scholarly journals Human Enhancements and Voting: Towards a Declaration of Rights and Responsibilities of Beings

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 5
Author(s):  
S. J. Blodgett-Ford
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Voting Rights ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
To Come ◽  
Additional Option

The phenomenon and ethics of “voting” will be explored in the context of human enhancements. “Voting” will be examined for enhanced humans with moderate and extreme enhancements. Existing patterns of discrimination in voting around the globe could continue substantially “as is” for those with moderate enhancements. For extreme enhancements, voting rights could be challenged if the very humanity of the enhanced was in doubt. Humans who were not enhanced could also be disenfranchised if certain enhancements become prevalent. Voting will be examined using a theory of engagement articulated by Professor Sophie Loidolt that emphasizes the importance of legitimization and justification by “facing the appeal of the other” to determine what is “right” from a phenomenological first-person perspective. Seeking inspiration from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) of 1948, voting rights and responsibilities will be re-framed from a foundational working hypothesis that all enhanced and non-enhanced humans should have a right to vote directly. Representative voting will be considered as an admittedly imperfect alternative or additional option. The framework in which voting occurs, as well as the processes, temporal cadence, and role of voting, requires the participation from as diverse a group of humans as possible. Voting rights delivered by fiat to enhanced or non-enhanced humans who were excluded from participation in the design and ratification of the governance structure is not legitimate. Applying and extending Loidolt’s framework, we must recognize the urgency that demands the impossible, with openness to that universality in progress (or universality to come) that keeps being constituted from the outside.

scholarly journals On the nature and role of Consciousness: is it time to move towards a metaphilosophical and metascientific approach?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
ENRICO FACCO ◽  
Fabio Fracas ◽  
Silvano Tagliagambe ◽  
Patrizio Tressoldi
Keyword(s):  
Anthropic Principle ◽  
First Person ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Common ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Common Field

The main aim of this paper is to support a metaphilosophical and metascientific approach to the study of Consciousness.After a brief historical resume of the debate between the mind-brain-body relationship, we discuss how the apparently irreducible contention between a physicalist and an anti-physicalist interpretation of Consciousness can be overcome by a metaphilosophic and metascientific approach in the attempt to overcome ethnocentric cultural filters and constraints yielded by the Weltanschauung and the Zeitgeist one belongs to. IN fact, a metaphilosophical perspective can help to recognize key concepts and meanings common to different philosophies beyond their formal differences and different modes of theorization, where the common field of reflection is aimed to find the problem’s unity in the multiplicity of forms. Likewise, the metascientific approach, such as the anthropic principle adopted in astrophysics, helps overcoming the problems of indecidability of single axiomatic disciplines.A metaphilosophical and metascientific approach seems appropriate in the study of consciousness and subjective phenomena, since the first-person perspective and the meaning of the experience are the condition sine qua non for their proper understanding.

scholarly journals Image schemas, mimetic schemas and children's gestures

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordan Zlatev
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Natural Interaction ◽  
Image Schemas ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Cognitive Linguistic ◽  
Third Person ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Third Person Perspective ◽  
The One

Abstract Mimetic schemas, unlike the popular cognitive linguistic notion of image schemas, have been characterized in earlier work as explicitly representational, bodily structures arising from imitation of culture-specific practical actions (Zlatev 2005, 2007a, 2007b). We performed an analysis of the gestures of three Swedish and three Thai children at the age of 18, 22 and 26 months in episodes of natural interaction with caregivers and siblings in order to analyze the hypothesis that iconic gestures emerge as mimetic schemas. In accordance with this hypothesis, we predicted that the children's first iconic gestures would be (a) intermediately specific, (b) culture-typical, (c) falling in a set of recurrent types, (d) predominantly enacted from a first-person perspective (1pp) rather than performed from a third-person perspective (3pp), with (e) 3pp gestures being more dependent on direct imitation than 1pp gestures and (f) more often co-occurring with speech. All specific predictions but the last were confirmed, and differences were found between the children's iconic gestures on the one side and their deictic and emblematic gestures on the other. Thus, the study both confirms earlier conjectures that mimetic schemas “ground” both gesture and speech and implies the need to qualify these proposals, limiting the link between mimetic schemas and gestures to the iconic category.

scholarly journals Constructing a Narrative in the Standard Unexpected Transfer Test in Adolescence and Adulthood

2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Białecka-Pikul ◽  
Marta Rynda ◽  
Daria Syrecka
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Transfer Test ◽  
Transfer Task ◽  
Mental States ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Adolescents And Adults ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Constructing a Narrative in the Standard Unexpected Transfer Test in Adolescence and Adulthood The aim of the presented research was the replication and extension of the research by Nelson, Plesa and Henseler (1998), which was the basis for examining the nature of the theory of mind or mentalizing ability (that is, the ability to attribute mental states to other people in order to explain and predict their behaviors) in adolescents and adults. Specifically, its experience-like versus theory-like character. The test, an unexpected transfer task (the Max story), was completed by 827 people aged 13 to 75 (average 21.9). Half of them were supposed to solve the task with a shorter version of the story (including only the facts), and the other half were given the longer version (including descriptions of emotions, beliefs of the protagonist and explanations of ongoing events). All of the answers were then categorized applying Nelson's classification and two other types of analysis. Gender, age and fields of interest were taken into account during analysis of the participants' answers. The Polish respondents rarely answered in a narrative way (only 13%, in contrast to Nelson's result of 46%). Despite the fact that age was not a factor corresponding to a narrative answer, it was proven that older respondents did indeed assume the first person perspective when justifying Max's behavior. Women, more often than men, appealed to the knowledge and the protagonist's way of thinking. The respondents' fields of interest did not seem to diversify the obtained results, nor did the version of the story. The results do not allow us to draw unambiguous conclusions about the nature of the adult's theory of mind, but they form the basis for analyzing the methodology of research on theory of mind.

scholarly journals Pakistan’s “Industrial 9/11”: Transnational Rights-Based Activism in the Garment Industry and Creating Space for Future Global Struggles

2021 ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Nasir Mansoor ◽  
Thomas Rudhof-Seibert ◽  
Miriam Saage-Maaß
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Mutual Understanding ◽  
First Person ◽  
Internal Evaluation ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
First Person Perspective ◽  
Retail Company ◽  
National Trade

AbstractThis chapter is based on an internal evaluation of the of the 2012–2019 cooperation between the Pakistani National Trade Union Federation (NTUF), the German humanitarian organisation medico international, and the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR). Written from a first-person perspective by three members of these organisations, it offers invaluable insights into the internal coordination and strategic deliberations of the partners’ evolving transnational efforts to hold the German retail company KiK and Italian social auditing firm RINA to account on behalf of the survivors and victims’ families of the 2012 Ali Enterprises factory fire. The authors elaborate on the multi-dimensional effects and aftermath of the Ali Enterprises tragedy, and recount the lessons learned from their different perspectives as trade unionists, activists, and lawyers based in both Pakistan and Germany. On this basis, the chapter then maps additional possible avenues for supporting the transnational struggles of workers around the globe. All in all, it offers rich insights into the experiences and complex debates ongoing amongst the authors and their organisations on how to develop common positions and further enhance their mutual understanding in order to collectively imagine and work towards transformative political goals.

Reconsidering American Power

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
American Power ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Sponsorship ◽  
To Come

Postcolonial studies, postmodern studies, even posthuman studies emerge, and intellectuals demand that social sciences be remade to address fundamentals of the human condition, from human rights to global environmental crises. Since these fields owe so much to American state sponsorship, is it easier to reimagine the human and the modern than to properly measure the pervasive American influence? Reconsidering American Power offers trenchant studies by renowned scholars who reassess the role of the social sciences in the construction and upkeep of the Pax Americana and the influence of Pax Americana on the social sciences. With the thematic image for this enterprise as the ‘fiery hunt’ for Ahab’s whale, the contributors pursue realities behind the theories, and reconsider the real origins and motives of their fields with an eye on what will deter or repurpose the ‘fiery hunts’ to come, by offering a critical insider’s view.

scholarly journals Differentiating Real-World Autobiographical Experiences without Recourse to Behaviour

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 521
Author(s):  
Jonathan Erez ◽  
Marie-Eve Gagnon ◽  
Adrian M. Owen
Keyword(s):  
Medial Temporal Lobe ◽  
Brain Injuries ◽  
Brain Activity ◽  
Extrastriate Cortex ◽  
First Person ◽  
Autobiographical Memories ◽  
True Nature ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Machine Learning Model ◽  
First Person Perspective

Investigating human consciousness based on brain activity alone is a key challenge in cognitive neuroscience. One of its central facets, the ability to form autobiographical memories, has been investigated through several fMRI studies that have revealed a pattern of activity across a network of frontal, parietal, and medial temporal lobe regions when participants view personal photographs, as opposed to when they view photographs from someone else’s life. Here, our goal was to attempt to decode when participants were re-experiencing an entire event, captured on video from a first-person perspective, relative to a very similar event experienced by someone else. Participants were asked to sit passively in a wheelchair while a researcher pushed them around a local mall. A small wearable camera was mounted on each participant, in order to capture autobiographical videos of the visit from a first-person perspective. One week later, participants were scanned while they passively viewed different categories of videos; some were autobiographical, while others were not. A machine-learning model was able to successfully classify the video categories above chance, both within and across participants, suggesting that there is a shared mechanism differentiating autobiographical experiences from non-autobiographical ones. Moreover, the classifier brain maps revealed that the fronto-parietal network, mid-temporal regions and extrastriate cortex were critical for differentiating between autobiographical and non-autobiographical memories. We argue that this novel paradigm captures the true nature of autobiographical memories, and is well suited to patients (e.g., with brain injuries) who may be unable to respond reliably to traditional experimental stimuli.

scholarly journals An immersive first-person navigation task for abstract knowledge acquisition

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Doerte Kuhrt ◽  
Natalie R. St. John ◽  
Jacob L. S. Bellmund ◽  
Raphael Kaplan ◽  
Christian F. Doeller
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Navigation ◽  
First Person ◽  
Abstract Space ◽  
Motion Platform ◽  
Head Mounted Display ◽  
Person Perspective ◽  
Abstract Knowledge ◽  
Behavioural Patterns ◽  
Spatial Domains ◽  
First Person Perspective

AbstractAdvances in virtual reality (VR) technology have greatly benefited spatial navigation research. By presenting space in a controlled manner, changing aspects of the environment one at a time or manipulating the gain from different sensory inputs, the mechanisms underlying spatial behaviour can be investigated. In parallel, a growing body of evidence suggests that the processes involved in spatial navigation extend to non-spatial domains. Here, we leverage VR technology advances to test whether participants can navigate abstract knowledge. We designed a two-dimensional quantity space—presented using a head-mounted display—to test if participants can navigate abstract knowledge using a first-person perspective navigation paradigm. To investigate the effect of physical movement, we divided participants into two groups: one walking and rotating on a motion platform, the other group using a gamepad to move through the abstract space. We found that both groups learned to navigate using a first-person perspective and formed accurate representations of the abstract space. Interestingly, navigation in the quantity space resembled behavioural patterns observed in navigation studies using environments with natural visuospatial cues. Notably, both groups demonstrated similar patterns of learning. Taken together, these results imply that both self-movement and remote exploration can be used to learn the relational mapping between abstract stimuli.

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