Technology and the Myth of ‘Natural Man’

The main suggestions and objections raised by Don Ihde and Charles Lenay to my ‘Technology and the body: the (im)possibilities of re-embodiment’ are summarized and discussed. On the one hand, I agree that we should pay more attention to whole body experience and to further resisting Cartesian assumptions in the field of cognitive neuroscience and philosophy of cognition. On the other hand, I explain that my account in no way presupposes the myth of ‘natural man’ or of a natural, delineated body from before the fall into technology.     

Performing Phenomenology: Negotiating Presence in Intermedial Theatre

This paper analyzes from a pragmatic postphenomenological point of view the performative practice of CREW, a multi-disciplinary team of artists and researchers. It is our argument that this company, in its use of new immersive technologies in the context of a live stage, gives rise to a dialectics between an embodied and a disembodied perspective towards the perceived world. We will focus on W (Double U), a collaborative interactive performance, where immersive technology is used for live exchange of vision. By means of a head mounted omni-directional camera and display the fields of vision of two participants are swapped, which enables the participants to perceive the world through another person??s point of view. This intermedial experience brings a classic dichotomic perception of space to falter: material reality as a ??live?? condition can no longer be opposed to a virtual mediated reality. In the shifting moment between the embodied and the perceived world, on the fracture between what one sees and what one feels, the distinction between live and mediated is blurred, moreover, can no longer be made. The perception of the body is pushed to the extreme, causing a most confusing corporal awareness, a condition that intensifies the experience and causes an altered sense of presence. In a dynamic cognitive negotiation, one tends, however, to unify the divergent ontologies of the ??real?? and the ??virtual?? to a meaningful experience. In this respect, we refer to recent neurological experiments such as the ??rubber hand illusion?? in order to clarify the spectator??s tendency to fuse both ontologies and to embody a coherent image-world.     

Postphenomenological Re-embodiment

The phenomenological tradition has had a long interest in embodiment, and bodily experience beyond the confines of the “skinbag” body. Here I respond to Helena De Preester’s analysis of different types of protheses: limb, perceptual, cognitive. In her paper “Technology and the body: the (im)possibilities of re-embodiment”, she wants to make finer distinctions between extensions and incorporations. Today’s hi-tech developments make this refinement necessary and possible. I respond to the three levels or types of prostheses taking note of the increasing difficulty at each level and express certain worries about cognitively framed notions of bodily experience.     

A New Class of Weighted Similarity Indices Using Polytomous Variables

We introduce new similarity measures between two subjects, with reference to variables with multiple categories. In contrast to traditionally used similarity indices, they also take into account the frequency of the categories of each attribute in the sample. This feature is useful when dealing with rare categories, since it makes sense to differently evaluate the pairwise presence of a rare category from the pairwise presence of a widespread one. A weighting criterion for each category derived from Shannon??s information theory is suggested. There are two versions of the weighted index: one for independent categorical variables and one for dependent variables. The suitability of the proposed indices is shown in this paper using both simulated and real world data sets.     

Postphenomenology and the Politics of Sustainable Technology

In this paper I argue that Don Ihde??s ??postphenomenology?? may constitute a proper access to the question concerning sustainable technology and I do so in three steps. First, I lay bare how a modern framework that systematically separates facts and instruments from values, choices and responsibilities yields no space for engaged decisions and responsible action towards more sustainable societies. In a second step, I elaborate how postphenomenology??s ??in-between?? perspective opens up the possibility of questioning science and technology as an inherent part of our human existence. Building on this, I argue how a ??normativity of the in-between?? may be developed around the concept of ??topical measure?? and which is grounded in the foundationless foundation of postphenomenology??s relational ontology. In a last step, I show how such a ??topical measure?? opens up two fields of normative action vis-à-vis the question concerning sustainable technology: one critical, the other empowering. Whereas ??topical criticism?? focuses on bringing into the open the powerful subpolitics of science and technology, the field of ??topical responsibility?? rather aims at actively assuming responsibility in these political circles. Besides its main interest, which lies in forging a genuine and adequate way into the issue of sustainability, this paper also constitutes an entry into Ihde??s philosophical oeuvre. The question concerning sustainable technology does not only touch upon Ihde??s relational trinity human-technology-world, it also deals with the degree of normative inquiry present in Ihde??s philosophy, an issue he has been repeatedly questioned about by his interlocutors.     

Spatio-Cultural Evolution as Information Dynamics: Part I

A view of evolution is presented in this paper (a two paper series), intended as a methodological infrastructure for modeling spatio-cultural systems (the design outline of such a model is presented in paper II). A motivation for the re-articulation of evolution as information dynamics is the phenomenologically discovered prerequisite of embedding a meaning-attributing apparatus in any and all models of spatio-cultural systems. An evolution is construed as the dynamics of a complex system comprised of memory devices, connected in an ordered fashion (not randomly) by information-exchanges. An information-exchange transpires when the recipient system adopts a strategy (a continuum of events) that eventually changes its structure; namely, after the exchange, it contains and conveys different information. These memory devices??sub-systems??are also similarly constructed complex system. Only a part of the information is retained by a system in its physical-memory storage, which eventually loses this function too, when the ability to retrieve a common enough structure is lost. The entire amount of information is a system??s structure of connections (information exchanges); it is contained (apparently stored) dynamically when a system is observed in a temporarily stable state. This temporary permanence??robustness and resilience??is attained dynamically; namely, enabled by changes taking place in its sub-systems and in each of their sub-systems. Therefore, for modeling such a system a multi-layer/multi-scale approach is preferable. It enables the addition and subtraction of an interim scale and the consideration of such a scale as a micro or a macro (thus initiating a maneuver up or down scale) according to an ad-hoc requirement of the model, which imitates an envisaged sub system (called an ??Inner World??), to which a certain range of decisions is relegated. This dynamics is driven (in time) by dynamically originated information growth, as defined by Shannon; i.e. by the fact that each of certain state transitions have occurred sometime in the past of the system just so and not otherwise, and by the fact that they have occurred in a certain order. Therefore, each ??history?? and memory retrieval availability of information is unique, and thus can be used to differentiate meanings. Hence, there cannot be a comprehensive solution to the meaning attribution model-design challenge. However, the observation that at the core of each envisaged complex system, moving in time according to a rounded logic, there is an information manipulating device, operating necessarily according to a Boolean logic, can be copied into the design of a model. This observation enables, therefore, the embedding of a specific, locally fitted, meaning attributing device, which is an information manipulating mechanism (it splices/attaches one segment of information to another??its meaning). However, this is just a framework; the actual solution has still to be found locally??for each subject system. Such a solution is demonstrated for the change in location or layout in the Israeli city in paper II.     

Ephemeral Properties and the Illusion of Microscopic Particles

Founding our analysis on the Geneva-Brussels approach to quantum mechanics, we use conventional macroscopic objects as guiding examples to clarify the content of two important results of the beginning of twentieth century: Einstein?CPodolsky?CRosen??s reality criterion and Heisenberg??s uncertainty principle. We then use them in combination to show that our widespread belief in the existence of microscopic particles is only the result of a cognitive illusion, as microscopic particles are not particles, but are instead the ephemeral spatial and local manifestations of non-spatial and non-local entities.     

Displacing Epistemology: Being in the Midst of Technoscientific Practice

Interest the Erklären?CVerstehen debate is usually interpreted as primarily epistemological. By raising the possibility that there are fundamentally different methods for fundamentally different types of science, the debate puts into play all the standard issues??that is, issues concerning scientific explanation and justification, the unity and diversity of scientific disciplines, the reality of their subject matter, the accessibility of various subject matters to research, and so on. In this paper, however, I do not focus on any of these specific issues. I start instead from the fact that the very existence of the debate itself is an issue; in fact, it poses a philosophical problem that almost everyone but the hardest line logical empiricists has come to realize cannot be resolved epistemologically. In my view, however, that it cannot be resolved ontologically, either. I think the problem is at bottom hermeneutical, and its resolution requires that we focus first, not on the objects of science or the methods of studying them, but on the character of the philosophical orientation assumed by those who would try to resolve it. In this paper, I explain why I think this is so by analyzing (1) Dilthey??s contribution to the original debate, (2) Husserl??s reaction to Dilthey, and (3) Heidegger??s critical evaluation of both. This line of philosophical development??this movement of self-understanding from critiques of objectivism to hermeneutical phenomenology??is of course already a central feature of much work in continental philosophy of science. In my conclusion, however, I argue for the less well-established??even if apparently approved??idea that it ought to be a central feature of technoscience studies as well.     

生产条件与第二重矛盾——论奥康纳的生态学马克思主义理论

奥康纳认为,唯物史观的第一重矛盾理论缺乏自然维度。通过自然、文化和劳动范畴的融合,奥康纳建立了以生产条件为核心范畴的第二重矛盾理论,对资本通过危机而积累的过程进行了深入分析,揭示了资本积累、生态危机、经济危机之间的内在联系,预示了对生产条件进行社会主义式重建的趋势。以第二重矛盾理论为基础,奥康纳反思了社会主义运动的经验和教训以及生态运动的现状和问题,探讨了生态学与社会主义结合的可能性和现实性。     

Preserving consensus hierarchies

In numerical taxonomy we often have the task of finding a consensus hierarchy for a given set of hierarchies. This consensus hierarchy should reflect the substructures which are common to all hierarchies of the set. Because there are several kinds of substructures in a hierarchy, the general axiom to preserve common substructures leads to different axioms for each kind of substructure. In this paper we consider the three substructurescluster, separation, andnesting, and we give several characterizations of hierarchies preserving these substructures. These characterizations facilitate interpretation of axioms for preserving substructures and the examination of properties of consensus methods. Finally some extensions concerning the preserving of qualified substructures are discussed.The author is grateful to the editor and the referees for their helpful suggestions and to H. J. Bandelt for his comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Computational and Biological Analogies for Understanding Fine-Tuned Parameters in Physics

In this philosophical paper, we explore computational and biological analogies to address the fine-tuning problem in cosmology. We first clarify what it means for physical constants or initial conditions to be fine-tuned. We review important distinctions such as the dimensionless and dimensional physical constants, and the classification of constants proposed by Lévy-Leblond. Then we explore how two great analogies, computational and biological, can give new insights into our problem. This paper includes a preliminary study to examine the two analogies. Importantly, analogies are both useful and fundamental cognitive tools, but can also be misused or misinterpreted. The idea that our universe might be modelled as a computational entity is analysed, and we discuss the distinction between physical laws and initial conditions using algorithmic information theory. Smolin introduced the theory of “Cosmological Natural Selection” with a biological analogy in mind. We examine an extension of this analogy involving intelligent life. We discuss if and how this extension could be legitimated.     

宋代牡丹谱考释

中国宋代涌现了众多谱录类著作,其中牡丹谱共计17种,几乎占花卉谱录总数的一半,它们也是其他花卉谱录出现的前导性著作。目前,仅7部牡丹谱存世,而其他因失传已经难以确切知其具体内容。文章对包括已佚在内的17种牡丹谱进行了详细考释,包括作者经历、成书时间、书中记述的内容和结构。新颖之处在于:(1)通过对作者经历的调查,不仅明确了作者的社会地位、官位和著书环境等问题,还探明了一些作者之间的人际关系。(2)更精确推定成书年代,并按时间顺序将牡丹谱进行排序,从而解析出牡丹的品种以及栽培地域的变化。其结果显示,牡丹谱所载牡丹的品种和数量并不是单纯按照时间的推移而递增的,但考察各种谱录所载的品种名称时,可以了解到各种谱录总载有新的品种。宋代人不断地追求新品牡丹的同时,遗弃旧的品种,因此,各种谱录所载的品数并没有明显的增加。(3)通过研究现存7部牡丹谱的结构及内容,可以大致了解到各种谱录除了大多记载当时的名品之外,还记录了花圃、风俗、栽培技术等内容,以便传于后代。另外,谱录作者主要为宋代士大夫,他们对于出现新品种等问题怀有个人的哲学性思考。这种思考往往涉及到掌管自然现象的"造物"和"造化",并相信它影响了牡丹的变异。文章还从文献学角度介绍了现存7部牡丹谱的早期版本,并指出最可靠的善本。     

Incorporating Student Covariates in Cognitive Diagnosis Models

In educational measurement, cognitive diagnosis models have been developed to allow assessment of specific skills that are needed to perform tasks. Skill knowledge is characterized as present or absent and represented by a vector of binary indicators, or the skill set profile. After determining which skills are needed for each assessment item, a model is specified for the relationship between item responses and skill set profiles. Cognitive diagnosis models are often used for diagnosis, that is, for classifying students into the different skill set profiles. Generally, cognitive diagnosis models do not exploit student covariate information. However, investigating the effects of student covariates, such as gender, SES, or educational interventions, on skill knowledge mastery is important in education research, and covariate information may improve classification of students to skill set profiles. We extend a common cognitive diagnosis model, the DINA model, by modeling the relationship between the latent skill knowledge indicators and covariates. The probability of skill mastery is modeled as a logistic regression model, possibly with a student-level random intercept, giving a higher-order DINA model with a latent regression. Simulations show that parameter recovery is good for these models and that inclusion of covariates can improve skill diagnosis. When applying our methods to data from an online tutor, we obtain reasonable and interpretable parameter estimates that allow more detailed characterization of groups of students who differ in their predicted skill set profiles.     

In Between Us: On the Transparency and Opacity of Technological Mediation

In recent years several approaches??philosophical, sociological, psychological??have been developed to come to grips with our profoundly technologically mediated world. However, notwithstanding the vast merit of each, they illuminate only certain aspects of technological mediation. This paper is a preliminary attempt at a philosophical reflection on technological mediation as such??deploying the concepts of ??transparency?? and ??opacity?? as heuristic instruments. Hence, we locate a ??theory of transparency?? within several theoretical frameworks??respectively classic phenomenology, media theory, Actor Network Theory, postphenomenology, several ethnographical, psychological, and sociological perspectives, and finally, the ??Critical Theory of Technology.?? Subsequently, we render a general, systematic overview of these theories, thereby conjecturing what a broad analysis of technological mediation in and of itself might look like??finding, at last, an essential contradiction between transparency of ??use?? and transparency of social origins and effects.     

Spatio-Cultural Evolution as Information Dynamics—Part II

A model of a spatio-cultural sub-context (enfolded in a wider scope context) is presented in the form of a blue print of a Complex System with a two-stage decision engine at its core. The engine first attaches a meaning to analyzable datum, and then decides whether to keep or change it. It does not alter already stored meanings but is designed to search for data to be converted into additional stored meanings and improve the accuracy of correspondence of their spatial and cultural range of relevance. Meaning is reduced to the choice of a strategy??a future continuum of events; a choice dependent on a unique Evolutionary Path, a past continuum of events specific enough to lead to the current temporarily stable state of a spatio-cultural category. It is a blue print for a program that can emulate decisions to initiate changes in the environment in which a collective of culture partners resides; changes consisting of movements from one location to another or in the layout of its current location. The model is proposed at a low cultural resolution and is applicable, after suitable modifications, to a majority of city/period pairs. However, any such model has to be city/period specific. It is illustrated with a design for analyzing changes in the Israeli city, in particular in Tel Aviv.     

Partial dissimilarities with application to clustering

We consider dissimilarities which are defined only on some pairs of items. Such situations may occur in some problems like unfolding or merging, or can be encountered as an intermediate step of a more general transformation. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of extensions with good properties and characterize the family of such extensions. Using partial dissimilarities we construct a dissimilarity-into-distance transformation family.The author thanks the editor and two anonymous referees for their suggestions and their helpful comments.     

《抱朴子》的科学思想管窥

晋代著名科学家葛洪在<抱朴子>一书中提出了值得重视的科学思想,"至明极聪"而不可"毕见尽闻"的科学认知论揭示了世界的无限性以及感官认识的有限性,为科学探索活动提供了不竭的精神动力;"形神相卫"的心身关系论揭示了精神与躯体、养神与养身相互依存的密切关系;"人所好恶,各各不同"的人格差异论为人们科学地识别和使用人才提供了诸多启示.     

假体在患者体内“生存”还是“存留”?

学术语言是一篇好的学术论文的基石。学术语言,特别是科技术语,都有一个共同的特点,即表述严谨、科学,用词专业、准确,不会产生歧义。笔者发现,在关节置换术的中文医学论文中,描述关节假体在体内正常使用状态的术语有“生存”和“存留”两种。为了探讨描述关节假体在体内正常使用状态的合适术语,作者研究了关节假体正常使用的含义、英文survival原义及其中文翻译,分析在不同医学学科中survival的对应中文术语,以便于编辑从中取舍。     

《大数据百科全书》术语特点及收录与处理原则

大数据发展日新月异,新的应用需求和实践问题层出不穷,社会各界越来越重视大数据的基础研究。百科全书作为知识门类的概述性著作,是开展和推动基础研究的重要载体。作为大数据知识传播的工具,《大数据百科全书》不仅要有实用与新颖兼备的知识内容,并且还应具备准确严谨与通畅易懂的专业化语言文字表达。其中,术语是《大数据百科全书》不可或缺的有机组成部分,文章总结大数据领域的术语特点,并以此提出《大数据百科全书》术语方面的收录和处理原则。