What would it mean to apply quantum theory, without restriction and without involving any notion of measurement and state reduction, to the whole universe? What would realism about the quantum state then imply? This book brings together an illustrious team of philosophers and physicists to debate these questions. The contributors broadly agree on the need, or aspiration, for a realist theory that unites micro- and macro-worlds. But they disagree on what this implies. Some argue that if unitary quantum evolution has (...) unrestricted application, and if the quantum state is taken to be something physically real, then this universe emerges from the quantum state as one of countless others, constantly branching in time, all of which are real. The result, they argue, is many worlds quantum theory, also known as the Everett interpretation of quantum mechanics. No other realist interpretation of unitary quantum theory has ever been found. Others argue in reply that this picture of many worlds is in no sense inherent to quantum theory, or fails to make physical sense, or is scientifically inadequate. The stuff of these worlds, what they are made of, is never adequately explained, nor are the worlds precisely defined; ordinary ideas about time and identity over time are compromised; no satisfactory role or substitute for probability can be found in many worlds theories; they can't explain experimental data; anyway, there are attractive realist alternatives to many worlds. Twenty original essays, accompanied by commentaries and discussions, examine these claims and counterclaims in depth. They consider questions of ontology - the existence of worlds; probability - whether and how probability can be related to the branching structure of the quantum state; alternatives to many worlds - whether there are one-world realist interpretations of quantum theory that leave quantum dynamics unchanged; and open questions even given many worlds, including the multiverse concept as it has arisen elsewhere in modern cosmology. A comprehensive introduction lays out the main arguments of the book, which provides a state-of-the-art guide to many worlds quantum theory and its problems. (shrink)

Policy‐makers, bioethicists, and patient advocates have been engaged in a fierce battle about the merits and potential harms of a federal right‐to‐try law. This debate about access to investigational medical products has raised profound questions about the limits of patient autonomy, appropriate government regulation, medical paternalism, and political rhetoric. For example, do patients have a right to access investigational therapies, as the right‐to‐try movement asserts? What is government’s proper role in regulating and facilitating access to drugs that are still in (...) development? In this review, we analyze the history of the right‐to‐try movement, review the arguments put forth by supporters and opponents of the legislation, and consider the movement’s consequences. Two possible scenarios may emerge. One is that the right‐to‐try pathway may fail to meaningfully increase patient access to investigational products. Alternatively, certain companies may attempt to rely on the federal right‐to‐try legislation to sell investigational products, taking advantage of the provision that allows for direct costs, as there is currently no clear mechanism for enforcement or monitoring of cost calculations. (shrink)

How do archaeologists make effective use of physical traces and material culture as repositories of evidence? Material Evidence is a collection of 19 essays that take a resolutely case-based approach to this question, exploring key instances of exemplary practice, instructive failures, and innovative developments in the use of archaeological data as evidence. The goal is to bring to the surface the wisdom of practice, teasing out norms of archaeological reasoning from evidence. -/- Archaeologists make compelling use of an enormously diverse (...) range of material evidence, from garbage dumps to monuments, from finely crafted artifacts rich with cultural significance to the inadvertent transformation of landscapes over the long term. Each contributor to Material Evidence identifies a particular type of evidence with which they grapple and considers, with reference to concrete examples, how archaeologists construct evidential claims, critically assess them, and bring them to bear on pivotal questions about the cultural past. -/- Historians, cultural anthropologists, philosophers, and science studies scholars are increasingly interested in working with material "things" as objects of inquiry and as evidence – and they acknowledge on all sides just how challenging this is. One of the central messages of the book is that close analysis of archaeological best practice can yield constructive guidelines for practice that have much to offer practitioners within archaeology and well beyond. (shrink)

From the time of Augustine to the late thirteenth century, leading Christian thinkers agreed that freedom requires the ability to make good choices, but not the ability to make bad ones. If freedom required the ability to sin, they reasoned, neither God nor the angels nor the blessed in heaven could be free. This essay examines the work of Peter Olivi, the first medieval philosopher known to reject the asymmetrical conception of freedom. Olivi argues that the ability to sin is (...) essential to creaturely freedom and remains even in heaven. While Anselm is the nominal target of Olivi’s arguments on this topic, they form part of a wider critique directed even more at Aquinas and his followers. Olivi faults them for misunderstanding the nature of the created will and for failing to provide a foundation for a particular kind of moral responsibility: personal merit. (shrink)

This paper responds to Philipona & O’Regan (2006), which attempts to account for certain color phenomena by appeal to singularities in the space of “accessible information” in the light striking the retina. Three points are discussed. First, it is unclear what the empirical significance/import is of the mathematical analysis of the data regarding the accessible information in the light. Second, the singularity index employed in the study is both mathematically and empirically faulty. Third, the connection drawn between their findings and (...) some data from the World Color Survey is lacking in quantitative analysis in places where it is needed. The difficulties raised prevent Philipona & O’Regan’s conclusions from being accepted. (shrink)

As the first large online event of the American Society for Cybernetics, the ASC2020 Global Conversation offered an opportunity to develop new online types of cybernetic conversations on cybernetics, in cybernetic formats. This article discusses the design decisions that led to a particular organizational structure of the event, and observations on how the event unfolded from this organizational structure. Based on observations made throughout the event as well as its preparation stage, the article maps seven different types of conversations taking (...) place before and during the event and discusses opportunities and constraints encountered in relation to each identified type. As online conferences have proliferated exponentially due to the impact of COVID-19, this article aims to contribute a cybernetic perspective to the broader discourse on scholarly international exchange in online media, and offers a new perspective on how such conversations might be designed in a cybernetic manner. (shrink)

Negative Ecstasies discusses the contribution and significance of the work of Georges Bataille to the contemporary study of religion and theology, collecting essays that examine specific case studies and make connections to other significant scholars in the field.

Popular songs are ubiquitous in the lives of school-age children, but the construction of traditional school music curricula does not always provide an adequate framework for studying them. In particular, the salience of words qua lyrics is an inescapable feature of popular songs, and recognizing the musical properties of those lyrics opens for study an important dimension of the real-world music that students of all ages engage so readily. Rather than treating song lyrics as separate from the music, I here (...) attempt to establish that lyrics can be treated as musical entities, as demonstrated in scholarship from popular music theorists and musicologists that highlights the musical properties of song lyrics and the musicianship of those who write them. Then, I argue that existing school curricula could do more to give lyrics their musical due, which would not only enhance the teaching and learning of popular songwriting itself, but also may expand notions of what counts as music more broadly, with benefits for school music curricula overall, perhaps especially in the domains of choral and general music. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy)Rosamond Kent SpragueFrancisco J. Gonzalez. Dialectic and Dialogue: Plato's Practice of Philosophical Inquiry (SPEP Studies in Historical Philosophy). Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1998. Pp. 418. Paper, $29.95.What this rich and independent-minded book asks us to do is to give serious consideration to the question, "What, in Plato's view, are we doing when we philosophize?" (...) (1) If we employ our own conceptions of philosophy as the models for formulating and discussing specific Platonic questions, we may be imposing upon him ways of thinking that are foreign to his thought. To do this is particularly distorting in the case of dialectic.Gonzalez has chosen to confine himself to the early and middle dialogues, so that his book is a direct challenge to the work of Richard Robinson. Of the important views that have more recently arisen, Gonzalez allies himself most nearly with the non-doctrinal approach, but not to the extent of embracing scepticism. There is much philosophical knowledge in the dialogues, but such knowledge is primarily non-propositional. As for the esotericist and the developmentalist, both are misguided in proceeding on the assumption that Plato is attempting to formulate definitions and to arrive at a systematic philosophy; they regard the dialogues as treatises, which they are not. As Gonzalez quite justly inquires, "can there be any form of writing less suited to presenting a systematic philosophy than Plato's dramatic dialogues?" (4)In contrast to Robinson, who relies on the analysis of passages taken out of context, Gonzalez focusses mainly on whole dialogues, taking them to be dramatic portrayals of dialectic at work. He begins with detailed studies of the Laches and Charmides. In both cases, Socrates starts with ordinary knowledge (in the persons of the title characters), but "clearly intends to transcend it" (20). Neither will he accept "the 'sophistic' understanding that attempts to substitute definitions for this experience" (21) on the part of Nicias and Critias. The knowledge sought by Socrates by means of the dialectical method is shown to thave three characteristics: it is "knowledge how," it is "self-knowledge," and it is "non-propositional" (61).The next chapters consider three presuppositions of Plato's dialectic: words (in the Cratylus), arguments (in the Euthydemus), and images (in Republic X). All three are necessary to the dialectical enterprise, but, like ordinary knowledge in the aporetic dialogues, are transcended.Gonzalez' confrontation with Robinson naturally requires that he address the topic [End Page 113] of the method of hypothesis in the Meno, Phaedo, and Republic. This is a method that does yield propositional results, but it remains at the level of poion ti and fails to provide similar knowledge of the ti. Gonzalez' interpretation of the divided line is of particular interest here: as he sees it, dialectic is not intended as simply an extension continuous with the method of hypothesis. To take it this way is, with Robinson, to collapse dialectic into mathematics, making the former as deductive as the latter. The good (which "is not for Plato an exclusively moral term" 216) is "already there before the inquiry as the ground of its possibility" (236); this is what "unhypothesized" means. The movement of thought is circular, but not with a vicious circularity; "reflexivity" is the term preferred.To my mind the most rewarding and most convincing section of the book is the concluding chapter on the philosophical digression in the Seventh Letter. (The issue of authenticity is not significant, since, if the Letter is a forgery, "this forger had a better understanding of Plato than many other scholars, both ancient and contemporary" (246). Although "the subject of this wisdom simply cannot be expressed in words" (252) (and here Gonzalez emphasizes that Plato means spoken as much as written words), there is no contradiction in being able to talk or write about it. If "our only means of attaining true knowledge of a thing have the defect of being unable to express this nature" (263), Plato suggests an up and down movement which transcends this defect. The nature of this movement he describes as tribein, a process... (shrink)

In this chapter, a challenge to the idea of ecumenical exchange is set forth from explicit religious premises. One made by David Smolin critiques Michael Perry's ideas on religious dialogue. Based mainly on the conservative traditionalist view, Smolin rejects the idea of a rational reexamination of religious beliefs. Smolin regards liberal Christianity as unstable, because the attempted mix of modernist premises with loyalty to God is bound to result in an increasingly secular identity. Smolin urges that the very nature of (...) scriptural religions like Christianity, Judaism, and Islam is that they posit an extremely public and accessible revelation of God, from this Christian perspective, the main barrier to acceptance of Christianity is not insufficient understanding but a failure of will stemming from sinful human nature. Perry's reply to this critique presents a shift in position which Perry says that one should not posit an ideal that would render beliefs like David Smolin's an inappropriate basis for political choice. Instead, those beliefs need to be met on their merits. (shrink)

Explorations in Systems Phenomenology in Relation to Ontology, Hermeneutics and the Meta-dialectics of Design -/- SYNOPSIS A Phenomenological Analysis of Emergent Design is performed based on the foundations of General Schemas Theory. The concept of Sign Engineering is explored in terms of Hermeneutics, Dialectics, and Ontology in order to define Emergent Systems and Metasystems Engineering based on the concept of Meta-dialectics. -/- ABSTRACT Phenomenology, Ontology, Hermeneutics, and Dialectics will dominate our inquiry into the nature of the Emergent Design of the (...) System and its inverse dual, the Meta-system. This is an speculative dissertation that attempts to produce a philosophical, mathematical, and theoretical view of the nature of Systems Engineering Design. Emergent System Design, i.e., the design of yet unheard of and/or hitherto non-existent Systems and Metasystems is the focus. This study is a frontal assault on the hard problem of explaining how Engineering produces new things, rather than a repetition or reordering of concepts that already exist. In this work the philosophies of E. Husserl, A. Gurwitsch, M. Heidegger, J. Derrida, G. Deleuze, A. Badiou, G. Hegel, I. Kant and other Continental Philosophers are brought to bear on different aspects of how new technological systems come into existence through the midwifery of Systems Engineering. Sign Engineering is singled out as the most important aspect of Systems Engineering. We will build on the work of Pieter Wisse and extend his theory of Sign Engineering to define Meta-dialectics in the form of Quadralectics and then Pentalectics. Along the way the various ontological levels of Being are explored in conjunction with the discovery that the Quadralectic is related to the possibility of design primarily at the Third Meta-level of Being, called Hyper Being. Design Process is dependent upon the emergent possibilities that appear in Hyper Being. Hyper Being, termed by Heidegger as Being (Being crossed-out) and termed by Derrida as Differance, also appears as the widest space within the Design Field at the third meta-level of Being and therefore provides the most leverage that is needed to produce emergent effects. Hyper Being is where possibilities appear within our worldview. Possibility is necessary for emergent events to occur. Hyper Being possibilities are extended by Wild Being propensities to allow the embodiment of new things. We discuss how this philosophical background relates to meta-methods such as the Gurevich Abstract State Machine and the Wisse Metapattern methods, as well as real-time architectural design methods as described in the Integral Software Engineering Methodology. One aim of this research is to find the foundation for extending the ISEM methodology to become a general purpose Systems Design Methodology. Our purpose is also to bring these philosophical considerations into the practical realm by examining P. Bourdieu’s ideas on the relationship between theoretical and practical reason and M. de Certeau’s ideas on practice. The relationship between design and implementation is seen in terms of the Set/Mass conceptual opposition. General Schemas Theory is used as a way of critiquing the dependence of Set based mathematics as a basis for Design. The dissertation delineates a new foundation for Systems Engineering as Emergent Engineering based on General Schemas Theory, and provides an advanced theory of Design based on the understanding of the meta-levels of Being, particularly focusing upon the relationship between Hyper Being and Wild Being in the context of Pure and Process Being. (shrink)