In this book K. Brad Wray provides a comprehensive survey of the arguments against scientific realism. In addition to presenting logical considerations that undermine the realists' inferences to the likely truth or approximate truth of our theories, he provides a thorough assessment of the evidence from the history of science. He also examines grounds for a defence of anti-realism, including an anti-realist explanation for the success of our current theories, an account of why false theories can be empirically successful, and (...) an explanation for why we should expect radical changes of theory in the future. His arguments are supported and illustrated by cases from the history of science, including a sustained study of the Copernican Revolution, and a study of the revolution in early twentieth century chemistry, when chemists came to classify elements by their atomic number rather than by their atomic weight. (shrink)

Argues against D. Hume's (1825) treatise "Of Miracles," which is often used to disprove the existence of psi. Hume states that a miracle is a violation of the laws of nature which are proved to be true by common experience, and that the only sufficient testimony for a miracle would be testimony whose falsehood would be even more miraculous than the miracle itself. The primary objections to Hume's argument are that (1) it is tautological, since it presupposes the nonexistence of (...) miraculous events, and (2) as a metaphysical statement, it is inappropriate when considering empirical evidence, which should be judged by its own rule. (shrink)

Yoga is believed to have beneficial effects on cognition, attenuation of emotional intensity and stress reduction. Previous studies were mainly performed on eastern experienced practitioners or unhealthy subjects undergoing concomitant conventional therapies. Further investigation is needed on the effects of yoga per se, as well as its possible preventive benefits on healthy subjects. We investigated the effects of yoga on memory and psychophysiological parameters related to stress, comparing yoga practice and conventional physical exercises in healthy men . Memory tests, salivary (...) cortisol levels and stress, anxiety, and depression inventories were assessed before and after 6 months of practice. Yoga practitioners showed improvement of the memory performance, as well as improvements in psychophysiological parameters. The present results suggest that regular yoga practice can improve aspects of cognition and quality of life for healthy individuals. An indirect influence of emotional state on cognitive improvement promoted by yoga practice can be proposed. (shrink)

In this article cheating in network and specifically online computer games is looked into as a moral offence. Reasons for the public ignoring the issue are brought forth. We present what could be considered as cheating in generic terms and in context. Different kinds of cheating are delineated, and remedies proposed. We also identify what is not cheating.

The average male–female performance difference in the three sports of track athletics, swimming and time trial cycling are examined between the years 1948 and 1976. During this period females have gradually come to participate in a much larger number of events, particularly those of longer duration. In each of these three sports, women's performances in relation to men's have more or less continuously improved and it appears that if the changes between 1948 and 1976 are maintained, average female performance will (...) equal that of males for all events currently competed in by both sexes in these sports at some time during the next century. Estimates as to when, precisely, this will occur vary somewhat according to the basis on which the calculations are made. The other main change evident during these years is that in all three sports women's performances relative to men's for events of long duration have become as good or better than their relative performance at events of short duration. (shrink)

A growing number of discharges at acute-care hospitals involve patients who are undocumented and lack legal status. Because such patients are ineligible for public assistance, long-term care facilities will routinely deny them admission. These discharges become complex discharges because of such financial barriers. If local family support is unavailable, discharging such patients to a safe and suitable location becomes increasingly difficult. These complex discharges implicate a number of ethical principles. We describe such complex discharge cases, apply various ethical frameworks, and (...) call for potential policy solutions to address this growing ethical concern. (shrink)

Durante las últimas dos décadas las culturas de los pueblos originarios del país quedan inscritas en el corazón de las movilizaciones étnicas y de la política indígena de los recientes gobiernos democráticos y, con ello, experimentan una nueva dinámica e importantes transformaciones. La cultura es a la vez el fundamento y objeto estratégico de acción en la emergencia indígena desarrollada en el periodo. Su conformación como sujetos colectivos se establece desde el recurso a la cultura propia, que les otorga especificidad. (...) También se constituye en objeto de una política cultural y de diversos cursos de acción. Participan de ello agentes culturales indígenas, agencias públicas especializadas y grupos e instituciones de la sociedad civil. De su concurrencia se gesta un proceso nuevo de construcción social de lo cultural indígena, cuya estructuración toma la forma de un dominio o campo de lo cultural indígena en Chile. Cultural issues in Chile are undergoing new dynamics and important transformations. During the past two decades, Chilean indigenous people’s cultures have been circumscribed in the core of ethnical mobilizations and indigenous policies deployed by recent democratic governments. Cultural issues are both the basics and the strategic action object within the indigenous ethnogenesis developed during this period. Their formation as collective subjects rises up from access to their culture, which bestows upon them specificity. It also set itself up as an object of cultural policy and diverse ways of action. Indigenous cultural agents, specialized public agencies and civil society groups and institutions participate in this phenomenon. From this concurrence, a new process of social construction of indigenous cultural issues rises. Its structure takes the shape of a scope or a field of indigenous cultural issues in Chile. (shrink)

We examine the sub-field of philosophy of science using a new method developed in information science, Referenced Publication Years Spectroscopy (RPYS). RPYS allows us to identify peak years in citations in a field, which promises to help scholars identify the key contributions to a field, and revolutionary discoveries in a field. We discovered that philosophy of science, a sub-field in the humanities, differs significantly from other fields examined with this method. Books play a more important role in philosophy of science (...) than in the sciences. Further, Einstein’s famous 1905 papers created a citation peak in the philosophy of science literature. But rather than being a contribution to the philosophy of science, their importance lies in the fact that they are revolutionary contributions to physics with important implications for philosophy of science. (shrink)

This paper spells out the attention schema theory of consciousness in terms of the predictive processing framework. As it stands, the attention schema theory lacks a plausible computational formalization that could be used for developing possible mechanistic models of how it is realized in the brain. The predictive processing framework, on the other hand, fails to provide a plausible explanation of the subjective quality or the phenomenal aspect of conscious experience. The aim of this work is to apply the formal (...) tools of predictive processing to outline a possible model of cognition that details a plausible way in which organisms may acquire or construct the kinds of schemas postulated by the attention schema theory. This is done in terms of Bayesian control models, which tend to favour representing information in a frugal or 'sparse' manner that strips away detail in precisely the way that the attention schema requires. Once integrated, these two accounts can offer a plausible explanation of the supposedly irreducible and mysterious 'feel' of conscious experience, in terms of the frugal manner in which perceptual mechanisms are represented by the attention schema. (shrink)

Context: Metaphysics of perception explores fundamental questions regarding the structure and status of the perceived world or appearance(s. By virtue of perception, the apparent world comes to existence. This, however, does not mean that the apparent world is a projection of mind, that it exists “in the head.” Implications: PL-metaphysics reconciles realism with constructivism. As such, it might be considered either an alternative to constructivism or an improvement and completion of this position. Constructivist content: The article refers to non-Cartesian movements (...) in contemporary philosophy, including radical constructivism, enactive and embodied cognition. Keywords: Perception, metaphysics, radical constructivism, realism, appearance, Jerzy Perzanowski, Plato, Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz, Ernst von Glasersfeld. (shrink)