In the past two decades, reinforcement learning has become a popular framework for understanding brain function. A key component of RL models, prediction error, has been associated with neural signals throughout the brain, including subcortical nuclei, primary sensory cortices, and prefrontal cortex. Depending on the location in which activity is observed, the functional interpretation of prediction error may change: Prediction errors may reflect a discrepancy in the anticipated and actual value of reward, a signal indicating the salience or novelty of (...) a stimulus, and many other interpretations. Anterior cingulate cortex has long been recognized as a region involved in processing behavioral error, and recent computational models of the region have expanded this interpretation to include a more general role for the region in predicting likely events, broadly construed, and signaling deviations between expected and observed events. Ongoing modeling work investigating the interaction between ACC and additional regions involved in cognitive control suggests an even broader role for cingulate in computing a hierarchically structured surprise signal critical for learning models of the environment. The result is a predictive coding model of the frontal lobes, suggesting that predictive coding may be a unifying computational principle across the neocortex. (shrink)

This book explains the transitions in twentieth-century industrial leadership from Britain to the United States and, most recently, to Japan, in terms of the changing business investment strategies and organizational structures in these nations. The author criticizes economists for failing to understand these historical changes. The book shows that this intellectual failure is not inherent in the discipline of economics; there are important traditions in economic thought that the mainstream of the economics profession has simply ignored.

Lawsuits alleging illegal and unethical insurance sales practices have received widespread publicity in recent years. Although many observers have argued that one source of ethical conflicts for insurance agents is the industry's reliance on straight commission compensation, there remains a paucity of empirical data to support the claim. Therefore, we tested whether different forms of compensation influence insurance agent recommendations of products. We obtained survey responses from 336 insurance agents. Respondents were presented with a composite sketch of a hypothetical client. (...) Following this description, they were asked to identify which one of eight specified life insurance products they would recommend to the client. A between-groups design was employed to manipulate differences in compensation associated with the eight products. Results indicated that neither amount of coverage nor type of coverage (term life versus cash value) recommended was associated with compensation. However, an unanticipated finding was that amount of coverage recommended was significantly higher when the insured was male than when the insured was female. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to examine the cognitive status of mystical experience. There are, I think, three distinct but overlapping sorts of religious experience. In the first place, there are two kinds of mystical experience. The extrovertive or nature mystic identifies himself with a world which is both transfigured and one. The introvertive mystic withdraws from the world and, after stripping the mind of concepts and images, experiences union with something which can be described as an undifferentiated unity. Introvertive (...) mysticism is a more important phenomenon than extrovertive mysticism. Numinous experiences are complex experiences involving dread, awe, wonder, and fascination. One finds oneself confronted with something which is radically unlike ordinary objects. Before its overwhelming majesty and power, one is nothing but dust and ashes. In contrasting oneself with its uncanny beauty and goodness, one experiences one's own uncleanness and ugliness. The experiences bound up with the devotional life of the ordinary believer are also religious in character. Nevertheless these more ordinary experiences should, I think, be distinguished both from numinous experiences and from mystical experiences, for they do not appear to involve the sense of immediate presence which characterises the latter. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Physicists and the Bomb Thermonuclear Weapons and the Cold War Atoms for Peace Deterrence, Détente, 9/11 and Dirty Bombs Nuclear Waste Climate Crisis Conclusion References and Further Reading.

We form objectives for civilized behaviour. From both these experiences man distils wisdom. This book is not a scientific book it is just a wise book.

The intelligibility of nature was a persistent theme of William A. Wallace, OP, one of the most prolific Catholic scholars of the late twentieth century. This Reader aims to make available a representative selection of his work in the history of science, natural philosophy, and theology illustrating his defense and development of this central theme. Wallace is among the most important Galileo scholars of the past fifty years and a key figure in the recent revival of scientific realism. Further, (...) his long and productive scholarly career has been shaped by a continuous effort to bring the resources of the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition to the solution of contemporary problems of philosophy and science. Through all of these contributions, Wallace has provided the foundation for a renewed confidence in the capacity of human knowers to attain understanding of the natural order. Consequently, the overall aim of this volume is to secure continued access to his scholarship for readers in the new millennium. Intelligibility of Nature will contain twenty-nine previously published essays written by Wallace over a period of some forty years. Many of these essays are currently not readily accessible. They are arranged in five thematic groups, each representing a major subject-area of Wallace's scholarly interests. The first group is devoted to essays on making nature intelligible through the use of scientific models. The second group of essays investigates various ways in which the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition is foundational to contemporary scientific research. Essays in the third group are historical studies on the origins of modern science. The fourth group of essays discuss the viability of the cosmological argument for the existence of God in light of natural science. The final group of essays consider the relation of science and religion. Together these essays provide a representative sample of Wallace's multifaceted contributions to scholarship. (shrink)

The paper presents goodness and truth as analogous formal concepts. I first argue that saying something is true of something and saying it is false of it are basic ways of speaking truly or falsely. I then consider thinking a property a good one for something to acquire and thinking it a bad, equate this with having something as a positive or negative objective, an object of desire or aversion, and argue that these are basic ways of thinking rightly or (...) wrongly. Finally I discuss the notions of a way of speaking or thinking, making special reference to Frege’s ‘Negation’ and ‘The Thought.’. (shrink)

"The main and original contribution of this volume is to offer a discussion of teleology through the prism of religion, philosophy and history. The goal is to incorporate teleology within discussions across these three disciplines rather than restrict it to one as is customarily the case. The chapters cover a wide range of topics, from individual teleologies to collective ones; ideas put forward by the French aristocrat Arthur de Gobineau and the Scottish philosopher David Hume, by the Anglican theologian and (...) founder of Methodism, John Wesley, and the English naturalist Charles Darwin; it criss-crosses intellectually and conceptually from a discussion of morality to that of the sacralisation of politics"--. (shrink)

In this book, Alexander Bevilacqua presents us with a lucid, erudite, and in many respects engaging study of a dimension of the European Enlightenment and its precursor traditions that has not prev...

William of Ockham was a medieval English philosopher and theologian (he was born about 1285, perhaps as late as 1288, and died in 1347 or 1348). In 1328 Ockham turned away from 'pure' philosophy and theology to polemic. From that year until the end of his life he worked to overthrow what he saw as the tyranny of Pope John XXII (1316-1334) and of his successors Popes Benedict XII (1334-1342) and Clement VI (1342-1352). This campaign led him into questions (...) of ecclesiology (the study of the nature and structure of the Christian Church, e.g. of the functions and powers of the pope) and political philosophy. The Dialogus purports to be a transcript made by a mature student of lengthy discussions between himself and a university master about the various opinions of the learned on the matters disputed between John XXII and the dissident Franciscans. The student is usually the initiator; he chooses the topics, asks most of the questions and decides when he has heard enough. The master is, so to speak, an expert witness whom the student examines. This volume provides the first critical edition of part 3.2 of the Dialogus and deals with the relation between the empire and the nation-states and engages in the theory of property rights, natural law, and political freedom. (shrink)

William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris from 1228 to his death in 1249, was not only one of the most prolific writers in philosophy and theology of the first half of the thirteenth century but also one of the first to use the new translations of Greek and Islamic thought that poured into the Latin West in that century. On Morals, the second part of William's treatise On the Virtues and the Vices, forms one component of his vast (...) The Teaching on God in the Mode of Wisdom. In On Morals he extols the value of the nine virtues - faith, fear, hope, charity, piety, zeal, poverty, humility, and patience - in a sophisticated narrative where each of the virtues speaks for itself, explaining its importance. Book jacket. (shrink)

An analysis of the development and range of Adorno's aesthetics, incorporating the influence of other thinkers and musicians.