scholarly journals Brain Functional Architecture and Human Understanding

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan M. Yufik
Keyword(s):  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Adaptive Mechanism ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Functional Architecture ◽  
Learned Behavior ◽  
Neuronal Mechanisms ◽  
Metabolic Costs ◽  
Opening Line ◽  
General Relations

The opening line in Aristotle’s Metaphysics asserts that “humans desire to understand”, establishing understanding as the defining characteristic of the human mind and human species. What is understanding and what role does it play in cognition, what advantages does it confer, what brain mechanisms are involved? The Webster’s Dictionary defines understanding as “apprehending general relations in a multitude of particulars.” A proposal discussed in this chapter defines understanding as a form of active inference in self-adaptive systems seeking to expand their inference domains while minimizing metabolic costs incurred in the expansions. Under the same proposal, understanding is viewed as an advanced adaptive mechanism involving self-directed construction of mental models establishing relations between domain entities. Understanding complements learning and serves to overcome the inertia of learned behavior when conditions are unfamiliar or deviate from those experienced in the past. While learning is common across all animals, understanding is unique to the human species. This chapter will unpack these notions, focusing on different facets of understanding. The proposal formulates hypotheses regarding the underlying neuronal mechanisms, attempting to assess their plausibility and reconcile them with the recent ideas and findings concerning brain functional architecture.

Considering Victims' Minds in the Evaluation of Harmful Agents' Moral Standing

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-503
Author(s):  
Hironori Akechi ◽  
Jari K. Hietanen
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Moral Standing ◽  
Human Species

An agent's moral standing is considered as depending on the agent's mind and their harmfulness toward a victim, but a victim's mind and species may also matter. To examine whether a victim's species (i.e., human or another) and a victim's mind are considered in the judgment of a harmful agent's moral standing, the present study modulated the mental capacities of an imaginary species. Only humans' suffering was considered when the other species' mental capacities were presumed to be low (Study 1), but humans' and the other species' suffering were equally considered when the other species had mental capacities that were presumed to be equivalent to those of humans (Study 2). The results suggest that our judgments of the moral standing of an agent 1) depend not only on the agent's mind but also on the victim's mind and 2) are not human species-oriented but human mind-oriented.

scholarly journals A self-stabilizing algorithm for a hierarchical middleware self-adaptive deployment : specification, proof, simulations

2016 ◽  
Vol Volume 25 - 2016 - Special... ◽  
Author(s):  
Maurice-Djibril Faye ◽  
Eddy Caron ◽  
Ousmane Thiare
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Systems ◽  
Nous Avons ◽  
Adaptive Algorithm ◽  
Adaptive Systems ◽  
The Self ◽  
Adaptive Mechanism ◽  
Effective Solution ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Self Adaptive

International audience ABSTRACT. An effective solution to deal with this dynamic nature of distributed systems is to implement a self-adaptive mechanism to sustain the distributed architecture. Self-adaptive systems can autonomously modify their behavior at run-timein response to changes in their environment. Our paper describes the self-adaptive algorithm that we developed for an existing middleware. Once the middleware is deployed, it can detects a set of events which indicate an unstable deployment state. When an event is detected, some instructions are executed to handle the event. We have proposed a sketch proof of the self-stabilizing property of the algorithm. We have designed a simulator to have a deeper insights of our proposed self-adaptive algorithm. Results of our simulated experiments validate the safe convergence of the algorithm. RÉSUMÉ.Dans cet article, nous nous intéressons aux moyens de rendre le déploiement d’un intergiciel auto-adaptatif. Le type d’intergiciel que nous avons considéré ici est hiérarchique (structure de graphe) et distribué. Les infrastructures de grilles/cloud étant dynamiques (perte et ajout de nœuds),un déploiement statique n’est pas la solution idéale car en cas de panne, il est souvent nécessaire de reprendre tout le processus de déploiement; or cette opération est très coûteuse. Nous avons donc proposé un algorithme auto-stabilisant pour que l’intergiciel puisse retrouver un état stable sans intervention extérieure, au bout d’un temps fini, lorsqu’il est confronté à des pannes transitoires. Pouravoir une idée plus précise des caractéristiques de l’algorithme, nous avons conçu un simulateur. Lesrésultats des simulations montrent qu’un déploiement, sujet à des pannes transitoires, s’auto-adapte.

Rationality, Intelligence, and the Functional Architecture of the Mind

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith E. Stanovich ◽  
Richard F. West ◽  
Maggie E. Toplak
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Dual Process ◽  
Tripartite Model ◽  
Heuristics And Biases ◽  
Functional Architecture ◽  
Process Theories ◽  
Mental Construct ◽  
Dual Process Theories ◽  
The Mind

Because the operationalization of rational thinking comes from the heuristics and biases tradition, this chapter explicates the logic of heuristics and biases tasks in terms of contemporary theories of the functional architecture of the human mind. A tripartite model of the mind is described that is based on current dual-process theories. With this model as a framework, it is easy to see that the concept of rationality and the concept of intelligence are two different things. Rationality is actually a more encompassing mental construct than is intelligence. Thus, as measures of rationality, the tasks in the heuristics and biases literature, while tapping intelligence in part, actually encompass more cognitive processes and knowledge than are assessed by IQ tests.

The Nature of Culture in Design

2009 ◽  
pp. 25-36
Author(s):  
Patricia A. Young
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Learned Behavior ◽  
Mother Nature ◽  
Symbolic Forms ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
Genetic Makeup ◽  
Cultural Theorist

There have been many definitions of culture hypothesized by theorists and scholars as a way to understand human beings, other species and entities; human nature; Mother Nature, and artifacts (Giles & Middleton, 1999; Hall, 1996; Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1966; Williams, 1958). Culture has been characterized as being descriptive, historical, normative, psychological, structural, and genetic (Kroeber & Kluckhohn, 1966). Kroeber (1948) theorized culture as “how it comes to be” versus “what it is” (p. 253). Therefore, culture is socially constructed. Geertz (1973) interpreted culture as a “historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” (p. 89). Hofstede (1991) proposed that culture is learned; it is not part of one’s genetic makeup. In the area of cultural studies, culture is concerned with how meanings are interpreted and created in a society (Gray & McGuigan, 1997; Hall, 1997). Williams (1958), a cultural theorist, believes that “culture is ordinary” (p. 74). It is made in the human mind, making possible effort, examination, and explication. This means culture is what is known (tradition) and what comes to be known through investigation and invention (creativity). Baumeister (2005) argued that culture is not innately human. Other species (e.g., monkeys and chimpanzees)show patterns of learned behavior that is passed on from generation to generation. Culture is artificial; it is civilization. (Kroeber, 1948). A simple question-and-answer scenario about culture might proceed as follows: What is culture? Culture is everything human made and nature made. What is the purpose of culture? The purpose of culture is to serve humans. How does culture function? Culture functions as directed by humans. When will culture end? When humankind ends, culture will end. Where is culture? Culture is everywhere. Why do we need culture? We need culture to tell our history.

scholarly journals Managers’ Consideration about Behavioural Factors that Influence their Decision Making in Liquidity Management

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-95
Author(s):  
Dominika Korzeniowska
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Professional Experience ◽  
Decision Making Process ◽  
Human Species ◽  
Mental Processes ◽  
Liquidity Management ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Behavioural Factors

AbstractThe paper presents selected fragment of the outcomes of qualitative research led by the author. It concerned factors influencing decision-making in liquidity management, associated with human traits (human as an acting person of such choices) both in terms of mental processes’ characteristics peculiar to the entire human species (features of human mind) as well as the specific attributes of individual decisionmakers. The aim of the study was to discover how managers perceive determinants of liquidity decision-making process, basing on their professional experience, and whether in their consideration on the subject had ever appeared the determinants related to the person of the decision-maker.

A Quick Visual Mind Can be a Slow Auditory Mind

2009 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander Martens ◽  
Addie Johnson ◽  
Martje Bolle ◽  
Jelmer Borst
Keyword(s):  
Attentional Blink ◽  
Task Difficulty ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
Visual Modality ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Conscious Level ◽  
Visual Targets ◽  
Concurrent Information

The human mind is severely limited in processing concurrent information at a conscious level of awareness. These temporal restrictions are clearly reflected in the attentional blink (AB), a deficit in reporting the second of two targets when it occurs 200–500 ms after the first. However, we recently reported that some individuals do not show a visual AB, and presented psychophysiological evidence that target processing differs between “blinkers” and “nonblinkers”. Here, we present evidence that visual nonblinkers do show an auditory AB, which suggests that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB is likely to be modality-specific. In Experiment 3, we show that when the difficulty in identifying visual targets is increased, nonblinkers continue to show little or no visual AB, suggesting that the presence of an AB in the auditory but not in the visual modality is not due to a difference in task difficulty.

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