194,623 research outputs found
New reaction tester accurate within 56 microseconds
Testing device measures simple and disjunctive reaction time of human subject to light stimuli. Tester consists of reaction key, logic card, panel mounted neon indicators, and interconnecting wiring. Device is used for determining reaction times of patients undergoing postoperative neurological therapy
Bridges
This entry discusses the linguistic (prosodic) features of the Ancient Greek poetic phenomenon of the metrical bridge, a position in a line of verse where a word division is either disallowed or strongly disfavored
Dowry and Intrahousehold Bargaining: Evidence from China
This paper analyzes the relationship between a woman’s intrahousehold bargaining position and her welfare within marriage. Simultaneity problems common to the literature are overcome by using dowry to proxy for bargaining position. Omitted variable bias is addressed by using grain shocks in the year preceding marriage and sibling sex composition as instruments for dowry. Instrumented dowry positively impacts several measures of a wife’s welfare, including time allocation, household purchases, and the wife’s decision-making authority, thereby offering strong evidence to support collective models of the household.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39994/3/wp608.pd
A Review of John Rists\u27 Augustine on Free Will and Predestination
In this paper I seek to summarize and critique John Rist’s article “Augustine on Free Will and Predestination.” Rist treats Augustine with honesty. When someone is as prominent, loved, and recognized as Augustine, when someone has as much authority as he does, the temptation to manipulate his writings into saying things which agree with one’s own position is strong. Rist resists this temptation, even concluding that Augustine holds a position on free will and predestination which Rist finds highly objectionable. But in his objections to Augustine’s position, Rist does not do justice to the whole system of Augustine’s thought. In my critique I will focus on two points where Rist takes issue with Augustine: 1) Augustine’s lack of an account of how God acts justly in election and 2) the demeaning of man to the level of a “puppet.” I will attempt to demonstrate that Rist’s criticisms are accounted for by extending Augustine’s teachings of, regarding 1), causality and the will and, in regard to 2), the solidarity of humanity with Adam. The aim of this paper is not to prove that Augustine’s articulation of free will and God’s predestination is the correct one but only that his position can withstand the criticisms Rist brings against it
Differentiating Averroes’ Accounts of the Metaphysics of Human Epistemology in his Middle and Long Commentaries on Aristotle’s De Anima
Averroes (an Islamic Andalusian philosopher in the 12th century) discusses the metaphysics of human epistemology extensively, and his socio-religious context sheds light on this discussion. Several of his works, most prominently his three commentaries on Aristotle’s De Anima, attempt to explain how finite, particular minds interact with universal, eternal intelligibles. Current scholarship focuses on the two longer commentaries, the Middle Commentary and the Long Commentary, but there is no consensus regarding which of these presents Averroes’ final articulation of the metaphysics of human epistemology. Those who maintain that Averroes wrote the Middle Commentary last tend to minimize the differences between the two accounts. This paper does not take a position on the chronology of Averroes’ works. Rather, it seeks to demonstrate that, even if Averroes wrote the Middle Commentary last, in light of Averroes’ socio-political environment, it is evident that the accounts of the metaphysics of human epistemology in the Middle and Long commentaries differ substantively
The Mental Database
This article uses database, evolution and physics considerations to suggest how the mind stores and processes its data. Its innovations in its approach lie in:-
A) The comparison between the capabilities of the mind to those of a modern relational database while conserving phenomenality. The strong functional similarity of the two systems leads to the conclusion that the mind may be profitably described as being a mental database. The need for material/mental bridging and addressing indexes is discussed.
B) The consideration of what neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) between sensorimotor data and instrumented observation one can hope to obtain using current biophysics. It is deduced that what is seen using the various brain scanning methods reflects only that part of current activity transactions (e.g. visualizing) which update and interrogate the mind, but not the contents of the integrated mental database which constitutes the mind itself. This approach yields reasons why there is much neural activity in an area to which a conscious function is ascribed (e.g. the amygdala is associated with fear), yet there is no visible part of its activity which can be clearly identified as phenomenal.
The concept is then situated in a Penrosian expanded physical environment, requiring evolutionary continuity, modularity and phenomenality.Several novel Darwinian advantages arising from the approach are described
The Hebraic Monarchy as God’s Redemptive Response to Israel’s Unfaithfulness
The first portion of this paper will argue that the Old Testament portrays the monarchy neither as God’s chosen method of relating to his people, nor as an intrinsically evil institution, but as God’s redemptive response to Israel’s unfaithfulness. The second portion addresses a potential objection to this portrayal by arguing that Moses serves primarily as a type for Samuel, not the monarchy
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