The Bipolar Logic of Feedforward and Feedback Circuits

Instead of the conventional 0 and 1 values, bipolar reasoning uses -1, 0, +1 to describe double-sided judgements in which neutral elements are halfway between positive and negative evaluations (e.g., “uncertain” lies between “impossible” and “totally sure”). We discuss the state-of-the-art in bipolar logics and recall two medieval forerunners, i.e., William of Ockham and Nicholas of Autrecourt, who embodied a bipolar mode of thought that is eminently modern. Starting from the trivial observation that “once a wheat sheaf is sealed and tied up, the packed down straws display the same orientation”, we work up a new theory of the bipolar nature of networks, suggesting that orthodromic (i.e., feedforward, bottom-up) projections might be functionally coupled with antidromic (i.e., feedback, top-down) projections via the mathematical apparatus of presheaves/globular sets. When an entrained oscillation such as a neuronal spike propagates from A to B, changes in B might lead to changes in A, providing unexpected antidromic effects. Our account points towards the methodological feasibility of novel neural networks in which message feedback is guaranteed by backpropagation mechanisms endowed in the same feedforward circuits. Bottom-up/top-down transmission at various coarse-grained network levels provides fresh insights in far-flung scientific fields such as object persistence, memory reinforcement, visual recognition, Bayesian inferential circuits and multidimensional activity of the brain. Implying that axonal stimulation by external sources might backpropagate and modify neuronal electric oscillations, our theory also suggests testable previsions concerning the optimal location of transcranial magnetic stimulation’s coils in patients affected by drug-resistant epilepsy.

Logica modernorum

Logica modernorum. A critical note on Habermas’s portrait of medieval philosophy In his monumental history of philosophy, the eminent scholar Jürgen Habermas has managed to provide us with a thorough and very nuanced overview of thousands of years of western thought. The famous philosopher paints an impressive picture of the vicissitudes of the modernisation processes featuring in the history of western philosophy. The Leitmotiv of Habermas’s narrative is the way in which throughout history philosophy dealt with the question concerning the relationship between faith and reason. When it comes to the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that Habermas should focus on the opposition between Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham. However, by confining himself to the concepts of fides and ratio, he completely overlooks thirteenth-century developments in the domain of logic. To take note of these developments is fundamental to understand the process of modernisation in philosophy. The aim of this paper is to fill in the gap, by concentrating on thirteenth-century discussions of necessity and (logical) consequences.

Systems biology is a method for analyzing massive amounts of multidimensional data generated by omics technologies. Cross-validation of the various technological platforms is critical

The value of systems biology in cardiology is becoming more recognized. There has been a tremendous rise in the number of articles in the last two decades, as publicly available datasets have been provided online and high-throughput tissue analysis has become more prevalent. In animal models, however, the future of cardiovascular medicine is less likely to be reanalyzing data and more likely to be investigating the function of GWAS-identified SNPs or network change using informatics and gene-editing technologies. These techniques, when combined with other omics interrogations and rigorous experimental design, have the potential to improve our understanding of gene-to-disease pathways.Systems biology is a method for studying large amounts of multidimensional data generated by omics technologies and, more broadly, the transition to big data in health care.Cross-validation of the various technological platforms is critical because omics studies are prone to bias and overinterpretation.Investigators must carefully determine which publicly accessible datasets, if any, to employ while conducting a systems analysis. Despite the fact that network theory and machine learning may yield amazing outcomes, these methods are not yet standardized. The studies mentioned here are excellent examples, in part because they use empirical models to support emergent systems biology results. In the few successful cases, careful experimental design, including interventional research and clinical trials, is required, in addition to the insights supplied by bioinformatics analysis of omics approaches. While it may be tempting to use emergent qualities to capture these new discoveries in more fundamental concepts, we agree with the English philosopher William of Ockham when he says, "It is futile to do with more things what can be done with fewer."

FATALISM: CONTRIBUTION OF WILLIAM OF OCKHAM

Fatalism is the ideology in which man is unable to do anything other than his own control and prevent any opinion, action or dislike. It also includes the fact that man is incapable of creating or preventing any event related to the future. There were several forms in fatalism. According to logical fatalism, such things are accepted as truth only if the future events of the present have already been decided. According to theological fatalism, free will does not mean that God has a foreknowledge of future events. Fatalism is one of the famous philosophical problems. Aristotle's interpretation of this has created a fatal mixture of theological teachings. This incompatible teaching was invented by Ockham. According to Aristotle, the omniscience and foreknowledge of God and the basic theological teachings have subtly challenged but some medieval philosophers have used those teachings without realizing it. As the first philosopher who criticized Aristotle in the Medieval Period, Ockham correctly interpreted the theological teachings. In contemporary philosophy, Ockham’s teachings are highly regarded. The purpose of this paper is to identify the confusions of Aristotle's teachings and to analyze Ockham’s interpretations. For this purpose, I have used the works of Aristotle and Ockham on fatalism as well as other sources which discuss and analyze the nature of logical fatalism as well as theology and how it affects theological teachings.

Potens per accidens sine accidentibus: Ockham on Material Substances and Their Essential Powers

Medieval scholastics share a commitment to a substance-accident ontology and to an analysis of efficient causation in which agents act in virtue of their powers. Given these commitments, it seems ready-made which entities are the agents or powers: substances are agents and their accidents powers. William of Ockham, however, offers a rather different analysis concerning material substances and their essential powers, which this article explores. The article first examines Ockham’s account of propria and his reasons for claiming that a material substance is essentially powerful sine accidentibus. However, the article subsequently argues that, given Ockham’s reductionism about material substance, only substantial forms – never substances – are truly agents and powers. Thus, a material substance is essentially powerful but only by courtesy – per accidens, as Ockham calls it – because it has a non-identical part, its substantial form, which does all the causal work by itself, per se.

The Genesis of the Idea and Value of Political Peace in Early Modern Political Philosophy

The main intention of this paper is to reconstruct the conceptual and historical‎ genesis of the idea and value of political peace from the point of view of ‎political philosophy at the intersection between late scholasticism and early modernity. The paper consists of three related parts. The first part highlights‎ methodological and contextual reasons why the idea of political peace has ‎been overshadowed throughout history by dominant discourses on war. The ‎second part deals with conceptual clarifications. The nature of war is distinguished ‎from other types of conflict and three interpretative approaches to‎ war are analyzed: political realism, fundamentalist-moralistic view of the holy‎ war, and the many theories of natural law that give rise to conceptions of just‎ war, but also the first abolitionist perspective or idea of ending all wars. Early‎ theoretical articulations of the notion of peace indicated modern-day emancipation‎ of politics from the tutelage of metaphysics and classical ethics, thus‎ separating the value of political peace from its original oneness with cosmic ‎and psychological peace. The third part of the paper highlights key moments ‎in the historical genesis of the value of political peace in the works of Aurelius ‎Augustine, Marsilius of Padua, and William of Ockham.‎

Aristotelian Powers, Mechanism, and Final Causes in the Late Middle Ages

Henrik Lagerlund explores the topic of final causality in the High and later Middle Ages. He argues that the seventeenth-century mechanists weren’t the only ones critiquing and rejecting final causality. There were earlier figures who developed a form of mechanical materialism that eschewed final causes, most notably William of Ockham and John Buridan. Lagerlund begins with the way that Ockham and Buridan in the fourteenth century understood the mereology of the body. Bodily substances were composed of essential parts and integral parts. Essential parts were its metaphysical constituents, its matter and substantial form. Integral parts were its various extended bits. This distinction generated a metaphysical divide between material objects with extended substantial forms and simple, immaterial substances like God, angels, and the human soul. And this divide raises a number of philosophical puzzles for the entities on either side of it. Of special concern to Lagerlund is the numeric identity and unity of material substances across time. Lagerlund shows how Buridan in particular struggled to make sense of the identity and unity of material substances through time. In the end, Buridan could only say that material substances are successively identical through time; they are not totally or partially identical.

Duns Scotus and William of Ockham

Duns Scotus and William of Ockham engage with Aquinas’ thought in fundamentally negative ways. They never make distinctively Thomist positions their own, and when they use Aquinas’ thought, they do so merely as a way of sharpening their own theologies through the dialectical process of rejecting an opponent’s view. This chapter first considers the role of Aquinas’ thought in Scotus’ teaching on religious language and univocity, divine simplicity and omnipresence, the Trinity, cognitive theory, the question of the first object of cognition, angelic individuation, the beatific vision, the plurality of substantial forms, free will, and normative ethics. A second section discusses Aquinas’ place in Ockham’s teaching on common natures, intuitive cognition, divine ideas, and the nature of grace.