental origin of this attraction. In human mind, we can envisage three different functional levels emerging one from the other like in a Matrioska; the three levels cause the arousal of as many forms of “dualisms”: 1) The 1st-level (...) corresponds to the “Dual-state” of mind, an archetypic dualism made of Unconscious Mind (UM, the domain of biophysical/biochemical signals) and Conscious Mind (CM, the domain of thoughts, images and sounds), genetically committed to reciprocal and fruitful interactions. 2) the 2nd-level corresponds to “Double-perspective” dualism; it emerges from CM’s splitting into two opposite perspectives: the 1st-order perspective (1PP) (subjective, emotional, Self-oriented, etc.) and the 3rd-order perspective (3PP) (rational, objective, Self-detached, etc.), that are in psychological contraposition. During individual growth, Ego-sense installs in CM with the illusion of possessing FW, and dominates 1PP. Conversely, 3PP is typically interested in scientific argumentations and investigations; so, 3PP confutes 1PP’s convictions on scien-tific bases (e.g. 1PP’s conviction that the binomial Ego-FW is real). Yet, on the one hand, 3PP hasn’t got a scientific alternative to explain “who we really are”, on the other hand, 1PP exhibits a great success in everyday life cognition. Then, we necessarily step over the dualism of the 3rd-level, “Cartesian-like Dualism” (CLD). The emotional origin of this CLD holds back 1PP’s trick to claim its supremacy over 3PP. (shrink)

Arne Naess has come under many influences, most notably Gandhi and Spinoza. The Buddhist influence on his work, though less pervasive, provides the most direct account of key deep ecological concepts such as Self?realization and intrinsic value. I read Ecosophy T as a rigorously phenomenological branch of Deep Ecology. like early Buddhism, Naess responds to the human suffering that causes environmental destruction by challenging us to return to the reality of lived experience. This Buddhist reading clarifies, but it also complicates. (...) It reaffirms Naess's essential vision, but it challenges him at two points: first, to affirm that Self?realization is a process of co?realization with all beings, not just with sentient beings. Second, while this reading accepts that humans do not create the value of nature, it questions whether its value is best expressed in terms of the ?intrinsic value? of radical environmental ethicists. (shrink)

Are there wrongs for which states cannot apologise? In this chapter, I argue that the answer is 'Yes'. I begin with the simple observation that reasoning as a state official requires a conception of what officials do, and so a conception of what is - and is not - properly undertaken on behalf of the state. To act as an official, then, requires a theory of what happens in a well functioning state: it requires a 'normative theory (...) of the state. What officials believe to be necessary for a state to be a good example of its kind will affect what they recognise as outside the bounds of what a state official ought to do. This limit on what can be recognised as something prior officials ought not to have done is illustrated by Canada's official apology for imposing residential schools on indigenous peoples. Canada's official apology left out a crucial feature of the schools policy in part because of the influence of integrationist theories of the state. An integrationist view of good statehood has limited officials' ability to see the project of restructuring indigenous communities and inculcating attachment to an overarching identity as a wrong in itself, and distorted officials' diagnosis of what went wrong in previous policy. One effect has been to allow contemporary officials to offer a sincere and comprehensive apology for past officials' human rights violations in indigenous communities while themselves pursuing policies in these communities that violate human rights. The lesson of the Canadian apology is that how state officials theorise the state can undermine their capacity to recognise human rights violations for what they are and distort their judgements of what must be done in remedy. (shrink)

This article addresses the effectiveness of the predictive modeling of cognition and behavior based on quantum principles and some of the reasons for this effectiveness. It also aims, however, to explore the limitations of mathematical modeling so based, quantum-like modeling, and all mathematical modeling, including classical-like, in considering human cognition and behavior. It will discuss certain alternative approaches to both, essentially philosophical in nature, although sometimes found in literary works, approaches that, while not quantitative, may help compensate for limitations of (...) mathematical modeling there. Most Q-L and C-L approaches beyond physics are realist, insofar as they offer representations of human thinking by the formalism of quantum or classical physical theories. The position adopted in this article is based on the non-realist assumption that such a representation may not be possible, which is not the same as that it is impossible. I designate interpretations that do not make this assumption reality-without-realism, RWR, interpretations, and in considering mental processes as ideality-without-idealism, IWI, interpretations. (shrink)

HOST is the theory that to be conscious of a mental state is totarget it with a higher-order state (a `HOS'), either an innerperception or a higher-order thought. Some champions of HOSTmaintain that the phenomenological character of a sensory stateis induced in it by representing it with a HOS. I argue that thisthesis is vulnerable to overwhelming objections that flow largelyfrom HOST itself. In the process I answer two questions: `What isa plausible sufficient condition for a quale's belonging (...) to aparticular mental state?' and `What is the propositional contentof HOSs that target sensory states?'. (shrink)

Modeling metastasis in animal systems has been an important focus for developing cancer therapeutics. Xenopus laevis is a well‐established model, known for its use in identifying genetic mechanisms underlying diseases and disorders in humans. Prior literature has suggested that the drug, ivermectin, can be used in Xenopus to induce melanocytes to convert into a metastatic melanoma‐like state, and thus could be ideal for testing possible melanoma therapies in vivo. However, there are notable inconsistencies between ivermectin studies in Xenopus and (...) the application of ivermectin in mammalian systems, that are relevant to cancer and melanoma research. In this review, we examine the ivermectin‐induced phenotypes in Xenopus, and we explore the current uses of ivermectin in human research. We conclude that while ivermectin may be a useful drug for many biomedical purposes, it is not ideal to induce a metastatic melanocyte phenotype in Xenopus for testing the effects of potential melanoma therapeutics. (shrink)

The lack of consensus on how to characterize humans’ capacity for belief reasoning has been brought into sharp focus by recent research. Children fail critical tests of belief reasoning before 3 to 4 years (Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001; Wimmer & Perner, 1983), yet infants apparently pass false belief tasks at 13 or 15 months (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005; Surian, Caldi, & Sperber, 2007). Non-human animals also fail critical tests of belief reasoning but can show very complex social behaviour (e.g., (...) Call & Tomasello, 2005). Fluent social interaction in adult humans implies efficient processing of beliefs, yet direct tests suggest that belief reasoning is cognitively demanding, even for adults (e.g., Apperly, Samson & Humphreys, 2005). We interpret these findings by drawing an analogy with the domain of number cognition, where similarly contrasting results have been observed. We propose that the success of infants and non-human animals on some belief reasoning tasks may be best explained by a cognitively efficient but inflexible capacity for tracking belief-like states. In humans this capacity persists in parallel with later-developing, more flexible but more cognitively demanding theory of mind abilities. (shrink)

According to Brehm's intensity of emotion theory, if an emotion has motivational properties, its intensity should be non-monotonically affected by factors similar to those determining the intensity of motivational states. These factors are called deterrents. In the case of emotion, one category of deterrents consists of factors that can potentially interfere with feeling the emotion, such as reasons for not feeling the emotion. Two experiments were carried out to examine whether happiness is a motivational state and, thus, if its (...) intensity is non-monotonically determined by the importance of reasons for not feeling happy. We expected happiness to be reduced by a low importance reason for not feeling happy, to remain high in the presence of a moderately important reason, and to be reduced or eliminated by a very important reason. Both experiments supported the cubic function that results from these expectations, and when the results of the two studies were combined, each of the individual legs of the cubic function was found to be reliable along with the cubic function itself. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the scenario for a post-revolutionary society as developed in Lenin’s “The State and Revolution.” Lenin heavily relies on Marx and Engels’s metaphors of waking up and falling asleep: Post-revolutionary society is marked by a grand awakening and a conversion of dreams into reality, while the State is said to fall asleep or wither away. Lenin applies these metaphors yet applies them in a strangely inverted manner. Instead of embracing agency, he argues for a new regime (...) of “habit,” which has sedating effects on humans, while the state survives its demise and returns under the title of “administration.” Lenin’s plea for “habit” and “administration” is discussed in a broader context of other philosophical accounts reaching from Kant to Hegel, Max Weber, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hannah Arendt and beyond. These critical considerations lead to some general findings on the status of moral agency in revolutionary change. Trotsky’s account of permanent revolution with its experimentalist and theatrical implications is a case in point here. The paper concludes by discussing the intricate relation between revolution, democracy, and the state. (shrink)

Like American politics, the academic debate over justice is polarized, with almost all theories of justice falling within one of two traditions: egalitarianism and libertarianism. This book provides an alternative to the partisan standoff by focusing not on equality or liberty, but on the idea that we should give people the things that they deserve. Mulligan argues that a just society is a meritocracy, in which equal opportunity prevails and social goods are distributed strictly on the basis of merit. That (...) gives citizens their just deserts. In addition to its novel conceptual approach, meritocracy is distinctive from existing work in two ways. First, it is grounded in research on how people actually think about justice. Empirical research reveals that people don't think that social goods should be distributed equally. Nor do they dismiss the idea of social justice. Across ideological and cultural lines, people want rewards to reflect merit. Second, the book discusses hot-button political issues and makes concrete policy recommendations. These issues include anti-meritocratic bias against women and racial minorities and the United States’ widening economic inequality. Justice and the Meritocratic State offers a new theory of justice and provides solutions to our most vexing social and economic problems. It will be of keen interest to philosophers, economists, and political theorists. (shrink)

Suppose it is foreseeable that you will soon encounter a drowning child, whom you will only be able to rescue if you learn to swim. In this scenario we might think that you have a “prospective duty” to take swimming lessons given that this will be necessary to perform the future rescue. Cécile Fabre argues that, by parity of reasoning, states have a prospective duty to build and maintain military establishments. My argument in this essay pulls in the opposite direction. (...) First, I emphasize that learning to swim is only a prospective duty under very specific circumstances. Normally there is no such duty; hence, we do not normally think that people deserve moral censure for choosing to forego swimming lessons. I then argue that, similarly, while a prospective duty to build a military can arise under some conceivable circumstances, these are not the circumstances that most states today find themselves in. I then suggest a more fitting domestic analogy to guide our thinking about this issue: Maintaining a standing army is less like learning to swim and more like keeping an assault weapon in the home “just in case.” This analogy supports a defeasible presumption against militarization. (shrink)

This book is addresses a topic that has received little or no attention in orthodox epistemology. Typical epistemological investigation focuses almost exclusively on knowledge, where knowing that something is the case importantly implies that what is believed is strictly true. This condition on knowledge is known as factivity and it is, to be sure, a bit of epistemological orthodoxy. So, if a belief is to qualify as knowledge according to the orthodox view it cannot be false. There is also an (...) increasingly influential group of epistemologists who argue that one ought to act only on what one knows, because truth of belief is the surest way to guarantee that our actions work out as planned. They defend what is known as the knowledge norm for action. This view is typically justified in virtue of the idea that successful intentional action should stem from knowledge because knowledge is a factive propositional attitude and it is, as a result, success-prone with respect to intentional action. In other words, true beliefs that constitute knowledge are the rationally normative standard for successful acting. But, there are clearly multitudes of cases where epistemic agents operate successfully and even rationally on the basis of beliefs that are false. That this is the case is not especially controversial. Sometimes false beliefs facilitate successful action. Of course, this can be because the agent is simply lucky. However, there is something particularly important about some false beliefs that relates to successful action but not in virtue of luck. While not strictly true, the beliefs in question are close to the truth or approximately true. This gives rise to the possibility that there are knowledge-like states that play roles very similar to knowledge but which are only quasi-factive. That is to say such states imply approximate truth and do not imply strict truth. Moreover, often such beliefs facilitate successful action in virtue of their being approximately true and this suggests a much more plausible norm for successful action that encompasses both cases of rational action guided by such quasi-factive states as well as cases of rational action guided by knowledge. The thesis of this book is that quasi-factive knowledge-like states are far more common that epistemologists have acknowledge and the book introduces a theory of such states and how they give rise to a much more reasonable account of the norms for action. This involves some tricky issues concerning approximate truth, the rationality of believing not strictly true claims, the justification of approximately true beliefs, the nature of false but approximately true evidence, the norms of belief, knowledge and quasi-knowledge, etc. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The term “deep state” has enjoyed political prominence in recent years, especially in movements around former President Donald Trump. However, the term emerged in the activist milieu after the founding of Students for a Democratic Society, which sought to engender political realignment in the aftermath of the Kennedy assassination. Those on the far right who use the term to level accusations of conspiracy at supposed subversives in the administrative state are unwittingly drawing on a long-running but little-analyzed (...) intellectual tradition. In that tradition, conspiracy theories purport to unmask the real intentions of political actors in order to facilitate cooperation and recruitment across ideological and partisan divides. From the postwar period to the present, conspiracy theories, and the “deep state” vocabulary in particular, circulated freely across the left-right political divide. Authors and activists were attracted to these tropes and texts not merely because they appeared to reveal concrete truths about long-hidden elements of American political life, but also because their very ambiguity enabled them to be flexibly co-opted. Conspiracy theories allowed activists to mobilize around shared gaps in public knowledge about traumatic events like the assassination, activating public dissatisfaction with official explanations of those events. Their ambiguity, coupled with the seeming pervasiveness of conspiracy theorist tropes across political divides, appeared to activists seeking realignment of both the left and the right as a promising tactical opportunity to assert that they and their erstwhile enemies were actually engaged in a shared project. Activists thus came to see conspiracy theory not as the province of an exclusively left or right politics, but as an autonomous and contestable cultural space. This, in turn, led to cross-partisan encounters. (shrink)

In a bid to boost fertility levels, Iran and Japan have recently launched their own dating apps, with more countries likely to follow. The aim of this article is to consider whether state-run dating apps are morally desirable, which is a question that has not received any scholarly attention. It finds that such apps have at least two benefits that collectively, if not individually, render their introduction to be welcomed provided certain conditions are met. These benefits are that they (...) are better placed than commercial dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble, and Badoo to (i) help people find lasting love and to (ii) protect individuals from spending too much money and/or time on online dating. Several objections are discussed and shown to be unconvincing as arguments against state-run dating apps tout court, including the objection that for states to offer their own dating apps is unduly expensive; the objection that it gives them too much power; and the objection that they should invest in creating offline opportunities for meeting potential partners instead. (shrink)

Hearing the news from South America at the turn of the millennium can be like traveling in time: here are the trials of Pinochet, the searches for "the disappeared" in Argentina, the investigation of the death of former president Goulart in Brazil, the Peace Commission in Uruguay, the Archive of Terror in Paraguay, a Truth Commission in Peru. As societies struggle to come to terms with the past and with the vexing questions posed by ineradicable memories, this wise book offers (...) guidance. Combining a concrete sense of present urgency and a theoretical understanding of social, political, and historical realities, State Repression and the Labors of Memory fashions tools for thinking about and analyzing the presences, silences, and meanings of the past. With unflappable good judgment and fairness, Elizabeth Jelin clarifies the often muddled debates about the nature of memory, the politics of struggles over memories of historical injustice, the relation of historiography to memory, the issue of truth in testimony and traumatic remembrance, the role of women in Latin American attempts to cope with the legacies of military dictatorships, and problems of second-generation memory and its transmission and appropriation. Jelin's work engages European and North American theory in its exploration of the various ways in which conflicts over memory shape individual and collective identities, as well as social and political cleavages. In doing so, her book exposes the enduring consequences of repression for social processes in Latin America, and at the same time enriches our general understanding of the fundamentally conflicted and contingent nature of memory. A timely exploration of the nature ofmemory and its political uses. (shrink)

My 2019 article ‘From Planning to Prototypes: New Ways of Seeing Like a State’ (P2P) drew attention to some shortcomings of the kinds of critical, reformist impulses fostered in law and development work. I sought to show that persistent preoccupations with the destructive hubris of ‘top-down’ planning—especially state planning—bypassed the tendency for great power to be deployed in other stylistic modes: through the release and responsive tweaking of prototypes, for instance. This article engages with later developments—at one of (...) P2P’s main field sites and scholarly literature in dialogue with P2P—to build upon the analysis therein. It elaborates on the kinds of power animated through prototyping, showing how prototyping is often combined with other governance styles and what it makes of the inputs on which law has typically been said to draw and of law’s claims to autonomy. It complicates the provenance of this style by reference to mid-to-late-twentieth century UN sanctions regimes, highlighting that governance prototyping is as much state-made as business-led and not restricted to the development field. With particular attention to the strangeness of the human user presupposed by prototyping, this article also aims to identify some modes of critical engagement to which this governance style might be answerable. (shrink)

A commonly-discussed feature of perceptual experience is that it has ‘assertoric’ or ‘phenomenal’ force. We will start by discussing various descriptions of the assertoricity of perceptual experience. We will then adopt a minimal characterization of assertoricity: a perceptual experience has assertoric force just in case it inclines the perceiver to believe its content. Adducing cases that show that visual experience is not always assertoric, we will argue that what renders these visual experiences non-assertoric is that they are penetrated by belief-like (...) imaginings. Lastly, we will explain why it is that when belief-like imaginings—as opposed to beliefs (and other cognitive states)—penetrate visual experience, they render visual experiences non-assertoric. (shrink)

With technologies like machine learning and data analytics being deployed as privileged means to improve how contemporary bureaucracies work, many governments around the world have turned to artificial intelligence as a tool of statecraft. In that context, our paper uses Canada as a critical case to investigate the relationship between ideals of good government and good technology. We do so through not one, but two Trudeaus—celebrity Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2015—…) and his equally famous father, former Prime Minister Pierre Elliott (...) Trudeau (1968–1979, 1980–1984). Both shared a similar interest in new ideas and practices of both intelligent government and artificial intelligence. Influenced by Marshall McLuhan and his media theory, Pierre Elliott Trudeau deployed new communication technologies to restore centralized control in an otherwise decentralized state. Partly successful, he left his son with an informationally inclined political legacy, which decades later animated Justin Trudeau's own turn toward Big Data and artificial intelligence. Compared with one another, these two visions for both government and artificial intelligence illustrate the broader tensions between cybernetic and neoliberal approaches to government, which inform how new technologies are conceived of, and adopted, as political ones. As this article argues, Canada offers a paradigmatic case for how artificial intelligence is as much shaped by theories of government as by investments and innovations in computing research, which together delimit the contours of intelligence by defining which technical systems, people, and organizations come to be recognized as its privileged bearers. (shrink)

This article contributes to ongoing discussions in the social sciences about how to interpret the incorporation of gender equality into integration policies – is it a form of state feminism or femonationalism? Drawing upon intersectionality, we analyse how gender equality is presented, discussed and negotiated in relation to ethnicity and nationality in Sweden. Methodologically, we employ a bifocal lens that combines (1) a quantitative investigation of representations of civic orientation programmes in Swedish policy documents and mainstream media, and (2) (...) a qualitative analysis of ethnographic data collected in six civic orientation courses – three in English and three in Arabic – in three large municipalities. Such a two-pronged approach, which connects policy and media discourses with interactions in civic orientation classes, offers a granular picture of the complex and often ambivalent intersections of ethnicity and gender in relation to migration in Sweden. Ultimately, the co-optation of feminist values brings with it the risk of warping feminism into a trait of national/ethnic distinctiveness. Crucially, femonationalism is not the prerogative of far-right parties but is already becoming institutionalised, informing both mainstream media and educational practices in a feminist state like Sweden. (shrink)

Consciousness is known to be limited in processing capacity and often described in terms of a unique processing stream across a single dimension: time. In this paper, we discuss a purely temporal pattern code, functionally decoupled from spatial signals, for conscious state generation in the brain. Arguments in favour of such a code include Dehaene et al.'s long-distance reverberation postulate, Ramachandran's remapping hypothesis, evidence for a temporal coherence index and coincidence detectors, and Grossberg's Adaptive Resonance Theory. A time-bin resonance (...) model is developed, where temporal signatures of conscious states are generated on the basis of signal reverberation across large distances in highly plastic neural circuits. The temporal signatures are delivered by neural activity patterns which, beyond a certain statistical threshold, activate, maintain, and terminate a conscious brain state like a bar code would activate, maintain, or inactivate the electronic locks of a safe. Such temporal resonance would reflect a higher level of neural processing, independent from sensorial or perceptual brain mechanisms. (shrink)

Optic neuropathy refers to disease of the optic nerve and can result in loss of visual acuity and/or visual field defects. Combining findings from multiple fMRI modalities can offer valuable information for characterizing and managing optic neuropathies. In this article, we review a subset of resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (RS-fMRI) studies of optic neuropathies. We consider glaucoma, acute optic neuritis (ON), discuss traumatic optic neuropathy (TON), and explore consistency between findings from RS and visually driven fMRI studies. Consistent (...) with visually driven studies, glaucoma studies at rest also indicated reduced activation in the visual cortex and dorsal visual stream. RS-fMRI further reported varying levels of functional connectivity in the ventral stream depending on disease severity. ON patients show alterations within the visual cortex in both fMRI techniques. Particularly, higher-than-normal RS activity is observed in the acute phase and decreases as the disease progresses. A similar pattern is observed in the visual cortex of TON-like, open globe injury (OGI), patients. Additionally, visually driven and RS-fMRI studies of ON patients show recovery of brain activity in the visual cortex. RS-fMRI suggests recovery of signals in higher-tier visual areas MT and LOC as well. Finally, RS-fMRI has not yet been applied to TON, although reviewing OGI studies suggests that it is feasible. Future RS-fMRI studies of optic neuropathies could prioritize studying the fine scale RS activity of brain areas that visually driven studies have identified. We suggest that a more systematic longitudinal comparison of optic neuropathies with advanced fMRI would provide improved diagnostic and prognostic information. (shrink)

Emotion dysregulation (ED) is a vulnerability factor for affective disorders that may originate from deficits in cognitive control (CC). Although measures of ED are often designed to assess trait-like tendencies, the extent to which such measures capture a time-varying (TV) or state-like construct versus a time-invariant (TI) or trait-like personality characteristic is unclear. The link between the TV and TI components of ED and CC is also unclear. In a 6-wave, 5-month longitudinal study, community participants (n = 1281) completed (...) the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-16), a commonly used measure of ED and measures of CC. A latent variable (trait-state-occasion) model showed that the proportion of TI factor variance (.80) was greater than the TV factor variance (.19). Although TV factor stability was significant, the coefficients were small in magnitude. Furthermore, regression weights for the ED TI factor (average β = −.62) were significant and larger than those for the TV factor (average β = −.10) in predicting latent CC at each of the six-time points. These findings suggest that ED, as assessed by the DERS-16, is largely TI and this TI component is more strongly linked to CC than the TV component. (shrink)

Certain measurement-related constructions impose a requirement that the measure function used track the part-whole structure of the domain of measurement, so that a given entity or eventuality must have a larger measurement in the chosen dimension than any of its salient proper parts. I provide evidence from English and Chinese that these constructions can be used to measure the intensity of mental states like hatred and love, indicating that in the natural language ontology of such states, intensity correlates with part-whole (...) structure. A natural language metaphysics of psychological intensity meeting this requirement is then developed and integrated into the semantics. Further complications arise when looking at attitudes like want, wish, and regret, which also permit measurements of intensity in the relevant constructions. To account for such attitudes, the ontology and semantics are then enriched in a way that integrates ordering and quantification over possible worlds into the part-whole structure of attitude states, so that even in these more complicated cases, the constructions at hand have a unified compositional semantics. (shrink)

It is common to characterise phenomenal consciousness as _what it is like_ to be in a mental state. This paper argues that the ‘what-it’s-like’-phrase in this context has a technical meaning, i.e. a meaning for which the association to the relevant expression is peculiar to a theoretical community. The relevant theoretical community is philosophy and some parts of cognitive science, so on this view, only philosophers and cognitive scientists use the ‘what-it’s-like’-phrase in the way that is characteristic in the (...) literature on phenomenal consciousness. This claim has important consequences. Firstly, I argue that the phrase says nothing informative about phenomenal consciousness. Secondly, I argue that the fact that non-philosophers use the phrase is not compelling evidence that they believe in phenomenal consciousness. These claims have further consequences for debates about phenomenal consciousness. (shrink)

Berkeley’s likeness principle states that only an idea can be like an idea. In this paper, I argue that the principle should be read as a premise only in a metaphysical argument showing that matter cannot instantiate anything like the sensory properties we perceive. It goes against those interpretations that take it to serve also, if not primarily, an epistemological purpose, featuring in Berkeley’s alleged Representation Argument to the effect that we cannot reach beyond the veil of our ideas. First, (...) in section 1, I raise some concerns about the traditional narrative concerning the likeness principle’s role in Berkeley’s argumentation. In section 2, I delineate an alternative narrative, arguing that there is no ‘missing premise’ in his alleged Representation Argument we need to explain simply because he advances no argument like that in the first place. In section 3–4, I provide a close reading of the relevant passages—first from the _Principles_, then the _Dialogues_—and their contexts, supporting textually a purely metaphysical interpretation of the likeness principle arguments. In section 5, I address some possible objections, based on the phrasing of the likeness principle passages and some related texts. (shrink)

It is widely held in philosophy that knowing is not a state of mind. On this view, rather than knowledge itself constituting a mental state, when we know, we occupy a belief state that exhibits some additional non-mental characteristics. Fascinatingly, however, new empirical findings from cognitive neuroscience and experimental philosophy now offer direct, converging evidence that the brain can—and often does—treat knowledge as if it is a mental state in its own right. While some might be (...) tempted to keep the metaphysics of epistemic states separate from the neurocognitive mechanics of our judgements about them, here I will argue that these empirical findings give us sufficient reason to conclude that knowledge is at least sometimes a mental state. The basis of this argument is the epistemological principle of neurocognitive parity—roughly, if the contents of a given judgement reflect the structure of knowledge, so do the neurocognitive mechanics that produced them. This principle, which I defend here, straightforwardly supports the inference from the empirical observation that the brain sometimes treats knowledge like a mental state to the epistemological conclusion that knowledge is at least sometimes a mental state. All told, the composite, belief-centric metaphysics of knowledge widely assumed in epistemology is almost certainly mistaken. (shrink)

This paper explores whether it is justified to add any new taxa concerning informational states to our psychological taxonomy. Such exploration will not lead to a straightforward decision between remaining steadfast with the taxonomic _status quo_ and adding only one new taxon. A careful analysis of when one would be warranted in positing a new taxon for informational states will reveal similarly compelling reasons to posit all sorts of additional taxa. As an antidote to such proliferation, I suggest a reinforcement (...) of traditional taxonomies of the mental by allowing belief and a range of extant taxa to play their requisite explanatory roles, thereby obviating the need for the postulation of any novel taxa. (shrink)

The polis, the dominant political form around which ancient Greeks structured their lives and activities, is perhaps their most fundamental creation and enduring legacy. It was a highly successful form of social organization in which Greek culture thrived, including architecture, literature, and philosophy. In this book, ancient historian John Ma offers a new history of the polis from its origins in the Early Iron Age through its eclipse in Late Antiquity. He aims to answer a few big questions about it-Why (...) did it emerge? What needs did it fulfill? How did it work? In addition, it is often assumed that the polis, along with the concomitant values of democracy and freedom, came to an end with the Classical period. Taking a contrary view, Ma explores how it endured under imperial control (the Persian Achaimenids, the Hellenistic kings, the Roman Empire), as well as why and how it eventually ended. In addressing these questions, Ma examines not only the most well-known ancient city-states like Sparta and Athens but also many lesser-known ones. He shows how complex the relations of power, access, and membership between the city, the territory, and the members of the polis were. Ma also examines the polis's significance as a social form and looks to the people who constitute the polis, from free adult men-stakeholders in institutional power, slaveowners, or heads of households-and elites to women, foreigners, and enslaved peoples, however disempowered. He draws on recent work on gender and slavery to evaluate the place of domination and violence in the polis. In doing so, Ma shows how the composition of the citizen body is both a political and social issue. The powerful combination of central political ideas and conflict around the issues of autonomy and social power led, Ma argues, to a "great convergence" of polis forms, producing a relatively uniform, stable organism, centred on communitarian, democratic forms and bargains between the community and its elites. This convergence led to the diffusion and harmonization of polis forms, both within and beyond the Aegean, and which allowed them to endure for almost a thousand years with an even longer legacy. (shrink)

The ' state of nature ' could be understood in two senses; both in terms of its nature 's current condition and of that unmediated and pre-contractual relation between humanity and the environment posited by political philosophers like Locke and Rousseau and now championed by anarcho- primitivism. Primitivism is easily dismissed as an extreme, naïve and impractical form of radical environmentalism but its emergence signifies contemporary disaffection with the ideology of 'progress' so central to modernity and capitalism. This paper (...) offers an ethico-political interpretation of primitivism 's critical relation to modernity in terms of the dialectic between amorality and immorality within what is characterised as modernity's ' culture of contamination '. (shrink)

Remote state preparation is generation of a desired state by a remote observer. In spite of causality, it is well known, according to the Reeh–Schlieder theorem, that it is possible for relativistic quantum field theories, and a “physical” process achieving this task, involving superoscillatory functions, has recently been introduced. In this work we deal with non-relativistic fields, and show that remote state preparation is also possible for them, hence obtaining a Reeh–Schlieder-like result for general fields. Interestingly, in (...) the nonrelativistic case, the process may rely on completely different resources than the ones used in the relativistic case. (shrink)

What happens when the world changes in ways that make Canada's physical capital, natural resources, and geography - once the ultimate competitive advantages - less important than knowledge, information, technological know-how, and human capital? What happens to Canadians? In A State of Minds Thomas Courchene examines the political structures that link local, provincial, and federal governments and challenges many longstanding beliefs about how society should be organized and financed. While focusing on Canadian competitiveness in a global economy, Courchene shows (...) us how an open federal state like Canada can achieve both economic prosperity and social justice. Always provocative, Courchene blends compelling analysis and reasoned insight with a prescription for change: To stay ahead of the competitive curve and protect the Canadian way of life, Canada must become a "state of minds.". (shrink)