Inner privacy of conscious experiences and quantum information

The human mind is constituted by inner, subjective, private, first-person conscious experiences that cannot be measured with physical devices or observed from an external, objective, public, third-person perspective. The qualitative, phenomenal nature of conscious experiences also cannot be communicated to others in the form of a message composed of classical bits of information. Because in a classical world everything physical is observable and communicable, it is a daunting task to explain how an empirically unobservable, incommunicable consciousness could have any physical substrates such as neurons composed of biochemical molecules, water, and electrolytes. The challenges encountered by classical physics are exemplified by a number of thought experiments including the inverted qualia argument, the private language argument, the beetle in the box argument and the knowledge argument. These thought experiments, however, do not imply that our consciousness is nonphysical and our introspective conscious testimonies are untrustworthy. The principles of classical physics have been superseded by modern quantum physics, which contains two fundamentally different kinds of physical objects: unobservable quantum state vectors, which define what physically exists, and quantum operators (observables), which define what can physically be observed. Identifying consciousness with the unobservable quantum information contained by quantum physical brain states allows for application of quantum information theorems to resolve possible paradoxes created by the inner privacy of conscious experiences, and explains how the observable brain is constructed by accessible bits of classical information that are bound by Holevo's theorem and extracted from the physically existing quantum brain upon measurement with physical devices

Developing an International Framework for Addressing Non-State Actors in Cyberspace

On May 7, 2021, Colonial Pipeline shut down its operations following a ransomware attack by the criminal group DarkSide (Bordoff, 2021). It took five days to resume normal operations, but this short period led to panic buying, rising prices, and significant gas shortages. The attack underscores an emerging threat in the landscape of cybersecurity: critical infrastructure attacks carried out by non-state actors

Vol. 35, No. 1, April 1, 1987

•The Indi Gestae •Battle of Law School Titans! •Dean Sue a Barrister! Snubbed Gordan Pouts •Dean Says Go EST! •Terrorists Attack Israel! •Our Readers Piss & Moan: We Just Couldn\u27t Care Less! •Who\u27s Kidding Who •Campbell Competitors Coked! •Gephardt: From Reed\u27s Lawn to White House! •Search Searchers Search! •Law Senate Tragedy: The Shrimp Was Cold! •Perversions •Lore in the Roa

“Not just the ideas of a few enthusiasts”: Early Twentieth Century Legal Activism and Reformation of the Age of Sexual Consent

In July 1885 a reluctant House of Lords was eventually persuaded to pass the Criminal Law Amendment Bill after three years of intense Parliamentary debate and prompted by W.T. Stead’s shocking expose of the Maiden Tribute scandal. The 1885 Act finally, and controversially, settled the age of sexual protection for young girls at sixteen years but this threshold would be repeatedly contested over the next four decades. Moral campaigners continually sought to exert pressure on the Home Office to reform what we now recognize as a legal age of consent. But their contradictory demands to impose repressionist measures to punish young girls for sexual immorality while simultaneously lobbying for a more protectionist stance against sexual defilement made any legislative consensus impossible. This article explores and teases out the associated socio-legal complexities of such contradictions which, somewhat ironically, served as a stark rehearsal for the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1922. An Act which did no more than simply reiterate the 1885 determination that sixteen years should be the age of consent, a provision that has endured well into the twenty-first century

The Principle of “Refl-Action” as the Basis for a Culture of Philosophy in Africa

No Abstract

The Regularity of Irregular War. Counterinsurgency and Its Implications

none1noThe strategic significance of counterinsurgency has changed over time: when the chance of a classic interstate conflict was high, insurgency became background noise in the security system. But when direct conflict between major powers was unlikely, insurgency assumed greater relevance. In the post 9/11 era, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had led once again to the revival of counterinsurgency theory: Western militaries engaged in these two theatres realized that they were fighting counterinsurgency operations, triggering a lively debate on their nature. The evidence from Iraq and Afghanistan seems to support the view which, despite the post 9/11 idea of a global Jihad, confines Al Qa-eda within the category of a terrorist organization, whereas the insurgencies are mainly local. This social heterogeneity makes most contemporary insurgencies highly complex and with very uncertain final outcome.openF. AndreattaF. Andreatt

Russia\u27s Counterinsurgency in North Caucasus: Performance and Consequences

The North Caucasus region has been a source of instability for the past several centuries. Most recently, Chechen aspirations to achieve full independence after the break-up of the Soviet Union led to two disastrous wars. While the active phase of the Chechen conflict ended in 2000 – more than a decade ago—the underlying social, economic, and political issues of the region remain. A low-level insurgency continues to persist in the North Caucasus region, with occasional terrorist attacks in the Russian heartland. There are few reasons to expect any substantial improvement in the situation for years to come. Chechnya functions as a de facto independent entity; Islamist influence in Dagestan is growing, terror attacks continue, and the rest of the North Caucasus requires massive presence of Russian security services to keep the situation under control. Preventing the North Caucasus from slipping back into greater instability requires tackling corruption, cronyism, discrimination, and unemployment—something the Kremlin has so far not been very willing to do. “Small wars” in the Caucasus resonated as far away as Boston, MA, and more international attention and cooperation is necessary to prevent the region from blowing up.https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/1503/thumbnail.jp