In this paper we investigate computable isomorphisms of Boolean algebras with operators (BAOs). We prove that there are examples of polymodal Boolean algebras with finitely many computable isomorphism types. We provide an example of a polymodal BAO such that it has exactly one computable isomorphism type but whose expansions by a constant have more than one computable isomorphism type. We also prove a general result showing that BAOs are complete with respect to the degree spectra of structures, computable dimensions, expansions (...) by constants, and the degree spectra of relations. (shrink)

The classical arguments against metaphysics provided by Immanuel Kant, neopositivists and recently by analytical philosophers focus on the problem of meaning. In my paper I would like to shed a little bit of light on different dimensions of this problem in the metaphysical discourse and make a proposition how to overcome the difficulties that arise from this kind of discourse.

We present the (Lascar) Galois group of any countable theory as a quotient of a compact Polish group by an F_σ normal subgroup: in general, as a topological group, and under NIP, also in terms of Borel cardinality. This allows us to obtain similar results for arbitrary strong types defined on a single complete type over ∅. As an easy conclusion of our main theorem, we get the main result of [K. Krupiński, A. Pillay and T. Rzepecki, Topological dynamics and (...) the complexity of strong types, Israel J. Math.228 (2018) 863–932] which says that for any strong type defined on a single complete type over ∅, smoothness is equivalent to type-definability. We also explain how similar results are obtained in the case of bounded quotients of type-definable groups. This gives us a generalization of a former result from the paper mentioned above about bounded quotients of type-definable subgroups of definable groups. (shrink)

Cooperation between doctors of various specialties and other medical specialists is the standard of care in the treatment of patients. Due to the variety of diseases and the dynamic development of medicine in general, it is difficult to be an expert in every field and know all the recommended treatments. An example of such cooperation is the joint treatment of patients with the problem of ingrown toenails. The article contains an analysis of patients who received treatment in a doctor’s office (...) in cooperation with podiatrists. A conservative approach towards the treatment of this condition sees the patient being initially diagnosed and treated by a podiatrist and then later, if necessary, being referred to a doctor for surgical treatment. The exchange of experiences and information on patients treated by interdisciplinary teams allows doctors and podiatrists to find the best possible treatment and improve the quality of life of patients. The follow-up of patients after surgery can be performed later in podiatry offices. Owing to modern electronic communication, it is possible for a doctor to constantly monitor the patient’s condition without the need for direct visits to the doctor’s office. (shrink)

In this interview, Tomasz Zarębski speaks with Allan Janik, co-author of _Wittgenstein’s Vienna_ (1973, with Stephen Toulmin), on the occasion of the 50 th anniversary of the publication of this pathbreaking book. The conversation concerns the circumstances, motivations and reasons for his undertaking the work on the book, as well as its reception and place in Wittgenstein scholarship. A large part of the discussion refers to his perspective of Wittgenstein, Toulmin’s philosophical writings, and Janik’s own vision of philosophy. The (...) interview took place in Innsbruck on 23 rd and 25 th August 2023. (shrink)

Its interpretation, however, is as unsettled now as in the heroic days of Einstein and Bohr.This book focuses on quantum non-locality, the curious quantum ...

My paper builds on the conceptual tools from three interrelated philosophical debates that—as I believe—may help structure important if chaotic discussions about surrogates for living human brains and resolve some practical issues related to regulatory matters. In particular, I refer to the discussions about the “moral precautionary principle” in research ethics (Koplin and Wilkinson 2019); about normative uncertainty in ethics (MacAskill, Bykvist, and Ord 2020), and about the inductive risk problem for animal welfare scientists (Birch 2018). I elucidate upon the (...) possible meanings of the phrase “a too good human brain surrogate” used by Henry T. Greely (2021), and I demonstrate that the evaluation of the practical and regulatory implications of the “goodness” of such surrogates created for research purposes should be sensitive to the possible consequences of two types of errors: the under-attribution and over-attribution of moral status to such beings. Many authors writing about this topic (including Greely 2021, but see also, e.g., Koplin and Savulescu 2019) concentrate only on the first type of error, neglecting the negative consequences of the second type, i.e., over-attribution. (shrink)

Varieties like groups, rings, or Boolean algebras have the property that, in any of their members, the lattice of congruences is isomorphic to a lattice of more manageable objects, for example normal subgroups of groups, two-sided ideals of rings, filters (or ideals) of Boolean algebras.algebraic logic can explain these phenomena at a rather satisfactory level of generality: in every member A of a τ-regular variety ������ the lattice of congruences of A is isomorphic to the lattice of deductive filters on (...) A of the τ-assertional logic of ������. Moreover, if ������ has a constant 1 in its type and is 1-subtractive, the deductive filters on A ∈ ������ of the 1-assertional logic of ������ coincide with the ������-ideals of A in the sense of Gumm and Ursini, for which we have a manageable concept of ideal generation. However, there are isomorphism theorems, for example, in the theories of residuated lattices, pseudointerior algebras and quasi-MV algebras that cannot be subsumed by these general results. The aim of the present paper is to appropriately generalise the concepts of subtractivity and τ-regularity in such a way as to shed some light on the deep reason behind such theorems. The tools and concepts we develop hereby provide a common umbrella for the algebraic investigation of several families of logics, including substructural logics, modal logics, quantum logics, and logics of constructive mathematics. (shrink)

To analyze potential negative consequences of adopting generative AI solutions in the digital afterlife industry (DAI), in this paper we present three speculative design scenarios for AI-enabled simulation of the deceased. We highlight the perspectives of the data donor, data recipient, and service interactant – terms we employ to denote those whose data is used to create ‘deadbots,’ those in possession of the donor’s data after their death, and those who are meant to interact with the end product. We draw (...) on the scenarios to map out several key ethical concerns posed by ‘re-creation services’ and to put forward recommendations on the ethical development of AI systems in this specific area of application. The recommendations, targeted at providers of AI-enabled re-creation services, include suggestions for developing sensitive procedures for retiring deadbots, ensuring meaningful transparency, restricting access to such services to adult users only, and adhering to the principle of mutual consent of both data donors and service interactants. While we suggest practical solutions to the socio-ethical challenges posed by the emergence of re-creation services, we also emphasize the importance of ongoing interdisciplinary research at the intersection of the ethics of AI and the ethics of the DAI. (shrink)

In this commentary paper, we are taking one step further in questioning the central assumptions in the bioethical debates about reproductive technologies. We argue that the very distinction between “person affecting” and “identity affecting” interventions is based on a questionable form of material-origin essentialism. Questioning of this form of essentialist approach to human identity allows treating genome editing and genetic selection as more similar than they are taken to be in the standard approaches. It would also challenge the idea that (...) normative reasons we have in these two types of cases markedly differ in strength. (shrink)

We argue that there are neither scientific nor social reasons to require gathering ethno-racial data, as defined in the US legal regulations if researchers have no prior hypotheses as to how to connect this type of categorisation of human participants of clinical trials with any mechanisms that could explain alleged interracial health differences and guide treatment choice. Although we agree with the normative perspective embedded in the calls for the fair selection of participants for biomedical research, we demonstrate that current (...) attempts to provide and elucidate the criteria for the fair selection of participants, in particular, taking into account ethno-racial categories, overlook important epistemic and normative challenges to implement the results of such race-sorting requirements. We discuss existing arguments for and against gathering ethno-racial statistics for biomedical research and present a new one that refers to the assumption that prediction is epistemically superior to accommodation. We also underline the importance of closer interaction between research ethics and the methodology of biomedicine in the case of population stratifications for medical research, which requires weighing non-epistemic values with methodological constraints. (shrink)

In this paper I present an argument in favour of a parental duty to use preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). I argue that if embryos created in vitro were able to decide for themselves in a rational manner, they would sometimes choose PGD as a method of selection. Couples, therefore, should respect their hypothetical choices on a principle similar to that of patient autonomy. My thesis shows that no matter which moral doctrine couples subscribe to, they ought to conduct the PGD (...) procedure in the situations when it is impossible to implant all of the created embryos and if there is a significant risk for giving birth to a child with a serious condition. (shrink)

Reclamation of a slur involves the creation of a new, positively-valenced meaning that gradually replaces the old pejorative meaning. This means that at a critical stage, the slur is ambiguous. It has been claimed that this ambiguity is polysemy. However, it is far from clear whether the view can explain why the introduction of the new meaning forces the old one out of existence. I argue that this datapoint can be explained by invoking the mechanism of homonymic conflict, and, therefore, (...) that the ambiguity involved in reclamation is homonymy. One generalization that follows from my account is that conventionalized verbal irony, unlike conventionalized metonymy and metaphor, begets homonymy. Along the way, I criticize the standard ways of drawing the distinction between polysemy and homonymy in terms of semantic and etymological relatedness. If the notions of polysemy and homonymy are to be invoked in explanations, they should be understood in terms of how meanings are stored in the mental lexicon. My account also provides an elegant way of conceptualizing the difference between two types of conceptual engineering, namely reclamation and amelioration. (shrink)

The development of innovative biomedical technologies that use gene editing tools opens up new possibilities in the treatment of rare diseases, as well as diseases that were not previously treated...

Standard deontic logic (SDL) is defined on the basis of possible world semantics and is a logic of alethic-deontic modalities rather than deontic modalities alone. The interpretation of the concepts of obligation and permission comes down exclusively to the logical value that a sentence adopts for the accessible deontic alternatives. Here, we set forth a different approach, this being a logic which additionally takes into consideration whether sentences stand in relation to the normative system or to the system of values (...) under which we predicate the deontic qualifications. By taking this aspect into account, we arrive at a logical system which preserves laws proper to a deontic logic but where the standard paradoxes of deontic logic do not arise. It is a logic of strictly-deontic modalities DR. (shrink)

According to constitutive reductionism of Derek Parfit, a subject/person is not a separate existing being but his existence consists in the existence of a brain and body, performance of actions, thinking and occurrence of other physical and mental events. The identity of the subject in time comes down only to “Relation R” - mental consistency and/or connectedness – elicited by appropriate reasons. In the following article, I will try, relying on Frank Johnson's Knowledge Argument, to argue in favour of the (...) following conclusions: a person/subject is a “fact”irreducible to body and physical relations with the environment and a subject is something/”fact” non-reducible to mental occurrences. (shrink)

In the paper, we examine tableau systems for R. Epstein’s logics of content relationship: D (Dependence Logic), DD (Dual Dependence Logic), Eq (Logic of Equality of Content), S (Symmetric Relatedness Logic) and R (Nonsymmetric Relatedness Logic) (cf. Epstein in Philos Stud 36:137–173, 1979, Epstein in Rep. Math. Logic 21:19–34, 1987, Klonowski in Logic Log Philos 30(4):579–629, 2021, Krajewski in J Non Class Logic 8:7–33, 1991). The first tableau systems for those logics were defined by Carnielli. However, his approach has some (...) limitations, for example, it requires a proof of functional completeness and axiomatization. Notwithstanding the first two constraints, it does not include all Epstein logics, e.g., logic Eq. Unlike Carnielli’s approach, here we use set-assignment semantics to determine those logics. Since syntax and semantics of a given logic usually determine a minimal syntax and structure of a tableau system for the logic along with other properties, we propose a uniform tableau framework for the logics determined by set-assignment semantics. What distinguishes our tableau systems is that they combine the features of tableaux for propositional logics and syllogistic logics when the problem of content of propositions is analysed in tableau proofs. To denote the content of propositions in the proofs, we use generalised labels (see Jarmużek and Goré in Landscapes in Logic, College Publications, London, 2021). (shrink)

Incorporating normality ascriptions into counterfactual theories of causation was supposed to handle isomorphs. It doesn’t—conjoining isomorphs can produce cases that such ascriptions cannot resolve.

In the late 2010s, various international committees, expert groups, and national strategy boards have voiced the demand to ‘open’ the algorithmic black box, to audit, expound, and demystify artificial intelligence. The opening of the algorithmic black box, however, cannot be seen only as an engineering challenge. In this article, I argue that only the sort of transparency that arises from critique—a method of theoretical examination that, by revealing pre-existing power structures, aims to challenge them—can help us produce technological systems that (...) are less deceptive and more just. I relate the question of AI transparency to the broader challenge of responsible making, contending that future action must aim to systematically reconcile design—as a way of concealing—with critique—as a manner of revealing. (shrink)

In recent years, the so-calledindispensability argument has been given a lotof attention by philosophers of mathematics.This argument for the existence of mathematicalobjects makes use of the fact, neglected inclassical schools of philosophy of mathematics,that mathematics is part of our best scientifictheories, and therefore should receive similarsupport to these theories. However, thisobservation raises the question about the exactnature of the alleged connection betweenexperience and mathematics (for example: is itpossible to falsify empirically anymathematical theorems?). In my paper I wouldlike to address this (...) question by consideringthe explicit assumptions of different versionsof the indispensability argument. My primaryclaim is that there are at least three distinctversions of the indispensability argument (andit can be even suggested that a fourth,separate version should be formulated). I willmainly concentrate my discussion on thisvariant of the argument, which suggests thepossibility of empirical confirmation ofmathematical theories. A large portion of mypaper will focus on the recent discussion ofthis topic, starting from the paper by E.Sober, who in my opinion put reasonablerequirements on what is to be counted as anempirical confirmation of a mathematicaltheory. I will develop his model into threeseparate scenarios of possible empiricalconfirmation of mathematics. Using an exampleof Hilbert space in quantum mechanicaldescription I will show that the most promisingscenario of empirical verification ofmathematical theories has neverthelessuntenable consequences. It will be hypothesizedthat the source of this untenability lies in aspecific role which mathematical theories playin empirical science, and that what is subjectto empirical verification is not themathematics used, but the representabilityassumptions. Further I will undertake theproblem of how to reconcile the allegedempirical verification of mathematics withscientific practice. I will refer to thepolemics between P. Maddy and M. Resnik,pointing out certain ambiguities of theirarguments whose source is partly the failure todistinguish carefully between different sensesof the indispensability argument. For thatreason typical arguments used in the discussionare not decisive, yet if we take into accountsome metalogical properties of appliedmathematics, then the thesis that mathematicshas strong links with experience seems to behighly improbable. (shrink)

Nowoczesne przedsiębiorstwa są bytami w szczególny sposób narażonymi na cyberzagrożenia powiązane z _metodami _inżynierii społecznej, szeroko wykorzystywanymi przez cyberkryminalistów. Dziś środowiska firmowe muszą niemalże na co dzień mierzyć się z próbami kradzieży danych opartymi na wielu pochodnych współczesnych odmian phishingu, a jednym z głównych sposobów walki z tego rodzaju zagrożeniami pozostaje w dalszym ciągu edukacja pracownicza, która przyjmować może różne formy. Człowiek z reguły określany jest jako najsłabszy element „łańcucha bezpieczeństwa” danego poprawnie skonfigurowanego systemu informatycznego. Ten stan rzeczy biorą pod (...) uwagę zarówno spółki samodzielnie przygotowujące programy edukacyjne i szkolenia dla swoich pracowników, jak i te, które przeprowadzanie tego rodzaju działań zlecają firmom zewnętrznym. Skuteczne kreowanie tzw. kultury bezpieczeństwa danej korporacji jest zadaniem niezwykle odpowiedzialnym, a przy tym wysoce nietrywialnym, a temat ten stosunkowo rzadko poruszany jest w literaturze przedmiotu. Ciągła rewizja środków i metod prowadzenia programowych szkoleń i symulacji oraz zarządzanie działaniami przyczyniającymi się do współtworzenia zdrowego środowiska firmowego w zadowalającym stopniu odpornego na zagrożenia zewnętrzne powinny zatem stanowić jeden z głównych priorytetów jednostek administrujących lokalnymi instrumentami prewencji incydentów, które mają miejsce w danej spółce. (shrink)

The dark matter and dark energy problem, that is now dominating the research in cosmology, makes the question of the origin of mass-energy content of the universe more urgent than ever. There are two philosophies regarding this question: according to Mach’s principle it is matter that generates geometry of space-time, and according to Wheeler’s geometrodynamics some configurations of space-time geometry are to be interpreted as its material content. Neither of these philosophies has led to success. In the present paper, we (...) show that there exists an algebraic generalisation of geometry that reconciles, in a sense, these two seemingly opposite standpoints. The geometry is constructed with the help of a noncommutative algebra of smooth functions on a groupoid and its derivations. The groupoid in question has a nice physical interpretation: it can be regarded as a space of Lorentz rotations. In this way, Lorentz symmetries are inherent to the generalised geometry of space-time. We define the action for this geometry and, by varying it, obtain generalised vacuum Einstein equations. It turns out that these equations contain additional terms which are naturally interpreted as the components of the energy-momentum tensor. Matter is thus created out of purely geometric degrees of freedom. We find two exact solutions. We argue that the creation of matter, being a global effect, makes the contrast between Mach and Wheeler philosophies ineffective. (shrink)