D. Chalmers’ argument from logical supervenience in explanation of the phenomenal consciousness

The subject of this research is D. Chalmers’ argument in explanation of the phenomenal consciousness –sentience or qualia – explanation on the basis of dualism of the low-level physical and high-level mental propertoes of the brain. The dualism of properties in the philosophy of consciousness means that consciousness is a high-level property, supervenient on the physical properties of the brain. Chalmers introduces the concept of logical supervenience and explains the phenomenal consciousness by the fact that psychical properties are supervenient on physical properties naturally, rather than logically. This comprises the essence of Chalmers' concept of naturalistic dualism. The article reviews the concept of supervenience in most commonly used form, and the definition of logical and natural supervenience. Supervenience becomes logical and/or natural due to the fact that its definition includes the modal term “possibility”, which concedes different interpretations: possibility by virtue of the laws of nature – nomic possibility, and logical possibility. The author demonstrates that the definition of logical supervenience, which leans on the concept of identity, makes sense only in the context of transtemporal, rather than transworld identity. Such circumstance substantially changes the meaning of the definition of logical supervenience. The novelty of this work consists in showing that unlike the logical and natural possibilities, logical and natural supervenience are different names for the same type of relationship. The conclusion is formulated that naturalistic dualism, which claims their fundamental difference, cannot explain the phenomenal consciousness using this distinction.

Value

The gradable property associated with “good” is value. Chapter 4 pursues the question “What is value?” and does so by linguistic means. The term “value” is a mass noun. This mass noun is polysemous between generic and specific senses; where the former comprises so-called negative, neutral, and positive value; and the latter denotes only positive value. The chapter argues that positive value is purpose serving, which is to say contribution to the realization of a purpose. Consequently, for an entity x to be good is for x to contribute to the realization of a purpose to a significant degree. “Purpose,” as here employed, is a univocal modal term, whose denotation comprises at least four basic kinds: biological and characteristic artificial purposes and ad hoc purposes derived from either intentions or desires. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the relation between value and quality.

RESONANCE AND THE LATE COEFFICIENTS IN THE SCATTERED FIELD OF A DIELECTRIC CIRCULAR CYLINDER

The classical modal expansion for the scattered field of a plane wave from a circular dielectric cylinder is studied. A new uniform asymptotic approximation is presented for the late coefficients in this expansion, in the case of a fixed relative dielectric constant εr, both real and complex. These new approximations for the mode values are not based on the scattering matrix but rather the classical WKBJ approximations for the Bessel functions, and are valid for the entire region exterior to the cylinder, including the transition region. Furthermore, a precise asymptotic form for the location of a certain critical Regge pole is obtained. It is shown that this pole can lead to at least one dramatic resonant modal term at certain critical values, and the exponential nature of the mode in question is determined explicitly. This is followed by an extension to complex values of εr with new uniform asymptotic approximations for the modes also being obtained, and these in turn demonstrate a heavy damping of the resonant mode.

Children's understanding of epistemic modals

ABSTRACTPrior empirical work in semantic development has produced an impressive finding showing that children can reliably detect a modal's relative force (e.g. that must is stronger sounding than may) by five-and-a-half years of age. We investigate the extent to which a representation of relative force can account for an understanding of epistemic modals when their logical meaning is considered (i.e. when modals are interpretable as expressions of necessary and possible conclusions). Experiment 1 presents a replication of Hirst & Weil's hidden-object task, which originally included the supremely forceful indicative is. Thirty-two five-year-olds were required to find a peanut hidden under one of two containers based on a pair of statements that contrasted is with has to, has to with might, or is with might. Half the children were entitled to search for the peanut upon hearing the two statements and half were required to indicate only where they would look. Results largely confirmed the influence of relative force in this paradigm. Both groups of children usually searched under the container associated with the stronger-sounding term. Experiment 2 employed a modified version of the hidden-object task in which contrasts presented one true and one false modal statement and 32 five-year-olds, 20 seven-year-olds, 16 nine-year-olds and 20 adults were asked to determine which of two statements was correct. Half the contrasts presented a relatively weaker-sounding modal term in the true statement and the other half presented equally forceful modal terms in the two statements. No age group systematically endorsed a false stronger-sounding modal statement over a true weaker-sounding one. The five-year-olds' rate of correct responding overall was above levels predicted by chance. Mature logical modal understanding was found among seven-year-olds who routinely endorsed a contrast's true modal statement. These findings suggest that deductive inference is an early semantic component of modal terms.

Liapunov Stability Analysis of Elastic Shaft-Rigid Disk-Bearing Systems

A general method of analysis based on Liapunov’s direct method is presented for studying the dynamic stability of elastic shaft-rigid disk-bearing systems. A model comprised of a rigid disk rigidly attached at an arbitrary location along a flexible, rotating shaft which is mounted on two eight-component end bearings is used to develop stability criteria involving system stiffness and damping parameters. It is quantitatively shown by means of graphs for typical cases how the instability regions are reduced by (a) increasing the shaft dimensionless stiffness parameters, (b) increasing the bearing direct stiffness and damping parameters, (c) decreasing the bearing cross-coupling stiffness and damping parameters, (d) decreasing the mass ratio of the disk, and (e) increasing the disk’s radius ratio. These graphs present typical examples of the types of design information available to engineers through the equations provided in this paper. These graphs also verify that a two-modal term (N = 2) expansion is normally adequate to model the system deformations since the curves are not significantly altered by adding another term (N = 3) to the expansion. The critical value of the shaft dimensionless stiffness parameters is also studied.