Thoughts, Things, and Theories

We to critique the following question: can we have reasonable certainty that the terms in speculative or empirical theories correspond meaningfully to things in the ontological structure of the world, or are they only convenient fictions useful for predicting phenomena? We first justify this question as meaningful, and capable of admitting a meaningful answer. We then analyze question itself with examples from physics and biology. We conclude that we can be reasonably certain that the terms in an empirical theory have some degree of ontological significance, provided that they are directly related to phenomenal experiences. We also suggest that the advance of science can be aided through this understanding. Finally we use these conclusions to analyze the existence of the mind and certain physical structures

On Incompatibilist Free Will

We consider the possibility of defining some kind of activity which meets the intuitive requirements of incompatibilist free will. Our analysis of this will be done in a fashion which in some ways parallels the work of Pink on this matter. We will then consider the evidence of such free will, both from an introspective perspective and from a scientific perspective. In the latter we consider neurological and psychological evidence

Berkeley’s Arguments on Realism and Idealism

We analyse Berkeley's argument that realism cannot be defined, and show that his epistemological assumptions lead to the inevitable conclusion that solipsism is the only definable metaphysics. We conclude with a discussion of what this means for the realism/idealism debate, and also with a discussion of the possibility for apodictic evidence in this matter

Divisibility, Logic, Radical Empiricism, and Metaphysics

We will explore the problem of the manner in which the world may be divided into parts, and how this affects the application of logic. We will also consider how this affects the problem of knowing the world. Such considerations bring us to discuss how the divisibility of the world relates to idealism, realism, and the radical empiricist program of James. The epistemological difficulties sometimes associated with realism will in particular be shown to be in principle the result of misunderstanding the nature of the divisibility of the world. When such divisibility is properly understood, we claim that there is no epistemological dilemma, at least in principle, although of course in practice there may be other difficulties. We conclude by tentatively analyzing these practical difficulties

Understanding Culturally Distant End-Users Through Intermediary-Derived Personas

In this paper we present the use of a persona creation process for gathering information from intermediaries for information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) projects. Our approach represents a departure from traditional persona use in that it does not organise pre-existing data about potential users, but is itself a data gathering process. We present a case study of our use of the process on an ICT4D project, during which time we observed the combined benefits of using personas and of working with a non-governmental organisation (NGO) intermediary materialise. We attribute these outcomes to our persona creation workshops. Information which the NGO furnished regarding sensitive personal circumstances typical of our end users greatly improved our understanding of our users. This information would likely not have come to light had we interviewed the users ourselves, which we believe demonstrates the validity of relying on intermediary information for persona creation rather than first-hand information

The Effects of Group Collaboration on Presence in a Collaborative Virtual Environment

Presence in Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) can be classified into personal presence and co-presence. Personal presence is having a feeling of “being there” in the CVE yourself. Co-presence is having a feeling that one is in the same place as the other participants, and that one is collaborating with real people. In this paper we describe an experiment used to investigate the effects that small group collaboration and interaction has on personal presence and specially co-presence in a CVE. We hypothesise that collaboration and interaction enhances co-presence in a CVE. We found that there was a large difference in co-presence between two CVEs which produced different levels of collaboration and interaction. This supports our hypotheses that just having virtual representations of others is not sufficient to create a high sense of co-presence, and that one needs collaboration and interaction in order to enhance co-presence in a CVE. We measured personal presence subjectively, using a questionnaire developed by Slater et al. We have developed a co-presence questionnaire which assesses the levels of co-presence subjectively. We have also developed a collaboration questionnaire which measures group collaboration subjectively, as well as the degree of enjoyment and comfort with others in the group

Sharing the cloudlet: Impression management and designing for colocated mobile sharing

This article explores how designing for impression management affects the design of cloudlet and other mobile colocated sharing services. We demonstrate how colocated concepts and experimentation led to the conceptualization and design of a sharing interface that provides users with control over their shared content. We uncover usage behaviors and privacy concerns through the use of a technology probe and use those discoveries to develop a prototype designed with the principles of impression management to give sharers control over their content and identity. Our designs and results indicate users of cloudlets and other colocated sharing systems require visual control and privacy over shared content

Evaluating Existing Strategies to Limit Video Game Playing Time

Public concern surrounding the effects video games have on players has inspired a large body of research, and policy makers have even mandated systems that limit the amount of time players spend in game. This article presents an experiment that evaluates the effectiveness and side effects of such policies on the user experience

Presence in a Distributed Virtual Environment

Collaborative Virtual Environments (CVEs) involve the use of a distributed architecture, and advanced interactive user interfaces to create a ‘shared’ sense of space where users located in different physical locations can interact. An important objective is to provide users with an illusion that the machine mediated experience is not mediated. The extent of this illusion is measured by the sense of ‘presence’ experienced. We explore ‘shared presence’ in a Cooperative Virtual Environment, that is providing the participants with a sense of presence of others in the environment, thus having a feeling that they are directly cooperating with real people. We describe our prototype system for a ‘non-immersive’ distributed virtual environment. We provide preliminary results on factors which increase the sense of ‘shared presence’ in a virtual environment. These include the use of avatars to represent the participants, providing simple communication and interaction with the environment. Our prototype has served as a good basis for our future work towards shared presence by highlighting areas that require attention, (such as providing communicative behaviour to avatars) and indicating good prospects such as the importance of how one represents the avatars