Management involves change. The aim of this paper is to introduce a threefold classification of change with the purpose of making clear how the third type, creational change, is distinctive compared to the other two types. Four types of management situation are introduced, based on the type of change involved in the managed domain and in the management system. The role of creational change in management is discussed and a number of guidelines or (...) suggestions relevant to this sort of management are outlined. One feature of the notion of creational change is the conjecture that such change is not amenable to scientific investigation and understanding. Once creational change has produced whatever it does produce then the product may be amenable to scientific investigation and understanding but the actual unique and open process of its production will not be. One of the aims of this paper is to heighten our general awareness of creational change as different from other sorts of change. (shrink)

Management faces replacement by automated processes. Workflow automation in the information processing sectors of the economy is changing the way information and knowledge workers do their jobs. I consider the changing nature of the information supply chain from the creation of knowledge in firms to the supply of information to consumers. The changing nature of data and the development of data science and machine learning methods that enable the analysis of unstructured data have meant that what was once viewed as (...) tacit knowledge is now just a problem in information processing. The rise of workflow automation in the IT industries and the emergence of the reproducible research movement in the sciences is leading to increased automation of the production of information in both industry and academia and this has profoundly changed the nature of the information supply chain. (shrink)

Language, one of humanity’s major transformative innovations, is foundational for many cultural, artistic, scientific, and economic advancements, including the creation of artificial intelligence (AI). However, in the fight against climate change, the power of such innovation is constrained due to the boring language of climate science and science communication. In this essay, we encapsulated the situation and risks of boring language in communicating climate information to the public and countering climate denialism and disinformation. Based on the Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D knowledge management (...) framework, we recommend several strategies for climate scientists and science communicators to be more creative and make their communication more interesting, including collaboration with other cultural sectors (e.g., stand-up comedians, climate fiction, etc.) and AI. (shrink)

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization declared a pandemic of the COVID-19 coronavirus disease that was first recognized in China in late 2019. Among the primary effects caused by the pandemic, there was the dissemination of health preventive measures such as physical distancing, travel restrictions, self-isolation, quarantines, and facility closures. This includes the global disruption of socio-economic systems including the postponement or cancellation of various public events (e.g., sporting, cultural, or religious), supply shortages and fears of the same, (...) schools and universities closure, evacuation of foreign citizens, a rise of unemployment, changes in the international aid schemes, misinformation, and incidents of discrimination toward people affected by or suspected of having the COVID-19 disease. The pandemic has brought to the fore unpreparedness in critical areas that require attention, amid prospects and challenges. Moreover, considerable reorganization efforts are required with implications for assets, resources, norms, and value systems. COVID-19 is challenging the concept of globalization and stimulating responses at the levels of local and regional socio-economic systems that lead to the mobilization of assets that have been unrecognized earlier on, such as various forms of economic capital, social capital, cultural capital, human capital, and creative capital. For example, through digital channels, local groups are forming to create schemes of support for physical and mental wellbeing. These emerging exchanges lead to various social and technological innovations by building on skills and assets that are less important in the free-market economy, such as empathy, skills for crafts, making and fixing; locally grown microgreens; and micromanufacturing. Isolation and local living are also making it much harder to ignore the civic responsibilities towards communities, meant as individuals, vulnerable groups, and local businesses. Whilst the pandemic is limiting physical participation, this challenging time is uncovering alternative ways of mutual support, which may create long-term benefits for socio-economic systems, including environmental and biodiversity protection, reduction of the air pollution, and climate action. The pandemic’s threat to public health will hopefully be overcome with implications for disruption for an extended period that we are unable to forecast at this stage. It is key to focus on studies recognizing the activities and interventions leading to the recovery of socio-economic systems after the pandemic. Reflecting and planning on how societies and economies will go back to “business as usual” requires new forms of communication and cooperation, imaginative design thinking, new styles of management, as well as new tools and forms of participation in various public policies. Many questions related to the care of the vulnerable, economic restart, and the risk of future pandemics, to mention but a few, are already occupying the academic, scientific, experts, and activist communities, who have started to imagine the “new normal.”. (shrink)

‘Value pluralism’ as traditionally understood is the metaphysical thesis that there are many values that cannot be ‘reduced’ to a single supervalue. While it is widely assumed that value pluralism is true, the case for value pluralism depends on resolution of a neglected question in value theory: how are values properly individuated? Value pluralism has been thought to be important in two main ways. If values are plural, any theory that relies on value monism, for example, hedonistic utilitarianism, is mistaken. (...) The plurality of values is also thought to raise problems for rational choice. If two irreducibly distinct values conflict, it seems that there is no common ground that justifies choosing one over the other. The metaphysical plurality of values does not, however, have the implications for rational choice that many have supposed. A charitable interpretation of value pluralist writings suggests a ‘nonreductive’ form of value pluralism. Nonreductive value pluralism maintains that in the context of practical choice, there are differences between values—whether or not those values reduce to a single supervalue—that have important implications for rational choice. This article examines the main arguments for metaphysical value pluralism, argues that metaphysical value pluralism does not have certain implications that it is widely thought to have, and outlines three forms of nonreductive value pluralism. (shrink)

Do sensory measurements deserve the label of “measurement”? We argue that they do. They fit with an epistemological view of measurement held in current philosophy of science, and they face the same kinds of epistemological challenges as physical measurements do: the problem of coordination and the problem of standardization. These problems are addressed through the process of “epistemic iteration,” for all measurements. We also argue for distinguishing the problem of standardization from the problem of coordination. To exemplify our claims, we (...) draw on olfactory performance tests, especially studies linking olfactory decline to neurodegenerative disorders. (shrink)

The polarities of democracy framework is used to achieve human emancipation by simultaneously managing multiple paradoxes by employing Johnson’s polarity management as the conceptual framework. Although Johnson’s framework may be appropriate for managing other tension-dependent pairs, it is less suitable for managing multiple democratic values when the goal is human emancipation and sustainable democratic social change. Managing multiple polarities is exacerbated by the problem-shifting and problem-creation effect inherent in a tension-driven framework. The aim was to develop a constructivist grounded (...) theory to answer the research question: How can the first principles of democracy be used to reduce dynamic tension and achieve human emancipation? This gap has been filled by a parsimonious conceptual framework based on three democratic principles: human dignity, fairness, and knowledge. The principles of democracy conceptual framework can synthesize the tension between democratic values in order to manage, plan, and evaluate democratic social change initiatives. (shrink)

The attempt to construct an applied science of social change raises certain concerns, both theoretical and ethical. The theoretical concerns relate to the feasibility of predicting human behavior with sufficient reliability to ground a science that aspires to the management of social processes. The ethical concerns relate to the moral hazards involved in the modification of human social arrangements, given the unreliability of predicting human action.

Big Data is a large-sized and complex dataset, which cannot be managed using traditional data processing tools. Mining process of big data is the ability to extract valuable information from these large datasets. Association rule mining is a type of data mining process, which is indented to determine interesting associations between items and to establish a set of association rules whose support is greater than a specific threshold. The classical association rules can only be extracted from binary data where an (...) item exists in a transaction, but it fails to deal effectively with quantitative attributes, through decreasing the quality of generated association rules due to sharp boundary problems. In order to overcome the drawbacks of classical association rule mining, we propose in this research a new neutrosophic association rule algorithm. The algorithm uses a new approach for generating association rules by dealing with membership, indeterminacy, and non-membership functions of items, conducting to an efficient decision-making system by considering all vague association rules. To prove the validity of the method, we compare the fuzzy mining and the neutrosophic mining. The results show that the proposed approach increases the number of generated association rules. (shrink)

Universities and funders in many countries have been using Journal Impact Factor (JIF) as an indicator for research and grant assessment despite its controversial nature as a statistical representation of scientific quality. This study investigates how the changes of JIF over the years can affect its role in research evaluation and science management by using JIF data from annual Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to illustrate the changes. The descriptive statistics find out an increase in the median JIF for the top (...) 50 journals in the JCR, from 29.300 in 2017 to 33.162 in 2019. Moreover, on average, elite journal families have up to 27 journals in the top 50. In the group of journals with a JIF of lower than 1, the proportion has shrunk by 14.53% in the 2015–2019 period. The findings suggest a potential ‘JIF bubble period’ that science policymaker, university, public fund managers, and other stakeholders should pay more attention to JIF as a criterion for quality assessment to ensure more efficient science management. (shrink)

This study aimed to highlight the nature of the relationship between knowledge management and the strategic decision-making process, considering that strategic decisions are formulated and made based on a specific knowledge perspective. The study targeted the university management, deans of faculties, and college directors at Al-Azhar University - Gaza. The study followed a descriptive-analytical approach, and data was collected through a questionnaire designed to cover six dimensions related to knowledge management processes and an axis related to strategic decision-making. The data (...) was analyzed using various statistical methods. The study results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between the role of knowledge management processes and activating the strategic decision-making process at Al-Azhar University - Gaza. The study recommended that the university pay more attention to the processes of knowledge awareness and application as they serve as the link between existing knowledge and the creation of good knowledge. Furthermore, these processes are considered the essential means through which the university improves the effectiveness of strategic decisions and enhances its position. (shrink)

Scientists in anthropology, geography, and other fields within social sciences and humanities have long suggested that the environments in which people live deeply influence their cultural value systems and practices. Shota Shibasaki, Ryosuke Nakadai, and Yo Nakawake have built on this idea, demonstrating that local ecological characteristics shape the appearance of trickster animals in folklore. Based on their finding and the SM3D (Serendipity-Mindsponge-3D) knowledge management framework, we discuss how the individuals’ or groups’ ability to create cultural products depends on the (...) availability and accessibility of information from the surrounding environment. Due to biodiversity loss and climate change, such valuable resources for cultural creativity have been diminished. Thus, it is crucial to adopt biodiversity preservation and climate action as fundamental values of a progressive and humane culture. Only then can we continue to preserve and enhance the creative cultural capacity of society. (shrink)

Accelerating global climate change drives new climate risks. People around the world are researching, designing, and implementing strategies to manage these risks. Identifying and implementing sound climate risk management strategies poses nontrivial challenges including (a) linking the required disciplines, (b) identifying relevant values and objectives, (c) identifying and quantifying important uncertainties, (d) resolving interactions between decision levers and the system dynamics, (e) quantifying the trade-offs between diverse values under deep and dynamic uncertainties, (f) communicating to inform decisions, and (g) (...) learning from the decision-making needs to inform research design. Here we review these challenges and avenues to overcome them. ▪ People and institutions are confronted with emerging and dynamic climate risks. ▪ Stakeholder values are central to defining the decision problem. ▪ Mission-oriented basic research helps to improve the design of climate risk management strategies. (shrink)

While the foundations of climate science and ethics are well established, fine-grained climate predictions, as well as policy-decisions, are beset with uncertainties. This chapter maps climate uncertainties and classifies them as to their ground, extent and location. A typology of uncertainty is presented, centered along the axes of scientific and moral uncertainty. This typology is illustrated with paradigmatic examples of uncertainty in climate science, climate ethics and climate economics. Subsequently, the chapter discusses the IPCC’s preferred way of representing uncertainties and (...) evaluates its strengths and weaknesses from a risk management perspective. Three general strategies for decision-makers to cope with climate uncertainty are outlined, the usefulness of which largely depends on whether or not decision-makers find themselves in a context of deep uncertainty. The chapter concludes by offering two recommendations to ease the work of policymakers, faced with the various uncertainties engrained in climate discourse. (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and about ourselves and other living things as a part of the universe, and learning how to become civilized or enlightened. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current (...) global problems have arisen as a result. What we need to do, in response to this unprecedented crisis, is learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment. Unfortunately, in carrying out this programme, the Enlightenment made three blunders, and it is this defective version of the Enlightenment programme, inherited from the past, that is still built into the institutional/intellectual structure of academic inquiry in the 21st century. In order to solve the second great problem of learning we need to correct the three blunders of the traditional Enlightenment. This involves changing the nature of social inquiry, so that social science becomes social methodology or social philosophy, concerned to help us build into social life the progress-achieving methods of aim-oriented rationality, arrived at by generalizing the progress-achieving methods of science. It also involves, more generally, bringing about a revolution in the nature of academic inquiry as a whole, so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to become wiser by increasingly cooperatively rational means. The scientific task of improving knowledge and understanding of nature becomes a part of the broader task of improving global wisdom. The outcome would be what we so urgently need: a kind of inquiry rationally designed and devoted to helping us make progress towards a genuinely civilized world. We would succeed in doing what the Enlightenment tried but failed to do: learn from scientific progress how to go about making social progress towards as good a world as possible. (shrink)

The article aims to define the management mechanism of complex, open dynamic systems with human participation. The following parts of the system life-cycle were identified and unified in the theoretical scope: general and specific compositional elements of repeating changes, marginal index boundaries, the dynamics of the compositional elements of the lifecycle, the key points of the change in the character of the index dynamics. In the practical scope, two common trends of socio-economical system life-cycle management are considered. The first (...) trend is the regulation of the comprising element ratio, which provides the increase in the duration of the maximally effective performance of a functioning system. The second trend is the regulation of the reproduction time of a new system. The systems life cycle aspects are investigated in almost all sciences and studied within many disciplines in the field of higher education. Therefore, deepening the mastery of scientific and methodological foundations of the life cycle of a complex open dynamic system is useful for any subject in everyday and practical activities. A human being – in the formation of own human capital. Families – when it is formed, the birth of children, the distribution of income and expenses. Companies – for efficient business activities. As well as local communities, local self-government bodies, public authorities and global entities within their profile activities. The results of the research provide the possibility of the development of applicable mechanisms for effectiveness and stability enhancement of managerial and entrepreneurial operation in business projects. (shrink)

In this paper, I am reflecting on Abraham Zaleznik’s paper “managers and leaders: are they different?” He was a prominent Harvard business school professor who attacked management style for depending only on rationality and achieving goals. He believed that managers and leaders are totally different persons. He described managers as inscrutable, detached and manipulative. Plus, while managers are interested in control and how things are done, leaders are more concerned with ideas and innovation. I try to probe into various questions (...) related to both management and leadership to approach a clearer opinion for these inquires: do managers and leaders really have completely different personalities? Or are they both competing for the same target of getting work done through people? Is management upgradable with more knowledge and hard work? Are leaders more empathetic than managers? What makes managers inscrutable and manipulative? Is this innate or acquired? In which way leaders are different? Seems a huge task but I will tackle this issue by conducting a comparative study among two prominent figures as Sheikh Zayed Al Nahyan and Nelson Mandela. I will trace some points of similarities and differentiations based on the timeless lessons from their life stories that will endure for years to come. Both were gifted visionary individuals who exercised full range of cognitive, emotional and behavioral abilities to bring about profound change in their countries. (shrink)

Many researchers experiment with participatory settings to increase public engagement in research and innovation (R&I). Because of their temporary nature, it often remains unclear how such participatory experiments can contribute to structural change. This paper empirically explores options for bridging this gap. It analyzes how participants can be supported to act as institutional entrepreneurs to actively promote public engagement in R&I. To draw lessons, we analyze empirical material gathered on nineteen Social Labs which were set up to promote the (...) uptake of Responsible Research and Innovation in a European R&I funding program (Horizon 2020). Involvement of motivated participants, insight in their institutional context, and specific methods and management choices that enhance a sense of agency are identified as essential for organizing change. These findings and the resulting framework of interventions may prove valuable for further (action) research into the institutionalization of public engagement in R&I. (shrink)

Two great problems of learning confront humanity: learning about the nature of the universe and our place in it, and learning how to become civilized. The first problem was solved, in essence, in the 17th century, with the creation of modern science. But the second problem has not yet been solved. Solving the first problem without also solving the second puts us in a situation of great danger. All our current global problems have arisen as a result. What we need (...) to do, in response to this unprecedented crisis, is learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment. Unfortunately, in carrying out this programme, the Enlightenment made three blunders, and it is this defective version of the Enlightenment programme that we have institutionalized in 20th century academic inquiry. In order to solve the second great problem of learning we need to correct the three blunders of the traditional Enlightenment. This involves changing the nature of social inquiry, so that social science becomes social methodology or social philosophy, concerned to help us build into social life the progress-achieving methods of aim-oriented rationality, arrived at by generalizing the progress-achieving methods of science. It also involves, more generally, bringing about a revolution in the nature of academic inquiry as a whole, so that it takes up its proper task of helping humanity learn how to become wiser by increasingly cooperatively rational means. The scientific task of improving knowledge and understanding of nature becomes a part of the broader task of improving global wisdom. (shrink)

The science of operations research is one of the modern sciences that have made a great revolution in all areas of life through the methods provided by it, suitable and appropriate to solve most of the problems that were facing researchers, scholars and those interested in the development of societies, and the most beneficiaries of this science were companies and institutions that are looking for scientific methods that help them manage their work so that they achieve the greatest profit and (...) the lowest cost, and one of the important methods that have been used in the management of companies we offer in this research two methods, Dynamic programming method. This method has been used in many practical matters and helped decision-makers in companies to achieve a maximum profit and less cost by formulating the reality of the state of the company and the data provided by decision-makers with a dynamic mathematical model that is solved using methods of solving dynamic models and we will provide in this research an example of this through the issue of choosing the optimal investment for the budget of a company so that it achieves a maximum profit, and the method of programming with integers: the method that provided these companies with solutions with integer values suitable for the nature of its work, through the use of the binary integer in the formulation of the appropriate mathematical model on the one hand, and on the other hand, the use of the binary integer variable helped to convert some nonlinear models that lead to some practical problems into linear models, and it should be noted here that in the previous two methods there is something indeterminable because we must make a decision in choosing or not choosing something, but the optimal solution that we will get remains A specific value because we are building the mathematical model for any realistic issue through the data provided by those responsible for the work and these data are calculated quantities and therefore they are uncertain values because their validity depends on the circumstances surrounding the work environment, they may be exposed to increase or decrease, and therefore the optimal solution on which the company will base its decision is suitable for specific values and any change in them can cause the company an uncalculated loss, so in this research we will use the concepts of neutrosophic science, the branch of science founded by the American scientist Florentin Smarandache in 1995 based on his belief that there is no absolute truth, a science that is interested in the study of ideas and concepts that are neither true nor false, but just in between, and we will take the data (calculated quantities) neutrosophic values that are specified or unspecified values are any set close to the calculated quantities, then the resulting mathematical model is a neutrosophic model and the optimal solution has neutrosophic values and thanks to the indefinite uncertainty that these values have, companies from the development of appropriate plans for all circumstances and thus achieve the greatest profit and the lowest cost, and we will clarify the above through two issues, the issue of optimal designation of a warehouse site, which we will formulate the mathematical model of using the neutrosophic integer programming method - and the issue of capital budget, which we will present in two different forms, we use in the first form the neutrosophic integer programming method and in the second the neutrosophic dynamic programming method. (shrink)

We report the results of an exploratory study that examines the judgments of climate scientists, climate policy experts, astrophysicists, and non-experts (N = 3367) about the factors that contribute to the creation and persistence of disagreement within climate science and astrophysics and about how one should respond to expert disagreement. We found that, as compared to non-experts, climate experts believe that within climate science (i) there is less disagreement about climate change, (ii) methodological factors play less of a role (...) in generating disagreements, (iii) fewer personal or institutional biases influence climate research, and (iv) there is more agreement about which methods should be used to examine relevant phenomena we also observed that the uniquely American political context predicted experts’ judgments about some of these factors. We also found that, in regard to disagreements concerning cosmic ray physics, and commensurate with the greater inherent uncertainty and data lacunae in their field, astrophysicists working on cosmic rays were generally more willing to acknowledge expert disagreement, more open to the idea that a set of data can have multiple valid interpretations, and generally less quick to dismiss someone articulating a non-standard view as non-expert, than climate scientists were in regard to climate science. (shrink)

The Human Genome Project is regarded by many as one of the major scientific achievements in recent science history, a large-scale endeavour that is changing the way in which biomedical research is done and expected, moreover, to yield considerable benefit for society. Thus, since the completion of the human genome sequencing effort, a debate has emerged over the question whether this effort merits to be awarded a Nobel Prize and if so, who should be the one to receive it, as (...) no more than three individuals can be selected. In this article, the HGP is taken as a case study to consider the ethical question to what extent it is still possible, in an era of big science, of large-scale consortia and global team work, to acknowledge and reward individual contributions to important breakthroughs in biomedical fields. Is it still viable to single out individuals for their decisive contributions in order to reward them in a fair and convincing way? Whereas the concept of the Nobel prize as such seems to reflect an archetypical view of scientists as solitary researchers who, at a certain point in their careers, make their one decisive discovery, this vision has proven to be problematic from the very outset. Already during the first decade of the Nobel era, Ivan Pavlov was denied the Prize several times before finally receiving it, on the basis of the argument that he had been active as a research manager rather than as a researcher himself. The question then is whether, in the case of the HGP, a research effort that involved the contributions of hundreds or even thousands of researchers worldwide, it is still possible to “individualise” the Prize? The “HGP Nobel Prize problem” is regarded as an exemplary issue in current research ethics, highlighting a number of quandaries and trends involved in contemporary life science research practices more broadly. (shrink)

Digital Rights Management (DRM) covers the description, identification, trading, protection, monitoring and tracking of all forms of rights over both tangible and intangible assets. The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) system provides a framework for the persistent identification of entities involved in this domain. Although the system has been very well designed to manage object identifiers, some important questions relating to the creation and assignment of identifiers are left open. The paradigm of a Referent Tracking System (RTS) recently advanced in the (...) healthcare and life sciences environment is able to fill these gaps. This is demonstrated by pointing out inconsistencies in the existing DOI models and by showing how they can be corrected using an RTS. (shrink)

The goal of this pilot study is to investigate expressions of the collective disquiet of people in the first months of Covid-19 pandemic, and to try to understand how they manage covert risk, especially with religion and magic. Four co-authors living in early hot spots of the pandemic speculate on the roles of science, religion, and magic, in the latest global catastrophe. They delve into the consolidation that should be occurring worldwide because of a common, viral enemy, but find little (...) evidence for it. They draw parallels to biblical works, finding evidence of a connection between plague and “social strife.” They explore changes in the purviews of science, religion, and magic, and how and why they have changed, as three systems of covert risk management. They speculate on the coming wave of grief when the world populations finally decide that too many people have died, and they envision cultural changes on the other side of the pandemic, to lifestyles, travel, reverse urbanization, and living and working in smaller communities. Using an unusual approach named “crowd-sourced ethnography”, they conduct un-traditional ethnography and speculate on management of covert risk in their native countries. (shrink)

Social innovations are usually understood as new ideas, initiatives, or solutions that make it possible to meet the challenges of societies in fields such as social security, education, employment, culture, health, environment, housing, and economic development. On the one hand, many citizen science activities serve to achieve scientific as well as social and educational goals. Thus, these actions are opening an arena for introducing social innovations. On the other hand, some social innovations are further developed, adapted, or altered after the (...) involvement of scientist-supervised citizens in research and with the use of the citizen science tools and methods such as action research, crowdsourcing, and community-based participatory research. Such approaches are increasingly recognized as crucial for gathering data, addressing community needs, and creating engagement and cooperation between citizens and professional scientists. However, there are also various barriers to both citizen science and social innovation. For example, management, quality and protection of data, funding difficulties, non-recognition of citizens’ contributions, and limited inclusion of innovative research approaches in public policies. In this volume, we open theoretical as well as empirically-based discussion, including examples, practices, and case studies of at least three types of relations between citizen science and social innovation: domination of the citizen science features over social innovation aspects; domination of the social innovation features over the citizen science aspects; and the ways to achieve balance and integration between the social innovation and citizen science features. Each of these relationships highlights factors that influence the development of the main scales of sustainability of innovations in the practice. These innovations are contributing to a new paradigm of learning and sharing knowledge as well as interactions and socio-psychological development of participants. Also, there are factors that influence the development of platforms, ecosystems, and sustainability of innovations such as broad use of the information and communications technologies including robotics and automation; emerging healthcare and health promotion models; advancements in the development and governance of smart, green, inclusive and age-friendly cities and communities; new online learning centers; agri-food, cohousing or mobility platforms; and engagement of citizens into co-creation or co-production of services delivered by public, private, non-governmental organizations as well as non-formal entities. (shrink)

This article argues that actual entities come first; the statistical laws of nature are their effects, not their causes. Statistical laws are mentally abstracted from their habits and are only formal, not efficient, causes. They do not make anything happen or prevent anything from happening. They evolve or change as the habits of novel creatures evolve or change. They do not control or inform us about what any individual entity is doing, only about what masses of individuals on (...) average are doing. Thus, there is no way that traditional divine miracles could “violate” them. God has sufficient efficient-causal power to create our world ex nihilo, as in the Big Bang, and to prevent evils, which God does not do from love, justice, and moral goodness. Seven elements of a viable theodicy are outlined, the most important of which is divine justice. It would be unjust for God to prevent harms in some cases but not in all. In a universe in which God prevents all evils and thus directly controls everything, no creatures would take any responsibility for what they do. A loving and just God voluntarily and consistently limits the exercise of divine power so we can be free, responsible, and creative. (shrink)

Humans are cognitive entities. Our ongoing interactions with the environment are threaded with creations and usages of meaningful information. Animal life is also populated with meaningful information related to survival constraints. Information managed by artificial agents can also be considered as having meanings, as derived from the designer. Such perspective brings us to propose an evolutionary approach to cognition based on meaningful information management. We use a systemic tool, the Meaning Generator System (MGS), and apply it consecutively to animals, humans (...) and artificial agents [1, 2]. The MGS receives information from its environment and compares it with its constraint. The generated meaning is the connection existing between the received information and the constraint. It triggers an action aimed at satisfying the constraint. The action modifies the environment and the generated meaning. Meaning generation links agents to their environments. The MGS is a system: a set of elements linked by a set of relations. Any system submitted to a constraint and capable of receiving information can lead to a MGS. Animals, humans and robots are agents containing MGSs dealing with different constraints. Similar MGSs carrying different constraints will generate different meanings. Cognition is system dependent. Contrary to approaches on meaning generation based on psychology or linguistics, the MGS approach is not based on human mind. We want to avoid the circularity of taking human mind as a starting point. Free will and self-consciousness participate to the management of human meanings. They do not exist for animals or robots. Staying alive is a constraint that we share with animals. Robots ignore that constraint. We first use the MGS for animals with “stay alive” and “group life” constraints. The analysis of meaning and cognition in animals is however limited by our un-complete understanding of the nature of life (the question of final causes). Extending the analysis of meaning generation and cognition to humans is complex and has some true limitations as the nature of human mind is a mystery for today science and philosophy. The natures of our feelings, free will or self-consciousness are unknown. Approaches to identify human constraints are however possible, where the MGS can highlight some openings [3, 4]. Modeling meaning management in artificial agents is rather straightforward with the MGS. We, the designers, know the agents and the constraints. The derived nature of constraints, meaning and cognition is however to be highlighted. We define a meaningful representation of an item for an agent as being the networks of meanings relative to the item for the agent, with the action scenarios involving the item. Such meaningful representations embed the agents in their environments and are far from the GOFAI type of representations. Cognition, meanings and representations exist by and for the agents. We finish by summarizing the points presented here and highlight possible continuations . [1] “Information and Meaning” [2] “Introduction to a systemic theory of meaning” [3] “Computation on Information, Meaning and Representations. An Evolutionary Approach” [4] “Proposal for a shared evolutionary nature of language and consciousness”. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to go some way towards showing that the maintenance of hard and fast dichotomies, like those between mind and body, and the real and the virtual, is untenable, and that technological advance cannot occur with being cognisant of its reciprocal ethical implications. In their place I will present a softer enactivist ontology through which I examine the nature of our engagement with technology in general and with virtual realities in particular. This softer ontology is (...) one to which I will commit Kant, and from which, I will show, certain critical moral and emotional consequences arise. It is my contention that Kant’s logical subject is necessarily embedded in the world and that Kant, himself, would be content with this view as an expression of his inspired response to the ‘‘scandal to philosophy... that the existence of things outside us... must be accepted merely on faith’’ [Bxl]. In keeping with his arguments for the a priori framing of intuition, the a priori structuring of experience through the spontaneous application of the categories, the synthesis of the experiential manifold, and the necessity of a unity of apperception, I will present an enactivist account of agency in the world, and argue that it is our embodied and embedded kinaesthetic engagement in our world which makes possible the syntheses of apprehension, reproduction and recognition, and which, in turn, make possible the activity of the reproductive or creative imagination. (shrink)

Integrating the concept of place meanings into protected area management has been difficult. Across a diverse body of social science literature, challenges in the conceptualization and application of place meanings continue to exist. However, focusing on relationships in the context of participatory planning and management allows protected area managers to bring place meanings into professional judgment and practice. This paper builds on work that has outlined objectives and recommendations for bringing place meanings, relationships, and lived experiences to the forefront of (...) land-use planning and management. It proposes the next steps in accounting for people’s relationships with protected areas and their relationships with protected area managers. Our goals are to 1) conceptualize this relationship framework; 2) present a structure for application of the framework; and 3) demonstrate the application in a specific protected area context, using an example from Alaska. We identify three key target areas of information and knowledge that managers will need to sustain quality relationship outcomes at protected areas. These targets are recording stories or narratives, monitoring public trust in management, and identifying and prioritizing threats to relationships. The structure needed to apply this relationship-focused approach requires documenting and following individual relationships with protected areas in multiple ways. The goal of this application is not to predict relationships, but instead to gain a deeper understanding of how and why relationships develop and change over time. By documenting narratives of individuals, managers can understand how relationships evolve over time and the role they play in individual’s lives. By understanding public trust, the shared values and goals of individuals and managers can be observed. By identifying and prioritizing threats, managers can pursue efforts that steward relationships while allowing for the protection of experiences and meanings. The collection and interpretation of these three information targets can then be integrated and implemented within planning and management strategies to achieve outcomes that are beneficial for resource protection, visitor experiences, and stakeholder engagement. By investing in this approach, agencies will gain greater understanding and usable knowledge towards the achievement of quality relationships. It represents an investment in both place relationships and public relations. By integrating such an approach into planning and management, protected area managers can represent the greatest diversity of individual place meanings and connections. relationships, place meanings, trust, narratives, planning, protected areas. (shrink)

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic initiated major disruptions to higher education systems. Physical spaces that previously supported interpersonal interaction and community were abruptly inactivated, and faculty largely took on the responsibility of accommodating classroom structures in rapidly changing situations. This study employed interviews to examine how undergraduate Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) instructors adapted instruction to accommodate the mandated transition to virtual learning and how these accommodations supported or hindered community and belonging during the onset of the pandemic. (...) Interviews with 25 STEM faculty at an undergraduate Hispanic Serving Institution revealed a wide range of accommodations they made to their courses and how they managed communication with students. Faculty strived to support student belonging with responses ranging from caring to crisis management, though some faculty expressed feelings of powerlessness when unable to accommodate certain challenges. The case of a responsive and flexible instructor is presented to highlight a productive response to a crisis. These retrospective findings point to strategies to support faculty teaching in virtual learning environments in the future; increasing opportunities for student–student and student–faculty interaction, supporting faculty in learning technologies that support these interactions and addressing faculty’s feelings of powerlessness. (shrink)

Biodiversity science is in a pivotal period when diverse groups of actors—including researchers, businesses, national governments, and Indigenous Peoples—are negotiating wide-ranging norms for governing and managing biodiversity data in digital repositories. These repositories, often called biodiversity data portals, are a type of organization for which governance can address or perpetuate the colonial history of biodiversity science and current inequities. Researchers and Indigenous Peoples are developing and implementing new strategies to examine and change assumptions about which agents should count as (...) salient participants in scientific projects, especially in projects that build and manage large digital data portals. Two notable efforts are the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and CARE (Collective benefit, Authority, Responsibility, Ethics) Principles for scientific data management and governance. To characterize how these principles influence the governance of biodiversity data portals, we develop an account of fit-for-use data that makes explicit its social as well as technical conditions in relation to agents and purposes. The FAIR Principles, already widely adopted by biodiversity researchers, prioritize machine agents and efficient computation, while the CARE Principles prioritize Indigenous Peoples and their data sovereignty. Both illustrate the potency of an emerging general strategy by which groups of actors craft and implement governance principles for data fitness-of-use to change assumptions about who are salient participants in data science. (shrink)

Today decision-makers face surging increases in overall system complexity leading up to more unstable and unpredictable business environments. Leaders and decision-makers are confronted with volatility (dynamic and intense changes), uncertainty (lack of predictability), complexity (interconnection of parts which is sometimes overwhelmingly difficult to process), and ambiguity (unclear relationships), namely the VUCA-world. The implications of the VUCA-world for business and strategy can be applied to the rise of complex cyber-physical systems in Industry 4.0. There is an expressed need to develop complexity (...) management frameworks that integrate different individual measures of dealing with industrial system complexity into a synergetic strategic framework. In this regard new frameworks that reflect “real-life complexity” of industrial systems and their practitioners are being called for. It is therefore the core aim of the thesis to develop and apply a strategic complexity management framework (SCM) that fits in the individual reality of the decision-making practitioner by integrating different complexity dimensions of industrial systems in a holistic, synergetic, and strategic way. As a starting point for achieving this aim, an investigation and exploration of relevant theoretical frameworks is conducted and accumulates in the proposition of a set of hypotheses H1-H13 as an explanatory approach to achieve a multi-dimensional definition of industrial system complexity and to explore its impact on decision-making based on information growth in industrial systems. In a second step, H1-H13 are applied to develop a theoretical complexity space model for industrial systems. In the model the static and dynamic complexity of an industrial system are integrated in a complexity space modelling approach, where information complexity boundaries expand over time in a static compound space of a system and serve as an indicator for system instability in a static complexity space. The capabilities of the complexity space model are theoretically demonstrated, alongside a set of assumptions concerning the behavior of industrial system complexity. The developed complexity space model represents the core theoretical foundation for the establishment of the SCM in a third step. In the third step the complexity of an industrial system is captivated via the strategic complexity management framework (SCM) in the form of a strategic 8- quadrant matrix in adherence to the axioms of the paradigm of strategic complexity engineering which are to acknowledge, characterize, anticipate, and manage complexity. Definitions of static, dynamic and environmental conception of complexity of industrial systems are holistically integrated to capture the internal and external strategic management perspective in the SCM framework and the strategic capabilities of the SCM framework are theoretically demonstrated based on a set of generic norm strategies. In a fourth step the SCM is applied for strategic complexity management purposes to four different real-world cases of industrial manufacturing systems with the goal to test, explore and discuss the practical decision-aiding applicability of the framework via an interventionistic multi-case study based on qualitative document review. The individual results of the SCM application on the four different cases are described and discussed. Key-learnings across cases are identified and discussed as a conclusion. Finally, a research outlook is provided. (shrink)

The Shadow of God in the Philosopher’s Garden. The Parc de La Villette in Paris in the context of the philosophy of chôra I Bernard Tschumi’s project of the Parc de La Villette could have won the competition and was implemented thanks to the political atmosphere that accompanied the victory of the left-wing candidate in the French presidential elections in 1981. François Mitterand’s revision of the political programme and the replacement of radical reforms with the construction of prestigious architectural objects (...) and urban assumptions in the French capital gave Tschumi a unique opportunity to realise ideas that polemicised with traditional forms of social life, questioned the basic principles of architecture and included architectural work in the philosophical disputes over the issues of metaphysics. Tschumi’s theoretical assumptions put forward during the design of the Parc de La Villette highlighted the questions of conflict between the main components of the project and suggested that the intensification of differences was analogous to Jacques Derrida’s creation of the concept of différance. It was this philosopher who in a special commentary to Derrida’s project also introduced the concept of maintenant, which aimed at demonstrating that the architect’s polemical inclinations remain in a hidden balance with his inclinations to affirmation of architectural principles. During the discussion between Derrida and Peter Eisenman, who was to take part in the design of the Parisian park, the concept of the chôra was also put forward, which in the course of the debate led to an additional confusion of architectural and philosophical problems. II In the period from the Antiquity to the Renaissance, the dialogue Timaeus was the most frequently commented work of Plato. At present, the most frequently discussed is the issue of the chôra included in it, which aroused fascination among philosophers, researchers of rhetoric, religion, feminism, but also architecture. The work on the chôra also influenced the development of the interpretation of the Parc de La Villette, among which the topics related to the beginning and the change were highlighted. In early uses of the word chôra in Greek, as in Homer’s 18th Book of Iliad, it meant both dancing and a place to dance. On this occasion, it can be seen that it is not possible to determine which phenomenon took precedence in the creation of the name. It cannot be denied, however, that the word concerned a specific movement, as if circular and returning to an indefinable beginning. Despite gaining more and more general meanings, the word chôra has retained its connection with the dance of people on the threshing floor, the dance of bees (choros meliton) or the dance of stars (choros astron). In Timaeus, the chôra is a space filled with movement with an effect similar to shaking the sieve to husk the grain: it separates similar elements from the dissimilar ones. The juxtaposition of the Parc de La Villette and the chôra already at this stage leads to the suggestion that the park was treated by the architect as a place of dynamic changes leading to the establishment of new social solutions. In his statements, the architect confirmed that the park was to be a space of new politics and ethics. The book by Julia Kristeva La Révolution du langage poétique contributed to the spread of the belief that works of art can play a role as factors of political revolution. In this work, the author put forward the thesis that the chôra is a kind of space, the character of which has a destructive influence on attempts to conclude language games. The chôra gives beginning to words, but at the same time, by leaving a trace of this beginning it forces us to renew their meanings. The chôra understood in this way, turns out to be an irremovable beginning, to which one has to return all the time. Kristeva found manifestations of the chôra’s activity in avant-garde French poetry, to which she attributed the role of a mediator between criticism of metaphysics and aspirations for social change. The chôra, violating the language, introduces some voids into it, as if traces of the abyss, which direct the consciousness towards understanding the necessity of political changes. The Parc de La Villette was to pursue similar objectives in the city space. In his essays, Tschumi considered the problems of creating spaces that would give rise to a radical democracy. The proposed rebellious spaces should have the characteristics of a void, in which contradictory forces would occur as forms of pure activity. The means of achieving this goal was to concentrate contradictions and make them visible. The Parc de La Villette was supposed to collect differences as indelible and at the same time by showing them it was supposed to raise awareness of the social world as a conglomerate of differences. Saturation of the space of the park with subversive values results from the character of this space suppressed in the consciousness, as well as from the social diversity which has not been taken into account so far. The main contradictions contained in space relate to the division that exists between its presentation as a mental problem and a sensual one. The park was the deliberate creation of a place that transcends such a division and creates a separate space for negotiation between architectural theories and its practical applications. The purpose of the park was to become a place of future events, which would not hide their conflicting character coming from diversity of both space and society. The method of composition usually aimed at achieving a harmonious whole has been replaced by Tschumi with a system of juxtaposition of non-coherent elements or those resulting from variations and transformations. Tschumi did not seek direct influence on politics in the Parc de La Villette, but made room for thinking about the possibilities of the future. He introduced problems rather than showed solutions to them. The task of the park was to put the principles of architecture into a kind of vibration that would inspire users to participate in the new community. III Tschumi believes that the quality of architecture depends on the theoretical factor it contains. Such a view led to the creation of architecture that would achieve visibility and comprehensibility only after its interpretation. On his way to creating such an architecture he took on a purely philosophical reflection on the basic building block of architecture, which is space. In 1975, he wrote an essay entitled Questions of Space, in which he included several dozen questions about the nature of space. The questions he formulated could be regarded as analogous to the situation in the philosophy of the time, in which the interest in questioning the most obvious forms of understanding the world and intellectual categories increased. The research on space is an area common to many fields of natural sciences, humanities and artistic creation, but it also deals with other problems, such as issues of experience. The concept of space-time continuum proposed by Hermann Minkowski drew attention to the identity of time and space with the events taking place. Probably regardless of the postulates of physicists commenting on Albert Einstein’s discoveries, also in philosophy it increased the importance of the concept of the event which became dominant in Martin Heidegger’s latest work Contributions of Philosophy: Of the event. Furthermore, Tschumi’s reflections on space entered into relation with the problem of experience, which aroused the interest of a group of French philosophers trying to assimilate Georges Bataille’s concept of “inner experience”. Both Tschumi and Derrida referred to Bataille because his views could be used not only to modify the concept of the subject, but also to change the understanding of what constitutes the area of architecture. The discussion on experience has led to the recognition that the subject is not sovereign, but actually a form of what is on their outside. Such insights make it possible to treat the area of the Parc de La Villette as existing mainly when it is organised by its users. The decisive features of the park are its assumptions, according to which it is a variety of active void that leads to agreeing new social relations with it. The park does not force to participate in already existing moral or political communities, but tries to move into an unknown future in which the scope of free functioning of individuals will be increased. Doubts about the principles of functioning of the individual self and its discovery as a whole composed of non-coherent parts, as well as its dependence on its own depth full of disordered forces, influenced the understanding of architecture as a set of contradictions whose source is a fundamental void anticipating the empty phenomenal space. The use of this phenomenal void in architecture, as well as the rejection of the whole and unity, had a specific political purpose and drew its inspiration from political analyses. In the Parc de La Villette, metaphysics and politics were brought closer together because the philosophy of void was used to create new conditions for community action. It can be argued that the source of this philosophy was the perception of errors in existing societies dependent on the shortcomings of traditional metaphysics. Spacing (espacement) was one of the key terms in Derrida’s philosophy, which was also combined with the concepts of différance and chôra. The study of the nature of space, especially its transition from the level of pure possibility to the level of sensual phenomenon, also contributes to understanding how well designed space can have an impact on its audience. This explanation is based on Tschumi’s assumption that the space of the Parc de La Villette contradicts the integrating approaches and instead exposes contradictions, but it does so in a way that combines incompatible properties into a single piece of architecture. The specificity of such integration is similar to the invention of a musical phrase, which is an ideological message: moral and political. Such a thesis may raise doubts, however, if both the clearly adopted assumptions and those deduced from the work allow for their logically ordered presentation then to a limited extent it may be assumed that the work has achieved a connection between a specific philosophy of space and its practical application. Derrida combined the problem of spatiality with the problem of transcendental imagination in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who in the first version of Critique of Pure Reason assumed that pure imagination precedes the appearance of time and space, even in their transcendental forms. The imagination in such a situation can be described as a factor activating time and space, which indicates what function is played by movement in this activity. This leads us to recognize that the ultra originary source of pure forms of sensual intuition is movement, which in early Greek philosophy was identified with void and its lack of resistance to phenomena occurring in it. Derrida’s philosophy in search of a certain super-transcendental source of time and space pointed to différance which, like void or the chôra, does not have material features or even any other form of being. Différance is the primary cause of the disruption of motionlessness and the introduction of activity into motionless time and space, thus its activity can be described as spacing (espacement). Derrida’s discoveries in this respect are not entirely original, because Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel already pointed out when examining the present that it is primarily a differential relation (differente Beziehung), which, being seemingly neutral, influences the present with supernatural force and makes it unidentifiable with itself. Differente Beziehung must similarly influence the originary space, negating its initial character by multiplying its divisions and expanding its boundaries. Différance acts by revealing contradictions wherever there is apparent undifferentiation. Tschumi, composing the Parc de La Villette as a variety of void and a set of incompatible layers, followed the rules of différance or the chôra: he made void visible together with its saturation with contradictions. If space can be considered to be the result of the activity of difference, such activity has a certain regularity, which influences the behaviour of its observers. Differences or contradictions fall into a certain rhythm, which can be considered a manifestation of transcendent order. The problem is that what can be considered the source of such order, namely the logos or God, is partly disorder and error. According to descriptions contained in Timaeus, the world is a combination of forces that drive to order with forces of erroneous necessity that resounds in every order and forces it to return to disorder. Derrida denied the possibility of understanding différance as a theological value, even if it were a negative or apophatic theology, but no categorical denial could be perfect. The assumption that différance or the chôra are not endowed with any substance properties cannot deny their activity, and thus a certain force. Already since Democritus, philosophy has multiplied the names of such a force and the contradictory variety of its manifestations, never forgetting also the necessity for reason to withdraw from the possibility of giving its correct characteristics. Such a withdrawal may be interpreted as an expression of respect and, in certain situations, as a cult of the force that precedes reasonableness. The Parc de La Villette, which is an artistic divagation about the contradictions and forces behind them, can be considered as a place of their sublimation, and therefore as a variation of the temple of what differs from order and disorder. IV In the texts that presented the theoretical assumptions of the Parc de La Villette, Tschumi used a large number of terms that contradicted not only the traditional principles of composing architecture, but also negated the rules of social order and the foundations of Western metaphysics. Tschumi’s statements, which are a continuation of his leftist political fascinations from the May 1968 revolution, as well as his interest in the philosophy of French poststructuralism and his collaboration with Derrida, prove that terms such as “disruption”, “dissociation”, “disfunction”, “disjunction” and “dispersion” not only referred to architectural problems but also applied to political criticism and the deepest foundations of thinking itself. His collaboration with Derrida manifested itself primarily in the publication La Case Vide: La Villette 1985, in which the architect’s design drawings and texts explaining his concepts related to the Parc de La Villette were accompanied by an extensive essay by Derrida, which included theoretical problems taken up by Tschumi in a philosophical context. Architectural and philosophical issues were also combined during seven discussion meetings organised by Eisenman, invited by Tschumi to collaborate on the design of the Parc de La Villette. Eisenman, who, like Tschumi, invited Derrida to participate in the design of the park and also led to the publication of Chora L Works: Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman, in which his ideas were confronted with Derrida’s philosophical text. In this case, Derrida’s essay was not a direct commentary on the architect’s concepts, but rather a reflection on the question of the chôra presented by Plato in Timaeus. During the discussion and in his essay, Derrida pointed out that the chôra is a component of the created world, yet it does not belong to it, but precedes it. The originality of the chôra is so radical that she also precedes all the factors of creating the world, including ideas and the Demiurge. Thus athesis appeared in the metaphysics of the West that the chôra is a form of active abyss, in relation to which all beings are secondary, both those perfect (as ideas or God) and those created, such as the world, things, people or language. This leads to the conclusion that the chôra does not exist, because all existence is a derivative of the chôra. Nor could the chôra be described, since it is a form of developing a space that is preceded by a lack of space characteristic of the chôra. Derrida intended the chôra to be an instance with an exceptional degree of transcendentalism, an anti-metaphysical instance, but also an a-theological one. However, this attempt failed, both in the field of secular philosophy and in the field of theology. Derrida’s characteristics of the chôra to strengthen its transcendentalism and negation of metaphysics had to be expressed in a language that immediately produces new concepts and a new metaphysics that reproduces the categories of the beginning, the origin or the foundation known from earlier philosophical traditions. All forms of criticism of metaphysics are also inspired by negative, apophatic and mystical theology. The undermining of many concepts of permanent meaning and the introduction of new concepts of unstable meaning, characteristic of the philosophy of deconstruction, had many features of originality, but it was directed towards problems whose solutions repeat, with the use of new vocabulary, the findings known in culture since Democritus. Thus, if apophatic philosophy can be regarded as deconstruction avant la lettre, then deconstruction itself in its late versions began to take on the features of a new religion. The exchange of inspiration between theology and deconstruction was manifested in a series of scientific conferences and publications in which Derrida’s philosophical concepts were interpreted within the scope of religious thought. Theological threads began to be found in such concepts of deconstruction as différance or the chôra, while at the same time Derrida himself undertook in his philosophy to study problems such as the Other (L’Autre) or the Impossible (Impossible), which belonged to newer theological traditions. As a consequence of the new problems, the deconstruction became closer to the features of a new religion. Philosophy, at least from Kant’s time, has tried to create a system that would take over from religion the tasks of setting moral and political goals. Similarly, Derrida has directed his interest towards the problems of democracy and ethics, which would enable their renewal. Attempts to create a new religion (cleared of old metaphors), a new community or a new democracy bring problems and threats which may be no less troublesome than the previous systems. All promises of freedom carry with them threats, the greater the more they strive for perfection. The renewal of existential orders, sometimes carried out by means of violent changes, is a certain repetitive feature of human cultures. Deep changes, however, do not protect against the return of both old gods and old demons. Tschumi and Derrida were shaped in their youth by the atmosphere of leftist rebellion against the moral and political limitations of ossified communities and the imperfections of democracy. The ethical theme distinguishes many of their works, including the Parc de La Villette. The opposition to the metaphysical traditions of philosophy and architecture contained in this park was prompted by specific political situations and resulted from bringing political issues to the level of philosophical considerations. Achievements made at the level of pure concepts were then subject to elevation, to a kind of sacralization, which made them religious concepts. The deconstruction reached for the status of the new religion especially when it found its followers and began to generate moral obligations. In the new situation, terms such as the chôra, l’Autre or the Impossible were absolutized and in relation to them a cult and attitude of adoration emerged. The Parc de La Villtette then gained new post-secular meanings, which allow it to be assigned the function of a Temple of Otherness (L’Autre) and Impossible. V In the traditional sense, a work of art creates an illustration of the outside world, or of a certain text or doctrine. Sometimes it is considered that such an illustration is not literal, but is an interpretation of what is visible, or an interpretation of a certain literary or ideological message. It can also be assumed that a work of art creates its own visual world, a separate story or a separate philosophical statement. Parc de La Villette represents the last of these possibilities: it is a philosophical statement that develops the premises derived from poststructuralist philosophies and the philosophy of deconstruction. The uniqueness of its being status, however, is that it does so not only at the level of the theoretical assumptions, but also through its functioning as an active philosophical work. This means that a park is a happening philosophy. Its activity, however, does not refer only to the present tense, but is also an attempt to penetrate the future, all otherness and impossibility. This kind of activity assumes that the work, in a sense, does not yet fully exist, but is also still produced in the processes of its interpretation. The theoretical foundations of the park included texts by Tschumi, in which he questioned traditional ways of creating a work of architecture, postulating in return the use of a long series of negations, which were comparable to the crisis of metaphysics characteristic of contemporary philosophy. It is therefore no coincidence that the publication containing Tschumi’s theoretical text on Parc de La Villette was accompanied by an essay by Derrida developing some of the architect’s concepts. The next step in integrating philosophy into the process of park design was a series of discussions between Eisenman and Derrida, who completely moved the creation of the park into the world of thoughts, without accentuating the need for their realization in the material reality. The main topic of these discussions was the problem of the chôra, which was taken up by later commentators and used to interpret the park as a work in which the philosophy of the beginning is manifested relating to issues of politics, morality and religion. The park was therefore interpreted as a space of invention within the scope of creating new rules of functioning of the community and democracy. Thinking about the political future may, however, exceed the horizon of ordinary expectations. Although philosophical thought is always connected with contemporary problems and metaphysics sometimes intertwines with current politics, yet at the same time the customs of philosophy also include crossing horizons and thinking about absolute otherness and impossibility. Initially, the chôra, différance, absolute otherness (tout autre) and the Impossible were concepts of pure philosophy of atheistic character, but with the further development of the discussion, more and more theological motifs began to emerge. One of the reasons for this phenomenon was the fact that radical negations of all being, which were contemplated in contemporary philosophy (by Heidegger and Derrida, among others), had previously been manifested in negative and apophatic theologies (by Master Eckhart, among others).Also the category of the “Other”, taken from Emmanuel Levinas, was clearly connected with the thought about God. A further reason for connecting the chôra with the theological thought was the interest in the philosophy of deconstruction expressed by some theologians. John Caputo in particular managed to persuade Derrida to participate in discussions on the current status of religion. In the late period of Derrida’s writing, further statements on religious topics appeared. All these reasons led to posing a question about the identity of the chôra and God. Although there were no satisfactory conclusions on this issue, the discussion was also important to create an interpretation of the park as a place of worship. The chôra, representing, according to Plato, the preoriginal emptiness is the place of every beginning, but it turns out that it is not neutral to the being created in it. The chôra deposits itself in every being as an irremovable beginning that interferes with its stability. The chôra, therefore, forces us into a palintropical movement, but it also turns out to be a pure compulsion, an erring necessity and a fundamental force from which, in the human perception, motifs useful to the individual and to the community are extracted. All definitions of this force, including its anthropomorphisation, are formulated in such a way that they allow for building private and collective morality upon them. Such definitions are changed depending on variable political situations. It is difficult to determine whether in the processes of changes in the formulation of “God’s names” any essential value is retained, which is not subject to change. The current definitions of the chôra (God?), which can be found, for example, in the philosophy of Caputo, stress that she is a combination of various and contradictory forces. This characteristic inherits much of Plato’s concept, reminds us of Master Eckhart’s views on Gottheit and, at the same time, is not unfamiliar to Tschumi, whose essays were an apologia of contradictions. The current concept of chôra, transferred into the sphere of politics, is the praise of social diversity and the protection of the difference from the forces of order. In the Parc de La Villette, the future community and democracy were elevated as a system of safe existence of individuals in all their singularity. The park is a temple of a future community in which individual beings have nothing in common. (shrink)

We undeniably live in an information age—as, indeed, did those who lived before us. After all, as the cultural historian Robert Darnton pointed out: ‘every age was an age of information, each in its own way’ (Darnton 2000: 1). Darnton was referring to the news media, but his insight surely also applies to the sciences. The practices of acquiring, storing, labeling, organizing, retrieving, mobilizing, and integrating data about the natural world has always been an enabling aspect of scientific work. Natural (...) history and its descendant discipline of biological taxonomy are prime examples of sciences dedicated to creating and managing systems of ordering data. In some sense, the idea of biological taxonomy as an information science is commonplace. Perhaps it is because of its self-evidence that the information science perspective on taxonomy has not been a major theme in the history and philosophy of science. The botanist Vernon Heywood once pointed out that historians of biology, in their ‘preoccupation with the development of the sciences of botany and zoology… [have] diverted attention from the role of taxonomy as an information science’ (Heywood 1985: 11). More specifically, he argued that historians had failed to appreciate how principles and practices that can be traced to Linnaeus constituted ‘a change in the nature of taxonomy from a local or limited folk communication system and later a codified folk taxonomy to a formal system of information science [that] marked a watershed in the history of biology’ (ibid.). A similar observation could be made about twentieth-century philosophy of biology, which mostly skipped over practical and epistemic questions about information management in taxonomy. The taxonomic themes that featured in the emerging philosophy of biology literature in the second half of the twentieth century were predominantly metaphysical in orientation. This is illustrated by what has become known as the ‘essentialism story’: an account about the essentialist nature of pre- Darwinian taxonomy that used to be accepted by many historians and philosophers, and which stimulated efforts to document and interpret shifts in the metaphysical understanding of species and (natural) classification (Richards 2010; Winsor 2003; Wilkins 2009). Although contemporary debates in the philosophy of taxonomy have moved on, much discussion continues to focus on conceptual and metaphysical issues surrounding the nature of species and the principles of classification. Discussions centring on whether species are individuals, classes, or kinds have sprung up as predictably as perennials. Raucous debates have arisen even with the aim of accommodating the diversity of views: is monism, pluralism, or eliminativism about the species category the best position to take? In addition to these, our disciplines continue to interrogate what is the nature of these different approaches to classification: are they representational or inferential roles of different approaches to classification (evolutionary taxonomy, phenetics, phylogenetic systematics)? While there is still much to learn from these discussions—in which we both actively participate—our aim with this topical collection has been to seek different entrypoints and address underexposed themes in the history and philosophy of taxonomy. We believe that approaching taxonomy as an information science prompts new questions and can open up new philosophical vistas worth exploring. A twenty-first century information science turn in the history and philosophy of taxonomy is already underway. In scientific practice and in daily life it is hard to escape the imaginaries of Big Data and the constant threats of being ‘flooded with data’. In the life sciences, these developments are often associated with the socalled bioinformatics crisis that can hopefully be contained by a new, interdisciplinary breed of bioinformaticians. These new concepts, narratives, and developments surrounding the centrality of data and information systems in the biological and biomedical sciences have raised important philosophical questions about their challenges and implications. But historical perspectives are just as necessary to judge what makes our information age different from those that preceded us. Indeed, as the British zoologist Charles Godfray has often pointed out, the piles of data that are being generated in contemporary systematic biology have led to a second bioinformatics crisis, the first being the one that confronted Linnaeus in the mid-18th century (Godfray 2007). Although our aim is to clear a path for new discussions of taxonomy from an information science-informed point of view, we continue where others in the history, philosophy, and sociology of science have already trod. We believe that an appreciation of biological taxonomy as an information science raises many questions about the philosophical, theoretical, material, and practical aspects of the use and revision of biological nomenclatures in different local and global communities of scientists and citizen scientists. In particular, conceiving of taxonomy as an information science directs attention to the temporalities of managing an accumulating data about classified entities that are themselves subject to revision, to the means by which revision is accomplished, and to the semantic, material, and collaborative contexts that mediate the execution of revisions. (shrink)

Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal (...) of attitudes, from “undesirable” to “desirable”, that eventually led into the foundations of modern science. One of the earliest, most ingenious and most interesting personalities involved was Eriugena, a theologian at the Court of Charles the Bald in the 9th century. Though understanding what we call nature is only one of the several aspects of his theological work, his line of thought implies a turn into a pro-scientific direction: the natural order is to be understood in abstract terms of ‘primordial causes’; understanding nature is considered to be the will of God; man encompasses the whole of creation in a physical as well as a mental sense. Basically similar ideas on the reconciliation of scientific rationality and monotheistic religions of revelation were conceived, independently and nearly simultaneously, by the Arab philosopher al-Kindi in Bagdad. Eriugena was more outspoken in his claim that reason is superior to authority. This claim is implicit in the thought of Nicholas of Cusa with his emphasis on human mental creativity as the image of God’s creativity; and it is the keynote of Galileo’s ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’ some 800 years later, the manifesto expressing basic attitudes of modern science. -/- This article in English is based on the monography (in German): A. Gierer “Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues - Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken”, Acta Historica Leopoldina 29 (1999), Barth Verlag in MVH Verlage Heidelberg, ISBN: 3-335-00652-6, which is also available online on this server. -/- -/- . (shrink)

Many natural scientists of the past and the present have imagined that they pursued their activity according to its own inherent rules in a realm distinctly separate from the business world, or at least in a realm where business tended to interfere with science from time to time, but was not ultimately an essential component, ‘because one thought that in science one possessed and loved something unselfish, harmless, self-sufficient, and truly innocent, in which man’s evil impulses had no part whatever’, (...) as Nietzsche once commented (Nietzsche 1974, p.106). With the extreme technological changes that have occurred in the last fifty years and the orchestrated management changes in the culture of science, it is now obvious that science is intimately tied to private businesses, industry, and society. Within this structure, the scientist has generally unknowingly defined him or herself in accordance with obsolete myths that have tended to handicap the scientist’s freedom of action, by obscuring the modern political and economic realities of science, and neglecting the inherent responsibilities of the scientist as a critical actor in the theater of human civilization. The increasing incorporation of academic science and private industry, and the governmentally supervised nature of modem academic science, has corrupted the traditional freedom and character of the scientist. In order to navigate oneself and find meaning within the new structure of science, scientists now desperately need a fresh ethos that at once considers modern realities of the politics and management of science, societal urgencies, and global politics, as well as establishing a moral perspective where modern scientists can be actors with their own intentionality and responsibility. -/- In the culture of science, myths and ideologies are of critical importance for the formation of the scientist, because these ideas determine how scientists conceive of themselves as professionals and free individuals. More importantly, these ideas determine how scientists approach scientific activity, which exists in a social context, and which ultimately has the potential to dramatically change the characteristics of civilization as it is played out on the political and technological battlefield. It is a commonly held notion in the community of the natural sciences that science now is essentially what it was when it was described by the Nobel laureates of the past; those sweet, cushioning, pleasant words consecrating the ‘temple of science’; the picture of a humble, rational, and noble Einstein is imprinted into our memories. By dismantling these obsolete myths of the scientist and surveying contemporary trends in science, this article will explore a more realistic perspective toward the field of science. The goal of this investigation is to determine the modern reality and ultimate meaning of ‘science as a vocation’ (Shorett 2003). Finally, moral philosophy will be demonstrated to be a critical clement in the self-assertion of the scientist and the elucidation of the meaning of science as a vocation in a global technological society. -/- From the Postscript, 2015: This article took final form when I was a postdoctoral researcher in Canada. Reading it now, I recognize the article still has value, despite its many flaws, hyperboles, and idealism. Many issues in the article have become increasingly relevant, such as the need to make constant trade-offs in courses of action and continuously search for more morally significant research paths. Perhaps the greatest goals in writing the article were to increase intellectual control over the path of my scientific research, to escape the increasing conformity and constraints on modern life, to participate in an open society, to formulate my personal goals and goal hierarchies, to dispel any delusions of overconfidence, and to not be corrupted. (shrink)

In this chapter, we argue that in order to understand the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary dialectics in sustainability science, it is useful to see sustainability science as a kind of management science, and then to highlight the hard-soft distinction in systems thinking. First, we argue that the commonly made natural-social science dichotomy is relatively unimportant and unhelpful. We then outline the differences between soft and hard systems thinking as a more relevant and helpful distinction, mainly as a difference between perspectives in (...) systemic modeling toward models. We also illustrate that the distinction is methodologically useful to advance sustainability science by enabling us (i) to suggest novel ways of using existing theoretical, experimental, and computational resources of the sciences for renewable resource management, and (ii) to disentangle disciplinary disagreements in climate science. (shrink)

The Covid-19 virus has affected everyone, and some are still getting better. The changes the pandemic brought about pushed us to use conventional survival methods. It is necessary for both teachers and students to quickly switch to an entirely new method to carry on with their school program This study aims to ascertain the elementary teachers' attitude toward changes and how it mediates the job-related issues that the pandemic brought about, particularly in the mode of delivery of learning during these (...) times, as well as its impact on the coping response that the teachers use to cope up with these changes. To assess the current state of the variable, the research employs a descriptive survey methodology. The study revealed that teacher respondents’ profiles were significantly influenced by the coping response; the data presented that age is the only variable with a significant relationship with the coping response, while between job-related issues and coping strategies, the data show that the distribution/retrieval of modules influences all facets of coping strategy. It is also found that the respondent’s job-related issues significantly correlate with all the attitudes toward change. Most evidently the effect of the authentic assessment and students’ engagement with the teacher’s resistance to these changes in distance learning. This study recommends that school conduct seminars promoting work-life balance as well as administrators assisting teachers when it comes to the use of technology. (shrink)

This paper is based on a criterion recently proposed by Richard Fumerton for demarcating philosophy of mind and cognitive science. I suggest to extend it to a demarcation criterion between philosophy and science in general, and put it in the context of the historical changes of boundaries between the philosophical and the scientifi c fi eld. I point to a number of philosophical claims and approaches that have been made utterly obsolete by the advancement of science, and conjecture that a (...) similar thing may happen in the future with today’s philosophy of mind: under the supposition that cognitive science manages to progress very successfully in a certain direction, our concepts for mental states could change, and the type of philosophical interest we put in them, thus reshaping thewhole debate on the subject. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and edited to bring them up to date (2017). The copyright page has the date of the edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and (...) manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., of human ecology and psychology to actually give them some control over themselves), maybe civilization would have a chance. As things are however the leaders of society have no more grasp of things than their constituents and so collapse into anarchy is inevitable. The first group of articles attempts to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of the theoretical delusions that are universal. In the next group, I show how these insights apply by reviewing some books in philosophy and psychology. Next I review books on science and religion and finally provide reviews and articles showing how understanding of both science and philosophy gives insight into the tragic delusions destroying the world. People believe that society can be saved by science, religion and politics, so I provide some suggestions as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. It is critical to understand why we behave as we do and so the first section presents articles that try to describe (not explain as Wittgenstein insisted) behavior. I start with a brief review of the logical structure of rationality, which provides some heuristics for the description of language (mind, rationality, personality) and gives some suggestions as to how this relates to the evolution of social behavior. This centers around the two writers I have found the most important in this regard, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two ii systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. Since philosophical problems are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put it, due to the lack of perspicuity of language, they run throughout human discourse and behavior, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell on Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is the source of the universal blindness described by Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides’ Standard Social Science Model. The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case, there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the ‘thoughts’ of System 1) must lead directly to actions. iii It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves as an heuristic for, how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology, but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it, includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. Thus, all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, (or that that they differ only in degree from drug and sex addicts in being motivated by stimulation of their frontal cortices by the delivery of dopamine (and over 100 other chemicals) via the ventral tegmentum and the nucleus accumbens), but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth and their descendant’s futures. Many of the articles describe the ‘digital delusions’, which confuse the language games of System 2 with the automatisms of System 1, and so cannot distinguish biological machines (i.e., people) from other kinds of machines (i.e., computers). The ‘reductionist’ claim is that one can ‘explain’ behavior at a ‘lower’ level, but what actually happens is that one does not explain human behavior but a ‘stand in’ for it. Hence the title of Searle’s classic review of Dennett’s book (“Consciousness Explained”)— “Consciousness Explained Away”. In most contexts ‘reduction’ of higher level emergent behavior to brain functions, biochemistry, or physics is incoherent. Also for ‘reduction’ of chemistry or physics, the path is blocked by chaos and uncertainty. Anything can be ‘represented’ by equations, but when they ‘represent’ higher order behavior, it is not clear (and cannot be made clear) what the ‘results’ mean. Reductionist metaphysics is a joke, but most scientists and philosophers lack the appropriate sense of humor. Other digital delusions are that we will be saved from the pure evil (selfishness) of System 1 by computers/AI/robotics/ nanotech/genetic engineering created by System 2. The No Free Lunch principal tells us there will be serious and possibly fatal consequences. The adventurous may regard this principle as a higher order emergent expression of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Hi-tech enthusiasts hugely underestimate the problems iv resulting from unrestrained motherhood, and of course it is neither profitable nor politically correct (and now with third world supremacism dominant, not even possible) to be honest about it. The last section describes various versions of the ‘altruism delusion’ that we are selected for cooperation, and that the euphonious ideals of Democracy, Diversity and Equality will lead us into utopia, if we just manage things correctly (the possibility of politics). Again, the No Free Lunch Principle ought to warn us it cannot be true, and we see throughout history and all over the contemporary world, that without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation that embraces it. In addition, the monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we cooperate in selling our descendant’s heritage for temporary comforts, greatly exacerbating the problems. I describe versions of this delusion (i.e., that we are basically ‘friendly’ if just given a chance) as it appears in some recent books on sociology/biology/economics. I end with an essay on the great tragedy playing out in America and the world, which can be seen as a direct result of our evolved psychology manifested as the inexorable machinations of System 1. Our psychology, eminently adaptive and eugenic on the plains of Africa from ca. 6 million years ago, when we split from chimpanzees, to ca. 50,000 years ago, when many of our ancestors left Africa (i.e., in the EEA or Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation), is now maladaptive and dysgenic and the source of our Suicidal Utopian Delusions. So, like all discussions of behavior (philosophy, psychology, sociology, biology, anthropology, politics, law, literature, history, economics, soccer strategies, business meetings, etc.), this book is about evolutionary strategies, selfish genes and inclusive fitness (kin selection). Many accept the delusion that we are selected for cooperation with people generally (group selection or altruism) and not just our immediate relatives (kin selection or inclusive fitness), so I spend some time in the essays of the last section demolishing this fantasy. One thing rarely mentioned by the group selectionists is the fact that, even were ‘group selection’ possible, selfishness is at least as likely (probably far more likely in most contexts) to be group selected for as altruism. Just try to find examples of true altruism in nature –the fact that we can’t (which we know is not possible if we understand evolution) tells us that its apparent presence in humans is an artefact of modern life concealing the facts, and that it can no more be selected for than the tendency to suicide (which in fact it is). One does not really need science or mathematics to grasp this – it is crushingly obvious that an v organism cannot be selected for behavior that decreases the frequency of its own genes in the next generation. One might also benefit from considering a phenomenon never (in my experience) mentioned by group selectionists -- cancer. No group has as much in common as the (originally) genetically identical cells in our own bodies-a 100 trillion cell clone-- but we are all born with thousands and perhaps millions of cells that have already taken the first step on the path to cancer and generate millions to billions of cancer cells in our life. If we did not die of other things first, we (and perhaps all multicellular organisms) would all die of cancer. Only a massive and hugely complex mechanism built into our genome that represses or derepresses trillions of genes in trillions of cells, and kills and creates billions of cells a second, keeps the majority of us alive long enough to reproduce. One might take this to imply that a just, democratic and enduring society for any kind of entity on any planet in any universe is only a dream, and that no being or power could make it otherwise. It is not only ‘the laws’ of physics that are universal and inescapable, or perhaps we should say that inclusive fitness is a law of physics. The great mystic Osho said that the separation of God and Heaven from Earth and Humankind was the most evil idea that ever entered the Human mind. In the 20th century an even more evil notion arose—that humans are born with rights, rather than having to earn privileges. Thus, every day the population increases by 200,000, who must be provided with resources to grow and space to live, and who soon produce another 200,000 etc. And one almost never hears it noted that what they receive must be taken from those already alive. Their lives diminish those already here in both major obvious and countless subtle ways. Every new baby destroys the earth from the moment of conception. There cannot be human rights without human wrongs. It cannot be more obvious, but one will never see the streets full of protesters against motherhood. America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. The earth loses about 2% of it’s topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of it’s food growing capacity will be gone. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America, this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a vi nightmare of crime and poverty. China will continue to overwhelm America and the world, as long as it maintains the dictatorship which limits selfishness. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently, social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. The popular notions supported by the Democratic Party and Third World Supremacists are that Democracy, Diversity, Equality and Social Justice will produce a Utopia in America and the world, but it is clear as crystal that they unavoidably foster selfishness and divisiveness and are producing collapse. Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”. The most basic facts, almost never mentioned, are that there are not enough resources in America or the world to lift a significant percentage of the poor out of poverty and keep them there. Even the attempt to do this is already bankrupting America and destroying the world. The earth’s capacity to produce food decreases daily, as does our genetic quality. And now, as always, by far the greatest enemy of the poor is other poor and not the rich. -/- My writings are available as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C -/- . (shrink)

The INBIOSA project brings together a group of experts across many disciplines who believe that science requires a revolutionary transformative step in order to address many of the vexing challenges presented by the world. It is INBIOSA’s purpose to enable the focused collaboration of an interdisciplinary community of original thinkers. This paper sets out the case for support for this effort. The focus of the transformative research program proposal is biology-centric. We admit that biology to date has been more fact-oriented (...) and less theoretical than physics. However, the key leverageable idea is that careful extension of the science of living systems can be more effectively applied to some of our most vexing modern problems than the prevailing scheme, derived from abstractions in physics. While these have some universal application and demonstrate computational advantages, they are not theoretically mandated for the living. A new set of mathematical abstractions derived from biology can now be similarly extended. This is made possible by leveraging new formal tools to understand abstraction and enable computability. [The latter has a much expanded meaning in our context from the one known and used in computer science and biology today, that is "by rote algorithmic means", since it is not known if a living system is computable in this sense (Mossio et al., 2009).] Two major challenges constitute the effort. The first challenge is to design an original general system of abstractions within the biological domain. The initial issue is descriptive leading to the explanatory. There has not yet been a serious formal examination of the abstractions of the biological domain. What is used today is an amalgam; much is inherited from physics (via the bridging abstractions of chemistry) and there are many new abstractions from advances in mathematics (incentivized by the need for more capable computational analyses). Interspersed are abstractions, concepts and underlying assumptions “native” to biology and distinct from the mechanical language of physics and computation as we know them. A pressing agenda should be to single out the most concrete and at the same time the most fundamental process-units in biology and to recruit them into the descriptive domain. Therefore, the first challenge is to build a coherent formal system of abstractions and operations that is truly native to living systems. Nothing will be thrown away, but many common methods will be philosophically recast, just as in physics relativity subsumed and reinterpreted Newtonian mechanics. -/- This step is required because we need a comprehensible, formal system to apply in many domains. Emphasis should be placed on the distinction between multi-perspective analysis and synthesis and on what could be the basic terms or tools needed. The second challenge is relatively simple: the actual application of this set of biology-centric ways and means to cross-disciplinary problems. In its early stages, this will seem to be a “new science”. This White Paper sets out the case of continuing support of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for transformative research in biology and information processing centered on paradigm changes in the epistemological, ontological, mathematical and computational bases of the science of living systems. Today, curiously, living systems cannot be said to be anything more than dissipative structures organized internally by genetic information. There is not anything substantially different from abiotic systems other than the empirical nature of their robustness. We believe that there are other new and unique properties and patterns comprehensible at this bio-logical level. The report lays out a fundamental set of approaches to articulate these properties and patterns, and is composed as follows. -/- Sections 1 through 4 (preamble, introduction, motivation and major biomathematical problems) are incipient. Section 5 describes the issues affecting Integral Biomathics and Section 6 -- the aspects of the Grand Challenge we face with this project. Section 7 contemplates the effort to formalize a General Theory of Living Systems (GTLS) from what we have today. The goal is to have a formal system, equivalent to that which exists in the physics community. Here we define how to perceive the role of time in biology. Section 8 describes the initial efforts to apply this general theory of living systems in many domains, with special emphasis on crossdisciplinary problems and multiple domains spanning both “hard” and “soft” sciences. The expected result is a coherent collection of integrated mathematical techniques. Section 9 discusses the first two test cases, project proposals, of our approach. They are designed to demonstrate the ability of our approach to address “wicked problems” which span across physics, chemistry, biology, societies and societal dynamics. The solutions require integrated measurable results at multiple levels known as “grand challenges” to existing methods. Finally, Section 10 adheres to an appeal for action, advocating the necessity for further long-term support of the INBIOSA program. -/- The report is concluded with preliminary non-exclusive list of challenging research themes to address, as well as required administrative actions. The efforts described in the ten sections of this White Paper will proceed concurrently. Collectively, they describe a program that can be managed and measured as it progresses. (shrink)

Sustainable Finance is the procedure of taking Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) factors into consideration when making financial investment decisions (Zheng et al., 2021). Changing climate, moderation, adaptation, and the larger environment are all causes of environmental issues. Conservation of biodiversity, pollution avoidance, and circular economics are all part of it. Labor relations, investments in human capital and communities, and human rights challenges are examples of social factors. The governance of governmental and non - governmental businesses, including management structures, employee (...) relations, and executive payment, is critical in ensuring that social and environmental factors . (shrink)

The American philosopher of science Kuhn, in the 1980s, studied the scientific revolution in depth from a unique perspective of the philosophy of language, seeing it as a change in the language of science, especially in scientific vocabularies or dictionaries. In this process of transformation, metaphors, analogies, and models play the role of midwives in the birth of new concepts. Based on the analysis of Kuhn's relevant insights, this paper identifies the nature and use of metaphor, analogy and model (...) as well as the similarities and differences among them, arguing that analogy and model are special cases of metaphor and can be fully encompassed within the category of metaphor. Finally, the ontological, epistemological, methodological, linguistic, and linguistic philosophical perspectives are explored as to why metaphor is indispensable in scientific cognition and scientific revolution. (shrink)

Trust has a great potential for furthering our understanding of organizational change and learning. This potential however remains largely untapped. It is argued that two reasons as for why this potential remains unrealized are: (i) A narrow conceptualization of change as implementation and (ii) an emphasis on direct and aggregated effects of individual trust to the exclusion of other effects. It is further suggested that our understanding of the effects of trust on organizational change, should benefit from (...) including effects of trust on the formulation stage. It should also benefit from exploring the structuring effects of trust in organizations. Throughout this chapter, ways to extend current research on trust in organizations are suggested. The chapter also provides examples of relevant contributions where available. In order to capture organizational effects of trust, it is suggested that trust should be studied over longer time intervals, and include several referents of trust, spanning both horizontal and vertical relationships in the organization. (shrink)

Climate change has become one of the most pressing problems that can threaten the existence and development of humans around the globe. Almost all climate scientists have agreed that climate change is happening and is caused mainly by greenhouse gas emissions induced by anthropogenic activities. However, some groups still deny this fact or do not believe that climate change results from human activities. This essay discusses the causes, significance, and skeptical arguments of climate change denialism, as (...) well as the roles of scientists and science communication in addressing the issues. Through this essay, we call for the active participation of scientists in science communication activities with the public, the opening of new science communication sectors specified for climate change, and more attention to social sciences and humanities in addressing climate change issues. (shrink)

In the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, we created and implemented from November 2020 to February 2021 a monthly educational pilot program of philosophical management of stress based on Science, Humanism and Epicurean Pragmatism, which was offered to employees of 26 municipalities in the Prefecture of Attica, Greece. The program named “Philosophical Distress Management Operation System” (Philo.Di.M.O.S.) is novel and unique in its kind, as it combines a certain Greek philosophical tradition (Epicurean) that concurs with modern scientific knowledge. The (...) program was designed to be implemented in a period of crisis; therefore, it used a fast-paced, easy to learn and practice philosophical approach to stress management, based on cognitive psychotherapy. The philosophical approach to stress management has the advantage that it can be offered to most people, regardless of age and educational level. The pilot program was effective in achieving its objectives, shown by statistical comparisons of the trainees’ responses to anonymous questionnaires before and after the month-long training. The successful Philo.Di.M.O.S. program, thus, based on a solid scientific and philosophical basis, offers a paradigm of stress management during crises and could be useful in Greece and internationally. (shrink)

Aim: The researcher studied how the teachers at Guangdong Business and Technology University manage change based on the present situation in the country. -/- Methodology: This study utilized the descriptive – comparative research design with 275 teachers as respondents. Statistical test of data includes frequency count and percentage, weighted mean, t- test and/or ANOVA. -/- Results: Teacher respondents are very much ready to manage the change for the teaching and learning based on teaching-related factors which ranked first, as (...) well as on teaching-related factors which ranked second, and on technology-related factors which ranked third. It is noticeable that technology-related factor was the least assessed factors as regards their readiness to manage the change. Generally, an over-all mean value of 3.52 reveals that teachers are very much ready to manage the change for the teaching and learning. Based on the result, teacher respondents strongly agree on their level of motivation on their teaching and learning performance. The result reveals that teachers are highly motivated in performing their job as teachers based on their own assessment. -/- Conclusion: Majority of the respondents are female teachers in middle age aiming to earn their doctoral degree and have been in the university for not more than five years. Teachers believed that they are very much ready to manage the change for the teaching and learning. They also seem to be less ready in terms of accessing professional development opportunities that focus on continuous improvement of digital-age teaching skills. The use of variety of assessment strategies applying the technology and the implementation of alternative strategies in the classroom seems to be less managed by the teachers. They also have relatively the same assessment on how ready they are to manage the change in the teaching and learning regardless of their sex, age, educational level they have attained, and the length of stay in the institution. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to review Friedrich Nietzsche's "The Gay Science" in English Translation. It compares and contrasts the translations by Thomas Common, Walter Kaufmann, Josefine Nauckhoff, and R. Kevin Hill. First, I argue in favor of translating the work's title "Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft" as "The Gay Science" or perhaps more precisely as "The Gay Knowledge". Nietzsche who is likely the greatest stylist in the German language wrote with philological precision and succinctness. This exactitude and awareness of the (...) shaping influence of linguistic means on the contents expressed therefore needs to be reflected throughout in any kind of rendition of Nietzsche's artful texts and the evaluation and assessment thereof. (shrink)

Press release. -/- The ebook entitled, Einstein’s Revolution: A Study of Theory-Unification, gives students of physics and philosophy, and general readers, an epistemological insight into the genesis of Einstein’s special relativity and its further unification with other theories, that ended well by the construction of general relativity. The book was developed by Rinat Nugayev who graduated from Kazan State University relativity department and got his M.Sci at Moscow State University department of philosophy of science and Ph.D at Moscow Institute of (...) Philosophy, Russian Academy of Science. He has forty years of philosophy of science and relativistic astrophysics teaching and research experience evincing in more than 200 papers in the scientific journals of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, USA, Great Britain, Germany, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Romania, France, Greece, Japan and some other countries, and 8 monographs. Revolutions in physics all embody theoretical unification. Hence the overall aim of the present book is to unfold Einstein’s unificationist modus operandi, the hallmarks of actual Einstein’s methodology of unification that engendered his 1905 special relativity, as well as his 1915 general relativity. To achieve the object, a lucid epistemic model is exposed aimed at an analysis of the reasons for mature theory change in science (chapter1). According to the model, scientific revolutions were not due to fanciful creation of new ideas ‘ex nihilo’, but rather to the long-term processes of the reconciliation, interpenetration and intertwinement of ‘old’ research traditions preceding such breaks .Accordingly, origins of scientific revolutions lie not in a clash of fundamental theories with facts, but of “old” mature research traditions with each other, leading to contradictions that can only be attenuated in a more general theoretical approach. In chapter 2 it is contended that Einstein’s ingenious approach to special relativity creation, substantially distinguishing him from Lorentz’s and Poincaré’s invaluable impacts, turns to be a milestone of maxwellian electrodynamics, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics reconciliation design. Special relativity turns out to be grounded on Einstein’s breakthrough 1905 light quantum hypothesis. Eventually the author amends the received view on the general relativity genesis by stressing that the main reason for Einstein’s victory over the rival programmes of Abraham and Nordström was a unificationist character of Einstein’s research programme (chapter 3). Rinat M. Nugayev, Ph.D, professor of Volga Region Academy, Kazan, the Republic of Tatarstan, the Russian Federation. (shrink)

Non-epistemic values pervade climate modelling, as is now well documented and widely discussed in the philosophy of climate science. Recently, Parker and Winsberg have drawn attention to what can be termed “epistemic inequality”: this is the risk that climate models might more accurately represent the future climates of the geographical regions prioritised by the values of the modellers. In this paper, we promote value management as a way of overcoming epistemic inequality. We argue that value management can be seriously considered (...) as soon as the value-free ideal and inductive risk arguments commonly used to frame the discussions of value influence in climate science are replaced by alternative social accounts of objectivity. We consider objectivity in Longino's sense as well as strong objectivity in Harding's sense to be relevant options here, because they offer concrete proposals that can guide scientific practice in evaluating and designing so-called multi-model ensembles and, in fine, improve their capacity to quantify and express uncertainty in climate projections. (shrink)