Quantum Pasts and the Utility of History

From data in the present we can predict the future and retrodict the past. These predictions and retrodictions are for histories -- most simply time sequences of events. Quantum mechanics gives probabilities for individual histories in a decoherent set of alternative histories. This paper discusses several issues connected with the distinction between prediction and retrodiction in quantum cosmology: the difference between classical and quantum retrodiction, the permanence of the past, why we predict the future but remember the past, the nature and utility of reconstructing the past(s), and information theoretic measures of the utility of history. (Talk presented at the Nobel Symposium: Modern Studies of Basic Quantum Concepts and Phenomena, Gimo, Sweden, June 13-17, 1997)Comment: 22pages, uses REVTEX 3.

Personal Continuity and Instrumental Rationality in Rawls’ Theory of Justice

I want to examine the implications of a metaphysical thesis which is presupposed in various objections to Rawls' theory of justice.Although their criticisms differ in many respects, they concur in employing what I shall refer to as the continuity thesis. This consists of the following claims conjointly: (1) The parties in the original position (henceforth the OP) are, and know themselves to be, fully mature persons who will be among the members of the well-ordered society (henceforth the WOS) which is generated by their choice of principles of justice. (2) The OP is a conscious event among others, integrated (compatibly with the constraints on knowledge and motivation imposed on the parties) into the regular continuity of experience that comprises each of their ongoing constitutes lives. (3) The parties in the OP thus are, and regard themselves as, psychologically continuing persons, partially determined in personality and interests by prior experiences, capable of recollection and regret concerning the past, anticipation and apprehensiveness regarding the future, and so on. Although the continuity thesis as stated above is not at odds with any of the conditions that define the OP, its exegetical validity is a matter for discussion. I shall be concerned to argue that if it is indeed contained in or a consequence of Rawls' theory, then it casts into doubt the capacity of the OP to generate or justify any principles of justice at all. On the other hand, if the continuity thesis is viewed as dispensable and unnecessary to the Rawlsian enterprise, then Rawls is correct in maintaining the irrelevance of the question of personal identity to the construction of his moral theory. In this case, the contract-theoretic, instrumentalist justification for the two principles of justice (henceforth the 2PJ) needs to be supplanted by a modified conception of wide reflective equilibrium. The considerations that form the bulk of this discussion then may be understood as providing a rationale for Rawls' recent revisions in the model of justification on which his theory of justice rests, and for his increasing emphasis on us as moral mediators between the OP and the WOS. Now I want to consider the question of whether or not, given the textual evidence, anything like the continuity thesis is stated or implied by Rawls, and what problems for his theory, if any, turn on a positive or negative answer to this question

Ambivalent pasts: colonial history and the theatricalities of ethnographic display

In the twenty-first century, museums holding ethnographic collections have come under scrutiny for their implication in colonial history, and many have started to address this problematic legacy, often in conscious attempts to move beyond the colonial as “post-ethnographic” spaces and forums for intercultural dialogue. This essay uses a contemporary artwork, Peggy Buth’s installation “The Warrior as Multiple, “exhibited at the Frankfurt Museum of World Cultures in 2014, as a starting point to develop a taxonomy of dominant curatorial strategies at work in ethnographic museums today: self-reflexive contextualization, inversion or reversal, indigenous curation, visible storage, and the turn to live performance—all of which are used to address colonial history. Approaching these strategies from the perspective of theatre and performance studies, the essay analyzes their “theatricalities” of display—the “doing” of ethnographic objects, as well as the “spectacularity” of dioramic settings—through a series of case studies, including the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center in Connecticut, and the Tropenmuseum Amsterdam. It argues that despite their critical potential, these strategies run the danger of being complicit in a working through (in the Freudian sense of the term) of colonial history, which might ultimately “liberate” ethnographic museums from their problematic legacy. Instead, the essay proposes an insistence on ambivalence, understood as the simultaneous co-existence of at least two conflicting meanings, in order to resist such an erasure

Recycling universe

If the effective cosmological constant is non-zero, our observable universe may enter a stage of exponential expansion. In such case, regions of it may tunnel back to the false vacuum of an inflaton scalar field, and inflation with a high expansion rate may resume in those regions. An ``ideal'' eternal observer would then witness an infinite succession of cycles from false vacuum to true, and back. Within each cycle, the entire history of a hot universe would be replayed. If there were several minima of the inflaton potential, our ideal observer would visit each one of these minima with a frequency which depends on the shape of the potential. We generalize the formalism of stochastic inflation to analyze the global structure of the universe when this `recycling' process is taken into account.Comment: 43 pages, 10 figure

Resilience, moorings and international student mobilities - exploring biographical narratives of social science students in the UK

Whilst research into the changing landscape of the UK Higher Education (HE) has produced a burgeoning literature on ‘internationalisation’ and ‘transnational student mobility’ over the past few years, still fairly little is known about international students’ experiences on their way to and through the UK higher and further education. Frequently approaching inter- and transnational education as ‘neutral’ by-products of neoliberal globalisation, elitism and power flows, much HE policy and scholarly debate tend to operate with simplistic classifications of ‘international students’ and therefore fail to account for the multifaceted nature of students’ aspirations, mobilities and life experiences. Drawing on the notion of ‘resilience’ and insights from the ‘new mobilities paradigm’, this paper envisages alternative student mobilities which run parallel or counter to the dominant flows of power, financial and human capital commonly associated with an emerging global knowledge economy. Engaging with ‘resilient’ biographies of social science students studying at three UK HE institutions, the paper challenges narrow student classification regimes and calls for a critical re-evaluation of the relationship between international student mobility and other contemporary forms of migration, displacement and diaspora

Globalization, Re-Discovery of the Malay ‘Local,' and Popular TV Fiction through Audience Narratives

The proliferation of TV fiction can be partly explained by TV producers attuning their products to draw audience’s attention. Narratives of love dominate the plots and almost always the good is pitted against the evil, rich against the poor - ultimately the good always wins. The formula may be clichéd, but in places where news of war, terrorism, diseases, violence, and conflicts usually prevail, respite from tumultuous realities of the world can often be found in popular TV fiction. Here, we study three popular Malay TV fiction, Julia, On Dhia, and Adam & Hawa to examine how TV fiction viewers relate to them through personal narratives and focus group interviews. Through their voices, we reveal that despite TV fiction viewers’ constant preoccupation with Western-imposed globalization, the TV fiction set against the backdrop of globalization can encourage the viewers to re-route their ways to re-discover their imaginary ‘good old days’ that are often dismissed, neglected or forgotten