Cognitive Science and Human Nature

In this essay, I discuss what can be the underlying principle to the philosophy of cognitive science that is useful for us to understand human nature. Reviewing the principles of science as already presented by Noam Chomsky, I expand the discussion by briefly discussing the computational aspect of the human mind, the key I argued, to unify the mental and physical aspects of the human brain/mind. The discussion led to Aristotelian psychology (or epistemology) as the suggestion for a way forward in the understanding of the nature of human mind from the mysteriousness of its nature as understood by the rationalists started by René Descartes

Simple Logical Proposition for Cartesian Dualism

In this essay, we will investigate how the mind works to understand a sentence naturally, and its implication on the philosophy of mind. When a vague sentence is given to us, we ought to understand it in a certain way naturally. The question we put forward here is, why it is so, and how? Given that we able to understand the language (or sentence) without being limited to the sensible elements of the language, this suggests that the intelligible elements of the language is perceived by the mind. However, critics of Cartesian dualism argue that the concept of mind is a language problem. Their conclusion suggests that logic could not able to prove the existence of the mind. However, in this essay, we will see that, the logical mechanism in language is not limited to one proposition at its syntax. Because we able to understand a vague sentence in a certain way naturally, this suggests that the mind performs complex logical computation to reach that ‘natural understanding’ of the vague sentence – (which is more than one logical proposition). Because of such computation is possible, we argued that the innate knowledge is necessary

The Philosophical Structure of Story Comprehension: A Study on Human Cognitive System Based on Analysis of Logical Proposition

This paper suggests that, a story perceived to our mind (especially in the form of fables – short yet meaningful) are initially just images. The images are computed by the mind contrasting the different elements of the story (or images) to find the essential part of the story. Such contrast establish “meaning” in our mind which enable us to express the story in its shorter form either in the form of words or logical proposition. In this paper, we will look at how the logical propositions of the stories (may) be constructed. The hypothesis is derived from the idea that the logical proposition that we write on paper is a posteriori to what is established in the mind. If the hypothesis is true, then we have a glimpse of what could be the system of the human mind, thus the system of human nature too in respect to its moral origin and the proper educational method

Language Use and Nature: Foundation of the Philosophy of Science

In this essay, I will discussed how our language use is the key to our philosophy of science. I argue that, our study of language reflects our study of nature. The reason is, as language can be reduced to logical proposition, we can explore the ontological structure of nature with language, as logic and ontology mirror each other. I argue also, as nature is presented to us via sense perceptions rather passive – it does not tell us much, until we started to ask questions and find answers to the questions. For example, Newton saw an apple fell to the ground. Laymen may take such observation for granted, but Newton asked, why the apple fell and he reasoned through it to conclude that mass contains gravitational force. Therefore, due to the fluidity of language and our own creative will, we ask questions in order to understand nature. The reason such phenomena is possible is that, logic is fluid with language, which makes, the order of ontology we understand of nature is fluid too

Is Rationalism Necessitates Dualism?

In this essay, I will show why the answer to the title above is a ‘yes’. However the proof that I am about to give is based on the probability between mind-body dualism and physicalism. To make sense of such statement, I will briefly review some of the views held in the philosophy of mind. Later I will present the statement in an analogy, putting a pressure on epistemic quality on affirming or denying the existence of the “mind”, and followed by a logical analysis on the question in title

Status of smear-positive TB patients at 2-3 years after initiation of treatment under a DOTS programme

Objective: To describe the status of cases 2-3 years after the initiation of treatment under DOTS. Setting: After DOTS implementation in Tiruvallur district, south India, we followed up a cohort of smear-positive TB patients registered during 2002-03 after initiation of treatment. Results: The overall mortality rate was 15.0% and among the remaining 18.6% had active disease. In multivariate analysis, a higher mortality rate was independently associated with age, sex, occupation, treatment outcome and initial body weight of patients. Conclusion: The mortality and morbidity rates are still high during follow-up and needs to be curtailed by addressing these issues effectively in TB control programm

Efficiency of evolutionary algorithms in water network pipe sizing

The pipe sizing of water networks via evolutionary algorithms is of great interest because it allows the selection of alternative economical solutions that meet a set of design requirements. However, available evolutionary methods are numerous, and methodologies to compare the performance of these methods beyond obtaining a minimal solution for a given problem are currently lacking. A methodology to compare algorithms based on an efficiency rate (E) is presented here and applied to the pipe-sizing problem of four medium-sized benchmark networks (Hanoi, New York Tunnel, GoYang and R-9 Joao Pessoa). E numerically determines the performance of a given algorithm while also considering the quality of the obtained solution and the required computational effort. From the wide range of available evolutionary algorithms, four algorithms were selected to implement the methodology: a PseudoGenetic Algorithm (PGA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), a Harmony Search and a modified Shuffled Frog Leaping Algorithm (SFLA). After more than 500,000 simulations, a statistical analysis was performed based on the specific parameters each algorithm requires to operate, and finally, E was analyzed for each network and algorithm. The efficiency measure indicated that PGA is the most efficient algorithm for problems of greater complexity and that HS is the most efficient algorithm for less complex problems. However, the main contribution of this work is that the proposed efficiency ratio provides a neutral strategy to compare optimization algorithms and may be useful in the future to select the most appropriate algorithm for different types of optimization problems

Penalty-free feasibility boundary convergent multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for the optimization of water distribution systems

This paper presents a new penalty-free multi-objective evolutionary approach (PFMOEA) for the optimization of water distribution systems (WDSs). The proposed approach utilizes pressure dependent analysis (PDA) to develop a multi-objective evolutionary search. PDA is able to simulate both normal and pressure deficient networks and provides the means to accurately and rapidly identify the feasible region of the solution space, effectively locating global or near global optimal solutions along its active constraint boundary. The significant advantage of this method over previous methods is that it eliminates the need for ad-hoc penalty functions, additional “boundary search” parameters, or special constraint handling procedures. Conceptually, the approach is downright straightforward and probably the simplest hitherto. The PFMOEA has been applied to several WDS benchmarks and its performance examined. It is demonstrated that the approach is highly robust and efficient in locating optimal solutions. Superior results in terms of the initial network construction cost and number of hydraulic simulations required were obtained. The improvements are demonstrated through comparisons with previously published solutions from the literature

Application of two ant colony optimisation algorithms to water distribution system optimisation

Water distribution systems (WDSs) are costly infrastructure in terms of materials, construction, maintenance, and energy requirements. Much attention has been given to the application of optimisation methods to minimise the costs associated with such infrastructure. Historically, traditional optimisation techniques have been used, such as linear and non-linear programming, but within the past decade the focus has shifted to the use of heuristics derived from nature (HDNs), for example Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing and more recently Ant Colony Optimisation (ACO). ACO, as an optimisation process, is based on the analogy of the foraging behaviour of a colony of searching ants, and their ability to determine the shortest route between their nest and a food source. Many different formulations of ACO algorithms exist that are aimed at providing advancements on the original and most basic formulation, Ant System (AS). These advancements differ in their utilisation of information learned about a search-space to manage two conflicting aspects of an algorithm's searching behaviour. These aspects are termed 'exploration' and 'exploitation'. Exploration is an algorithm's ability to search broadly through the problem's search space and exploitation is an algorithm's ability to search locally around good solutions that have been found previously. One such advanced ACO algorithm, which is implemented within this paper, is the Max-Min Ant System (MMAS). This algorithm encourages local searching around the best solution found in each iteration, while implementing methods that slow convergence and facilitate exploration. In this paper, the performance of MMAS is compared to that of AS for two commonly used WDS case studies, the New York Tunnels Problem and the Hanoi Problem. The sophistication of MMAS is shown to be effective as it outperforms AS and performs better than any other HDN in the literature for both case studies considered. © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/623/description#descriptio