THE MACHINE IN THE GHOST: TRANSHUMANISM AND THE ONTOLOGY OF INFORMATION

An ontology of information belies our common intuitions about reality today and animates and governs both explicit scholarly study in philosophy and the sciences as well as the ideologies that are growing out of them. Transhumanism is one such technoscientific ideology that holds to a very specific ontology of information which need not be the only one on offer. This article argues that the transhumanist ontology of information exhibits gnostic and docetic religious overtones in it and that it devalues physical existence. At the same time, despite claiming a rejection of supernature, hypothetical transhumanist practices (such as mind-uploading) posit the infosphere as a kind of supernatural realm that is often set in opposition to the natural world. This article presents a critique of transhumanist conceptions of information and offers an alternative ontology of information that more adequately accounts for the distinction between the natural and supernatural as well as the integrity of the physical world.     

Bayesian Extended Redundancy Analysis: A Bayesian Approach to Component-based Regression with Dimension Reduction

Abstract

Extended redundancy analysis (ERA) combines linear regression with dimension reduction to explore the directional relationships between multiple sets of predictors and outcome variables in a parsimonious manner. It aims to extract a component from each set of predictors in such a way that it accounts for the maximum variance of outcome variables. In this article, we extend ERA into the Bayesian framework, called Bayesian ERA (BERA). The advantages of BERA are threefold. First, BERA enables to make statistical inferences based on samples drawn from the joint posterior distribution of parameters obtained from a Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm. As such, it does not necessitate any resampling method, which is on the other hand required for (frequentist’s) ordinary ERA to test the statistical significance of parameter estimates. Second, it formally incorporates relevant information obtained from previous research into analyses by specifying informative power prior distributions. Third, BERA handles missing data by implementing multiple imputation using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm, avoiding the potential bias of parameter estimates due to missing data. We assess the performance of BERA through simulation studies and apply BERA to real data regarding academic achievement.     

他心问题的社会认知神经科学研究进路

作为当代心智哲学九大问题之一的他心问题,肇始于Descartes主义对心身关系的认识。问的是:我们能否知道以及怎么知道他人有心,亦即有思想、经验和情感等?对于他心问题的解决方案,20世纪90年代以来,随着现当代科学技术(尤其是神经生物学、认知神经科学和大脑测试技术等)的深入发展,哲学家与心理学家的知识联姻和交叉合作研究,提供了关于他心问题的若干重要成果和实证资料。他心问题不再成为"理论的死角"。当代社会认知神经科学的出现(social cognitive neuroscience,SCN,2000),在科学方法论上更加关注对社会性心智现象的神经机制考量,一系列研究成果都为揭示他心问题提供了科学旁证。这不仅说明了认识他心的可能性,而且表明了通向认识他心方式的多样性,物理学的方法并不是与他心相隔绝。本文尝试从社会认知神经科学的最新研究进展:镜像神经元系统,他知与自知、他心知觉和再认的社会标记、他心社会判断和归因入手来论证他心问题的可释性,为他心问题的论证提供一条多学科交叉研究的新进路。     

ALL THE (MANY,MANY) THINGS WE KNOW: EXTENDED KNOWLEDGE*

In this paper we explore the potential bearing of the extended mind thesis—the thesis that the mind extends into the world—on epistemology. We do three things. First, we argue that the combination of the extended mind thesis and reliabilism about knowledge entails that ordinary subjects can easily come to enjoy various forms of restricted omniscience. Second, we discuss the conceptual foundations of the extended mind and knowledge debate. We suggest that the theses of extended mind and extended knowledge lead to a bifurcation with respect to the concepts of belief and knowledge. We suggest that this conceptual bifurcation supports a form of pluralism about these concepts. Third, we discuss whether something similar can be said at the metaphysical level.     

Prejudice‐reduction in Culturally Mixed Classrooms: The Development and Assessment of a Theory‐driven Intervention Among Majority and Minority Youth in Finland

The aim of this field experiment was to develop and assess an intervention promoting positive intergroup relations in culturally diverse schools. The intervention was based on extended contact and social learning and utilized behavioural journalism as its method. Intervention effects were assessed on out‐group attitudes, perceived importance of future contact, perceived peer norms and intergroup anxiety among ethnic majority (N = 583) and minority (N = 214) youth in grades 7–9 in Finnish secondary schools (total N_experimental = 388; total N_control = 409). As a result of the intervention, both groups showed a tendency to perceive future intergroup contact as more important, and this effect was most notable for younger participants and girls. Prototypicality of in‐group and out‐group peer models contributed positively to intervention effects. However, unexpectedly, the intervention also increased experiences of intergroup anxiety among the oldest participants. The results are discussed taking into account the developmental stage of the youth studied. Besides critically assessing the effectiveness of the intervention, recommendations for improving theory‐driven prejudice‐reduction and for the development of future interventions in culturally diverse contexts are given. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Random effects and extended generalized partial credit models

In this paper it is shown that under the random effects generalized partial credit model for the measurement of a single latent variable by a set of polytomously scored items, the joint marginal probability distribution of the item scores has a closed-form expression in terms of item category location parameters, parameters that characterize the distribution of the latent variable in the subpopulation of examinees with a zero score on all items, and item-scaling parameters. Due to this closed-form expression, all parameters of the random effects generalized partial credit model can be estimated using marginal maximum likelihood estimation without assuming a particular distribution of the latent variable in the population of examinees and without using numerical integration. Also due to this closed-form expression, new special cases of the random effects generalized partial credit model can be identified. In addition to these new special cases, a slightly more general model than the random effects generalized partial credit model is presented. This slightly more general model is called the extended generalized partial credit model. Attention is paid to maximum likelihood estimation of the parameters of the extended generalized partial credit model and to assessing the goodness of fit of the model using generalized likelihood ratio tests. Attention is also paid to person parameter estimation under the random effects generalized partial credit model. It is shown that expected a posteriori estimates can be obtained for all possible score patterns. A simulation study is carried out to show the usefulness of the proposed models compared to the standard models that assume normality of the latent variable in the population of examinees. In an empirical example, some of the procedures proposed are demonstrated.     

Charles Darwin: Continuity,Teleology and Ideology

Climate change has mutated from being a physical phenomenon to be studied to an idea to be contested. The sites of adjudication between competing truth claims have therefore moved from the secluded academy and scientific peer review to the vociferous agora and the extended peer community. This move is illustrated here using the case of the shrinking glaciers of Mt Kilimanjaro. Both the British engineer Guy Callendar, in 1944, and the American campaigner Al Gore, in 2006, claimed that the primary cause of this glacial recession was rising world temperature. Both were passionate believers in the reality of human-induced global warming, but they had very different resources at their disposal to advance these beliefs. While Callendar's claim was revealed only to the editor of the science journal Nature, Gore's claims were visible to millions through his film An Inconvenient Truth. While the force of Callendar's claim was weighed and adjudicated by one peer reviewer, the validity of Gore's claim was tested very publicly in the British courts. Both claims about the cause of Kilimanjaro's retreating glaciers were found wanting. The paper argues that this simple, but powerful, comparison between identical claims-making drawn from two different eras of science, yet with contrasting processes of truth-adjudication, illuminates the different ‘post-normal’ world of science climate change now inhabits. The case study is used to reflect on the role of the extended peer community in establishing and validating scientific knowledge about climate change: who participates, how trust is stabilised and whether science is thereby democratised.     

Possibilities and limits of mind-reading: A neurophilosophical perspective

Access to other minds once presupposed other individuals’ expressions and narrations. Today, several methods have been developed which can measure brain states relevant for assessments of mental states without 1st person overt external behavior or speech. Functional magnetic resonance imaging and trace conditioning are used clinically to identify patterns of activity in the brain that suggest the presence of consciousness in people suffering from severe consciousness disorders and methods to communicate cerebrally with patients who are motorically unable to communicate. The techniques are also used non-clinically to access subjective awareness in adults and infants. In this article we inspect technical and theoretical limits on brain–machine interface access to other minds. We argue that these techniques hold promises of important medical breakthroughs, open up new vistas of communication, and of understanding the infant mind. Yet they also give rise to ethical concerns, notably misuse as a consequence of hypes and misinterpretations.