Theology, science and the topos of the Logos: a stable, dynamic topology of Creation

This thesis argues that an integrated, dynamically stable theo-science may be explored by considering scientific and theological perspectives regarding stability itself, combining them in one overarching framework by embedding a scientific conception of stability within a broader theological conception thereof. Our very capacity to perceive ‘reality’ in a functionally consistent manner is dependent upon the physical cosmos presenting a particular, dynamic stability, allowing for the sustainable emergence of life in the first place. Stability is hierarchically qualified, with higher-order functional systems such as those pertaining to life being an emergent result of particular modes of interaction between lower-level degrees of stability, ultimately right down to fundamental particles or fields. Theologically, any stability inherent to ‘reality’ must furthermore be considered to derive from the fact that such reality is, at its profoundest, a manifestation of God’s revealing, Creative Activity through the Logos. The thesis considers, qualitatively, the scientific and theological ‘place’ and relevance of stability from a holistic perspective regarding our anthropological development. Scientifically this is viewed in layered, evolutionary terms. Theologically, the Incarnation is considered of central relevance to our anthropological journey, transfiguring the process of its development so as to draw human nature into its intended eschatological stability ‘at the right hand of the Father’. Since stability can be considered scientifically in topological terms, the framework is developed by means of a ‘theological topology’ centred, as the etymology suggests, on the idea of a sacramentally stable, pervasive topos indicative of God’s ‘motioning’, Creative Activity through the Logos. Such Activity becomes sense-objectified in the Incarnation, considered figuratively-speaking as a ‘phase transition’, the net effect of which is argued as a ‘drawing in’ (cf. John 12:32), reordering and enhancing all meaningful, creaturely contribution to the ‘content’ of Creation – content actively generated according to our iconic, creative capacity for conceiving (of) the Logos

A DESIGN STRATEGY TO IMPROVE MACHINE LEARNING RESILIENCY OF PHYSICALLY UNCLONABLE FUNCTIONS USING MODULUS PROCESS

Physically unclonable functions (PUFs) are hardware security primitives that utilize non-reproducible manufacturing variations to provide device-specific challenge-response pairs (CRPs). Such primitives are desirable for applications such as communication and intellectual property protection. PUFs have been gaining considerable interest from both the academic and industrial communities because of their simplicity and stability. However, many recent studies have exposed PUFs to machine-learning (ML) modeling attacks. To improve the resilience of a system to general ML attacks instead of a specific ML technique, a common solution is to improve the complexity of the system. Structures, such as XOR-PUFs, can significantly increase the nonlinearity of PUFs to provide resilience against ML attacks. However, an increase in complexity often results in an increase in area and/or a decrease in reliability. This study proposes a lightweight ring oscillator (RO)-based PUFs using an additional modulus process to improve ML resiliency. The idea was to increase the complexity of the RO-PUF without significant hardware overhead by applying a modulus process to the outcomes from the RO frequency counter. We also present a thorough investigation of the design space to balance ML resiliency and other performance metrics such as reliability, uniqueness, and uniformity

Contingent and created: the significance of the concept of createdness for a theology in dialogue with science, with special reference to the works of Colin E. Gunton

In the first half of the last century, Michael B. Foster argued that the initial impetus for the development of modern science derived from the implicit or explicit Christian convictions of a number of early scientists. More specifically, aspects of the doctrine of creation gave these scientists confidence in the possibility and value of experimental investigation of the natural order. This argument was developed further, notably by Thomas F. Torrance, in two directions. First, this historical connection between natural science and the doctrine of creation was reinterpreted as a continuing methodological reliance of the natural sciences upon the created status of the natural order. Second, those properties of the natural order which are prerequisites for this ongoing reliance and which derive from its created status were identified as rationality and contingency, or the rational contingency of the natural order. In this thesis we develop this argument further by attempting to demonstrate the necessity of the concepts of the created status - the createdness -and rational contingency of the natural order for the interaction of science and theology. First, we argue that createdness is an essential aspect of Christian theology. Second, we argue that createdness and rational contingency are either held together or lost together in interactions between science and theology. Ultimately, we aim to demonstrate that there can be no interaction between science and theology as coherent disciplines in their own right except where the scientific contribution relies on rational contingency and the theological contribution articulates the createdness of the natural order.We begin by developing a grammar of createdness, based on the theology of Colin E. Gunton, to enable us to describe theologically the createdness of the natural order and entities within it. Moreover, this allows us to identify the theological motifs that safeguard and endanger the concept of createdness. Key motifs in support include the divine prevenience, trinitarian divine action in the form of divine action-in-relation, and a conceptualisation of the God-world relationship as a divine gifting of the world with the personal 'space' for existing in creaturely integrity.In the second section, we test our grammar by determining the createdness of the evolutionary process in the theology of Pierre-Marie-Joseph Teilhard de Chardin. We conclude that Teilhard's understanding of evolution disregards its rational contingency, and we trace this back to a failure to safeguard the createdness of the process. For example, Teilhard inadequately secures the divine prevenience, which leads him to introduce an evolutionary Christology and eschatology.In the third section, we apply our grammar to contemporary discussions of divine action at the science-theology interface and also from within popular science. We determine that despite the existence of some fruitful work on the inherent dynamism and potential of the evolutionary process, the createdness and the rational contingency of evolution are not preserved theologically or scientifically. Specifically, in both the science-theology material and the popular science material, there is an assumption that governing divine action is superfluous and undesirable. We finish by illustrating the importance of rational contingency and createdness for science-theology interaction by sketching a model of divine action in evolution that accounts for both

Planckian dissipation, minimal viscosity and the transport in cuprate strange metals

Could it be that the matter from the electrons in high Tc superconductors is of a radically new kind that may be called "many body entangled compressible quantum matter"? Much of this text is intended as an easy to read tutorial, explaining recent theoretical advances that have been unfolding at the cross roads of condensed matter- and string theory, black hole physics as well as quantum information theory. These developments suggest that the physics of such matter may be governed by surprisingly simple principles. My real objective is to present an experimental strategy to test critically whether these principles are actually at work, revolving around the famous linear resistivity characterizing the strange metal phase. The theory suggests a very simple explanation of this "unreasonably simple" behavior that is actually directly linked to remarkable results from the study of the quark gluon plasma formed at the heavy ion colliders: the "fast hydrodynamization" and the "minimal viscosity". This leads to high quality predictions for experiment: the momentum relaxation rate governing the resistivity relates directly to the electronic entropy, while at low temperatures the electron fluid should become unviscous to a degree that turbulent flows can develop even on the nanometre scale.Comment: 23 pages, no figures. Submission to SciPos

Parameter Search for Aesthetic Design and Composition

PhDThis thesis is about algorithmic creation in the arts – where an artist, designer or composer uses a formal generative process to assist in crafting forms and patterns – and approaches to finding effective input parameter values to these generative processes for aesthetic ends. Framed in three practical studies, approaches to navigating the aesthetic possibilities of generative processes in sound and visuals are presented, and strategies for eliciting the preferences of the consumers of the generated output are explored. The first study presents a musical interface that enables navigation of the possibilities of a stochastic generative process with respect to measures of subjective predictability. Through a mobile phone version of the application, aesthetic preferences are crowd-sourced. The second study presents an eye-tracking based framework for the exploration of the possibilities afforded by generative designs; the interaction between the viewers’ gaze patterns and the system engendering a fluid navigation of the state-space of the visual forms. The third study presents a crowd-sourced interactive evolutionary system, where populations of abstract colour images are shaped by thousands of preference selections from users worldwide For each study, the results of analyses eliciting the attributes of the generated outputs – and their associated parameter values – that are most preferred by the consumers/users of these systems are presented. Placed in a historical and theoretical context, a refined perspective on the complex interrelationships between generative processes, input parameters and perceived aesthetic value is presented. Contributions to knowledge include identified trends in objective aesthetic preferences in colour combinations and their arrangements, theoretical insights relating perceptual mechanisms to generative system design and analysis, strategies for effectively leveraging evolutionary computation in an empirical aesthetic context, and a novel eye-tracking based framework for the exploration of visual generative designs.Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of the Doctoral Training Centre in Media and Arts Technology at Queen Mary University of London (ref: EP/G03723X/1)