Living with Paradoxes

AbstractA good knowledge representation system has to find a balance between expressive power on the one hand and efficient reasoning on the other. Furthermore it is necessary to understand its limitations and problems. A logic which contains strings is very expressive and allows for very natural representations, which in turn allow for appropriate reasoning patterns. However, such a system has the feature that it is possible to formulate self-referential paradoxes in it. This can be considered as a strength and as a weakness at the same time. On the one hand it is a positive aspect that it is possible to represent paradoxes, which can be formulated in natural language. On the other hand it is necessary to be careful and not to trivialise the logical system. In the paper different aspects of knowledge representation which allows self-referentiality will be discussed. A system will be presented which is a pragmatic compromise between expressive power on the one hand and simplicity and efficiency of the reasoning process on the other hand. It is built on a three-valued system that makes it possible to use reasoning techniques from classical first-order logic

Mind-Body Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The wave-particle duality is a mind-body one. In the real 3D-space there exists only the particle, the wave exists in its consciousness. If there are many particles, their distribution in accordance with the wave function represents a real wave in real space. Many worlds, Schroedinger cat, etc., exist only as mental constructions. The "waves of matter" are non-material. Feynman et al. taught quantum world "is like neither". Alas, they forgot living matter.Comment: 7 pages including 5 figures and 6 references. The shortened version of a report in IV Edition Workshop on Mysteries, Puzzles, and Paradoxes in Quantum Mechanics, 31.08.2001, Gargnano, Ital

An epistemological and bio-physical point of view on complex systems

In this article, after a historical introduction, we give an epistemological point of view of the physics of complex systems. Complex systems are epistemologically interesting because of the fundamental interaction experiment/observer and physicists in their everyday life can experience the paradoxes given by this interaction. Here we describe some of these paradoxes, we make a parallel with quantum mechanics and give a possible philosophical solution, based on notorious physicists/philosopher from the past, transposing and reinterpreting their ideas to modern times. In particular, we analyse the interaction with a complex system such as the living cell, and therefore we also analyse some biophysical implications of complexity

Caring after death: issues of embodiment and relationality

Death most fundamentally would seem to concern the absence of presence, and the loss of the living embodied other is the apparently hard inescapable truth to be faced. This brings sharply into relief the part that bodies play in our relationships and in caring for others. In this chapter I explore the significance of the absence and presence of material bodies for care practices, and for the understandings of relationality that may underpin caring after death. At the same time I also consider the bodies of the living and the ways in which grief and loss may be experienced as physical pain in one's own body. Drawing on published autobiographical materials, I suggest that the relationality of caring - even in contemporary US and European societies - may incorporate an embodied relational self in which threats to the physical wellbeing of another may be experienced directly as implicating one's own physical wellbeing. Such 'embodied relationality' highlights one of the deep paradoxes in the costs and benefits of care, which arise when we recognise how individual well-being and flourishing may be bound up with that of others

The West: Between Open Society and Clashing Civilizations

The article aims to show that by its very nature Western civilization is well suited for making a significant contribution to build the open society based on intercivilizational dialogue. In the age of global migration, there is an obvious need for developing tools which would effectively transform the threat of a clash of civilizations into a creative dialogue between them. As a civilization of the dialogue, Western civilization seems to be an ideal instrument to meet that need. The article raises the following questions: Is there any connection between the idea of the open society and the heritage of Western civilization? Is liberal education an adequate means to resolve the paradoxes of the open society? Why is the West an arena for the clash of civilizations

The Paradoxical Effects of Blockchain Technology on Social Networking Practices

Blockchain technology is a promising, yet not well understood, enabler of large-scale societal and economic change. For instance, blockchain makes it possible for users to securely and profitably share content on social media platforms. In this study, w

Critical Language Study and Translation: The Case of Academic Discourse

This chapter uses Critical Discourse Analysis to show the very different ideologies encoded into Portuguese and English academic discourse,arguing that translation from one to the other is virtually impossible within the genre of the academic article

The view from the paradoxical world

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The consequences of using such complex tools as Logic and Mathematics, which are so ingrained in our own nature as thinking living organisms, to explain precisely that Nature in which we ourselves are imbedded, are disucssed from a new perspective. The interplay between the individual (subjective) world and the social (objective) world emerges with clarity under this light. Paradoxes, a nightmare for Logicians and Mathematicians, are returned to their cradle, the observer, where no hunt is set up to “solve" them. Though I am not alone in this endeavour to consider paradoxes from a different perspective, new insights into the nature of the living organization and the working of the nervous system allow today the opportunity to strengthen this revolutionary viewpoint. Several experiments performed on a multicomputer realization of organizationally closed (paradoxical) unities, suggest a nervous system where processes and descriptions are more fundamental concepts than time and space. While the consequences of this new approach remain still to be explored, a sensitive reader will already enjoy them

Post-Soviet Belarus: The Transformation of National Identity

The paper deals with the formation of a new national identity in Belarus under conditions of post-Soviet transformation. Under the term of "national identity" the author means the identity of the population of the Republic of Belarus that will be adequate to its status of a newly independent state acquired after 1991. Special attention is paid to the existing major research approaches to the problem of constructing this national identity. According to the author's view, both major approaches are inadequate; the author puts forward a new (third) approach that goes beyond discussions on language and national culture, and corresponds to the concept of plurality of identities. The author describes some paradoxes of national identity based on the opposition of "nation" and "people". These correspond to the Western model of the "creation of modern nations", which is not fully applicable to post-Soviet Belarus. All attempts to apply this model to contemporary Belarus lead scholars to several "cultural paradoxes" that can, however, be explained within a new approach