Simplifying

This chapter, ‘Simplifying’, probes the pathologies of a central means of making peace in civil war. In any project of ‘making’, designs aim towards simplicity. In peacemaking, a neat make-do design first involves reductively naming a politically complex reality to make a solvable problem. Yet design-based simplifications collide with the complexity of the actual civil war, and then need forceful means to be sustained and actualized. Taking the crucial Machakos Protocol of 2002 and the SPLM/A as its focus, this chapter digs deeper into how simplifying is implemented in peacemaking practice, how it is resisted, and its effects. A close-up analysis of peacemakers’ attempts to detach and localize conflict in the border regions of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile, and resistance to this by the SPLM/A and others, further demonstrates the perils of simplifying the politics of civil war as a mode of peacemaking. Although simplifying was a useful means to achieve Sudan’s ‘north-south’ peace, its ramifications for reproducing violent resistance ensured it was a mere pause on war which later took on new and different character.

Contested Daily Routines, Contested Care. Children with Type 1 Diabetes in Covid-19 Times

The conventional treatment of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is especially demanding for children, both physically and psychologically (Iversen et al. Int J Qual Stud Health Well-being,13(1), 1487758, 2018). Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems (CGM) are an important aid for children and their families in dealing with the disease. In their work, however, Şahinol and Başkavak (2020) point out that CGM carry the risk of viewing T1D as a technologically solvable problem instead of considering the disease as a whole. This is mainly creating confidence in technology due to CGM experiences while neglecting significant dietary measures and exercises needed to be integrated into daily routines. During the current pandemic, this problem seems to take on a whole new level. Based on two periods of in-depth interviews and observations conducted with 8 families with T1D children aged 6 to 14 living in Istanbul and Ankara (Turkey) from May to November 2019 and again from May to June 2020, we compare and focus on the experiences prior to and during the pandemic time. We argue that despite the possibility of technological regulation of the disease, the vulnerability of children is increased and, more than ever, depends on socio-bio-technical entanglements.

Church’s theorem and the decision problem

Church’s theorem, published in 1936, states that the set of valid formulas of first-order logic is not effectively decidable: there is no method or algorithm for deciding which formulas of first-order logic are valid. Church’s paper exhibited an undecidable combinatorial problem P and showed that P was representable in first-order logic. If first-order logic were decidable, P would also be decidable. Since P is undecidable, first-order logic must also be undecidable. Church’s theorem is a negative solution to the decision problem (Entscheidungsproblem), the problem of finding a method for deciding whether a given formula of first-order logic is valid, or satisfiable, or neither. The great contribution of Church (and, independently, Turing) was not merely to prove that there is no method but also to propose a mathematical definition of the notion of ‘effectively solvable problem’, that is, a problem solvable by means of a method or algorithm.

Efficient, Safe, and Probably Approximately Complete Learning of Action Models

In this paper we explore the theoretical boundaries of planning in a setting where no model of the agent's actions is given. Instead of an action model, a set of successfully executed plans are given and the task is to generate a plan that is safe, i.e., guaranteed to achieve the goal without failing. To this end, we show how to learn a conservative model of the world in which actions are guaranteed to be applicable. This conservative model is then given to an off-the-shelf classical planner, resulting in a plan that is guaranteed to achieve the goal. However, this reduction from a model-free planning to a model-based planning is not complete: in some cases a plan will not be found even when such exists. We analyze the relation between the number of observed plans and the likelihood that our conservative approach will indeed fail to solve a solvable problem. Our analysis show that the number of trajectories needed scales gracefully.

Project of V.N. Muravyev: Eutopia or Solvable Problem

The article considers a project of V.N.Muravyev: his representation of ideal future and ways of achievement of this ideal. The analysis of projectivism as an aspect of Russian philosophy is provided; the existence of “project philosophy” is problematized. The aim of the article is the analysis of V. Muravyev project, the research into the possibility of its realization using given methods. The primary question raised in this article is whether it is possible to resuscitate the past, prolong it into the future, carrying to it the most valuable things that have been at the humanity’s disposal? Author states a close link with a project of N.F. Fedorov, Muravyev’s predecessor. In his works, the main ideas of the philosophy of «Common Cause» are transformed and supplemented with the idea of «conquest of time». Muravyev’s project represents an ideal of the future which he develops using his own methodology of application of values of cosmism (and projectivism) based on the latter of Fedorov.

An approach to human–machine collaboration in innovation

If a solvable problem is currently unsolved, then something important to a solution is most likely being overlooked. From this simple observation we derive the obscure features hypothesis: every innovative solution is built upon at least one commonly overlooked or new (i.e., obscure) feature of the problem. By using a new definition of a feature as an effect of an interaction, we are able to accomplish five things. First, we are able to determine where features come from and how to search for new ones. Second, we are able to construct mathematical arguments that the set of features of an object is not computably enumerable. Third, we are able to characterize innovative problem solving as looking for a series of interactions that produce the desired effects (i.e., the goal). Fourth, we are able to construct a precise problem-solving grammar that is both human and machine friendly. Fifth, we are able to devise a visual and verbal problem-solving representation that both humans and computers can contribute to as they help counteract each other's problem-solving weaknesses. We show how computers can counter some of the known cognitive obstacles to innovation that humans have. We also briefly discuss ways in which humans can return the favor. We conclude that a promising process for innovative problem solving is a human–computer collaboration in which each partner assists the other in unearthing the obscure features of a problem.