Meaning, autonomy, symbolic causality, and free will

As physical entities that translate symbols into physical actions, computers offer insights into the nature of meaning and agency. • Physical symbol systems, generically known as agents, link abstractions to material actions. The meaning of a symbol is defined as the physical actions an agent takes when the symbol is encountered. • An agent has autonomy when it has the power to select actions based on internal decision processes. Autonomy offers a partial escape from constraints imposed by direct physical influences such as gravity and the transfer of momentum. Swimming upstream is an example. • Symbols are names that can designate other entities. It appears difficult to explain the use of names and symbols in terms of more primitive functionality. The ability to use names and symbols, i.e., symbol grounding, may be a fundamental cognitive building block. • The standard understanding of causality—wiggling X results in Y wiggling—applies to both physical causes (e.g., one billiard ball hitting another) and symbolic causes (e.g., a traffic light changing color). Because symbols are abstract, they cannot produce direct physical effects. For a symbol to be a cause requires that the affected entity determine its own response. This is called autonomous causality. • This analysis of meaning and autonomy offers new perspectives on free will

Your Turn, Doctor

Between incurably degenerative illness and the graffiti which ignited the Syrian Civil War, YOUR TURN, DOCTOR complicates hope. When myths of revolution, of wellness, no longer console—love as measured in anything but loss. Within a multidisciplinary project how an increasingly painful embodiment intersects the material excess of capitalism is explored. Can objects function as a political demand, necessitating changes in the way the world is ordered? Who for? To understand one kind of oppression in necessary sterility and another in marginalization so profound blindness can result. That is to ask, how long must one be told they do not see a thing they see before they don’t, before transgressions become norms? A list of Indulgences modeled loosely after Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses outlines content. Five sections reference the five pillars of Islam— with each containing nineteen individual proposals. Nineteen serves as the common denominator for the mathematical structure of much of the text of the Quran

Merleau-Ponty’s implicit critique of the new mechanists

I argue (1) that what (ontic) New Mechanistic philosophers of science call mechanisms would be material Gestalten, and (2) that Merleau-Ponty’s engagement with Gestalt theory can help us frame a standing challenge against ontic conceptions of mechanisms. In short, until the (ontic) New Mechanist can provide us with a plausible account of the organization of mechanisms as an objective feature of mind-independent ontic structures in the world which we might discover – and no ontic Mechanist has done so – it is more conservative to claim that mechanistic organization is instead a mind-dependent aspect of our epistemic strategies of mechanistic explanation

Branches over Ripples: A Waterside Journal

Branches Over Ripples: A Waterside Journal is a fifty-entry plein-air writing project drafted between April 2013 and October 2014 by various bodies of water—rivers, brooks, lakes, bays, marshes, waterfalls, a vernal pond, a Japanese koi pond. Most of the writing was done in Nova Scotia locations, but some entries were drafted in New Brunswick, Montreal, Missouri, Manhattan, and London, England. I often walked from an hour to four or five hours, then sat down on bare earth, grass, sand, stone, or wood, and wrote, keeping attuned to my surroundings but also letting my mind and memory wander

A Tale of Two Butterflies: The Effect of Larval Social Environment and Circadian Rhythms on Mating Behavior in Bicyclus anynana and Heliconius hewitsoni

Two key components of mate choice research focus on: 1) who an organism mates with, which may be influenced by any number of factors from sexual ornamentation to male-male competition; and, 2) when an organism courts, be it daily, monthly, or seasonally. Both aspects are especially important for gregarious species as mistakes in either can incur high costs to overall fitness. My research focuses on using butterflies to explore kin recognition from the larval stage and its possible impacts on adult mate choice and if courtship is circadian in Heliconius hewitsoni. My first experiment concerned kin recognition. When inbred, Bicyclus anynana are known to suffer from inbreeding depression, however populations can recover lost fitness within just a few generations when allowed to mate freely. It has been shown that B. anynana can recognize and choose against inbred individuals, however it is unknown whether they can detect siblings. I demonstrated that larval rearing condition (isolated or gregarious) did not influence adult mate choice in that female B. anynana did not innately detect or learn to detect and avoid sibling males during mate selection. Thus, in B. anynana, kin recognition may not be important to reproductive fitness. Through analysis of recorded behavior, I also showed that male harassment did not influence female mate choice. In my second experiment I examined circadian rhythms, specifically regarding courtship. I demonstrated that H. hewitsoni exhibits circadian rhythms, including a period of peak courtship around noon, and that some behaviors are sexually dimorphic in these butterflies. Recorded peak activity closely matches diurnal behavior in H. hewitsoni’s primary food source, which may influence overall behavior patterns in this species. My findings broaden our understanding of the mechanisms behind mate choice and provide valuable information for future research in these two systems, including the importance of female choice versus male harassment and sexual dimorphism in behavior. With my research I have improved our overall understanding of kin recognition and circadian rhythms to address the “who” and “when” of mate choice

Interview with Kathryn Peek

An oral history interview with Kathryn Elaine Hickman Peek about her career as a biomedical administrator and educator at many institutions in the Texas Medical Center. Kathryn Elaine Peek, Ph.D. completed her bachelor’s degree in English and embarked on a first career as a public school teacher. She obtained master’s degrees in biology and behavioral sciences at the University of Houston and UH Clear Lake during two stays in the Houston area. She entered the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at what is now the McGovern Medical School at the age of 39. She graduated with a Ph.D. in biomedical sciences at the age of 44 and embarked on a career that took her from laboratory studies of brain and spinal cord ischemia to the pursuit of information about the biological differences between men and women. Along the way, she mentored many young people pursuing healthcare and science careers and supported numerous women seeking career advancement in STEM professions. Her career was sometimes at the mercies of institutional politics. She retired from the University of Houston in 2013, but as she continues to work as a consultant in the Texas Medical Center, she can look back on raising awareness of women’s health issues as well as boosting the presence of women in leadership positions in the Texas Medical Center