Physical Realization

Physical Realization PDF Author: Sydney Shoemaker
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191526827
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 161

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Book Description
In Physical Realization, Sydney Shoemaker considers the question of how physicalism can be true: how can all facts about the world, including mental ones, be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Physicalism requires that the mental properties of a person are 'realized in' the physical properties of that person, and that all instantiations of properties in macroscopic objects are realized in microphysical states of affairs. Shoemaker offers an account of both these sorts of realization, one which allows the realized properties to be causally efficacious. He also explores the implications of this account for a wide range of metaphysical issues, including the nature of persistence through time, the problem of material constitution, the possibility of emergent properties, and the nature of phenomenal consciousness.

Physical Realization

Physical Realization PDF Author: Sydney Shoemaker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199214395
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 162

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Book Description
How can physicalism be true? How can all facts about the world be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Shoemaker's answer to this question involves showing how the mental properties of a person can be 'realised' in the physical properties of that person.

The Multiple Realization Book

The Multiple Realization Book PDF Author: Thomas W. Polger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198732899
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first full investigation of multiple realization--the idea that minds can be realized in ways other than the human brain. They cast doubt on the hypothesis and offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, and in chemistry, biology, and related fields.

Linear System Theory

Linear System Theory PDF Author: Lotfi Zadeh
Publisher: Courier Dover Publications
ISBN: 0486466639
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 660

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Book Description
The state space approach is widely used in systems ranging from industrial robots to space guidance control. This landmark in the technique's development and applications was written by two pioneers in the field, Lotfi A. Zadeh and Charles A. Desoer, who teach in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley. Starting with a self-contained introduction to system theory, the authors explain basic concepts, presenting each idea within a carefully integrated framework of numerous illustrative examples. Most of the text concerns the application of the state space approach to systems described by differential equations. Problems of stability and controllability receive particular attention, and connections between the state space approach and classical techniques are highlighted. The properties of transfer functions are covered in separate chapters. Extensive appendixes feature complete and self-contained expositions of delta-functions and distributions, the Laplace and Fourier transform theory, the theory of infinite dimensional linear vector spaces, and functions of a matrix.

Industrial And Engineering Applications Of Artificial Intelligence And Expert Systems

Industrial And Engineering Applications Of Artificial Intelligence And Expert Systems PDF Author: Moonis Ali
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9780897912716
Category : Artificial intelligence
Languages : en
Pages : 636

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Book Description


Philosophy and Ethics

Philosophy and Ethics PDF Author: Laura V. Siegal
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781600210907
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
In a world of seemingly never-ending technological advances, questions of ethics take on even more significance than in the past. Conflicts of interest abound and pressure mounts at every turn for more profits, higher incomes, power and instant gratification leads to the temptation to ignore questions of ethics. This book presents new and interesting research on ethical issues in the modern day.

Conservative Reductionism

Conservative Reductionism PDF Author: Michael Esfeld
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113672849X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
Conservative Reductionism sets out a new theory of the relationship between physics and the special sciences within the framework of functionalism. It argues that it is wrong-headed to conceive an opposition between functional and physical properties (or functional and physical descriptions, respectively) and to build an anti-reductionist argument on multiple realization. By contrast, (a) all properties that there are in the world, including the physical ones, are functional properties in the sense of being causal properties, and (b) all true descriptions (laws, theories) that the special sciences propose can in principle be reduced to physical descriptions (laws, theories) by means of functional reduction, despite multiple realization. The book develops arguments for (a) from the metaphysics of properties and the philosophy of physics. These arguments lead to a conservative ontological reductionism. It then develops functional reduction into a fully-fledged, conservative theory reduction by means of introducing functional sub-types that are coextensive with physical types, illustrating that conservative reductionism by means of case studies from biology (notably the relationship between classical and molecular genetics).

Physicalism Deconstructed

Physicalism Deconstructed PDF Author: Kevin Morris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108472168
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
Provides a philosophical and historical critique of contemporary conceptions of physicalism, especially non-reductive, levels-based approaches to physicalist metaphysics. Challenging assumptions about the mind-body problem, this accessible book will interest scholars working in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science.

Persons, Interests, and Justice

Persons, Interests, and Justice PDF Author: Nils Holtug
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191576832
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
In our lives, we aim to achieve welfare for ourselves, that is, to live good lives. But we also have another, more impartial perspective, where we aim to balance our concern for our own welfare against a concern for the welfare of others. This is a perspective of justice. Nils Holtug examines these two perspectives and the relations between them. The first part of the book is concerned with prudence; more precisely, with what the necessary and sufficient conditions are for having a self-interest in a particular benefit. It includes discussions of the extent to which self-interest depends on preferences, personal identity, and what matters in survival. It also considers the issue of whether it can benefit (or harm) a person to come into existence and what the implications are for our theory of self-interest. A 'prudential view' is defended, according to which a person has a present self-interest in a future benefit if and only if she stands in a relation of continuous physical realization of (appropriate) psychology to the beneficiary, where the strength of the self-interest depends both on the size of the benefit and on the strength of this relation. The second part of the book concerns distributive justice and so how to distribute welfare or self-interest fulfilment over individuals. It includes discussions of welfarism, egalitarianism and prioritarianism, population ethics, the importance of personal identity and what matters for distributive justice, and the importance of all these issues for various topics in applied ethics, including the badness of death. Here, a version of prioritarianism is defended, according to which, roughly, the moral value of a benefit to an individual at a time depends on both the size of the benefit and on the individual's self-interest, at that time, in the other benefits that accrue to her at this and other times.

Rerepresentation

Rerepresentation PDF Author: S. Silvers
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9400926499
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
This collection of papers on issues in the theory of mental representation expresses a diversity of recent reflections on the idea that C. D. Broad so aptly characterized in the title of his book Mind and the World Order. An important impetus in the project of organizing this work were the discussions I had with Keith Lehrer while I was a Visiting Scholar in the department of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. His encouragement and friendship were of great value to me and I wish to express my thanks to him here. A word of thanks too for Mike Harnish who casually suggested the title Rerepresentation. I wish to express my thanks to Hans Schuurmans of the Computer Center at Tilburg University for his patient and cheerful assistance in preparing the manuscript. Professor J. Verster of the University of Groningen kindly provided the plates for the Ames Room figures. Thieu Kuys helped not only with the texts but also relieved me of chores so that I could devote more time to meeting deadlines. Barry Mildner had a major role in the text preparation using his skills and initiative in solving what seemed like endless technical problems. My deepest thanks are reserved for Anti Sax whose contribution to the project amount to a co-editorship of this volume. She participated in every phase of its development with valuable suggestions, prepared the indexes, and worked tirelessly to its completion.

Consciousness and Mind

Consciousness and Mind PDF Author: David Rosenthal
Publisher: Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0191568589
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Consciousness and Mind presents David Rosenthal's influential work on the nature of consciousness. Central to that work is Rosenthal's higher-order-thought theory of consciousness, according to which a sensation, thought, or other mental state is conscious if one has a higher-order thought (HOT) that one is in that state. The first four essays develop various aspects of that theory. The next three essays present Rosenthal's homomorphism theory of mental qualities and qualitative consciousness, and show how that theory fits with and helps sustain the HOT theory. A crucial feature of homomorphism theory is that it individuates and taxonomizes mental qualities independently of the way we're conscious of them, and indeed independently of our being conscious of them at all. So the theory accommodates the qualitative character not only of conscious sensations and perceptions, but also of those which fall outside our stream of consciousness. Rosenthal argues that, because this account of mental qualities makes no appeal to consciousness, it enables us to dispel such traditional quandaries as the alleged conceivability of undetectable quality inversion, and to disarm various apparent obstacles to explaining qualitative consciousness and understanding its nature. Six further essays build on the HOT theory to explain various important features of consciousness, among them the complex connections that hold in humans between consciousness and speech, the self-interpretative aspect of consciousness, and the compelling sense we have that consciousness is unified. Two of the essays, one an extended treatment of homomorphism theory, appear here for the first time. There is also a substantive introduction, which draws out the connections between the essays and highlights their implications.