scholarly journals Modelling the reciprocal dynamics of dialogical communication: On the communication-philosophical undercurrent of radical constructivism and second-order cybernetics

2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-55
Author(s):  
Peter Kastberg
Keyword(s):  
William James ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
Radical Constructivism ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Free Communication ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Alter Ego

Even though both Ernst von Glasersfeld, the founding father of radical constructivism, and his epistemological alter ego, Heinz von Foerster, one of the principal architects of second-order cybernetics, would both repeatedly stress the formative importance of communication, neither would ever model communication as a phenomenon per se. I will propose a first modelling of communication as seen through the stereoscopic lens of these two schools of thought. I will first present, discuss and evaluate how communication is traditionally modelled. This will serve as an informed backdrop when I proceed to integrate the common denominators pertaining to communication from relevant works of both scholars. In addition to the fact that both would willingly profess to the ‘Linguolaxis’ of Maturana and Varela, i.e., that humans exist suspended in communication, two basic assumptions have proven formative. Firstly, that communication is perceived as a flux, as an almost William-James-like ‘stream of communication’. Secondly, and this is more in the vein of Heraclitus, that both communicators and communication alike undergo transformations in the process of immersion. This implies favouring a view of communication in which communication is a perpetual oscillation between ongoing reciprocal perturbations (Glasersfeld), that occur over time, and the endeavours to re-establish (cognitive) homeostasis (Foerster). The latter must not be reduced to either mere compliance, as it were, i.e., that the ‘other’ does as s/he is told, or to the mutual understanding of a dominance-free communication of a Habermasian persuasion, but rather in the pragmatic notion of ‘compatibility’ (Glasersfeld). For illustrative purposes I will end this paper by translating these notions into a model depicting what I have labelled co-actional communication, in effect forging an exemplar.

scholarly journals Mysticism without concepts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastian Gäb
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
William James ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Striking Similarity ◽  
Aldous Huxley ◽  
Nonconceptual Content ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Mystical Experiences ◽  
Words And Images

AbstractIt has often been claimed, e.g. by William James or Aldous Huxley, that mystical experiences across times and cultures exhibit a striking similarity. Even though the words and images we use to describe them are different, underneath the surface we find a common experiential core. Others have rejected this claim and argued that all experiences are intrinsically shaped by the mystics’ pre-existing religious concepts. Against these constructivist objections, I defend the idea of a common core by arguing that even if all experience is interpreted through concepts, there could still be a common core. Those who reject the common core thesis usually argue that no distinction between experience and interpretation can be made since all experience is per se already interpreted. The notion of an uninterpreted experience is self-defeating. Drawing on current research on nonconceptual mental content, I argue (a) that experiences can have nonconceptual content; (b) that interpretation must be understood as conceptualization and (c) that conceptualization presupposes a raw mental content that is not conceptualized. This raw content is not experienced as nonconceptual. Rather, the nonconceptual, uninterpreted common core is an abstraction which shows itself only through reflection. Thus, the existence of a common core is compatible with the fact that all experiences are interpreted.

The Problem of the Typology of Rationality in Muslim Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 88-99
Author(s):  
Andrey A. Lukashev
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The One ◽  
Muslim Culture

The typology of rationality is one of major issues of modern philosophy. In an attempt to provide a typology to Oriental materials, a researcher faces additional problems. The diversity of the Orient as such poses a major challenge. When we say “Oriental,” we mean several cultures for which we cannot find a common denominator. The concept of “Orient” involves Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Turkish and other cultures, and the only thing they share is that they are “non-Western.” Moreover, even if we focus just on Islamic culture and look into rationality in this context, we have to deal with a conglomerate of various trends, which does not let us define, with full confidence, a common theoretical basis and treat them as a unity. Nevertheless, we have to go on trying to find common directions in thought development, so as to draw conclusions about types of rationality possible in Islamic culture. A basis for such a typology of rationality in the context of the Islamic world was recently suggested in A.V. Smirnov’s logic of sense theory. However, actual empiric material cannot always fit theoretical models, and the cases that do not fit the common scheme are interesting per se. On the one hand, examination of such cases gives an opportunity to specify certain provisions of the theory and, on the other hand, to define the limits of its applicability.

Dangerous things and the Non-Natural User of Land

1929 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-397
Author(s):  
W. T. S. Stallybrass
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Moral Qualities ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Law

It is perhaps true that one of the most important moral qualities of a man, especially an undergraduate, is a knowledge of where to ‘draw the line’; it is certainly true that one of the most essential parts of a lawyer's equipment is the capacity for drawing distinctions correctly. The whole framework of the law is based upon distinctions, and the drawing of false distinctions is as disastrous as is the failure to draw those that are based upon sound reasoning. It is the object of this article to consider, very tentatively, two distinctions which have been introduced into the common law relating to injury done to others by the property of the defendant: in the first place, the distinction between those things which are dangerous per se and those things which are dangerous sub modo, and in the second place, the distinction between the natural and the non-natural user of land. I shall then endeavour to consider the relation of these two problems to each other. But there will be no attempt to state the nature or extent of the liability that arises; for example, I shall not consider the true nature of the rule in Rylands v. Fletcher or the extent of the duty owed by him who deals with dangerous chattels, though some light may incidentally be thrown upon such matters.

A Simple Practical Criterion to Guarantee Second Order Smoothness of Blend Surfaces

1989 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Pegna ◽  
F.-E. Wolter
Keyword(s):  
Second Order ◽  
Geometric Design ◽  
Computer Aided Geometric Design ◽  
Common Boundary ◽  
First Order ◽  
Computer Aided ◽  
The Common ◽  
Blend Surfaces ◽  
Continuous Curves ◽  
Order Smoothness

Abstract Computer Aided Geometric Design of surfaces sometimes presents problems that were not envisioned by mathematicians in differential geometry. This paper presents mathematical results that pertain to the design of second order smooth blending surfaces. Second order smoothness normally requires that normal curvatures agree along all tangent directions at all points of the common boundary of two patches, called the linkage curve. The Linkage Curve Theorem proved here shows that, for the blend to be second order smooth when it is already first order smooth, it is sufficient that normal curvatures agree in one direction other than the tangent to a first order continuous linkage curve. This result is significant for it substantiates earlier works in computer aided geometric design. It also offers simple practical means of generating second order blends for it reduces the dimensionality of the problem to that of curve fairing, and is well adapted to a formulation of the blend surface using sweeps. From a theoretical viewpoint, it is remarkable that one can generate second order smooth blends with the assumption that the linkage curve is only first order smooth. This property may be helpful to the designer since linkage curves can be constructed from low order piecewise continuous curves.

Wittenberg Reformers

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-51
Author(s):  
Esther Chung-Kim
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Poor Relief ◽  
System P ◽  
Theological Foundations ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Relief System ◽  
Mendicant Orders ◽  
The Church

Wittenberg reformers supported the transfer of formerly Catholic Church properties to government possession. This secularization of church property did not mean a rejection of religion per se; on the contrary, secularization of church property meant that political rulers consolidated the scattered ecclesiastical properties and possessions into a common chest so that they could support the reform of the church. While Martin Luther and Andreas Karlstadt denounced mendicant orders for their begging lifestyle, they called for cities to care for their resident poor so that begging would be obsolete. Their critique became the catalyst for change, including an educated pastorate with preaching as a central component of worship, schools for boys and girls, and a system of poor relief funded by monastic foundations, confraternities, and donations. In the transfer of property to the common chest, Wittenberg reformers were crucial in providing the theological foundations for the transition to a centralized poor relief system.

scholarly journals Learned Video Compression via Joint Spatial-Temporal Correlation Exploration

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (07) ◽  
pp. 11580-11587
Author(s):  
Haojie Liu ◽  
Han Shen ◽  
Lichao Huang ◽  
Ming Lu ◽  
Tong Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Video Coding ◽  
Video Compression ◽  
High Efficiency ◽  
Temporal Correlation ◽  
Second Order ◽  
Compression Method ◽  
High Efficiency Video Coding ◽  
First Order ◽  
Coding Efficiency ◽  
The Common

Traditional video compression technologies have been developed over decades in pursuit of higher coding efficiency. Efficient temporal information representation plays a key role in video coding. Thus, in this paper, we propose to exploit the temporal correlation using both first-order optical flow and second-order flow prediction. We suggest an one-stage learning approach to encapsulate flow as quantized features from consecutive frames which is then entropy coded with adaptive contexts conditioned on joint spatial-temporal priors to exploit second-order correlations. Joint priors are embedded in autoregressive spatial neighbors, co-located hyper elements and temporal neighbors using ConvLSTM recurrently. We evaluate our approach for the low-delay scenario with High-Efficiency Video Coding (H.265/HEVC), H.264/AVC and another learned video compression method, following the common test settings. Our work offers the state-of-the-art performance, with consistent gains across all popular test sequences.

Australian Waterfowl Do Not Necessarily Breed on a Rising Water Level

1986 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 461 ◽  
Author(s):  
FHJ Crome
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Aquatic Vegetation ◽  
Breeding Ecology ◽  
Nest Sites ◽  
Black Duck ◽  
Tree Holes ◽  
The Common ◽  
Full Period ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Nesting Activity

Nest sites of waterfowl (pacific black duck, grey teal, pink-eared duck, maned duck and Australian shelduck) in 200 tree holes were monitored monthly over 4 years in a swamp complex near Booligal, N.S.W. The most nests occurred in 1978 following a complete drawdown and reflooding of the swamps. A rising water level on an already full swamp did not result in significant nesting activity. The response to the drawdown and filling was not a simple matter of more aquatic vegetation and invertebrates being produced at this time. Samples of nekton were taken by net and quadrats, and plankton was taken by nets. The results indicated that there were more of the common invertebrates in other seasons than in that following the filling, and vegetation did not develop fully until the 1978 breeding season was nearly finished. It is postulated that the high nesting activity related to a massive production of invertebrate detritivores, particularly Chironomus tepperi, which was stimulated by the decaying organic material from the dead aquatic vegetation (e.g. Vallisneria spiralis, Carex sp., Elaeochoris sp. and algae) of the previous full period, and the flooded dead dryland vegetation (e.g. grasses). A lack of these chironomids is suggested as the cause of the low nesting rates in other seasons, when the swamps were full and food apparently was available. It is also postulated that these and other detritivores are efficiently captured and provide a superabundant food source, at the water surface and in very shallow water, for both adults and chicks. Other invertebrates are either not available to chicks in these microhabitats or are harvested too inefficiently or slowly by adults. The concept that a rising water level per se is central to the breeding ecology of some species of ducks should be abandoned. Rather, the significant phenomena are the drawdown, and the production of detritus and detritivorous invertebrates when the wetland basin is refilled.

William James

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Slater
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
The United States ◽  
Charles Sanders Peirce ◽  
Founding Father ◽  
Radical Empiricism ◽  
Empirical Psychology ◽  
The Will

William James (b. 1842–d. 1910) was the most influential American philosopher and psychologist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the founding father of empirical psychology in the United States. A thinker of unusually broad interests and abilities and a physiologist by training, James rose to international prominence with the publication of his monumental The Principles of Psychology (originally published in 1890), but devoted roughly the last twenty years of his life to popular lecturing on philosophical and psychological topics and to the articulation and development of his philosophical views, the seeds of which can be largely found in Principles. He is perhaps best known to philosophers today as one of the originators of pragmatism (along with Charles Sanders Peirce), and for his defense of innovative and controversial philosophical doctrines such as radical empiricism and “the will to believe.” In addition to Principles, James’s most famous works are The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (published first in 1897), The Varieties of Religious Experience (published in 1902), and Pragmatism (first published in 1907).

scholarly journals Generalized combination equations for canopy evaporation under dry and wet conditions

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 1137-1149 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. Lhomme ◽  
C. Montes
Keyword(s):  
Vapour Pressure Deficit ◽  
Type Equation ◽  
Soil Surface ◽  
Dimensional Model ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
Basic Assumptions ◽  
Available Energy ◽  
Dry Conditions ◽  
Atmosphere Interaction ◽  
The Common

Abstract. The formulation of canopy evaporation is investigated on the basis of the combination equation derived from the Penman equation. All the elementary resistances (surface and boundary layer) within the canopy are taken into account, and the exchange surfaces are assumed to be subject to the same vapour pressure deficit at canopy source height. This development leads to generalized combination equations: one for completely dry canopies and the other for partially wet canopies. These equations are rather complex because they involve the partitioning of available energy within the canopy and between the wet and dry surfaces. By making some assumptions and approximations, they can provide simpler equations similar to the common Penman–Monteith model. One of the basic assumptions of this down-grading process is to consider that the available energy intercepted by the different elements making up the canopy is uniformly distributed and proportional to their respective area. Despite the somewhat unrealistic character of this hypothesis, it allows one to retrieve the simple formulations commonly and successfully used up to now. Numerical simulations are carried out by means of a simple one-dimensional model of the vegetation–atmosphere interaction with two different leaf area profiles. In dry conditions and when the soil surface is moist (low surface resistance), there is a large discrepancy between the generalized formulation and its simpler Penman–Monteith form, but much less when the soil surface is dry. In partially wet conditions, the Penman–Monteith-type equation substantially underestimates the generalized formulation when leaves are evenly distributed, but provides better estimates when leaves are concentrated in the upper half of the canopy.

A new chapter in the law of sexual harassment in Malaysia: The emergence of the torts of harassment and sexual harassment

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 191-207
Author(s):  
Abdul Majid ◽  
Sri Yogamalar ◽  
Audrey Kim Lan Siah ◽  
Jane L Y Terpstra-Tong ◽  
Luc Borrowman
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Federal Court ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The Law ◽  
First Time

In a landmark case in 2016, Malaysia’s apex court, the Federal Court, explicitly recognised for the first time, the common law tort of sexual harassment. Actually, the Federal Court did more than that; its recognition of the common law tort of sexual harassment is built on its recognising the common law tort of harassment. The recognition of the tort of harassment has escaped notice because attention has been concentrated on the tort of sexual harassment. This article analyses the Federal Court’s exposition of the tort of sexual harassment to reveal that the exegesis itself acknowledges the existence of the tort of harassment per se. The tort of harassment that the Federal Court sent out into the world is largely a creature of its English common law ancestry.

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