Time in written spaces

Time in written form pervades our social existence. From the daily news, whether on the web or in print, to wall calendars in our homes or offices, which tell us what day it is; from personal watches or cellphones to public clocks, which tell us what hour it is; from small change in our purses or pockets to use-by dates on our groceries, which remind us when things were made; and from personal or recreational diaries to bus and train timetables, which tell us when we did or should do things, we are constantly made aware of time and its passing in the modern world. And because of the means by which we tell the time in these contexts, it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the ancient world did not have such persistent reminders as well. Yet archaeology and literature combine to tell us differently. In this chapter I wish to discuss aspects of this combination, focusing on time in written forms, on the collocation of the mechanisms of time and writing, and on the spatial setting in which these are found, all of which demonstrate a politicization of time in the late Republic and early Empire

What do connectionnist simulations tell us?

In his review, Rispoli’s main concern is that Elman et al.’s book will aggravate the degree of polarisation in developmental psycholinguistics. I cannot really comment on this worry, as developmental psycholinguistics is not my field. Instead, I will discuss some questions more related to my background--the role of computational modelling in Elman et al.’s approach

What Do Symmetries Tell Us About Structure?

Mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers of physics often look to the symmetries of an object for insight into the structure and constitution of the object. My aim in this paper is to explain why this practice is successful. In order to do so, I present a collection of results that are closely related to (and in a sense, generalizations of) Beth’s and Svenonius’ theorems

What does functionalism tell us about personal identity?

Sydney Shoemaker argues that the functionalist theory of mind entails a psychological-continuity view of personal identity, as well as providing a defense of that view against a crucial objection. I show that his view has surprising consequences, e.g. that no organism could have mental properties and that a thing's mental properties fail to supervene even weakly on its microstructure and surroundings. I then argue that the view founders on "fission" cases and rules out our being material things. Functionalism tells us little if anything about personal identity

Prevalence studies: what do they really tell us?

It is only through acknowledging complexity and a willingness to engage in an ongoing quest for understanding that we can ever hope to fully understand the phenomena of problem gambling. While prevalence studies constitute one of the most frequently used types of research in the field of gambling studies, are they prone to be misinterpreted when efforts are made to gain an insight into the causes behind the development of gambling problems