Hawking Radiation and Analogue Experiments: A Bayesian Analysis

We present a Bayesian analysis of the epistemology of analogue experiments with particular reference to Hawking radiation. First, we prove that such experiments can be confirmatory in Bayesian terms based upon appeal to 'universality arguments'. Second, we provide a formal model for the scaling behaviour of the confirmation measure for multiple distinct realisations of the analogue system and isolate a generic saturation feature. Finally, we demonstrate that different potential analogue realisations could provide different levels of confirmation. Our results provide a basis both to formalise the epistemic value of analogue experiments that have been conducted and to advise scientists as to the respective epistemic value of future analogue experiments.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Success from Satisficing and Imitation: Entrepreneurs’ Location Choice and Implications of Heuristics for Local Economic Development

Decisions about location choice provide an opportunity to compare the predictions of optimization models, which require exhaustive search through very large choice sets, against the actual decision processes used by entrepreneurs choosing where to allocate investment capital. This paper presents new data on entrepreneurs’ self-described decision processes when choosing where to locate, based on scripted interviews with 49 well-placed business owners and senior managers in charge of location choice. Consideration sets are surprisingly small, especially among those who are successful. According to entrepreneurs’ own accounts, locations are frequently discovered by chance rather than systematic search. Few describe decision processes that bear any resemblance to equating marginal benefit with marginal cost as prescribed by standard optimization theory. Nearly all interviewees describe location choice decisions based on threshold conditions, providing direct evidence of satisficing rather than optimization. Imitation is beneficial for small investment projects. Decision process data collected here suggests a need to rethink standard policy tools used to stimulate local economic development.Process Model, Bounded Rationality, Interview Data, Ethnic, Discrimination, Low income, Neighborhood, Lexicographic, Non-compensatory, Business Owners

The Effectiveness of Hybrid Learning in Improving of Teacher-Student Relationship in Terms of Learning Motivation

The Advanced Mathematical Thinking (AMT) ability is one of the prioritized mathematical abilities needed to be developed in learning mathematics during tertiary education. The present study sought to test the effectiveness of hybrid learning in improving students' advanced mathematical thinking. The research used a quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group design. The subject of this study was students of a mathematics education study program at a university in Bandung who attended lecture for the multi-variable in a calculus course. The sampling technique used was purposive sampling. Of the many variable calculus classes consisting of 2 classes, one class was chosen as the experiment group and the other class as the control group. The sample consists of 40 people for each group. Data analysis used the MANOVA test with normality and homogeneity tests as a prerequisite test. The results showed a difference in AMT's significance between the hybrid learning and conventional groups, where hybrid learning had a higher AMT. Other than that, there is a difference in the significance of AMT between the high motivation group and the low motivation group, where high motivation has a higher AMT, and there is an interaction of learning models and motivational factors to increase AMT. Doi: 10.28991/esj-2021-01288 Full Text: PD

Inventing Intelligence: On the History of Complex Information Processing and Artificial Intelligence in the United States in the Mid-Twentieth Century

In the mid-1950s, researchers in the United States melded formal theories of problem solving and intelligence with another powerful new tool for control: the electronic digital computer. Several branches of western mathematical science emerged from this nexus, including computer science (1960s–), data science (1990s–) and artificial intelligence (AI). This thesis offers an account of the origins and politics of AI in the mid-twentieth century United States, which focuses on its imbrications in systems of societal control. In an effort to denaturalize the power relations upon which the field came into being, I situate AI’s canonical origin story in relation to the structural and intellectual priorities of the U.S. military and American industry during the Cold War, circa 1952 to 1961. This thesis offers a detailed and comparative account of the early careers, research interests, and key outputs of four researchers often credited with laying the foundations for AI and machine learning—Herbert A. Simon, Frank Rosenblatt, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky. It chronicles the distinct ways in which each sought to formalise and simulate human mental behaviour using digital electronic computers. Rather than assess their contributions as discontinuous with what came before, as in mythologies of AI's genesis, I establish continuities with, and borrowings from, management science and operations research (Simon), Hayekian economics and instrumentalist statistics (Rosenblatt), automatic coding techniques and pedagogy (McCarthy), and cybernetics (Minsky), along with the broadscale mobilization of Cold War-era civilian-led military science generally. I assess how Minsky’s 1961 paper 'Steps Toward Artificial Intelligence' simultaneously consolidated and obscured these entanglements as it set in motion an initial research agenda for AI in the following two decades. I argue that mind-computer metaphors, and research in complex information processing generally, played an important role in normalizing the small- and large-scale structuring of social behaviour using mathematics in the United States from the second half of the twentieth century onward

Hawking Radiation and Analogue Experiments: A Bayesian Analysis

We present a Bayesian analysis of the epistemology of analogue experiments with particular reference to Hawking radiation. First we prove such experiments can be confirmatory in Bayesian terms based upon appeal to `universality arguments'. We then provide a formal model for the scaling behaviour of the confirmation measure for multiple distinct realisations of the analogue system and isolate a generic saturation feature. Finally, we demonstrate that different potential analogue realisations could provide different levels of confirmation. Our results provide a basis both to formalise the epistemic value of analogue experiments that have been conducted and to advise scientists as to the respective epistemic value of future analogue experiments

Affective sentience and moral protection

We have structured our response according to five questions arising from the commentaries: (i) What is sentience? (ii) Is sentience a necessary or sufficient condition for moral standing? (iii) What methods should guide comparative cognitive research in general, and specifically in studying invertebrates? (iv) How should we balance scientific uncertainty and moral risk? (v) What practical strategies can help reduce biases and morally dismissive attitudes toward invertebrates

Labour, Energy, and Information as Historical Configurations

The essay contributes to the debate on the role of metrics in geoanthropology. It argues that the use of the energy metric in the study of the Anthropocene among other phenomena should be seen in its relation to the metrology of labour and productivity that originated in the industrial age. In order to clarify this genealogical question, the essay extends the method of ‘historical metrology’ (Kula) to the notion of energy and, in addition, to the notion of information, that can be understood in its own as a metric of knowledge, mental labour, communication and cooperation. In illuminating the nexus between the abstractions of political economy and technoscience, the essay stresses specifically the role of machines (such as the steam engine and telegraph) as ‘epistemic mediators’ (Wise). The essay concludes by advocating for the inclusion of political metrology in the necessary toolbox and ‘geopraxis’ (Omodeo) of the Anthropocene. Keywords: Anthropocene, Geoanthropology, History of Metrology, Political Econom

Problem-based learning in the online flipped classroom: Its impact on statistical literacy skills

This study aimed to improve students' literacy skills in carrying out distance learning and examine the effect of problem-based learning in reverse online classes on statistical literacy skills in distance learning. This research was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic at Prisma University and Manado State University with 198 students taking statistical methods courses. A quantitative approach to quasi-experimental research was used. The instruments used are written tests and video-based projects with relevant entrepreneurship questions. Data was collected through pre- and post-tests, then analyzed using a two-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and an independent sample t-test. The results showed that problem-based learning in reverse online classes positively affected statistical literacy skills in distance learning. In addition, positive responses from students working on statistical projects in entrepreneurship were found. This may be observed from the perceptions of students who show high satisfaction with the assignment in the field of entrepreneurship in this study. Furthermore, the results of this study confirm that student involvement is a critical element in implementing distance learning