-
3969091.705904
Very short summary: I discuss Cass Sunstein’s recent article on the “AI calculation debate.” I agree with Sunstein that an omniscient AI is impossible, but I nonetheless argue that a “society of AIs” with a division of cognitive labor would probably be better at tackling the knowledge problem than humans. …
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4001771.705973
[Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Klaas Kraay replaces the
former entry on this topic by the previous author.]
The topic of divine freedom concerns the extent to which a divine
being — in particular, the supreme divine being, God — can
be free. There are, of course, many different conceptions of who or
what God is. This entry will focus on one enormously important and
influential model, according to which God is a personal being who
exists necessarily, who is essentially omnipotent, omniscient,
perfectly good, and perfectly rational, and who is the creator and
sustainer of all that contingently
exists.[ 1 ]
(For more discussion of these attributes, see the entries on
omnipotence,
omniscience,
perfect goodness,
and
creation and conservation.)
-
4011574.70598
The paper argues for a non-disjunctivist account of reference in episodic memory. Our account provides a uniform theory of reference for episodic memories that root in veridical and non-veridical experiences. It is independent from the particular mechanisms that subserve the respective source experiences. We reject both relationalist and intentionalist analyses of memory and build our approach on Werning and Liefke’s theory of referential parasitism and Werning’s theory of trace minimalism. The motivation for our non-disjunctivist account is the assumption that perceptual and non-perceptual memories with an episodic character share a uniform underlying causal mechanism and thus make up one and the same natural kind.
-
4023358.705987
Say that a structure N that has a distinguished element 0, a unary function S, and binary operations + and ⋅ is a causal Robinson Arithmetic (CRA) structure iff:
The structure N satisfies the axioms of Robinson Arithmetic, and
For all objects x and y in N, x is a partial cause of the object x + Sy. …
-
4025731.705993
Canonical is a solver for type inhabitation in dependent type theory, that is, the problem of producing a term of a given type. We present a Lean tactic which invokes Canonical to generate proof terms and synthesize programs. The tactic supports higher-order and dependently-typed goals, structural recursion over indexed inductive types, and definitional equality. Canonical finds proofs for 84% of Natural Number Game problems in 51 seconds total.
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4029786.705998
Suppose human beings are deterministic systems. Then quite likely there are many cases where the complex play of associations combined with a specific sensory input deterministically results in a behavior in a way where the connection to the input doesn’t make rational sense. …
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4035565.706004
Suppose the U.S. Constitution mandated unilateral free trade with no exceptions. Much could go wrong. A pessimist could fairly ask all of the following:
What if other countries take advantage of our unilateralism to drastically raise their tariffs? …
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4079946.706009
Visual illusions provide a means of investigating the rules and principles through which approximate number representations are formed. Here, we investigated the developmental trajectory of an important numerical illusion – the connectedness illusion, wherein connecting pairs of items with thin lines reduces perceived number without altering continuous attributes of the collections. We found that children as young as 5 years of age showed susceptibility to the illusion and that the magnitude of the effect increased into adulthood. Moreover, individuals with greater numerical acuity exhibited stronger connectedness illusions after controlling for age. Overall, these results suggest the approximate number system expects to enumerate over bounded wholes and doing so is a signature of its optimal functioning.
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4082071.706018
Common sense tells us that biological systems are goal-directed, and yet the concept remains philosophically problematic. We propose a novel characterization of goal-directed activities as a basis for hypothesizing about and investigating explanatory mechanisms. We focus on survival goals such as providing adequate nutrition to body tissues, highlighting two key features—normativity and action. These are closely linked inasmuch as goal-directed actions must meet normative requirements such as that they occur when required and not at other times. We illustrate how goal-directed actions are initiated and terminated not by environmental features and goals themselves, but by markers for them. For example, timely blood clotting is the essential response to injury, but platelet activation, required for clotting, is initiated not by the injury itself but by a short sequence of amino acids (GPO) that provides a reliable marker for it. We then make the case that the operation of markers is a prerequisite for common biological phenomena such as mistake-proneness and mimicry. We go on to identify properties of markers in general, including those that are genetically determined and those that can be acquired through associative learning. Both provide the basis for matching actions to changing environments and hence adaptive goal-directedness. We describe how goal-directed activities such as bird nest construction and birdsong learning, completed in anticipation of actions in the environment, have to be evaluated and practiced against a standard of correctness. This characterization of goal-directedness is sufficiently detailed to provide a basis for the scientific study of mechanisms.
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4101824.706023
The causal exclusion argument requires us to deny that there is systematic overdetermination between mental and physical causes. But it is interesting to note that in the real world there is systematic overdetermination of physical movements. …
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4117100.706029
Given the extreme importance that Wittgenstein attached to the
aesthetic dimension of life, it is in one sense surprising that he
wrote so little on the subject. It is true that we have the notes
assembled from his lectures on aesthetics given to a small group of
students in private rooms in Cambridge in the summer of 1938
(Wittgenstein 1966, henceforth LA) and we have G. E. Moore’s
record of some of Wittgenstein’s lectures in the period
1930–33 (Moore 1972). Of Wittgenstein’s own writings, we
find remarks on literature, poetry, architecture, the visual arts, and
especially music and the philosophy of culture more broadly scattered
throughout his writings on the philosophies of language, mind,
mathematics, and philosophical method, as well as in his more personal
notebooks; a number of these are collected in Culture and
Value (Wittgenstein 1980a).
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4174756.706034
[Editor’s Note: The following new entry by Sam Cowling and Daniel Giberman replaces the
former entry
on this topic by the previous author.]
Nominalism is an exclusionary thesis in ontology. It asserts that
there are no entities of certain sorts. Precisely which entities it
excludes depends on the relevant variety of nominalism, but nominalist
theses typically deny the existence of universals or abstract
entities. For those who accept nominalism, a central challenge in
metaphysics is to make sense of phenomena that anti-nominalist
theories explain via universals or abstract entities.
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4178759.70604
The desirable gambles framework provides a rigorous foundation for imprecise probability theory but relies heavily on linear utility via its coherence axioms. In our related work, we introduced function-coherent gambles to accommodate nonlinear utility. However, when repeated gambles are played over time—especially in intertemporal choice where rewards compound multiplicatively— the standard additive combination axiom fails to capture the appropriate long-run evaluation. In this paper we extend the framework by relaxing the additive combination axiom and introducing a nonlinear combination operator that effectively aggregates repeated gambles in the log-domain. This operator preserves the time-average (geometric) growth rate and addresses the ergodicity problem. We prove the key algebraic properties of the operator, discuss its impact on coherence, risk assessment, and representation, and provide a series of illustrative examples. Our approach bridges the gap between expectation values and time averages and unifies normative theory with empirically observed non-stationary reward dynamics. Keywords. Desirability, non-linear utility, ergodicity, intertemporal choice, non-additive dynamics, function-coherent gambles, risk measures.
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4199805.706044
In my previous two posts I focused on the difficulty of God creating an infinite causal regress of indeterministic causes as part of an argument from theism to causal finitism. In this post, I want to drop the indeterministic assumption. …
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4202704.70605
Suppose that a dod is a critter that chancily, with probability 1/2, causes one offspring during its life. The lifespan of a dod is one year. Further, imagine that like Sith, there are only ever one or two dods at a time, because each dod dies not long after reproducing, and if there were two or more mature dods at once, they’d fight to the death. …
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4204298.706056
Philosophers interested in medicine and healthcare research should focus on the choice of health concepts. Conceptual choice is akin to conceptual engineering but, in addition to assessing whether a concept suits an objective, or offering a better one, it evaluates objectives, ranks them, and discusses stakeholders’ entitlement. To show the importance of choosing health concepts, I summarize the internal debate in medicine, showcasing definitions, constructs, and scales. To argue it is a philosophical task, I analyze the medical controversy over health as adaptation and self-management. I conclude with a to-do list of conceptual choice tasks, generalizable beyond medicine.
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4204318.706062
Since Andrew Jameton first introduced the concept of moral distress, a growing theoretical literature has attempted to identify its distinctive features. This theoretical work has overlooked a central feature of morally distressing situations: disempowerment. My aim is to correct this neglect by arguing for a new test for theories of moral distress. I call this the disempowerment requirement: a theory of moral distress ought to accommodate the disempowerment of morally distressing situations. I argue for the disempowerment requirement and illustrate how to apply it by showing that recent responsibility-based theories of moral distress fail to pass the test.
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4208558.706067
I wrote these words about 20 years ago. They seem especially apt these days. Leaders have been known to inspire blind faith. Michels (1962: 93) refers to "the belief so frequent among the people that their leaders belong to a higher order of humanity than themselves" evidenced by "the tone of veneration in which the idol's name is pronounced, the perfect docility with which the least of his signs is obeyed, and the indignation which is aroused by any critical attack on his personality." …
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4235199.706072
A firm wishes to persuade a patient to take a drug by making either positive statements like “if you take our drug, you will be cured”, or negative statements like “anyone who was not cured did not take our drug”. Patients are neither Bayesian nor strategic: They use a decision procedure based on sampling past cases. We characterize the firm’s optimal statement, and analyze competition between firms making either positive statements about themselves or negative statements about their rivals. The model highlights that logically equivalent statements can differ in effectiveness and identifies circumstances favoring negative ads over positive ones.
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4347769.706077
Chinese Daoism is a Chinese philosophy of natural practice structured
around a normative focus on dào (道 path, way). This naturalist philosophical project treated dào as a
structure of natural possibility for living beings. Unlike similar
Western naturalisms, e.g., pragmatism, Daoism’s foil was
contemporary: the Confucian-Mohist (Ru-Mo) dialectic about
human (人 rén human, social)
dào. Daoism’s critique of Ru-Mo debate
concerns the role of natural (天 tiān
sky-nature) dào vs human dào (socially
constructed guidance). Daoism’s founding
personages[ 1 ]
( Laozi and
Zhuangzi)
did not coin their “-ism.” The two Classical texts,
credited to their titled masters (子 zǐ
son), emerged during the Classical period (5th to
3rd C. BC).
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4377274.706082
In this paper, we investigate the treatment of the direction of time in Bohmian mechanics. We show how Bohmian mechanics can account for the direction of time in different ways. In particular, we argue that Bohmian mechanics can be employed to accommodate reductionism, because there always is an asymmetry in the initial conditions when forward and backward evolutions of the configuration of matter are compared. It can also be employed to accommodate primitivism and relationalism due to the fact that Bohmian mechanics is a first order theory that recognizes only position as a primitive physical magnitude. We show how this fact can be employed to support a primitive direction of time by assuming Leibnizian relationalism, which reduces the direction of time to change in the configuration of matter with that change being directed as a primitive matter of fact.
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4377301.706088
The capacity for purposeful choice among genuine alternatives—commonly termed free will— presents a profound challenge to a scientific worldview often perceived as deterministic. Understanding how seemingly goal-directed actions, observed across the spectrum of life from bacteria navigating chemical gradients (chemotaxis) to humans deliberating complex decisions, can arise from underlying physical and chemical processes is a central question in both philosophy and science. This paper explores the possibility of naturalizing free will by conceptualizing it as emergent autonomy: a capacity rooted in the unique organization of life itself, an organization that unfolds dynamically in real, lived time (Mascolo & Kallio, 2019; Moore, 2023). Foundational work by thinkers like Kauffman & Clayton (2006) on emergence and organization provides crucial groundwork for such an approach.
-
4381486.706094
Causal Finitism—the thesis that nothing can have an infinite causal history—implies that there is a first cause, and our best hypothesis for what a first cause would be is God. Thus:
- If Causal Finitism is true, God exists. …
-
4405827.706099
Very short summary: This essay reflects on how the state and its bureaucratic machinery can shape social reality. The state is unique among human institutions for its performative power. This power is however not unlimited and its use can have adverse consequences. …
-
4412694.706104
A nameless delivery boy in a nameless city, a refugee from a nameless country, fleeing a nameless Strongman, indentured to a nameless Supervisor, dispatched to nameless customers with unmarked packages, not knowing, yet, the rules of the system, and the language, in which he is trapped—a story told, though we do not know it yet, by a nameless narrator in a nameless city, a refugee from a nameless country, fleeing a nameless Strongman. …
-
4435026.706109
The nineteenth-century distinction between the nomothetic and the idiographic approach to scientific inquiry can provide valuable insight into the epistemic challenges faced in contemporary earth modelling. However, as it stands, the nomothetic-idiographic dichotomy does not fully encompass the range of modelling commitments and trade-offs that geoscientists need to navigate in their practice. Adopting a historical epistemology perspective, I propose to further spell out this dichotomy as a set of modelling decisions concerning historicity, model complexity, scale, and closure. Then, I suggest that, to address the challenges posed by these decisions, a pluralist stance towards the cognitive aims of earth modelling should be endorsed, especially beyond predictive aims.
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4435046.706116
This is an introduction to a collection of articles on the conceptual history of epigenesis, from Aristotle to Harvey, Cavendish, Kant and Erasmus Darwin, moving into nineteenth-century biology with Wolff, Blumenbach and His, and onto the twentieth century and current issues, with Waddington and epigenetics. The purpose of the topical collection is to emphasize how epigenesis marks the point of intersection of a theory of biological development and a (philosophical) theory of active matter. We also wish to show that the concept of epigenesis existed prior to biological theorization and that it continues to permeate thinking about development in recent biological debates.
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4554426.706121
In his famous “Mathematics is Megethology”, Lewis gives a brilliant reduction of set theory to mereology and plural quantification. A central ingredient of the reduction is a singleton function which assigns to each individual a singleton of which the individual is the only member. …
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4599189.706127
Maribel Barroso suggests exploration of an interesting avenue for inductive inference. The material theory, as I have formulated it, takes as its elements propositions that assert scientific facts. Relations of inductive support among them assess their truth or falsity. She proposes that we should take models as the elements instead of proposition. In favor of this proposal is that models have a pervasive presence in science. We should be able to confront them with evidence in a systematic way. Reconfiguring inductive inference as relations over models faces some interesting questions. Just what is it for models to be supported inductively? Can the material theory be adapted to this new case? In works cited in her review, Barroso has already begun the study of inductive relations among models in science, using insights from Whewell’s work. She is, it seems to me, well placed to seek answers to these questions. I wish her well in her continuing efforts.
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4601411.706133
‘Structural hylemorphism’ holds that the concept of structure should replace the allegedly less explanatory concept of form. Adherents do not, however, give us a precise idea of what structure is meant to be, and on analysis it is difficult to know how to define it as a replacement for form. I compare and contrast classical and structural hylemorphism. I rehearse the ‘content-fixing problem’ for structuralism about form, then set out the ‘qualitative problem’. These seem insurmountable obstacles to a viable version of structural hylemorphism. Exploration of the relation between quantity and quality shows that classical form can never be reduced to/replaced by a quantitative concept of form. In the end, structure does not capture what metaphysics requires. More radically, I suggest that there is no clear concept of what structure is. Classical hylemorphism, by contrast, gives us form in full metaphysical technicolor—adequate both for science and for fundamental metaphysics.