Although language processing seems to resist age advancement, linguistic changes in aging are the reflection of systematic decline in cognitive and energy resources. However, aging does not affect language in a global way, being predominant a marked deterioration of production versus a relative maintenance of comprehension at various levels. This review provides updated information on the changes occurring in linguistic aging, focusing on lexical-semantic processing and the role of sociodemographic factors such as education, socioeconomic status and gender; In addition, a (...) brief approach to linguistic processing in the fourth age is attached. As a result, literature shows that lexical-semantic processing is asymmetric; older adults maintain their vocabulary and conceptual knowledge, however, they fail in tasks of access and lexical availability, with notable increase in events of the tip of the tongue associated with dependence on the psycholinguistic variables of the word. At the same time, the educational and socioeconomic level can influence lexical-semantic performance of the older adult, given its relation with the cognitive reserve and the greater elaboration of compensatory strategies. (shrink)

La disminución de dopamina en los ganglios basales es la principal causa de la enfermedad de Parkinson. Además de las disfunciones motrices, los individuos con EP presentan alteraciones cognitivas que incluyen déficits de control atencional y temporal, de percepción del ritmo de la música y del habla, y de procesamiento del lenguaje. El circuito estriado-tálamo-cortical, participa en la comprensión musical y del habla. Personas con EP presentan problemas en distinguir las estructuras rítmicas por verse afectado el funcionamiento de los GB (...) y, por lo tanto, el control de su pulso interno en el CETC. Sin embargo, se ha encontrado que personas con EP pueden mejorar su sincronización temporal interna mediante el acompañamiento de señales auditivas externas temporalmente predecibles. Estudios argumentan que señales de este tipo pueden compensar la vía disfuncional CETC mediante una interface con el circuito cerebelo-tálamo-cortical el cual es sensible a la codificación de eventos temporales. (shrink)

This paper presents two projects concerned with the application of natural language processing technology for improving communication between Public Administration and citizens. The first project, GIST,is concerned with automatic multilingual generation of instructional texts for form-filling. The second project, TAMIC, aims at providing an interface for interactive access to information, centered on natural language processing and supposed to be used by the clerk but with the active participation of the citizen.

In this paper, the radical view that transparent equipment is the result of an ecological assembly between tool users and physical aspects of the world is critically assessed. According to this perspective, tool users are normally viewed as plastically organized hybrid agents. In this view, such agents are able to interact with tools (artefacts or technologies) in ways that are opportunistic and fully locked to the local task environment. This intimate and flexible interaction would provide grounds for the thesis that (...) cognitive agents and tools constitute literal extended cognitive systems. By contrast, a revised understanding of tool use transparency will be attempted. In this perspective, the interplay between on-line and off-line thinking is understood in terms of a socially reified cognitive delegation that subsumes the advantages normally associated to the so-called ‘open-ended ecological controllers.’ Thus, the notion of transparent technologies can be explored on the basis of a derived or mediated cognitive delegation. This view will be complemented by the notion of communities of practice (CoP). Special sorts of CoP will be proposed as suitable and flexible cognitive environments for the development of tool transparency. (shrink)

Political theory is a field that finds nourishment in others. From economics, history, sociology, psychology, and political science, theorists have drawn a rich repertoire of schemas to parse the social world and make sense of it. With each of these encounters, new subjects are brought into focus as others recede into the background, ushering a change not only in how questions are tackled but also in what questions are thought worth asking.

Segundo Plotino, devemos subir novamente ao Bem, que toda alma deseja (En. I, 6, 7, 1-2). De fato, descobrimos nas Enéadas algumas importantes passagens a respeito da ascensão da alma em direção ao Intelecto e o Um. Não é claro, todavia, qual a natureza dessa ascensão: Plotino escreve sobre aspectos diferentes do processo nos diversos textos. Neste artigo, tento analisar alguns desses aspectos, pensando a ascensão como despertar, orientação das faculdades da alma, interiorização e conversão.

I propose an idealist ontology that makes sense of reality in a more parsimonious and empirically rigorous manner than mainstream physicalism, bottom-up panpsychism, and cosmopsychism. The proposed ontology also offers more explanatory power than these three alternatives, in that it does not fall prey to the hard problem of consciousness, the combination problem, or the decombination problem, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: there is only cosmic consciousness. We, as well as all other living organisms, are but dissociated alters (...) of cosmic consciousness, surrounded by its thoughts. The inanimate world we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of these thoughts. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

Resumen En este trabajo se desarrolla una aproximación epistemológica a las significaciones sociales, comprendidas como una entidad central que urde la composición simbólica de la realidad. Para ello, se despliega un trabajo teórico y reflexivo con el objetivo de esclarecer las tres significaciones sociales que aquí se establecen: imaginarios sociales, representaciones sociales y re-presentaciones discursivas. Al mismo tiempo, se procura presentar una taxonomía en planos de significación, correspondiente a las particularidades y ámbitos de acción de los imaginarios sociales (plano profundo), (...) representaciones sociales (plano medio de transición) y re-presentaciones discursivas (plano superficial). Este trabajo epistémico, que aporta en la clarificación conceptual de las tres nociones tratadas, ofrece un sustento teórico para futuras investigaciones y una nueva forma de abordar las significaciones sociales. Abstract In this work, an epistemological approach to social meanings is developed, understood as a central entity that weaves the symbolic composition of reality. To do this, a theoretical and reflective work is deployed with the aim of clarifying the three social meanings established here: social imaginaries, social representations, and discursive re-presentations. At the same time, it seeks to present a taxonomy in planes of meaning, corresponding to the particularities and fields of action of social imaginaries (deep plane), social representations (middle plane of transition) and discursive re-presentations (superficial plane). This epistemic work, which contributes to the conceptual clarification of the three notions discussed, offers theoretical support for future research and a new way of approaching social meanings. (shrink)

El artículo muestra la presencia del nacionalismo y de la escenificación del tiempo histórico nacional en clave de integración social en la narrativa, poesía y crítica literaria chilena del período 1900-1930.

This invited article is a response to the paper “Quantum Misuse in Psychic Literature,” by Jack A. Mroczkowski and Alexis P. Malozemoff, published in this issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. Whereas I sympathize with Mroczkowski’s and Malozemoff’s cause and goals, and I recognize the problem they attempted to tackle, I argue that their criticisms often overshot the mark and end up adding to the confusion. I address nine specific technical points that Mroczkowski and Malozemoff accused popular writers in (...) the fields of health care and parapsychology of misunderstanding and misrepresenting. I argue that, by and large—and contrary to Mroczkowski’s and Malozemoff’s claims—the statements made by these writers are often reasonable and generally consistent with the current state of play in foundations of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Turing’s much debated test has turned 70 and is still fairly controversial. His 1950 paper is seen as a complex and multilayered text, and key questions about it remain largely unanswered. Why did Turing select learning from experience as the best approach to achieve machine intelligence? Why did he spend several years working with chess playing as a task to illustrate and test for machine intelligence only to trade it out for conversational question-answering in 1950? Why did Turing refer to (...) gender imitation in a test for machine intelligence? In this article, I shall address these questions by unveiling social, historical and epistemological roots of the so-called Turing test. I will draw attention to a historical fact that has been only scarcely observed in the secondary literature thus far, namely that Turing’s 1950 test emerged out of a controversy over the cognitive capabilities of digital computers, most notably out of debates with physicist and computer pioneer Douglas Hartree, chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi, and neurosurgeon Geoffrey Jefferson. Seen in its historical context, Turing’s 1950 paper can be understood as essentially a reply to a series of challenges posed to him by these thinkers arguing against his view that machines can think. Turing did propose gender learning and imitation as one of his various imitation tests for machine intelligence, and I argue here that this was done in response to Jefferson's suggestion that gendered behavior is causally related to the physiology of sex hormones. (shrink)

Drawing upon a distinction between epistemically and metaphysically motivated notions of a concept, I consider the insurmountable problems of theories that appeal to our epistemic capacities to address the problem of the nature of concepts satisfactorily. Prominent theories of concepts hold that primitive concepts must have internal structure if they are to account for the explanatory functions that cognitive scientists have attributed to such constructs as prototypes, exemplars, and theories. Vindicating the role of non-experimental philosophy in the critical examination of (...) empirical theories, I argue that the explanatory effectiveness of those constructs is orthogonal to an argument concerning the structure of primitive concepts. Conceptual atomism provides an alternative approach to individuating primitive concepts the precise formulation of which has yet to be worked out. Despite its unpopularity, the atomist alternative is still in a better position to face the question of what concepts are than its competitors. (shrink)

Analizamos las relaciones no siempre presentes entre deportes, barrios y políticas públicas en Chile en el marco de las vinculaciones entre Estado y sociedad civil en la que el barrio y los clubes deportivos, pese a su gran presencia y aporte a la sociabilidad, han estado ausentes. Hasta antes del golpe de Estado de 1973, la sociedad civil tenía una gran fortaleza, y muchas de sus instituciones, como los clubes deportivos, gozaban de buena salud institucional y sobre todo de autonomía. (...) El colapso institucional del año 1973 quebró las confianzas y tras un proceso muy largo, las instituciones deportivas volvieron a reconfigurarse. Las políticas neoliberales también alcanzaron al mundo del deporte. El Estado subsidiario, a través de proyectos concursables, presta ayuda al desarrollo de estas instituciones de base. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a general taxonomy of different forms of eliminativism. In order to do so, I begin by exploring eliminativism from a broad perspective, providing a comparative picture of eliminativist projects in different domains. This exploration shows that eliminativism is a label used for a family of related types of eliminativist arguments and claims. The proposed taxonomy is an attempt to systematise those arguments and claims.

This article aims to contribute to the current debate on how imitation in early Greek epic can be identified and assessed. Two divine scenes in Iliad Book 7 and Odyssey Book 13 are compared in the light of their traditional background and contextual significance. It is suggested that there are grounds to interpret this as a case of imitation on the Odyssey poet’s part which, however, was not necessarily meant to elicit recognition of the subtext. A methodological point is made (...) by showing that it is possible to argue for a specific intertextual relation by considering the traditional techniques involved. (shrink)

The Idea of the World offers a grounded alternative to the frenzy of unrestrained abstractions and unexamined assumptions in philosophy and science today. This book examines what can be learned about the nature of reality based on conceptual parsimony, straightforward logic and empirical evidence from fields as diverse as physics and neuroscience. It compiles an overarching case for idealism - the notion that reality is essentially mental - from ten original articles the author has previously published in leading academic journals. (...) The case begins with an exposition of the logical fallacies and internal contradictions of the reigning physicalist ontology and its popular alternatives, such as bottom-up panpsychism. It then advances a compelling formulation of idealism that elegantly makes sense of - and reconciles - classical and quantum worlds. The main objections to idealism are systematically refuted and empirical evidence is reviewed that corroborates the formulation presented here. The book closes with an analysis of the hidden psychological motivations behind mainstream physicalism and the implications of idealism for the way we relate to the world. (shrink)

The Turing test has been studied and run as a controlled experiment and found to be underspecified and poorly designed. On the other hand, it has been defended and still attracts interest as a test for true artificial intelligence (AI). Scientists and philosophers regret the test’s current status, acknowledging that the situation is at odds with the intellectual standards of Turing’s works. This article refers to this as the Turing Test Dilemma, following the observation that the test has been under (...) discussion for over seventy years and still is widely seen as either too bad or too good to be a valuable experiment for AI. An argument that solves the dilemma is presented, which relies on reconstructing the Turing test as a thought experiment in the modern scientific tradition. It is argued that Turing’s exposition of the imitation game satisfies Mach’s characterization of the basic method of thought experiments and that Turing’s uses of his test satisfy Popper’s conception of the critical and heuristic uses of thought experiments and Kuhn’s association of thought experiments to conceptual change. It is emphasized how Turing methodically varied the imitation game design to address specific challenges posed to him by other thinkers and how his test illustrates a property of the phenomenon of intelligence and suggests a hypothesis on machine learning. This reconstruction of the Turing test provides a rapprochement to the conflicting views on its value in the literature. (shrink)

The article aims to provide the main conceptual coordinates in order to fully understand the state of the art of the most recent research in the field of neurobiology of interpersonal experience. The main purpose of this work is to analyze, at an anthropological, phenomenological and epistemological level, how the fundamental characteristics of the recognition of otherness and intercorporeity among human beings contribute to changing the image of nature in the light of a possible new relationship between living bodies, neurophysiological (...) systems and empathy. From this point of view, the hypothesis to investigate is that neurophenomenology, understood as a new evolutionary, multidimensional and autopoietic approach, is capable of probing the preconditions of the possible delineation of a phenomenology of intersubjectivity shaped by the neuroscientific turning point, represented by the discovery of mirror neurons. At this level, the neuroscientific data are interpreted according to a specific interdisciplinary perspective, thus trying to offer a possible unitary and integrated theoretical framework. (shrink)

In ancient times, authors such as Plutarch and Proclus questioned Parmenides’ abilities as a poet considering his Poem to be ‘prose in disguise’. Harsh judgments concerning Parmenides’ style are pervasive even in modern scholarship (Diels 1897, Wilamowitz 1912, Tarán 1977, Kirk & Raven 1977). This paper focuses on specific metrical and rhythmic devices used consistently in the composition of the Poem, that I will refer to, collectively, as ‘poetic dislocation’. This term encompasses the blurring and cancellation of the central caesura, (...) the tendency to break Hermann’s bridge with varying degrees of intensity, the accumulation of enjambment in groups of verses, the use of non-traditional lexicon of the epic genre and the placement of Homeric lexicon in non-Homeric hexameter collocations. My attempt is to prove that these procedures are an integral part of Parmenides’ poetic style. I will also present an analysis of Parmenides’ versification focusing on the rhythmic patterns and the organization of caesura, especially in fr. B8. (shrink)

Can animals think? In this paper I address the proposal that many animals, including insects such as honeybees, have genuine thoughts. I consider one prominent version of this view (Carruthers 2004; 2006) that claims that honeybees can represent and process information about their environments in a way that satisfies the main hallmarks of human conceptual thought. I shall argue, however, that this view fails to provide convincing grounds for accepting that animals possess concepts. More precisely, I suggest that two important (...) aspects of conceptual thought, viz., concept individuation and the generality constraint, are not satisfied. (shrink)

Resumen: El artículo examina la recepción y las distintas lecturas que tuvo La Araucana en Chile, en las últimas décadas del siglo XIX. También la modalidad de esas lecturas que obedecen a un nacionalismo distinto al nacionalismo liberal decimonónico. Describe las características de un nuevo imaginario de la nación y la incidencia que él tuvo en la recepción de la obra de Ercilla. Ejemplifica este proceso en su chilenización tanto en la historiografía literaria como en el campo editorial, también en (...) el nacionalismo musical y en los debates del llamado araucanismo científico y en la idea de una supuesta Raza Chilena. Por último, establece una vinculación con otros artículos del mismo autor que contribuyen al estudio de la recepción y la resemantización de La Araucana desde el siglo XVI hasta el XIX. Abstract: The article examines the reception and different readings that La Araucana had in Chile, in the last decades of the 19th century and first decades of the 20th century. At the same time, the modality in which these readings are part of a nationalism that differs from the liberal nationalism of the 19th Century. It outlines the characteristics of the new imaginary of the nation and the impact it had in the reception of Ercilla's work. The article follows the chilenization of La Araucana in literary historiography and in the publishing field, also in musical nationalism and in the debates of the so called scientific Araucanismo and in the idea of a supposed Chilean Race. Finally, it establishes a link with other articles by the same author that contribute to the study of the reception and resemantization of La Araucana. (shrink)

Several alternatives vie today for recognition as the most plausible ontology, from physicalism to panpsychism. By and large, these ontologies entail that physical structures circumscribe consciousness by bearing phenomenal properties within their physical boundaries. The ontology of idealism, on the other hand, entails that all physical structures are circumscribed by consciousness in that they exist solely as phenomenality in the first place. Unlike the other alternatives, however, idealism is often considered implausible today, particularly by analytic philosophers. A reason for this (...) is the strong intuition that an objective world transcending phenomenality is a self-evident fact. Other arguments—such as the dependency of phenomenal experience on brain function, the evidence for the existence of the universe before the origin of conscious life, etc.—are also often cited. In this essay, I will argue that these objections against the plausibility of idealism are false. As such, this essay seeks to show that idealism is an entirely plausible ontology. (shrink)

In 2005, an essay was published in Nature asserting that the universe is mental and that we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things. Since then, experiments have confirmed that — as predicted by quantum mechanics — reality is contextual, which contradicts at least intuitive formulations of realism and corroborates the hypothesis of a mental universe. Yet, to give this hypothesis a coherent rendering, one must explain how a mental universe can — at least in principle — accommodate (...) (a) our experience of ourselves as distinct individual minds sharing a world beyond the control of our volition; and (b) the empirical fact that this world is contextual despite being seemingly shared. By combining a modern formulation of the ontology of idealism with the relational interpretation of quantum mechanics, the present paper attempts to provide a viable explanatory framework for both points. In the process of doing so, the paper also addresses key philosophical qualms of the relational interpretation. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es tratar sobre el concepto la cultura en la generación conocida como los patriarcas o fundadores del pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano. Luego de establecer la relación entre la cultura la filosofía, y de justificar el recurso a los fundadores para tratar sobre el concepto de cultura, intentaré describir las características más importantes de la filosofía de algunos filósofos de esta generación, como Alejandro Korn, Carlos Vaz Ferreira, Alejandro Deústua, Enrique Molina y Antonio Caso, y señalar las (...) principales ideas en torno al concepto de cultura, y su relación con la identidad latinoamericana. (shrink)

I argue for an idealist ontology consistent with empirical observations, which seeks to explain the facts of nature more parsimoniously than physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism. This ontology also attempts to offer more explanatory power than both physicalism and bottom-up panpsychism, in that it does not fall prey to either the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ or the ‘subject combination problem’, respectively. It can be summarized as follows: spatially unbound consciousness is posited to be nature’s sole ontological primitive. We, as well as (...) all other living organisms, are dissociated alters of this unbound consciousness. The universe we see around us is the extrinsic appearance of phenomenality surrounding—but dissociated from—our alter. The living organisms we share the world with are the extrinsic appearances of other dissociated alters. As such, the challenge to artificially create individualized consciousness becomes synonymous with the challenge to artificially induce abiogenesis. (shrink)

A concepção plotiniana de discurso é complexa e multi-facetada. Na "Enéada" I, 2, Plotino pensa o lógos prophorikós como uma imagem do lógos na alma. Na "Enéada" VI, 9, como um modo imperfeito de falar sobre o Um e um instrumento para exortar e instruir o filósofo no seu caminho de ascensão. Neste artigo, investigo quais são as relações entre discurso e ascensão da alma nas "Enéadas", tentando determinar quais são, de acordo com Plotino, as possibilidades e limites do discurso (...) no seu uso filosófico. The plotinian conception of discourse is a complex and manifold one. In "Ennead" I, 2, Plotinus thinks the lógos prophorikós as an image of the the lógos in the soul. In "Ennead" VI, 9, he thinks it as a fallible way to talk about the One and an instrument to exort and instruct the philosopher in his way of ascension. In this paper, I investigate what the relations of discourse and ascension of the soul are in the "Enneads", in an attempt to determinate what are, according to Plotinus, the possibilities and limits of language in its philosophical use. (shrink)