Suzan Colon, yoga teacher and former senior editor at O, The Oprah Magazine, digs deep into the spiritual philosophy behind yoga and distills thirty essential components to enrich your practice and revolutionize your life from the inside out. We live in an increasingly stressful world, and we know about the hazardous effects stress can have on our health. But meditating and mindfulness can sometimes seem elusive, unattainable, and impossible to fit into our busy days. Even the word “yoga” usually makes (...) many people think of complicated, twisty poses—but that’s not everything. In its complete sense, yoga is a collection of life lessons for wellness and well-being and a spiritual technology from ancient times that is now more relevant, and necessary, than ever. In Yoga Mind, Suzan Colon shares thirty essential components to increase self- awareness and inner balance to use throughout your day—in traffic, on the train, at your job, and home. She outlines how we can use yoga to cultivate resilience in challenging times, reduce stress, and enrich our relationships with family, work, and ourselves. This guide contains a 30-day program designed to create subtle yet powerful shifts in awareness and attitude that lead to real, lasting change. Whether you’re a hardcore yogi or a beginner to the practice, Yoga Mind can help you unite your body, mind, and heart to become your best self and cultivate lasting happiness in your life. (shrink)

The question that probably emerges when the title of this work is read is if it is possible to establish any relation between philosophy and a scientific discipline such as molecular biology. The common opinion, shared even by many renowned biologists and philosophers, is that each of these disciplines has got its own without taking into account the results of the other. However, the relation between science and philosophy is nowadays one of the most challenging topics, where philosophers and biologists (...) meet and each other to better understand what life is and how it works. Philosophical concepts such as information, causality, semiotics and function can be seen as instruments for a philosophical approach to biological topics. The aim of this work is to see if, studying a biological example in depth, there are elements that fit with the informational paradigm that is proposed as a philosophical framework. Biology has been considered as a discipline in which objects can be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry. A different approach can be seen in this work. The philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce can help us to see biological systems as informational systems, where molecules are more than their chemical structure, indeed, the cell can deal with them from a semiotic point of view; that is, treating them as signs that stand for other molecules or processes, allowing the system to canalize all this information to its own benefit. (shrink)

This article critically analyses the concept of evidence in evidence‐based policy, arguing that there is a key problem: there is no existing practicable theory of evidence, one which is philosophically‐grounded and yet applicable for evidence‐based policy. The article critically considers both philosophical accounts of evidence and practical treatments of evidence in evidence‐based policy. It argues that both fail in different ways to provide a theory of evidence that is adequate for evidence‐based policy. The article contributes to the debate about how (...) evidence can and should be used to reduce contingency in science and in policy based on science. (shrink)

How do we refer to people in everyday conversation? No matter the language or culture, we must choose from a range of options: full name ('Robert Smith'), reduced name ('Bob'), description ('tall guy'), kin term ('my son') etc. Our choices reflect how we know that person in context, and allow us to take a particular perspective on them. This book brings together a team of leading linguists, sociologists and anthropologists to show that there is more to person reference than meets (...) the eye. Drawing on video-recorded, everyday interactions in nine languages, it examines the fascinating ways in which we exploit person reference for social and cultural purposes, and reveals the underlying principles of person reference across cultures from the Americas to Asia to the South Pacific. Combining rich ethnographic detail with cross-linguistic generalizations, it will be welcomed by researchers and graduate students interested in the relationship between language and culture. (shrink)

Correct interpretation of the data from integral laboratory tests, including Thrombin Generation Test, requires biochemistry-based mathematical models of blood coagulation. The purpose of this study is to describe the experimental TGT data from healthy donors and hemophilia A and B patients. We derive a simplified ODE model and apply it to analyze the TGT data from healthy donors and HA/HB patients with in vitro added tissue factor pathway inhibitor antibody. This model allows the characterization of hemophilia patients in the space (...) of three most important model parameters. The proposed approach may provide a new quantitative tool for the analysis of experimental TGT. Also, it gives a reduced model of coagulation verified against clinical data to be used in future theoretical large-scale modeling of thrombosis in flow. (shrink)

We build on the work of Moore and Gino (2015) and of Rest (1983, 1986) to develop the Ethical Guardrails Model (EGM). The EGM shows students how personal behaviors, relationships, and habits can help them to avoid ethical mistakes in the workplace. The EGM illustrates the components of ethical business behavior, incorporates a new deliberative component, specifies five ways in which ethical behavior may become derailed, and describes practices that can help a person to avoid derailment. We also describe our (...) use of the EGM in the business ethics classroom, an experience that has changed our approach to teaching business ethics. (shrink)

A sense of agency over wilful actions is thought to be dependent on the level of choice and the nature of the outcome. In a preregistered study, we manipulated choice and valence of outcome to assess the relationship between SoA across the depression and psychosis continuum. Participants completed a Libet Clock task, in which they had either a free or forced choice to press one of two buttons and received either a rewarding or punishing outcome. Participants also completed questionnaires on (...) depressive and psychosis-like traits. Rewarding outcomes increased intentional binding. The evidence favoured no effect of choice on average, but this was influenced by inter-individual differences. Individuals reporting more depressive traits had less of a difference in intentional binding between free and forced choice conditions. We show that implicit SoA is sensitive to outcome valence and the effect of choice differs across the depression continuum. (shrink)

This book maps out the lexico-conceptual articulation of Greene's narrative dramatization of ethical situations. This main aim issues from three working hypotheses: in the first place, a reduced set of terms such as peace, despair, pity or commitment have a striking lexical recurrence in Greene's texts. They are considered here as keywords that articulate his discourse at a conceptual level. In the second place, those keywords are invested with narrative potential. They have the capacity to generate narrative situations and developments. (...) In the third place, they articulate a particular narrative pattern. Such lexico-conceptual articulation is shaped mainly as ethical conflict dramatized in narrative form. Drawing on contemporary theories of community and ethics developed by Jean-Luc Nancy, Maurice Blanchot, J. Hillis Miller or Derek Attridge, this book sets out to explore a recurrent narrative pattern in Greene's work, emerging from his personal use of the language of ethics and community. (shrink)

Disturbing international inequalities in health abound. Life expectancy in Swaziland is half that in Japan. A child unfortunate enough to be born in Angola has 73 times as great a chance of dying before age 5 as a child born in Norway. A mother giving birth in southern sub-Saharan Africa has 100 times as great a chance of dying from her labor as one birthing in an industrialized country. For every mile one travels outward toward the Maryland suburbs from downtown (...) Washington, DC on its underground rail system, life expectancy rises by a year – reflecting the race and class inequities in American health. Are the glaring, even larger, international health inequalities also unjust? -/- All of us no doubt think they are grossly unfortunate. Many of us think they are unfair or unjust. Why should some people be at such a health disadvantage through no fault of their own, losers in a natural and social lottery assigning them birth in an unhealthy place? Others of us are troubled by the absence of the kinds of human relationships that ordinarily give rise to the claims of egalitarian justice that we make on each other – for example, being fellow citizens or even interacting in a cooperative scheme. Who has obligations of justice to reduce these international inequalities? And do those obligations hold regardless of how the inequalities came about? What institutions are accountable for addressing them? (shrink)

The question of how we relate to the world via technology is fundamental to the philosophy of technology. One of the leading experts, the contemporary philosopher Don Ihde, has addressed this core issue in many of his works and introduced a fourfold classification of technology-based relationships. The conceptual paper at hand offers a modification of Ihde’s theory, but unlike previous research, it explores the functional compositions of Ihde’s categories instead of complementing them with additional relational categories. The result is a (...) simplification and reduction of the analytical categories of Ihde’s theory, where alterity and background relations are ontologically reduced to ratios between the mediated relationships. The paper uses cutting-edge robotics as a hermeneutic tool in order to present this point and concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of applying static categorization to complex technology and of various challenges and limitations. (shrink)

We propose a technical reformulation of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics, which is based on the postulate that the final state of a measurement is classical; this accords with experimental practice as well as with Bohr’s views. Unlike the usual formulation (in which the post-measurement state is a unit vector in Hilbert space), our version actually opens the possibility of admitting a purely technical solution within the confines of conventional quantum theory (as opposed to solutions that either modify this (...) theory, or introduce unusual and controversial interpretative rules and/or ontologies).To that effect, we recall a remarkable phenomenon in the theory of Schrödinger operators (discovered in 1981 by Jona-Lasinio, Martinelli, and Scoppola), according to which the ground state of a symmetric double-well Hamiltonian (which is paradigmatically of Schrödinger’s Cat type) becomes exponentially sensitive to tiny perturbations of the potential as ħ→0. We show that this instability emerges also from the textbook wkb approximation, extend it to time-dependent perturbations, and study the dynamical transition from the ground state of the double well to the perturbed ground state (in which the cat is typically either dead or alive, depending on the details of the perturbation).Numerical simulations show that adiabatically arising perturbations may (quite literally) cause the collapse of the wave-function in the classical limit. Thus, at least in the context of a simple mathematical model, we combine the technical and conceptual virtues of decoherence (which fails to solve the measurement problem but launches the key idea that perturbations may come from the environment) with those of dynamical collapse models à la grw (which do solve the measurement problem but are ad hoc), without sharing their drawbacks: single measurement outcomes are obtained (instead of merely diagonal reduced density matrices), and no modification of quantum mechanics is needed. (shrink)

Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences has been further developed to focus on the research of human cognitive activities. Thus, the concept of emotional intelligence, which is the topic of the current paper, was introduced by John D. Mayer, Peter Salovey and ‎Daniel Goleman. General intelligence can be defined as the capacity to carry out abstract reasoning to understand meanings, to recognize the similarities and differences between two concepts and to make generalizations. Emotional intelligence is not a part of general intelligence. (...) Emotional intelligence can be defined as an ability of a human to perceive oneself and interact with others with the help of obtained and processed emotional information. Language acquisition is mediated by the necessity to communicate with others. Consequently, the ability to manage the process of communication is of utmost importance in learning a language. Virtual learning environment reduces dramatically the immediate interaction of the participants of the process of education. It undoubtedly affects the process of acquisition and demands to reconsider the distribution of different learning activities. (shrink)

The paradox which characterizes the modern states system is that the dual structure of sovereignty and justice through which the system was originally conceived is no more, yet the system is still with us. Justice was redefined in the 19th century as a mere derivation of state sovereignty, a process reducing the focus of the system to sovereignty alone and thus dispossessing the system of a principle to mediate between the sovereign will and the international community. It is argued in (...) this essay that the lack of a mediating principle may signify violence as inherent in the system, subsequently making intervention and terrorism facets of the established order rather than anomalies. Relying greatly on recent critical international legal studies, the article asks if the strategies suggested by lawyers such as Anthony D'Amato and Rosalyn Higgins to cope with the paradox, coupled with the contemporary universal human rights arguments, signal a move towards restoring the historical focus of the system. (shrink)

Christianity has been crucial in the conceptualization and articulation of the moral framework of the Western tradition. The social sciences, including ethics, were modeled on physical science. However, the Enlightenment project inculcated a metaphysics and an epistemology that reduced the subject to an object and thus undermined the conditions of freedom, agency and an accessible cosmic order; all of which are essential to morality. Competing value claims were shunted into a political context for resolution, but the politicalized morality itself requires (...) a framework for evaluating resolutions. While neither the Enlightenment nor post-modernism can provide such a framework, Christian tradition can, in fact, provide just such a framework and response. (shrink)

Idolatry is vehemently rejected by the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and closely connected with idolatry are certain varieties of anthropomorphism, which involve the attribution of a human form or personality to God. The question investigated in this paper is whether a highly anthropomorphic conception of God, one that commits the sin of idolatry, is entailed by a particular theory of religious language. This theory is the 'univocity thesis', the view that, for some substitutions for 'F', the sense of (...) '___ is F' as applied to God and its sense as applied to human creatures is exactly or substantially the same. My claim is that the univocity thesis entails a strong form of anthropomorphism that in effect reduces God to creaturely status and thus succumbs to idolatry (albeit a conceptual form of idolatry). In the course of my argument, a comparison is made between, on the one hand, the methods of Duns Scotus and modern proponents of perfect-being theology in arriving at a concept of God as maximally perfect, and on the other hand the work of Thomistic philosophers (especially Barry Miller) in showing how a more adequate conception of divinity can be reached by dispensing with some of the methods and assumptions of perfect-being theology, particularly the assumption of univocity. (shrink)

Representation of quantum states by statistical ensembles on the quantum phase space in the Hamiltonian form of quantum mechanics is analyzed. Various mathematical properties and some physical interpretations of the equivalence classes of ensembles representing a mixed quantum state in the Hamiltonian formulation are examined. In particular, non-uniqueness of the quantum phase space probability density associated with the quantum mixed state, Liouville dynamics of the probability densities and the possibility to represent the reduced states of bipartite systems by marginal distributions (...) are discussed in detail. These considerations are used to study ensembles of hybrid quantum-classical systems. In particular, nonlinear evolution of a single hybrid system in a pure state and unequal evolutions of initially equivalent ensembles are discussed in the context of coupled hybrid systems. (shrink)

Stiff Person Syndrome is a rare autoimmune disorder associated with antibodies against glutamic acid decarboxylase, the key enzyme in γ -aminobutyric acid synthesis. In order to investigate the role of cerebral benzodiazepinereceptor binding in SPS, we performed [ 11 C]flumazenil positron emission tomography in a female patient with SPS compared to nine healthy controls. FMZ is a radioligand to the postsynaptic central benzodiazepine receptor which is co-localized with the GABA-A receptor. In the SPS patient, we found a global reduction of (...) cortical FMZ binding. In addition, distinct local clusters of reduced radiotracer binding were observed. These data provide first in vivo evidence for a reduced postsynaptic GABA-A receptor availability which may reflect the loss of GABAergic neuronal inhibition in SPS. (shrink)

We present a dynamic programming model which is used to investigate hypothermia as an adaptive response by small passerine birds in winter. The model predicts that there is a threshold function of reserves during the night, below which it is optimal to enter hypothermia, and above which it is optimal to rest. This threshold function decreases during the night, with a particularly sharp drop at the end of the night, representing the time and energy costs associated with returning to normal (...) body temperature. The results of the model emphasise the trade-off between energy and predation, not just between foraging options, but also between foraging during the day and entering hypothermia at night. The value of being able to use hypothermia represents not just energy savings, but also reduced predation risk due to changes in the optimal foraging strategy. Conditions which give a high value of hypothermia are short photoperiod, variable food supply, low temperatures, poor and scarce food supplies. (shrink)

Let equation image. We show that for many reducibilities, the requirement that a relation be intrinsically reducible to the α-th jump of a countable mode A has a syntactic equivalent. Furthermore, we show that many reducibilities coincide in such a situation.

The purpose of this study is to reveal the function of the concept of Infāq, which is included in the terminology of the Qurʾān itself, in social assistance and solidarity. Poverty has always been one of the social problems from past to present. Although it is analyzed differently in each society via different criteria, poverty generally refers to the condition in which a person lacks the basic necessities for a minimum living standard. Unfortunately, millions of people starve for basic biological (...) and social needs such as nutrition, shelter, education, health, and even water. This is a shame for the humanity. There are both international and national charities working to reduce the misery and poverty. However, due to socio-economic and structural problems such as globalization, disproportion in income distribution, unemployment, overpopulation, economic crises, lack of social security systems, and wars, poverty rises gradually and it is still one of the major social problems needed to be solved. Islam which is the last one of Abrahamic religions and its holy book Qurʾān consider social cooperation and solidarity pretty important within the context of Infāq and hold the believers responsible for the organization of social life. Infāq is an umbrella concept in the Qurʾān, referring to all expenses and cooperation in the name of Allah and it is one of the main qualities of believers. Infāq, which includes other forms of cooperation such as obligatoryalms (zakāt) and charity (ṣadaqā), enables a person to share his tangible values with those who have worse life conditions than himself. In this way, the Quran aims to promote human relations and thereby enhancement and peace in the society. In other words, Infāq aims to eliminate social injustice which refers to social and economic inequalities, to protect the economically weak people against the difficulties in life, and thereby, to maintain economic and social stability. Helping the needy is a powerful path toward having spiritual peace, removing selfish feelings, and keeping emotional wellbeing. People with good mental health will be able to build more humane relationships with others. It is obvious that Infāq would play an important role inbuilding a sense of fellowship and trust. A wealth of person who shares his wealth with the poor will be deemed legitimate by the needy people. Thus, the needy people would be freed from negative feelings and behaviors such as jealousy, incapacity, hatred, bullying, and hostility, and feel a sense of fellowship and gratitude towards those who have better life conditions. One of the most important reasons for robbery, extortion, purse-snatching, and etc., which are currently occurring more frequently, is economic deprivation. Considering the fact that this kind of incidents takes place more frequently in poor countries than developed ones, it is obvious that Infāq has a strategic role in fulfilling the basic needs of the needy. Poverty might be linked to violence, which might end up with murder. Infāq which is divine cooperation approach would take an important role in fighting against criminal incidents that cause fear and indignation. Moreover, the Quran does not specify any certain economic condition to be able to do Infāq, and thereby, it makes people with various economic abilities become a part of the social cooperation. As everyone would take care of people who are relatively worse off, interindividual trust will be strengthen and circle of cooperation will be expanded. According to the Qurʾān, people’s all goods and possessions actually belong to Allah. People are just the trustees of this wealth. Allah grants as much wealth as He wills to whomever He wills. While the rich is responsible for sharing their wealth with the needy, the poor is responsible for bearing the troubles caused by poverty with patience and endeavoring to make money in a halal way. Unless Infāq is done in order to please Allah, it does not have any significance in the presence of Allah. The reason why people have different material living conditions is that both the poor and the rich are subject to test. Thus, they would get rewards for hereafter besides the sustaining of social unity and solidarity. Allah is the only warrantor of the tangible and spiritual wealth gained in return for Infāq. (shrink)

We give several characterizations of Schnorr trivial sets, including a new lowness notion for Schnorr triviality based on truth-table reducibility. These characterizations allow us to see not only that some natural classes of sets, including maximal sets, are composed entirely of Schnorr trivials, but also that the Schnorr trivial sets form an ideal in the truth-table degrees but not the weak truth-table degrees. This answers a question of Downey, Griffiths and LaForte.

Can market socialism realize the socialist vision of the good society by ending exploitation and alienation, substantially reducing inequalities of wealth and income, ensuring full employment, and correcting other market irrationalities? A comparative analysis of the organizational forms of capitalism (notably the small owner?operated firm and the large corporation) and market socialism (the self?managed cooperative that rents its capital from the state) reveals the relative efficiencies of capitalism in reducing transaction costs, in turn reducing the opportunities for exploitation. By contrast, (...) the transaction cost inefficiencies of the organizations of market socialism permit and encourage forms of exploitation that are precluded or discouraged under capitalism. (shrink)

Abstract Global climate change will have a strong impact on Nigeria, particularly on agricultural production and associated livelihoods. Although there is a growing scientific consensus about the impact of climate change, efforts so far in Nigeria to deal with these impacts are still rudimentary and not properly coordinated. There is little evidence of any pragmatic approach towards tracking climate change in order to develop an evidence base on which to formulate national adaptation strategies. Although Nigeria is not alone in this (...) regard, the paper asserts that National Climate Change Adaptation Strategy could help address this situation by guiding the integration of climate change adaptation into government policies, strategies, and programs, with particular focus on the most vulnerable groups and the agricultural sectors. There is an urgent need to adopt abatement strategies that will provide economic incentives to reduce the risk from disasters, such as developing agricultural practices that are more resilient to a changing climate. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9336-0 Authors N. A. Onyekuru, Ecosystems and Society Research Cluster, Department of Environment, University of York, York, UK Rob Marchant, Ecosystems and Society Research Cluster, Department of Environment, University of York, York, UK Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Contrary to political and philosophical consensus, we argue that the threats posed by climate change justify population engineering, the intentional manipulation of the size and structure of human populations. Specifically, we defend three types of policies aimed at reducing fertility rates: choice enhancement, preference adjustment, and incentivization. While few object to the first type of policy, the latter two are generally rejected because of their potential for coercion or morally objectionable manipulation. We argue that forms of each policy type are (...) pragmatically and morally justified tools for preventing the harms of global climate change. (shrink)

Here, in our approximation of polaron theory, we examine the importance of introducing theT product, which turn out to be a very convenient theoretical approach for the calculation of thermodynamical averages.We focus attention on the investigation of the so-called linear polaron Hamiltonian and present in detail the calculation of the correlation function, spectral function, and Green function for such a linear system.It is shown that the linear polaron Hamiltonian provides an exactly solvable model of our system, and the result obtained (...) with this approach holds true for an arbitrary coupling constant which describes the strength of interaction between the electron and the lattice vibrations. Then, with the help of a variational technique, we show the possibility of reducing the real polaron Hamiltonian to a socalled trial or approximate linear model Hamiltonian.We also consider the exact calculation of free energy with a special technique that reduces calculations with the help of the T product, which, in our opinion, works much better and is easier than other analogous considerations, for example, the path-integral or Feynman-integral method.(1,2)Here we furthermore recall our own work,(4) where it was shown that the results of Refs. 7 and 8 concerning the impedance calculation in the polaron model may be obtained directly without the use of the path-integral method.The study of the polaron system's thermodynamics is carried out by us in the framework of the functional method. A calculation of the free energy and the momentum distribution function is proposed.Note also that the polaron systems with strong coupling(9) proved to be useful in different quantum field models in connection with the construction of dynamical models of composite particles. A rigorous solution of the special strong-coupling polaron problem, describing the interaction of a nonrelativistic particle with a quantum field, was given by Bogolubov.(3) The works of Tavkhelidze, Fedyanin, Khrustalev, and others(10–13) are dedicated to the further development and generalization of the Bogolubov method.Notice, too, that the electron-photon interaction effects play an important part in many problems of modern solid state theory (see, e.g., Refs. 7 and 14–19).The present paper summarizes a set of lectures delivered as a special course in the physics department of Moscow State University. (shrink)

Morris N. Eagle explores the understanding and role of subjective experience in the disciplines of psychology, psychoanalysis, and philosophy of mind. Elaborating how different understandings of subjective experience give rise to very different theories of the nature of the mind, Eagle then explains how these shape clinical practices. In particular, Eagle addresses the strong tendency in the disciplines concerned with the nature of the mind to overlook the centrality of subjective experience in one's life, to view it with suspicion, and (...) to reduce it to neural processes. Describing examples of research in which subjective experience is a central variable, Eagle provides an outline of a model in which the dichotomy of conscious and unconscious is supplemented by subjective experience as a continuum. This book is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, psychologists and anyone wishing to gain a deeper understanding of the importance of theories of the mind to therapeutic practice. (shrink)

Danish agriculture is facing a turning point. Centuries of struggle to increase arable land area as well as its productivity is about to be reversed, due to overproduction and environmental problems. Some land will probably be turned back to nature, and the use of chemicals in agriculture in general will be reduced, perhaps with a lower productivity and a better environment as a consequence. This paper mainly describes some of the political actions taken in Denmark to influence environmental-agricultural issues. First, (...) however, some of the recently perceived environmental problems and over-production problems connected with Danish farming are outlined. (shrink)

Call a set A n-correctable if every set Turing reducible to A via a Turing machine that on any input makes at most n queries is Turing reducible to A via a Turing machine that on any input makes at most n-queries and on any input halts no matter what answers are given to its queries. We show that if a c.e. set A is n-correctable for some n ≥ 2, then it is n-correctable for all n. We show that (...) this is the optimal such result by constructing a c.e. set that is 1-correctable but not 2-correctable. The former result is obtained by examining the logical closure properties of c.e. sets that are 2-correctable. (shrink)

The central aims of this paper are to show how linguistic corpora have been used and can be used in philosophy and to argue that linguistic corpora and corpus analysis should be added to the philosopher’s toolkit of ways to address philosophical questions. A linguistic corpus is a curated collection of texts representing language use that can be queried to answer research questions. Among many other uses, linguistic corpora can help answer questions about the meaning of words and the structure (...) of discourse. Through a discussion of examples, the paper shows that there are many philosophical questions that can be addressed by using a linguistic corpus. However, linguistic corpora need not (and often cannot) replace traditional philosophical methods. Lastly, it argues that the special properties of linguistic corpora, including their independence and the current ease and cheapness of access, make them an indispensable resource for philosophers. (shrink)

In this paper, we investigate (1) what can be salvaged from the original project of "logicism" and (2) what is the best that can be done if we lower our sights a bit. Logicism is the view that "mathematics is reducible to logic alone", and there are a variety of reasons why it was a non-starter. We consider the various ways of weakening this claim so as to produce a "neologicism". Three ways are discussed: (1) expand the conception of logic (...) used in the reduction, (2) allow the addition of analytic-sounding principles to logic so that the reduction is not to "logic alone" but to logic and truths knowable a priori, and (3) revise the conception of "reducible". We show how the current versions of neologicism fit into this classification scheme, and then focus on a kind of neologicism which we take to have the most potential for achieving the epistemological goals of the original logicist project. We argue that that the "weaker" the form of neologicism, the more likely it is to be a new form of logicism, and show how our preferred system, though mathematically weak, is metaphysically and epistemogically strong, and can "reduce" arbitrary mathematical theories to logic and analytic truths, if given a legitimate new sense of "reduction". (shrink)

Degtev, A.N., On p-reducibility of numerations, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 63 57–60. If α and β are two numerations of a set S, then αpβ if there exists a total recursive function f such that [s ε S][α-1=[x:[y ε Df][Dyβ-1]]], where Dn is a finite set with canonical number n. It is proved that if α and β are two computable numerations of some family of recursively enumerable sets A and αpβ, then there is a computable numeration, (...) γ, of S such that αpγ and βshrink)

Firearm injury in the United States is a public health crisis in which physicians are uniquely situated to intervene. However, their ability to mitigate harm is limited by a complex array of laws and regulations that shape their role in firearm injury prevention. This piece uses four clinical scenarios to illustrate how these laws and regulations impact physician practice, including patient counseling, injury reporting, and the use of court orders and involuntary holds. Unintended consequences on clinical practice of laws intended (...) to reduce firearm injury are also discussed. Lessons drawn from these cases suggest that physicians require more nuanced education on this topic, and that policymakers should consult front-line healthcare providers when designing firearm policies. (shrink)

Eliminativists sometimes invoke evolutionary debunking arguments against ordinary object beliefs, either to help them establish object skepticism or to soften the appeal of commonsense ontology. I argue that object debunkers face a self-defeat problem: their conclusion undermines the scientific support for one of their premises, because evolutionary biology depends on our object beliefs. Using work on reductionism and multiple realizability from the philosophy of science, I argue that it will not suffice for an eliminativist debunker to simply appeal to some (...) object-free surrogate theory of evolution that results from converting any scientific proposition about some object K into a proposition about simples arranged K-wise. In the process, I examine some hazards peculiar to eliminative reductions of scientific theories, and propose a trilemma for eliminativists who attempt to recoup generality for ontologically sparse reducing theories by appealing to pluralities of simples arranged K-wise. The paper is intended to define and develop the object debunker’s self-defeat problem for further study, and to clarify some of the ways sparse and abundant ontologies interact with scientific theory. (shrink)

Even those generally skeptical of propensity interpretations of probability must now grant the following two points. First, the above single-case propensity interpretation meets recognized formal conditions for being a genuine interpretation of probability. Second, this interpretation is not logically reducible to a hypothetical relative frequency interpretation, nor is it only vacuously different from such an interpretation.The main objection to this propensity interpretation must be not that it is too vague or vacuous, but that it is metaphysically too extravagant. It asserts (...) not only that there are physical possibilities in nature, but further that nature itself contains innate tendencies toward these possibilities, tendencies which have the logical structure of probabilities. Thus the basic dispute between advocates of an actualist relative frequency interpretation and a single-case propensity interpretation is not a matter of epistemology, but metaphysics. The frequency theorist wishes to maintain that claims about physical probabilities are nothing more than claims about relative frequencies that will occur in the actual history of the world, be it infinite or no. It is a substantial, though hardly conclusive, argument for the propensity view that the mathematical structures commonly employed in studies of stochastic processes and statistical inference are richer than can be accommodated by a relative frequency interpretation. Whether it is possible to bridge this gap without going beyond an actualist metaphysics remains to be seen.38. (shrink)

Mental or computer simulation of cause and effect of certain behaviors is a recognized approach to changing one’s attitude or triggering an action. Meanwhile, psychology research results suggest that frequency of simulation may affect the corresponding persuasiveness. This paper argues that with always-on sensing and data-driven visualization technologies, interactive tangible systems can be designed to simulate hypothetical outcomes of real-life behaviors in everyday contexts, which repeatedly stimulate users’ imagination of behavioral consequences and thereby behavioral intentions. To investigate the effect, a (...) working prototype of Incingarette, including a smart ashtray in connection with a digital picture frame, was built. When the ashtray is used for smoking, the digital picture is incrementally covered by virtual dust. Field trials involved participants in five daily smoking sessions. Post-session surveys show increasingly stronger perceived causality between smoking and the simulated outcomes, increasingly more vivid mental imagery of consequences, and increasingly intense intention to reduce smoking. Results suggest that repeatedly presenting simulated outcomes cognitively linked to real-life behaviors can increase behavioral intentions. (shrink)

Case-based instruction has been regarded by many as a viable alternative to traditional lecture-based education and training. However, little is known about how case-based training techniques impact training effectiveness. This study examined the effects of two such techniques: (a) presentation of alternative outcome scenarios to a case, and (b) conducting a structured outcome evaluation. Consistent with the hypotheses, results indicate that presentation of alternative outcome scenarios reduced knowledge acquisition, reduced sensemaking and ethical decision-making strategy use, and reduced decision ethicality. Conducting (...) a structured outcome evaluation had no impact on these outcomes. Results indicate that those who use case-based instruction should take care to use clear, less complex cases with only a singular outcome if they are seeking these types of outcomes. (shrink)

Cross-cultural sex differences in mobility and harm avoidance have been widely reported, often emphasizing fitness benefits of long-distance travel for males and high costs for females. Data emerging from adults in small-scale societies, however, are challenging the assumption that female mobility is restricted during reproduction. Such findings warrant further exploration of the ontogeny of mobility. Here, using a combination of machine-learning, mixed-effects linear regression, and GIS mapping, we analyze range size, daily distance traveled, and harm avoidance among Hadza foragers during (...) middle childhood and adolescence. Distance traveled increased with age and, while male adolescents had the longest daily ranges, average daily distance traveled by each sex was similar. We found few age- or sex-related patterns in harm-avoidant responses and a high degree of individual variation. When queried on the same issues, children and their parents were often in alignment as to expectations pertaining to harm avoidance, and siblings tended to behave in similar ways. To the extent that sex differences in mobility did emerge, they were associated with ecological differences in physical threats associated with sex-specific foraging behaviors. Further, we found no strong association between harm avoidance and mobility. Young Hadza foragers of both sexes are highly mobile, regardless of how harm avoidant they are. Taken together, our findings indicate that the causal arrows between harm avoidance and mobility must be evaluated in ecologically specific frameworks where cultural expectations of juvenile mobility can be contextualized. (shrink)

The authors investigated the ontological argument computationally. The premises and conclusion of the argument are represented in the syntax understood by the automated reasoning engine PROVER9. Using the logic of definite descriptions, the authors developed a valid representation of the argument that required three non-logical premises. PROVER9, however, discovered a simpler valid argument for God's existence from a single non-logical premise. Reducing the argument to one non-logical premise brings the investigation of the soundness of the argument into better focus. Also, (...) the simpler representation of the argument brings out clearly how the ontological argument constitutes an early example of a ?diagonal argument? and, moreover, one used to establish a positive conclusion rather than a paradox. (shrink)

Socioeconomic status -related health disparities persist for numerous chronic diseases, with lower-SES individuals exhibiting greater risk of morbidity and mortality compared to their higher-SES counterparts. One likely contributor is disparities in health messaging efforts, which are currently less effective for motivating health behavior change among those lower in SES. Drawing on communication neuroscience and social neuroscience research, we describe a conceptual framework to improve health messaging effectiveness in lower SES communities. The framework is based on evidence that health-message-induced activity in (...) the ventral striatum and subdivisions of the medial pre-frontal cortex predicts behavior change. Additionally, we draw from social neuroscience work showing that activity in these regions during valuation and the processing of self-related vs. social information, differs as a function of SES. Bringing together these previously disparate lines of work, we argue that health messages emphasizing the benefits to close others of engaging in behavior change will be more effective among lower SES individuals. We also outline a research agenda based on our framework. Ultimately, we hope that this framework utilizing a “brain-as-predictor” approach generates novel insights about the neural underpinnings of message-induced behavior change among lower SES individuals, and helps to close the gap in SES-based health disparities by harnessing the power of neuroimaging. (shrink)

This volume features essays that detail the distinctive ways authors and researchers in Spanish speaking countries express their thoughts on contemporary philosophy of technology. Written in English but fully capturing a Spanish perspective, the essays bring the views and ideas of pioneer authors and many new ones to an international readership. Coverage explores key topics in the philosophy of technology, the ontological and epistemological aspects of technology, development and innovation, and new technological frontiers like nanotechnology and cloud computing. In addition, (...) the book features case studies on philosophical queries. Readers will discover such voices as Miguel Ángel Quintanilla and Javier Echeverría, who are main references in the current landscape of philosophy of technology both in Spain and Spanish speaking countries; José Luis Luján, who is a leading Spanish author in research about technological risk; and Emilio Muñoz, former head of the Spanish National Research Council and an authority on Spanish science policy. The volume also covers thinkers in American Spanish speaking countries, such as León Olivé, an influential researcher in ethical issues; Judith Sutz, who has a very recognized work on social issues concerning innovation; Carlos Osorio, who focuses his work on technological determinism and the social appropriation of technology; and Diego Lawler, an important researcher in the ontological aspects of technology. (shrink)

We are concerned with two modes of describing the dynamics of natural systems. Global descriptions require simultaneous global coordination of all dynamical operations. Global dynamics, including mechanics, remain invariant in the absence of external perturbation. But, failing impossible global coordination, dynamical operations could actually become coordinated only locally. In local records, as in global ones, the law of the excluded middle would be strictly observed, but without global coordination it could only be fullfilled sequentially by passing causative factors forward onto (...) subsequent contiguous operations.The local dynamics of sequential operations would be indefinite with regard to how commitments will be made which will avoid violating the law of the excluded middle, but any resulting record will be as definite as if there had been global coordination. While maintaining an agential capacity for making contingent choices internally, local dynamics could be cumulated into a global record of seemingly simultaneous operations. Natural selection within a framework of local dynamics would have a capacity for making opportunistic commitments, but its effects in a posterior record can be reduced to the mechanistic neodarwinian version as if there had been a global dynamics. However, the resulting global description falsifies the actual material nature of the dynamics. (shrink)

. We prove a jump inversion theorem for the enumeration jump and a minimal pair type theorem for the enumeration reducibilty. As an application some results of Selman, Case and Ash are obtained.

This paper argues that individuals in many high-income countries typically have moral reasons to limit their beef consumption and consume plant-based protein instead, given the negative effects of beef production and consumption. Beef production is a significant source of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts, high levels of beef consumption are associated with health risks, and some cattle production systems raise animal welfare concerns. These negative effects matter, from a variety of moral perspectives, and give us collective moral (...) reasons to reduce beef production and consumption. But, as some ethicists have argued, we cannot draw a straight line from the ethics of production to the ethics of consumption: even if a production system is morally impermissible, this does not mean that any given individual has moral reasons to stop consuming the products of that system, given how miniscule one individual’s contributions are. This paper considers how to connect those dots. We consider three distinct lines of argument in support of the conclusion that individuals have moral reasons to limit their beef consumption and shift to plant-based protein, and we consider objections to each argument. This argument applies to individuals in high beef-consuming and high greenhouse gas-emitting high-income countries, though we make this argument with a specific focus on the United States. (shrink)

Although corruption is ubiquitous, attitudes toward it differ among countries. Until the 1997 OECD Convention, the U.S. had been one of the only two countries with an explicit extraterritorial anti-bribery law, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. The FCPA employs a two-pronged approach to control the supply side of corruption: (1) anti-bribery provisions; and (2) accounting (books and record and internal controls) provisions. I offer evidence, albeit indirect, to show that the FCPA had limited success. The OECD Convention (...) adopts the same two-pronged approach, but, since it is a multilateral treaty, is likely to be more successful provided that enforcement is vigorous enough. The signatory nations effectively form a cartel to reduce the cost of doing business. As with any cartel, however, each multinational corporation has an incentive to deviate. Thus, the mutual enforcement of the agreement is crucial for its success. However, the two-pronged approach is not sufficient, since internal control does not adequately monitor decisions made at the top level. I argue that the two lessons drawn from the U.S. experience are: (1) law enforcement must be credible; and (2) internal controls alone are not sufficient. Stronger and more effective corporate governance within an appropriate regulatory framework is needed to ensure that multinational corporations conduct their business in an ethical manner. (shrink)

Though Frege was interested primarily in reducing mathematics to logic, he succeeded in reducing an important part of logic to mathematics by defining relations in terms of functions. By contrast, Whitehead & Russell reduced an important part of mathematics to logic by defining functions in terms of relations (using the definite description operator). We argue that there is a reason to prefer Whitehead & Russell's reduction of functions to relations over Frege's reduction of relations to functions. There is an interesting (...) system having a logic that can be properly characterized in relational but not in functional type theory. This shows that relational type theory is more general than functional type theory. The simplification offered by Church in his functional type theory is an over-simplification: one can't assimilate predication to functional application.<br>. (shrink)