D. D. Martin

The concept of wildness not only plays a role in philosophical debates, but also in popular culture. Wild nature is often seen as a place outside the cultural sphere where one can still encounter instances of transcendence. Some writers and moviemakers contest the dominant romanticized view of wild nature by telling stories that somehow show a different harsher face of nature. In encounters with the wild and unruly, humans can sometimes experience the misfit between their well-ordered, human-centered, self-created world view and the otherness of nature, and in doing so face, what Plumwood calls, “the view from the outside.” Three films—Gerry, Into the Wild, and Grizzly Man—deal with contemporary encounters with wildness. What these works have in common is the central theme of modern humans who are fascinated by wild nature and seek experiences unknown to those limited to the overly cultivated life (psyche) of modern society. Another connecting theme, however, is that any idealization of wildness is in itself deeply problematic. All three films have fatal endings, which in turn fascinates the contemporary viewers. These films show, first, that wildness is conceived as a moral counterforce against the overly civilized world; and, second, that fascination with this wildness has itself become thoroughly reflexive, and.

It has been over a decade and half since Christof Koch and the late Francis Crick first advocated the now popular NCC project, in which one tries to find the neural correlate of consciousness for perceptual processes. Here we critically take stock of what have actually been learned from these studies. Many authors have questioned whether looking for the neural correlates would eventually lead to an explanatory theory of consciousness, while the proponents of NCC research maintain that focusing on correlates is a strategically sensible first step, given the complexity of the problem. My point here is not to argue whether studying the NCC is useful, but rather, to question whether we are really studying the NCC at all. I argue that in hoping to sidestep the difficult conceptual issues, we have sometimes also missed the phenomenon of perceptual consciousness itself

A source of much difficulty and confusion in the interpretation of quantum mechanics is a naive realism about operators. By this we refer to various ways of taking too seriously the notion of operator-as-observable, and in particular to the all too casual talk about measuring operators that occurs when the subject is quantum mechanics. Without a specification of what should be meant by measuring a quantum observable, such an expression can have no clear meaning. A definite specification is provided by Bohmian mechanics, a theory that emerges from Schrödinger's equation for a system of particles when we merely insist that particles means particles. Bohmian mechanics clarifies the status and the role of operators as observables in quantum mechanics by providing the operational details absent from standard quantum mechanics. It thereby allows us to readily dismiss all the radical claims traditionally enveloping the transition from the classical to the quantum realm — for example, that we must abandon classical logic or classical probability. The moral is rather simple: Beware naive realism, especially about operators!

Predictive genetic testing is now routinely offered to asymptomatic adults at risk for genetic disease. However, testing of minors at risk for adult-onset conditions, where no treatment or preventive intervention exists, has evoked greater controversy and inspired a debate spanning two decades. This review aims to provide a detailed longitudinal analysis and concludes by examining the debate's current status and prospects for the future. Fifty-three relevant theoretical papers published between 1990 and December 2010 were identified, and interpretative content analysis was employed to catalogue discrete arguments within these papers. Novel conclusions were drawn from this review. While the debate's first voices were raised in opposition of testing and their arguments have retained currency over many years, arguments in favour of testing, which appeared sporadically at first, have gained momentum more recently. Most arguments on both sides are testable empirical claims, so far untested, rather than abstract ethical or philosophical positions. The dispute, therein, lies not so much in whether minors should be permitted to access predictive genetic testing but whether these empirical claims on the relative benefits or harms of testing should be assessed

Fighting crime has historically been a field that drives technological innovation, and it can serve as an example of different governance styles in societies. Predictive policing is one of the recent innovations that covers technical trends such as machine learning, preventive crime fighting strategies, and actual policing in cities. However, it seems that a combination of exaggerated hopes produced by technology evangelists, media hype, and ignorance of the actual problems of the technology may have boosted sales of software that supports policing by predicting offenders and crime areas. In this paper we analyse currently used predictive policing software packages with respect to common problems of data mining, and describe challenges that arise in the context of their socio-technical application.

A Reforma em território alemão possui duas figuras, por vezes próximas entre si, por vezes muito distantes: Lutero e Tomás Müntzer. À medida que foi se envolvendo na vida de seus fiéis, Müntzer foi tomando caminhos próprios, discordando de Lutero que este tomava a “Palavra, em sua realidade objetiva, como constitutiva da Igreja, e afirmando que os verdadeiros fiéis são os que possuem a experiência subjetiva do “Espírito”. Também contra Lutero, que defende a resistência à autoridade, mas em questões seculares aceita a tirania, Müntzer, que vê a fé fortemente inserida no social, defende a revolução armada contra os príncipes. Müntzer não nega a graça, mas esta possui papel secundário em seu pensamento, enquanto, para Lutero, ela se coloca no centro de suas preocupações teológicas. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Reforma. Palavra. Graça. Experiência subjetiva. Resistência. Revolução. ABSTRACT The Reform in german territory has two figures, sometimes very close to each other, and sometimes very distant: Luther and Thomas Müntzer. As he got envolved in the lives of his followers, Müntzer began taking his own paths, disaccording of Luther that took the “Word” in its objective reality, as constitutive of the Church, and affirming that the true followers are the ones who own the subjective experience of the “Spirit”. Also against Luther, that stands for the resistance against authority, but in secular matters accepts tyranny, Müntzer, that sees tyranny deeply inserted in the social, stands for the armed revolution against the princes. Müntzer does not deny grace, but it has a secondary role in his thought, as, for Luther, it is placed in the center of his theological worries. KEY WORDS – Reform. Word. Grace. Subjective experience. Resistance. Revolution

Dream is a state of consciousness characterized by internally-generated sensory, cognitive and emotional experiences occurring during sleep. Dream reports tend to be particularly abundant, with complex, emotional, and perceptually vivid experiences after awakenings from rapid eye movement sleep. This is why our current knowledge of the cerebral correlates of dreaming, mainly derives from studies of REM sleep. Neuroimaging results show that REM sleep is characterized by a specific pattern of regional brain activity. We demonstrate that this heterogeneous distribution of brain activity during sleep explains many typical features in dreams. Reciprocally, specific dream characteristics suggest the activation of selective brain regions during sleep. Such an integration of neuroimaging data of human sleep, mental imagery, and the content of dreams is critical for current models of dreaming; it also provides neurobiological support for an implication of sleep and dreaming in some important functions such as emotional regulation

Background: Increasing use of genetic technologies in clinical and research settings increases the potential for misattributed paternity to be identified. Yet existing guidance from the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the Institute of Medicine (among others) offers contradictory advice. Genetic health professionals are thus likely to vary in their practice when misattributed paternity is identified, and empirical investigation into the disclosure of misattributed paternity is scarce. Given the relevance of this ethical dilemma and its significance to users of genetic services, this study aimed to investigate the attitudes of lay people with regard to the disclosure of misattributed paternity. Methods: An online questionnaire was hosted and advertised through Amazon's Mechanical Turk to 200 United States residents aged 18 years or older. Respondents were asked to rate (via a Likert scale) the ethical permissibility of possible actions a clinician may carry out when misattributed paternity is identified. Data analysis consisted of preliminary descriptive analysis, chi-squared analysis, and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests. Results: There was no clear majority support for many of the options surveyed across different contexts, with only six out of ten scenarios displaying some general consensus. Men were more likely to support scenarios where the father is informed of paternity. Importantly, participants' views varied according to whether the desires of the father were previously expressed, suggesting that perceptions of the permissibility of a clinician's action will depend on the interests of all parties affected. Conclusions: This sample of the general public showed attitudes that were, at least to some degree, at variance with some professional guidelines. We give arguments for why at least some of these attitudes might be justified. We argue that case-specific judgments should be made and outline some of the relevant ethical considerations. While general guidelines ought to be considered, context-specific moral judgments cannot be avoided.

The present study was designed to explore the relationship between self-reported dissociative experiences and performance in tasks eliciting right-hemisphere processing load. Thirty-four participants performed a vigilance task in two conditions: with task-irrelevant negative-arousing pictures and task-irrelevant neutral pictures. Dissociation was assessed with the Dissociative Experience Scale. Consistent with theories positing right-hemisphere deregulation in high non-clinical dissociators, dissociative experiences correlated with greater vigilance decrement only in the negative picture condition. As both the vigilance task and negative picture processing are right lateralized, this result provides support for a right-hemisphere dysfunction in high dissociators, at least in negative conditions

In this chapter, we aimed at further characterizing the functional neuroanatomy of the human rapid eye movement (REM) sleep at the population level. We carried out a meta-analysis of a large dataset of positron emission tomography (PET) scans acquired during wakefulness, slow wave sleep and REM sleep, and focused especially on the brain areas in which the activity diminishes during REM sleep. Results show that quiescent regions are confined to the inferior and middle frontal cortex and to the inferior parietal lobule. Providing a plausible explanation for some of the features of dream reports, these findings may help in refining the concepts, which try to account for human cognition during REM sleep. In particular, we discuss the significance of these results to explain the alteration in executive processes, episodic memory retrieval and self representation during REM sleep dreaming as well as the incorporation of external stimuli into the dream narrative.

Adding higher types to set theory differs from adding inaccessible cardinals, in that higher type arguments apply to all sets rather than just ordinary ones. Levy's reflection axiom is justified, by considering the principle that we can pretend that the universe is a set, together with methods of Gaifman [8]. We reprove some results of Gaifman, and some facts about Levy's reflection axiom, including the fact that adding higher types yields no new theorems about sets. Some remarks on standard models are made. An obvious strengthening of Levy's axiom to higher types is considered, which implies the existence of indescribable cardinals. Other remarks about larger cardinals are made; some questions of Gloede [9] are settled. Finally we argue that the evidence for V = L is strong, and that CH is certainly true. MSC: 03E30, 03E55

Introduction: The teacher-student relationship in medicine determines the bond established with the patient. Objective: This study was designed to compare if first and third year medical students at a university perceived incidents perpetrated by teachers as morally wrong. Materials and methods: A semi-structured survey was used with open and closed items; specifically, participants were asked to relate a morally wrong incident, classified to six categories. Results: 80.7% in the third-year students and 30.4% of the first-year students perceived incidents that involved mostly auxiliary personnel and evaluations. Verbal abuse and unfair assessment were the categories mentioned the most. Discussion: A morally wrong incident is a general concept, differing from other studies that specifically analyze abuse, also evident in this concept. Conclusion: A lack of respect and justice could indicate a lack of moral commitment.

The sociobiology of bacteria, largely unappreciated and ignored by the microbiology research community two decades ago is now a major research area, catalyzed to a significant degree by studies of communication and cooperative behavior among the myxobacteria and in quorum sensing (QS) and biofilm formation by pseudomonads and other microbes. Recently, the topic of multicellular cooperative behaviors among bacteria has been increasingly considered in the context of evolutionary biology. Here we discuss the significance of two recent studies1,2 of the phenomenon of “cheating” mutants and their exploitation of cooperating microbial populations of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. BioEssays 30:296–298, 2008. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.