The phenomenon of multiple personality--Like the "split-Brain" phenomenon--Involves a disintegration of the normally unified self to the point where one must question whether there is one, Or more than one, Person associated with the body even at a single moment in time. Besides the traditional problem of determining identity over time, There is now a new problem of personal identity--Determining identity at a single moment in time. We need the conceptual apparatus to talk about this new problem and a test, (...) Like the one I propose, For determining the number of persons associated with a body at a single moment in time. (shrink)

Lingering skepticism about climate change might be due in part to the way climate projections are perceived by members of the public. Variability between scientists’ estimates might give the impression that scientists disagree about the fact of climate change rather than about details concerning the extent or timing. Providing uncertainty estimates might clarify that the variability is due in part to quantifiable uncertainty inherent in the prediction process, thereby increasing people's trust in climate projections. This hypothesis was tested in two (...) experiments. Results suggest that including uncertainty estimates along with climate projections leads to an increase in participants’ trust in the information. Analyses explored the roles of time, place, demographic differences, and initial belief in climate change. Implications are discussed in terms of the potential benefit of adding uncertainty estimates to public climate projections. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The term conceptual simulation refers to a type of everyday reasoning strategy commonly called “what if” reasoning. It has been suggested in a number of contexts that this type of reasoning plays an important role in scientific discovery; however, little direct evidence exists to support this claim. This article proposes that conceptual simulation is likely to be used in situations of informational uncertainty, and may be used to help scientists resolve that uncertainty. We conducted two studies to investigate the relationship (...) between conceptual simulation and informational uncertainty. Study 1 was an in vivo study of expert scientists; the results suggest that scientists do use conceptual simulation in situations of informational uncertainty, and that they use conceptual simulation to make inferences from their data using the analogical reasoning process of alignment by similarity detection. Study 2 experimentally manipulated experts' level of uncertainty and provides further support for the hypothesis that conceptual simulation is more likely to be used in situations of informational uncertainty. Finally, we discuss the relationship between conceptual simulation and other types of reasoning using qualitative mental models. (shrink)

For ages, medicine has had poor access to the fetus inside the mother's womb. But in relatively recent years, the human body has become transparent. The latest breakthroughs of technology have made it possible, from the very beginning of pregnancy, to consider the fetus as an individual who can be examined and sampled. His or her physician may now establish a diagnosis and prognosis and prescribe a treatment in the same way as in traditional medicine.

situation is one in which all are in great peril and someone must be sacrificed lest all perish. In such situations, it is permissible to do things which would be considered wrong under less drastic circumstances. Proponents of animal rights such as Tom Regan agree that in such circumstances it may be necessary to sacrifice a dog in order to save human life. Is such an admission consistent with calling for the abolition of all scientific research on animals? That is, (...) is scientific research a ‘lifeboat’? The analogy is tempting but flawed. The demand for abolition of animal research is not marred by consistency on this score. Keywords: abolition, animal research, animal rights, lifeboat cases, Tom Regan CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

We propose that there is a powerful human disposition to track the actions and possessions of agents. In two experiments, 3-year-olds and adults viewed sets of objects, learned a new fact about one of the objects in each set , and were queried about either the taught fact or an unrelated dimension immediately after a spatiotemporal transformation, and after a delay. Adults uniformly tracked object identity under all conditions, whereas children tracked identity more when taught ownership versus labeling information, and (...) only regarding the taught fact . These findings suggest that the special attention that children and adults pay to agents readily extends to include inanimate objects. That young children track an object's history, despite their reliance on surface features on many cognitive tasks, suggests that unobservable historical features are foundational in human cognition. (shrink)

Our urban problem is how to revive the reality of the outside as a dimension of human experience.Richard Sennett.

Re-consent in research, the asking for a new consent if there is a change in protocol or to confirm the expectations of participants in case of change, is an under-explored issue. There is little clarity as to what changes should trigger re-consent and what impact a re-consent exercise has on participants and the research project. This article examines applicable policy statements and literature for the prevailing arguments for and against re-consent in relation to longitudinal cohort studies, tissue banks and biobanks. (...) Examples of re-consent exercises are presented, triggers and non-triggers for re-consent discussed and the conflicting attitudes of commentators, participants and researchers highlighted. We acknowledge current practice and argue for a greater emphasis on ‘responsive autonomy,’ that goes beyond a one-time consent and encourages greater communication between the parties involved. A balance is needed between respecting participants' wishes on how they want their data and samples used and enabling effective research to proceed. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 213 Seiten: 307-343.

The 20-item happiness scale proposed by the Eysenck Personality Profiler was completed by 1,148 Anglican clergymen and 523 Anglican clergywomen during their first year in ordained ministry. The data demonstrated that clergymen were neither more nor less happy than men in the general population, and that clergywomen were happier than women in the general population. These findings are discussed in the context of work-related satisfaction and overall well-being.

Research on the origins of human social smiling is presented as a case study of how a species-specific, species-typical behavior may emerge from thousands of momentary events in which a continuously changing biological organism acts to make, respond to, and learn from its experience.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2015 Heft: 204 Seiten: 173-237.

This piece explores the proposition that environmental restoration is the only acceptable alternative to a world left with diminishing natural regions. The article reviews the ethical debate concerning the moral obligation of humankind to restore regions that have been stripped of their resources. It demonstrates thatthrough the assistance of both legislative and technological measures nature can be renewed to spawn healthy ecosystems when permitted to do so. Furthermore, the article claims that the restoration thesis is proven by the paradigm of (...) the Adirondack region – a region that was once clear-cut and enabled to restore itself through both rewilding and the “Forever Wild” clause in the New York State Constitution. The article is particularly timely and provocative given the current Bush Administration’s environmental policies. (shrink)

The phenotype of some spontaneous mutations in Drosophila can be modified by mutations at unlinked loci. The affected alleles are caused by the insertion of retroviral transposable elements. The idiosyncratic functional and structural properties of these elements play a key role in determining the expression characteristics of the genes into which they are inserted. These phenotypes are reversed or intensified by the allelic state of suppressor and enhancer loci through changes in the transcriptional properties of the transposable elements.

Armstrong's combinatorialism, in his own words, is the following project: "My central metaphysical hypothesis is that all there is is the world of space and time. It is this world which is to supply the actual elements for the totality of combinations. So what is proposed is a Naturalistic form of a combinatorial theory."2 Armstrong calls his central hypothesis "Naturalism." He intends his well−known theory of universals to satisfy this thesis. He now attempts to give a naturalistic theory of modality.

According to the approach developed by Thomas A. Sebeok (1921–2001) and his ‘global semiotics,’ semiosis and life converge. This leads to his cardinal axiom: ‘semiosis is the criterial attribute of life.’ His global approach to sign life presupposes his critique of anthropocentrism and glottocentrism. Global semiotics is open to zoosemiotics, indeed, even more broadly, biosemiotics which extends its gaze to semiosis in the whole living universe to include the realms of macro- and microorganisms. In Sebeok’s conception, the sign science is (...) not only the study of communication in culture, but of communicative behaviour from a biosemiotic perspective. (shrink)

events all seem to have something in common, metaphysically speaking, and some philosophers have inquired into what this common nature is. The main aim of a theory of events is to propose and defend an identity condition on events; that is, a condition under which two events are identical. For example, if Brutus kills Caesar by stabbing him, are there two events, the stabbing and the killing, or only one event? Each of the leading theories of events is surveyed in (...) this article. According to Jaegwon Kim, events are basically property instantiations. In contrast, Donald Davidson attempts to individuate events by their causes and effects. However, Davidson eventually rejects this view and, together with W.V.O. Quine, individuates events with respect to their location in spacetime. According to David Lewis, an event is a property of a spatiotemporal region. (shrink)