Simple heuristics that make us smart offers an impressive compilation of work that demonstrates fast and frugal (one-reason) heuristics can be simple, adaptive, and accurate. However, many decision environments differ from those explored in the book. We conducted a Monte Carlo simulation that shows one-reason strategies are accurate in “friendly” environments, but less accurate in “unfriendly” environments characterized by negative cue intercorrelations, that is, tradeoffs.

Though Catherine Keller frequently publishes essays, and many of her book chapters have had their beginnings in journal articles, most of the material she is known for has been delivered in the form of tightly organized, if somewhat chaophilic, monographs. What makes Keller's latest offering, Intercarnations, distinctive is that it is a collection of recent stand-alone pieces, some of which carry her ideas and her deterritorializing style into new territories. There is no tight organization here, only resonances across various interventions (...) and themes. Nor does Keller suggest a preferred order for reading. Like the rhizomatic entanglement suggested by her title, the text is a series and not an order.A recurring... (shrink)

Details the production of consciousness in artificially constructed devices or robots.

Gordon Kaufman's theology is characterized by a heightened tension between transcendence, expressed as theocentrism, and immanence, expressed as theological naturalism. The interplay between these two motifs leads to a contradiction between an austerity created by the conjunction of naturalism and theocentrism, on the one hand, and a humanized cosmos which is characterized by a pivotal and unique role for human moral agency, on the other. This paper tracks some of the influences behind Kaufman's program (primarily H. Richard Niebuhr and Henry (...) Nelson Wieman) and then utilizes the flat ontology that emerges in the work of philosopher/sociologist of science Bruno Latour and of environmental philosopher Timothy Morton in order to point toward a reconstructed immanent theocentrism that no longer stakes meaning and value on the unique place of the human. Such a theology remains theocentric, but is now fully ecological. (shrink)

In a classic article, philosopher William P. Alston argues that nonrealism, “though rampant nowadays even among Christian theologians,” is “subversive” of theistic faith.1 Among contemporaries guilty of succumbing to this philosophical bogey, Gordon Kaufman is singled out as an especially illuminating example. Alston notes that in the essays that make up God the Problem, Kaufman makes use of a distinction between the “available referent” of theistic language and its “real referent,” the former indicating the actual object of religious experience and (...) responses, and the latter appearing only as the “I-know-not-what” that ultimately grounds them. By the time Kaufman writes In Face of Mystery, Alston suggests, the .. (shrink)

The Essays on the Active Powers of Man was Thomas Reid's last major work. It was conceived as part of one large work, intended as a final synoptic statement of his philosophy. The first and larger part was published three years earlier as Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. These two works are united by Reid's basic philosophy of common sense, which sets out native principles by which the mind operates in both its intellectual and active aspects. The (...) Active Powers shows how these principles are involved in volition, action, and the ability to judge morally. Reid gives an original twist to a libertarian and realist tradition that was prominently represented in eighteenth-century British thought by such thinkers as Samuel Clarke and Richard Price. (shrink)

We set out an account of how self-domestication plays a crucial role in the evolution of language. In doing so, we focus on the growing body of work that treats language structure as emerging from the process of cultural transmission. We argue that a full recognition of the importance of cultural transmission fundamentally changes the kind of questions we should be asking regarding the biological basis of language structure. If we think of language structure as reflecting an accumulated set of (...) changes in our genome, then we might ask something like, “What are the genetic bases of language structure and why were they selected?” However, if cultural evolution can account for language structure, then this question no longer applies. Instead, we face the task of accounting for the origin of the traits that enabled that process of structure-creating cultural evolution to get started in the first place. In light of work on cultural evolution, then, the new question for biological evolution becomes, “How did those precursor traits evolve?” We identify two key precursor traits: the transmission of the communication system through learning; and the ability to infer the communicative intent associated with a signal or action. We then describe two comparative case studies—the Bengalese finch and the domestic dog—in which parallel traits can be seen emerging following domestication. Finally, we turn to the role of domestication in human evolution. We argue that the cultural evolution of language structure has its origin in an earlier process of self-domestication. (shrink)

Wilhelm (Forthcom Synth 199:6357–6369, 2021) has recently defended a criterion for comparing structure of mathematical objects, which he calls Subgroup. He argues that Subgroup is better than SYM \(^*\), another widely adopted criterion. We argue that this is mistaken; Subgroup is strictly worse than SYM \(^*\). We then formulate a new criterion that improves on both SYM \(^*\) and Subgroup, answering Wilhelm’s criticisms of SYM \(^*\) along the way. We conclude by arguing that no criterion that looks only to the (...) automorphisms of mathematical objects to compare their structure can be fully satisfactory. (shrink)

This is a set of essays and translations that covers comprehensively all of Japanese philosophy.

There exists a common view that for theories related by a ‘duality’, dual models typically may be taken ab initio to represent the same physical state of affairs, i.e. to correspond to the same possible world. We question this view, by drawing a parallel with the distinction between ‘interpretational’ and ‘motivational’ approaches to symmetries.

The second volume of Carol Keene’s selected letters of F.H. Bradley starts with one from William James, explaining some of his criticisms of the Absolute. An earlier letter of Bradley’s argued that his Absolute was the very condition of freedom and novelty, contrary to James’ criticism, and James had to admit that his focus had been on the Absolute of Josiah Royce, a colleague at Harvard. However, James understood Royce’s Absolute well, because they gave a course (...) together, with James teaching the first half on pluralism; and Royce, the second, on monism. “You will forgive me,” was Bradley’s reply, “when I say that I smiled at the idea of the bane & the antidote being put before your students in due order”. (shrink)

BackgroundDespite rapid growth of the scientific literature, no consensus guidelines have emerged to define the optimal criteria for editors to grade submitted manuscripts. The purpose of this project was to assess the peer reviewer metrics currently used in the surgical literature to evaluate original manuscript submissions.MethodsManuscript grading forms for 14 of the highest circulation general surgery-related journals were evaluated for content, including the type and number of quantitative and qualitative questions asked of peer reviewers. Reviewer grading forms for the seven (...) surgical journals with the higher impact factors were compared to the seven surgical journals with lower impact factors using Fisher’s exact tests.ResultsImpact factors of the studied journals ranged from 1.73 to 8.57, with a median impact factor of 4.26 in the higher group and 2.81 in the lower group. The content of the grading forms was found to vary considerably. Relatively few journals asked reviewers to grade specific components of a manuscript. Higher impact factor journal manuscript grading forms more frequently addressed statistical analysis, ethical considerations, and conflict of interest. In contrast, lower impact factor journals more commonly requested reviewers to make qualitative assessments of novelty/originality, scientific validity, and scientific importance.ConclusionSubstantial variation exists in the grading criteria used to evaluate original manuscripts submitted to the surgical literature for peer review, with differential emphasis placed on certain criteria correlated to journal impact factors. (shrink)

Contextual learning pervades our perception and cognition and plays a critical role in adjusting to aversive and stressful events. Our ability to memorise spatial context has been studied extensive...

The Alice Books, full of illogical thoughts, words, and contradictions, were unrivaled entertainment until the publication of the medical literature promoting electronic fetal monitoring (EFM) for every pregnancy. The modern-day EFM advocates acknowledge EFM’s decades long failure but simultaneously recommend EFM use for lawsuit protection and because the profession has used EFM for every pregnancy for fifty years, therefore, it must be efficacious. These self-indulgent, illogical rationalizations ignore the half century of evidence-based scientific research proving that EFM is a complete (...) failure as well as ignoring the fact that continued EFM use violates the fundamental principles of modern bioethics. This blind advocacy perpetuates four pernicious EFM harms occurring to mothers, babies, and the medical profession itself. This article sets out these four EFM harms with the goal of abolishing the misguided, illogical, contradictory, arguments used by the twenty-first century EFM Lewis Carroll mimics. (shrink)

A half century ago electronic fetal monitoring was rushed into clinical use with the promise that the secrets of fetal heart rate decelerations had been discovered and that the newly discovered knowledge would prevent cerebral palsy with just in time cesarean sections preventing babies from experiencing asphyxia, which was thought to be the primary cause of cerebral palsy. In the years since electronic fetal monitoring’s debut, it has been discovered that asphyxia is a rare cause of cerebral palsy. At the (...) same time electronic fetal monitoring use increased to 85% of all labors, the C-section rate increased to 33% without an attributable decrease in the rate of cerebral palsy. What went wrong with electronic fetal monitoring? The answer lies in a new analysis of the physiologic theories concerning fetal heart rate decelerations, demonstrating that the earlier electronic fetal monitoring theories were wrong. This revelation is only the latest evidence that electronic fetal monitoring use today... (shrink)

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)

We affirm the dynamical systems approach taken by Feldman and Levin, but argue that a more mathematically rigorous and standard exposition of the model according to dynamical systems theory would greatly increase readability and testability. Such an explication would also have heuristic value, suggesting new variations of the model. We present one such variant, a new solution to the redundancy problem.

The second volume of Carol Keene’s selected letters of F.H. Bradley starts with one from William James, explaining some of his criticisms of the Absolute. An earlier letter of Bradley’s argued that his Absolute was the very condition of freedom and novelty, contrary to James’ criticism, and James had to admit that his focus had been on the Absolute of Josiah Royce, a colleague at Harvard. However, James understood Royce’s Absolute well, because they gave a course (...) together, with James teaching the first half on pluralism; and Royce, the second, on monism. “You will forgive me,” was Bradley’s reply, “when I say that I smiled at the idea of the bane & the antidote being put before your students in due order”. (shrink)

Je suggère dans cet article que le modèle de la défense par Descartes de la science de la Renaissance pourrait être celui par Thomas d’Aquin de la science « aristotélicienne » du treizième siècle, n’était le fait que c’est la cohérence de la volonté qui prit en charge chez Descartes le rôle de la consistance des concepts comme facteur contrôlant dans les analyses de tous les types de science. En conséquence, la science nouvelle pouvait intégrer la conscience des idées (...) platoniciennes et la divisibilité de l’espace euclidien comme un apport tout aussi valide dans la connaissance dialectique de l’expérience sensorielle. On peut interpréter les premiers arguments invitant à douter de la réalité de l’expérience sensorielle et de la raison comme une façon de scinder l’expérience de la volonté dans l’affirmation et la négation de la nature d’un objet, ce qui sera le sujet d’une enquête ultérieure. (shrink)

The dauer larva is a specialized third‐larval stage of Caenorhabditis elegans that is long‐lived and resistant to environmental insult. The dauer larva is formed in response to a high external concentration of a constitu‐tively secreted pheromone. Response to the dauer‐inducing pheromone of C. elegans is a promising genetic model for metazoan chemosensory transduction. More than 20 genes have been identified that are required for normal pheromone response. The functions of these genes include production of the pheromone, exposure of sensory neuron (...) endings to the environment, structural and functional integrity of those sensory endings, and the capacity of sensory neurons to make appropriate output. Genetic evidence suggests that two partially redundant sensory pathways act in concert to control dauer formation. At least two classes of chemosensory neurons, ADF and ASI, are implicated in the pheromone response. On the basis of on these findings, a speculative model for the pheromone response is proposed. In this model, the neurons ADF and ASI are pheromone sensors that repress dauer formation in the absence of pheromone and dere‐press dauer formation in response to pheromone. It is currently unclear whether or not the two genetically defined sensory pathways both act in ADF and ASI. (shrink)

Drawing on a broad range of case studies, the contributors to Terrestrial Transformations explore the political and economic forces entangled in environmental and ecological problems and look at humanity's future in light of climate change and existing environmental problems.

This book is the result of considerable struggle, within the social sciences and beyond, to both acknowledge and determine the enabling role of affect and emotion in social science research. Drawing together a group of relatively young scholars in the realm of affective research, this volume offers powerful examples of how the affective dimensions of fieldwork have empirical and methodological worth.