5,766 research outputs found
Fantasy proneness and counterfactual thinking
Counterfactual thinking (CFT; mentally simulating alternatives to reality) is central to learning and motivation. Two studies explored the relationship between CFT and fantasy proneness, a personality trait typified by excessive fantasies hard to distinguish from reality. In study1, participants completed a fictional diary entry which was used to measure spontaneous CFT and the Creative Experiences Questionnaire measure of fantasy proneness. Fantasy proneness was significantly correlated with the generation of counterfactual thoughts. Both CFT and fantasy proneness have been independently associated with low mood and study2 included a measure of negative emotional state (the Depression, Anxiety and Stress scale) in addition to the CEQ and CFT. Fantasy proneness and negative emotion both predicted CFT, but no interaction between them was observed. The results suggest that individuals high in fantasy proneness have a general tendency to think counterfactually. © 2012 Elsevier Ltd
Creationism and evolution
In Tower of Babel, Robert Pennock wrote that
âdefenders of evolution would help their case
immeasurably if they would reassure their
audience that morality, purpose, and meaning are
not lost by accepting the truth of evolution.â We
first consider the thesis that the creationistsâ
movement exploits moral concerns to spread its
ideas against the theory of evolution. We analyze
their arguments and possible reasons why they are
easily accepted. Creationists usually employ two
contradictive strategies to expose the purported
moral degradation that comes with accepting the
theory of evolution. On the one hand they claim
that evolutionary theory is immoral. On the other
hand creationists think of evolutionary theory as
amoral. Both objections come naturally in a
monotheistic view. But we can find similar
conclusions about the supposed moral aspects of
evolution in non-religiously inspired discussions.
Meanwhile, the creationism-evolution debate
mainly focuses â understandably â on what
constitutes good science. We consider the need for
moral reassurance and analyze reassuring
arguments from philosophers. Philosophers may
stress that science does not prescribe and is
therefore not immoral, but this reaction opens the
door for the objection of amorality that evolution
â as a naturalistic world view at least â
supposedly endorses. We consider that the topic of
morality and its relation to the acceptance of
evolution may need more empirical research
Knowledge and Blameworthiness
Blameworthiness of an agent or a coalition of agents is often defined in
terms of the principle of alternative possibilities: for the coalition to be
responsible for an outcome, the outcome must take place and the coalition
should have had a strategy to prevent it. In this article we argue that in the
settings with imperfect information, not only should the coalition have had a
strategy, but it also should have known that it had a strategy, and it should
have known what the strategy was. The main technical result of the article is a
sound and complete bimodal logic that describes the interplay between knowledge
and blameworthiness in strategic games with imperfect information
Hume, the Philosophy of Science and the Scientific Tradition
Although the main focus of Humeâs career was in the humanities, his work also has an observable role in the historical development of natural sciences after his time. To show this, I shall center on the relation between Hume and two major ïŹgures in the history of the natural sciences: Charles Darwin (1809â1882) and Albert Einstein (1879â1955). Both of these scientists read Hume. They also found parts of Humeâs work useful to their sciences. Inquiring into the relations between Hume and the two scientists shows that his philosophical positions had a partial but constructive role in the formation of modern biology and physics. This is accordingly a clear indication of Humeâs impact on the scientiïŹc tradition. Before proceeding to analyze Humeâs contribution to the history of science, it is important to address his broader role in the history of philosophy of science. Humeâs discussions concerning the topics of causation, induction, the distinction between mathematical and empirical propositions, and laws of nature have been important for the philosophy of science of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
Seeing, Knowing, doing : case studies in modal logic
Dans le domaine des jeux vidĂ©os par exemple, surtout des jeux de rĂŽles, les personnages virtuels perçoivent un environnement, en tirent des connaissances puis effectuent des actions selon leur besoin. De mĂȘme en robotique, un robot perçoit son environnement Ă l'aide de capteurs/camĂ©ras, Ă©tablit une base de connaissances et effectuent des mouvements etc. La description des comportements de ces agents virtuels et leurs raisonnements peut s'effectuer Ă l'aide d'un langage logique. Dans cette thĂšse, on se propose de modĂ©liser les trois aspects "voir", "savoir" et "faire" et leurs interactions Ă l'aide de la logique modale. Dans une premiĂšre partie, on modĂ©lise des agents dans un espace gĂ©omĂ©trique puis on dĂ©finit une relation Ă©pistĂ©mique qui tient compte des positions et du regard des agents. Dans une seconde partie, on revisite la logique des actions "STIT" (see-to-it-that ou "faire en sorte que") qui permet de faire la diffĂ©rence entre les principes "de re" et "de dicto", contrairement Ă d'autres logiques modales des actions. Dans une troisiĂšme partie, on s'intĂ©resse Ă modĂ©liser quelques aspects de la thĂ©orie des jeux dans une variante de la logique "STIT" ainsi que des Ă©motions contre-factuelles comme le regret. Tout au long de cette thĂšse, on s'efforcera de s'intĂ©resser aux aspects logiques comme les complĂ©tudes des axiomatisations et la complexitĂ© du problĂšme de satisfiabilitĂ© d'une formule logique. L'intĂ©gration des trois concepts "voir", "savoir" et "faire" dans une et une seule logique est Ă©voquĂ©e en conclusion et reste une question ouverte.Agents are entities who perceive their environment and who perform actions. For instance in role playing video games, ennemies are agents who perceive some part of the virtual world and who can attack or launch a sortilege. Another example may concern robot assistance for disabled people: the robot perceives obstacles of the world and can alert humans or help them. Here, we try to give formal tools to model knowledge reasoning about the perception of their environment and about actions based, on modal logic. First, we give combine the standard epistemic modal logic with perception constructions of the form (agent a sees agent b). We give a semantics in terms of position and orientation of the agents in the space that can be a line (Lineland) or a plane (Flatland). Concerning Lineland, we provide a complete axiomatization and an optimal procedure for model-checking and satisfiability problem. Concerning Flatland, we show that both model-checking and satisfiability problem are decidable but the exact complexities and the axiomatization remain open problems. Thus, the logics of Lineland and Flatland are completely a new approach: their syntax is epistemic but their semantics concern spatial reasoning. Secondly, we study on the logic of agency ``see-to-it-that'' STIT made up of construction of the form [J]A standing for ``the coalition of agents J sees to it that A''. Our interest is motivated: STIT is strictly more expressive that standard modal logic for agency like Coalition Logic CL or Alternating-time Temporal Logic ATL. In CL or ATL the ``de re'' and ``de dicto'' problem is quite difficult and technical whereas if we combine STIT-operators with epistemic operators, we can solve it in a natural way. However this strong expressivity has a prize: the general version of STIT is undecidable. That is why we focus on some syntactic fragments of STIT: either we restrict the allowed coalitions J in constructions [J]A or we restrict the nesting of modal STIT-operators. We provide axiomatizations and complexity results. Finally, we give flavour to epistemic modal logic by adding STIT-operators. The logic STIT is suitable to express counterfactual statements like ``agent a could have choosen an action such that A have been true''. Thus we show how to model counterfactual emotions like regret, rejoicing, disappointment and elation in this framework.
We also model epistemic games by adapting the logic STIT by giving explicitely names of actions in the language. In this framework, we can model the notion of rational agents but other kind of behaviour like altruism etc., Nash equilibrium and iterated deletion of strictly dominated strategies
Before Turning into Ashes: A Study of Entrepreneurial Cognition, Learning, and Exit
Entrepreneurial practices such as discovery, evaluation, and exploitation of opportunities, decision-making, and problem solving are influenced by mental processes and cognitive mechanisms. Decision-making studies in the field of entrepreneurship confirm that entrepreneurs have strong tendency to use cognitive mechanisms such as biases and heuristics to simplify their decision-making processes. Compared to non-entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs show higher levels of cognitive bias.
By focusing on cognitive mechanisms of entrepreneurs, this study answers the question of why some individuals insist on continuing their entrepreneurial journey while failure-related phenomena such as critical setbacks and counterfactual thoughts exist.
Unlike the prior research that have focused on the antecedents of failure and learning outcomes of failure, the current research takes a different approach and studies failure and learning as entrepreneurial journeys rather than simply considering them as incidents or outcomes of a new venture. Therefore, instead of studying ventures that are rising from the ashes, the author investigates the behavior of entrepreneurs before their ventures turn into ashes
Epistemic virtues, metavirtues, and computational complexity
I argue that considerations about computational complexity show that all finite agents need characteristics like those that have been called epistemic virtues. The necessity of these virtues follows in part from the nonexistence of shortcuts, or efficient ways of finding shortcuts, to cognitively expensive routines. It follows that agents must possess the capacities â metavirtues âof developing in advance the cognitive virtues they will need when time and memory are at a premium
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