_'HyperReality is a technological capability like nanotechnology, human cloning and artificial intelligence. Like them, it does not as yet exist in the sense of being clearly demonstrable and publicly available. Like them, it is maturing in laboratories where the question "if" has been replaced by the question "when?" and like them, the implications of its appearance as a basic infrastructure technology are profound and merit careful consideration.'_ - _Nobuyoshi Terashima_ _What comes after the Internet?_ Imagine a world where it is (...) difficult to tell if the person standing next to you is real or a virtual reality, and whether they have human intelligence or artificial intelligence; a world where people can appear to be anything they want to be. _HyperReality makes this possible._ _HyperReality_ offers a window into the world of the future, an interface between the natural and artificial. Nobuyoshi Terashima led the team that developed the prototype for _HyperReality_ at Japan's ATT laboratories. John Tiffin studied they way HyperReality would create a new communications paradigm. Together with a stellar list of contributors from around the globe who are engaged in researching different aspects of HyperReality, they offer the first account of this extraordinary technology and its implications. This fascinating book explores the defining features of HyperReality: what it is, how it works and how it could become to the information society what mass media was to the industrial society. It describes ongoing research into areas such as the design of virtual worlds and virtual humans, and the role of intelligent agents. It looks at applications and ways in which HyperReality may impact on fields such as translation, medicine, education, entertainment and leisure. What are its implications for lifestyles and work, for women and the elderly: Will we grow to prefer the virtual worlds we create to the physical world we adapt to? HyperReality at the beginning of the third millennium is like steam power at the beginning of the nineteenth century and radio at the start of the twentieth century, an idea that has been shown to work but has yet to be applied. This book is for anyone concerned about the future and the effects of technology on our lives. (shrink)

This study considers food commercials featuring the term otona, meaning ‘adult, mature person’. Although the term is not explicitly gendered, this study demonstrates that food advertising using otona becomes a conduit for the construction of gendered lifestyle formulations via consumption practices offering consumers entrance into a range of gendered adult life stage practices. Unlike the socially aspirational consumption practices described by Agha, the consumption of inexpensive otona-marked products, which cost the same as their non-otona-marked counterparts but are intended by commercial (...) producers to be viewed by prospective consumers as more mature, is linked to the process of entering adulthood. However, whereas male performance of otona masculinity is shown in the commercials to be based on psychological maturity and economic and social independence, female performance of otona femininity is determined by the commercial producers and the product manufacturers to be based on successful performance of external beauty, sexuality and support of male social sphere members. This article shows how otona becomes a catch-all for aspirational gendered performance, arguing that terms like otona are particularly suited for normative gendered performance presentations. (shrink)

In 1987, Lambert Schmithausen published an important extensive monograph on the origin of ālayavijñāna. In his opinion, the introduction of ālayavijñāna was closely linked to nirodhasamāpatti, but it was not meditative experience itself that directly lead to the introduction of this new concept. Rather, according to Schmithausen, it was dogmatic speculation on a sūtra passage about nirodhasamāpatti. My own hypothesis is that the introduction of ālayavijñāna was more directly based on meditative experiences. Focusing on the “Proof Portion” of the Viniścayasaṃgrahaṇī (...) of the Yogācārabhūmi, the present paper examines this hypothesis. My examination reveals that ālayavijñāna is the physiological basis of the body, and as such it is correlated to the state of the body and mind. When one’s body and mind are transformed from an inert to a well-functioning state through meditative practice, the transformation seems to hinge on the transformation of ālayavijñāna itself. It appears that Yogācāra meditators intuitively realized this mechanism at the stage of darśanamārga. This paper also responds to some points raised by Schmithausen on my hypothesis in his recent monograph on early Yogācāra. Through these discussions, this paper sheds light on the importance of the correlation between body and mind in meditative contexts and proposes that this was the key issue in the introduction of the ālayavijñāna theory. (shrink)

We discuss four methodological issues regarding cross-cultural judgment studies of facial expressions of emotion involving design, sampling, stimuli, and dependent variables. We use examples of relatively recent studies in this area to highlight and discuss these issues. We contend that careful consideration of these, and other, cross-cultural methodological issues can help researchers minimize methodological errors, and can guide the field to address new and different research questions that can continue to facilitate an evolution in the field’s thinking about the nature (...) of culture, emotion, and facial expressions. (shrink)

The rapid technological advancement of AI in the civilian sector is accompanied by accelerating attempts to apply this technology in the military sector. This study focuses on the argument that AI-equipped lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS) pose a threat to human dignity. However, the precise meaning of why and how LAWS violate human dignity is not always clear because the concept of human dignity itself remains ambiguous. Drawing on philosophical research on this concept, this study distinguishes the multiple meanings of (...) dignity via five components—Agency, End-not-means, Uniqueness, Reciprocal respect, and Specialness—to organize existing dignity-based objections to LAWS. This study also extends the literature by providing empirical evidence of people’s attitudes toward LAWS, based on the results of a social survey conducted by the authors. This study concludes that attention must be directed toward the ontological distinction between humans and machines in advancing the ethical debate on LAWS. (shrink)

In recent years, quite a few evolutionary psychologists have come to embrace a heuristic interpretation of the discipline. They claim that, no matter how methodologically incomplete, adaptive thinking works fine as a good heuristic that effectively reduces the hypothesis space by generating novel and promising hypotheses that can eventually be empirically tested. The purpose of this article is to elucidate the use of heuristics in evolutionary psychology, thereby clarifying the role adaptive thinking has to play. To that end, two typical (...) heuristic interpretations—Machery’s "bootstrap strategy" and Goldfinch’s heuristically streamlined evolutionary psychology—are examined, focusing on the relationship between adaptive thinking and heuristics. The article draws two primary conclusions. The first is that the reliability of the heuristic hypothesis generation procedure should count no less than the conclusiveness of the final testing procedure in establishing scientific facts; nature does not always get the last word. Philosophy also counts. The second is that adaptive thinking constitutes a core heuristic in evolutionary psychology that provides the discipline with its raison d'être, but this is only possible when adaptive thinking is substantiated with sufficient historical underpinnings. (shrink)

Throughout the long history of Classic Maya hieroglyphs, a logosyllabic writing system used from the late first millennium BCE through the mid-second millennium CE in southern Mesoamerica, the most commonly recorded phonetic value was the syllable u (/ʔu/). With over a dozen different u hieroglyphs, Classic Maya scribes had more options for recording /ʔu/ than any other syllable or logograph. Cognitive approaches to writing systems typically attribute graphemic variation (i.e., alternation between signs with equivalent linguistic value) to semantic differences like (...) animacy or to non-linguistic factors like identity. Distribution of Classic Maya u hieroglyphs, however, suggests that morphosyntactic context influenced which grapheme scribes wrote and when. This case suggests that scribal knowledge of Classic Maya hieroglyphs included ideas about writing's relationship to language. It also highlights the cognitive relevance of morphosyntax for a writing system's users as they differentiate among graphic signs with identical linguistic denotation. (shrink)

Experience of matter can be described in the context of time and space, whereas, some people say, experience of mind may be described according to time only. Accordingly, though time and space together are regarded as objective forms, one may have a propensity for treating time alone as a particular form of the subjective consciousness. For space is indeed referred to the self-evidence of being, while time is thought to belong rather to the self-evidence of our own consciousness. According to (...) my opinion, however, even the spatial description is indispensable for the state of “mind”. For instance, the contents of our consciousness can be described only in terms of the localized phases of their images. Contrary to Kant, who regarded time and space together as forms of the outer intuition (i.e. as conditions of sensation), and time alone as form of the inner sense, I have a firm intention to assert them both as two forms of objective being because it is the being itself that can be the ultimate object of any of our cognitive powers — sensation, understanding and reason. Time and space are not forms proper to a particular “being” such as conscious existence like ours; they are also, nay, above all, two objective forms of being in general that transcends all such limited existences. It follows that these forms themselves, once abstracted in our mind, must, first of all, be valid for material beings; after that, i.e. derivatively and analogically, they may also be valid for mind-beings. The main aim of this paper is “dialectically” to elucidate that fact on the subject of time in particular. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the problems of ``order in social situations'' using a computer simulation of iterated N -person prisoners' dilemma game. It has been claimed that, in the case of the 2 -person prisoners' dilemma, repetition of games and the reciprocal use of the ``tit-for-tat'' strategy promote the possibility of cooperation. However, in cases of N -person prisoners' dilemma where N is greater than 2, the logic does not work effectively. The most essential problem is so called ``sanctioning (...) problems''. In this paper, firstly, I discuss the ``sanctioning problems'' which were introduced by Axelrod and Keohane in 1986. Based on the model formalized by Axelrod, I propose a new model, in which I added a mechanism of players' payoff changes in the Axelrod's model. I call this mechanism norm-internalization and call our model `` norm-internalization game ''. Second, by using the model, I investigated the relationship between agents' norm-internalization (payoff-alternation) and the possibilities of cooperation. The results of computer simulation indicated that unequal distribution of cooperating norm and uniform distribution of sanctioning norm are more effective in establishing cooperation. I discuss the mathematical features and the implications of the results on social science. (shrink)

We posit a model of emotion and nonverbal behavior (NVB) that incorporates a perspective of consciousness. We leverage an understanding of the neural pathways innervating NVB to describe the complexity of its neural architecture and the links between those pathways and mental states. We suggest that all NVB are activated by both cortical and subcortical structures, allowing for unconscious, coordinated movements across multiple channels as well as conscious, less coordinated movements; that mental states are associated with both cortical and subcortical (...) structures; and thus that NVB will occur in multiple channels, both unconsciously and consciously, and differ across time. We discuss the implications of this model for future theory and research. (shrink)

According to Wierzbicka, one of the core values of Polish culture is sincerity and emotional frankness, in this study we tested this assumption analyzing display rules operating between friends. 100 respondents completed modified version of the Display Rule Assessment Inventory. Results show that Polish participants endorse more expression with close friends than with acquaintances and strangers. The obtained differences between those groups were quite large and similar to a pattern typical for collectivistic cultures. On the other hand, we reported high (...) level of overall expressivity, typical of individualism. Such a high expressivity was found for all studied emotions, but pride, which is consistent with previous research on self-presentational modesty in Polish culture. (shrink)

One of the most important of Japan's movements in search of a national identity during the 17th-18th centuries was known as kokugaku (national studies). It was the first major movement through which the intrinsic values inherent in ancient Japanese life were rediscovered from studies of early Japanese texts. Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801) was its greatest leader.

如来蔵思想、法華経、中観、唯識、日本仏教等、仏教思想の様々な問題に関する批判的研究23編(和文15編、英文8編)を収録。.

Abstractabstract:The categories of myth and history do not fit easily within Shinran's "true essence of the Pure Land way." Mythopoetic narratives in Shin Buddhism are circumscribed within the broader themes of teaching, practice, shinjin, and realization, which comprise that path. Pure Land narratives do not play the type of cosmogonic or etiological role accorded generally to myth. Some religious concerns associated with myth and history are addressed in Shinran's understanding of the dynamics of upāya. The retrieval of mythos in Shin (...) Buddhism may yield a surplus of meaning in the realization of shinjin at the coalescence of myth and history. (shrink)

Researchers have been interested in what retrieval process is responsible for overgeneral autobiographical memories (OGM) in depression. Previous cross-sectional studies demonstrated that, for negatively valenced cues, directly retrieved OGM, rather than generatively retrieved OGM, are associated with depression. However, longitudinal evidence of this relationship is still lacking and needs to be tested. We conducted a re-analysis of the online computerised memory specificity training (c-MeST) data to examine whether directly retrieved OGM for negative cues prospectively predicts high levels of depression 1 (...) month later. Participants who met the criteria of current major depressive disorders (N = 116; n = 58 in the c-MeST group and n = 58 in the control group) recalled autobiographical memories for positive and negative cues and judged each retrieval process (i.e. direct or generative). The results supported our prediction, and directly retrieved OGM for negative cues predicted high levels of depressive symptoms 1 month later even after controlling for the group effect, baseline depressive symptoms, executive functioning and rumination. Exploratory analysis showed that direct retrieval of specific memories prospectively predicted low levels of depression. These results support the theory that elevated accessibility of negatively valenced general memory representations is a vulnerability factor for depressive symptoms. (shrink)