_Anthropic Bias_ explores how to reason when you suspect that your evidence is biased by "observation selection effects"--that is, evidence that has been filtered by the precondition that there be some suitably positioned observer to "have" the evidence. This conundrum--sometimes alluded to as "the anthropic principle," "self-locating belief," or "indexical information"--turns out to be a surprisingly perplexing and intellectually stimulating challenge, one abounding with important implications for many areas in science and philosophy. There are the philosophical thought experiments and paradoxes: (...) the Doomsday Argument; Sleeping Beauty; the Presumptuous Philosopher; Adam & Eve; the Absent-Minded Driver; the Shooting Room. And there are the applications in contemporary science: cosmology ; evolutionary theory ; the problem of time's arrow ; quantum physics ; game-theory problems with imperfect recall ; even traffic analysis. _Anthropic Bias_ argues that the same principles are at work across all these domains. And it offers a synthesis: a mathematically explicit theory of observation selection effects that attempts to meet scientific needs while steering clear of philosophical paradox. (shrink)

This paper investigates the significance of T-duality in string theory: the indistinguisha- bility with respect to all observables, of models attributing radically different radii to space – larger than the observable universe, or far smaller than the Planck length, say. Two interpretational branch points are identified and discussed. First, whether duals are physically equivalent or not: by considering a duality of the familiar simple harmonic oscillator, I argue that they are. Unlike the oscillator, there are no measurements ‘outside’ string theory (...) that could distinguish the duals. Second, whether duals agree or disagree on the radius of ‘target space’, the space in which strings evolve according to string theory. I argue for the latter position, because the alternative leaves it unknown what the radius is. Since duals are physically equivalent yet disagree on the radius of target space, it follows that the radius is indeterminate between them. Using an analysis of Brandenberger and Vafa (1989), I explain why – even so – space is observed to have a determinate, large radius. The conclusion is that observed, ‘phenomenal’ space is not target space, since a space cannot have both a determinate and indeterminate radius: instead phenomenal space must be a higher-level phenomenon, not fundamental. (shrink)

Because of accelerating technological progress, humankind may be rapidly approaching a critical phase in its career. In addition to well-known threats such as nuclear holocaust, the propects of radically transforming technologies like nanotech systems and machine intelligence present us with unprecedented opportunities and risks. Our future, and whether we will have a future at all, may well be determined by how we deal with these challenges. In the case of radically transforming technologies, a better understanding of the transition dynamics from (...) a human to a "posthuman" society is needed. Of particular importance is to know where the pitfalls are: the ways in which things could go terminally wrong. While we have had long exposure to various personal, local, and endurable global hazards, this paper analyzes a recently emerging category: that of existential risks. These are threats that could case our extinction or destroy the potential of Earth - originating intelligent life. Some of these threats are relatively well known while others, including some of the gravest, have gone almost unrecognized. Existential risks have a cluster of features that make ordinary risk management ineffective. A final section of this paper discusses several ethical and policy implications. A clearer understanding of the threat picture will enable us to formulate better strategies. (shrink)

Weyl symmetry of the classical bosonic string Lagrangian is broken by quantization, with profound consequences described here. Reimposing symmetry requires that the background space-time satisfy the equations of general relativity: general relativity, hence classical space-time as we know it, arises from string theory. We investigate the logical role of Weyl symmetry in this explanation of general relativity: it is not an independent physical postulate but required in quantum string theory, so from a certain point of view it plays only a (...) formal role in the explanation. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that empty space can be heard. This position contrasts with the generally held view that the only things that can be heard are sounds, their properties, echoes, and perhaps sound sources. Specifically, I suggest that when sounds reverberate in enclosed environments we auditorily represent the volume of space surrounding us. Clearly, we can learn the approximate size of an enclosed space through hearing a sound reverberate within it, and so any account that denies that we (...) hear empty space must instead show how beliefs about volumes of space can be derived indirectly from what is heard. That is, if space is not auditorily represented when we hear sounds reverberate, what is? I consider whether hearing reverberation can be thought of as hearing a distinct sound, hearing echoes, or hearing a property of a sound. I argue that experiences of reverberation cannot be reduced to the perception of any of these types and that therefore empty space is represented in auditory perceptual content. In the final section I outline two ways in which space might be represented. (shrink)

How sexuality should be regulated in a liberal political community is an important, controversial theoretical and empirical question—as shown by the recent criminalization of possession of some adult pornography in the United Kingdom. Supporters of criminalization argue that Mill, often considered a staunch opponent of censorship, would support prohibition due to his feminist commitments. I argue that this account underestimates the strengths of the Millian account of private conduct and free expression, and the consistency of Millian anticensorship with feminist values. (...) A Millian contextual defense of liberty, however, suggests several other policy approaches to addressing the harms of pornography. (shrink)

I develop a theory of social virtue around the concept of a "social opening" and argue that a range of contemporary terms track various modes of success and failure with respect to social openings: ‘awesome’, ‘down’, ‘chill’, ‘sucks’, ‘wack’, ‘lame’, ‘douchebag’, and others. A basic idea is that the normative character of contemporary social life cannot be fully understood in traditional philosophical terms: ‘obligation’, ‘demand’, ‘duty’, ‘right’, ‘just’, ‘requirement’. ‘Sucks’ and ‘awesome’ (and their ilk) capture a special mode of interpersonal (...) critique. Old modes of critique fall short because contemporary social life embodies a concern for cultivating, expressing, and appreciating individuality. This is partly an aesthetic affair, which flavors the modes of response and critique that constitute the normative framework. I detail how our interest in the "ethics of awesomeness" has influenced a range of post-’60s cultural practices, including art, charity, athletics, public life, and others. (shrink)

Through hearing we learn about source events: events in which objects move or interact so that they vibrate and produce sound waves, such as when they roll, collide, or scrape together. It is often claimed that we do not simply hear sounds and infer what event caused them, but hear source events themselves, through hearing sounds. Here I investigate how the idea that we hear source events should be understood, with a focus on how hearing an event relates to hearing (...) the objects involved in that event. I argue that whereas we see events such as rollings and collisions by seeing objects move through space, this cannot be how we hear them, and go on to examine two other possible models. On the first, we hear events but not their participant objects. On the second, to hear an event is to hear the appearance of an object to change. I argue that neither is satisfactory and endorse a third option: to hear a source event is to hear an object as extending through time. (shrink)

This paper defends the right of historians to make use of their knowledge of the remote consequences of past actions. In particular, it is argued that the disciplinary cohesion of the history of science relies crucially upon our ability to target, for further investigation, those past activities ancestral to modern science. The history of science is not limited to the study of those activities but it is structured around them. In this sense, the discipline is inherently ‘present-centred’: its boundaries are (...) determined, in part, by judgements inaccessible to the historical actors. Present-centredness of this sort, it is urged, should not be regarded as a problem; its methodological consequences are minimal.Author Keywords: Anachronism; Diachronic history; Present-centred history; Actors’ categories; Historical causation; Retrospective explanation. (shrink)

It is intuitively plausible that art and imagination are intimately connected. This chapter explores attempts to explain that connection. We focus on three areas in which art and imagination might be linked: production, ontology, and appreciation. We examine views which treat imagination as a fundamental human faculty, and aim for comprehensive accounts of art and artistic practice: for example, those of Kant and Collingwood. We also discuss philosophers who argue that a specific kind of imagining may explain some particular element (...) of the artistic domain: for example, Walton's ideas about representational art, and Kivy’s about reading. (shrink)

This is the introduction to the special issue of Studies in the History and Philosophy of Modern Physics on the emergence of spacetime in quantum theories of spacetime.

Views on addiction are often polarised - either addiction is a matter of choice, or addicts simply can't help themselves. But perhaps addiction falls between the two? This book contains views from philosophy, neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, and the law exploring this middle ground between free choice and no choice.

The authors present climate change and antibiotic resistance as emergent biosocial phenomena—ongoing products of massively multiple interactions among human lifestyles and broader life processes. They argue that response to climate change and antibiotic resistance is often framed by two varieties of biosocial imagination. Anthropocentric imaginations privilege the question of human distinctiveness. Anthropomorphic imaginations privilege the question of whether biosocial processes can be modeled in terms of centers of moral and causal responsibility. Together, these frame the matter of response in terms (...) of deliberate human action. The authors argue that, considered as emergent biosocial phenomena, climate change and antibiotic resistance “diffract” deliberate human action and thus limit the value of this frame by rendering the human/nonhuman and intended/nonintended distinctions that are crucial to its practical operation locally irrelevant. Alternative biosocial imaginations currently developing around climate change and antibiotic resistance that allow for “diffraction” and therefore frame response differently are considered. (shrink)

I foreground the principle of epistemic dependence. I isolate that relation and distinguish it from other relations and note what it does and does not entail. In particular, I distinguish between dependence and necessitation. This has many interesting consequences. On the negative side, many standard arguments in epistemology are subverted. More positively, once we are liberated from the necessary and sufficient conditions project, many fruitful paths for future epistemological investigation open up. I argue that that not being defeated does not (...) make for knowledge. And I argue for the multiple realization of epistemic properties in non-epistemic properties. (shrink)

British psychologists have been at the forefront of research into human reasoning for 40 years. This article describes some past research milestones within this tradition before outlining the major theoretical positions developed in the UK. Most British reasoning researchers have contributed to one or more of these positions. We identify a common theme that is emerging in all these approaches, that is, the problem of explaining how prior general knowledge affects reasoning. In our concluding comments we outline the challenges for (...) future research posed by this problem. (shrink)

We prove that the existence of a measurable cardinal is equivalent to the existence of a normal space whose modal logic coincides with the modal logic of the Kripke frame isomorphic to the powerset of a two element set.

We prove that the modal logic of a crowded locally compact generalized ordered space is$\textsf {S4}$. This provides a version of the McKinsey–Tarski theorem for generalized ordered spaces. We then utilize this theorem to axiomatize the modal logic of an arbitrary locally compact generalized ordered space.

ABSTRACT“Evidence-based” methods, which most prominently include randomized controlled trials, have gained increasing purchase as the “gold standard” for assessing the effect of public policies. But the enthusiasm for evidence-based research overlooks questions about the reliability and applicability of experimental findings to diverse real-world settings. Perhaps surprisingly, a qualitative study of British educators suggests that they are aware of these limitations and therefore take evidence-based findings with a much larger grain of salt than do policy makers. Their experience suggests that the (...) real world is more heterogeneous than the world imagined by evidence-based policy enthusiasts. (shrink)

Icons of knowledge -- Two small embryos in spirits of wine -- Like flies on the Parlon ceiling -- Drawing and Darwinism -- Illustrating the magic word -- Professors and progress -- Visual strategies -- Schematics, forgery, and the so-called educated -- Imperial grids -- Setting standards -- Forbidden fruit -- Creative copying -- Trials and tributes -- Scandal for the people -- A hundred Haeckels -- The textbook illustration -- Iconoclasm -- The shock of the copy.

It is somewhat of a mystery why one of Foucault's most important concepts—that of ‘dispositif’—is still quite vague in social and political theory; and while a small number of analyses have moved understanding forward, it remains stubbornly opaque. This paper argues that a strengthening of Foucault's concept can be achieved by integrating elements of Althusser’s formulation of a dispositif events), and a detailed examination of the shared conceptual history between dispositifs and discursive formations. Regarding, the paper contends that dispositifs restrict (...) three types of aleatory event: first, a ‘continuous present’ exerted upon objects and subjects; second, overdetermining repetitious occurrences; and third, negating the effects of unexpected aleatory events. The paper also argues that dispositifs are capable of producing certain forms of aleatory change. Regarding, four developmental thresholds of dispositifs are identified: strategic emergence, political elaboration, overdetermined a priori, and aleatory dominance. These two developments are argued to move Foucault's concept from being descriptive and largely passive to becoming a more theoretically active resource—what Deleuze terms changing the analytical to the diagnostic. (shrink)

Today, complaints about information overload – associated with an overwhelming deluge of data – are commonplace. Early modernists have reacted to these concerns by showing that similar ones have arisen before. While this perspective is useful, it leaves out what was novel about the concept of information overload, which relied on a historically specific model of the human being. I trace the term’s history back to 1960, when the American psychologist and systems theorist James Grier Miller published his article on (...) ‘information input overload and psychopathology’. In Grier Miller’s usage, the idea of information overload signalled as much a reconceptualization of human beings as communication channels whose capacity could be overwhelmed as it did concerns about the volume of reading material to manage. Through his work, and the broader subsequent adoption of the term in academic and journalistic venues, I show how ‘information overload’ reflected intellectual and social trends specific to its time. (shrink)

There are two boxes in front of you and you are asked to choose between taking only box B or taking both box A and box B. Box A contains $ 1,000. Box B will contain either nothing or $ 1,000,000. What B will contain is (or will be) determined by Predictor, who has an excellent track record of predicting your choices. There are two possibilities. Either Predictor has already made his move by predicting your choice and putting a million (...) dollars in B iff he predicted that you will take only B (like in the standard Newcomb problem); or else Predictor has not yet made his move but will wait and observe what box you choose and then put a million dollars in B iff you take only B. In cases like this, Predictor makes his move before the subject roughly half of the time. However, there is a Metapredictor, who has an excellent track record of predicting Predictor’s choices as well as your own. You know all this. Metapredictor informs you of the following truth functional: Either you choose A and B, and Predictor will make his move after you make your choice; or else you choose only B, and Predictor has already made his choice. Now, what do you choose? (shrink)

Electronic dance music has much about it to interest philosophers. In this article, I explore facets of dance music cultures, using the issue of authenticity as a framing question. The problem of sorting real or authentic dance music from mainstream or commercial clubbing can be treated as a matter of history and genre-definition; as a matter of defining scenes or subcultures; and as a matter of blackness. In each case, electronic dance music, and critical discourse surrounding it, offers fresh illumination (...) of aesthetic questions. I briefly characterise the main genres of dance music, match conversations about the hardcore continuum with philosophers’ accounts of genre, survey sociologists’ ways of thinking about cultures and their connections to taste and personal identity, and link criticisms that dance music now lacks blackness to conceptions of black aesthetics. This article is Part I of two; Part II focusses on dancers, DJs, and the aesthetics and ontology of dance music itself. Video abstract. (shrink)

We establish the dichotomy property for stable canonical multi-conclusion rules for IPC, K4, and S4. This yields an alternative proof of existence of explicit bases of admissible rules for these logics.

I raise the issue of the role of God with respect to morality and why we should be concerned with Him. Then the difficulty that God existence is still irrelevant even if He created the world and even if the Divine Commandment Theory is right that He is responsible for Morality. A Jewish Neo-Aristotelian solution is considered but rejected, and the Jewish Neoplatonist solution endorsed and sympathetically but cautiously endorsed. Free Will is considered from the Neoplatonist point of view. Something (...) like Jewish incarnation is suggested at the end, with an appendix on sex. (shrink)

Mark Pennington’s Robust Political Economy is a systematic exposition of a framework for analyzing institutional performance. The Robust Political Economy framework evaluates institutions according to their ability to solve knowledge and incentive problems. On grounds of robustness, Pennington combines insights from Austrian market-process theory and public-choice theory to defend classical liberalism from several compelling critiques. These include theories of market failure in economics; communitarian, deliberative-democratic, and liberal-egalitarian theories of justice; and concerns with social capital, domestic and international poverty, and ecology.

Consider a toothache, or a feeling of intense pleasure, or the sensation you would have if you looked impassively at an expanse of colour. In each case, the experience can easily be thought to fill time by being present throughout a period. This way of thinking of conscious experience is natural enough, but it is in deep conflict with the view that physical processes are ultimately responsible for experience. The problem is that physical processes are related to durations in a (...) very different way—not by being wholly present at each instant or sub-period, but by having temporal parts that are. There is a choice to be made, therefore, between preserving this common way of thinking of experience and preserving the fundamentality of processes. The first option holds fixed the view of experiences as occurring throughout time and takes this to constrain the category of entity to which they are identical, or upon which they supervene. The second option abandons this common view of experience by taking up a perspective on which we experience things in the world and their properties as existing or occurring a certain way, and mistakenly ascribe this ontological character to our experience as well. The second option is ultimately the better option, however, since only it can make sense of the facts of our experience. (shrink)

In “Knowledge and epistemic necessity,” John Hawthorne gives a defense of what he rightly calls the “standard approach” to epistemic possibility against what he calls a new “competing idea” presented by Dougherty and Rysiew which he notes has been “endorsed and elaborated upon” by Fantl and McGrath. According to the standard approach, roughly, p is epistemically possible for S if S doesn’t know that not-p. The new approach has it that p is epistemically possible if p has a non-zero epistemic (...) probability. Both approaches, he notes, would explain the oddness of CKAs, utterances of the form “p, but possibly not p.” However, he offers a number of arguments designed to show that the standard approach has other advantages. In this paper, we undermine Hawthorne’s reasons for favoring the standard approach over Dougherty and Rysiew’s alternative approach. (shrink)

A brief history, overview, and assessment of the thesis that beauty is the object of love.

The clash between atheism and religion has become the defining battle of the 21st century. Books on and about atheism retain high profile and popularity, and atheist movements on both sides of the Atlantic capture headlines with high-profile campaigns and adverts. However, very little has been written on the history of atheism, and this book fills that conspicuous gap. Instead of treating atheism just as a philosophical or scientific idea about the non-existence of God, Atheists: The Origin of the Species (...) places the movement in its proper social and political context. Because atheism in Europe developed in reaction to the Christianity that dominated the continent's intellectual, social and political life, it adopted, adapted and reacted against its institutions as well as its ideas. Accordingly, the history of atheism is as much about social and political movements as it is scientific or philosophical ideas."--book jacket. (shrink)

Nearly every day we hear that something or someone is awesome or sucks. Are these just empty words meaning little more than “good” and “bad”? Or is there something more interesting or even important about our obsession with awesomeness and our fear of suckiness? What exactly is it to be awesome? What is it to suck? I sketch a way of thinking about awesomeness and suckiness and suggest that it illuminates what I call “the ethics of awesomeness.” .