Computers and life styles

There is a relation between people's psychological build‐up and their attraction to computers.

Flexibility and curiosity are essential qualities.

Teamwork must be encouraged and developed, as does creative imagination harnessed to method and discipline.

Semantic and syntactic knowledge are essential for solving computer problems.

The challenge, however, remains: “free man from his machine,” or at any rate, “free him somewhat from his status as slave/master to his slave.”

Keywords: education, computers, ability to adapt, wisdom of man, relations with computers, language     

Inner speech and the inner life

The pathophysiology of developmental or acquired stuttering still remains an enigma. In a few cases, the developmental stuttering that had disappeared spontaneously or as a result of therapy reoccurred following a brain lesion. We report on a patient with return of developmental stuttering following a left hemispheric stroke. This case supports the theory that acquired brain lesions may cause a return of stuttering, possibly by interfering with the compensatory mechanism(s) that once had relieved the developmental stuttering.     

从性命问题看内丹学与禅之关系

道教内丹学是道教成熟形态的系统修道体系，是在道教原有的修道理论和修道方术的基础上，吸收融合了佛教尤其是禅宗的结果，内丹学与禅宗在修炼理论和方法上存在着微妙的差距与相通的可能性。本文从性命关系的角度围绕着丹禅二家的相互批评，论述了丹道与禅宗的差异与相通，并提出了作者本人独到的见解与心得。     

Computers and the nature of farm management

The introduction of computer-based information systems to be used by farmers, as in many other fields, is preceded mostly by great expectations. Some persons even tend to think that eventually the computer might take over farm management. This article tries to make an assessment of the validity of such expectations. Based upon a study among Swedish farmers, it examines the nature of farmers' decision-making. The latter is based upon an adaptive rationality, as opposed to the normative models of formal rationality used by scientists. Essential to this rationality are coordination skills: the ability of farmers to arrange the many interacting factors important to the totality of a farm in a satisfactory way. What the farmer needs in this complex situation is personal communication and tacit knowledge, knowledge that cannot be reduced to facts and rules. Consequently computer-based information systems can be useful tools only in some aspects of farm management, but they will never replace farmer's decision-making. To understand the possibilities of the computer as a tool in farm management, a distinction between interpretation skills and application skills is necessary.     

论内丹学"性命双修"的思想

内丹学亦可称为"性命学",即一套"性命双修"为特征的如何"成仙"的学问.本文从内丹学"性命双修"的宗旨出发,论述"性命双修"所体现的中国形而上学的特征,并从意识与物质、精神与肉体的关系、人生修养与生命境界等方面探索其可能有的现代意义.     

Computers and girls: Rethinking the issues

A perspective is developed about emerging sex differences in the use of computer technology in education. Computers tend to be conceptually assimilated to the category of science/mathematics/technology, and thus acquire some of the traditional qualities of differentiated interest among boys and girls. Findings from several research projects are reported which point to patterns of difference in educational settings. It is argued that sex differences emerge in relation to the functions computers serve and the organization of learning settings of which they are a part.The preparation of this article and the research reported was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Department of Education, and the National Institute of Education. The author would like to thank Kathy Clement, Carla Freeman, Peggy Heide, Moni Homolsky, Midian Kurland, Ron Mawby, Roy Pea, and Karen Sheingold for their comments and suggestions about the perspective presented here.     

Computers in the training of inquiry

The era of microprocessors provides an opportunity for examination and restructuring of university-level education in psychology. Computers may aid in the development of environments based upon sustained and deepening inquiry on the part of students from their earliest contact with psychology. We have been developing a computerized system for the exercise of skills in psychological inquiry appropriate both as a teaching tool for beginning undergraduates and for the research of permanent and visiting professors. In this paper we discuss our philosophy, some aspects of the organizational and human factors problems involved, and issues of hardware and software design.     

On the Moral Agency of Computers

Can computer systems ever be considered moral agents? This paper considers two factors that are explored in the recent philosophical literature. First, there are the important domains in which computers are allowed to act, made possible by their greater functional capacities. Second, there is the claim that these functional capacities appear to embody relevant human abilities, such as autonomy and responsibility. I argue that neither the first (Doman-Function) factor nor the second (Simulacrum) factor gets at the central issue in the case for computer moral agency: whether they can have the kinds of intentional states that cause their decisions and actions. I give an account that builds on traditional action theory and allows us to conceive of computers as genuine moral agents in virtue of their own causally efficacious intentional states. These states can cause harm or benefit to moral patients, but do not depend on computer consciousness or intelligence.     

Sport and Thought. Football as therapy: A year in the life of an inner city project

‘Sport and Thought. Football as therapy, A year in the life of an inner city project’ is a paper based on a way of working that fuses football and psychodynamic thinking. The project was set up at inner city all-boys secondary school in London and was created in response to the growing need for a therapeutic intervention which was accessible to adolescent boys who would not engage via more traditional therapeutic routes. The project works with adolescents experiencing behavioural and emotional difficulties. Sport and Thought is a way of working with adolescents that fuses the sport of football, psychodynamic thinking and theory to create a space to encourage thought and act as a catalyst to promote emotional and behavioural change. Sport and Thought believes an individual’s reactions within a sporting context are no different to a societal one, and thus the sport of football can be used to enable participants to consider their own emotional and behavioural traits, and the underlying reasoning behind them.