This book offers a comprehensive treatment of the classical decision problem of mathematical logic and of the role of the classical decision problem in modern computer science. The text presents a revealing analysis of the natural order of decidable and undecidable cases and includes a number of simple proofs and exercises.

ABSTRACTPeople's relationship between positive and negative affect varies on a continuum from relatively independent to bipolar opposites, with stronger bipolar opposition being termed affective bipolarity. Experiencing more depressive symptoms is associated with increased bipolarity, but the processes underlying this relation are not yet understood. Here, we sought to replicate this link, and to examine the role of two potential mediating mechanisms: emotion regulation ability, and trait brooding. Drawing from the Dynamic Model of Affect, we hypothesised that a poor ability to (...) regulate negative emotion, and the tendency to brood over one's depressed feelings would predict stronger affective bipolarity, and mediate the relationship between depressive symptoms and affective bipolarity. To measure affective bipolarity, we calculated within-person affect correlations using two weeks of experience sampling data from a community sample. Mediation analyses indicated that baseline assessments o... (shrink)

The theme of this book is formed by a pair of concepts: the concept of formal language as carrier of the precise expression of meaning, facts and problems, and the concept of algorithm or calculus, i.e. a formally operating procedure for the solution of precisely described questions and problems. The book is a unified introduction to the modern theory of these concepts, to the way in which they developed first in mathematical logic and computability theory and later in automata theory, (...) and to the theory of formal languages and complexity theory. Apart from considering the fundamental themes and classical aspects of these areas, the subject matter has been selected to give priority throughout to the new aspects of traditional questions, results and methods which have developed from the needs or knowledge of computer science and particularly of complexity theory. It is both a textbook for introductory courses in the above-mentioned disciplines as well as a monograph in which further results of new research are systematically presented and where an attempt is made to make explicit the connections and analogies between a variety of concepts and constructions. (shrink)

There is sufficient evidence from more recent experiments in psychology that equal retinal stimulus-elements do not lead to equal experiences and reactions except under certain rather specific conditions. An unsophisticated observer will find himself surprised to be able to cover with his own finger a person entering the door of his living room. When the finger is moved to the right or left, thus doing away with the precise retinal coincidence with the person, the observer will soon become unable to (...) recognize intuitively the actual retinal stimulus equality of the two distant things. This usually holds even for the case when he is making every inner effort towards an antagonistic, analytic perceptual attitude of the type which is used by painters or draughtsmen in order to represent the environmental situation in a similar way as it would project itself on a photographic plate or on a retina. (shrink)

This article raises the question of whether standard economics with the general equilibrium model at its core applies situational analysis in a Popperian sense. Contrary to Popper's own view, the authors come to the conclusion that this is not the case. Standard economics fails to represent elements essential to any social situation in an adequate manner. It comprises uncertainty, time and space, social interaction, unintended effects, as well as culture and institutions. The authors suggest, therefore, the socioeconomic context as an (...) alternative approach to analyzing social situations. It consists of four basic elements: (1) dominant worldviews, (2) institutions and technologies, (3) relative prices, and (4) political instruments. The alternative approach was applied with some success to analyzing inter alia problems of unemployment as well as of transformation. (shrink)

In the Consolation of Ontology, Czech poet-philosopher Egon Bondy examines the substantial model of reality — the notion that there is some sort of substance, some "thing", idea, being, or principle that creates, underlies, transcends, or gives meaning to the universe in which we live. He shows how the substantial model, in both its theistic and mechanical materialist versions, is logically untenable and dangerous in its consequences. From there, Bondy shows how the nonsubstantial alternative — prefigured in the thinking (...) of cultures that developed independently of Greece — is simpler and more logically consistent. More importantly, it is free from the negative consequences of the substantial model and instead opens the way toward genuine human freedom, creativity, and responsibility, toward a corresponding and supportive form of social organization, and toward an unclouded understanding of ontological reality. Previously untranslated, the book asks that we leave behind comfortable assumptions and understand how the struggles for a genuinely human future and for ontological clarity presuppose each other and are mutually interdependent. (shrink)

Von den Spiralen.--Von den drei Sphären.--Von der Gefahr.--Von der Mitte.--Von den Gründen.--Von der Beliebtheit.--Vom Mythos der Sprache.--Von den Namen.--Von den Farben.--Vom Dichten, Denken, und Deuten.