Various authors have argued that in the future not only will it be technically feasible for human minds to be transferred to other substrates, but this will become, for most humans, the preferred option over the current biological limitations. It has even been claimed that such a scenario is inevitable in order to solve the challenging, but imperative, multi-agent value alignment problem. In all these considerations, it has been overlooked that, in order to create a suitable environment for a particular (...) mind – for example, a personal universe in a computational substrate – numerous other potentially sentient beings will have to be created. These range from non-player characters to subroutines. This article analyzes the additional suffering and mind crimes that these scenarios might entail. We offer a partial solution to reduce the suffering by imposing on the transferred mind the perception of indicators to measure potential suffering in non-player characters. This approach can be seen as implementing literal empathy through enhanced cognition. (shrink)

Gases reach equilibrium when left to themselves. Why do they behave in this way? The canonical answer to this question, originally proffered by Boltzmann, is that the systems have to be ergodic. This answer has been criticised on different grounds and is now widely regarded as flawed. In this paper we argue that some of the main arguments against Boltzmann's answer, in particular, arguments based on the KAM-theorem and the Markus-Meyer theorem, are beside the point. We then argue that something (...) close to Boltzmann's original proposal is true for gases: gases behave thermodynamic-like if they are epsilon-ergodic, i.e., ergodic on the entire accessible phase space except for a small region of measure epsilon. This answer is promising because there are good reasons to believe that relevant systems in statistical mechanics are epsilon-ergodic. (shrink)

The so-called ergodic hierarchy (EH) is a central part of ergodic theory. It is a hierarchy of properties that dynamical systems can possess. Its five levels are egrodicity, weak mixing, strong mixing, Kolomogorov, and Bernoulli. Although EH is a mathematical theory, its concepts have been widely used in the foundations of statistical physics, accounts of randomness, and discussions about the nature of chaos. We introduce EH and discuss how its applications in these fields.

We show that the stabilizer of an element a of a countable recursively saturated model of arithmetic M is a maximal subgroup of Aut iff the type of a is selective. This is a point of departure for a more detailed study of the relationship between pointwise and setwise stabilizers of certain subsets of M and the types of elements in those subsets. We also show that a complete type of PA is 2-indiscernible iff it is minimal in the sense (...) of Gaifman. (shrink)

Consider the claim: Our actions are free if and only if we could have done otherwise; or the claim, We are essentially mental substances because we can exist without our bodies. Both of these claims, along with countless others, employ a notion of possibility. If this notion is to have a place in philosophy, we must be able to justify our modal claims. We need an epistemology of possibility. It is often assumed that the imagination is the key here. The (...) assumption is this; if I can imagine that a proposition is the case, then p is possible. Suppose I am wondering whether Kant Critique could float above my desk; if I can imagine this book floating, then it is possible. But is the imagination a guide to the modal status of propositions? ;To answer this question we must first consider what it is to imagine a proposition. We can distinguish five main methods of imagining: to imagine is to form a mental image, to evoke experiences, to suppose, to pretend, or it is to tell a story. Can any of these methods provide us with a guide to possibility? I contend that only the last two methods are up to this task insofar as they provide us with evidence of p's modal status. Moreover, how good that evidence is depends on our ability to satisfy the requirements of completeness, coherence, and accuracy. Finally, I argue that we will have the best evidence for the possibility of p, if we combine these two methods. For by combining our evoked experiences with a story, we will generate experiences of p, the best possible explanation of a world in which p is true, and an account of p's truth that complements this explanation. Thus, given explanationist standards, we will have what we need to be justified in concluding that p is possible. (shrink)

Commentary on the first Ukrainian translation of Thomasius’ work entitled “Nucleus disputationis de plagio literario maxime theoreticus, thesibus paucis & brevibus comprehensus”, which is one of the Appendices to the famous “Philosophical dissertation on literary plagiarism”.

Machine ethics and robot rights are quickly becoming hot topics in artificial intelligence and robotics communities. We will argue that attempts to attribute moral agency and assign rights to all intelligent machines are misguided, whether applied to infrahuman or superhuman AIs, as are proposals to limit the negative effects of AIs by constraining their behavior. As an alternative, we propose a new science of safety engineering for intelligent artificial agents based on maximizing for what humans value. In particular, we challenge (...) the scientific community to develop intelligent systems that have human-friendly values that they provably retain, even under recursive self-improvement. (shrink)

The article describes the results of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and its impact on the depreciation of the national currency, the deepening of the banking crisis, the impossibility of the state budget execution and overcome the energy crisis. The estimation and forecast of economic condition of the state, depending on the effectiveness of the Government in overcoming the consequences of the conflict. Perspective directions of development of economy of Ukraine and the occupied territories in the context of political instability. Proved lasting (...) political and diplomatic confrontation; violated basic agreements and arrangements; actually destroyed the institutional system of international relations; exacerbated economic, energy continues confrontation. In general, current realities make it hard to talk about change for the better in the foreseeable future. During the investigation the devastating impact of military confrontation to the public and economic life. The attention to the existence of isolated problems for decades and their deterioration in conditions of political instability. (shrink)

El artículo presenta una reflexión sobre la manera en que en los últimos veinte años la promoción de un determinado tipo de solidaridad en Chile ha contribuido a la conformación de una gubernamentalidad liberal avanzada, necesaria para la instalación de un programa neoliberal. La reflexión se enmarca en los aportes teóricos de Michel Foucault y tiene por objeto empírico piezas de publicidad de promoción de la solidaridad emitidas en Chile entre los años 2009 y 2010, que han sido analizadas en (...) el contexto del proyecto Fondecyt 1090534. Se presentan tres tipos de resultados: (a) se describen los sectores sociales que se construyen como agentes de la solidaridad, (b) se reflexiona sobre las prácticas solidarias más promovidas y (c) se indaga en la forma en que se interpela a los sujetos a ser solidarios. (shrink)

There are many ontologies of the world or of specific phenomena such as time, matter, space, and quantum mechanics1. However, ontologies of information are rather rare. One of the reasons behind this is that information is most frequently associated with communication and computing, and not with ‘the furniture of the world’. But what would be the nature of an ontology of information? For it to be of significant import it should be amenable to formalization in a logico-grammatical formalism. A candidate (...) ontology satisfying such a requirement can be found in some of the ideas of K. Turek, presented in this paper. Turek outlines the ontology of information conceived of as a part of nature, and provides the ‘missing link’ to the Z axiomatic set theory, offering a proposal for developing a formal ontology of information both in its philosophical and logicogrammatical representations. (shrink)

We develop multi-conclusion nested sequent calculi for the fifteen logics of the intuitionistic modal cube between IK and IS5. The proof of cut-free completeness for all logics is provided both syntactically via a Maehara-style translation and semantically by constructing an infinite birelational countermodel from a failed proof search. Interestingly, the Maehara-style translation for proving soundness syntactically fails due to the hierarchical structure of nested sequents. Consequently, we only provide the semantic proof of soundness. The countermodel construction used to prove completeness (...) required a completely novel approach to deal with two independent sources of non-termination in the proof search present in the case of transitive and Euclidean logics. (shrink)

Some initial considerations on film in documentary form are discussed, along with its relationships with reality and fiction in cinema language. Found footage genre is explained, pointing its most important technical and aesthetical characteristics. The text points the importance of the movie camera in documentary and found footage, not only as a technical device that objectivizes the information in a static manner, but also as an axis that configures dynamism and subjectivity on films. Redacted (2007) by Brian De Palma is (...) analyzed as an example of hybrid forms of fiction and reality in cinema. Beyond a traditional analysis of narrative of films, this text emphasizes the forms in which they are developed, which affect and determine the substance of films. (shrink)

This textbook is a second edition of the successful, Mathematical Logic: On Numbers, Sets, Structures, and Symmetry. It retains the original two parts found in the first edition, while presenting new material in the form of an added third part to the textbook. The textbook offers a slow introduction to mathematical logic, and several basic concepts of model theory, such as first-order definability, types, symmetries, and elementary extensions. Part I, Logic Sets, and Numbers, shows how mathematical logic is used to (...) develop the number structures of classical mathematics. All necessary concepts are introduced exactly as they would be in a course in mathematical logic; but are accompanied by more extensive introductory remarks and examples to motivate formal developments. The second part, Relations, Structures, Geometry, introduces several basic concepts of model theory, such as first-order definability, types, symmetries, and elementary extensions, and shows how they are used to study and classify mathematical structures. The added Part III to the book is closer to what one finds in standard introductory mathematical textbooks. Definitions, theorems, and proofs that are introduced are still preceded by remarks that motivate the material, but the exposition is more formal, and includes more advanced topics. The focus is on the notion of countable categoricity, which analyzed in detail using examples from the first two parts of the book. This textbook is suitable for graduate students in mathematical logic and set theory and will also be of interest to mathematicians who know the technical aspects of the subject, but are not familiar with its history and philosophical background. (shrink)

Parece que Platón enseñó en la Academia otras doctrinas diferentes de las expuestas por él en los diálogos. Además, parece también que voluntariamente se abstuvo de consignarlas por escrito al creer que la palabra, la enseñanza oral, era un medio más eficaz que la escritura para transmitir aquello que "tenía importancia". Dicho así, puede resultar una paradoja que el mejor prosista griego, sea un detractor, al menos en parte, de la prosa escrita. A partir de aquí, las interpretaciones novedosas que (...) han provocado las doctrinas no-escritas de Platón han generado debates a veces imposibles de resolver. Añadir unas breves notas a estas discusiones es la intención de este artículo. (shrink)

It is said that Europe finds itself today in a post-christian situa-tion. Further, there are many who advocate abandoning monotheism in order to get back to prechristian polytheism in the hope that the plurality of gods would favour a democratic tolerance in a pluralistic world. In this article the author firstly asks if European Christians have not gone back to adoring idols and to attempting to distinguish between them in the new forms of devotion to possessiveness, to power and to (...) pleasure. He then goes on to ask about the possibilities of pro-claiming the God of Jesus Christ. The third and the fourth part of the article point out several forms of necessary witness to God in contemporary society, with special reference made to European society in the conclusion. (shrink)

We prove a number of results concerning the variety of first-order theories and isomorphism types of pairs of the form $(N,M)$ , where $N$ is a countable recursively saturated model of Peano Arithmetic and $M$ is its cofinal submodel. We identify two new isomorphism invariants for such pairs. In the strongest result we obtain continuum many theories of such pairs with the fixed greatest common initial segment of $N$ and $M$ and fixed lattice of interstructures $K$ , such that $M\prec (...) K\prec N$. (shrink)

We discuss Robinson's model theoretic proof of Tarski's theorem on undefinability of truth. We present two other “diagonal-free” proofs of Tarski's theorem, and we compare undefinability of truth to other forms of undefinability in nonstandard models of arithmetic.

Embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are now classified into two types of pluripotency: “naïve” and “primed” based upon their differing characteristics. Conventional human ESCs have much more in common with mouse epiblast stem cells and are now deemed to be primed. Naïve human ESCs that resemble mouse ESCs have recently been generated from their primed counterpart by cellular reprogramming. Isolation of naïve hESCs from human embryos has proven to be difficult. Is the inability to capture naïve hESCs the result of suboptimal (...) derivation conditions or because they are so transient they cannot be “captured” in vitro? Prevailing evidence surrounding this issue are inconclusive and require additional human embryo research. However, negative public opinion regarding human embryo research, may make this an uphill battle. The solution may come from cellular reprogramming. (shrink)

We define certain properties of subsets of models of arithmetic related to their codability in end extensions and elementary end extensions. We characterize these properties using some more familiar notions concerning cuts in models of arithmetic.

Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, better known as Witkacy, was a most prolific writer in the philosophy of art, a novelist, playwright and painter. His philosophical ideas took shape in the second decade of this century, and was presented in New Forms in Painting and the Ensuing Confusion. A comprehensive exposition of his philosophy however was not published until 16 years later, i.e. when the book Conceptions and Theorems Implied by the Notion of Existence came out; it contained his systematic teaching of (...) the theory of being. (shrink)

The author analyses the problematic of historical necessity and ethical regularity of socialism, taking the marxist philosophy as a point of departure. He criticizes opinions represented in philosophical and ideological discussions of this problem in the period of the Second International and argues that the above problematic, which results from a confrontation of marxism with a new historical situation and with the current of the neo-Kantian philosophy, was an axis which has brought into focus the theoretical decisions both of revisionists (...) and critics of marxism on one hand and of orthodox marxists on the other hand. (shrink)