Exploring the Intersection of Rationality, Reality, and Theory of Mind in AI Reasoning: An Analysis of GPT-4's Responses to Paradoxes and ToM Tests

This paper investigates the responses of GPT-4, a state-of-the-art AI language model, to ten prominent philosophical paradoxes, and evaluates its capacity to reason and make decisions in complex and uncertain situations. In addition to analyzing GPT-4's solutions to the paradoxes, this paper assesses the model's Theory of Mind (ToM) capabilities by testing its understanding of mental states, intentions, and beliefs in scenarios ranging from classic ToM tests to complex, real-world simulations. Through these tests, we gain insight into AI's potential for social reasoning and its capacity for more sophisticated forms of human-AI interaction. The paper also explores the limitations and biases of AI-generated reasoning and its implications for our comprehension of complex philosophical problems

Symbolic and Cognitive Theory in Biology

In previous work, I have looked in detail at the capacity and the limits of the linguistics model as applied to gene expression. The recent use of a primitive applied linguistic model in Apple's SIRI system allows further analysis. In particular, the failings of this system resemble those of the HGP; the model used also helps point out the shortcomings of the concept of the "gene". This is particularly urgent as we are entering an era of applied biology in the absence of theory, and indeed an era with a near-epidemic of retracted papers. There are a few workarounds proposed. One is to add to the nascent field of biosemiotics a more explicit concern with syntax. At the time of writing, Apple is being sued for false advertising of its iphone 4s, with the associated claim that apple had solved many of the problems of natural language processing by computer (nlpbc). The system was bought by Apple from a company called SIRI, and in turn was based on the notion, trumpeted by the prior art in a company called Dejima, that nlpbc could be done by keywords alone. Yet the hype resembles nothing so much as the misrepresentation of the Human Genome Project (HGP) fed to the media in the glory days at the beginning of this millennium, and it says a lot for the status of scientists in society that they have avoided Apple's fate. In this paper, a short review of several current themes in theoretical and applied biology is first proposed. Then the tensions implicit in the notion that the "gene" is simultaneously to be identified as a unit of inheritance and spatially located over spatially well-defined nucleotides is explored and the notion is found to be incoherent. An expanded notion of inheritance is proposed in the context of a focus on inheritance as necessarily involving species, population and organism over time. While it is premature to talk about a paradigm shift, it is certainly arguable that biology urgently needs a sophisticated theory of how symbols work substantially more sophisticated than that implicit in the HGP; Biosemiotics affords a framework in which this might be tried. Indeed, as this paper concludes, there may yet be room for a "Bionoetics", a perspective in which biological explanation can be extended to include cognition in all its forms. Finally, a working sketch of a modeling environment written in LISP, one that shows promise in reflecting the complexities discussed in the paper, is included

Jehan Alain: Selected Organ Works

This project is a study of selected organ pieces (from the 24 published) of French composer Jehan Alain (1911-1940). Although a catalogue of works of Alain lists 93 titles, the works for organ represent the composer\u27s major field of concentration during the last six years of his life. Alain, who died during World War II at the age of 29, made a significant contribution to the twentieth-century organ repertory despite his short lifetime. The procedure of study was, first, to examine existing secondary sources--a biography by Bernard Gavoty, and an article on the performance of Alain\u27s organ music by the composer\u27s sister, Marie-Claire Alain, a concert organist. Secondly, the writer obtained and studied a doctoral dissertation by Richard Travis Bouchett, and lastly learned to play the pieces in order to analyze in detail selected organ works. Alain\u27s pieces possess a quality of individuality which distinguishes them from his contemporaries. His works are not liturgically oriented, but possess a secular inspiration. Many of his compositions are improvisatory in nature, and show evidence of the influence of Gregorian chant, e.g., free rhythm, modality, and linear writing. Alain further experimented with timbre, and called for unorthodox combinations of organ stops and mutation stops. The basic ingredients of Alain\u27s music are quite common, but it is the manner in which he uses these ideas that results in a style that is uniquely his

To engage or not to engage with AI for critical judgments : how professionals deal with opacity when using AI for medical diagnosis

rtificial intelligence (AI) technologies promise to transform how professionals conduct knowledge work by augmenting their capabilities for making professional judgments. We know little, however, about how human-AI augmentation takes place in practice. Yet, gaining this understanding is particularly important when professionals use AI tools to form judgments on critical decisions. We conducted an in-depth field study in a major U.S. hospital where AI tools were used in three departments by diagnostic radiologists making breast cancer, lung cancer, and bone age determinations. The study illustrates the hindering effects of opacity that professionals experienced when using AI tools and explores how these professionals grappled with it in practice. In all three departments, this opacity resulted in professionals experiencing increased uncertainty because AI tool results often diverged from their initial judgment without providing underlying reasoning. Only in one department (of the three) did professionals consistently incorporate AI results into their final judgments, achieving what we call engaged augmentation. These professionals invested in AI interrogation practices—practices enacted by human experts to relate their own knowledge claims to AI knowledge claims. Professionals in the other two departments did not enact such practices and did not incorporate AI inputs into their final decisions, which we call unengaged “augmentation.” Our study unpacks the challenges involved in augmenting professional judgment with powerful, yet opaque, technologies and contributes to literature on AI adoption in knowledge work

International development cooperation and innovation promotion: a discussion paper for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Finland

In commissioning this study on innovation and development cooperation, the Department of International Development Cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland has made an important contribution to the ongoing discussion of the role, nature and opportunities that innovation could have in enhancing the current practice and instruments of international development cooperation

Drones, Signals, and the Techno-Colonisation of Landscape

This research project is a cross-disciplinary, creative practice-led investigation that interrogates increasing military interest in the electromagnetic spectrum (EMS). The project’s central argument is that painted visualisations of normally invisible aspects of contemporary EMS-enabled warfare can reveal useful, novel, and speculative but informed perspectives that contribute to debates about war and technology. It pays particular attention to how visualising normally invisible signals reveals an insidious techno-colonisation of our extended environment from Earth to orbiting satellites

Understanding the Environmental Elements in Religious Student Organizations through Sharon Park’s Mentoring Community Theory

Students are coming to colleges and universities for spiritual fulfillment and have turned to religious student organizations (i.e. Campus Crusade for Christ, Newman Centers, Muslim Student Association, Hillel, etc.) to attain guidance and support. To better understand the spiritual environment religious student organizations have in place, many researchers have used the spiritual development theories of Sharon Parks. Parks theorized that “mentoring communities” need seven environmental elements in order to offer students the greatest chance for spiritual development. The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of Parks’ environmental elements adopted by religious student organizations to help support spiritual development. The research questions focused on students’ perceptions of their religious student organization community and determined if a relationship exists between Parks mentoring community’s theory and the members’ spirituality. Using a quantitative research design, two surveys, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale and a self developed questionnaire, were administered to a hundred and seven students in a variety of religious student organizations at three institutions to gain a better understanding of the Parks’ environmental elements within the religious student organization. Specifically, descriptive statistics, analysis of variance, and correlation analysis of the variables were used in this study to address/answer the research questions. The findings revealed that the three religious groups studied (non-Christian, non-Denominational Christian, and Denominational Christian) had similar spiritual well-being scores, resulting from the Spiritual Well-Being Scale. The findings also revealed that high involvement in those religious student organizations did not mean a high spiritual well-being score and that Parks’ theory of a mentoring community was significant for Christian groups but not as helpful for non-Christian religious student organizations. The research concludes with suggestions for future research, especially for non-Christian religious student organizations

Bardian, Vol. 23, No. 2 (April 1, 1943)

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