“Shooting [or ‘guessing’] characters” was a game, and later a communication method, based on phonological analysis of Chinese syllables. Over time, it became used in a variety of ways, including as a teaching tool, a cipher, and a phonological writing aid for the less educated. The actual and proposed applications of one phonological game show that Chinese phonology did not just exist in books, but encompassed distinct non-written practices that were essential to its proliferation. Chinese phonology is generally studied as (...) a source for the history of the Chinese language, but it is also of interest for the history of cultural and intellectual life. (shrink)

Among the many common criticisms of the Turing test, a valid criticism concerns its scope. Intelligence is a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon that will require testing using as many different formats as possible. The Turing test continues to be valuable as a source of evidence to support the inductive inference that a machine possesses a certain kind of intelligence and when interpreted as providing a behavioural test for a certain kind of intelligence. This paper raises the novel criticism that the (...) Turing test represents an example of Goodhart’s Law operating in the field of artificial intelligence. As one measure towards the goal of creating genuinely intelligent machines, the Turing test must not be confused with the goal itself. Moreover, the Turing test ought to be augmented such that through its use additional evidence could be secured to support the strong inference that a machine, were it to pass the Turing Test, could think like a human. (shrink)

One important concern regarding implantable Brain Computer Interfaces is the fear that the intervention will negatively change a patient’s sense of identity or agency. In particular, there is concern that the user will be psychologically worse-off following treatment despite postoperative functional improvements. Clinical observations from similar implantable brain technologies, such as deep brain stimulation, show a small but significant proportion of patients report feelings of strangeness or difficulty adjusting to a new concept of themselves characterized by a maladaptive je ne (...) sais quoi despite clear motor improvement. Despite the growing number of cases in the DBS literature, there is currently no accepted or standardized tool in neuroethics specifically designed to capture the phenomenological postoperative experience of patients implanted with DBS or BCI devices. Given potential risks of postoperative maladaptation, it is important for the field of neuroethics to develop a qualitative instrument that can serve as a shared method for capturing postoperative variations in patient experience of identity and agency. The goal of this article is to introduce an instrument we have developed for this purpose and call for further neuroethical efforts to assess the phenomenology of implantable brain device use. (shrink)

A report on the 2019 Bonn “Simplicities and Complexities” Conference, organized by "The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider" research unit.

Recently, there has been increasing interest in the use of heavily restricted randomization designs which enforce balance on observed covariates in randomized controlled trials. However, when restrictions are strict, there is a risk that the treatment effect estimator will have a very high mean squared error. In this article, we formalize this risk and propose a novel combinatoric-based approach to describe and address this issue. First, we validate our new approach by re-proving some known properties of complete randomization and restricted (...) randomization. Second, we propose a novel diagnostic measure for restricted designs that only use the information embedded in the combinatorics of the design. Third, we show that the variance of the MSE of the difference-in-means estimator in a randomized experiment is a linear function of this diagnostic measure. Finally, we identify situations in which restricted designs can lead to an increased risk of getting a high MSE and discuss how our diagnostic measure can be used to detect such designs. Our results have implications for any restricted randomization design and can be used to evaluate the trade-off between enforcing balance on observed covariates and avoiding too restrictive designs. (shrink)

The paper presents a renewed Habermasian view on transnational multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs) and assesses the institutional characteristics of the Equator Principles Association (EPA) from a deliberative democracy perspective. Habermas’ work has been widely adopted in the academic literature on the political responsibilities of (multinational) corporations (i.e., political corporate social responsibility), and also in assessing the democratic qualities of MSIs. Commentators, however, have noted that Habermas’ approach relies very much on ‘nation-state democracy’ and may not be applicable to democracy in MSIs—in (...) which nation-states are virtually absent. We argue that Habermas’ detailed conceptualization of the institutionalization of deliberative democracy can be applied to transnational MSIs if these initiatives can be said to have their own ‘dèmoi’ that can be represented in associational decision-making. Therefore, we develop a definition of the dèmos of an MSI based on the notion of collective agency. Subsequently, we explain how Habermas’ approach to democracy can be applied to MSIs and show that it has more to offer than hitherto has been uncovered. Our illustrative analysis of the EPA confirms the criticisms regarding this MSI which have recently been articulated by researchers and practitioners, but also yields new findings and possible avenues for the further development of the EPA: That is, although our assessment suggests that the EPA in its current state is still far from being a democratic MSI, the possibility of a sensible analysis of its democratic character indicates that transnational MSIs can, in principle, help to fill governance gaps in a democratic way. (shrink)

We identify a social phenomenon in which large numbers of people seem to work towards a shared goal without explicitly trying to do so. We argue that this phenomenon – implicit coordination – is best understood as a form of joint agency differing from the forms most commonly discussed in the literature in the same way that individual actions driven by “explicit” intentions (those available for reflection and report) differ from individual actions driven by “implicit” intentions (those not thus available). (...) More precisely, implicit coordination is both analogous to wholly implicit individual intentions, and constituted by the partly implicit intentions of participants. We discuss the significance of this category for action theory, social ontology, and social criticism. (shrink)

In the North American context, one trend in introductory Protestant Christian ethics texts is clear: the desire to draw the focus away from moral pronouncements about contemporary ‘issues’ in order to concentrate on what it means to be truly human, that is, to see the world as followers of Christ made in the image of God and to employ forms of moral reasoning appropriate to this vision. The article illuminates the particular emphases displayed in contemporary Protestant ethics texts published in (...) the United States over the past decade as each contributes to this agenda of renewal. In conclusion, I argue that the trend toward eschewing ‘applied’ ends is laudable and yet ambiguous. I suggest this trend may also be tied to the relative gender and racial uniformity of the authors, because what is frequently absent in this collection are the social and political concerns commonly voiced by more marginalized voices. (shrink)

How could the paradigm shift towards enactive embodied cognitive science have implications for society and politics? Translating insights form enactive embodied cognitive science into ways of dealing with real-life issues is an important challenge. This paper focuses of the urgent societal issue of social cohesion, which is crucial in our increasingly segregated and polarized Western societies. We use Rietveld’s philosophical Skilled Intentionality Framework and work by the multidisciplinary studio RAAAF to extend Lambros Malafouris’ Material Engagement Theory to the social domain. (...) How could a landscape of social affordances generate change in the behavioral patterns of people from different socio-cultural backgrounds? RAAAF is currently imagining and planning an ambitious intervention in the public domain that could really change existing socio-cultural practices and aims to contribute to social cohesion. An animation film it made introduces a landscape of social affordances. We will present and discuss this Trusted Strangers animation film, which is a thinking model for new public domain all over the world. Tha animation film visualizes how a well-designed landscape of social affordances could invite all sorts of interactions between people from different socio-cultural backgrounds. (shrink)

The disambiguation of a syntactically ambiguous sentence in favor of a less preferred parse can lead to slower reading at the disambiguation point. This phenomenon, referred to as a garden‐path effect, has motivated models in which readers initially maintain only a subset of the possible parses of the sentence, and subsequently require time‐consuming reanalysis to reconstruct a discarded parse. A more recent proposal argues that the garden‐path effect can be reduced to surprisal arising in a fully parallel parser: words consistent (...) with the initially dispreferred but ultimately correct parse are simply less predictable than those consistent with the incorrect parse. Since predictability has pervasive effects in reading far beyond garden‐path sentences, this account, which dispenses with reanalysis mechanisms, is more parsimonious. Crucially, it predicts a linear effect of surprisal: the garden‐path effect is expected to be proportional to the difference in word surprisal between the ultimately correct and ultimately incorrect interpretations. To test this prediction, we used recurrent neural network language models to estimate word‐by‐word surprisal for three temporarily ambiguous constructions. We then estimated the slowdown attributed to each bit of surprisal from human self‐paced reading times, and used that quantity to predict syntactic disambiguation difficulty. Surprisal successfully predicted the existence of garden‐path effects, but drastically underpredicted their magnitude, and failed to predict their relative severity across constructions. We conclude that a full explanation of syntactic disambiguation difficulty may require recovery mechanisms beyond predictability. (shrink)

We study the case of a Chinese industrial policy, implemented in Shanghai that makes it mandatory for car manufacturers to share electro-mechanical performance and real time navigation data from their entire fleet of electric and hybrid vehicles with local and central government authorities. This policy seeks to prevent fraud in state subsidies, reduce emissions, assess the performance of New Energy Vehicles and strengthen the competitiveness of Chinese manufacturers of these vehicles. We argue that economies of scope in data aggregation may (...) provide traditional market failure arguments in favor of government intervention and mandatory data pooling. Our paper illustrates how data access regimes could be used for economic competition. The EU and China pursue similar data sharing and pooling policy goals that hinge on economies of scope in data aggregation. However, they follow very different political processes to achieve these goals. (shrink)

Through case studies and examples of past and present development of energy sources, the story is told of the global energy industry. Energy, Economics, and Ethics wrestles with many of the difficult questions at the heart of the emerging global energy transition.

This volume draws together leading theologians and Christian ethicists from across the globe to critically engage with and reflect upon Gerald McKenny, widely acknowledged as one of the most original and important Christian ethicists working today. The essays highlight the significance of McKenny's interventions with a range of important debates in contemporary theological ethics, ranging from analyses of the Protestant conception of grace to bioethics and medicine. The Ethics of Grace is the first volume to facilitate critical engagements with a (...) number of key themes in McKenny's work, not in the least his interpretation of Karl Barth. Among the contributions, Jennifer Herdt discusses McKenny's Barthian interest in the relationship between nature and grace; Angela Carpenter uses his Barthian understanding of grace and human action as a framework to discuss Jonathan Edwards; Stanley Hauerwas pushes McKenny's theology beyond Barth. Economic, political, and technological themes are also discussed in depth, for instance in Robert Song's chapter on the phenomenology of biotechnological enhancement. Reaching far beyond the work of Gerald McKenny, this multifaceted volume is a high-level resource for students and scholars of theological and philosophical ethics. (shrink)

Peirce, Ch. S. Die Festlegung einer Überzeugung.--Peirce, Ch. S. Was heisst Pragmatismus?--James, W. Der Wille zum Glauben.--James, W. Der Wahrheitsbegriff des Pragmatismus.--Schiller, F. C. S. Humanismus.--Dewey, J. Pragmatismus und Pädagogik.

Computational models of memory are often expressed as hierarchic sequence models, but the hierarchies in these models are typically fairly shallow, reflecting the tendency for memories of superordinate sequence states to become increasingly conflated. This article describes a broad-coverage probabilistic sentence processing model that uses a variant of a left-corner parsing strategy to flatten sentence processing operations in parsing into a similarly shallow hierarchy of learned sequences. The main result of this article is that a broad-coverage model with constraints on (...) hierarchy depth can process large newspaper corpora with the same accuracy as a state-of-the-art parser not defined in terms of sequential working memory operations. (shrink)