Machines will attain human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, predicts robotics expert Hans Moravec. And by 2050, they will have far surpassed us. In this mind-bending new book, Hans Moravec takes the reader on a roller coaster ride packed with such startling predictions. He tells us, for instance, that in the not-too-distant future, an army of robots will displace workers, causing massive, unprecedented unemployment. But then, says Moravec, a period of very comfortable existence will follow, (...) as humans benefit from a fully automated economy. And eventually, as machines evolve far beyond humanity, robots will supplant us. But if Moravec predicts the end of the domination by human beings, his is not a bleak vision. Far from railing against a future in which machines rule the world, Moravec embraces it, taking the startling view that intelligent robots will actually be our evolutionary heirs. "Intelligent machines, which will grow from us, learn our skills, and share our goals and values, can be viewed as children of our minds." And since they are our children, we will want them to outdistance us. In fact, in a bid for immortality, many of our descendants will choose to transform into "ex humans," as they upload themselves into advanced computers. We will become our children and live forever. In his provocative new book, the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling volume Mind Children, Moravec charts the trajectory of robotics in breathtaking detail. A must read for artificial intelligence, technology, and computer enthusiasts, Moravec's freewheeling but informed speculations present a future far different than we ever dared imagine. (shrink)

It is undeniable that Thomas Aquinas showed great metaphysical originality among his contemporaries. However, his advances concerning the meaning of the uniqueness of the substantial form cannot be adequately grasped independently of an equally original understanding of matter, conceived in particular as pure power. This study attempts to grasp the implications of the Thomasian conception of matter in the various fields of his thought, from physics to metaphysics, passing through the foundations, in the very constitution of substance, theories of knowledge, (...) of moral action and apprehension of the beautiful. We discover a conception of the substance-subject in the strong sense which nevertheless shows itself, at the very heart of its constitutive principles, radically open to the originality of Otherness in its various forms. (shrink)

Introduction to the first special issue of Bergsoniana, a new journal in Bergson studies.

We prove that the Lambek calculus is complete w.r.t. L-models, i.e., free semigroup models. We also prove the completeness w.r.t. relativized relational models over the natural linear order of integers.

With the advancement of scientific collaboration in the 20th century, researchers started collaborating in many research areas. Researchers and scientists no longer remain solitary individuals; instead, they collaborate to advance fundamental understandings of research topics. Various bibliometric methods are used to quantify the scientific collaboration among researchers and scientific communities. Among these different bibliometric methods, the co-authorship method is one of the most verifiable methods to quantify or analyze scientific collaboration. In this research, the initial study has been conducted to (...) analyze interdisciplinary research activities in the computer science domain. The ACM has classified the computer science fields. We selected the Journal of Universal Computer Science for experimentation purposes. The J.UCS is the first Journal of Computer Science that addresses a complete ACM topic. Using J.UCS data, the co-authorship network of the researcher up to the 2nd level was developed. Then the co-authorship network was analyzed to find interdisciplinary among scientific communities. Additionally, the results are also visualized to comprehend the interdisciplinary among the ACM categories. A whole working web-based system has been developed, and a forced directed graph technique has been implemented to understand IDR trends in ACM categories. Finally, the IDR values between the categories are computed to quantify the collaboration trends among the ACM categories. It was found that “Artificial Intelligence” and “Information Storage and Retrieval”, “Natural Language Processing and Information Storage and Retrieval”, and “Human-Computer Interface” and “Database Applications” were found the most overlapping areas by acquiring an IDR score of 0.879, 0.711, and 0.663, respectively. (shrink)

In this paper we prove the Chomsky Conjecture (all languages recognized by the Lambek calculus are context-free) for both the full Lambek calculus and its product-free fragment. For the latter case we present a construction of context-free grammars involving only product-free types.

Computers have far to go to match human strengths, and our estimates will depend on analogy and extrapolation. Fortunately, these are grounded in the first bit of the journey, now behind us. Thirty years of computer vision reveals that 1 MIPS can extract simple features from real-time imagery--tracking a white line or a white spot on a mottled background. 10 MIPS can follow complex gray-scale patches--as smart bombs, cruise missiles and early self-driving vans attest. 100 MIPS can follow moderately unpredictable (...) features like roads--as recent long NAVLAB trips demonstrate. 1,000 MIPS will be adequate for coarse-grained three-dimensional spatial awareness--illustrated by several mid-resolution stereoscopic vision programs, including my own. 10,000 MIPS can find three-dimensional objects in clutter--suggested by several "bin-picking" and high-resolution stereo-vision demonstrations, which accomplish the task in an hour or so at 10 MIPS. The data fades there--research careers are too short, and computer memories too small, for significantly more elaborate experiments. (shrink)

In 1958 J. Lambek introduced a calculusL of syntactic types and defined an equivalence relation on types: x y means that there exists a sequence x=x1,...,xn=y (n 1), such thatx i x i+1 or xi+ x i (1 i n). He pointed out thatx y if and only if there is joinz such thatx z andy z. This paper gives an effective characterization of this equivalence for the Lambeck calculiL andLP, and for the multiplicative fragments of Girard's and Yetter's linear (...) logics. Moreover, for the non-directed Lambek calculusLP and the multiplicative fragment of Girard's linear logic, we present linear time algorithms deciding whether two types are equal, and finding a join for them if they are. (shrink)

This paper provides a Bergsonian response to J.M.E. McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time. McTaggart’s argument has been used as the primary framework for analytic discussions about time for over a hundred years. McTaggart argued that all events in time can be categorised in two ways: either using the A-series (whereby all events are ‘past,’ ‘present,’ or ‘future’) or the B-series (whereby two events are linked by the relation of ‘earlier’ and ‘later’). He argued that the A-series is contradictory (...) and that the B-series does not capture the nature of time. So he famously concluded that time is unreal. I demonstrate that McTaggart’s argument does not pay sufficient attention to the time of consciousness captured by Bergson’s durée. I show that two distinct temporal realms can be extracted from Bergson’s philosophy: (i) la durée and (ii) a mathematical time-ordering generally classified by analytic philosophers as the B-series. The A-series is shown to be an attempt to ‘have it all’ – to retain the features that apply only to the mathematical ordering (e.g., divisibility into distinct segments), but that also somehow contain only those features that apply to subjective temporal experience (e.g., the ‘flow’ of time). (shrink)

The self-domestication hypothesis suggests that, like mammalian domesticates, humans have gone through a process of selection against aggression – a process that in the case of humans was self-induced. Here, we extend previous proposals and suggest that what underlies human social evolution is selection for socially mediated emotional control and plasticity. In the first part of the paper we highlight general features of human social evolution, which, we argue, is more similar to that of other social mammals than to that (...) of mammalian domesticates and is therefore incompatible with the notion of human self-domestication. In the second part, we discuss the unique aspects of human evolution and propose that emotional control and social motivation in humans evolved during two major, partially overlapping stages. The first stage, which followed the emergence of mimetic communication, the beginnings of musical engagement, and mimesis-related cognition, required socially mediated emotional plasticity and was accompanied by new social emotions. The second stage followed the emergence of language, when individuals began to instruct the imagination of their interlocutors, and to rely even more extensively on emotional plasticity and culturally learned emotional control. This account further illustrates the significant differences between humans and domesticates, thus challenging the notion of human self-domestication. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to reassess the similarity between Kripke’s metaphysics and Aquinas’ thought on truth, a similarity affirmed in Schultz-Aldrich’s Heythrop Journal article from 2009 and denied by Klima and Kerr in their analysis of Kripkean and Thomist accounts of essence. My claim is that this similarity has been insufficiently understood and its misunderstanding has closed off ways by means of which Aquinas’ thought can provide Kripkean epistemology with a component that it lacks.

This paper argues that idealism can offer a new solution to the problem of relating the “static” presence of things to eternity and the “dynamic” passage of reality in the temporal realm. I first offer a presentation of this problem using the dispute between Aquinas and Scotus, then describe “ontological idealism about time,” as a smaller–scale idealism, and show how it resolves the original problem. I conclude by demonstrating that this view is consonant with the recent emphasis on the ontological (...) dependence of things on God and that it offers a way of bringing together non–eternalist ontologies and the ontological conclusions posited by the special theory of relativity. (shrink)

The thesis uses key insights from the philosophy of Henri Bergson (1859-1941) to propose a new model of God’s relation to time. Chapter 1 is an introduction to Bergson’s philosophy against the background of Russell’s “The Philosophy of Bergson.” It provides an exposition of two key themes from Bergson central to my argument: the relation between time and space (Chapters 2-4) and the relation between free will and determinism (Chapter 5). Chapter 2 has a twofold task. First, it provides a (...) Bergsonian response to McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time. Second, it uses the underlying metaphysics of McTaggart’s argument to demonstrate that two distinct temporal realms can be extracted from Bergson’s philosophy: (i) la durée and (ii) a mathematical time-ordering generally classified by analytic philosophy as the B-series. Chapter 3 relates this double-tier framework to temporal ontologies in analytic philosophy. I argue that such a framework supports an “ontological idealism about time.” I argue for relativizing temporal existence to distinct points or sets of points of spacetime that leads to a radical mind-dependence of temporal extension of objects. Chapter 4 explores how the durée-based ontology argued for in Chapter 3 impacts the relation between God and time. I argue that analytic philosophy has failed to capture key ontological facets of the God-time relation and that a return to divine “causal knowledge” is required. I demonstrate that the existence of temporal objects comes from two sources: (i) their mind-dependent temporal aspect and (ii) timeless divinely-created esse. Chapter 5 applies this framework to the problem of divine foreknowledge and human free will. I demonstrate that although Bergson’s theory can defend the existence of human freedom, his thought needs to be supplanted with divine “causal knowledge” to guarantee divine omniscience. (shrink)

Serious attempts to build thinking machines began after the second world war. One line of research, called Cybernetics, used electronic circuitry imitating nervous systems to make machines that learned to recognize simple patterns, and turtle-like robots that found their way to recharging plugs. A different approach, named Artificial Intelligence, harnessed the arithmetic power of post-war computers to abstract reasoning, and by the 1960s made computers prove theorems in logic and geometry, solve calculus problems and play good games of checkers. At (...) the end of the 1960s, research groups at MIT and Stanford attached television cameras and robot arms to their computers, so "thinking" programs could begin to collect information directly from the real world. (shrink)

Chapter 7 of Robot was my first presentation of a surprising chain of reasoning. I wanted to rewrite it, but didn't have the energy in time for publication. Now that the pressure is off, and my visceral comfort with the ideas has risen, I'd like to present them more compellingly. This piece is a start.

Following the cart meeting of June 13, in which it was agreed that McCarthy would buy the cart project a TV transmitter if I could demonstrate my ability to do work on vision by writing a program which extracted three dimensional information from a motion stereo sequence of pictures, I began work on this task. So that there would be no doubt as to who had done the work, and because I operate most comfortably and effectively in a programming environment (...) made to my own tastes, the first order of business was the writing of a set of graphics and picture utility routines. The resulting package provides more flexibility than Quam's III buffer based routines, and is more cohesive than Baumgart's set, which is spread out among several programs. Currently the package accesses Data Disc displays only, in future it will be extended to provide output to the XGP and maybe the III's. As an example of increased capabilities, it allows display of filled in polygons, and permits displays to be shrunk or expanded arbitrarily merely by changing the declared dimensions of the screen or the requested sizes of the individual parts. Also, selected areas of the display may be erased or complemented, as well as added to. The programs described below use no previously existing software other than the FAIL and SAIL compilers and the operating system. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that adjusting Stump and Kretzmann’s “atemporal duration” with la durée, a key concept in the philosophy of Henri Bergson, can respond to the most significant objections aimed at Stump and Kretzmann’s re-interpretation of Boethian eternity. This paper deals with three of these objections: the incoherence of the notion of “atemporal duration,” the impossibility of this duration being time-like, and the problems involved in conceiving it as being related to temporal duration by a (...) relation of analogy. I conclude that “atemporal duration” — when combined with Bergson’s durée to become an “atemporal durée” — is a coherent understanding of divine eternity. (shrink)

During morphogenesis, tissues undergo extensive remodeling to get their final shape. Such precise sculpting requires the application of forces generated within cells by the cytoskeleton and transmission of these forces through adhesion molecules within and between neighboring cells. Within individual cells, microtubules together with actomyosin filaments and intermediate filaments form the composite cytoskeleton that controls cell mechanics during tissue rearrangements. While studies have established the importance of actin-based mechanical forces that are coupled via intercellular junctions, relatively little is known about (...) the contribution of other cytoskeletal components such as microtubules to cell mechanics during morphogenesis. In this review the focus is on recent findings, highlighting the direct mechanical role of microtubules beyond its well-established role in trafficking and signaling during tissue formation. (shrink)

Exhaustive study of philosophy of Advaita Vedanta with reference to Bhāmatī of Vācaspatimiśra, active 976-1000.

In an approach to quantify the locomotor response to environmental stimuli in fishes and its central control mechanisms, initially stochastic models of spontaneous locomotor behavior are being formulated. In the present paper, the locomotor patterns of three active nurse shark,Ginglymostoma cirratum, in six experiments are converted into 17 locomotor variables and found to have definite time series structure. Sixty-seven of the 102 first order serial correlation coefficients are statistically significant, the incidence rate of which differs between experiments and between locomotor (...) variables. The percent residual variation about an autoregressive equation is transformed by a Fisher's z statistic and the means are found to differ significantly among experiments and among variables. The experiment by variable interaction is very low implying a consistency in the ranks of the variables despite the wide differences in their absolute levels over the experiments. This suggests the existence of a relatively rigid albeit occasionally latent locomotor control mechanism in the central nervous system. (shrink)

This is a proposal for the re-activation of the essentially stillborn automatic car project for which the cart was originally obtained, and presents a process through which this activation could be accomplished painlessly. The project would be financed from the lab's operating grant, and would interact strongly with, while being independent of, any Mars rover research initiated by Lynn Quam. Since I seem to be the only one, apart from John McCarthy, with an active interest in this aspect of things, (...) the following is written entirely from my point of view. (shrink)

The locomotor pattern of a goldfish may be described by 17 locomotor variables whose time series are known to exhibit distinct patterns of autocorrelation. The present model reduces the set of 17 variables to a set of seven predictor variables which optimize the prediction of future locomotor behavior. These seven variables are then grouped into two clusters by a dendogram analysis, and it is shown that the clusters are also characterized by their strength of prediction. A locomotor control model is (...) then formulated where one cluster is interpreted to be a level of activity factor and the other is hypothesized to be a turning behavior factor. (shrink)

Planar cell polarity, the polarization of cells within the plane of the epithelium, orthogonal to the apical‐basal axis, is essential for a growing list of developmental events, and – over the last 15 years – has evolved from a little‐studied curiosity in Drosophila to the subject of a substantial research enterprise. In that time, it has been recognized that two molecular systems are responsible for polarization of most tissues: Both the “core” Frizzled system and the “global” Fat/Dachsous/Four‐jointed system produce molecular (...) asymmetry within cells, and contribute to morphological polarization. In this review, we discuss recent findings on the molecular mechanism that links “global” directional signals with local coordinated polarity. (shrink)