Liberta e responsabilita nel pensiero contemporaneo. Neuroetica ed etica della relazione

«Alle obiezioni contro la libertà possiamo rispondere soltanto con un'eloquenza generica. È un triste tema su cui il più saggio paventa perfino di osare di riflettere» Non mi ritengo nemmeno lontanamente il più saggio, anzi, socraticamente so di non sapere. Nonostante ciò ho deciso di osare di riflettere. Come si scoprirà durante questo percorso, i concetti di “libertà” e di “responsabilità” sono intrinsecamente complessi, articolati, ambigui, confusi e di estremamente difficile trattazione. Inoltre, generalmente, nonostante ogni possibile progresso in merito alla discussione, la risoluzione del problema dell'esistenza della libertà e della conseguente responsabilità viene considerata fuori dalla portata del sapere umano. Ecco perché possiamo rispondere solo con un'eloquenza generica. La libertà e la responsabilità, però, ci interessano perché appaiono fortemente connesse a svariati aspetti del nostro essere; e l'indagine filosofica non può e non deve perdere di vista il proprio spirito riflessivo in merito a tale discussione. Le domande che fanno da sfondo a questo lavoro sono, in apparenza, semplici: Esiste la libertà? Siamo responsabili del nostro agire? Le risposte, tuttavia, sono molto complesse; in primis perché si tratta di argomenti radicati nella storia del pensiero umano, che risalgono fino a Platone e Aristotele, secondo perché le riflessioni sono interdisciplinari. Infatti abbracciano categorie diverse della filosofia – quali la morale, l'etica e la metafisica -, la psicologia sperimentale, la sociologia e le discipline empiriche come le neuroscienze, le quali oggi sembra si vogliano imporre con decisione sulla scena come portatrici di verità. Il lavoro in questione segue uno schema ben preciso: si tratta di un'analisi concettuale filosofica della libertà e della responsabilità, seguita da uno studio – probabilmente embrionale – di carattere neuroetico relativamente alla stessa problematica. Il tutto al fine di teorizzare un modello di etica della relazione che possa essere applicato ad un mondo deterministico come potrebbe essere il nostro; questo perché ritengo che la filosofia non debba essere una mera speculazione accademica, ma debba contribuire in maniera attiva e preponderante allo sviluppo della nostra società. Il primo capitolo fornisce un quadro complessivo definitorio del concetto di “libertà”, fondamentale per comprendere la tradizione della discussione,l'evoluzione storica del concetto, la distinzione tra libero arbitrio e libertà sociale o politica, e per comprendere le due grandi scuole di pensiero in cui si suddividono gli studiosi: ovvero il determinismo e l'indeterminismo. Il secondo capitolo si propone di esaminare le posizioni incompatibiliste e compatibiliste – con le relative critiche e posizioni scettiche – della libertà. L'incompatibilismo, articolato in libertarianism, pessimismo e determinismo duro, si configura come quella teoria filosofica in base alla quale il determinismo universale non può coesistere con la libertà. Mentre, per quanto riguarda il compatibilismo, strutturato in due forme, in cui la prima si limita a considerare l'ipotesi di verità e la seconda che prende il nome di determinismo morbido, è, invece, possibile fornire un senso al concetto di “libertà” anche in un universo interamente regolato da leggi causali. Il terzo capitolo opera un cambiamento tematico, in quanto esso è centrato sulla responsabilità. Viene proposta l'origine del termine, l'evoluzione e la conseguente concettualizzazione filosofica; la discussione contemporanea rappresenta la parte centrale del capitolo e, in chiusura, si teorizza il modello di etica della relazione basato sull'apertura nei confronti dell'alterità che possa essere applicato alla nostra società. Il quarto e ultimo capitolo rappresenta un'indagine empirica neuroscientifica, con un focus sulla neuroetica, relativamente agli stessi concetti di “libertà” e “responsabilità”. Alcuni studi sperimentali sembrano mettere in discussione le nostre idee; qui si suggerisce una breve storia della nascita della neuroetica, per poi evidenziare alcuni studi riguardanti proprio i temi di fondo di questo lavoro. Sempre più si rende necessaria la collaborazione tra filosofia e scienza. Le conclusioni vogliono essere, più che altro, delle considerazioni personali in merito alla questione. Questo perché concludere, e quindi chiudere, una discussione in costante evoluzione credo che sia al limite dell'impossibile

NKOTA WATA: Mining and metaphor in Hamtai-Anga "Gold Dreaming"

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.This work examines a series of mining-related dream narratives as a means of gauging how a community of New Guinean artisanal and small-scale gold miners understands the nature of minerals and their place in the cosmos, and how this cosmological outlook informs the ways they operate qua resource extractors. Through a "structural-metaphorical" analysis of the symbolic themes and ethnographic context of Hamtai-Anga "gold dreaming, " my thesis demonstrates that the miners of Kaindi conceptualise resource extraction in terms of a set of collaborative, procreative, and nurturing relations of "marriage" and of "affinity" between themselves, their spirit familiars, and the masalai (or guardian spirits) of the mines. According to this complex "holography of meaning", the miners are able to "generate”, “exercise, " and "make apparent" their extractive efficacy through a relational and elicitive engagement with their gendered "other"- or, in other words, by means of their capacity to make their female spirit familiars "fall in love" with them, "procreate" minerals like women procreate children, procure gold as wives provide garden food, and link them to the spirits of the mines as women link men to their in-laws. In order to secure and maintain their elicitive power, however, the miners must "enact" this metaphor by "behaving like" "good husbands" and "good affines" towards their familiars and the spirits of the mines. In turn, this means that the tropic conceptualisation of mining as conjugality and affinity with the masalai\familiars is a recipe for action imbued with its own intrinsic morality. This morality, moreover, is itself of an essentially holographic nature. Indeed, not only does it entail analogous normative structures at different "orders" of scale (that is both at the "microcosmic" "level" of interaction between the miners and their human spouses and affines, and in the "macrocosmic" plane of exchange between humans, spirit familiars, and spirits of the mines) but, as is revealed in my thesis, the two "orders" at which it unfolds are actually part of a single whole, so that the flow of analogy at the "macrocosmic" "level" has crucial implications for its "microcosmic" counter-flow, and vice-versa.Funding was obtained from Brunel University and the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Future Electron-Positron Colliders and the 4-Dimensional Composite Higgs Model

In this note we analyse the prospects of a future electron-positron collider in testing a particular realisation of a composite Higgs model encompassing partial compositeness, namely, the 4-Dimensional Composite Higgs Model. We study the main Higgs production channels for three possible energy stages and different luminosity options of such a machine and confront our results to the expected experimental accuracies in the various Higgs decay channels accessible herein and, for comparison, also at the Large Hadron Collider.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, minor corrections for publication in JHE

Inbound open innovation and firm performance

A number of studies focus on the effects of open innovation on firm performance. However, in our view, previous contributions suffer from two main limitations: at first, there is still no homogeneity in the proposition of what "firm performance" is, according to extant literature. In addition, we see a heterogeneity of implications for the relationship between openness and performance, since there is still no consensus among authors on whether the relationship between openness and firm performance is positive, negative or non-linear.We address this issue through an empirical analysis of a cross-national unbalanced panel data of European firms listed in the five major European markets in the years 2008–2013. We seek to sort the impact of the level of inbound openness, derived by the amount invested in internal development versus the external acquisition of intangible assets on firm performance according to three dimensions: economic performance, measured as the amount of firm turnover; firm financial performance, measured with shares value; and human resources performance, measured as the level of employment.Results of panel data regression show that the effects of both internal development and external acquisition are positive and significant across different dimensions, but their output varies in terms in magnitude and distribution both variables are positively and significantly correlated with firm turnover, and that their effect on the latter is almost equal. In addition, we find that only internal development is positively and significantly correlated with the other two dimensions of performance, once we control for firm-specific time trends. Once we control for relative size of firms in the sample, we see that the effect of openness is more spread out across different class sizes, while the effect of internal development of intangibles influences the economic performance only for larger firms, and increases employment only for relatively smaller firms, while it has no effect on the financial side of performance. Resumen: Una serie de estudios centrados en los efectos de la innovación abierta en el desempeño de la empresa. Sin embargo, en nuestra opinión, las contribuciones anteriores sufren sobretodo de dos limitaciones principales: en principio, todavía, no tenemos ninguna homogeneidad en lo que podemos definir como "desempeño de la empresa" basándonos en los escritos existentes. Además, notamos una heterogeneidad de conceptos y opiniones distintas sobre la relación entre apertura y rendimiento, ya que todavía no hay ningún consenso entre los autores sobre si la relación entre la apertura y el desempeño de la empresa pueda ser algo positivo, negativo o discontinuo.Vamos así profundizando este tema a través de un análisis empírico basado en la comparación de los datos de las empresas europeas que figuran en los cinco principales mercados europeos en los años 2008-2013. Intentamos así de clasificar el impacto del nivel de apertura entrante, derivado del monto invertido para el desarrollo interno -por un lado- y la adquisición externa de bienes intangibles en el rendimiento de la empresa -en el otro- de acuerdo con tres dimensiones: Desempeño económico, medido como la cantidad de rotación de la empresa; desempeño financiero de la empresa, medido con el valor de las acciones; desempeño de los recursos humanos, medido como el nivel de empleo.Los resultados de la elaboración de los datos de nuestro panel muestran que los efectos tanto del desarrollo interno como de la adquisición externa son positivos y significativos en varias y distintas dimensiones, pero su producción puede variar en términos de cantidad y distribución. Ambas las variables se correlacionan positivamente y significativamente en cuanto a la rotación de la empresa y su efecto sobre el último es casi lo mismo. Además, encontramos que solo el desarrollo interno se correlaciona positivamente y significativamente con las otras dos dimensiones del desempeño de la empresa una vez que controlamos las tendencias de tiempo específicas de la empresa misma. Una vez que controlamos el tamaño relativo de las empresas consideradas, nos damos cuenta que el efecto de la apertura está más extendido en diferentes tamaños de clase, mientras que el efecto del desarrollo interno de intangibles influye en el rendimiento económico solo para las empresas más grandes y aumenta el empleo solo para las empresas relativamente más pequeñas; mientras que no tiene ningún efecto en el lado financiero de ningún tipo empresa. JEL classification: O320, O390, Códigos JEL: O320, O390, Keywords: Open innovation, Outside-in, Inbound, Performance, Palabras clave: Innovación abierta, "Afuera/Adentro", Entrante, Rendimient

Top pair production at a future e+e−e^+e^- machine in a composite Higgs scenario

The top quark plays a central role in many New Physics scenarios and in understanding the details of Electro-Weak Symmetry Breaking. In the short- and mid-term future, top-quark studies will mainly be driven by the experiments at the Large Hadron Collider. Exploration of top quarks will, however, be an integral part of particle physics studies at any future facility and an $e^+ e^-$ collider will have a very comprehensive top-quark physics program. We discuss the possibilities of testing NP in the top-quark sector within a composite Higgs scenario through deviations from the Standard Model in top pair production for different Centre-of-Mass energy options of a future $e^+e^-$ machine. In particular, we focus on precision studies of the top-quark sector at a CM energy ranging from 370 GeV up to 3 TeV.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures; v2: minor corrections, published on JHE

Status and discovery prospects for light pseudoscalars in the NMSSM

While most BSM searches at the LHC focus on heavy new states, the NMSSM contains the possibility of new light states that have escaped detection due to their singlet nature. Here we focus on light pseudoscalars, investigating the parameter space impact of recent LHC searches for such light states stemming from the decay of the 125 GeV Higgs boson. It is shown that, though direct searches can not yet compete with the requirement of the 125 GeV scalar having SM-like couplings, the searches are touching the allowed parameter space and should make a phenomenological impact in the near future.Comment: To appear in the proceedings for EPS-HEP 201

The quantization of Proca fields on globally hyperbolic spacetimes: Hadamard states and M{\o}ller operators

This paper deals with several issues concerning the algebraic quantization of the real Proca field in a globally hyperbolic spacetime and the definition and existence of Hadamard states for that field. In particular, extending previous work, we construct the so-called M\o ller $*$-isomorphism between the algebras of Proca observables on paracausally related spacetimes, proving that the pullback of these isomorphisms preserves the Hadamard property of corresponding quasifree states defined on the two spacetimes. Then, we pull-back a natural Hadamard state constructed on ultrastatic spacetimes of bounded geometry, along this $*$-isomorphism, to obtain a Hadamard state on a general globally hyperbolic spacetime. We conclude the paper, by comparing the definition of a Hadamard state, here given in terms of wavefront set, with the one proposed by Fewster and Pfenning, which makes use of a supplementary Klein-Gordon Hadamard form. We establish an (almost) complete equivalence of the two definitions.Comment: 45 pages --- accepted in Annales Henri Poincar\'

Exclusion and discovery via Drell-Yan in the 4DCHM

Searches for Z' bosons are most sensitive in the dilepton channels at hadron colliders. Whilst finite width and interference effects do affect the modifications the presence of BSM physics makes to Standard Model (SM) contributions, generic searches are often designed to minimize these. The experimental approach adopted works well in the case of popular models that predict a single and narrow Z' boson allowing these effects to effectively be neglected. Conversely, finite width and interference effects may have to be taken into account in experimental analyses when such Z' states are wide or where several states are predicted. We explore the consequences of these effects in the 4-Dimensional Composite Higgs Model (4DCHM) which includes multiple new Z' bosons and where the decays of these resonances to non-SM fermions can result in large widths