The Irish language and the Irish legal system: 1922 to present

This thesis examines the central research questions as to what extent the Irish language plays a significant role in the Irish legal system and how parties seeking to utilise the legal in the legal system fare. The thesis applies standard jurisprudential research methodologies in analysing the key legal developments which have occurred in Ireland from independence in 1922 until today where Ireland is a modern constitutional democracy and member of the European Union. The role of the 1937 Constitution, in particular, is key given the strong legal reliance upon its text in determining the legal status of the Irish language and the extent to which that status can be relied upon in legal proceedings. By interpreting case law from the foundation of the State through until the seminal case of Ó Beoláin in 2001 the gradual development of Irish language rights can be charted. The implications of the Ó Beoláin decision are examined including many of the cases which came about in the immediate aftermath of the case. Among the consequences of the Ó Beoláin case was the Official Languages Act, 2003 which imposed new obligations upon the State and State agencies as well as notionally providing additional supports for those seeking to access justice through the medium of Irish. The effectiveness of this legislation is examined together with recent developments such as the trend towards legal realism and the implications arising out of the Irish language’s interaction with international law. Legal education and training through the medium of Irish is identified as a key factor which contributed to all of areas identified. The provision of services and the ability to access justice through the medium of Irish ultimately depends on there being professionals with sufficient Irish to provide services. The dissonance between the notional status of the Irish language and the reality faced by those seeking to access justice through the medium of Irish is a constant theme throughout the thesis

Minimal Truthmakers

A minimal truthmaker for a given proposition is the smallest portion of reality which makes this proposition true. Minimal truthmakers are frequently mentioned in the literature, but there has been no systematic account of what they are or of their importance. In this article we shall clarify the notion of a minimal truthmaker and argue that there is reason to think that at least some propositions have minimal truthmakers. We shall then argue that the notion can play a useful role in truthmaker theory, by helping to explain the truth of certain propositions as precisely as possible.Peer reviewe

Improving immersive experiences for visitors with sensory impairments to the aquarium of the pacific

This case study describes the development of a mid-air haptic solution to enhance the immersive experience of visitors who are deaf, blind or wheelchair users to the Aquarium of the Pacific's movie theatre. During the project we found that adding a sense of touch, using an innovative ultrasound technology, to an immersive experience can improve the sense of engagement users have with the content, and can help to improve agreement with the topics presented. We present guidelines on the design of haptic sensations. By describing how this project took place within the tight timelines of a commercial deployment, we hope to encourage more organisations to do similar work

The agreement process: an empirical investigation of human-human computer-mediated collaborative dialogs

this paper, we investigate the empirical correlates of the agreement process. Informally, the agreement process is the dialogue process by which collaborators achieve joint commitment on a joint action. We propose a specific instantiation of the agreement process, derived from our theoretical model, that integrates the IRMA framework for rational problem solving (Bratman, Israel, and Pollack 1988) with Clark's work (1992; 1996) on language as a collaborative activity; and from the characteristics of our task, a simple design problem (furnishing a two room apartment) in which knowledge is equally distributed among agents, and needs to be shared. The main contribution of our paper is an empirical study of some of the components of the agreement process. We first discuss why we believe the findings from our corpus of computer-mediated dialogues are applicable to human-human collaborative dialogues in general. We then present our theoretical model, and apply it to make predictions about the components of the agreement process. We focus on how information is exchanged in order to arrive at a proposal, and on what constitutes a proposal and its acceptance / rejection. Our corpus study makes use of features of both the dialogue and the domain reasoning situation, and led us to discover that the notion of commitment is more useful to model the agreement process than that of acceptance / rejection, as it more closely relates to the unfolding of negotiation

Psychedelics, meditation, and self-consciousness

In recent years, the scientific study of meditation and psychedelic drugs has seen remarkable developments. The increased focus on meditation in cognitive neuroscience has led to a cross-cultural classification of standard meditation styles validated by functional and structural neuroanatomical data. Meanwhile, the renaissance of psychedelic research has shed light on the neurophysiology of altered states of consciousness induced by classical psychedelics, such as psilocybin and LSD, whose effects are mainly mediated by agonism of serotonin receptors. Few attempts have been made at bridging these two domains of inquiry, despite intriguing evidence of overlap between the phenomenology and neurophysiology of meditation practice and psychedelic states. In particular, many contemplative traditions explicitly aim at dissolving the sense of self by eliciting altered states of consciousness through meditation, while classical psychedelics are known to produce significant disruptions of self-consciousness, a phenomenon known as drug-induced ego dissolution. In this article, we discuss available evidence regarding convergences and differences between phenomenological and neurophysiological data on meditation practice and psychedelic drug-induced states, with a particular emphasis on alterations of self-experience. While both meditation and psychedelics may disrupt self-consciousness and underlying neural processes, we emphasize that neither meditation nor psychedelic states can be conceived as simple, uniform categories. Moreover, we suggest that there are important phenomenological differences even between conscious states described as experiences of self-loss. As a result, we propose that self-consciousness may be best construed as a multidimensional construct, and that “self-loss,” far from being an unequivocal phenomenon, can take several forms. Indeed, various aspects of self-consciousness, including narrative aspects linked to autobiographical memory, self-related thoughts and mental time travel, and embodied aspects rooted in multisensory processes, may be differently affected by psychedelics and meditation practices. Finally, we consider long-term outcomes of experiences of self-loss induced by meditation and psychedelics on individual traits and prosocial behavior. We call for caution regarding the problematic conflation of temporary states of self-loss with “selflessness” as a behavioral or social trait, although there is preliminary evidence that correlations between short-term experiences of self-loss and long-term trait alterations may exist

On the Common Sense Argument for Monism

The priority monist holds that the cosmos is the only fundamental object, of which every other concrete object is a dependent part. One major argument against monism goes back to Russell, who claimed that pluralism is favoured by common sense. However, Jonathan Schaffer turns this argument on its head and uses it to defend priority monism. He suggests that common sense holds that the cosmos is a whole, of which ordinary physical objects are arbitrary portions, and that arbitrary portions depend for their existence on the existence of the whole. In this paper, we challenge Schaffer’s claim that the parts of the cosmos are all arbitrary portions. We suggest that there is a way of carving up the universe such that at least some of its parts are not arbitrary. We offer two arguments in support of this claim. First, we shall outline semantic reasons in its favour: in order to accept that empirical judgements are made true or false by the way the world is, one must accept that the cosmos includes parts whose existence is not arbitrary. Second, we offer an ontological argument: in order for macro-physical phenomena to exist, there must be some micro-physical order which they depend upon, and this order must itself be non-arbitrary. We conclude that Schaffer’s common sense argument for monism cannot be made to work

Conversations over video-conferences An evaluation of video mediated communication

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:4335.26205(HPL--92-163) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo