What can the creation of artificial habitats to replace old-growth forests tell us about the process, value and future of design? This chapter takes a concrete and provocative example and uses it to rethink design as a gradual, ecological action. To illustrate this understanding, the chapter begins with a description of a proposal to provide artificial habitats for wild animals such as birds, bats and invertebrates. The controversial idea to replace rapidly disappearing old-growth trees with artificial structures puts in doubt (...) habitual assumptions about the clients, procedures and goals of design. This example is of relevance to all design because the need to provide artificial habitats to nonhumans will be increasingly common under the influence of such phenomena as global warming or urbanisation. … The invention of artificial structures in place of natural habitats is described in this chapter as an incitement that highlights the need for further research into values, participants and methods of design. This discussion concludes with a proposal for an attitude of modesty in the face of increasingly overwhelming volumes of information as well as in the presence of an even greater ignorance about the futures of nondeterministic, volatile and incompletely controllable natural systems. The dilemma of design in these conditions is in the tension between its remit to act and the uncertainty that inescapably underlies any creative endeavour. (shrink)

Trees belong to humanity’s heritage, but they are more than that. Their loss, through catastrophic fires or under business-as-usual, is devastating to many forms of life. Moved by this fact, we begin with an assertion that heritage can have an active role in the design of future places. Written from within the field of architecture, this article focuses on structures that house life. Habitat features of trees and artificial replacement habitats for arboreal wildlife serve as concrete examples. (...) Designs of such habitats need to reflect behaviours, traditions and cultures of birds, bats, and other animals. Our narrative highlights the nonhuman aspect of heritage, seeking to understand how nonhuman stakeholders can act as users and consumers of heritage and not only as its constituents. Our working definition states that more-than-human heritage encompasses tangible and intangible outcomes of historical processes that are of value to human as well as nonhuman stakeholders. From this basis, the article asks how the established notions of heritage can extend to include nonhuman concerns, artefacts, behaviours and cultures. As a possible answer to this question, the hypothesis tested here is that digital information can (1) contribute to the preservation of more-than-human heritage; and (2) illuminate its characteristics for future study and use. This article assesses the potential of three imaging technologies and considers the resulting data within the conceptual framework of more-than-human heritage, illuminating some of its concrete aspects and challenges. (shrink)

In this short essay, I sketch the contours of critical new materialist and posthumanist interventions in memory studies & critical theory via the more-than-human Memorial 22/3.

Finishing this essay exactly one year after the official arrival of the SARS-COV-2 virus in Belgium and the Netherlands—where the cartographers of this essay are currently located—it is safe to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has immensely impacted our day-to-day lives. The pandemic has not only forced us to question various taken-for-granted existential certainties and luxuries provided by a capitalist system out to destroy the earth but has also re-spotlighted post-Enlightenment critiques of the human subject. If these pandemic times (...) are indeed more-than-human, then the clock is ticking for the discipline of philosophical anthropology to face these post-anthropological facts and receive what feminist science studies scholar Donna J. Haraway has aptly called a thorough dose of “epistemological electroshock therapy” (1988, p. 578). Taking Haraway’s foregoing call and the idea of thinking-with the (end of the) Anthropocene seriously, we construct a critical cartography of Emmanuel Levinas’ take on philosophical anthropology in dialogue with other major philosophical anthropologists and feminist new materialists while arguing for a post-anthropology for the Chthulucene. (shrink)

This paper begins with the examination of some premises of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, and briefly revisits some of the concepts or ideas that she had adapted and that will allow to determine the premises that characterize what we named as Frankenstein Paradigm. Such a paradigm, as we suggested, allows us to perceive, on the one hand, the avant-garde vision of Mary Shelley about human condition (regardless of literary immersion in gothic subjects), and on the (...) other hand, the complexity of themes that would mark what is termed by post-human, that we will give some examples whether in contemporary art or in the framework of figures and representations of daily life (some illustrations on movies will be given). In this regard, we will notice the prosthetic transformations that have already occurred and, therefore, to verify the practical application of the premises contained in the Frankenstein paradigm. Next, it is necessary to carry out a reflection on the ethical and social implications posed by post-humanism as the well-known paradox of the ship of Theseus (which, as we all know, illustrates the problem of identity). (shrink)

Infusing contemporary critical terrorism studies (CTS) with concepts and methodologies from philosophy and critical theory via a Baradian posthumanist agential realist perspective and (counter)terrorist cases and vignettes, this chapter argues for a retheorisation of (counter)terrorism. It does so, firstly, by reconceptualising terrorism and counterterrorism as complex assemblages consisting not only of discursive-material components – an entanglement now largely accepted within CTS and critical security studies (CSS) – but also of affective layers and more-than-human phenomena. Secondly, by analysing (...) European urban (counter)terrorist cases from the UK, Germany, France, and Spain, together with these cases’ surprising spacetime-jumping interlinkages underwriting what we here conceptualise as queer(ing) spacetimematterings, this chapter zooms in on the intra-actions taking place between human and more-than-human agential phenomena and their risk-managed urban environments. Lastly, extra analytical attention is paid to how, in this neoliberal day and age – here rephrased as control society-driven ‘situationscaping times’ – very specific macro- and micropolitical violence-preventing measures and efforts are employed in the fight against various manifestations of urban terror and terrorism. (shrink)

The short experimental film Shifting Perspectives stems from a collaborative research project initiated in 2019 in Sydney, Australia, during the 'Choreographic Hack Lab-a week-long laboratory co-presented by Critical Path and Sydney Festival in partnership with the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (MAAS), which asked artists and academics to rethink and respond to the idea of the Anthropocene (Pini & George, 2019). The film was later developed in 2020 during a Responsive Residency at Critical Path, Sydney, awarded to anthropologist and (...) choreographer Sarah Pini in collaboration with Jestin George, biotechnologist and visual artist, and Melissa Ramos, visual artist and filmmaker. This work aims to open a multivocal interdisciplinary dialogue across screendance, performance and synthetic biology. Inspired by a recent conversation between two leaders in the field of synthetic biology (Sarah Richardson and Tom Knight) and their divergent approaches to working with microbial life (Agapakis, 2019), the film invites to consider how collaborating with microorganisms can reshape our future in a more-than-human world. (shrink)

Architecture and Deconstruction Case of Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi -/- Introduction Towards deconstruction in architecture Intensive relations between philosophical deconstruction and architecture, which were present in the late 1980s and early 1990s, belong to the past and therefore may be described from a greater than before distance. Within these relations three basic variations can be distinguished: the first one, in which philosophy of deconstruction deals with architectural terms but does not interfere with real architecture, (...) the second one, in which a collaboration between Jacques Derrida and a group of architects interested in his concepts is commenced, and the third one, in which completed or only designed objects or new concepts of deconstruction created by architects gain their supremacy over philosophy. The following book analyses these three possible ways, first of all with the reference to Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi. -/- Peter Eisenman -/- Misreading… and Other Errors -/- The issue of relations between Peter Eisenman’s work and philosophy of deconstruction may be referred to his activity more than ten years preceding his direct collaboration with Jacques Derrida (in 1985) and organisation of the exhibition Deconstructivist Architecture at Museum of Modern Art in New York (in 1988). As soon as at the stage of designing the first houses (House I-III, 1967-1970), which almost entirely inscribed in formalistic aesthetics of Modernism, the architect analysed the problem of architecture dependence on its assumptions. All his later designs may be treated as consequence of this initial interest in relations between practice and theory, and at the same time as an introduction to manipulations later on led at the level of metaphysics of architecture. Beginning with the issue of presence, considered in comments to House VI (1972), the number of ideas having their analogies in philosophy of deconstruction increased. The text entitled The End of the Classical: The End of the Beginning, The End of the End (1984), in which Eisenman criticised questions of representation in architecture, its delusive strive for truth and comparably unattainable attempts at ultimate definition of elementary rules, should be acclaimed the breaking point. This attitude was extended by numerous strategies disturbing architecture rules defined at metaphysical level in an essay Moving Arrows, Eros, and Other Errors: an Architecture of Absence (1986). The issue of Eisenman’s passage from formalism to deconstruction has already been much discussed in the literature (Rosalind Krauss, Thomas Patin among others), still it should be mentioned that the threads similar to Derrida’s concept included in Eisenman’s writing reveal untranslatability of architecture and philosophy. -/- Choral Works or Separate tricks -/- In 1985-1986 a series of seven disputes between Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman took place. The pretext for them were designs concerning Parc de la Villette in Paris. The situation of many months of collaboration between a notable philosopher of the second half of the 20th c. and an architect that already had a huge theoretical oeuvre, ended up with a publication of a large volume entitled Chora L Works and it became at the same time a vast study area for historians of contemporary architecture and philosophers. Derrida’s contribution to concept works were his considerations over the idea of chôra, the properties related to this concept were about to be reflected in shapes of the park. Therefore, Chora L Works became an example of the abilities of contemporary art, both in its capability of translation from philosophical ideas to artistic forms and its resistance to tradition of representing in architecture some phenomena and values originating outside this discipline. In the final period of their collaboration both interlocutors started to polemicise with each other more decidedly, what became a separate part of their thought exchange. The exchange of letters between Derrida and Eisenman at the turn of 1989 ended up the period of their direct contacts, nevertheless, at this time precisely a large group of experts in issues of deconstruction joined the discussion and extended the revealed in the former dispute problems into more than ten years of further considerations and publications. Except for a long text by Jeffrey Kipnis, who had participated in the meetings of the philosopher and the architect, there appeared also comments of researchers of artistic theories (K. Michael Hays, Thomas Patin), philosophers (Andrew Benjamin), and even experts in Greek literature (Maria Theodorou or Ann Bergren). Following these debates a contemporary reflection on architecture has saturated with indeed numerous concepts originating in philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Architecture which imitates mute philosophy -/- The series of Jacques Derrida and Peter Eisenman meetings, which took place in the period of 1985-1987, induced many authors to make comments. Some of them (Jeffrey Kipnis, Ann Bergren, Maria Theodorou) developed the subject of chôra which was introduced to the discussion by Derrida. The problem that was about to be solved was the question of tying up the concept of chôra with architecture, including Eisenman’s architecture and the series of meetings within frames of Chora L Works project. Kipnis on this occasion paid attention to chôra and its character of anachronia which infects any being created within chôra. In other words any event has its counterpart (analogon) in another, earlier event. He demonstrated the similarity of structure of many events and statements from the times of Derrida and Eisenman’s meetings to the almost identical behaviour of figures in Plato’s dialogue Timaeus. The loss of beginning present in this phenomenon was appropriate to both features of chôra and the effects of typical analyses of philosophy of deconstruction. Bergren’s analyses focused on accentuating gender of chôra, which, according to this author, had been neglected hitherto in discussions. She collated chôra descriptions with characteristics of women in myths, early Greek epic and philosophy and she arrived at a conclusion that chôra has features of a single woman and a married one at the same time. And yet Theodorou’s studies showed that in the Homeric epics chôra is not treated as an idea but is related with single things and events. The other part of the comments (represented by Andrew Benjamin and K. Michael Hays’ utterances) concerns Eisenman’s attitude to tradition which was treated as a variety of iteration understood philosophically. Benjamin commenced his considerations at the point of closeness between a definition of tradition and a concept of chôra understood as perpetuation (placement). A problematic issue was for him Eisenman’s complex relation to tradition based on its contest and affirmation at the same time. Overcoming the simple subordination to tradition – according to Benjamin – was based on awareness of the role of repetition in culture not known before. Hays made an attempt to explain the pleasure and torment of repetition with the support of Sigmund Freud and Roland Barthes’ concepts. According to Hays repetitions are attempts of a single being to a certain primal state perceived as free of any tension. In a similar way Rosalind Krauss explained a motif of a grate present in Modernistic art and also exceptionally frequent in Eisenman’s work. -/- Annex Architecture is still writing Balzac novels. Peter Eisenman and literature -/- Architecture’s approach to writing, script or literature, present within Peter Eisenman’s work, is an exceptional phenomenon, furthermore a complex one. The article considers four possible relations. The first one relates to Eisenman’s characteristics as a person extremely gifted with the ability to wordplay, which very ‘play’ reveals skills to create architectural images. In the second approach the attention has been paid to Eisenman’s interests – in the first period of his oeuvre – in linguistic works by Noam Chomsky and his transformational-generative grammar. The third kind of relations applied to overcoming the need for autonomy of architecture (and of modernist aesthetics at the same time) and renew interests in questions of meaning in architecture. The fourth sort of relations occurred when Eisenman started to create reflections of historic or literary narrations in architecture – ‘stone stories’ and architectural fictions of their kind. -/- Bernard Tschumi -/- From perversion to deconstruction In Bernard Tschumi’s writings from the 1970s and 1980s we can find a transposition of important threads of post-structuralist ideas deriving from Georges Bataille, Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida’s works. The analysis of the architect’s writings also shows roots in Phillippe Sollers, Michel Foucault and Denis Hollier’s works. The analysis of borrowed elements from the beginnings of Tschumi’s theoretical activity may be helpful in explaining the contents of his later writings motre inspired by philosophy of deconstruction. The set of his earliest views was inspired by Marxism, Neo Marxism and French Structuralism, mainly by the writings of Henri Levebre and Guy Debord. From the thought of Levebre Tschumi took interest for city as not only a question of urbanistics but also a political issue. From Debord’s concepts he borrowed a conviction about the role of situational violation for changes in the society structure. Some of these beliefs were preserved in his own concepts of architecture as an event. From this period derived also his will to change conservative elements of social structure not by means of political revolution but of theoretical and creative activity. Tschumi acknowledged that the effective way of the proceedings towards achieving his aims would be accepting the role of both a critical intellectualist and architecture expert who would not hide away his left-wing orientation. The speculations defined by the architect as ‘revolting analyses’ were about to characterise contradictions which tear the society apart, penetrate architecture and constitute the basis of culture. Spreading away of the conscience of false assumptions hidden away in various disciplines could have weakened cohesion of a conservative society and influence the will to change among the elites. This way the beginnings of political revolution were rooted in philosophy of architecture. In 1977 Tschumi published his text entitled The Pleasure of Architecture inspired by Roland Barthes’s The Pleasure of the Text, it also included some concepts derived from Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. First of all the author used Barthes’s concept which made an assumption that literary activity is pervaded by the spirit of resistance towards social rules, and Tschudi transferred this remark onto architecture. From the ideas of Bataille, acquainted via Holier’s work, he derived his belief that two concepts of space, a conceptual one (defined as Pyramid) and a sensual one (defined as Labirynth), not losing their distinct features, they join in the concept of experienced space which exceeds contradictions. The exceeding itself was defined as the basic rule of architecture and it was referred to situations in which architecture not only negates social needs, but also disavows its own tradition. Crossing the borders applies not only to political issues or permanent rules of the very discipline but also interfering with other fields (especially literature and film). The fact that architecture is associated with organising events turned Tschumi’s attention to questions of violence that result from upsetting architectural order of a given building by its users and the one hand, and on the other from forcing the users to specific acts imposed by this very order. The analysis of the concepts used by Tschumi in his early writings indicates that they are close to definitions that would occur in his reflection in the following years influenced by philosophy of deconstruction. -/- Approaching deconstruction Tschumi in his theories developed in the 1980s presumed that the current social world had undergone a deep process of decay, and the reaction against which ought to be based on ordering-up actions, and also preserving the main outline of disintegration of the whole and its elements in the state of conflict. The statements concerning the nature of the contemporary to Tschumi social relations were applied by him to the world of architecture, this led him to coming up with designing strategies that took into consideration the destabilised character of conditions in which works of architecture were created. New ways of conduct invented by Tschumi drew their inspiration from literature and research on literature, psychoanalysis, structural linguistics, structuralism and post structuralism, and eventually also deconstruction philosophy. The proposed methods were opposed by their author both to functionalism continuity trends and postmodern architecture. Tschumi’s proposals contradicted any forms of conservatism or traditionalism in political sphere as well as in reference to tendencies in architecture. They were not simple contradictions of social or architectural rules, they intrude them from the inside, weaken or escalate the already existing incongruities, they move the boundaries between the areas. Revolutionary illusions about the possibility of radical changes were replaced with strategies which completed, tainted or test former rules in the series of formal games of permutation and combination. Quite different from avant-garde formalism Tschumi’s games were not about maintaining the autonomy of a given area, but on the contrary – polluting it with other areas’ influences. Tschumi enjoyed demonstrating illusions of architecture concerning simple relations between form and function, or between form and meaning. Making use of Freud, Lacan and Foucault’s research he introduced a category of “madness” into architecture allowing an observation that the recognised norms are nothing but merely ones of many possible principles of behaviour, and their recognised status resulted from unjustified hindering innovativeness which is crucial for architecture. To reborn architecture’s capability of changing Tschumi also made use of Barthes’s discoveries concerning rules of narration and works by writers who applied in their writing knowledge on linguistics. Making a work’s author unclear by various mechanical transformations of its elements was however apparent only, and formal rigours imposed on the process of designing liberated possibilities difficult to obtain in more traditional creative action. Another mode of acting introduced by Tschumi was combining his work of elements deriving from outside architecture; joining space records with notation of motion and events accompanying architectural objects among others. These architectural and extra-architectural elements were not unified, on the contrary their heterogenous and conflictual character was stressed. This is how shock, anxiety and instability, typical for live in great metropolises, infiltrated architecture. Taking some ideas of deconstruction philosophy as a pattern Tschumi also took into critical consideration in his essays traditional in architecture oppositions between form and figuration, or theory and practice. By combining various inspirations he eventually worked out an idea of architectural event, which he understood as a series of actions contesting its own field, redefining its sources, principles and elements. An event, understood in this way, was not so much producing works as rather creating conditions of their production and at the same time designing the society different from a hierarchic one. -/- Park of deconstruction Among numerous philosophical strategies of deconstruction most frequently used was questioning the practice of strong opposition of two reasons. In many cases Bernard Tschumi’s writings just consider functioning of the conflict juxtaposition of the ideas of structure and ornament or theory and practice in history of architecture. Violation of traditional relations between terms of this kind, both old and modern, raised Jacques Derrida’s objections, when he was induced for the first time to co-operate with architects’ milieu. During this long lasting thought exchange the philosopher eventually acknowledged Bernard Tschumi’s arguments for reasoning the encroachment of architecture’s fundamental rules. Deconstruction applied in architecture was not a simple transposition or analogy of practices that had been applied by philosophy of deconstruction. We may even say that considering architectural terms became an important formula of deconstruction. Architecture understood in philosophical way became something beyond the practice and theory of its own discipline, a sort of metaphysics of both philosophy and architecture. The deliberate encroachment of simplicity of dividing architecture into theory and practice, for the first time became a clear aim for Tschumi in his drawings and texts entitled The Manhattan Transcripts. The contents of this series of works was a record of characteristic features of this New York district in such a way that not only objects were the subject of the record but also relations between objects, people and events. The record was about to take into consideration a conflict character of elements of this representation and at the same time to avoid applying to them the rule of mimetism. The record became a form of reflection over the very record by an increased control over the ways of representation. Architecture which was considered in the The Manhattan Transcripts was not directed to fulfill the needs of inhabitation or production, it was rather related with hitherto usually marginalised liminal situations: building ostentatiously big monuments, religious cult, war etc. Architecture operating in these relations focused also the attention on the included in it continuous tendency to overpass its own restrictions, the role of violence as its not recognised factor, or the meaning of excess and shock in its operation. Architecture moving from reason towards madness became even more visible in the design of Parisian Parc de la Villette, whose pavilions were defined as folies (in French it means both small park buildings and follies). The park was supposed to be on the one hand a reflection of traditional society disintegration while on the other it questioned basic rules of producing a work of architecture. The traditional rules of designing, based on ordering up, were replaced with the strategies of dysfunction and dissociation. In Tschumi’s opinion methods of this kind may be equivalent of what Derrida named différance. Instead of aiming at mergence, any diversity, plays or variations were strengthen. Tschumi’s texts, in which he explained his attitude, were completed by Derrida’s extent statement entitled Point de folie – Maintenant l’architecture. Derrida’s article is the most significant of all his statements on architecture as a form of thinking and activity. According to the philosopher, architecture should divide space (in French defined as espacement), what enables both thinking and action – it arranges the space of an event. Tschumi’s buildings, defined as folies, in an essential way destabilise any created order, and at the same time they refresh it. Derrida’s statement suggests that architecture may become both metaphor of an order merging a language or a society but also of inner forces which deconstruct and reconstruct it. Therefore architecture is at the same time a construction, a deconstruction and a reconstruction. Parc de la Villette stands out in this system with its attempt to step beyond the scheme of an easy repetition and its heading for chances of achieving more radical otherness. -/- Conclusion Destruction as construction. Paradoxes of deconstruction in architecture -/- Scepticism about persistence and common importance of fundamental values of human culture evinced in philosophers and writers’ works as early as in Greek antiquity, nevertheless it was not expressed so strongly as in the second half of the 20th century. Especially in Heidegger’s work Being and Time (although originated in 1927, still influential in all later philosophy) the following states were characterised: the state of losing the ground (Abgrund), of being out of sight (Unheimlichkeit) and of being out of dwelling (Un-zuhause-sein) – as the basis of self-confidence of conscious being there (Dasein). The entire criticism of philosophy of home and dwelling draws the inspiration from this early writing of the German philosopher, it combines crisis of basic terms of metaphysics with social conditions which are dictated by living in large metropolis. The crisis of both metaphysical foundation and home appears to be similar to the situation of weakening the relations between a man and his dwelling in extensively expanding cities. Whereas philosophy, as well as many disciplines of social sciences, have diagnosed for a long time the destabilisation of fundamental ideas of Western culture and crucial changes in the ways of dwelling, architecture itself occurred to be “the last fortress of metaphysics” (J. Derrida). Among contemporary architects, Peter Eisenman and Bernard Tschumi were the ones who engaged most decidedly in the issues of critical analysis of architecture foundation and its social role. Both the architects noticed new formulas of contemporary social and individual existence, tremendously different from the entire history, and at the same time they affirmed lack of adequacy of architecture concepts to new situations. Both Eisenman and Tschumi used to describe the existing architecture as a tool for consolidation of highly integrated and hierarchised societies, and also as a discipline extremely uncoincidental with the current character of social life based on ideas of freedom and diversity. The means to transform architecture and make a factor of further social changes out of it, was a concept that accentuated revealing the inner contradictions of this discipline, and considering them in designing strategies. Eisenman’s activity, in regard of what has just been noticed, was focused on questioning the basic rules of traditionally comprehended architecture, especially the rule of purpose. The American architect noticed that the concept of architecture as fulfilment the need of location, hides away the fact that the location has to be constantly reconsidered, and hence it is overtaken by change (dislocation). Therefore new concept of architecture propounded architectural activity to translocate the concept of location – more than before – but also to change its status perpetually. Such comprehended architecture should claim, as its main purpose, the constant revision of this purpose and create itself anew permanently. Even Eisenman’s earliest designs of houses nos. I-IV broke with such values as the sense of safety, closeness and familiarity, and just on the contrary they accentuated senses of strangeness, homelessness and loss of confidence. The contradictions within architecture noticed by Tschumi referred to combination of intellectual and sensual values in architecture, when their non-appropriation was defeated by an additional condition, namely the way of experience based on pleasure of excess, marked by insanity. The features of folly were especially visible in his designs of gardens, where the order of planning was mixed with sensual experience introduced by particular elements (both the ones created by nature, and the buildings defined as folies). Parc de la Villette designed by the French architect in Paris put in question not only the common understanding of purpose in architecture but also the ideas of order and integrity, as its plan was based on the combination of independent layers with records of grids of points, various lines and planes. The architecture that collides inadequate elements with each other was supposed to be a kind of an event with no beginning and no end. The architecture treated as an event became a form of a space weakened articulation that maintains its diversity and lack of accordance of the elements building it up. The analyses of Eisenman and Tschumi’s theoretical writings indicate how much the aims of architecture have actually changed; instead of supporting social persistence, the architecture is rather intensifying contradictions, and instead of providing people with the sense of safety, it sublimes danger. From simple acts of defamiliarisation, increasing the distance to itself and enhancing the role of theory, through discomfort, anxiety, not feeling someone at home, weirdness, excess, shock and violence, architecture reached the edge of stability and uncertainty, only to make an attempt at penetrating what is impossible and unutterable, and recording what cannot become the subject of any records. -/- . (shrink)

This paper is a response to Val Plumwoods call for writers to engage in ‘the struggle to think differently’. Specifically, she calls writers to engage in the task of opening up an experience of nature as powerful and as possessing agency. I argue that a critical component of opening up who or what can be understood as possessing agency involves challenging the conception of time as linear, externalised and absolute, particularly in as much as it has guided Western conceptions of (...) process, change and invention. I explore this through anthropologist Carol Greenhouse's claim that social conceptions of time can be read as theories of agency. Thus, in seeking to respond to Plumwood’s call to think differently, the question becomes: what kind of writing would enable a fundamental re-thinking of agency without, however, ignoring the way Western notions of agency have been shaped by linear accounts of time? I look to Jacques Derrida's work as one example. I first locate the possibility of re-writing time and agency in the experiential aspects of his writing, which I argue interrupt both the reader’s sense of agency and linear models of reading. But further, I connect Derrida’s work directly with Plumwood’s by examining how his deconstruction of the Western concept of invention may enable another account of creative change that could reshape what counts as ‘agency’ within the Anthropocene. (shrink)

From the perspective of the Informational Model of Consciousness elaborated and reported recently on the basis of the last discoveries of the quantum mechanics and astrophysics, the meeting horizon between some ancient coherent empirical models of the humanity and our modern scientific results is analyzed. These results are discussed in terms of information, as a central axis relating the universe, the human and inter-humanity connections, and consciousness as an informational tool for the exploration of the reality. Bringing into discussion (...) the relevant recent discoveries of quantum mechanics (Higgs’ boson, disembodiment of information from the physical particles), and matter/information properties near the black holes, it is reinforced the concept of information as one of the fundamental constituent of matter and of our universe, showing that information is actually the base fabric of matter structures, living structures and universe. The huge quantity of dynamic information engaged in the living structures, particularly in the human organism, necessary to maintain the life’s functions and to allow the adaptation requirements, differentiates the living from non-living entities. It is shown that consciousness, human and universe cannot be really understood if it is not introduced on the panoramic scene a new player – dark matter, with more than 20% contribution, besides more than 70% dark energy and only 5% observable matter from the matter total quantity. It is shown also that the Informational Model of Consciousness, consisting in an architecture of seven cognitive centers, converges with the ancient models of chakras, of etheric body and aura concepts, with dual Taoist concepts of universe and human body, contributing with answers to the “mind-body”, “nature or nurture” problems and even to Qualia “hard” problem, and supporting the Jung’s concepts on the mind. Finally, some questions are addressed to the quantum mechanics, concerning the retro-causal effect and non-locality principle. (shrink)

How can humanist principles of respect, dignity, and care inform and improve design for non-human lifeforms? This paper uses ageing and dying urban trees to understand how architectural, urban, and landscape design respond to nonhuman concerns. It draws on research in plant sciences, environmental history, ethics, environmental management, and urban design to ask: how can more-than-human ethics improve multispecies cohabitation in urban forests? The paper hypothesises that concepts of dignity and respect can underline the capabilities of (...) nonhuman lifeforms and lead to improved designs for multispecies cohabitation. To investigate the implications of this ethical framework, we 1) indicate injustices of current management in relation to natural and cultural histories of trees; 2) outline a conceptual framework that includes large old trees as stakeholders in urban communities; and 3) use this framework in a thought experiment with urban trees in Melbourne, outlining comparative design outcomes. Our findings show that the expansion of dignity to include nonhuman life is possible and plausible. Such an extension can justify and encourage design innovation for multiple species and sites. The resulting design practices will lead to improvements by supporting communities of trees at all stages of their life-cycles, including old age, death, and rebirth. This approach requires substantial shifts in accepted thinking and practices including history, ethics, aesthetics, regulation, and education. Design can play a significant role in the necessary transitions by demonstrating tangible and positive outcomes. In this context, history emerges as an essential tool that can extend societal imagination by situating possible future places in the context of ancient and ongoing geological, evolutionary, ecological, and cultural processes. (shrink)

Recent studies have explored the effectiveness of open-label placebos for a variety of conditions, including chronic pain, cancer-related fatigue and irritable bowel syndrome. OLPs are thought to sidestep traditional ethical worries about placebos because they do not involve deception: with an OLP, patients or subjects are told outright that they are not given an active substance. As deception is framed as the primary hurdle to ethical placebo use, the door is ostensibly opened to ethical studies of OLPs. In this article, (...) I suggest that even though OLPs seemingly do not involve deception, there are other ethical considerations in their clinical investigation and subsequent use. Research ethics often focusses on informed consent—of which, deception and honesty are a piece—as a means to justify research practices with human subjects. Yet, it is but one of the ethical considerations that should be taken into account. With research into placebo effects in particular, I argue that the history of clinical placebo use grounds special considerations for OLP research that go beyond respect for the autonomy of individual patients through informed consent and encompass structural concerns about the type of patient for whom a placebo has historically been thought appropriate. (shrink)

Some recent psychological studies suggest that the belief that humans matter more than other animals can be strengthened by cognitive dissonance. Jaquet (forthcom- ing) argues that some of these studies also show that the relevant belief is primar- ily caused by cognitive dissonance and is therefore subject to a debunking argument. We offer an alternative hypothesis according to which we are already speciesist but cognitive dissonance merely enhances our speciesism. We argue that our hypothesis explains the results of (...) the studies at least as well as Jaquet’s. We then respond to a series of objections. Along the way, we highlight various respects in which further stud- ies are needed to decide between Jaquet’s hypothesis and ours. (shrink)

This is a theoretical treatment of the term "Sha Zhu Pan" (杀猪盘) in Chinese, which translates to “Pig-Butchering” in English. The article critically examines the propagation and validation of "Pig Butchering," an animal metaphor, and its implications for the dehumanisation of victims of online fraud across various discourses. The study provides background information about this type of fraud before investigating its theoretical foundations and linking its emergence to the dehumanisation of fraud victims. The analysis highlights the disparity between academic literature, (...) subjected to rigorous peer-review processes, and sensationalised narratives prevalent in the media. While academic works subject "pig butchering" to critical scrutiny and refrain from endorsing derogatory terms to depict fraud victims, numerous media outlets employ this term uncritically, further worsening the predicament of these victims. "Pig butchering" is firmly rooted in the concept of dehumanisation, and this article underscores how language moulds perceptions of fraud and behaviour, extending to the development of preventive strategies. The role of law enforcement agencies in generating and disseminating materials is also a central theme, emphasising their responsibility as trusted sources of information. We suggest that these agencies should adopt non-victim shaming language to encourage victims to report crimes and alleviate the stigma attached to victimisation. Additionally, the article offers valuable cross-cultural insights by comparing metaphors from Chinese and Nigerian contexts. This comparative analysis enriches our comprehension of the global dimensions of online fraud and its cultural diversities, highlighting the substantial impact of language on perceptions and behaviours. We advocate for a departure from victim-blaming tendencies perpetuated by select media outlets, urging a more compassionate and accurate portrayal of those affected by online fraud. We, therefore, call for a more empathetic and accurate portrayal of individuals affected by online fraud, aligning with the broader objective of promoting understanding and support for these victims. (shrink)

This paper concerns the double standard debate in the ethics of AI literature. This debate essentially revolves around the question of whether we should subject AI systems to different normative standards than humans. So far, the debate has centered around the desideratum of transparency. That is, the debate has focused on whether AI systems must be more transparent than humans in their decision-making processes in order for it to be morally permissible to use such systems. Some have (...) argued that the same standards of transparency should be applied across the board, for AI systems and humans alike. Others have argued that we should hold AI systems to higher standards than humans in terms of transparency. In this paper, we first point out that there are structurally similar double standard debates to be had about other desiderata besides transparency, such as predictive accuracy. Second, we argue that when we focus on predictive accuracy, there are at least two reasons for holding AI systems to a lower standard than humans. (shrink)

In this paper, I present a case study on a recent attempt at implementing what I refer to as the “Pro-lifer’s Asymmetrical Punishment View” (PAPV), the view that people should be legally punished for performing abortions whereas women should not be so punished for procuring abortions. While doing so, I argue that the endeavor, which took place in the state of Alabama, is incoherent relative to the conjunction of its purported underlying moral rationale and the Alabama criminal code. I then (...) present what I take to be possible explanations for, practical implications of, and solutions to the attempt and its incoherence. Given that other endeavors to implement PAPV are currently in the works and are so with similar underlying moral rationales and within similar criminal codes, what I present and argue here is not limited to Alabama’s attempt at doing so. (shrink)

It is indubitable that machines with artificial intelligence (AI) will be an essential component in humans’ quest to become a spacefaring civilization. Most would agree that long-distance space travel and the colonization of Mars will not be possible without adequately developed AI. Machines with AI have a normative function, but some argue that it can also be evaluated from the perspective of ethical norms. This essay is based on the assumption that machine ethics is an essential philosophical perspective in realizing (...) the aim of humanity becoming a spacefaring civilization. In this essay, I explore two questions in the field of machine ethics, that I believe to be relevant to the role AI will play in long-distance space travel. The first is, should moral theory be extended to include machines with AI, and second, can machines be fully ethical agents? In this essay, I define AI and then discuss the difference between implicit, explicit and full ethical agents in relation to machines with AI. I then present the argument that the inclusion of moral theory is essential in the development of machines with AI. Without an adequate inclusion of moral theory in the design of AI it may pose an existential threat to humanity, especially in the development of super-intelligent machines. I also highlight that conceptual clarity is essential in the field of machine ethics and the choice of the conceptual foundation that informs AI research and development has ethical implications, especially in the case of super-intelligent machines. This essay is an exploratory and speculative philosophical analysis of certain aspects of machine ethics relevant to long-distance space travel and does not attempt to provide definitive answers to the questions posed in the essay, but instead aims to bring attention to what I deem important considerations. (shrink)

It is traditionally assumed that there is only one theory of causality in Hume's writings. In this article it is shown that we can distinguish between an early and mature theory. It is argued that the mature theory, strongly influenced by Newton's physics, accords with the New Hume interpretation by asserting that real causal relations are not accessible to the human mind.

What separates the unique nature of human consciousness and that of an entity that can only perceive the world via strict logic-based structures? Rather than assume that there is some potential way in which logic-only existence is non-feasible, our species would be better served by assuming that such sentient existence is feasible. Under this assumption, artificial intelligence systems (AIS), which are creations that run solely upon logic to process data, even with self-learning architectures, should therefore not face the (...) opposition they have to gaining some legal duties and protections insofar as they are sophisticated enough to display consciousness akin to humans. Should our species enable AIS to gain a digital body to inhabit (if we have not already done so), it is more pressing than ever that solid arguments be made as to how humanity can accept AIS as being cognizant of the same degree as we ourselves claim to be. By accepting the notion that AIS can and will be able to fool our senses into believing in their claim to possessing a will or ego, we may yet have a chance to address them as equals before some unforgivable travesty occurs betwixt ourselves and these super-computing beings. (shrink)

What separates the unique nature of human consciousness and that of an entity that can only perceive the world via strict logic-based structures? Rather than assume that there is some potential way in which logic-only existence is non-feasible, our species would be better served by assuming that such sentient existence is feasible. Under this assumption, artificial intelligence systems (AIS), which are creations that run solely upon logic to process data, even with self-learning architectures, should therefore not face the (...) opposition they have to gaining some legal duties and protections insofar as they are sophisticated enough to display consciousness akin to humans. Should our species enable AIS to gain a digital body to inhabit (if we have not already done so), it is more pressing than ever that solid arguments be made as to how humanity can accept AIS as being cognizant of the same degree as we ourselves claim to be. By accepting the notion that AIS can and will be able to fool our senses into believing in their claim to possessing a will or ego, we may yet have a chance to address them as equals before some unforgivable travesty occurs betwixt ourselves and these super-computing beings. (shrink)

For more than a decade, an aura of discontentment has challenged existing models and theories that have established the structures in various fields of human endeavours such as philosophy, architecture, political science, media, literature, arts and the humanities in general. For instance, the architectural design of what was hitherto referred to as modern building has at least a sitting room (parlour), a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet as well as two or more number of (...) bedrooms depending on the size of the family, including the master's bedroom. This design was a view that transcended from the old traditional caves and all manner of living spaces that were devised by the early man. The modern concept arose out of man's need to assume a better living status based on his new initiatives. In the field of media and communication, the period of technological evolvement and development that brought about the coinage of descriptive terms such as 'electronic age' and now 'computer age', was preceded by a 'stone age' where the means of communication was prototypical of that archaic society. Though nothing has changed tremendously in interpersonal communication, there are modern means of interpersonal communication made possible by the advent of the telephone. Prior to the advent of this modern technology, interpersonal communication was only made possible in a face-to-face situation or mere errand. Mass Communication in early traditional societies was done with the use of smoke or town-criers who were employed to go round the communities with their gongs to make announcements. This means of communication hardly made it possible for ideas or information to be shared among people who resided in different parts of the world, unlike today. (shrink)

This is a defense of Pyrrhonian skepticism against the charge that the suspension of judgment based on equipollence is vitiated by the assent given to the equipollence in question. The apparent conflict has a conceptual side as well as a practical side, examined here as separate challenges with a section devoted to each. The conceptual challenge is that the skeptical transition from an equipollence of arguments to a suspension of judgment is undermined either by a logical contradiction or by an (...) epistemic inconsistency, perhaps by both, because the determination and affirmation of equipollence is itself a judgment of sorts, one that is not suspended. The practical challenge is that, independently of any conceptual confusion or contradiction, suspending judgment in reaction to equipollence evinces doxastic commitment to equipollence, if only because human beings are not capable of making assessments requiring rational determination without believing the corresponding premises and conclusions to be true. The two analytic sections addressing these challenges are preceded by two prefatory sections, one laying out the epistemic process, the other reviewing the evidentiary context. The response from the conceptual perspective is that the suspension of judgment based on equipollence is not a reasoned conclusion adopted as the truth of the matter but a natural reaction to an impression left by the apparently equal weight of opposing arguments. The response from the practical perspective is that the acknowledgment of equipollence is not just an affirmation of the equal weight of arguments but also an admission of inability to decide, suggesting that any assent, express or implied, is thrust upon the Pyrrhonist in a state of epistemic paralysis affecting the will and the intellect on the matter being investigated. This just leaves a deep disagreement, if any, regarding whether equipollence is an inference based on discursive activity or an impression coming from passive receptivity. But this, even if resolved in favor of the critic (which it need not and ought not be), is not the same as confusion or inconsistency on the part of the Pyrrhonist, the demonstration of which is the primary aim of this paper. (shrink)

The arts have been almost completely marginalized - at a time when, arguably, they are more important than ever. Whether we understand by “the arts” painting, sculpture and architecture, or more broadly, the whole aesthetic realm and the arts faculties of universities concerned with this realm, over the last half century these fields have lost their cognitive status. This does not mean that there are not people involved in the arts, but they do not have the (...) standing participants in these fields once had. The arts lost the battle of the “two cultures”; science prevailed over the arts and humanities. Architecture is being redefined as an applied science rather than one of the arts. The arts were then finally routed (with hardly a fight) by economists. They have been absorbed into the advertising, entertainment, decoration and building industries, and, as universities have been transformed into transnational business corporations, arts faculties have lost their reason for existence. This paper challenges this marginalization. (shrink)

Is the tendency to morally prioritize humans over animals weaker in children than adults? In two pre-registered studies (N = 622), 5- to 9-year-old children and adults were presented with moral dilemmas pitting varying numbers of humans against varying numbers of either dogs or pigs and were asked who should be saved. In both studies, children had a weaker tendency to prioritize humans over animals than adults. They often chose to save multiple dogs over one human, and (...) many valued the life of a dog as much as the life of a human. While they valued pigs less, the majority still prioritized ten pigs over one human. By contrast, almost all adults chose to save one human over even one hundred dogs or pigs. Our findings suggest that the common view that humans are far more morally important than animals appears late in development and is likely socially acquired. (shrink)

From the school yard to the workplace, there’s no charge more damning than “you’re being unfair!” Born out of democracy and raised in open markets, fairness has become our de facto modern creed. The very symbol of American ethics—Lady Justice—wears a blindfold as she weighs the law on her impartial scale. In our zealous pursuit of fairness, we have banished our urges to like one person more than another, one thing over another, hiding them away as (...) dirty secrets of our humanity. In Against Fairness, polymath philosopher Stephen T. Asma drags them triumphantly back into the light. Through playful, witty, but always serious arguments and examples, he vindicates our unspoken and undeniable instinct to favor, making the case that we would all be better off if we showed our unfair tendencies a little more kindness—indeed, if we favored favoritism. Conscious of the egalitarian feathers his argument is sure to ruffle, Asma makes his point by synthesizing a startling array of scientific findings, historical philosophies, cultural practices, analytic arguments, and a variety of personal and literary narratives to give a remarkably nuanced and thorough understanding of how fairness and favoritism fit within our moral architecture. Examining everything from the survival-enhancing biochemistry that makes our mothers love us to the motivating properties of our “affective community,” he not only shows how we favor but the reasons we should. Drawing on thinkers from Confucius to Tocqueville to Nietzsche, he reveals how we have confused fairness with more noble traits, like compassion and open-mindedness. He dismantles a number of seemingly egalitarian pursuits, from classwide Valentine’s Day cards to civil rights, to reveal the envy that lies at their hearts, going on to prove that we can still be kind to strangers, have no prejudice, and fight for equal opportunity at the same time we reserve the best of what we can offer for those dearest to us. Fed up with the blue-ribbons-for-all absurdity of "fairness" today, and wary of the psychological paralysis it creates, Asma resets our moral compass with favoritism as its lodestar, providing a strikingly new and remarkably positive way to think through all our actions, big and small. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) often outperforms human doctors in terms of decisional speed. For some diseases, the expected benefit of a fast but less accurate decision exceeds the benefit of a slow but more accurate one. In such cases, we argue, it is often justified to rely on a medical AI to maximise decision speed – even if the AI is less accurate than human doctors.

During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [35]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA[ 48]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g. CLARION [59]) adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR) trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating diagrammatical representations and reasoning are (...) also available [34]. In this paper we propose a reflection on the role that Conceptual Spaces, a framework developed by Peter G¨ardenfors [24] more than fifteen years ago, can play in the current development of the Knowledge Level in Cognitive Systems and Architectures. In particular, we claim that Conceptual Spaces offer a lingua franca that allows to unify and generalize many aspects of the symbolic, sub-symbolic and diagrammatic approaches (by overcoming some of their typical problems) and to integrate them on a common ground. In doing so we extend and detail some of the arguments explored by G¨ardenfors [23] for defending the need of a conceptual, intermediate, representation level between the symbolic and the sub-symbolic one. In particular we focus on the advantages offered by Conceptual Spaces (w.r.t. symbolic and sub-symbolic approaches) in dealing with the problem of compositionality of representations based on typicality traits. Additionally, we argue that Conceptual Spaces could offer a unifying framework for interpreting many kinds of diagrammatic and analogical representations. As a consequence, their adoption could also favor the integration of diagrammatical representation and reasoning in CAs. (shrink)

The study of cultural evolution has taken on an increasingly interdisciplinary and diverse approach in explicating phenomena of cultural transmission and adoptions. Inspired by this computational movement, this study uses Bayesian networks analysis, combining both the frequentist and the Hamiltonian Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) approach, to investigate the highly representative elements in the cultural evolution of a Vietnamese city’s architecture in the early 20th century. With a focus on the façade design of 68 old houses in Hanoi’s Old (...) Quarter (based on 78 data lines extracted from 248 photos), the study argues that it is plausible to look at the aesthetics, architecture, and designs of the house façade to find traces of cultural evolution in Vietnam, which went through more than six decades of French colonization and centuries of sociocultural influence from China. The in-depth technical analysis, though refuting the presumed model on the probabilistic dependency among the variables, yields several results, the most notable of which is the strong influence of Buddhism over the decorations of the house façade. Particularly, in the top 5 networks with the best Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) scores and p<0.05, the variable for decorations (DC) always has a direct probabilistic dependency on the variable B for Buddhism. The paper then checks the robustness of these models using Hamiltonian MCMC method and find the posterior distributions of the models’ coefficients all satisfy the technical requirement. Finally, this study suggests integrating Bayesian statistics in the social sciences in general and for the study of cultural evolution and architectural transformation in particular. (shrink)

How about a different take on the rich and famous? First the obvious—these novels are primitive superstition that encourages children to believe in fantasy rather than take responsibility for the world-- the norm of course. JKR is just as clueless about herself and the world as all the other monkeys, but about 200 times as destructive as the average American and about 800 times more than the average Chinese. She has been responsible for the destruction of maybe (...) 30,000 hectares of forest to produce these trash novels and all the erosion ensuing (not trivial as its ca. 12 tons/year soil into the ocean for everyone on earth or maybe 100 tons per American, and so about 5000 tons/year for Rowling’s books and movies and her destructive brood of 3 children). Then there is the huge amount of fuel burned and waste made to make and distribute the books and films, plastic dolls etc. She shows her lack of social responsibility by producing children rather than using her millions to encourage family planning or buy up the rain forest. Of course she's not that different from most people--just more destructive. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle 59p(2016). For all my articles on Wittgenstein and Searle see my e-book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Wittgenstein and Searle 367p (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may consult my e-book Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ 662p (2016). (shrink)

The present narrative review seeks to unravel where we are now, and where we need to go to delineate the active ingredients in psychotherapy delivered by conversational agents (e.g., chatbots). While psychotherapy delivered by conversational agents has shown promising effectiveness for depression, anxiety, and psychological distress across several randomized controlled trials, little emphasis has been placed on the therapeutic processes in these interventions. The theoretical framework of this narrative review is grounded in prominent perspectives on the active ingredients in psychotherapy. (...) Based on search terms derived from various theoretical perspectives, we conducted a systematic literature search of four scientific databases and identified 17 studies. Across the selected studies, three themes emerged: relationship variables, emotional venting, and cognitive factors. While methodological issues compromise the epistemic value of this evidence base, core questions also remain to be answered. Such questions include, but are not limited to, whether humans can form affectionate bonds to inanimate beings and whether these kind of mental health treatments should be understood as psychotherapy or something else. Researchers should therefore be cautious when applying theories of psychotherapy in the realm of conversational agents. We conclude the paper by introducing recommendations for future research, which we hope will help instigate methodologically sound studies in this field. (shrink)

How about a different take on the rich and famous? First the obvious—the Harry Potter novels are primitive superstition that encourages children to believe in fantasy rather than take responsibility for the world-- the norm of course. JKR is just as clueless about herself and the world as most people, but about 200 times as destructive as the average American and about 800 times more than the average Chinese. She has been responsible for the destruction of maybe (...) 30,000 hectares of forest to produce these trash novels and all the erosion ensuing (not trivial as it’s at least 6 and maybe 12 tons/year soil into the ocean for everyone on earth or maybe 100 tons per American, and so about 5000 tons/year for Rowling’s books and movies and her 3 children). The earth loses at least 1% of its topsoil every year, so as it nears 2100, most of its food growing capacity will be gone. Then there is the huge amount of fuel burned and waste made to make and distribute the books and films, plastic dolls etc. She shows her lack of social responsibility by producing children rather than using her millions to encourage family planning or buy up the rain forest, and by promoting the conventional liberal stupidity of 3rd world supremacy that is destroying Britain, America, the world and her descendant’s future. Of course, she's not that different from the other 7.8 billion clueless - just noisier and more destructive. -/- It is the no free lunch problem writ large. The mob just can’t see that there is no such thing as helping one person without harming others. Rights or privileges given to new entrants into an overcrowded world can only diminish those of others. In spite of the massive ecological disasters happening in front of them everywhere everyday, they can’t pin them to the unrestrained motherhood of “the diverse”, which accounts for most of the population increase of the last century and all of that in this one. They lack some combination of intelligence, education, experience and sanity required to extrapolate the daily assaults on the resources and functioning of society to the eventual collapse of industrial civilization. Each meal, each trip by car or bus, each pair of shoes is another nail in the earth’s coffin. It has likely never crossed her mind that one seat on a plane from London to San Francisco produces about one ton of carbon which melts about 3 square meters of sea ice and as one of the overprivileged she has probably flown hundreds of such flights. -/- Not only the rich and famous, but nearly any public figure at all, including virtually all teachers, are pressured to be politically correct, which in the Western Democracies, now means social democratic (Neomarxist—i.e., diluted communist) third world supremacists working for the destruction of their own societies and their own descendants. So, those whose lack of education, experience, intelligence (and basic common sense), which should prohibit them from making any public statements at all, totally dominate all the media, creating the impression that the intelligent and civilized must favor democracy, diversity and equality, while the truth is that these are the problems and not the solutions, and that they themselves are the prime enemies of civilization. See my Suicide by Democracy 2nd ed (2019). -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date framework for human behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my book ‘The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle’ 2nd ed (2019). Those interested in more of my writings may see ‘Talking Monkeys--Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet--Articles and Reviews 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019), The Logical Structure of Human Behavior (2019), and Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

How about a different take on the rich and famous? First the obvious—the Harry Potter novels are primitive superstition that encourages children to believe in fantasy rather than take responsibility for the world-- the norm of course. JKR is just as clueless about herself and the world as all the other monkeys, but about 200 times as destructive as the average American and about 800 times more than the average Chinese. She has been responsible for the destruction (...) of maybe 30,000 hectares of forest to produce these trash novels and all the erosion ensuing (not trivial as its ca. 12 tons/year soil into the ocean for everyone on earth or maybe 100 tons per American, and so about 5000 tons/year for Rowling’s books and movies and her destructive brood of 3 children). Then there is the huge amount of fuel burned and waste made to make and distribute the books and films, plastic dolls etc. She shows her lack of social responsibility by producing children rather than using her millions to encourage family planning or buy up the rain forest, and by promoting the conventional liberal stupidity of 3rd world supremacy that is destroying Britain, America, the world and her descendant’s future. Of course, she's not that different from the other 7.7 billion clueless-just noisier and more destructive. -/- It is the no free lunch problem writ large. The mob just can’t see that there is no such thing as helping one person without harming others. Rights or privileges given to new entrants into an overcrowded world can only diminish those of others. In spite of the massive ecological disasters happening in front of them everywhere everyday, they can’t pin them to the unrestrained motherhood of “the diverse”, which accounts for most of the population increase of the last century and all of that in this one. They lack some combination of intelligence, education, experience and sanity required to extrapolate the daily assaults on the resources and functioning of society to the eventual collapse of industrial civilization. Each meal, each trip by car or bus, each pair of shoes is another nail in the earth’s coffin. -/- Not only the rich and famous, but nearly any public figure at all, including virtually all teachers, are pressured to be politically correct, which in the Western Democracies, now means social democratic (diluted communist) third world supremacists working for the destruction of their own societies and their own descendants. So, those whose lack of free speech (and basic common sense), which should prohibit them from making any public statements at all, totally dominate all the media, creating the impression that the intelligent and civilized must favor democracy, diversity and equality, while the truth is that these are the problems and not the solutions, and that they themselves are the prime enemies of civilization. -/- Those who want a broader framework may see my essay ‘Suicide by Democracy’ or my book ‘Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century- Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization-Articles and Reviews 2006-2017’. -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

We cooperate with other people despite the risk of being exploited or hurt. If future artificial intelligence (AI) systems are benevolent and cooperative toward us, what will we do in return? Here we show that our cooperative dispositions are weaker when we interact with AI. In nine experiments, humans interacted with either another human or an AI agent in four classic social dilemma economic games and a newly designed game of Reciprocity that we introduce here. Contrary to the hypothesis (...) that people mistrust algorithms, participants trusted their AI partners to be as cooperative as humans. However, they did not return AI's benevolence as much and exploited the AI more than humans. These findings warn that future self-driving cars or co-working robots, whose success depends on humans' returning their cooperativeness, run the risk of being exploited. This vulnerability calls not just for smarter machines but also better human-centered policies. (shrink)

This article addresses the so-called to human rights. Focusing specifically on the work of Onora O'Neill, the article challenges two important aspects of her version of this objection. First: its narrowness. O'Neill understands the claimability of a right to depend on the identification of its duty-bearers. But there is good reason to think that the claimability of a right depends on more than just that, which makes abstract (and not welfare) rights the most natural target of her (...) objection (section II). After examining whether we might address this reformulated version of O'Neill's objection by appealing to the specificity afforded to human rights in international, regional and domestic law (in section III), the article challenges a second important feature of that objection by raising doubts about whether claimability is a necessary feature of rights at all (section IV). Finally, the article reflects more generally on the role of abstraction in the theory and practice of human rights (section V). In sum, by allaying claimability-based concerns about abstract rights, and by illustrating some of the positive functions of abstraction in rights discourse, the article hopes to show that abstract rights are not only theoretically coherent but also useful and important. (shrink)

Abstract According to Aristotle, human beings are by nature political animals. It is now common knowledge that being political is not a human privilege for him: bees, wasps, ants and cranes are other political species. Although they are not the only political animals, human beings, for Aristotle, are still more political than the other political animals. The present article investigates the precise sense of this comparison; and it claims that the higher degree of human (...) politicalness is not to be explained by reference to those exclusively human features like having capacity for speech and moral perception. It is claimed that human beings are more political rather because they live in a multiplicity of communities differing in form. -/- . (shrink)

This dissertation summarises a research path aimed at fostering the use of Cognitive Architectures in Serious Games research field. Cognitive Architectures are an embodiment of scientific hypotheses and theories aimed at capturing the mechanisms of cognition that are considered consistent over time and independent of specific tasks or domains. The theoretical approaches provided by the research in computational cognitive modelling have been used to formalise a methodological framework to guide researchers and experts in the game-based education sector in designing, implementing, (...) and evaluating Serious Games. The investigation of cognitive processes involved during the game experience represents the fundamental step of the pro- posed approach. Two different case studies are described to discuss the possible use of the suggested framework. In the first case study, the aim was to design a modified version of the Tetris game with the intention of making the game more effective in training the visual-spatial skill called mental rotation. In the second scenario, the frame- work was used as a basis for creating an innovative persuasive game. This case study provides an example of adopting cognitive architectures for implementing a non-player character with human-like behaviour developed using targeted cognitive theories. (shrink)

These days, Thin-client devices are continuously accessing the Internet to perform/receive diversity of services in the cloud. However these devices might either has lack in their capacity (e.g., processing, CPU, memory, storage, battery, resource allocation, etc) or in their network resources which is not sufficient to meet users satisfaction in using Thin-client services. Furthermore, transferring big size of Big Data over the network to centralized server might burden the network, cause poor quality of services, cause long respond delay, and inefficient (...) use of network resources. To solve this issue, Thinclient devices such as smart mobile device should be connected to edge computing which is a localized near to user location and more powerful to perform computing or network resources. In this paper, we introduce a new method that constructs its architecture on Thin-client -edge computing collaboration. Furthermore, present our new strategy for optimizing big data distribution in cloud computing. Moreover, we propose algorithm to allocate resources to meet Service Level Agreement (SLA) and Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Our simulation result shows that our proposed approach can improve resource allocation efficiently and shows better performance than other existing methods. (shrink)

Zombies are bodies without minds: creatures that are physically identical to actual human beings, but which have no conscious experience. Much of the consciousness literature focuses on considering how threatening philosophical reflection on such creatures is to physicalism. There is not much attention given to the converse possibility, the possibility of minds without bodies, that is, creatures who are conscious but whose nature is exhausted by their being conscious. We can call such a ‘purely conscious’ creature a ghost.

It is now more than twenty years since Knight (1987) first presented his paradigm-shifting theory of how and why the ‘human revolution’ occurred — and had to occur — in modern humans who, as climates dried under ice age conditions and African rainforests shrank, found themselves surrounded by vast prairies and savannahs, with rich herds of game animals roaming across them. The temptation for male hunters, far from any home base, to eat the best portions of meat (...) at the kill site — as do other social carnivores — called for strong measures from human females, who were paying the heavy metabolic and physical costs of bearing large-brained but helpless children. Even in the modern west, with well stocked supermarkets, a pregnant or lactating woman can lose ten percent of the dry weight of her brain, because developing babies demand dietary lipids for brain growth (Horrobin, 1998). Hence the idea of the menstrual sex strike, designed to force males to deliver their kills entirely into the hands of women for cooking and distribution—a practice common in foraging communities to this day. (shrink)

This paper has been presented at the Charles S. Peirce Society’s 10-Minute Thesis Initiative: “His Glassy Essence in Relation” on February 18, 2023, where papers were also presented by Professor Doctor António Manuel Martins and Professor Doctor Mohammad Shafiei, respectively affiliated to the Coimbra Institute for Philosophical Studies and Shahid Beheshti University. -/- The edition “His Glassy Essence in Relation” of the Charles S. Peirce Society’s 10-Minute Thesis Initiative has been jointly organized by Aaron Wilson, António Manuel Martins, Mohammad Shafiei, (...) Richard Kenneth Atkins, and Robert Junqueira. The second, the third, and the last all presented papers, while the first one presided over the proceedings. The second to last was responsible for creating the bridge that enabled it all to take place. -/- The 10-Minute Thesis Initiative is an ongoing cycle of the Charles S. Peirce Society. This edition in particular benefited from the collaboration of the Coimbra Institute for Philosophical Studies and the Shahid Beheshti University. This text has been published in PhicaRe (Philosophy & Care Repository) of the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra. -/- How to cite (Chicago Manual of Style 17th Edition): Junqueira, Robert. “Peirce and the Coimbra Jesuit Course: A Bond Far More Pervasive Than Commonly Believed.” In PhicaRe (Philosophy & Care Repository), 1–12. Coimbra: Institute for Philosophical Studies, 2023. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7607786. (shrink)

Since before we can remember, humanity aims to overcome its biological limitations; such a goal has certainly played a key role in the advent of technique. However, despite the benefits that technique may bring, the people who make use of it will inevitably be under risk of harm. Even though human technical wisdom consists in attaining the best result without compromising anybody’s safety, misuses are always a possibility in the horizon. Nowadays, technology can be used for more (...) class='Hi'>than just improving human capacities, preserving and restoring health or promoting human well-being. It also enables us to overcome human limitations and reach way beyond our "natural design". That being said, what could possibly justify the fear for these new directions of biotechnology? Should medicine and health care change their traditional goals and begin searching for artificial improvements to wellness in human nature? In this paper, I will hereby present and briefly discuss the main topics of the contemporary issue of human enhancement: the therapy-enhancement distinction, the possibility of cognitive enhancements and better physical performances, the fight against senescence, the arguments for and against human eugenics, the search for perfection, the quest of moral enhancement, the problem of public priorities, and some questions on medical ethics. Then, finally, I will want to present some realist perspectives on the subject. (shrink)

This paper defends several highly revisionary theses about human rights. Section 1 shows that the phrase 'human rights' refers to two distinct types of moral claims. Sections 2 and 3 argue that several longstanding problems in human rights theory and practice can be solved if, and only if, the concept of a human right is replaced by two more exact concepts: (A) International human rights, which are moral claims sufficient to warrant coercive domestic and (...) international social protection; and (B) Domestic human rights, which are moral claims sufficient to warrant coercive domestic social protection but only non-coercive international action. Section 3 then argues that because coercion is central to both types of human rights, and coercion is a matter of justice, the traditional view of human rights -- that they are normative entitlements prior to and independent of substantive theories of justice -- is incorrect. Human rights must instead be seen as emerging from substantive theories of domestic and international justice. Finally, Section 4 uses this reconceptualization to show that only a few very minimal claims about international human rights are presently warranted. Because international human rights are rights of international justice, but theorists of international justice disagree widely about the demands of international justice, much more research on international justice is needed -- and much greater agreement about international justice should be reached -- before anything more than a very minimal list of international human rights can be justified. (shrink)

Care is more than dispensing pills or cleaning beds. It is about responding to the entire patient. What is called “bedside manner” in medical personnel is a quality of treating the patient not as a mechanism but as a being—much like the caregiver—with desires, ideas, dreams, aspirations, and the gamut of mental and emotional character. As automata, answering an increasing functional need in care, are designed to enact care, the pressure is on their becoming more humanlike to (...) carry out the function more effectively. The question becomes not merely whether the care automaton can effect good bedside manner but whether the patient’s response is not feeling deceived by the humanlikeness. It seems the device must be designed either to effect explicit mere human-“likeness,” thus likely undermining its bedside-manner potential, or to fool the patient completely. Neither option is attractive. This article examines the social problems of designing maximally humanlike care automata and how problems may start to erode the human rights of users/patients. The article then investigates the alternatives for dealing with this problem, whether by industrial and professional self-regulation or public-policy initiatives. It then frames the problem in the broader historical perspective in terms of previous bans, moratoria, and other means of control of hazardous and potentially rights-violating techniques and materials. (shrink)

The Proviso Problem is the discrepancy between the predictions of nearly every major theory of semantic presupposition about what is semantically presupposed by conditionals, disjunctions, and conjunctions, versus observations about what speakers of certain sentences are felt to be presupposing. I argue that the Proviso Problem is a more serious problem than has been widely recognized. After briefly describing the problem and two standard responses to it, I give a number of examples which, I argue, show that those (...) responses are inadequate. I conclude by briefly exploring alternate approaches to presupposition that avoid this problem. -/- . (shrink)

As highlighted by the post-Cartesian discourse across philosophical schools, Western thought has been struggling for a long time with conceiving interconnectedness. The problematic of Western dualism is most apparent with the so-called mind-body problem, but the issue does not only relate to the separation of body and mind but also the separation of living beings from their environments. Asian philosophy, on the other hand, has had a long history of thinking relations. The paper argues that an architectural philosophy that is (...) open for a dialogue with Asian views would allow for a new approach to conceptualising the interconnectedness of minds, bodies, environments, and cultures. Linking Asian and Western aesthetics with a discourse on ecology, and setting it into dialogue with contemporary theories of architecture, the paper also refers to recent research on embodiment that is engaging from a new point of view with the natural sciences, and that appears to confirm positions of traditional Chinese philosophy. Reconsidering traditional Chinese art and aesthetics, the paper suggests, could initiate a new eco-poetic way of thinking the built environment and its design in favour of a future that is more than smart. (shrink)

Appeals to the idea of human nature are frequent in the voluminous literature on the ethics of enhancing human beings through biotechnology. Two chief concerns about the impact of enhancements on human nature have been voiced. The first is that enhancement may alter or destroy human nature. The second is that if enhancement alters or destroys human nature, this will undercut our ability to ascertain the good because, for us, the good is determined by our (...) nature. The first concern assumes that altering or destroying human nature is in itself a bad thing. The second concern assumes that human nature provides a standard without which we cannot make coherent, defensible judgments about what is good. I will argue (1) that there is nothing wrong, per se, with altering or destroying human nature, because, on a plausible understanding of what human nature is, it contains bad as well as good characteristics and there is no reason to believe that eliminating some of the bad would so imperil the good as to make the elimination of the bad impermissible, and (2) that altering or destroying human nature need not result in the loss of our ability to make judgments about the good, because we possess a conception of the good by which we can and do evaluate human nature. I will argue that appeals to human nature tend to obscure rather than illuminate the debate over the ethics of enhancement and can be eliminated in favor of more cogent considerations. (shrink)

Based on a discussion of the theoretical contributions of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Pierre Clastres, this article explores social relationships as more than a human dimension. Though strongly analysed by both anthropologists, these relationships appear to involve indigenous societies’ whole ecological and cosmological system. In this sense, reciprocity, social cohesion, and exchange can be understood as material and immaterial interrelationships between entities of a more than a corporeal world. I argue, then, that to go beyond the (...) mere anthropocentric conceptualisation of sociality in a nature good to think, we need to holistically conceive the interconnected levels of trophic, socio-structural and socio-cosmic relationships and exchanges between human and non-human beings in the ecosystem. (shrink)

In this chapter, I contend that Nietzsche’s robust critiques of human exceptionalism and the “humanization of nature [Vermenschlichung der Natur]”, as well as his positive, proto-ecocentric vision of the “naturalization of humanity [Vernatürlichung des Menschen]”, afford contemporary environmental philosophy a novel perspective from which to critique anthropocentric conservation ideologies (according to which nature conservation ought to be motivated by the interests and aims of humanity, especially economic development and prosperity). Importantly, I also argue that Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the (...) work in which Nietzsche’s positive vision appears most conspicuously, as suggested by Zarathustra’s relationship to the natural world and exhortations to “remain faithful to the earth.” -/- As Nietzsche’s critique of anthropocentrism reinforces his positive project, I will begin by detailing Nietzsche’s rejection of human exceptionalism (section 1). In addition, I will analyze Nietzsche’s critique of the “humanization of nature” (KSA 10:10[43]; 10:13[20]; 12:1[29]), emphasizing specific pernicious projections of human values onto the other-than-human world. Although these themes appear throughout Nietzsche’s body of work, they are central to Zarathustra. -/- After describing Nietzsche’s critical project, I present his positive, proto-ecocentric vision for humanity’s re-naturalization, one he most emphatically endorses and fleshes out in Zarathustra (section 2). This positive vision can be found in his calls for the human being to become more natural and to cultivate a noble reverence and gratitude for the natural world so that we may learn from it about ourselves—rather than falsifying it for our ends and then insisting that we are part of this other, falsified nature. Only when we can see ourselves as natural beings—specifically, as living beings willing power, embedded in a world with other living beings who do the same—can we identify tasks and pursue aims that empower and strengthen us. In Nietzsche’s view, this recognition results only from an attunement to the other-than-human world. Finally, after adding a few important caveats to proto-ecocentric strains in Nietzsche’s thought, I briefly explain the contributions his thought might make to contemporary environmental philosophy and policy (section 3). (shrink)

Why would we want to develop artificial human-like arithmetical intelligence, when computers already outperform humans in arithmetical calculations? Aside from arithmetic consisting of much more than mere calculations, one suggested reason is that AI research can help us explain the development of human arithmetical cognition. Here I argue that this question needs to be studied already in the context of basic, non-symbolic, numerical cognition. Analyzing recent machine learning research on artificial neural networks, I show how AI (...) studies could potentially shed light on the development of human numerical abilities, from the proto-arithmetical abilities of subitizing and estimating to counting procedures. Although the current results are far from conclusive and much more work is needed, I argue that AI research should be included in the interdisciplinary toolbox when we try to explain the development and character of numerical cognition and arithmetical intelligence. This makes it relevant also for the epistemology of mathematics. (shrink)