John Harris recently argues that the moral bioenhancement proposed by Persson and Savulescu can damage moral agency by depriving the recipients of their freedom to fall (freedom to make wrongful choices) and therefore should not be pursued. The link Harris makes between moral agency and the freedom to fall, however, implies that all forms of moral enhancement, including moral education, that aim to make the enhancement recipients less likely to “fall” are detrimental to moral agency. In this paper, I present (...) a new moral agency-based critique against the moral bioenhancement program envisaged by Persson and Savulescu. I argue that the irresistible influences exerted by the bioenhancement program harms our capabilities for conducting accurate self-reflection and forming decisions that truly express our will, which subsequently undermine our moral agency. (shrink)

The Fundamental Interrelationships Model – An Alternative Approach to the Theory of Everything, Part 4 Subtitle: The Nature of Beauty and Fundamental Interrelationships -/- Abstract: This article is Chapter 21, titled The Nature of Beauty and the Fundamental Interrelationships, from the book Behind Civilization. It posits that the nature of beauty is rooted in one of the fundamental interrelationships: order. Beauty is perceived as a response in the human brain to this fundamental interrelationship. This article provides evidence that the order (...) theory uniquely explains all forms of beauty and reaffirms the IRM's ability to offer a comprehensive framework for the Theory of Everything. (shrink)

Spontaneous activity levels prior to stimulus presentation can determine how that stimulus will be perceived. It has also been proposed that such spontaneous activity, particularly in the default-mode network (DMN), is involved in self-related processing. We therefore hypothesised that pre-stimulus activity levels in the DMN predict whether a stimulus is judged as self-related or not. Method: Participants were presented in the MRI scanner with a white noise stimulus that they were instructed contained their name or another. They then had to (...) respond with which name they thought they heard. Regions where there was an activity level difference between self and other response trials two seconds prior to the stimulus being presented were identified. Results: Pre-stimulus activity levels were higher in the right temporoparietal junction (RTPJ), the right temporal pole (RTP), and the left superior temporal gyrus in trials where the participant responded that they heard their own name than trials where they responded that they heard another. Conclusion: Pre-stimulus spontaneous activity levels in particular brain regions, largely overlapping with the DMN, predict the subsequent judgement of stimuli as self-related. This extends our current knowledge of self-related processing and its apparent relationship with intrinsic brain activity in what can be termed a rest-self overlap. (shrink)

Balancing a hermeneutic of trust with a hermeneutic of suspicion, this article develops a phenomenological description of imagination that highlights its alethic ambiguity. Imagination is an act of disclosure, without which the world of fiction and pure possibility cannot be constituted. Imagination is also an act of self-indulgence and narcissism, the source of much concealment and untruth. It is not the one or the other, but both at the same time, essentially ambiguous because of its phenomenological constitution. In this article, (...) I will take some steps towards clarifying this essential ambiguity of the imagination by drawing on the insights of Husserl and Sartre. Beginning with Husserl’s parallel treatment of imagination and perception as intuitive, objectifying acts, I will argue, drawing on insights from Sartre, that there is an important discrepancy between them with respect to the role of desire. While the constitution of perceptual presence is inseparable from a desire for truth, the desire involved in the constitution of imaginary presence has an ambiguous character, both epistemic and magical. This duplicity of desire partly accounts for the ambiguity of imagination, which is all the more pronounced the more the imagination demands the full emotional involvement of the imagining subject. (shrink)

Disorders of consciousness (DoC)—that is, unresponsive wakefulness syndrome/vegetative state and minimally conscious state—are debilitating conditions for which no reliable markers of consciousness recovery have yet been identified. Evidence points to the GABAergic system being altered in DoC, making it a potential target as such a marker.

This paper aims to provide a clarification of the long debate on whether enhancement will or will not diminish authenticity. It focuses particularly on accounts provided by Carl Elliott and David DeGrazia. Three clarifications will be presented here. First, most discussants only criticise Elliott’s identity argument and neglect that his conservative position in the use of enhancement can be understood as a concern over social coercion. Second, Elliott’s and DeGrazia’s views can, not only co-exist, but even converge together as an (...) autonomy based theory of authenticity. Third, the current account of autonomy provided by DeGrazia fails to address the importance of rationality and the ability of self-correction, which, as a result impedes the theory to provide a fully developed account for authenticity. In conclusion, a satisfactory account of authenticity cannot focus only on identity or subjective preference. (shrink)

Identification of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) has been significantly improved over the past decade. On the other hand, semantic annotation of ncRNA data is facing critical challenges due to the lack of a comprehensive ontology to serve as common data elements and data exchange standards in the field. We developed the Non-Coding RNA Ontology (NCRO) to handle this situation. By providing a formally defined ncRNA controlled vocabulary, the NCRO aims to fill a specific and highly needed niche in semantic annotation of (...) large amounts of ncRNA biological and clinical data. (shrink)

The present study, using quantitative and qualitative analyses, aimed at delineating the interrelationship between the knowledge of metacognition and the regulation of metacognition, along with the role of learners' regulatory ability in mediating the effects of task-induced involvement load on word learning. A total of 60 university EFL students were recruited to the study. They first completed a checklist on metacognition and were then assigned to complete three tasks with varying degrees of involvement load followed by a vocabulary test. Of (...) them, 12 students also participated in an interview. The results showed that the two main components of metacognition, i.e., the knowledge and regulation of metacognition, are closely and significantly correlated. The learners, assigned to four different ability groups (LK/LR, LK/HR, HK/LR, HK/HR), were found to benefit most by engaging in a task with the highest involvement load. Despite the benefits, their regulatory ability mediated the effects of task-induced involvement load on word learning, which was corroborated by the interview results. The relevant implications for teaching and learning words through tasks are further discussed. (shrink)

This study attempts to reconstruct Nietzsche’s reading of Aristotle in the 1860s and 1870s—the years before he left his career as a philologist. Against the popular view that Nietzsche read only one book by Aristotle, namely the Rhetoric, the present study hopes to show that he had direct knowledge of several of Aristotle’s main works, while much of his interest in Aristotle centred on the latter’s account of art. The particular aim of this study is to explore how Nietzsche’s reading (...) of Aristotle contributed to the formation of The Birth of Tragedy. It will show that, although Nietzsche mentions Aristotle in his first book only en passant, his theory of tragedy should be understood against the background of Aristotelian poetics, especially as interpreted by such contemporaries as Jacob Bernays, Joseph Hubert Reinkens, and Gustav Teichmüller. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are increasingly adopted to make decisions in domains such as business, education, health care, and criminal justice. However, such algorithmic decision systems can have prevalent biases against marginalized social groups and undermine social justice. Explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) is a recent development aiming to make an AI system’s decision processes less opaque and to expose its problematic biases. This paper argues against technical XAI, according to which the detection and interpretation of algorithmic bias can be handled (...) more or less independently by technical experts who specialize in XAI methods. Drawing on resources from feminist epistemology, we show why technical XAI is mistaken. Specifically, we demonstrate that the proper detection of algorithmic bias requires relevant interpretive resources, which can only be made available, in practice, by actively involving a diverse group of stakeholders. Finally, we suggest how feminist theories can help shape integrated XAI: an inclusive social-epistemic process that facilitates the amelioration of algorithmic bias. (shrink)

In this article, I analyze the evolution of Husserl's view on the normativity of logic and the corresponding changes in his phenomenological analysis of judgment. Initially, in the Prolegomena, Husserl claimed that the laws of pure logic are ideal and acquire normative status only as a result of application. Later, however, he revised this position and claimed that the same laws are at once ideal and normative. Sections 1 and 2 present textual evidence for attributing such a change of position (...) to Husserl, which is not generally acknowledged in the literature. Section 3 critically examines Husserl's early position, with specific attention to the model of instantiation. Sections 4–6 identify three key stages in the development of Husserl's theory of judgment that lead to the normative conception of pure logic: (1) the critique of the dissociation of ideal content and assertive force; (2) the rejection of the instantiation model of proposition and the development of a new account in terms of identification; (3) the genetic‐phenomenological interpretation of proposition and the elaboration of the three‐layer structure of pure logic. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In a Buddhist treatise from around the fourth century CE there is a very remarkable story which serves as a thought experiment calling us to question the nature of self and the identity of persons. Lost in Sanskrit, the passage is fortunately preserved in a Chinese translation, the Dà zhìdù lùn. We here present the first reliable translation directly from the Classical Chinese, and discuss the philosophical significance of the story in its historical and literary context. We emphasise the (...) philosophical importance of embedding the story in two framing narratives, and demonstrate that the story taps a range of intuitions, and indeed fears, about the survival of the self which have also played a large role in the history of the topic in the West, and which continue to be of great contemporary concern. (shrink)

This paper reconstructs Sartre’s account of the “circuit of ipseity” as an integral theory of the experiential, agentive and normative aspects of self-consciousness. At the core of this theory is a conception of human (self-)consciousness as lacking, and the correlation between lacking and ideal. In Section 1, I show how this theory manages to satisfy the apparently incompatible requirements generated by the idea of a pre-reflective cogito. Section 2 discusses practical self-consciousness, in particular the agent’s consciousness of herself as self-determined (...) in the projection and pursuit of ends, and how this is accounted for in Sartre’s theory by the correlation of lack and ideal. Section 3 first clarifies the Sartrean conception of the ideal by comparing it with Korsgaard’s, and then reconstructs Sartre’s account of practical normativity by showing how it can be read as emerging from a critical engagement with Heidegger. (shrink)

In recent years, sequencing technologies have enabled the identification of a wide range of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Unfortunately, annotation and integration of ncRNA data has lagged behind their identification. Given the large quantity of information being obtained in this area, there emerges an urgent need to integrate what is being discovered by a broad range of relevant communities. To this end, the Non-Coding RNA Ontology (NCRO) is being developed to provide a systematically structured and precisely defined controlled vocabulary for the (...) domain of ncRNAs, thereby facilitating the discovery, curation, analysis, exchange, and reasoning of data about structures of ncRNAs, their molecular and cellular functions, and their impacts upon phenotypes. The goal of NCRO is to serve as a common resource for annotations of diverse research in a way that will significantly enhance integrative and comparative analysis of the myriad resources currently housed in disparate sources. It is our belief that the NCRO ontology can perform an important role in the comprehensive unification of ncRNA biology and, indeed, fill a critical gap in both the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Library and the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) BioPortal. Our initial focus is on the ontological representation of small regulatory ncRNAs, which we see as the first step in providing a resource for the annotation of data about all forms of ncRNAs. The NCRO ontology is free and open to all users. (shrink)

Two types of formal models - landscape search tasks and two-armed bandit models - are often used to study the effects that various social factors have on epistemic performance. I argue that they can be understood within a single framework. In this unified framework, I develop a model that may be used to understand the effects of functional and demographic diversity and their interaction. Using the unified model, I find that the benefit of demographic diversity is most pronounced in a (...) functionally homogeneous group, and decreases with the increase of functional diversity. (shrink)

In the literature on expert trust, it is often assumed that track records are the gold standard for evaluating expertise, and the difficulty of expert identification arises from either the lack of access to track records, or the inability to assess them. I show, using a computational model, that even in an idealized environment where agents have a God’s eye view on track records, they may fail to identify experts. Under plausible conditions, selecting testimony based on track records ends up (...) reducing overall accuracy, and preventing the community from identifying the real experts. (shrink)

Background: The concept of digital twins has great potential for transforming the existing health care system by making it more personalized. As a convergence of health care, artificial intelligence, and information and communication technologies, personalized health care services that are developed under the concept of digital twins raise a myriad of ethical issues. Although some of the ethical issues are known to researchers working on digital health and personalized medicine, currently, there is no comprehensive review that maps the major ethical (...) risks of digital twins for personalized health care services. Objective: This study aims to fill the research gap by identifying the major ethical risks of digital twins for personalized health care services. We first propose a working definition for digital twins for personalized health care services to facilitate future discussions on the ethical issues related to these emerging digital health services. We then develop a process-oriented ethical map to identify the major ethical risks in each of the different data processing phases. Methods: We resorted to the literature on eHealth, personalized medicine, precision medicine, and information engineering to identify potential issues and developed a process-oriented ethical map to structure the inquiry in a more systematic way. The ethical map allows us to see how each of the major ethical concerns emerges during the process of transforming raw data into valuable information. Developers of a digital twin for personalized health care service may use this map to identify ethical risks during the development stage in a more systematic way and can proactively address them. Results: This paper provides a working definition of digital twins for personalized health care services by identifying 3 features that distinguish the new application from other eHealth services. On the basis of the working definition, this paper further layouts 10 major operational problems and the corresponding ethical risks. Conclusions: It is challenging to address all the major ethical risks that a digital twin for a personalized health care service might encounter proactively without a conceptual map at hand. The process-oriented ethical map we propose here can assist the developers of digital twins for personalized health care services in analyzing ethical risks in a more systematic manner. (shrink)

The rare but severe cerebral venous thrombosis occurring in some AstraZeneca vaccine recipients has prompted some governments to suspend part of their COVID-19 vaccination programmes. Such suspensions have faced various challenges from both scientific and ethical angles. Most of the criticisms against such suspensions follow a consequentialist approach, arguing that the suspension will lead to more harm than benefits. In this paper, I propose a rights-based argument against the suspension of the vaccine rollouts amid this highly time-sensitive combat of COVID-19. (...) I argue that by suspending a vaccine rollout, a government infringes people's right to take the risks they deem worth taking for their health. I also consider four potential objections to my argument and explain why none of them undermines my argument. (shrink)

This article explores the use of model organisms in studying the cognitive phenomenon of decision-making. Drawing on the framework of biological control to develop a skeletal conception of decision-making, we show that two core features of decision-making mechanisms can be identified by studying model organisms, such as E. coli, jellyfish, C. elegans, lamprey, and so on. First, decision mechanisms are distributed and heterarchically structured. Second, they depend heavily on chemical information processing, such as that involving neuromodulators. We end by discussing (...) the implications for studying distinctively human decision-making. (shrink)

This paper approaches Husserl’s analysis of time-consciousness from a mereological perspective. Taking as inspiration Bergson’s idea that pure durée is a multiplicity of interpenetration, I will show, from within Husserlian phenomenology, that the absolute flow can indeed be described as a whole of interpenetrating parts. This mereological perspective will inform my re-consideration of the much-discussed issue of Husserl’s self-criticism concerning the schema of content and apprehension. It will also reveal a fundamental similarity between Husserl’s conception of the absolute flow and (...) Sartre’s conception of lived temporality. This paper consists of four sections. Section 2 presents the basic elements of Husserl’s mereology. Section 3 introduces the difficulty encountered by Husserl’s early account of time that makes use of the schema. I will examine Barry Dainton’s criticism of Husserl’s theory of time-consciousness against the background of the older debate between Meinong and Stern, a debate that has informed Husserl’s own account. Section 4 distinguishes two common criticisms of the schema from Husserl’s own self-criticism, which is in turn divided into two steps. It is shown how the second step of this self-criticism implies the interpenetration of the absolute flow and responds to Dainton’s criticism. Finally, Sect. 5 concludes with some comparative remarks. I will show how Husserl’s notion of absolute flow, as mereologically interpreted, anticipates Sartre’s conception of consciousness as self-transcendence, as well as how it accommodates the apparently conflicting mereological intuitions of Aristotle and Bergson. (shrink)

The issue of the use of the Nachlass material has been much debated in Nietzsche scholarship in recent decades. Some insist on the absolute interpretative priority of his published writings over those unpublished and suggest that an extensive engagement with the Nachlass is harmful because it is something Nietzsche rejected. To verify this claim, they appeal to the story of Nietzsche asking his landlord in Sils-Maria to burn some of his notes. Since the notes that were ultimately retrieved are purportedly (...) incorporated into the compilation The Will to Power, the story also leads some to conclude that Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power. However, the reliability of this story has been questioned. In this manuscript I first present the decisive piece of evidence that will settle the controversy over the story’s authenticity. After showing that it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, I address the question of what we can conclude from this story. I argue that it neither suggests the abandonment of the will to power project, nor warrants a devaluation of the Nachlass. Finally, I will discuss the methodological problem of the use of Nietzsche’s Nachlass in general. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 44 Heft: 1 Seiten: 516-531.

In this treatise, I analyse the concepts of truth and impossibility, and then use a proof by cases method to show that truth is impossible. Since logic is the determination of how true ideas are, and truth is impossible, I proceed to establish a more optimal and comprehensive system called "anti-logic" that replaces logic. Anti-logic is everything logic is not (for instance, if logic is a finite system, then anti-logic is infinite). Developing this notion of anti-logic further, I apply it (...) to ethics, sociology, theology and much more, which allows for an effective guide to the world and to life. (shrink)

The human faculty of moral judgment is not well suited to address problems, like climate change, that are global in scope and remote in time. Advocates of ‘moral bioenhancement’ have proposed that we should investigate the use of medical technologies to make human beings more trusting and altruistic, and hence more willing to cooperate in efforts to mitigate the impacts of climate change. We survey recent accounts of the proximate and ultimate causes of human cooperation in order to assess the (...) prospects for bioenhancement. We identify a number of issues that are likely to be significant obstacles to effective bioenhancement, as well as areas for future research. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 242-242.

Identification of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) has been significantly enhanced due to the rapid advancement in sequencing technologies. On the other hand, semantic annotation of ncRNA data lag behind their identification, and there is a great need to effectively integrate discovery from relevant communities. To this end, the Non-Coding RNA Ontology (NCRO) is being developed to provide a precisely defined ncRNA controlled vocabulary, which can fill a specific and highly needed niche in unification of ncRNA biology.

This paper primarily investigates the following questions: The first question：What is the basic structure of consciousness? I proposed that objects moving at the speed of light form the fundamental structure of consciousness. The second question:How is the unified field of the conscious self formed? The study suggests that countless particles moving at the speed of light, through quantum entanglement, form the unified field of each individual's consciousness. Each individual's unified field consists of countless particles originating from a source, which can (...) be referred to as the "soul quantum." The third question:What is the mechanism underlying the formation of different forms of imagery (images, sounds, and bodily sensations)? The study posits that when the wave-particle duality of quantum mechanics collapses, it results in different forms of imagery. (shrink)

Robert Sparrow recently argues that state-driven moral bioenhancement is morally problematic because it inevitably invites moral perfectionism. While sharing Sparrow’s worry about state-driven moral bioenhancement, I argue that his anti-perfectionism argument is too strong to offer useful normative guidance. That is, if we reject state-driven moral bioenhancement because it cannot remain neutral between different conceptions of the good, we might have to conclude that all forms of moral enhancement program ought not be made compulsory, including the least controversial and most (...) popular state-driven program: compulsory (moral) education. -/- In this paper, I argue that instead, the spirit of Sparrow’s worry should be recast in the language of the capability approach – an approach that strives to enhance people’s capabilities to develop their own conceptions of the good by restricting itself from endorsing thick conceptions of the good. The distinction made regarding thick and thin conceptions of the good helps better capture sentiments against state-driven bioenhancement programs without falling prey to the issues I raise against Sparrow’s anti-perfectionist arguments. (shrink)

This thesis contributes to a better conceptual understanding of how self-organized control works. I begin by analyzing the control problem and its solution space. I argue that the two prominent solutions offered by classical cognitive science (centralized control with rich commands, e.g., the Fodorian central systems) and embodied cognitive science (distributed control with simple commands, such as the subsumption architecture by Rodney Brooks) are merely two positions in a two-dimensional solution space. I outline two alternative positions: one is distributed control (...) with rich commands, defended by proponents of massive modularity hypothesis; the other is centralized control with simple commands. My goal is to develop a hybrid account that combines aspects of the second alternative position and that of the embodied cognitive science (i.e., centralized and distributed controls with simple commands). Before developing my account, I discuss the virtues and challenges of the first three. This discussion results in a set of criteria for successful neural control mechanisms. Then, I develop my account through analyzing neuroscientific models of decision-making and control with the theoretical lenses provided by formal decision and social choice theories. I contend that neural processes can be productively modeled as a collective of agents, and neural self-organization is analogous to democratic self-governance. In particular, I show that the basal ganglia, a set of subcortical structures, contribute to the production of coherent and intelligent behaviors through implementing “democratic" procedures. Unlike the Fodorian central system—which is a micro-managing “neural commander-in-chief”—the basal ganglia are a “central election commission.” They delegate control of habitual behaviors to other distributed control mechanisms. Yet, when novel problems arise, they engage and determine the result on the basis of simple information (the votes) from across the system with the principles of neurodemocracy, and control with simple commands of inhibition and disinhibition. By actively managing and taking advantage of the wisdom-of-the-crowd effect, these democratic processes enhance the intelligence and coherence of the mind’s final "collective" decisions. I end by defending this account from both philosophical and empirical criticisms and showing that it meets the criteria for successful solution. (shrink)

In recent years, sequencing technologies have enabled the identification of a wide range of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Unfortunately, annotation and integration of ncRNA data has lagged behind their identification. Given the large quantity of information being obtained in this area, there emerges an urgent need to integrate what is being discovered by a broad range of relevant communities. To this end, the Non-Coding RNA Ontology (NCRO) is being developed to provide a systematically structured and precisely defined controlled vocabulary for the (...) domain of ncRNAs, thereby facilitating the discovery, curation, analysis, exchange, and reasoning of data about structures of ncRNAs, their molecular and cellular functions, and their impacts upon phenotypes. The goal of NCRO is to serve as a common resource for annotations of diverse research in a way that will significantly enhance integrative and comparative analysis of the myriad resources currently housed in disparate sources. It is our belief that the NCRO ontology can perform an important role in the comprehensive unification of ncRNA biology and, indeed, fill a critical gap in both the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontologies (OBO) Library and the National Center for Biomedical Ontology (NCBO) BioPortal. Our initial focus is on the ontological representation of small regulatory ncRNAs, which we see as the first step in providing a resource for the annotation of data about all forms of ncRNAs. (shrink)

Both Husserl and Sartre speak of quasi-presence in their descriptions of the lived experience of imagination, and for both philosophers, accounting for quasi-presence means developing an account of the hyle proper to imagination. Guided by the perspective of fulfillment, Husserl’s theory of imaginary quasi-presence goes through three stages. Having experimented first with a depiction-model and then a perception-model, Husserl’s mature theory appeals to his innovative conception of inner consciousness. This elegant account nevertheless fails to do justice to the facticity and (...) bodily involvement of our imaginary experience. Sartre’s theory of analogon, based on his conception of imaginary quasi-presence as ‘magical’ self-affection, embodies important insights on these issues. Kinesthetic sensations and feelings are the modes in which we make use of own body to possess and be possessed by the imaginary object, thus lending it a semblance of bodily presence. (shrink)

There is a tendency among scholars to identify Alfarabi’s political philosophy in general and his theory of the state in particular with that of Plato’s The Republic. Undoubtedly Alfarabi was well versed in the philosophy of Plato and was greatly influenced by it. He borrows the Platonic concept of the philosopher king and uses it in his theory of the state. However, we argue that the identification of Alfarabi’s virtuous city with that of Plato’s The Republic is an inaccurate assessment (...) as it involves overlooking Alfarabi’s unique religiopolitical context. Alfarabi was a Muslim political philosopher, and the present article intends to understand Alfarabi’s theory of the state in light of his historical context. The article shows that, viewed through the prism of Islamic religion and political history, Alfarabi’s virtuous city seems distinct from that of Plato’s The Republic. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Sartre’s theory of selfhood against the background of the contemporary debate between minimal-self theories and narrative-self theories. I argue that Sartre’s theory incorporates both an emphasis on the singular first-person perspective, which is characteristic of minimal-self theories, and an emphasis on the practical intelligibility of experience, which is characteristic of narrative-self theories. The distinctiveness of the Sartrean combination of these motifs consists in its idea of the necessary ideal-relatedness of consciousness. According to Sartre, the logical structure of (...) the pre-reflective cogito requires the haunting presence of an ideal of self-coincidence, which determines for consciousness the meaning of its lived experiences. Consciousness exists as a question to itself due to this ideal-relatedness, and it answers this question by projecting its possibilities as creative and symbolic realizations of this ideal. Establishing the connection between Sartre’s theory of imagination and his theory of selfhood, I suggest that both the ideal and the possibility of consciousness are lived in the manner of the imaginary. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 47 Heft: 1 Seiten: 364-366.

In his political treatise, Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila, Abu Nasr Alfarabi, the medieval Muslim philosopher, proposes a theory of virtuous city which, according to prominent scholars, is modeled on Plato’s utopia of the Republic. No doubt that Alfarabi was well-versed in the philosophy of Plato and the basic framework of his theory of city is platonic. However, his theory of city is not an exact reproduction of the Republic’s theory and, despite glaring similarities, the two theories do differ in (...) many aspects. In both, Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al-fadhila and Plato’s Republic, the theory of virtuous city is accompanied by a theory of the soul. Since the theory of soul plays a foundational role in both theories of the virtuous city, the present article intends to provide an explanation for the differences between the two theories of the city in terms of the differences between the two theories of the soul. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 46 Heft: 1 Seiten: 235-235.

It is widely accepted that a liberal state has a general duty to protect its people from undue health risks. However, the unprecedented emergent measures against the COVID-19 pandemic taken by governments worldwide give rise to questions regarding the extent to which this duty may be used to justify suspending a vaccine rollout on marginal safety grounds. -/- In this chapter, I use the case of vaccination to argue that while a liberal state has a general duty to protect its (...) people’s health, there is a limit to the measures this duty can be used to justify. First, I argue that since every available option involves different risks and benefits, the incommensurability of the involved risks and benefits forbids the prioritisation of a particular vaccine. Second, I argue that given epistemic limitations and uncertainty, policies that favour certain vaccines are not only epistemically ill-founded but also morally unacceptable. I conclude that in a highly uncertain situation such as the unfolding pandemic, the duty a liberal state ought to uphold is to properly communicate the knowns and unknowns to the general public and help people decide which option to choose for themselves. I call this duty the duty to facilitate risk-taking. (shrink)

The quest for a unified “Theory of Everything” that explains the fundamental nature of the universe has long been a holy grail for scientists and philosophers, dating back to the ancient Greeks’ search for Arche. -/- So far, the mainstream of research on A Theory of Everything primarily focuses on the lifeless phenomena and laws of physics while ignores the realm of biology. However, a fundamentally different approach to the ToE has been put forward, presenting a viable alternative to address (...) the challenge of a Theory of Everything. This approach does not seek the ultimate “building block” but rather aims to uncover the intangible rules that fundamentally govern everything in the universe, seeking their universality across the vast spectrum, from the minute subatomic world to the mega mass cosmic world and the magical biological world. -/- To address the challenge, a set of the fundamental interrelationships is introduced and represented by a model, the Fundamental Interrelationships Model. This model cohesively represents these fundamental interrelationships, including serial-parallel relationships, transition of state, critical point, continuation-discontinuation, convergence-divergence, contraction-expansion, singularity-plurality, commonality-difference, similarity, symmetry-asymmetry, periodicity, dynamics-stability, order-disorder, limitation-without limitation, hierarchical structure, and cohesive interconnectedness. These interrelationships, found in nature, can be interpreted as the fundamental laws of physics. -/- Built on the foundation of the Fundamental Interrelationships Model, a collection of the well-established laws of physics and theories are represented and unified, including Newton’s three laws of motion, the four laws of thermodynamics, Einstein’s space-time relationship, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, Noether’s theorem, Schrodinger’s wave function collapse, chaos theory and complexity theory. The list continues to grow… Based on this model, a groundbreaking research has, for the first time, put forward a new hypothesis that unifies the Big Bang theory with the evolutionary theory, published in a book in 2022. This research unequivocally demonstrates that the evolution of life also follows the fundamental laws of physics, marking a significant stride toward addressing the longstanding challenge of a comprehensive Theory of Everything. -/- Subsequent studies reveal that the evolution of life (including the evolution of multicellularity), embryonic development, evolution of society (civilisation), and the evolution of the universe all adhere to these fundamental interrelationships. These events are specific expressions of the underlying principles of the Fundamental Interrelationships Model. -/- Ultimately, as a truly all-encompassing theory, the Theory of Everything should not only incorporate non-biological events and the laws of physics but also extend to all facets of life. Thus, unlike most existing candidates, the Fundamental Interrelationships Model offers a comprehensive framework, encompassing both non-biological and living phenomena. Therefore, any hypothesis failing to integrate biology and sociology shouldn’t be considered a comprehensive Theory of Everything -/- This article and the subsequent ones are the abstracts derived from the book, Behind Civilisation/civilization (multiple editions), which represents the culmination of decades of research. The book offers a more comprehensive exploration of how fundamental interrelationships govern all aspect of the universe. -/- . (shrink)

Synthetic biology (SynBio) covers two main areas: application engineering, exemplified by metabolic engi- neering, and the design of life from artificial building blocks. As the general public is often reluctant to embrace synthetic approaches, preferring nature to artifice, its immediate future will depend very much on the public’s reaction to the unmet needs created by the pervasive demands of sustainability. On the other hand, this reluctance should not have a negative impact on research that will now take into account the (...) existence of the multiple transitions that cells face over time. The ages of life—birth, development, maturation, senescence and death—reflect specific key transitions and have, until now, rarely been taken into account in SynBio designs. This results in a mismatch between novelty and the very long evolutionary time that led to the existing chassis [remember that this is the common term used to describe the cellular framework as seen by synthetic biologists (de Lorenzo & Danchin, 2008)]. It also implies that, in general, transitions between growth stages will be taken into account with the appro- priate embodiment of highly specific processes. This is particularly important when adapting new models to their host, whether natural or artificial. Adaptation fol- lows two stages, short-term accommodation of new entities and long-term assimilation into the cell as a whole. This requires discrimination between classes of entities. We suggest that proteins playing the essential role of Maxwell’ demons, here named Maxwell’s dis- criminators (MxDs) to refer to their original function, will permit the assimilation and accommodation of artificial constructs. As a consequence, we can foresee that class discrimination, beyond mere recognition, will be implemented in SynBio 2.0, leading to an authentic par- adigm shift (Kuhn, 1996), based on conceptions that embody information as a genuine currency of reality. (shrink)

Abu Nasr Muhammad Alfarabi, the medieval Muslim philosopher and the founder of Islamic Neoplatonism, is best known for his political treatise, Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al- fadhila (Principles of the Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City), in which he proposes a theory of utopian virtuous city. Prominent scholars argue for the Platonic nature of Alfarabi’s political philosophy and relate the political treatise to Plato’s Republic. One of the most striking similarities between Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al- fadhila (...) and Plato’s Republic is that in both works the theory of virtuous city is accompanied by a theory of soul. It is true that Alfarabi’s theory of soul differ considerably from that of Plato’s Republic. However, we propose that notwithstanding the differences, the two theories of soul do play an identically important role in the respective theory of virtuous city. The present article explores the relationship between the soul and the city in Plato’s Republic and Alfarabi’s Mabadi ara ahl al-madina al- fadhila, and intends to show that in both works the coexistence of the theory of soul and the city is neither coincidental nor a casual concurrence of two themes. Rather, the concept of soul serves as a foundation on which Plato and Alfarabi erect their respective theory of perfect association. Thus, Alfarabi’s treatise resembles Plato’s Republic not only in the coexistence of the theory of soul and the city, but also in the important role of the concept of soul in the theory of virtuous city. (shrink)

In this new edition, a hypothesis is put forward for the first time to unify the Big Bang theory and the evolutionary theory by showing both events following the same set of fundamental interrelationships. As the evolution of life is a part of the evolutions of the universe, these two events express many fundamental similarities (this is self-similarity, which means a part of the system is similar to the whole system). Based on the same principle, the evolution of multicellular organisms, (...) social evolution, development of the human body, and human technological development are all a part of the evolution of life. Thus, they all follow the same set of rules that all life follows and, at the fundamental level, the interrelationships that the Big Bang follows. Therefore, all of these events follow the fundamental interrelationships and express fundamental similarities. In other words, all these events are the specific expressions of those fundamental interrelationships – the fundamental mechanism that governs everything in the universe. -/- Upon these interrelationships, new approaches to study social development and technological development are employed. By using the knowledge of the medical sciences, including the structures (anatomy and histology), functions (physiology) and development (embryology) of a human body; knowledge of the evolution of life; and the concept of fundamental interrelationships, we can see the future beyond the horizon. Using the nerve system in parallel as a model, we can comprehensively understand the development of the information revolution. Based upon parallel interrelationships, we can see that the transformation of society due to individuals’ power increase brought by new technologies bears great similarities with the transformation from the solid state of ice to the liquid state of water due the individual molecules’ kinetic energy increase. -/- As the fundamental interrelationships govern social evolution, all events in human civilisation are simply specific expressions of those rules in which significant social events not only changed the course of civilisation but left so many unanswered mysteries: how did the Greeks build such brilliant civilisations; why did the Scientific Revolution originate from the West rather than the East such as in China; why did the Chinese society remain in feudalism for such a long time while the Western society had evolved into a higher level – industrialization and modern society; why did the Chinese civilisation fall from its ancient glory in the modern time but rapidly re-rise again to a super power in the last few decades? All these mysteries remain unanswered because of the lack of fundamental laws of physics and evolutionary biology used in the traditional methodologies of social science. As the fundamental laws of physics are the fundamental mechanism for everything and these mysteries are a part of the evolution of life, the fundamental laws of physics and evolutionary biology are used in tackling these unanswered issues. For example, upon parallel relationship, Chinese civilisation is compared with the transition from unicellular organisms to multicellular organisms. From how unicellular organisms aggregate and evolve new rules to organise themselves, we can much better understand how human individuals aggregate to form societies and evolve new cultures to organise themselves in social evolution. Furthermore, transformation from the solid state of ice to the liquid state of water is used to analyze Chinese social evolution. With these approaches the mysteries in Chinese civilisation have been answered. -/- Ultimately, all these discussions in this book have demonstrated that the Interrelationships Model has unified social science with natural science, and furthermore, science with philosophy. This is an important attempt in answering the most fundamental and intriguing question of all – the Theory of Everything. -/- Currently, this book is for FREE download. (shrink)

Darwin’s evolution theory revolutionises our understanding of the biological world. In parallel, this book is a critical breakthrough in scientific philosophy. It revolutionises our understanding of nature, particularly on civilisation, through discovering a fundamental mechanism which not only governs lifeless objects but intelligence-driven civilisation as well. This discovery provides an alternative to challenge the most fundamental issue – “the Theory of Everything”. As this mechanism is the most fundamental level, it is the foundation of similarity, including the amazing similarities between (...) a human body and a society. Upon this theoretical basis, following the rules of this mechanism and using a human body as a model, civilisation is systematically investigated. As such, technological development and its consequential social development are understood from the most fundamental level. As a result, the human future have been successfully predicted and many historical puzzles have been unequivocally solved, such as: why could the ancient Greeks create a brilliant civilisation; why were there so many great thinkers; why did Scientific Revolution and the model of university education originate from Europe rather than from other places; why did the Chinese civilisation remain stagnant when the West was rapidly rising after Scientific Revolution. Finally, one of the long-lasting enigmatic question, “what is beauty”, is unequivocally answered once and for all. It is the expression of one of the fundamental laws of physics but it is not symmetry. (shrink)

In 2010, Christian Wollek published his doctoral thesis Die lateinischen Texte des Schülers Nietzsche. Übersetzung und Kommentar —a German translation of Nietzsche’s Latin writings with an introduction and commentary. This book represents the breadth of Nietzsche’s Latin writings and his vast learning while he was a student at the Naumburg Domgymnasium and Schulpforta. As Wollek tells us in the introduction, LT aims both to highlight the relevance of Nietzsche’s early writings, which he argues have been too often ignored, even in (...) recent scholarship, and to... (shrink)

From Dialectic to Black Hole, The Definition of Time in Plato’s View.

Research has indicated that microRNAs (miRNAs), a special class of non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), can perform important roles in different biological and pathological processes. miRNAs’ functions are realized by regulating their respective target genes (targets). It is thus critical to identify and analyze miRNA-target interactions for a better understanding and delineation of miRNAs’ functions. However, conventional knowledge discovery and acquisition methods have many limitations. Fortunately, semantic technologies that are based on domain ontologies can render great assistance in this regard. In our (...) previous investigations, we developed a miRNA domain-specific application ontology, Ontology for MIcroRNA Target (OMIT), to provide the community with common data elements and data exchange standards in the miRNA research. This paper describes (1) our continuing efforts in the OMIT ontology development and (2) the application of the OMIT to enable a semantic approach for knowledge capture of miRNA-target interactions. (shrink)