IS THERE A DECISIVE TEST BETWEEN MATCHING AND MAXIMIZING?

Reinforcers under typical concurrent variable-interval, variable-ratio schedules may be (a) earned and obtained during the variable-interval component, (b) earned and obtained during the variable-ratio component, or (c) earned during the variable-ratio component and obtained during the variable-interval component. Categories a and b, which have no bearing on matching versus maximizing accounts of choice, were set at zero. The rate of Category c reinforcers and the duration of a changeover delay were varied. Simple matching, which predicts exclusive choice of the variable-interval component, and strict maximizing of overall reinforcement rate, which predicts a bias towards the variable-ratio component, were both disconfirmed: Subjects spent approximately 25% of their time in the variable-ratio component, contrary to the matching prediction, but earned only about one third of the reinforcers predicted by strict maximizing. However, maximizing describes the findings functionally in terms of discounting of delayed reinforcers; matching may describe the data in terms of a restructuring of the alternatives. Matching and maximizing are not competing theories about the fundamental nature of choice, but compatible points of view that may reveal environmental function and behavioral structure.     

IS EPISTEMIC AGENCY POSSIBLE?

There are mental actions, and a number of epistemic attitudes involve activity. But can there be epistemic agency? I argue that there is a limit to any claim that we can be epistemic agents, which is that the structure of reasons for epistemic attitudes differs fundamentally from the structure of reasons for actions. The main differences are that we cannot act for the wrong reasons although we can believe for the wrong reasons, and that reasons for beliefs are exclusive in a sense in which our reasons for actions are not. Epistemic agency is possible in the weak sense that we can be active, but not in the strong one in which we could have some elbow room for our epistemic reasons in reasoning leading to beliefs and other epistemic states.     

KINDS AND CONSCIOUS EXPERIENCE: IS THERE ANYTHING THAT IT IS LIKE TO BE SOMETHING?

Abstract: In this article I distinguish the notion of there being something it is like to be a certain kind of creature from that of there being something it is like to have a certain kind of experience. Work on consciousness has typically dealt with the latter while employing the language of the former. I propose several ways of analyzing what it is like to be a certain kind of creature and find problems with them all. The upshot is that even if there is something it is like to have certain kinds of experience, it does not follow that there is anything it is like to be a certain kind of creature. Skepticism about the existence of something that it is like to be an F is recommended.     

IS THERE A DISTINCTIVE QUANTUM THEOLOGY?

Quantum mechanics (QM) is a favorite area of physics to feature in “science and religion” discussions. We argue that this is at least partly because the arcane results of QM can be deployed to make big theological claims by the linguistic sleight of hand of “register switching”—sliding imperceptibly from technical into everyday language using the same vocabulary. We clarify the discussion by deploying the formal mapping of QM into classical statistical mechanics (CSM) via the mathematical device of “Wick rotation.” This equivalence between QM and CSM suggests caution in claiming distinctiveness for quantum theologizing. After outlining two areas in which quantum insights nevertheless resonate with longstanding themes in theological reflection (hiddenness and visualizability), we suggest that both QM and CSM point to a theology of science in which scientists participate in the divine gaze on creation as imago Dei.     

IS THERE A FUTURE FOR THE DIALOGUE?

The title question was raised by Philip Hefner in an editorial in the March 2007 issue of Zygon, and answered in various ways in sixteen guest editorials in the June, September, and December 2007 issues. In this article, after defining some pertinent concepts, I comment on these essays. I review critical statements made by the guest editorialists and survey their proposals for further dialogue topics. I conclude with my own views on the future of the dialogue and the role of Zygon therein.     

IS CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY WELL SUITED TO ENTER THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN SCIENCE AND HUMANISM?

The last several years have seen the emergence of increasing hostility from philosophers toward some pronouncements on human nature by the biological and cognitive sciences. Theology is also concerned about such matters, even if there have been, until now, few theologians involved in the discussion. This essay examines both the reasons that justify a neutral position of theology in the face of scientific disqualification of human uniqueness and the reasons to engage apologetically in such a debate on the side of humanists. Constructing a synthesis, I propose a greater theological involvement and concern in the discussion already underway, even if it means accepting some trade‐offs.     

DISCOUNTING OF DELAYED FOOD REWARDS IN PIGEONS AND RATS: IS THERE A MAGNITUDE EFFECT?

Temporal discounting refers to the decrease in the present, subjective value of a reward as the time to its receipt increases. Results from humans have shown that a hyperbola-like function describes the form of the discounting function when choices involve hypothetical monetary rewards. In addition, magnitude effects have been reported in which smaller reward amounts are discounted more steeply than larger amounts. The present research examines the cross-species generality of these findings using real rewards, namely food pellets, with both pigeons and rats. As with humans, an adjusting amount procedure was used to estimate the amount of immediate reward judged equal in value to a delayed reward. Different amounts of delayed food rewards (ranging from 5 to 32 pellets in pigeons and from 5 to 20 pellets in rats) were studied at delays varying from 1 s to 32 s. A simple hyperbola, similar to the hyperbola-like mathematical function that describes the discounting of hypothetical monetary rewards in humans, described the discounting of food rewards in both pigeons and rats. These results extend the generality of the mathematical model of discounting. Rates of discounting delayed food rewards were higher for pigeons than for rats. Unlike humans, however, neither pigeons nor rats showed a reliable magnitude effect: Rate of discounting did not vary systematically as a function of the amount of the delayed reward.     

WHAT IS META-COGNITIVE SKILL? KINDLING A CONVERSATION BETWEEN CULADASA AND CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF PSYCHOLOGY

ABSTRACT

I explore affinities and tensions between Culadasa’s model of meta-cognitive skill, in his recent The Mind Illuminated, and theories of skill and meta-cognition in contemporary philosophy of psychology. I find that, while there are many assumptions that these different approaches share, for the most part, contemporary philosophy of psychology has ignored the possibility that meta-cognitive skills can be cultivated through practice, as Culadasa persuasively argues. The one exception is Joëlle Proust’s recent The Philosophy of Metacognition. This work defends a model of procedural meta-cognition with some striking similarities to Culadasa’s notion of ‘meta-cognitive introspective awareness’, which he views as an important step in the development of ?amatha. This is noteworthy, as they have clearly arrived at these notions completely independently, drawing on strikingly different kinds of evidence and argument. I conclude with some thoughts on distinctive puzzles that arise for Culadasa’s conception of meta-cognitive skill.     

OAKESHOTT ON THE CHARACTER OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE: NEED THERE BE A CONFLICT BETWEEN SCIENCE AND RELIGION?

Michael Oakeshott reflected on the character of religious experience in various writings throughout his life. In Experience and Its Modes (1933) he analyzed science as a distinctive “mode,” or account of experience as a whole, identifying those assumptions necessary for science to achieve its coherent account of experience in contrast to other modes of experience whose quests for coherence depend on different assumptions. Religious experience, he thought, was integral to the practical mode. The latter experiences the world as interminable tension between what is and what ought to be. The question, Is there a conflict between science and religion? is, in Oakeshott's approach, the question, Is there a conflict between the scientific mode of experience and the practical mode? Insofar as we tend to treat every question as a practical one, these questions seem to make sense. But Oakeshott's analysis leads to the view that scientific experience and religious experience are categorically different accounts of experience abstracted from the whole of experience. They are voices of experience that may speak to each other, but they are not ordered hierarchically. Nor can either absorb the other without insoluble contradictions.     

IS THERE A CONSERVATIVE SOLUTION TO THE MANY THINKERS PROBLEM?

On a widely shared assumption, our mental states supervene on our microphysical properties – that is, microphysical supervenience is true. When this thesis is combined with the apparent truism that human persons have proper parts, a grave difficulty arises: what prevents some of these proper parts from being themselves thinkers as well? How can I know that I am a human person and not a smaller thinker enclosed in a human person? Most solutions to this puzzle make radical, if not absurd, claims. Recently, however, Michael Burke and Howard Robinson proposed conservative solutions that, according to them, do not have such undesired consequences. This paper argues that the conservative solutions tacitly assume at least one of the radical ones, and therefore they provide no alternative to the extreme solutions.