Future determination of entities in Talmudic public announcement logic

Ordinary dynamic action logics deal with states and actions upon states. The actions can be deterministic or non-deterministic, but it is always assumed that the possible results of the actions are clear cut.Talmudic logic deals with actions (usually legally meaningful actions which can change the legal status of an entity) which depend on the future and therefore may be not clear cut at the present and need future clarifications.The clarification is modelled by public announcement which comes at a later time after the action has taken place.The model is further complicated by the need to know what is the status of formulas at a time before the results of the action is clarified, as we do not know at which state we are in. Talmudic logic treats such states much like the quantum superposition of states and when clarification is available we get a collapse onto a pure state.The Talmudic lack of clarity of actions arises from applying an action to entities defined using the future, like the statement of a dying man on his death bed:

Let the man who will win the jackpot in the lottery next week be the sole heir in my will now

We need to wait a week for the situation to clarify.There is also the problem of legal backwards causality, as this man, if indeed he exists, unaware of his possible good fortune, may have himself meanwhile donated all his property to a charity. Does his donation include this unknown inheritance?This paper will offer a model and a logic which can represent faithfully the Talmudic reasoning in these matters.We shall also see that we get new types of public announcement logics and (quantum-like) action logics. Ordinary public announcement logic deletes possible worlds after an announcements. Talmudic public announcement logic deletes accessibility links after an announcement. Technically these two approaches are similar but not equivalent.     

Nietzsche on the Nature of the Unconscious

Abstract

This paper argues that Nietzsche develops a novel and compelling account of the distinction between conscious and unconscious mental states: he argues that conscious mental states are those with conceptual content, whereas unconscious mental states are those with nonconceptual content. I show that Nietzsche’s puzzling claim that consciousness is ‘superficial’ and ‘falsifying’ can be given a straightforward explanation if we accept this understanding of the conscious/unconscious distinction. I originally defended this view in my ‘Nietzsche’s Theory of Mind: Consciousness and Conceptualization’ (2005, European Journal of Philosophy 13: 1–31); since then, the view has come under criticism on several fronts. Brian Leiter and others suggest that there is not enough textual evidence for the view. In addition, Leiter, Mattia Riccardi and Tsarina Doyle argue that, rather than aligning the conscious/unconscious distinction with the conceptual/nonconceptual distinction, Nietzsche endorses a higher-order thought model of consciousness. Riccardi also objects that Nietzsche must treat some unconscious mental states as conceptual. In this essay, I defend the interpretation in light of these objections. I provide new textual evidence for the interpretation, show that Nietzsche extracted aspects of the view from Schopenhauer’s work on consciousness, consider the possibility that Nietzsche endorses a higher-order thought theory, and respond to Riccardi’s objection.     

Representation and aspectual shape

One of the most significant characteristics of intentional states is the fact that they represent their intentional objects under selective aspects (or modes of presentation); that is, that they manifest an aspectual shape (Searle, 1992). Surprisingly however, although this remarkable feature is widely recognized little has been done to explain what makes representation aspect-relative in the first-place. In this article I attempt to outline an answer to this question. I begin with a critique of Searle's explanation of aspectual shape as anchored in conscious experience. I argue next that, since to represent an object under an aspect is to represent it relative to a selective set of properties, the task - from the perspective of a theory of mental representation - is to explain what makes intentional states property-relative. It is then argued that while this task cannot be handled properly by standard (in particular computational-representational) theories of mental representation, a shift towards an action-based framework for theories of perception and representation promises to provide the key with which to unlock the puzzle.     

Intentional Action and the Post-Coma Patient

Detecting conscious awareness in a patient emerging from a coma state is problematic, because our standard attributions of conscious awareness rely on interpreting bodily movement as intentional action. Where there is an absence of intentional bodily action, as in the vegetative state, can we reliably assume that there is an absence of conscious awareness? Recent neuroimaging work suggests that we can attribute conscious awareness to some patients in a vegetative state by interpreting their brain activity as intentional mental action. I suggest that this change of focus, from the interpretation of motor behaviour as intentional bodily action to the interpretation of neural activity as intentional mental action, raises philosophical issues that affect the interpretation of the neuroimaging data.     

Conscious Vision for Action Versus Unconscious Vision for Action?

David Milner and Melvyn Goodale’s dissociation hypothesis is commonly taken to state that there are two functionally specialized cortical streams of visual processing originating in striate (V1) cortex: a dorsal, action‐related “unconscious” stream and a ventral, perception‐related “conscious” stream. As Milner and Goodale acknowledge, findings from blindsight studies suggest a more sophisticated picture that replaces the distinction between unconscious vision for action and conscious vision for perception with a tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, and unconscious vision for perception. The combination excluded by the tripartite division is the possibility of conscious vision for action. But are there good grounds for concluding that there is no conscious vision for action? There is now overwhelming evidence that illusions and perceived size can have a significant effect on action ( Bruno & Franz, 2009 ; Dassonville & Bala, 2004 ; Franz & Gegenfurtner, 2008 ; McIntosh & Lashley, 2008 ). There is also suggestive evidence that any sophisticated visual behavior requires collaboration between the two visual streams at every stage of the process ( Schenk & McIntosh, 2010 ). I nonetheless want to make a case for the tripartite division between unconscious vision for action, conscious vision for perception, and unconscious vision for perception. My aim here is not to refute the evidence showing that conscious vision can affect action but rather to argue (a) that we cannot gain cognitive access to action‐guiding dorsal stream representations, and (b) that these representations do not correlate with phenomenal consciousness. This vindicates the semi‐conservative view that the dissociation hypothesis is best understood as a tripartite division.     

Alfred Schutz’ Theory of Communicative Action

This paper addresses the notion of communicative action on the basis of Alfred Schutz’ writings. In Schutz’ work, communication is of particular significance and its importance is often neglected by phenomenologists. Communication plays a crucial role in his first major work, the Der sinnhafte Aufbau der sozialen Welt from 1932, yet communication is also a major feature in his unfinished works which were later completed posthumously by Thomas Luckmann: The Structures of the Life World (1973, 1989). In these texts, Schutz sometimes refers to “communicative action,” and he comes to ascribe a crucial role to communication within the domain of the life world he calls everyday life. Based on Schutz’ texts, I shall first attempt to critically reconstruct the defining features of his notion of communication and communicative action. As a result, it emerges that Schutz’ notion of communication, particularly in its early incarnation, seems to be, at first glance, characterized by a dichotomy between virtual communication, that is communicative action in a narrow sense, and non-virtual communication. As I want to show with respect to the seemingly established dichotomous distinction between “mediated” and “immediate social action,” Schutz himself started to overcome this dichotomy. Based on this thesis, I will try to sketch a basic outline of a theory of communicative action, a theory less formulated by Schutz’ than built on Schutz’ writings. As the idea of communicative action, and particularly the transgression of the distinction between mediated and immediate action, affects the very structures of the life-world described by Schutz and Luckmann, I will ultimately demonstrate that any mundane phenomenology of the life-world requires a triangulatory method.     

Self-regulation and the hypothesis of experience-based selection: Investigating indirect conscious control

The assumption that the contents of our conscious visual experience directly control our fine-tuned, real-time motor activity has been challenged by neurological and psychophysical evidence that suggest the two processes work semi-independently of each other. Clark [Clark, A. (2001). Visual experience and motor action: Are the bonds too tight? The Philosophical Review, 110, 495–519; Clark, A. (2002). Is seeing all it seems? Action, reason and the grand illusion. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9, 181–202; Clark, A. (2006). Vision as dance? Three challenges for sensori-motor contingency theory. PSYCHE, 12 (1). Available from http://www.psyche.cs.monash.edu.au] argues that such evidence implies a more indirect relationship between conscious visual experience and motor-control where the function of visual consciousness is not to control action but to select what actions are to be controlled. In this paper, I argue that this type of dynamic also exists at the wider level of self-regulation where conscious intent appears to indirectly control the enactment of the intended behaviour. I argue that by drawing parallels between Clark’s proposed dynamic and self-regulation, the former is not only bolstered by a previously unrecognised source of support but our understanding of the latter can help to further elucidate Clark’s proposed mechanism of indirect conscious control.     

The ‘theory theory’ of mind and the aims of Sellars’ original myth of Jones

Recent proponents of the ??theory theory?? of mind often trace its roots back to Wilfrid Sellars?? famous ??myth of Jones?? in his 1956 article, ??Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind??. Sellars developed an account of the intersubjective basis of our knowledge of the inner mental states of both self and others, an account which included the claim that such knowledge is in some sense theoretical knowledge. This paper examines the nature of this claim in Sellars?? original account and its relationship to more recent debates concerning ??theory of mind??, in particular the theory theory. A close look reveals that Sellars?? original view embodied several distinctions that would enable more recent theory theorists to accommodate certain phenomenological objections that have been raised against that outlook. At the heart of the philosophical issue is an overlooked complexity involved in Sellars?? account of the ??theory/observation?? distinction, involving a conception of the distinction that is both independently plausible and a key to the issue in dispute.     

WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS AND HAS IT EVOLVED?

Research into consciousness has now become respectable, and much has been written about it. Is consciousness the exclusive property of human beings, or can it be found also in animals? Can machines become conscious? Is consciousness an illusion, and are all mental states ultimately reducible to the movement of molecules? If consciousness is other than matter, what connection does it have with matter? These and others like them are now serious scientific questions in the West. This article discusses consciousness within the frame of the following assertions: Consciousness has evolved from earlier states of awareness to be found in lower forms of life. The current scientific method is too restrictive for the study of conscience and its evolution. In particular classical logic leads scientists to ignore or reject consciousness as a legitimate field of study. Mind and matter, generalized as knowing and being, have equal status.     

Towards a New Feeling Theory of Emotion

According to the old feeling theory of emotion, an emotion is just a feeling: a conscious experience with a characteristic phenomenal character. This theory is widely dismissed in contemporary discussions of emotion as hopelessly naïve. In particular, it is thought to suffer from two fatal drawbacks: its inability to account for the cognitive dimension of emotion (which is thought to go beyond the phenomenal dimension), and its inability to accommodate unconscious emotions (which, of course, lack any phenomenal character). In this paper, I argue that the old feeling theory is in reality only a pair of modifications removed from a highly plausible account of the nature of emotion that retains the essential connection between emotion and feeling. These modifications are, moreover, motivated by recent developments in work on phenomenal consciousness. The first development is the rising recognition of a phenomenal character proper to cognition—so‐called cognitive phenomenology. The second is the gathering momentum behind various ‘connection principles’ that specify some connection that a given state must bear to phenomenally conscious states in order to qualify as mental. These developments make it possible to formulate a new feeling theory of emotion, which would overcome the two fatal drawbacks of the old feeling theory. According to the new feeling theory, an emotion is a mental state that bears the right connection to conscious experiences with the right phenomenal character (involving, among other elements, a cognitive phenomenology).     

Does habit weaken the relationship between intention and behaviour? Revisiting the habit‐intention interaction hypothesis

Habitual behaviours are elicited when a familiar context activates cue‐behaviour associations that have been learned through previous performance. A core hypothesis within habit theory is that, by virtue of its automaticity, habit weakens the impact of intention on action, such that in facilitating conditions, action will be guided more by habit than momentary intentions. This has led to recommendations that habit formation be harnessed as a mechanism for sustaining desirable behaviour over time, when people would otherwise relapse due to loss of motivation. This article reviews theory and evidence around the hypothesized interaction between habit and intention as determinants of behaviour. We first qualify the hypothesis by clarifying that it pertains only to determinants of the instigation of action, rather than execution. Next, drawing on a systematic review of 52 behaviour‐prediction studies, we highlight mixed empirical support for the interaction. We argue that ostensibly inconsistent findings can be reconciled by recognizing the distinction between the direction and strength of intention, and identifying the “facilitating conditions” that may determine the relative influence of habit and intention on behaviour. Evidence demonstrates that when self‐control is diminished, people act habitually regardless of intention direction or strength. When people possess self‐control, habits can help people to act on favourable but weakened intentions, but intentions that oppose habitual tendencies can override habitual influence. This has important implications for behaviour change: even if habit has formed, a minimal level of favourable conscious motivation may be required to sustain behaviours over time. Social psychology might fruitfully move beyond asking whether habit moderates the intention‐behaviour relationship, and instead probe how and in which conditions habits and intentions interact.     

TELEOFUNCTIONALISM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EXPLANATION

Fred Dretske's teleofunctional theory of content aims to simultaneously solve two ground‐floor philosophical puzzles about mental content: the problem of naturalism and the problem of epiphenomenalism. It is argued here that his theory fails on the latter score. Indeed, the theory insures that content can have no place in the causal explanation of action at all. The argument for this conclusion depends upon only very weak premises about the nature of causal explanation. The difficulties Dretske's theory encounters indicate the severe challenges involved in arriving at a robust naturalistic understanding of content.     

A heterodox defense of the actualist higher-order thought theory

I defend the actualist higher-order thought theory against four objections. The first objection contends that the theory is circular. The second one contends that the theory is unable to account for the alleged epistemic position we are in with respect to our own conscious mental states. The third one contends that the theory is unable to account for the evidence we have for the proposition that all conscious mental states are represented. The fourth one contends that the theory does not accommodate the intimacy we have with our own conscious mental states. To some extent, my defense will be heterodox, in the sense that I will show that some objections are satisfactorily answerable even if we concede to the objectors a point that higher-order theorists do not seem to be willing to concede, that is, that the theory is the result of conceptual analysis.

     

Challenging assumptions about habit: A response to Hagger (2019)

Widely cited literature assumes habits to be: (1) specific and rigid behavioral responses; (2) in response to location- and timing-stable, external contexts, (3) goal-independent, and (4) enacted without conscious awareness. Hagger (2019) recently reviewed this literature as it applies to the physical activity domain. The purpose of this article is to challenge these assumptions in favor of a habit conceptualization that is more applicable to physical activity: (1) behavioral instigation and/or execution can be habitual, allowing for variable responses to cues; (2) stable contexts can be internal or functional (cued by a preceding action) but may vary in timing and physical location; (3) a shift from external to internal goal dependence may characterize habit development; and (4) types of automaticity other than purely nonconscious enactment may characterize habitual action. I present theory and research that supports these alternative characterizations and discuss their ramifications for physical activity adoption and maintenance via habit.     

Experience,action and representations: Critical realism and the enactive theory of vision

This paper defends a dynamic model of the way in which perception is integrated with action, a model I refer to as ‘the navigational account’. According to this account, employing vision and other forms of distance perception, a creature acquires information about its surroundings via the senses, information that enables it to select and navigate routes through its environment, so as to attain objects that satisfy its needs. This form of perceptually guided activity should be distinguished from other kinds of semi-automatic responses to visual stimuli that do not necessarily involve conscious experiences. It essentially involves inner states, which involve both the awareness of phenomenal qualities, and also a representational component. The navigational account is compared here with the enactive approach to perception, which opposes the view that perceptual experiences are inner states. This paper argues that a full account of perception raises a number of different questions. One central explanatory project concerns questions about the kinds of processes that currently enable a creature to identify and respond appropriately to distant objects: the answer, it is argued, lies in acknowledging the role of conscious inner representations in guiding navigational behaviour through complex environments. The fact that perception and action are interdependent does not conflict with the claim that inner representational states comprise an essential stage in visual processing.

Task instructions and implicit theory of mind

It has been hypothesized that humans are able to track other’s mental states efficiently and without being conscious of doing so using their implicit theory of mind (iToM) system. However, while iToM appears to operate unconsciously recent work suggests it does draw on executive attentional resources ( Schneider, Lam, Bayliss, & Dux, 2012) bringing into question whether iToM is engaged efficiently. Here, we examined other aspects relating to automatic processing: The extent to which the operation of iToM is controllable and how it is influenced by behavioral intentions. This was implemented by assessing how task instructions affect eye-movement patterns in a Sally–Anne false-belief task. One group of subjects was given no task instructions (No Instructions), another overtly judged the location of a ball a protagonist interacted with (Ball Tracking) and a third indicated the location consistent with the actor’s belief about the ball’s location (Belief Tracking). Despite different task goals, all groups’ eye-movement patterns were consistent with belief analysis, and the No Instructions and Ball Tracking groups reported no explicit mentalizing when debriefed. These findings represent definitive evidence that humans implicitly track the belief states of others in an uncontrollable and unintentional manner.     

Creating New Ways of Being and Relating

The therapeutic action of psychoanalysis has been broadened beyond interpretation to the creation of new ways of being and relating. The concept of analysis as including both understanding and creation is rooted in two major analytic traditions: the British Independent school and the relational movement. It is proposed that central concepts from each tradition can be combined to form a theory of technique that is focused creating new ways of being to replace the patient's historical patterns. The clinical strategy advocated here is aimed toward bringing dissociated self states to consciousness and then using the now conscious conflicting states to create new self-world relationship patterns. A theory of technique is suggested that combines the relational concepts of dissociated patterns of interaction with Winnicott's theory of potential space for the purpose of transforming latent psychic capacities into new forms of being. Specific criteria are proposed for identifying new potentially authentic ways of being, and a technique for facilitating their evolution from nascent dispositions to new ways of being is delineated. Two cases are used to illustrate how the technical strategy can be used to create ways of being from previously dormant psychic potential.     

Is conscious perception gradual or dichotomous? A comparison of report methodologies during a visual task

In a recent article, [Sergent, C. &; Dehaene, S. (2004). Is consciousness a gradual phenomenon? Evidence for an all-or-none bifurcation during the attentional blink, Psychological Science, 15(11), 720–729] claim to give experimental support to the thesis that there is a clear transition between conscious and unconscious perception. This idea is opposed to theoretical arguments that we should think of conscious perception as a continuum of clarity, with e.g., fringe conscious states [Mangan, B. (2001). Sensation’s ghost—the non-sensory “fringe” of consciousness, Psyche, 7, 18]. In the experimental study described in this article, we find support for this opposite notion that we should have a parsimonious account of conscious perception. Our reported finding relates to the hypothesis that there is more than one perceptual threshold [Merikle, P.M., Smilek, D. &; Eastwood, J.D. (2001). Perception without awareness: perspectives from cognitive psychology, Cognition, 79, 115–134], but goes further to argue that there are different “levels” of conscious perception.     

ALTRUISM AND THE GOLDEN RULE

This essay addresses recent claims about the compatibility of the sociobiological theory of reciprocal altruism with standard Western formulations of the Golden Rule. Derek Parfit claims that the theory of reciprocal altruism teaches us to be “reciprocal altruists,” who benefit only those people from whom we can reasonably expect benefits in the future. The Golden Rule, on the other hand, teaches us to benefit anyone regardless of their intention or ability to return the favor, or as Parfit puts it, the Golden Rule teaches us to be “suckers.” I argue that this distinction is founded on a misconception of the nature of the theory of reciprocal altruism, which is sociobiological as opposed to moral, and that this distinction accordingly confuses is with ought. Sociobiological theories may explain underlying psychological motivations in individuals (and perhaps even in populations), but these theories do not prescribe any sort of moral behavior. Furthermore, the theory of reciprocal altruism does not imply mental states of which agents are aware. The unconscious motivations assumed by this theory are in fact compatible with certain formulations of the Golden Rule; I will accordingly argue for the view that certain words with moral content related to the Golden Rule—such as “altruism” and “selfishness”—exist only insofar as they are social tools, which can further the self‐interests of an individual in any group.     

Stereotypes,Prejudice, and the Taxonomy of the Implicit Social Mind1

How do cognition and affect interact to produce action? Research in intergroup psychology illuminates this question by investigating the relationship between stereotypes and prejudices about social groups. Yet it is now clear that many social attitudes are implicit (roughly, nonconscious or involuntary). This raises the question: how does the distinction between cognition and affect apply to implicit mental states? An influential view—roughly analogous to a Humean theory of action—is that “implicit stereotypes” and “implicit prejudices” constitute two separate constructs, reflecting different mental processes and neural systems. On this basis, some have also argued that interventions to reduce discrimination should combat implicit stereotypes and prejudices separately. We propose an alternative (anti‐Humean) framework. We argue that all putative implicit stereotypes are affect‐laden and all putative implicit prejudices are “semantic,” that is, they stand in co‐activating associations with concepts and beliefs. Implicit biases, therefore, consist in “clusters” of semantic‐affective associations, which differ in degree, rather than kind. This framework captures the psychological structure of implicit bias, promises to improve the power of indirect measures to predict behavior, and points toward the design of more effective interventions to combat discrimination.