Life Is Short--Art Is Shorter is not just the first anthology to gather both mini-essays and short-short stories; readers, writers, and teachers will get will get an anthology; a course's worth of writing exercises; a rally for compression, concision, and velocity in an increasingly digital, post-religious age; and a meditation on the brevity of human existence. 1. We are mortal beings. 2. There is no god. 3. We live in a digital culture. 4. Art is related to the body and (...) to the culture. 5. Art should reflect these things. 6. Brevity rules. The book's 40 contributors include Donald Barthelme, Kate Chopin, Lydia Davis, Annie Dillard, Jonathan Safran Foer, Barry Hannah, Amy Hempel, Jamaica Kincaid, Wayne Koestenbaum, Anne Lamott, Daphne Merkin, Rick Moody, Dinty W. Moore, George Orwell, Jayne Anne Phillips, George Saunders, Lauren Slater, James Tate, and Paul Theroux. (shrink)

An inspiring collection of the personal philosophies of a fascinating group of individuals Based on the NPR series of the same name, This I Believe features eighty essays penned by the famous and the unknown—completing the thought that the book’s title begins. Each piece compels readers to rethink not only how they have arrived at their own personal beliefs but also the extent to which they share them with others. Featuring a star-studded list of contributors—including Isabel Allende, John Updike, William (...) F. Buckley, Warren Christopher, Penn Jillette, Colin Powell, Rick Moody, and Kay Redfield Jameson—the collection also contains essays by a Brooklyn lawyer; a part-time hospital clerk in Rehoboth, Massachusetts; a woman who sells yellow pages advertising in Fort Worth, Texas; and a man who serves on the state of Rhode Island’s parole board. The result is a stirring, funny, and always provocative trip inside the minds and hearts of a diverse group of Americans whose beliefs—and the incredibly varied ways in which they choose to express them—reveal the American spirit at its best. (shrink)

Learn the tips and tricks used by a top photographer in the digital photography industry in Rick Sammon's Top Digital Photography Secrets. Filled with beautiful photographs and the techniques Rick Sammon used to capture them, this book offers you motivation to capture stunning photographs and the tools and tricks you need to capture them. With more than 100 techniques for use behind the camera, this book will improve the camera skills of both amateur and experienced photographers. Additionally, this (...) book includes a chapter on post-production secrets, and a Rick Sammon DVD Guide lighting, camera, and digital photography basics. In this 1-hour DVD, Rick shows you how to get great photos using a variety of lighting sources, camera-specific techniques, and basic rules of photography. (shrink)

The emulation theory of representation is developed and explored as a framework that can revealingly synthesize a wide variety of representational functions of the brain. The framework is based on constructs from control theory (forward models) and signal processing (Kalman filters). The idea is that in addition to simply engaging with the body and environment, the brain constructs neural circuits that act as models of the body and environment. During overt sensorimotor engagement, these models are driven by efference copies in (...) parallel with the body and environment, in order to provide expectations of the sensory feedback, and to enhance and process sensory information. These models can also be run off-line in order to produce imagery, estimate outcomes of different actions, and evaluate and develop motor plans. The framework is initially developed within the context of motor control, where it has been shown that inner models running in parallel with the body can reduce the effects of feedback delay problems. The same mechanisms can account for motor imagery as the off-line driving of the emulator via efference copies. The framework is extended to account for visual imagery as the off-line driving of an emulator of the motor-visual loop. I also show how such systems can provide for amodal spatial imagery. Perception, including visual perception, results from such models being used to form expectations of, and to interpret, sensory input. I close by briefly outlining other cognitive functions that might also be synthesized within this framework, including reasoning, theory of mind phenomena, and language. Key Words: efference copies; emulation theory of representation; forward models; Kalman filters; motor control; motor imagery; perception; visual imagery. (shrink)

This paper shows that moral progress is a substantive and plausible idea. Moral progress in belief involves deepening our grasp of existing moral concepts, while moral progress in practices involves realizing deepened moral understandings in behavior or social institutions. Moral insights could not be assimilated or widely disseminated if they involved devising and applying totally new moral concepts. Thus, it is argued, moral failures of past societies cannot be explained by appeal to ignorance of new moral ideas, but must be (...) understood as resulting from refusals to subject social practices to critical scrutiny. Moral philosophy is not the main vehicle for disseminating morally progressive insights, though it has an important role in processes that lead to moral progress. Yet we have grounds for cautious optimism, since progressive moral insights can be disseminated and can, sometimes, have constructive social effects. (shrink)

b>: In this article I outline, apply, and defend a theory of natural representation. The main consequences of this theory are: i) representational status is a matter of how physical entities are used, and specifically is not a matter of causation, nomic relations with the intentional object, or information; ii) there are genuine (brain-)internal representations; iii) such representations are really representations, and not just farcical pseudo-representations, such as attractors, principal components, state-space partitions, or what-have-you;and iv) the theory allows us to (...) sharply distinguish those complex behaviors which are genuinely cognitive from those which are merely complex and adaptive. (shrink)

b>: The problem of how physical systems, such as brains, come to represent themselves as subjects in an objective world is addressed. I develop an account of the requirements for this ability that draws on and refines work in a philosophical tradition that runs from Kant through Peter Strawson to Gareth Evans. The basic idea is that the ability to represent oneself as a subject in a world whose existence is independent of oneself involves the ability to represent space, and (...) in particular, to represent oneself as one object among others in an objective spatial realm. In parallel, I provide an account of how this ability, and the mechanisms that support it, are realized neurobiologically. This aspect of the article draws on, and refines, work done in the neurobiology and psychology of egocentric and allocentric spatial representation. (shrink)

Children, the image of the child, and the gendered figures of the girl and the boy are thematics that run through the work of Deleuze and feature prominently in his joint writing with Guattari. However, there are many different children in Deleuze's writings. Various child figures do distinct things in Deleuze's work. In this article, I argue that his work on children can be utilized to rethink popular, teleological notions of childhood and growing up.

This brief commentary has three goals. The first is to argue that ‘‘framework debate’’ in cognitive science is unresolvable. The idea that one theory or framework can singly account for the vast complexity and variety of cognitive processes seems unlikely if not impossible. The second goal is a consequence of this: We should consider how the various theories on offer work together in diverse contexts of investigation. A final goal is to supply a brief review for readers who are compelled (...) by these points to explore existing literature on the topic. Despite this literature, pluralism has garnered very little attention from broader cognitive science. We end by briefly considering what it might mean for theoretical cognitive science. (shrink)

The Early Dialectics Within Husserl's Transcendental Phenomenology Rick Sprague. with me the very categories of thought I wish to understand critically. Thus coming to awareness must be coming to know the knowing with which I began.

A number of recent attempts to bridge Husserlian phenomenology of time consciousness and contemporary tools and results from cognitive science or computational neuroscience are described and critiqued. An alternate proposal is outlined that lacks the weaknesses of existing accounts.

The work is an attempt to answer the transcendental question, "How is progress in philosophy possible?" The character of philosophical beliefs and doubts is examined, and it is argued that in the exigent context of philosophical practice in the agonistic analytic tradition, a certain limited doxastic voluntarism is possible. The role of both ordinary and ideal language intuitions is criticized; it is concluded that these cannot serve as uncontroversial pretheoretical givens of inquiry. As an extended example of the covert adoption (...) of strategies of prescriptive idealization, several theories of meaning are reviewed. A model of philosophical inquiry based upon the notion of transcendental arguments is profferred. This is derived from both Kantian and Peircean antecedents, via the synthesizing efforts of Karl-Otto Apel. Finally, three senses of "progress" are distinguished and several alternative models of philosophical inquiry are assessed in the light of these distinctions. It is concluded that the sort of progress appropriate to philosophy, seen collectively, is non-terminating and non-decidable, relying upon negative consensus generating mechanisms, thus assuring perpetual pluralism. (shrink)

Profinite groups are Galois groups. The effective study of infinite Galois groups was initiated by Metakides and Nerode [8] and further developed by LaRoche [5]. In this paper we study profinite groups without considering Galois extensions of fields. The Artin method of representing a finite group as a Galois group has been generalized by Waterhouse [14] to profinite groups. Thus, there is no loss of relevance in our approach.The fundamental notions of a co-r.e. profinite group, recursively profinite group, and the (...) degree of a co-r.e. profinite group are defined in §1. In this section we prove that every co-r.e. profinite group can be effectively represented as an inverse limit of finite groups. The degree invariant is shown to behave very well with respect to open subgroups and quotients. The work done in this section is basic to the rest of the paper.The commutator subgroup, the Frattini subgroup, thep-Sylow subgroups, and the center of a profinite group are essential in the study of profinite groups. It is only natural to ask if these subgroups are effective. The following question exemplifies our approach to this problem: Is the center a co-r.e. profinite group? Theorem 2 provides a general method for answering this type of question negatively. Examples 3,4 and 5 are all applications of this theorem. (shrink)

[1] It is well-known that Evans laid the groundwork for a truly radical and fruitful theory of _content_ -- a theory according to which content is a genus with at least conceptual and nonconceptual varieties as species, and in which nonconceptual content plays a very significant role. It is less well-recognized that Evans was also in the process of working out the details of a truly radical and groundbreaking theory of _representation_, a task he was unfortunately unable to bring to (...) any satisfactory stage of fruition. I am here drawing the distinction between a theory of. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Matter is a journey in thinking through the material fate of the earth itself; its surfaces and undercurrrents, ecologies, environments and irreparable cracks. With figures such as Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze and Michel Serres as philosophical guides and writings on New Materialism, Posthumanism and Affect Theory as intellectual context, Rick Dolphijn proposes a radical rethinking of some of the basic themes of philosophy: subjectivity, materiality, body (both human and otherwise) and the act of living. This rethink is (...) a work of imagination and meditation in order to conceive of "another earth for another people". It is a homage to courageous thinking that dares to question the religious, capitalist and humanist realities of the day. A poetic philosophy of how to live in troubling times when even the earth beneath us feels unstable, Dolphijn offers a way to think about the world with depth, honesty and glimpses of hope. (shrink)

Deleuzian Encounters brings together sixteen accessible, thought-provoking essays that examine the practical and ethical implications of Deleuze's philosophy for different contemporary social issues. Topics explored include: the environment, terrorism, refugees, indigenous reconciliation, gender, suicide, intellectual disability, injecting drug use, classroom teaching and global activism. Each contribution provides practical examples of how to make use of Deleuze's thought in social research, and offers fresh insights into the creative and innovative potentials Deleuze's philosophy holds for social thought and action.

This article outlines the main tenets of affect theory and links these to Sloterdijk’s spherology. Where affect foregrounds prepersonal energies and posthuman impulses, spherology provides a lens for considering how humans congregate in constantly reconfiguring socialities in their pursuit of legitimacy and immunity. The article then explores the relevance of “affective spheres” for contemporary social science research. The article’s main argument here is that research of contemporary organisational and professional practices must increasingly be spherogenic, or seeking to build “affective spheres.” (...) The basis of this argument are the in situ complexity and fast-changing nature of practices, and the increasing challenges involved in objectifying or ‘freezing’, and analysing or dissecting such practices. The article draws for its case study on a video-reflexive project conducted in a U.S. health service. The article concludes that the notion of research as spherogenics counterbalances the conventional methodological emphasis on a predetermined stance —whether neutral or political—in our construction and enactment of social science research. (shrink)

Moody maps the spectrum of philosophical arguments and counterarguments for the existence of God.

Has not the time fully come to lift the prohibition on a regulated market in organs for transplantation? Is there a price for such a market that would be too high to pay? The author revisits the cases for and against organ markets in the light of cultural shifts in society and asks whether the traditional insistence on altruism represents a hindrance to much needed developments or a safeguard for much valued public goods.

The λY calculus is the simply typed λ calculus augmented with the fixed point operators. We show three results about λY: the word problem is undecidable, weak normalisability is decidable, and higher type fixed point operators are not definable from fixed point operators at smaller types.

An attempt is made to defend a general approach to the spatial content of perception, an approach according to which perception is imbued with spatial content in virtue of certain kinds of connections between perceiving organism's sensory input and its behavioral output. The most important aspect of the defense involves clearly distinguishing two kinds of perceptuo-behavioral skills—the formation of dispositions, and a capacity for emulation. The former, the formation of dispositions, is argued to by the central pivot of spatial content. (...) I provide a neural information processing interpretation of what these dispositions amount to, and describe how dispositions, so understood, are an obvious implementation of Gareth Evans' proposal on the topic. Furthermore, I describe what sorts of contribution are made by emulation mechanisms, and I also describe exactly how the emulation framework differs from similar but distinct notions with which it is often unhelpfully confused, such as sensorimotor contingencies and forward models. (shrink)

One of America’s most influential social critics, Thorstein Veblen authored works deeply rooted in evolutionary biology and American philosophical naturalism—both of which help explain his institutional economics and radical sociology. Now, one of today’s preeminent Veblen scholars ranges widely over the man’s writings to show how evolutionary naturalism underlies his social theory and criticism, shapes his satire, and binds his work together. Rick Tilman’s study focuses on the intersections of social theory and social psychology, political economy and political theory, (...) and modern philosophy and intellectual history in Veblen’s thinking. It links evolutionary naturalism for the first time to Veblen’s aesthetics, secular humanism, sociology of control, sociobiology, and sociology of knowledge, and it makes groundbreaking observations regarding the relationship of Veblen’s own life to his thinking; his place as a cultural lag theorist; and his analysis of sports, gambling, and religion. Drawing on textual exegesis of Veblen’s work, unpublished correspondence, and selected archives, Tilman argues that only evolutionary naturalism could provide the philosophical foundations of Veblen’s thought. He also emphasizes Veblen’s role in the enhancement and embellishment of the social sciences and cultural studies, as well as his insights into the processes of change in the sociopolitical order. Veblen’s evolutionary naturalism, with its unflattering evaluation of America’s self-selected special place in the international arena, casts doubt on today’s foreign interventions, and it also provides a much-needed antidote to the resurgence of creationist thought in American culture. Tilman shows that Veblen’s ideas are still valuable to contemporary social scientists—indeed, that his method of analysis and values are sorely needed to help us avoid wasteful consumption, predation, and the persistence of religious superstition. This work offers readers a new appreciation of Veblen and the many issues he addressed, and of Tilman’s own masterful facility in bringing them to light. (shrink)

I argue against a growing radical trend in current theoretical cognitive science that moves from the premises of embedded cognition, embodied cognition, dynamical systems theory and/or situated robotics to conclusions either to the effect that the mind is not in the brain or that cognition does not require representation, or both. I unearth the considerations at the foundation of this view: Haugeland's bandwidth-component argument to the effect that the brain is not a component in cognitive activity, and arguments inspired by (...) dynamical systems theory and situated robotics to the effect that cognitive activity does not involve representations. Both of these strands depend not only on a shift of emphasis from higher cognitive functions to things like sensorimotor processes, but also depend on a certain understanding of how sensorimotor processes are implemented - as closed-loop control systems. I describe a much more sophisticated model of sensorimotor processing that is not only more powerful and robust than simple closed-loop control, but for which there is great evidence that it is implemented in the nervous system. The is the emulation theory of representation, according to which the brain constructs inner dynamical models, or emulators, of the body and environment which are used in parallel with the body and environment to enhance motor control and perception and to provide faster feedback during motor processes, and can be run off-line to produce imagery and evaluate sensorimotor counterfactuals. I then show that the emulation framework is immune to the radical arguments, and makes apparent why the brain is a component in the cognitive activity, and exactly what the representations are in sensorimotor control. (shrink)

The question of whether time is its own best representation is explored. Though there is theoretical debate between proponents of internal models and embedded cognition proponents (e.g. Brooks R 1991 Artificial Intelligence 47 139–59) concerning whether the world is its own best model, proponents of internal models are often content to let time be its own best representation. This happens via the time update of the model that simply allows the model’s state to evolve along with the state of the (...) modeled domain. I argue that this is neither necessary nor advisable. I show that this is not necessary by describing how internal modeling approaches can be generalized to schemes that explicitly represent time by maintaining trajectory estimates rather than state estimates. Though there are a variety of ways this could be done, I illustrate the proposal with a scheme that combines filtering, smoothing and prediction to maintain an estimate of the modeled domain’s trajectory over time. I show that letting time be its own representation is not advisable by showing how trajectory estimation schemes can provide accounts of temporal illusions, such as apparent motion, that pose serious difficulties for any scheme that lets time be its own representation. (shrink)

Robert Holmes’ Pacifism is the most complete, most detailed in argument, and most compelling book on pacifism I have read. It is not an easy book, for “all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” It deserves a careful read, many reads, by anyone who cares about war and the war system we are. It is a fitting testimony to Holmes’ excellence as a philosopher in the truest sense of that word--so uncommon in the halls of the academy, (...) yet so inspiring to his students still. (shrink)

In both psychology and philosophy, cognitive theories of emotion have met with increasing opposition in recent years. However, this apparent controversy is not so much a gridlock between antithetical stances as a critical debate in which each side is being forced to qualify its position in order to accommodate the other side of the story. Here, I attempt to sort out some of the disagreements between cognitivism and its rivals, adjudicating some disputes while showing that others are merely superficial. Looking (...) at evidence from neuroscience and social psychology, as well as thought experiments and theoretical arguments, I conclude that it is necessary to acknowledge both that emotions have intentional content and that they involve somatic agitation. I also point out some of the more promising directions for future research in this area. (shrink)