Suppose that persons A and B give us a sequence of 32 bits each, saying that they were obtained from independent coin flips. If A gives the stringu = 01001110100111101001101001110101and B gives the stringv = 00000000000000000000000000000000,then we would tend to believe A and would not believe B: the string u seems to be random, but the string v does not. Further on, if we change the value of a bit in a “random” string, then the result is still (...) a “random” string. If we keep making such changes in a “random” string, then we will eventually complete destroy randomness. (shrink)

We investigate the question of whether one can characterize complexity classes in terms of efficient reducibility to the set of Kolmogorov-random strings . This question arises because and , and no larger complexity classes are known to be reducible to in this way. We show that this question cannot be posed without explicitly dealing with issues raised by the choice of universal machine in the definition of Kolmogorov complexity. What follows is a list of some of our main (...) results.• Although Kummer showed that, for every universal machine U there is a time bound t such that the halting problem is disjunctive truth-table reducible to in time t, there is no such time bound t that suffices for every universal machine U. We also show that, for some machines U, the disjunctive reduction can be computed in as little as doubly-exponential time.• Although for every universal machine U, there are very complex sets that are -reducible to , it is nonetheless true that . • Any decidable set that is polynomial-time monotone-truth-table reducible to is in .• Any decidable set that is polynomial-time truth-table reducible to via a reduction that asks at most f queries on inputs of size n lies in. (shrink)

There are two fundamental computably enumerable sets associated with any Kolmogorov complexity measure. These are the set of non-random strings and the overgraph. This paper investigates the computational power of these sets. It follows work done by Kummer, Muchnik and Positselsky, and Allender and co-authors. Muchnik and Positselsky asked whether there exists an optimal monotone machine whose overgraph is not tt-complete. This paper answers this question in the negative by proving that the overgraph of any optimal monotone machine, (...) or any optimal process machine, is tt-complete. The monotone results are shown for both descriptional complexity Km and KM, the complexity measure derived from algorithmic probability. A distinction is drawn between two definitions of process machines that exist in the literature. For one class of process machines, designated strict process machines, it is shown that there is a universal machine whose set of non-random strings is not tt-complete. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to shed light on our understanding of large scale properties of infinite strings. We say that one string $\alpha $ has weaker large scale geometry than that of $\beta $ if there is color preserving bi-Lipschitz map from $\alpha $ into $\beta $ with small distortion. This definition allows us to define a partially ordered set of large scale geometries on the classes of all infinite strings. This partial order compares large scale (...) geometries of infinite strings. As such, it presents an algebraic tool for classification of global patterns. We study properties of this partial order. We prove, for instance, that this partial order has a greatest element and also possess infinite chains and antichains. We also investigate the sets of large scale geometries of strings accepted by finite state machines such as Büchi automata. We provide an algorithm that describes large scale geometries of strings accepted by Büchi automata. This connects the work with the complexity theory. We also prove that the quasi-isometry problem is a $\Sigma _2^0$ -complete set, thus providing a bridge with computability theory. Finally, we build algebraic structures that are invariants of large scale geometries. We invoke asymptotic cones, a key concept in geometric group theory, defined via model-theoretic notion of ultra-product. Partly, we study asymptotic cones of algorithmically random strings, thus connecting the topic with algorithmic randomness. (shrink)

According to a traditional view, scientific laws and theories constitute algorithmic compressions of empirical data sets collected from observations and measurements. This article defends the thesis that, to the contrary, empirical data sets are algorithmically incompressible. The reason is that individual data points are determined partly by perturbations, or causal factors that cannot be reduced to any pattern. If empirical data sets are incompressible, then they exhibit maximal algorithmic complexity, maximal entropy and zero redundancy. They are therefore maximally efficient carriers (...) of information about the world. Since, on algorithmic information theory, a string is algorithmically random just if it is incompressible, the thesis entails that empirical data sets consist of algorithmically random strings of digits. Rather than constituting compressions of empirical data, scientific laws and theories pick out patterns that data sets exhibit with a certain noise.Author Keywords: Algorithmic randomness; Compression; Empirical data; Information; Law; Pattern. (shrink)

According to a traditional view, scientific laws and theories constitute algorithmic compressions of empirical data sets collected from observations and measurements. This article defends the thesis that, to the contrary, empirical data sets are algorithmically incompressible. The reason is that individual data points are determined partly by perturbations, or causal factors that cannot be reduced to any pattern. If empirical data sets are incompressible, then they exhibit maximal algorithmic complexity, maximal entropy and zero redundancy. They are therefore maximally efficient carriers (...) of information about the world. Since, on algorithmic information theory, a string is algorithmically random just if it is incompressible, the thesis entails that empirical data sets consist of algorithmically random strings of digits. Rather than constituting compressions of empirical data, scientific laws and theories pick out patterns that data sets exhibit with a certain noise. (shrink)

It is time for a new paper about open questions in the currently very active area of randomness and computability. Ambos-Spies and Kučera presented such a paper in 1999 [1]. All the question in it have been solved, except for one: is KL-randomness different from Martin-Löf randomness? This question is discussed in Section 6.Not all the questions are necessarily hard—some simply have not been tried seriously. When we think a question is a major one, and therefore likely to be hard, (...) we indicate this by the symbol ▶, the criterion being that it is of considerable interest and has been tried by a number of researchers. Some questions are close contenders here; these are marked by ▷. With few exceptions, the questions are precise. They mostly have a yes/no answer. However, there are often more general questions of an intuitive or even philosophical nature behind. We give an outline, indicating the more general questions.All sets will be sets of natural numbers, unless otherwise stated. These sets are identified with infinite strings over {0, 1}. Other terms used in the literature are sequence and real. (shrink)

We consider the question of randomness of the probability ΩU[X] that an optimal Turing machine U halts and outputs a string in a fixed set X. The main results are as follows: ΩU[X] is random whenever X is $\Sigma _{n}^{0}$-complete or $\Pi _{n}^{0}$-complete for some n ≥ 2. However, for n ≥ 2, ΩU[X] is not n-random when X is $\Sigma _{n}^{0}$ or $\Pi _{n}^{0}$ Nevertheless, there exists $\Delta _{n+1}^{0}$ sets such that ΩU[X] is n-random. There are (...) $\Delta _{2}^{0}$ sets X such that ΩU[X] is rational. Also, for every n ≥ 1, there exists a set X which is $\Delta _{n+1}^{0}$ and $\Sigma _{n}^{0}$-hard such that ΩU[X] is not random. We also look at the range of ΩU as an operator. We prove that the set {ΩU[X]: X ⊆ 2<ω} is a finite union of closed intervals. It follows that for any optimal machine U and any sufficiently small real r, there is a set X ⊆ 2<ω recursive in ∅′ ⊕ r, such that ΩU[X] = r. The same questions are also considered in the context of infinite computations, and lead to similar results. (shrink)

We survey recent advances on the interface between computability theory and algorithmic randomness, with special attention on measures of relative complexity. We focus on (weak) reducibilities that measure (a) the initial segment complexity of reals and (b) the power of reals to compress strings, when they are used as oracles. The results are put into context and several connections are made with various central issues in modern algorithmic randomness and computability.

We survey recent advances on the interface between computability theory and algorithmic randomness, with special attention on measures of relative complexity. We focus on reducibilities that measure the initial segment complexity of reals and the power of reals to compress strings, when they are used as oracles. The results are put into context and several connections are made with various central issues in modern algorithmic randomness and computability.

Let ω be a Kolmogorov–Chaitin random sequence with ω1: n denoting the first n digits of ω. Let P be a recursive predicate defined on all finite binary strings such that the Lebesgue measure of the set {ω|∃nP(ω1: n )} is a computable real α. Roughly, P holds with computable probability for a random infinite sequence. Then there is an algorithm which on input indices for any such P and α finds an n such that P holds (...) within the first n digits of ω or not in ω at all. We apply the result to the halting probability Ω and show that various generalizations of the result fail. (shrink)

We show that for random bit strings, Up, with probability, image, the first order quantifier depth D) needed to distinguish non-isomorphic structures is Θ, with high probability. Further, we show that, with high probability, for random ordered graphs, G≤,p with edge probability image, D)=Θ, contrasting with the results for random graphs, Gp, given by Kim et al. [J.H. Kim, O. Pikhurko, J. Spencer, O. Verbitsky, How complex are random graphs in first order logic? Random (...) Structures and Algorithms 26 119–145] of D)=log1/pn+O. (shrink)

We show that for random bit strings, Up, with probability, image, the first order quantifier depth D) needed to distinguish non-isomorphic structures is Θ, with high probability. Further, we show that, with high probability, for random ordered graphs, G≤,p with edge probability image, D)=Θ, contrasting with the results for random graphs, Gp, given by Kim et al. [J.H. Kim, O. Pikhurko, J. Spencer, O. Verbitsky, How complex are random graphs in first order logic? Random (...) Structures and Algorithms 26 119–145] of D)=log1/pn+O. (shrink)

We prove that every computably enumerable random real is provable in Peano Arithmetic to be c.e. random. A major step in the proof is to show that the theorem stating that “a real is c.e. and random iff it is the halting probability of a universal prefix-free Turing machine” can be proven in PA. Our proof, which is simpler than the standard one, can also be used for the original theorem. Our positive result can be contrasted with (...) the case of computable functions, where not every computable function is provably computable in PA, or even more interestingly, with the fact that almost all random finite strings are not provably random in PA. We also prove two negative results: a) there exists a universal machine whose universality cannot be proved in PA, b) there exists a universal machine U such that, based on U, PA cannot prove the randomness of its halting probability. The paper also includes a sharper form of the Kraft-Chaitin Theorem, as well as a formal proof of this theorem written with the proof assistant Isabelle. (shrink)

When the fuzzy indeterminacy of quantum mechanics overthrew the orderly world of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger were at the forefront of the revolution. Neither man was ever satisfied with the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics, however, and both rebelled against what they considered the most preposterous aspect of quantum mechanics: its randomness. Einstein famously quipped that God does not play dice with the universe, and Schrödinger constructed his famous fable of a cat that was neither alive nor (...) dead not to explain quantum mechanics but to highlight the apparent absurdity of a theory gone wrong. But these two giants did more than just criticize: they fought back, seeking a Theory of Everything that would make the universe seem sensible again. In Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat, physicist Paul Halpern tells the little-known story of how Einstein and Schrödinger searched, first as collaborators and then as competitors, for a theory that transcended quantum weirdness. This story of their quest—which ultimately failed—provides readers with new insights into the history of physics and the lives and work of two scientists whose obsessions drove its progress. Today, much of modern physics remains focused on the search for a Theory of Everything. As Halpern explains, the recent discovery of the Higgs Boson makes the Standard Model—the closest thing we have to a unified theory— nearly complete. And while Einstein and Schrödinger failed in their attempt to explain everything in the cosmos through pure geometry, the development of string theory has, in its own quantum way, brought this idea back into vogue. As in so many things, even when they were wrong, Einstein and Schrödinger couldn’t help but get a great deal right. (shrink)

Winner, 2020 Body and Embodiment Best Publication Award, given by the American Sociological Association Honorable Mention, 2020 Sociology of Sex and Gender Distinguished Book Award, given by the American Sociological Association How the female body has been racialized for over two hundred years There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor Black women are particularly stigmatized as “diseased” and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat (...) Black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago. Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper and magazine articles, and scientific literature and medical journals—where fat bodies were once praised—showing that fat phobia, as it relates to Black women, did not originate with medical findings, but with the Enlightenment era belief that fatness was evidence of “savagery” and racial inferiority. The author argues that the contemporary ideal of slenderness is, at its very core, racialized and racist. Indeed, it was not until the early twentieth century, when racialized attitudes against fatness were already entrenched in the culture, that the medical establishment began its crusade against obesity. An important and original work, Fearing the Black Body argues convincingly that fat phobia isn’t about health at all, but rather a means of using the body to validate race, class, and gender prejudice. (shrink)

Although information content is invariant up to an additive constant, the range of possible additive constants applicable to programming languages is so large that in practice it plays a major role in the actual evaluation of K(s), the Kolmogorov complexity of a string s. We present a summary of the approach we've developed to overcome the problem by calculating its algorithmic probability and evaluating the algorithmic complexity via the coding theorem, thereby providing a stable framework for Kolmogorov complexity even for (...) short strings. We also show that reasonable formalisms produce reasonable complexity classifications. (shrink)

We extend Meyer's 1972 investigation of sets of minimal indices. Blum showed that minimal index sets are immune, and we show that they are also immune against high levels of the arithmetic hierarchy. We give optimal immunity results for sets of minimal indices with respect to the arithmetic hierarchy, and we illustrate with an intuitive example that immunity is not simply a refinement of arithmetic complexity. Of particular note here are the fact that there are three minimal index sets located (...) in Π3 − Σ3 with distinct levels of immunity and that certain immunity properties depend on the choice of underlying acceptable numbering. We show that minimal index sets are never hyperimmune; however, they can be immune against the arithmetic sets. Lastly, we investigate Turing degrees for sets of random strings defined with respect to Bagchi's size-function s. (shrink)

An illustrated exploration of fandom that combines academic essays with artist pages and experimental texts. Fandom as Methodology examines fandom as a set of practices for approaching and writing about art. The collection includes experimental texts, autobiography, fiction, and new academic perspectives on fandom in and as art. Key to the idea of “fandom as methodology” is a focus on the potential for fandom in art to create oppositional spaces, communities, and practices, particularly from queer perspectives, but also through transnational, (...) feminist and artist-of-color fandoms. The book provides a range of examples of artists and writers working in this vein, as well as academic essays that explore the ways in which fandom can be theorized as a methodology for art practice and art history. Fandom as Methodology proposes that many artists and art writers already draw on affective strategies found in fandom. With the current focus in many areas of art history, art writing, and performance studies around affective engagement with artworks and imaginative potentials, fandom is a key methodology that has yet to be explored. Interwoven into the academic essays are lavishly designed artist pages in which artists offer an introduction to their use of fandom as methodology. Contributors Taylor J. Acosta, Catherine Grant, Dominic Johnson, Kate Random Love, Maud Lavin, Owen G. Parry, Alice Butler, SooJin Lee, Jenny Lin, Judy Batalion, Ika Willis. Artists featured in the artist pages Jeremy Deller, Ego Ahaiwe Sowinski, Anna Bunting-Branch, Maria Fusco, Cathy Lomax, Kamau Amu Patton, Holly Pester, Dawn Mellor, Michelle Williams Gamaker, The Women of Colour Index Reading Group, Liv Wynter, Zhiyuan Yang. (shrink)

We define and study a new notion called k-immunity that lies between immunity and hyperimmunity in strength. Our interest in k-immunity is justified by the result that θ does not k-tt reduce to a k-immune set, which improves a previous result by Kobzev [7]. We apply the result to show that Φ′ does not btt-reduce to MIN, the set of minimal programs. Other applications include the set of Kolmogorov random strings, and retraceable and regressive sets. We also give (...) a new characterization of effectively simple sets and show that simple sets are not btt-cuppable. (shrink)

The truth-table degree of the set of shortest programs remains an outstanding problem in recursion theory. We examine two related sets, the set of shortest descriptions and the set of domain-random strings, and show that the truth-table degrees of these sets depend on the underlying acceptable numbering. We achieve some additional properties for the truth-table incomplete versions of these sets, namely retraceability and approximability. We give priority-free constructions of bounded truth-table chains and bounded truth-table antichains inside the truth-table (...) complete degree by identifying an acceptable set of domain-random strings within each degree. (shrink)

We call A weakly low for K if there is a c such that $K^A(\sigma)\geq K(\sigma)-c$ for infinitely many σ; in other words, there are infinitely many strings that A does not help compress. We prove that A is weakly low for K if and only if Chaitin's Ω is A-random. This has consequences in the K-degrees and the low for K (i.e., low for random) degrees. Furthermore, we prove that the initial segment prefix-free complexity of 2- (...) class='Hi'>random reals is infinitely often maximal. This had previously been proved for plain Kolmogorov complexity. (shrink)

The gambler’s fallacy is the tendency to expect random processes to switch more often than they actually do—for example, to think that after a string of tails, a heads is more likely. It’s often taken to be evidence for irrationality. It isn’t. Rather, it’s to be expected from a group of Bayesians who begin with causal uncertainty, and then observe unbiased data from an (in fact) statistically independent process. Although they converge toward the truth, they do so in an (...) asymmetric way—ruling out “streaky” hypotheses more quickly than “switchy” ones. As a result, the majority (and the average) exhibit the gambler’s fallacy. If they have limited memory, this tendency persists even with arbitrarily-large amounts of data. Indeed, such Bayesians exhibit a variety of the empirical trends found in studies of the gambler’s fallacy: they expect switches after short streaks but continuations after long ones; these nonlinear expectations vary with their familiarity with the causal system; their predictions depend on the sequence they’ve just seen; they produce sequences that are too switchy; and they exhibit greater rates of gambler’s reasoning when forming binary predictions than when forming probability estimates. In short: what’s been thought to be evidence for irrationality may instead be rational responses to limited data and memory. (shrink)

The computations involved in statistical learning have long been debated. Here, we build on work suggesting that a basic memory process, chunking, may account for the processing of statistical regularities into larger units. Drawing on methods from the memory literature, we developed a novel paradigm to test statistical learning by leveraging a robust phenomenon observed in serial recall tasks: that short‐term memory is fundamentally shaped by long‐term distributional learning. In the statistically induced chunking recall (SICR) task, participants are exposed to (...) an artificial language, using a standard statistical learning exposure phase. Afterward, they recall strings of syllables that either follow the statistics of the artificial language or comprise the same syllables presented in a random order. We hypothesized that if individuals had chunked the artificial language into word‐like units, then the statistically structured items would be more accurately recalled relative to the random controls. Our results demonstrate that SICR effectively captures learning in both the auditory and visual modalities, with participants displaying significantly improved recall of the statistically structured items, and even recall specific trigram chunks from the input. SICR also exhibits greater test–retest reliability in the auditory modality and sensitivity to individual differences in both modalities than the standard two‐alternative forced‐choice task. These results thereby provide key empirical support to the chunking account of statistical learning and contribute a valuable new tool to the literature. (shrink)

A common view holds that consciousness is needed for knowledge acquired in one domain to be applied in a novel domain. We present evidence for the opposite; where the transfer of knowledge is achieved only in the absence of conscious awareness. Knowledge of artificial grammars was examined where training and testing occurred in different vocabularies or modalities. In all conditions grammaticality judgments attributed to random selection showed above-chance accuracy , while those attributed to conscious decisions did not. Participants also (...) rated each string’s familiarity and performed a perceptual task assessing fluency. Familiarity was predicted by repetition structure and was thus related to grammaticality. Fluency, though increasing familiarity, was unrelated to grammaticality. While familiarity predicted all judgments only those attributed to random selection showed a significant additional contribution of grammaticality, deriving primarily from chunk novelty. In knowledge transfer, as in visual perception , the unconscious may outperform the conscious. (shrink)

In the thesis literature review, an engineering graduate student is expected to place original research in the context of previous work by other researchers. However, for some students, particularly those for whom English is a second language, the literature review may be a mixture of original writing and verbatim source text appropriated without quotations. Such problematic use of source material leaves students vulnerable to an accusation of plagiarism, which carries severe consequences. Is such textual appropriation common in engineering master’s writing? (...) Furthermore, what, if anything, can be concluded when two texts have been found to have textual material in common? Do existing definitions of plagiarism provide a sufficient framework for determining if an instance of copying is transgressive or not? In a preliminary attempt to answer these questions, text strings from a random sample of 100 engineering master’s theses from the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database were searched for appropriated verbatim source text using the Google search engine. The results suggest that textual borrowing may indeed be a common feature of the master’s engineering literature review, raising questions about the ability of graduate students to synthesize the literature. The study also illustrates the difficulties of making a determination of plagiarism based on simple textual similarity. A context-specific approach is recommended when dealing with any instance of apparent copying. (shrink)

Individual creativity is standardly treated as an ‘internalist’ process occurring solely in the head. An alternative, more interactionist view is presented here, where working with objects, media and other external things is seen as a fundamental component of creative thought. The value of chance interaction and chance cueing — practices widely used in the creative arts — is explored briefly in an account of the creative method of choreographer Wayne McGregor and then more narrowly in an experimental study that compared (...) performance on a Scrabble-like word discovery problem. Subjects were presented with seven letters and given two minutes to call out three-to-seven-letter English words. There were three conditions: The tiles were fixed in place, subjects were free to move the tiles manually or the tiles could be randomly shuffled. Results showed that random shuffling was best, with manual movement second. Three reasons are provided: Shuffling is faster and cheaper than mentally thinking of candidates; randomizing strings covers the search space better than a deterministic method based on past successes; and randomizing is equivalent to adding diversity to a team, which is known empirically to lead to more creative solutions. (shrink)

In response to concerns with existing procedures for measuring strategic control over implicit knowledge in artificial grammar learning , we introduce a more stringent measurement procedure. After two separate training blocks which each consisted of letter strings derived from a different grammar, participants either judged the grammaticality of novel letter strings with respect to only one of these two grammars , or had the target grammar varying randomly from trial to trial which required a higher degree of conscious (...) flexible control. Random variation in the colour and font of letters was introduced to disguise the nature of the rule and reduce explicit learning. Strategic control was observed both in the pure-block and mixed-block conditions, and even among participants who did not realise the rule was based on letter identity. This indicated detailed strategic control in the absence of explicit learning. (shrink)

I outline some of my work and results on my matter-gravity entanglement hypothesis, according to which the entropy of a closed quantum gravitational system is equal to the system’s matter-gravity entanglement entropy. The main arguments presented are: that this hypothesis is capable of resolving what I call the second-law puzzle, i.e. the puzzle as to how the entropy increase of a closed system can be reconciled with the asssumption of unitary time-evolution; that the black hole information loss puzzle may be (...) regarded as a special case of this second law puzzle and that therefore the same resolution applies to it; that the black hole thermal atmosphere puzzle can be resolved by adopting a radically different-from-usual description of quantum black hole equilibrium states, according to which they are total pure states, entangled between matter and gravity in such a way that the partial states of matter and gravity are each approximately thermal equilibrium states ; that the Susskind–Horowitz–Polchinski string-theoretic understanding of black hole entropy as the logarithm of the degeneracy of a long string cannot be quite correct but should be replaced by a modified understanding according to which it is the entanglement entropy between a long string and its stringy atmosphere, when in a total pure equilibrium state in a suitable box, which ) goes over, at strong-coupling, to a black hole in equilibrium with its thermal atmosphere. The modified understanding in is based on a general result, which I also describe, which concerns the likely state of a quantum system when it is weakly coupled to an energy-bath and the total state is a random pure state with a given energy. This result generalizes Goldstein et al.’s ‘canonical typicality’ result to systems which are not necessarily small. (shrink)

A quantum algorithm succeeds not because the superposition principle allows ‘the computation of all values of a function at once’ via ‘quantum parallelism’, but rather because the structure of a quantum state space allows new sorts of correlations associated with entanglement, with new possibilities for information‐processing transformations between correlations, that are not possible in a classical state space. I illustrate this with an elementary example of a problem for which a quantum algorithm is more efficient than any classical algorithm. I (...) also introduce the notion of ‘pseudotelepathic’ games and show how the difference between classical and quantum correlations plays a similar role here for games that can be won by quantum players exploiting entanglement, but not by classical players whose only allowed common resource consists of shared strings of random numbers (common causes of the players’ correlated responses in a game). *Received October 2008. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

We interpret the concept of determinism for a classical system as the requirement that the solution to the Cauchy problem for the equations of motion governing this system be unique. This requirement is generally believed to hold for all autonomous classical systems. Our analysis of classical electrodynamics in a world with one temporal and one spatial dimension provides counterexamples of this belief. Given the initial conditions of a particular type, the Cauchy problem may have an infinite set of solutions. Therefore, (...) random behavior of closed classical systems is indeed possible. With this finding, we give a qualitative explanation of how classical strings can split. We propose a modified path integral formulation of classical mechanics to include indeterministic systems. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 22–28. Jeroen Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene twice. First, in 2005, when he became a strong presence on the nascent Dutch poetry blogosphere overnight as he embarked on his critical project Dichtersalfabet (Poet’s Alphabet). And again in 2011, when to great critical acclaim (and some bafflement) his complete writings were published – almost five years after his far too early death. 2005 was the year in which Dutch poetry blogging exploded. That year saw the foundation (...) of the influential, polemical, and populistically inclined weblog De Contrabas (The Double Bass), which became a strong force for internet poetry in Dutch in the years to follow. In the summer of that year, a lively debate raged in the aftermath of Bas Belleman’s article “ Doet poëzie er nu eindelijk toe ?” (“Does poetry finally matter now?”), on a blog specifically devoted to this question. Up to that point, the poetical debate in the Netherlands had largely been confined to literary reviews (which were often subsidized), having become mostly marginalized in more mainstream media, where poetry could be covered by only a small number of so-called authorities. As a result, literary debate had acquired a rather placid quality. Though a variety of camps with different aesthetics could be discerned, most poetical positions shared a general acceptance of poetry as a form of art somewhat apart from fundamental political concerns. Late modernists would pursue subtlety and density of reference. Others would insist poetry was best understood as a form of entertainment that should ideally be accessible and work well on the stage. Still others would insist that poetry is mostly a play with forms. Linguistically disruptive strategies were valued highly by some, but mostly for their aesthetic effect. Values of disinterested playfulness reigned supreme everywhere. Any idea that poetry could be a field in which one confronts politics and the world was decidedly marginal. This led to a climate in which most attempts at polemics were DOA, often based on far too superficial positioning and analysis. The greatest polemical debates were revolving around the question of whether poetry should be difficult or easy, with both camps defining their ideas of difficulty and accessibility in ways that were so utterly shallow as to make the entire point moot. Debates were performed, rather than engaged with. It was a postmodern hell of underarticulated poetics. Half-consciously, people were yearning for new forms of criticism that could put the oomph back into poetry. Weblogs provided for ways to explore debate directly outside of the clotted older channels of the reviews and the newspapers. Belleman’s essay and the resulting online activity had shown that there was a widespread eagerness to take poetry more seriously as a social art form. It was in this environment that Mettes started his remarkable project Dichtersalfabet . At that moment, Mettes was active mostly in academic circles, having become noted at Leiden University as a particularly gifted student of literary theory. Within the Netherlands, the field of literary theory has a very odd relationship to literature as it is practiced in the country. Academic theory tends to have a mostly international view and engage with international debates of cultural criticism, literary theory, and philosophy, with academics often publishing in English and attending conferences around the world. Literature itself however is much more concerned with domestic traditions. Consequently, in the Netherlands, there exists a language gap between academic theoretical practice (as it is studied in the literary theory departments) and literary practice (which, academically, gets studied in specialized departments of Dutch literature). The Dichtersalfabet can be seen as Mettes’s attempt to close this gap. It is also an attempt to bridge the divide between theory and practice, in which he could apply his theoretical knowledge in a very unorthodox and unacademic critical mode that moreover could reach far beyond the domain of conventional criticism. Mettes’s goal was to trace a diagonal through Dutch poetic culture, to “strangle” what he perceived to be its dominant oppressive traditions of agreeable irrelevance, in order to see whatever might be able to survive his critical assaults. But he could only do so by means of a very serious engagement with poetry itself. To this end, he would go systematically through the poetry bookshelf of the Verwijs bookshop (part of a mainstream chain of booksellers) in The Hague, buying one publication per blog item, starting from A and working his way through the alphabet, reading whatever he might encounter that way in the restaurant of the HEMA store (another big commercial chain in the country). He would subsequently write down his reading experiences, refraining however from trying to write a nuanced book review. Rather, he would write about anything that caught his attention and sparked his critical interest. This way of working would yield vast, at times somewhat rambling, dense, lively, and generally brilliant essays, in which he held no punches. He never hesitated to pull out his entire arsenal of concepts from the international theory traditions, while never degenerating into mere academic exercise and pointless intertextualities. The attempt was rather to live the poetry that he read, and to engage it with the full range of political, academic, cultural, and personal references that he had at his disposal—all that composed the individual named Jeroen Mettes as a reader. Often what he wrote would not be according to the standards of what we usually think of as a critical review of a book of poetry. Sometimes he would even be a little sloppy in his judgments of poets or representations of the books he read, for example by basing an entire essay on the blurb of a book rather than its poetry content. But what he did was always brilliant writing nonetheless—virtuoso riffs on poetic fragments randomly found within capitalist society, exposing an incisive and insistent poetical sensibility. Mettes read poetry for political reasons, to see whether poetry could offer him a way to deal with a political world he detested. The right-wing horrors of the Bush years, the Iraq war, and the turn of Dutch public opinion towards ever more conservative, narrow-minded, and xenophobic views alongside a complete failure of the political left to present any credible alternative, were weighing heavily on the times in which Mettes reported on his reading. Poetry was to measure this world, diagram it, to lay bare its inconsistencies and faults, to indicate where lines of flight might be found. Amid the ruins of a world wrecked by imperialist policies, corporate capitalism, and doctrinal neoliberalism it would have to show the possibility of a new community. And it was, through its rhythmical workings, to release the reading subject from his confinement to ideologically conditioned individuality and lead him into the immanent paradise of reading. The stakes were high. Much higher than anything Dutch poetry had seen for many years. Mettes’s blog was widely read from the start. His posts sparked lively debates. Some of these subsequently led to the publication of extensive essays on a few key poets in some literary journals, particularly Parmentier and the Flemish journal yang , for which Mettes would become a member of the editorial board, a few months after starting the Dichtersalfabet . This could have been the start of a brilliant career, but this was not to be. The initial manic energy that fueled the blog gradually subsided. The Alfabet was updated less and less regularly. Mettes sometimes just disappeared for many weeks, then suddenly returning with a brilliant essay. Until, on September 21, 2006, he posted his final blogpost, consisting of no text whatsoever. That night I learned from his mentor at Leiden University that he had committed suicide. Mettes and I had had some fruitful exchanges on poetry, rhythm, music, and form, mostly on the blogs, but also by email. Three weeks before his death was the last time I heard from him: a very sudden, uncharacteristically curt note saying “My old new sentence epic.” Attached to that message I found a DOC-file of a work so major that I felt intimidated. This was N30 , a text he had been working on for over five years. After his death, it took me a long time before I dared to read it in its entirety. In the meantime, the work of preparing the manuscript for publication was entrusted by his relatives to his colleagues at yang magazine. It took them a few years to brush up the text and to edit the Dichtersalfabet -blog (which, apart from the Alphabet project itself, incorporated many other fragments of political, polemical, and theoretical writing) into book form along with the essays. The result of this labor was finally published in 2011 as a two-book set, and Mettes burst onto the Dutch poetry scene for the second time. The work was widely reviewed, on blogs, in journals, magazines, and newspapers. Many critics who had not followed the blogs in 2005 showed themselves surprised, baffled even, by the intensity of Mettes’s critical writing. But for those who had read the blog, the main surprise was in the poetry. During Mettes’s lifetime, some of his poems had already been published in Parmentier . Although these were strong texts by themselves, in no way did they prepare readers for N30 . Nothing like it had been written in Dutch before. Instead, N30 explicitly follows the American tradition of Language Writing, directly referencing Ron Silliman and his concept of The New Sentence. However, it would seem that much of the poetical thinking around his use of this technique puts him closer to a writer such as Bruce Andrews. For Mettes, using non sequiturs as a unit of poetic construction was not only a way of reinventing formal textual construction, but it was another way of finding the fault lines in the social fabric. From the perspective of the Language tradition, one may put N30 somewhere between Silliman and Andrews. N30 shares an autobiographical element with Silliman’s New Sentence projects, and as in Andrews, there is a concern for mapping out social totality within text—what Mettes refers to as a “textual world civil war.” Again this shows a formal textual strategy for allowing the person “Jeroen Mettes” to be absorbed by the world, which here appears as a whirlwind of demotic and demonic chatter, full of violence, humor, intensity, beauty, disgust, sex, commerce, and strife. Influenced as it may by American precursors, Mettes’s tone and form end up quite different from his American counterparts, consistently referencing a world that is Dutch, all too Dutch, taking on the oppressive orderliness of Dutch society with its endemic penchant for consensus by introducing chaos into its daily life and laying bare its implicit aggressions. The work’s 31 chapters each have a different feel and rhythmical outline, but none of them follow a predetermined pattern. Rather, Mettes would consistently edit and reedit the text, randomly rewriting parts of it, as he explains in his poetical creed Politieke Poëzie (Political Poetry). N30 – referring to the 1999 antiglobalist protest in Seattle – was to be the first text of a trilogy. The work itself was written “in the mode of the present.” A second text was to be written in the mode of the future, and a third one, in the mode of the past, was going to be an epic poem about the Paris Commune, and to form an alternative poetic constitution for the European project. I still deeply regret that Jeroen Mettes never got to complete those projects, just as I would be very keen on knowing what he might have had to say about more recent political developments. Instead, in 2006, he remained stuck in the horrors of the present, that ended up consuming him completely. He left Dutch literature with some of its most piercing criticism and its most profoundly moving, exciting and powerful poetry. Excerpts from N30 Translated by Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei from Jeroen Mettes. "N30." In N30+ . Amsterdam: De wereldbibliotheek, 2011. Published with permission of Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam. Chapter 1 1999. A day is a space too. And another man, who had chained himself, had his ribs crushed, and a motor has driven over somebody’s legs. Dutch health care system spends ±145 million guilders per year on worriers. A spiderweb vibrates as I pass by. Randstad renovating. She slaps her bag against her ass: “Hurry up!” OPINION IS TRUE FRIENDSHIP Your skin. It doesn’t express anything. “But the use of the sword, that’s what I learned, and you’ll need nothing more for the moment.” Just try to interrogate a guy like that. Gullit in Sierra Leone. Codes silently lying all around. But that’s simply what belongs to “that it’s just allowed”: that sigh of “world” (a word expressing that the trees are now standing along the water like black men with white bags in their hair); that’s nothing else right? And you see how everything has to move, and first of all what cannot do so. Without Elysium and without savings, barbarians lashing out, horny for an enemy, staring across the water, staring into the air—staring to get out of it. “You’ve never showed me more than the mall,” she said. All those “dreams” in the end—and now? It was lying on the stairway, so I picked it up and took it upstairs. Chapter 3 “You know what?” Telecommunication. For love… I don’t really like that cheap cultural pessimism, but… The holy city is on pilgrimage in the earthly bodies of the faithful until the time of the heavenly kingdom has come. The end of an exhausting autumn day behind the computer, my eyes filled with tears of fatigue. KITCHEN / INSTALLATION / SPECIALIST. Network integration. In the sun, stretched out on a sheet. (…) I don’t believe what I’m reading, because I want to believe something else. An illusion? Suits me. There’s a variety of shapes and tastes… “So what?” you may think. 102 dalmatians can’t be wrong. But I want more, dear… A feel good movie. I’m smashing the burned body. So what? We continue to save the European civilization. What’s there to win? Plato with poets = Stalin without gulag? Ball against the crossbar. No wonder. She comes straight to her point. She’s standing in the kitchen eating an apple. (…) The godless Napoleon had used her as a stable and wanted to have her taken down. “Our” Rutger Hauer. Ready or not here I come. Psst… are you also wearing a string? Nobody understands our desire. Cliffs breaking the waves and shattering the sunset. I used to be a real romantic (as a poet). A typical fantasy used to be the one in which I brutally raped mother and daughter Seaver from the sitcom Growing Pains . Nevertheless you only contain bad words. Eyelashes. Automatic or manual? That your skin always in the afternoon. Integration. The air is empty. Too bad! Hand in hand on their lonely way. Alaska! Chapter 12 May 5, 2001 [10:00-10:30] A dust cloud on a hill. Globe. Indian (British) (tie) / pope. Damascus. Rape. We’re carrying the ayatollah’s portrait through the streets. At the moment the girl is mostly suede jacket with white ribbons on her sleeves. A small explosion flares up/impact. Camouflage. Close up. We’re analyzing the situation. He’s dead right? Dead dead. Dead. Everything without, these, and only with the body. Indices signal death. Dollar bills are printed in factories. Holes. Light patch. Globe in a box. Microphone. What’s the situation? Grey impact on a green hill (field?). The water is blue. He has no lips. Interns on the background with skirts that are too long. This is an example of a sonnet. An Islamic woman pushes against the door of an electronics shop. Arrows (percentages (prices)). Is this what awaits the American? Touch screen interface. The word, an island, can only be a sign in that situation. We pull up a chair, join in on the fun. On the shelves only books about computers. One glance in the distance is enough to lighten up a luna park in the distance. She’s really desperate, especially when she laughs. Click. Ah. Next. And now it’s raining, but that’s ok. Yellow stains sliding over the south. Shallow caves light: clothes, boots, electrical equipment. 45. 22:10. Nothing gives you the right to eat more than people starving to death. The Hague. Slam dunk. Traffic light. Two H’s, one L (standing for the L (little prick)). We’re happy to say something. Clouds, small suns, temperatures, cities. The truth is never an excuse. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Yellow. Green. Green. Yellow. Will you email me? Skeleton: “No.” Ex-nerds in brand-new and brightly red sport cars. $$$. I love. Shihab. Hooves in the sand. Skinny senior with over-sized sunglasses; old jockey (cap, trophy) smiling in slow motion. And there I am again, flashback, crying with my head in between my hands. Sometimes I’ve got the feeling that cannibals. Eyes: blue. Cancer. Why would I wait until tomorrow? Golden beams protruding from the lifted/lit earth. May 5, 2001 [11:30-12:45] You’ll remember this for the rest of your life. Graphs, diagrams. Bu$ine$$. Blue shirt, white collar, no neck (porn star). A name lights up. I’m hysteric. Will you join us? Letters falling in their words. Fingers set up a tent and start to dance. Young entrepreneurs from poor neighborhoods (read: black) guided by Microsoft. Kinda makes me happy, that sort of kitsch. A sense of exhaustion/impotence to see anything but the present. (…) Wouldn’t you like to? Orange explosion in an industrial zone. YOU’RE DOING THIS FOR AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL. Would you. A familiar face. Clouds and blossom. Sunflowers. Supermodels. Mountainous area in a rectangle: shades of brown, from dark to beige, more green toward the south. Tents and next to them (it’s all a blur) people. Plane. Stadium. Geometrical block of people. No, I ain’t crying. I don’t speak no more. I just want. Quote + photo. (Positive:) screaming crowd. Three-piece suit, seen from the back, before entering the arena. On the back: “Daddy abused me.” Oh, bummer. State of emergency has been declared and everyone has to cooperate. She’s cut her wrists. What we do know (…) is that there’s never been a unique word, an imperative name, nor will there ever be. [Click here for work that suits you.] Barefooted children are watching it (coherent pieces revelation of what’s lying below). Who knows how she’s changed during those two years. “Everything used to be better” + sigh. And here we are. An empty field of parquet. A city lying behind it. Explosion. Blue. A rain drop falling in my coffee. May 5, 2001 [14:30-15:30] A young Arafat on video speaking with raised finger. “I’m calling from my convertible.” Names on walls, victims, numbers… Tourists. Yellow. Yellow. “Your own child! Really, what kind of human are you?” I don’t want to hear it no more. A woman jumping out of the water in a yellow bikini against a background of fireworks and the Cheops pyramid. Thy sorrow shall become good fortune, thy complaints laudation. All planets will float and wander. Wo die Welt zum Bild wird, kommt das System (…) zur Herrschaft. It is something, but is it? May 5, 2001 [18:30-19:00] Iris. Leaves. NASDAQ. Open / and white and. For the one who’s doing nothing, just waiting. (…) NO DEFEAT is made entirely up of defeat -- since / the world it opens is always a place / formerly / unsuspected. October 2002. “Jeroen, I’m leaving for the cemetery, byeeee.” The rise of the middle class. My entire oeuvre is an ode to the. My entire head is a fight against the. God always demands what you cannot sacrifice. You may take that the easy way, but… “The state hasn’t made us, but we make the state” (Hitler). A stork exits the elevator. Skeletons of. Moscow. Helsinki. Palermo. Paris. Chapter 30 Like your paradises: nothing. United Desire, as only remaining superpower. And even though the sea is now calmer and the wind is blowing pleasantly in my face… Heart! Who determines whether a tradition is “alive”? The yellow leaf or the white branch? Mars. This sentence is a typical example. Most Dutch people are happy. No consolation. When I see a girl sitting at a table with a book, a notepad, a pen, a bottle of mineral water, her hand writing in the light—then I consider that one thing. “Presents,” “poetry,” “classics.” We are what we cannot make from ourselves. “Left”: mendicant orders, missionaries. Saint-Just: “A republic is founded on the destruction of its enemies.” She crosses the street with a banana peel between her fingers. (…) We chose our own wardens, torturers, it was us who called all this insanity upon ourselves, we created this nightmare… But “no”? Girl (just like a beach ball) talking rapid Spanish (Portuguese?) in a mobile phone. Do I have a chance now that her boyfriend is getting bold? CLIO, horny bitch. What else do you want? An old woman, between the doors of the C1000, is suddenly unable to go on; her husband stretches out his hand, speaking a few encouraging words. Selection from. Der Führer schenkt den Jüden ein Stadt. How can it reach us if we haven’t been already reached somehow? It doesn’t “speak.” No problem. Each word she uses is a small miracle, as if she doesn’t belong to it, to language, but wanders around with a pocket light looking for the exit; she’s never desperate (maybe a little nervous), lighting up heavy words from the inside. But indeed, we’re free. But the predicate is not an attribute, but an event, and the subject is not a subject, but a shell. That’s why also samurai, knights, and warriors raised the blossom as emblem: they knew how to die. Locked up in a baby carriage with a McDonald’s balloon. Blue helicopter, the blue sky. Whether you want to refer? The point is. How / Motherfucker can I sing a sad song / When I remember Zion? You’ll feel so miserable and worthless that you think: “If only I were dead!,” or: “Just put an end to it!” “So you’re an economist?” Her card—two little birds building a nest, her handwriting shaking—is still on the mantelpiece. Guevara: “No, a communist.” A straw fire, such was our life: rapidly it flared up, rapidly it passed. I’m fleeing, coming from nowhere. (…) Eazy-E drinking coffee with the American president. If I’d scream, would that be an event? Drown it: the cleaner it will rise up from the depths. No! The night, so fast… As if there’s something opened up in that face. Come on, we may not curse life. He shows me his methadone: “If you drink that all at once, you’ll die instantly.” The last one dictates how we should behave to deserve happiness. One shine / above the earth. “I want to go to Bosnia,” I said bluntly. I don’t even know the name of the current mayor. Let’s despise our success! “There is no future; this is the future. Hope is a weakness that we've overcome. We have found happiness!” Sun. Sushi. Volvo. I feel like a bomb about to explode at any moment. Makes a difference for the reconstruction right? The decor moves forward. Daughter of Nereus, you nymphs of the sea, and you Thetis, you should have kept his tired head above the waves! Alas! This sentence has been written wearing a green cap. I receive my orders from the future. A frog jumps into it. Her husband has turned the Intifada, which he follows daily on CCN, into his hobby, “to forget that he doesn’t have his driver’s license yet." Suddenly the sun slides over the crosswalk. Her (his?) foot is playing with the slipper under the table. Is this how I’m writing this book now? I’m not a fellow man. I hate you and I want to hurt you. These are my people. Their screaming doesn’t rise above the constantly wailing sirens which we've learned to ignore. My whole body became warm and suddenly started to tremble. Unfortunate is he who is standing on the threshold of the most beautiful time, but awaits a better one. Arafat’s “removal” is contrary to American interests. Jeep drives into boy. What you can do alone, you should do alone. A food gift from the people of the United States of America. Two seagulls. [...]. (shrink)

Levin and Schnorr (independently) introduced the monotone complexity, Km(α), of a binary string α. We use monotone complexity to define the relative complexity (or relative randomness) of reals. We define a partial ordering ≤Km on 2ω by α ≤Km β iff there is a constant c such that Km(α ↾ n) ≤ Km(β ↾ n) + c for all n. The monotone degree of α is the set of all β such that α ≤Km β and β ≤Km α. We (...) show the monotone degrees contain an antichain of size 2N0, a countable dense linear ordering (of degrees of cardinality 2N0), and a minimal pair. Downey, Hirschfeldt, LaForte, Nies and others have studied a similar structure, the K -degrees, where K is the prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity. A minimal pair of K -degrees was constructed by Csima and Montalbán. Of particular interest are the noncomputable trivial reals, first constructed by Solovay. We define a real to be (Km, K)-trivial if for some constant c, Km(α ↾ n) ≤ K(n)+c for all n. It is not known whether there is a Km-minimal real, but we show that any such real must be (Km, K)-trivial. Finally, we consider the monotone degrees of the computably enumerable (c.e.) and strongly computably enumerable (s.c.e.) reals. We show there is no minimal c.e. monotone degree and that Solovay reducibility does not imply monotone reducibility on the c.e. reals. We also show the s.c.e. monotone degrees contain an infinite antichain and a countable dense linear ordering. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 148–151 When things get complex, as they may indeed be getting, the distinction between tools and the things that can be made with them begins to dissolve. The medium is not only also a message, it is an essential counter-valence to our own impulses towards the creation of meaning, beauty and knowledge. The tools we think we are using also use us: They push us around, make us think new things, do new things, even be new things. (...) Language is no different, of course, although in its supremacy and ubiquity, it is even more elusive, difficult to perceive. The very words you are looking at right now are like compact little cryptograms—a written convention, talking back at you in codes. Poetry is language speaking for itself. It is, at its best, where what is being told is coincident with the telling. The words written, or uttered, pop out at us, while in the same moment, constellations of meaning emerge; the components and its composition resonate, vacillate, on the page and in the air. Many of the constraints and styles of poetry we know have developed in order to allow words to express themselves, or show themselves as the mediation of a mental image. Programming languages for computer hardware, no matter how “high level” or abstract they are, are by necessity far less elaborate than traditional forms of writing and speech. But the structure and function of these new languages give them special advantage in clarity: These languages (syntax, sequence) and the results they produce (ideas, ‘executables’) are absolutely inseparable. By design, computing languages are created in order to express specific ideas, creating certain kinds of action or manipulation of other codes (data). In this sense perhaps, software is always, and already, poetic. It is precise description, and pure syntax—the signifier and signified—clearly coincident in the machine. Ishac Bertran ’s code {poems} is an edited book project that exposes the materiality of computer programming languages. Here are presented a small sampling from a compiled book of poetry written by software engineers, artists and other code writers, “exploring the potential of code to communicate at the level of poetry.” ( code-poems.com ) The project solicited for online, public submissions from code-writers in response to the notion of a poem, written in a software language which is semantically valid (i.e.: it compiles ). This solicitation winds up revealing the inner workings, constitutive elements, and styles of both a particular software and its authors. From a large number of submissions, a selection of poems will be printed as a bound volume in the Autumn of 2012. - Jamie Allen __________________________________________________ DAILYGRIND import java.util.Date; public class DailyGrind { public static final void main(String[] args) { boolean its_time_to_go_home = false; boolean away_the_hours = true; while (away_the_hours) { boolean away_the_hours = true; Date now = new Date(); its_time_to_go_home = now.getHours() > 17 && now.getMinutes() > 30; if (its_time_to_go_home) { break; } try { Thread.sleep(60000); } catch (InterruptedException e) { // ignore } } } } Paul Illingworth // Java __________________________________________________ UNHANDLED LOVE class love {}; void main() { throw love(); } Daniel Bezerra // C++ __________________________________________________ TWOFACED public class TwoFaced { public String greet() { return "Hi! So great to see you!"; } private String think() { return "Fucking bitch."; } } Jason Kopylec // Java __________________________________________________ DANCING WITHIN using System; public class PoemCode { private bool dancing_within() { Boolean me = true; while (dancing_within()) { var iables_of_light = ""; try { int elligently_to; object ify_the_world_apart; } catch (Exception s) { int o_the_broken_parts; throw; int o_the_seed_of_life; } Random ashes_of = new Random(); float ing_devices; short age_of; char acter_will_never_let_you = 'b'; } return me; } } Álvaro Matías Wong Díaz // C#  . (shrink)

Intuitively, it seems that S 1 is “more random” or “less regular” than S 2. In other words, it seems more plausible (in some sense) that S 1 (as opposed to S 2) was generated by a random process ( e.g. , by tossing a fair coin eight times, and recording an H for a heads outcome and a T for a tails outcome). We will use the notation x σ 1 ą σ 2y to express the claim (...) that xstring σ 1 is more random than string σ 2y. And, we take it to be intuitively clear that — on any plausible definition of such a relation — we should have S 1 ą S 2. (shrink)

It is well established that math anxiety has a negative relationship with math performance. A few theories have provided explanations for this relationship. One of them, the Attentional Control Theory, suggests that anxiety can negatively impact the attentional control system and increase one's attention to threat-related stimuli. Within the ACT framework, the math anxiety —working memory relationship is argued to be critical for math performance. The present meta-analyses provides insights into the mechanisms of the MA—MP relation and the mediating role (...) of WM. Through database searches with pre-determined search strings, 1,346 unique articles were identified. After excluding non-relevant studies, data from 57 studies and 150 effect sizes were used for investigating the MA—MP correlation using a random-effects model. This resulted in a mean correlation of r = −0.168. The database search of WM as a mediator for the MA—MP relation revealed 15 effects sizes leading to a descriptive rather than a generalizable statistic, with a mean indirect effect size of −0.092. Overall, the results confirm the ACT theory, WM does play a significant role in the MA—MP relationship. (shrink)

We study partitions of Fraïssé limits of classes of finite relational structures where the partitions are encoded by infinite binary strings which are random in the sense of Kolmogorov-Chaitin.

The article analyzes the problem of physical theory nature and its criteria in the context of several concepts of modern physics. Such physical concepts allow multiple possible universes (the last usually happens to be a random consequence of the theory). Since the study requires several universe models, which basic principles (physical laws) can vary, the two theories have become the objects of analysis: the first, which includes the concept of eternal inflation, the second – the string cosmology (the string (...) landscape). Both theories allow for a large variation of physical laws (no matter, whether these are fundamentally different physical laws or different versions of the same basic principles). The amount of dark energy (cosmological constant) has been selected as a physical law parameter, changing its value in possible universes.The analysis of the physical theories, which allow a multiplicity of universes, has shown that the standard requirements for the theory, which connect its veracity with the criteria of observability and the need for validation of our universe basic principles, are not entirely consistent. Theoretical physics is moving towards the formulization of models that become a real (in some cases, apparently irresistible) challenge for experimental verification. The article proves that such verification probably can not be required in several physical theories, since, in particular, the postulation of this kind of connection between theory and reality is no more than a manifestation of anthropocentrism. However, the theory can trace more general grounds that lie beyond the scope of human observation. (shrink)

Children traditionally learn to read Chinese characters by rote, and thus stretching children’s memory span could possibly improve their reading in Chinese. Nevertheless, 85% of Chinese characters are semantic-phonetic compounds that contain probabilistic information about meaning and pronunciation. Hence, enhancing children’s metalinguistic skills might also facilitate reading in Chinese. In the present study we tested whether training children’s metalinguistic skills or training their working-memory capacity in eight weeks would produce reading gains, and whether these gains would be similar in Chinese (...) and English. We recruited 35 second graders in Hong Kong and randomly assigned them to a metalinguistic training group (N = 13), a working-memory training group (10), or a waitlist control group (12). In the metalinguistic training, children were taught to analyze novel Chinese characters into phonetic and semantic radicals and novel English words into onsets and rimes. In the working-memory training, children were trained to recall increasingly long strings of Cantonese or English syllables in correct or reverse order. All children were tested on phonological skills, verbal working memory, and word reading fluency in Chinese and in English before and after training. Analyses of the pre- and post-test data revealed that only the metalinguistic training group, but not the other two groups, showed significant improvement on phonological skills in Chinese and English. Working-memory span in Chinese and English increased from the pre- to post-test in the working-memory training group relative to other two groups. Despite these domain-specific training effects, the two training groups improved similarly in word reading fluency in Chinese and English compared to the control group. Our findings suggest that increased metalinguistic skills and a larger working-memory span appear equally beneficial to reading fluency, and that these effects are similar in Chinese and English. (shrink)