The aim of this workshop was to ask potential end-users of the citizens’ information pack on legal and ethical issues around ICTs the following questions: What is your knowledge of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and what actions have you taken in response to these regulations? What challenges are you experiencing in ensuring the protection and security of your project data, and compliance with the GDPR, within existing data management processes/systems? What information/tools/resources do you need to overcome these challenges? (...) What are the best formats/channels for receiving, sharing and acting upon this information? What is the most appropriate structure/format for the citizens’ information pack? (shrink)

Klein, Nguyen, & Zhang (in press) argued that the evolutionary transition from respondent to agent during the Cambrian Explosion would be a promising vantage point from which to gain insight into the evolution of organic sentience. They focused on how increased competition for resources -- in consequence of the proliferation of new, neurally sophisticated life-forms -- made awareness of the external world (in the service of agentic acts) an adaptive priority. The explanatory scope of Klein et al (in press) was (...) limited to consideration of the conscious apprehension of externally sourced content – i.e., content delivered from the sensory registration of objects occupying phenomenal space. But consciousness – at least for humans -- takes its objects from internal as well as external sources. In the present article we extend their analysis to the question of how internally sourced content (i.e., mental states) became the object of conscious apprehension. (shrink)

On Kratzer’s canonical account, modal expressions (like “might” and “must”) are represented semantically as quantifiers over possibilities. Such expressions are themselves neutral; they make a single contribution to determining the propositions expressed across a wide range of uses. What modulates the modality of the proposition expressed—as bouletic, epistemic, deontic, etc.—is context.2 This ain’t the canon for nothing. Its power lies in its ability to figure in a simple and highly unified explanation of a fairly wide range of language use. Recently, (...) though, the canon’s neat story has come under attack. The challenge cases involve the epistemic use of a modal sentence for which no single resolution of the contextual parameter appears capable of accommodating all our intuitions.3 According to these revisionaries, such cases show that the canonical story needs to be amended in some way that makes multiple bodies of information relevant to the assessment of such statements. Here I show that how the right canonical, flexibly contextualist account of modals can accommodate the full range of challenge cases. The key will be to extend Kratzer’s formal semantic account with an account of how context selects values for a modal’s.. (shrink)

What considerations place genuine constraints on an adequate semantics for normative and evaluative expressions? Linguists recognize facts about ordinary uses of such expressions and competent speakers’ judgments about which uses are appropriate. The contemporary literature reflects the widespread assumption that linguists don’t rely upon an additional source of data—competent speakers’ judgments about possible disagreement with hypothetical speech communities. We have several good reasons to think that such judgments are not probative for semantic theorizing. Therefore, we should accord these judgments no (...) probative value for the development of a semantics for our moral terms. Such judgments can no longer be presumed to put pressure on theories according to which our moral expressions share a semantics with ordinary, descriptive terms. Many rivals to pure, Descriptivist theories count among their advantages the ability to accommodate these judgments. If these judgments have no probative value, such theories lose an important source of support. (shrink)

Near-death experiences are a big challenge to the fields of science and philosophy; termed as hallucinatory by neurologists and “stuff of which fantasies are made off” by sceptics, there are some unique near-death experiences which defy these claims. Memories generated during these experiences are of specific interest as they are created without a body and can be recalled post the experience. Call it the mind, soul, psyche or consciousness, if deliberated as a form of quantum generated energy, a strong correlation (...) under a reductionist based perspective can be obtained. Life at a macroscopic level may not be similar to life at a quantum level, and has been proved in quantum physics through its spooky properties like quantum entanglement. Self-sustaining quantum generated energy through entanglement is the answer to all mystical realties and the answer lies in believing in its existence in and around us. It is this energy that brings in the awareness of one’s existence and which performs tasks beyond the imagination of the current self; an energy created at the creation of all that exists; a true supernatural force. This paper reviews a unique void near-death experience and hypothesizes quantum entanglement to be involved in the conception and storage of these energy-based memories in a quantum subatomic cloud which can be restated if returned back to the body or lost to the environment upon death. (shrink)

This study investigates strategies for hotels situated near Taal Volcano to lessen the impact of natural disasters, specifically volcanic eruptions. The hospitality industry in this region faces a unique threat due to the volcano's activity. This research addressed a critical gap by implementing effective preparedness and response plans. A qualitative multiple case study design was employed by the researchers. Seven (7) hotel executives from different hotels situated in Batangas who had directly encountered and navigated the impacts of natural disasters were (...) selected through the purposive sampling technique. The findings revealed several common natural hazards faced by hotels include Taal volcano eruptions, typhoons, earthquakes, ashfall, and sulfur dioxide emissions. Despite of this natural hazards, hotel executives were still capable of safeguarding their guests by implementing strategies including evacuation procedures, staff training, communication and coordination and preventive measures. In conclusion, to overcome the challenges identified in disaster preparedness, hotels in Batangas should consider several strategic actions. Hotels are recommended to take several crucial actions to enhance their preparedness and response capabilities to natural hazards. Adhering to safety regulations will help hotels maintain a high level of preparedness and minimize risks associated with natural hazards, ultimately safeguarding the well-being of guests and staff alike. (shrink)

ICTs, personal data, digital rights, the GDPR, data privacy, online security… these terms, and the concepts behind them, are increasingly common in our lives. Some of us may be familiar with them, but others are less aware of the growing role of ICTs and data in our lives - and the potential risks this creates. These risks are even more pronounced for vulnerable groups in society. People can be vulnerable in different, often overlapping, ways, which place them at a disadvantage (...) to the majority of citizens; Table 3 in this guide presents some of the many forms and causes of vulnerability. As a result, vulnerable people need greater support to navigate the digital world, and to ensure that they are able to exercise their rights. This guide explains where such support can be found, and also answers the following questions: - What are the main ethical and legal issues around ICTs for vulnerable citizens? - Who is vulnerable in Europe? - How do issues around ICTs affect vulnerable people in particular? This guide is a resource for members of vulnerable groups, people who work with vulnerable groups, and citizens more broadly. It is also useful for data controllers1 who collect data about vulnerable citizens. While focused on citizens in Europe, it may be of interest to people in other parts of the world. It forms part of the Citizens’ Information Pack produced by the PANELFIT project, and is available in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. You are welcome to translate this guide into other languages. Please send us a link to online versions in other languages, so that we can add them to the project website. (shrink)

This book is a compilation of the work published by the present authors in various scientific journals mainly focused on understanding how quantum physics could decipher the experiences observed and reported during near-death and end-of-life situations. The authors claim that various theories and models proposed herein (though not propounding to be a complete one) are just an attempt to understand few aspects associated with such experiences connected to the phenomenon of death. They investigate the possible role of the quantum phenomenon (...) in the occurrence of these events and call for a detailed scientific investigation to validate any hypotheses made. (shrink)

I hope that this wonderful book, written with a passionate and sympathetic intelligence, reaches a wide audience. It's not an easy read, for Janice Haaken deliberately spins a dense web of reference, pursuing paths across the contemporary psycho-political landscape. But her scholarship is marvellously diverse and well-directed, and her writing easily shifts between sad or playful fantasy, and insistently engaged political or empirical analysis.

In this article I want to alert investigators who are familiar only with our neuropsychological investigations of self-knowledge to our earlier work on model construction. A familiarity with this foundational research can help avert concerns and issues likely to arise if one is aware only of neuropsychological extensions of our work.

In his recent article, “God and Horrendous Suffering,” John W. Loftus argues that what he calls horrendous suffering is incompatible with traditional theism. The extent of horrendous suffering in the world, he says, “means that either God does not care enough to eliminate it, or God is not smart enough to eliminate it, or God is not powerful enough to eliminate it.” For Loftus, however, the problem is not simply evil, but horrendous suffering, a particularly acute form of (...) evil which renders theism completely untenable. Here I will argue in reply, first, that because horrendous suffering is itself a form of evil, it cannot be easily reconciled with naturalism, since naturalism actually precludes the existence of evil. Then I will argue that horrendous suffering is not only compatible with theism, but is best explained in the context of Christian theism in particular. Finally I will suggest that because God’s work of creation is not yet complete, we have good reason for maintaining hope even in the face of horrendous evils. (shrink)

In a recent set of papers (Klein & Loftus, in press; Klein, Nguyen, & Zhang, in press), my colleagues and I used the logic of adaptationism – the application of evolutionary principles to study the functional design of naturally selected systems (e.g., Klein, Cosmides, Tooby, & Chance, 2002) – to help make sense of the role natural selection played in the evolution of consciousness. To avoid well-known, seemingly intractable problems that accompany efforts to explain “how consciousness is possible in (...) a world that consists in physical objects and their relations” (the so-called “hard problem of consciousness”), we limited investigation to the question of “why natural selection favored consciousness?” In the present paper I try to make amends for this evasion by addressing some of the conceptual challenges posed by the hard problem. Drawing on insights from Klein et al.’s (in press) evolutionary excursion into the "why" of consciousness, I identify a potential alteration in the referential identity of “subject” and “object” when they are taken as properties of a mental state, and discuss how these changes might offer insight into the "how" question of consciousness. (shrink)

The study of remembering is both compelling and challenging, in part, because of the multiplicity and the complexity of influences on memory. Whatever their interests, memory researchers are always aware of the many different factors that can drive the processes they care about. A search for the phrase ‘influences on memory’ confirms this daunting and exhilarating array of influences, of many different kinds, operating at many different timescales, and presumably often interacting in ways that we can’t yet imagine, let alone (...) model. There are hormonal and neuromodulatory, genetic and pharmacological, developmental and age-related influences; there are influences of arousal, stress, gender, mood, emotion, sleep and personality; there are unconscious, schematic or semantic influences, and there are influences of context, situation, task and environment. There are many aspects of ‘media influence on memory’ (Loftus and Banaji, 1989; Strange and Garry, 2007), and, of course, there are both ‘social influences on memory’ (Echterhoff and Hirst, 2009) and ‘cultural influences on memory’ (Gutchess and Indeck, 2009). Notoriously, there are numerous ‘suggestive influences’ on memory (Loftus, 2003): influences of misinformation (Seifert, 2002; Wright and Loftus, 1998), or of ‘memory conformity’ (Gabbert et al., 2006) and ‘memory contagion’ (Roediger et al., 2002). People who know each other well, such as intimate couples, ‘may be well practised in yielding to each other’s influence and incorporating their partner’s information into their own memories of the past’ (French et al., 2008: 264). (shrink)

There can be no doubt that discrimination based on sex, race, ethnicity, religion or beliefs should not be tolerated in academia. Surprisingly, however, in recent years, policies of Diversity, Inclusion and Equity(DIE), officially introduced to counteract discrimination, have increasingly led to quite the opposite result: the exclusion of individuals who do not share a radical 'woke' ideology on identity politics (feminism, other gender activisms, critical race theory, etc.), and to the suppression of the academic freedom to discuss such dogmas. This (...) subversion of academia ― disguised Trojan-horse style as universal human rights advocacy ― is unacceptable because academia must be politically neutral and protect freedom of speech, a cornerstone of professional scholarly activity without which universities as we know them will slowly but surely suffocate. -/- Our purpose here is to put together some particularly illustrative cases of such repression in a single book, testifying to a ubiquitous trend within western culture, irreducible to a few isolated complaints. The essays contained here illustrate the abuse of power, censorship and witch-hunts at many universities and research centres in the name of DIE. -/- List of coauthors in alphabetical order: Dorian Abbot, Tomonori Agoh, Gerhard Amendt, Ivar Arpi, David Benatar, Peter Boghossian, Civitas Research Team, David Díaz Pardo de Vera, Pedro Domingos, Janice Fiamengo, Étienne Forest, Jorge Gibert Galassi, Norman Goldstuck, José L. González Quirós, Lawrence M. Krauss, Patrick LaBelle, Martín López Corredoira, Heather Mac Donald, Martin Malmgren, Erik. J. Olsson, Jordan Peterson, Constantin Polychronakos, Philip C. Salzman, Alessandro Strumia, Tom Todd, Andrei Yafaev. (shrink)

The role of competition in philosophy is not just a pedagogical concern, but also a feminist concern. Competitive philosophy in schools is intrinsically linked to Janice Moulton’s feminist critique of academic philosophy referred to as ‘The Adversary Method’. She argues that dialogue that emphasises adversarial methods of argumentation promote dominant notions of masculinity. Many philosophers and educators argue that this traditional ideal of masculinity and the adversarial mode of communicating are problematic for a variety of reasons. There has also (...) been a broad array of empirical research demonstrating gender differences in classroom dialogue, including girls feeling targeted by teachers and boys due to the culture established with competitive-type dialogues. There is a direct link between this research and the espousal of masculine Reason in education. More, this kind of Reason is one that is overemphasised in competitive dialogues, such as debates or competitive philosophy. There are three primary concerns for competitive philosophy. Firstly, that it disadvantages girls in particular by over-emphasising masculine attributes. Secondly, that it disadvantages all students, regardless of sex, by over-emphasising masculine attributes. And thirdly, that it undermines the values of the Philosophy for/with Children and the Community of Inquiry approach by, again, over-emphasising masculine attributes. Therefore, the concern for competition in philosophy is not just about pedagogy, it is about justice. (shrink)

Moral Clarity is one of those rare works which is trans-disciplinary. This review contextualises Neiman as a philosopher and theologian who performs her cultural work in domains as diverse as memory studies and discourses on the problem of empathy. The review critiques reductionist positions which see Neiman merely as an acolyte of Hannah Arendt.