The prevailing scientific paradigm is that matter is primary and everything, including consciousness can be derived from the laws governing matter. Although the scientific explanation of consciousness on these lines has not been realized, in this view it is only a matter of time before consciousness will be explained through neurobiological activity in the brain, and nothing else. There is an alternative view that holds that it is fundamentally impossible to explain how subjectivity can arise solely out of material processes—“the (...) hard problem of consciousness”—and instead consciousness should be regarded in itself as a primary force in nature. This view attempts to derive, for example, the laws of physics from models of consciousness, instead of the other way around. While as scientists we can understand and have an intuition for the first paradigm, it is very difficult to understand what “consciousness is primary” might mean since it has no intuitive scientific grounding. Here we show that worlds experienced through virtual reality are such that consciousness is a first order phenomenon. We discuss the Interface Theory of Perception which claims that in physical reality perceptions are not veridical and that we do not see the “truth” but that perception is based on evolutionary payoffs. We show that this theory may provide an accurate description of perception and consciousness within VR, and we put forward an experimental study that could throw light on this. We conclude that VR does offer an experimental frame that provides intuition with respect to the idea that “consciousness is first” and what this might mean regarding the perceived world. However, we do not draw any conclusions about the veracity of this notion with respect to physical reality or question the emergence of consciousness from brain function. (shrink)

Previous studies on body ownership illusions have shown that under certain multimodal conditions, healthy people can experience artificial body-parts as if they were part of their own body, with direct physiological consequences for the real limb that gets ‘substituted’. In this study we wanted to assess (a) whether healthy people can experience ‘missing’ a body-part through illusory ownership of an amputated virtual body, and (b) whether this would cause corticospinal excitability changes in muscles associated with the ‘missing’ body-part. Forty right-handed (...) participants saw a virtual body from a first person perspective but for half of them the virtual body was missing a part of its right arm. Single pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation was applied before and after the experiment to left and right motor cortices. Motor evoked potentials (MEPs) were recorded from the first dorsal interosseous (FDI) and the extensor digitorum communis (EDC) of each hand. We found that the stronger the illusion of amputation and arm ownership, the more the reduction of MEP amplitudes of the EDC muscle for the contralateral sensorimotor cortex. In contrast, no association was found for the EDC amplitudes in the ipsilateral cortex and for the FDI amplitudes in both contralateral and ipsilateral cortices. Our study provides evidence that a short-term illusory perception of missing a body-part can trigger inhibitory effects on corticospinal pathways and importantly in the absence of any limb deafferentation or disuse. (shrink)

Although it has been shown that immersive virtual reality can be used to induce illusions of ownership over a virtual body , information on whether this changes implicit interpersonal attitudes is meager. Here we demonstrate that embodiment of light-skinned participants in a dark-skinned VB significantly reduced implicit racial bias against dark-skinned people, in contrast to embodiment in light-skinned, purple-skinned or with no VB. 60 females participated in this between-groups experiment, with a VB substituting their own, with full-body visuomotor synchrony, reflected (...) also in a virtual mirror. A racial Implicit Association Test was administered at least three days prior to the experiment, and immediately after the IVR exposure. The change from pre- to post-experience IAT scores suggests that the dark-skinned embodied condition decreased implicit racial bias more than the other conditions. Thus, embodiment may change negative interpersonal attitudes and thus represent a powerful tool for exploring such fundamental psychological and societal phenomena. (shrink)

Previous research using immersive virtual reality (VR) has shown that after a short period of embodiment of White people in a Black virtual body their implicit racial bias against Black people diminishes. Here we tested the effects of some socio-cognitive variables that could contribute to enhancing or reducing the implicit racial bias. The first aim of the study was to assess the beneficial effects of cooperation within a VR scenario, the second aim was to provide preliminary testing of the hypothesis (...) that empathy and political attitudes could contribute to implicit bias about race, while the third aim was to explore the relationship between political attitudes and empathy. We had (Caucasian) participants embodied in a Black virtual body and engaged either in a cooperative (Coop group) or in a non-cooperative (Neutral group) activity with a confederate experimenter embodying another Black avatar. Before and after VR, we measured participants’ implicit racial bias by means of Implicit Association Test (IAT) and their perceived closeness toward the confederate experimenter. Before VR we also assessed participants’ political attitudes and empathy traits. Results revealed that, as compared to the Neutral group, the Coop group showed lower IAT scores after the social interaction. Interestingly, in the Neutral but not the Coop group the perceived closeness toward the confederate experimenter was associated with the initial racial bias: the more the participants reduced their distance, the more they reduced their IAT score. Moreover, reported traits of empathy and political attitudes significantly explained the variance observed in the initial implicit bias, with perspective-taking, empathic concern, and personal distress being significant predictors of the IAT scores. Finally, there was a relationship between political attitudes and empathy: the more participants considered themselves as left-wing voters, the higher their perspective-taking and empathic concern scores. We discuss these findings within the neuroscientific and social cognition field and encourage scholars from different domains to further explore whether and under which conditions a given manipulation for reducing racial bias could be efficiently transposed in VR. (shrink)

In _Animacies_, Mel Y. Chen draws on recent debates about sexuality, race, and affect to examine how matter that is considered insensate, immobile, or deathly animates cultural lives. Toward that end, Chen investigates the blurry division between the living and the dead, or that which is beyond the human or animal. Within the field of linguistics, animacy has been described variously as a quality of agency, awareness, mobility, sentience, or liveness. Chen turns to cognitive linguistics to stress how language habitually (...) differentiates the animate and the inanimate. Expanding this construct, Chen argues that animacy undergirds much that is pressing and indeed volatile in contemporary culture, from animal rights debates to biosecurity concerns. Chen's book is the first to bring the concept of animacy together with queer of color scholarship, critical animal studies, and disability theory. Through analyses of dehumanizing insults, the meanings of queerness, animal protagonists in recent Asian/American art and film, the lead in toys panic in 2007, and the social lives of environmental illness, _Animacies_ illuminates a hierarchical politics infused by race, sexuality, and ability. In this groundbreaking book, Chen rethinks the criteria governing agency and receptivity, health and toxicity, productivity and stillness—and demonstrates how attention to the affective charge of matter challenges commonsense orderings of the world. (shrink)

Much has been written about the free energy principle (FEP), and much misunderstood. The principle has traditionally been put forth as a theory of brain function or biological self-organisation. Critiques of the framework have focused on its lack of empirical support and a failure to generate concrete, falsifiable predictions. I take both positive and negative evaluations of the FEP thus far to have been largely in error, and appeal to a robust literature on scientific modelling to rectify the situation. A (...) prominent account of scientific modelling distinguishes between model structure and model construal. I propose that the FEP be reserved to designate a model structure, to which philosophers and scientists add various construals, leading to a plethora of models based on the formal structure of the FEP. An entailment of this position is that demands placed on the FEP that it be falsifiable or that it conform to some degree of biological realism rest on a category error. To this end, I deliver first an account of the phenomenon of model transfer and the breakdown between model structure and model construal. In the second section, I offer an overview of the formal elements of the framework, tracing their history of model transfer and illustrating how the formalism comes apart from any interpretation thereof. Next, I evaluate existing comprehensive critical assessments of the FEP, and hypothesise as to potential sources of existing confusions in the literature. In the final section, I distinguish between what I hold to be the FEP—taken to be a modelling language or modelling framework—and what I term “FEP models.”. (shrink)

This book presents an innovative and novel approach to linguistic semantics, beginning with the idea that language can be described as a system for the expression of linguistic Meanings as particular surface forms or Texts.

Part one: Overview of business ethics. Understanding business ethics -- Laying a foundation: ethical decision making, social responsibility, corporate governance, stakeholders and activism, and sustainability -- part two: Individual influences on business ethics. Why good people do bad things -- Individual factors that influence your ethics-based thoughts and actions -- Common ethical challenges and how to handle them -- Common organizational practices with ethics implications -- The double-edged sword of leadership and business ethics -- part three: Organizational influences on business (...) ethics. Organizational culture and business ethics -- The role of laws, codes, and training in business ethics -- Doing well by doing good -- part four: Global business ethics issues. A global perspective of business ethics -- Environmental sustainability issues at home and abroad -- The role of business in social justice and change -- Case study: The cause, effect, and impace of Amazon. (shrink)

This chapter explores if androids like Ash in Alien have rights. Philosophers have tried to answer this type of question in several ways. The chapter looks at a few of these different ways, thinking about some cases that might be surprisingly difficult to explain, like why babies matter, whether animals have moral status, and what we should think about synthetics in this regard. Australian philosopher, Peter Singer argues that it is speciesist to treat human beings as the only things worthy (...) of moral status. He thinks speciesism, like racism and sexism, is morally abhorrent. Animals, aliens, or androids might be in the class of things having moral status. Autonomy is one trait some philosophers, have thought is a good candidate for conferring moral status. One reason people might think of autonomy as the supreme notion of moral status is the role it plays in fixing the meaning of other moral ideas. (shrink)

The controversial issue of whether Chief Executive Officer (CEO) compensation is excessive or appropriate is examined in terms of two competing claims: that CEOs are overpaid for the value they provide to an enterprise, and that CEO compensation is inherently equitable. Various arguments and perspectives on both sides of the issue are assessed. Little evidence supports the claim that CEO performance justifies very high compensation. Further, the complex interactive alliance between boards of directors and CEOs compromises rational decision-making about CEO (...) compensation, with the Enron affair offered as an illustration of what can go wrong when dishonest CEO actions combine with lax board oversight. Recommendations for restoring trust in the system include continuing current regulatory actions, using different metrics for determining CEO compensation, making board member-CEO relationships transparent to all company stakeholders, and several more radical ideas for change. Stakeholders must resist being distracted by other social, economic, or political issues from pursuing serious, lasting reform. (shrink)

Despite decades of concerted efforts to communicate to the public on important scientific issues pertaining to the environment and public health, gaps between public acceptance and the scientific consensus on these issues remain stubborn. One strategy for dealing with this shortcoming has been to focus on the existence of scientific consensus on the relevant matters. Recent science communication research has added support to this general idea, though the interpretation of these studies and their generalizability remains a matter of contention. In (...) this paper, we describe results of a qualitative interview study on different models of scientific consensus and the relationship between such models and trust of science, finding that familiarity with scientific consensus is rarer than might be expected. These results suggest that consensus messaging strategies may not be effective. (shrink)

Ancient schematic systems originating in the Jewish and Chinese traditions that demonstrate dynamic integration of human consciousness with the material world offer fresh insights into the process through which technoetic art forms are created at the intersections of art, science, technology, and culture. Kabbalah is Judaism's esoteric tradition that reveals the deep structure of biblical consciousness through a symbolic language, conceptual schema, and graphic model for exploring the creative process. The Tree of Life schema is a network of 22 pathways (...) linking 10 nodes (sephirot) that represent stages in the creative process. The first three sephirot represent the artist's undifferentiated intention to create and the cognitive dyad in which a flash of insight begins to crystallize into a viable idea. Two affective dyads, largess/restraint and success/gracefulness, are balanced by the sephirah (singular for sephirot) of Beauty, the aesthetic heart of the entire process. The ninth sephirah funnels the integrated flow of intention, thought, and emotion into the world of physical action that is the tenth sephirah. The Kabbalistic schema is used to trace the process of creating Inside/Outside: P'nim/Panim, a technoetic moist- media artwork in which a biofeedback imaging system forms a feedback loop between changing mind/body processes and corresponding changes in digital self-portraits. (shrink)

An advanced introduction to semantics that presents this crucial component of human language through the lens of the 'Meaning-Text' theory - an approach that treats linguistic knowledge as a huge inventory of correspondences between thought and speech. Formally, semantics is viewed as an organized set of rules that connect a representation of meaning (Semantic Representation) to a representation of the sentence (Deep-Syntactic Representation).

This volume presents a sketch of the Meaning-Text linguistic approach, richly illustrated by examples borrowed mainly, but not exclusively, from English. Chapter 1 expounds the basic idea that underlies this approach—that a natural language must be described as a correspondence between linguistic meanings and linguistic texts—and explains the organization of the book. Chapter 2 introduces the notion of linguistic functional model, the three postulates of the Meaning-Text approach (a language is a particular meaning-text correspondence, a language must be described by (...) a functional model and linguistic utterances must be treated at the level of the sentence and that of the word) and the perspective “from meaning to text” for linguistic descriptions. Chapter 3 contains a characterization of a particular Meaning-Text model: formal linguistic representations on the semantic, the syntactic and the morphological levels and the modules of a linguistic model that link these representations. Chapter 4 covers two central problems of the Meaning-Text approach: semantic decomposition and restricted lexical cooccurrence (≈ lexical functions); particular attention is paid to the correlation between semantic components in the definition of a lexical unit and the values of its lexical functions. Chapter 5 discusses five select issues: 1) the orientation of a linguistic description must be from meaning to text (using as data Spanish semivowels and Russian binominative constructions); 2) a system of notions and terms for linguistics (linguistic sign and the operation of linguistic union; notion of word; case, voice, and ergative construction); 3) formal description of meaning (strict semantic decomposition, standardization of semantemes, the adequacy of decomposition, the maximal block principle); 4) the Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionary (with a sample of complete lexical entries for Russian vocables); 5) dependencies in language, in particular—syntactic dependencies (the criteria for establishing a set of surface-syntactic relations for a language are formulated). Three appendices follow: a phonetic table, an inventory of surface-syntactic relations for English and an overview of all possible combinations of the three types of dependency (semantic, syntactic, and morphological). The book is supplied with a detailed index of notions and terms, which includes a linguistic glossary. (shrink)

Philosophy for life is the definitive introduction to the history of Western thought, but more than that, it is a toolkit for using philosophy in your daily life. As you read, you will develop your own critical and creative thinking, exploring the key ideas in Western Philosophy and the arguments that continue to shape our world. You will discover what philosophy is really about, learn to be a skeptic, meet Plato and Aristotle, explore the concept of mind, question free will, (...) use philosophy to be happy, find out about Marx and materialism, see how philosophy relates to everything from comics to coffee, and ask whether god exists. Philosophy is a life-tool, a set of skills for engaging with any subject, and in Philosophy For Life, you will discover a body of wisdom and a way to develop your own critical and creative thinking. (shrink)

Using a new materialist line of questioning that looks at the agential potentialities of water and its entanglements with Big Data and surveillance, this article explores how the recent Snowden revelations about the National Security Agency have reignited media scholars to engage with the infrastructures that enable intercepting, hosting, and processing immeasurable amounts of data. Focusing on the expansive architecture, location, and resource dependence of the NSA’s Utah Data Center, I demonstrate how surveillance and privacy can never be disconnected from (...) the material infrastructures that allow and render natural the epistemological state of mass surveillance. Specifically, I explore the NSA’s infrastructure and the million of gallons of water it requires daily to cool its servers, while located in one of the driest states in the US. Complicating surveillance beyond the NSA, as also already imbricated with various social media companies, this article questions the emplacement and impact of corporate data centers more generally, and the changes they are causing to the landscape and local economies. I look at how water is an intriguing and politically relevant part of the surveillance infrastructure and how it has been constructed as the main tool for activism in this case, and how it may eventually help transform the public’s conceptualization of Big Data, as deeply material. (shrink)

Machine learning (ML) refers to a class of computer-facilitated methods of statistical modelling. ML modelling techniques are now being widely adopted across the sciences. A number of outspoken representatives from the general public, computer science, various scientific fields, and philosophy of science alike seem to share in the belief that ML will radically disrupt scientific practice or the variety of epistemic outputs science is capable of producing. Such a belief is held, at least in part, because its adherents take ML (...) to exist on novel epistemic footing relative to classical mathematical or statistical modelling approaches utilised in science. Namely, they take modelling with ML to be a “theory-free” enterprise, in the sense of not resting essentially on input from human conceptual grasp on the target phenomenon and domain expertise. I take this view to arise from the further, and more deeply entrenched belief that data is worldly and objective; i.e., data is viewed as recapitulating or representing with perfect fidelity the structure or properties of the systems in nature it is sampled from. Yet most contemporary philosophers of science take on board, in one version or other, the thesis of theory-ladenness or theory-mediation of observation or measurement. From this, it follows that most philosophers of science (and, I will venture, many scientists) hold irreconcilable views on the nature of data, an internal tension which threatens the integrity of their appraisals of ML in science. Taking the thesis of theory-ladenness on board---and its implications for the nature of data seriously---it follows that there is no reason to believe that ML differs fundamentally in its epistemic footing from established mathematical modelling approaches in the sciences. I show that usage and interpretation can differ from “standard practice” in scientific projects which wield the tools of ML without accepting a difference in the epistemic or representational status of such tools. (shrink)

Is this the right book for me? An accessible introduction to ethics Whether you're a student studying philosophy at any level, or simply want to gain a deeper understanding of this fascinating subject, Understand Ethics is an accessible introduction to all the key theories and thinkers. Fully updated, this latest edition includes contemporary examples and discussion of current debates including terrorism, genetics and the media, helping you to grasp how ethics applies to life today. Understand Ethics includes: Chapter 1: Introduction: (...) the art of living What makes something moral? What is the point of ethics? What price integrity? Rights and responsibilities The art of living Chapter 2: Free to choose? What kind of freedom? Determinism Reductionism Freedom and the State How much freedom does morality need? Chapter 3: What do we mean? Three kinds of language Defining key terms Some theories 'Is' and 'ought' Chapter 4: Is it natural? Does it have a 'final cause'? Some features of 'natural law' How do you decide what is 'natural'? Applying 'natural law' Are we naturally good or bad? Evolution, change and the natural law Chapter 5: Looking for results Egoistic hedonism Utilitarianism Forms of utilitarianism General criticisms of utilitarianism Chapter 6: The experience of moral choice Conscience The categorical imperative The creative response Determined and yet free?.. Chapter 7: Personal development and virtue Altruism? Nietzsche Virtue ethics Existentialism Humankind, Marx and Freud Chapter 8: Law and order Society and moral choice In whose interest? Is equality possible? A social contract Crime and punishment Capital punishment In self-defence? Civil disobedience If Nietzsche were a civil servant... Chapter 9: Religion and moral values How are religion and morality related? The basis for religious ethics Religious values and society Should religious freedom be restricted? Chapter 10: Scepticism and relativism Philosophers or politicians? Situation ethics Relativism and moral absolutes Chapter 11: Applied ethics The natural environment Animal rights International issues War and peace Gender issues Sexual issues Some issues in medical ethics The beginning and end of life Business ethics Media issues Learn effortlessly with a new easy-to-read page design and interactive features: Not got much time? One, five and ten-minute introductions to key principles to get you started. Author insights Lots of instant help with common problems and quick tips for success, based on the author's many years of experience. Test yourself Tests in the book and online to keep track of your progress. Extend your knowledge Extra online articles to give you a richer understanding of the subject. Five things to remember Quick refreshers to help you remember the key facts. Try this Innovative exercises illustrate what you've learnt and how to use it. (shrink)

The basic biological situation -- Credulity, and the skeptical tradition -- The early period -- Construction of the inner realm -- Brain, mind, religion -- Infantile amnesia -- Prayer and faith -- Angelic encounters -- Are we 'wired for God'?.

In many ways, the 1707 Act of Union encouraged various practices of literary nation-building and the search for authentic ’British’ voices. In their desire to assert the politeness of this newly constituted British identity, writers such as Joseph Addison, Thomas Blackwell and James Macpherson shared a preoccupation with a quality which Addison termed ‘majestick Simplicity’. The implicit codification of polite manners and taste in the Spectator might at first appear to contradict this literary fascination with the search for exemplars of (...) native British simplicity. This article explores the continuity of these concerns in the writings of Addison, Blackwell and Macpherson, suggesting some of the ways that authenticity and politeness exerted conflicting demands on the eighteenth-century literary culture of Britishness. (shrink)

The book defines the concept of Semantic-Communicative Structure [= Sem-CommS]-a formal object that is imposed on the starting Semantic Structure [= SemS] of a sentence (under text synthesis) in order to turn the selected meaning into a linguistic message. The Sem-CommS is a system of eight logically independent oppositions: 1. Thematicity (Rheme vs. Theme), 2. Givenness (Given vs. Old), 3. Focalization (Focalized vs. Non-Focalized), 4. Perspective (Foregrounded vs. Backgrounded), 5. Emphasis (Emphasized vs. Non-Emphasized), 6. Presupposedness (Presupposed vs. Non-Presupposed), 7. Unitariness (...) (Unitary vs. Articulated), 8. Locutionality (Communicated vs. Signaled). The values of these oppositions mark particular subnetworks of the starting SemS and thus allow for the distinction between sentences such as (a) A man killed a dog vs. The dog was killed by a man, (b) John washed the window vs. It was John who washed the window or (c) It hurts! vs. Ouch! The proposed Sem-Comm-oppositions are conceived as an attempt at sharpening the well-known notions of Topic Comment, Focus, etc. Possible linguistic strategies for expressing the values of the Sem-Comm-oppositions in different languages are discussed at some length, with linguistic illustrations. (shrink)

In the modern world, progress in the art and science of living has not kept pace with progress in the other arts and sciences. Man does not lead a better and a happier life than he used to do. There are many indications that human conduct is getting worse, and that men are more discontented, more miserable than they used to be. One means of moral progress would be to provide a sound and universally accepted code of ethics. The world (...) would then have, at least, a moral standard by which human actions could be judged. It would go a long way toward forming a healthy public opinion on all moral questions. The Christian religion furnishes the highest moral standard ever manifested to the world. Unfortunately, there are two fundamentally different conceptions of Christian morality the Catholic and the Protestant conception. Perhaps if we put them side by side the truth will appear.This book begins: “Is man a moral or a merely physical agent? Are all man's thoughts, words, and actions determined by merely physical and necessary laws like those of electricity or steam? If man is a merely physical agent, then morality is only a department of physics, and, without doubt, it will be an important department of physics. It is important for us to know the laws which govern the action of gravitation, or of electricity, or of steam, but it is still more important for us to know the laws which govern the action of men. If man is nothing but matter and force, by patient study we shall be able to predict his every thought, word, and action with as much certainty as we can predict the action of a steam-engine or of a motor-car. Such knowledge would be invaluable for governments, employers, and parents. It would not be less valuable for the private citizen, the employed, and for children still under parental sway.“But is man a merely physical agent, a mere natural machine? Is man's action determined solely by the antecedents and conditions of action, so that if we knew them all we could predict infallibly what that action would be? Or is there something in man which clearly distinguishes his action from that of merely physical causes?”. (shrink)

This paper covers the history of the development of various epsilon calculi, and their applications, starting with the introduction of epsilon terms by Hilbert and Bernays. In particular it describes the Epsilon Substitution Method and the First and Second Epsilon Theorems, the original Epsilon Calculus of Bourbaki, several Intuitionistic Epsilon Calculi, and systems that have been constructed to incorporate epsilon terms in modal, and general intensional structures. Standard semantics for epsilon terms are discussed, with application to Arithmetic, and it is (...) shown how epsilon terms give distinctive theories of descriptions and identity, through providing complete individual terms for individuals, which are rigid across possible worlds. The Epsilon Calculus' problematic thereby extends that of the predicate calculus primarily through its applicability to anaphoric reference, both in extensional and also intensional constructions. There are higher-order applications, as well, some of which resolve paradoxes in contemporary logic through allowing for indeterminacy of reference. (shrink)

Do the laws of nature supervene on ordinary, non-nomic matters of fact? Lange's criticism of Humean supervenience (HS) plays a key role in his account of natural laws. Though we are sympathetic to his account, we remain unconvinced by his criticism. We focus on his thought experiment involving a world containing nothing but a lone proton and argue that it does not cast sufficient doubt on HS. In addition, we express some concern about locating the lawmakers in an ontology of (...) primitive subjunctive facts and suggest that a 'mixed' metaphysics to the lawmaker question might be attractive. (shrink)

One of the most important facts in the contemporary intellectual life of mankind is its increasing liberation from the shackles of religion and the church. This is admitted even by bourgeois ideologists. Gabriel Marcel speaks of "desacralization" and the loss of the sense of the "holy" . Martin Heidegger speaks of "atheization" , and at the Second Session of the 21st Ecumenical Council the Council fathers noted with alarm the "de-Christianization" of society.