Effective human–robot teaming increasingly requires humans to work with intelligent, autonomous machines. However, novel features of intelligent autonomous systems such as social agency and incomprehensibility may influence the human’s trust in the machine. The human operator’s mental model for machine functioning is critical for trust. People may consider an intelligent machine partner as either an advanced tool or as a human-like teammate. This article reports a study that explored the role of individual differences in the mental model in a simulated (...) environment. Multiple dispositional factors that may influence the dominant mental model were assessed. These included the Robot Threat Assessment, which measures the person’s propensity to apply tool and teammate models in security contexts. Participants were paired with an intelligent robot tasked with making threat assessments in an urban setting. A transparency manipulation was used to influence the dominant mental model. For half of the participants, threat assessment was described as physics-based ; the remainder received transparency information that described psychological cues. We expected that the physics-based transparency messages would guide the participant toward treating the robot as an advanced machine, while psychological messaging would encourage perceptions of the robot as acting like a human partner. We also manipulated situational danger cues present in the simulated environment. Participants rated their trust in the robot’s decision as well as threat and anxiety, for each of 24 urban scenes. They also completed the RoTA and additional individual-difference measures. Findings showed that trust assessments reflected the degree of congruence between the robot’s decision and situational danger cues, consistent with participants acting as Bayesian decision makers. Several scales, including the RoTA, were more predictive of trust when the robot was making psychology-based decisions, implying that trust reflected individual differences in the mental model of the robot as a teammate. These findings suggest scope for designing training that uncovers and mitigates the individual’s biases toward intelligent machines. (shrink)

Quantum theory is our deepest theory of the nature of matter. It is a theory that, notoriously, produces results which challenge the laws of classical logic and suggests that the physical world is illogical. This book gives a critical review of work on the foundations of quantum mechanics at a level accessible to non-experts. Assuming his readers have some background in mathematics and physics, Peter Gibbins focuses on the questions of whether the results of quantum theory require us to (...) abandon classical logic and whether quantum logic can resolve the paradoxes produced by quantum mechanics. He argues that quantum logic does not dispose of the problems faced by classical logic, that no reasonable interpretation of quantum mechanics in terms of 'hidden variables' can be found, and that after all these years quantum mechanics remains a mystery to us. Particles and Paradoxes provides a much-needed and valuable introduction to the philosophy of quantum mechanics and, at the same time, an example of just what it is to do the philosophy of physics. (shrink)

John Grote struggled to construct an intelligible account of philosophy at a time when radical change and sectarian conflict made understanding and clarity a rarity. This book answers three questions: * How did John Grote develop and contribute to modern Cambridge and British philosophy? * What is the significance of these contributions to modern philosophy in general and British Idealism and language philosophy in particular? * How were his ideas and his idealism incorporated into the modern philosophical tradition? Grote influenced (...) his contemporaries, such as his students Henry Sidgwick and John Venn, in both style and content; he forged a brilliantly original philosophy of knowledge, ethics, politics and language, from a synthesis of the major British and European philosophies of his day; his social and political theory provide the origins of the 'new liberal' ideas later to reach their zenith in the writings of Green, Sidgwick, and Collingwood; he founded the ‘Cambridge style’ associated with Moore, Russell, Broad, McTaggart and Wittgenstein; and he was also a major influence on Oakeshott. (shrink)

Postmodern theory is well placed to provide a useful resource in carrying forward the project of instituting cosmopolitan morality and justice at the local level. It is qualified to contribute because the central problematic of postmodern political theory is shared by cosmopolitanism, namely, how can a multiplicity of divergent autonomous groups, with few, or no shared cultural resources, negotiate and agree to share common spaces? How, can we have political and moral order when the preconditions, normally believed to accompany these, (...) are non existent or unstable. Postmodern thinking also brings to the debate about cosmopolitanism, the resources that will allow for the toleration, openness and ingenuity that build upon eclecticism, pluralism, the celebration of difference, and expressivism in a period experiencing alteration, vulnerability, irony and insecurity. In approach, postmodern thinking shares with cosmopolitanism: a preference for particular narrative over grand narrative; the local over the global; particular over universal; difference over generalisation; eclecticism over absolutism; synchrony over unity; and pluralism over monism. Both approaches are resources that can help us re-learn how neighbours can live together in strange times. (shrink)

Discussion of the relation between exchange-value and use-value (as defined inCapital I) is clarified by the construction of set-theoretical models of these concepts. Marx argues fallaciously for the independence of exchange-value and use-value. His fallacy is diagnosed as depending upon a mistaken assumption about the impossibility of inferring a certain linear order on a set from a certain (different) partial order on that set.

It is a matter of contention whether or not a general explanatory framework for the biological sciences would be of scientific value, or whether it is even achievable. In this paper we suggest that both are the case, and we outline proposals for a framework capable of generating new scientific questions. Starting with one clear characteristic of biological systems – that they all have the potential to make mistakes - we aim to describe the nature of this potential and the (...) common processes that lie behind it. Given that under most circumstances biological systems function effectively, an examination of different kinds of mistake-making provides pointers to mechanisms that must exist to make failure uncommon. This in turn informs a framework for systematic enquiry, which in this paper we apply to the haemostatic system, but which we believe could be applied to any system across biology. (shrink)

A major worry in self-deception research has been the implication that people can hold a belief that something is true and false at the same time: a logical as well as a psychological impossibility. However, if beliefs are held with imperfect confidence, voluntary self-deception in the sense of seeking evidence to reject an unpleasant belief becomes entirely plausible and demonstrably real.

It is shown that the uncertainty principle has nothing directly to do with the non-localisability of position and momentum for an individual system on the quantum logical view. The product Δ x· Δ p for localisation of the ranges of position and momentum of an individual system→ ∞ , while the quantities Δ X and Δ P in the uncertainty principle $\Delta X\cdot \Delta P\geq \hslash /2$ , must be given a statistical interpretation on the quantum logical view.

The dramatic changes in contemporary European politics associated with the rise of the New Right has created a new political culture which is the subject of this fascinating and informative book. Contemporary Political Culture pioneers the application of the theory of postmodernism to Western political behaviour and political science. Underpinning the book is the observation that fundamental long-term changes in the contours of European political culture explain the rise of the new politics and recent political events. The authors offer a (...) critical analysis of traditional theories, models and accounts of political culture, and -- an evaluation of the two contending contemporary explanatory models, postmodernism and po. (shrink)

It is shown that the lattice-theoretic distributive law does not fail to hold in the two slit-experiment for the general case offinite slit widths and for a position measurement which localizes the observed particle to afinite region of the screen. Comments are made on previous and less general discussions of the case considered.

What happens to politics in the postmodern condition? The Politics of Postmodernity is a political tour de force that addresses this key contemporary question. Politics in postmodernity is carefully contextualized by relating its specific sphere - the polity - to those of the economic, social, technological and cultural. The authors confront globalization and the notion of postmodernity as disorganized capitalism. They analyze the role of the mass media, the changing ways in which politics is used, the role of the state (...) and the progressive potential of politics in postmodern times. Closing with a postscript on the future of the discipline of political science, this book offers a profound yet highly accessible account. (shrink)

There are concerns that the socioeconomic consequences of COVID-19, including unemployment and financial insecurity, are having adverse effects on the mental wellbeing of the population. One group particularly vulnerable to socioeconomic adversity during this period are those employed freelance within the cultural industry. Many workers in the sector were already subject to income instability, erratic work schedules and a lack of economic security before the pandemic, and it is possible that COVID-19 may exacerbate pre-existing economic precarity. Through interviews with 20 (...) freelancers working within the performing arts, visual arts, and film and television industries, this article explores the impact of the pandemic on their working lives. Findings suggest the pandemic is affecting the psychological wellbeing of freelancers through employment loss, financial instability and work dissonance, and illustrates the need for urgent economic and psychosocial support for those employed within the cultural sector. (shrink)

Organisms and other biological entities are mistake-prone: they get things wrong. The entities of pure physics, such as atoms and inorganic molecules, do not make mistakes: they do what they do according to physical law, with no room for error except on the part of the physicist or their theory. We set out a novel framework for understanding biology and its demarcation from physics – that of mistake-making. We distinguish biological mistakes from mere failures. We then propose a rigorous definition (...) of mistakes that, although invoking the concept of function, is compatible with various views about what functions are. The definition of mistake-making is agential, since mistakes do not just happen ¬– at least in the sense analysed here – but are made. This requires, then, a notion of biological agency which we set out as a definition of the Minimal Biological Agent. The paper then considers a series of objections to the theory presented here, along with our replies. Two key features of our theory of mistakes are, first, that it is a supplement to, not a replacement for, existing general frameworks within which biology is understood and practised. Secondly, it is designed to be experimentally productive. Hence we end with a series of case studies where mistake theory can be shown to be useful in the potential generation of research questions and novel hypotheses of interest to the working biologist. (shrink)

Mistake-making is a common feature of life; it can be given a rigorous theoretical framework. The theory, though, faces a challenge from the ‘functions debate’. Perhaps mistakes are merely malfunctions, so a theory of mistakes requires a stance on functions. However, mistake theory views mistakes as distinct phenomena, not just malfunctions. The functions debate is largely separate from the concept of biological mistakes. While the selected effects theory, for instance, may retain its place within a pluralistic view of function, embracing (...) a robust concept of normativity that goes beyond a relatively narrow conception of function can drive future experimental research. (shrink)

The making of mistakes by organisms and living systems generally is an underexplored way of conceptualising biology and organising experimental research. We set out an informal account of biological mistakes and why they should be taken seriously in biological investigation. We then give an indirect defence of their importance by applying the concept of mistake-making to three kinds of activity: timing, calculation, and communication. We give a range of examples to show that mistakes in these kinds of behaviour can be (...) found across a diversity of scales and systems. We also suggest ideas for empirical research that naturally arise from these cases. The reality and potential for mistake-making across such a wide range of biological entities shows that it is not a purely human phenomenon. Getting it wrong seems to be central to biology as a whole, and to be a potentially productive organising principle for generating novel research questions and experimental hypotheses. (shrink)

Common sense tells us that biological systems are goal-directed, and yet the concept remains philosophically problematic. We propose a novel characterization of goal-directed activities as a basis for hypothesising about and investigating explanatory mechanisms. We focus on survival goals such as providing adequate nutrition to body tissues, highlighting two key features – normativity and action. These are closely linked inasmuch as goal-directed actions must meet normative requirements such as that they occur when required and not at other times. We illustrate (...) how goal-directed actions are initiated and terminated not by environmental features and goals themselves, but by markers for them. For example, timely blood clotting is the essential response to injury, but platelet activation, required for clotting, is initiated not by the injury itself but by a short sequence of amino acids (GPO) that provides a reliable marker for it. We then make the case that the operation of markers is a prerequisite for common biological phenomena such as mistake-proneness and mimicry. We go on to identify properties of markers in general, including those that are genetically determined, and those which can be acquired through associative learning. Both provide the basis for matching actions to changing environments and hence adaptive goal-directedness. We describe how goal-directed activities such as bird nest construction and birdsong learning, completed in anticipation of actions in the environment, have to be evaluated and practised against a standard of correctness. This characterization of goal-directedness is sufficiently detailed to provide a basis for the scientific study of mechanisms. (shrink)

The arguments presented by Gibbins in his Note are based on a sharp distinction between the product Δx·Δp, which refers to the ranges of position and momentum of an individual system, and the uncertainty principle ΔX·ΔP ≥ ħ/2, which expresses a statistical relation for an ensemble of systems. A critical role in Gibbins’ reasoning is played by the theorem T which states that the restriction of the dynamical variable of position x of an individual system to a finite (...) range Δx excludes the possibility of restricting the canonically conjugate dynamical variable of momentum p to a finite range Δp. (shrink)

The author presents a deduction system for Quantum Logic. This system is a combination of a natural deduction system and rules based on the relation of compatibility. This relation is the logical correspondant of the commutativity of observables in Quantum Mechanics or perpendicularity in Hilbert spaces. Contrary to the system proposed by Gibbins and Cutland, the natural deduction part of the system is pure: no algebraic artefact is added. The rules of the system are the rules of Classical Natural (...) Deduction in which is added a control of contexts using the compatibility relation. The author uses his system to prove the following theorem: if propositions of a quantum logical propositional calculus system are mutually compatible, they form a classical subsystem. (shrink)