The Madelung equations map the non-relativistic time-dependent Schrödinger equation into hydrodynamic equations of a virtual fluid. While the von Neumann entropy remains constant, we demonstrate that an increase of the Shannon entropy, associated with this Madelung fluid, is proportional to the expectation value of its velocity divergence. Hence, the Shannon entropy may grow due to an expansion of the Madelung fluid. These effects result from the interference between solutions of the Schrödinger equation. Growth of the Shannon entropy due to expansion (...) is common in diffusive processes. However, in the latter the process is irreversible while the processes in the Madelung fluid are always reversible. The relations between interference, compressibility and variation of the Shannon entropy are then examined in several simple examples. Furthermore, we demonstrate that for classical diffusive processes, the “force” accelerating diffusion has the form of the positive gradient of the quantum Bohm potential. Expressing then the diffusion coefficient in terms of the Planck constant reveals the lower bound given by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in terms of the product between the gas mean free path and the Brownian momentum. (shrink)

The distinction between access consciousness and phenomenal consciousness is a subject of intensive debate. According to one view, visual experience overflows the capacity of the attentional and working memory system: We see more than we can report. According to the opposed view, this perceived richness is an illusion—we are aware only of information that we can subsequently report. This debate remains unresolved because of the inevitable reliance on report, which is limited in capacity. To bypass this limitation, this study utilized (...) color diversity—a unique summary statistic—which is sensitive to detailed visual information. Participants were shown a Sperling-like array of colored letters, one row of which was precued. After reporting a letter from the cued row, participants estimated the color diversity of the noncued rows. Results showed that people could estimate the color diversity of the noncued array without a cost to letter report, which suggests that color diversity is registered automatically, outside focal attention, and without consuming additional working memory resources. (shrink)

Active surveillance cultures and contact precautions is a strategy to control the transmission of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) within healthcare facilities. Whether to implement this strategy to routinely screen and isolate inpatients with MRSA in non-outbreak (endemic) settings, or to remove it and use standard infection control precautions only is scientifically and ethically controversial, in view of the potential adverse effects of contact precautions on patients. To support the use of standard precautions only, it has been argued that active surveillance (...) to identify patients who are asymptomatically colonised with MRSA to place them in contact precautions is unjust or unfair to these patients in various ways. This paper will unpack and examine four distinct arguments, which are advanced from a medical ethics or quality improvement ethical framework, for why this is so. Our analysis shows that while these arguments highlight the injustice of current practices, they do not provide strong ethical reasons for justifying the removal of active surveillance and contact precautions to control MRSA transmission and infection. An implication of our arguments is that the ethical frame for evaluating prevention and control strategies for MRSA, a multi-drug resistant bacteria, should shift from healthcare to primarily public health. From a public health ethics perspective, whether a strategy is unjust, or how ethically significant its lack of fairness is, depends on assessing the evidence for its public health effectiveness and necessity in a given setting, and the extent of the harms and burdens patients with MRSA bear when they are on contact precautions, which remain matters of scientific debate or uncertainty. As an ethical consideration in the debate, the chief normative implication of justice is to provide us further reasons to revise current active surveillance-contact precautions practices, and for the need for research and interventions to minimise their potential adverse effects on patients. (shrink)

The question of whether conscious experience is restricted by cognitive access and exhausted by report, or whether it overflows it—comprising more information than can be reported—is hotly debated. Recently, we provided evidence in favor of Overflow, showing that observers discriminated the color‐diversity (CD) of letters in an array, while their working‐memory and attention were dedicated to encoding and reporting a set of cued letters. An alternative interpretation is that CD‐discriminations do not entail conscious experience of the underlying colors. Here we (...) argue, based on conceptual considerations and consistency with neuroscience and phenomenology, in favor of the Overflow interpretation. (shrink)

We suggest scattering experiments which implement the concept of “protective measurements” allowing the measurement of the complete wave function even when only one quantum system (rather than an ensemble) is available. Such scattering experiments require massive, slow, projectiles with kinetic energies lower than the first excitation of the system in question. The results of such experiments can have a (probabilistic) distribution (as is the case when the Born approximation for the scattering is valid) or be deterministic (in a semiclassical limit).

One Health is a novel paradigm that recognizes that human and non-human animal health is interlinked through our shared environment. Increasingly prominent in public health responses to zoonoses, OH differs from traditional approaches to animal-borne infectious risks, because it also aims to promote the health of animals and ecological systems. Despite the widespread adoption of OH, culling remains a key component of institutional responses to the risks of zoonoses. Using the threats posed by highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses to human (...) and animal health, economic activity and food security as a case exemplar, we explore whether culling and other standard control measures for animal-borne infectious disease might be justified as part of OH approaches. Our central premise is that OH requires us to reformulate ‘health’ as universal good that is best shared across species boundaries such that human health and well-being are contingent upon identifying and meeting the relevant sets of human and non-human interests and shared dependencies. Our purpose is to further nascent discussions about the ethical dimensions of OH and begin to describe the principles around which a public health agenda that truly seeks to co-promote human and non-human health could potentially begin to be implemented. (shrink)

This paper argues that a lonely death is, by definition, a bad death and that society as a whole, as well as individuals in society are obligated to assure a certain degree of well‐being, flourishing, or care among and for fellow individuals. Individuals can then be said to have a right against dying a lonely death. Such a right has corresponding duties. The paper further specifies what such duties may entail based on what individuals may need on their deathbed, specifically (...) focusing on the need for human touch. Assuming that human touch might indeed be needed by some individuals in order to avoid a lonely death, the paper explores potential implications from a public health perspective, particularly during infectious disease outbreaks such as COVID. (shrink)

In _The Curious Case of the Camel in Modern Japan_, Ayelet Zohar addresses issues of Orientalism, colonialism, and exoticism in modern Japan, through images of camels – the epitome of Otherness, and a metonymy for Asia in the Japanese imagination.

Can anyone doubt that the Jewish tradition mandates universal access to healthcare? In a comprehensive and illuminating discussion, A.L. Mackler seems to have already said all that needs to be said. After aptly analyzing the principles of the traditional institutions and norms relating to tzedakah, Mackler proceeded to apply these traditions to the context of healthcare, concluding that.

The mitigation of pandemics like that caused by the current COVID-19 virus is largely dependent on voluntary public adherence to government rules and regulations. Recent research has identified various individual covariates that account for some of the variance in compliance with COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. However, despite considerable research, our understanding of how and why these factors are related to adherence behavior is limited. Additionally, it is less clear whether disease-transmitting behaviors during a pandemic can be understood in terms of more (...) general behavioral tendencies. The current research has examined the utility of a behavioral-failure lens in predicting adherence to COVID-19 guidelines and in illuminating mechanisms underlying the previously established relationship between Conscientiousness and adherence. In the two studies reported here, individual variations in the predisposition to behavioral failures predicted adherence to COVID-19 measures, and mediated the relationships between Conscientiousness and adherence. The Failure Proneness questionnaire predicted compliance with COVID-19 guidelines, while the Cognitive Failure Questionnaire did not. The results of hierarchical regressions showed that COVID-19 behavior was predicted only through the intentional factors. Hence, our data lend support to the notion that noncompliance with official COVID-19 prevention guidelines is driven mainly by intentional factors related to violation of norms and rules. The theoretical and practical implications of this finding are discussed. (shrink)

This book is at once a deeply learned and original reading of Heidegger and a primary text in its own right. It demonstrates the relevance of Heidegger’s thought in responding to the moral and religious challenges of 21st century existence. It shows that Heidegger’s project can be defended against many criticisms once its existential character is taken seriously. What emerges is a powerful exercise in thinking, not about Heidegger, but with and against him. As such, Atkins engages Heidegger as a (...) means of advancing a defense of spirituality in the modern world that holds spirituality itself accountable for its lapses into the mundane. Addressing the most influential figures in recent Continental philosophy, such as Emmanuel Levinas and Theodor W. Adorno, this is a work that will be of timely use to philosophers, theologians, artists, and seekers. (shrink)

Conflicts of interest in corporate law can be addressed by two main alternatives: a requirement of a majority of the minority vote or the imposition of duties of loyalty and fairness. A comparison of Delaware, the UK, Canada, and Israel reveals that while the conflicts of interest problem within publicly-traded corporations receives different treatment in the different jurisdictions — either a fairness rule or a majority of the minority rule — closely-held corporations receive the same treatment of an imposition of (...) duties of loyalty and fairness. This article explains this finding, demonstrating that determining which of these rules is adopted is, in fact, a choice between liability rule protection and property rule protection. This choice depends on the total and relative transaction costs. These costs include both the negotiation costs attendant upon a property rule, as well as the adjudication costs associated with a liability rule. The sum of these costs is influenced by the efficacy of the judicial system and of extralegal mechanisms such as the market for corporate control, the capital market, and the types of investors active in the market. Because the different jurisdictions have different relative costs, due to differences in the economy and the legal systems, publicly-traded corporations are treated differently in each system. However, sometimes conflict of interest situations share the same main characteristics — as with closely-held corporations—leading to the domination of one solution, and thus the same solution is applied for closely-held corporations in the different jurisdictions. (shrink)

Voting lies at the center of collective decision-making in corporate law. While scholars have identified various problems with the voting mechanism, insincere voting—in the forms of strategic voting and conflict of interests voting—is perhaps the most fundamental. This article shows that insincere voting distorts the voting mechanism at its core, undermining its ability to determine transaction efficiency. As further demonstrated, strategic and conflict of interests problems frequently coincide with one another: voting strategically often means being in conflict, and many fact (...) patterns present aspects of both problems. Finally, this article claims that although the two problems have seemingly different solutions, these solutions are essentially similar in nature: all solutions to insincere voting are variations on two basic rules, namely, property rules and liability rules. (shrink)

In The Quantum Self, Danah Zohar argues that the insights of modem physics can illuminate our understanding of everyday life -- our relationships to ourselves, to others, and to the world at large. Guiding us through the strange and fascinating workings of the subatomic realm to create a new model of human consciousness, the author addresses enduring philosophical questions. Does the new physics provide a basis by which our consciousness might continue beyond death? How does the material world (for (...) instance, ugly inner cities) impinge upon our sense of self? Is there a subatomic wellspring from which our creativity, our empathy with others, and our feelings of unity with the inanimate world originate?Most important, Zohar shows how the vitality of the new physics combats the alienation and fragmentation of twentieth-century life, and replaces it with a model of reality in which the universe itself may possess a type of consciousness, of which human consciousness is one expression. (shrink)

This paper applies the argumentative perspective to the concept of scientific fact by combining the rhetorical and the sociological perspectives. The scientific fact is presented as an entity having both an epistemic and a social meaning, and the scientific paper is presented as a discourse that has both an epistemic value and role related to knowledge and to the description of the ‘world,’ and a social value, fulfilling social roles within its relevant discourse community. The discussion leads to some insights (...) into the connection between scientific language and facts. Scientific language reflects the degree of facticity of the utterance at every stage: various linguistic and discursive elements reflect the current factual status of the utterance. This conception of fact is dynamic and open to discussion, and it is presented from the author’s point of view. On the other hand, language, or the choice of language usage, creates facticity in the sense of social acceptance: by using language, the researcher reports on his belief that what he is describing is indeed a fact. The essence of the scientific paper as an argumentative text is that its point of departure is the faith of the speaker in the facticity of the new information, and its rhetorical aim is to convince the audience, based on its disciplinary rationality, to accept that same faith and thereby usher the new claim into the shared disciplinary body of knowledge. (shrink)

Intergroup competition over resources is attested since the dawn of history. Written and archaeological evidence go back to at least the fourth millennium BC. According to accepted views, evolution has favored humans because of their ability to have cumulative cultures, which has made flexible adaptation possible. One major aspect of this adaptation has been the ability to handle power contests without engaging physical force. Instead, increasing prestige dynamics has allowed contest management by displaying symbolic assets. These have growingly been instrumental (...) in deterring external assaults, thus guaranteeing the possession – or expansion – of a group’s resources. However, while material assets are believed to create status by the evidence of their tangible usefulness (such as foods, husbandry and tools), symbolic assets are by definition subject to ongoing negotiation, entirely dependent on being socio-semiotically recognized as types of capital. Symbolic stock exchanges thus appear to have been determinative since antiquity in hierarchizing ethnic and political groups fighting over resources, prioritizing ones over the others. They have culminated in repertoires of more solid tangible and intangible assets, from impressive buildings, city gates, gardens and temples, to ideas such as freedom, quality of life and wealth, justice, personal security, or whatever values that have gained universal recognition. The article discusses the creation and expansion of such symbolic repertoires and their uncertain position in recent times. (shrink)

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI), such as ChatGPT, shows great promise and potential and is gradually being used in mental health care, but it also raises ethical concerns. These relate t...

Loneliness is a major public health concern, particularly during pandemics such as Covid. It is extremely common, and it poses a major risk to human health. Technological solutions including social media, robots, and virtual reality have been advocated and implemented to relieve loneliness, and their use will undoubtedly increase in the near future. This paper explores the use of technological solutions from a normative perspective, asking whether and to what extent such measures should indeed be relied upon. The conclusion is (...) that technological solutions are unquestionably part of the solution to loneliness, but that they cannot and should not constitute the whole solution. It is important to note that this is not a straw‐man argument, as several organizations and scholars have strictly focused on such technological solutions for loneliness. (shrink)

This article poses an invitation for bioethicists to engage with loneliness as a bioethics and public health concern. I argue that loneliness is a relevant issue for bioethicists for three main reasons: it causes ill‐health; particularly in the age of Covid‐19, it is becoming prominent on the clinical and public health agenda, affecting millions worldwide; and it engenders several ethical and philosophical questions as a social determinant of health with a rich conceptual background. In what follows I first review the (...) link between loneliness and ill‐health and argue that it should concern bioethicists because of this link. I also demonstrate how pertinent the issue of loneliness is being considered nowadays, and mark this as another reason for bioethicists to become engaged. I then move on to define loneliness and its various forms, drawing from modern and contemporary philosophers. The way we choose to cope with the pandemic of loneliness depends in part on its theoretical underpinnings, as well as its empirical scope. Theory thus combines with empirical data in order to devise and implement a rational public health policy, necessitating the kind of interdisciplinary approach that is the bedrock of bioethics. I conclude by suggesting future areas of research and recommendations. (shrink)

The 2013 Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa, as of writing, is declining in reported human cases and mortalities. The resulting devastation caused highlights how health systems, in particular in West Africa, and in terms of global pandemic planning, are ill prepared to react to zoonotic pathogens. In this paper we propose One Health as a strategy to prevent zoonotic outbreaks as a shared goal: that human and Great Ape vaccine trials could benefit both species. Only recently have two phase (...) 2/3 Ebola human vaccine trials been started in West Africa. This paper argues for a conceptual change in pandemic preparedness. We first discuss the ethics of One Health. Next, we focus on the current Ebola outbreak and defines its victims. Third, we present the notion of a ‘shared benefit’ approach, grounded in One Health, and argue for the vaccination of wild apes in order to protect both apes and humans. We believe that a creation of such inter-species immunity is an exemplar of One Health, and that it is worth pursuing as a coextensive public health approach. (shrink)

One of most pertinent and acute risks that the world is now facing is emerging or re-emerging zoonotic diseases. This article focuses on culling as a measure for zoonotic disease control, specifically the culling of 11,000 badgers as part of the Randomized Badger Culling Trial in the UK and the culling exercises in Singapore. The independent expert panel that devised the UK study concluded that reactive culling was ineffective in reducing the cases of bovine tuberculosis in cattle. The panel also (...) concluded that proactive culling was not cost-effective. Behind the scarcity of empirical evidence to support culling, the resultant reduction in biodiversity can actually harm both animals and humans. Public health policies should be evidence-based, culturally adaptable and ethically justified; a novel biomedical and public health approach, named One Health, plausibly provides a reasonable ethical framework as well as research and interventional methods that square with that framework. OH recognizes that nonhuman animals and humans are interlinked in both sickness and health, since we all share the same ecosystem. OH could potentially replace standard public health strategies, as it provides alternative evidence-based methods for biomedical research and adds a non-anthropocentric component to an ethical decision-making process. (shrink)

This study compares the argumentative writing characteristics of students from different sociocultural backgrounds. We focused on Jewish ultra-Orthodox (Haredi) students, educated in a segregated religious school for boys (yeshiva), who are now attempting to integrate in secular higher education in Israel. To better understand the unique characteristics of this population, we reviewed 92 essays written by Haredi students, and compared them with 76 essays by public education (PE) graduates. Our analysis was based on the cognitive and sociocultural perspectives of argumentation. (...) Both bottom-up and top-down criteria were used to elicit the argumentative writing characteristics either emerging from the data or based on existing theories. Our primary findings indicate that Haredi students have distinct argumentative characteristics, including the use of more complex and dialectic arguments and unique persuasive tactics. These findings are discussed in light of previous research on yeshiva learning methods and recommendations are provided for adjusting the existing higher education curricula to suit both PE and Haredi students. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: Social robots are increasingly being deployed to address social isolation and loneliness, particularly among older adults. Clips on social media attest that individuals availing themselves of this option are pleased with their robot companions. Yet, some people find the use of social robots to meet fundamental human emotional needs disturbing. This article clarifies and critically evaluates this response. It sets forth a framework for loneliness, which characterizes one kind of loneliness as involving an affective experience of lacking human relations (...) that provide certain social goods. Next, the article discusses social robots and critically reviews the literature on the ethics of using them in light of this loneliness characterization. Third, we present a normative argument connecting the philosophical critique of loneliness-as-absence with the design and deployment of social robots. Finally, we draw out the implications of our analysis for public health and for interrogating the aims of commercial companies who make social robots. (shrink)

Culling is used in traditional public health policies to control animal populations. These policies aim primarily to protect human interests but often fail to provide scientific evidence of effectiveness. In this article, we defend the need to move from a strictly anthropocentric approach to disease control towards a One Health ethics, using culling practices as an example. We focus on the recent badger culls in the UK, claiming that, based on data provided by the English Government, these culls may be (...) unjustified, all thing considered. We highlight the relevance of ethical reasoning rooted in One Health for this discussion, and make several suggestions including a moratorium on culling until data are provided to support the effectiveness of culling; to conduct a randomized trial to compare proactive culling with alternative methods; to apply deliberative democratic methods to assess public opinion towards the culls, and to find in Brexit an opportunity for aiming for more effective control measures. (shrink)

The prolongation of lifetimes for an excited atom due to the presence of nearby atoms in the ground state is shown to follow simply from unitarity of the time evolution. We also discuss possible approaches to the detection and the overcoming of various technical obstacles.

Rabbi Moses Cordoeiro was a towering mystical thinker in Safed and retains to this day a seat of honor in Jewish intellectual history. Ranking among the most prolific and lucid thinkers Judaism has ever known, Cordoeiro had an enormous impact on the trajectory of mystical philosophy from the 16th century onward. This book - the first extensive work on Cordoeiro in English sheds new and important light on his life, writings, practical piety, and, most importantly, systematic thought in Kabbalah. By (...) placing Cordoeiro's personal growth and conceptual evolution within sociopolitical and theoretical context, his works are thoroughly investigated with the aim of articulating his elaborate theoretical model and its relations to his mystical practices. Much attention has been given throughout this book to Cordoeiro's acute philological sensitivity, for his view of Hebrew as "God's Vernacular" had prompted him to introduce bold and often remarkably creative exegetical maneuvers. This book is a significant contribution to philosophical scholarship and to anyone interested in exploring the deeper realms of Jewish mystical thought. (shrink)

Loneliness has been a major concern for philosophers, poets and psychologists for centuries. In the past several decades, it has concerned clinicians and public health practitioners as well. The research on loneliness is urgent for several reasons. First, loneliness has been and still is extremely ubiquitous, potentially affecting people across multiple demographics and geographical areas. Second, it is philosophically intriguing, and its analysis delves into different branches of philosophy including phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy of mind, etc. Third, empirical research has shown (...) that loneliness is a significant health risk factor. Loneliness may thus be defined as a (negative) social determinant of health.Having that said, COVID-19 has demonstrated how little we as members of humanity have been prepared to face the loneliness resulting from the global response to the virus. As people worldwide are literally dying from loneliness, we still do not know what makes one feel lonely while making another feel being in solitude, or how is it that one feels lonely in the heart of London.In this essay, I first review loneliness in general and specifically in the context of COVID-19. I then argue that loneliness should be understood as a social determinant of health. Lastly, I argue that individuals have a right not to be lonely. Such right stems in turn from the right to healthcare or even a right to health. (shrink)

Lexical and morphological knowledge of school-aged children are correlated with each other, and are often difficult to distinguish. One reason for this might be that many tasks currently used to assess morphological knowledge require children to inflect or derive real words in the language, thus recruiting their vocabulary knowledge. The current study investigated the possible separability of lexical and morphological knowledge using two complementary approaches. First, we examined the correlations between vocabulary and four morphological tasks tapping different aspects of morphological (...) processing and awareness, and using either real-word or pseudo-word stimuli. Thus, we tested the hypothesis that different morphological tasks recruit lexical knowledge to various degrees. Second, we compared the Hebrew vocabulary and morphological knowledge of 5th grade language minority speaking children to that of their native speaking peers. This comparison allows us to ask whether reduced exposure to the societal language might differentially influence vocabulary and morphological knowledge. The results demonstrate that indeed different morphological tasks rely on lexical knowledge to varying degrees. In addition, language minority students had significantly lower performance in vocabulary and in morphological tasks that recruited vocabulary knowledge to a greater extent. In contrast, both groups performed similarly in abstract morphological tasks with a lower vocabulary load. These results demonstrate that lexical and morphological knowledge may rely on partially separable learning mechanisms, and highlight the importance of distinguishing between these two linguistic components. (shrink)

A framework is presented to better characterize the role of individual differences in information processing style and their interplay with contextual factors in determining decision making quality. In Experiment 1, we show that individual differences in information processing style are flexible and can be modified by situational factors. Specifically, a situational manipulation that induced an analytical mode of thought improved decision quality. In Experiment 2, we show that this improvement in decision quality is highly contingent on the compatibility between the (...) dominant thinking mode and the nature of the task. That is, encouraging an intuitive mode of thought led to better performance on an intuitive task but hampered performance on an analytical task. The reverse pattern was obtained when an analytical mode of thought was encouraged. We discuss the implications of these results for the assessment of decision making competence, and suggest practical directions to help individuals better adjust their information processing style to the situation at hand and make optimal decisions. (shrink)

In this paper, the authors consider the idea of the public biobank governance framework with respect to the innovative paradigm of One Health. The One Health initiative has been defined as an integrative and interdisciplinary effort to improve the lives and well-being of human beings and non-human animals, as well as to preserve the environment. Here, we use this approach as a starting presumption with respect to institutional design. We examine the theoretical and legal framework underlying the concept of biobanking (...) that, being public orientated, is _for the public good_. We suggest that this account of research practice does not ethically correlate with One Health principles. Instead, we argue that One Health requires a model of biobanking that is based on universal goods, that is, goods that serve human beings as well as non-human animals and the environment, and which we define in detail. Our purpose is to begin a discussion on how One Health principles might be implemented in health initiatives. (shrink)

In 2015, the Israeli Knesset passed the force-feeding act that permits the director of the Israeli prison authority to appeal to the district court with a request to force-feed a prisoner against his expressed will. A recent position paper by top Israeli clinicians and bioethicists, published in Hebrew, advocates for force-feeding by medical professionals and presents several arguments that this would be appropriate. Here, we first posit three interrelated questions: 1. Do prisoners have a right to hunger-strike? 2. Should governing (...) institutions force-feed prisoners and/or is it ethical to force-feed prisoners? 3. Should healthcare professionals force-feed prisoners? We then focus on the first and third questions. We first briefly provide several arguments to support the right of prisoners to refuse treatment. Next, we critically review the arguments presented in the Israeli position paper, demonstrating that they are all misguided at best. Lastly, we briefly present arguments against force-feeding by medical professionals. We conclude that healthcare providers should not participate in the force-feeding of prisoners. (shrink)