Humanity stands at a precipice. -/- Our species could survive for millions of generations — enough time to end disease, poverty, and injustice; to reach new heights of flourishing. But this vast future is at risk. With the advent of nuclear weapons, humanity entered a new age, gaining the power to destroy ourselves, without the wisdom to ensure we won’t. Since then, these dangers have only multiplied, from climate change to engineered pandemics and unaligned artificial intelligence. If we do not (...) act fast to reach a place of safety, it may soon be too late. -/- The Precipice explores the science behind the risks we face. It puts them in the context of the greater story of humanity: showing how ending these risks is among the most pressing moral issues of our time. And it points the way forward, to the actions and strategies we can take today to safeguard humanity’s future. (shrink)

An exploration of mathematical style through 99 different proofs of the same theorem This book offers a multifaceted perspective on mathematics by demonstrating 99 different proofs of the same theorem. Each chapter solves an otherwise unremarkable equation in distinct historical, formal, and imaginative styles that range from Medieval, Topological, and Doggerel to Chromatic, Electrostatic, and Psychedelic. With a rare blend of humor and scholarly aplomb, Philip Ording weaves these variations into an accessible and wide-ranging narrative on the nature and practice (...) of mathematics. Inspired by the experiments of the Paris-based writing group known as the Oulipo—whose members included Raymond Queneau, Italo Calvino, and Marcel Duchamp—Ording explores new ways to examine the aesthetic possibilities of mathematical activity. 99 Variations on a Proof is a mathematical take on Queneau’s Exercises in Style, a collection of 99 retellings of the same story, and it draws unexpected connections to everything from mysticism and technology to architecture and sign language. Through diagrams, found material, and other imagery, Ording illustrates the flexibility and creative potential of mathematics despite its reputation for precision and rigor. Readers will gain not only a bird’s-eye view of the discipline and its major branches but also new insights into its historical, philosophical, and cultural nuances. Readers, no matter their level of expertise, will discover in these proofs and accompanying commentary surprising new aspects of the mathematical landscape. (shrink)

It is often claimed that from the moment of conception embryos have the same moral status as adult humans. This claim plays a central role in many arguments against abortion, in vitro fertilization, and stem cell research. In what follows, I show that this claim leads directly to an unexpected and unwelcome conclusion: that natural embryo loss is one of the greatest problems of our time and that we must do almost everything in our power to prevent it. I examine (...) the responses available to those who hold that embryos have full moral status and conclude that they cannot avoid the force of this argument without giving up this key claim. (shrink)

This paper argues in favor of a particular account of decision‐making under normative uncertainty: that, when it is possible to do so, one should maximize expected choice‐worthiness. Though this position has been often suggested in the literature and is often taken to be the ‘default’ view, it has so far received little in the way of positive argument in its favor. After dealing with some preliminaries and giving the basic motivation for taking normative uncertainty into account in our decision‐making, we (...) consider and provide new arguments against two rival accounts that have been offered—the accounts that we call ‘My Favorite Theory’ and ‘My Favorite Option’. We then give a novel argument for comparativism—the view that, under normative uncertainty, one should take into account both probabilities of different theories and magnitudes of choice‐worthiness. Finally, we further argue in favor of maximizing expected choice‐worthiness and consider and respond to five objections. (shrink)

Prioritarianism is the moral view that a fixed improvement in someone's well-being matters more the worse off they are. Its supporters argue that it best captures our intuitions about unequal distributions of well-being. I show that prioritarianism sometimes recommends acts that will make things more unequal while simultaneously lowering the total well-being and making things worse for everyone ex ante. Intuitively, there is little to recommend such acts and I take this to be a serious counterexample for prioritarianism.

L’influence de Pierre Poiret sur le milieu piétiste en Allemagne est très hétérogène. Il a lui-même découvert les idées d’Antoinette Bourignon à Francfort et s’est chargé de diffuser ses enseignements à travers les groupes piétistes, notamment les « piétistes radicaux ». Les idées millénaristes de J. W. et J. E. Petersen sont assez comparables à celles de Poiret. La Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie de G. Arnold a mieux fait connaître l’importance de Poiret à propos du franchissement des frontières entre les confessions (...) religieuses. Les piétistes du Wurtemberg comme J. A. Bengel et Chr. F. Oetinger ont été influencés par le projet théologique de Poiret tel qu’il est esquissé dans l’Œconomie divine. Dans l’orphelinat de Halle, les écrits de Poiret sont publiés par A. H. Francke et A. W. Böhme. En même temps, Poiret est fortement critiqué par Ph. J. Spener, J. W. Jäger et J. Lange. Il fait enfin connaître la piété mystique par les biographies de plusieurs auteurs mystiques de la fin du Moyen Âge. Via G. Tersteegen, ces biographies sont mieux connues en Allemagne. Les dirigeants du mouvement de réveil (catholique) de l’Allgäu (début du XIXe siècle) ainsi que Hedwig von Redern, écrivain de la Gemeinschaftsbewegung (fin du XIXe siècle) ont repris ces biographies mystiques dans leur enseignement de la vie pieuse. (shrink)

Suppose that we develop a medically safe and affordable means of enhancing human intelligence. For concreteness, we shall assume that the technology is genetic engineering (either somatic or germ line), although the argument we will present does not depend on the technological implementation. For simplicity, we shall speak of enhancing “intelligence” or “cognitive capacity,” but we do not presuppose that intelligence is best conceived of as a unitary attribute. Our considerations could be applied to specific cognitive abilities such as verbal (...) fluency, memory, abstract reasoning, social intelligence, spatial cognition, numerical ability, or musical talent. It will emerge that the form of argument that we use can be applied much more generally to help assess other kinds of enhancement technologies as well as other kinds of reform. However, to give a detailed illustration of how the argument form works, we will focus on the prospect of cognitive enhancement. (shrink)

If people have different resources, tastes, or needs, they may be able to exchange goods or services such that they each feel they have been made better off. This is trade. If people have different moral views, then there is another type of trade that is possible: they can exchange goods or services such that both parties feel that the world is a better place or that their moral obligations are better satisfied. We can call this moral trade. I introduce (...) the idea of moral trade and explore several important theoretical and practical implications. (shrink)

This paper surveys a wide range of proposed hypermachines, examining the resources that they require and the capabilities that they possess. 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this report I provide an introduction to the burgeoning field of hypercomputation – the study of machines that can compute more than Turing machines. I take an extensive survey of many of the key concepts in the field, tying together the disparate ideas and presenting them in a structure which allows comparisons of the many approaches and results. To this I add several new results and draw out some interesting consequences of hypercomputation for several different disciplines.

Some risks have extremely high stakes. For example, a worldwide pandemic or asteroid impact could potentially kill more than a billion people. Comfortingly, scientific calculations often put very low probabilities on the occurrence of such catastrophes. In this paper, we argue that there are important new methodological problems which arise when assessing global catastrophic risks and we focus on a problem regarding probability estimation. When an expert provides a calculation of the probability of an outcome, they are really providing the (...) probability of the outcome occurring, given that their argument is watertight. However, their argument may fail for a number of reasons such as a flaw in the underlying theory, a flaw in the modeling of the problem, or a mistake in the calculations. If the probability estimate given by an argument is dwarfed by the chance that the argument itself is flawed, then the estimate is suspect. We develop this idea formally, explaining how it differs from the related distinctions of model and parameter uncertainty. Using the risk estimates from the Large Hadron Collider as a test case, we show how serious the problem can be when it comes to catastrophic risks and how best to address it. (shrink)

The diagonal method is often used to show that Turing machines cannot solve their own halting problem. There have been several recent attempts to show that this method also exposes either contradiction or arbitrariness in other theoretical models of computation which claim to be able to solve the halting problem for Turing machines. We show that such arguments are flawed—a contradiction only occurs if a type of machine can compute its own diagonal function. We then demonstrate why such a situation (...) does not occur for the methods of hypercomputation under attack, and why it is unlikely to occur for any other serious methods. Introduction Issues with specific hypermachines Conclusions for hypercomputation. (shrink)

It is often said that there are three great traditions of normative ethics: consequentialism, deontology and virtue ethics. Each is based around a compelling intuition about the nature of ethics: that what is ultimately important is that we produce the best possible outcome, that ethics is a system of rules which govern our behaviour, and that ethics is about living a life that instantiates the virtues, such as honesty, compassion and loyalty. This essay is about how best to interpret consequentialism. (...) I show that if we take consequentialism beyond the assessment of acts, using a consequentialist criterion to assess decision making, motivation, and character, then the resulting theory can also capture many of the intuitions about systems of moral rules and excellences of character that lead people to deontology and virtue ethics. I begin by considering the argument that consequentialism is self-defeating because its adoption would produce bad outcomes. I take up the response offered by the classical utilitarians: when properly construed, consequentialism does not require us to make our decisions by a form of naïve calculation, or to be motivated purely by universal benevolence. Instead it requires us to use the decision procedure that will produce the best outcome and to have the motives that lead to the best outcome. I take this idea as my starting point, and spend the thesis developing it and considering its implications. I demonstrate that neither act-consequentialism nor rule-consequentialism has the resources to adequately assess decision making and motivation. I therefore turn to the idea of global consequentialism, which assesses everything in terms of its consequences. I then spend the greater part of the essay exploring how best to set up such a theory and how best to apply it to decision making and motivation. I overcome some important objections to the approach, and conclude by showing how the resulting approach to consequentialism helps to bridge the divide between the three traditions. (shrink)

Value in the British National Health Service have shifted away from patient care towards financial control. However, in the quest for efficiency , huge amounts of NHS money have been wasted on computer system which failed. In this paper, I draw on a case study to explore some of the ethical issues which underlie this kind of waste of resources. Issues include the gap between public pronouncements and personal experience, the chaos of which lies behind the facade of rationality, and (...) the systematic silencing of people, usually women, who question the viability of computer systems which are created for private gain rather than public service. (shrink)

Over the last few decades, there has been an increasing interest in global consequentialism. Where act-consequentialism assesses acts in terms of their consequences, global consequentialism goes much further, assessing acts, rules, motives — and everything else — in terms of the relevant consequences. Compared to act-consequentialism it offers a number of advantages: it is more expressive, it is a simpler theory, and it captures some of the benefits of ruleconsequentialism without the corresponding drawbacks. In this paper, I explore the four (...) different approaches to global consequentialism made by Parfit, Pettit and Smith, Kagan, and Feldman. I break these up into their constituent components, demonstrating the space of possible global consequentialist theories, and I present two new theories within this space. (shrink)

We show how to determine the k-th bit of Chaitin’s algorithmically random real number Ω by solving k instances of the halting problem. From this we then reduce the problem of determining the k-th bit of Ω to determining whether a certain Diophantine equation with two parameters, k and N , has solutions for an odd or an even number of values of N . We also demonstrate two further examples of Ω in number theory: an exponential Diophantine equation with (...) a parameter k which has an odd number of solutions iff the k-th bit of Ω is 1, and a polynomial of positive integer variables and a parameter k that takes on an odd number of positive values iff the k-th bit of Ω is 1. (shrink)

It is common to allocate scarce health care resources by maximizing QALYs per dollar. This approach has been attacked by disability-rights advocates, policy-makers, and ethicists on the grounds that it unjustly discriminates against the disabled. The main complaint is that the QALY-maximizing approach implies a seemingly unsatisfactory conclusion: other things being equal, we should direct life-saving treatment to the healthy rather than the disabled. This argument pays insufficient attention to the downsides of the potential alternatives. We show that this sort (...) of discrimination is one of four unpalatable consequences that any approach to priority setting in health care must face. We argue that, given the alternatives, it is far from clear that we should revise the QALY-maximizing approach in response to this objection. (shrink)

Many of the commentaries have made similar points regarding the nature of full moral status, so I shall begin by addressing these together. They argue that my representation of the Claim is stronger than many proponents of full moral status would accept (Ord 2008). Robert Card (2008) says that I assume that it is equally bad to lose human life at all stages. Russell DiSilvestro (2008) says that I assume a flawed principle that he calls (M). Marianne Burda (2008) says (...) that I assume that life must be saved or prolonged at all costs. Christopher Dodsworth and colleagues (2008) say that I assume embryos have as much to lose as adults. I assume none of these things. The argument I put forward works just as well for more subdued claims about the moral status of the embryo. All that is required is to find the badness of embryo death to be at least roughly comparable to the badness of adult death, so that when a proponent of full moral status hears that 30 times more of our moral equals die of spontaneous abortion than die of cancer, their views would require urgent action if such action is possible. The comparison between the badness of adult death and of fetal or embryonic death is made routinely in the literature in support of restrictions upon abortion, in vitro fertilization (IVF) and stem cell research, and it appears to be a mainstream view worthy of serious attention.1 If a large proportion of those who claim that the embryo has full moral status are none-the-less quite sure that each embryo death is much less bad than an adult death, then they owe it to their readers to be more clear about this. Let us now consider the other points of each commentary in turn. (shrink)

– We present a new paradigm extending the Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma to multiple players. Our model is unique in granting players information about past interactions between all pairs of players – allowing for much more sophisticated social behaviour. We provide an overview of preliminary results and discuss the implications in terms of the evolutionary dynamics of strategies.

We present a new method for expressing Chaitin’s random real, Ω, through Diophantine equations. Where Chaitin’s method causes a particular quantity to express the bits of Ω by fluctuating between finite and infinite values, in our method this quantity is always finite and the bits of Ω are expressed in its fluctuations between odd and even values, allowing for some interesting developments. We then use exponential Diophantine equations to simplify this result and finally show how both methods can also be (...) used to create polynomials which express the bits of Ω in the number of positive values they assume. (shrink)

Consequentialism is often charged with being self-defeating, for if a person attempts to apply it, she may quite predictably produce worse outcomes than if she applied some other moral theory. Many consequentialists have replied that this criticism rests on a false assumption, confusing consequentialism’s criterion of the rightness of an act with its position on decision procedures. Consequentialism, on this view, does not dictate that we should be always calculating which of the available acts leads to the most good, but (...) instead advises us to decide what to do in whichever manner it is that will lead to the best outcome. Whilst it is typically afforded only a small note in any text on consequentialism, this reply has deep implications for the practical application of consequentialism, perhaps entailing that a consequentialist should eschew calculation altogether. (shrink)

While it is well known that a Turing machine equipped with the ability to flip a fair coin cannot compute more than a standard Turing machine, we show that this is not true for a biased coin. Indeed, any oracle set X may be coded as a probability pX such that if a Turing machine is given a coin which lands heads with probability pX it can compute any function recursive in X with arbitrarily high probability. We also show how (...) the assumption of a non-recursive bias can be weakened by using a.. (shrink)

A premise of this paper that despite an emphasis on professional distance the occurrence of self-disclosure is inevitable in the practice of youth work, yet there is little in-depth discussion in the literature, which recognises or reflects this. We utilise literature from counselling and psychotherapy which highlights the pervasive and unavoidable nature of self-disclosure within therapeutic relationships. In doing so we argue that not only is self-disclosure inevitable in youth work, but that decisions about whether or not particular disclosures are (...) right or wrong are difficult, arguing that they need to be reflected upon and explored in their particular context. We suggest some boundaries for self-disclosure, as well as offer a model within which to begin to distinguish aspects of self-disclosure. This it is hoped will help maintain both effective and professional relationships with young people, but maintain that this still requires the professional judgement of youth workers. In so doing self-disclosure is recognised as not only inevitable but as a useful aid to youth work practice. (shrink)

A major problem for interpersonal aggregation is how to compare utility across individuals; a major problem for decision-making under normative uncertainty is the formally analogous problem of how to compare choice-worthiness across theories. We introduce and study a class of methods, which we call statistical normalization methods, for making interpersonal comparisons of utility and intertheoretic comparisons of choice-worthiness. We argue against the statistical normalization methods that have been proposed in the literature. We argue, instead, in favor of normalization of variance: (...) we claim that this is the account that most plausibly gives all individuals or theories ‘equal say’. To this end, we provide two proofs that variance normalization has desirable properties that all other normalization methods lack, though we also show how different assumptions could lead one to axiomatize alternative statistical normalization methods. (shrink)

Denken we in beelden of in woorden? En welke rol speelt taal daarbij? In 'Rebussen, van duivels tot Bosch' worden deze vragen aan de orde gesteld vanuit een kunsthistorische benadering. Beeldtaal speelt een grote rol in ons denken. Het belang van het?lezen? - dus begrijpen - van afbeeldingen kan niet worden overschat. Al in de oudheid was men zich bewust van de zeggingskracht van beelden en van de rol die visuele voorstellingen spelen voor kennis, geheugen en herinnering. In de late (...) middeleeuwen en renaissance wordt de rebus, het spelen met woord en beeld, sterk gecultiveerd. Het vervangen van een geschreven woord door een afbeelding als synoniem is een eenvoudige stap. Complexer wordt het spel als klankovereenkomsten en betekenisassociaties worden ingezet, en al helemaal als ook meertaligheid een rol gaat spelen.0In dit boek spreekt onder meer een dertiende-eeuwse duivel rebustaal en wijst de Brugse schilder Jan Provoost in een geleerde rebus op de vergankelijkheid van het leven. Ook wordt duidelijk dat we betekenisvolle afbeeldingen, zoals het werk van Jheronimus Bosch, pas verantwoord uitleggen als we goed naar de historische context kijken. (shrink)

We present a novel methodology for building humanlike artificially intelligent systems. We take as a model the only existing systems which are universally accepted as intelligent: humans. We emphasize building intelligent systems which are not masters of a single domain, but, like humans, are adept at performing a variety of complex tasks in the real world. Using evidence from cognitive science and neuroscience, we suggest four alternative essences of intelligence to those held by classical AI. These are the parallel themes (...) of development, social interaction, embodiment, and integration. Following a methodology based on these themes, we have built a physical humanoid robot. In this paper we present our methodology and the insights it affords for facilitating learning, simplifying the computation underlying rich behavior, and building systems that can scale to more complex tasks in more challenging environments. (shrink)

Gedurende 2017 herdenk Lutherse en Calvinistiese kerke die Kerkhervorming wat 500 jaar gelede plaasgevind het. Hierdie hoofstuk fokus op Johannes Calvyn se eerste publikasies, dit wil sê publikasies wat verskyn het voordat hy met sy bediening in Genève begin het. Die fokus val op die drie belangrikste publikasies in hierdie periode, te wete sy 'Kommentaar op Seneca se De Clementia', die 'De Psychopannychia' en die eerste uitgawe van sy 'Christianae Religionis Institutio'. In hierdie eerste drie publikasies is 'n jeugdige Calvyn (...) aan die woord. Ten spyte daarvan is die publikasies omvangryk en is dit duidelik dat Calvyn vroeg in sy lewe oor omvangryke kennis en insig beskik het. Die vroegste publikasies word somtyds as van minder belang geag. In hierdie bydrae word die stelling gemaak dat die publikasies van groot belang is omdat Calvyn talle van die gedagtes wat later in sy werke na vore kom, reeds in sy vroeë werke aan die orde gestel het. (shrink)

Este Dicionario Enciclopedia do Pensamento Galego, coordinado por Andrés Torres Queiruga e Manuel Rivas García e redactado por corenta e seis persoas, trata de conxuntar un dicionario de pensadores galegos e unha visión temática que permita encadrar o labor máis directamente filosófico no campo xeral da nosa cultura. De aí a súa división en dúas partes: a primeira, un dicionario de autores, e a segunda, unha enciclopedia que complementa temas, ideas e persoeiros que propiamente non caben na primeira. Deste xeito, (...) o Dicionario, en orde alfabética, permite un percorrido polo enteiro transcurso da nosa historia intelectual e da achega realizada por cento dez autores, mentres que a Enciclopedia propicia un amplo encadramento nos diversos campos da cultura: antropoloxía, pensamento científico, dereito, economía, estética, exilio, feminismo, literatura, matemática, medicina, nacionalismo, pedagoxía, política, prensa e relixión. Por último os índices onomástico e temático permiten diversos percorridos, que, conxuntando sincronía e diacronía, poden axudar a unha visión máis integral e realista da nosa cultura. A nómina de pensadores da primeira parte chega aos nosos días, ocupándose con maior profundidade dos autores fenecidos e delimitando a extension das entradas consonte á importancia do seu pensamento. Para os autores vivos acudiuse, cando foi posible, á información dos propios interesados, adoptándose un criterio de estrita austeridade informativa, cinxíndoa a datos biográficos básicos e referencia á obra publicada no eido filosófico. Para a redacción da parte enciclopédica escolléronse estudosos cualificados, cuxa asinatura consta ao final dos mesmos. Ordenados, tamén, alfabeticamente estes traballos de maior extensión intentan ofrecer unha visión mais global e panorámica, recollendo problemas, preocupacións ou iniciativas que están presentes na cultura actual, procurando sinalar as directrices históricas que seguirn ao longo do tempo. (shrink)

This paper introduces a novel method for the creation of ideas for disruptive innovations. It provides an application of innovation management techniques to specifics of disruptive technologies, which stand behind the Industry 4.0 changes that are taking place at present. Centered around the Ordo ab Chao technique, the paper presents how contemporary disruptive technologies can attain reflections in the complex creative process that has to lead to disruptive ideas and innovations. Quite some innovative thinking techniques already exist. However, they fail (...) to place emphasis on creation of ideas that are tied to emerging disruptive technologies so as to further deploy them in a focused, yet innovative manner. Hence, this paper presents an effective technique that facilitates creation of disruptive ideas with a focused potential for real-life implementations. Practical application of the method related to challenges in higher education processes amid the COVID-19 pandemic is also demonstrated. Based on the understanding of existing disruptive technologies, the technique is used for the adaptation and improvements of distance-learning processes to further add value for students and our society in general. In brief, the Ordo ab Chao technique is a promising tool for systematic development of disruptive solutions, representing a creative synergy between cutting-edge technologies and innovation management approaches. (shrink)

How should we make decisions when we're uncertain about what we ought, morally, to do? Decision-making in the face of fundamental moral uncertainty is underexplored terrain: MacAskill, Bykvist, and Ord argue that there are distinctive norms by which it is governed, and which depend on the nature of one's moral beliefs.

Resumo As festas, durante o século XVIII, desempenhavam um importante papel no cotidiano das associações de leigos e religiosas. As ordens terceiras franciscanas organizavam distintas celebrações no intuito de promover a instituição no campo religioso local, difundir suas devoções e, ao mesmo tempo, ampliar o seu recrutamento. Este artigo analisa alguns elementos constituintes das celebrações realizadas pelas ordens terceiras de São Francisco em diferentes cidades do império português (Braga e São Paulo), visando compreender o significado e a valorização atribuídos às (...) celebrações no interior das igrejas por essas agremiações. Para realizar esse estudo foram utilizados, principalmente, os livros contábeis das instituições com o objetivo de vislumbrar o investimento nas celebrações e as suas características particulares. A partir das informações compulsadas constata-se um dispêndio avultado com as cerimônias e com a manutenção do culto pelas ordens terceiras franciscanas, evidenciando a importância dedicada por essas associações às celebrações e às festas executadas em seus templos. Palavras-chave: ordem terceira de São Francisco; festa; império português.The festivals, during the eighteenth century, played an important role in the daily religious and lay associations. The Third Orders of St. Francis organized distinct celebrations in order to promote the institution in the local religious field, spread their devotions, and at the same time broaden their recruitment. This article examines some elements of the celebrations held by the Third Orders of St. Francis in different cities of the Portuguese empire (Braga and São Paulo), aiming to understand the meaning and value attributed to the celebrations inside the churches by these associations. To perform this study were primarily used the accounting books of the institutions in order to glimpse the investment in the celebrations and their characteristics. From the gathered information we find a compulsive spending with the ceremonies and the maintenance of worship by the Third Orders of St. Francis, indicating the importance given by these associations to celebrations and festivals performed in their temples. Keywords : Third Order of St. Francis; festival; Portuguese Empire. (shrink)

Reséñase este ensaio da colección Feminismos da ed. Galaxia que acaba de comezar. Nel ofrécese o marco teórico do concepto de feminicidio que a autora propón como un novo instrumento para procurar explicar a violencia patriarcal que está instalada na sociedade actual. Cunha linguaxe próxima á persoa lectora, que de seguido se sinte interpelada, ofrécense interesantes panorámicas sobre epistemoloxía feminista, lexislación, reflexións sobre diversos usos da linguaxe neste tema e as súas implicacións, etc.

Given the deep disagreement surrounding population axiology, one should remain uncertain about which theory is best. However, this uncertainty need not leave one neutral about which acts are better or worse. We show that, as the number of lives at stake grows, the Expected Moral Value approach to axiological uncertainty systematically pushes one toward choosing the option preferred by the Total View and critical-level views, even if one’s credence in those theories is low.