Contributo alla storia del dualismo in Grecia

Iranian dualism differs from Greek dualism in that the former introduces an ontological "compactness", of the two opposite principles, which is absent from the latter. Greek, and chiefly Platonic, dualism operates wiih the conception of a "graduality" of the divine, admitting thereafter the existence of mediating beings such as the Soul (World Soul and human soul). But, while Christian dualism confines itself to the fields of ethics, Greek classical dualism grasps the boundaries of ontology by underlining the differences and even the separation between the two worlds, the divine and the non divine.Thus,even such Plotinian utterances as "the evil as privation" do not delete completely the ontological flavour of the vertical dualism of Greek though

Opposition and Identicalness: Two Basic Components of Adults' Perception and Mental Representation of Symmetry

Symmetry is a salient aspect of biological and man-made objects, and has a central role in perceptual organization. Two studies investigate the role of opposition and identicalness in shaping adults’ naïve idea of “symmetry”. In study 1, both verbal descriptions of symmetry (either provided by the participants or selected from among alternatives presented by the experimenter) and configurations drawn as exemplars of symmetry were studied. In study 2, a pair comparison task was used. Both studies focus on configurations formed by two symmetrical shapes (i.e., between-objects symmetry). Three main results emerged. The explicit description of symmetry provided by participants generally referred to features relating to the relationship perceived between the two shapes and not to geometrical point-by-point transformations. Despite the fact that people tended to avoid references to opposition in their verbal definition of symmetry in study 1, the drawings that they did to represent their prototypical idea of symmetry manifested opposition as a basic component. This latter result was confirmed when the participants were asked to select the definition (in study 1) or the configuration (in study 2) that best fitted with their idea of symmetry. In conclusion, identicalness is an important component in people’s naïve idea of symmetry, but it does not suffice: opposition complements it

Grounding naive physics and optics in perception

Abstract Many adults hold mistaken beliefs concerning the behavior of mechanical motion and reflections. In the field of psychology this has been investigated in the areas of naïve physics and naïve optics. The interesting question regards where these false beliefs come from. Particularly thought-provoking is the case of errors which are at odds not only with (presumably or even actually) known physical/optical concepts, but also with what people would actually perceive. Some errors are in fact consistent with what people see in ecological conditions while others apparently are not. This has led to the former being referred to as perceptual errors and the latter as conceptual errors (Lawson and Bertamini 2006). We propose that many of these ‘conceptual errors’ are generalizations of what can be actually perceived under some conditions that are then incorrectly applied under others. In this sense, they can be thought of as a second way in which perception shapes naïve beliefs

Pleasures of the Mind: What Makes Jokes and Insight Problems Enjoyable

In this paper, a parallel analysis of the enjoyment derived from humor and insight problem solving is presented with reference to a \u201cgeneral\u201d Theory of the Pleasures of the Mind (TPM) (Kubovy, 1999) rather than to \u201clocal\u201d theories regarding what makes humor and insight problem solving enjoyable. The similarity of these two cognitive activities has already been discussed in previous literature in terms of the cognitive mechanisms which underpin getting a joke or having an insight experience in a problem solving task. The paper explores whether we can learn something new about the similarities and differences between humor and problem solving by means of an investigation of what makes them pleasurable. In the first part of the paper, the framework for this joint analysis is set. Two descriptive studies are then presented in which the participants were asked to report on their experiences relating to solving visuo-spatial insight problems (Study 1) or understanding cartoons (Study 2) in terms of whether they were enjoyable or otherwise. In both studies, the responses were analyzed with reference to a set of categories inspired by the TPM. The results of Study 1 demonstrate that finding the solution to a problem is associated with a positive evaluation, and the most frequent explanations for this were reported as being Curiosity, Virtuosity and Violation of expectations. The results of Study 2 suggest that understanding a joke (Joy of verification) and being surprised by it (Feeling of surprise) were two essential conditions: when they were not present, the cartoons were perceived as not enjoyable. However, this was not enough to explain the motivations for the choice of the most enjoyable cartoons. Recognizing a Violation of expectations and experiencing a diminishment in the cleverness or awareness initially attributed to the characters in the cartoon were the aspects which were most frequently indicated by the participants to explain why they enjoyed the joke. These findings are evaluated in the final discussion, together with their limitations and potential future developments

Can Contraries Prompt Intuition in Insight Problem Solving?

This paper aims to test whether the use of contraries can facilitate spatial problem solving. Specifically, we examined whether a training session which included explicit guidance on thinking in contraries would improve problem solving abilities. In our study, the participants in the experimental condition were exposed to a brief training session before being presented with seven visuo-spatial problems to solve. During training it was suggested that it would help them to find the solution to the problems if they systematically transformed the spatial features of each problem into their contraries. Their performance was compared to that of a control group (who had no training). Two participation conditions were considered: small groups and individuals. Higher success rates were found in the groups exposed to training as compared to the individuals (in both the training and no training conditions), even though the time required to find a solution was longer. In general, participants made more attempts (i.e. drawings) when participating in groups than individually. The number of drawings done while the participants were trying to solve the problems did not increase after training. In order to explore if the quality (if not the number) of drawings was modified, we sampled one problem out of the seven we had used in the experiment (the \u201cpigs in a pen\u201d problem) and examined the drawings in detail. Differences between the training and no training conditions emerged in terms of properties focused on and transformed in the drawings. Based on these results, in the final discussion possible explanations are suggested as to why training had positive effects specifically in the group condition

The Global sphere reconstruction (GSR) - Demonstrating an independent implementation of the astrometric core solution for Gaia

Context. The Gaia ESA mission will estimate the astrometric and physical data of more than one billion objects, providing the largest and most precise catalog of absolute astrometry in the history of Astronomy. The core of this process, the so-called global sphere reconstruction, is represented by the reduction of a subset of these objects which will be used to define the celestial reference frame. As the Hipparcos mission showed, and as is inherent to all kinds of absolute measurements, possible errors in the data reduction can hardly be identified from the catalog, thus potentially introducing systematic errors in all derived work. Aims. Following up on the lessons learned from Hipparcos, our aim is thus to develop an independent sphere reconstruction method that contributes to guarantee the quality of the astrometric results without fully reproducing the main processing chain. Methods. Indeed, given the unfeasibility of a complete replica of the data reduction pipeline, an astrometric verification unit (AVU) was instituted by the Gaia Data Processing and Analysis Consortium (DPAC). One of its jobs is to implement and operate an independent global sphere reconstruction (GSR), parallel to the baseline one (AGIS, namely Astrometric Global Iterative Solution) but limited to the primary stars and for validation purposes, to compare the two results, and to report on any significant differences. Results. Tests performed on simulated data show that GSR is able to reproduce at the sub-$\mu$as level the results of the AGIS demonstration run presented in Lindegren et al. (2012). Conclusions. Further development is ongoing to improve on the treatment of real data and on the software modules that compare the AGIS and GSR solutions to identify possible discrepancies above the tolerance level set by the accuracy of the Gaia catalog.Comment: Accepted for publication on Astronomy & Astrophysic

Opposites in Reasoning Processes: Do We Use Them More Than We Think, but Less Than We Could?

Our aim in this paper is to contribute toward acknowledging the general role of opposites as an organizing principle in the human mind. We support this claim in relation to human reasoning by collecting evidence from various studies which shows that “thinking in opposites” is not only involved in formal logical thinking, but can also be applied in both deductive and inductive reasoning, as well as in problem solving. We also describe the results of a series of studies which, although they have been developed within a number of different theoretical frameworks based on various methodologies, all demonstrate that giving hints or training reasoners to think in terms of opposites improves their performance in tasks in which spontaneous thinking may lead to classic biases and impasses. Since we all possess an intuitive idea of what opposites are, prompting people to “think in opposites” is something which is undoubtedly within everyone’s reach and in the final section, we discuss the potential of this strategy and suggest possible future research directions of systematic testing the benefits that might arise from the use of this technique in contexts beyond those tested thus far. Ascertaining the conditions in which reasoners might benefit will also help in terms of clarifying the underlying mechanisms from the point of view, for instance, of analytical, conscious processing vs. automatic, unconscious processing

The effects of presenting oncologic information in terms of opposites in a medical context

Background: An extensive body of literature has demonstrated that many patients who have been asked to participate in clinical trials do not fully understand the informed consent forms. A parallel independent study has demonstrated that opposites have a special status in human cognitive organization: they are common to all-natural languages and are intuitively and naturally understood and learnt. Purpose: The study investigates whether, and how, the use of opposites impacts on doctor\u2013patient communication: does using the terms \u201csmall\u2013large\u201d to describe a nodule (ie, bipolar communication) rather than speaking in terms of centimeters (ie, unipolar communication) affect a patient\u2019s understanding of the situation? And is it better to speak of \u201ccommon\u2013rare\u201d side effects (ie, bipolar communication) instead of the number of people who have suffered from particular side effects (ie, unipolar communication)? Methods: Two questionnaires were created and used, one presenting the information in terms of opposites (ie, bipolar communication) and another using unipolar communication. Results: The participants\u2019 perception of their situation (in terms of feeling healthy\u2013ill, being at high\u2013low risk, and their treatment requiring high\u2013low commitment) varied in the two conditions. Moreover, self-reported levels of understanding and satisfaction with how the information was communicated were higher when opposites were used. Limitations: Since this is the first study that addresses the merits of using bipolar structures versus unipolar structures in doctor\u2013patient communication, further work is needed to consolidate and expand on the results, involving not only simulated but also real diagnostic contexts. Conclusion: The encouraging results imply that further testing of the use of opposites in informed consent forms and in doctor\u2013patient communication is strongly advisable. Keywords: opposites, bipolar, unipolar, informed consent, doctor\u2013patient communication, understanding, satisfactio