The heart has a high‐metabolic rate, and its “around‐the‐clock” vital role to sustain life sets it apart in a regenerative setting from other organs and appendages. The landscape of vertebrate species known to perform intrinsic heart regeneration is strongly biased toward ectotherms—for example, fish, salamanders, and embryonic/neonatal ectothermic mammals. It is hypothesized that intrinsic heart regeneration is exclusively limited to the low‐metabolic hearts of ectotherms. The biomedical field of regenerative medicine seeks to devise biologically inspired regenerative therapies to diseased human (...) hearts. Falsification of the ectothermy dependency for heart regeneration hypothesis may be a crucial prerequisite to meaningfully seek inspiration in established ectothermic regenerative animal models. Otherwise, engineering approaches to construct artificial heart components may constitute a more viable path toward regenerative therapies. A more strict definition of regenerative phenomena is generated and several testable sub‐hypotheses and experimental avenues are put forward to elucidate the link between heart regeneration and metabolism. Also see the video abstract here https://youtu.be/fZcanaOT5z8. (shrink)

How should one understand comparisons in which neither of two alternatives is at least as good as the other? Much recent literature on comparability problems focuses on what the appropriate explanation of the phenomenon is. Is it due to vagueness or the possibility of non-conventional comparative relations such as parity? This paper argues that the discussions on how to best explain comparability problems has reached an impasse at which it is hard to make any progress. To advance the discussion we (...) suggest a new classification of comparability problems that focuses on the problems they cause for practical reasoning. (shrink)

IN 1959 and 1960 I gave the Gifford Lectures in the University of St. Andrews. The lectures were called 'Norms and Values, an Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Morals and Legislation'. The present work is substantially the same as the content of the second series of lectures, then advertised under the not very adequate title 'Values'. It is my plan to publish a revised version of the content of the first series of lectures, called 'Norms', as a separate book. (...) The two works will be independent of one another. (shrink)

The Ethics of War is an indispensable collection of essays addressing issues both timely and age-old about the nature and ethics of war. Features essays by great thinkers from ancient times through to the present day, among them Plato, Augustine, Aquinas, Machiavelli, Grotius, Kant, Russell, and Walzer Examines timely questions such as: When is recourse to arms morally justifiable? What moral constraints should apply to military conduct? How can a lasting peace be achieved? Will appeal to a broad range of (...) readers interested in morality and ethics in war time Includes informative introductions and helpful marginal notes by editors. (shrink)

The Aesthetic Animal answers the ultimate questions of why we adorn ourselves, embellish our things and surroundings, and produce art, music, song, dance and fiction. It is written in a lively and entertaining tone, with beautiful color illustrations. This must-read presents an original and comprehensive synthesis of the empirical field, synthesizing data from archeology, cave art, anthropology, biology, evolutionary psychology and neuro-aesthetics.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Abstract.If norms are neither true nor false, can logical relations such as contradiction and entailment obtain between them? Earlier logical positivists and also Hans Kelsen in his later years have answered the question with No. While appreciating the seriousness of the problem, the author of the present paper makes a fresh attempt to answer the question with Yes. His answer presupposes that norms can be judged from the point of view of their rationality. The deontic loic or logic of norms (...) built on this foundation is much more restricted, however, than tae “classical” systems. This again is a consequence of the author's opinion that the sentential connectives (negation, conjunction, disjunction, etc.) apply to norms only on condition that they can be “shifted” from joining norm‐formulations to the descriptive contents of the norms themselves. (shrink)

The legitimacy of government is often linked to its ability to maintain order and secure peace. Thomas Hobbes’ political philosophy provides a clear description of why government is necessary, as human nature and the structures emerging out of human social interaction are such that order and peace will not naturally emerge to a sufficient degree. Hobbes’ general argument is often accepted at the national level, but in this article, I explore why a Hobbesian argument for the international level—an argument for (...) world government—is deducible from his philosophy. Hobbes builds his philosophy on his conception of human nature and argues that individuals’ interests and preferences should be the determinant for evaluating the value of a political entity. By emphasising these aspects of Hobbes’ theory, I argue that several contemporary phenomena suggest that a world government could be preferable to the states system. The cases used are the outbreak of war in Europe in 2022 and the continuing and accelerating environmental crisis. Through this examination, the continued relevance of Hobbes’ political philosophy is demonstrated, and according to Hobbes’ own logic, those who accept the argument should also seek to implement such a solution. (shrink)

The human brain’s ongoing activity is characterized by intrinsic networks of coherent fluctuations, measured for example with correlated functional magnetic resonance imaging signals. So far, however, the brain processes underlying this ongoing blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) signal orchestration and their direct relevance for human behavior are not sufficiently understood. In this study, we address the question of whether and how ongoing BOLD activity within intrinsic occipital networks impacts on conscious visual perception. To this end, backwardly masked targets were presented (...) in participants’ left visual field only, leaving the ipsi-lateral occipital areas entirely free from direct effects of task throughout the experiment. Signal time courses of ipsi-lateral BOLD fluctuations in visual areas V1 and V2 were then used as proxies for the ongoing contra-lateral BOLD activity within the bilateral networks. Magnitude and phase of these fluctuations were compared in trials with and without conscious visual perception, operationalized by means of subjective confidence ratings. Our results show that ipsilateral BOLD magnitudes in V1 were significantly higher at times of peak response when the target was perceived consciously. A significant difference between conscious and non-conscious perception with regard to the pre-target phase of an intrinsic-frequency regime suggests that ongoing V1 fluctuations exert a decisive impact on the access to consciousness already before stimulation. Both effects were absent in V2. These results thus support the notion that ongoing slow BOLD activity within intrinsic networks covering V1 represents localized processes that modulate the degree of readiness for the emergence of visual consciousness. (shrink)

An intuitive and appealing way to characterize problem solving is as the application of constraints which reduce the problem-solution space. Any advantage offered by interdisciplinary problem solving would then plausi- bly derive from the integration of constraints from the fields involved. We propose an account of interdisciplinary problem solving which treats the integration of constraints as an iterative process. Appealing to a general- ization of entity-activity dualism from mechanical explanation, we extend the accounts of Bechtel and of Craver to non-hierarchical, (...) non-life-science, interdisciplinary problem-solving. Integration of disciplines occurs at the level of fields and their explanatory frameworks. (shrink)

Humans are neophile, curious, and explorative animals with impressive capabilities for creative problem-solving. I discuss some of the ultimate roots behind human creativity while reviewing two books on creativity and problem-solving. To E. O. Wilson, the driv­ing force behind creativity is our instinctive love of novelty, and creativity’s ultimate goal is “self-understanding.” I elaborate on and question this assumption. The theories of inclu­sive fitness and group selection are discussed, with Wilson in favor of the latter. Finally, the theory of gene-culture (...) coevolution is introduced as fundamental to the unity of science and the humanities and to closing the gap between these two cultures. Eagleman and Brandt’s volume is more of an entertaining history of design and human inventiveness than a study in creativity as such. We hear about the three main operations of creative process: bending, blending, and breaking, and these operations are the primary means by which all ideas evolve, according to the authors. (shrink)

It has been widely discussed whether the existence of other universes than the known universe is a purely metaphysical consideration. This paper argues to the contrary that the existence of other universes is a meaningful hypothesis, which can be tested based on observable data. The paper applies the perspective of observer bias as an approach for assigning probabilities to the mutually excluding hypotheses of universe vs. multiverse, i.e., whether the known universe is the only universe, or just one universe in (...) an ensemble of universes, a so-called multiverse. The basic idea of the paper relies on the following consideration. In a multiverse, the vast majority of observers would live in universes that are more life friendly. Thus, conditional on there being a multiverse, we should expect to find ourselves in a universe with values of the fundamental parameters that provide particularly fertile grounds for life. In contrast, if there is only a single universe, it may well be the case that there is still a few observers even if the parameters are far from ideal for life, and in that case, those observers will find values of the parameters that are not ideal for intelligent life. It may well be the case that, among all parameter configurations that allow life at least somewhere, those that are not ideal for life far outnumber those that are ideal for life. Based on this elementary consideration, the paper proceeds to propose a quantitative framework to determine probabilities for either hypothesis. In particular, it is described how a future ab initio determination of some of the factors in the Drake equation may be used to infer which one of the two hypotheses is the more likely. A quantitative approach to this end is proposed. Expressing these factors of the Drake equation in the context of the two hypotheses, a general likelihood approach is first described. Then, to support intuition, example computations are provided, illustrating how an actual hypothesis test would work in practice. (shrink)

From a purely formalist viewpoint on the philosophy of mathematics, experiments cannot (and should not) play a role in warranting mathematical statements but must be confined to heuristics. Yet, due to the incorporation of new mathematical methods such as computer-assisted experimentation in mathematical practice, experiments are now conducted and used in a much broader range of epistemic practices such as concept formation, validation, and communication. In this article, we combine corpus studies and qualitative analyses to assess and categorize the epistemic (...) roles experiments are seen—by mathematicians—to have in actual mathematical practice. We do so by text-mining a corpus of reviews from the _Mathematical Reviews_, which include the indicator word “experiment”. Our qualitative, grounded classification of samples from this corpus allows us to explore the various roles played by experiments. We thus identify instances where experiments function as references to established knowledge, as tools for heuristics or exploration, as epistemic warrants, as communication or pedagogy, and instances simply proposing experiments. Focusing on the role of experiments as epistemic warrants, we show through additional sampling that in some fields of mathematics, experiments can warrant theorems as well as methods. We also show that the expressed lack of experiments by reviewers suggests concordant views that experiments could have provided epistemic warrants. Thus, our combination of corpus studies and qualitative analyses has added a typology of roles of experiments in mathematical practice and shown that experiments can and do play roles as epistemic warrants depending on the mathematical field. (shrink)

Bokanmeldelse av DeGrazia, D., & Millum, J. (2021). _A Theory of Bioethics_. Cambridge University Press. 316 sider. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026710.

For the last 25 years, since publication of his Logical Studies, Professor Von Wright has steadily explored the field of philosophical logic. The concept of negation, logical paradoxes, the puzzles connected with evidence and probability in confirmation theory, the interrelatedness of the ideas of time and change, and the clarification of the structure of temporal and spatial orderings are among the many areas he has profitably investigated.

Resonance is a ubiquitous phenomenon in the world of physics and biology, emerging from energy exchanges between interrelated but distinct systems. Resonance experiences, by contrast, are widespread in the human and animal world but not ubiquitous. This essay discusses theological and ethical aspects of resonance theory, particularly pertaining to everyday human experiences of resonance in relation to the more-than-human world. Consistently, resonance experiences intersect the human and the non-human world, and the phenomenon of resonance may thus serve as a bridging (...) concept between science and theology. I argue that while the ubiquitous feature of physical resonance is particularly helpful for reformulating a contemporary creation theology, human resonance experiences are a source for religious experience, hence highly informative for theology and ethics. Resonance theory thus challenges the widespread view that nature is primarily mute, indifferent, or even hostile to human concerns. (shrink)

In mammals, a network of cellular circadian clocks organizes physiology and behavior along the 24‐h day cycle. The traditional hierarchical model of circadian clock organization with a central pacemaker and peripheral slave oscillators has recently been challenged by studies combining tissue‐specific mouse mutants with transcriptome analyses. First, a surprisingly small number of tissue rhythms are lost when only local clocks are ablated and, second, transcriptional circadian rhythms appear to be regulated by a complex mix of local and systemic factors. As (...) reviewed here, these findings suggest a more integrated model of clock network interaction with the central pacemaker as the main source of behavioral and systemic–physiological rhythms and peripheral clocks controlling some local rhythms while at the same time acting as gatekeepers that temporally adjust cellular responses to external stimuli. (shrink)

In 2014, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights ranked Denmark as the European Union country with the highest occurrence of male physical violence and sexual assault against women. This report was described as ‘grotesque’, ‘misguided’ and ‘untrustworthy’ in the Danish mainstream media, which cited a number of prominent political commentators and expert researchers who debunked these findings. Using this case of overt public rejection of violent and white masculinity as a central analytical thread, this article explores how the invisiblization (...) of Danish male violence, as well as the projection of sexual aggression onto minority communities, produces a peculiar politics of denial and denialism in Denmark. The authors argue that the nationalist myth of gender equality branded within the Danish mainstream media and society is a variety of gender exceptionalism; which in turn generates racist, reactionary and suppressive ideologies on violence, racial discrimination and social inequality. (shrink)