Thinking Machines

This chapter investigates ethical questions surrounding the possible future emergence of self-aware artificial intelligence (AI). Current research into ethical AI and how this might be applied or extended to future AI is discussed. It is argued that the development of self-aware machines, or their functional equivalents, is possible in principle, and so questions of their ethical status are important. The importance of an objective, reality-based ethics in maintaining human-friendly AI is identified. It is proposed that the conditional nature of life and the value of reason provide the basis of an objective ethics, whose implications include rights to life and liberty, and which apply equally to humans and self-aware machines. Crucial to the development of human-friendly AI will be research on encoding correct rules of reasoning into AI and, using that, validating objective ethics and determining to what extent they will apply to and be followed voluntarily by self-aware machines.

Characteristics of Invisible Discrimination and Diversity in Students of a Public University

This article has to relate invisible discrimination with diversity in students in university classrooms, whose variable is invisible in nature, with tendencies to distort objective reality, thus causing discriminated young people to have socio-emotional instability in their lives. Quantitative, descriptive correlational study and due to the sensitivity of the subject, a non-probabilistic sample was taken for convenience of 290 students from the different academic programs; The data collection instrument was a questionnaire, the results were found using Pearson's Correlation Coefficient, which indicates that there is a partial relationship between diversity and invisible discrimination (p = 0.45).

Everyday life information means while reflecting in the individual consciousness on postmodern reality background

The purpose of the article is a detailed analysis of information means of reflecting objective reality,in an individual consciousness in a postmodern society. The methodology is based on the use of activity,systemic, socio-cultural approaches, as well as methods of comparative and terminological analysis. Thescientific novelty of work is that the means of reflecting everyday reality in the individual consciousness areinvestigated. Mechanisms of influence of information technologies of mass communication on social identity,lifestyle, and culture, in general, are analyzed. It has been proved that social and cultural phenomena such aspost-folklore, ritualization, mythology, enigmatic narratives play an important role in the process of awarenessof objective reality. It is justified that the consciousness of the individual is in a total space created by masscommunication, and therefore the perception of everyday reality occurs under the influence of informationtechnologies. A significant role in modern society is played by the processes of demassification of everydaylife, which generate pluralism and a variety of thoughts; entertainment and humor are the main factors inthe manipulation of individual and social consciousness. Conclusions. Postmodern reality determines theemergence and development of such phenomena of everyday life, which turn into an important means ofinfluencing the social, and especially the individual consciousness. Everyday life through means of masscommunication is reflected as an image of reality in the individual’s brain, is realized and reproduced as asubjective reality. Scientific exploration in this area will always be relevant since everyday life in modernpostmodern society is an important specific source of society development, the meeting space of philosophy,psychology, social communications, and culture. In our further research, we plan to study in more detail theimpact of post-folklore on the consciousness of the individual in postmodern reality.Keywords: subjective reality, everyday life, enigmatic narratives, mythologization, ritualization, postfolklore, postmodernism, demassification.

Playing Upon Biographical Myths: William Shakespeare and Lesia Ukrainka as Characters in Contemporary Drama

The article sets out to explore two plays by contemporary playwrights, one American (Don Nigro, Loves Labours Wonne), the other Ukrainian (Neda Nezhdana, And Still I will Betray You), focusing on William Shakespeare and Lesia Ukrainka, respectively, within the framework of “the author as character” subgenre of fictional (imaginative) biography. Accordingly, the article considers the correlation between the factual and the fi ctional as one of its foci of attention. Drawing upon a variety of theoretical approaches (Paul Franssen, Ton Hoenselaars, Ira Nadel, Aleid Fokkema, Michael MacKeon, Ina Shabert and others), the article summarizes the principal characteristics of “the author as character” subgenre and proceeds to discuss how they operate in the dramas under scrutiny. The analysis makes it abundantly clear that in Nigro’s and Nezhdana’s plays the balance between fact and fi ction is defi nitively tipped in favor of the latter. By centering their (quasi) biographical plays on highly mythologized artists of national standing, both dramatists aimed at demythologizing these cult fi gures, inevitably placing them, however, within new mythical plots combining a Neo-Romantic vision of the artist as demiurge, with a Neo-Baroque as well as fin de siècle apology of death and a postmodern denial of one objective reality.

Three Questions of Methodology

Wight composed this note to make clear three caveats about his exposition of three main traditions of thinking about international politics in Western societies since the sixteenth century (Realism, Rationalism, and Revolutionism). First, the sources considered include not only works by theorists and international lawyers, but also statements and policies of politicians. Second, it is imperative to avoid ‘the hypostatization of categories’—that is, ‘taking a classificatory system too seriously and too concretely’ and attributing objective reality to intellectual concepts. The views of specific thinkers are more valuable than generalizations about shared opinions in categories or claims of progress in philosophical understanding over the centuries. Third, the scholar’s role concerning value judgements in this effort to elucidate the three traditions consists of ‘exposition and comparison, not criticism in any sense of propounding theory’ for the critical assessment of the ideas expressed in these traditions.

Socialization and its success in the model of achieving the development of the social world

The article presents the results of the analysis of disproportion on the materials characterizing the economy and society of Ukraine, which allowed us to conclude about the formation of a trap of modernization, due to which transformational changes did not achieve the desired result. As a phenomenon, it is due to the relevant processes in society due to its lag in mastering the accumulation of exogenous in the absence of endogenous nature of the experience of the subject of modernization. To resolve contradictions and overcome the gap, it is necessary to implement a model of social life, which will reduce the disproportion. The author’s model of social world development is proposed, which is based on the interaction between the dialectical nature of such fundamental social processes as internalization, exteriorization, subjectivation, objectification, innovation, participating in the reformatting and development of the social world. Socialization is considered both as a process of the comprehension of objective reality by consciousness, and as a process of comprehension of dynamics and structure of development of the surrounding social world. The common and different processes of transformation of the Middle Ages and modernity according to the social criterion are presented and the role of socialization and social innovations in the long-term reformatting of the social world is shown. In the case of their success in social construction, there should really be a symmetry between objective and subjective reality. The socialization of the subject and the social innovation generated by it in understanding the development of the social world as a necessary condition for the success of its transformation in the long run are considered. The sufficient conditions are the necessary socialization of the object, objective reality, economic relations, capital, and the way of interaction between subject and object. This spectrum will be the subject of further research by the author.

Representations in Intergroup Relations: Reflexivity, Meta-Representations, and Interobjectivity

Social and cultural groups are characterised by shared systems of social objects and issues that constitute their objective reality and their members' identity. It is argued that interpersonal interactions within such groups require a system of comprehensive representations to enable concerted interaction between individuals. Comprehensive representations include bits and pieces of the interactant's representational constitution and potential values and behaviours to reduce possible friction in interactions. On a larger scale, the same is true in encounters, communication, and interaction between members of different cultural groups where interactants need to dispose of a rough knowledge of the other culture's relevant characteristics. This mutual knowledge is called meta-representations that complement the actors' own values and ways of thinking. This concept complements Social Representation Theory when applied to cross-cultural and inter-ethnic interactions.

History and methodology of legal science

The textbook systematically highlights the problems of the history and methodology of legal science. It analyzes the history of foreign and Russian legal science, examines philosophical and legal theories and the fundamental principles of cognition that make up the methodological basis of jurisprudence. Considerable attention is paid to the use of methods for performing a scientific task, with the help of which knowledge is obtained that brings it closer to reflecting objective reality. It is addressed, first of all, to masters of law faculties. This publication can be useful for graduate students, applicants and anyone interested in the problems of legal science.

The role of analogy in the verbalization of the realities of the objective world

Background. Being in a certain language environment, a person accumulates language resources, correlates them with the realities of objective reality on a subconscious level, as well as with the communicative intention and being used analogy, models the nominative unit. The appearance of the new name is based on the so-called “finished material”, that is the word-forming means and word-forming models which are available in the language.Purpose. To describe the role of analogy in the creation of derived nominative units in language and speech against the background of modern trends of verbalization of the realities of the surrounding actuality.Methods. The abstraction and descriptive-analytical methods were used to study the role of analogy in the verbalization of the realities of actuality.Results. The use of analogies is influenced by various factors: usually when the nominators use language actively to create according to a known wordforming model a name for a new concept or to offer an expressive name to an existent name of a known reality in a particular speech situation. Sometimes the analogy is used due to lack of speech experience to fill the nominative gap in a certain communicative situation.Depending on the nominative intention of the speaker and the corresponding models-samples it is possible to define kinds of applicable analogies: proper-nominative, associative, expressive, situational-compensatory, situational-correlative, nominative-adaptive.Discussion. The analogy often accompanies the process of verbalization of the realities of objective actuality, makes it simpler, systematizes, unifies the nominative resource of the modern Ukrainian language. The perspective of the research is to identify the most productive sample structures, according to which the nominative process takes place in different onomasiological categories.

The evolution of the criminalization of corruption crimes: from ancient times to the present

Crimes of corruption are the crimes that are part of the category of the most dangerous facts for society. Once committed in objective reality, they directly affect the good and legitimate activity of both the public and private spheres. Thus, in the following, we propose as a desideratum, the analysis of the legal incriminations of corruption crimes in order to inform the general public about the essence of this negative factor that is encountered at the current stage in society.