The emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) and advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) offer an opportunity for computational social science research at scale. Building upon prior explorations of LLM agent design, our work introduces a simulated agent society where complex social relationships dynamically form and evolve over time. Agents are imbued with psychological drives and placed in a sandbox survival environment. We conduct an evaluation of the agent society through the lens of Thomas Hobbes's seminal Social Contract Theory (SCT). We (...) analyze whether, as the theory postulates, agents seek to escape a brutish "state of nature" by surrendering rights to an absolute sovereign in exchange for order and security. Our experiments unveil an alignment: Initially, agents engage in unrestrained conflict, mirroring Hobbes's depiction of the state of nature. However, as the simulation progresses, social contracts emerge, leading to the authorization of an absolute sovereign and the establishment of a peaceful commonwealth founded on mutual cooperation. This congruence between our LLM agent society's evolutionary trajectory and Hobbes's theoretical account indicates LLMs' capability to model intricate social dynamics and potentially replicate forces that shape human societies. By enabling such insights into group behavior and emergent societal phenomena, LLM-driven multi-agent simulations, while unable to simulate all the nuances of human behavior, may hold potential for advancing our understanding of social structures, group dynamics, and complex human systems. (shrink)

Allelopathy is an important biological phenomenon in exotic plant invasions. Studies about this phenomenon can help us to understand how plant interactions influence plant colony and ecosystem functioning. Both alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides, Ap) and crofton weed (Eupatorium adenophorum, Ea) are important destructive exotic species in China. Their allelopathic effects on native plant species are well documented. However, whether alligator weed and crofton weed antagonize each other regarding plant growth? There is largely unknown currently. Here we report that the leaf (...) extract from crofton weed possesses the negative effect on the growth of alligator weed. The results showed that root growth of alligator weed could be seriously inhibited by aqueous extract from crofton weed, exhibited as no root or a few roots if only. Consistent with the inhibition of root growth, we observed changes of physiological and biochemical parameters in treated alligator weed. The chlorophyll content, the root activity and the acetolactate synthase (ALS) activity were significantly decreased; while the rate of superoxide anion (O2-), the malondialdehyde (MDA) content, the peroxidase (POD) activity, and the shikimic acid content were remarkably increased in the treated alligator weed plants. These physiological analyzes suggested that the main allelopathic effects of crofton weed were mainly through affecting the integrity of cell membrane and the activity of the key enzymes. Further, these data also imply that one exotic species has the potential value to be used in bio-control of the other exotic species. (shrink)

COVID-19 often manifests with different outcomes in different patients, highlighting the complexity of the host-pathogen interactions involved in manifestations of the disease at the molecular and cellular levels. In this paper, we propose a set of postulates and a framework for systematically understanding complex molecular host-pathogen interaction networks. Specifically, we first propose four host-pathogen interaction (HPI) postulates as the basis for understanding molecular and cellular host-pathogen interactions and their relations to disease outcomes. These four postulates cover the evolutionary dispositions involved (...) in HPIs, the dynamic nature of HPI outcomes, roles that HPI components may occupy leading to such outcomes, and HPI checkpoints that are critical for specific disease outcomes. Based on these postulates, an HPI Postulate and Ontology (HPIPO) framework is proposed to apply interoperable ontologies to systematically model and represent various granular details and knowledge within the scope of the HPI postulates, in a way that will support AI-ready data standardization, sharing, integration, and analysis. As a demonstration, the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework were applied to study COVID-19 with the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO), leading to a novel approach to rational design of drug/vaccine cocktails aimed at interrupting processes occurring at critical host-coronavirus interaction checkpoints. Furthermore, the host-coronavirus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) relevant to COVID-19 were predicted and evaluated based on prior knowledge of curated PPIs and domain-domain interactions, and how such studies can be further explored with the HPI postulates and the HPIPO framework is discussed. (shrink)

In this essay I attempt to articulate a Confucian idea of gender equality from a perspective of yin-yang philosophy.

Engaging in dialogue with African philosophy, I respond to questions raised by Thaddeus Metz on characteristics of Confucian philosophy in comparison with African philosophy. First, in both Confucian philosophy and African philosophy, harmony/harmonization and self-realization coincide in the process of person-making. Second, Confucians accept that sometimes it is inevitable to sacrifice individual components in order to achieve or maintain harmony at large scales; the point is how to minimize such costs. Third, Confucians give family love a central place in the (...) good life before extend love to the rest of the world. Fourth, the Confucian philosophy of gender equality is based on appropriate division of labor consistent with its yin-yang philosophy, rather than equal split of power in the family. Fifth, in the Confucian view, hierarchy and harmony do not necessarily contradict each other, though hierarchy is not essential to all forms of harmony. The two can co-exist. (shrink)

The argument is that (1) the spiritual crisis that Zhu Xi discussed with Zhang Shi 張栻 (1133–1180) and the other “gentlemen of Hunan” from about 1167 to 1169, which was resolved by an understanding of what we might call the interpenetration of the mind’s stillness and activity (dong-jing 動靜) or equilibrium and harmony (zhong-he 中和), (2) led directly to his realization that Zhou Dunyi’s thought provided a cosmological basis for that resolution, and (3) this in turn led Zhu Xi to (...) understand (or construct) the meaning of taiji in terms of the polarity of yin and yang; i.e. the Supreme Polarity as the most fundamental ordering principle (li 理). (shrink)

This seventh volume of Collected Papers includes 70 papers comprising 974 pages on (theoretic and applied) neutrosophics, written between 2013-2021 by the author alone or in collaboration with the following 122 co-authors from 22 countries: Mohamed Abdel-Basset, Abdel-Nasser Hussian, C. Alexander, Mumtaz Ali, Yaman Akbulut, Amir Abdullah, Amira S. Ashour, Assia Bakali, Kousik Bhattacharya, Kainat Bibi, R. N. Boyd, Ümit Budak, Lulu Cai, Cenap Özel, Chang Su Kim, Victor Christianto, Chunlai Du, Chunxin Bo, Rituparna Chutia, Cu Nguyen Giap, Dao The (...) Son, Vinayak Devvrat, Arindam Dey, Partha Pratim Dey, Fahad Alsharari, Feng Yongfei, S. Ganesan, Shivam Ghildiyal, Bibhas C. Giri, Masooma Raza Hashmi, Ahmed Refaat Hawas, Hoang Viet Long, Le Hoang Son, Hongbo Wang, Hongnian Yu, Mihaiela Iliescu, Saeid Jafari, Temitope Gbolahan Jaiyeola, Naeem Jan, R. Jeevitha, Jun Ye, Anup Khan, Madad Khan, Salma Khan, Ilanthenral Kandasamy, W.B. Vasantha Kandasamy, Darjan Karabašević, Kifayat Ullah, Kishore Kumar P.K., Sujit Kumar De, Prasun Kumar Nayak, Malayalan Lathamaheswari, Luong Thi Hong Lan, Anam Luqman, Luu Quoc Dat, Tahir Mahmood, Hafsa M. Malik, Nivetha Martin, Mai Mohamed, Parimala Mani, Mingcong Deng, Mohammed A. Al Shumrani, Mohammad Hamidi, Mohamed Talea, Kalyan Mondal, Muhammad Akram, Muhammad Gulistan, Farshid Mofidnakhaei, Muhammad Shoaib, Muhammad Riaz, Karthika Muthusamy, Nabeela Ishfaq, Deivanayagampillai Nagarajan, Sumera Naz, Nguyen Dinh Hoa, Nguyen Tho Thong, Nguyen Xuan Thao, Noor ul Amin, Dragan Pamučar, Gabrijela Popović, S. Krishna Prabha, Surapati Pramanik, Priya R, Qiaoyan Li, Yaser Saber, Said Broumi, Saima Anis, Saleem Abdullah, Ganeshsree Selvachandran, Abdulkadir Sengür, Seyed Ahmad Edalatpanah, Shahbaz Ali, Shahzaib Ashraf, Shouzhen Zeng, Shio Gai Quek, Shuangwu Zhu, Shumaiza, Sidra Sayed, Sohail Iqbal, Songtao Shao, Sundas Shahzadi, Dragiša Stanujkić, Željko Stević, Udhayakumar Ramalingam, Zunaira Rashid, Hossein Rashmanlou, Rajkumar Verma, Luige Vlădăreanu, Victor Vlădăreanu, Desmond Jun Yi Tey, Selçuk Topal, Naveed Yaqoob, Yanhui Guo, Yee Fei Gan, Yingcang Ma, Young Bae Jun, Yuping Lai, Hafiz Abdul Wahab, Wei Yang, Xiaohong Zhang, Edmundas Kazimieras Zavadskas, Lemnaouar Zedam. (shrink)

This paper reports the first study in the literature that adopts a bibliometric approach to systematically explore the scholarship in the young and fast‐growing research field of experimental philosophy. Based on a corpus of 1,248 publications in experimental philosophy from the past two decades retrieved from the PhilPapers website, the study examined the publication trend, the influential experimental philosophers, the impactful works, the popular publication venues, and the major research themes in this subarea of philosophy. It found, first, an overall (...) growing trend in publications in experimental philosophy, encompassing four developmental stages. Second, it found that significant changes in topics of interest have taken place, with some gaining increasing attention, others seemingly going out of fashion, and still others remaining popular constantly. Third, the study identified lists of leading philosophers, frequently cited publications, and popular journals helpful for researchers and newcomers to get a quick start in learning about the field. (shrink)

Conclusion: Needle-free vaccination is a promising technology for the next generation of vaccines, but we found that intramuscular injection was still the most acceptable immunization route in this survey. One major reason might be that most people lack knowledge about needle-free vaccination. We should strengthen the publicity of needle-free vaccination technology, and thus improve the acceptance and coverage of vaccination in different populations.

Background: School meal programs are not only government initiatives but also community-driven efforts. Aiming to combat food insecurity among school-aged children effectively, these programs are executed in conjunction with food bank initiatives. Various community groups play a crucial role in the success of both food security initiatives. There is a need to improve community engagement to successfully link school meal programs with food banks to build program synergy, combating food insecurity through a two-sided approach. Aim: This study aims to examine (...) community engagement in school meals program by analyzing its purposeful focus on creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for different community groups, i.e., youths, women, and others. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that the school meals program’s purposeful focus on creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for women in the community was positively associated with community engagement, thereby supporting the linkage between the programs and food banks. In contrast, providing jobs and income-generating opportunities for youths and other community groups had an ambiguous association with community engagement in school meal programs. Conclusions: Findings underscore the importance of creating jobs and income-generating opportunities for women to improve community engagement in school meal programs. Formulating strategies that empower woman’s entrepreneurship may foster their involvement and engagement in school meal programs, promising to successfully link these programs with food bank initiatives among implementing countries. (shrink)

Can an agent deliberating about an action A hold a meaningful credence that she will do A? 'No', say some authors, for 'Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction' (DCOP). Others disagree, but we argue here that such disagreements are often terminological. We explain why DCOP holds in a Ramseyian operationalist model of credence, but show that it is trivial to extend this model so that DCOP fails. We then discuss a model due to Joyce, and show that Joyce's rejection of DCOP rests (...) on terminological choices about terms such as 'intention', 'prediction', and 'belief'. Once these choices are in view, they reveal underlying agreement between Joyce and the DCOP-favouring tradition that descends from Ramsey. Joyce's Evidential Autonomy Thesis (EAT) is effectively DCOP, in different terminological clothing. Both principles rest on the so-called 'transparency' of first-person present-tensed reflection on one's own mental states. (shrink)

There is a long-standing disagreement in the philosophy of probability and Bayesian decision theory about whether an agent can hold a meaningful credence about an upcoming action, while she deliberates about what to do. Can she believe that it is, say, 70% probable that she will do A, while she chooses whether to do A? No, say some philosophers, for Deliberation Crowds Out Prediction (DCOP), but others disagree. In this paper, we propose a valid core for DCOP, and identify terminological (...) causes for some of the apparent disputes. (shrink)

Background: The school meals program has multiple objectives of education, nutrition, and value transfer. To ensure achieving the goal, total quality management (TQM) is implemented in the school meals program. Supply chain issues pose significant challenges to TQM implementation in the program execution. Aim: This study aims to examine national and international capacities in supply chain management by analyzing the variety of food items delivered through the school meals program. Methods: The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework, combining the reasoning strengths of Mindsponge (...) Theory and inference advantages of Bayesian analysis, was employed on a dataset of 126 government representatives who manage large-scale school meal programs in 126 different countries. Results: Findings showed that the method of obtaining supplies, whether through in-kind donations from local, regional, national sources, or national food reserves and purchasing from neighboring or distant countries, had a significant positive association with the variety of food items included in school meals or snacks. Conversely, obtaining supplies in-kind from neighboring or distant countries had a significant negative association with the food variety. Additionally, purchasing supplies from local, regional, or national food reserves had an unclear association with the food variety. Conclusions: Findings underscore the importance of supporting the World Bank and World Food Programme’s recommendation to rely more on local resources and capacities. Enhancing supply chain management at the national level is crucial for developing a long-term and sustainable school meals program. (shrink)

The article summarizes the software tool on astrophysical analysis with multi-wavelength space telescope data. It recaps the evidence analysis conducted on the Kerr-Newman black hole (KNBH). It was written prior to the article Research on the Kerr-Newman Black Hole in M82 Confirms Black Hole and White Hole Juxtapose not soon after the experiment. The conducted analysis suggested Hawking radiation is caused by the movement of ergosurfaces of the BH and serves as the primal evidence for black hole and white hole (...) juxtapose. A later data exploration was conducted with the radiation trails in the multi-wavelength data. The evidences produced corroborates with Yale professor Priyamvada Natarajan's black hole seeds theory. It implies that the electromagnetic dynamic of fusion and fission temperature determines the pressure of surface tension on the macro particles, and the mass density of the BH is determined by the electromagnetic tension between the outer ergosurface and inner ergosurface. The ring singularity of the BH and the Penrose-Hawking singularity of the BH determine the spin and gravitational singularity of the BH. Inside the ergosurfaces, the BH singularities' backward inflow causes the vicinity's rate on feeding the BH. It makes the active galactic nuclei (AGN) a semi-closed system. The density pressure is released on threshold. During the mass exchange observed by energy momentum upon the AGN's open, the macroparticle composition of the BH changes with the galactic event. This causes the expansion rate of the galaxy and contraction rate of the BH. AGN types and their relative motions determine the expansion rate of the cosmic universe in a generalized quantitative thinking. The article concludes that BH spin is caused by the asymmetric motions of AGN in the BH system. A set of the nuclear resonance caused by BH and white hole (WH) oscillation is processed with the same set of data. (shrink)

This paper addresses the issue of finite versus countable additivity in Bayesian probability and decision theory -- in particular, Savage's theory of subjective expected utility and personal probability. I show that Savage's reason for not requiring countable additivity in his theory is inconclusive. The assessment leads to an analysis of various highly idealised assumptions commonly adopted in Bayesian theory, where I argue that a healthy dose of, what I call, conceptual realism is often helpful in understanding the interpretational value of (...) sophisticated mathematical structures employed in applied sciences like decision theory. In the last part, I introduce countable additivity into Savage's theory and explore some technical properties in relation to other axioms of the system. (shrink)

The notion of comparative probability defined in Bayesian subjectivist theory stems from an intuitive idea that, for a given pair of events, one event may be considered “more probable” than the other. Yet it is conceivable that there are cases where it is indeterminate as to which event is more probable, due to, e.g., lack of robust statistical information. We take that these cases involve indeterminate comparative probabilities. This paper provides a Savage-style decision-theoretic foundation for indeterminate comparative probabilities.

The article reviews on the technical attributes on current technologies deployed in outer space and those that are being developed and mass produced. The article refutes the Chinese state-controlled Xinhua News’ propaganda several years ago on objecting America’s deployment of nuclear technologies in outer space with rigorous scientific evidence. Furthermore, the article warns on the dangers of physical signals applied in outer space technologies that can threaten the solar system, especially the Mozi quantum satellite with photon beams. The article concludes (...) with the illicit practices by the Chinese state party with militant ambitions in the supposedly scientific institutions. It violates the spirit on the peaceful use of outer space, and goes against the 2222 (XXI) resolution adopted by the general assembly, including the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in outer space. (shrink)

The article presents the empirical confirmation to the black hole and white hole juxtapose theory. The author based the experiment on the multi- mission multi-spectral space telescope data conducted remotely with the NASA Data Challenge and Harvard- Smithsonian Micro-Observatory. Since the loss of the original manuscript, the author reformulated the mathematics during the research. The observation developed a resonance observation technique that observed the white hole to the moon’s direction with the sun. The data reduction of the white hole and (...) other observations provides an explanation for the undetected gravitons and some empirical physical features of the white hole. (shrink)

The research identified the key element on P. R. China’s incentives in modern history on techtransfer practices. With reviewing on the state funding surrogacy in the natural sciences, the author identified the key militant coercive contracting clauses in the document of the National Natural Science Foundation of China. With its combined workings with the statutory & martial laws, the analysis takes a com- parative culture approach that partially counteracts the work of the “United Front Working Group of the CPC”, which (...) constitutes as the major cyber espionage organization that manifests upon the communication & information technologies. The “United Front”’s work has substabtially undermined the premices of market economy and eroded the markets’ self-organizing & self-regulating functionalities. With heterogenous semantic networks taken into consideration, the psychosociological elements were taken into consideration even with the psychological data codings in the semantic networks of P. R. China. (shrink)

Dan Li (Đại học Diên An, Trung Quốc) -- Hiện nay, hầu hết người dân được khảo sát đều có chung mối quan ngại về việc bảo vệ môi trường [1]. Mặc dù đã có nhiều nghiên cứu tìm hiểu về các hành vi và tâm lý liên quan đến môi trường [2], nhưng hiểu biết đối với sự khác biệt giữa các thế hệ đối với mối quan tâm liên quan đến môi trường vẫn còn nhiều khoảng trống. Đặc (...) biệt là đối với các chủ doanh nghiệp tái chế rác thải nhựa, các hiểu biết này càng quan trọng hơn vì nó có thể ảnh hưởng đến xu hướng phát triển của ngành công nghiệp xử lý rác thải nhựa, một trong những vấn nạn cấp thiết toàn cầu. (shrink)

Contemporary globalization is largely shaped by the predominant position and strength of the United States, and the concept of globalization is cast upon the polity and social aspects of P.R. China after Reform and Opening. Globalization, though substantially varied in a modern scene, is not without historical and cultural roots. The future holds anew, whereas newly arisen pieces of knowledge and information shed new light on the past, the blood and violence of the political progress on the Chinese soil. This (...) paper digs into the interactive aspect of the Chinese civilization with Western Civilization, and an empirical understanding on the evolvement of the country / nation to the recent shaping, with implication of which might change the dynamic of the Asian area after the global power politics whereof after World War II. (shrink)

The article explains on the two-year experiment after the author’s finalization of dissertation. The thesis of the dissertation was hidden in the last chapter with analytical linguistics. It was done so with the fascist development of the Chinese Communist regime with neo- Nazi characteristics. Since numerous prior warnings on the political downshifts & coup d’état in China was willfully ignored by the university, the linguistic innovations in dissertation found a balance between multilateralism and outer space (security). The experiments were conducted (...) with a combination of physical unit analysis & thermonuclear dynamics analysis. It describes the experiment process in terms of gravitation as gravitational singularity and Bekenstein-Penrose singularity. Detailed research process is elaborated in the article concerning the sociopolitical interactions the research involved. (shrink)

This paper offers a fine analysis of different versions of the well known sure-thing principle. We show that Savage's formal formulation of the principle, i.e., his second postulate (P2), is strictly stronger than what is intended originally.

Few would deny that something ontologically depends on something else. Given that something depends on something, what depends on what? Huayan Buddhism 華嚴宗, a prominent Chinese Buddhist school, is known for its extensive thesis of interdependence, according to which everything depends on everything else. This intriguing thesis is entangled with seemingly paradoxical claims that everything is not only identified with everything else but also contained within it. Moreover, the radical thesis of interdependence entails that dependence is pervasive and symmetric. In (...) this paper, I first develop a contemporary interpretation of Huayan interdependence by employing the definitional account of essence and the essence-based account of dependence. Through these contemporary resources, I elucidate and unify the theses of interdependence, mutual identity, and mutual containment within Huayan Buddhism. I then propose a unique framework of ontological dependence that suggests varying degrees of ontological dependence, aimed at accommodating and explaining away our intuitions against pervasive and symmetric dependence. By contemporizing Huayan Buddhism, I explore its potential and facilitate engagement between contemporary metaphysics and Huayan Buddhism. (shrink)

Upon Brexit & Trade War, the research took a supply-side analysis in macroeconomic paradigm for the purpose and cause of the actions. In the geopolitical competitions on crude oil resources between the allied powers & the Russian hegemony, the latter of which has effective control over P. R. China’s multilateral behaviors, the external research induced that trade war, either by complete information in intelligence or an unintended result, was a supply chain attack in prohibiting the antisatellite weapon supplies in the (...) Northern regions of mainland China in relation to Russia. Although no substantive change to international relations, the Trade War’s prohibitive effect on the high frequency trading in the monetary domain of CNY was observed, which had been the source of economic bubbles in the import-export control regime with centralized banking. The paper argues that by realism in economy & military strategy, trade war was ineffective in deterring the covert operations of the People’s Liberation Army by their territorial strategies and raises questions in humanitarianism in conflict situations. Moreover, with gross privacy breaches by mass surveillance in domain politics, totalitarianism with coercions, and counterfeit of drone strikes, traditional methods of threat elimination are rendered less pragmatic apart from the adversaries’ cyber security breaches. With the scientific approach, I offer an ecological paradigm with historic analysis of the Chinese military’s conducts in terms economics. The territorial methods of the PLA are contextualized into the ecological paradigm in regionalism & public administration. Electronic combats of the Chinese regime with the Great Firewall and Denial-of-Service attacks not only contribute to the diminishing natural freedoms of the population, but also transgress the fundamental right to health along with non-traditional nuclear threats to P.R.C. itself. (shrink)

Traditional paradigm on marriage equality focused on a humanitarian appeal and was set as a path dependency model on marriage equality for the suppressed regions. However, such gender based focus has largely neglected the multilateral movements underlying the macro- political-economic structures that shaped law as a power political means. Consequentially, LGBTQI existence became marginalized from the public consciousness with structural realist state hierarchies that further undermines the fundamental freedoms of the LGBTQI popula- tion. This makes the question on LGBTQI equal (...) marriage from a simple humanitarian value based discourse to a macro-political-economy question. The article adopts the Maslow’s hier- archy of needs as the analytical framework on the developing country as the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in relation to multilateralism and global economy on the necessity to legalize LGBTQI marriage. (shrink)

Introduction: How enterprises should practice digitalization transformation to effectively improve green innovation performance is related to the sustainable development of enterprises and the economy, which is an important issue that needs to be clarified. -/- Methods: This research uses the perspective of production and operation to deconstruct the digitalization of industrial listed enterprises from 2016 to 2020 into six features. A variety of machine learning methods are used, including DBSCAN, CART and other algorithms, to specifically explore the complex impact of (...) enterprise digitalization feature configuration on green innovation performance. -/- Conclusions: (1) The more advanced digitalization transformation the enterprises have, the more possibly the high green innovation performance can be achieved. (2) Digitalization innovation is the digitalization element with the strongest influence ability on green innovation performance. (3) As the advancement of digitalization transformation, enterprises should also focus on digitalization innovation input and digitalization operation output, otherwise they should pay attention to digitalization management and digitalization operation output. -/- Discussion: The conclusions of this research will help enterprises understand their digitalization competitiveness and how to practice digitalization transformation to enhance green innovation performance, and also help the government to formulate policies to promote the development of green innovation in the digital economy era. (shrink)

The article analyzes the legislative issues on equal marriage in P. R. China. It adopts a path dependency analysis on the liberal institutional order’s effects to the regime’s structural discrimination on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population. The research adopted a duo-lingual paradigm on Christianity with intercultural and transnational interpretations, and the research found the mis-adaption of language in the Chinese text of the United Nations charter is the key source to the suppression of the LGBT population in (...) mainland China. Furthermore, theological development for sexually diverse interpretations of the Bible is essential to mitigate the stigmatization of the LGBT population on a comparative constitutional review. (shrink)

I argue that "quality of life" can be understood in three main ways: as purchasing power, together with social and political goods; as the subjective state of mind: happiness; happiness as related to the meaningfulness of one's profession or cause.

This study investigates the dynamic relationship between knowledge management systems, particularly emphasizing knowledge acquisition and dissemination, and their impact on academic staff's teaching motivation. By employing the Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF), data from 676 academic staff at higher education institutions in Vietnam was analyzed, revealing a complex interplay of factors. Notably, positive associations were found between knowledge acquisition, knowledge dissemination, and teaching motivation. However, the interaction effect of knowledge acquisition and knowledge dissemination appeared to be negatively associated with teaching motivation. (...) This suggests the possible existence of a resource curse of knowledge in improving staff’s teaching motivation. It is recommended that the knowledge systems are refined to reduce complexity and that staff are trained with better knowledge processing methods for reducing resource curse risks. (shrink)

感謝《鵝湖月刊》給我機會討論拙作《比較的時代 ——中西視野中的儒家哲學前沿問題》（以下簡稱《比較的時代》），也很感謝李明書、李健君、張麗麗三位年輕有為的學者認真討論我在書中提出的一些問題。 三位學者都認識到這裏討論的「比較哲學」是通過比較來研究哲學，而不僅僅是比較已經存在的相同和不同的哲學思想。 在我看來， 單純地比較不同的哲學思想基本上是哲學史的工作。 而通過運用比較的方法做哲學則是哲學本身的工作，是建構性的原創性的工作。 說我們的時代是一個比較的時代，是說我們處於一個以比較為特徵來研究和建構哲學思想的時代。 通過比較來做哲學，就是要通過研究不同的哲學流派和不同的哲學思想，來進而建構新的哲學思想，以回答時代向我們提出的問題。在這個方面，我個人的看法是，今天的儒家哲學研究已經進入了一個不可迴避、不可逆轉的比較 的時代。 這是一件大好事。 這樣的研究使我們有更廣闊的視野，使我們有更多、更豐富的思想資源，也使我們更可能有效地回答時代提出的問題。 這裡我分別對三位學者提出的問題做出回應。.

Der Autor hat sich die Aufgabe gestellt, Husserls Phänomemologie der Zeit systematisch zu interpretieren und das Differenzieren und Identifizieren zu problematisieren. Er untersucht Husserls Zeitphänomenologie mit rein phänomenologischem Blick, damit folgende Fragen beantwortet werden können: Worin liegt die Bedeutung von Husserls Zeitforschung? Beschränken sich seine Zeitgedanken noch auf die Denkweise der Metaphysik, wie Natorp und Heidegger behaupten. Wenn ja, worin verkörpert sich die metaphysische Denkweise und inwiefern bewegen sie sich im Rahmen der Tradition? Diese Untersuchung beginnt damit, Husserls Zeitphänomenologie systematisch (...) zu rekonstruieren, weil sich Husserls Gedanken und Forschungen zur Zeit uber zahlreiche Manuskripte und Werke verteilen. Nur anhand einer umfassenden, systematischen Rekonstruktion der Zeittheorie Husserls können die obigen Fragen angemessen beantwortet werden. Der Autor geht dann auf die Differenz- und Identitätsprobleme in Husserls Zeitphänomenologie ein. Er versucht Aporien, wie den unendlichen Regress, zu analysieren und zu beantworten. (shrink)

Der Autor hat sich die Aufgabe gestellt, Husserls Phänomemologie der Zeit systematisch zu interpretieren und das Differenzieren und Identifizieren zu problematisieren. Er untersucht Husserls Zeitphänomenologie mit rein phänomenologischem Blick, damit folgende Fragen beantwortet werden können: Worin liegt die Bedeutung von Husserls Zeitforschung? Beschränken sich seine Zeitgedanken noch auf die Denkweise der Metaphysik, wie Natorp und Heidegger behaupten. Wenn ja, worin verkörpert sich die metaphysische Denkweise und inwiefern bewegen sie sich im Rahmen der Tradition? Diese Untersuchung beginnt damit, Husserls Zeitphänomenologie systematisch (...) zu rekonstruieren, weil sich Husserls Gedanken und Forschungen zur Zeit uber zahlreiche Manuskripte und Werke verteilen. Nur anhand einer umfassenden, systematischen Rekonstruktion der Zeittheorie Husserls können die obigen Fragen angemessen beantwortet werden. Der Autor geht dann auf die Differenz- und Identitätsprobleme in Husserls Zeitphänomenologie ein. Er versucht Aporien, wie den unendlichen Regress, zu analysieren und zu beantworten. (shrink)

In his classic book “the Foundations of Statistics” Savage developed a formal system of rational decision making. The system is based on (i) a set of possible states of the world, (ii) a set of consequences, (iii) a set of acts, which are functions from states to consequences, and (iv) a preference relation over the acts, which represents the preferences of an idealized rational agent. The goal and the culmination of the enterprise is a representation theorem: Any preference relation that (...) satisfies certain arguably acceptable postulates determines a (finitely additive) probability distribution over the states and a utility assignment to the consequences, such that the preferences among acts are determined by their expected utilities. Additional problematic assumptions are however required in Savage's proofs. First, there is a Boolean algebra of events (sets of states) which determines the richness of the set of acts. The probabilities are assigned to members of this algebra. Savage's proof requires that this be a σ-algebra (i.e., closed under infinite countable unions and intersections), which makes for an extremely rich preference relation. On Savage's view we should not require subjective probabilities to be σ-additive. He therefore finds the insistence on a σ-algebra peculiar and is unhappy with it. But he sees no way of avoiding it. Second, the assignment of utilities requires the constant act assumption: for every consequence there is a constant act, which produces that consequence in every state. This assumption is known to be highly counterintuitive. The present work contains two mathematical results. The first, and the more difficult one, shows that the σ-algebra assumption can be dropped. The second states that, as long as utilities are assigned to finite gambles only, the constant act assumption can be replaced by the more plausible and much weaker assumption that there are at least two non-equivalent constant acts. The second result also employs a novel way of deriving utilities in Savage-style systems -- without appealing to von Neumann-Morgenstern lotteries. The paper discusses the notion of “idealized agent" that underlies Savage's approach, and argues that the simplified system, which is adequate for all the actual purposes for which the system is designed, involves a more realistic notion of an idealized agent. (shrink)

This short paper has two parts. First,we prove a generalisation of Aumann’s surprising impossibility result in the context of rational decision making. We then move, in the second part, to discuss the interpretational meaning of some formal setups of epistemic models, and we do so by means of presenting an interesting puzzle in epistemic logic. The aim is to highlight certain problematic aspects of these epistemic systems concerning first/third-person asymmetry which underlies both parts of the story. This asymmetry, we argue, (...) reveals certain limits of what epistemic models can be. (shrink)

It is widely taken that the first-order part of Frege's Begriffsschrift is complete. However, there does not seem to have been a formal verification of this received claim. The general concern is that Frege's system is one axiom short in the first-order predicate calculus comparing to, by now, the standard first-order theory. Yet Frege has one extra inference rule in his system. Then the question is whether Frege's first-order calculus is still deductively sufficient as far as the first-order completeness is (...) concerned. In this short note we confirm that the missing axiom is derivable from his stated axioms and inference rules, and hence the logic system in the Begriffsschrift is indeed first-order complete. (shrink)

Causalists and Evidentialists can agree about the right course of action in an (apparent) Newcomb problem, if the causal facts are not as initially they seem. If declining $1,000 causes the Predictor to have placed $1m in the opaque box, CDT agrees with EDT that one-boxing is rational. This creates a difficulty for Causalists. We explain the problem with reference to Dummett's work on backward causation and Lewis's on chance and crystal balls. We show that the possibility that the causal (...) facts might be properly judged to be non-standard in Newcomb problems leads to a dilemma for Causalism. One horn embraces a subjectivist understanding of causation, in a sense analogous to Lewis's own subjectivist conception of objective chance. In this case the analogy with chance reveals a terminological choice point, such that either (i) CDT is completely reconciled with EDT, or (ii) EDT takes precedence in the cases in which the two theories give different recommendations. The other horn of the dilemma rejects subjectivism, but now the analogy with chance suggests that it is simply mysterious why causation so construed should constrain rational action. (shrink)

Public sentiment regarding climate change in the United States is starkly divided, with the Republicans and Democrats holding markedly different views. Given the inherent connection between the water crisis and climate change, this research aimed to investigate the interplay between the residents’ beliefs about the impact of climate change on water supply unpredictability, their political identity, and their willingness to adopt direct and indirect potable water reuse. The Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was conducted on a dataset of 1,831 water (...) users in the arid region of Albuquerque, New Mexico. The findings reveal a complicated interplay among examined factors. Specifically, we discovered a positive association between the belief in the impacts of climate change and the willingness to adopt potable water reuse among non-Republican water users. In contrast, Republican water users exhibit a negative association between climate change belief and willingness to adopt potable water reuse. Interestingly, despite this, Republicans generally show a higher overall willingness to adopt potable water reuse compared to non-Republicans. These findings suggest that contextual factors in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in which challenges of aridity and economic dependence on water resources are pronounced, might be important aspects contributing to the Republican’s high willingness to adopt potable water reuse. Also, the current climate change communication strategy with the Republicans might not be appropriate, and it should be tailored to align with the Republicans’ beliefs and persuade them better. (shrink)

From James Legge’s first attempt to translate the Yijing in the English speaking world in 1854, to the latest translation, The Original Meaning of the Yijing, by Joseph A. Adler in 2019, the process of translating the Yijing into English has been continuing for nearly 170 years, and there are countless translations by numerous translators. Historically, these English translations of the Yijing reveal five trends: first, the translations rely on the authoritative, traditional commentaries on the Yijing; secondly, some translations rely (...) on the personal help and interpretations of Yijing scholars in China; thirdly, some translations depend on recently unearthed documents of the Yijing; fourthly, Yili and Xiangshu are more or less involved in these translations, although the focus of each translation is not always the same; fifthly, most translations strive for the “original” meaning of the Yijing, especially with the unearthed documents of the Yijing since the 1970s. It could be safely concluded that the ultimate goal of the English translators of the Yijing is to provide English readers with the Yijing that is closest to the original/authentic meaning so that people in theWest can truly understand the essence of Chinese philosophy represented by the Yijing. (shrink)

The counterfactual account of physical computation is simple and, for the most part, very attractive. However, it is usually thought to trivialize the notion of physical computation insofar as it implies ‘limited pancomputationalism’, this being the doctrine that every deterministic physical system computes some function. Should we bite the bullet and accept limited pancomputationalism, or reject the counterfactual account as untenable? Jack Copeland would have us do neither of the above. He attempts to thread a path between the two horns (...) of the dilemma by buttressing the counterfactual account with extra conditions intended to block certain classes of deterministic physical systems from qualifying as physical computers. His theory is called the ‘algorithm execution account’. Here we show that the algorithm execution account entails limited pancomputationalism, despite Copeland’s argument to the contrary. We suggest, partly on this basis, that the counterfactual account should be accepted as it stands, pancomputationalist warts and all. (shrink)

The deceptive clues in the impossible puzzle film confirm the viewer’s internal expectations and allow retrospective attributing. In the film, a transcendental object negates an internal expectation, causing a retrospective blockage. Retrospectivity does not stop there; the transcendental object reinterpreting deceptive clues in the associative area leads to repeated attribution. This article consists of three parts. First, it discusses impossible puzzle films in the context of complex narrative classification. The following section introduces the Jungian concept of synchronicity and illustrates how (...) it works. The article concludes with a case study of Long Day’s Journey into Night (2018), which contains more complicated puzzles and explains how mind-game narrative techniques create deceptive clues and induce deceptive retrospective attribution. (shrink)

Conciliationism faces a challenge that has not been satisfactorily addressed. There are clear cases of epistemically significant merely possible disagreement, but there are also clear cases where merely possible disagreement is epistemically irrelevant. Conciliationists have not yet accounted for this asymmetry. In this paper, we propose that the asymmetry can be explained by positing a selection constraint on all cases of peer disagreement—whether actual or merely possible. If a peer’s opinion was not selected in accordance with the proposed constraint, then (...) it lacks epistemic significance. This allows us to distinguish the epistemically significant cases of merely possible disagreement from the insignificant ones. (shrink)

The Fregean tradition promotes a conception of logic as being independent from all psychological acts of the knowing subject. Without questioning logic's status as a paradigm of objectivity the present essay rejects this conception, both on logical grounds and in light of the scholastic theory of intentionality. Finding fault with two key doctrines of the analytic movement, the linguistic turn and anti-psychologism, it reinterprets them to exclude only psychological acts that engender subjective interpretive variability. It then describes logic's dependence on (...) non-interpretive psychological acts that ensue as a natural result of objects being apprehended by the intellect. These acts, which Hervaeus Natalis and the scholastic tradition thematize as the imposition of second intentional relations of reason, dictate the logically coherent parameters of logical objectivity. (shrink)

The "second-generation indigenization" hypothesis of Huntington's phenomenological observations on totalitarianism in Cold War regime collapse subtly portrayed the realpolitik interest groups' political influences with autocracy disbandment processes. The research puts democratization as the premise and globalization as purpose for the analysis, with the cultural anthropological psychopathology & criminological elements of genocide and crime against humanity explained, underlying some of the Communist Party of China (CPC)’s organizational behaviors. With the regionalism purposes & approaches to multilateralism by People's Republic of China (PRC), (...) the end of democratization is leveraged against the procedural means with power politics of declared “decmocracy”. Between quantitative autocratic controls and realpolitik local-regional interest groups, the connotation of democratization in liberal international globalization has either been used for militant purposes or pushed the landscape of regime collapse into realpolitik local groups and autocratic controls in the process of globalization, with a case study on a local branch of Argricultural Bank of China on supply-side hijacking by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council (SASAC). With the industrial interests omposed on realpolitik local groups, autocratic regionalism becomes of the "best interest scenario" for the realpolitik local groups with psychopathological spread of the criminological behaviors, by the cyber organizational criminal operations correlated with PRC’s approaches to international relations and multilateralism through bilateral trade & finance in monetary and currency domains, developed into the digitization of economies with criminological schemes in telecommunication, information, and informatics systems. However, the diminishing autonomy & freedom of the territorial population in turn derogated the real economy that wielded the prisoners' dilemma between autocracy and totalitarianism in a negative sum game deterioration cycle, with the censorship practices by the illicit regimes for propaganda controls sustaining "ideology security". In the democratization process of the dictatorial regime, "second-generation indigenization" is thus mapped to the sectarian interests respondent to dictatorial propaganda generation, other than a natural phenomenon out of autonomy and freedom premises in decision theory. The article recaps the coup d'état between Xi Jinping and Bo Xilai before Xi took the autocratic power, and analyzes the human rights situation in the obstacle of democratization and by the coercion mechanism imposed on the mainland China civil society for the militant purposes, with its behaviral spread of censorship to the “internet platforms” in liberal democratic countries by financial interest incentives and avoidance from war threats, whereby military backends in the cyber systems already indicate otherwise. (shrink)

Implicational tonoid logics and their extensions with abstract Galois properties have been introduced by Yang and Dunn. They introduced matrix semantics for the implicational tonoid logics but did not do for the extensions. Here we provide such semantics for implicational partial gaggle logics as one sort of such extensions. To this end, first we discuss implicational partial gaggle logics in Hilbert-style. We next introduce one kind of matrix semantics based on Lindenbaum– Tarski matrices for the logics and show that (...) those logics are complete with respect to the matrix semantics. Finally, we further introduce a slightly different kind of matrix semantics based on reduced models for the logics and show that those logics are complete with respect to this matrix semantics. (shrink)

Modern and contemporary politics of P. R. China contain many elements similar to neo-Nazism if not anti-communist. The derivation from Communist doctrines was a less-known debate inside the CPC party leadership soon after the declaration on the founding of People’s Republic of China - notably between Mao, Zedong and the state leadership which resulted in the criminalization of the first president Liu, Shaoqi. The researcher, as a self-identified cisgender homosexual male and Christian, observed the cultural revisionist developments of the P. (...) R. C. regime from early childhood to date. The article enumerates some elements of the Chinese culture’s characteristics in taming and eliminating psychological and social identity formation that constitutes the regime stability in its dictatorial diplomatic rhetorics. It adopts the Christian theology and queer theology in a Gestalt recombination for the non-identity problem albeit with predominant militarization of religion approaches by the “United Front Working Group” for populist enslavement. The article hypothesizes a receptive psychosocial identity from such population in general, and the similar for Buddhist cultural origins. With the influences of designed propaganda media in media psychology, the political responses in mass psychological phenomena from the suppressed regime is considered to be a reflection on their inner senses of helplessness from the active and reactive failures of identity formation. The amplification of such phenomena is contributed by the nationalism propagandas and a gaslighting technique applied to International relations, which results in subjective Stockholm syndrome in some portions of the population. Relative intersubjectivity and absolute personal identity will be discussed in the conclusions, and its implications to dictatorial politics. (shrink)