Computing nature – reality or metaphor? DISCUSSION ON THE I. MIKHAILOV’S PAPER “COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH TO SOCIAL KNOWLEDGE”

The article critically evaluates the computational approach and its application to living beings and social organization. Arguments are put forward according to which the cognitive potential of more traditional approaches to these subject areas – at least at the present time – is far from a state of exhaustion, and the computational approach is unable to create an alternative to them. This leads to the idea that the naturalization of the concept of computation in relation to such systems should be treated only as a metaphor.

Criticism of solipsism in the contexts of many-world models

The article analyzes the problem of the relationship between consciousness and physical reality in the context of some multi-world models. It is shown that the adoption of many- worlds models imposes certain restrictions on the criteria of scientific theory, as well as on the concept of what is considered a “theory of everything”. Based on the original criticism of solipsism and the properties of the second law of thermodynamics, it is proved that consciousness can be considered as a derivative of the fundamental principles (laws of nature) of the physical reality in which it operates. From this follows the conclusion, considering the adoption of the many-worlds hypothesis, that different types of consciousness should correspond to different worlds (with different sets of basic principles). Conclusions are also made about the role and status of mathematics in the considered hypothetical conditions, and the possibility of creating a “theory of everything” is questioned.

Social sciences: calculation or hermeneutics?

Critical analysis of cognitive claims to universal calculating social science’s formation has been presented in this paper. It has clearly been argued, that originated in G. Leibnitz’s metaphor: “intellection is calculation”, this idea even in its further development does not have any sufficient methodological foundation for its wider extrapolation upon the scope of social organization. It might only be accepted by means of natural reductionism, which implicates elimination of social subject matters’ meaningful dimension, obviously regarded as constitutive for culture and sociality. This implies in its turn bringing down the role of philosophy to topology and digital analysis and theoretical elimination of both human and his meanings of being from socio-cultural reality.

Prospects for a computational approach in the social sciences. Discussion

Panelists N.M. Smirnova, V.A. Bazhanov, N.A. Yastreb, and P.N. Baryshnikov discuss the main ideas of I.F. Mikhailov's article “Computational Approach in Social Cognition” and the ideas expressed by each of them in the commentary texts regarding the prospects of the computational approach in the social sciences. The discussion ends with the response of I.F. Mikhailov. In it he gives an assessment of the objections made and clarifies those points of his text that, in his opinion, were ignored or remained misunderstood by the debaters.

Some issues of biomedical ethics in a pandemic (review)

The article is an analytical review of English-language articles devoted to modern problems of biomedical ethics. The article considers such ethical categories as respect for the freedom of the patient, paternalism, protection of the patient’s interests, the principle of sustainability, justified allocation of resources, etc. It is noted, in particular, that, according to the principle of equitable distribution of medical resources, everyone receives what they deserve, in accordance with the needs of health and no one is discriminated against because of individual characteristics such as gender, socioeconomic status or age. Under the principle of patient freedom, people have the right to make informed decisions of their own, including with regard to voluntary vaccination programs, and can act according to their norms, desires and beliefs. This review presents articles that, for the first time, consider the ethical aspects of dealing with the consequences of coronavirus infection. In particular, it is indicated that decisions on the priority of vaccination should be based on such principles as: a) equal moral value of each person, b) available knowledge to maximize public health by preventing COVID-19. An open and transparent dialogue with the public is needed to ensure and, in the long term, increase public confidence and justification for the adoption of a vaccination strategy. It should contain information on the current state of knowledge about the vaccine itself and about political decision-making processes, including the underlying ethical arguments.

Qualia realism and representationalism

The article deals with the problem of naturalistic explanation of an essential feature of all conscious mental states – the phenomenal character. The conception of qualia realism can be considered as one of the options for a non-naturalistic explanation of this phenomenon. Nevertheless, it is believed that the phenomenal character of experience can be explained in terms of representational content that are more acceptable to naturalism. As a rule, in these discussions, qualia are identified with the non-representational properties of experience – mental paint. The author analyzes in detail the relationship between the concepts of “qualia” and “mental paint” in the key work of G. Harman. It is shown that Harman’s argument against qualia realism fails. He defined qualia in terms of the mental paint conception, which contains consequences that replace the original thesis of qualia realism. To attack the foundations of qualia realism in a more relevant way, the author develops A. Kind’s idea of the epistemic dimension of qualia. Kind points out that since the philosophers arrived at the question of the existence of qualia by considering the plausibility of functionalism, they were so focused on metaphysical considerations that they forgot that this phenomenon is connected in the first epistemic dimension. On the basis of this, a new version of the argument from transparency of experience versus qualia realism was proposed. The argument demonstrates that the qualia realism fails the test of introspective analysis of perceptual experience. Qualia turn out to be theoretical objects that do not fulfill their prescribed explanatory function. This undermines the foundations of metaphysical arguments against the reductionist approach to consciousness, since they proceeded from the assumption of the existence of referents of the concept of “qualia”. The variant of the explanation of the phenomenal character of experience in terms of representationalism also faces internal problems. In this regard, the author offers the option of direct realism, since it is well compatible with the transparency thesis and is generally consistent with the naturalistic attitudes of the representationalism.

Sublime sacrifice or total revenge: images of science and the scientist in an American horror film

Hollywood horror films, which belong to a special genre of cinema, have been extremely sensitive to the topic of scientific and technological progress and the role of research scientists in shaping and promoting the technological picture of the world since their inception. The steadily increasing popularity of visual images of science and scientists in popular culture sets the tone for the development of themes and storylines of this genre. They became the immediate fabric of horror films, but unlike politics, art, and religion, Hollywood cinema first looked at the situation from the point of view of its existential dimension. And if the leading social institutions were interested in science only from the point of view of its social utility and pragmatism, then Hollywood horror cinema managed to reveal the existential emptiness and tragedy of the researcher, whom the government plunges into a continuous and mad race for scientific discoveries. It is in this genre that the destinies of human and the nature represented by human mind, enclosed in the narrows of technological civilization, are most clearly drawn. The image of a scientist in an American horror film is outlined in two main trends, negative and positive. Negative visualization is associated with the image of a mad researcher who uses the potential of his intelligence for sophisticated revenge on the social environment. The positive model, due to the demonstration of outstanding achievements of scientists, involves a nightmarish visualization of all possible deviations of power and defects of the social system that are not able to adequately operate with the achievements of science.

Computational approach to social knowledge

Social and cognitive sciences have always faced the choice: either to meet the methodologi- cal standards given by successful natural sciences or to rely on their own. Talking about the conversion of knowledge into technology, the second way did not bring great success. The first way implies two alternative opportunities: reductionism or discovery of proprietary general laws. None of these chances have been realized with any satisfactory results, too. Methodological analysis shows that, to achieve significant progress in social sciences, what is missed there is not new facts or definitions but new conceptual schemes. The reason, as the author supposes, is the nomothetic approach being applied to systems with high degree of complexity and hierarchy. If we assume that social structures and processes are built upon cognitive psychological structures and processes, the former inherit the distributed computational architecture of the latter. The paper analyzes various conceptions of computations in order to determine their relevance to the task of building computational social science. The author offers a “generic” definition of computations as a process carried out by a computational system if the latter is understood as a mechanism of some representation. According to the author, the computationalization of social science implies “naturalization” of computations. This requires a theory that would explain the mechanism of growing complexity and hierarchy of natural (in particular, social) computational systems. As a method for constructing such a science, a kind of reverse engineering is proposed, which is recreation of a computational algorithmic scheme of social tissue by the determination and recombination of “social primitives” – elementary operations of social interaction.

Computational philosophy in search of boundaries between object and method

The main goal of this paper is to point out a number of methodological difficulties faced by the supporters of different kinds of philosophical computationalism in the formation of their conceptual apparatus. The text examines the beliefs underlying physicalist panсomputationalism, as well as some inaccuracies in the classification of the concept of computation. Particular attention is paid to the principles of hierarchical correlation that underlie social neurosciences that actively use computational methods.

Cognitive science: from paradigms to theoretical complexes

This article deals with the task of understanding main theoretical movements in cognitive science, including classical computational cognitivism, connectionism, moderate embodied cognition, and predictive processing. For this purpose, the article analyzes the well-known post-positivist conceptions of philosophy of science developed by T. Kuhn, I. Lakatos, and L. Laudan, which focus not on individual theories, but on groups of theories. Despite the fact that all these well-known post-positivist conceptions describe well certain features of theoretical movements in cognitive science, none of them as such can be taken as a basis for understanding those cognitivist groups of theories and models. Thus, the article develops an alternative approach based on the author’s idea of theoretical complexes. With the help of this idea, it becomes possible, firstly, to characterize the form of organization of main theoretical movements in cognitive science. From this point of view, complexes of individual theories, models, and conceptions in cognitive science can be formed both on the basis of one common property or a number of common properties, and on the basis of family resemblance. And, secondly, the idea of theoretical complexes has made it possible to clarify the basic functions of cognitivist theoretical movements. These functions include the constructive function of a landmark for the supporters of one particular complex (including the subordinate functions of creating and modifying individual theories, defining their basic concepts, etc.). and the negative function of a target for criticism for supporters of competing complexes.