This paper aims to clarify and resolve issues surrounding the so-called formal linking problem in interpreting the Internally Headed Relative Clause construction in Korean and Japanese, a problem that has been identified in recent E-type pronominal treatments of the construction (e.g., Hoshi, K. (1995). Structural and interpretive aspects of head-internal and head-external relative clauses. PhD dissertation, University of Rochester; Shimoyama, J. (2001). Wh-constructions in Japanese. PhD dissertation, University of Massachusetts at Amherst). In the literature, this problem refers to the difficulty (...) of capturing the delimited semantic variability of the E-type pronoun present in the embedding clause of the construction. I show that the E-type pronoun at issue is subject to a different licensing condition from a typical E-type pronoun and therefore presents a different linking problem. More specifically, it requires that the embedded clause describe a state of its antecedent and its descriptive content be supplied by a salient property represented in the logical form of the embedded clause. I propose an event-based semantic analysis that derives the effects of this novel generalization by establishing a binding relation between the event structure of the embedded clause and the denotation of the E-type pronoun. (shrink)

미래 한국의 기초는 신뢰, 도덕적 원칙, 개인적 자율, 상호주의, 공평성이라는 도덕적 패러다임을 중심으로 구축되어야 한다고 이야기 한다. 이를 위해서 이 책에 참여한 사회학자들은 일상생활에서 우리가 규범을 따르는 이류하는 아주 간단한 원리에서부터 기업경영의 성패, 패륜적 범죄, 여성문제에서의 도덕, 과학윤리, 시민문화, 시장경제에서의 도덕성까지 사회 전반의 문제를 매우 현실적 사례와 함께 다루고 있다. 그리고 사회를 이해하는 핵심 코드가 바로 도덕이며, 미래 한국사회의 경쟁력도 도덕이 제공할 수 있다고 역설한다.

ObjectivesHostile attribution bias is reportedly common from non-clinical population to those with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, and is known to be closely related to theory of mind. This study aimed to investigate whether ToM skills mediate the relationship among neurocognitive ability, personality traits, and attribution bias.MethodsA total of 198 non-clinical youths were recruited. To assess their neurocognitive ability and ToM skills, the participants were asked to complete Raven’s Standard Progressive Matrices and the Korean version of the Reading the (...) Mind in Eyes Test. To determine their personality traits, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and interpersonal reactivity index were used. To evaluate hostile attribution bias, the Ambiguous Intentions Hostility Questionnaire was administered. Path analysis and bias-corrected percentile bootstrap methods were used to estimate model fit and the parameters of the mediating effects.ResultsBased on model comparison, the best model characterized two direct pathways from psychoticism and the K-RMET to hostility attribution bias and three indirect pathways, wherein SPM, perspective taking, and psychoticism influenced hostile attribution bias through K-RMET. The final model fit indices were good [x2/df = 1.126; comparative fit index = 0.996; root mean square error of approximation = 0.026; standard root mean square residual = 0.026 and Akaike information criterion = 28.251] and the K-RMET fully mediated the association between SPM, perspective taking, psychoticism, and hostile attribution bias.ConclusionThe main findings suggested that ToM skills, such as the RMET, play an important role in explaining the relationship among neurocognitive ability, personality traits, and hostile attribution bias. ToM skills and a remediation strategy may need to be developed to balance the enhanced hostility bias that underlies the paranoia. (shrink)

Background As Korean neonatal nurses frequently experience the deaths of infants, moral distress occurs when they provide end-of-life care to the infants and their families. Although they need to care for the patients’ deaths and consequently experience burnout and turnover due to moral distress from the situation, there is a lack of a support for nurses. Moreover, not much information is available on the moral distress of neonatal nurses. There is a need to better understand Korean neonatal nurses’ moral distress (...) to develop and implement appropriate supports. Objective This study aimed to describe nurses’ experience of moral distress when they provide end-of-life care to infants and their families in neonatal intensive care units. Research design This is a secondary analysis qualitative study. Content analysis was performed based on Corley’s theory of moral distress to develop a codebook and identify themes regarding moral distress among the nurses. Participants and research context Qualitative data were collected from 20 nurses working in two NICUs in Seoul, South Korea. Ethical considerations The original study obtained permission from a university’s institutional review board (IRB). This secondary analysis study obtained the exemption from another university’s IRB. Nurses’ participation was voluntary and confidential. Findings The nurses’ moral distress was derived when they faced moral constraints and/or moral conflicts. Two distinct categories of moral constraints and four distinct categories of moral conflicts were identified among the neonatal nurses. In addition, impacts of moral distress on patients and nurses were identified. Conclusions This study identified occasions neonatal nurses experience moral distress, and thus can guide in developing and implementing effective interventions to decrease their moral distress and improve their resilience in end-of-life care by providing insight into neonatal nurses’ needs for support in end-of-life care. (shrink)

The paper studies equilibrium contracts under adverse selection when there is repeated interaction between a principal and an agent over an infinite horizon, without commitment across periods. We show the second-best contract is offered in a perfect Bayesian equilibrium of the infinite horizon model. Unlike the equilibrium contracts in the finite-horizon, the equilibrium contracts in the infinite horizon are not subject to either the ratchet effect or take-the-money-and-run strategy, but rely on a carrot and stick strategy. We study two important (...) applications, one of which is about the optimal regulation of a publicly-held firm. This application has a mixture of both moral hazard and adverse selection. The other application is to the problem of optimal nonlinear pricing when the valuation of the buyers are drawn from a continuum. (shrink)

Antifragility is a property from which systems are able to resist stress and furthermore benefit from it. Even though antifragile dynamics is found in various real-world complex systems where multiple subsystems interact with each other, the attribute has not been quantitatively explored yet in those complex systems which can be regarded as multilayer networks. Here we study how the multilayer structure affects the antifragility of the whole system. By comparing single-layer and multilayer Boolean networks based on our recently proposed antifragility (...) measure, we found that the multilayer structure facilitated the production of antifragile systems. Our measure and findings will be useful for various applications such as exploring properties of biological systems with multilayer structures and creating more antifragile engineered systems. (shrink)

Robot enthusiasts envision robots will become a “race unto themselves” as they cohabit with the humankind one day. Profound questions arise surrounding one of the major areas of research in the contemporary world—that concerning artificial intelligence. Fascination and anxiety that androids impose upon us hinges on how we come to conceive of the “Cultural Other.” Applying the notion of the “other” in multicultural research process, we will explore how the “Other” has been used to illustrate values and theories about robots, (...) as a mirror for the self. In this paper, we focus on the social, cultural, and religious implications of humans’ attitudes toward relationships between humans with robots. Six major views on humanoid robots are proposed: (1) robots as the “Frightening Other,” (2) robots as the “Subhuman Other,” (3) robots as the “Human Substitute,” (4) robots as the “Sentient Other,” (5) robots as the “Divine Other,” and (6) robots as the “Co-evolutionary Path to Immortality.” The likely and preferable scenario is the last one, which is compatible with an optimistic posthuman world in our evolutionary future. We imagine whether humans will meet the challenge of loving all living and non-living beings (including mechanical entities) might be the key to the co-evolution of both species and the ultimate happiness. (shrink)

언제까지 답 없는 삶을 살 것인가! 인류의 위대한 스승에게 묻고, 대한민국 대표 지성이 답하다! ◎ 출판사 서평 위대한 스승, 퇴계에게 묻고 싶은 삶에 대한 질문과 답 29 누구나 인생을 살다 보면 삶에 대한 본질적인 질문들을 품게 된다. 이러한 고민들을 인류의 위대한 스승 퇴계에게 묻는다면, 그는 우리에게 어떤 대답을 해줄 수 있을까? 『인생교과서 퇴계』(21세기북스 펴냄)는 퇴계에게 묻고 싶은 29개의 질문을 통해 그의 삶과 철학을 살펴보고, 현대를 살아가는 우리에게 필요한 퇴계의 정신이 무엇인지 알아보고자 한다. ‘퇴계’ 하면 고지식한 유학자, 건조하기 짝이 없는 이기심성론의 (...) 철학자라는 이미지가 있다. 그래서 지금 시대와는 불협화한 인물이라는 선입견을 갖기 쉬우나 그가 강조하는 외경의 정신은 오늘에도 칼날처럼 삶의 본질을 꿰뚫는 성성함을 지니고 있다. 그야말로 ‘어짊’을 삶으로 실천한 그의 면면을 돌이키는 일은 산만 방종하여 공허하고 들뜬 우리들 삶을 치유하는 매우 효과적인 처방책이 될 수 있는 것이다. 사람됨의 크기와 삶의 깊이는 수양 정도에 따라 달라질 것이니, 일상생활에서 마음을 샘물처럼 ‘맑고 깨끗하게’ 유지할 것을 당부한 퇴계가 우리들에게 간곡히 들려주고 싶은 바가 이 책 속에 들어 있다. 퇴계와의 만남이 ‘뜻밖의 나’를 향하는 길이 될 수 있을 것이다. 퇴계가 생각한 인간의 ‘도’란 무엇인가! 사랑과 공경의 정신으로 ‘사람 된 도리’를 밝혀야만 한다! 사람으로 태어났다 해서 모두 사람이 아니다. 퇴계에 따르면 ‘하늘의 소명’을 받들어 실천하려는 노력 속에서만 사람이 될 수 있다. 그러므로 자신의 내면 깊은 곳에서 울려나오는 참자아의 목소리에 귀를 기울여야 한다. 사람됨의 차이가 여기에서 결정난다. 이것은 물론 좌선하듯 가만히 앉아서 되는 일은 아닌바 밥을 먹고 출근길에 나서는 등 일상생활의 모든 자리가 다 수양의 도량이다. 사람됨은 바로 거기에서 드러나기 때문이다. 그리하여 자기 안에 갇혀 입신출세와 부귀영화의 욕망만을 추구하려는 이기심을 ‘닦아내고’, 남들을 나의 품안에 아우르며 그들을 보살피려는 마음을 ‘길러야’ 한다. 이것이 평생에 걸쳐 수행해야 할 사람됨의 과제다. 이러한 사람됨의 과제를 모두가 소중히 여기게 될 때 현대사회의 많은 병폐들이 해소될 수 있을 것이다. 그러니 우리는 퇴계의 정신을 역사의 화석이 아닌 오늘의 문제를 치유하는 자기성찰과 자아향상의 자료로 삼을 필요가 있다. 나는 과연 무엇을 위해 살고 있는가, 근본적으로 인간이란 어떠한 존재인가? 하는 등의 물음을 자신에게 수시로 던져보아야 한다. 거기에는 고통과 방황이 뒤따르겠지만, 그것은 아름다운 인생의 좋은 자양분이 될 것이다. 같은 질문, 다른 해석! 대한민국 대표 학자들이 빚어내는 통찰의 향연 이 책은 삶과 죽음, 나와 우리, 생각과 행동, 철학과 사상이라는 4개의 키워드와 29개의 질문으로 구성되어 있다. 1부는 ‘산다는 것은 무엇인가’, ‘행복이란 무엇인가’ 등의 질문을 통해 퇴계가 바라본 인간 삶의 의미와 죽음에 관한 그의 철학 등을 살펴보고, 2부는 ‘나는 누구인가’ ‘이웃이란 누구인가’의 질문을 중심으로 존재의 근원과 공동체정신에 대해 살펴본다. 3부는 ‘바른 직업윤리는 무엇인가’, ‘의로움이란 무엇인가’ 등 구체적인 삶 속에서의 인간 행위에 관한 퇴계의 생각을 들여다보고, 4부에서는 ‘왜 자기성찰이 필요한가’, ‘윤리란 무엇인가’ 등의 질문을 통해 퇴계가 생각한 삶의 질서에 대해 살펴본다. 이 책의 독특한 점은 같은 질문에 대한 두 저자의 다른 해석을 비교하며 살펴볼 수 있다는 것이다. 퇴계에게 묻고 싶은 29개의 질문 중 한 질문에 두 저자가 답한 경우도 있고, 한 저자가 답한 경우도 있다. 퇴계를 오랜 시간 연구해온 두 저자는 각자의 관점을 반영하여 삶에 대한 통찰과 지혜를 풀어내고 있다. 우주적인 심흉 속에서 사랑과 공경의 정신으로 삶을 산 위대한 인격, 퇴계와의 만남은 분명 독자 여러분들 삶에 적지 않은 울림을 줄 것이다. 『인생교과서』 시리즈 위대한 현자 19人의 삶과 철학을 대한민국 각 계의 대표 학자들이 풀어낸 총 19권의 시리즈이다. 인생을 살면서 누구나 한번쯤은 고민하게 되는 본질적인 질문에 대해 현자들은 어떻게 생각했는지 비교하며 살펴볼 수 있다. 역사상 가장 위대한 멘토 19명의 치열한 사유와 통찰은 삶과 죽음에 대한 질문을 자아내고, 시대를 넘어 현답의 길로 안내할 것이다. 『인생교과서』 시리즈는 호메로스 | 플라톤 | 아리스토텔레스 | 아우구스티누스 | 장자 | 이황 | 간디 | 데카르트 | 니체 | 칸트 | 헤겔 | 미켈란젤로 | 베토벤 | 톨스토이 | 아인슈타인 편으로 총 19권이 발간될 예정이다. 01 예수 | 차정식, 김기석 지음 | 15,000원 | 2015년 7월 10일 02 부처 | 조성택, 미산 스님, 김홍근 지음 | 15,000원 | 2015년 7월 15일 03 공자 | 신정근, 이기동 지음 | 15,000원 | 2015년 7월 15일 04 무함마드 | 최영길 지음 | 13,000원 | 2015년 7월 10일 05 퇴계 | 김기현, 이치억 지음 | 15,000원 | 2015년 12월 28일 14 칸트 | 김진, 한자경 지음 | 15,000원 | 2015년 11월 3010일 ◎ 본문 중에서 우리는 퇴계를 도덕적으로 완벽한 위인으로 상정하는 경향이 있다. 그러나 그의 위대함은 도덕성보다는 오히려 절대자유의 경지에서 자연과 하나 되어 분수를 지킨, 그의 일관된 삶에 있는 것 같다. 그것이 우리로 하여금 삶의 진정한 의미를 더 곰곰이 생각하게 하는 것이 아닐까. - 33쪽 아무리 험한 상황을 만나더라도 자기성찰 속에서 겸손하게 세상사를 배우면서 자신의 존재를 “옥과도 같이 아름답게 성취”하려는 뜻을 버려서는 안 된다. “하늘을 원망하지도 않고 사람들을 탓하지도 않으며, 아래로 세상사를 배워 위로 하늘의 이치를 깨친다”는 공자의 삶의 자세를 배워야 한다. 사람이 꽃보다 아름답다면 그러한 노력 때문일 것이다. - 60쪽 퇴계뿐만 아니라 모든 유학자들 사상에 따르면, 불행에서 벗어날 수 있는 근본적인 능력은 모든 사람의 내면에 갖추어져 있다. 사람은 누구나 우주적 대아의 씨앗을 타고난 존재이기 때문이다. 우리 마음속에 간직된 본성, 어떻게 보면 그것의 다른 이름은 ‘희망’이 아닐까? 그렇다. 불행의 반대말은 ‘행복’이라는 완료형이기보다 ‘희망’이라는 진행형이 가까울 것 같다. - 67쪽 갖가지 욕망으로 ‘흐려진’ 마음이 수많은 번민과 괴로움, 고통을 지어내는 것과 달리 맑은 마음은 깊은 샘의 깨끗하고 시원한 물처럼 삶의 희열을 누리게 해줄 것이다. 우리는 여기에서 퇴계의 좌우명을 큰 교훈으로 삼아봄직도 하다. “생각을 조금도 불순하게 갖지 말고, 마음을 경건하지 않음이 없게 하라.” - 119쪽 즉 나의 근원이 리理임을 알고, 학문을 통해 그것을 이 세상에서 실현하는 일이 바로 나를 알고 삶을 아는 것이 아니었을까? 그렇다면 이로 인해 퇴계는 죽음조차도 극복할 수 있었을 것이다. 대아大我인 나는 시작도 끝도 없이 흘러가는 시간의 어떤 한 시점에 태어나서 살다가 죽어서 사라지는 사람이 아닌, 영원을 사는 사람이기 때문이다. - 146~147쪽 타인의 의견에 뇌동하지 않고 스스로의 생각을 충분히 펼쳤을 때 그것이 모여 옳은 의견이 된다. 그 독립된 생각들이 모였을 때 그것이 세상을 움직이는 가장 정당하고 강한 힘이 된다. 그렇기 때문에 더더욱 자기의 목소리를 내는 것이 중요한 것이다. 옳은 목소리를 낼 수 있도록 나의 수신修身이 바탕이 되어야 함은 물론이다 - 201쪽 모두가 잘사는 세상은 누가 만들어주는 것이 아니라 내가 만드는 것이다. 그렇게 깨어 있는 사람들이 밝힌 빛으로 인해 이 세상은 밝아져왔다. 그러니 앞으로의 세상을 밝히는 것은 또 우리들에게 넘겨진 숙제다. 이는 퇴계가 가장 간절히 바라던 일이기도 하다. - 209쪽 그는 단순히 ‘착한 사람’에 그치지 않고 ‘하늘’이 인간에게 부여한 사람됨의 뜻을, 인간의 고결한 정신을 자신의 삶과 사회에서 밝히려 했다. 오늘날 사람들이 자신의 생명을 보전하고 이익을 쟁취하기 위해 ‘야수’와도 같이 살아가는 ‘정글’사회에서 그의 삶이 위대하게 여겨지는 까닭이 여기에 있다. - 254쪽. (shrink)

A superconducting transition temperature as high as 100 K was recently discovered in one monolayer FeSe grown on SrTiO3. The discovery ignited efforts to identify the mechanism for the markedly enhanced Tc from its bulk value of 8 K. There are two main views about the origin of the Tc enhancement: interfacial effects and/or excess electrons with strong electron correlation. Here, we report the observation of superconductivity below 20 K in surface electron-doped bulk FeSe. The doped surface layer possesses all (...) the key spectroscopic aspects of the monolayer FeSe on SrTiO3. Without interfacial effects, the surface layer state has a moderate Tc of 20 K with a smaller gap opening of 4.2 meV. Our results show that excess electrons with strong correlation cannot induce the maximum Tc, which in turn reveals the need for interfacial effects to achieve the highest Tc in one monolayer FeSe on SrTiO3. (shrink)

The notions of a hyper MV-deductive system, a -hyper MV-deductive system, a - hyper MV-deductive system, a -hyper MV-deductive system, a -hyper MV-deductive system and a -hyper MV-deductive system are introduced, and then their relations are investigated.

In her anchor-piece on historicizing the canon, Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee appeals to professional philosophers to develop several tools that can be implemented in historicizing the canon. Amy Donahue, David H. Kim, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, and Kris Sealey tessellate different aspects of this call. Donahue augments Rosenlee’s argument by braiding together Dharmakīrti’s “anyāpoha” theory and Charles Mills’ ruminations about “white ignorance”; Kim explores some of the nuances of Rosenlee’s account for a post-Eurocentric philosophy; Maldonado-Torres ruminates about the larger social context in which (...) thinking can be decolonized; and Sealey uses the work of Kristie Dotson to acknowledge the possibility of multiple canons. In putting on the table a number of questions, concepts, and approaches to canon-building, the symposium aims to contribute to what is by now a large array of similar reflections and engagements in different parts of the world. (shrink)

This study proposes two identification cuing factors to understand how corporate social responsibility relates to employees’ identification with their firm. The results reveal that a firm’s CSR initiatives increase employee–company identification. E–C identification, in turn, influences employees’ commitment to their company. However, CSR associations do not directly influence employees’ identification with a firm, but rather influence their identification through perceived external prestige. Compared to CSR associations, CSR participation has a direct influence on E–C identification. On the basis of these findings, (...) it is argued that CSR performance can be an effective way for companies to maintain a positive relationship with their employees. (shrink)

This study proposes two identification cuing factors (i. e., CSR associations and CSR participation) to understand how corporate social responsibility (CSR) relates to employees' identification with their firm.The results reveal that a firm's CSR initiatives increase employee-company identification (E-C identification).E-C identification, in turn, influences employees' commitment to their company. However, CSR associations do not directly influence employees' identification with a firm, but rather influence their identification through perceived external prestige (PEP). Compared to CSR associations, CSR participation has a direct influence (...) on E-C identification. On the basis of these findings, it is argued that CSR performance can be an effective way for companies to maintain a positive relationship with their employees. (shrink)

Discovering the underlying mathematical expressions describing a dataset is a core challenge for artificial intelligence. This is the problem of symbolic regression. Despite recent advances in training neural networks to solve complex tasks, deep learning approaches to symbolic regression are underexplored. We propose a framework that leverages deep learning for symbolic regression via a simple idea: use a large model to search the space of small models. Specifically, we use a recurrent neural network to emit a distribution over tractable mathematical (...) expressions and employ a novel risk-seeking policy gradient to train the network to generate better-fitting expressions. Our algorithm outperforms several baseline methods (including Eureqa, the gold standard for symbolic regression) in its ability to exactly recover symbolic expressions on a series of benchmark problems, both with and without added noise. More broadly, our contributions include a framework that can be applied to optimize hierarchical, variable-length objects under a blackbox performance metric, with the ability to incorporate constraints in situ, and a risk-seeking policy gradient formulation that optimizes for best-case performance instead of expected performance. (shrink)

Intelligent machines are no longer distant fantasies of the future or solely used for industrial purposes; they are real “living” things that operate similarly to humans with verbal and nonverbal communication capabilities. Humans see in such technology the horrifying dangers and the bliss enabled by the saving power. Entrenched in the emotions of hope and fear concerning intelligent machines, humans’ attitudes toward intelligent machines are not free of expectations, judgments, strategies, and selfish agendas. As the discovery of the New Worlds (...) has led to the development of an understanding of self as distinct from the other, narratives on intelligent robots have taken on similar forms of colonial discourse: contradictory manifestations of ethnocentrism (anthropocentrism) and exoticism. Similar to colonial encounters, the racialized Mechanical _Other_ operates like any other marginalized group. Colonial discourse often regards the mechanical _Other_ as both inferior yet exotic, which usually produces a mixed sense of blessing and curse, ambivalence composed of both desire and aversion. In these representations of machinic _otherness,_ one should not miss the fundamental injustice of creating the “Machinic Other” and imposing humans’ viewpoints. The field must expand the purview of intelligent machines to consider the larger historical and cultural forces shaping our understanding of who we are as reflected in the mirror of intelligent machines. (shrink)

As humanoid social robots are developed rapidly in recent years and experimented in social situations, comparing them to humans provides insights into practical as well as philosophical concerns. This study uses the theoretical framework of communication constraints, derived in human–human communication research, to compare whether people apply social-oriented constraints and task-oriented constraints differently to human targets versus humanoid social robot targets. A total of 230 students from the University of Hawaii at Manoa participated in the study. The participants completed a (...) questionnaire, which determined their concern for the five communication constraints (feelings, non-imposition, disapproval, clarity, and effectiveness) in situations involving humans or robots. The results show people were more concerned with avoiding hurting the human’s feelings, avoiding inconveniencing the human interactive partner, and avoiding being disliked by the human and less concerned with avoiding hurting the robot’s feelings, avoiding inconveniencing the robot partner, and avoiding being disliked by the robot. But people did not differ in their concerns of the two task-oriented constraints (clarity and effectiveness) in response to humans versus humanoid robots. The results of the research suggest that people are more likely to emphasize the social-oriented constraints in communication with humans. (shrink)

As documented by Darwin 150 years ago, emotion expressed in human faces readily draws our attention and promotes sympathetic emotional reactions. How do such reactions to the expression of emotion affect our goal-directed actions? Despite the substantial advance made in the neural mechanisms of both cognitive control and emotional processing, it is not yet known well how these two systems interact. Here, we studied how emotion expressed in human faces influences cognitive control of conflict processing, spatial selective attention and inhibitory (...) control in particular, using the Eriksen flanker paradigm. In this task, participants viewed displays of a central target face flanked by peripheral faces and were asked to judge the gender of the target face; task-irrelevant emotion expressions were embedded in the target face, the flanking faces, or both. We also monitored how emotion expression affects gender judgment performance while varying the relative timing between the target and flanker faces. As previously reported, we found robust gender congruency effects, namely slower responses to the target faces whose gender was incongruent with that of the flanker faces, when the flankers preceded the target by 0.1 s. When the flankers further advanced the target by 0.3 s, however, the congruency effect vanished in most of the viewing conditions, except for when emotion was expressed only in the flanking faces or when congruent emotion was expressed in the target and flanking faces. These results suggest that emotional saliency can prolong a substantial degree of conflict by diverting bottom-up attention away from the target, and that inhibitory control on task-irrelevant information from flanking stimuli is deterred by the emotional congruency between target and flanking stimuli. (shrink)

As the artificial intelligence of computers grows ever-more sophisticated and continues to surpass the capacities of human minds in many ways, people are forced to question alleged ontological categories that separate humans from machines. As we are entering the world which is populated by non-enhanced and enhanced humans, cyborgs, robots, androids, avatars, and clones among them, the desire for evolutionary mastery of the natural world has taken on the two main directions: merging with machines in disembodied forms or embodied forms. (...) As a path to breaking past the discontinuity between humans and machines and enter into a world beyond the “fourth” discontinuity, machines are viewed as an evolutionary step toward the “perfection” or “immortality” of humans. However, this popular, instrumental views of machines, stemming from the existential death anxiety and the hope for transcending mortality, reveals the karmic dilemma of desiring or grasping something. We shall discuss the possibility that machines can present, ultimately, a revolutionary step rather than an evolutionary step toward understanding “who we are.” The path toward a continuity with machines lies not in our desire for merging with the robots, but in recognizing the arbitrary nature of all such identity categories. This radical understanding of the self-identity can be seen as a facet of enlightened experience. (shrink)