In game-theoretic signaling models, evolution tends to favor perfectly precise signaling systems, but in the natural world communication is almost always imprecise. I argue that standard explanations for this discrepancy are only partially sufficient, and I show that communication is often ambiguous because signal senders take advantage of context sensitivity. As evidence, I make two additions to the signaling model: a cost for more complex signaling strategies and the ability to combine information in signals with independent information. Analysis and simulation (...) of the altered model shows that it leads to the predicted outcome of evolution favoring ambiguous signaling. (shrink)

Multisensory Experiences: Where the senses meet technology takes you on a journey that goes from the fundamentals of multisensory experiences, through the relationship between the senses and technology, to what the future of those experiences may look like, and our responsibility in it.

Resenha do livro “Raízes do Conservadorismo brasileiro: a abolição na imprensa e no imaginário social”, escrito por Juremir Machado da Silva e publicado pela Editora Civilização Brasileira em 2017.

Previous research has demonstrated that ratings of the perceived pleasantness and quality of odors can be modulated by auditory stimuli presented at around the same time. Here, we extend these results by assessing whether the hedonic congruence between odor and sound stimuli can modulate the perception of odor intensity, pleasantness, and quality in untrained participants. Unexpectedly, our results reveal that broadband white noise, which was rated as unpleasant in a follow-up experiment, actually had a more pronounced effect on participants’ odor (...) ratings than either the consonant or dissonant musical selections. In particular, participants rated the six smells used as being less pleasant and less sweet when they happened to be listening to white noise, as compared to any one of the other music conditions. What is more, these results also add evidence to support the existence of a close relationship between an odor’s hedonic character and the perception of odor quality. So, for example, independent of the sound condition, pleasant odors were rated as sweeter, less dry, and brighter than the unpleasant odors. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the understanding of crossmodal correspondences between olfactory and auditory stimuli. (shrink)

En Colombia se camina hacia la constitución de un Sistema Educativo Indígena Propio en el que se insiste más en “lo propio” que en la interculturalidad. Sin embargo, se apela a este enfoque epistemológico y pedagógico en 3 sentidos: 1) La apropiación de la escolaridad occidental como mediación garante del derecho a la educación diferenciada. 2) Los sujetos de aprendizaje son los colectivos, no los individuos, los saberes no son discretos sino holísticos, la vivencialidad orienta las didácticas y la resolución (...) de problemas valida los saberes. Así, la comunidad se abre al cambio sin perder la identidad. 3) El diálogo de saberes parte de una apertura hospitalaria al saber del otro. La ampliación del horizonte hermenéutico transforma a los sujetos, pero no los diluye sustituyendo paradigmas. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es analizar las variedades de Capitalismo que emergieron en Latinoamérica y la Europa Central del Este desde 1980 como ejemplos de transferencia institucional. En el artículo considero la posibilidad de que el capitalismo, al igual que la democracia, es un complejo paquete institucional antes que una institución elemental. Algunos de sus componentes viajan más rápido que otros a través de formas híbridas, constituyendo, por tanto, nuevas perspectivas con potencial suficiente para ser institucionalizadas.

This book traces the origins and evolution of cybersemiotics, beginning with the integration of semiotics into the theoretical framework of cybernetics and information theory. The book opens with chapters that situate the roots of cybersemiotics in Peircean semiotics, describe the advent of the Information Age and cybernetics, and lay out the proposition that notions of system, communication, self-reference, information, meaning, form, autopoiesis, and self-control are of equal topical interest to semiotics and systems theory. Subsequent chapters introduce a cybersemiotic viewpoint on (...) the capacity of arts and other practices for knowing. This suggests pathways for developing Practice as Research and practice-led research, and prompts the reader to view this new configuration in cybersemiotic terms. Other contributors discuss cultural and perceptual shifts that lead to interaction with hybrid environments such as Alexa. The relationship of storytelling and cybersemiotics is covered at chapter length, and another chapter describes an individual-collectivity dialectics, in which the latter constrains the former, but the former fuels the latter. The concluding chapter begins with the observation that digital technologies have infiltrated every corner of the metropolis - homes, workplaces, and places of leisure - to the extent that cities and bodies have transformed into interconnected interfaces. The book challenges the reader to participate in a broader discussion of the potential, limitations, alternatives, and criticisms of cybersemiotics. (shrink)

Este artículo se halla dividido en tres partes.En la primera, se define el estado de la ciencia física y del positivismo lógico, concluyendo el tránsito de ambos hacia el constructivismo.En la segunda, se realiza un esbozo del constructivismo de Piaget.Finalmente, en el tercer apartado, con la intención de desarrollar un ejemplo de esta confluencia en las ciencias sociales,se constata que ciertos criterios de validez defendidos para la metodología cualitativa se complementan totalmente con los contenidos en la estadística .This article is (...) divided into three sections. First, we define the state of physical science and logical positivism, concluding the transit of both towards constructivism. Second, we outlined the Piaget constructivism. Third, with the intention of developing an example of this confluence in social sciences, we argue that few criteria of qualitative methodology validity are completely complementary to those contained in the statistics. (shrink)

Standardly, the usual approach to rationality is based on the notion of ‘being a reason for’. Honouring the traditional distinction between practical and theoretical philosophy, reasons are classified as justificative and explicative. In both cases, a reason-statement has the form ‘’. For reasons of type , ‘A’ is a factual statement and ‘B’ is a statement which describes an action of the agent. The reason-statement has a prescriptive sense because ‘A is a reason for doing B’ means ‘A is a (...) reason an agent ought to do B’. So, it is advisable to schematize that kind of statements as ‘’, where ‘OB’ is a deontic statement prescribing the duty to do B. Reasons of type have a descriptive sense and do not require the above-mentioned constraint. But ‘being a reason for’ has different senses according to context, even when the distinction between justificative and explicative reasons is drawn. Accordingly, it is important to distinguish two basic types of reasons: sufficient and necessary, and two subordinate types of reasons: contributing and substitutive . A lot of attention has been paid, lately, to a sense of contributive reasons: prima facie reasons . The paper will deal with that kind of reasons. Its main thesis are: 1) prima facie reason-statements are defeasible conditionals ‘’ pointing out that A is a contributing condition of B, 2) a defeasible conditional has the properties of ‘’, where ‘ =>’ is a strict implication and ‘f’’ a revision-operator satisfying the conditions set up by the theory AGM on the rational change of theories. (shrink)

The present article is not intended to be technical. It is first a historical sketch of the socio-political environment that surrounded the Hellenic civilization and more importantly Portico philosophy (stoic philosophy). Second, these lines are an approach to stoic ethos through etymological elements such as autarcia and autárkeia and the ideology of some thinkers.

En este texto se desarrolla un acercamiento al problema de las formas de acción colectiva y de representación que se pueden presentar como alternativas con potencial de transformación de las condiciones sociales más allá de la estructura ideológica del sistema capitalista. A partir de una confrontación entre Cornelius Castoriadis y Slavoj Žižek con respecto a la posibilidad de autoinstitución de la sociedad y la necesidad de vincular la multitud a una representación unitaria, se analizan los dilemas concretos de lalucha revolucionaria (...) a través de las figuras de Lenin y Robespierre. Este análisis permite concluir que la irrupción de la libertad de los colectivos en los eventos revolucionarios implica un tipo de violencia que impide determinar con certeza su dirección. Sin embargo, tal violencia también es la condición que enmarca el acto revolucionario en una dimensión ética, como una decisión que posibilita la transformación del imaginario. (shrink)

Legal interpretation is a complex subject that raises several problems, and one of them relates to the question whether legal interpretative propositions are objective. Several claims arguing in favor of this objective stance are discussed in the article with the idea of understanding the nature of such claims.Resumen:La interpretación jurídica es un tema complejo que plantea diversos pro- blemas, y uno de ellos, quizá el más relevante, es el relativo a establecer si las proposiciones interpretativas derivadas de un texto jurídico (...) son objetivas. Las principales posturas existentes en torno a la posible objetividad de las proposiciones interpretativas, son analizadas y evaluadas por el autor (en especial, la llamada “objetividad modesta”) para descubrir si existe un referente objetivo para las interpretaciones jurídicas, el término objetivo de esa referencia y en que consiste tal objetividad. (shrink)

La obra de Charles Darwin trasciende los dominios de las ciencias biológicas. En el presente ensayo se valoran los impactos de su propuesta teórica �especialmente su incorporación de la historia en la teoría� en las revoluciones científicas, en la sociedad de su tiempo y la contemporánea. Se esbozan tres rasgos de sus aportaciones como científico profesional: la incorporación de la ética y la responsabilidad social, el vínculo con el pensamiento ambientalista contemporáneo y su comprensión del método científico.

Desde el surgimiento de la biopolítica esta ha ido evolucionando hacia unos planteamientos neoliberales y hacia la construcción de una ingeniería social a través de una agenda política donde el problema del cambio climático se encuentra muy presente. Este es un problema que ha movilizado a la comunidad científica. Gracias al progreso tecnológico se están planteando soluciones para frenar la degradación del planeta. Sin embargo, cada vez hay más artistas contemporáneos que a través de sus obras quieren difundir el asunto (...) medioambiental con el fin de contribuir a la sensibilización de la sociedad. (shrink)

Las actuales sociedades de mercado han dado lugar a situaciones de extrema desigualdad y descontento social, lo que constituye una de las principales causas de la actual crisis de la democracia en casi todos los países de Occidente, en especial en Latinoamérica. Debido a lo anterior, han vuelto a cobrar vigencia las tesis que desde un principio hicieron frente a la concepción liberal de la libertad y la democracia. En este ensayo se examinan brevemente estas corrientes “contraliberales” de la democracia (...) y se ponen en evidencia serios inconvenientes a los que pueden llevar por cuenta de uno de sus elementos esenciales: el cultivo de la virtud cívica de las personas y la identidad y responsabilidad con la sociedad que aquélla implica. (shrink)

This chapter draws parallels between Leopoldo Zea and Stanley Cavell's thought. It forms the basis of this argument in their thought on circumstantialism. Cavell and Zea both reflect on the American circumstance, a circumstance conditioned by the discovery, colonizations, and nationalization of Americas, together with the American people's heroic desire to connect, continuously and urgently, with themselves and their destiny as Americans.