This article shows the epistemological model proposed by Alvin Plantinga towards the knowledge of God. This model is confronted with the ones proposed by Thomas Aquinas and Calvin. The author reaches the conclusion that they are different, incompatible models.

On Sikh ethics; includes brief biographies of Sikh religious leaders.

This article includes the editio princeps of Ibn al-Hayṯam’s treatise “On the Parabolic Burning Mirror,” Fī al-marāyā al-muḥriqa bi-al-quṭūʿ, as well as its first translation into French. We examine its place in the history of the parabolic mirror for more than a millennium and a half, in Greek as well as in Arabic and Latin.

In this paper we show how recent concepts from Dynamic Logic, and in particular from Dynamic Epistemic logic, can be used to model and interpret quantum behavior. Our main thesis is that all the non-classical properties of quantum systems are explainable in terms of the non-classical flow of quantum information. We give a logical analysis of quantum measurements (formalized using modal operators) as triggers for quantum information flow, and we compare them with other logical operators previously used to model various (...) forms of classical information flow: the “test” operator from Dynamic Logic, the “announcement” operator from Dynamic Epistemic Logic and the “revision” operator from Belief Revision theory. The main points stressed in our investigation are the following: (1) The perspective and the techniques of “logical dynamics” are useful for understanding quantum information flow. (2) Quantum mechanics does not require any modification of the classical laws of “static” propositional logic, but only a non-classical dynamics of information. (3) The main such non-classical feature is that, in a quantum world, all information-gathering actions have some ontic side-effects. (4) This ontic impact can affect in its turn the flow of information, leading to non-classical epistemic side-effects (e.g. a type of non-monotonicity) and to states of “objectively imperfect information”. (5) Moreover, the ontic impact is non-local: an information-gathering action on one part of a quantum system can have ontic side-effects on other, far-away parts of the system. (shrink)

Research in face recognition has largely been divided between those projects concerned with front‐end image processing and those projects concerned with memory for familiar people. These perceptual and cognitive programmes of research have proceeded in parallel, with only limited mutual influence. In this paper we present a model of human face recognition which combines both a perceptual and a cognitive component. The perceptual front‐end is based on principal components analysis of face images, and the cognitive back‐end is based on a (...) simple interactive activation and competition architecture. We demonstrate that this model has a much wider predictive range than either perceptual or cognitive models alone, and we show that this type of combination is necessary in order to analyse some important effects in human face recognition. In sum, the model takes varying images of “known” faces and delivers information about these people. (shrink)

Ii is a well-known fact that the men of the Macedonian phalanx under Philip and Alexander were known collectively asor ‘foot companions’. Our first reference to the name comes from Demosthenes, who in his second Olynthiac tries unconvincingly to disparage the fighting qualities of Philip's mercenaries andDemosthenes adds no explanation, and it was left to commentators and lexicographers to unearth a relevant fragment from thePhilippicaof Anaximenes of Lampsacus.

On fundamentals of Vedanta and science; a study.

For the first time in print, well-known spiritual teacher A.H. Almaas presents the highest level and most profound teachings of the Diamond Approach on the true nature of reality and the path to enlightenment. For more than thirty years, A.H. Almaas has been developing and teaching the Diamond Approach, a spiritual path of self-realization and maturity based on an original synthesis of modern discoveries in the field of psychology and a new paradigm about spiritual nature. If we can say the (...) Diamond Approach has a goal it is to realize the truth at progressively deeper levels until one reaches the ultimate Truth, the Absolute, and to become integrated into that truth so that we are a living presence and embodiment of that truth. The teachings of this path have been unfolding over time, and Runaway Realization presents--for the first time in print--the highest level of teachings in the Diamond Approach in the most profound work by Almaas so far. In this book, Almaas offers a detailed look at the true nature of reality and the nature of enlightenment. He also talks about practice--what it is and what it isn't, and how practice relates to the process of realization. He looks at what it is to be a human being and what our role is in the totality of the universe. The material includes a discussion of the nature of space and time, as well as a view of more and more subtle levels of realization. (shrink)

The main idea that we want to defend in this paper is that the question of what a logic is should be addressed differently when structural properties enter the game. In particular, we want to support the idea according to which it is not enough to identify the set of valid inferences to characterize a logic. In other words, we will argue that two logical theories could identify the same set of validities, but not be the same logic.

Changing the worldview and cultural paradigm of the modern world with the inherent transformation of value orientations and the search for the life-meaning foundations of being leads to increased interest in the problems of spirituality. After all, spirituality is the most important pillar of human existence and the highest principle that determines the essence of man and his over-welcoming purpose. In the historical memory of the people, in its cultural traditions, spirituality has been sanctified for millennia by a religion that (...) sought to restrain primitive instincts and affirmation at all levels of being a moral person. Religion, as a spiritual phenomenon, is directly connected with man, with his attachment to the high meanings and the semantic fullness of being in general. The search for meaning promotes a person beyond the limits of the actual being given to him and ensures the integrity of the individual, affirmation of the person as an origin and bringing it to the culture and values. (shrink)

Relativistic quantum mechanics has been formulated as a theory of the evolution ofevents in spacetime; the wave functions are square-integrable functions on the four-dimensional spacetime, parametrized by a universal invariant world time τ. The representation of states with spin is induced with a little group that is the subgroup of O(3, 1) leaving invariant a timelike vector nμ; a positive definite invariant scalar product, for which matrix elements of tensor operators are covariant, emerges from this construction. In a previous study (...) a second-order equation was introduced similar to the second-order Dirac equation, based on a quadratic function of two operators which are the self-adjoint parts, in this new scalar product, of γμpμ. It is shown in this paper that one of these operators, in fact the one from which the gyromagnetic moment is obtained, can be used to construct a first-order equation. The corresponding quantum theory is somewhat analogous to Dirac's spinor form; the Hamilton equations appear to describe dynamical degrees of freedom in a spacelike hyperplane orthogonal to nμ (in Dirac's theory the motion appears to be lightlike). It is shown that the integration over nμ required by unitarity results in timelike motion (as in the expectation value of Dirac's α). Explicit forms are obtained for the wave functions and currents for free motion. The general form of the theory is written for the (five-dimensional) pre-Maxwell fields required by gauge invariance. (shrink)