This article advocates further examination of the role decay aesthetics can play in artificial life (ALife or AL) and art. Opening with the poetics of decay and the shadow that decay taboo has cast in western culture, firstly, we reframe decay as a constructive process of transformation. Secondly, we perform a brief historical survey of early artistic developments in the field of ALife, assessing how these early works addressed decay. We follow with a deeper analysis of contemporary artists through a (...) lens of decay and decomposition, identifying new tendencies of ALife art (deep time simulation, slime intelligence, molecular agents, techno resurrection and ecohybridized computation). Finally, we look to the peripheries of ALife to see how decay is rendered in current technical research and examine these projects with an eye for turbulent production in the form of ‘decaying’ matter. We conclude with a number of open questions on decomposition and decay aesthetics, both within the artistic and technical realms of ALife. (shrink)

During the first two years of human life a common neural substrate underlies the hierarchical organization of elements in the development of speech as well as the capacity to combine objects manually, including tool use. Subsequent cortical differentiation, beginning at age two, creates distinct, relatively modularized capacities for linguistic grammar and more complex combination of objects. An evolutionary homologue of the neural substrate for language production and manual action is hypothesized to have provided a foundation for the evolution of language (...) before the divergence of the hominids and the great apes. Support comes from the discovery of a Broca's area homologue and related neural circuits in contemporary primates. In addition, chimpanzees have an identical constraint on hierarchical complexity in both tool use and symbol combination. Their performance matches that of the two-year-old child who has not yet developed the neural circuits for complex grammar and complex manual combination of objects. (shrink)

During the past four decades, China has gone through rapid urbanization and modernization. As people adapt to dramatic sociodemographic shifts from rural communities to urban centers and as economic level rises, individualistic cultural values in China have increased. Meanwhile, parent and child behavior in early childhood has also evolved accordingly to match a more individualistic society. This mixed-method study investigated how social change in China may have impacted parenting goals and child development in middle childhood, as seen through the eyes (...) of the current generation of mothers. Thirty mothers of fifth-grade elementary school students from Shenzhen, China were recruited and took part in semi-structured interviews. Participants answered questions and provided examples about their children’s life, their own childhood, and the perceived differences between the two generations. Participating mothers were also asked to rate which generation, themselves or their parents, cared more about the childrearing goals of academic competitiveness and socioemotional well-being. Using both qualitative and quantitative analysis, we expected and found an intergenerational increase in the perceived value mothers placed on individualistic traits: current mothers care more about their children’s academic competitiveness, personal happiness, and social adjustment, compared to their experience of their own mothers’ attitudes during their childhood a generation earlier. They also experience conflict between their children’s academic competitiveness and socioemotional well-being. As a function of both urbanization and increased economic means, children’s collectivistic family responsibilities for essential household chores have declined as the importance of schoolwork has increased. (shrink)

After more than a decade Alexandre Métraux is leaving his post as a co-editor of Science in Context and will remain as a member of the editorial board.

The purpose of this study is twofold. The first objective is to examine the impact of an individual’s ethical ideology and level of professional commitment on the earnings management decision. The second objective is to observe whether the presence of a personal benefit affects an individual’s ethical orientation or professional commitment within the context of an opportunity to manage earnings. Using a sample of 375 undergraduate business majors, our results suggest a significant relationship between an individual’s ethical orientation and decision-making. (...) Further, participants with higher levels of professional commitment seem to be less likely to engage in earnings management behavior and less likely to behave opportunistically. These results have the potential to add to our understanding of certain behaviors in entry-level personnel and should be of interest to managers, practitioners, academicians, and researchers. (shrink)

How do our personalities and mental processes, our " states of consciousness" , derive from a gray mass of tissue with the consistency of a soft-boiled egg? How can mere molecules constitute an idea or emotion? Some of the most important questions we can ask are about our own consciousness. Our personalities, our individuality, indeed our whole reason for living, lie in the brain and in the elusive phenomenon of consciousness it generates. Thinkers in many disciplines have long struggled with (...) such questions, often in ways that have seemed incompatible, if not downright contradictory. Philosophers have meditated on the subjective experience of consciousness, with little attention to the physical realm, while scientists have sought to establish a causal relation between brain function and mind, often ignoring the qualitative aspects of experience. In Journey to the Centers of the Mind, neuroscientist Susan Greenfield offers an intriguing, unifying theory of consciousness that encompasses both phenomenological mental events and physical aspects of brain function. Using information gathered from clues in animal behavior, human brain damage, computer science, neurobiology, and philosophy, Greenfield offers a " concentric theory" of consciousness, and shows how certain events in the brain correspond to our qualitative experience of the world. Demonstrating the ways in which we can interpret the experience of consciousness in terms of interactions among neurons, she explores how much we can learn by continuing to find the links between our physical and mental inner worlds. (shrink)

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

The theme of this paper is that people in Northeast Brazil refuse to let a good person who helped them during his (or her) lifetime die. They do this through several of the religious traditions practiced in the region. Beings, human and other, now in another plane of reality established in modern thinking, cross the conceptual divide and return through mediums or other intermediaries to heal the living. We examine two religious traditions, “folk” or “popular” Catholicism and Kardecist‐Spiritism, focusing on (...) the spirit of Argeu Hebster, a medical doctor who lived in the municipality of Marangaupe in the state of Ceará until his death in 1977. The return of the doctor is told in stories told to the authors while doing ethnography that provide the data used in analyzing the enchanted worlds of the two religions. (shrink)

Background A significant number of women experience childbirth as traumatic. These experiences are often characterised by a loss of control coupled with a perceived lack of support and inadequate communication with health care professionals. Little is known about the choices women make in subsequent pregnancy(s) and birth(s), or why they make these choices. This study aimed to understand these choices and explore the reasons behind them. Methods A longitudinal Grounded Theory Methods (GTM) study involving 9 women was conducted. Over half (...) of the participants had a formal diagnosis of PTSD and/or PND related to the previous birth. Interviews were carried out at 3 timepoints perinatally. These findings are from the first interviews at 12-20 weeks. Results From the first days of pregnancy, this cohort of women were focused on concerns that this birth would be a repeated traumatic experience. The women were deliberately searching out and analysing information about their choices in this pregnancy and birth, and making plans which had two aims; firstly to avoid a repeat of their previous birth experience, and secondly to avoid a loss of control to other people during the birth. The women considered a range of birth choices, from elective caesareans to freebirth. Some women felt well supported by those around them, including health care professionals, partners, friends and family. Others did not, and were anticipating conflict in trying to assert their birth choices. Many early relationships with health care professionals were characterised by fear and mistrust. Discussion Women who have previously experienced a traumatic birth become pregnant again, have a strong desire to avoid a repeat experience and to feel in control of their birth choices. Access to robust information appears to help reduce uncertainty and arm women in their discussions with professionals. Similarly making plans and seeking to have them agreed with health care professionals at an early stage is used a way to reduce the risk of having a further traumatic experience. Implications for practice include supporting women in formulating and confirming pregnancy and birth plans at an early stage to reduce uncertainty and foster a sense of control. (shrink)

The target article presented a model to stimulate further research and ultimately, a more definitive theory of the ontogeny and phylogeny of hierarchically organized sequential activity. Methodologically, it was intended to stimulate methods for integrating data from different neuropsychological techniques. This response to Givon and Swann focuses on several substantive areas: the role of automaticity in hierarchically organized activity and its neural substrate, the neural ontogeny of planning, cognitive and neural architecture for language functions, and the role of environmental input (...) and interaction in the ontogeny and phylogeny of language, tools, and brain. (shrink)

Victor Turner's view of pilgrimage is reexamined and questioned using data collected at the shrine to Saint Francis of Assisi in Canindi, a small town in northeast Brazil. Turner's view of pilgrimage as a liminal state in which the pilgrim is out of structure is summarized in terms of his major theoretical assumptions and objectives. The shrine in Canindé and the pilgrimage there are described. Pilgrimage is examined in terms of the symbolic assumptions of Brazilian "Popular" Catholicism and culture. The (...) author shows it to be a product of a relationship between the pilgrim and the saint in which the pilgrimage is made in fulfillment of a promise made. The pilgrim to Canindi, and other shrines in Brazil, is shown to be fulfilling the obligations of a patron‐client type of exchange with the saint and consequently not out of structure. The author concludes that the patron‐client exchange imagery is better suited to the analysis of pilgrimage in Brazil and Latin America than Turner's view of liminality. (shrink)

The concept of a 'Singularity' is particularly intriguing as it is draws not just on philosophical but also neuroscientific issues. As a neuroscientist, perhaps my best contribution here therefore, would be to provide some reality checks against the elegant and challenging philosophical arguments set out by Chalmers. Aconvenient framework for addressing the points he raises will be to give my personal scientific take on the three basic questions summarised in the Conclusions section.

James Ashbrook is described as a negotiator in the sense of arbitration and pathbreaking, followed by an account of how he achieved a new way of “making sense” in his neurotheology. Questions are raised about what is distinctly theological about Ashbrook's effort and how the issue of human and divine will is treated. Ashbrook provides inspiration and model for scientifically‐based religious inquiry.

Discourse on communities and aging traditionally has focused on the availability, accessibility, and quality of local services to support older adults in need of assistance. More recently, however, a growing worldwide “age‐friendly” movement has pushed the conceptualization of community supports for an aging society beyond service provision. The term “age friendly” is used in considering how various aspects of a community facilitate or impede the health and well‐being of individuals as they experience long lives.Frameworks on age friendliness include attention to (...) health and community services for older adults but also encompass other aspects of communities, such as the physical design of outdoor spaces and buildings, the diversity of mobility options for drivers and nondrivers alike, and the availability of safe, affordable, and various types of housing. Age‐friendly frameworks also highlight how the very social fabric of a community can influence older residents’ quality of life. Over the past decade, a growing number of cities and communities have launched age‐friendly initiatives as organized and comprehensive efforts to make localities better for residents as they age. This essay begins to explore how AFIs can address social inequalities in health and aging. It concludes by describing how embedding a spatial justice lens within age‐friendly efforts could help AFIs realize more fully the changes that they seek to create at the local, national, and global levels. (shrink)

Ronan Reilly's connectionist simulation both strengthens and advances the theoretical model presented in my 1991 target article, “Language, Tools, and Brain: The Ontogeny and Phylogeny of Hierarchically Organized Sequential Behavior.” Reilly has tested the whole ontogenetic model with a single simulation study explicitly planned for this purpose. His methodology has established that the various components of the theoretical model imply and are compatible with one another. It has also indicated how learning can actualize a pre-established ontogenetic sequence of combining lingusitic (...) symbols and objects. His simulation suggests that the acquisition of linguistic speech may be facilitated by experience with object manipulation, but not vice versa. This hypothesis can and should be empirically tested through research on behavioral development in the two domains. Finally, Reilly has simulated brain architecture, as well as neural learning. His simulation therefore shows how the development of language and object manipulation can result from an interaction between preprogrammed neural architecture (analogous to network architecture) and experience (analogous to the network's training cycles). (shrink)

Ecstasy, Ritual, and Alternate Reality: Religion in. Pluralistic World by Felicitas D. Goodman. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana.University Press, 1988. Pp. 193. ISBN 0‐253‐31899‐8.