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Beyond the Algorithms Are Consciousness and Freedom
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2020
Pages:
1-7
Received:
27 January 2020
Accepted:
17 February 2020
Published:
25 February 2020
Abstract: The study of consciousness has become the “most precious trophy” of neuroscience, artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology alike. Because consciousness is part to the primary dimension of the mind, indeed, the only one we can access directly, and because consciousness is what gives us our knowledge of the world and of ourselves, its scientific study will bring us closer to understanding the very nature of what we are as individuals. The study of consciousness engages the thorny issue of whether we are free beings, individuals who exercise free will and are responsible for our actions. Since today, the concept most widely held in the sciences that elucidate the functioning of the human mind is that, basically, human beings are a complex physiological computational mechanism; it is easy to understand how deciphering the nature of consciousness can constitute a “threat” to the principle of the individual’s moral responsibility. The mechanistic theory warns that freedom, understood as the ability to make decisions that are not circumscribed by any type of rule or pre-established process, may be a mere illusion based on a false sense of “control”. This may seem to be the case, just as for centuries it seemed that the sun rotated around the earth, as that was the impression conveyed to the senses. Along these lines, when we think consciously, we consider the advantages and disadvantages of different options, and make decisions on the basis of an evaluation of the best alternative. However, under the mechanistic premise, all of life's experiences would be reduced to the culmination of unconscious processes that are beyond our control, and the experience of consciousness would exert no causal function over our actions or our internal states of mind. The main aim in this article is to discuss some of the weaknesses of a strictly mechanistic explanation of how the human works. To do this, it presents a critical review of some of the different approaches to the study of consciousness advanced to date and concludes with the submission of an own proposal.
Abstract: The study of consciousness has become the “most precious trophy” of neuroscience, artificial intelligence (AI) and psychology alike. Because consciousness is part to the primary dimension of the mind, indeed, the only one we can access directly, and because consciousness is what gives us our knowledge of the world and of ourselves, its scientific s...
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The Triad “Cause-Mean-Effect” as a Way of Approximating the Efficiency of Technical or Non-technical Creations or Systems
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2020
Pages:
8-14
Received:
1 February 2020
Accepted:
24 February 2020
Published:
28 February 2020
Abstract: The paper presents a method of approximating the efficiency of a Cause-Mean-Effect (CME) triad of technical or non-technical nature, which may be used in the phylosophy of technology, especially to estimate the effects over a longer period of time of a CME triad with cyclical and variable evolution. The method consists in the studying of the CME triad’s evolution by a graphical representation with three axes in which the position on its axis of representation of the cause C or of the effect E indicates its intensity and the position on its axis of representation of the mean M represents its value expressed by the maximal possible intrinsic negentropy: OM = - SM and by its reliability p(), the efficiency of the CME triad being approximated in a simplified form as given by the product of the ratios (E/M) and (E/C). The use value of the mean M can be empirically but generally approximated by a relation: M = KM SMp() wherein KM is a quasi-constant of proportionality whose value is inversely proportional to the value of the utilities necessary for the maintaining of the reliability p() of the M-mean and which may be taken also with decreasing value- in the case of a relative triad. There are presented examples of studying the efficiency of CME triads associated with technical or non-technical or mixed systems, which reveals the possibility of the method’s using in the theory of technical or non-technical systems, in particular - in assessing the risk of the society’s regression by the degrading of the environment by irrational using of some technologies or by the excessive exploitation of natural resources. It is evidenced also the link with the known principle of “agglomeration of results”, by the variant of “tetradic CME triad”, with two different but useful effects, E1, E2, obtained by a single cause C and a single mean M.
Abstract: The paper presents a method of approximating the efficiency of a Cause-Mean-Effect (CME) triad of technical or non-technical nature, which may be used in the phylosophy of technology, especially to estimate the effects over a longer period of time of a CME triad with cyclical and variable evolution. The method consists in the studying of the CME tr...
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Hawking as a Mirror of Advertisement in African Society: Nigeria as a Case Study
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2020
Pages:
15-21
Received:
5 December 2019
Accepted:
10 January 2020
Published:
28 February 2020
Abstract: Making goods, services and ideas known to those who need them with the intent of repeat purchase is advertising. However, hawking formed the basis of this art in traditional Africa for which a technology is implied. As a basis to determine hawking’s relevance and subscription propensity in the face of mass mediated advertising, responses solicited through interviews from the six geo-political zones in Nigeria and critically discoursed provided quite some premises along Fairclough’s thought. The ideals of the study equally tied to the Communication Accommodation Theory by Howard Giles as a social psychology has to do with mindset. Accommodation transverses cultural boundaries and to this study regional dichotomies. The theory emanating from speech accommodation underlies the denominator which is speech in hawking.. With convergence and divergence as key ideas, but accentuating discourse management in relating to topicality preferences between the communicating parties; such that the momentary speaker while haggling underscore divergence. The theory harps on group identity as premised on initial orientation upon which a similarity is established in the Nigerian advertising landscape. Hawking predating towncrying, a development indicator and it was and still is advertisement form were essential findings. Enhancing the craft for national development as well as local government’s support of the industry for competiveness was emphasized to accentuate the underpinning frames thereby.
Abstract: Making goods, services and ideas known to those who need them with the intent of repeat purchase is advertising. However, hawking formed the basis of this art in traditional Africa for which a technology is implied. As a basis to determine hawking’s relevance and subscription propensity in the face of mass mediated advertising, responses solicited ...
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An Assessment of Global Civilizational State, Evolutionity, Along with Global Solidarity and United Citizens Movement
Issue:
Volume 8, Issue 1, March 2020
Pages:
22-33
Received:
21 February 2020
Accepted:
16 March 2020
Published:
1 April 2020
Abstract: As global crises of all sorts on our planet further intensify, Global Community may have no alternative but to show Global Solidarity and help each other out of crises. Such solidarity can only be built on the basis of harmony, cooperation and moderation, and on respecting the political and cultural diversity of our multicivilizational troubled world. Global Civilizational State and Evolutionity are proposing creative works toward saving humanity from self-destruction, and are a complex mix of higher levels of morality, religion, education, art, philosophy, technology, and material wellbeing. In fact both are also a continuation from the previous Modernity epoch inspired by the mechanistic and deterministic view of societies, and Postmodernity epoch been born out of our dissatisfaction with modernity, and characterized by issues related to the global warming of the planet, globalization, political instability and a social and political regress to irrationality. As Global Civilizational State and Evolutionity along with Global Solidarity and United Citizens Movement begin to take on a much deeper kind of global leadership, one that earns more respect than envy and more gratitude than hatred, one that can catapult the whole planet forward into a future where war is no longer thinkable between nation-states, and a legitimate and beneficial Earth governance is able to cope with global problems.
Abstract: As global crises of all sorts on our planet further intensify, Global Community may have no alternative but to show Global Solidarity and help each other out of crises. Such solidarity can only be built on the basis of harmony, cooperation and moderation, and on respecting the political and cultural diversity of our multicivilizational troubled wor...
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