Any semantic theory is bound to presume some structure in the messages it analyses, and the success of the theory depends on getting this structure right. But discovering this structure is the business of grammar. Therefore grammar is a necessary preliminary to semantics. Semantic theories of conditionals vividly illustrate this. All presume a provably untenable ternary structure: antecedent, operator, consequent. And all can be shown committed as a result to a thoroughly unbelievable set of connections between sentences and their informational (...) burdens. Actually, a conditional has five immediate factors, none of them an antecedent or a consequent. (shrink)

Reports in the popular press suggest that smart drugs or “nootropics” such as methylphenidate, modafinil and piracetam are increasingly being used by the healthy to augment cognitive ability. Although current nootropics offer only modest improvements in cognitive performance, it appears likely that more effective compounds will be developed in the future and that their off-label use will increase. One sphere in which the use of these drugs may be commonplace is by healthy students within academia. This article reviews the ethical (...) and pragmatic implications of nootropic use in academia by drawing parallels with issues relevant to the drugs in sport debate. It is often argued that performance-enhancing drugs should be prohibited because they create an uneven playing field. However, this appears dubious given that “unfair” advantages are already ubiquitous and generally tolerated by society. There are concerns that widespread use will indirectly coerce non-users also to employ nootropics in order to remain competitive. However, to restrict the autonomy of all people for fear that it may influence the actions of some is untenable. The use of potentially harmful drugs for the purposes of enhancement rather than treatment is often seen as unjustified, and libertarian approaches generally champion the rights of the individual in deciding if these risks are acceptable. Finally, whether the prohibition of nootropics can be effectively enforced is doubtful. As nootropics use becomes widespread among students in the future, discussion of this issue will become more pressing in the years to come. (shrink)

We present a novel variant of decision making based on the mathematical theory of separable Hilbert spaces. This mathematical structure captures the effect of superposition of composite prospects, including many incorporated intentions, which allows us to describe a variety of interesting fallacies and anomalies that have been reported to particularize the decision making of real human beings. The theory characterizes entangled decision making, non-commutativity of subsequent decisions, and intention interference. We demonstrate how the violation of the Savage’s sure-thing principle, known (...) as the disjunction effect, can be explained quantitatively as a result of the interference of intentions, when making decisions under uncertainty. The disjunction effects, observed in experiments, are accurately predicted using a theorem on interference alternation that we derive, which connects aversion-to-uncertainty to the appearance of negative interference terms suppressing the probability of actions. The conjunction fallacy is also explained by the presence of the interference terms. A series of experiments are analyzed and shown to be in excellent agreement with a priori evaluation of interference effects. The conjunction fallacy is also shown to be a sufficient condition for the disjunction effect, and novel experiments testing the combined interplay between the two effects are suggested. (shrink)

The pacemaker-accumulator model provides a framework in which the results of different duration estimation tasks are commonly accounted for. Nevertheless, the model remains abstract and it does not provide proper explanations nor predictions for duration estimations in various experimental set-ups. This paper aims to address these shortcomings by explicating an experiential pacemaker-accumulator model that supplements the standard pacemaker-accumulator model with two claims. Both of them concern the role that experiences play in duration estimation tasks and are also partly supported by (...) studies not directly related to duration estimation. First, the internal responses based on which the switch between the pacemaker and the accumulator operates are the same as the neural processes that realize conscious access to experiences. Second, the processes that realize the experiences of stimuli realize the function of the pacemaker. By supplementing the standard pacemaker-accumulator model with these claims, the model affords proper explanations for the systematic errors and empirically testable predictions in duration estimations tasks. One likely consequence of the model is that the experience of duration and the duration of experience can differ. (shrink)

We investigate logical consequence in temporal logics in terms of logical consecutions. i.e., inference rules. First, we discuss the question: what does it mean for a logical consecution to be 'correct' in a propositional logic. We consider both valid and admissible consecutions in linear temporal logics and discuss the distinction between these two notions. The linear temporal logic LDTL, consisting of all formulas valid in the frame 〈L, ≤, ≥〉 of all integer numbers, is the prime object of our investigation. (...) We describe consecutions admissible LDTL in a semantic way—via consecutions valid in special temporal Kripke/Hintikka models. Then we state that any temporal inference rule has a reduced normal form which is given in terms of uniform formulas of temporal degree 1. Using these facts and enhanced semantic techniques we construct an algorithm, which recognizes consecutions admissible in LDTL. Also, we note that using the same technique it follows that the linear temporal logic L (N) of all natural numbers is also decidable w.r.t. inference rules. So, we prove that both logics LDTL and L (N) are decidable w.r.t. admissible consecutions. In particular, as a consequence, they both are decidable (Known fact), and the given deciding algorithms are explicit. (shrink)

A range of multidisciplinarily arguments and observations can and have been employed to challenge the view that the human relationship to nature is fundamentally a cognitive matter of collectively held cultural ideas and values about nature. At the same time, the very similar cognitivist idea of collective sharing of conceptual schemes, normative orientations, and the like as the engine of collective action remains the chief analytic tool offered by many influential philosophical and sociological theories of collective action and human sociality (...) generally. Critically discussing in empirical as well as theoretical contexts the prospects of cognitivism to account for the human collective causing of environmental problems, the paper illustrates the deficiencies of cognitivism about collective action and discusses the challenges facing a different way forward. (shrink)

Attention has been drawn, particularly since Kant, to propositions which can not have negative instances. They used to be called a priori, axioms, first principles. Today, they are usually called postulates—C. I. Lewis uses both the old and new terminology—because there is a growing recognition of the fact that at least some of them are not “necessary” in the traditional sense. Kant placed a limitation on the apriorism of the continental rationalists. Current epistemologists and logicians have outstripped Kant in the (...) direction signalled by him. Both he and they, however, concur in the opinion that apriori propositions are subject to negation of a sort. The Kantian dinge-an-sich, though they can not contradict these propositions by being negative instances of them, do nevertheless stand to them in the relation of insubordination, thereby exerting on them a “negative action” of a sort. And, according to current views, there are instances which, though they fall outside the range of significance of a proposition or system and hence can not contradict it, do nevertheless tend to bring about a revision of it by a negative action of some sort. The purpose of this brief essay is to coin a convenient name for such instances and to describe certain properties of their peculiar negative action. (shrink)

Stable adaptive strategy of Homo sapiens (SESH) is a superposition of three different adaptive data arrays: biological, socio-cultural and technological modules, based on three independent processes of generation and replication of an adaptive information – genetic, socio-cultural and symbolic transmissions (inheritance). Third component SESH focused equally to the adaptive transformation of the environment and carrier of SESH. With the advent of High Hume technology, risk has reached the existential significance level. The existential level of technical risk is, by definition, an (...) evolutionary risk as possible leads to the genesis of disappearance of humanity as a species. The emergence of bioethics has to consider as a form of modern (transdisciplinary) scientific concept and sociocultural adaptation for regulate human identity in the global-evolutionary transformation and performs the function of self-preservation. (shrink)

The boundaries of social acceptance and models of convergence of human and non-human actors of digital reality are defined. The constructive creative possibilities of convergent processes in distributed neural networks are analyzed from the point of view of possible scenarios for building “friendly” human-dimensional symbioses of natural and artificial intelligence. A comprehensive analysis of new management challenges related to the development of cyber-physical and cybersocial systems is carried out. A model of social organizations and organizational behavior in the conditions of (...) cyberphysical reality is developed. The possibilities of reconciling human moral principles and “machine ethics” in the processes of modeling and managing digital reality are studied. The significance of various concepts of digital, machine and cyber-anymism for the socio-cultural understanding of the development of modern cyber-physical technologies, the anthropological dimension of a smart city is revealed. The article introduces the concept of hybrid society and shows the development of its models as self-organizing collective systems that consist of co-evolving biohybrid and socio-technical spheres. The importance of modern anthropogenic research for sustainable development is analyzed. The process of marking ontological boundaries between heterogeneous modalities in the digital world is investigated. Examples of acute social contexts that are able to set the vector of practical philosophy in the modern digital era are considered. (shrink)

The sociobiological and socio-political aspects of human existence have been the subject of techno-rationalistic control and manipulation. The investigation of the mutual complementarity of anthropological and ontological paradigms under these circumstances is the main purpose of present publication. The comparative conceptual analysis of the bio-power and bio-politics in the mentality of the modern technological civilization is a main method of the research. The methodological and philosophical analogy of biological and social engineering allows combining them in the nature and social implications (...) as part of a High Hume technologies class. As result of the transformation of somatic foundations of the human being and his behavior, stereotypes in the object of control and management the technogenic risk reached the existential level. The rapidly growing status of biopower and biopolitics in the conceptual field of contemporary political science becomes by phenomenological expression of these processes. (shrink)

One of the most important philosophical principles in contemporary natural science is the principle of the universality of evolutionary development , which was argued with much force and depth in F. Engels's The Dialectics of Nature. For the more than a century that has passed since Engels's sweeping synthesis of knowledge in the natural sciences, his revelation of the unity of the processes of evolution in inanimate and animate nature, including the inevitably and law-governed appearance of its "highest flower, the (...) thinking mind," where appropriate conditions for that appearance arise, this principle of development has assisted in the achievement of many impressive advances. The general outlines of the evolutionary process of nature, in its infinite diversity, are now emerging in ever sharper relief, although our knowledge of that process still contains many rather serious lacunae. It is significant to note that the progress of natural science leads not only to modifications but often even to radical revisions of many notions about the evolution of nature, including those that seemed unchallengeable. (shrink)

kn. 1. Poni︠a︡tti︠a︡ osvity: zmist ta predmetne pole -- kn. 2. Strukturno-funkt︠s︡ionalʹnyĭ analiz osvity -- k. 3. Ekzystent︠s︡iĭnyĭ prostir osvity -- kn. 4. Ukraïnsʹka osvita: istorii︠a︡ stanovlenni︠a︡, rozvytok, modernizat︠s︡ii︠a︡ -- kn. 5. Statti ta interv'i︠u︡.

This article presents a novel full-reference image quality assessment algorithm by depicting the sub-band characteristics in the wavelet domain. The proposed image quality assessment method is based on energy estimation in the wavelet-transformed image. Image QA is achieved by applying a multilevel wavelet decomposition on both the original and the enhanced image. Next, the wavelet energy and vector are computed to obtain the percentage of the energy that corresponds to the approximation and the details, respectively. Further, the approximate and detailed (...) energy levels of both the original and the enhanced images are compared to formulate an image quality assessment. Numerous experiments are conducted on a dozen of image enhancement algorithms. The results presented show that the image with poor contrast in the foreground than the background has continuous regular coefficient values. The probability density function for such an image has a relatively lower WE and skewness compared with the background. The proposed scheme not only evaluates the global information of an image but also estimates the fine, detailed changes in an enhanced image. Thus, the proposed metric serves as an objective and effective FR criterion for color image QA. The experimental results presented confirm that the proposed WE metric is an efficient and useful metric for evaluating the quality of the color image enhancement. (shrink)

The process of turning a myth into a fairy tale, its internal and external causes, patterns, consequences... It may be difficult to find a more traditional way of exploring a fairy tale than this one. We will not avoid it either, because whatever aspect of the fairy tale analysis we choose, it is impossible to bypass this side of its genesis. And the choice of the method of explication of this problem largely predetermines both the angle of her vision and (...) the means of solution. The same traditions have already been given peculiar power lines that urge more and more researchers to move in the area of ​​these lines and to cover more and more varieties of the same dimensions of the object: demythologization and desacralization of the hero, his actions, his environment; giving the myth an exoteric character, with the elements of fiction and irony that are inconceivable as a result; the shrinking of the scale of the hero's actions, and hence the replacement of the mystery of myth with mysteriousness, intrigue in the fairy tale, the decline of the mythological worldview. The topics of branching of the subjects through the myth to the fairy tale, finding and researching common for both phenomena of binary oppositions, etc., are densely addressed. (shrink)

The postulate of the decisive role of social factors in the formation of a way of life, the creation of a spiritual climate and the general semantic field of culture has long and firmly entered in our literature as universally recognized. At the same time it is worth noting the fact that the prevalence of the use of this category in research works oftencombined with its meaningful blurriness, indistinctness. The point is that the category of "social factors" or "social factors" (...) is a commonplace, abstraction, which in different cultural systems and in different historical situations, present themselves very different from each other phenomena. (shrink)

The study of orders as a product of spiritual creativity has its long and rich history. In addition to ethnographers, religious scholars, psychologists, philosophers, as well as scientists who carried out their research on the brink of several sciences - M. Bachtin, J. Frezer, K. Levy Briul, worked on their analysis. The orders helped find the keys to the style of thinking of primitive tribes, the peculiarities of their worldview, language, remedies, regulation of social relations.

If we approach the analysis of fairy tales from the point of view of revealing in them a metaphysical dimension of human intentions, then in their subjects one can identify several paradigms. The most important of these should include, in particular, the following: the combination of man with the deity ; the loss of God's person as a result of her violation of some conditions for coexistence with God; the search for the lost man of God and the rejoining of (...) him. These through-world ideological paradigms, embodied in specific themes, may be adjoined in the same tale, and may exist separately, encompassing all of its plot. All the above applies to Ukrainian fairy tales. (shrink)

The article examines the unconscious uncontrolled side of the human psyche, analyzes approaches to determining the structure of the unconscious, its constituent elements and their relationships from the point of view of the concepts of prominent psychoanalysts Z. Freud, C. Jung and J. Lacan. The significance of the "mirror stage" described by Lacan is revealed. in the understanding of human self-consciousness. Particular attention is paid to Lacan's thesis that the unconscious is, first of all, language; and it is he who (...) acts as a manifestation of a structure that has clear patterns. It is through language that we can approach understanding of the connection of the unconscious with the conscious world in the context of Lacan's definition of the triad of "real", "imaginary" and "symbolic". The purpose of the study is to show the relationship between the concepts of the structure of the unconscious and the fusion of psychoanalysis with philosophical and linguistic structuralism, which gives rise to a variety of approaches and interdisciplinary research in understanding the essence of the unconscious and interpreting social phenomena through the linguistic structures of myth. (shrink)

Монография предназначена для специалистов в области социальной философии, социологии и истории, а также для широкого круга читателей.

El trabajo presenta los resultados preliminares de una investigación efectuada en Canadá, en el período agosto-septiembre de 2003, que forma parte de un estudio comparativo con otros países para examinar los actores, procesos e interacciones que intervienen en la formulación de políticas públicas y..