Marcelo Fischborn discusses the significance of neuroscience for debates about free will. Although he concedes that, to date, Libet-style experiments have failed to threaten “libertarian free will”, he argues that, in principle, neuroscience and psychology could do so by supporting local determinism. We argue that, in principle, Libet-style experiments cannot succeed in disproving or even establishing serious doubt about libertarian free will. First, we contend that “local determination”, as Fischborn outlines it, is not a coherent concept. Moreover, determinism is unlikely (...) to be established by neuroscience in any form that should trouble compatibilists or libertarians—that is, anyone who thinks we might have free will. We conclude that, in principle, neuroscience will not be able undermine libertarian free will and explain why these conclusions support a coherent compatibilist notion of causal sourcehood. (shrink)

In a previous paper, I argued that neuroscience and psychology could in principle undermine libertarian free will by providing support for a subset of what I called “statements of local determination.” I also argued that Libet-style experiments have not so far supported statements of that sort. In a commentary to the paper, Adina Roskies and Eddy Nahmias accept the claim about Libet-style experiments, but reject the claim about the possibilities of neuroscience. Here, I explain why I still disagree with (...) their conclusion, despite being sympathetic to a lot of what they say in support of it. (shrink)

Breaking with the orthodoxy, Compassionate Conservationists have taken issue with the way that individual wild animals are routinely sacrificed for the sake of species preservation or for the good of the ecosystem. Though explicitly aligning themselves with virtue ethics, there has been some confusion about what this means in practice. How is the perfectly compassionate person to act when the choice is between intentionally harming animals and protecting biodiversity? And what if the choice is between direct and indirect harm to (...) animals? Some critics suggest that when faced with these kinds of conflicts of value, Compassionate Conservationists will invariably base their choices either on the arbitrary feelings an action elicits in them, or else revert back to the decision-making procedures that characterize Traditional Conservation. In response, I argue (first) that these critics fail to appre- ciate that compassion often plays an essential role in moral deliberation. Second, that being compassionate matters even if it does not end up having a discernable effect on what one chooses to do. When one is faced with a tragic predicament in which harming individual animals is unavoidable, for instance, it matters here that one respond with an appropriate compassion. Third, that even when a situa- tion’s difficulty requires one to appeal to the impersonal norms of justice, here too it is required that one proceed with compassion. I end by illustrating these points through the close consideration of a case study: New Zealand’s controversial preda- tor extermination campaign. (shrink)

In this paper, I defend the view that there are many scientific images that have a serious epistemic role in science but this role is not adequately accounted for by the going view of representation and its attendant theoretical commitments. The relevant view of representation is Laura Perini’s account of representation for scientific images. I draw on Adina Roskies’ work on scientific images as well as work on models in science to support my conclusion.

In this thirteenth book of scilogs – one may find topics on Neutrosophy, Plithogeny, Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy – email messages to research colleagues, or replies, notes, comments, remarks about authors, articles, or books, spontaneous ideas, and so on. It presents new types of soft sets and new types of topologies. -/- Exchanging ideas with Mohammad Abobala, Ishfaq Ahmad, Ibrahim M. Almanjahie, Fatimah Alshahrani, Nizar Altounji, Muhammad Aslam, Said Broumi, Victor Christianto, R. Diksh, Feng Liu, Frank Julian Gelli, Erick Gonzalez Caballero, (...) Riad Hamido, Yaser Al-Hasan, Ahmed Hatip, Yasin Karmouta, Nivetha Martin, Preda Mihăilescu, V. Lakshmana Gomathi Nayagam, Ze Carlos Tiago de Oliveira, Alexey Platonov, Andrei Pogany, Shakti Prasad, Ranulfo Paiva Barbosa (Sobrinho), Dmitri Rabounski, Ackbar Rezaei, Constantin Sandu, A. Saraswathi, Usman Shahzad, Gocho V. Sharlanov, Stefan Spaarmann, Michael Voskoglou, Vinay Kumar Yadav, Tomasz Witczak, William H. Woodall, Mircea Zărnescu, Mohamed Bisher Zeina (in order of reference in the book). (shrink)

La sincronicità, è “la simultaneità di un certo stato psichico con uno o più eventi esterni che paiono paralleli significativi della condizione momentaneamente soggettiva” (Jung, 1952). C.G.Jung e il fisico quantistico premio Nobel, W. Pauli, ci introducono con tale concettualizzazione in un mondo, nel quale ciò che è interno e ciò che è esterno a noi non è così nettamente definito, mondo nel quale le “coincidenze” non sono più tali, ma rivestono un significato ed un’importanza per la nostra psiche, per (...) la nostra vita. Se un bambino mentre gioca sulla riva di un fiume, vi cade e rischia di venire trascinato dalla corrente, e nello stesso momento sua madre dall’altra parte della città è preda di un’angoscia che l’attanaglia e grida: “il mio bambino!”, siamo in presenza di un evento sincronistico, nel senso della definizione di Jung sopracitata. Noi crediamo, sulla scia di Jung e Pauli che la sincronicità possa essere un possibile principio esplicativo della realtà da affiancare alla causalità, per Pauli vi sono nella realtà sia elementi razionali sia irrazionali ed è quindi impossibile per la fisica dire l’ultima parola sulla realtà, visto che quest’ultima è così complessa. L’attuazione dei fenomeni sincronistici è fuori dalla portata di qualsiasi tipo di previsione razionale, l’evento sincronistico non è riproducibile ed è in qualche modo l’emblema dell’aspetto non razionale della realtà, e come detto, insieme alla più consueta logica causalistica, (ad esempio, una mela su un albero quando è matura può anche cadere), danno una visione più completa della realtà. E questa visione più completa era l’intento di Jung nell’approcciare questi fenomeni: “Cercare di aprire una via verso “l’animazione della materia” a partire dall’assunzione che “ciò che esiste sia dotato di senso”…” ( Pauli e Jung 1992, lettera n.59 di Jung, p. 100). (shrink)