There are a number of problematic features within the current treatment of time in physical theories, including the “timelessness” of the Universe as encapsulated by the Wheeler–DeWitt equation. This paper considers one particular investigation into resolving this issue; a conditional probability interpretation that was first proposed by Page and Wooters. Those authors addressed the apparent timelessness by subdividing a faux Universe into two entangled parts, “the clock” and “the remainder of the Universe”, and then synchronizing the effective dynamics of the (...) two subsystems by way of conditional probabilities. The current treatment focuses on the possibility of using a realistic clock system; namely, a coherent-state description of a damped harmonic oscillator. This clock proves to be consistent with the conditional probability interpretation; in particular, a standard evolution operator is identified with the position of the clock playing the role of time for the rest of the Universe. Restrictions on the damping factor are determined and, perhaps contrary to expectations, the optimal choice of clock is not necessarily one of minimal damping. (shrink)

Bell's theorem is expounded as an analysis in Bayesian inference. Assuming the result of a spin measurement on a particle is governed by a causal variable internal (hidden, “local”) to the particle, one learns about it by making a spin measurement; thence about the internal variable of a second particle correlated with the first; and from there predicts the probabilistic result of spin measurements on the second particle. Such predictions are violated by experiment: locality/causality fails. The statistical nature of the (...) observations rules out signalling; acausal, superluminal, or otherwise. Quantum mechanics is irrelevant to this reasoning, although its correct predictions of experiment imply that it has a nonlocal/acausal interpretation. Cramer's newtransactional interpretation, which incorporates this feature by adapting the Wheeler-Feynman idea of advanced and retarded processes to the quantum laws, is advocated. It leads to an invaluable way of envisaging quantum processes. The usual paradoxes melt before this, and one, the “delayed choice” experiment, is chosen for detailed inspection. Nonlocality implies practical difficulties in influencing hidden variables, which provides a very plausible explanation for why they have not yet been found; from this standpoint, Bell's theoremreinforces arguments in favor of hidden variables. (shrink)

Bell's theorem is expounded as an analysis in Bayesian probabilistic inference. Assume that the result of a spin measurement on a spin-1/2 particle is governed by a variable internal to the particle (local, “hidden”), and examine pairs of particles having zero combined angular momentum so that their internal variables are correlated: knowing something about the internal variable of one tells us something about that of the other. By measuring the spin of one particle, we infer something about its internal variable; (...) through the correlation, about the internal variable of the second particle, which may be arbitrarily distant and is by hypothesis unchanged by this measurement (locality); and make (probabilistic) prediction of spin observations on the second particle. Each link in this chain has a counterpart in the Bayesian analysis of the situation. Irrespective of the details of the internal variable description, such prediction is violated by measurements on many particle pairs, so that locality—effectively the only physics invoked—fails. The time ordering of the two measurements is not Lorentz-invariant, implying acausality. Quantum mechanics is irrelevant to this reasoning, although its correct predictions of the statistics of the results imply it has a nonlocal—acausal interpretation; one such, the “transactional” interpretation, is presented to demonstrable advantage, and some misconceptions about quantum theory are pursued. The “unobservability” loophole in photonic Bell experiments is proven to be closed. It is shown that this mechanism cannot be used for signalling; signalling would become possible only if the hidden variables, which we insist must underlie the statistical character of the observations (the alternative is to give up), are uncovered in deviations from quantum predictions. Their reticence is understood as a consequence of their nonlocality: it is not easy to isolate and measure something nonlocal. Once the hidden variables are found, all the problems of quantum field theory and of quantum gravity might melt away. (shrink)

This article addresses the problem of legislation and adjudication in early states, offering examples from Africa and other parts of the world. It discusses the problems of legitimacy and governance, especially in the context of multi-ethnic populations. For some of its generalizations it draws upon a previous study of twenty-one early states.

Philosophical discussion tends to converge on the view that narratives are at the center of the emotion of grief. In this article, I expand on this kind of view. On the one hand, I argue that key strands of phenomenological and neuroscientific studies suggest that grief consists in a complex emotional process of disconfirmation-and-updating of the narrative self-model. By heuristically drawing on an analogy between binocular rivalry and grief, I show that certain salient aspects of the phenomenology of grief, such (...) as self-alienation and ambiguity, are straightforwardly reflected by this account. On the other hand, I argue that this hierarchical approach has the resources to: (i) show that both narratable and unnarratable experiences of personal loss are both instances of grief; and (ii) differentiate between narratable and unnarratable experiences of grief, without compromising the view that self-constituting narratives are at the center of the phenomenon. (shrink)

Divided-mind approaches to the conflict involved in self-control are pervasive. According to an influential version of the divided-mind approach, self-control conflict is a dispute between affective reactions and “cold” cognitive processes. I argue that divided-mind approaches are based on problematic bipartite architectural assumptions. Thus views that understand self-control as “control _of_ the self” might be better suited to account for self-control. I subsequently aim to expand on this kind of view. I suggest that self-control conflict involves a rivalry between narrative (...) self-models aimed at reducing error, analogous to model rivalry in binocular rivalry paradigms. This approach straightforwardly accounts for the sense of conflict that is characteristic of self-control within a unified-mind approach, and among its other explanatory advantages, it directly aligns with current views that account for addiction in terms of maladaptive self-representational processes. (shrink)

Ethical issues relating to the use of the injectable contraceptive in developed and developing countries alike involve public policy decisions concerning both criteria for testing a new drug and individual choices about using a specific form of contraception approved for national distribution. Drug testing consists of an important but still evolving set of procedures. Depo-Provera is not qualitatively different from any other drug and some unpredictable risks are inevitable, even after extensive animal experiments and clinical trials. In assessing the risks (...) and benefits of Depo-Provera use, epidemiological data from large-scale human use is now beginning to become more important than data from animal experiments and clinical trials. The consumer's best interest is central to any ethically responsible system of drug distribution. Systems of informed choice are needed, even in societies where illiteracy remains common and medical services are weak. In the case of a contraceptive, the risks of non-use leading to unintended pregnancy, which can result in high mortality, are relevant as well as the side-effects of the method. An attempt, therefore, is made here to categorise those issues which are universal and those which are country-specific. (shrink)

In the past several years, observational entropy has been developed as both a quantum generalization of Boltzmann entropy, and as a rather general framework to encompass classical and quantum equilibrium and non-equilibrium coarse-grained entropy. In this paper we review the construction, interpretation, most important properties, and some applications of this framework. The treatment is self-contained and relatively pedagogical, aimed at a broad class of researchers.

Over the years, many movies have presented on-screen a struggle between machines and human beings. Typically, the machines have come to rule and threaten the existence of humanity. They must be conquered to ensure the survival of and to secure the freedom of the human race. Although these movies appear to expose the dangers of an autonomous and hegemonic technology and to champion the human being, they do not. Humans do not in the end triumph over technology but merge with (...) the machine. Instead of liberation from technological domination, the movies in question depict as inevitable the total surrender and absorption of humanity to and into technology. These movies lead to a denial of the true conditions of our existence in technology. Many films could serve to illustrate the problem, but this study focuses on two representative film trilogies: The Terminator and The Matrix. (shrink)

The Western Tradition has long struggled to define and understand evil, yet definitive answers continue to elude us. So, too, the role of evil in Goethe's Faust remains problematic. With the help of Mephistopheles, Faust acquires a forbidden,,knowledge of good and evil“, evoking the biblical story of the Fall. This study uncovers important layers of meaning in that story and reveals its special and unrecognized significance for Faust.

At the turn of the century Idealism was perhaps the leading school of philosophy in the English-speaking world. By the 1960s the situation was very different. There had occurred during the previous two generations what has been described as 'a revolution in philosophy', one consequence of which had been the almost total eclipse of Idealism. Originally published in 1962, this book is a critical study of certain aspects of the work of four Idealist philosophers: F. H. Bradley, T. H. Green, (...) Bernard Bosanquet and Josiah Royce. It deals mainly with their social philosophy, but some consideration is also given to their metaphysics. It is the thesis of this book that there is a valid and significant form of Idealism to be found in the work of these philosophers, but that they did not succeed in developing it fully and consistently. (shrink)

This volume offers the first English language collection of academic essays on the post-Holocaust thought of Jean Améry, a Jewish-Austrian-Belgian essayist, journalist and literary author. Comprehensive in scope and multi-disciplinary in orientation, contributors explore central aspects of Améry's philosophical and ethical position, including dignity, responsibility, resentment, and forgiveness.

In Poetics chapter 9, Aristotle famously claims that poetry is more philosophical than history. What does this mean? I argue that he is talking about the metaphysics of events. Poets seek causal coherence among the events in their stories. Historians must report what happened whether or not the events of history exhibit causal coherence. This makes the poet's job more philosophical than the historian's, for the poet is seeking a unified plot -- an action-type -- that serves as the backbone (...) of the story he is trying to tell. The poet's final script is a token of an Aristotelian universal, the universal being an action-type that could have been fleshed out in many different ways, although with similar characters. Hence, the poet shows us what he thinks it is likely or necessary for agents of different types to do in the circumstances that confront them. Aristotelian mimesis, on this account, is the poetic representation of "one action," that is, of one action-type. (shrink)

Some patients with schizophrenia are not told their diagnosis. The moral, clinical and practical issues involved in telling or not telling the patient are discussed. In some cases a relative is told the diagnosis but not the patient. The implications for the family and clinical outcome are outlined. A case history illustrating some of these issues is presented.

In this paper, we explore the ontological and theological ground of political institutions in order to then reflect upon the eschatological calling of society. The paper builds on Tillich's ontological insight that love does not simply transcend justice, but that it permeates and drives justice, that justice gives form to love's reunion of the separated. This relation between love and justice is at play in political institutions: these unite human beings under forms of justice that must be transformed ever anew (...) if they are not to lose touch with the dynamic power of love and freeze into increasingly unjust juridicalism. The modern history of Western civilisation bears witness to this ontological tension, and the phenomenon of globalisation is yet another instance of human society's mystical calling. Thus, love heads the dynamic movement that transforms political institutions ever anew. Yet society as a whole must become conscious of its ontology for humanity to truly reach its eschatological potential, and this will require both that theology recovers its ground and that political theory thinks theologically. (shrink)

The phenomenon of probability backflow, previously quantified for a free nonrelativistic particle, is considered for a free particle obeying Dirac's equation. It is shown that probability backflow can occur in the opposite direction to the momentum; that is to say, there exist positive-energy states in which the particle certainly has a positive momentum in a given direction, but for which the component of the probability flux vector in that direction is negative. It is shown that the maximum possible amount of (...) probability that can flow “backwards,” over a given time interval of duration T, depends on the dimensionless parameter ε = (4ℏ/mc2T)1/2, where m is the mass of the particle and c is the speed of light. At ε = 0, the nonrelativistic value of approximately 0.039 for this maximum is recovered. Numerical studies suggest that the maximum decreases monotonically as ε increases from 0, and show that it depends on the size of m, ℏ, and T, unlike the nonrelativistic case. (shrink)

A bold and visionary book that reveals the false and catastrophically damaging images at the root of the oppression of women and the rape of Earth's resources, ...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Without mass media, openness and accountability are impossible in contemporary democracies. Nevertheless, mass media can hinder political transparency as well as help it. Politicians and political operatives can simulate the political virtues of transparency through rhetorical and media manipulation. Television tends to convert coverage of law and politics into forms of entertainment for mass consumption, and television serves as fertile ground for a self‐proliferating culture of scandal. Given the limited time available for broadcast and the limited attention of audiences, stories (...) about political strategy, political infighting, political scandal and the private lives of politicians tend to crowd out less entertaining stories about substantive policy questions. Political life begins to conform increasingly to the image of politics portrayed on television. Through a quasi‐Darwinian process, media events, scandals, and other forms of politics‐as‐entertainment eventually dominate and weed out other forms of political information and public discussion, transforming the very meaning of public discourse. In this way the goals of political transparency can be defeated by what appear to be its central mechanisms: proliferating information, holding political officials accountable for their actions, and uncovering secrets. (shrink)

Consider the problem of allocating a scarce resource to people. A fair decision procedure is one where each person has an equal chance of receiving the resource. An unfair decision procedure is one where the chances are not equal. Normally we think that, in an unfair decision procedure, that the correct way to redress the injustice is by rerunning the allocation using a fair decision procedure. In this paper, I show that this actually creates an overall bias favouring one person, (...) and solutions to this problem are counterintuitive, in that they typically involve introducing additional unfair elements into the situation. (shrink)

Advances in genetics may soon make possible the development of ethnic bioweapons that target specific ethnic or racial groups based upon genetic markers. While occasional published reports of such research generate public outrage, little has been written about the ethical distinction (if any) between the development of such weapons and ethnically neutral bioweapons. The purpose of this paper is to launch a debate on the subject of ethnic bioweapons before they become a scientific reality.

L'exégèse patristique constitue un de ses aspects essentiels de l'ancienne pensée chrétienne et «la forme principale qu'a longtemps revêtue la synthèse chrétienne» . L'intérêt pour l'exégèse des Pères est devenu aujourd'hui un des principaux moteurs des études patristiques. On salue ici la publication des chaînes exégétiques sur la Gensèse et sur l'Exode et on présente une vingtaine de monographies qui donnent une image contrastée du rapport des Pères à l'Écriture.

Depuis 1996, plusieurs équipes sont au travail pour achever la traduction liturgique de l’Ancien Testament. Au moment où le chantier est en voie d’achèvement, un ouvrier de la première heure présente ici l’entreprise à travers le cas particulier du livre de Tobie, qui a été traduit sur frais nouveaux pour l’usage liturgique. La traduction liturgique ne prétend pas surclasser les traductions existantes, mais occupe un créneau qui lui est propre: celui de la proclamation publique.

(1996). Knowledge elicitation using a multi‐modal approach. World Futures: Vol. 47, Unity and Diversity in Contemporary Systems Tinking: Systematic Pictures at an Exhibition, pp. 93-101.

It is often argued that clinical research should not violate the Kantian principle that people must not be used merely as a means for the purposes of others. At first sight, the practice of clinical research itself, however, seems to violate precisely this principle: clinical research is often beneficial to future people rather than to participants; even if participants benefit, all things considered, they are exposed to discomforts which are absent both in regular care for their diseases and in other (...) areas of daily life. Therefore, in this paper we will consider whether people are used merely as a means by being enrolled in clinical research. On the basis of recent studies of Kantian scholars we will argue that clinical research is compatible with the Kantian principle if the conditions of possible consent and end-sharing have been met. Participants are not used merely as a means if they have sufficient reasons to consent to being enrolled in clinical research and can share the ends of the researchers who use them. Moreover, we will claim that even if people are used merely as a means by participating in clinical research, it may not always be morally wrong to use them in this way. (shrink)

In their 2007 paper, Swierstra and Rip identify characteristic tropes and patterns of moral argumentation in the debate about the ethics of new and emerging science and technologies (or “NEST-ethics”). Taking their NEST-ethics structure as a starting point, we considered the debate about tissue engineering (TE), and argue what aspects we think ought to be a part of a rich and high-quality debate of TE. The debate surrounding TE seems to be predominantly a debate among experts. When considering the NEST-ethics (...) arguments that deal directly with technology, we can generally conclude that consequentialist arguments are by far the most prominently featured in discussions of TE. In addition, many papers discuss principles, rights and duties relevant to aspects of TE, both in a positive and in a critical sense. Justice arguments are only sporadically made, some “good life” arguments are used, others less so (such as the explicit articulation of perceived limits, or the technology as a technological fix for a social problem). Missing topics in the discussion, at least from the perspective of NEST-ethics, are second “level” arguments—those referring to techno-moral change connected to tissue engineering. Currently, the discussion about tissue engineering mostly focuses on its so-called “hard impacts”—quantifiable risks and benefits of the technology. Its “soft impacts”—effects that cannot easily be quantified, such as changes to experience, habits and perceptions, should receive more attention. (shrink)

In their 2007 paper, Swierstra and Rip identify characteristic tropes and patterns of moral argumentation in the debate about the ethics of new and emerging science and technologies (or “NEST-ethics”). Taking their NEST-ethics structure as a starting point, we considered the debate about tissue engineering (TE), and argue what aspects we think ought to be a part of a rich and high-quality debate of TE. The debate surrounding TE seems to be predominantly a debate among experts. When considering the NEST-ethics (...) arguments that deal directly with technology, we can generally conclude that consequentialist arguments are by far the most prominently featured in discussions of TE. In addition, many papers discuss principles, rights and duties relevant to aspects of TE, both in a positive and in a critical sense. Justice arguments are only sporadically made, some “good life” arguments are used, others less so (such as the explicit articulation of perceived limits, or the technology as a technological fix for a social problem). Missing topics in the discussion, at least from the perspective of NEST-ethics, are second “level” arguments—those referring to techno-moral change connected to tissue engineering. Currently, the discussion about tissue engineering mostly focuses on its so-called “hard impacts”—quantifiable risks and benefits of the technology. Its “soft impacts”—effects that cannot easily be quantified, such as changes to experience, habits and perceptions, should receive more attention. (shrink)

Despite hundreds of definitions, no consensus exists on a definition of life or on the closely related and problematic definitions of the organism and death. These problems retard practical and theoretical development in, for example, exobiology, artificial life, biology and evolution. This paper suggests improving this situation by basing definitions on a theory of a generalized particle hierarchy. This theory uses the common denominator of the “operator” for a unified ranking of both particles and organisms, from elementary particles to animals (...) with brains. Accordingly, this ranking is called “the operator hierarchy”. This hierarchy allows life to be defined as: matter with the configuration of an operator, and that possesses a complexity equal to, or even higher than the cellular operator. Living is then synonymous with the dynamics of such operators and the word organism refers to a select group of operators that fit the definition of life. The minimum condition defining an organism is its existence as an operator, construction thus being more essential than metabolism, growth or reproduction. In the operator hierarchy, every organism is associated with a specific closure, for example, the nucleus in eukaryotes. This allows death to be defined as: the state in which an organism has lost its closure following irreversible deterioration of its organization. The generality of the operator hierarchy also offers a context to discuss “life as we do not know it”. The paper ends with testing the definition’s practical value with a range of examples. (shrink)