This book is a rich blend of analyses by leading experts from various cultures and disciplines. A compact introduction to a complex field, it illustrates biotechnology's profound impact upon the environment and society. Moreover, it underscores the vital relevance of cultural values. This book empowers readers to more critically assess biotechnology's value and effectiveness within both specific cultural and global contexts.

Theories of cognitive development must address both the issue of how children bring their knowledge to bear on behavior in-the-moment, and how knowledge changes over time. We argue that seeking answers to these questions requires an appreciation of the dynamic nature of the developing system in its full, reciprocal complexity. We illustrate this dynamic complexity with results from two lines of research on early word learning. The first demonstrates how the child's active engagement with objects and people supports referent selection (...) via memories for what objects were previously seen in a cued location. The second set of results highlights changes in the role of novelty and attentional processes in referent selection and retention as children's knowledge of words and objects grows. Together this work suggests that understanding systems for perception, action, attention, and memory, and their complex interaction, is critical to understand word learning. We review recent literature that highlights the complex interactions between these processes in cognitive development and point to critical issues for future work. (shrink)

This paper presents Integrated Information Theory (IIT) 4.0. IIT aims to account for the properties of experience in physical (operational) terms. It identifies the essential properties of experience (axioms), infers the necessary and sufficient properties that its substrate must satisfy (postulates), and expresses them in mathematical terms. In principle, the postulates can be applied to any system of units in a state to determine whether it is conscious, to what degree, and in what way. IIT offers a parsimonious explanation of (...) empirical evidence, makes testable predictions, and permits inferences and extrapolations. IIT 4.0 incorporates several developments of the past ten years, including a more accurate translation of axioms into postulates and mathematical expressions, the introduction of a unique measure of intrinsic information that is consistent with the postulates, and an explicit assessment of causal relations. By fully unfolding a system's irreducible cause-effect power, the distinctions and relations specified by a substrate can account for the quality of experience. (shrink)

Marr's seminal work laid out a program of research by specifying key questions for cognitive science at different levels of analysis. Because dynamic systems theory focuses on time and interdependence of components, DST research programs come to very different conclusions regarding the nature of cognitive change. We review a specific DST approach to cognitive-level processes: dynamic field theory. We review research applying DFT to several cognitive-level processes: object permanence, naming hierarchical categories, and inferring intent, that demonstrate the difference in understanding (...) of behavior and cognition that results from a DST perspective. These point to a central challenge for cognitive science research as defined by Marr—emergence. We argue that appreciating emergence raises questions about the utility of computational-level analyses and opens the door to insights concerning the origin of novel forms of behavior and thought. We contend this is one of the most fundamental questions about cognition and behavior. (shrink)

According to Jones & Love (J&L), Bayesian theories are too often isolated from other theories and behavioral processes. Here, we highlight examples of two types of isolation from the field of word learning. Specifically, Bayesian theories ignore emergence, critical to development theory, and have not probed the behavioral details of several key phenomena, such as the effect.

It is unclear how children learn labels for multiple overlapping categories such as “Labrador,” “dog,” and “animal.” Xu and Tenenbaum suggested that learners infer correct meanings with the help of Bayesian inference. They instantiated these claims in a Bayesian model, which they tested with preschoolers and adults. Here, we report data testing a developmental prediction of the Bayesian model—that more knowledge should lead to narrower category inferences when presented with multiple subordinate exemplars. Two experiments did not support this prediction. Children (...) with more category knowledge showed broader generalization when presented with multiple subordinate exemplars, compared to less knowledgeable children and adults. This implies a U-shaped developmental trend. The Bayesian model was not able to account for these data, even with inputs that reflected the similarity judgments of children. We discuss implications for the Bayesian model, including a combined Bayesian/morphological knowledge account that could explain the demonstrated U-shaped trend. (shrink)

Mindfulness and compassion meditation are thought to cultivate prosocial behavior. However, the lack of diverse representation within both scientific and participant populations in contemplative neuroscience may limit generalizability and translation of prior findings. To address these issues, we propose a research framework calledIntersectional Neurosciencewhich adapts research procedures to be more inclusive of under-represented groups. Intersectional Neuroscience builds inclusive processes into research design using two main approaches: 1) community engagement with diverse participants, and 2) individualized multivariate neuroscience methods to accommodate neural (...) diversity. We tested the feasibility of this framework in partnership with a diverse U.S. meditation center (East Bay Meditation Center, Oakland, CA). Using focus group and community feedback, we adapted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) screening and recruitment procedures to be inclusive of participants from various under-represented groups, including racial and ethnic minorities, gender and sexual minorities, people with disabilities, neuropsychiatric disorders, and/or lower income. Using person-centered screening and study materials, we recruited and scanned 15 diverse meditators (80% racial/ethnic minorities, 53% gender and sexual minorities). The participants completed the EMBODY task – which applies individualized machine learning algorithms to fMRI data – to identify mental states during breath-focused meditation, a basic skill that stabilizes attention to support interoception and compassion. All 15 meditators’ unique brain patterns were recognized by machine learning algorithms significantly above chance levels. These individualized brain patterns were used to decode the internal focus of attention throughout a 10-min breath-focused meditation period, specific to each meditator. These data were used to compile individual-level attention profiles during meditation, such as the percentage time attending to the breath, mind wandering, or engaging in self-referential processing. This study provides feasibility of employing an intersectional neuroscience approach to include diverse participants and develop individualized neural metrics of meditation practice. Through inclusion of more under-represented groups while developing reciprocal partnerships, intersectional neuroscience turns the research process into an embodied form of social action. (shrink)

Ανέκδοτα ψηφίσματα από τη Λάρισσα (3) Συνεχίζοντας τις δΰο προηγούμενες δημοσιεύσεις που αφορούσαν σε ψηφίσματα της Λάρισσας (BCH 128-129 (2005), p. 377-417 ; BCH 130 (2006) [20081, Ρ· 435-483), παρουσιάζουμε εδώ μια τρίτη στήλη, η οποία φέρει τρία κείμενα: δύο ψηφίσματα της Λάρισσας, που ψηφίστηκαν κατά τη διάρκεια της στρατηγείας του Παυσανία, υιού του Θρασυμήδη από τις Φέρες (περίπου 130/129 π. Χ.), το ένα για έναν Αθηναίο φιλόσοφο και το άλλο για τρεις πολίτες της Κω· ένα τρίτο ψήφισμα προέρχεται από (...) τη Συνομοσπονδία των Μολοσσών και ανταμοίβει δικαστές από τη Λάρισσα, οι οποίοι εστάλησαν στην Ήπειρο για να διαιτητεύσουν σε μια διαμάχη μεταξύ Μολοσσών και Ακαρνάνων. Τα κείμενα αυτά, γραμμένα σε θεσσαλική διάλεκτο, η οποία την εποχή εκείνη χρησίμευε στη μεταγραφή εγγράφων της καγκελλαρίας των ελληνιστικών πόλεων σε μια γλώσσα που χάνει προοδευτικά τη συνοχή και την ιδιομορφία της και καταλήγει να διατηρεί μόνο μια «θεσσαλίζουσα» απόχρωση, έχουν αξία για την ιστορία της Λάρισσας, αφού αναφέρονται στην πνευματική ζωή και σε ορισμένες εκφάνσεις των πολιτικών ή οικονομικών δραστηριοτήτων των Λαρισσαίων στο δεύτερο μισό του 2ου αι. π. Χ. (shrink)

Athanasios Tziafalias, Bruno Helly Two Unpublished Decrees from Larisa p. 377-420 Among the epigraphical documents found at Larisa in recent years, two of the city's decrees have a particular interest. The first, a proxenia decree for a Mytilinian, that can be dated to the earliest years of the 2nd c. BC, is in a dialect and reflects the relations that were established before the engagement of the Second Macedonian War and were renewed, for the admission of the Asclepieia of Mytilini, (...) between the Thessalian Confederation and the cities that composed it on the one hand and the Mytilinians on the other. This casts new light on a well-known document, the Mytilini decree for the Thessalian Confederation IG XII Suppl., 3, and supplements the history of the relations between the two parties, which were prolonged up to the period of Augustus, as we know from the fragments of decrees in honour of the Mytilenian Potamon, son of Lesbonax. The second Larisa decree, which was voted for two citizens of Chalkis in Euboea and which is in koine, should be placed more than a century later, towards 70 BC; it shows the procedure by which a foreigner who had received the proxenia of the Thessalian Confederation could acquire, at his request, citizenship in a member city of this Confederation. (shrink)

Pada musim semi, entah kenapa, tidak banyak ikan. Karena tangkapannya sangat tidak stabil, Pekakak mulai berpikir. Lalu membuat beberapa rencana. Dengan otoritas komandonya, dia memanggil Bangau: – Ini adalah musim penangkapan ikan yang sangat sulit. Jika kita ingin kenyang, kita harus membuat usaha patungan. Bangau mengangguk, menambahkan: - Saya setuju; mari kita beternak ikan kakap putih dan ikan mas krusia. Jenis ini berumur panjang dan sangat produktif. Pekakak dan Bangau sepakat untuk berbagi tugas beternak, dan tidak ada diskriminasi yang diizinkan. (...) Namun imbalannya berbeda: Pekakak bertanggung jawab untuk ikan kakap putih dan, dengan demikian, dapat memiliki lebih banyak ikan kakap putih, sedangkan Bangau mendapat ikan mas krusia. Siapapun yang memelihara ikan mana yang lebih banyak akan menikmati 80% dari panen akhir ikan tersebut. Keduanya akan mengevaluasi dan membagi produk ternak pada akhir musim beternak. Ini berarti mengantongi sendiri ikan hasil usaha patungan untuk diri sendiri itu dilarang. (shrink)

L'A. souhaite apporter des rectifications à propos des remarques de P. Yannopoulos sur la Vie de S. Fantin. Le voyage d'Athènes à Larissa a du être accompli par voie terrestre et non pas par bateau. Fantin et ses amis ne venaient pas directement d'Italie, mais de la rive orientale de l'Adriatique. A Larissa, Fantin prophétise la conquête de la ville par les ennemis puis descendit au bord de la mer où il embarqua pour Thessalonique. Ces remarques voudraient contribuer (...) à une meilleure appréciation de cette Vita à la fois si riche d'informations et si mystérieuse par ses silences. (shrink)

Although many writers and scholars struggle to cross the threshold between literary expressive culture and activism, poet Rita Wong has fostered and bridged both collaborative artistic and direct-action social justice work. Wong’s collaborations with Dorothy Christian, Larissa Lai, Cindy Mochizuki, and Fred Wah illuminate the promise of creative practice in confronting racial capitalism and climate destruction. This essay draws from the social movement theory of prefigurative politics, routed through abolition feminism and Indigenous place-based epistemology, to account for ethical consistencies (...) between Wong’s poetics, collaborative artistic practice, and direct-action interventions. Prefigurative politics conveys “the embodiment, within the ongoing political practice of a movement, of those forms of social relations, decision-making, culture, and human experience that are the ultimate goal” (Boggs, 1977, p. 100). Wong’s work focuses on “Reckoning” at the pivot point of climate destruction: she writes, “our common survival depends on our collective ability to address the environmental devastation that has accelerated in this century, a devastation that will not end unless we learn to live by values that manifest and respect Indigenous relationships to the land and waters” (Wong, 2012, p. 535). Her scholarship and collaborative poetic engagements have attended to “Repairing” with words, performance, bodily engagement, and crafting a paradigm shift in alliance with human and nonhuman others, thinking with and through water. And Wong “Reworlds” through experimental and imaginative building of new relations, telling new stories. In keeping with prefigurative social movement practice, she and her collaborators act as if that new world has already arrived. (shrink)

How should we respond to the humanity of others? Should we care for others’ well-being? Respect them as autonomous agents? Largely neglected is an answer we can find in the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism: we should love all. This paper argues that an ideal of love for all can be understood apart from its more typical religious contexts and moreover provides a unified and illuminating account of the the nature and grounds of morality. I defend a novel (...) account of love for all that avoids serious worries about the incoherence or impossibility of loving everyone. Doing so requires countenancing a neglected form of love. Love admits as its object not just individual entities like people and groups; we can also bear a love for the Fs in general---for all the Joneses, all the philosophers, or even all the human beings. I go on to argue that while it is possible for ordinary agents like us to love all, we shouldn't. Instead, we should approximate love for all. The minimal approximation of love for all is, surprisingly, respect; I derive the basic, structural features of deontological ethics (including anti-paternalism and anti-aggregation) from the ideal of loving all. (NB: This paper used to be titled "Ethics in the Shadow of Love" and has been cited as an unpublished manuscript under that title.). (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of modern physics came to the conclusion that the problem of how objectivity is constituted (rather than merely given) can no longer be avoided, and therefore that a transcendental approach in the spirit of Kant is now philosophically relevant. The usual excuse for skipping this task is that the historical form given by Kant to transcendental epistemology has been challenged by Relativity and Quantum Physics. However, the true challenge is not to force modern physics into (...) a rigidly construed static version of Kant's philosophy, but to provide Kant's method with flexibility and generality. In this book, the top specialists of the field pin down the methodological core of transcendental epistemology that must be used in order to throw light on the foundations of modern physics. First, the basic tools Kant used for his transcendental reading of Newtonian Mechanics are examined, and then early transcendental approaches of Relativistic and Quantum Physics are revisited. Transcendental procedures are also applied to contemporary physics, and this renewed transcendental interpretation is finally compared with structural realism and constructive empiricism. The book will be of interest to scientists, historians and philosophers who are involved in the foundational problems of modern physics. (shrink)

This book delves into esoteric knowledge, describing the structure of the universe (Brahmanda or Cosmic Egg) as a series of astral biospheres. These biospheres, or lokas, are linked to spiritual consciousness and degrees of divine bliss (Ananda). Advanced spiritual figures, such as Rishis and Mahatmas, can navigate these realms and help others evolve. The article presents a detailed comparison between “Puranic Hinduism” and “Sanatana Dharma”, specifically addressing their differences in cosmogenesis and spiritual evolution. The difference between the cosmogenesis of Puranic (...) Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma is that while the former is founded on the concept of Trimurti as taught by the Puranas, the latter is a Manu-centric and Guru-centric spiritual system. This has a lot of significance concerning the rituals and the social order they have produced. Here, the Cosmic Purusha is identifiable with Manu, not with Trimurti or the God of Abrahamic religions, because of their different spiritual status in the cosmological hierarchy. (shrink)

Central to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society was the description and justification of the method adopted and advocated by the Fellows of the Society, for it was thought that it was their method which distinguished them from ancients, dogmatists, sceptics, and contemporary natural philosophers such as Descartes. The Fellows saw themselves as furthering primarily a novel method, rather than a system, of philosophy, and the History gave expression to this corporate self-perception. However, the History's description of their method (...) was not necessarily accurate. Rather, as will be argued below, by a combination of subtle misrepresentation and selective exposition, Sprat portrayed a method which would further the aims of social and ecclesiastical stability and material prosperity, essential for the Royal Society since its continued existence depended upon the creation of a social basis for the institutionalized pursuit of natural philosophy. Some link had to be forged between the activities of the Society and the intellectual and social aspirations of the Restoration. To understand the intent and meaning of Sprat's History and the method there portrayed, we must therefore look to the institutional needs which it fulfilled. (shrink)

This chapter explores what it can mean to say that culinary products (i.e., recipes and their outputs) are creative. It answers this question by distinguishing between three different kinds of creativity (idle, productive, and super-productive creativity) and two different kinds of creative domains, locked-in and expandable ones. It argues that culinary products can be creative in the three different ways just mentioned and that, accordingly, the creative domain constituted by the culinary arts turns out to be an expandable one.

Three recent empirical studies on the use of placebos and two papers arguing for the deliberate use of placebos in clinical practice are analysed. Empirical studies demonstrate that placebos are commonly used. The concept of the placebo is currently understood in different ways, many of which do not refer to inert substances or treatments. The papers arguing for the use of placebos are shown to fail to make their case.

Say a reason to ø is legal just in case at least a part of the reason is the fact that ø-ing is legally required. This paper is about the widely accepted claim that legal reasons have a certain distinctive formal property—content-independence. I argue that, on two important interpretations, this claim is false. It is false either because legal reasons contingently lack the relevant property or because no reason lacks it. I also argue that, given these two interpretations, content-independence could (...) not be a property of singular legal reasons. (shrink)

If the agent responsible for an action is to be given praise or blame by the moral community for that action, then accurate responsibility ascriptions must be made. Since the moral community may have to evaluate the actions of corporate agents, care must be taken to insure that the assumption of Methodological Individualism (MI) does not infect that process. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that accurate responsibility ascriptions will be made in cases connected with corporate action as long as corporate (...) scapegoating may occur. Because corporate scapegoating is a behavior pattern that attempts to falsify correct responsibility ascriptions it will be of interest to the moral theorist. Once I have considered three objections to the idea of corporate scapegoating I shall offer a fictional description of it found in Ayn Rand''s work,Atlas Shrugged. Finally, I shall raise a question about its present day use by corporations in our society. (shrink)

The text of Euripides' Troades depends mainly upon the versions preserved in two manuscripts, viz. Palatinus 287 and Vaticanus 909 . Both these manuscripts are well known and have been several times collated. Their importance in relation to one another and to the other existing manuscripts for the study of the text of Euripides in general has been frequently discussed and is no longer a subject of major controversy. The notes which follow are designed to put on record a number (...) of corrections to the readings ascribed to P and V for the Troades in the apparatus criticus of Prinz-Wecklein and later editors; and to correct and amplify the general descriptions of P and to call attention to certain difficulties in the current views of its relationship to Laurentianus xxxii. (shrink)

Justice Stephen J. Field was the champion of a form of liberalism often said to be especially friendly to capitalism, the approach to the Constitution traditionally identified with “Lochnerism,” i.e., a laissez-faire oriented judicial activism. More recently a form of judicial revisionism has arisen, challenging the accepted descriptions of “Lochnerism” and of Field's jurisprudence. This article is an attempt to extend the revisionist approach by arriving at a more satisfactory understanding of the grounding of Field's jurisprudence in the natural rights (...) philosophy. Field, it turns out, orienting around natural rights, was not so unambiguously friendly to capitalism as previous generations of scholars maintained, but his approach is surely friendlier than the constitutional theories that have replaced natural rights since Field's day. (shrink)

A new realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is introduced. Quantum systems are shown to have two kinds of properties: the usual ones described by values of quantum observables, which are called extrinsic, and those that can be attributed to individual quantum systems without violating standard quantum mechanics, which are called intrinsic. The intrinsic properties are classified into structural and conditional. A systematic and self-consistent account is given. Much more statements become meaningful than any version of Copenhagen interpretation would allow. A (...) new approach to classical properties and measurement problem is suggested. A quantum definition of classical states is proposed. (shrink)

Lenin's work "On the Significance of Militant Materialism," written in the spring of 1922, is justly regarded as the philosophical testament of our leader. In it, the tasks of the day were merged with the tasks of the entire epoch on the basis of a profound analysis of reality.