in the tiniest house of time: parametric constraints in evolutionary models of symbolization

2005 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-514
Author(s):  
chris westbury ◽  
geoff hollis
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Models ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Cognitive Sciences

steels & belpaeme (s&b) describe the role of genetic evolution in linguistic category sharing among a population of agents. we consider their methodology and conclude that, although it is plausible that genetic evolution is sufficient for such tasks, there is a bias in the presented work for such a conclusion to be reached. we suggest ways to eliminate this bias and make the model more convincingly relevant to the cognitive sciences.

scholarly journals The evolution of altruism and the serial rediscovery of the role of relatedness

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (46) ◽  
pp. 28894-28898
Author(s):  
Tomas Kay ◽  
Laurent Keller ◽  
Laurent Lehmann
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Kin Selection ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Evolutionary Models ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Local Interactions ◽  
Alternative Pathways ◽  
Local Reproduction

The genetic evolution of altruism (i.e., a behavior resulting in a net reduction of the survival and/or reproduction of an actor to benefit a recipient) once perplexed biologists because it seemed paradoxical in a Darwinian world. More than half a century ago, W. D. Hamilton explained that when interacting individuals are genetically related, alleles for altruism can be favored by selection because they are carried by individuals more likely to interact with other individuals carrying the alleles for altruism than random individuals in the population (“kin selection”). In recent decades, a substantial number of supposedly alternative pathways to altruism have been published, leading to controversies surrounding explanations for the evolution of altruism. Here, we systematically review the 200 most impactful papers published on the evolution of altruism and identify 43 evolutionary models in which altruism evolves and where the authors attribute the evolution of altruism to a pathway other than kin selection and/or deny the role of relatedness. An analysis of these models reveals that in every case the life cycle assumptions entail local reproduction and local interactions, thereby leading to interacting individuals being genetically related. Thus, contrary to the authors’ claims, Hamilton’s relatedness drives the evolution to altruism in their models. The fact that several decades of investigating the evolution to altruism have resulted in the systematic and unwitting rediscovery of the same mechanism is testament to the fundamental importance of positive relatedness between actor and recipient for explaining the evolution of altruism.

The Science of Wisdom in a Polarized World: Knowns and Unknowns

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Grossmann ◽  
Nic M. Weststrate ◽  
Monika Ardelt ◽  
Justin Peter Brienza ◽  
Mengxi Dong ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Best Practices ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Methodological Challenges ◽  
The Common ◽  
Empirical Approaches ◽  
And Training ◽  
Contextual Differences

Interest in wisdom in the cognitive sciences, psychology, and education has been paralleled by conceptual confusions about its nature and assessment. To clarify these issues and promote consensus in the field, wisdom researchers met in Toronto in July of 2019, resolving disputes through discussion. Guided by a survey of scientists who study wisdom-related constructs, we established a common wisdom model, observing that empirical approaches to wisdom converge on the morally-grounded application of metacognition to reasoning and problem-solving. After outlining the function of relevant metacognitive and moral processes, we critically evaluate existing empirical approaches to measurement and offer recommendations for best practices. In the subsequent sections, we use the common wisdom model to selectively review evidence about the role of individual differences for development and manifestation of wisdom, approaches to wisdom development and training, as well as cultural, subcultural, and social-contextual differences. We conclude by discussing wisdom’s conceptual overlap with a host of other constructs and outline unresolved conceptual and methodological challenges.

Group Selection in the Evolution of Religion: Genetic Evolution or Cultural Evolution?

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 235-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor Davis
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Group Selection ◽  
Genetic Group ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Psychological Traits ◽  
Religious Psychology ◽  
Religious Evolution ◽  
The Relationship

In the scientific literature on religious evolution, two competing theories appeal to group selection to explain the relationship between religious belief and altruism, or costly, prosocial behavior. Both theories agree that group selection plays an important role in cultural evolution, affecting psychological traits that individuals acquire through social learning. They disagree, however, about whether group selection has also played a role in genetic evolution, affecting traits that are inherited genetically. Recently, Jonathan Haidt has defended the most fully developed account based on genetic group selection, and I argue here that problems with this account reveal good reasons to doubt that genetic group selection has played any important role in human evolution at all. Thus, considering the role of group selection in religious evolution is important not just because of what it reveals about religious psychology and religious evolution, but also because of what it reveals about the role of group selection in human evolution more generally.

scholarly journals Origins of the new influenza A(H1N1) virus: time to take action

2009 ◽  
Vol 14 (22) ◽  
Author(s):  
G M Nava ◽  
M S Attene-Ramos ◽  
J K Ang ◽  
M Escorcia
Keyword(s):  
Influenza A ◽  
H1n1 Virus ◽  
Phylogenetic Analyses ◽  
Protein Sequences ◽  
Interspecies Transmission ◽  
Genetic Evolution ◽  
Protein Homology ◽  
Influenza A H1n1 ◽  
Insight Into

To gain insight into the possible origins of the 2009 outbreak of new influenza A(H1N1), we performed two independent analyses of genetic evolution of the new influenza A(H1N1) virus. Firstly, protein homology analyses of more than 400 sequences revealed that this virus most likely evolved from recent swine viruses. Secondly, phylogenetic analyses of 5,214 protein sequences of influenza A(H1N1) viruses (avian, swine and human) circulating in North America for the last two decades (from 1989 to 2009) indicated that the new influenza A(H1N1) virus possesses a distinctive evolutionary trait (genetic distinctness). This appears to be a particular characteristic in pig-human interspecies transmission of influenza A. Thus these analyses contribute to the evidence of the role of pig populations as “mixing vessels” for influenza A(H1N1) viruses.

Translational Hermeneutics Meets Cognitive Science: On the Notion of Performance, Intersubjectivity, and Space in the Translational Process

10.5840/20212 ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 35-66
Author(s):  
Beata Piecychna
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Approach ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Translation Studies ◽  
Mental Simulation ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Anne Of Green Gables ◽  
Cognitive Narratology ◽  
Translational Process

This paper is a preliminary attempt to connect, within the field of translation studies, the following: firstly, the results of the latest empirical studies on the role of mental simulation in the processing of the text; secondly, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s ideas concerning effective history; thirdly, the main tenets of spatiality and of cognitive narratology. One of the goals of the paper is also to attempt to demonstrate how the legacy of both hermeneutics and cognitive sciences might be reconciled in order to offer a new analytical approach and investigative framework which could suggest an interesting developmental trajectory within translational hermeneutics. Building on Magdalena Rembowska-Płuciennik’s (2012) views on intersubjectivity – that is, the ability to adopt someone else’s perspective as well as to read someone’s mind – I will attempt to demonstrate to what extent the target text (here, the earliest Polish translation of Anne of Green Gables from 1912) might be analysed by translation scholars in the light of the translator’s ability to empathize with the author in regards to the narratological devices used in the source text, as well as in light of the target text reader’s and the translator’s potential sensorimotor and perceptual activities being performed in their minds while creating a translation and while receiving it by the reader of the translation.

The Evolution of the Soul from Matter and the Role of Science in Karl Rahner's Theology

Horizons ◽  
1994 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-104
Author(s):  
Michael Barnes
Keyword(s):  
Significant Influence ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
Karl Rahner ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Area Of Study

AbstractThe relation between science and religion can be difficult for Christian theologians. Some like Whitehead and Teilhard seek full integration of the two; others prefer to keep them at arm's length. Karl Rahner recommends separating them into distinct spheres, yet in practice the general conclusions of science have had a significant influence on his thought. This appears explicitly on the topic of the evolution of the soul from matter. The human soul is part of the order of creation. That order is part of the proper area of study of the natural sciences, according to Rahner. So he listens carefully to what evolutionary scientists say, and maintains an openness to the conclusions of evolutionary and cognitive sciences, in forming his ideas about the origin of the human soul. In doing this he is also implicitly relying on other conclusions developed by science over the last 400 years.

scholarly journals Semantic Imagination as Condition to our Linguistic Experience

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-378
Author(s):  
Nazareno Eduardo De Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Essential Feature ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Semantic Role ◽  
Cognitive Sciences ◽  
Linguistic Experience ◽  
Semantic Function ◽  
Sign Systems ◽  
Counterfactual Thought ◽  
Semiotic Perspective

The main purpose of this article is, from a semiotic perspective, arguing for the recognizing of a semantic role of the imagination as a necessary condition to our linguistic experience, regarded as an essential feature of the relations of our thought with the world through signification processes (and the sign systems they perform); processes centered in but not reducible to discourse. The text is divided into three parts. The first part presents the traditional position in philosophy and cognitive sciences that had barred until recent times the possibility to investigate the semantic function performed by imagination, mainly due to the anti-psychologist arguments on which it is based. After that, I situate my perspective inside of the recent research panorama in philosophy and cognitive science. The second part presents the semiotic framework on the relation between thought, language, and world, conceived through the concepts of signification processes and sense-conditions. Within this framework, I introduce the concept of linguistic experience, characterizing semantic imagination as one of its sense-conditions. In the third part, several pieces of evidence for corroborating the semantic function of imagination are discussed. These pieces come from the fields of phenomena denoted as diagrammatic thought and counterfactual thought. Diagrammatic thought, briefly discussed, points out the semantic work of imagination in the semi-discursive sign systems constructed in mathematics, logic, and natural science. After defending a widening of the concept of counterfactual thought, and its intrinsic relation with semantic imagination, the role of semantic imagination is briefly discussed in some types of counterfactual thought found in our conceptions of modal concepts, in thought experiments, in apagogical arguments, and in the creative discursive devices.

scholarly journals Small P Philosophy in HCI

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Thomas Bennett
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Cognitive Sciences

As we explore the role of philosophy in HCI it is useful to look to examples from related fields. Weoutline two ways of engaging with philosophy, found in the cognitive sciences, which might beinstructive for HCI. First we point to the risk of Hegelian arguments - a priori arguments againstempirical research. Then we point to a more positive model, a highly practice-engaged approach wecall "small-p" philosophy.

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