Many have bowed before the recently acquired powers of ‘new technologies’. However, in the shift from tekhnē to tekhnologia, it seems we have lost human values. These values are communicative in nature as technological progress has placed barriers like distance, web pages and ‘miscellaneous extras’ between individuals. Certain values, like the interpersonal pleasures of rendering service, have been lost as their domain of predilection has for many become fully commercially oriented, dominated by the cadence of profitability. Though the popular cultures (...) of the artificial have surged forth to deliver us from the twentieth century, they have enabled some very superfluous dreaming—Man has succumbed to the Godly role of simulating himself and creating other beings. Communication is replaced by machines, services are rendered via many automated devices, procreation has entered the public sphere, robots and entertainment agents educate our youth and mesmerising screen-integrating ‘forms of intelligence’ even think for us. As such, this so-called culture threatens the very values Man constructed in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to guide himself into the future. But what if the phenomena mentioned just reflect our new values? The author presents an investigation into this cultural shift, its impact on human practices with regards the mind and the body and evokes some pros and cons of generally accepting the ‘Culture of the Artificial’. (shrink)

Related Works: Part II: C. T. Chong, Yue Yang. $\Sigma_2$ Induction and Infinite Injury Priority Argument, Part II: Tame $\Sigma_2$ Coding and the Jump Operator. Ann. Pure Appl. Logic, vol. 87, no. 2, 103--116. Mathematical Reviews : MR1490049 Part III: C. T. Chong, Lei Qian, Theodore A. Slaman, Yue Yang. $\Sigma_2$ Induction and Infinite Injury Priority Argument, Part III: Prompt Sets, Minimal Paries and Shoenfield's Conjecture. Mathematical Reviews : MR1818378.

The series is devoted to the publication of high-level monographs on all areas of mathematical logic and its applications. It is addressed to advanced students and research mathematicians, and may also serve as a guide for lectures and for seminars at the graduate level.

We give a survey of the study of nonstandard models in recursion theory and reverse mathematics. We discuss the key notions and techniques in effective computability in nonstandard models. and their applications to problems concerning combinatorial principles in subsystems of second order arithmetic. Particular attention is given to principles related to Ramsey's Theorem for Pairs.

Hungu/ubuntu education philosophy -- Environments for hunhu/ubuntu development -- The role of the school -- Hunhu/ubuntu content -- Teaching strategies for results -- Developing hunhu/ubuntu in the classroom.

Discussion about the application of scientific knowledge in robotics in order to build people helpers is widespread. The issue herein addressed is philosophically poignant, that of robots that are “people”. It is currently popular to speak about robots and the image of Man. Behind this lurks the dialogical mind and the questions about the significance of an artificial version of it. Without intending to defend or refute the discourse in favour of ‘recreating’ Man, a lesser familiar question is brought forth: (...) “and what if we were capable of creating a very convincible replica of man (constructing a robot-person), what would the consequences of this be and would we be satisfied with such technology?” Thorny topic; it questions the entire knowledge foundation upon which strong AI/Robotics is positioned. The author argues for improved monitoring of technological progress and thus favours implementing weaker techniques. (shrink)

In this article, I establish a theory of knowledge approach for evaluating the use of computers for educational purposes at the university. In so doing, I trace part of the history of the “enabling factor” of Artificial Intelligence in this sector, an important element that has been integrated into everyday learning environments. The result of my reflection is a dialogical structure, directly inspired by past technology assessment research, which illustrates the conceptual advancement of researchers in the field of learning technologies. (...) The notions covered have implications in future policy-related discourse with regards to education. (shrink)

A coordinate-free formulation is established for (semi) classical particle-field interactions. The exterior language of spacetime chains and De-Rham currents enables the description to include extended strings and membranes besides point particles. Treating physical fields in terms of sections of particular bundles, a unified account of interactions is presented in terms of an intrinsic action principle on a bundle of jets over spacetime. The theory is illustrated by considering the specific model of point particles with intrinsic spin covariantly coupled to theU(1) (...) andSL(2, C) connections describing the electromagnetic and gravitational fields, respectively. The notion of dual spin is examined in this context and coupled equations for this particle-field system are explicitly derived in a local chart. Attention is drawn to the global implications of the theory. (shrink)