Are Big Gods a big deal in the emergence of big groups?

In Big Gods, Norenzayan (2013) presents the most comprehensive treatment yet of the Big Gods question. The book is a commendable attempt to synthesize the rapidly growing body of survey and experimental research on prosocial effects of religious primes together with cross-cultural data on the distribution of Big Gods. There are, however, a number of problems with the current cross-cultural evidence that weaken support for a causal link between big societies and certain types of Big Gods. Here we attempt to clarify these problems and, in so doing, correct any potential misinterpretation of the cross-cultural findings, provide new insight into the processes generating the patterns observed, and flag directions for future research

The Conceptual Impossibility of Free Will Error Theory

This paper argues for a view of free will that I will call the conceptual impossibility of the truth of free will error theory - the conceptual impossibility thesis. I will argue that given the concept of free will we in fact deploy, it is impossible for our free will judgements - judgements regarding whether some action is free or not - to be systematically false. Since we do judge many of our actions to be free, it follows from the conceptual impossibility thesis that many of our actions are in fact free. Hence it follows that free will error theory - the view that no judgement of the form ‘action A was performed freely’ - is false. I will show taking seriously the conceptual impossibility thesis helps makes good sense of some seemingly inconsistent results in recent experimental philosophy work on determinism and our concept of free will. Further, I will present some reasons why we should expect to find similar results for every other factor we might have thought was important for free will

S14RS SGR No. 4 (Additional Seating)

A RESOLUTION To urge and request Louisiana State University (LSU) to explore options to provide additional seating in the LSU Student Union during lunch hours throughout this semester

Comic Books vs. Greek Mythology: the Ultimate Crossover for the Classical Scholar

The modern, serialized comic book is one of the most underutilized genres of literature in literary criticism today. While it is true that some graphic novels such as Alan Moore\u27s Watchmen and Frank Miller\u27s The Dark Knight Returns receive scholarly criticism, many monthly titles such as Action Comics or Batman are neglected by most of the scholarly community. The reason for this neglect cannot be traced to one single source, but it is unfortunate considering how valuable serialized comic books can be to modern scholars, particularly classical scholars studying Greek mythology. The similarities between the superheroes of serialized comic books and the heroes of Greek mythology result in an interesting genre of literature that can allow classical scholars to observe how modern writers reinterpret the classical texts of Greek mythology. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine various intersecting similarities between mythological heroes and modern superheroes in the hopes of encouraging further discussion of modern serialized comic books in the scholarly world

Indirect Compatibilism

In this thesis, I will defend a new kind of compatibilist account of free action, indirect conscious control compatibilism (or indirect compatibilism for short), and argue that some of our actions are free according to it. My argument has three components, and involves the development of a brand new tool for experimental philosophy, and the use of cognitive neuroscience. The first component of the argument shows that compatibilism (of some kind) is a conceptual truth. Contrary to the current orthodoxy in the free will literature, which is that our concept of free will is an incompatibilist concept - a concept according to which we have free will only if determinism is false - I will show that our concept of free will is in fact a compatibilist concept - a concept according to which we can have free will even if determinism is true - and I do so using a new experimental philosophy methodology inspired by two-dimensional semantics. Of course, even if our concept of free will is a compatibilist concept, this does not mean that there are any free actions in the world: the current empirical evidence from the brain sciences appears to show that there might be no, or very few, free actions in the world, even on many compatibilist understandings of what it would take for there to be free will. The second component of the argument addresses this concern by extending our understanding of compatibilism. Agents act freely either when their actions are caused by compatibilistically acceptable psychological processes, or are indirectly caused by those same processes. Hence the name of my account: indirect compatibilism. The final component of the argument defends my new account against some interesting objections and provides evidence from cognitive neuroscience that some of our actions count as free by the lights of indirect compatibilism

Just how expert are “expert” video-game players? Assessing the experience and expertise of video-game players across “action” video-game genres

Video-game play (particularly “action” video-games) holds exciting promise as an activity that may provide generalized enhancement to a wide range of perceptual and cognitive abilities (for review see Latham et al., 2013a). However, in this article we make the case that to assess accurately the effects of video-game play researchers must better characterize video-game experience and expertise. This requires a more precise and objective assessment of an individual's video-game history and skill level, and making finer distinctions between video-games that fall under the umbrella of “action” games. Failure to consider these factors may partly be responsible for mixed findings (see Boot et al., 2011)