scholarly journals Brains in vats and model theory

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Button
Keyword(s):  
Model Theory ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Modern Logic ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat ◽  
Brains In Vats

Hilary Putnam’s BIV argument first occurred to him when ‘thinking about a theorem in modern logic, the “Skolem–Löwenheim Theorem”’ (Putnam 1981: 7). One of my aims in this paper is to explore the connection between the argument and the Theorem. But I also want to draw some further connections. In particular, I think that Putnam’s BIV argument provides us with an impressively versatile template for dealing with sceptical challenges. Indeed, this template allows us to unify some of Putnam’s most enduring contributions to the realism/antirealism debate: his discussions of brains-in-vats, of Skolem’s Paradox, and of permutations. In all three cases, we have an argument which does not merely defeat the sceptic; it also shows us that we must reject some prima facie plausible philosophical picture.Published in S. Goldberg (ed.), The Brain in a Vat, Cambridge University Press: 131–54.

Olfaction and the Brain. Olfaction, Taste, and Cognition. C. Rouby, B. Schaal, D. Doubois, R. Gervais, and A. Holley (Eds.). 2002. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 462 pp., $95.00.

2003 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1101-1103
Author(s):  
Richard L. Doty
Keyword(s):  
Cambridge University ◽  
Odor Memory ◽  
Odor Classification ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Odor Conditioning

This 27-chapter volume arose from a symposium held in Lyon, France, in June of 1999, that sought to integrate information from academic scientific studies of olfaction, largely psychological in nature, with knowledge derived from the perfume industry. It is dedicated to the French perfumer Edmond Roudnitska, known for creating such classic fragrances as “Femme” (1944, Rochas), “Diorama” (1948, Dior), L'Eau” (1951, Hermès), “Diorissimo” (1956, Dior), “Eau Savage” (1966, Dior), and “Diorella” (1972, Dior), and addresses such topics as odor classification, odor memory, odor conditioning, and the plasticity of chemosensation.

Realism, skepticism, and the brain in a vat

2016 ◽  
pp. 155-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Folina
Keyword(s):  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat

Memoirs: On the Nature of the Trabecula Cranii

1931 ◽  
Vol s2-74 (296) ◽  
pp. 701-536
Author(s):  
G.R. R. de BEER
Keyword(s):  
Rana Temporaria ◽  
Ventral Side ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Prima Facie Case ◽  
The Brain

1. The existing evidence concerning the origin and nature of the trabecula cranii is reviewed, and it is shown that it constitutes a prima facie case for supporting Huxley's opinion that it represents a visceral structure. 2. The origin of the trabecula is studied in Scyllium canicula, Salmo fario, Rana temporaria, and Amblystoma tigrinum, and the results of this investigation support Huxley's opinion. 3. The grounds for adhering to Huxley's view are chiefly that: the trabecular rudiment is a mesenchymatous condensation in the maxillary process; there is no evidence of the trabecular rudiment being derived from the somites; the trabecular rudiment is closely associated with that of the pterygo-quadrate; if the trabecular rudiment is of sclerotomic origin, then the palatine process of the pterygo-quadrate and the mesenchyme of the ventral side of the front of the head must also be derived from the sclerotonies: an impossible conclusion. 4. The implications of the recognition of the trabecula as a premandibular arch are considered, and it is concluded that the mouth of Gnathostomata represents the original velar perforation of Amphioxus which has extended to the side and obliterated a pair of mandibular clefts or the dermal pouches corresponding to them. 5. Sewertzoff's view that the brain-case of Petromyzon is wholly chordal in composition is supported, and the homologues of the trabeculae are represented by a pair of premandibular visceral arches.

Implementing Free Will

2011 ◽  
pp. 108-124
Author(s):  
Bruce Edmonds
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Evolutionary Algorithms ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Social Accountability ◽  
The Brain

Free will is described in terms of the useful properties that it could confer, explaining why it might have been selected for over the course of evolution. These properties are exterior unpredictability, interior rationality, and social accountability. A process is described that might bring it about when deployed in a suitable social context. It is suggested that this process could be of an evolutionary nature—that free will might “evolve” in the brain during development. This mental evolution effectively separates the internal and external contexts, while retaining the coherency between individual’s public accounts of their actions. This is supported by the properties of evolutionary algorithms and possesses the three desired properties. Some objections to the possibility of free will are dealt with by pointing out the prima facie evidence and showing how an assumption that everything must be either deterministic or random can result from an unsupported assumption of universalism.

Why Means MatterLegally Relevant Differences Between Direct and Indirect Interventions into Other Minds

2020 ◽  
pp. 49-88
Author(s):  
Jan Christoph Bublitz
Keyword(s):  
Legal Regulation ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Causal Pathways ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Right ◽  
And Control ◽  
In Virtue Of ◽  
The Brain

Whether there are intrinsic differences between different means to intervene into brains and minds is a key question of neuroethics, which any future legal regulation of mind-interventions has to face. This chapter affirms such differences by a twofold argument:. First, it present differences between direct (biological, physiological) and indirect (psychological) interventions that are not based on crude mind–brain dualisms or dubious properties such as naturalness of interventions. Second, it shows why these differences (should) matter for the law. In a nutshell, this chapter suggests that indirect interventions should be understood as stimuli that persons perceive through their external senses whereas direct interventions reach brains and minds on different, nonperceptual routes. Interventions primarily differ in virtue of their causal pathways. Because of them, persons have different kinds and amounts of control over interventions; direct interventions regularly bypass resistance and control of recipients. Direct interventions also differ from indirect ones because they misappropriate mechanisms of the brain. These differences bear normative relevance in light of the right to mental self-determination, which should be the guiding normative principle with respect to mind-interventions. As a consequence, the law should adopt by and large a normative—not ontological—dualism between interventions into other minds: nonconsensual direct interventions into other minds should be prohibited by law, with few exceptions. By contrast, indirect interventions should be prima facie permissible, primarily those that qualify as exercises of free speech. The chapter also addresses a range of recent objections, especially by Levy (in the previous chapter).

2. Scepticism

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Nagel
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Externalism ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Brain In A Vat

When you start to get self-conscious about what you know, even the simplest fact, something you usually think you could verify at a glance, can start to seem like something you don’t really know. ‘Scepticism’ describes the historical roots of scepticism beginning with the two distinct sceptical traditions: Academic and Pyrrhonian. A central worry of both schools of ancient scepticism concerns the ‘criterion of truth’ or the rule we should use to figure out what to accept, assuming that knowledge requires not just accepting things randomly. Modern approaches to scepticism from philosopher G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell's ‘Inference to the Best Explanation’ to Hilary Putnam's Semantic Externalism and the brain-in-a-vat hypothesis are discussed.

Linguists play catchup with evolution

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
DEREK BICKERTON
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Computational Linguistics ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Language And Communication ◽  
Georgetown University ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Oxford University Press

Donald Loritz, How the brain evolved language. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 227.Lyle Jenkins, Biolinguistics : exploring the biology of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii+264.In the course of reviewing recent books on the evolution of language and communication (Dunbar 1996, Hauser 1996, Deacon 1997) I have had occasion to note that relatively few writers on these topics know much about linguistics, and to wish that more of them did. I should have remembered the old adage that one shouldn't wish for things - one might get them.For more than a century, linguists honored the Linguistic Society of Paris's ban on all discussion of language evolution; other disciplines went ahead with it regardless. Now that the centrality of language evolution to any study of our species is becoming apparent, linguists are desperately trying to play catchup, and the two volumes reviewed here both appeared in the last couple of years. Both authors are linguists, albeit hyphenated ones. Donald Loritz teaches computational linguistics at Georgetown University; his doctorate was in psycholinguistics. Lyle Jenkins works in the Biolinguistics Institute in Cambridge, MA; however, his doctorate was in unhyphenated linguistics. It would be difficult to find two authors whose ideas were more diametrically opposed.

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