Who is the Church?

Abstract : Although the question of survival is on the mind of most mainline congregations in the United States, the real crisis facing the churches is one of identity. After briefly reviewing three theological paradigms for the church (Word‐event, communion, and missio dei), I propose that the question of the church's identity is best answered by returning to the “story of the church,” which properly “starts with the Spirit,” and by reclaiming a concept of the church as a Spirit‐breathed people who are called and sent.     

Where in the brain is the self?

Localizing the self in the brain has been the goal of consciousness research for centuries. Recently, there has been an increase in attention to the localization of the self. Here we present data from patients suffering from a loss of self in an attempt to understand the neural correlates of consciousness. Focusing on delusional misidentification syndrome (DMS), we find that frontal regions, as well as the right hemisphere appear to play a significant role in DMS and DMS related disorders. These data are placed in the context of neuroimaging findings.     

How is gait visually regulated when the head is travelling faster than the legs?

Gait regulation patterns were examined under various visual conditions in order to determine whether speed information provided by peripheral vision is taken into account in gait adjustments. Nine subjects walking toward a visual target on the ground were required to place one foot exactly on it. peripheral vision was either restricted to a 12 degrees angle or decorrelated, corresponding to a moving speed greater than the actual walking speed. Decorrelation was obtained by placing the subject on a treadmill moving in the walking direction. The results show, by comparison with the control condition, that the restriction of peripheral visual information did not affect the accuracy of the foot positioning, whereas decorrelated conditions affected it significantly: we noted that the gait regulation was triggered early on and showed a very stable pattern so that the distance to the target was consistently underestimated. This suggest that, although visual speed information is not indispensable in this kind of task, it is nevertheless taken into account in stride adjustments when the whole visual field is available. The results are discussed, in the context of a time-based approach to locomotor activity, in relation to the possible visual methods that might be used in obtaining information about time to contact the target.     

Who is the typical bicyclist?

Promoting bicycling is important for individual health, environmental sustainability and transport demand management. However, very few people use a bicycle on a regular basis. This paper explores what views bicyclists and non-bicyclists in England may hold about the typical bicyclist and how such views are related to bicycling behaviour and intentions. A survey was conducted among 244 bicyclists and non-bicyclists. On the basis of a range of statements on behaviour, motivation and characteristics of the typical bicyclist, four different stereotypes could be distinguished: responsible, lifestyle, commuter and hippy-go-lucky. These views differed between bicyclists and non-bicyclists. Moreover, independent of past bicycling behaviour, reported intentions to use a bicycle in the future were positively related to perceptions of the typical bicyclist as a commuter or hippy-go-lucky bicyclist. These findings have implications for encouraging bicycling, which may benefit from promoting bicycling as a common day-to-day activity rather than something that is only relevant for a few.     

What is the Grounding Problem?

A philosophical standard in the debates concerning material constitution is the case of a statue and a lump of clay, Lumpl and Goliath respectively. According to the story, Lumpl and Goliath are coincident throughout their respective careers. Monists hold that they are identical; pluralists that they are distinct. This paper is concerned with a particular objection to pluralism, the Grounding Problem. The objection is roughly that the pluralist faces a legitimate explanatory demand to explain various differences she alleges between Lumpl and Goliath, but that the pluralist’s theory lacks the resources to give any such explanation. In this paper, I explore the question of whether there really is any problem of this sort. I argue (i) that explanatory demands that are clearly legitimate are easy for the pluralist to meet; (ii) that even in cases of explanatory demands whose legitimacy is questionable the pluralist has some overlooked resources; and (iii) there is some reason for optimism about the pluralist’s prospects for meeting every legitimate explanatory demand. In short, no clearly adequate statement of a Grounding Problem is extant, and there is some reason to believe that the pluralist can overcome any Grounding Problem that we haven’t thought of yet.     

Where is the randomness for the human computer?

Psychologists traditionally have employed both statistical and process assumptions in models of human learning and performance. The corresponding tradition in the field of artificial intelligence is to minimize or eliminate the use of statistical assumptions. This article reviews some stochastic and nonntochastic models of human memory, probability learning, medical diagnosis, and concept identification. Some stochastic models are found to have a larger deterministic component than was previously realized; deterministic models applicable with random selection of stimuli can be represented in stochastic form. A policy of methodological determinism is recommended in which the model builder originally assumes that no random processes take place within the organism. If necessary, and as a last resort, such processes can be appended to an otherwise deterministic model for predictive convenience.     

What is the diplopia threshold?

The magnitude and nature of the diplopia threshold, that is, the value of the retinal disparity at which binocular single vision ends, were studied in four experiments. The results show that the magnitude of the diplopia threshold is highly dependent on the subject tested (differences up to a factor of 6), the amount of training the subject has received (differences up to a factor of 2.5), the criterion used for diplopia (limits for unequivocal singleness of vision were up to a factor of 3 lower than those for unequivocal doubleness of vision), and the conspicuousness of disparity that can be influenced both by the surrounding stimuli (differences up to a factor of 3.5) and stereoscopic depth (differences up to a factor of 4.5). Our data do not confirm previous findings of interference effects associated with the initial appearance of binocular disparity when test stimuli are presented tachistoscopically. A remarkable finding was that the magnitude of the diplopia threshold seems to be determined by the amount of intrinsic noise in the disparity domain, as revealed by the standard deviations of the thresholds for tachistoscopically presented test stimuli. The overall results suggest that the diplopia threshold is, in essence, not the rigid boundary of a dead zone, but, rather, a disparity level corresponding to a lenient criterion for singleness of vision which leads touseful interpretation of the percept of the stimulus without disparity, given the variability of this percept due to intrinsic noise in the disparity domain.     

What is the axiomatic method?

The modern notion of the axiomatic method developed as a part of the conceptualization of mathematics starting in the nineteenth century. The basic idea of the method is the capture of a class of structures as the models of an axiomatic system. The mathematical study of such classes of structures is not exhausted by the derivation of theorems from the axioms but includes normally the metatheory of the axiom system. This conception of axiomatization satisfies the crucial requirement that the derivation of theorems from axioms does not produce new information in the usual sense of the term called depth information. It can produce new information in a different sense of information called surface information. It is argued in this paper that the derivation should be based on a model-theoretical relation of logical consequence rather than derivability by means of mechanical (recursive) rules. Likewise completeness must be understood by reference to a model-theoretical consequence relation. A correctly understood notion of axiomatization does not apply to purely logical theories. In the latter the only relevant kind of axiomatization amounts to recursive enumeration of logical truths. First-order “axiomatic” set theories are not genuine axiomatizations. The main reason is that their models are structures of particulars, not of sets. Axiomatization cannot usually be motivated epistemologically, but it is related to the idea of explanation.     

What is the Accordion Effect?

In "Action and Responsibility,' Joel Feinberg pointed to an important idea to which he gave the label "the accordion effect.' Feinberg's discussion of this idea is of interest on its own, but it is also of interest because of its interaction with his critique, in his "Causing Voluntary Actions,' of a much discussed view of H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honoré that Feinberg labels the "voluntary intervention principle.' In this essay I reflect on what the accordion effect is supposed by Feinberg to be, on differences between Feinberg's understanding of this idea and that of Donald Davidson, and on the interaction between Feinberg's discussion of the accordion effect and his critique of the voluntary intervention principle.     

What is the Question to Which Husserl’s Fifth Cartesian Meditation is the Answer?

Interpreters generally agree that the Fifth Cartesian Meditation fails to achieve its task, but they do not agree on what that task is. In my essay, I attempt to formulate the question to which the Fifth Cartesian Meditation gives the answer. While it is usually assumed that the text poses a rather ambitious question, I suggest that the text asks, “How is the Other given to me on the most basic level?” The answer would be that the Other is given as accessible in the mode of inaccessibility. Husserl’s failure to convey this question clearly seems rooted in ambiguities concerning the concepts of solipsism and the sphere of ownness.     

What is the nature of the mind's pattern-recognition process?

If we look at the human mind as a pattern-recognition device, what is the nature of its pattern-recognizing? And how does it differ from the majority of pattern-recognition methods we have collectively devised over the decades? These broad philosophical questions emerge from the studies of chess thought, and we propose that a major task of the mind is to engage in “experience recognition” (Linhares & Freitas, 2010). One of the basic tenets of that proposal is that pattern recognition, in cognitive science and related disciplines, does not accurately reflect human psychology. As an example, the well-known article by Chase and Simon, “perception in chess”, and the benchmark cognitive computational models of chess, by Gobet et al. were criticized. Lane and Gobet (2011) provide serious skepticism concerning some of those arguments, and here we take the opportunity to respond and expand the theoretical constructs of “experience recognition”. We postulate that the mind's pattern-recognizing process holds the following properties: it is a highly path-dependent process; it prioritizes internal encodings; it is a self-organizing process in constant change; and it constructs its future information-processing pathways by continuously recognizing the possibilities that lie within the adjacent possible.     

For the mind’s eye the world is two-dimensional

The nature of visual mental images is a topic that has puzzled neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers alike. On the one hand, mental images might preserve the 3-D properties of our perceptual world. On the other hand, they might be akin to 2-D pictures, such as photographs, paintings, or drawings. In the present study, 16 observers judged where real objects (Experiment 1) or photographs thereof (Experiment 2) were pointing. Both experiments contained a perception condition and an imagery condition. In Experiment 1, there was a significant difference between the pointing errors in the perception and the imagery conditions, whereas there was no such difference in Experiment 2. In imagined objects, actual photographs, and imagined photographs, the direction in which the objects pointed followed the observer, regardless of his or her vantage point. The results from this study extend the rotation effect, typically found in pictures, to the domain of mental imagery. We found the rotation effect in pictures and mental images alike, but not in direct perception of 3-D objects; thus, we provide evidence that mental images share main characteristics of 2-D pictures.     

Who or what is the preembryo?

...The moral status -- and specifically the controversial issue of personhood -- is related to attainment of developmental individuality...This contrasts with the view that holds that personhood occurs earlier, at the point of genetic uniqueness. I believe that an embryo that has developed to the point where it can be one individual and one individual only, differs in moral status from a preembryo that has not, even if in many cases we may choose to treat them similarly...In view of the conviction that the preembryo is not yet a person and that its statistical potential for becoming such is small, it is not clear that nontherapeutic experiments can be excluded in principle. However, because the preembryo does have intrinsic potential...the preembryo should be treated as a person...Any exceptions from the prima facie duty to treat the preembryo as a person should be based on criteria established at the national level....     

What is the point of helping?

Philosophical Studies - In some cases, a group of people can bring about a morally bad outcome despite each person’s individual act making no difference with respect to bringing that outcome...     

What Exactly is the Explanatory Gap?

It is widely agreed among contemporary philosophers of mind that science leaves us with an ‘explanatory gap’—that even after we know everything that science can tell us about the conscious mind and the brain, their relationship still remains mysterious. I argue that this agreed view is quite mistaken. The feeling of a ‘explanatory gap’ arises only because we cannot stop ourselves thinking about the mind–brain relation in a dualist way.