Open peer commentary on the article “Investigating Extended Embodiment Using a Computational Model and Human Experimentation” by Yuki Sato, Hiroyuki Iizuka & Takashi Ikegami. Upshot: First, we comment on a potential weakness highlighted by the use of self-reporting in the human-coupled windmill experiment as described in the target article. Second, we suggest that the authors treat their windmill models as soft-assembled dynamical systems. This would allow them to investigate extended body schemes by looking for 1/f noise in the interface between (...) the agent and the windmills. (shrink)

Ideas about heredity and evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. New findings in molecular biology challenge the gene-centered version of Darwinian theory according to which adaptation occurs only through natural selection of chance DNA variations. In Evolution in Four Dimensions, Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb argue that there is more to heredity than genes. They trace four "dimensions" in evolution -- four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic, behavioral, and symbolic. These systems, they argue, can (...) all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Evolution in Four Dimensions offers a richer, more complex view of evolution than the gene-based, one-dimensional view held by many today. The new synthesis advanced by Jablonka and Lamb makes clear that induced and acquired changes also play a role in evolution.After discussing each of the four inheritance systems in detail, Jablonka and Lamb "put Humpty Dumpty together again" by showing how all of these systems interact. They consider how each may have originated and guided evolutionary history and they discuss the social and philosophical implications of the four-dimensional view of evolution. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors engage the contrarieties of the fictional "I.M.," or Ifcha Mistabra -- Aramaic for "the opposite conjecture" -- refining their arguments against I.M.'s vigorous counterarguments. The lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Geological Society of London was the first learned society to be devoted solely to geology, and its members were responsible for much of the spectacular progress of the science in the nineteenth century. Its distinctive character as a centre of geological discussion and research was established within the first five years from its foundation in 1807. During this period its activities were directed, and its policies largely shaped, by its President, George Bellas Greenough, on whose unpublished papers this account (...) is chiefly based.The Society began as a small scientific dining club in London, but it developed rapidly into a learned society with a nation-wide membership. It became so independent in outlook and so active in research that it was felt to threaten the esteem of the Royal Society; and little more than a year after its foundation it clashed with the Royal Society so violently that its continued existence was for a time uncertain.Its development into a large independent society was the outcome of its ‘Baconian’ view of the importance of collecting geological facts as a surer basis for geological theories. For this purpose it initiated an ambitious scheme for co-operative research, which would unite the efforts of ‘philosophers’ with those of ‘practical men’. Only personal reasons seem to have kept the most prominent of the practical men—William Smith—from co-operating with the Society. (shrink)

Taylor, R. A tribute.--Epistemology: Cornman, J. W. Chisholm on sensing and perceiving. Ross, J. F. Testimonial evidence. Lehrer, K. Reason and consistency. Keim, R. Epistemic values and epistemic viewpoints. Hanen, M. Confirmation, explanation, and acceptance. Canfield, J. V. "I know that I am in pain" is senseless. Steel, T. J. Knowledge and the self-presenting.--Metaphysics: Cartwright, R. Scattered objects. Duggan, T. J. Hume on causation. Arnaud, R. B. Brentanist relations. Johnson, M. L., Jr. Events as recurrables.--Ethics: Stevenson, J. T. On doxastic (...) responsibility. Feldman, F. World utilitarianism. Lamb, J. W. Some definitions for the theory of rules. Donnelly, J. Suicide: some epistemological considerations. (shrink)

The theory of mental models and its computer implementations have led to crucial experiments showing that no standard logic—the sentential calculus and all logics that include it—can underlie human reasoning. The theory replaces the logical concept of validity (the conclusion is true in all cases in which the premises are true) with necessity (conclusions describe no more than possibilities to which the premises refer). Many inferences are both necessary and valid. But experiments show that individuals make necessary inferences that are (...) invalid, e.g., Few people ate steak or sole; therefore, few people ate steak. Other crucial experiments show that individuals reject inferences that are not necessary but valid, e.g., He had the anesthetic or felt pain, but not both; therefore, he had the anesthetic or felt pain, or both. Nothing in logic can justify the rejection of a valid inference: a denial of its conclusion is inconsistent with its premises, and inconsistencies yield valid inferences of any conclusions whatsoever including the one denied. So inconsistencies are catastrophic in logic. In contrast, the model theory treats all inferences as defeasible (nonmonotonic), and inconsistencies have the null model, which yields only the null model in conjunction with any other premises. So inconsistences are local. Which allows truth values in natural languages to be much richer than those that occur in the semantics of standard logics; and individuals verify assertions on the basis of both facts and possibilities that did not occur. (shrink)

George Greenough was one of the influential group of early nineteenth-century English geologists who rejected both Hutton's and Werner's attempts to propound all-embracing geological theories, and followed a deliberately empirical approach. He travelled through Scotland in 1805, studying geological phenomena in the light of both the Plutonist and the Neptunist theories, and generally concluded that neither was entirely satisfactory as an explanation of the observable facts. He was also the first to suggest that the ‘Parallel Roads’ of Glen Roy were (...) the successive beach-levels of a former lake: this theory was later attacked by Darwin but ultimately vindicated by Agassiz's glacial theory. The more important geological passages from Greenough's MS. journal of the tour are reproduced and discussed in this paper. They illustrate some of the scientific problems that were involved in accepting either Hutton's or Werner's theory entire. (shrink)

During the first week of October 1983, the Italian Institute for the Study of Philosophy, together with the Philosophical Seminar of the University of Tübingen, organized a public colloquium on Hegel’s philosophy of the natural sciences. Those attending included a selected group of Italian scholars doing advanced research into early nineteenth century German philosophy, students and members of the general public from Tübingen, and a number of specialists from elsewhere in Germany and from the Netherlands.

The ArgumentContrary to the dominant historiography of microscopy, which tends to maintain that there was no microscopical program in the Enlightenment, this paper argues that there was such a program and attempts to illustrate one aspect of its dynamic character. The experiments, observations, and interpretations on rotifers and their management by scholars of that period show that there did exist a precise axis of research that can be followed historically. Indeed, the various controversies these scholars engaged in imply that they (...) performed accurate microscopical experiments and observations and also carefully interpreted their visual data. Furthermore, the kinds of phenomena presented by the rotifer and other microscopic entities, such as their morphology or their revival from desiccation, helped to improve methodology on the use of the microscope. The paper also argues that this sort of inquiry is not fundamentally different from other research in the natural sciences of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

We show that quantum interference can be interpreted in terms of a phase invariant quantity, not unlike the Berry’s phase. Under this interpretation, closed loops in time become fundamental quantum entities, and all quantum states become periodic. Decoherence is then seen to occur naturally as a consequence. This formalism, although counterintuitive, provides another useful way of assigning meaning to quantum probabilities and quasi-probabilities.

The following excerpt from Proclus' Commentary on the Timaeus appears as Fr. 37 in the edition of the fragments of Numenius by Des Places.1 It is the aim of this study to ascertain the original place of the fragment in his work, and to show that it belongs to a second-century school of allegorical commentary on the ancient theologians, and particularly on Pherecydes of Syros, of which Numenius will have been one of the brightest luminaries.