The estrangement between genetic scientists and theologians originating in the 1960s is reflected in novel combinations of human thought (subject) and genes (investigational object), paralleling each other through the universal process known in chaos theory as self-similarity. The clash and recombination of genes and knowledge captures what Philip Hefner refers to as irony, one of four voices he suggests transmit the knowledge and arguments of the religion-and-science debate. When viewed along a tangent connecting irony to leadership, journal dissemination, and (...) the activities of the "public intellectual" and the public at large, the sequence of voices is shown to resemble the passage of genetic information from DNA to mRNA, tRNA, and protein, and from cell nucleus to surrounding environment. In this light, Hefner's inquiry into the voices of Zygon is bound up with the very subject matter Zygon covers. (shrink)

This paper describes the author’s development and use of a diagramming model in preparing a legal case for which he was responsible. He combined Wigmorean analysis and object oriented techniques in order to model arguments based on generalisations taken from the real world and from legal precedent. The paper addresses the modelling issues, but in particular identifies the very real benefits that affected the way the case was conducted. Those areas in which the model came into its own (...) were principally the structuring of evidence, the preparation for the cross-examination of witnesses, and ensuring a consistent approach from picking up the case to making the closing submissions. (shrink)

The adaptive object model method is an effective way to develop dynamic and configurable adaptive software. It has the characteristics of metamodel, description drive, and runtime reflection. First, the core idea of the adaptive object model is explained; then, the five modes of establishing the metamodel in the adaptive object model architecture, the model engine, and supporting tools are analyzed; and the basketball tracking algorithm of the adaptive object model is discussed. Secondly, a two-dimensional joint information (...) strategy is proposed to improve the tracking effect. When the basketball is in a very complex environment, there will always be some color information in the background that is the same as the target, which affects the effect of basketball tracking. Therefore, this paper proposes a Camshift tracking method based on the significance of histograms, through real time. The basketball movement is compared with the background histogram to continuously adjust the basketball movement tracking model. These two methods can better establish the tracking model of the basketball adaptive object, reduce the interference of background information, and achieve the effect of stable tracking of the target. The simulation experiment results show that the method proposed in this paper can effectively improve the accuracy of the basketball goal model and achieve stable tracking of the goal. (shrink)

Controversies arise over abortion, assisted dying and conscientious objection in healthcare. The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between attitudes towards these bioethical dilemmas, and secularity and religiosity. Data were drawn from a 2017 web-based survey of a representative sample of 1615 Norwegian adults. Latent moderated structural equations modelling was used to develop a model of the relationship between attitudes. The resulting model indicates that support for abortion rights is associated with pro-secular attitudes and is a (...) main “driver” for support for assisted dying and opposition to conscientious objection. This finding should be regarded as a hypothesis which ought to be tested in other populations. If the relationship is robust and reproduced elsewhere, there are important consequences for CO advocates who would then have an interest in disentangling the debate about CO from abortion; and for health systems who ought to consider carefully how a sound policy on CO can safeguard both patient trust in the services and the moral integrity of professionals. It is suggested that if religiosity wanes and pro-secular and pro-abortion attitudes become more widespread, support for CO might decline, putting into question whether present policies of toleration of conscientious refusals will remain acceptable to the majority. (shrink)

The aim of this paper was to explore the issue of consent when considering the use of a life saving but not necessarily restorative surgical intervention for severe traumatic brain injury. A previous study has investigated the issue amongst 500 healthcare workers by using a two-part structured interview to assess opinion regarding decompressive craniectomy for three patients with varying injury severity. A visual analogue scale was used to assess the strengths of their opinions both before and after being shown objective (...) outcome data. Opinions were assessed in a number of scenarios, one of which was that the participants themselves were the injured party. The implication, which was clearly stated, was whether they would provide consent for the procedure to be performed. The study demonstrated that participants were relatively risk aversive in regards to survival with severe disability especially when the injury was severe and there was high probability of that outcome occurring. This finding was not however universal and a minority of participants would provide consent even when the possibility of survival with severe disability was very high. The obvious difficulty comes when considering consent in patients who are unable to express their wishes. In order to address this issue we propose a model of consent based on a balance of the various factors that seem to be of material relevance. These include the severity of the injury, the willingness or otherwise to accept survival with severe disability and the willingness to “risk” the possibility of an unacceptable outcome in order to achieve an acceptable outcome. (shrink)

Ever since the early days of quantum mechanics it has been suggested that consciousness could be linked to the collapse of the wave function. However, no detailed account of such an interplay is usually provided. In this paper we present an objective collapse model where the collapse operator depends on integrated information, which has been argued to measure consciousness. By doing so, we construct an empirically adequate scheme in which superpositions of conscious states are dynamically suppressed. Unlike other proposals in (...) which “consciousness causes the collapse of the wave function,” our model is fully consistent with a materialistic view of the world and does not require the postulation of entities suspicious of laying outside of the quantum realm. (shrink)

In this paper, I distinguish scientific models in three kinds on the basis of their ontological status—material models, mathematical models and fictional models, and develop and defend an account of fictional models as fictional objects—i.e. abstract objects that stand for possible concrete objects.

Rational agents are supposed to maximize expected utility. But what are the options from which they choose? I outline some constraints on an adequate representation of an agent’s options. The options should, for example, contain no information of which the agent is unsure. But they should be sufficiently rich to distinguish all available acts from one another. These demands often come into conflict, so that there seems to be no adequate representation of the options at all. After reviewing existing proposals (...) for how to construe decision-theoretic options and finding them all wanting, I suggest that our model of rational agents should include a special domain of ‘virtual’ option propositions to serve as formal objects of deliberation and choice. (shrink)

Abstract: Hilary Putnam has reformulated his model-theoretic argument as an argument against indirect realism in the philosophy of perception. This new argument is reviewed and defended. Putnam’s new focus on philosophical theories of perception (instead of metaphysical realism) makes better sense of his previous responses to the objection from the causal theory of reference. It is argued that the model-theoretic argument can also be construed as an argument that holders of a causal theory of reference should adopt direct realism in (...) the philosophy of perception. (shrink)

Over the past 20 years or so, a small but growing literature has emerged with the aim of modeling agents who are unaware of certain things. In this paper we compare two different approaches to modeling unawareness: the object-based approach of Board and Chung (Object-based unawareness: theory and applications. University of Minnesota, Mimeo, 2008) and the subjective-state-space approach of Heifetz et al. (J Econ Theory 130: 78-94,2006). In particular, we show that subjectivestate-space models (henceforth HMS structures) can be (...) embedded within object-based models (henceforth OBU structures), demonstrating that the latter are at least as expressive. As long as certain restrictions are imposed on the form of the OBU structure, the embedding can also go the other way. A generalization of HMS structures (relaxing the partitional properties of knowledge) gives us a full converse. (shrink)

Abstract Normative criteria for evaluations of economic and social outcomes are often formulated in terms of social welfare functions which are essentially and importantly non-satiable. However, there are good reasons to consider certain normative criteria and many policy objectives to be capped, i.e. bounded, and thus satiable provided sufficient resources are made available for their satisfaction. Inspired by the Foster–Greer–Thorbecke class of indicators, this paper uses an interdisciplinary approach to develop a model for assessing outcomes in terms of capped objectives (...) based on an understanding of individual shortfalls from the objective, denoted needs. We present an indicator to measure need satisfaction in a population of individuals with heterogeneous needs and highlight an aggregation problem under scarcity. For such situations, we develop three ways in which the indicator can be weighted that reflect respectively concerns over the frequency, depth and severity of the need shortfalls and show that normative evaluations based on these weighting schemes can conflict, yielding mutually inconsistent outcome rankings. The indicator can be adapted to measure a wide variety of phenomena, e.g. health needs, education shortfalls, deprivation, etc., and it is suited for targeting exercises and other policy implementations. In particular, it allows for exogenous weighting schemes, i.e. weights that can incorporate non-shortfall characteristics relevant for the evaluation, e.g. age, gender, ethnicity, etc. The indicator thus enables new ways for researchers to promote and study satiable objectives in a wide variety of contexts relevant to economic and social policy, e.g. human development programs, poverty reduction, healthcare policies, etc. (shrink)

This article proposes an object properties approach to object perception. By thinking about objects as clusters of co-instantiated features that possess certain canonical higher-order object properties we can steer a middle way between two extreme views that are dominant in different areas of empirical research into object perception and the development of the object concept. Object perception should be understood in terms of perceptual sensitivity to those object properties, where that perceptual sensitivity can (...) be explained in a manner consistent with the graded representation approach adopted by some connectionist modellers. The object properties approach does justice to the differences between a perceptual system solving the binding problem, on the one hand, and genuinely perceiving objects, on the other, without running into the theoretical problems associated with treating young infants as 'little scientists'. (shrink)

Features of consciousness difficult to understand in terms of conventional neuroscience have evoked application of quantum theory, which describes the fundamental behavior of matter and energy. In this paper we propose that aspects of quantum theory (e.g. quantum coherence) and of a newly proposed physical phenomenon of quantum wave function "self-collapse"(objective reduction: OR -Penrose, 1994) are essential for consciousness, and occur in cytoskeletal microtubules and other structures within each of the brain's neurons. The particular characteristics of microtubules suitable for quantum (...) effects include their crystal-like lattice structure, hollow inner core, organization of cell function and capacity for information processing. We envisage that conformational states of microtubule subunits (tubulins) are coupled to internal quantum events, and cooperatively interact (compute) with other tubulins. We further assume that macroscopic coherent superposition of quantum-coupled tubulin conformational states occurs throughout significant brain volumes and provides the global binding essential to consciousness. We equate the emergence of the microtubule quantum coherence with pre-conscious processing which grows (for up to 500 milliseconds) until the mass-energy difference among the separated states of tubulins reaches a threshold related to quantum gravity. According to the arguments for OR put forth in Penrose (1994), superpositioned states each have their own space-time geometries. When the degree of coherent mass-energy difference leads to sufficient separation of space-time geometry, the system must choose and decay (reduce, collapse) to a single universe state. In this way, a transient superposition of slightly differing space-time geometries persists until an abrupt quantum classical reduction occurs. Unlike the random, "subjective reduction"( SR, or R) of standard quantum theory caused by observation or environmental entanglement, the OR we propose in microtubules is a self-collapse and it results in particular patterns of microtubule-tubulin conformational states that regulate neuronal activities including synaptic functions. (shrink)

Comment expliquer la persistance d’objets techniques ou scientifiques qui semblent en tout point dépassés? Cet article étudie ce problème, à travers un cas portant sur les modèles d’évaluation du passage de la radioactivité dans l’environnement. Ces modèles apparaissent dans les années 1950 et se fondent alors sur un coefficient unique. De nombreux problèmes conceptuels et pratiques concernant ce paramètre apparaissent et sont alors menés de nombreux travaux de développement d’alternatives à ces modèles qui semblent dépassés. Malgré cela, ceux-ci sont encore (...) aujourd’hui largement majoritaires. Nous expliquons cette situation a priori paradoxale par des raisons « pratiques » (coûts techniques, structure sociale de l’expertise) et avec des arguments fondés sur les fonctions des modèles et sur leurs usages. (shrink)

Cette étude essaye d’établir qu’il y a deux notions très différentes de « fondation » à l’œuvre dans les Recherches logiques de Husserl. Dans la IIIème Recherche, où le terme est formellement introduit, lorsqu’il se demande quels sont les contenus qui peuvent exister d’une manière autonome (indépendants) et lesquels peuvent exister uniquement en tant que moments d’autre chose (dépendants), Husserl suit ce que j’appelle un « modèle ontologique ». Selon ce modèle, le concret possède une priorité sur à l’abstrait qui (...) est fondé en lui. Dans la VIème Recherche, en revanche, Husserl s’oriente principalement sur un « modèle gnoséologique » qui voit le complexe comme fondé sur ce qui est relativement simple, étant donné que les expériences d’ordre supérieur (telles les perceptions de types d’objets plus complexes) sont « fondées sur » des expériences plus simples, bien qu’elles ne puissent pas y être réduites. L’exemple principal ici est celui des intuitions catégoriales : fondées sur les intuitions sensibles, elles n’y sont pas réductibles. Mais cette distinction entre deux sens différents du terme de « fondation » peut également nous aider à mieux comprendre de nombreuses thèses husserliennes plutôt controversées. Par exemple, elle peut nous permettre de mieux comprendre dans quelle mesure faire l’expérience d’un être humain comme un tout se fonde sur l’expérience d’un corps physique, et cela même si l’étant que nous rencontrons inclut à la fois des aspects corporels et des aspects spirituels – les deux étant vus, d’une manière essentielle, comme des moments de cette unique personne qui fait l’objet de notre expérience. (shrink)

Bimanual robots have been studied for decades and regulation on internal force of the being held object by two manipulators becomes a research interest in recent years. In this paper, based on impedance model, a method to obtain the optimal target position for bimanual robots to hold an object is proposed. We introduce a cost function combining the errors of the force and the position and manage to minimize its value to gain the optimal coordinates for the robot (...) end effectors. To implement this method, two necessary algorithms are presented, which are the closed-loop inverse kinematics method to work out joint positions from desired EE pose and the generalized-momentum-based external force observer to measure the subjected force acting on the EE so as to properly compensate for the joint torques. To verify the effectiveness, practicality, and adaptivity of the proposed scheme, in the simulation, a bimanual robot system with three degrees of freedom in every manipulator was constructed and employed to hold an object, where the results are satisfactory. (shrink)

Two kinds of epistemological sceptical paradox are reviewed and a shared assumption, that warrant to accept a proposition has to be the same thing as having evidence for its truth, is noted. 'Entitlement', as used here, denotes a kind of rational warrant that counterexemplifies that identification. The paper pursues the thought that there are various kinds of entitlement and explores the possibility that the sceptical paradoxes might receive a uniform solution if entitlement can be made to reach sufficiently far. Three (...) kinds of entitlement are characterized and given prima facie support, and a fourth is canvassed. Certain foreseeable limitations of the suggested antisceptical strategy are noted. The discussion is grounded, overall, in a conception of the sceptical paradoxes not as directly challenging our having any warrant for large classes of our beliefs but as crises of intellectual conscience for one who wants to claim that we do. (shrink)

A successful vision system must solve the problem of deriving geometrical information about three-dimensional objects from two-dimensional photometric input. The human visual system solves this problem with remarkable efficiency, and one challenge in vision research is to understand howneural representations of objects are formed and what visual information is used to form these representations. Ideal observer analysis has demonstrated the advantages of studying vision from the perspective of explicit generative models and a specified visual task, which divides the causes of (...) image variations into the separate categories of signal and noise. Classification image techniques estimate the visual information used in a task from the properties of “noise” images that interact most strongly with the task. Both ideal observer analysis and classification image techniques rely on the assumption of a generative model. We show here how the ability of the classification image approach to understand how an observer uses visual information can be improved by matching the type and dimensionality of the model to that of the neural representation or internal template being studied. Because image variation in real world object tasks can arise from both geometrical shape and photometric (illumination or material) changes, a realistic image generation process should model geometry as well as intensity. A simple example is used to demonstrate what we refer to as a “classification object” approach to studying three-dimensional object representations. (shrink)

differentiaily rated pairwise similarity when confronted with two pairs of objects, each revolving in a separate window on a computer screen. Subject data were pooled using individually weighted MDS (ref. 11; in all the experiments, the solutions were consistent among subjects). In each trial, the subject had to select among two pairs of shapes the one consisting of the most similar shapes. The subjects were allowed to respond at will; most responded within 10 sec. Proximity (that is, perceived similarity) tables (...) derived from the judgments were processed to verify their degree of transitivity (4% of all triplets were found intransitive) and then submitted to MDS. In the long-term memory (LTM) variant of this experiment, the subjects were first trained to associate a label (a three-letter nonsensical string, such as "BON" or "POM") with each object and then carried out the pairs of pairs comparison task from memory, prompted by the object labels rather than by the objects themselves. Six subjects participated in each of the two LTM experiments (Star and Triangle). The subjects were taught each shape in a separate session and had to discriminate between that shape and six similar nontargets from various viewpoints. Training continued until the recognition rate reached 90%, over a period of several days. The subjects were never exposed to more than one target in one session and were not told the ultimate purpose of the experiment. After 2 to 3 days of rest, they were tested with questions such as: "is the BON more similar to POM than TOC to ROX?", for all pairs of pairs of stimuli. In the LTM experiments, 8% of the.. (shrink)

Cancer treatment decisions should be based on all available evidence. But this evidence is complex and varied: it includes not only the patient’s symptoms and expert knowledge of the relevant causal processes, but also clinical databases relating to past patients, databases of observations made at the molecular level, and evidence encapsulated in scientific papers and medical informatics systems. Objective Bayesian nets offer a principled path to knowledge integration, and we show in this chapter how they can be applied to integrate (...) various kinds of evidence in the cancer domain. This is important from the systems biology perspective, which needs to integrate data that concern different levels of analysis, and is also important from the point of view of medical informatics. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that Allen Carlson’s object-centered model for the aesthetic appreciation of nature could be extended to food. The application of an object-centered model to food requires the identification of appropriate foci of appreciative attention. I claim that knowledge about food function and history is relevant to its appreciation, as is the interplay between the resources of a territory and the way in which these are used by its inhabitants. After having offered a brief application (...) of the model to a traditional English recipe, the Cornish pasty, I will discuss the way in which my model meets the desiderata I outline in the first part of the paper. (shrink)

The premise of this paper is that an adequate model of consciousness will be able to account for the fundamental duality in experience typified by thought and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity, science and art, and that it will do so without any of these terms assimilating its counterpart. The paper argues that such an account is possible using existing models of the cell assembly, but only if consciousness is conceived in structural rather than information processing terms. To this end, the (...) paper contests the viability of information processing models that identify consciousness with a substrate-independent flow of information, and instead identifies consciousness with the physical structure of the cell assembly itself. This allows a fuller and more parsimonious account of consciousness than existing information processing models, as well as the integration of a range of key related matters from the fields of neuroanatomy, psychology, philosophy, and the physical sciences. (shrink)

In “Democracy and Deliberation: Two Models of Public Justification”, Mariano Garreta Leclercq presents an interesting argument in favor of what he calls “the common ground” conception of justification, as against the “standard” conception of justification. In this note I present an objection to that argument. More precisely, I point out a tension between two statements of that argument: 1) There is no right to decide for others; and 2) the margin of error in moral issues is very considerable. I say (...) that, if we are committed to the statement that the margin of error is very considerable in moral issues, so we cannot be convinced that there is no right to decide for others, because it is a moral principle in itself. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to examine the scientific and public functions of two- andthree-dimensional models in the context of three episodes from nineteenth-century biology. Iargue that these models incorporate both data and theory by presenting theoretical assumptions inthe light of concrete data or organizing data through theoretical assumptions. Despite their diverseroles in scientific practice, they all can be characterized as mediators between data and theory.Furthermore, I argue that these different mediating functions often reflect their different audiencesthat included specialized (...) scientists, students, and the general public. In this sense, models innineteenth-century biology can be understood as mediators between theory, data, and their diverseaudiences. (shrink)

The growing range of methods for statistical model selection is inspiring new debates about how to handle the potential for conflicting results when different methods are applied to the same data. While many factors enter into choosing a model selection method, we focus on the implications of disagreements among scientists about whether, and in what sense, the true probability distribution is included in the candidate set of models. While this question can be addressed empirically, the data often provide inconclusive results (...) in practice. In such cases, we argue that differences in prior metaphysical views about the local adequacy of the models can produce underdetermination of results, even for the same data and candidate models. As a result, data alone are sometimes insufficient to settle rational beliefs about nature. (shrink)

This article unravels the process of objectification by empirically examining a social context where it occurs almost incessantly: fashion modeling. Drawing on an ethnography of fashion modeling in Amsterdam, Paris and Warsaw, I argue that objectification is neither ubiquitous nor one-dimensional: it takes place in specific social contexts and unfolds itself differently under different social conditions. Moreover, objectification is not unidirectional: it is done by and happens to both men and women. By taking an experiential perspective which involves models’ subjective (...) responses to being objectified, I call into question theoretical arguments of objectification pertaining to disempowered subjects, and the assumption that objectification is inherently negative or immoral. Instead, I argue that objectification is socially rooted in institutions and specific situations and that this matters considerably for its varying forms, levels of intensity and the emotional and practical responses it evokes in people. This does not imply that objectification is less compelling as a process, or easy to avoid. Objectification might be all the more effective exactly because the process is embedded in different social contexts, and adapts itself accordingly. (shrink)

Abstract Three main concepts of model in science are distinguished: (1) semantical model of a theory; (2) real model of another real thing; (3) mathematical model of a real thing. The last concept is the most important for the empirical sciences. The mathematical model is not identical with a theory: it is an ideal object which is directly described by the theory. We have here an intermediate level between reality and theory.

Describing actions entails that relations between objects are discovered. A pervasively neural account of this process requires that fundamental problems are solved: the neural pointer problem, the binding problem, and the problem of generating discrete processing steps from time-continuous neural processes. We present a prototypical solution to these problems in a neural dynamic model that comprises dynamic neural fields holding representations close to sensorimotor surfaces as well as dynamic neural nodes holding discrete, language-like representations. Making the connection between these two (...) types of representations enables the model to describe actions as well as to perceptually ground movement phrases—all based on real visual input. We demonstrate how the dynamic neural processes autonomously generate the processing steps required to describe or ground object-oriented actions. By solving the fundamental problems of neural pointing, binding, and emergent discrete processing, the model may be a first but critical step toward a systematic neural processing account of higher cognition. (shrink)

Cancer treatment decisions should be based on all available evidence. But this evidence is complex and varied: it includes not only the patient’s symptoms and expert knowledge of the relevant causal processes, but also clinical databases relating to past patients, databases of observations made at the molecular level, and evidence encapsulated in scientific papers and medical informatics systems. Objective Bayesian nets offer a principled path to knowledge integration, and we show in this chapter how they can be applied to integrate (...) various kinds of evidence in the cancer domain. This is important from the systems biology perspective, which needs to integrate data that concern different levels of analysis, and is also important from the point of view of medical informatics. (shrink)

An SR model is presented that shows how an objective (noncontextual and local) interpretation of quantum mechanics can be constructed, which contradicts some well-established beliefs following from the standard interpretation of the theory and from known no-go theorems. The SR model is not a hidden variables theory in the standard sense, but it can be considered a hidden parameters theory which satisfies constraints that are weaker than those usually imposed on standard hidden variables theories. The SR model is also extended (...) in a natural way that shows how a broader theory embodying quantum mechanics can be envisaged which is realistic in a semantic sense, hence compatible with various “realistic” perspectives. (shrink)