scholarly journals Mind, Matter, Meaning and Information

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-45
Author(s):  
Robin Faichney
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Semantic Information ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Broad Term ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Material Form

This article aims to show how mind, matter and meaning might be united in one theory using certain concepts of information, building on ideas of empathy and intentionality. The concept of intentionality in philosophy of mind (“aboutness”), which is “the ineliminable mark of the mental” according to Brentano, can be viewed as the relationship between model and object, and empathy can be viewed as a form of mental modelling, so that the inclination to attribute mentality can be identified with the inclination to empathise with the relevant entity. Physical information, a concept quite well established within the discipline of physics, is basically a reconceptualization of material form. Daniel Dennett's concept of the intentional stance allows the development of a concept of “intentional information,” a broad term that encompasses mental content and semantic information generally, as encoded within physical information/material form.

The Non-Causal Character of Renormalization Group Explanations

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Probability Theory ◽  
Renormalization Group ◽  
Dynamical Systems ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Mathematical Explanation ◽  
Causal Status ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Structural Aspects

After reviewing some of the recent literature on non-causal and mathematical explanation, this chapter develops an argument as to why renormalization group (RG) methods should be seen as providing non-causal, yet physical, information about certain kinds of systems/phenomena. The argument centres on the structural character of RG explanations and the relationship between RG and probability theory. These features are crucial for the claim that the non-causal status of RG explanations involves something different from simply ignoring or “averaging over” microphysical details—the kind of explanations common to statistical mechanics. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of RG in treating dynamical systems and how that role exemplifies the structural aspects of RG explanations which in turn exemplifies the non-causal features.

Narrow Content

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juhani Yli-Vakkuri ◽  
John Hawthorne
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Mental Content ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
Tyler Burge ◽  
Narrow Content

Narrow mental content, if there is such a thing, is content that is entirely determined by the goings-on inside the head of the thinker. A central topic in the philosophy of mind since the mid-1970s has been whether there is a kind of mental content that is narrow in this sense. It is widely conceded, thanks to famous thought experiments by Hilary Putnam and Tyler Burge, that there is a kind of mental content that is not narrow. But it is often maintained that there is also a kind of mental content that is narrow, and that such content can play various key explanatory roles relating, inter alia, to epistemology and the explanation of action. This book argues that this is a forlorn hope. It carefully distinguishes a variety of conceptions of narrow content and a variety of explanatory roles that might be assigned to narrow content. It then argues that, once we pay sufficient attention to the details, there is no promising theory of narrow content in the offing.

scholarly journals The Principle of Directive-Compliant Development of the Law and the Contra Legem Limit

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-488
Author(s):  
Thomas M.J. Möllers
Keyword(s):  
Case Law ◽  
Third Party ◽  
Broad Term ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Classical Methodology ◽  
The Law ◽  
Legal Methodology ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Further Development ◽  
Domestic Law

AbstractThe Europeanisation of domestic law calls for a classical methodology to ‘update’ the established traditions of the law. The relationship between European directives and national law is difficult, since directives do apply, but European legal texts need to be implemented into national law. Whilst directives are not binding on private individuals, there is no direct third-party effect, but only an ‘indirect effect’. This effect is influenced by the stipulations of the ECJ, but is ultimately determined in accordance with methodical principles of national law. The ECJ uses a broad term of interpretation of the law. In contrast, in German and Austrian legal methodology the wording of a provision defines the dividing line between interpretation and further development of the law. The article reveals how legal scholars and the case-law have gradually shown in recent decades a greater willingness to shift from a narrow, traditional boundary of permissible development of the law to a modern line of case-law regarding the boundary of directive-compliant, permissible development of the law.

The Fragmented Mind

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Implicit Attitudes ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Belief State ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

Mental fragmentation is the thesis that the mind is fragmented, or compartmentalized. Roughly, this means that an agent’s overall belief state is divided into several sub-states—fragments. These fragments need not make for a consistent and deductively closed belief system. The thesis of mental fragmentation became popular through the work of philosophers like Christopher Cherniak, David Lewis, and Robert Stalnaker in the 1980s. Recently, it has attracted great attention again. This volume is the first collection of essays devoted to the topic of mental fragmentation. It features important new contributions by leading experts in the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Opening with an accessible Introduction providing a systematic overview of the current debate, the fourteen essays cover a wide range of issues: foundational issues and motivations for fragmentation, the rationality or irrationality of fragmentation, fragmentation’s role in language, the relationship between fragmentation and mental files, and the implications of fragmentation for the analysis of implicit attitudes.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Brian Leiter
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

Moral psychology, for purposes of this volume, encompasses issues in metaethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action, including questions concerning the objectivity of morality, the relationship between moral judgment and emotion, the nature of the emotions, free will, and moral responsibility, and the structure of the mind as that is relevant to the possibility of moral action and judgment. Nietzsche’s “naturalism” is introduced and explained, and certain confusions about its meaning are addressed. An overview of the volume follows

scholarly journals The computational stance in biology

2019 ◽  
Vol 374 (1774) ◽  
pp. 20180380 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. C. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Cognitive Architectures ◽  
Theme Issue ◽  
Computer Scientists ◽  
Concept Of Information ◽  
Explanatory Concept ◽  
Is Value

The goal of this article is to call attention to, and to express caution about, the extensive use of computation as an explanatory concept in contemporary biology. Inspired by Dennett's ‘intentional stance’ in the philosophy of mind, I suggest that a ‘computational stance’ can be a productive approach to evaluating the value of computational concepts in biology. Such an approach allows the value of computational ideas to be assessed without being diverted by arguments about whether a particular biological system is ‘actually computing’ or not. Because there is sufficient difference of agreement among computer scientists about the essential elements that constitute computation, any doctrinaire position about the application of computational ideas seems misguided. Closely related to the concept of computation is the concept of information processing. Indeed, some influential computer scientists contend that there is no fundamental difference between the two concepts. I will argue that despite the lack of widely accepted, general definitions of information processing and computation: (1) information processing and computation are not fully equivalent and there is value in maintaining a distinction between them and (2) that such value is particularly evident in applications of information processing and computation to biology.This article is part of the theme issue ‘Liquid brains, solid brains: How distributed cognitive architectures process information’.

Digital Images

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Matthews ◽  
Gavin Perin
Keyword(s):  
Public Space ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Urban Space ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Digital Systems ◽  
Digital Information ◽  
New Material ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Cultural Shifts ◽  
Material Form

The valence of any visual paradigm and its accompanying technologies is subject to the contingencies of political regimes and cultural shifts. The instigation, implementation and even reconfiguring of any associated technological system effects a translation and adjustment to the structure and use of these supporting mechanisms that both re-defines the relationship between object and viewer and ultimately influences its translation into material form. The permeation of digital systems throughout contemporary urban space is typified by Internet Protocol webcam systems, instigated by civic authorities for surveillance and the imagistic promotion of iconic city form. This paper examines how this system’s reception and subsequent translation of transmitted data signals into digital information not only presents new material to mediate people’s engagement with public space, but moreover, how it presents new opportunities for the designer to materialize its three-dimensional form within the spatial ambiguity of virtual and real-time environments.

scholarly journals R-KG: A Novel Method for Implementing a Robot Intelligent Service

AI ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wu Hao ◽  
Jiao Menglin ◽  
Tian Guohui ◽  
Ma Qing ◽  
Liu Guoliang
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Information ◽  
Environmental Information ◽  
Knowledge Graph ◽  
Markov Logic ◽  
Main Work ◽  
Knowledge Reasoning ◽  
Novel Method ◽  
Markov Logic Network ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Different Sources

Aiming to solve the problem of environmental information being difficult to characterize when an intelligent service is used, knowledge graphs are used to express environmental information when performing intelligent services. Here, we specially design a kind of knowledge graph for environment expression referred to as a robot knowledge graph (R-KG). The main work of a R-KG is to integrate the diverse semantic information in the environment and pay attention to the relationship at the instance level. Also, through the efficient knowledge organization of a R-KG, robots can fully understand the environment. The R-KG firstly integrates knowledge from different sources to form a unified and standardized representation of a knowledge graph. Then, the deep logical relationship hidden in the knowledge graph is explored. To this end, a knowledge reasoning model based on a Markov logic network is proposed to realize the self-developmental ability of the knowledge graph and to further enrich it. Finally, as the strength of environment expression directly affects the efficiency of robots performing services, in order to verify the efficiency of the R-KG, it is used here as the semantic map that can be directly used by a robot for performing intelligent services. The final results prove that the R-KG can effectively express environmental information.

Consciousness and Selfhood

2020 ◽  
pp. 634-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Zahavi
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Phenomenal Consciousness ◽  
Lively Debate ◽  
The Relationship

Not that long ago, discussions of selfhood in philosophy of mind tended to focus on diachronic identity and the so-called persistence question. Important as this question might be, it does, however, not exhaust the topic of selfhood. In recent years, the focus has shifted somewhat from diachronic to synchronic identity and given rise to a lively debate concerning the relationship between phenomenal consciousness and selfhood. Are our conscious experiences self-involving or self-disclosing (in a manner yet to be determined), or was Lichtenberg right in his famous objection to Descartes: Experiences simply take place, and that is all. Is saying cogito and affirming the existence of an I already saying too much?

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