According to the universal entropy bound, the entropy (and hence information capacity) of a complete weakly self-gravitating physical system can be bounded exclusively in terms of its circumscribing radius and total gravitating energy. The bound’s correctness is supported by explicit statistical calculations of entropy, gedanken experiments involving the generalized second law, and Bousso’s covariant holographic bound. On the other hand, it is not always obvious in a particular example how the system avoids having too many states for given energy, and (...) hence violating the bound. We analyze in detail several purported counterexamples of this type, and exhibit in each case the mechanism behind the bound’s efficacy. (shrink)

It is pointed out that the Higgs field may be supplanted by an ordinary Klein-Gordon field conformally coupled to the space-time curvature, and with very small, real, rest mass. Provided there is a bare cosmological constant of order of its square mass, this field can induce spontaneous symmetry breaking with a mass scale that can be as large as the Planck-Wheeler mass, but may be smaller. It can thus play a natural role in grand unified theories. In the theory presented (...) here the physical cosmological constant is small, being of order of the squared mass, and can meet observational constraints without having to be cancelled accurately. The physical gravitational constant differs somewhat from the coupling constant in Einstein's equation, and is temperature dependent in the broken symmetry regime. Symmetry restoration occurs at high temperature. (shrink)

Objective: Deep brain stimulation targeted to the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus is effective for motor symptoms in essential tremor, but there is limited data on cognitive outcomes. We examined cognitive outcomes in a large cohort of ET DBS patients.Methods: In a retrospective analysis, we used repeated-measures ANOVA testing to examine whether the age of tremor onset, age at DBS surgery, hemisphere side implanted with lead, unilateral vs. bilateral implantations, and presence of surgical complications influenced the cognitive outcomes. Neuropsychological (...) outcomes of interest were verbal memory, executive functioning, working memory, language functioning, visuospatial functioning, and general cognitive function.Results: We identified 50 ET DBS patients; 29 males; the mean age of tremor onset was 35.84 years with a median age of 38 years. The mean age at DBS was 68.18 years. There were 37 unilateral 30 left, seven right, and 13 bilateral brain implantations. In the subgroup analysis, there was a significant interaction between assessment and age of tremor onset ; F = 4.47; p = 0.043 for working memory. The post hoc testing found improvements for younger onset ET. Similarly, there was a significant interaction between assessment and complications vs. no complications subgroups; F = 4.34; p = 0.043 for verbal memory with worsening scores seen for ET patients with complications. The remaining tests were not significant.Conclusion: In this large cohort of ET patients with, DBS was not accompanied by a significant decline in many cognitive domains. These outcomes were possibly related to the selection of patients with normal cognitive functioning before surgery, unilateral DBS implantations for the majority, and selection of patients with optimal response to DBS. (shrink)

Attentional control has grown in importance within theoretical and predictive models of psychopathology over past decades. The Attentional Style Questionnaire is a novel measure of internal a...

I argue that a group can have normative commitments, and that the commitment of a group is not merely a sum or aggregate of the commitments of individual group members. I begin with a set of simple cases which illustrate two structurally different ways that group commitments can go wrong. These two kinds of potential failure correspond to two different levels of commitment: one at the individual level, owed to the other group members, and one at the group level, which (...) the group as a single body owes either to itself or to some third party. I distinguish the content of a commitment (what must be done for the commitment to be fulfilled) from the holder of that commitment: the party to whom the content is owed. I then discuss examples which support the two-level view of group commitment and show that, even when individual-level and group-level commitments have the same content, they are understood to have different holders. Finally I return to my original cases and argue that a two-level structure of group commitment allows us to make sense of the problems that occur in them. (shrink)

This article traces the roots of the author’s doctoral work to his pre-doctoral experiences in varied realms of professional practice. The research choices made are thus inevitably influenced by these experiences. These include the selection of an interdisciplinary domain to locate his doctoral work, the choice of a “boundary object” as the unit of analysis and the formulation of a methodological mix that reflected the multidimensionality of the research topic. These choices also reflect the researcher’s quest for personal meaningfulness and (...) consequently, a certain degree of irrationality that is characteristic of any human endeavor. The idea of creative research as negotiating the boundary of acceptability is explored and the importance of freedom and tolerance for experimentation to aid this enterprise is highlighted. (shrink)

Ian Ayres and Fredrick Vars have done the gun debate a tremendous service in their new book. They have shown that a range of proposals expected to reduce gun death and injury are plausible in our c...

I propose an experiment that may be performed, with present low temperature and cryogenic technology, to reveal Wheeler’s quantum foam. It involves coupling an optical photon’s momentum to the center of mass motion of a macroscopic transparent block with parameters such that the latter is displaced in space by approximately a Planck length. I argue that such displacement is sensitive to quantum foam and will react back on the photon’s probability of transiting the block. This might allow determination of the (...) precise scale at which quantum fluctuations of space–time become large, and so differentiate between the brane-world and the traditional scenarios of spacetime. (shrink)

We prove the existence of a generalization of Kelvin's circulation theorem in general relativity which is applicable to perfect isentropic magnetohydrodynamic flow. The argument is based on a new version of the Lagrangian for perfect magnetohydrodynamics. We illustrate the new conserved circulation with the example of a relativistic magnetohydrodynamic flow possessing three symmetries.

This paper conducts a critical examination of the "usual psychopharmacology standards" for clinical research. Four main areas are inspected: What is "it" that is being treated in a clinical drug study? How much is really known concerning the psychological alterations brought about by psychiatric drug treatment? To what extent are sources of bias actually controlled for in "controlled" drug treatment studies? How does the usual "dropout pattern" influence the alleged "clinical findings" of controlled drug treatment studies? The overall conclusion reached (...) is that the "usual standards" cannot produce a realistic picture of either safety or efficacy. Conceptual and methodological reforms are suggested. (shrink)

In response to the continued expansion of “red flag” laws allowing broader classes of people to petition a court for the removal of firearms from individuals who exhibit dangerous conduct, this paper argues that state laws should adopt a double-filter provision that balances individual rights and government public safety interests. The main component of such a provision is a special statutory category — “reporting party” — that enables a broader social network, such as co-workers or school administrators, to request that (...) a law enforcement officer file a petition for an Extreme Risk Protection Order. A double-filter provision would not give reporting parties a right to file a court petition directly. Instead, parties would file a request for petition with law enforcement officers, who must seek an ERPO from the court if they find the reporting party's information credible. That information is then transmitted to the court as a sworn affidavit of the reporting party. The goal is to facilitate a balanced policy model that widens the reporting circle in order to feed more potentially life-saving information into the system, mitigates the risk of erroneous deprivation of constitutionally protected due process and Second Amendment rights. (shrink)

Gender‐affirming care is almost exclusively discussed in connection with transgender medicine. However, this article argues that such care predominates among cisgender patients, people whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. To advance this argument, we trace historical shifts in transgender medicine since the 1950s to identify central components of “gender‐affirming care” that distinguish it from previous therapeutic models, such as “sex reassignment.” Next, we sketch two historical cases—reconstructive mammoplasty and testicular implants—to show how cisgender patients offered justifications grounded (...) in authenticity and gender affirmation that closely mirror rationales supporting gender‐affirming care for transgender people. The comparison exposes significant disparities in contemporary health policy regarding care for cis and trans patients. We consider two possible objections to the analogy we draw, but ultimately argue that these disparities are rooted in “trans exceptionalism” that produces demonstrable harm.. (shrink)

Recently, John Doe, an undocumented immigrant who was detained by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was admitted to a hospital off-site from a detention facility. Custodial officers accompanied Mr. Doe into the exam room and refused to leave as physicians examined him. In this analysis, we examine the ethical dilemmas this case brings to light concerning the treatment of patients in immigration detention and their rights to privacy. We analyze what US law and immigration detention standards allow regarding immigration (...) enforcement or custodial officers’ presence in medical exams and documentation of detainee health information. We describe the ethical implications of the presence of officers in medical exam rooms, including its effects on the quality of the patient-provider relationship, patient privacy and confidentiality, and provider's ability to provide ethical care. We conclude that the presence of immigration enforcement or custodial officers during medical examination of detainees is a breach of the right to privacy of detainees who are not an obvious threat to the public. We urge ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security to clarify standards for and tighten enforcement around when officers are legally allowed to be stationed in medical exam rooms and document detainees’ information. (shrink)

Objectives: To examine associations of changing employment conditions, specifically switching to working from home or job loss, with mental health, using data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic.Methods: Data from 2,301 US adults in employment prior to COVID-19 were collected April 3rd−7th, 2020. Participants reported whether their employment remained unchanged, they were WFH when they had not been before, or they had lost their job due to the pandemic. Outcomes were symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, loneliness, and positive mental health assessed (...) using validated questionnaires. Linear regression quantified associations of employment changes with mental health outcomes, controlling for age, sex, race, BMI, smoking status, screen time, physical activity, marital status, chronic conditions, and current COVID-19 containment strategies being followed.Results: Compared to participants whose employment remained unchanged, those who switched to WFH did not differ in any measures of mental health. Participants who had lost their job reported higher symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, and lower PMH. Loneliness did not differ between groups.Conclusion: This study demonstrates that concerns around potential adverse mental health effects, particularly increases in loneliness, should not preclude WFH in the general population, while considering each individual's personal circumstances, and the acute adverse association of job loss with mental health. Tailored and sensitive interventions may be required to prevent deteriorations in mental health associated with job loss during periods of societal stress. (shrink)

Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby (2024) argues that “[i]t is time for bioethics to end talk about personhood” (11). The author calls on the field to ask different kinds of normative questions about the mo...

This commentary responds to Moti Gorin's article “What Is the Aim of Pediatric ‘Gender‐Affirming’ Care?” We argue that Gorin's case against pediatric gender‐affirming care rests upon numerous false conceptual binaries: female/male, public/private, objective/subjective, and medically necessary/elective. Drawing on feminist bioethics, we show how such dichotomous thinking is both inaccurate and marginalizing of gender minorities.

In a recent editorial, Raymond Spier expresses skepticism over claims that climate change is driven by human actions and that humanity should act to avoid climate change. This paper responds to this skepticism as part of a broader review of the science and ethics of climate change. While much remains uncertain about the climate, research indicates that observed temperature increases are human-driven. Although opinions vary regarding what should be done, prominent arguments against action are based on dubious factual and ethical (...) positions. Thus, the skepticisms in the recent editorial are unwarranted. This does not diminish the general merits of skeptical intellectual inquiry. (shrink)

Throughout an illustrious career of teaching and writing that spans five decades, philosopher Needleman has always tackled the "big questions" of life. In this collection of six feature interviews that began in the 1980s, Miller and Needleman discuss "Making Sense of Mysticism, The Secrets of Time and Love, The Meanings of Money, Searching for the Soul of America, Meeting God without Religion, " and "The Need for Philosophy.".

D. M. Armstrong famously claims that deterministic laws of nature are contingent relations between universals and that his account can also be straightforwardly extended to irreducibly probabilistic laws of nature. For the most part, philosophers have neglected to scrutinize Armstrong’s account of probabilistic laws. This is surprising precisely because his own claims about probabilistic laws make it unclear just what he takes them to be. We offer three interpretations of what Armstrong-style probabilistic laws are, and argue that all three interpretations (...) are incompatible either with some feature of Armstrong’s broader metaphysics or with essential features of his account of laws (or both). (shrink)

I explore two accounts of properties within a dispositional essentialist (or causal powers) framework, the pure powers view and the powerful qualities view. I first attempt to clarify precisely what the pure powers view is, and then raise objections to it. I then present the powerful qualities view and, in order to avoid a common misconception, offer a restatement of it that I shall call the truthmaker view. I end by briefly defending the truthmaker view against objections.

Possible worlds, concrete or abstract as you like, are irrelevant to the truthmakers for modality—or so I shall argue in this paper. First, I present the neo-Humean picture of modality, and explain why those who accept it deny a common sense view of modality. Second, I present what I take to be the most pressing objection to the neo-Humean account, one that, I argue, applies equally well to any theory that grounds modality in possible worlds. Third, I present an alternative, (...) properties-based theory of modality and explore several specific ways to flesh the general proposal out, including my favored version, the powers theory. And, fourth, I offer a powers semantics for counterfactuals that each version of the properties-based theory of modality can accept, mutatis mutandis. Together with a definition of possibility and necessity in terms of counterfactuals, the powers semantics of counterfactuals generates a semantics for modality that appeals to causal powers and not possible worlds. (shrink)

Freedom and moral responsibility have one foot in the practical realm of human affairs and the other in the esoteric realm of fundamental metaphysics—or so we believe. This has been denied, especially in the metaphysics-bashing era occupying the first two-thirds or so of the twentieth century, traces of which linger in the present day. But the reasons for this denial seem to us quite implausible. Certainly, the argument for the general bankruptcy of metaphysics has been soundly discredited. Arguments from Strawson (...) and others that our moral practices are too deeply embedded in human life to rest on anything as tenuous as a metaphysical doctrine far from the thoughts of ordinary people would seem to prove too much: we can easily imagine fantastic scenarios far from the thoughts of ordinary people—involving, say, alien manipulation or massive deception—that, if true, would clearly undermine claims to freedom and responsibility. For still other philosophers, the separation of the moral life from (some) metaphysical issues is prescriptive, not descriptive: it is a recommendation that we revise ordinary moral thought by severing its allegedly problematic links to metaphysics. (Some philosophers appear to hover undecided between such a prescriptive project and a Strawsonian descriptive claim.) We suspect that the prospects of retaining the binding force of ordinary moral thought, were such a reconceived moral practice widely embraced, are bleak. A transition to something closer to moral nihilism seems at least as likely. In any case, our interest here is in descriptive metaphysics, not revisionary. -/- To say as we do that freedom and moral responsibility have a partly metaphysical character is not to suggest that they can be had only if some highly specific version of a particular metaphysical framework is correct. Instead, we suggest in what follows, it is a broadly neo-Humean metaphysics that is not hospitable to freedom (for reasons distinctive to the metaphysics), while a broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is. But we also think (and it is the main aim of our paper to show) that different versions of the neo- Aristotelian metaphysics lead to rather different metaphysical accounts of free and responsible action. Specifically, we will argue that (1) the most satisfactory account of human freedom within the broadly neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is agent-causal, but that (2) two different versions of the general metaphysics will lead to important differences in the agent-causal account of freedom. Adjust the details of your general metaphysics, and the details of your account of freedom are transformed in significant ways. Action theory cannot properly be pursued in isolation from general metaphysics. (shrink)

Ḳitsur Ḥovat ha-levavot me-Rabenu Asher mi-Lunil -- Ḳitsur Ḥovat ha-levavot mi-sefer Tsedah la-derekh -- Ḳitsur Ḥovat ha-levavot ʻAśarah hilulim -- Ḳitsur Ḥovat ha-levavot Margaliyot ṭovot.

We use concepts of causal powers and their relatives-dispositions, capacities, and abilities-to describe the world around us, both in everyday life and in scientific practice. This volume presents new work on the nature of causal powers, and their connections with other phenomena within metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind.

Volume 24, Issue 7, July 2024, Page 6-12.