The relations among consciousness, brain, behavior, and scientific explanation are explored in the domain of color perception. Current scientific knowledge about color similarity, color composition, dimensional structure, unique colors, and color categories is used to assess Locke.

In this Response, I defend the notion of intrinsic qualities of experience, discuss the distinction between relational experience and relational structure, clarify the difference between narrow and broad interpretations of color experience, argue against externalist approaches to color experience, defend the concept of isomorphism as a limitation in understanding color experiences, examine critiques of the color machine and color room arguments, and counter objections to within-subject experiments based on memory limitations.

This book offers an introduction to the way art is perceived, interpreted, and felt and approaches these mindful events from a multidisciplinary perspective.

We investigated how color preferences vary according to season and whether those changes could be explained by the ecological valence theory. To do so, we assessed the same participants’ preferences for the same colors during fall, winter, spring, and summer in the northeastern United States, where there are large seasonal changes in environmental colors. Seasonal differences were most pronounced between fall and the other three seasons. Participants liked fall-associated dark-warm colors—for example, dark-red, dark-orange, dark-yellow, and dark-chartreuse—more during fall than other (...) seasons. The EVT could explain these changes with a modified version of Palmer and Schloss’ weighted affective valence estimate procedure that added an activation term to the WAVE equation. The results indicate that color preferences change according to season, as color-associated objects become more/less activated in the observer. These seasonal changes in color preferences could not be characterized by overall shifts in weights along cone-contrast axes. (shrink)

A review of Stephen E. Palmer´s and Arthur P. Shimamura´s (eds.) Aesthetic Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, xii + 408 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-973214-2).

How does the visual system recognize images of a novel object after a single observation despite possible variations in the viewpoint of that object relative to the observer? One possibility is comparing the image with a prototype for invariance over a relevant transformation set. However, invariance over rotations has proven difficult to analyze, because it applies to some objects but not others. We propose that the invariant transformations of an object are learned by incorporating prior expectations with real-world evidence. We (...) test this proposal by developing an ideal learner model for learning invariance that predicts better learning of orientation dependence when prior expectations about orientation are weak. This prediction was supported in two behavioral experiments, where participants learned the orientation dependence of novel images using feedback from solving arithmetic problems. (shrink)

We investigated cultural differences between U.S. and Japanese color preferences and the ecological factors that might influence them. Japanese and U.S. color preferences have both similarities and differences. Complex gender differences were also evident that did not conform to previously reported effects. Palmer and Schloss's weighted affective valence estimate procedure was used to test the Ecological Valence Theory's prediction that within-culture WAVE-preference correlations should be higher than between-culture WAVE-preference correlations. The results supported several, but not all, predictions. In the (...) second experiment, we tested color preferences of Japanese–U.S. multicultural participants who could read and speak both Japanese and English. Multicultural color preferences were intermediate between U.S. and Japanese preferences, consistent with the hypothesis that culturally specific personal experiences during one's lifetime influence color preferences. (shrink)

A review of Stephen E. Palmer’s and Arthur P. Shimamura’s (eds.) Aesthetic Science (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, xii + 408 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-973214-2).

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

By addressing specific global problems and placing them within an ethical context, "The Environment in Question" provides the reader with both a theoretical and practical understanding of environmental issues. The contributors are internationally known figures drawn from the various disciplines which bear upon these issues, such as geography, psychology, social policy, and philosophy. The contributions range from those tackling individual concrete issues (such as nuclear waste and the threat to the rain forest) to those addressing matters of policy, principle and (...) attitude (such as our obligations to future generations and the nature of technological risk). "The Environment in Question" is designed as a text for students of philosophy, environmental science, environmental education, ecology, and teacher education. It can be used as an inter-disciplinary, self-contained course book or in conjunction with relevant material. In addition, as the essays directly and controversially address current environmental debates in a non-technical manner, it is of great interest both to professionals in those areas and to readers who care about the planet's future. The substantial cross-section of concerns and approaches will enable all readers to develop the necessary level of understanding required to initiate and sustain debate on environmental issues. Contributors: Robert Allsion, David E. Cooper, Barry S. Gower, F. G. T. Holliday, C. A. Hooker, Mary Midgley, Philip Neal, Joy A. Palmer, Robert Prosser, Holmes Rolston III, Mark Sagoff, Vandana Shiva, Stephen Sterling, Rosemary J. Stevenson, Jennifer Trusted. (shrink)

Parapsychologists have never been entirely satisfied with their technical vo- cabulary, and occasionally their discontent leads to attempts at terminological reform.1 Recently, a number of prominent parapsychologists, led by Ed May, have regularly abandoned some of parapsychology’s traditional and central categories in favor of some novel alternatives (see, e.g., May, Utts, and Spot- tiswoode, 1995a, 1995b; May, Spottiswood, Utts, and James, 1995). They rec- ommend replacing the term ª ESPº with ª anomalous cognitionº (or AC) and ª psychokinesis (PK)º with (...) ª anomalous perturbationº (or AP). Advocates of these new terms also propose replacing the term ª psiº or ª psi phenomenaº with ª anomalous mental phenomena.º Superf icially at least, these proposals seem merely to be modest extensions of parapsychology’s increasingly fre- quent use of the term ª anomalousº as a substitute for ª paranormal,º a practice which (although controversial) is not without merit, and which Palmer has vigorously defended (1986, 1987, 1992). But in my view, the proposed new terminology creates more problems than it solves. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger, in a recently published group of essays, discusses the persistently ... was shattered by ED Hirsch's book Validity in Interpretation. ...

Theism and naturalism are rival worldviews. Both seek to explain the nature of reality, but often give radically different explanations. One of the most important areas of conflict is the differing accounts for the existence of the world in which we live. Why is the actual world the one that has been instantiated instead of any other of the apparently infinite number of other possible worlds? In this paper I argue that whereas theism has a puzzle as to why God (...) actualized this particular world, naturalism has a major problem as why any ordered world exists. (shrink)

In 1968 E.K. Borthwick, with a brilliant conjecture, cleared up a passage from Aristophanes’Peacethat had been considered ‘nonsense’ since antiquity. ‘Bell goldfinch’ (κώδων ἀκαλανθίς) the line seemed to be saying: a jumbled idea at best, gibberish at worst (1078). The scholium reads ad loc.: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα ἐπίτηδες ἀδιανοήτως ἔφρασεν, ‘all this is said as deliberate nonsense’, and later scholars generally follow suit (W.W. Merry, for example, in his 1900 edition ofPeacerefers to the line as ‘magnificent nonsense’). But Borthwick showed (...) that this was not the case: ‘even nonsense expressions in Aristophanes’, he writes, ‘are not haphazard collocations of incongruous words signifying nothing’. What, then, to do with the ancient scholar (and those later ones) who failed to understand the passage, claiming it instead to be ‘nonsense’? (shrink)

Cushman raises the intriguing possibility that rationalization accesses/constructs intuitions that are not otherwise cognitively available. However, he substantially over-reaches in arguing that rationalization is mostly right on average, based on claims that the process must have emerged adaptively. The adaptiveness of “bounded rationalization” is domain specific and is unlikely to be adaptive in a large number of important applications.

KEYWORDS: dissociation; multiple personality, person, responsibility.

While humanists have pondered the subject of love to the point of obsessiveness, philosophers have steadfastly ignored it. One might wonder whether the discipline of philosophy even recognizes love. The word _philosophy _means “love of wisdom,” but the absence of love from philosophical discourse is curiously glaring. So where did the love go? In _The Erotic Phenomenon,_ Jean-Luc Marion asks this fundamental question of philosophy, while reviving inquiry into the concept of love itself. Marion begins his profound and personal book (...) with a critique of Descartes’ equation of the ego’s ability to doubt with the certainty that one exists—“I think, therefore I am”—arguing that this is worse than vain. We encounter being, he says, when we first experience love: I am loved, therefore I am; and this love is the reason I care whether I exist or not. This philosophical base allows Marion to probe several manifestations of love and its variations, including carnal excitement, self-hate, lying and perversion, fidelity, the generation of children, and the love of God. Throughout, Marion stresses that all erotic phenomena, including sentimentality, pornography, and even boasts about one’s sexual conquests, stem not from the ego as popularly understood but instead from love. A thoroughly enlightening and captivating philosophical investigation of a strangely neglected subject, _The Erotic Phenomenon _is certain to initiate feverish new dialogue about the philosophical meanings of that most desirable and mysterious of all concepts—love. (shrink)

In his book Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, Bede Rundle argues that there is no need to appeal to God for an explanation concerning why the universe exists, and remains in existence. I argue that on the contrary, Rundle’s philosophical naturalism is unable to give a plausible account for the continued existence of the universe in a lawful manner and the objects of which it is composed. The major reason for this inability is that since, as Rundle admits, (...) everything that exists has a logically contingent existence, there can be no necessary principle by which contingent objects are sustained in existence. (shrink)

Food insecurity, and its extreme form, hunger, occur whenever the accessibility to an adequate supply of nutritional and safe foods becomes restricted or unpredictable. They are recurring problems in certain regions of the US, as well as in many parts of the world. According to nation-wide surveys conducted by the US Bureau of the Census, between 1996 and 1998 an estimated 9.7% of US households were classified as food insecure (6.2% being food insecure without evidence of hunger, and 3.5% being (...) food insecure with moderate to severe hunger). This means that approximately 10 million households each year did not always have access to enough food to meet basic needs. A potential tool in the fight against food insecurity and hunger is information technology (IT), since its use and range of application continue to grow at astonishing rates. The study presented here examined the question of how information technology, particularly the Internet, can be used to promote food security. The study used an action science research approach, and a case study strategy, with the food security system of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi selected as the case for study. The research design was a two-phase process. Phase one consisted of a needs assessment among food assistance organizations in Oktibbeha County, and included interviews of key food assistance personnel. Phase one also included a survey of IT subject matter experts to seek their opinions about the current state of Web-based information technology. Phase two involved an analysis of various IT implementation issues, as well as the development of a Web-based food security information system prototype tool. The needs assessment results indicated that (a) certain food security system and information needs existed among the food assistance organizations in Oktibbeha County, and (b) appropriate information technologies existed that could be applied to these needs. The food security needs related to better communication and coordination of information, such as program information, food site inventory information, client history information, food donation information, and nutrition education information. In regard to technology development, a variety of scenarios were examined. These included client-side approaches, server-side approaches, simple e-mail-based systems, Java-based systems, systems based on the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), and commercial database systems. In applying the needs assessment and survey results, the researcher developed a prototype Web site (including a series of online database tools) that could be used to promote food security in counties such as Oktibbeha County. The results of this research show that appropriate, Internet-based, IT holds promise for the reduction of certain social problems, such as food insecurity and hunger. (shrink)

A paradigmatic aspect of a paradigmatic kind of right is that the rights holder is the only one who can alienate it. When individuals waive rights, the normative source of that waiving is normally taken to be the individual herself. This moral feature?immunity?is usually in the background of discussions about rights. We bring it into the foreground here, with specific attention to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, Kentucky v. King (2011), concerning search and seizure rights. An entailment of the (...) Court's decision is that, at least in some cases, a right can be removed by the intentional actions of the very party against whom the right supposedly protects the rights holder. We argue that the Court's decision is mistaken. The police officers in the case were not morally permitted, and should not be legally permitted, to intentionally create the very circumstances that result in the removal of an individual's right against forced, warrantless search and seizure. (shrink)

This work was the first sustained philosophical study of psychic phenomena to follow C.D. Broad's LECTURES ON PSYCHICAL RESEARCH, written nearly twenty years ...