1,528 research outputs found
Quine, Ontology, and Physicalism
Quine's views on ontology and naturalism are well-known but rarely considered in tandem. According to my interpretation the connection between them is vital. I read Quine as a global epistemic structuralist. Quine thought we only ever know objects qua solutions to puzzles about significant intersections in observations. Objects are always accessed descriptively, via their roles in our best theory. Quine's Kant lectures contain an early version of epistemic structuralism with uncharacteristic remarks about the mental. Here Quine embraces mitigated anomalous monism, allowing introspection and the availability in principle of full physical descriptions of the perceptual states which get science off the ground. Later versions abandon these ideas. My epistemic-structural interpretation explains why. I argue first-personal introspective access to mental states is incompatible with global epistemic structuralism
Mental States Are Like Diseases
While Quine’s linguistic behaviorism is well-known, his Kant Lectures contain one of his most detailed discussions of behaviorism in psychology and the philosophy of mind. Quine clarifies the nature of his psychological commitments by arguing for a modest view that is against ‘excessively restrictive’ variants of behaviorism while maintaining ‘a good measure of behaviorist discipline…to keep [our mental] terms under control’. In this paper, I use Quine’s Kant Lectures to reconstruct his position. I distinguish three types of behaviorism in psychology and the philosophy of mind: ontological behaviorism, logical behaviorism, and epistemological behaviorism. I then consider Quine’s perspective on each of these views and argue that he does not fully accept any of them. By combining these perspectives we arrive at Quine’s surprisingly subtle view about behaviorism in psychology
Use of the Frank sequence in pulsed EPR
The Frank polyphase sequence has been applied to pulsed EPR of triarylmethyl radicals at 256 MHz (9.1 mT magnetic field), using 256 phase pulses. In EPR, as in NMR, use of a Frank sequence of phase steps permits pulsed FID signal acquisition with very low power microwave/RF pulses (ca. 1.5 mW in the application reported here) relative to standard pulsed EPR. A 0.2 mM aqueous solution of a triarylmethyl radical was studied using a 16 mm diameter cross loop resonator to isolate the EPR signal detection system from the incident pulses
Mind and body, form and content: how not to do petitio principii analysis
Few theoretical insights have emerged from the extensive literature discussions of petitio principii argument. In particular, the pattern of petitio analysis has largely been one of movement between the two sides of a dichotomy, that of form and content. In this paper, I trace the basis of this dichotomy to a dualist conception of mind and world. I argue for the rejection of the form/content dichotomy on the ground that its dualist presuppositions generate a reductionist analysis of certain concepts which are central to the analysis of petitio argument. I contend, for example, that no syntactic relation can assimilate within its analysis the essentially holistic nature of a notion like justification. In this regard, I expound a form of dialectical criticism which has been frequently employed in the philosophical arguments of Hilary Putnam. Here the focus of analysis is upon the way in which the proponent of a position proceeds to explain or argue for his/her own particular theses. My conclusion points to the use of such dialectic within future analyses of petitio principii
Quantifying Self-Organization with Optimal Predictors
Despite broad interest in self-organizing systems, there are few
quantitative, experimentally-applicable criteria for self-organization. The
existing criteria all give counter-intuitive results for important cases. In
this Letter, we propose a new criterion, namely an internally-generated
increase in the statistical complexity, the amount of information required for
optimal prediction of the system's dynamics. We precisely define this
complexity for spatially-extended dynamical systems, using the probabilistic
ideas of mutual information and minimal sufficient statistics. This leads to a
general method for predicting such systems, and a simple algorithm for
estimating statistical complexity. The results of applying this algorithm to a
class of models of excitable media (cyclic cellular automata) strongly support
our proposal.Comment: Four pages, two color figure
An exact solution method for 1D polynomial Schr\"odinger equations
Stationary 1D Schr\"odinger equations with polynomial potentials are reduced
to explicit countable closed systems of exact quantization conditions, which
are selfconsistent constraints upon the zeros of zeta-regularized spectral
determinants, complementing the usual asymptotic (Bohr--Sommerfeld)
constraints. (This reduction is currently completed under a certain vanishing
condition.) In particular, the symmetric quartic oscillators are admissible
systems, and the formalism is tested upon them. Enforcing the exact and
asymptotic constraints by suitable iterative schemes, we numerically observe
geometric convergence to the correct eigenvalues/functions in some test cases,
suggesting that the output of the reduction should define a contractive
fixed-point problem (at least in some vicinity of the pure case).Comment: flatex text.tex, 4 file
Harnessing Higher-Order (Meta-)Logic to Represent and Reason with Complex Ethical Theories
The computer-mechanization of an ambitious explicit ethical theory, Gewirth's
Principle of Generic Consistency, is used to showcase an approach for
representing and reasoning with ethical theories exhibiting complex logical
features like alethic and deontic modalities, indexicals, higher-order
quantification, among others. Harnessing the high expressive power of Church's
type theory as a meta-logic to semantically embed a combination of quantified
non-classical logics, our work pushes existing boundaries in knowledge
representation and reasoning. We demonstrate that intuitive encodings of
complex ethical theories and their automation on the computer are no longer
antipodes.Comment: 14 page
Asymptotic statistics of the n-sided planar Poisson-Voronoi cell. I. Exact results
We achieve a detailed understanding of the -sided planar Poisson-Voronoi
cell in the limit of large . Let be the probability for a cell to
have sides. We construct the asymptotic expansion of up to
terms that vanish as . We obtain the statistics of the lengths of
the perimeter segments and of the angles between adjoining segments: to leading
order as , and after appropriate scaling, these become independent
random variables whose laws we determine; and to next order in they have
nontrivial long range correlations whose expressions we provide. The -sided
cell tends towards a circle of radius (n/4\pi\lambda)^{\half}, where
is the cell density; hence Lewis' law for the average area of
the -sided cell behaves as with . For
the cell perimeter, expressed as a function of the polar
angle , satisfies , where is known Gaussian
noise; we deduce from it the probability law for the perimeter's long
wavelength deviations from circularity. Many other quantities related to the
asymptotic cell shape become accessible to calculation.Comment: 54 pages, 3 figure
Poincaré on the Foundation of Geometry in the Understanding
This paper is about Poincaré’s view of the foundations of geometry. According to the established view, which has been inherited from the logical positivists, Poincaré, like Hilbert, held that axioms in geometry are schemata that provide implicit definitions of geometric terms, a view he expresses by stating that the axioms of geometry are “definitions in disguise.” I argue that this view does not accord well with Poincaré’s core commitment in the philosophy of geometry: the view that geometry is the study of groups of operations. In place of the established view I offer a revised view, according to which Poincaré held that axioms in geometry are in fact assertions about invariants of groups. Groups, as forms of the understanding, are prior in conception to the objects of geometry and afford the proper definition of those objects, according to Poincaré. Poincaré’s view therefore contrasts sharply with Kant’s foundation of geometry in a unique form of sensibility. According to my interpretation, axioms are not definitions in disguise because they themselves implicitly define their terms, but rather because they disguise the definitions which imply them
The Wonder of Colors and the Principle of Ariadne
The Principle of Ariadne, formulated in 1988 ago by Walter Carnielli
and Carlos Di Prisco and later published in 1993, is an infinitary principle that is independent of the Axiom of Choice in ZF, although it can be consistently added to
the remaining ZF axioms. The present paper surveys, and motivates, the foundational importance of the Principle of Ariadne
and proposes the Ariadne Game, showing that the Principle of Ariadne,
corresponds precisely
to a winning strategy for the Ariadne Game. Some relations to other
alternative. set-theoretical principles
are also briefly discussed
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