Some modern thinkers have supposed that “cause” is an outworn notion, or at least that it is one of which modern science has no need. This is due mainly to the discovery that, while the scientist can give us general laws as to what in fact happens, he cannot help us to discern the reason for the laws or the inward nature of the forces on which they depend. He can tell us the “that” but not the “why”; he cannot (...) show us in a single case that the effect follows necessarily a priori from the nature of the cause, that any other effect than the one which actually takes place would be logically impossible. He has studied the law of gravitation, but this law does not enable him to see why material bodies should attract each other in this fashion; it is only a generalized statement of the fact that they do. He knows that certain substances, if absorbed by eating, will nourish and others destroy our tissues; but he cannot say why they should do so. He can no doubt analyse them further and discover that, for example, meat is nourishing because it contains a large proportion of nitrogenous matter, but he could not tell a priori whether this nitrogenous matter would be likely to nourish or to poison us. Only where mathematics can be applied do we see necessity in such a way that any alternative becomes inconceivable to us; but mathematics alone can never establish from a quantity present here and now what quantity there will be at a later time or in another part of space. Mathematics can show, e.g. , that, if there is 2 + 2 here and now, there must be 4 here and now, not that, if there is 2 + 2 here and now, there will be 4 in an hour's time or a mile away; and therefore it cannot be made the sole basis of any causal law whatever. (shrink)

Abstract This work is about the viability domain corresponding to a model of fisheries management. The dynamic is subject of two constraints. The biological constraint ensures the stock perennity where as the economic one ensures a minimum income for the fleets. Using the mathematical concept of viability kernel, we find out a viability domain which simultaneously enables the fleets to exploit the resource, to ensure a minimum income and stock perennity. Content Type Journal Article Category Regular Article Pages 1-19 DOI (...) 10.1007/s10441-012-9153-5 Authors C. Sanogo, LIRNE, Mathmatics Engineering Team, Ibn Tofail University, Kenitra, Morocco S. Ben Miled, ENIT-LAMSIN, Tunis el Manar University, Tunis, Tunisia N. Raissi, LAA, Mohamed V University, Rabat, Morocco Journal Acta Biotheoretica Online ISSN 1572-8358 Print ISSN 0001-5342. (shrink)

This article is devoted to examining the ontological foundations of computer-generated music scores. Specifically, we focus on the categorial question, i.e., the inquiry that aims to determine the kind of ontological category that musical works belong to. This task involves considerations concerning the existence and persistence conditions for musical works, and it has consequences for the determination of what it is to compose a musical work. Our contention is that not all the possible answers to the categorial question in the (...) ontology of music are equally compatible with the hypothesis that creative music systems compose musical works. The thesis defended here is that musical Platonism is the proposal that best accommodates this hypothesis. We claim that musical Platonism is the answer to the categorial question that offers the most straightforward explanation for the possibility of considering creative music systems as genuinely composing musical works. Moreover, we uphold that the notion of creative-evaluative discovery as the characterization of what it is to compose a musical work entailed by Platonism is the simplest explanation of the process developed by a computer in producing musical works. For this purpose, we will take as empirical data the features of the Iamus computer, a system that produces musical works autonomously using evolutionary algorithms and following an evo-devo strategy. The works generated by this computer have been recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and other renowned international soloists, and its impact has been notable in the literature (Ball, 2012; Coghlan, 2012; Berger, 2013). (shrink)

G. C. J. Midgley; XIV—Linguistic Rules, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 271–290, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

G. C. J. Midgley; XIV—Linguistic Rules, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 59, Issue 1, 1 June 1959, Pages 271–290, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristot.

Bazzocchi disposes the text of the Tractatus in a user-friendly manner, exactly as Wittgenstein's decimals advise. This discloses the logical form of the book by distinct reading units, linked into a fashioned hierarchical tree. The text becomes much clearer and every reader can enjoy, finally, its formal and literary qualities.

Through the ability to preview the future , people can anticipate how best to think, feel and act in just about any setting. But exactly what factors determine the contents of prospection? Extending research on action identification and temporal construal, here we explored how action goals and temporal distance modulate the characteristics of future previews. Participants were required to imagine travelling to Egypt to climb or photograph a pyramid. Afterwards, to probe the contents of prospection, participants provided a sketch of (...) their imaginary experience. Results elucidated the impact of goal type and temporal distance on mental imagery. While a climbing goal prompted participants to draw a larger pyramid in the near than distant future, a photographic goal influenced only the compositional complexity of the sketches. These findings reveal how action goals and temporal distance shape the contents of future simulations. (shrink)

Features of threatening cues and the associated context influence the perceived imminence of threat and the defensive responses evoked. To provide additional knowledge about how the directionality of a threat (i.e. directed-towards or away from the viewer) might impact defensive responses in humans, participants were shown pictures of a man carrying a gun (threat) or nonlethal object (neutral) directed-away from or towards the participant. Cardiac and electrodermal responses were collected. Compared to neutral images, threatening images depicting a gun directed-towards the (...) participant induced sustained bradycardia and an increased electrodermal response, interpreted as immobility under attack. This defensive immobility reaction is evoked by high perceived threat and inescapable situations and indicates intense action preparation. Pictures of guns directed-away from the participant induced shorter bradycardia and no significant modulation of the electrodermal response compared to neutral pictures, which might be consistent with the perception of a less threatening situation. The results show that the directionality of threat stimuli is a key factor that prompts different patterns of defensive responses. (shrink)

According to the prevailing sentiment, changing the past is logically impossible. The prevailing sentiment is wrong. In this paper, I argue that the claim that changing the past entails a contradiction ultimately rests upon an empirical assumption, and so the conclusion that changing the past is logically impossible is to be resisted. I then present and discuss a model of time which drops the empirical assumption and coherently models changing the past. Finally, I defend the model, and changing the past, (...) against objections. (shrink)

Some philosophers argue that any attempt to model changing the past will either be contradictory or really model avoiding the past. Using Nicholas Smith's (1997) argument as a basis, I formulate a generic version of this Avoidance Argument. I argue that the Avoidance Argument fails because (i) it involves an equivocation of what is meant by ‘bifurcation of the time of an event’ and (ii) resolving the equivocation results in the falsity of at least one of the premises. Hence, the (...) Avoidance Argument will not support the claim that changing the past is logically impossible. (shrink)

One of Hume's most well-known works and a masterpiece of philosophy, A Treatise of Human Nature is indubitably worth taking the time to read.

Quantum mechanics, which describes the behavior of subatomic particles, seems to challenge common sense. Waves behave like particles; particles behave like waves. You can tell where a particle is, but not how fast it is moving--or vice versa. An electron faced with two tiny holes will travel through both at the same time, rather than one or the other. And then there is the enigma of creation ex nihilo, in which small particles appear with their so-called antiparticles, only to disappear (...) the next instant in a tiny puff of energy. Since its inception, physicists and philosophers have struggled to work out the meaning of quantum mechanics. Some, like Niels Bohr, have responded to quantum mechanics' mysteries by replacing notions of position and velocity with probabilities. Others, like Einstein and Penrose, have disagreed and think that the entire puzzle reflects not a fundamental principle of nature but our own ignorance of basic scientific processes. Sneaking a Look at God's Cards offers the general reader a deep and real understanding of the problems inherent to the interpretation of quantum mechanics, from its inception to the present. The book presents a balanced overview of current debates and explores how the theory of quantum mechanics plays itself out in the real world. Written from the perspective of a leading European physicist, the book looks extensively at ideas from both sides of the Atlantic and also considers what philosophers have contributed to the scientific discussion of this field. Sneaking a Look at God's Cards sets out what we know about the endlessly fascinating quantum world, how we came to this understanding, where we disagree, and where we are heading in our quest to comprehend the seemingly incomprehensible. (shrink)

We apply the distinction between parameter independence and outcome independence to the linear and nonlinear models of a recent nonrelativistic theory of continuous state vector reduction. We show that in the nonlinear model there is a set of realizations of the stochastic process that drives the state vector reduction for which parameter independence is violated for parallel spin components in the EPR-Bohm setup. Such a set has an appreciable probability of occurrence (≈ 1/2). On the other hand, the linear model (...) exhibits only extremely small parameter dependence effects. We investigate some specific features of the models and we recall that, as has been pointed out recently, if one wants to be able to speak of definite outcomes (or equivalently of possessed objective elements of reality) at finite times, one has to slightly change the criteria for their attribution to physical systems. The concluding section is devoted to a detailed discussion of the difficulties which one meets when one tries to take, as a starting point for the formulation of a relativistic theory, a nonrelativistic scheme which exhibits parameter dependence. Here we derive a theorem which identifies the precise sense in which the occurrence of parameter dependence forbids a genuinely relativistic generalization. Finally we show how the appreciable parameter dependence of the nonlinear model gives rise to problems with relativity, while the extremely weak parameter dependence of the linear model does not give rise to any difficulty, provided one takes into account the appropriate criteria for the attribution of definite outcomes. (shrink)

We analyse a recent paper in which an alleged devastating criticism of the so called GRW proposal to account for the objectification of the properties of macroscopic systems has been presented and we show that the author has not taken into account the precise implications of the GRW theory. This fact makes his conclusions basically wrong. We also perform a survey of measurement theory aimed to focus better on the physical and the conceptual aspects of the so-called macro-objectification problem.

According to the prevailing sentiment, changing the past is logically impossible. The prevailing sentiment is wrong. In this paper, I argue that the claim that changing the past entails a contradiction ultimately rests upon an empirical assumption, and so the conclusion that changing the past is logically impossible is to be resisted. I then present and discuss a model of time which drops the empirical assumption and coherently models changing the past. Finally, I defend the model, and changing the past, (...) against objections. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Extension and Extended Substance? Bodies and Extended Substances Bodies, Space, and the Ontology of Everyday Life Acknowledgments References and Further Reading.