This cutting edge volume provides an overview of the dynamic new field of cyberphilosophy – the intersection of philosophy and computing.

In CyberPhilosophy: The Intersection of Philosophy and Computing, edited by James H. Moor and Terrell Ward Bynum (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2002), 66-77. Also in Metaphilosophy 33.1/2 (2002): 70-82.

Computational and information‐theoretic research in philosophy has become increasingly fertile and pervasive, giving rise to a wealth of interesting results. In consequence, a new and vitally important field has emerged, the philosophy of information (PI). This essay is the first attempt to analyse the nature of PI systematically. PI is defined as the philosophical field concerned with the critical investigation of the conceptual nature and basic principles of information, including its dynamics, utilisation, and sciences, and the elaboration and application of (...) information‐theoretic and computational methodologies to philosophical problems. I argue that PI is a mature discipline for three reasons: it represents an autonomous field of research; it provides an innovative approach to both traditional and new philosophical topics; and it can stand beside other branches of philosophy, offering a systematic treatment of the conceptual foundations of the world of information and the information society. (shrink)

In diesem Band legt der bis zuletzt in Münster lehrende Philosoph und katholische Theologe Klaus Müller einen Gesamtentwurf seines Denkens und Schaffens vor. In seinem Plädoyer für einen kritischen Panentheismus präsentiert er nicht nur die große Bandbreite seiner Forschungsthemen, wie Subjektphilosophie und Selbstbewusstseinstheorie, das Verhältnis von Glauben und Vernunft, Medientheorie und Cyberphilosophie, sondern er spitzt sie hier auf die Gottesfrage zu, die immer schon sein Lebensthema war. Wie kann heute eine intellektuell redliche Rede von Gott gelingen, ohne sich solcher Begriffe (...) wie Schöpfer, Personalität Gottes oder Freiheit des Menschen zu entledigen? Ausgehend von einer Zeitdiagnose, die diese und andere Herausforderungen der christlichen Gottesrede aufdeckt, zeigt sich, dass der hier entfaltete Lösungsvorschlag unter dem Label "Panentheismus" bereits aus zahlreichen verschütteten oder vernachlässigten Quellen unterschiedlicher Epochen schöpfen kann. Ausführlich lotet der Band das theologische Wagnis dieser Denkform aus, insofern er die Konsequenzen eines kritischen Panentheismus und die einhergehenden Transformationsprozesse im Blick auf Trinität, Christologie, Pneumatologie, Schöpfungslehre, Theodizee, Ekklesiologie, Eschatologie entfaltet. Auf beeindruckende Weise legt Klaus Müller in diesem Werk das Potential eines kritischen Panentheismus für Philosophie und Theologie, aber auch für den persönlichen Glauben eines Einzelnen frei. (shrink)

In this entry, the authors outline the goals of a "dynamic reference work", and explain how the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has been designed to achieve those goals.

Computation and philosophy intersect three times in this essay. Computation is considered as an object, as a method, and as a model used in a certain line of philosophical inquiry concerning the relation of mind to matter. As object, the question considered is whether computation and related notions of mental representation constitute the best ways to conceive of how physical systems give rise to mental properties. As method and model, the computational techniques of artificial life and embodied evolutionary connectionism are (...) used to conduct prosthetically enhanced thought experiments concerning the evolvability of mental representations. Central to this essay is a discussion of the computer simulation and evolution of three-dimensional synthetic animals with neural network controllers. The minimally cognitive behavior of finding food by exhibit- ing positive chemotaxis is simulated with swimming and walking creatures. These simulations form the basis of a discussion of the evolutionary and neurocomputa- tional bases of the incremental emergence of more complex forms of cognition. Other related work has been used to attack computational and representational theories of cognition. In contrast, I argue that the proper understanding of the evolutionary emergence of minimally cognitive behaviors is computational and representational through and through. (shrink)

John Locke is often understood as the inaugurator of the modern discussion of personal human identity—a discussion that inevitably falls back on his own theory with its critical reliance on memory. David Hume and Sigmund Freud would later make arguments for what constituted personal identity, both relying, like Locke, on memory, but parting from Locke's company in respect the role that memory played. The purpose of this paper will be to sketch the groundwork for Locke's own theory of personal identity (...) and consider some common objections tied to his special reliance on memory. Then, we will investigate the extent to which Hume and Freud refined their respective concepts of self-identity in ways that escape some of the most intractable objections to Locke's theory in its dependence on memory. Finally, we will consider which theorist's conception of self-identity best accords with our notion of the cyber-self, or psychological subjectivity in the context of cyberspace. For Locke, the nature of self-identity is that it is continuous across time, and to remain uninterrupted it must be beholden to a psychological process, rather than a material or immaterial substance. (shrink)

In 1982, when computers were just becoming widely available, I was a graduate student beginning my work with Clark Glymour on a PhD thesis entitled: “Causality in the Social Sciences.” Dazed and confused by the vast philosophical literature on causation, I found relative solace in the clarity of Structural Equation Models (SEMs), a form of statistical model used commonly by practicing sociologists, political scientists, etc., to model causal hypotheses with which associations among measured variables might be explained. The statistical literature (...) around SEMs was vast as well, but Clark had extracted from it a particular kind of evidential constraint first studied by Charles Spearman at the beginning of the 20th century, the “vanishing tetrad difference.”1 As it turned out, certain kinds of causal structures entailed these constraints, and others did not. Spearman used this lever to argue for the existence of a single, general intelligence factor, the infamous g (Spearman, 1904). (shrink)