This article seeks to identify at what point in hominid evolution language would have become adaptive. It starts by recalling the distinction between kin-selected altruism and reciprocal altruism, noting that the former is characteristic of social insects while the latter is found among some species of social mammal. Reciprocal altruism depends on the exchange of information assuring partners of the other’s continued friendly intent, as in the iterated prisoner’s dilemma. The article focuses on species that practice “fission–fusion”: social behaviour, where (...) the alternation between larger and smaller parties creates greater uncertainty as to individuals’ continued commitment to reciprocity. The greatest uncertainty arises in “atomistic” fission–fusion, where individuals leave and join foraging groups independently. Chimpanzees, bonobos, and human hunter–gatherers practice this type of social behaviour. There is less uncertainty where the smaller social unit is an extended family, as among vampire bats, chacma baboons, and savanna elephants. A comparison of the repertoire of calls and gestures among these species indicates that chimpanzees and bonobos have the largest repertoires. I then point out that, thanks to the higher proportion of meat in the diet, hunter–gatherers must live in far more dispersed communities than chimpanzees or bonobos, yet they practice more complex patterns of cooperation and reciprocity. This, I argue, created a social environment in which language became particularly adaptive. Homo heidelbergensis is identified as the key species in which language could have originated, during the transition between the Lower and Middle Paleolithic. (shrink)

It proposes the Need Aesthetics. It uses the needing relationship to explain Human and birds' evolution of beauty sense, bird's colorful plumage and sexual selection.

Justified by spectacular achievements facilitated through applied deep learning methodology, the “Everything is possible” view dominates this new hour in the “boom and bust” curve of AI performance. The optimistic view collides head on with the “It is not possible”—ascertainments often originating in a skewed understanding of both AI and medicine. The meaning of the conflicting views can be assessed only by addressing the nature of medicine. Specifically: Which part of medicine, if any, can and should be entrusted to AI—now (...) or at some moment in the future? AI or not, medicine should incorporate the anticipation perspective in providing care. (shrink)

Ever since the hard problem of consciousness (Chalmers, 1996, 1995) first entered the scene in the debate over consciousness many have taken it to show the limitations of a scientific or naturalist explanation of consciousness. The hard problem is the problem of explaining why there is any experience associated with certain physical processes, that is, why there is anything it is like associated with such physical processes? The character of one’s experience doesn’t seem to be entailed by physical processes and (...) so an explanation which can overcome such a worry must (1) explain how physical processes give rise to experience (explain the entailment), (2) give an explanation which doesn’t rely on such physical processes, or (3) show why the hard problem is misguided in some sense. Recently, a rather ambitious and novel theory of consciousness has entered the scene – Integrated Information Theory (IIT) of Consciousness (Oizumi et al., 2014; Tononi, 2008; Tononi et al., 2016) – and proposes that consciousness is the result of a specific type of information processing, what those developing the theory call integrated information. The central aim of this dissertation is to philosophically investigate IIT and see whether it has the ability to overcome the hard problem and related worries. I then aim to use this philosophical investigation to answer a set of related questions which guide this dissertation, which are the following: Is it possible to give an information-theoretic explanation of consciousness? What would the nature of such an explanation be and would it result in a novel metaphysics of consciousness? In this dissertation, I begin in chapter one by first setting up the hard problem and related arguments against the backdrop of IIT (Mindt, 2017). I show that given a certain understanding of structural and dynamical properties IIT fails to overcome the hard problem of consciousness. I go on in chapter two to argue that a deflationary account of causation is the best view for IIT to overcome the causal exclusion problem (Baxendale and Mindt, 2018). In chapter three, I explain IIT’s account of how the qualitative character of our experience arises (qualia) and what view of intentionality (the directedness of our mental states) IIT advocates. I then move on in chapter four to show why the hard problem mischaracterizes structural and dynamical properties and misses important nuances that may shed light on giving a naturalized explanation of consciousness. In the last and fifth chapter, I outline a sketch of a novel metaphysics of consciousness that takes the conjunction of Neutral Monism and Information-Theoretic Structural Realism to give what I call Information-Theoretic Neutral-Structuralism. (shrink)

We are concerned here with how structural properties of language may come to reflect features of the world in which it evolves. As a concrete example, we will consider how a simple term language might evolve to support the principle of indifference over state descriptions in that language. The point is not that one is justified in applying the principle of indifference to state descriptions in natural language. Instead, it is that one should expect a language that has evolved in (...) the context of facilitating successful action to reflect probabilistic features of the world in which it evolved. (shrink)

Information, entropy, probability: these three terms are closely interconnected in the prevalent understanding of statistical mechanics, both when this field is taught to students at an introductory level and in advanced research into the field’s foundations. This paper examines the interconnection between these three notions in light of recent research in the foundations of statistical mechanics. It disentangles these concepts and highlights their differences, at the same time explaining why they came to be so closely linked in the literature. In (...) the literature the term ‘information’ is often linked to entropy and probability in discussions of Maxwell’s Demon and its attempted exorcism by the Landauer-Bennett thesis, and in analyses of the spin echo experiments. The direction taken in the present paper is a different one. Here we discuss the statistical mechanical underpinning of the notions of probability and entropy, and this constructive approach shows that information plays no fundamental role in these concepts, although it can be conveniently used in a sense that we shall specify. (shrink)

Information is a central notion for cognitive sciences and neurosciences, but there is no agreement on what it means for a cognitive system to acquire information about its surroundings. In this paper, we approximate three influential views on information: the one at play in ecological psychology, which is sometimes called information for action; the notion of information as covariance as developed by some enactivists, and the idea of information as minimization of uncertainty as presented by Shannon. Our main thesis is (...) that information for action can be construed as covariant information, and that learning to perceive covariant information is a matter of minimizing uncertainty through skilled performance. We argue that the agent’s cognitive system conveys information for acting in an environment by minimizing uncertainty about how to achieve her intended goals in that environment. We conclude by reviewing empirical findings that support our view and by showing how direct learning, seen as instance of ecological rationality at work, is how mere possibilities for action are turned into embodied know-how. Finally, we indicate the affinity between direct learning and sense-making activity. (shrink)

Rational social theorists have failed to confirm that observations of social reality equal social reality. Yet they argue that teams, organizations and social systems should minimize interdependence and competition, echoed by social psychologists to make data iid. But the evidence indicates that competitive teams maximize interdependence; self-reports of social reality correlate poorly with social behavior; and only competition measures interdependent social states. Rational expectations aside, we report progress towards a science of interdependence for human–machine teams. Our model of interdependence works (...) like an uncertainty principle in the sense that tradeoffs arise from the uncertainty caused by measuring interdependent actors in orthogonal roles; e.g., in the tradeoff between teams and individuals, teams are more productive but more opaque. Previously, we described interdependence as bistable stories of social reality; the motivation to reject alternative interpretations, increasing uncertainty and errors; and the inability to factor social states. Now we explore education as a surrogate for intelligence in teams. We hypothesized that teams rely on the education of its members to produce more patents. We found that the average schooling in a nation is significantly related to its total patents produced. (shrink)

Numerous studies in microbiology, eukaryotic cell biology, plant biology, biomimetics, synthetic biology, and philosophy of science appear to support the principles of the epistemological theory inspired by evolution, also known as “Evolutionary Epistemology”, or EE. However, that none of the studies acknowledged EE suggests that its principles have not been formulated with sufficient clarity and depth to resonate with the interests of the empirical research community. In this paper I review evidence in favor of EE, and also reformulate EE principles (...) to better inform future research. The revamped programme may be tentatively called Research Programme for Distributed Biological Intelligence. Intelligence I define as the capacity of organisms to gain information about their environment, process that information internally, and translate it into phenotypic forms. This multistage progression may be expressed through the acronym IGPT (information-gain-process-translate). The key principles of the programme may be summarized as follows. (i) Intelligence, a universal biological phenomenon promoting individual fitness, is required for effective organism-environment interactions. Given that animals represent less than 0.01% of the planetary biomass, neural intelligence is not the evolutionary norm. (ii) The basic unit of intelligence is a single cell prokaryote. All other forms of intelligence are derived. (iii) Intelligence is hierarchical. It ranges from bacteria to the biosphere or Gaia. (iv) The concept of “information” acquires a new meaning because information processing is at the heart of biological intelligence. All biological systems, from bacteria to Gaia, are intelligent, open thermodynamic systems that exchange information, matter and energy with the environment. (v) The organism-environment interaction is cybernetic. As much as the organism changes due to the influence of the environment, the organism’s responses to induced changes affect the environment and subsequent organism-environment interactions. Based on the above principles a new research agenda can be formulated to explore different forms of biological intelligence. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss, under a critical point of view, the current Information Science landscape and some future prospects regarding contemporary information phenomena. We present thoughts about the process of thematic deflation of Information Science, through the analysis of the research objects currently under development in this field. In addition to this, we look at the process of absorption of these and other relevant objects in distinguished knowledge fields. We seek to challenge the emphasis and the volume of interdisciplinary (...) research within the field, and present some comments about what might be the results of such processes for the future of Information Science. Subsequently, we analyze the impact in the Information Science field due to phenomena like information boom, the consolidation of the social networks as interactive spaces, cloud computing, as well as other key elements. (shrink)

This dissertation aims to determine the optimal level of granularity for the variables used in probabilistic causal models. These causal models are useful for generating explanations in a number of scientific contexts. In Chapter 1, I argue that there is rarely a unique level of granularity at which a given phenomenon can be causally explained, thereby rejecting various causal exclusion arguments. In Chapter 2, I consider several recent proposals for measuring the explanatory power of causal explanations, and show that these (...) measures fail to track the comparative depth of explanations given at different levels of granularity. In Chapter 3, I offer a pragmatic account of how to partition the measure space of a causal variable so as to optimally explain its effect. My account uses the decision-theoretic notion of value of information, and indexes the relative depth of an explanation to a particular agent faced with a particular decision problem. Chapter 4 applies this same decisiontheoretic framework to answer the epistemic question of how to discover constitutive relationships in nature. In Chapter 5, I describe the formal details of the relationship between random variables that are meant to be coarse-grained and fine-grained representations of the same type of phenomenon. I use this formal framework to rebut a popular argument for the view that special science probabilities can be objective chances. Chapter 6 discusses challenges related to the causal interpretation of Bayes nets that use imprecise rather than precise probabilities. (shrink)

El objetivo del presente artículo es proponer una nueva interpretación del concepto de información en contextos comunicacionales: una interpretación físicocausal. Apelando a las teorías manipulabilistas de la causación, principalmente en su versión intervencionista, buscaremos mostrar que la información comunicacional es una propiedad física que podemos manipular para generar situaciones comunicacionales. Este enfoque nos permite entender la naturaleza de la comunicación como estructura causal, puesta de manifiesto mediante criterios manipulabilistas. Confiamos en que el enfoque propuesto logra superar ciertas dificultades de las (...) interpretaciones de la información actualmente vigentes en la literatura. (shrink)

Brette argues that coding as a concept is inappropriate for explanations of neurocognitive phenomena. Here, we argue that Brette's conceptual analysis mischaracterizes the structure of causal claims in coding and other forms of analysis-by-decomposition. We argue that analyses of this form are permissible and conceptually coherent and offer essential tools for building and developing models of neurocognitive systems like the brain.

Adopting the notion of “pragmatic information” as interpreted by Roederer and granted that understanding arises from genuine information processing, I show that Searle’s “Chinese Room Argument” in rejecting the thesis of Strong Artificial Intelligence and his responses to critics are sound and acceptable. The paper is a safe and secure translation of Searle’s argument into a language of information. According to the notion of information that I adopt, information and information processing are exclusive attributes of biological and artificial systems. However, (...) I will show that information-theoretically, biological brains are fundamentally different from their artificial simulations. I will argue that only biological systems, or their duplicates, are genuine information processing systems and thus capable of understanding Chinese. “Understanding”, in my proposal, denotes “phenomenal consciousness” in the context of Chalmers’ thesis of naturalistic dualism. (shrink)

Meaning is important in everyday life, and each science focuses on certain ways in which reality is meaningful. This article discusses practical implications of Herman Dooyeweerd’s understanding of meaning for everyday experience, scientific theories, scientific methodology, and philosophical underpinning. It uses eight themes related to meaning in Dooyeweerd’s philosophy, which are discussed philosophically in the first article. This article ends with a case study in which the themes are applied together to understanding Thomas Kuhn’s notion of paradigms.

This paper aims to elucidate a kind of ignorance that is more fundamental than a momentary lack of information, but also not a kind of ignorance that is built into the subject’s cognitive apparatus such that the subject can’t do anything about it. The paper sets forth the notion of cognitive confinement, which is a contingent, yet relatively stable state of being structurally or systematically unable to gain information from an environment, determined by patterns of interaction between the subject and (...) the world. In order to unpack the idea of cognitive confinement the paper discusses niche construction theory, and then, in greater detail, the notion of cognitive niche once proposed by John Tooby and Irven DeVore. Cognitive confinement is here imagined as a pathologized form of cognitive niche. This posit is substantiated by referring to a case that has come to the fore in recent years and raised debate around the world: the rise of so-called filter bubbles. They turn out to be instantiations of a more general phenomenon of cognitive confinement. (shrink)

Starting with Gareth Evans, there’s an important tradition of theorizing about perception-based demonstrative thought which assigns necessary epistemic conditions to it. Its core idea is that demonstrative reference in thought is grounded in information links, understood as links which carry reliable information about their targets and which a subject exploits for demonstrative reference by tokening the mental files fed by these links. Perception, on these views, is not fundamental to perception-based demonstrative thought but is only the information link exploited in (...) these cases. Evans himself assigns a further epistemic condition, while more recently Imogen Dickie has expanded the reliability requirement into a more complex account centered around justification. In this paper I synthesize three central proponents of this approach and show that the epistemic conditions they place on perception-based demonstrative thought are not actually required. My argument gives two examples in which there is perceptual contact with an object but this perceptual contact fails to do the epistemic work in question. The first case is stimulus-incorporating dream experiences, the second involves multimodal binding failures. I argue that this perceptual contact still affords demonstrative thought in these cases. (shrink)

Rational social theorists have failed to confirm that observations of social reality equal social reality. Yet they argue that teams, organizations and social systems should minimize interdependence and competition, echoed by social psychologists to make data iid. But the evidence indicates that competitive teams maximize interdependence; self-reports of social reality correlate poorly with social behavior; and only competition measures interdependent social states. Rational expectations aside, we report progress towards a science of interdependence for human–machine teams. Our model of interdependence works (...) like an uncertainty principle in the sense that tradeoffs arise from the uncertainty caused by measuring interdependent actors in orthogonal roles; e.g., in the tradeoff between teams and individuals, teams are more productive but more opaque. Previously, we described interdependence as bistable stories of social reality; the motivation to reject alternative interpretations, increasing uncertainty and errors; and the inability to factor social states. Now we explore education as a surrogate for intelligence in teams. We hypothesized that teams rely on the education of its members to produce more patents. We found that the average schooling in a nation is significantly related to its total patents produced. (shrink)

The “nature or nurture” problem concerning the debate on the innate features with respect to the acquired ones is approached in terms of information, from the perspective of the Informational Model of Consciousness. This model reveals seven distinct informational systems reflected in consciousness as informational centers, i.e. memory (Iknow-Ik), decisional info-operational center (Iwant-Iw), emotions (Ilove-Il), metabolic operations (Iam-Ia), genetic transmission (Icreate-Ic), genetic info-generation (Icreated-Icd) and the anti-entropic center (Ibelieve-Ib). Ib is a life-assisting beneficial center, because it is opposed to the (...) entropic action of matter, eliminating or reducing the uncertainty characteristic of unknown possibilities to certainty, and inducing in this way the trust and confidence in own actions. The pro and contra arguments of the “nature or nurture” are shortly presented, noting the large range of divergent opinions and concepts on the approached problem. It is shown that the information concept acting both as informal and matter-related information, specifically referred to the embodiment/ disembodiment mechanisms for the transmission of information during the epigenetic processes, can coherently approach and explain the transgenerational transmission of the traits acquired during the life span of the predecessors. The concepts of tendency, affinity, propensity, predisposition, aptitude, vocation and talent, specific for inheritable properties described by Icd are discussed, pointing out the large pallet and variety of such concepts describing the evidences detected by external observers on the inherited behaviors, and that of self-perceived by the implicated individual, as a silent voice of whose are no longer. The external manifestation of such inherited features and traits depends on practice, because the characteristic operation of the nervous system and of epigenetic processes is based on repetition and/or intensive practice, but these are permanently guided by the silent voice of those who are no longer, with various signal intensities. (shrink)

The computation of scalar implicatures is sometimes costly relative to basic meanings. Among the costly computations are those that involve strengthening `some' to `not all' and strengthening inclusive disjunction to exclusive disjunction. The opposite is true for some other cases of strengthening, where the strengthened meaning is less costly than its corresponding basic meaning. These include conjunctive strengthenings of disjunctive sentences (e.g., free-choice inferences) and exactly-readings of numerals. Assuming that these are indeed all instances of strengthening via implicature/exhaustification, the puzzle (...) is to explain why strengthening sometimes increases costs while at other times it decreases costs. I develop a theory of processing costs that makes no reference to the strengthening mechanism or to other aspects of the derivation of the sentence's form/meaning. Instead, costs are determined by domain-general considerations of the grammar's output, and in particular by aspects of the meanings of ambiguous sentences and particular ways they update the context. Specifically, I propose that when the hearer has to disambiguate between a sentence's basic and strengthened meaning, the processing cost of any particular choice is a function of (i) a measure of the semantic complexity of the chosen meaning and (ii) a measure of how much relevant uncertainty it leaves behind in the context. I measure semantic complexity with Boolean Complexity in the propositional case and with semantic automata in the quantificational case, both of which give a domain-general measure of the minimal representational complexity needed to express the given meaning. I measure relevant uncertainty with the information-theoretic notion of entropy; this domain-general measure formalizes how `far' the meaning is from giving a complete answer to the question under discussion, and hence gives an indication of how much representational complexity is yet to come. Processing costs thus follow from domain-general considerations of current and anticipated representational complexity. The results might also speak to functional motivations for having strengthening mechanisms in the first place. Specifically, exhaustification allows language users to use simpler forms than would be available without it to both resolve relevant uncertainties and convey complex meanings. (shrink)

Very few scientists today question the fact that information, together with matter and energy, is one of the three constructs forming the ontology of the universe. However, there is still a long way to go before in order to establish the interrelations between information and energy and information and matter, as Einstein did between matter and energy. In this paper, after introducing the energy, matter, information model, which covers the three constructs and their relationships, we illustrate real examples—two qualitative and (...) two quantitative—of the interrelations between energy and information. This closes the open question with respect to the interrelationship between energy and information. (shrink)

The key assumption behind evolutionary epistemology is that animals are active learners or ‘knowers’. In the present study, I updated the concept of natural learning, developed by Henry Plotkin and John Odling-Smee, by expanding it from the animal-only territory to the biosphere-as-a-whole territory. In the new interpretation of natural learning the concept of biological information, guided by Peter Corning’s concept of “control information”, becomes the ‘glue’ holding the organism–environment interactions together. The control information guides biological systems, from bacteria to ecosystems, (...) in the process of natural learning executed by the universal algorithm. This algorithm, summarized by the acronym IGPT (information-gain-process-translate) incorporates natural cognitive methods including sensing/perception, memory, communication, and decision-making. Finally, the biosphere becomes the distributed network of communicative interactions between biological systems termed the interactome. The concept of interactome is based on Gregory Bateson’s natural epistemology known as the “ecology of mind”. Mimicking Bateson’s approach, the interactome may also be designated “physiology of mind”—the principle behind regulating the biosphere homeostasis. (shrink)

Evolutionary epistemology has experienced a continuous rise over the last decades. Important new theoretical considerations and novel empirical findings have been integrated into the existing framework. In this paper, I would like to suggest three lines of research that I believe will significantly contribute to further advance EE: ontogenetic considerations, key ideas from cognitive biology, and the framework of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. EE, in particular the program of the evolution of epistemological mechanisms, seeks to provide a phylogenetic account of (...) the generation of cognitive processes underlying knowledge creation. Traditionally, EE and EEM have been oriented towards an account of evolutionary theory that mainly drew from the tenets of the Modern Synthesis. The Modern Synthesis largely dismisses ontogenetic processes and considers them irrelevant for evolutionary explanations. If anything, the role of development in evolution is believed to be that of a constraint. There is, however, ample evidence for a tight intertwinement of developmental and evolutionary processes. Organisms employ their cognitive apparatus to interact with the environment in order to achieve a fully functioning perceptual and cognitive nervous system. Also, ontogeny provides generative potentials to enable variations that natural selection can act upon. EEM’s agenda may, therefore, strongly benefit from bringing together ontogenetic and phylogenetic approaches. To grapple with this challenge, an alternative vision of the evolutionary theory termed Extended Evolutionary Synthesis could be used. This extended evolutionary theory explores relationships between the processes of individual development and phenotypic change during evolution and can provide a more suitable framework for EEM to draw from. In recent years, cognitive biology has gained momentum as an independent research field. Cognitive biology builds on the concepts of EEM and understands knowledge as a biogenic phenomenon. Its main objective is also the formulation of substantiated interrelations between cognition and evolution but it focuses on cognitive functionality at all levels of biological organization. It thus employs a “vertical” approach that encompasses nested hierarchies which span from single molecules, cells, and tissues to the organismal level, communities, and societies. In contrast to cognitive biology, EEM is here understood to adopt a “horizontal” approach that focuses on phylogenetic explanations of cognition and knowledge acquisition. Linking EEM with the key ideas of cognitive biology could make EEM’s research program stronger as it can more easily accommodate phylogenetic and ontogenetic questions within a hierarchical, multilevel perspective. This is of particular importance for a more comprehensive account of cognition since living systems are subject to context-dependent causal influences from different organizational levels. In addition to EEM, there is a second program of EE. This program has been labeled evolutionary epistemology of theories and understands the increase in human knowledge, such as scientific theories, as naturalistic accounts of evolution. Both, EEM and EET initially drew from the core concepts of the Modern Synthesis. Several scholars have severely criticized the analogies made between EET and the Neo-Darwinian key processes of evolution. In particular processes of random mutation, the rate of variation, natural selection as the unique driving force, and the adaptationist agenda are believed to reveal disanalogies. In contrast to the Modern Synthesis, the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis not only recognizes developmental processes but also ecological interactions and systems dynamics as well as social and cultural evolutionary reciprocity as important evolutionary processes. Concepts of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis are therefore expected to be more fruitful for re-conceptualizing parallels between scientific theorizing and biological evolution. (shrink)

Communicative interactions across different species have so far received relatively little attention from cognitive or behavioral scientists. Most research in this area views the process of communication as the adaptive interaction of manipulative signalers and information-assessing receivers. This paper discusses some shortcomings of the information/influence model of communication, particularly in the empirical study of interspecific communicative interactions. It then presents an alternative theoretical model, based on recent contributions in psycholinguistics and semiotics. The semiotic alignment model views communication as a dynamic (...) process of joint semiosis resulting in the alignment of the interactants’ own-worlds (Umwelten). It is argued that this model can improve our understanding of communicative interactions between heterospecifics and provide the basis for future work in the empirical study of interspecific communication. (shrink)

Psychotherapy is commonly described as a “talking cure,” a treatment method that operates through linguistic action and interaction. The operative specifics of therapeutic language use, however, are insufficiently understood, mainly due to a multitude of disparate approaches that advance different notions of what “talking” means and what “cure” implies in the respective context. Accordingly, a clarification of the basic theoretical structure of “talking cure models,” i.e., models that describe therapeutic processes with a focus on language use, is a desideratum of (...) language-oriented psychotherapy research. Against this background the present paper suggests a theoretical framework of analysis which distinguishes four basic components of “talking cure models”: (1) a foundational theory (which suggests how linguistic activity can affect and transform human experience), (2) an experiential problem state (which defines the problem or pathology of the patient), (3) a curative linguistic activity (which defines linguistic activities that are supposed to effectuate a curative transformation of the experiential problem state), and (4) a change mechanism (which defines the processes and effects involved in such transformations). The purpose of the framework is to establish a terminological foundation that allows for systematically reconstructing basic properties and operative mechanisms of “talking cure models.” To demonstrate the applicability and utility of the framework, five distinct “talking cure models” which spell out the details of curative “talking” processes in terms of (1) catharsis, (2) symbolization, (3) narrative, (4) metaphor, and (5) neurocognitive inhibition are introduced and discussed in terms of the framework components. In summary, we hope that our framework will prove useful for the objective of clarifying the theoretical underpinnings of language-oriented psychotherapy research and help to establish a more comprehensive understanding of how curative language use contributes to the process of ther-apeutic change. (shrink)

This paper presents a gamified motor imagery brain-computer interface (MI-BCI) training in immersive virtual reality. Aim of the proposed training method is to increase engagement, attention, and motivation in co-adaptive event-driven MI-BCI training. This was achieved using gamification, progressive increase of the training pace, and virtual reality design reinforcing the body ownership transfer (embodiment) into the avatar. From the 20 healthy participants performing 6 runs of 2-class MI-BCI training (left/right hand), 19 were trained for a basic level of MI-BCI operation, (...) with average peak accuracy in the session equal to 75.84\%. This confirms the proposed training method succeeded in improvement of the MI-BCI skills; moreover, participants were leaving the session in high positive affect. Although the performance was not directly correlated to the degree of embodiment, subjective magnitude of the body ownership transfer illusion correlated with the abilities to modulate the sensorimotor rhythm. (shrink)

The origins of human social cooperation confound simple evolutionary explanation. But from Darwin and Durkheim onward, theorists (anthropologists and sociologists especially) have posited a potential link with another curious and distinctively human social trait that cries out for explanation: religion. This dissertation explores one contemporary theory of the co-evolution of religion and human social cooperation: the signalling theory of religion, or religious signalling theory (RST). According to the signalling theory, participation in social religion (and its associated rituals and sanctions) acts (...) as an honest signal of one’s commitment to a religiously demarcated community and its way of doing things. This signal would allow prosocial individuals to positively assort with one another for mutual advantage, to the exclusion of more exploitative individuals. In effect, the theory offers a way that religion and cooperation might explain one another, but which that stays within an individualist adaptive paradigm. My approach is not to assess the empirical adequacy of the religious signalling explanation or contrast it with other explanations, but rather to deal with the theory in its own terms – isolating and fleshing out its core commitments, explanatory potential, and limitations. The key to this is acknowledging the internal complexities of signalling theory, with respect to the available models of honest signalling and the extent of their fit (or otherwise) with religion as a target system. The method is to take seriously the findings of formal modelling in animal signalling and other disciplines, and to apply these (and methods from the philosophy of biology more generally) to progressively build up a comprehensive picture of the theory, its inherent strengths and weaknesses. The first two chapters outline the dual explanatory problems that cooperation and religion present for evolutionary human science, and surveys contemporary approaches toward explaining them. Chapter three articulates an evolutionary conception of the signalling theory, and chapters four to six make the case for a series of requirements, limitations, and principles of application. Chapters seven and eight argue for the value of formal modelling to further flesh out the theory’s commitments and potential and describe some simple simulation results which make progress in this regard. Though the inquiry often problematizes the signalling theory, it also shows that it should not be dismissed outright, and that it makes predictions which are apt for empirical testing. (shrink)

This article offers a critical inquiry of contemporary neural network models as an instance of machine learning, from an interdisciplinary perspective of AI studies and performativity. It shows the limits on the architecture of these network systems due to the misemployment of ‘natural’ performance, and it offers ‘context’ as a variable from a performative approach, instead of a constant. The article begins with a brief review of machine learning-based natural language processing systems and continues with a concentration on the relevant (...) model of recurrent neural networks, which is applied in most commercial research such as Facebook AI Research. It demonstrates that the logic of performativity is not brought into account in all recurrent nets, which is an integral part of human performance and languaging, and it argues that recurrent network models, in particular, fail to grasp human performativity. This logic works similarly to the theory of performativity articulated by Jacques Derrida in his critique of John L. Austin’s concept of the performative. Applying Jacques Derrida’s work on performativity, and linguistic traces as spatially organized entities that allow for this notion of performance, the article argues that recurrent nets fall into the trap of taking ‘context’ as a constant, of treating human performance as a ‘natural’ fix to be encoded, instead of performative. Lastly, the article applies its proposal more concretely to the case of Facebook AI Research’s Alice and Bob. (shrink)

An adequate linguistic theory of slurs must address three major aspects of their meaning: descriptive, evaluative and expressive. Slurs denote specific groups, they are used to convey speakers’ evaluative attitudes, and some have a very strong emotional impact. In this paper, I argue that a variety of mechanisms are required to account for this range of properties. Semantically, slurs simply denote the groups that they target. Pragmatically, speakers use slurs to show, in the Relevance-Theoretic sense, that they share a negative (...) attitude towards the targeted group. However, this does not yet explain the capacity of certain ‘toxic’ slurs to express strong emotions of the speaker and to elicit a strong emotional reaction in hearers. In order to account for this psychological impact, I posit that, like curse words, slurs undergo distinct neurolinguistic processing that links them directly to emotional centers in the brain. (shrink)

We approach the problem of the extended mind from a radically non-dualist perspective. The separation between mind and matter is an artefact of the outdated mechanistic worldview, which leaves no room for mental phenomena such as agency, intentionality, or feeling. We propose to replace it by an action ontology, which conceives mind and matter as aspects of the same network of processes. By adopting the intentional stance, we interpret the catalysts of elementary reactions as agents exhibiting desires, intentions, and sensations. (...) Autopoietic networks of reactions constitute more complex super-agents, which moreover exhibit memory, deliberation and sense-making. In the specific case of social networks, individual agents coordinate their actions via the propagation of challenges. The distributed cognition that emerges from this interaction cannot be situated in any individual brain. This non-dualist, holistic view extends and operationalises process metaphysics and Eastern philosophies. It is supported by both mindfulness experiences and mathematical models of action, self-organisation, and cognition. (shrink)

It is now commonplace to refer to the contemporary era as the Information Age. So common, in fact, that some take this as an indication that the Information Age is over.1 Putting aside rumors of the Information Age's untimely demise, I take up in this essay the scope and nature of information in its relation to thought. To be precise, I argue that information constitutes the contemporary image of thought. I'm taking "image of thought" here in its Deleuzian sense to (...) mean that information is no longer merely a metaphor for thinking about or describing thought; rather, information is, at bottom, the sole content of thought, and thinking is nothing other than the processing of information. We can see this tendency most... (shrink)

Following media-theoretical studies that have characterized digitization as a process of all-encompassing cybernetization, this paper will examine the timely and critical potential of Günther Anders’s oeuvre vis-à-vis the ever-increasing power of cybernetic devices and networks. Anders has witnessed and negotiated the process of cybernetization from its very beginning, having criticized its tendency to automate and expand, as well as its circular logic and ‘integral power’, including disruptive consequences for the constitution of the political and the social. In this vein, Anders’s (...) works, particularly his magnum opus Die Antiquiertheit des Menschen [The Obsolescence of Man], sheds new light on the technologically organized milieus of the contemporary digital regime and also highlights a new form of cybernetic ‘conformism’. The goal of the essay is therefore, not only to emphasize the contemporary nature of Anders’s thought but also to use it to frame a critique of current neo-technocratic and, ultimately, post-political concepts, such as ‘algorithmic regulation’, ‘smart states’, ‘direct technocracy’, and ‘government as platform’. This essay argues that cybernetic capitalism is causing what Anders terms ‘ Unfestgelegtheit’ to disappear; that is, we are losing the originary possibility of technologically structuring our world in alternative ways, particularly given the determinist character of current technologies. (shrink)

Minimal counterintuitiveness and its automatic processing has been suggested as the explanation of persistence and transmission of cultural ideas. This purported automatic processing remains relatively unexplored. We manipulated encoding strategy to assess the persistence of memory for different types of expectation violation. Participants viewed concepts including two types of expectation violation or no violation under three different encoding conditions: in the shallow condition participants focused on the perceptual attributes of the concepts, a deep condition probed their semantic meaning, and intentional (...) remembering condition. Participants’ recall was tested immediately as well as 2 weeks later. Our findings showed the greatest memory enhancement for schema-level violations regardless of the encoding condition, while the memory for domain-level violations improved over time. These results suggest two distinct memory patterns for different types of violations, and illustrate the importance of elaborative processes in memory consolidation especially for violations to our expectations. (shrink)

The myth of transparency and truthfulness is the foundation for contemporary theories of information design. Avoiding distortion and ambiguity is the moral imperative of an upstanding data visualizer. Sometimes, though, data that is collected is not accurate enough and the sources use indirect indicators to approach a phenomenon: what to do then, if the need to graphically represent a phenomenon is urgent and necessary? Should the designer wait to have the exact data, or should he indicate a trend, expressing the (...) hypothetical status of his statement? Can data visualization be designed to express doubt rather than to inform about facts? This essay will deal with the forms of expression of uncertainty in infographics. It will consider the designer as both an observer and a translator, whose position of neutrality is only one of the possible realms of discourse. In general, it will focus on the forms of visual expression of a self-criticizing mood in quantitative research today and it will explore the ways in which data that is not meaningful in statistical terms can become meaningful in semiotic terms. (shrink)

In typical statistical learning studies, researchers define sequences in terms of the probability of the next item in the sequence given the current item (or items), and they show that high probability sequences are treated as more familiar than low probability sequences. Existing accounts of these phenomena all assume that participants represent statistical regularities more or less as they are defined by the experimenters—as sequential probabilities of symbols in a string. Here we offer an alternative, or possibly supplementary, hypothesis. Specifically, (...) rather than identifying or labeling individual stimuli discretely in order to predict the next item in a sequence, we need only assume that the participant is able to represent the stimuli as evincing particular similarity relations to one another, with sequences represented as trajectories through this similarity space. We present experiments in which this hypothesis makes sharply different predictions from hypotheses based on the assumption that sequences are learned over discrete, labeled stimuli. We also present a series of simulation models that encode stimuli as positions in a continuous two‐dimensional space, and predict the next location from the current location. Although no model captures all of the data presented here, the results of three critical experiments are more consistent with the view that participants represent trajectories through similarity space rather than sequences of discrete labels under particular conditions. (shrink)

Communicative interactions across different species have so far received relatively little attention from cognitive or behavioral scientists. Most research in this area views the process of communication as the adaptive interaction of manipulative signalers and information-assessing receivers. This paper discusses some shortcomings of the information/influence model of communication, particularly in the empirical study of interspecific communicative interactions. It then presents an alternative theoretical model, based on recent contributions in psycholinguistics and semiotics. The semiotic alignment model views communication as a dynamic (...) process of joint semiosis resulting in the alignment of the interactants’ own-worlds (Umwelten). It is argued that this model can improve our understanding of communicative interactions between heterospecifics and provide the basis for future work in the empirical study of interspecific communication. (shrink)

During the course of evolution, variations of a protein sequence is an ongoing phenomenon however limited by the need to maintain its structural and functional integrity. Deciphering the evolutionary path of a protein is thus of fundamental interest. With the development of new methods to visualize high dimension spaces and the improvement of phylogenetic analysis tools, it is possible to study the evolutionary trajectories of proteins in the sequence space. Using the data-driven high-dimensional scaling method, we show that it is (...) possible to predict and represent potential evolutionary trajectories by representing phylogenetic trees into a 3D projection of the sequence space. With the case of the aminodeoxychorismate synthase, an enzyme involved in folate synthesis, we show that this representation raises interesting questions about the complexity of the evolution of a given biological function, in particular concerning its capacity to explore the sequence space. (shrink)

-/- Shitstorms, Hate Speech oder virale Videos, die zum Klicken, Liken, Teilen bewegen: Die vernetzte Gesellschaft ist von Affekten getrieben und bringt selbst ganz neue Affekte hervor. -/- Die Beiträge des Bandes nehmen die medientechnologischen Entwicklungen unserer Zeit in den Blick und untersuchen sie aus der Perspektive einer kritischen Affekt- und Sozialphilosophie. Sie zeigen: Soziale Medien und digitale Plattformen sind nicht nur Räume des Austauschs, sie erschaffen Affektökonomien – und darin liegt auch ihre Macht. Indem sie neue Formen des sozialen (...) Umgangs stiften und bestimmen, wie wir kommunizieren, verschieben sie auch die politische Topographie. -/- Mit einem Beitrag von Antonio Negri. (shrink)

Este trabalho procura descrever como a área de pesquisa denominada linguística computacional evoluiu desde a sua concepção inicial, associada à tradução de máquina, até os dias de hoje. A área de pesquisa foi criada como uma forma de dar credibilidade científica à tradução de máquina, após a constatação de baixa confiabilidade por parte do relatório ALPAC. O percurso subsequente demonstra o esforço para recuperar esta confiabilidade através de uma fundamentação científica considerada adequada, a qual deveria derivar da teoria linguística e (...) da ciência cognitiva. O artigo procura descrever este processo evolutivo de natureza pendular. A conclusão expõe a necessidade do desenvolvimento de métodos híbridos, integrando métodos lógicos e probabilísticos, na busca de um novo caminho mais profícuo na evolução da área de pesquisa. (shrink)

On the long and well-worn road of many, but justifiable attempts of human to discover his origin, his trajectory as a species, and a suitable understanding consciousness, his system allowing the connection to the environment and to his own organism, the concepts and models of philosophy enunciated or experienced by millennia, meet today with modern science concepts of physics and of science of information. Based on recent discoveries of quantum physics and astrophysics, revealing a new understanding of our environment and (...) starting from some philosophical concepts on information of matter and of living structures, this work discusses the dynamics of information within the frame of the Informational Model of Consciousness as an informational system of the human body, connected both to the environment and to the body itself, to control the adaptation for survival. It is shown that consciousness is actually an informational projection in the mind of seven informational subsystems, three of which forming the operative system of consciousness for the short-term adaptation, and other three forming the programmed operating system, dedicated to the maintenance of body and to the long-term survival of species, showing various inputs and outputs of information. The seventh subsystem is the information pole, connecting the organism with the external information, especially related to the extra-sensorial properties of the mind, the human body appearing as a bipolar info-matter structure, managed by the brain. The received information is progressively integrated into the informational system of the organism, which absorbs and emanates information as a reactive system for adaptation, able to operate both with matter-related (codified) and non-matter related (virtual) information. As both connections with external and internal environment (body itself) can be described in terms of information, this model opens the gate to investigate consciousness by means of the tools of the information science, offering also answers to the philosophic “mind-body” problem and to the “hard” problem and showing correspondences with some ancient philosophies. (shrink)