132,852 research outputs found
Wittgenstein and the memory debate
Original article can be found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/0732118X Copyright Elsevier Ltd. DOI: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2008.04.015In this paper, I survey the impact on neuropsychology of Wittgensteinās elucidations of memory. Wittgenstein discredited the storage and imprint models of memory, dissolved the conceptual link between memory and mental images or representations and, upholding the context-sensitivity of memory, made room for a family resemblance concept of memory, where remembering can also amount to doing or saying something. While neuropsychology is still generally under the spell of archival and physiological notions of memory, Wittgenstein's reconceptions can be seen at work in its leading-edge practitioners. However, neuroscientists, generally, are finding memory difficult to demarcate from other cognitive and noncognitive processes, and I suggest this is largely due to their considering automatic responses as part of memory, termed nondeclarative or implicit memory. Taking my lead from Wittgenstein's On Certainty, I argue that there is only remembering where there is also some kind of mnemonic effort or attention, and therefore that so-called implicit memory is not memory at all, but a basic, noncognitive certainty.Peer reviewe
Entropy? Honest!
Here we deconstruct, and then in a reasoned way reconstruct, the concept of
"entropy of a system," paying particular attention to where the randomness may
be coming from. We start with the core concept of entropy as a COUNT associated
with a DESCRIPTION; this count (traditionally expressed in logarithmic form for
a number of good reasons) is in essence the number of possibilities---specific
instances or "scenarios," that MATCH that description. Very natural (and
virtually inescapable) generalizations of the idea of description are the
probability distribution and of its quantum mechanical counterpart, the density
operator.
We track the process of dynamically updating entropy as a system evolves.
Three factors may cause entropy to change: (1) the system's INTERNAL DYNAMICS;
(2) unsolicited EXTERNAL INFLUENCES on it; and (3) the approximations one has
to make when one tries to predict the system's future state. The latter task is
usually hampered by hard-to-quantify aspects of the original description,
limited data storage and processing resource, and possibly algorithmic
inadequacy. Factors 2 and 3 introduce randomness into one's predictions and
accordingly degrade them. When forecasting, as long as the entropy bookkeping
is conducted in an HONEST fashion, this degradation will ALWAYS lead to an
entropy increase.
To clarify the above point we introduce the notion of HONEST ENTROPY, which
coalesces much of what is of course already done, often tacitly, in responsible
entropy-bookkeping practice. This notion, we believe, will help to fill an
expressivity gap in scientific discourse. With its help we shall prove that ANY
dynamical system---not just our physical universe---strictly obeys Clausius's
original formulation of the second law of thermodynamics IF AND ONLY IF it is
invertible. Thus this law is a TAUTOLOGICAL PROPERTY of invertible systems!Comment: 27 pages, 11 figures. Published in the journal "Entropy" in June
2016. Abstracts from referee's reports quoted right after the abstrac
Design Ltd.: Renovated Myths for the Development of Socially Embedded Technologies
This paper argues that traditional and mainstream mythologies, which have
been continually told within the Information Technology domain among designers
and advocators of conceptual modelling since the 1960s in different fields of
computing sciences, could now be renovated or substituted in the mould of more
recent discourses about performativity, complexity and end-user creativity that
have been constructed across different fields in the meanwhile. In the paper,
it is submitted that these discourses could motivate IT professionals in
undertaking alternative approaches toward the co-construction of
socio-technical systems, i.e., social settings where humans cooperate to reach
common goals by means of mediating computational tools. The authors advocate
further discussion about and consolidation of some concepts in design research,
design practice and more generally Information Technology (IT) development,
like those of: task-artifact entanglement, universatility (sic) of End-User
Development (EUD) environments, bricolant/bricoleur end-user, logic of
bricolage, maieuta-designers (sic), and laissez-faire method to socio-technical
construction. Points backing these and similar concepts are made to promote
further discussion on the need to rethink the main assumptions underlying IT
design and development some fifty years later the coming of age of software and
modern IT in the organizational domain.Comment: This is the peer-unreviewed of a manuscript that is to appear in D.
Randall, K. Schmidt, & V. Wulf (Eds.), Designing Socially Embedded
Technologies: A European Challenge (2013, forthcoming) with the title
"Building Socially Embedded Technologies: Implications on Design" within an
EUSSET editorial initiative (www.eusset.eu/
Universe creation on a computer
The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the epistemology and
metaphysics of universe creation on a computer
New Spectacles for Juliette: Values and Ethics for Creative Business
This is the third book in an on-going series published by Nottingham
Creative Network which was established in 2006 as a re-incarnation of Creative Collaborations which was established in 2003. Both incarnations offer(ed) professional and business development advice, support, training and networking opportunities made relevant for the specific and sometimes non-standard ways that creative businesses operate and exchange. This series of books occupies a cross-over space between broad conceptual debates, creativity itself, ideas for creative business and concrete advice for professional development.
The first in this series is entitled Fish, Horses and Other Animals; Professional and Business Development for the Creative Ecology and tries to offer some ideas about understanding and engaging with informal creative business networks. The second, Soul Food, and Music: Research and Innovation for Creative Business explores ways to consolidate research for creative business and use it for thinking about innovation. As you will see, this third book continues the theme of professional and business development for the specifics of creative business by introducing questions of values and ethics into our broader on-going discussion
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