Biologically motivated computing seeks to transfer ideas from the biosciences to computer science. In seeking to make transfers it is helpful to be able to appreciate the metaphors which people use. This is because metaphors provide the context through which analogies and similes are made and by which many scientific models are constructed. As such, it is important for any rapidly evolving domain of knowledge to have developments accounted for in these terms. This paper seeks to provide one overview of (...) the process of modelling and shows how it can be used to account for a variety of biologically motivated computational models. Certain key ideas are identified in the subsequent analysis of biological sources, notably, systemic metaphors. Three important aspects of biological thinking are then considered in the light of computer science applications: biological organization, the cell, and models of evolution. The analysis throughout the paper is descriptive rather than formalized so that a large variety of potential applications may be considered. (shrink)

Investigation of neural and cognitive processes underlying individual variation in moral preferences is underway, with notable similarities emerging between moral- and risk-based decision-making. Here we specifically assessed moral distributive justice preferences and non-moral financial gambling preferences in the same individuals, and report an association between these seemingly disparate forms of decision-making. Moreover, we find this association between distributive justice and risky decision-making exists primarily when the latter is assessed with the Iowa Gambling Task. These findings are consistent with neuroimaging studies (...) of brain function during moral and risky decision-making. This research also constitutes the first replication of a novel experimental measure of distributive justice decision-making, for which individual variation in performance was found. Further examination of decision-making processes across different contexts may lead to an improved understanding of the factors affecting moral behaviour. (shrink)

Some patients with schizophrenia are not told their diagnosis. The moral, clinical and practical issues involved in telling or not telling the patient are discussed. In some cases a relative is told the diagnosis but not the patient. The implications for the family and clinical outcome are outlined. A case history illustrating some of these issues is presented.

Advances in genetics may soon make possible the development of ethnic bioweapons that target specific ethnic or racial groups based upon genetic markers. While occasional published reports of such research generate public outrage, little has been written about the ethical distinction (if any) between the development of such weapons and ethnically neutral bioweapons. The purpose of this paper is to launch a debate on the subject of ethnic bioweapons before they become a scientific reality.

This article deals with the burning issue of moral decision-making by major church assemblies,such as regional and general synods. Moral decisions by church assemblies have createdmany conflicts in churches in the past and at times did an injustice to the prophetic testimonyof churches in society. The question arises as follows: To what extent should church assembliesbe involved in moral decision-making? The central theoretical argument of this study is thatalthough the notion of a ‘biblical ethic’ is valid, synods and council of (...) churches should beextremely cautious and even hesitant to formulate moral decisions because of differences inhermeneutical approaches and the principle that the church is primarily the ‘local congregationof believers’. The church is not in the first instance a national, general or international socialstructure that should pass conclusive resolutions and that testifies by way of moderators orelected church leaders. To unfurl this central theoretical argument, the researcher refers to thecurrent hermeneutical discourses and proposes certain ideas regarding the possible role ofthe church with respect to moral decision-making. In view of the information provided, apoint of view is advocated regarding the way in which churches could be involved in moraldecision-making today. (shrink)

In the Preface to Negative Dialectics, Adorno states that the primary ambition of the book is to find a substitute for the “supra‐ordinated” concept and to “break through the deception of constitutive subjectivity.” For a book whose ambition is to renew the Marxist idea of critique, these are puzzling claims. The notions to be criticized are Kant's in The Critique of Pure Reason ; Adorno, from his earliest studies with Siegfried Kracauer, had taken Kant's theoretical philosophy as expressing the deepest (...) conceptual and normative commitments of capital. This chapter attempts to specify what the expressive relation between idealist conceptuality and capital is; why Adorno took the transcendental unity of apperception to express a society that was unconscious about itself; and precisely how negative dialectics is throughout key to a critique of Kant's philosophy. (shrink)

Collective memory can be used conceptually to examine African-American perceptions of wildlands and black interaction with such places. The middle-American view of wildlands frames these terrains as refuges—pure and simple, sanctified places distinct from the profanity of human modification. However, wild, primitive areas do not exist in the minds of all Americans as uncomplicated or uncontaminated places. Three labor-related institutions—forest labor, plantation agriculture, and sharecropping—and terrorism and lynching have impacted negatively on black perceptions of wildlands, producing an ambivalence toward such (...) places among African Americans. (shrink)

The first few years of driving is a critical period when driving skills develop and the driving style is established. While the actual driving skills improve during the first few years of driving, a novice driver’s view of himself/herself as a safe and/or skilful driver also develops rapidly. The aim of this study was to investigate self-evaluated driver safety and perceptual-motor skills among different age groups of young drivers, along with the relationships between self-evaluated skills and driving behaviour. The sample (...) consisted of a stratified random sample of 18–25-year-old drivers from the Finnish driving licence register. The questionnaires, which included the Driver Skill Inventory, Driver Behaviour Questionnaire and background information, were completed and returned by a total of 1,058 participants. While female drivers assessed their safety skills to be higher than their perceptual-motor skills, the opposite was true for males. In both sexes, perceptual-motor skills increased, and safety skills decreased with experience. Perceptual-motor skills correlated negatively with safety skills, lapses and errors, but positively with aggressive and ordinary violations. Safety skills correlated negatively with all DBQ variables. Safety orientation seems to be most clearly reflected in deliberate aberrant driving behaviours. Sex differences were observed in the development of behaviours and skills, perceptual-motor skills only increased with age among males, while safety skills decreased through experience among both men and women. Results showed that driving experience was strongly related to both driving style and the drivers’ view of their skills, highlighting the importance of the first few years of driving. (shrink)

: This contribution offers a detailed presentation of an anonymous book on the soul ascribed to the fourteenth-century Franciscan philosopher and theologian Nicholas Bonet. The work is conserved in two manuscripts of the National Library of the Czech Republic in Prague. In both manuscripts the work is almost certainly incomplete. It has a strong focus on the vegetative and sensitive operations of the human soul and on phenomena such as light and colour. Keywords: Fourteenth-century philosophy, Nicholas Bonet, philosophical manuscripts, philosophical (...) psychology, the soul. (shrink)

There have been two main lines in the literature on restricted games: the first line was started by Myerson (1977) that studied graph-restricted games an the second one was initiated by Faigle (1989). The present paper provides a unified way to look on the literature and establishes connections between the two different lines on restricted games. The strength and advantages of this unified approach becomes clear in the study of the inheritance of the convexity from the game to the restricted (...) game where an interesting result by Nouweland and Borm (1991) on the convexity of graph-restricted games is turned into a direct consequence of the corresponding result by Faigle (1989), by means of this relation. (shrink)