This study tests the hypothesis that the perception of philosophy as a male-oriented discipline contributes to the pronounced gender disparity within the field. To assess the hypothesis, we determined the extent to which individuals view philosophy as masculine, and whether individual differences in this correspond with greater identification with philosophy. We also tested whether identification with philosophy correlated to interest in it. We discovered, first, that the more women view philosophy as masculine, the less they identify with it, and second, (...) that the less women identify with philosophy, the less they want to major in it. Interestingly, this result does not hold for men—their viewing philosophy as masculine does not correspond to their identification with it, nor does it correlate with their likelihood of majoring in it. We also discovered that the typical student does not have a preconceived notion of philosophy as masculine; this suggests that they come to view philosophy as masculine the more they do it, which in turn supports the possibility that teaching the discipline differently may prevent students from conceiving of philosophy as masculine, thus allowing a path to reducing the gender disparity. (shrink)

Some people believe more than others in free will, and researchers have both measured and manipulated those beliefs. Disbelief in free will has been shown to cause dishonest, selfish, aggressive, and conforming behavior, and to reduce helpfulness, learning from one’s misdeeds, thinking for oneself, recycling, expectations for occupational success, and actual quality of performance on the job. Belief in free will has been shown to have only modest or negligible correlations with other variables, indicating that it is a distinct (...) trait. Belief in free will has correlated positively with life satisfaction and finding life meaningful, with self‐efficacy and self‐control, with low levels of stress, and (though not entirely consistently) with internal locus of control. High belief in free will has been linked to a punitive attitude toward wrongdoers and lower forgiveness toward them. The belief seems to involve a sense of agency and expecting others to behave in morally responsible fashion. (shrink)

Essay by Dr. Michael L. Riordan, the founder of Gilead Sciences, on the comparative utility of a medical versus legal education as preparation for public office.

Many critics of dual-process models have mistaken long lists of descriptive terms in the literature for a full-blown theory of necessarily co-occurring properties. These critiques have distracted attention from the cumulative progress being made in identifying the much smaller set of properties that truly do define Type 1 and Type 2 processing. Our view of the literature is that autonomous processing is the defining feature of Type 1 processing. Even more convincing is the converging evidence that the key feature of (...) Type 2 processing is the ability to sustain the decoupling of secondary representations. The latter is a foundational cognitive requirement for hypothetical thinking. (shrink)

The target article ignores the crucial role of correlational methods in the behavioral and social sciences. Yet such methods are often mandated by the greater complexity of the phenomena investigated. This necessity is especially conspicuous in psychological research where its position in the hierarchy of the sciences implies the need for both experimental and correlational investigations, each featuring distinct assets.

This paper addresses two methodological paths in Artificial Intelligence: the paths of Babbage and anti-Cartesianism. While those researchers who have followed the latter have attempted to reverse the Cartesian dictum according to which machines cannot think in principle, Babbage’s path, which has been partially neglected, implies that the replacement of humans—and not the creation of minds—should provide the foundation of AI. In view of the examined paths, the claim that we support here is this: in line with Babbage, AI (...) researchers have recently concentrated upon the replacement of human labour, and thus upon the creation of Machine Learning systems. After presenting and analysing the paths, we characterise Machine Learning via its developments and an illustrative example. Then, we put forward an argument that shows that total replacement of human labour will not be feasible for practical and conceptual reasons despite the successful developments in recent AI systems. Our discussion finally leads to optimism and awareness: AI’s advances allow humans to dedicate themselves to higher level tasks, but these advances also require that we be vigilant about the responsibilities granted to ML-based systems. (shrink)

Over the past few years numerous proposals have appeared that attempt to characterize consciousness in terms of what could be called its computational correlates: Principles of information processing with which to characterize the differences between conscious and unconscious processing. Proposed computational correlates include architectural specialization (such as the involvement of specific regions of the brain in conscious processing), properties of representations (such as their stability in time or their strength), and properties of specific processes (such as resonance, synchrony, interactivity, or (...) information integration). In exactly the same way as one can engage in a search for the neural correlates of consciousness, one can thus search for the computational correlates of consciousness. The most direct way of doing is to contrast models of conscious versus unconscious information processing. In this paper, I review these developments and illustrate how computational modeling of specific cognitive processes can be useful in exploring and in formulating putative computational principles through which to capture the differences between conscious and unconscious cognition. What can be gained from such approaches to the problem of consciousness is an understanding of the function it plays in information processing and of the mechanisms that subtend it. Here, I suggest that the central function of consciousness is to make it possible for cognitive agents to exert ?exible, adaptive control over behavior. From this perspective, consciousness is best characterized as involving (1) a graded continuum de?ned over quality of representation, such that availability to consciousness and to cognitive control correlates with properties of representation, and (2) the implication of systems of meta-representations. (shrink)

In the past 25 years, many philosophers have endorsed the view that the practical value of causal knowledge lies in the fact that manipulation of causes is a good way to bring about a desired change in the effect. This view is intuitively very plausible. For instance, we can predict a storm on the basis of a barometer reading, but we cannot avoid the storm by manipulating the state of the barometer (barometer status and storm are effects of a common (...) cause, viz. atmospheric conditions). In §1 we present textual evidence which shows that this view is very popular. In §2 we show that this standard view is too restrictive: the practical value of causal knowledge is wider. In §3 we introduce the distinction between ‘manipulative policy’ and ‘selective policy’ as a theoretical framework to account for this wider practical value. (shrink)

In the past 25 years, many philosophers have endorsed the view that the practical value of causal knowledge lies in the fact that manipulation of causes is a good way to bring about a desired change in the effect. This view is intuitively very plausible. For instance, we can predict a storm on the basis of a barometer reading, but we cannot avoid the storm by manipulating the state of the barometer (barometer status and storm are effects of a common (...) cause, viz. atmospheric conditions). In Section 1 we present textual evidence which shows that this view is very popular. In Section 2 we show that this standard view is too restrictive: the practical value of causal knowledge is wider. In Section 3 we introduce the distinction between ‘manipulative policy’ and ‘selective policy’ as a theoretical framework to account for this wider practical value. (shrink)

It is argued that awareness of the distinction between dynamical and variational symmetries is crucial to understanding the significance of Noether's 1918 work. Specific attention is paid, by way of a number of striking examples, to Noether's first theorem, which establishes a correlation between dynamical symmetries and conservation principles.

What is the value of intellectual playfulness? Traditional characterizations of the ideal thinker often leave out playfulness; the ideal inquirer is supposed to be sober, careful, and conscientiousness. But elsewhere we find another ideal: the laughing sage, the playful thinker. These are models of intellectual playfulness. Intellectual playfulness, I suggest, is the disposition to try out alternate belief systems for fun – to try on radically different perspectives for the sheer pleasure of it. But what would the cog-nitive value be (...) of such playfulness? I suggest that intellectual playfulness function as, at the very least, a kind of intellectual insurance policy against epistemic traps. An epistemic trap is a belief system that re-directs good-faith inquiry to bad results. Am epistemic trap manipulates background beliefs to fend off contrary evidence. For example, a conspiracy theory might include a set of beliefs about how the mainstream media has been taken over by some vicious cabal. Normal epistemic attempts will be captured by a well-wrought epistemic trap, because normal attempts at inquiry are guided by these background beliefs -- which set what counts as a plausible path to explore, and what is implausible or beyond the pale. And a clever epistemic trap will manipulate those background beliefs for ill effect. Intellectual playfulness, on the other hand, isn’t motivated by an epistemic interest in the truth, but in the sheer pleasure of intellectual exploration. Since intellectual playfulness isn’t oriented towards the truth, it won’t be constrained by an agent’s background beliefs – it won’t, for example, prefer to investigate apparently more plausible pathways. Intellectual playfulness offers an opportunity to escape from epistemic traps. But intellectual playfulness has its own limitations. It will only drive us to explore belief systems when that exploration is fun. What we need is an array of differently-motivated exploratory tendencies – empathy, curiosity, playfulness – each of which will each cover for the others’ limitations. (shrink)

Although the path-integral formalism is known to be equivalent to conventional quantum mechanics, it is not generally obvious how to implement path-based calculations for multi-qubit entangled states. Whether one takes the formal view of entangled states as entities in a high-dimensional Hilbert space, or the intuitive view of these states as a connection between distant spatial configurations, it may not even be obvious that a path-based calculation can be achieved using only paths in ordinary space and time. (...) Previous work has shown how to do this for certain special states; this paper extends those results to all pure two-qubit states, where each qubit can be measured in an arbitrary basis. Certain three-qubit states are also developed, and path integrals again reproduce the usual correlations. These results should allow for a substantial amount of conventional quantum analysis to be translated over into a path-integral perspective, simplifying certain calculations, and more generally informing research in quantum foundations. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to test the claim that languages universally employ morphosyntactic marking to differentiate events of more‐ versus less‐direct causation, preferring to mark them with less‐ and more‐ overt marking, respectively (e.g., Somebody broke the window vs. Somebody MADE the window break; *Somebody cried the boy vs. Somebody MADE the boy cry). To this end, we investigated whether a recent computational model which learns to predict speakers’ by‐verb relative preference for the two causatives in English, (...) Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and K'iche’ Mayan is able to generalize to a sixth language on which it has never been trained: Balinese. Judgments of the relative acceptability of the less‐ and more‐transparent causative forms of 60 verbs were collected from 48 native‐speaking Balinese adults. The composite crosslinguistic computational model was able to predict these judgments, not only for verbs that it had seen, but also––in a split‐half validation test––to verbs that it had never seen in any language. A “random‐semantics” model showed only a relatively small decrement in performance with seen verbs, whose behavior can be learned on a verb‐by‐verb basis, but achieved zero correlation with human judgments when generalizing to unseen verbs. Together, these findings suggest that Balinese conceptualizes directness of causation in a similar way to these unrelated languages, and therefore constitute support for the view that the distinction between more‐ versus less‐distinct causation constitutes a morphosyntactic universal. (shrink)

The correlation between empathy and customer responses may be a key to solve the problem of classical furniture advertising design. To explore the relationship between empathy and consumer purchasing response, this study proposes a model of dual path mechanism of empathy influencing consumer purchase intentions in classical furniture through advertising design related to furniture brand Tanjuyuan. The results not only prove the hypotheses, but also indicate that: cultural empathy and empathy fusion have a more significant impact on consumers’ purchase (...) intention than practical empathy; cultural empathy plays a dominant role in influencing consumers’ purchase intention; empathy fusion is a key mediator between cultural empathy and practical empathy in influencing consumers’ purchase intention. These findings provide issues for subsequent research from various perspectives, such as enhancing the practical perceptions of consumers of classical furniture products, cultural value perceptions, and the interdisciplinary application of empathy. (shrink)

This paper shows that epidemiology, an approach developed to study the social communication of biological information, can be instructively applied to the diffusion of "endemic" cultural beliefs. In particular, I examine whether exposure to information, or susceptibility to belief is more important in determining the distribution of food taboos in an oral society from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Matrix regression techniques are used on optimally scaled cultural similarity data to infer which social and psychological characteristics of the participating individuals (...) are correlated with a higher probability of taboo transmission between them. Results indicate that, despite a lack of mechanized transportation, access to information in this population is nearly universal. Constraints on belief adoption rather than on information flow are much more important in determining the intra-cultural distribution of food taboos. At least for one class of taboo, belief susceptibility is a function of an individual's social role rather than any intrinsic quality of the individual or the believability of the cultural trait. Nevertheless, the processes underlying the dissemination of both cultural traits and pathogens, considered as replicating units of information, appear close enough to justify using epidemiology as a common framework for investigating cultural and biological diffusion. (shrink)

The neural correlates of two hypothesized emotional processing modes, i.e., schematic and propositional modes, were investigated with positron emission tomography. Nineteen subjects performed an emotional mental imagery task while mentally repeating sentences linked to the meaning of the imagery script. In the schematic conditions, participants repeated metaphoric sentences, whereas in the propositional conditions, the sentences were explicit questions about specific emotional appraisals of the imagery scenario. Five types of emotional scripts were proposed to the subjects (happiness, anger, affection, sadness, and (...) a neutral scenario). The results supported the hypothesized distinction between schematic and propositional emotional processing modes. Specifically, schematic mode was associated with increased activity in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex whereas propositional mode was associated with activation of the anterolateral prefrontal cortex. In addition, interaction analyses showed that schematic versus propositional processing of happiness (compared with the neutral scenario) was associated with increased activity in the ventral striatum whereas “schematic anger” was tentatively associated with activation of the ventral pallidum. © 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have maintained that causation, correlation, and partial correlation are essentially related. These views give rise to various rules of causal inference. This essay considers the claims of several philosophers and social scientists for causal systems with dichotomous variables. In section 2 important commonalities and differences are explicated among four major conceptions of correlation. In section 3 it is argued that whether correlation can serve as a measure of A's causal influence on B depends upon the conception of (...) causation being used and upon certain background assumptions. In section 4 five major kinds of partial correlation are explicated, and some of the important relations are established among two conceptions of partial correlation, the conception of screening off, the conception of partitioning, and the measures of causal influence which have been suggested by advocates of path analysis or structural equation methods. In section 5 it is argued that whether any of these five conceptions of partial correlation can serve as a measure of causal influence depends upon the conception of causation being used and upon certain background assumptions.The important conclusion is that each of the approaches (considered here) to causal inference for causal systems with dichotomous variables stands in need of important qualifications and revisions if they are to be justified. (shrink)

This paper capitalizes on an institutional perspective to analyze corporate social responsibility (CSR) orientations in the Lebanese context. Specifically, the paper compiles a new theoretical framework drawing on a multi-level model of institutional flows by Scott (Institutions and organizations: ideas and interests, 2008 ) and the explicit/implicit CSR model by Matten and Moon (Acad Manag Rev 33(2):404–424, 2008 ). This new theoretical framework is then used to explore the CSR convergence versus divergence question in a developing country context. The (...) findings highlight the usefulness of the compiled multi-layered institutional framework and the varied nuances and profound insights it offers in analyzing CSR in context. They also suggest that a cosmetic level of global convergence in explicit CSR may materialize in light of mimetic isomorphic pressures, but that the path dependence hypothesis is indeed salient in light of national history trajectories and socio-politico configurations. The findings correspond most closely to patterns of CSR crossvergence, combining elements of both convergence and divergence, and reflecting in complex hybridized CSR expressions. The findings and their implications are presented and assessed. (shrink)

The Internet, not unlike previous communication technologies, has been predicted to dramatically change the nature of democracy. The interactive nature of Web sites, in particular, is seen as the basis for a new cyberdemocracy. Although the definition of interactivity is less than precise, an evaluation of state legislature Web sites finds them lacking many features that could be considered interactive. Furthermore, the degree of a site’s interactivity was not strongly correlated to a site’s use. Web sites can also foster interaction, (...) both on- and off-site, through interactive and noninteractive features. When sites were examined for their potential to foster interaction, there was a strong relationship with site use. The current focus on interactivity may obscure the potential to promote interaction and lead to an overemphasis on interactive features that are sometimes nothing more than high-tech gimmicks. (shrink)

This study compares the relationship between the moral reasoning modes and leadership orientation of males versus females, and managers versus engineers/scientists. A questionnaire developed by Worthley (1987) was used to measure the degree of each participant's respective independence and justice, and relationships and caring moral reasoning modes. Leadership orientation values and attitudes were measured using the Fiedler and Chemers (1984) Least Preferred Coworker Scale.The results suggest that, although males differ from female in their dominant moral reasoning modes, managers (...) are not distinguishable from the engineers/scientists they manage in terms of their moral reasoning mode or Least Preferred Coworker score. (shrink)

This paper concerns how motor actions are neurally represented and coded. Action planning and motor preparation can be studied using a specific type of representational activity, motor imagery. A close functional equivalence between motor imagery and motor preparation is suggested by the positive effects of imagining movements on motor learning, the similarity between the neural structures involved, and the similar physiological correlates observed in both imaging and preparing. The content of motor representations can be inferred from motor images at a (...) macroscopic level, based on global aspects of the action and the motor rules and constraints which predict the spatial path and kinematics of movements. A more microscopic neural account calls for a representation of object-oriented action. Object attributes are processed in different neural pathways depending on the kind of task the subject is performing. During object-oriented action, a pragmatic representation is activated in which object affordances are transformed into specific motor schemas. Animal as well as human clinical data implicate the posterior parietal and premotor cortical areas in schema instantiation. A mechanism is proposed that is able to encode the desired goal of the action and is applicable to different levels of representational organization. (shrink)

Linear structural equation models (SEMs) are widely used in sociology, econometrics, biology, and other sciences. A SEM (without free parameters) has two parts: a probability distribution (in the Normal case specified by a set of linear structural equations and a covariance matrix among the “error” or “disturbance” terms), and an associated path diagram corresponding to the functional composition of variables specified by the structural equations and the correlations among the error terms. It is often thought that the (...) class='Hi'>path diagram is nothing more than a heuristic device for illustrating the assumptions of the model. However, in this paper, we will show how path diagrams can be used to solve a number of important problems in structural equation modelling. (shrink)

Standard derivations of the Bell inequalities assume a common common cause system that is a common screener-off for all correlations and some additional assumptions concerning locality and no-conspiracy. In a recent paper (Grasshoff et al., 2005) Bell inequalities have been derived via separate common causes assuming perfect correlations between the events. In the paper it will be shown that the assumptions of this separate-common-cause-type derivation of the Bell inequalities in the case of perfect correlations can be reduced (...) to the assumptions of common-common-cause-system-type derivation. However, in the case of non-perfect correlations a non-reducible separate-common-cause-type derivation of some Bell-like inequalities can be given. The violation of these Bell-like inequalities proves Szabó's (2000) conjecture concerning the non-existence of a local, non-conspiratorial, separate-common-cause-model for a delta δ-neighborhood of perfect EPR correlations. (shrink)

Standard derivations of the Bell inequalities assume a common-commoncause-system that is a common screener-off for all correlations and some additional assumptions concerning locality and no-conspiracy. In a recent paper Graßhoff et al., "The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science", 56, 663–680 ) Bell inequalities have been derived via separate common causes assuming perfect correlations between the events. In the paper it will be shown that the assumptions of this separate-common-cause-type derivation of the Bell inequalities in the case (...) of perfect correlations can be reduced to the assumptions of a common-common-cause-system-type derivation. However, in the case of non-perfect correlations a non-reducible separate-common-cause-type derivation of some Bell-like inequalities can be given. The violation of these Bell-like inequalities proves Szabo's ) conjecture concerning the non-existence of a local, non-conspiratorial, separate-common-cause-model for a δ-neighborhood of perfect EPR correlations. (shrink)

Highly malignant neuroepithelial tumors are known for their extensive tissue invasion. Investigating the relationship between their spatial behavior and temporal patterns by employing detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), we report here that faster glioma cell motility is accompanied by both greater predictability of the cells' migration velocity and concomitantly, more directionality in the cells' migration paths. Implications of this finding for both experimental and clinical cancer research are discussed.

We summarize the essential ingredients, which enabled us to derive the path-integral for a system of harmonically interacting spin-polarized identical particles in a parabolic confining potential, including both the statistics (Bose–Einstein or Fermi–Dirac) and the harmonic interaction between the particles. This quadratic model, giving rise to repetitive Gaussian integrals, allows to derive an analytical expression for the generating function of the partition function. The calculation of this generating function circumvents the constraints on the summation over the cycles of the (...) permutation group. Moreover, it allows one to calculate the canonical partition function recursively for the system with harmonic two-body interactions. Also, static one-point and two-point correlation functions can be obtained using the same technique, which make the model a powerful trial system for further variational treatments of realistic interactions. (shrink)

History was a continuous cycle driven by the gods. Societies began by being small, impoverished, and insignificant, then became great, then proud and decadent, and finally were overthrown by a different small, impoverished people, with the cycle beginning anew. Herbert's historical universe in Dune is bound within a series of ever repeating cycle. Herbert's themes about human action, fatalism versus free will, and the repetition of religious motifs across vast distances of space and time. Greek mythology and tragedy appear (...) on the very first page of Dune with the use of a single word: Atreides. Much like in the Dune series, History emerged in the ancient Greek world by combining mythology, epic narrative, and tragedy. The Golden Path is the death of the constant cycles of imperialism and the freeing of humanity from constantly repeating old mistakes. (shrink)

Linear structural equation models (SEMs) are widely used in sociology, econometrics, biology, and other sciences. A SEM (without free parameters) has two parts: a probability distribution (in the Normal case specified by a set of linear structural equations and a covariance matrix among the “error” or “disturbance” terms), and an associated path diagram corresponding to the causal relations among variables specified by the structural equations and the correlations among the error terms. It is often thought that the (...) class='Hi'>path diagram is nothing more than a heuristic device for illustrating the assumptions of the model. However, in this paper, we will show how path diagrams can be used to solve a number of important problems in structural equation modelling. (shrink)

La littérature sur le sentier de corrélation met en doute l’efficience du mécanisme de marché en ce qui concerne le choix des technologies et des normes caractérisé par les rendements croissants.Récemment cette idée a attiré l’attention de quelques chercheurs spécialisés dans le processus de changement institutionnel. Dans cet article je soutiens qu’il y a de sérieux défauts dans la manière dont le sentier de corrélation des changements technologiques est habituellement présenté. Le point principal est quoi qu’il en soit le changement (...) institutionnel. Ici, je montre que le concept de sentier de corrélation nécessite quelques modifications avant qu’il ne puisse être appliqué fructueusement.The literature of path-dependence casts doubt on the efficiency of the market mechanism concerning the choice of technologies and standards characterized by increasing returns. Recently this idea has aroused interest among scholars inquiring into the process of institutional change. In this article I argue that there are serious shortcomings in the way pathdependence of technological change is usually presented. The main focus is, however on institutional change. Here I show that the concept ot pathdependence needs some modification before it can fruitfully be applied. (shrink)

This essay rebuts Gary Seay's efforts to show that committing euthanasia need not conflict with a physician's professional duties. First, I try to show how his misunderstanding of the correlativity of rights and duties and his discussion of the foundation of moral rights undermine his case. Second, I show aspects of physicians' professional duties that clash with euthanasia, and that attempts to avoid this clash lead to absurdities. For professional duties are best understood as deriving from professional virtues and the (...) commitments and purposes with which the professional as such ought to act, and there is no plausible way in which her death can be seen as advancing the patient's medical welfare. Third, I argue against Prof. Seay's assumption that apparent conflicts among professional duties must be resolved through "balancing" and argue that, while the physician's duty to extend life is continuous with her duty to protect health, any duty to relieve pain is subordinate to these. Finally, I show that what is morally determinative here, as throughout the moral life, is the agent's intention and that Prof. Seay's implicitly preferred consequentialism threatens not only to distort moral thinking but would altogether undermine the medical (and any other) profession and its internal ethics. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have maintained that causation, correlation, and "partial correlation" are essentially related. These views give rise to various rules of causal inference. This essay considers the "claims of several philosophers and social scientists for causal systems with dichotomous variables. In section 2 important commonalities and differences are explicated among four major conceptions of correlation. In section 3 it is argued that whether correlation can serve as a measure of A's causal influence on B depends upon the conception of (...) causation being used and upon certain background assumptions. In section 4 five major kinds of "partial correlation" are explicated, and some of the important relations are established among two conceptions of "partial correlation", the conception of "screening off", the conception of "partitioning", and the measures of causal influence which have been suggested by advocates of path analysis or structural equation methods. In section 5 it is argued that whether any of these five conceptions of "partial correlation" can serve as a measure of causal influence depends upon the conception of causation being used and upon certain background assumptions. The important conclusion is that each of the approaches (considered here) to causal inference for causal systems with dichotomous variables stands in need of important qualifications and revisions if they are to be justified. (shrink)

Any attempt at consciousness assessment in organoids requires careful consideration of the theory of consciousness that researchers will rely on when performing this task. In cognitive neuroscience and the clinic, there are tools and theories used to detect and measure consciousness, typically in human beings, but none of them is neither fully consensual nor fit for the biological characteristics of organoids. I discuss the existing attempt relying on the Integrated Information Theory and its models and tools. Then, I revive the (...) distinction between global theories of consciousness and local theories of consciousness as a thought-provoking one for those engaged in the difficult task of adapting models of consciousness to the biological reality of brain organoids. The “microconsciousness theory” of Semir Zeki is taken as an exploratory path and illustration of a theory defending that minimal networks can support a form of consciousness. I suggest that the skepticism prevailing in the neuroscience community regarding the possibility of organoid consciousness relies on some assumptions related to a globalist account of consciousness and that other accounts are worth exploring at this stage. (shrink)

This paper examines a model of income and quality of life that controls the love of money, job satisfaction, gender, and marital status and treats employment status (full-time versus part-time), income level, and gender as moderators. For the whole sample, income was not significantly related to quality of life when this path was examined alone. When all variables were controlled, income was negatively related to quality of life. When (1) the love of money was negatively correlated to job (...) satisfaction and (2) job satisfaction was positively related to both income and quality of life, income was negatively related to quality of life for full-time, high-income, and male employees. When these two conditions failed to exist, income was not related to quality of life for part-time, median- or low-income, and female employees. This model provides new insights regarding the impact of the love of money and job satisfaction on the income–quality of life relationship. (shrink)

It has been hypothesized that our believing that, or its seeming to us as though, the world is in some way dynamical partially explains (and perhaps rationalizes) future-bias. Recent work has, in turn, found a correlation between future-bias and near-bias, suggesting that there is a common explanation for both. Call the claim that what partially explains our being both future- and near-biased is our believing/it seeming to us as though the world is dynamical, the dynamical explanation. We empirically test two (...) versions of the dynamical explanation. The first is the moving ego explanation—according to which it is our belief that the ego moves, or our phenomenology as of the ego moving, that jointly (partially) explains future- and near-bias. The second is the moving time explanation—according to which it is our belief that time robustly passes, or our phenomenology as of robust passage, which jointly (partially) explain future- and near-bias. We found no evidence in favour of either explanation. (shrink)

Philosophers and social scientists have recently turned to Lewis sender–receiver games to provide an account of how lexical terms can acquire meaning through an evolutionary process. However, the evolution of meaning is contingent on both the particular sender–receiver game played and the choice of evolutionary dynamic. In this paper I explore some differences between models that presume an infinitely large and randomly mixed population and models in which a finite number of agents communicate with their neighbors in a social network. (...) My results show that communication with neighbors is more conducive to the evolution of meaning than communication with strangers. Additionally, I show that the behavior of the system is highly dependent on the topological structure of the social network. I argue that a specific class of networks—small world graphs—is especially conducive to the evolution of meaning. This is because small world graphs have a short characteristic path length while still maintaining a high degree of correlation between neighbors. Since many actual social networks, such as friendship networks and nervous systems, are conjectured to be small world structures, these results indicate that these networks are quite hospitable to the efficient evolution of meaning. (shrink)

Purpose: Reflecting on the propensity of our culture to think in local linear causality such as “genetic determination” by examining systems and their operation. Findings: The existence of a system is operational, and a system exists as such only as long as the operational conditions that constitute it prevail. As the observer distinguishes a system, he or she specifies with his or her operation of distinction the conditions that constitute the system. Since the adaptation between living systems and medium is (...) invariant, all that happens in their history must happen as a flow of structural congruent changes conserving their organization and adaptation. Therefore, the ontogenic phenotype is not genetically determined but arises in the process of epigenesis i.e., along a path of interactions starting from the initial structure of both system and medium, along the conservation of its living. Implications: Natural selection should not be considered as a directing pressure causing the differential survival of living systems but as its result. (shrink)

Although both belong to the domain of the nonexistent, there is an ontological distinction between ficta and possibilia. Ficta are a particular kind of abstract objects, namely constructed abstract objects which generically depend on authors for their subsistence. Moreover, they are essentially incomplete entities, in that they are correlates of finite sets of properties. - On the other hand, possibilia are concrete objects. Being a possible object is indeed being an entity that might have existed, that is, that might have (...) been involved in the causal order. Besides, as an object existent in this sense may legitimately be qualified as complete, the incompleteness which pertains to possible objects is contingent, in that it regards them only with respect to the possible worlds in which they do not exist. This ontological distinction has a semantic correlate: whereas names for possibilia are full-fledged directly referential terms, names for ficta are synonymous with de facto rigid descriptions of a complex sort. (shrink)

The idea that the city is a place of sin and immorality is as old as urban civilization. But what does anti-urban thought mean in societies which are highly urbanized under the conditions of modern industrialism? Furthermore, is anti-urbanism in the interwar period a German völkisch phenomenon––one further stride on Germany's special path? And what does rural revival and the “back-to-the-land” cult mean in Great Britain, the first industrial nation? This article seeks to provide an answer to these questions (...) by exploring anti-urbanist writing between the End of the First World War and 1933 in Germany, and 1939 in Britain. By examining two key themes it aims to show that the clear-cut distinction between German anti-urban radicalisation and the West's coming to terms with urbanisation cannot be maintained. Firstly, attention will be drawn to the ambiguity of perceptions of the city in the writings of “Conservative Revolutionary” authors in the Weimar Republic. In a second step, the British “back-to-the-land” movement, whose advocates developed comprehensive anti-urban third-way theories in the interwar period and were themselves part of a broader popular anti-industrial movement and a rural cult throughout the 1930s, will be examined. (shrink)

We investigated how motor agency in the voluntary control of body movement influences body awareness. In the Rubber Hand Illusion , synchronous tactile stimulation of a rubber hand and the participant’s hand leads to a feeling of the rubber hand being incorporated in the participant’s own body. One quantifiable behavioural correlate of the illusion is an induced shift in the perceived location of the participant’s hand towards the rubber hand. Previous studies showed that the induced changes in body awareness are (...) local and fragmented: the proprioceptive drift is largely restricted to the stimulated finger. In the present study, we investigated whether active and passive movements, rather than tactile stimulation, would lead to similarly fragmented body awareness. Participants watched a projected image of their hand under three conditions: active finger movement, passive finger movement, and tactile stimulation. Visual feedback was either synchronous or asynchronous with respect to stimulation of the hand. A significant overall RHI, defined as greater drifts following synchronous than asynchronous stimulation, was found in all cases. However, the distribution of the RHI across stimulated and non-stimulated fingers depended on the kind of stimulation. Localised proprioceptive drifts, specific to the stimulated finger, were found for tactile and passive stimulation. Conversely, during active movement of a single digit, the proprioceptive drifts were not localised to that digit, but were spread across the whole hand. Whereas a purely proprioceptive sense of body-ownership is local and fragmented, the motor sense of agency integrates distinct body-parts into a coherent, unified awareness of the body. (shrink)

David Milner and Melvyn Goodale’s dissociation hypothesis is commonly taken to state that there are two functionally specialized cortical streams of visual processing originating in striate (V1) cortex: a dorsal, action-related “unconscious” stream and a ventral, perception-related “conscious” stream. As Milner and Goodale acknowledge, findings from blindsight studies suggest a more sophisticated picture that replaces the distinction between unconscious vision for action and conscious vision for perception with a tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, and (...) unconscious vision for perception. The combination excluded by the tripartite division is the possibility of conscious vision for action. But are there good grounds for concluding that there is no conscious vision for action? There is now overwhelming evidence that illusions and perceived size can have a significant effect on action (Bruno & Franz, 2009; Dassonville & Bala, 2004; Franz & Gegenfurtner, 2008; McIntosh & Lashley, 2008). There is also suggestive evidence that any sophisticated visual behavior requires collaboration between the two visual streams at every stage of the process (Schenk & McIntosh, 2010). I nonetheless want to make a case for the tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, and unconscious vision for perception. My aim here is not to refute the evidence showing that conscious vision can affect action but rather to argue (a) that we cannot gain cognitive access to action-guiding dorsal stream representations, and (b) that these representations do not correlate with phenomenal consciousness. This vindicates the semi-conservative view that the dissociation hypothesis is best understood as a tripartite division. (shrink)