This paper is a review of the work that has been carried out on machine consciousness. A clear overview of this diverse field is achieved by breaking machine consciousness down into four different areas, which are used to understand its aims, discuss its relationship with other subjects and outline the work that has been carried out so far. The criticisms that have been made against machine consciousness are also covered, along with its potential benefits, and the work that has been (...) done on analysing systems for signs of consciousness. Some of the social and ethical issues raised by machine consciousness are examined at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Virtue ethics seems to be a promising moral theory for understanding and interpreting the development and behavior of artificial moral agents. Virtuous artificial agents would blur traditional distinctions between different sorts of moral machines and could make a claim to membership in the moral community. Accordingly, we investigate the “machine question” by studying whether virtue or vice can be attributed to artificial intelligence; that is, are people willing to judge machines as possessing moral character? An experiment describes situations where either (...) human or AI agents engage in virtuous or vicious behavior and experiment participants then judge their level of virtue or vice. The scenarios represent different virtue ethics domains of truth, justice, fear, wealth, and honor. Quantitative and qualitative analyses show that moral attributions are weakened for AIs compared to humans, and the reasoning and explanations for the attributions are varied and more complex. On “relational” views of membership in the moral community, virtuous machines would indeed be included, even if they are indeed weakened. Hence, while our moral relationships with artificial agents may be of the same types, they may yet remain substantively different than our relationships to human beings. (shrink)

The question about the potential for consciousness of artificial systems has often been addressed using thought experiments, which are often problematic in the philosophy of mind. A more promising approach is to use real experiments to gather data about the correlates of consciousness in humans, and develop this data into theories that make predictions about human and artificial consciousness. A key issue with an experimental approach is that consciousness can only be measured using behavior, which places fundamental limits on our (...) ability to identify the correlates of consciousness. This paper formalizes these limits as a distinction between type I and type II potential correlates of consciousness (PCCs). Since it is not possible to decide empirically whether type I PCCs are necessary for consciousness, it is indeterminable whether a machine that lacks neurons or hemoglobin, for example, is potentially conscious. A number of responses have been put forward to this problem, including suspension of judgment, liberal and conservative attribution of the potential for consciousness and a psychometric scale that models our judgment about the relationship between type I PCCs and consciousness. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 60, Issue 1, Page 118-149, March 2022.

Research is starting to identify correlations between consciousness and some of the spatiotemporal patterns in the physical brain. For theoretical and practical reasons, the results of experiments on the correlates of consciousness have ambiguous interpretations. At any point in time a number of hypotheses co-exist about and the correlates of consciousness in the brain, which are all compatible with the current experimental results. This paper argues that consciousness should be attributed to any system that exhibits spatiotemporal physical patterns that match (...) the hypotheses about the correlates of consciousness that are compatible with the current experimental results. Some computers running some programs should be attributed consciousness because they produce spatiotemporal patterns in the physical world that match those that are potentially linked with consciousness in the human brain. (shrink)

Consciousness is widely perceived as one of the most fundamental, interesting and difficult problems of our time. However, we still know next to nothing about the relationship between consciousness and the brain and we can only speculate about the consciousness of animals and machines. Human and Machine Consciousness presents a new foundation for the scientific study of consciousness. It sets out a bold interpretation of consciousness that neutralizes the philosophical problems and explains how we can make scientific predictions about the (...) consciousness of animals, brain-damaged patients and machines. Gamez interprets the scientific study of consciousness as a search for mathematical theories that map between measurements of consciousness and measurements of the physical world. We can use artificial intelligence to discover these theories and they could make accurate predictions about the consciousness of humans, animals and artificial systems. Human and Machine Consciousness also provides original insights into unusual conscious experiences, such as hallucinations, religious experiences and out-of-body states, and demonstrates how 'designer' states of consciousness could be created in the future. Gamez explains difficult concepts in a clear way that closely engages with scientific research. His punchy, concise prose is packed with vivid examples, making it suitable for the educated general reader as well as philosophers and scientists. Problems are brought to life in colourful illustrations and a helpful summary is given at the end of each chapter. The endnotes provide detailed discussions of individual points and full references to the scientific and philosophical literature."--Publisher's website. (shrink)

David Gamez, Int. J. Mach. Conscious., 06, 21 (2014). DOI: 10.1142/S1793843014400046.

Scientific research on consciousness is attempting to gather data about the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. The basic procedure is to measure consciousness through first-person reports, measure the physical world and look for correlations between these sets of measurements. While this work has focused on neural correlates of consciousness, it has also been proposed that information states in the brain might be linked to consciousness. This paper uses Floridi’s distinction between dedomena, data and information to state this claim (...) more precisely and suggests that the best starting point for this work is the potential correlation between data patterns and consciousness. Floridi’s method of levels of abstraction is used to understand how data can be measured at different levels of abstraction in the brain and the paper examines a number of problems with this work, which could make it difficult to prove that data patterns are correlated with consciousness. (shrink)

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence tells the story of a robot boy who has been engineered to love his human owner. He is abandoned by his owner and pursues a tragic quest to become a real boy so that he can be loved by her again. This chapter explores the philosophical, psychological, and scientific questions that are asked by A.I. It starts with A.I.’s representation of artificial intelligence and then covers the consciousness of robots, which is closely linked to ethical concerns about (...) the treatment of AIs in the film. There is a discussion about how A.I.’s interpretation of artificial love relates to scientific work on emotion, and the chapter also examines connections between the technology portrayed in A.I. and current research on robotics. (shrink)

ISSN:1909-9711 (En línea) Misión La Revista Acta Colombiana de Psicología publica hallazgos originales de las investigaciones en Psicología y de esta disciplina en diálogo con otras, con el propósito de divulgarlas a la comunidad universitaria y a todas las personas interesadas en conocer sus nuevos avances y aplicaciones a distintos campos y necesidades de la sociedad contemporánea.

Conventional truth describes things as delivered by ordinary experience; ultimate truth captures the way that things are independent of our interests, practices, and cognitive faculties. It is notoriously difficult to provide an adequate analysis of either conventional or ultimate truth, however. This chapter develops a previous scholarly suggestion to understand conventional truth in Madhyamaka as deflationary truth. It points out that this suggestion is a good one only if a supplementary theory of meaning, which the deflationary theory of truth presupposes, (...) can be given in a way that is consistent with both the limitations of the deflationary theory of truth and with Madhyamaka antirealist metaphysics. It then offers a presentation of Dharmakīrti’s theory of apoha in order to argue that the resources necessary to give the required account of meaning can be found in Dharmakīrti’s account of intentional mental content. (shrink)

This paper argues against a common misunderstanding of Foucault's work. Even after the release of his lectures at the Collège de France, which ran throughout the 1970s until his death in 1984, he is still often taken to have made an "ethical" turn toward the end of his life. As opposed to his genealogies of power published in the 1970s, which are relentlessly suspicious of claims of individual agency, his final monographs focus on the ethical self-formation of free individuals. I (...) suggest that this basic misinterpretation makes possible interpretations of Foucault's work as being sympathetic to neoliberal government, by linking the ethical turn to a "liberal" or "neoliberal" turn in his thought. I present a case against the ethical turn by arguing that Foucault's main focus, throughout the 1970s and 1980s, is a concern for the ways in which we become obligated by truth. (shrink)

This paper describes how Tononi’s information integration theory of consciousness was used to make detailed predictions about the distribution of phenomenal states in a spiking neural network. This network had approximately 18,000 neurons and 700,000 connections and it used models of emotion and imagination to control the eye movements of a virtual robot and avoid ‘negative’ stimuli. The first stage in the analysis was the development of a formal definition of Tononi’s theory of consciousness. The network was then analysed for (...) information integration and detailed predictions were made about the distribution of consciousness for each time step of recorded activity. This work demonstrates how an artificial system can be analysed for consciousness using a particular theory and in the future this approach could be used to make predictions about the phenomenal states associated with biological systems. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is to set out the structure and order of Leibniz’s discussion of the so-called “static shift,” in his correspondence in Clarke. The immediate point of this exercise is to determine precisely how Leibniz puts to use his two famous principles – the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR) and the Principleof Identity of Indiscernibles (PII) – in constructing, and defending his relational view of space, while providing a refutation of Absolute Space. In specific, it is to (...) set out an interpretation of this argument contrary to the generally accepted one – here represented by Chernoff – about the use of the PII. (shrink)

A petición del cardenal De la Lastra en 1868 el beato Pío IX firmó un breve pontificio por el que se nombraba a san Isidoro Patrón de la ciudad de Sevilla, llegando así el Doctor de las Españas al lugar que le correspondía como una de las figuras más señeras e importantes del catolicismo hispano. Su celebración litúrgica tiene el rango de solemnidad cada 26 de abril y sigue viva su devoción en los muros de la catedral hispalense. Casi un (...) siglo después fue Pío XII mediante la bula Quam Fervida del 15 de agosto de 1946 el que nombra a Nuestra Señora de los Reyes Patrona Principal de la ciudad y archidiócesis por el ferviente deseo de toda Sevilla representada en su pastor el cardenal Segura. (shrink)

En los últimos años de la Edad Moderna y ya a lo largo de toda la Contemporánea, la celebración de la Semana Santa de Sevilla se convierte en la gran fiesta religiosa de la urbe hispalense. En el siglo XIX el establecimiento de la corte de los Montpensier a orillas del Guadalquivir convierte bajo la égida de los duques tanto a la ciudad como a su fiesta pasional en acontecimientos turísticos de amplitud genuinamente europea e internacional. En el encuadre de (...) este contexto histórico, hay que estudiar la visita del restaurado rey Alfonso XII en 1877, donde principia el legendario romance con su prima María de las Mercedes. Se hace muy presente en las vivencias de la ciudad, queda asombrado por la grandeza litúrgica del Triduo Sacro de la Santa Iglesia Catedral concediendo a su cabildo el título de Excelentísimo y preside el paso del Duelo de la cofradía del Santo Entierro, primera vez en la historia que un descendiente del Trono de san Fernando lo realiza en el cortejo procesional de una cofradía sevillana. (shrink)

En 1561 la Hermandad Sacramental del Sagrario de la catedral de Sevilla solicita a los calonges se exorne la pared de su capilla en las gradas por lo que el cabildo encarga al pintor Luis de Vargas realice una pintura mural de Jesús camino de la amargura. La obra es estrenada en 1563 y en ella se representa al Redentor ataviado con túnica blanca de igual modo que los condenados que por allí pasaban camino del patíbulo y portando la cruz (...) al revés. El llamado popularmente “Cristo de los Ajusticiados” es un claro exponente de un retablo callejero que tanta devoción popular manifestó en la España de la Edad Moderna. (shrink)

In this paper, I provide the outlines of an alternative metaphilosophical orientation for Continental philosophy, namely, a form of scientific naturalism that has proximate roots in the work of Bachelard and Althusser. I describe this orientation as an “alternative” insofar as it provides a framework for doing justice to some of the motivations behind the recent revival of metaphysics in Continental philosophy, in particular its ecological-ethical motivations. In the second section of the paper, I demonstrate how ecological-ethical issues motivate new (...) metaphysicians like Bruno Latour, Jane Bennett, Timothy Morton, Ian Bogost, and Graham Harman to impute to objects real features of agency. I also try to show how their commitments lead to deep ambiguities in their metaphysical projects. In the final section, I outline a type of scientific naturalism in Continental philosophy that parallels the sort of naturalism championed by Quine, both conceptually and historically, and suggest that it might serve our ecological-ethical purposes better. (shrink)

In this article I want to argue that Foucault’s engagement with the Iranian Revolution was neither romantic fascist atavism nor does it presage any sort of transformation of his thought. Indeed, Foucault’s investigations of neoliberalism and subsequent work on spirituality, truth-telling and ethics are fully continuous with his critical genealogy of power. This is an important point, as we shall see, insofar as Foucault’s journalism on the Iranian Revolution occurs in the midst of his Collège de France lectures on biopolitics (...) and governmentality. Foucault’s enthusiasm for the Revolution might indicate, albeit very indirectly, directions for thought that might resist neoliberalism. I will argue that Foucault was engaged in a very specific telling of the ‘history of truth’, emphasizing a partisan and agonistic form of truth-telling and transformation through struggle and ordeal, as opposed to the pacifying, neutralizing and normalizing forms of modern Western power. The ‘political spirituality’ Foucault wit... (shrink)

It is widely accepted that electoral representative democracy is better—along a number of different normative dimensions—than any other alternative lawmaking political arrangement. It is not typically seen as much of a competition: it is also widely accepted that the only legitimate alternative to electoral representative democracy is some form of direct democracy, but direct democracy—we are told—would lead to bad policy. This article makes the case that there is a legitimate alternative system—one that uses lotteries, not elections, to select political (...) officials— that would be better than electoral representative democracy. (shrink)

This paper takes on several distinct but related tasks. First, I present and discuss what I will call the “Ignorance Thesis,” which states that whenever an agent acts from ignorance, whether factual or moral, she is culpable for the act only if she is culpable for the ignorance from which she acts. Second, I offer a counterexample to the Ignorance Thesis, an example that applies most directly to the part I call the “Moral Ignorance Thesis.” Third, I argue for a (...) principle—Don’t Know, Don’t Kill—that supports the view that the purported counterexample actually is a counterexample. Finally, I suggest that my arguments in this direction can supply a novel sort of argument against many instances of killing and eating certain sorts of animals. (shrink)

La fotografía que acompaña este dossier procede del acervo documental del Archivo General de la Nación y corresponde al curso “Problemática del trabajo en la Filosofía Moderna”, que Guerrero impartió en el Colegio Libre de Estudios Superiores en 1936. Fue reproducida en la revista Foro y Notariado de la ciudad de Bahía Blanca, ilustrando una nota que informaba del fallecimiento de Guerrero el 7 de febrero de 1957.

Conscious technology features in many Black Mirror episodes. For example, there are the cookies in White Christmas, the people uploaded into the San Junipero simulation, Robert Daly's digital copies of his coworkers in USS Callister, and the copy of Clayton Leigh that is exhibited in Black Museum. But would such pieces of technology really be conscious? Would they, for example, feel pain? And how could we tell? Is uploading or replicating someone's consciousness even possible? This chapter explores these questions and (...) discusses the ethical issues that are raised by consciousness technology. (shrink)

El tema de mi exposición aparece en la primera fila de un curso colectivo sobre la Revolución francesa. Pero debo comenzar declarando que no entraré, ni por un momento, en el análisis de ese conjunto extraordinario de acontecimientos históricos o en el estudio de sus causas y proyecciones. No es éste, por otra parte, un asunto de mi especialidad. Dentro del plan de nuestro curso colectivo, mi tarea es más modesta y aparece bien circunscripta. Me debo ocupar del sentido histórico (...) del siglo XVIII, para poder dilucidar si la voluntad revolucionaria de los hombres de 1789 proviene de la concepción de la vida histórica forjada por los pensadores de esa época o si, por el contrario, la niega o la transforma. En otras palabras, he de enfocar aquellos problemas que nos permitirán intentar, en último término, un análisis de las relaciones entre la conciencia histórica y la conciencia revolucionaria del siglo XVIII. (shrink)

En este artículo se realiza una aproximación a Miguel Mañara, ejemplar figura del hombre barroco del siglo XVII. Aunque su personalidad se ha visto manipulada a partir de la época romántica con su vinculación a don Juan Tenorio, todo es ajeno a la verdad. De familia noble, caballero de Calatrava, tras enviudar joven, sufre un proceso de conversión que le hace seguir el ejemplo de Jesucristo en la Hermandad de la Santa Caridad cuya regla principal de conducta era el enterrar (...) a los muertos sin familia y en la que realizó una abnegada labor con la fundación de un hospital para socorrer a los enfermos sin sustento. Escritor brillante ante la idea de la muerte con su Discurso de la Verdad, dirigió́ los postulados artísticos de la iglesia del hospital donde destaca la escena de su retablo mayor en la que se efigia, con suma belleza, la escena del Entierro de Cristo debida a la gubia de Pedro Roldán. (shrink)

En este artículo convergen dos investigaciones en curso en torno a la poesía chilena de posdictadura. En él, se emplea la categoría crítica de documentalismo para referir el estudio de los procedimientos de reescritura y apropiación que utilizan los poetas Jaime Pinos, María José Ferrada, Óscar Barrientos y Carlos Soto Román, autores que llevan a cabo un peculiar trabajo de montaje e intervención de fuentes documentales, a fin de producir una reflexión histórico-cultural acerca de cómo los medios masivos de comunicación (...) modelan la realidad y el discurso público. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es presentar la influencia que la aparición de la imprenta supuso en la consolidación histórica de una nueva forma de entender la razón y la libertad en un periodo que desembocará en la concepción ilustrada del hombre. Para ello, vamos a realizar un análisis histórico acerca de qué circunstancias cambiaron y qué posibilidades fueron abiertas con la aparición de la imprenta. Posteriormente, comprobaremos cómo la noción de sujeto kantiana puede ser contextualizada y comprendida en relación (...) a dicho análisis. Finalmente formularemos conclusiones acerca de la relación propuesta entre los dos elementos de manera acorde a lo planteado en su estudio. (shrink)

This edited collection addresses the problem of how the creation of novel spaces of governance relates to imaginaries of connectivity in time.

Uberrima Fides is a legal doctrine that governs insurance contracts and expects all parties to the insurance agreement to act in good faith by declaring all material facts relative to a policy. The doctrine originated in England in 1766 with the case Carter v Boehm ruled by Lord Mansfield. Ever since, it has become, with some differences in interpretation, a cornerstone of insurance relationships around the world. The role that trust plays within it, however, is not simple and should not (...) be taken for granted. While it is expected that an idea of trust represents an order of truth, trust in itself is the outcome of a complex negotiation of moral orders. Semiotically, trust operates here not as a Kantian category for the understanding but as a signifier of an order of truth that upholds the possibility for insurance relationships. Trust, as sign, operates as a condition of possibility for the performance of insurance. In this article, a Foucaultian approach is employed to problematise the idea of trust and its role in insurance relationships. The case of mis-selling of insurance policies in the United Kingdom since the 1980s, which has given rise to numerous legal rulings, is used as the empirical site for the problematisation. (shrink)

Se presenta una revisión bibliográfica en la que se valora la implementación de las estrategias curriculares en la Licenciatura en Enfermería, a partir de las asignaturas impartidas en el segundo año de la carrera. Se destaca la importancia de estos recursos pedagógicos en la formación de los estudiantes, su desarrollo y contribución a la solución de situaciones relacionadas con el cuidado, la calidad de la atención de salud, la disminución de eventos adversos y la seguridad del paciente. Las estrategias curriculares (...) vinculadas a la carrera de Enfermería constituyen una forma particular de desarrollar el proceso docente, caracterizadas por una direccionalidad coordinada que responde al perfil de salida del egresado, en la que se imbrican los contenidos y métodos teóricos y prácticos de las unidades curriculares correspondientes al plan de estudio, a partir de una estructura metodológica que garantiza su funcionamiento. Ello contribuye a la formación integral de un profesional competente. A bibliographic revision is presented in order to assess the implementation of curricular strategies in Nursing 2nd year subjects. The importance of teaching aids in students' training, their development and contribution to solve issues related to care and quality of the health system, the lowering of adverse events and the patient´s safety are pointed out. Curricular strategies related to Nursing represent a particular way to develop the teaching process, characterized by a coordinated direction which responds to the graduate's experience, in which theoretical and practical methods and contents of the curricular units that belong to the syllabus are interwoven, starting from a methodological structure that ensures these strategy functions. It contributes to the comprehensive formation of a competent professional. (shrink)

Una idea casi universalmente aceptada es que es que la filosofía y la ciencia por naturaleza buscan la verdad. No obstante, para que alcancen la Verdad requieren a fortiori de la fe. A partir de estas ideas, nuestra reflexión está organizada en tres apartados: en el primero abordamos la necesidad de la metafísica como disciplina que encuentra los principios en la naturaleza. Así como, la ciencia gracias a la metafísica encuentra las leyes de esta, pero sólo con ayuda de la (...) fe; en la segunda idea nos centramos en explicar el método de la ciencia y nos preguntamos sí sus formas y metodologías van de acuerdo con la fe. La última idea, trata la dimensión de las ciencias sociales cara al Desarrollo Humano (DH). El argumento que se desarrolla en este apartado sostiene que, el motivo por el cual el hombre, con su razón, busca la verdad; es para dar sentido a su existencia. No obstante, hay que reflexionar sobre el devenir de las Ciencias Sociales puesto que ante el establecimiento de linderos, la inflexión de métodos y metodologías se ha desdibujado e incomprendido de los hechos presentes en la realidad y no se ha tendido a la búsqueda de la verdad. Finalmente, se presentan nuestras conclusiones que ahondan en la propuesta del DH y la bibliografía utilizada para elaborar este trabajo. (shrink)

Lectures are a common teaching method in higher education. However, they have many serious limitations, including boredom, attendance, short attention span, low knowledge transmission and the passivity of students. This paper suggests how a combination of electroencephalography and eye-tracking technology could address some of these limitations – an approach that I have called neurolecturing. Neurolecturing could measure students’ attention, learning and cognitive load and provide real time feedback to students and lecturers. It could also play a role in the flipped (...) classroom and artificial intelligence tutoring. (shrink)