In an Internet of Things (IoT) environment, IoT devices are typically connected through different network media types such as mobile, wireless and wired networks. Due to the pervasive nature of such devices, they are a potential evidence source in both civil litigation and criminal investigations. It is, however, challenging to identify and acquire forensic artefacts from a broad range of devices, which have varying storage and communication capabilities. Hence, in this paper, we first propose an IoT network architecture for the (...) forensic purpose that uses machine learning algorithms to autonomously detect IoT devices. Then we posit the importance of focusing on the links between different IoT devices (e.g. whether one device is controlled or can be accessed from another device in the system), and design an approach to do so. Specifically, our approach adopts a graph for modelling IoT communications’ message flows to facilitate the identification of correlated network traffic based on the direction of the network and the associated attributes. To demonstrate how such an approach can be deployed in practice, we provide a proof of concept using two IoT controllers to generate 480 commands for controlling two IoT devices in a smart home environment and achieve an accuracy rate of 98.3% for detecting the links between devices. We also evaluate the proposed autonomous discovering of IoT devices and their activities in a TCP network by using real-world measurements from a public dataset of a popular off-the-shelf smart home deployed in two different locations. We selected 39 out of 81 different IoT devices for this evaluation. (shrink)

"To be a philosopher and to be a feminist are one and the same thing. A feminist is a woman who does not allow anyone to think in her place."-from _Hipparchia's Choice_ A work of rare insight and irreverence, _Hipparchia's Choice_ boldly recasts the history of philosophy from the pre-Socratics to the post-Derrideans as one of masculine texts and male problems. The position of women, therefore, is less the result of a hypothetical "femininity" and more the fault of exclusion by (...) men. Nevertheless, women have been and continue to be drawn to "the exercise of thought." So how does a female philosopher become a conceptually adventurous woman? Focusing on the work of Sartre and Beauvoir (specifically, his sexism and her relation to it), Michèle Le Doeuff shows how women philosophers can reclaim a place for feminist concerns. Is _The Second Sex_ a work of philosophy, and, if so, what can it teach us about the relation of philosophy to experience? Now with a new epilogue, _Hipparchia's Choice_ points the way toward a discipline that is accountable to history, feminism, and society. (shrink)

Arguing for Atheism introduces a wide range of topics in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. Robin Le Poidevin does not simply defend a denial of God's existence; he presents instead a way of intepreting religious discourse which allows us to make sense of the role of religion in our spiritual and moral lives. Ideal as a textbook for university courses in the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, Arguing for Atheism is also designed to be accessible, in its style and (...) its numerous explanations, to the general reader. (shrink)

Individuals with trypophobia have an aversion towards clusters of roughly circular shapes, such as those on a sponge or the bubbles on a cup of coffee. It is unclear why the condition exists, given the harmless nature of typical eliciting stimuli. We suggest that aversion to clusters is an evolutionarily prepared response towards a class of stimuli that resemble cues to the presence of parasites and infectious disease. Trypophobia may be an exaggerated and overgeneralised version of this normally adaptive response. (...) Consistent with this explanation, individuals with trypophobia, as well as comparison individuals, reported aversion towards disease-relevant cluster stimuli, but only the trypophobic group reported aversion towards objectively harmless cluster stimuli that had no relevance to disease. For both groups the level of aversion reported was predicted uniquely by a measure of disgust sensitivity. Scaled emotion ratings and open-ended responses revealed that the aversive response was predominantly based on the disease avoidance emotion, disgust. Many open-ended responses also described skin sensations. These findings support the proposal that individuals with trypophobia primarily perceive cluster stimuli as cues to ectoparasites and skin-transmitted pathogens. (shrink)

A sequel to Levinas's Totality and Infinity, this work is generally considered Levinas's most important contribution to the contemporary debate surrounding the closure of metaphysical discourse, much commented upon by Jacques Derrida. This work contains a fundamentally original theory of the ethical relationship and describes the face-to-face relationship, sensibility, responsibility and speech. Renowned Levinas scholar Richard A. Cohen has contributed a new foreword to this edition of Otherwise than Being, which is also the first time the work is available in (...) an affordable paperback edition. This foreword, along with Alphonso Lingis's extensive introduction to the work, is a valuable tool for researchers and students of Levinas's philosophy. (shrink)

Printbegrænsninger: Der kan printes 1 kapitel eller op til 5% af teksten.

A classic source for understanding the connections between information theory and physics, this text was written by one of the giants of 20th-century physics and is appropriate for upper-level undergraduates and graduate students. Topics include the principles of coding, coding problems and solutions, the analysis of signals, a summary of thermodynamics, thermal agitation and Brownian motion, and thermal noise in an electric circuit. A discussion of the negentropy principle of information introduces the author's renowned examination of Maxwell's demon. Concluding chapters (...) explore the associations between information theory, the uncertainty principle, and physical limits of observation, in addition to problems related to computing, organizing information, and inevitable errors. 1962 ed. 81 figures. 14 tables. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas is one of the most original philosophers in the twentieth century. In this book, continuing his thought on obligation, he investigates the possibility that the word God can be understood now, at the end of the twentieth century, in a meaningful way. The thirteen essays collected in this volume offer an introduction to the wide range of Levinas's thought, addresses philosophical questions concerning politics, language and religion and the philosophies of, amongst others, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Marx and Derrida. The (...) essays also touch on the Marxist concept of ideology, death, hermeneutics, the concept of evil, the philosophy of dialogue, the relation of language to the Other, and the acts of communication and mutual understanding. Nine of the essays appear in English for the first time. (shrink)

Combining elements from Heidegger’s philosophy of “being-in-the-world” and the tradition of Jewish theology, Levinas has evolved a new type of ethics based on a concept of “the Other” in two different but complementary aspects. He describes his encounters with those philosophers and literary authors (most of them his contemporaries) whose writings have most significantly contributed to the construction of his own philosophy of “Otherness”: Agnon, Buber, Celan, Delhomme, Derrida, Jabès, Kierkegaard, Lacroix, Laporte, Picard, Proust, Van Breda, Wahl, and, most notably, (...) Blanchot. At the same time, Levinas’s own texts are inscriptions and documents of those encounters with “Others” around which his philosophy is turning. Thus the texts simultaneously convey an immediate experience of how his intellectual position emerged and how it is put into practice. A third potential function of the book is that it unfolds the network of references and persons in philosophical debates since Kierkegaard. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophers are increasingly turning to the work of Emmanuel Levinas to bring a consideration of ethics into their own thinking. As an exponent of the phenomenological tradition, Levinas ranks with Heidegger and Sartre; as a disciple of Husserl, he was one of the most independent and original interpreters, testifying to the fruitfulness of Husserl's phenomenology. In collecting almost all of Levinas's articles on Husserlian phenomenology, this volume gathers together a wealth of thoughtful exposition and interpretation by one of the (...) most important European philosophers of the twentieth century. Levinas's thought is relevant to a broad variety of disciplines and concerns. This volume serves as a reliable introduction for the beginning student, as well as satisfying the expert's more demanding and critical desire for insight into the complexities of Levinas's thought. (shrink)

This book brings together new essays on a major focus of debate in contemporary metaphysics: does time really pass, or is our ordinary experience of time as consisting of past, present, and future an illusion? The international contributors broaden this debate by demonstrating the importance of questions about the nature of time for philosophical issues in ethics, aesthetics, psychology, science, religion, and language.

Genre has been a critical issue in discourse analysis as well as in other disciplines. Based on a literature review of the concept of genre and taking judgments as one type of genre in legal settings, the present study provides a corpus-based insight into the nature of genre. The literature review per se reveals that genre has one typical feature of a sign, that is, being subject to multiple and alternative interpretations; in other words, genre as a sign may have (...) various interpretants. The present study unravels the actual generic structures, distinguishes different types of generic structures within the given genre, and then defines the dominant generic structure of judgments in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. This study also examines and contrasts the generic structure potential of judgments in each jurisdiction. In addition, the variation of Mainland China's judgments over time is briefly discussed. Comparing the generic structures of judgments among the three jurisdictions, as well as the structures of judgments in Mainland China over time, the paper argues that genre also has the essential features of a sign, that is, the characteristics of temporality and spatiality. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that Merleau-Ponty underpins an idea of differentiation without ultimate unification through intertwining. I trace this idea of intertwining to Phenomenology of Perception. I argue that what perception marks is already differentiation prior to any identification. For this purpose, firstly, I will introduce Merleau-Ponty’s depiction of intertwining; secondly, I will elaborate perception in Phenomenology of Perception; finally, I will discuss flesh as intertwining in The Visible and The Invisible.

Studies linking religion to CSR have produced conflicting findings due to a failure to draw distinctions among religious influences and different CSR practices, and to theorize their connection. Drawing on social identity theory and the theory of planned behavior, we first argue that religion will influence CSR when ethical values from a CEO’s religious social identification resonate with an aspect of CSR. Second, CEO attitudes congruent with those values and forms of CSR—interpersonal empathy and proactiveness—will strengthen that relationship. Third, the (...) relationship between religious social identification and CSR will be strengthened by a CEO’s ability to enact CSR policies, a function of personal and firm market power. Our research on 270 CEOs from 242 publicly traded US firms from 2007 to 2020 supports these relationships. (shrink)

Space tourism is an emerging field where few people have direct experience. However, considering the potential in the near future, it is beneficial to better understand how related information influences people’s attitudes about this new form of tourism. Employing information-processing-based Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics on a dataset of 361 respondents consuming content related to space tourism on Chinese social media, we found that induced happiness and impression are positively associated with willingness to try space tourism. Information authenticity positively moderates (...) these two associations. Our findings emphasize three aspects of information during the processes of reception and filtering: meaning, intensity, and trust. Since promotional materials for space tourism rely heavily on mental simulations rather than objective feedback, creative uses of digital technology are advantageous. However, precautions must be taken to prevent exploitation, such as false advertising, exaggeration, and emotional manipulation. (shrink)

Offers an exploration of what it means to be a Jew, rooted in the Talmudic tradition of argument and conflict.

Since 2013, Vietnam has implemented a plan to reform the whole education sector. However, there is little understanding on the status of educational research in Vietnam, which may lay the foundation for such plan. Thus, this research aims to analyze the whole picture of educational research from Vietnam, as seen from the Clarivate Web of Science (WOS) database: 215 publications were recorded, ranging from 1991 to 2018. These 215 publications were further analyzed from five perspectives: 1) number of publications by (...) year; 2) research fields and levels of education; 3) top institutions with the highest number of publications; 4) international collaboration; and 5) quality. Some of the most notable results are: 1) the educational sciences in Vietnam have been still under-developed until recently; 2) among different research topics research among educational sciences, some (e.g., Vocational Education and Training or Early Childhood Education) seemed to be overlooked whereas others (e.g., Higher Education and Teaching and Learning) seemed to receive more attention from educational scholars; 3) all the most major education – specialized universities did not appear among the top five institutions with highest number of publications; 4) Australia, Thailand, the USA, New Zealand and China were the countries with the highest number of co-publications with Vietnamese researchers; and 5) The majority of publications belonged to low-ranked journals. Implications would be withdrawn for Vietnamese policymakers, education leaders, educational researchers and teachers in order to adjust their policies and/or action plans; thus, enhancing the performance and impacts of educational research in the future. (shrink)

The nomenclature of the Anthropocene for this geological epoch marks in a novel way the global impact of human activity on the world. Consequently, it creatively raises the alarm bell of global environmental devastation. However, the narrative implicit in the Anthropocene presents challenges to use it as a departure point for developing an ethics of responsibility, as it contains morally relevant but ambiguous etiologies, phenomenological challenges to discrete human agency, and the potential erasure of both causes and victims of global (...) environmental degradation. This challenge compounds the challenges to traditional models of responsibility‐as‐imputation by global forms of environmental degradation signaled in the Anthropocene. Our new epoch demands new models of responsibility. This article draws upon neglected work by Paul Ricoeur to reconstruct a twofold model of responsibility: (1) responsibility‐as‐imputation and (2) responsibility for the fragile other and the domains that amplify fragility. It shows that a twofold model can more completely respond to harms elicited by anthropogenic environmental degradation by maintaining the benefits of traditional models of responsibility‐as‐accountability while dramatically expanding the subject and objects of responsibility through attention to the fragile and thus better serving us as we navigate responsibility in the Anthropocene. (shrink)

The violation of Bell inequalities seems to establish an important fact about the world: that it is non-local. However, this result relies on the assumption of the statistical independence of the measurement settings with respect to potential past events that might have determined them. Superdeterminism refers to the view that a local, and determinist, account of Bell inequalities violations is possible, by rejecting this assumption of statistical independence. We examine and clarify various problems with superdeterminism, looking in particular at its (...) consequences on the nature of scientific laws and scientific reasoning. We argue that the view requires a neo-Humean account of at least some laws, and creates a significant problem for the use of statistical independence in other parts of physics and science more generally. (shrink)

De A comme ADN à Z comme Zéro (risque), en passant par Cyborg, Evolution, Junk Science, mais aussi Experts, Lire à l'ère numérique ou Réalité virtuelle, cet abécédaire est une invitation à la rêverie comme à la réflexion : notre monde est pétri de sciences. Où l'on réalisera que penser notre avenir collectivement, à la lumière des progrès techniques, est aujourd'hui plus nécessaire que jamais. L'IHEST, l'Institut des hautes études pour la science et la technologie, milite depuis de nombreuses années (...) pour (re)mettre les sciences au coeur de nos sociétés, et avec elles les utopies dont elles sont porteuses. Pour la première fois, un livre rassemble plus de dix ans de travaux menés à son initiative : philosophes, scientifiques et journalistes abordent autant de questions techniques, éthiques, juridiques, économiques ou sociologiques, qui se posent à nous et à notre avenir... qui sera scientifique ou ne sera pas. (shrink)

The 18th century was a wealth of knowledge, exploration and rapidly growing technology and expanding record-keeping made possible by advances in the printing press. In its determination to preserve the century of revolution, Gale initiated a revolution of its own: digitization of epic proportions to preserve these invaluable works in the largest archive of its kind. Now for the first time these high-quality digital copies of original 18th century manuscripts are available in print, making them highly accessible to libraries, undergraduate (...) students, and independent scholars. Delve into what it was like to live during the eighteenth century by reading the first-hand accounts of everyday people, including city dwellers and farmers, businessmen and bankers, artisans and merchants, artists and their patrons, politicians and their constituents. Original texts make the American, French, and Industrial revolutions vividly contemporary. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++ British Library T100404 With a half-title. Anonymous. By P. P. F. J. H. Le Mercier de la Rivière. Possibly printed in Paris (or the Low Countries). Londres: chez Jean Nourse; & se trouve à Paris, chez Desaint, 1767. [2], vii, [1],511, [1]p.; 4°. (shrink)

One way of understanding the reduplicative formula ‘Christ is, qua God, omniscient, but qua man, limited in knowledge’ is to take the occurrences of the ‘ qua ’ locution as picking out different parts of Christ: a divine part and a human part. But this view of Christ as a composite being runs into paradox when combined with the orthodox understanding of the Incarnation, according to which Christ is identical to the second person of the Trinity. In response, we have (...) to choose between modifying the orthodox understanding, adopting a philosophically and theologically contentious perdurantist account of persistence through time, or rejecting altogether the idea of the composite Christ. (shrink)

According to a number of approaches in theoretical physics, spacetime does not exist fundamentally. Rather, spacetime exists by depending on another, more fundamental, non-spatiotemporal structure. A prevalent opinion in the literature is that this dependence should not be analyzed in terms of composition. We should not say, that is, that spacetime depends on an ontology of non-spatiotemporal entities in virtue of having them as parts. But is that really right? On the contrary, we argue that a mereological approach to dependent (...) spacetime is not only viable, but promises to enhance our understanding of the physical situation. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas (1905-1995) is at the center of the renewed debate over the question of the ethical. In the context of the phenomenological tradition, Levinas defines ethics as an originary response to the face of the other. Between 1982 and 1992, Levinas gave numerous interviews, closing a distinguished sixty-year career. Of the twenty interviews collected in this volume, seventeen appear in English for the first time. In the interviews Levinas sets forth the central features of his ethical philosophy. He underlies (...) his dedication to the phenomenological search for the concrete and the nonformal signification of alterity. He also elaborates on issues that do not receive extensive treatment in his formal philosophical works, including the question of pre-philosophical experiences, the ethical signification of money, justice, and the State. The informality of the interviews prompt Levinas to address matters about which he is reticent in his published works. (shrink)

'The Levinas Reader' collects, often for the first time in English, essays by Levinas encompassing every aspect of his thought: the early phenomenological studies written under the guidance and inspiration of Husserl and Heidegger; the fully developed ethical critique of such totalizing philosophies; the pioneering texts on the moral dimension to aesthetics; the rich and subtle readings of the Talmud which are an exemplary model of an ethical, transcendental philosophy at work; the admirable meditations on current political issues.

Reality and its shadow -- Freedom and command -- The ego and the totality -- Philosophy and the idea of infinity -- Phenomenon and enigma -- Meaning and sense -- Language and proximity -- Humanism and an-archy -- No identity -- God and philosophy -- Transcendence and evil.

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (French: Psychologie des Foules; literally: Psychology of Crowds) is a book authored by Gustave Le Bon that was first published in 1895. In the book, Le Bon claims that there are several characteristics of crowd psychology: "impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgement of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of sentiments, and others. Le Bon claimed that "an individual immersed for some length of time in a crowd soon finds himself (...) - either in consequence of magnetic influence given out by the crowd or from some other cause of which we are ignorant - in a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotized individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotizer. (shrink)

Over the last decade, businesses, policymakers, and researchers alike have advocated the need for value creation through inter-organizational collaboration. Researchers have widely argued that organizations that are engaged in collaborative processes create value. Because researchers have tended to focus on the identification of organizational motivations and on key success factors for collaboration, however, both the nature and processes of value creation in inter-organizational collaboration have yet to be examined. A recent theory by Austin and Seitanidi :726–758, 2012a; Nonprofit Volunt Sect (...) Q 41:929–968, 2012b) has proposed an analytical framework for analyzing value creation in inter-organizational collaboration, based on four types of value. The purpose of this current study is to empirically test this framework, and to provide key pointers for analyzing the nature of value, particularly in relation to learning. Our detailed empirical research is based on a 6-year retrospective case study of an inter-organizational partnership within an international development project for local economic development in Guatemala. The study’s contributions are twofold. First, it provides evidence of the critical path of the creation of diverse types of values in a collaborative process; second, it links the different types of value creation with the types of learning that occur in an inter-organizational process. (shrink)

In their logical analysis of theorems about disjoint rays in graphs, Barnes, Shore, and the author (hereafter BGS) introduced a weak choice scheme in second-order arithmetic, called the $\Sigma ^1_1$ axiom of finite choice (hereafter finite choice). This is a special case of the $\Sigma ^1_1$ axiom of choice ( $\Sigma ^1_1\text {-}\mathsf {AC}_0$ ) introduced by Kreisel. BGS showed that $\Sigma ^1_1\text {-}\mathsf {AC}_0$ suffices for proving many of the aforementioned theorems in graph theory. While it is not known (...) if these implications reverse, BGS also showed that those theorems imply finite choice (in some cases, with additional induction assumptions). This motivated us to study the proof-theoretic strength of finite choice. Using a variant of Steel forcing with tagged trees, we show that finite choice is not provable from the $\Delta ^1_1$ -comprehension scheme (even over $\omega $ -models). We also show that finite choice is a consequence of the arithmetic Bolzano–Weierstrass theorem (introduced by Friedman and studied by Conidis), assuming $\Sigma ^1_1$ -induction. Our results were used by BGS to show that several theorems in graph theory cannot be proved using $\Delta ^1_1$ -comprehension. Our results also strengthen results of Conidis. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

How should state schools respond to the plurality of values in a multicultural society? The liberal response has been that it is unacceptable to promote only the traditional, mainstream values of dominant groups and impose them on others. During the 1980s this response gradually evolved into an ideology of extreme subjectivism, commonly referred to as cultural relativism. This ideology is rejected and it is argued that the school must make crucial judgements about which values should be promoted, tolerated or condemned.

En s'inscrivant dans une problématique posée par Pierre Schaeffer à propos d'une utilisation des moyens de communication au profit de groupes sociaux d'intérêts communs, cet article présente les conditions d'émergence et de fonctionnement des réseaux spécifiques de communication sociale à partir de l'exemple concret de la radio Antélim, et il s'interroge sur une éventuelle préfiguration d'Internet. Dans un premier temps, un rappel des théorisations, recherches et expériences, menées au cours des années 1960-1970, dégagera les conditions d'une communication participative, interactive et (...) multipolaire, modèle alternatif à celui, dominant, des mass média. Puis, l'étude de l'expérimentation d'Antélim menée en France entre 1978 et 1985 avec le milieu de la marine marchande mettra en lumière l'origine du projet, sa mise en oeuvre et présentera une évaluation de l'expérience. Enfin, la question de la préfiguration d'Internet par ces réseaux spécifiques de communication sociale via la radio sera posée pour tenter de définir des parallèles possibles entre ces deux dispositifs.By entering in a problem posed by Pierre Schaeffer about a use of means of communication for the benefit of groups of common interests, this article presents the conditions for the emergence and operation of specific networks of social communication from the example of the radio Antélim, and he wondered about a possible forerunner of the Internet. At first, a reminder of the theories, research and experiments, conducted in the years 1960-1970, will identify the conditions for participatory communication, interactive and multipolar alternative model to the dominant, mass media. Then, the study of Antélim experimentation conducted in France between 1978 and 1985 with the middle of the Merchant will highlight the origin of the project, its implementation and present an evaluation of the experience. Finally, the question of the forerunner of the Internet by these specific networks of social communication via the radio will be asked to try to identify possible parallels between these two devices. (shrink)

Space and time are the most fundamental features of our experience of the world, and yet they are also the most perplexing. Does time really flow, or is that simply an illusion? Did time have a beginning? What does it mean to say that time has a direction? Does space have boundaries, or is it infinite? Is change really possible? Could space and time exist in the absence of any objects or events? What, in the end, are space and time? (...) Do they really exist, or are they simply the constructions of our minds? Robin Le Poidevin provides a clear, witty, and stimulating introduction to these deep questions and many other mind-boggling puzzles and paradoxes. He gives a vivid sense of the difficulties raised by our ordinary ideas about space and time, but he also gives us the basis to think about these problems independently, avoiding large amounts of jargon and technicality. His book is an invitation to think philosophically rather than a sustained argument for particular conclusions, but Le Poidevin does advance and defend a number of controversial views. He argues, for example, that time does not actually flow, that it is possible for space and time to be both finite and yet be without boundaries, and that causation is the key to an understanding of one of the deepest mysteries of time: its direction. Drawing on a variety of vivid examples from science, history, and literature, Travels in Four Dimensions brings to life some of the most profound questions imaginable. (shrink)

Extant literature suggests a positive correlation between social trust (also called generalized trust) and life satisfaction. However, the psychological pathways underlying this relationship can be complex. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we examined the influence of social trust in a high-violence environment. Employing Bayesian analysis on a sample of 1237 adults in Cali, Colombia, we found that in a linear relationship, generalized trust is positively associated with life satisfaction. However, in a model including the interactions between trust and education (...) level as well as between trust and socioeconomic status, generalized trust is found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. In this non-linear relationship, both education level and socioeconomic status have moderating effects against the negative association between generalized trust and life satisfaction. In other words, less educated people living in worse socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have lower life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. In contrast, highly educated people living in better socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have higher life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. Due to the facilitating function of trust in information processing, lowering the rigor of the filtering system in a high-violence social environment will likely put an individual at risk. Based on our findings, we suggest that policymakers should consider the impacts of social contexts when advocating for increasing social trust. We also recommend that researchers carefully examine the psychological mechanism underlying an observed association before making suggestions for policymaking. (shrink)

Precognition is an anomaly in information transmission and interpretation. Extant literature suggests that paranormal beliefs and gender may have significant influences on this unknown information process. This study examines the effects of these two factors, including their interactions, on precognition performance by employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics. Using Bayesian analysis on secondary data of 60 participants, we found that men may have higher chances to score a hit in a precognition task compared to women. Interestingly, stronger beliefs in (...) the paranormal may decrease the success probability in performing precognition tasks. Considering the interactions between the two factors, the effect of paranormal beliefs on precognition task performance is stronger in men than women. Using mindsponge-based reasoning, we argue that paranormal beliefs may increase the interference of imagination in the reception of hypothetical precognitive information. Women tend to rely more on intuition, which may lessen the interference effect of imagination on hypothetical psi reception. Based on the findings, we suggest that researchers should be careful when assessing participants’ psi potential for experiments. We also demonstrate some advantages of utilizing the BMF in parapsychological research. (shrink)

Photographs, paintings, rigid sculptures: all these provide examples of static images. It is true that they change—photographs fade, paintings darken and sculptures crumble—but what change they undergo is irrelevant to their representational content. A static image is one that represents by virtue of properties which remain largely unchanged throughout its existence. Because of this defining feature, according to a long tradition in aesthetics, a static image can only represent an instantaneous moment, or to be more exact the state of affairs (...) obtaining at that moment'. It cannot represent movement and the passage of time. This traditional view mirrors a much older one in metaphysics: that change is to be conceived of as a series of instantaneous states and hence that an interval of time is composed of extensionless moments. The metaphysical view has been involved in more controversy than its aesthetic counterpart. Aristotle identified it as one of the premises of Zeno's arrow paradox and Augustine employed it in his proof of the unreality of time. (shrink)

According to presentism, only the present exists. The view is in a bad dialectical situation since it has to face several objections based on physics and a priori arguments. The view remains nonetheless popular because it is, allegedly, more intuitive than alternative views, namely eternalism (past, present and future entities exist) and no-futurism (only past and present entities exist). In the essay, I shall not discuss whether intuitivity is an accurate criterion for ontological enquiry. I will rather argue that any (...) philosophically acceptable version of presentism entails highly counterintuitive consequences. Indeed, the presentist has to commit herself to substantial claims in order to provide an answer to two problems : the grounding problem and the cross-temporal relations problem. Therefore, if the main motivation for presentism is the willingness to stick with common sense intuitions, presentists should consider endorsing another view about existence in time. (shrink)

Extant literature suggests a positive correlation between social trust (also called generalized trust) and life satisfaction. However, the psychological pathways underlying this relationship can be complex. Using the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), we examined the influence of social trust in a high-violence environment. Employing Bayesian analysis on a sample of 1237 adults in Cali, Colombia, we found that in a linear relationship, generalized trust is positively associated with life satisfaction. However, in a model including the interactions between trust and education (...) level as well as between trust and socioeconomic status, generalized trust is found to be negatively associated with life satisfaction. In this non-linear relationship, both education level and socioeconomic status have moderating effects against the negative association between generalized trust and life satisfaction. In other words, less educated people living in worse socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have lower life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. In contrast, highly educated people living in better socioeconomic conditions are more likely to have higher life satisfaction when they have higher levels of social trust. Due to the facilitating function of trust in information processing, lowering the rigor of the filtering system in a high-violence social environment will likely put an individual at risk. Based on our findings, we suggest that policymakers should consider the impacts of social contexts when advocating for increasing social trust. We also recommend that researchers carefully examine the psychological mechanism underlying an observed association before making suggestions for policymaking. (shrink)

Important features of space and time are taken to be missing in quantum gravity, allegedly requiring an explanation of the emergence of spacetime from non-spatio-temporal theories. In this paper, we argue that the explanatory gap between general relativity and non-spatio- temporal quantum gravity theories might significantly be reduced with two moves. First, we point out that spacetime is already partially missing in the context of general relativity when understood from a dynamical perspective. Second, we argue that most approaches to quantum (...) gravity already start with an in-built distinction between structures to which the asymmetry between space and time can be traced back. (shrink)

I will defend two claims. First, Schaffer's priority monism is in tension with many research programs in quantum gravity. Second, priority monism can be modified into a view more amenable to this physics. The first claim is grounded in the fact that promising approaches to quantum gravity such as loop quantum gravity or string theory deny the fundamental reality of spacetime. Since fundamental spacetime plays an important role in Schaffer's priority monism by being identified with the fundamental structure, namely the (...) cosmos, the disappearance of spacetime in these views might undermine classical priority monism. My second claim is that priority monism can avoid this issue with two moves: first, in dropping one of its core assumptions, namely that the fundamental structure is spatio-temporal, second, by identifying the connection between the non-spatio-temporal structure and the derivative spatio-temporal structure with mereological composition. (shrink)

Instead of simply defending a denial of God's existence Le Poidevin presents instead a way of interpreting religious discourse which allows us to make sense of the role of religion in our spiritual and moral lives.

ABSTRACT John Wilson argued, in a recent paper, that equality of opportunity is neither coherent nor reasonable. It seems that we can better understand Wilson's points If we distinguish between what one might call perfect equality of opportunity and greater equality of opportunity. Further, the familiar notions of formal opportunity and substantive opportunity still seem crucial to an understanding of the issues.

ObjectiveTo explore the effect of modified constraint-induced movement therapy on upper limbs residual dysfunction for infancy with the sequelas of unilateral brachial plexus injury.MethodsSingle blind randomized controlled trial of mCIMT vs. standard care. An enrolling 31 infants with a uBPI exhibiting residual dysfunction of the affected upper limb for over 6 months was conducted. And functional outcomes pertaining to the affected upper limb were assessed via AMS, GRES, RHS, and MSS at 0, 3, and 6 months after treatment.ResultsNo differences were (...) found in baseline AMS, MSS, GRES, or RHS between the control and mCIMT groups [F = 0.062, P = 0.086; F = 0.483, P = 0.499; F = 0.272, P = 0.610; Z = −0.336, P = 7.373]. At the 3- and 6-month follow-up time points, AMS, MSS, and GRES scores were significantly improved over baseline in both groups [mCIMT: F = 183.750, 128.614, 110.085, P < 0.05; Control: F = 204.007, 75.246, 51.070, P < 0.05]. No significant differences were found between two treatment groups at the 3-month follow-up time point [F = 0.565, P = 0.465; F = 0.228, P = 0.641; F = 0.713, P = 0.413; Z = −0.666, P = 0.505]. However, at the 6-month follow-up time point, AMS and MSS scores were significantly improved in the mCIMT group relative to the control group [F = 8.077, P = 0.013; F = 18.692, P = 0.001].ConclusionmCIMT may benefit the rehabilitation of residual upper limb dysfunction associated with a uBPI in infants.Clinical Trial Registration[www.chictr.org.cn], identifier [ChiCTR1900022119]. (shrink)

Spacetime functionalism is the view that spacetime is a functional structure implemented by a more fundamental ontology. Lam and Wüthrich have recently argued that spacetime functionalism helps to solve the epistemological problem of empirical coherence in quantum gravity and suggested that it also (dis)solves the hard problem of spacetime, namely the problem of offering a picture consistent with the emergence of spacetime from a non-spatio-temporal structure. First, I will deny that spacetime functionalism solves the hard problem by showing that it (...) comes in various species, each entailing a different attitude towards, or answer to, the hard problem. Second, I will argue that the existence of an explanatory gap, which grounds the hard problem, has not been correctly taken into account in the literature. (shrink)