The Peripheral Mind

The Peripheral Mind
Author: István Aranyosi
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 247
Release: 2013-05-28
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199989613

The Peripheral Mind introduces a novel approach to a wide range of issues in the philosophy of mind by shifting the focus of analysis from the brain to the Peripheral Nervous System (PNS). Contemporary philosophy of mind has neglected the potential significance of the PNS and has implicitly assumed that, ultimately, sensory and perceptual experience comes together in the brain. István Aranyosi proposes a philosophical hypothesis according to which peripheral processes are considered as constitutive of sensory states rather than merely as causal contributors to them. Part of the motivation for the project is explained in the autobiographical opening chapter, which describes the author's subjective experiences with severe peripheral nerve damage. Although Aranyosi's approach could be classified as part of the current "embodied mind" paradigm in the philosophy of mind and cognitive neuroscience, this is the first time that notions like "embodiment" and "body" in general are replaced by the more focused concept of the PNS. Aranyosi puts the hypothesis to the test and offers novel solutions to puzzles related to physicalism, functionalism, mental content, embodiment, the extended mind hypothesis, tactile-proprioceptive illusions, as well as to some problems in neuroethics, such as abortion and requests for amputation of healthy body parts. The diversity of the volume's methodology--which results from a combination of conceptual analysis, discussion of neuroscientific data, philosophical speculation, and first-person phenomenological accounts--makes the book both engaging and highly informative.

On Reference

On Reference
Author: Andrea Bianchi
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2015-03-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0191023485

Most of the times we open our mouth to communicate, we talk about things. This can happen because (some of) the linguistic expressions we use have semantic properties that connect them to extra-linguistic entities. Thanks to these properties, they may be used by us to refer to things. Or, as we may also say, they themselves refer to things, though in certain cases they do so only relative to a context of use. But how can we characterize the semantic properties in question? What exactly is reference? Philosophers have been trying to answer these questions at least since Plato's Cratylus, but not until the last century, when language occupied center-stage in philosophy, did the problem come to be felt as really pressing. In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Gottlob Frege produced an account of reference that set the stage for the contemporary discussion. Nevertheless, around 1970 a number of powerful arguments against it were produced by Saul Kripke and others. As a result, many philosophers began to look at reference from a new perspective, which highlighted the crucial role played by wordly historical facts that may be unknown to the speakers. This semantic revolution, however, left us with a number of open problems. The eighteen original essays collected in this volume deal with many of these problems, thus contributing to our understanding of the nature of reference, its role in cognition, and the place it should be given in semantic theory.

Cost-Effective Data Pipelines

Cost-Effective Data Pipelines
Author: Sev Leonard
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2023-07-13
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1492098612

The low cost of getting started with cloud services can easily evolve into a significant expense down the road. That's challenging for teams developing data pipelines, particularly when rapid changes in technology and workload require a constant cycle of redesign. How do you deliver scalable, highly available products while keeping costs in check? With this practical guide, author Sev Leonard provides a holistic approach to designing scalable data pipelines in the cloud. Intermediate data engineers, software developers, and architects will learn how to navigate cost/performance trade-offs and how to choose and configure compute and storage. You'll also pick up best practices for code development, testing, and monitoring. By focusing on the entire design process, you'll be able to deliver cost-effective, high-quality products. This book helps you: Reduce cloud spend with lower cost cloud service offerings and smart design strategies Minimize waste without sacrificing performance by rightsizing compute resources Drive pipeline evolution, head off performance issues, and quickly debug with effective monitoring Set up development and test environments that minimize cloud service dependencies Create data pipeline code bases that are testable and extensible, fostering rapid development and evolution Improve data quality and pipeline operation through validation and testing

Lexical Competence

Lexical Competence
Author: Diego Marconi
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 230
Release: 1997
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780262133333

Proposes a dual picture of human lexical competence in which inferential and referential abilities are separate. Topics discussed in the text include classical issues in the philosophy of language and philosophy of mind such as semantic holism, dual-factor theories, publicness, and verificationism.

Cats Magazine

Cats Magazine
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 342
Release: 1962
Genre: Cats
ISBN:

America's oldest cat publication.

The Nature of Disease

The Nature of Disease
Author: Lawrie Reznek
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2022-05-24
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1000579417

Originally published in 1987, this book is about the classification of bodily conditions into diseases. It provides a full account of the concept of disease, examining the issue of whether disease status is something we discover or invent and the issue of whether disease attributions involve implicit value judgements. It investigates whether bodily conditions fall into natural kinds and whether these debates can be settled by discovering whether there are any natural boundaries dividing conditions into diseases and non-diseases. It considers whether the notion of disease is an evaluative notion or whether judgements about disease status are purely descriptive. The issue of whether other cultures with different values are justified in making different disease judgements is also discussed.

Brain and the Lexicon

Brain and the Lexicon
Author: Fabrizio Calzavarini
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2020-01-08
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 3030275884

This monograph offers a novel, neurocognitive theory concerning words and language. It explores the distinction between inferential and referential semantic competence. The former accounts for the relationship of words among themselves, the latter for the relationship of words to the world. The author discusses this distinction at the level of the human brain on both theoretical and neuroscientific grounds. In addition, this investigation considers the relation between the inf/ref neurocognitive theory and other accounts of semantic cognition proposed in the field of neurosemantics, as well as some potential implications of the theory for clinical neuroscience and the philosophy of semantics. Overall, the book offers an important contribution to the debate about lexical semantic competence. It combines a strong philosophical and linguistic background with a comprehensive and critical analysis of neurosemantic literature. Topics discussed lie at the intersection of philosophical semantics, linguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, cognitive neuroscience, and clinical psychology. Due to its interdisciplinary orientation, coverage is rich in introductory remarks and not overly technical, therefore it is accessible to non-experts as well.

Cracking Codes with Python

Cracking Codes with Python
Author: Al Sweigart
Publisher: No Starch Press
Total Pages: 416
Release: 2018-01-23
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1593278691

Learn how to program in Python while making and breaking ciphers—algorithms used to create and send secret messages! After a crash course in Python programming basics, you’ll learn to make, test, and hack programs that encrypt text with classical ciphers like the transposition cipher and Vigenère cipher. You’ll begin with simple programs for the reverse and Caesar ciphers and then work your way up to public key cryptography, the type of encryption used to secure today’s online transactions, including digital signatures, email, and Bitcoin. Each program includes the full code and a line-by-line explanation of how things work. By the end of the book, you’ll have learned how to code in Python and you’ll have the clever programs to prove it! You’ll also learn how to: - Combine loops, variables, and flow control statements into real working programs - Use dictionary files to instantly detect whether decrypted messages are valid English or gibberish - Create test programs to make sure that your code encrypts and decrypts correctly - Code (and hack!) a working example of the affine cipher, which uses modular arithmetic to encrypt a message - Break ciphers with techniques such as brute-force and frequency analysis There’s no better way to learn to code than to play with real programs. Cracking Codes with Python makes the learning fun!

Conversations on Consciousness

Conversations on Consciousness
Author: Susan Blackmore
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 283
Release: 2006-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0198039891

In Conversations on Consciousness, Susan Blackmore interviews some of the great minds of our time, a who's who of eminent thinkers, all of whom have devoted much of their lives to understanding the concept of consciousness. The interviewees, ranging from major philosophers to renowned scientists, talk candidly with Blackmore about some of the key philosophical issues confronting us in a series of conversations that are revealing, insightful, and stimulating. They ruminate on the nature of consciousness (is it something apart from the brain?) and discuss if it is even possible to understand the human mind. Some of these thinkers say no, but most believe that we will pierce the mystery surrounding consciousness, and that neuroscience will provide the key. Blackmore goes beyond the issue of consciousness to ask other intriguing questions: Is there free will? (A question which yields many conflicted replies, with most saying yes and no.) If not, how does this effect the way you live your life; and more broadly, how has your work changed the way you live? Paired with an introduction and extensive glossary that provide helpful background information, these provocative conversations illuminate how some of the greatest minds tackle some of the most difficult questions about human nature.