From Biological to Synthetic Neurorobotics Approaches to Understanding the Structure Essential to Consciousness (Part 3)

This third paper locates the synthetic neurorobotics research reviewed in the second paper in terms of themes introduced in the first paper. It begins with biological non-reductionism as understood by Searle. It emphasizes the role of synthetic neurorobotics studies in accessing the dynamic structure essential to consciousness with a focus on system criticality and self, develops a distinction between simulated and formal consciousness based on this emphasis, reviews Tani and colleagues' work in light of this distinction, and ends by forecasting the increasing importance of synthetic neurorobotics studies for cognitive science and philosophy of mind going forward, finally in regards to most- and myth-consciousness

Pathway toward prior knowledge-integrated machine learning in engineering

Despite the digitalization trend and data volume surge, first-principles models (also known as logic-driven, physics-based, rule-based, or knowledge-based models) and data-driven approaches have existed in parallel, mirroring the ongoing AI debate on symbolism versus connectionism. Research for process development to integrate both sides to transfer and utilize domain knowledge in the data-driven process is rare. This study emphasizes efforts and prevailing trends to integrate multidisciplinary domain professions into machine acknowledgeable, data-driven processes in a two-fold organization: examining information uncertainty sources in knowledge representation and exploring knowledge decomposition with a three-tier knowledge-integrated machine learning paradigm. This approach balances holist and reductionist perspectives in the engineering domain.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

Towards a wider application of the systems approach in information systems and software engineering

The chapter provides possible directions for the wider application of the systems approach to information systems development. Potential improvement of software development practices is linked by some leading experts to the application of more systemic ideas. However, the current state of the practice in software engineering and information systems development shows the urgent need for improvement through greater application of systems thinking

Resiliency Through Food Security of a Coastal Culture: the Peskotomuhkati

A qualitative study using culturally consistent methods of story circles and individual testimony was completed at Passamaquoddy Indian Nation (Peskotomuhkatik), concerning food security through the ocean fisheries at Pleasant Point (Sipay’k), Maine in 2017. Participants included approximately 24 commercial and subsistence harvesters that involved both fishermen and fisherwomen. The historical and anthropocentric impact on the ontological and epistemological aspects of the Waponaki have constrained cultural customs and practices of indigenous interrelationship and interdependency linking Native food systems within the ecology. The multifaceted implications of regulatory control, climate change impacts, access to safe quality nutrient sources through a mixed subsistence diet and the right to practice traditional culture by interfacing with the natural world unabated, poses threats to cultural identity and survival of the Peskotomuhkati of Maine. The complexity of the multifaceted aspects of human induced climate change combined with an inability to self-determine traditional food systems of treaty tribes hinder the ability to build mechanisms for social-ecological resiliency amid environmental challenges. Planning models that are culturally consistent will guide the co-management and stewardship for the equitable distribution of the coastal fisheries within Peskotomuhkatik territory. Community-based models utilizing an indigenous perspective will guide future generations and provide an avenue to incorporate traditional value systems into environmental stewardship through individual agency must steer towards policies for inclusiveness that are sustainably and culturally responsive

An Invitation to Debate: Envisioning an Africa-Centered Perspective, Engaging Sociological Endeavor

This article frames the focus of this special Africana studies issue of Critical Sociology, discussing its theoretical and epistemological necessity for the discipline, its potential for critical informing inquiry within the discipline with respect to Africana social phenomena as well the human experience, the challenges it poses for the traditional conduct of sociological inquiry and what the particular pieces selected for this issue contribute to each of these

Moral and Political Values in Legal Theory: An Informational-Atomist Account of Reasoning with Values

The question of how indeterminate moral and political values should be applied as justifications in adjudication has fuelled persistent controversy amongst judges, constitutional lawyers, and legal theorists. Values are employed as justificatory reasons of special significance on the one hand but are notoriously indeterminate on the other. I take this to be the problem of reasoning with values. This thesis intervenes in existing debates on reasoning with values by arguing for an Informational-Atomist account (IA). IA is an alternative to two influential existing views. First, is conceptual exceptionalism about values: that values are special kinds of concepts such as interpretive concepts, thick concepts, essentially contested concepts, and placeholders. Second, is value holism: that the content of values is determined holistically by placing them in a web of values as values are necessarily united. I argue that conceptual exceptionalism is flawed, qua theories of concepts, as concepts of values do not have a special conceptual nature. Value holism faces significant challenges as an account of content-determination, even if holism is a plausible theory of justification. IA in contrast brings insights from literature on concepts and content in cognitive science and philosophy of mind to illuminate thinking on how values ought to be reasoned with by according primacy to questions of content. IA develops an account of instance-based reasons that has realist, physicalist, and cognitivists commitments. It explains how the content of individual values are determined, which further explains connections between values, if any. IA bolsters arguments for reason-giving accounts of adjudication by opening avenues for how the content of indeterminate values can be justifiably determined in a transparent and accountable way

The holistic paradigm in the foreign language-culture curriculum

A wellness movement is rapidly evolving outside of the recognized professions. This is evidenced by the growing popularity of non-traditional ways of seeking total wellbeing, such as natural nutrition, the use of vitamins and herbs, exercise, meditation and yoga, and energy exchange. Participants in this movement view wellness as being more than the absence of disease; they see wellness as a dynamic, positive process that activates one's potential. The participation of the total being is essential. Characteristics of the wellness movement are the promotion of health or well-being, a positive optimistic approach that is holistic in nature, an emphasis on self-care and assuming responsibility for oneself, with a focus on natural means, and the internal direction of the individual. This movement is emerging in a fragmented, unorganized way and is lacking in standards

Theorizing about the syntax of human language: a radical alternative to generative formalisms

Linguists standardly assume that a grammar is a formal system that ‘generates’ a set of derivations. But this is not the only way to formalize grammars. I sketch a different basis for syntactic theory: model-theoretic syntax (MTS). It defines grammars as finite sets of statements that are true (or false) in certain kinds of structure (finite labeled graphs such as trees). Such statements provide a direct description of syntactic structure. Generative grammars do not do this; they are strikingly ill-suited to accounting for certain familiar properties of human languages, like the fact that ungrammaticality is a matter of degree. Many aspects of linguistic phenomena look radically different when viewed in MTS terms. I pay special attention to the fact that sentences containing invented nonsense words (items not in the lexicon) are nonetheless perceived as sentences. I also argue that the MTS view dissolves the overblown controversy about whether the set of sentences in a human language is always infinite: many languages (both Brazilian indigenous languages and others) appear not to employ arbitrarily iterative devices for embedding or coordination, but under an MTS description this does not define them as radically distinct in typological terms.Linguistas em geral pressupõem que uma gramática seja um sistema formal que ‘gera’ um conjunto de derivações. Aqui delineio uma base diferente para a teoria da sintaxe: a sintaxe modelo-teórico (SMT). Ela define as gramáticas como conjuntos de declarações que são verdadeiras (ou falsas) em determinados tipos de estruturas (gráficas finitas rotuladas, como árvores). Tais declarações fornecem uma descrição direta da estrutura sintática. As gramáticas gerativas não fazem isso; elas são supreendentemente mal-adaptadas para dar conta de certas propriedades familiares das línguas humanas, como o fato de que a agramaticalidade e uma questão de grau. Muitos aspectos de fenômenos linguísticos parecem radicalmente diferentes quando vistos nos termos STM. Eu presto atenção especial aqui ao fato de que que orações que contêm palavras inventadas sem sentido lexical (não se encontram no léxico) são mesmo assim percebidos como orações. Eu também argumento que a STM acaba com a controvérsia exagerada sobre se o conjunto de orações de uma língua humana é sempre infinito: muitas línguas (seja uma língua indígena brasileira ou outra língua qualquer) parecem não empregar dispositivos arbitrários e iterativos para o encaixamento ou a coordenação, mas sob uma descrição STM isso não as definem como radicalmente distintas em termos tipológicas