The articles examines the teleofunctional solution to the problem of mental causation, presented by Dmitry Volkov in his recently published book Free Will. An Illusion or an Opportunity. D.B. Volkov proposes solutions to three big metaphysical problems – mental causation, personal identity, and free will. Solving the first problem, Volkov creatively combines the advantages of Dennett’s teleofunctional model and Vasilyev’s local interactionism. Volkov’s teleofunctional model of mental causation seeks to prove the causal relevance of mental (...) properties as non-local higher order properties. In my view, its substantiation is based on three points: (a) critics of the exclusion problem and Kim’s model of mental causation, (b) “Library of first editions” argument, (c) reduction of the causal trajectories argument (CTA 1) by Vasilyev to the counterpart argument (CTA 2) by Volkov. Each of these points faces objections. Kim’s criticism is based on an implicit confusion of two types of reduction – reduction from supervenience and from multiple realizability. The latter type does not threaten Kim’s ideas, but Volkov uses this very type in his criticism. The “Library of first editions” argument does not achieve its goal due to compositional features and because non-local relational properties are a type of external properties that cannot be causally relevant. The reduction of CTA 1 to CTA 2 is unsuccessful since, in the case of this reduction, important features of CTA 1 are lost – these are local mental properties, due to which the influence of non-local physical factors occurs. My main objection is that the concept of causally relevant non-local properties is incompatible with the very concept of cause. The set of causally relevant properties of cause can only be local. (shrink)

Most prions (infectious proteins) are self‐propagating amyloids (filamentous protein multimers), and have been found in both mammals and fungal species. The prions [URE3] and [PSI+] of yeast are disease agents of Saccharomyces cerevisiae while [Het‐s] of Podospora anserina may serve a normal cellular function. The parallel in‐register beta‐sheet structure shown by prion amyloids makes possible a templating action at the end of filaments which explains the faithful transmission of variant differences in these molecules. This property of self‐reproduction, in turn, allows (...) these proteins to act as de facto genes, encoding heritable information. BioEssays 30:955–964, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Comparative study between Tibetan Bon and Buryatian Bø religion of ancient Shamanic traditions.

Introduction. The human world is presented as an integrity — an organic unity of many inter- connected and interdependent centers (parts, sides, elements): natural and cultural, natural and artificial, animate and inanimate. When any center dominates over others (for example, technical and technological) and / or attempts to realize its claim to the status of a whole, the agreed and optimal ra- tio in the coexistence and synergistic development of all centers, and, consequently, of the whole, is violated. There arises (...) an ecosystem problem. The purpose of the study is to present and analyze the techno-technologized world in the context of current philosophical and scientific methodologi- cal principles: polycentricity, complexity, network- centricity, and ecosystem; to designate their theoretical and practical significance, interdepend- ence; to substantiate the principle of ecosystems as more general and fundamental and to present its effectiveness in preserving the integrity of man, his world and the full value of human being-in-the- world. Methods. The author uses methods of dialectics, synergetics and systemic approach in the philo- sophical understanding of the specifics of the modern techno-technological world and a person’s existence in it. The author also uses the methods of extrapolation and interpretation, the ideas of B. Latour’s actor-network theory, and ecosystem approach. Scientific novelty of the research. The author projects the key attitudes and concepts of the actual conceptual and paradigm principles on the techno-technological world, and formulates the main advantages and disadvantages. The author substantially justifies that the principle of ecosys- tem is the most effective in solving the problem of preserving and reproducing the integrity of the human world, the person himself and his being. Results. The author carries out theoretical and methodological analysis of the techno-technolo- gized world and a person’s existence in it. It has been determined that when solving the problem of preserving and reproducing the integrity of a person and his world, the principle of ecosystems is the most effective and preferable. The ecosystem principle implies the synergistic unity of all centers of human existence, their interdependence and interconnection, ensures the priority of the whole for the benefit of each center, expressed in mutual strengthening and expansion of their potential. Conclusions. The author comes to the conclusion that the application of relevant paradigm principles in studying and analyzing the techno-technological world will make it possible to obtain a more mul- tidimensional and accurate interpretation of the ways and means of achieving a full-fledged human being, with a focus on preserving his identity, origi- nality, subjectivity and integrity. (shrink)

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

Given the ubiquitous nature of love, numerous theories have been proposed to explain its existence. One such theory refers to love as a commitment device, suggesting that romantic love evolved to foster commitment between partners and enhance their reproductive success. In the present study, we investigated this hypothesis using a large-scale sample of 86,310 individual responses collected across 90 countries. If romantic love is universally perceived as a force that fosters commitment between long-term partners, we expected that individuals likely to (...) suffer greater losses from the termination of their relationships—including people of lower socioeconomic status, those with many children, and women—would place a higher value on romantic love compared to people with higher status, those with fewer children, and men. These predictions were supported. Additionally, we observed that individuals from countries with a higher (vs. lower) Human Development Index placed a greater level of importance on romantic love, suggesting that modernization might influence how romantic love is evaluated. On average, participants worldwide were unwilling to commit to a long-term romantic relationship without love, highlighting romantic love’s universal importance. (shrink)

Besides the book under review here, the “30-Second” series of books includes numerous titles such as those on anatomy, architecture, astronomy, the Bible, brain, economics, maths, mythology, philosophies, politics, psychology, religion, and theories.Together with eight contributors, each a leading authority with a proven track record for successfully explaining science to a general audience, Eric Scerri, Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles; founder and editor of this journal; and the undisputed world authority on the history and philosophy (...) of the periodic table, has edited this most attractive addition to the series.The chemical elements, the separate building blocks of our physical universe, lend themselves ideally to this 30-second approach. In his introduction to the volume Scerri briefly sketches the plan of the book and discusses the evolution of the periodic table from Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev’s original proposal to the latest developments in the .. (shrink)

This article focuses on the Russian chemist Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev's assessment of certain representations of various aspects of the periodic system that employed more mathematical methodology. The equations of interest were created by E. J. Mills, B. N. Chicherin, and J. H. Vincent. The English chemist Mills tried to find a firmer numerical basis for the periodicity of the elements. The Russian lawyer and political philosopher Chicherin was convinced of the existence of a mathematical law underlying the periodic system. The (...) English physicist Vincent explored the connection between atomic weights and the elements' order in listings based on atomic weights—a project which he associated with the periodic system of elements. Although, for Mendeleev, the equations of Mills, Chicherin, and Vincent promised a more precise expression of the law of periodicity, he continued to invoke his earlier standards. In particular, Mendeleev wanted the equations to respect the individuality of the elements, and called for completeness in conveying the complexities of chemical phenomena. Thus, the very qualities that he had valued while developing his periodic system in 1869–1871 also characterised his evaluation of the new means of representing aspects of that system. (shrink)

I need hardly say – but shall do so anyway – that is an extraordinary honour to have my work discussed by four scholars whom I have for so long admired. My gratitude to them for their comments on m...

This essay introduces the collection of articles contained in this special issue, explaining their necessity and contextualizing them within the historiographical debates around “ancient theology” and “civil religion”. It does so by referring to well-known influential figures in Renaissance and Enlightenment studies such as Daniel P. Walker, Frances A. Yates, Charles B. Schmitt, Eugenio Garin, Cesare Vasoli and Franco Venturi, as well as to more recent studies such as that by Dmitri Levitin. It further provides a brief overview of each (...) contribution and places the special issue within the disciplinary context of global and comparative intellectual history. (shrink)

This book considers the emergence of dialectic out of the spirit of dialogue and traces the relation between the two. It moves from Plato, for whom dialectic is necessary to destroy incorrect theses and attain thinkable being, to Cusanus, to modern philosophers—Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Gadamer, for whom dialectic becomes the driving force behind the constitution of a rational philosophical system. Conceived as a logical enterprise, dialectic strives to liberate itself from dialogue, which it views as merely accidental and (...) even disruptive of thought, in order to become a systematic or scientific method. The Cartesian autonomous and universal yet utterly monological and lonely subject requires dialectic alone to reason correctly, yet dialogue, despite its unfinalizable and interruptive nature, is what constitutes the human condition. (shrink)

This article deals with the question of the interrelation between two papers, both called, in short, “Onomatodoxy”, dedicated to the doctrine of Name-glorification (Imiaslavie, Onomatodoxy), both of which were created in line with the Neo-Patristic movement in the Russian philosophy of the Silver Age. One of these papers is by Alexei Losev and the other by Pavel Florensky. In my opinion, there are sufficient grounds to state that Losev’s “Onomatodoxy” was written either after Florensky created his own “Onomatodoxy”, i.e., after (...) November 1922, or, at the earliest, after Florensky started to give clandestine lectures about Onomatodoxy in Moscow (where Losev lived), i.e., not earlier than spring 1921. Therefore, Losev’s article “Onomatodoxy” could have been intended for the religious-philosophical collection of articles planned for publishing by Yaschenko in 1922 in Berlin. (shrink)

We explore a possibility of generalization of classical truth values by distinguishing between their ontological and epistemic aspects and combining these aspects within a joint semantical framework. The outcome is four generalized classical truth values implemented by Cartesian product of two sets of classical truth values, where each generalized value comprises both ontological and epistemic components. This allows one to define two unary twin connectives that can be called “semi-classical negations”. Each of these negations deals only with one of the (...) above mentioned components, and they may be of use for a logical reconstruction of argumentative reasoning. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dmitry Khanin THE POSTMODERN POSTURE Postmodernists—the sectarians ofour day—proclaim that the old kingdom of historical narrative and historical subject has perished, and is now being replaced by a new one of ahistorical discourses and ahistorical characters. According to these prophets, "history" is anyway just changes in ways of talking about history. Anyone who does not agree with the ahistoricity of the postmodern world oudook may be accused—and tried (...) on the spot—of defending the cause of the totalitarian Reason against the most liberating movement of today. This postmodernist abuse of history is paradoxical, since the very notion of history coming to its end and giving way to the ahistorical kingdom of freedom and merry debauchery is itself a very old idea, even a mythological one. The description ofhistory as marching toward its own demise relies on a whole tradition which portrays history as a drama. Aristode's conception of tragedy as a sequence of actions culminating in a dénouement has no doubt shaped this view of historical process. Christian and other religious millenarians have announced the end of history already many times. Yet another notorious instance of such eschatological daydreaming is the futurology of Karl Marx, who envisaged the kingdom of communism as occupying this same ahistorical space. A rather obsolete idea, perhaps, but it seems still to attract postmodernists, though they give it a characteristic twist, since they sincerely believe theory, discourse, écriture (i.e., theoretico-symbolical activity) are much more important than any actual historical contentprocesses and events. One of the most notable spokesmen for this approach is Arthur Danto, who insists that world history evolved in a good Hegelian manner until the theorists came to understand that history depends on their Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 239-247 240Philosophy and Literature texts much more than theorists themselves depend on historical processes and events.1 Many theoreticians working in an otherwise Marxist tradition similarly are glad to assert with FredricJameson that we must say farewell to Marx's positivistic illusion that history is driven by laws disguised as economic forces.2 In the epoch of "late capitalism," says Jameson, consumption gains the upper hand over production and becomes the mainspring of history. Of course, in light of recent doings in Europe I am tempted to ask if we owe it to postmodernists—and their ahistorical, inconsistent, and generally confounding claims about history lying in ruins—that the Berlin Wall actually is in ruins and Vaclav Havel is president of Czechoslovakia. Even more daring theorists may now declare an era of "very late capitalism." Here it will not be merely the mass media that act transformatively on society (as McLuhan claimed), but rather consumer goods themselves, like state-of-the-art washing machines or French perfumes, which create a new aura of intellectual discourse. TL· Postmodern Scene: Excremental Culture and Hyper-AesÜietics, a book by two Canadian authors, Arthur Kroker and David Cook, promotes such a sea change in the theoretical landscape and along the way presents a joyous recapitulation ofthe latest fads in postmodern thinking. The new apostolic generation ofpostmodern critics seems to enjoy the beautiful new things that can be bought for bucks, worrying at the same time that bucks may be losing some of their purchasing power. Like Hari-Krishnas dancing in the street they luckily possess a sort of happy consciousness which also recalls their puritanical great grandfathers who regarded profligacy as the greatest sin and much preferred saving to spending. In what follows I want to draw a portrait of this new postmodern posture. A few main assumptions underlie Kroker's and Cook's wake for postmodernism, which, in its peculiar genre of philosophic obituary, epitomizes and thus prepares for future oblivion views which were exceedingly popular in the preceding decade. First of all, the authors adopt Baudrillard's equation of Marx and Nietzsche: "Marx and Nietzsche shared a deep and common affinity in meditating upon historical (Christian) and materialistic (capitalist) expressions ofthewill ofpower."3 From Baudrillard's perspective Marx appears as a pathetic romantic who tried to defend the "referential illusion" by renaturalizing concrete labor even though its entirely abstract character was brilliandy revealed in Das Kapital. Baudrillard... (shrink)

In this tenth book of scilogs – called via neutrosophica (the neutrosophic way) –, one may find new and old questions and solutions, referring mostly to topics on NEUTROSOPHY, but also MULTISPACE, with miscellaneous addition of topics on Physics, Mathematics, or Sociology – email messages to research colleagues, or replies, notes about authors, articles, or books, spontaneous ideas, and so on. -/- Exchanging ideas with A. Elhassouny, Junhui Kim, Jeong Gon Lee, Kul Hur, Hojjatollah Farahani, W. B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Said (...) Broumi, Mumtaz Ali, Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Ozen Ozer, Madad Khan, Gheorghe Săvoiu, John Mordeson, Adesina Agboola, Waldyr Rodrigues, Ajay Sharma, Stephen Crothers, Vlad, Dmitri Rabounski, Victor Christianto, Trung Duyên, Mirela Teodorescu, Ioan Aurel Pop.‬‬‬. (shrink)

In their useful logic for a computer network Shramko and Wansing generalize initial values of Belnap’s 4-valued logic to the set 16 to be the power-set of Belnap’s 4. This generalization results in a very specific algebraic structure — the trilattice SIXTEEN3 with three orderings: information, truth and falsity. In this paper, a slightly different way of generalization is presented. As a base for further generalization a set 3 is chosen, where initial values are a — incoming data is asserted, (...) d — incoming data is denied, and u — incoming data is neither asserted nor denied, that corresponds to the answer “don’t know”. In so doing, the power-set of 3, that is the set 8 is considered. It turns out that there are not three but four orderings naturally defined on the set 8 that form the tetralattice EIGHT4. Besides three ordering relations mentioned above it is an extra uncertainty ordering. Quite predictably, the logics generated by a–order and d–order coincide with first-degree entailment. Finally logic with two kinds of operations and consequence relation defined via a–ordering is considered. An adequate axiomatization for this logic is proposed. (shrink)

This paper examines Galen’s insistence that the stomach and heart, despite their anatomical and physiological similarities to muscles, are not muscles. Through analyzing key passages in Galen’s works, we show that this claim is rooted in a consistent tripartite distinction between organs: Psychic Moving Organs (muscles), Natural Moving Organs (e.g. stomach, heart), and Natural Immobile Organs (e.g. liver, kidneys). We argue that this classification is grounded in anatomical differences between flesh and fiber that Galen deems salient enough to support further (...) physiological explanations and corroborate his philosophical-psychological commitments. By tracing the empirical foundations and theoretical motivations for these distinctions, we shed light on the relationship between Galen’s anatomical practices and his physiology and psychology. (shrink)

Most of the core concepts of the Western philosophical tradition originate in antiquity. Yet boredom is strikingly absent from classical thought. In this philosophical study, Dmitri Nikulin explores the concept's genealogy to argue that boredom is the mark of modernity. Nikulin contends that boredom is a specifically modern phenomenon. He provides a critical reconstruction of the concept of the modern subject as universal, rational, autonomous, and self-sufficient. Understanding itself in this way, this subject is at once the protagonist, playwright, director, (...) and spectator of the staged drama of human existence. It is therefore inevitably monological, lonely, and alone, and can neither escape its own presence nor get rid of it. In other words, it is bored-and this boredom is the fundamental expression and symptom of the modern condition. Considering such thinkers as Descartes, Pascal, Kant, Kierkegaard, Kracauer, Heidegger, and Benjamin, Critique of Bored Reason places boredom on center stage in the philosophical critique of modernity. Nikulin also considers the alternative to the notion of the autonomous subject in the-nonbored and nonboring-dialogic and comic subject capable of shared existence with others. (shrink)

In their useful logic for a computer network Shramko and Wansing generalize initial values of Belnap’s 4-valued logic to the set 16 to be the power-set of Belnap’s 4. This generalization results in a very specific algebraic structure — the trilattice SIXTEEN 3 with three orderings: information, truth and falsity. In this paper, a slightly different way of generalization is presented. As a base for further generalization a set 3 is chosen, where initial values are a — incoming data is (...) asserted, d — incoming data is denied, and u — incoming data is neither asserted nor denied, that corresponds to the answer “don’t know”. In so doing, the power-set of 3, that is the set 8 is considered. It turns out that there are not three but four orderings naturally defined on the set 8 that form the tetralattice EIGHT 4 . Besides three ordering relations mentioned above it is an extra uncertainty ordering. Quite predictably, the logics generated by a –order (truth order) and d –order (falsity order) coincide with first-degree entailment. Finally logic with two kinds of operations ( a –connectives and d –connectives) and consequence relation defined via a –ordering is considered. An adequate axiomatization for this logic is proposed. (shrink)

Early development of animal embryos begins from spatially distributed products of gene expression, i.e., gradients. While maternal and early zygotic genes form broad and/or terminal gradients, their direct targets appear later on as relatively narrow stripes, which foreshadow presumptive germ layers or future segments. Evidently, stripe expression of the zygotic genes is among the key mechanisms of embryo patterning. In this paper, known qualitative and quantitative models for the stripe formation are considered on the example of early embryogenesis of Drosophila. (...) The current model analysis emphasizes the role of spatial information flow in development. Discussion is given on frequent network motifs, pointing to spatial stripe formation solutions. (shrink)

The recent surge of discoveries concerning the structural organization of nucleosomes, together with genetic evidence of highly specialized roles for the histones in gene regulation, have brought a renewed need for a detailed understanding of nucleosomal anatomy. Here we review recent structural advances leading to a new level of understanding of the nucleosome and chromatin fibre structure. We discuss the problems and challenges for existing models of chromatin structure and, in particular, consider how linker histones may bind within the nucleosome, (...) together with the implications of their association for the structure of the chromatin fibre. (shrink)

A conception of an information system has been introduced by Pawlak. The study has been continued in works of Pawlak and Orlowska and in works of Vakarelov. They had proposed some basic relations and had constructed a formal system of a modal logic that describes the relations and some of their Boolean combinations. Our work is devoted to a generalization of this approach. A class of relation systems and a complete calculus construction method for these systems are proposed. As a (...) corollary of our main result, our paper contains a solution of a Vakarelov's problem: how to construct a formal system that describes all the Boolean combinations of the basic relations. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce a new type of nets with bounded types of distributed resources . Linear Logic to describe the behaviour of BR-nets is defined. It is based on Girard's Linear Logic but captures not only consumption of resources but their presence as well. Theorem of soundness and completeness of the proposed axiomatization is proved and the complexity of the provability problem is established for the general case and some particular ones.

I detect a specific attitude to Byzantium (“the Byzantine Enlightenment”) in Ivan Kireevsky’ Slavophile article “On the Character of Enlightenment in Europe” (1852). I qualify this attitude as Byzantinocentrism. I take that as a focal point and, against this background, consider the image of Byzantium in Kireevsky and some thinkers of his social circle. It allows me to trace the most important lines of attitudes to Byzantium in the Russian historiosophical literature and opinion journalism of the nineteenth century. I detect (...) two opposite lines in perceiving Byzantium in Kireevsky’s early social circle: the anti- and pro-Byzantine ones. The first line goes back to an anti-Byzantine message, characteristic of the epoch of Enlightenment. It found its manifestation in G. W. F. Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History. I point to the traces of the implicit polemics with Hegel’s anti-byzantinism in Kireevsky and identify the context of these polemics in Arist Kunick. As well, I outline how these lines worked in Pyotr Chaadaev and Alexander Pushkin. Then I distinguish between how the image of Byzantium was presented, first, in Kireevsky’s earlier Slavophile article “On the Character of Enlightenment in Europe” and, second, in his last article “On the Necessity and Possibility of the new Foundations for Philosophy” (1856). In the latter article, which sees Byzantium as bipolar, I find another view on Byzantium. I suggest that this view on Byzantium as a bipolar entity goes back to Alexey Khomyakov’s Semiramis. My point is that this difference in the views on Byzantium is paradigmatic and it reflects a division that was present in the Russian Slavophile-conservative milieu of that time. I suggest that this division stands behind another division within the same milieu, which was politically oriented, the one in relation to the Greek-Bulgarian ecclesiastical question. I analyze how both monopolar (Byzantinocentric) and bipolar views on Byzantium were reflected in the Greek-Bulgarian question as it was considered by Alexey Khomyakov and Terty Filippov. I find a context for developing Kireevsky’s attitude towards Byzantium in François Guizot’s historiosophic scheme as well. (shrink)

European thought has had contradictory visions of humanity’s place in the cosmos. Some believed that humanity might survive indefinitely. Yet most of the modern thinkers assumed that humanity, in general, was not different from other species and would eventually disappear. In Russia, a different view prevailed. It was assumed that humanity belonged to a sort of “chosen species” and would have a different destiny from the other species. This idea of “humanity as a chosen species” was supported with the idea (...) of Russia as a “chosen nation” that would lead humanity to mastery over nature and ensure its immortality. The end of the conception of the omega of world history in post-Soviet Russia had led to the discarding of humanity’s mastery over nature and its special position in the cosmos. From then on, it was stressed that humanity was an insignificant and perishable speck, and the future would most likely lead to humanity’s disappearance. (shrink)

The paper deals with the need for new methods in foreign language teaching to students of non-linguistic universities. The article presents a strategy to optimize the foreign language lesson. As an example an algorithm with authentic technical text in German is considered. It makes possible to change the work with foreign language text. It is proposed to substitute the standard tasks to the practice-oriented, which purpose is to teach students to understand the text.