Ed. Daniel Greenberger, 750pp May 1995 164.95.

This report reviews what quantum physics and information theory have to tell us about the age-old question, How come existence? No escape is evident from four conclusions: (1) The world cannot be a giant machine, ruled by any preestablished continuum physical law. (2) There is no such thing at the microscopic level as space or time or spacetime continuum. (3) The familiar probability function or functional, and wave equation or functional wave equation, of standard quantum theory provide mere continuum idealizations (...) and by reason of this circumstance conceal the information-theoretic source from which they derive. (4) No element in the description of physics shows itself as closer to primordial than the elementary quantum phenomenon, that is, the elementary device-intermediated act of posing a yes-no physical question and eliciting an answer or, in brief, the elementary act of observer-participancy. Otherwise stated, every physical quantity, every it, derives its ultimate significance from bits, binary yes-or-no indications, a conclusion which we epitomize in the phrase, it from bit. (shrink)

Sheehan and coworkers have claimed [D. P. Sheehan et al., Found. Phys. 30, 1227 ; 32, 441 ; D. P. Sheehan, in Quantum Limits to the Second Law, AIP Conference Proceedings 643, p. 391] that a dilute gas trapped between an external shell and a gravitator can support a steady state in which energy flux by particles in one direction is balanced by energy flux by radiation in the opposite direction, and in which work can be extracted from an isothermal (...) heat reservoir, thereby violating the second law of thermodynamics. In this paper, we identify a fundamental error in their simulation and analysis of their model system that vitiates their conclusions. We analyze a simpler, exactly soluble, three-dimensional model of a very dilute gas in a gravitational field between two thermal reservoirs, and show that their conclusions are not supported for the simple model. We show that their method of simulation, when applied to either the simple model or their more complex model under simpler conditions where the answers are known, leads to unphysical results. We also show that, when appropriate sampling is done, their model gives results in accord with the second law and detailed balance. (shrink)

Am 4. November 1915 legte EINSTEIN seine beriihmte Arbeit "Zur allgemeinen Relativitatstheorie" der PreuBischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin vor. 50 Jahre spater organisierte die Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften im Andenken daran eine dreitagige Konferenz, in deren Verlauf auch eine Gedenkfeier abgehalten wurde. Ich hatte die Ehre, eine Gedenkrede iiber EINSTEIN und sein Werk zu halten. In der Zwischenzeit wurde unser Wissen urn viele wichtige neue Zusatze erweitert. Wir sehen nun, daB die Dynamik der Einsteinschen Theorie in einem Superraum ablauft. (...) Seine Struktur und seine Eigenschaften sind von graBter Bedeutung. Infolgedessen habe ich jenen Teil meines Berichtes von 1965, der iiber die Quantengeometrodynamik handelt, geandert und erweitert, urn vom § 12 an unser Wissen iiber den Super­ raum zusammenzufassen. Einige Teile des hier enthaltenen Materials sind schon friiher in anderer Form erschienen. Der Autor dankt fiir die Erlaubnis, dieses Material wieder ab­ drucken zu lassen, den folgenden Verlagen: Akademie-Verlag, Berlin; W. A. Benjamin, Inc., New York; Gordon and Breach, New York; und Springer-Verlag, New York und Heidelberg, sowie den Organisatoren jener Konferenzen, auf denen diese Beitrage vorgelegt wurden: Einstein-Symposium aus Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1965; International School of Non-Linear Mathematics and Physics, Miinchen, J uli 1966; Academie Internationale de Philo sophie des Sciences, Oberwolfach/Freiburg i. Br., Juli 1966; Society of Engineering Science, Raleigh, North Carolina, Oktober 1966; Colloque Internationale sur Fluides et Champ Gravitationel en Relativite Generale, Paris, J uni 1967; und Battelle Ren­ contres in Mathematics and Physics, Seattle, Juli 1967. (shrink)

The geometry of lattice universes in general is reviewed, and particular attention is given to the 3-geometry of a 5-black hole model universe at the momentarily static phase of maximum expansion as an illustration of the insights to be won by considering symmetries and reflections. Three models for the black holes in this lattice universe are compared and contrasted. Reasons are given for working with Misner's “flange backup” model. The geometry interior to the individual tetrahedral cell of this lattice is (...) compared and contrasted with the electrostatic field produced by a point charge located in the center of a cavity of the same shape that has perfectly conducting walls. (shrink)

1857. After the fire of mutiny has swept through British India, young Lieutenant Victor Narraway arrives at a battered military base at Cawnpore. It is just two weeks before Christmas, but no one is able to celebrate: they have been betrayed. A soldier under arrest for dereliction of duty has killed a guard and escaped to join the rebels, taking crucial information that led to the massacre of nine men on patrol. Someone must have helped him, and medical orderly (...) class='Hi'>John Tallis is the only man unaccounted for at the time. He is now on trial for his life, and Narraway is commanded to defend him. Narraway knows that his is an impossible task. The British Army needs justice to be carried out in full, and there seems no doubt of Tallis's guilt. But Narraway cannot see any motive for his actions. Will an innocent man hang before Christmas? (shrink)

This book has been considered by academicians and scholars of great significance and value to literature. This forms a part of the knowledge base for future generations. So that the book is never forgotten we have represented this book in a print format as the same form as it was originally first published. Hence any marks or annotations seen are left intentionally to preserve its true nature.

Ever since Darwin, scholars have noted that cultural entities such as languages, laws and theories seem to evolve through variation, selection and replication. These essays consider whether this comparison is just a metaphor.

Focused correlation compares the degree of association within an evidence set to the degree of association in that evidence set given that some hypothesis is true. Wheeler and Scheines have shown that a difference in incremental confirmation of two evidence sets is robustly tracked by a difference in their focus correlation. In this essay, we generalize that tracking result by allowing for evidence having unequal relevance to the hypothesis. Our result is robust as well, and we retain conditions for bidirectional (...) tracking between incremental confirmation measures and focused correlation. (shrink)

Robert Corrington likes to delineate “ecstatic naturalism” by comparing and contrasting it with three other naturalistic philosophies. The first is descriptive naturalism, which conceives of nature as nonconscious, utterly vast, resistant to categorial reduction, and indifferent to human needs and desires. Descriptive naturalists, from John Dewey, George Santayana, and Justus Buchler to Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, espouse a form of materialism that mitigates or repudiates religious sensibilities, puts a methodological premium on scientific inquiry, and grants material and efficient (...) causality explanatory priority. The second mode of naturalism, the honorific, views nature differently, even oppositely.. (shrink)

Recent advances in philosophy, artificial intelligence, mathematical psychology, and the decision sciences have brought a renewed focus to the role and interpretation of probability in theories of uncertain reasoning. Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. has long resisted the now dominate Bayesian approach to the role of probability in scientific inference and practical decision. The sharp contrasts between the Bayesian approach and Kyburg's program offer a uniquely powerful framework within which to study several issues at the heart of scientific inference, decision, and (...) reasoning under uncertainty. The commissioned essays for this volume take measure of the scope and impact of Kyburg's views on probability and scientific inference, and include several new and important contributions to the field. Contributors: Gert de Cooman, Clark Glymour, William Harper, Isaac Levi, Ron Loui, Enrique Miranda, John Pollock, Teddy Seidenfeld, Choh Man Teng, Mariam Thalos, Gregory Wheeler, Jon Williamson, and Henry E. Kyburg, Jr. (shrink)

Polyphenic differences between individuals arise not through differences at the genome level but as a result of specific cues received during development. Polyphenisms often involve entire suites of characters, as shown dramatically by the polyphenic castes found in many social insect colonies. An understanding of the genetic architecture behind polyphenisms provides a novel means of studying the interplay between genomes, gene expression and phenotypes. Here we discuss polyphenisms and molecular genetic tools now available to unravel their developmental bases in insects. (...) We focus on several recent studies that have tracked gene-expression patterns during social insect caste determination. BioEssays 23:62–68, 2001. Published 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Polyphenic differences between individuals arise not through differences at the genome level but as a result of specific cues received during development. Polyphenisms often involve entire suites of characters, as shown dramatically by the polyphenic castes found in many social insect colonies. An understanding of the genetic architecture behind polyphenisms provides a novel means of studying the interplay between genomes, gene expression and phenotypes. Here we discuss polyphenisms and molecular genetic tools now available to unravel their developmental bases in insects. (...) We focus on several recent studies that have tracked gene‐expression patterns during social insect caste determination. BioEssays 23:62–68, 2001. Published 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics deals with these problems is reviewed. A new interpretation of the formalism of quantum mechanics, the transactional interpretation, is presented. The basic element of this interpretation is the transaction describing a quantum event as an exchange of advanced and retarded waves, as implied by the work of Wheeler and Feynman, Dirac, and others. The transactional interpretation is explicitly nonlocal and thereby consistent with recent tests of the Bell inequality, yet is relativistically invariant and fully causal. (...) A detailed comparison of the transactional and Copenhagen interpretations is made in the context of well-known quantum-mechanical Gedankenexperimenre and "paradoxes." The transactional interpretation permits quantum-mechanical wave functions to be interpreted as real waves physically present in space rather than as "mathematical representations of knowledge" as in the Copenhagen interpretation. The transactional interpretation is shown to provide insight into the complex character of the quantum-mechanical state vector and the mechanism associated with its "collapse." It also leads in a natural way to justification of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Born probability law (P = ii iij*), basic elements of the Copenhagen interpretation. (shrink)

What follows is a continuation of a debate that dates back to at least John Calvin and Jacobus Arminius but took on its naturalistic guise in the third generation of the Chicago school between Bernard Loomer and Bernard Meland. Basically, the argument pertains to whether God is to be associated with everything that is, including suffering and evil, or whether God is more rightly associated with what we take to be good or redemptive. Loomer defended the former position. Late (...) in life, he came to embrace pantheism, arguing that God and nature are identical. The thesis of his 1987 essay, “The Size of God,” was that the divine is to be equated with the world in its ambiguous and mysterious entirety—with the “Whole... (shrink)

Kaveny recommends models drawn from the Gospel of John and the practices of the early church for modern Christians in their response to older women and their health needs. She draws upon a historical reconstruction of the early Christian Order of Widows to propose a normative standard of care for elderly women, one that attends seriously to their bodily needs but also to their needs for inclusion and engagement in the social and vocational world both as givers and recipients (...) of care. This is also to serve as an overarching model for a bioethics that prizes the embodied existence of all women and rejects judgments of appropriate treatment based on their social utility. The following response raises questions about the exegetical and historical foundations of Kaveny?s analysis. However, these caveats may not detract substantially from the normative usefulness of her work. (shrink)

In 2005 Mike Wheeler published a very nice book with MIT entitled Reconstructing the Cognitive World: The Next Step. Wheeler writes about – and is at the forefront of – a group of researchers calling attention to what we can call 4EA cognition: "embodied, embedded, enactive, extended, affective." The philosophical resource for Wheeler’s “next step” is Heidegger. I think it's time we use Deleuze to take another next step.1 I’m going to use Deleuze’s essay on Lucretius as a lead. There, (...) Deleuze writes about naturalism as demystification. For the 4EA schools, the fight is against myths of the subject. (shrink)

Michael Wheeler, in his book Reconstructing the Cognitive World, analyses the development of embedded-embodied cognitive science in the light of underlying philosophical differences about the constitution of human agency. On one side he sees orthodox computational cognitive science as holding to Cartesian conceptions of an abstract, disembodied reason deliberating over de-contextualised representations of the world. On the other side, he sees modern-day embodied-embedded cognitive scientists going beyond such Cartesianism to embrace concepts of human agency more in keeping with Heidegger’s account (...) of Dasein in Being and Time. By bringing to light and criticising the Cartesian assumptions of the computationalists and by pointing out and clarifying the connections between embodied-embedded cognitive science and Heidegger’s philosophy, Wheeler aims to lay the “foundations of a genuinely non- Cartesian cognitive science.”. (shrink)

Theoria, Volume 87, Issue 4, Page 971-985, August 2021.

The problem of the direction of electromagnetic time, i.e., the complete dominance of retarded electromagnetic radiation over advanced radiation in the universe, is considered in the context of a generalized form of the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory in an open expanding universe with a singularity atT=0. It is shown that the application of a four-vector reflection boundary condition at the singularity leads to the observed dominance of retarded radiation; it also clarifies the role of advanced and retarded waves in the emission (...) of very weakly absorbed radiation such as neutrinos. (shrink)

The following quotations describe in “nutshells” a few highlights of John Archibald Wheeler's contributions to physics. The contributions are arranged in roughly the following order: (i) concrete research results, (ii) innovative ideas that have become foundations for the research of others, (iii) insights that give guidance for the development of physics over the coming decades. Since most of Wheeler's work contains strong elements of two or even all three of these characteristics, the editors have not attempted to delineate the (...) dividing lines between the three categories. (shrink)

The scarcity of vital organs has prompted several calls to either modify the dead donor rule or interpret it more broadly. Given its symbolic importance, however, the rule should be changed only cautiously.

Sympathy for animals is regarded by many thinkers as theoretically disreputable. Against this I argue that sympathy appropriately underlies moral concern for animals. I offer an account of sympathy that distinguishes sympathy with from sympathy for fellow creatures, and I argue that both can be placed on an objective basis, if we differentiate enlightened from folk sympathy. Moreover, I suggest that sympathy for animals is not, as some have claimed, incompatible with environmentalism; on the contrary, it can ground environmental concern. (...) Finally, I show that the traditional concept of anthropomorphism has no coherent basis, and I argue that the attempt to prove that animals lack thoughts is both unsuccessful and irrelevant to sympathy for languageless creatures. (shrink)

A Humean Critique of David Hume's Theory of Knowledge provides the first full-length Aristotilian-Thomistic critique of Hume's most mature and familiar work. While giving Hume proper respect and appreciation for his achievement, Jeremy White engages in a thoughtful critique through an approach based in Hume's own method.

Managers in Peru, South Africa, and the United States were classified into four groups along Singhapakdi et al. (J Bus Ethics 15:1131–1140, 1996) Perceived Role of Ethics and Social Responsibility (PRESOR) scale. In Peru and the United States, individuals in the ethics and social responsibility first category reported greater satisfaction with organizational performance than did those in the profits first category. Moral capitalists—individuals who report high emphases on both social responsibility and profits—reported the highest satisfaction with performance in the United (...) States. Managers in the United States are more likely than their counterparts in Peru and South Africa to reject the mutual exclusivity of prioritizing social responsibility and profits simultaneously. Directions for future research are outlined. (shrink)

Does ethical content in organizational mission statements make a difference? Research regarding the effectiveness and results of mission statements is mixed. Krohe concluded that much of the good results do not come from the mission statements themselves but from the strategic re-education that happens in producing one. We attempted to discover whether universities that explicitly state their ethical orientation and vision in their mission statements had students with higher perceived character trait importance and activities that reinforce character than universities that (...) did not. While the faculty and administration may receive benefits from mission statement development through strategic re-education as Krohe suggested, do the statements influence the students at the university who may have had no role in its creation? Using a sample of senior business students at 16 universities we found that students at universities with ethical statements in their mission statements had significantly higher perceived character trait importance and character reinforcement than those at universities whose missions lacked ethical statements. This research suggests that schools that explicitly stated ethical content in their mission statements do influence student ethical orientation. (shrink)

Examines the philosophical, scientific, and theological aspects of the character of the human mind.

The development of factor markets has opened Chinese agriculture for the penetration of capitalism. This new round of rural transformation—China’s agrarian transition— raises the agrarian question in the Chinese context. This study investigates how capitalist forms and relations of production transform agricultural production and the peasantry class in rural China. The authors identify six forms of nonpeasant agricultural production, compare the labor regimes and direct producers’ socioeconomic statuses across these forms, and evaluate the role of China’s land-rights institution in shaping (...) these forms. The empirical investigation presents three main findings: Peasant differentiation : capitalist forms of agricultural production differentiate peasants into a variety of new class positions. Market-based stratification: producers in capitalist agriculture are primarily stratified by their positions in labor and land markets; their socioeconomic statuses are linked with their varying degrees of proletarianization. Institutional mediation: rural China’s dual-track land system plays a crucial role in shaping the diverse and unique forms of capitalist production. (shrink)

This book is written primarily for psychology and education students whose programs include a course in child psychology, child development, or theories of development. The text may also be used to supplement courses on child development organized thematically or chronologically. Instructors of graduate courses in child development may wish to consider this text as a primary synthesis containing more source material and source citations than others of its kind. The primary aim of the book is to describe what developmental theories (...) are, what they can do, where they come from, how they work, and how they can be used to explain human nature. (shrink)

Heyman's analysis of addiction in terms of matching to local relative value can be supplemented by stimulus-control processes. Stimulus equivalence can broaden the set of situations that occasion addictive behavior, and the situation-reinforcer correlation can enhance its persistence. The joint effects of stimulus-control and reinforcement processes may complicate treatment.