861 research outputs found

    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!)

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    (b2023 to 2014) The UNBELIEVABLE similarities between the ideas of some people (2006-2016) and my ideas (2002-2008) in physics (quantum mechanics, cosmology), cognitive neuroscience, philosophy of mind, and philosophy (this manuscript would require a REVOLUTION in international academy environment!

    Cognitive synonymy: a dead parrot?

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    Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy

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    This Open Access book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discusses important threads in the history of concepts in the United States and Europe, including charting new reception histories in eastern and south-eastern Europe. While vitalism, organicism and similar epistemologies are often the concern of specialists in the history and philosophy of biology and of historians of ideas, the range of the contributions as well as the geographical and temporal scope of the volume allows for it to appeal to the historian of science and the historian of biology generally

    Foundations of Generalism: Symmetries, Non-individuals and Ontological Nihilism

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    The topic of this thesis is the metaphysical theory of generalism: the view that the world is constituted by purely general facts. Whilst the connection may not be immediately obvious, generalism is also touted as a qualitative metaphysics: a theory that seeks to elevate, in some important metaphysical sense, the notion of qualities (i.e. properties and relations) over that of objects. As such, generalism is just as well individuated by its categorial commitments—its commitment to the fundamentality of certain metaphysical categories—as it is by its construal of fundamental facts. My aim in this thesis is to make explicit these connections, providing a proper explication of the generalist position, as well as its motivations and its apparent consequences. Beyond this, the thesis can also be read as an extended argument in favour of individualism: the view that holds, contrary to generalism, that the category of individual, or object, is at least as fundamental as that of property and relation. The subtitle of this thesis, ‘symmetries, non-individuals and ontological nihilism’, alludes to the topic addressed by each of the three chapters. In chapter 1 I explicate and critique the generalist’s primary argument against individualism, one based on the notion of a symmetry. In chapter 2 I investigate the tenability of a position dubbed ‘quantifier generalism’, a position that, I argue, can be further explicated through the notion of a non-individual. And in chapter 3 I turn to the most widely-discussed form of generalism found in the literature: algebraic generalism, a (purported) form of ontological nihlism

    Assessing the Function Acquisition Speed Test (FAST) as a novel implicit measure of salient emotional experiences.

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    The purpose of this thesis is to address one of the final outstanding questions from the basic research program into the Function Acquisition Speed Test (FAST), and to contribute to the knowledge on the FAST using the same ground-up approach taken by the developers of the method. This research investigated the utility of the FAST, a novel behaviour-analytic “implicit” test as a measure of stimulus relatedness as a function of stimulus salience. The impact of experimental setting on data quality was also explored. Following a critique of the widely used Implicit Association Test (IAT), the empirical development of the FAST method is outlined. Data for Experiment 1 (n=62) were collected remotely. An evaluative conditioning procedure attempted to establish positive and negative emotional functions for two neutral stimulus classes across three conditions, differentiated by Unconditioned Stimulus (US) salience. Explicit evaluations of the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) were recorded post-conditioning. A FAST, employing the CS and novel evaluative words, was then administered to assess the relatedness of the CSs to the positive and negative evaluative terms. The FAST proved sensitive to the conditioning contingency (i.e., performances reflected the intended evaluative associations), but did not vary as a function of the salience of the US employed during the conditioning phase. Due to unacceptably high attrition levels, Experiment 2 (n=217) replicated Experiment 1 with a larger, remunerated sample of participants. Again, the FAST proved sensitive to conditioning contingencies. An interaction between block fluency scores and CS salience was also observed. Experiment 3 (n=56) aimed to replicate these results with a smaller, supervised and non-renumerated sample. Main effects were again found, but interaction effects were not. Analysis of attrition rates across samples demonstrated that the paid, online sample in Experiment 2 produced the highest quality data, resulting in the lowest levels of attrition. Challenges, including poor data quality, low sample sizes, and methodological issues that may have compromised stimulus control are discussed in depth. These issues notwithstanding, this study provides in-principle evidence for the FASTs ability to measure the occurrence and intensity of emotional/evaluative learning experiences

    Nepantla and Mestizaje: A Phenomenological Analysis of the Mestizx Historical Consciousness

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    My dissertation consists of two main Parts. Part I draws from Edmund Husserl’s notion of the “historical a priori” and from seminal decolonial thinker Anibal Quijano’s formulation of “coloniality” to offer a framework for what I call the “coloniality of history.” Chapter 1 draws from Husserl’s and from contemporary analyses of the “historical a priori” as a historical horizon of conceivability for subject and truth formation. Chapter 2 brings this phenomenological analysis to interpret Quijano’s formulation of “coloniality” as a historical horizon of conceivability and to offer a framework for what I call the “coloniality of history.” This framework shows that historical ideals introduced during colonization continue to structure the ways in which colonized peoples relate to the past, present, and future. Part II applies the framework of the coloniality of history to interpret developmentalist conceptions of history which served to justify colonial enterprises in Latin America, and to delineate the limits and possibilities of the liberation project called mestizaje. Chapter 3 argues that developmentalist conceptions of history situated colonized peoples within a double bind: between an uncivilized indigenous past and a civilized European future. I characterize this historical situation as nepantla, an indigenous concept that captures the existential situation of being in-between worlds of meaning. Chapter 4 analyzes the liberation project of mestizaje in the work of mid-20th century Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea. I argue that Zea’s conception of mestizaje traces the Latin American identity to its indigenous past, thereby continuing to relegate indigenous peoples as the past rather than the present of Latin America. Chapter 5 turns to Gloria AnzaldĂșa’s formulation of mestizaje. I argue that AnzaldĂșa articulates nepantla in an embodied way, and that she articulates mestizaje as the juxtaposition of historical meanings which aims to generate a new conception of the colonized body

    Communication protocols and quantum error-correcting codes from the perspective of topological quantum field theory

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    Topological quantum field theories (TQFTs) provide a general, minimal-assumption language for describing quantum-state preparation and measurement. They therefore provide a general language in which to express multi-agent communication protocols, e.g. local operations, classical communication (LOCC) protocols. Here we construct LOCC protocols using TQFT, and show that LOCC protocols induce quantum error-correcting codes (QECCs) on the agent-environment boundary. Such QECCs can be regarded as implementing, or inducing the emergence of, spacetimes on such boundaries. We investigate this connection between inter-agent communication and spacetime using BF and Chern-Simons theories, and then using topological M-theory.Comment: 52 page
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