Does Hard Incompatibilism Really Abolish ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’? Some Thoughts in Response to Larry Alexander

In a challenge to recent writings of Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso,3 Larry Alexander makes the following claim: If one accepts the Pereboom-Caruso “hard incompatibilist” view of choice, which regards blame and retributive punishment as morally unjustified because free will is an illusion, then “normativity completely disappears.” In making this claim, Professor Alexander appears to hold that the moral distinction between right and wrong conduct (“normativity”) cannot effectively exist unless those who do wrong “deserve” to receive blame and punishment in response to their misbehavior. This is not, however, necessarily so

The Doomsday Simulation Argument. Or why isn't the end nigh, and you're not living in a simulation.

According to the Carter-Leslie Doomsday Argument, we should assign a high probability to the hypothesis that the human species will go extinct very soon. The argument is based on the application of Bayes’s theo-rem and a certain indifference principle with respect to the temporal location of our observed birth rank within the totality of birth ranks of all humans who will ever have lived. According to Bostrom’s Simulation Argument, which appeals to a weaker indifference principle than the Doomsday Argument, at least one of the following three propositions must be true: (1) the human species is very likely to go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage, (2) it is very unlikely that some posthuman civili-zation will run a significant number of ancestor simula-tions, (3) it is almost sure that we are living in a com-puter simulation. According to my Doomsday Simulation Argument, both of the following propositions must be true: (1) it is almost sure that the human species will not go extinct before reaching a posthuman stage, (2) it is almost sure that we are not living in a computer simulation

Beyond Biomass: Valuing Genetic Diversity in Natural Resource Management

Strategies for increasing production of goods from working and natural systems have raised concerns that the diversity of species on which these services depend may be eroding. This loss of natural capital threatens to homogenize global food supplies and compromise the stability of human welfare. We assess the trade off between artificial augmentation of biomass and degradation of biodiversity underlying a populations' ability to adapt to shocks. Our application involves the augmentation of wild stocks of salmon. Practices in this system have generated warnings that genetic erosion may lead to a loss of the “portfolio effect” and the value of this loss is not accounted for in decision making. We construct an integrated bioeconomic model of salmon biomass and genetic diversity. Our results show how practices that homogenize natural systems can still generate positive returns. However, the substitution of more physical capital and labor for natural capital must be maintained for gains to persist, weakens the capacity for adaptation should this investment cease, and can cause substantial loss of population wildness. We apply an emerging optimization method—approximate dynamic programming—to solve the model without simplifying restrictions imposed previously

Confirming Domestic Identity, Supporting Public Commitment (the Case of Tuan Guru\u27s Wife in Lombok West Nusa Tenggara Eastern Indonesia)

Berbeda dengan Tuan Guru (pemimpin agama) yang merupakan figure penting dan berpengaruh, bukan hanya agama tetapi juga politik dan budaya, di Lombok, para istri mereka bukanlah tokoh dunia publik. Pengamatan demikian mungkin saja mengindikasikan terjadinya proses domestikasi yang lalu mengakibatkan subordinasi dalam relasi keluarga Tuan Guru. Penelitian ini menawarkan nuansa dan pemahaman lain dalam melihat relasi gender pada keluarga Tuan Guru, dengan menggarisbawahi cairnya demarkasi ruang public dan private yang terjadidi dalamnya. Penelitian ini mengungkap bagaimana sesungguhnya para istri Tuan Guru memposisikan dirinya dalam relasi kuasa pernikahan yang memberikan kesan bahwa relasi gender itu tidak linier dan kaku tetapi kompleks dan cair. Pembagian ruang public dan private adalah isu penting bagi gerakan feminis.Agama, negara, dan keluarga dikritisasi sebagai lembaga-lembaga yang melanggengkan istrinisasi karena mereka masing-masing adalah dasar bagi, alat untuk, dan tempat bagi suburnya budaya patriarkhi. Ideologi gender yang dianut oleh Indonesia sebagaimana yang termaktub dalam UU perkawinan No 1/1974 misalnya membenarkan dikotomi laki-laki sebagai kepala keluarga dan perempuan adalah iburumah tangga. Negara,melalui system hukumnya, secara aktif memapankan pembagian yang kaku ini sembari menyamarkan berbagai fakta yang terjadi tentang bagaimana sesungguhnya perempuan Indonesia menegosiasikan pembagian yang kaku tersebut. Berdasarkan interview mendalam dengan para istri Tuan Guru dari tiga pondok pesantren yang terbesar di Lombok, penelitian ini mengungkap bahwa pembagian ruang public dan privat dalam keluarga Tuan Guru adalah sebuah cara untuk menegaskan identitas domestic seorang istri dan mendukung komitmen publik para Tuan Guru. Dalam beberapa poin, cara pandang ini memang mengadopsi ideologi yang ditanamkan oleh Negara sebagaimana dikemukakan di atas, tetapi dengan beberapa modifikasi. Garis pemisah antara ruang public dan domestic tidak selalu jelas karena para istripun bertanggungjawab dan terlibat aktif dalam kehidupan pesantren termasuk dalam bidang managemen, pendidikan, keuangan serta aktif berpartisipasi dalam pengembangan dan tanggungjawab social lembaga pesantren. Keterlibatan public istri tuan guru tersebut, hanya saja, bukan atas nama gerakan aktivisme atau pembebasan perempuan, tetapi lebih sebagai mendaulatkan diri mereka sebagai pemain belakang layar yang sangat menentukan keberhasilan perjuangan sosial para Tuan Guru. Di sinilah letak kompleksitas relasi gender itu

A comparative study between visual, near infrared and infrared images for the detection of veins for intravenous cannulation

The process of identification and locating of veins plays an important role to reduce health care cost and suffering of patients during intravenous cannulation. This paper compares between three technologies to assess their suitability and capability for the detection of veins. Three types of cameras are used in this study, a visual camera, an infrared camera and a near infrared camera. The collected data has then been subjected to analysis and comparison using different image processing techniques, namely grayscale, invert grayscale, histogram equalisation, edge detection (difference of Gaussians) and unsharp mask enhancement to improve the visualisation of veins. In this study, the near infrared images supported by suitable LED illumination has been found to be the most effective technology and the most cost effective for the visualisation of veins

The exactness of a general Skoda complex

We show that a Skoda complex with a general plurisubharmonic weight function is exact if its 'degree' is sufficiently large. This answers a question of Lazarsfeld and implies that not every integrally closed ideal is equal to a multiplier ideal even if we allow general plurisubharmonic weights for the multiplier ideal, extending the result of Lazarsfeld and Lee \cite{LL}.Comment: References added, exposition streamlined, to appear in Michigan Mathematical Journa

Triality in Minimal Model Holography

The non-linear W_{\infty}[\mu] symmetry algebra underlies the duality between the W_N minimal model CFTs and the hs[\mu] higher spin theory on AdS_3. It is shown how the structure of this symmetry algebra at the quantum level, i.e. for finite central charge, can be determined completely. The resulting algebra exhibits an exact equivalence (a`triality') between three (generically) distinct values of the parameter \mu. This explains, among other things, the agreement of symmetries between the W_N minimal models and the bulk higher spin theory. We also study the consequences of this triality for some of the simplest W_{\infty}[\mu] representations, thereby clarifying the analytic continuation between the`light states' of the minimal models and conical defect solutions in the bulk. These considerations also lead us to propose that one of the two scalar fields in the bulk actually has a non-perturbative origin.Comment: 29 pages; v2. Typos correcte

Elm Farm Organic Research Centre Bulletin 83 April 2006

Regular bulleting with technical updates from Organic Advisory Service Issue contains: Testing for Tolerance - a pragmatic view GM Debate Vaccination nation - to jab or not to jab Future shape of OCIS Evolutionary wheat makes the grade? NIAB tracks health of organic cereal seed Stopping erosion of soil quality - the organic way Care needed to halt butterfly collapse Aspects of poultry behaviour: How free range is free range? On choosing an organic wheat A local education challenge New Wakelyns Science Building Organic vegetable market growt

Rate adaptive binary erasure quantization with dual fountain codes

In this contribution, duals of fountain codes are introduced and their use for lossy source compression is investigated. It is shown both theoretically and experimentally that the source coding dual of the binary erasure channel coding problem, binary erasure quantization, is solved at a nearly optimal rate with application of duals of LT and raptor codes by a belief propagation-like algorithm which amounts to a graph pruning procedure. Furthermore, this quantizing scheme is rate adaptive, i.e., its rate can be modified on-the-fly in order to adapt to the source distribution, very much like LT and raptor codes are able to adapt their rate to the erasure probability of a channel