Indexical Realism by Inter-Agentic Reference

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’

Last bastion of reason

Attacks the irrationalism of Lakatos's Proofs and Refutations and defends mathematics as a "last bastion" of reason against postmodernist and deconstructionist currents

Wittgenstein and the Life of Signs

Articl

The development of scientific reasoning in preschoolers: hypothesis testing, evidence evaluation and argumentation from evidence

Although research on scientific reasoning has shown that young children have poor skills in epistemic activities such as evidence evaluation or experimentation; recent research demonstrated that they have powerful learning mechanisms in making causal predictions from evidence patterns or performing experiments to reveal causal relations that are not readily available to them. Although these abilities are informative concerning early epistemic activities, little is known about whether young children can reason scientifically. The ability to coordinate hypotheses and evidence; and having a metacognitive understanding of the hypothesis–evidence relation are the two foundational abilities for scientific reasoning. In three empirical studies, the present thesis investigated the development of these two abilities in 4- to 6-year-old preschoolers in three epistemic activities; namely, hypothesis testing, evidence evaluation, and argumentation from evidence. Study 1 showed that older preschoolers can differentiate between epistemic goals of hypothesis testing and practical goals of effect production, which suggest that the epistemic categories of hypotheses and evidence; and the ability to coordinate the two is already present in the late preschool years. Study 2 revealed that preschoolers can generate disconfirming evidence in order to refute false causal claims and they can reflect on the relation between beliefs and evidence. Study 3 showed that 5- and 6-year-olds can reflect on the relation between their knowledge states and confounded evidence. The findings of the three studies suggest that the foundational abilities for scientific reasoning, understanding the inferential relation of hypothesis and evidence and the reflective ability over this relation are present in preschoolers

Emergence of fractal cosmic space from fractional quantum gravity

Based on Padmanabhan's theory, the spatial expansion of the Universe can be explained by the emergence of space as cosmic time progresses. To further explore this idea, we have developed fractional-fractal Friedmann and Raychaudhuri equations for an isotropic and homogeneous universe. Our analysis has also delved into how Padmanabhan's concept fits into the framework of fractional quantum gravity. Our research shows that a fractal horizon model strongly supports the validity of the emerging Universe paradigm and its connection to horizon thermodynamics. This study indicates early how the emergent gravity perspective might manifest in quantum gravity. By utilizing the fractional-fractal Friedmann and Raychaudhuri equations, we have established that the mainstream cosmology model can be justified without a dark matter component. As a result, the standard $\Lambda$CDM model has been reduced to $\Lambda$-Cold Baryonic Matter, which has significant implications for our understanding of the Universe.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Eur. Phys. J. Plu

Relative information entropy in cosmology: The problem of information entanglement

The necessary information to distinguish a local inhomogeneous mass density field from its spatial average on a compact domain of the universe can be measured by relative information entropy. The Kullback-Leibler (KL) formula arises very naturally in this context, however, it provides a very complicated way to compute the mutual information between spatially separated but causally connected regions of the universe in a realistic, inhomogeneous model. To circumvent this issue, by considering a parametric extension of the KL measure, we develop a simple model to describe the mutual information which is entangled via the gravitational field equations. We show that the Tsallis relative entropy can be a good approximation in the case of small inhomogeneities, and for measuring the independent relative information inside the domain, we propose the R\'enyi relative entropy formula.Received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under the grant agreement No. PCOFUND-GA-2009-246542; from CMAT through FEDER Funds COMPETE, and also from FCT projects Est-OE/MAT/UI0013/2014, SFRH/BCC/105835/2014 and CERN/FP/123609/2011

Precis of neuroconstructivism: how the brain constructs cognition

Neuroconstructivism: How the Brain Constructs Cognition proposes a unifying framework for the study of cognitive development that brings together (1) constructivism (which views development as the progressive elaboration of increasingly complex structures), (2) cognitive neuroscience (which aims to understand the neural mechanisms underlying behavior), and (3) computational modeling (which proposes formal and explicit specifications of information processing). The guiding principle of our approach is context dependence, within and (in contrast to Marr [1982]) between levels of organization. We propose that three mechanisms guide the emergence of representations: competition, cooperation, and chronotopy; which themselves allow for two central processes: proactivity and progressive specialization. We suggest that the main outcome of development is partial representations, distributed across distinct functional circuits. This framework is derived by examining development at the level of single neurons, brain systems, and whole organisms. We use the terms encellment, embrainment, and embodiment to describe the higher-level contextual influences that act at each of these levels of organization. To illustrate these mechanisms in operation we provide case studies in early visual perception, infant habituation, phonological development, and object representations in infancy. Three further case studies are concerned with interactions between levels of explanation: social development, atypical development and within that, developmental dyslexia. We conclude that cognitive development arises from a dynamic, contextual change in embodied neural structures leading to partial representations across multiple brain regions and timescales, in response to proactively specified physical and social environment