23,297 research outputs found
A Biologically Informed Hylomorphism
Although contemporary metaphysics has recently undergone a neo-Aristotelian revival wherein dispositions, or capacities are now commonplace in empirically grounded ontologies, being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, a central Aristotelian concept has yet to be given serious attention â the doctrine of hylomorphism. The reason for this is clear: while the Aristotelian ontological distinction between actuality and potentiality has proven to be a fruitful conceptual framework with which to model the operation of the natural world, the distinction between form and matter has yet to similarly earn its keep. In this chapter, I offer a first step toward showing that the hylomorphic framework is up to that task. To do so, I return to the birthplace of that doctrine - the biological realm. Utilising recent advances in developmental biology, I argue that the hylomorphic framework is an empirically adequate and conceptually rich explanatory schema with which to model the nature of organism
Patterns, Information, and Causation
This paper articulates an account of causation as a collection of information-theoretic relationships between patterns instantiated in the causal nexus. I draw on Dennettâs account of real patterns to characterize potential causal relata as patterns with specific identification criteria and noise tolerance levels, and actual causal relata as those patterns instantiated at some spatiotemporal location in the rich causal nexus as originally developed by Salmon. I develop a representation framework using phase space to precisely characterize causal relata, including their degree of counterfactual robustness, causal profiles, causal connectivity, and privileged grain size. By doing so, I show how the philosophical notion of causation can be rendered in a format that is amenable for direct application of mathematical techniques from information theory such that the resulting informational measures are causal informational measures. This account provides a metaphysics of causation that supports interventionist semantics and causal modeling and discovery techniques
Ontology Change Management in Protégé
Ontology schemas tend to change and evolve over time to meet new requirements. This change may invalidate dependent applications if there is no dynamic adaptation to the changes made to underlying ontologies. Protégé, as a popular ontology development tool, should meet the challenges addressed by the evolving ontology. In this paper, we will briefly analyse the current ontology-change management in Protégé, and propose some extensions to facilitate change traceability by external application and services
A Bootstrap Theory: the SEMAT Kernel Itself as Runnable Software
The SEMAT kernel is a thoroughly thought generic framework for Software
Engineering system development in practice. But one should be able to test its
characteristics by means of a no less generic theory matching the SEMAT kernel.
This paper claims that such a matching theory is attainable and describes its
main principles. The conceptual starting point is the robustness of the Kernel
alphas to variations in the nature of the software system, viz. to software
automation, distribution and self-evolution. From these and from observed
Kernel properties follows the proposed bootstrap principle: a software system
theory should itself be a runnable software. Thus, the kernel alphas can be
viewed as a top-level ontology, indeed the Essence of Software Engineering.
Among the interesting consequences of this bootstrap theory, the observable
system characteristics can now be formally tested. For instance, one can check
the system completeness, viz. that software system modules fulfill each one of
the system requirements.Comment: 8 pages; 2 figures; Preprint of paper accepted for GTSE'2014
Workshop, within ICSE'2014 Conferenc
Ontology Change Management in Protégé
Ontology schemas tend to change and evolve over time to meet new requirements. This change may invalidate dependent applications if there is no dynamic adaptation to the changes made to underlying ontologies. Protégé, as a popular ontology development tool, should meet the challenges addressed by the evolving ontology. In this paper, we will briefly analyse the current ontology-change management in Protégé, and propose some extensions to facilitate change traceability by external application and services
Quantum to Classical Transitions via Weak Measurements and Post-Selection
This work will incorporate a few related tools for addressing the conceptual
difficulties arising from sewing together classical and quantum mechanics:
deterministic operators, weak measurements and post-selection. Weak
Measurement, based on a very weak von Neumann coupling, is a unique kind of
quantum measurement with numerous theoretical and practical applications. In
contrast to other measurement techniques, it allows to gather a small amount of
information regarding the quantum system, with only a negligible probability of
collapsing it. A single weak measurement yields an almost random outcome, but
when performed repeatedly over a large ensemble, the averaged outcome becomes
increasingly robust and accurate. Importantly, a long sequence of weak
measurements can be thought of as a single projective measurement. I claim in
this work that classical variables appearing in the macro-world, such as centre
of mass, moment of inertia, pressure and average forces, result from a
multitude of quantum weak measurements performed in the micro-world. Here
again, the quantum outcomes are highly uncertain, but the law of large numbers
obliges their convergence to the definite quantities we know from our everyday
lives. By augmenting this description with a final boundary condition and
employing the notion of "classical robustness under time-reversal" I will draw
a quantitative borderline between the classical and quantum regimes. I will
conclude by analyzing the role of macroscopic systems in amplifying and
recording quantum outcomes.Comment: To be published as a book chapter in "Quantum Structural Studies:
Classical Emergence from the Quantum Level", R.E. Kastner, J. Jeknic-Dugic,
G. Jaroszkiewicz (Eds.), World Scientific Publishing Co. arXiv admin note:
substantial text overlap with arXiv:1406.638
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