"Consciousness", it is widely agreed, does not name any single cognitive phenomenon. But nor is the gathering of distinct phenomena under that single label an accident. What seems to unify the range of cognitive goods in this "variety store" is the central yet elusive notion of the availability of some content or feeling in subjective experience. The paper begins by building a rough taxonomy of the various ways different approaches have tried to give an account of this central target. Among (...) these approaches there are two to which special attention is paid. According to the first, our very cognitive constitution makes the issue of subjective experience scientifically intractable . According to the second , the philosophical worries about the subjectivity of experience are solved once consciousness is analyzed as the result of a long process of evolution that turns the flexible architecture of the brain into a virtual sequential machine. It is my contention that noconceptual argument of the first kind can establish the impossibility of one day achieving a scientific understanding of the property of being conscious. It is also my contention that a better understanding of the underlying neurophysiological and computational mechanisms is needed if Dennett′s theory is to resolve, rather than side-step, those problems related to the subjective phenomenology of consciousness. In short, I aim to show that there is no cause to regard a scientific theory of subjective experience to be in principle unobtainable. But that, contra Dennett, the form of such a scientific understanding is not yet clear. (shrink)

This introduction to certain mathematical topics central to theoretical computer science treats computability and recursive functions, formal languages and automata, computational complexity, and cruptography. The presentation is essentially self-contained with detailed proofs of all statements provided. Although it begins with the basics, it proceeds to some of the most important recent developments in theoretical computer science.

The increased interactivity and connectivity of computational devices along with the spreading of computational tools and computational thinking across the fields, has changed our understanding of the nature of computing. In the course of this development computing models have been extended from the initial abstract symbol manipulating mechanisms of stand-alone, discrete sequential machines, to the models of natural computing in the physical world, generally concurrent asynchronous processes capable of modelling living systems, their informational structures and dynamics on both symbolic (...) and sub-symbolic information processing levels. Present account of models of computation highlights several topics of importance for the development of new understanding of computing and its role: natural computation and the relationship between the model and physical implementation, interactivity as fundamental for computational modelling of concurrent information processing systems such as living organisms and their networks, and the new developments in logic needed to support this generalized framework. Computing understood as information processing is closely related to natural sciences; it helps us recognize connections between sciences, and provides a unified approach for modeling and simulating of both living and non-living systems. (shrink)

The diagnosis of a new geological epoch, The 'Anthropocene', has implications far beyond geological science. If human activity has disrupted the planet, then this diagnosis potentially disrupts socio-political conventions. This article assesses the implications the Anthropocene has for democratic politics, by delineating three challenges: challenges of knowledge, time and boundary. In contrast to the claim that democratic institutions are unable to adequately respond to these challenges, I suggest that they might be strengthened through an engagement with them. Following an 'agonistic' (...) understanding of politics, I argue that the contestation instigated by the challenges of the Anthropocene is key to democratic renewal. Just as democracy in the Anthropocene can be enhanced through an agonistic approach, agonistic theory can be enriched through an engagement with the Anthropocene. (shrink)

Radical democratic thinking is becoming intrigued by the material situatedness of its political agents and by the role of nonhuman participants in political interaction. At stake here is the displacement of narrow anthropocentrism that currently guides democratic theory and practice, and its repositioning into what we call ‘the nonhuman condition’. This Critical Exchange explores the nonhuman condition. It asks: What are the implications of decentering the human subject via a new materialist reading of radical democracy? Does this reading dilute (...) political agency? Or should this be seen, on the contrary, as an invitation for new voices and demands to enter into democratic assemblages? How might engagement with the more-than-human disrupt or extend theories of radical democracy? Hans Asenbaum and Amanda Machin discuss the human democratic subject both through radical democratic and new materialist lenses. They suggest that a new materialist decentred subject does not lose agency but further gains political responsibility in radical democracy. Jean-Paul Gagnon highlights the possibility of becoming through loss. In losing our anthropocentric arrogance—our understanding of being other and better than animal—we become more connected and discover our place in human-nonhuman assemblages. Melissa Orlie agrees that something can be gained through renouncing dominant human fantasies and presents a ‘radical democratic naturalism’. By renouncing land violence and acknowledging nature’s subjectivity, we can further nonexploitative radical democratic politics. This is where the notion of ‘tidalectic’ processes introduced by James L. Smith is helpful. Focusing on water and the Indigenous knowledges around rivers, he considers how democracy and community can be reimagined as plural, cyclical and attentive to the nonhuman with which the human is inevitably entangled. Diana Leong offers a different approach. Considering the nonhuman from the perspective of Black Studies demands an awareness to how blackness has long been constituted as non- or partially human. (shrink)

One of the more compelling features of Denis Dutton’s The Art Instinct is its theoretical parsimony. Utilizing what essentially amounts to one explanatory principle—that of Darwinian selection—Dutton advances a theory of aesthetics that is at once general enough to account for cross-cultural variations in artistic production and sufficiently nuanced to promote insights into individual artworks. In doing this, Dutton’s work could not offer a greater contrast to some of the more vocal trends in contemporary aesthetic theory, where ponderous (...) theorizing and rebarbative jargons have violently opposed the idea—otherwise so modest—that aesthetic activities might draw on the evolved capacities of the human imagination. On .. (shrink)

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

Clinical laboratories face ethical challenges on a daily basis. The ethics training provided for clinical laboratory staff is variable, with some receiving no training. We aimed to explore the perceived benefits of ethics education for laboratory professionals. Ethics training was provided to approximately 60 laboratory professionals in a UK not-for-profit blood cancer organisation, with group discussions incorporated into the session. The session covered dominant ethical theories and principles, the defining moments in medical research ethics and the ethical aspects of laboratory (...) practices. At the end of the session a short optional paper survey was distributed to the participants to obtain feedback on the training. The feedback was anonymous and thematically coded. Attendees reported to be more aware of the existence and importance of ‘everyday’ ethics in their workplace. Responses also showed that the training session had provided participants with an opportunity for ethical reflection in themselves and in discussion with their colleagues. Despite clinical laboratory professionals being faced with ethical challenges daily, there is comparatively little ethics education provided. Ethics training is believed to improve the ethical attitude of laboratory staff and help them when making decisions in their work. We have shown that ethics education is important for laboratory professionals to develop and retain ethical awareness, and ethical reflection. By gaining insight into the ethical aspects of their practices, laboratory professionals can apply this understanding when faced with making challenging decisions in their workplace, in order to act in the best interests of their patients. (shrink)

Introduction Jamie Allen Time, of all the dimensions readily presented to experience, seems to do so most readily through things. Stuff, in supposed counter-valence to the negentropic resilience of living things, appears to us as that which degrades through time, and demarcates a more technical chronometry of sequential events. Situated outside the rotting of fruit and the ticking of clocks, a “deep time” persists. Like the ultra-hearing of the bat, and the infra-vision of the boa-constrictor, there exist living and (...) non-living agents and entities capable of revealing the fixity and finitude of our own perceptual frames for thinking and understanding. The recordings presented here consist of four extracts of documents made in deep geological repository sites (for the storage of nuclear waste). Here re-presented are the Yucca Mountain Repository; HADES, in Mol, Belgium; Gorleben in Germany and a further recording from Forsmark in Sweden (pretty much inaudible behind a loop of a pop song). These recordings are imagined acoustic amplifications of deep time, just as the astronomer’s telescope is (thought of a certain way), also a time machine. Stars and nuclear waste are unapparent objects of temporal thought. Andy Weir is an artist from London researching effects of deprioritised subjectivity and contemporary art. This project draws on work developing sonic fictions, stealthy earworms, and micropolitical agencies. Prompted for further thoughts about the recordings presented here, he offered up the interspersed discussion included. —JA Yucca Mountain Repository, Nevada, USA by continent I became interested in these sites originally as spaces that allude to a time outside of the human (‘deep time’) as they are designed to store waste ‘without future maintenance’. The very fact of thinking about these spaces or working on them—engineering etc.. (as I’m particularly interested them in a kind of practice rather than just an object of thought), in other words, forces a confrontation with thought of the extinction of humanity. I was interested in this as a production of affect at odds with the expected ‘ironic, can be whatever you like’ interpretive condition of contemporary art (art under the condition of neoliberalism, say, where the individual subject is prioritised as a free autonomous producer of the meaning of the work) When I thought about this a bit though it ran into paradoxes—yes, I could allude to deep time, but in doing so I just allude to its un-representability, drawing attention to the limits of representation and so reaffirming it—I was stuck in a representation/non-representational negative dialectic. In trying to somehow create a figure for deep time I was either reducing it to my description of it, or presenting it as irreducible. HADES Facility, Mol, Belgium by continent I don’t think I’ve escaped this in the work but my response to it was to create a sonic-fiction. This was based on the idea of a viral transmission of the affect of deep time (this is the ‘pyroclastic-soaked chrono-dread’) through receiving apparatuses, transforming the screen into an intercessor or mediating lure for the outside, a site of exposure multiplying virulently through its dissemination, invoking as much as trying to represent these spaces, the sounds as durations of exposure to contagious materials, and fictions as a way of excavating the strangeness of a world opaque to subjective reconfiguration... Testing out I suppose ways that art could start thinking about figuring the reality of ecological crisis. Gorleben Repository, Lower Saxony, Germany by continent While everything remains at the level of fiction I think the work is problematic. It doesn’t really model anything, giving too much authority to either romantic abandonment or the recuperation of romantic abandonment under its description by theory/philosophy, all contained and controlled by me within a fairly limited condition of what art can do. Deep Time Contagion is precisely a materialisation of and transmission of this paradox (i.e. with screen-media can only present deep time as unrepresentable or draw attention to an inability to present it) taking the comfort/panic induced by this paradox as its material. I’m working now on some new projects that take this as a point of departure. Forsmark Repository, Sweden (Robitussin Mix) by continent. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 136-140. In early 2011, Cow Heavy Books published The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature , a compendium of catalog 'blurbs' for non-existent desired or ideal texts. Along with Erinrose Mager, I edited the project, in a process that was more like curation as it mainly entailed asking a range of contemporary writers, theorists, and text-makers to send us an entry. What resulted was a creative/critical hybrid anthology, a small book in which each page opens (...) to a new iteration of textual desire. These texts explore the material possibilities of the book. Somewhat parallel to the call of N. Katherine Hayles who, in her book Writing Machines , urges literary theorists to take up the practice of Medium Specific Analysis (to account for the way the medium in which it is presented conditions or at least bears on a literary text). I see in the imagined works of The Official Catalog a call for the innovative writers of today to become Medium-Responsive. This would mean thinking through the specific (materially constrained) possibilities offered by the media in which texts are presented, and in thinking of the literary text as a kind of art in the greater context of other arts and the book as a medium situated within the context of many other media. In doing so, the contemporary writer refutes the chorus of critics who lament the death of the book by consistently reinvigorating literary innovation. The following are selections from The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature that show possible paths for (thinking about) new writing that engages with its medium. —Ben Segal, Editor THE CUBE Even the most radical non-linear texts have tended to exploit or subvert only the sequential possibilities of print—from the continuous loop of Joyce's Finnegans Wake to the shuffled cards of Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1 —but The Cube takes such multiplicities to an entirely new level. Set in a grid, the book's words can be read conventionally, across the page, as well as down each column—with either route making complete grammatical sense. But they can also be read as stacked strata and mined like lexical core samples through the layered pages of the book. Each path tells the same story from a different perspective (the narrative, naturally, hinges on the potential outcomes of a throw of cubed dice). By opening up the z-axis to reading in this way, The Cube recognizes the book as a three-dimensional sculptural space. Taking its lead from Armand Schwerner's (If Personal) and Raymond Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes , The Cube reads like a experiment by Christian Bök precision printed by Emily McVarish. Craig Dworkin is the editor, most recently, of The Consequence of Innovation: 21st Century Poetics (Roof Books, 2008), The Sound of Poetry/The Poetry of Sound , with Marjorie Perloff (U. Chicago Press, 2009), and Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing , with Kenneth Goldsmith (Northwestern UP, 2010). He teaches at the University of Utah. HE GOES In He Goes , we read notes, letters and e-mails from a scholar father to his novelist daughter. We read of the father's musings on Beckett, on Pinter, on Anne Frank; his description of a woman hanging laundry from a line. We read about his journey toward dying, followed by a brief, third person account of his death, and his obituary. Then a long series of blank pages that demand to be read in real time, non-sentence by non-sentence, blank page by blank page. Finally—and it is here that this peculiar little book begins to soar—the dead father writes to his as-of-yet-still-living daughter. He does not write from death. He does not write from life. The words unprint, unstamp, unkindle. Still, they require no translation. The father "writes" (for lack of a better word) about the serendipitous, the commonplace; he recommends another book. He jokes. He asks his daughter how her stomach is. He says forget about presence in absence, darling; screw words as memorial and the guys in garbage cans and loss as redemption and I can't go on I must go on. He goes, "Love, Fodder." He goes, "incidentally." He goes, "I thought you might like to know." Elizabeth Graver is the author of a story collection, Have You Seen Me? , and three novels: Unravelling ; The Honey Thief ; and Awake . Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories , Best American Essays , and Prize Stories: the O. Henry Awards . She teaches at Boston College. THE PAPER ARCHIVIST A stunning package and a triumph of imagination, The Paper Archivist at times looks to be less a book than an abstract expressionist painting. Softly bound, its contents unfold to a single sheet of uneven thickness and texture—a canvas splattered with colored lines, stickers, broken sentences, and nonsense pictographs. But by following the directions to fold, dip, smell, rub, scratch, and tear the sheet according to the contingencies of the weather and using only the objects at hand, the reader slowly brings the forces hidden in the noise into a glorious sculptural convergence, processing a different story and shape each time. This is the rare book that continues to stir, whirl, and pop on every new reading. Sean Higgins blogs at BOMBlog where he is responsible for the column Volumes and Territories, as well as Ghost Island , a fledgling collaborative intellectual collective. THE SLOW BOOK The Slow Book , written by an anonymous author at the dawn of literacy, on a minor planet (otherwise notable only as the source of that exceptionally hardy, not very tasty grain called “shef” sowed on hostile planets as an early step to colonization), and encoded into a series of punctures on a strip of copper coiled inside a clever device, something between a player piano and an old-fashioned film projector, is being released into print, as was the author’s intention, at a rate of one word per century (local time). Each word is, across the Forty Galaxies, agreed to be uncannily apt for the century in which it appears—even “of,” in a century during which the highest value was attached to fidelity, whether to ideals, worlds, or romantic love; even “the,” which governed two centuries, one extraordinarily materialistic, during which advances in propulsion and navigation accelerated the exchange of exceptional objects between the remotest planets of the Forty, and one in which the central concern, both of philosophers and the common man, was whether, in an age of rapidly proliferating hypothetical worlds, anyone or anything concretely existed at all. Even those words published long before interstellar contact can be seen in retrospect to have transgalactic pertinence. As a result, attempts to abstract the machine from its publishers, Hobson & Hui, in order to “predict the future” for insight or gain by “fast- forwarding” the copper strip have been many and ingenious. While, in centuries of skepticism (“maybe”), or of unrest (“go”) the book has been nearly forgotten, in others it seems to haunt every thought, every deed, despite the fact that the subject of The Slow Book is still unclear. So far only a few sentences exist in print; everyone knows them, can quote them, offer the standard exegeses and assorted heresies; yet certainties are the stuff of adolescence; mature readers are forced to acknowledge that these sentences are probably only a preamble to the main argument. They contain no proper nouns, nor can we identify any definite theme. There is even disagreement about their tone, whether coolly ironic, as some insist, or ardent. The appearance of an unusual grammatical case, sometimes called the future pluperfect continuous, used to describe events that at some future point will have always been true (but are not yet)—hitherto known to appear only in the synthetic dogmas of the Thanatographical Society, and in certain highly circumscribed religious contexts—has suggested to some scholars that the Slow Book was originally intended for ritual use, but the proximity of the usage to a term designating a small hand plow that, as Pott and Mielcke have convincingly shown, would have borne a distinctly obscene double meaning in its culture of origin in the author’s time, argues otherwise. It is likewise unclear whether the situation that seems to be—with teasing incompleteness—sketched out in these few lines is intended as an illustration of general principles, a case study, a dramatic scene, or an extended metaphor. In short, we have no idea what The Slow Book is about. In our own time, we believe that it is almost certainly a work of fiction, but that may be because we live in the century of “if”. In each age, perhaps, we see the book we most need to read. Some have dared to suggest that the metal strip is blank until, with millennial fanfare, it advances into its new position, that no ur-text exists, that the book itself is brought into being—written—by our need. But that is exactly the sort of thing we would believe, in 7645. Shelley Jackson is the author of the story collection The Melancholy of Anatomy , the novel Half Life , and hypertexts including Patchwork Girl . The recipient of a Howard Foundation grant, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2006 James Tiptree Jr Award, she has also written and illustrated several children's books, including The Old Woman and the Wave ; Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog ; and Mimi's Dada Catifesto . Her stories and essays have appeared in Conjunctions , McSweeney's , The Paris Review , and Cabinet Magazine . In 2004 she launched her project SKIN , a story published in tattoos on 2095 volunteers. THE BOOK OF SOUNDS The Book of Sounds is just that: a book of sounds made when letters are construed in new ways to bring forth out of the alphabet new forms of speech. A book meant to be read out loud, The Book of Sounds is not unlike Laurie Anderson's O Superman or Brian Eno's Music for Airports in its attempt to make music out of the most primary and simplest of methods. It breaks language down to its barest bones and makes out of the page a drum that has never before been beaten upon. Peter Markus is the author of a novel, Bob, or Man on Boat (Dzanc Books) as well as two books of short fiction, Good, Brother and The Singing Fish , both of which were published by Calamari Press. A new collection of stories, We Make Mud , is now available from Dzanc Books. PARADISE OF THE BLIND by Celan Solen Although the reclusive Celan Solen published his first and only book in 1963—paying out-of-pocket for a limited edition of the slim collection No One May Have the Same Knowledge Again —he remained in American obscurity for almost three decades. In 1992 a micro-press in Istanbul brought out No One in Turkish. A German translation followed in 1995. Soon it became clear in literary circles Solen was a world-class (if highly unclassifiable) artist—lyrical, dense, enigmatic—who could undo the conventional short story in 397 words by inventing impossible worlds housed in impossible whirls (in “Small Sadnesses,” a single chartreuse tree frog in Borneo unknowingly holds time together by its very presence in the universe, while each letter of its tale refers, not to itself, but to the one preceding it in the alphabet). By his disappearance last year, Solen was considered master by a generation of writers and critics (except, alas, for those gentlemen in the Swedish Academy). Imagine, then, that generation’s delight at the discovery, locked away in the author’s safe-deposit box, of his second and final composition. Had Lynch’s Lost Highway been book instead of film, and had it been penned by Beckett at his least certain, revised by Barthelme at his most formally deranged, and typeset by Derrida at his most semiotically catastrophic, the result might have been something like Paradise of the Blind : interlacing narratives of a man composed of borrowed organs (whose most cheerless and difficult to locate, god, could only have been invented by an empty heart), a nonexistent medieval painting blamed for the ruin of future hope, and the spread of a philosophy that holds earth a mistake constantly recurring in the dream of a fish lying on the floor of the Atlantic (if the fish wakes, our world winks off)—all contained in a text packed with typed-over passages, torn postcards, poems that can be deciphered only when held up to a mirror, pages ornamented with trompe-l'œil paperclips and coffee stains and buzzing houseflies, some busy with illegible runes that dissolve when exposed to light, three that smell like roses or lemons (depending on whether a man or woman is reading), two that stain with the bloody fingerprints of the those who handle them, one that ignites when brushed with breath, thirteen sewn from baby skin, one that moans when touched, and one that screams—yet all without mass, unimaginable, and invisible. Lance Olsen is author of more than 20 books of and about innovative fiction, including, most recently, the novels Calendar of Regrets (2010) and Head in Flames (2009). He teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah. SUPERSTRUCTURE! by Barbara D'Albi As soon as I opened the third drawer of Barbara D'Albi's wooden novel, everything became hopeless. Now in Ithaca, there was no going back. And it wasn't just the intricate series of shelves, hinged doors and locked drawers which D'Albi layered into the book, no, lo, I was constructed anew by the story. Who else but D'Albi to imagine a God who becomes a carpenter and gets killed?! And makes it good! You want stories? D'Albi is a skyscraper, built with planes and levers. Momentarily I wondered where I could shelve this book, and then I thought: no matter; I couldn't put it down. Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he runs Publishing Genius. He is the author of Adam Robison and Other Poems and Say, Poem. (shrink)

I use a theorem from machine learning, called the “No Free Lunch” theorem to support the claim that non-epistemic values are essential to theory choice. I argue that NFL entails that predictive accuracy is insufficient to favor a given theory over others, and that NFL challenges our ability to give a purely epistemic justification for using other traditional epistemic virtues in theory choice. In addition, I argue that the natural way to overcome NFL’s challenge is to (...) use non-epistemic values. If my argument holds, non-epistemic values are entangled in theory choice regardless of human limitations and regardless of the subject matter. Thereby, my argument overcomes objections to the main lines of argument revealing the role of values in theory choice. At the end of the paper, I argue that, contrary to common conception, the epistemic challenge arising from NFL is distinct from Hume’s problem of induction and other forms of underdetermination. (shrink)

Independence is the condition that, if X is preferred to Y, then a lottery between X and Z is preferred to a lottery between Y and Z given the same probability of Z. Is it rationally required that one’s preferences conform to Independence? The main objection to this requirement is that it would rule out the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences. In this paper, I put forward a sequential dominance argument with fairly weak assumptions for a variant (...) of Independence (called Independence for Constant Prospects), which shows that Allais and Ellsberg Preferences are irrational. Hence this influential objection (that is, the alleged rationality of Allais and Ellsberg Preferences) can be rebutted. I also put forward a number of sequential dominance arguments that various versions of Independence are requirements of rationality. One of these arguments is based on very minimal assumptions, but the arguments for the versions of Independence which are strong enough to serve in the standard axiomatization of Expected Utility Theory need notably stronger assumptions. (shrink)

Measurement is said to be the basis of exact sciences as the process of assigning numbers to matter (things or their attributes), thus making it possible to apply the mathematically formulated laws of nature to the empirical world. Mathematics and empiria are best accorded to each other in laboratory experiments which function as what Nancy Cartwright calls nomological machine: an arrangement generating (mathematical) regularities. On the basis of accounts of measurement errors and uncertainties, I will argue for two claims: (...) 1) Both fundamental laws of physics, corresponding to ideal nomological machine, and phenomenological laws, corresponding to material nomological machine, lie, being highly idealised relative to the empirical reality; and also laboratory measurement data do not describe properties inherent to the world independently of human understanding of it. 2) Therefore the naive, representational view of measurement and experimentation should be replaced with a more pragmatic or practice-based view. (shrink)

We generalize standard Turing machines, which work in time ω on a tape of length ω, to α-machines with time α and tape length α, for α some limit ordinal. We show that this provides a simple machine model adequate for classical admissible recursion theory as developed by G. Sacks and his school. For α an admissible ordinal, the basic notions of α-recursive or α-recursively enumerable are equivalent to being computable or computably enumerable by an α-machine, respectively. (...) We emphasize the algorithmic approach to admissible recursion theory by indicating how the proof of the Sacks–Simpson theorem, i.e., the solution of Post’s problem in α-recursion theory, could be based on α-machines, without involving constructibility theory. (shrink)

The behavior/structure methodological dichotomy as locus of scientific inquiry is closely related to the issue of modeling and theory change in scientific explanation. Given that the traditional tension between structure and behavior in scientific modeling is likely here to stay, considering the relevant precedents in the history of ideas could help us better understand this theoretical struggle. This better understanding might open up unforeseen possibilities and new instantiations, particularly in what concerns the proposed technological modification of the human condition. (...) The sequential structure of this paper is twofold. The contribution of three philosophers better known in the humanities than in the study of science proper are laid out. The key theoretical notions interweaving the whole narrative are those of mechanization, constructability and simulation. They shall provide the conceptual bridge between these classical thinkers and the following section. Here, a panoramic view of three significant experimental approaches in contemporary scientific research is displayed, suggesting that their undisclosed ontological premises have deep roots in the Western tradition of the humanities. This ontological lock between core humanist ideals and late research in biology and nanoscience is ultimately suggested as responsible for pervasively altering what is canonically understood as “human”. (shrink)

We introduce a notion of complexity for interpretations, which is used to prove some new results about interpretations of sequential theories. In particular, we give a new, elementary proof of Pudlák's theorem that sequential theories are connected. We also demonstrate a counterexample to the infinitary distributive law $a \vee \bigwedge_{i \in I} b_i = \bigwedge_{i \in I} (a \vee b_i)$ in the lattice of chapters, in which the chapters a and b i are compact. (Counterexamples in which a (...) is not compact have been found previously.). (shrink)

The concepts developed using Upanishadic insight regarding human consciousness, mind and mental processes and their applications in information acquisition and transmission by, through and in human body will be used to model human cognitive processes. A sequential reversible process by the stepwise transformation of (i) infrasonic form of energy and transformation of information already stored in (ii) biochemical form within as memory, and retrieved as inner mental world into (iii) electrochemical and then into (iv) mechanical form while communicating and (...) the reverse of it as the (i) input stimuli from outside world as light, sound, chemical, mechanical and heat forms, into (ii) electrochemical, (iii) biochemical and finally into (iv) infra sonic form while acquiring and understanding processes is put forward and discussed. Comparisons will be made between energy transformations in electronics communication processes and these psychic energy transformations that give rise to cognitive processes. This comparison gives an insight and theory of origin, structure, function and cessation of human mental functions. A comparative diagram that describes application of infrasonic energy transformations associated with bionics as biochemical, electrochemical and mechanical forms will be given. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the possibility that machine learning approaches to naturallanguage processing being developed in engineering-oriented computational linguistics may be able to provide specific scientific insights into the nature of human language. We argue that, in principle, machine learning results could inform basic debates about language, in one area at least, and that in practice, existing results may offer initial tentative support for this prospect. Further, results from computational learning theory can inform arguments carried on (...) within linguistic theory as well. (shrink)

Two key research issues in the field of causal learning are how people acquire causal knowledge when observing data that are presented sequentially, and the level of abstraction at which learning takes place. Does sequential causal learning solely involve the acquisition of specific cause-effect links, or do learners also acquire knowledge about abstract causal constraints? Recent empirical studies have revealed that experience with one set of causal cues can dramatically alter subsequent learning and performance with entirely different cues, suggesting (...) that learning involves abstract transfer, and such transfer effects involve sequential presentation of distinct sets of causal cues. It has been demonstrated that pre-training can modulate classic causal learning phenomena such as forward and backward blocking. To account for these effects, we propose a Bayesian theory of sequential causal learning. The theory assumes that humans are able to consider and use several alternative causal generative models, each instantiating a different causal integration rule. Model selection is used to decide which integration rule to use in a given learning environment in order to infer causal knowledge from sequential data. Detailed computer simulations demonstrate that humans rely on the abstract characteristics of outcome variables to select a causal integration rule, which in turn alters causal learning in a variety of blocking and overshadowing paradigms. When the nature of the outcome variable is ambiguous, humans select the model that yields the best fit with the recent environment, and then apply it to subsequent learning tasks. Based on sequential patterns of cue-outcome co-occurrence, the theory can account for a range of phenomena in sequential causal learning, including various blocking effects, primacy effects in some experimental conditions, and apparently abstract transfer of causal knowledge. (shrink)

Introduction. During the past two decades philosophers of psychology have considered a large variety of computational models for philosophy of mind and more recently for cognitive science. Among the suggested models are computer programs, Turing machines, pushdown automata, linear bounded automata, finite state automata and sequential machines. Many philosophers have found finite state automata models to be the most appealing, for various reasons, although there has been no shortage of defenders of programs and Turing machines. A paper by Arthur (...) Burks convinced me long ago that “all natural human functions” are, or can be fruitfully modeled to be, finite state automata with output. Further work in the field has reinforced this conviction. There is room, however, for the use of any of the above models in philosophy of mind and in the ongoing development of cognitive science. (shrink)

About 25 years ago, it came to light that a single combinatorial property determines both an important dividing line in model theory and machine learning. The following years saw a fruitful exchange of ideas between PAC-learning and the model theory of NIP structures. In this article, we point out a new and similar connection between model theory and machine learning, this time developing a correspondence between stability and learnability in various settings of online learning. In (...) particular, this gives many new examples of mathematically interesting classes which are learnable in the online setting. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the possibility that machine learning approaches to naturallanguage processing being developed in engineering-oriented computational linguistics may be able to provide specific scientific insights into the nature of human language. We argue that, in principle, machine learning results could inform basic debates about language, in one area at least, and that in practice, existing results may offer initial tentative support for this prospect. Further, results from computational learning theory can inform arguments carried on (...) within linguistic theory as well. (shrink)

It is argued that Nozick's experience machine thought experiment does not pose a particular difficulty for mental state theories of well-being. While the example shows that we value many things beyond our mental states, this simply reflects the fact that we value more than our own well-being. Nor is a mental state theorist forced to make the dubious claim that we maintain these other values simply as a means to desirable mental states. Valuing more than our mental states is (...) compatible with maintaining that the impact of such values upon our well-being lies in their impact upon our mental lives. (shrink)

Virtue ethics has many times been suggested as a promising recipe for the construction of artificial moral agents due to its emphasis on moral character and learning. However, given the complex nature of the theory, hardly any work has de facto attempted to implement the core tenets of virtue ethics in moral machines. The main goal of this paper is to demonstrate how virtue ethics can be taken all the way from theory to machine implementation. To achieve (...) this goal, we critically explore the possibilities and challenges for virtue ethics from a computational perspective. Drawing on previous conceptual and technical work, we outline a version of artificial virtue based on moral functionalism, connectionist bottom–up learning, and eudaimonic reward. We then describe how core features of the outlined theory can be interpreted in terms of functionality, which in turn informs the design of components necessary for virtuous cognition. Finally, we present a comprehensive framework for the technical development of artificial virtuous agents and discuss how they can be implemented in moral environments. (shrink)

Decision theory is a theory of rationality, but the concept of rationality has several different dimensions. Making decision theory more realistic with respect to one dimension may well have the result of making it less realistic in another dimension. This paper illustrates this tension in the context of sequential choice. Trying to make decision theory more realistic by accommodating resoluteness and commitment brings the normative assessment dimension of rationality into conflict with the action-guiding dimension. In (...) the case of resolute choice the conflict comes because of a clash of perspectives. The perspective from which resolute choice seems normatively compelling is not the perspective from which it can serve the purpose of guiding action. (shrink)

The quantum theory of sequential measurements is worked out and is employed to provide an operational analysis of basic measurement theoretical notions such as coexistence, correlations, repeatability, and ideality. The problem of the operational definition of continuous observables is briefly revisited, with a special emphasis on the localization observable. Finally, a brief overview is given of possible applications of the theory to various fields and problems in quantum physics.

This article examines what the rise in machine learning systems might mean for social theory. Focusing on financial markets, in which algorithmic securities trading founded on ML-based decision-making is gaining traction, I discuss the extent to which established sociological notions remain relevant or demand a reconsideration when applied to an ML context. I argue that ML systems have some capacity for agency and for engaging in forms of collective machine behaviour, in which ML systems interact with other (...) machines. However, ML-based collective machine behaviour is irreducible to human decision-making and thereby challenges established sociological notions of financial markets. I argue that such behaviour can nonetheless be analysed through an adaptation of sociological theories of interaction and collective behaviour. (shrink)

Infinite time register machines (ITRMs) are register machines which act on natural numbers and which are allowed to run for arbitrarily many ordinal steps. Successor steps are determined by standard register machine commands. At limit times register contents are defined by appropriate limit operations. In this paper, we examine the ITRMs introduced by the third and fourth author (Koepke and Miller in Logic and Theory of Algorithms LNCS, pp. 306–315, 2008), where a register content at a limit time (...) is set to the lim inf of previous register contents if that limit is finite; otherwise the register is reset to 0. The theory of these machines has several similarities to the infinite time Turing machines (ITTMs) of Hamkins and Lewis. The machines can decide all ${\Pi^1_1}$ sets, yet are strictly weaker than ITTMs. As in the ITTM situation, we introduce a notion of ITRM-clockable ordinals corresponding to the running times of computations. These form a transitive initial segment of the ordinals. Furthermore we prove a Lost Melody theorem: there is a real r such that there is a program P that halts on the empty input for all oracle contents and outputs 1 iff the oracle number is r, but no program can decide for every natural number n whether or not ${n \in r}$ with the empty oracle. In an earlier paper, the third author considered another type of machines where registers were not reset at infinite lim inf’s and he called them infinite time register machines. Because the resetting machines correspond much better to ITTMs we hold that in future the resetting register machines should be called ITRMs. (shrink)