This paper, being a companion to the book [2] elaborates the deontology of sequential and compound actions based on relational models and formal constructs borrowed from formal linguistics. The semantic constructions presented in this paper emulate to some extent the content of [3] but are more involved. Although the present work should be regarded as a sequel of [3] it is self-contained and may be read independently. The issue of permission and obligation of actions is presented in the form of (...) a logical system. This system is semantically defined by providing its intended models in which the role of actions of various types is accentuated. Since the consequence relation is not finitary, other semantically defined variants of are defined. The focus is on the finitary system in which only finite compound actions are admissible. An adequate axiom system for it is defined. The strong completeness theorem is the central result. The role of the canonical model in the proof of the completeness theorem is emphasized. (shrink)

Situational aspects of action are discussed. The presented approach emphasizes the role of situational contexts in which actions are performed. These contexts influence the course of an action; they are determined not only by the current state of the system but also shaped by other factors as time, the previously undertaken actions and their succession, the agents of actions and so on. The distinction between states and situations is explored from the perspective of action systems. The notion of a situational (...) action system is introduced and its theory is expounded. Numerous examples illustrate the reach of the theory. (shrink)

“For there shall be days when you will say: Blessed is the womb which has not conceived, and those breasts which have not given suck.”The Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas (1)“ Oh man! why is the world becoming so narrow for you? You want to possess it alone; but if you had possessed it, it would not have been spacious enough for you:Ah! this is the pride of the devil who has fallen from heaven into hell.”.

Computational models of emotions have been thriving and increasingly popular since the 1990s. Such models used to be concerned with the emotions of individual agents when they interact with other agents. Out of the array of models for the emotions, we are going to devote special attention to the approach in Adamatzky’s Dynamics of Crowd-Minds. The reason it stands out, is that it considers the crowd, rather than the individual agent. It fits in computational intelligence. It works by mathematical simulation (...) on a crowd of simple artificial agents: by letting the computer program run, the agents evolve, and crowd behaviour emerges. Adamatzky’s purpose is to give an account of the emergence of allegedly “irrational” behaviour. This is not without problem, as the irrational to one person may seem entirely rational to another, and this in turn is an insight that, in the history of crowd psychology, has affected indeed the competition among theories of crowd dynamics. Quite importantly, Adamatzky’s book argues for the transition from individual agencies to a crowd’s or a mob’s coalesced mind as so, and at any rate for coalesced crowd’s agency. (shrink)