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Topic Review
Electroreception
Electroreception or electroception is the biological ability to perceive natural electrical stimuli. It has been observed almost exclusively in aquatic or amphibious animals since water is a much better conductor of electricity than air. The known exceptions are the monotremes (echidnas and platypuses), cockroaches, and bees. Electroreception is used in electrolocation (detecting objects) and for electrocommunication.
  • 1.8K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
AI-Control Problem
In artificial intelligence (AI) and philosophy, the AI-control problem is the hypothetical puzzle of how to build a superintelligent agent that will aid its creators, and avoid inadvertently building a superintelligence that will harm its creators. Its study is motivated by the claim that the human race will have to get the control problem right "the first time", as a misprogrammed superintelligence might rationally decide to "take over the world" and refuse to permit its programmers to modify it after launch. In addition, some scholars argue that solutions to the control problem, alongside other advances in "AI safety engineering", might also find applications in existing non-superintelligent AI. Potential strategies include "capability control" (preventing an AI from being able to pursue harmful plans), and "motivational control" (building an AI that wants to be helpful).
  • 573
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Anatta
In Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali) or anātman (Sanskrit) refers to the doctrine of "non-self", that there is no unchanging, permanent self, soul or essence in phenomena. It is one of the seven beneficial perceptions in Buddhism, and one of the three marks of existence along with dukkha (suffering) and anicca (impermanence). The Buddhist concept of anatta or anatman is one of the fundamental differences between Buddhism and Hinduism, with the latter asserting that atman (self, soul) exists.
  • 5.9K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Medium Essentialism
Medium Essentialism is a philosophical theory stating that each artform has its own distinctive medium, and that the essence of such an artform is dependent on its particular medium. In practice, the theory argues that every artwork should manifest its essential properties, those which no other artform can employ. The theory relies on the presumption that every artform has a unique medium, and is divided into two main interpretations. The ‘limitation’ interpretation of Medium Essentialism argues that, due to their medium, some artforms should be constrained in their aspirations. The ‘productive’ interpretation reasons that a work's medium determines what content or style will function best, and that practitioners should pursue ventures aligning with the nature of this chosen medium. Clement Greenberg is a prolific medium-essentialist in relation to modernist art, proposing that artists such as Jackson Pollock are successful because they properly exploit elements of their chosen medium, such as a painting's physical flatness. However, Medium Essentialism was most propagated by film practitioners throughout the twentieth century, as it legitimised cinema as an artform for the first time. Previously, film had been regarded as merely a recorded representation of a written play. It is therefore most discussed today by film theorists, stemming from the work of critics such as André Bazin. Regardless of the interpretation favoured, what constitutes a film's medium, and therefore essential meaning, has been heavily debated, and has prompted the creation of several sub-theories. The theory has been widely discussed among contemporary film theorists and has featured in the Anthology of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures. Whilst Medium Essentialism is not merely a subcategory of the Essentialism theory, it is relevant to the notion that certain characteristics are integral to every entity's purpose and identity. Non-essentialism rejects the existence of such an 'essence'. Non-essentialism has been the view preferred by scholars such as Noël Carroll, criticising Medium Essentialism in relation to film.
  • 397
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Allegory of the Cave
The Allegory of the Cave, or Plato's Cave, was presented by the Ancient Greece philosopher Plato in his work Republic (514a–520a) to compare "the effect of education (παιδεία) and the lack of it on our nature". It is written as a dialogue between Plato's brother Glaucon and his mentor Socrates, narrated by the latter. The allegory is presented after the analogy of the sun (508b–509c) and the analogy of the divided line (509d–511e). All three are characterized in relation to dialectic at the end of Books VII and VIII (531d–534e). Plato has Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall from objects passing in front of a fire behind them, and give names to these shadows. The shadows are the prisoners' reality. Socrates explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall are not reality at all, for he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the manufactured reality that is the shadows seen by the prisoners. The inmates of this place do not even desire to leave their prison, for they know no better life. The prisoners manage to break their bonds one day, and discover that their reality was not what they thought it was. They discovered the sun, which Plato uses as an analogy for the fire that man cannot see behind. Like the fire that cast light on the walls of the cave, the human condition is forever bound to the impressions that are received through the senses. Even if these interpretations (or, in Kantian terminology, intuitions) are an absurd misrepresentation of reality, we cannot somehow break free from the bonds of our human condition—we cannot free ourselves from phenomenal state just as the prisoners could not free themselves from their chains. If, however, we were to miraculously escape our bondage, we would find a world that we could not understand—the sun is incomprehensible for someone who has never seen it. In other words, we would encounter another "realm", a place incomprehensible because, theoretically, it is the source of a higher reality than the one we have always known; it is the realm of pure Form, pure fact. Socrates remarks that this allegory can be paired with previous writings, namely the analogy of the sun and the analogy of the divided line.
  • 5.7K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Vicara
Vicara (Sanskrit( विचार) and Pali, also vicāra; Tibetan phonetic: chöpa) is a Sanskrit term that is translated as "discernment", "sustained thinking", etc. It is an essential element of dhyana, meditation, both in the Buddhist and the Hindu traditions. In the Theravada tradition, it is defined as the sustained application of the mind on an object. In the Mahayana tradition, vicara is defined as a mental factor that scrutinizes finely to discern the specific details. In Hinduism, it is part of Patanjali's Samprajatna samadhi, and also well known as atma-vichara or self-inquiry.
  • 988
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Envy
Envy (from Latin invidia) is an emotion which occurs when a person lacks another's superior quality, achievement, or possession and either desires it or wishes that the other lacked it. Aristotle defined envy as pain at the sight of another's good fortune, stirred by "those who have what we ought to have". Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by their envy, Russell argued, but that person may also wish to inflict misfortune on others to reduce their status.
  • 1.8K
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
The Copernican Question
The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order is a 704-page book written by Robert S. Westman and published by University of California Press (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London) in 2011 and in 2020 (paperback). The book is a broad historical overview of Europe's astronomical and astrological culture leading to Copernicus’s De revolutionibus and follows the scholarly debates that took place roughly over three generations after Copernicus.
  • 283
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Rumination (Psychology)
Rumination is the focused attention on the symptoms of one's distress, and on its possible causes and consequences, as opposed to its solutions, according to the Response Styles Theory proposed by Nolen-Hoeksema (1998). Because the Response Styles Theory has been empirically supported, this model of rumination is the most widely used conceptualization. Other theories, however, have proposed different definitions for rumination. For example, in the Goal Progress Theory, rumination is conceptualized not as a reaction to a mood state, but as a "response to failure to progress satisfactorily towards a goal". As such, both rumination and worry are associated with anxiety and other negative emotional states; however, its measures have not been unified.
  • 799
  • 14 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Young Hegelians
The Young Hegelians (German: Junghegelianer), or Left Hegelians (Linkshegelianer), or the Hegelian Left (die Hegelsche Linke), were a group of German intellectuals who, in the decade or so after the death of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in 1831, reacted to and wrote about his ambiguous legacy. The Young Hegelians drew on his idea that the purpose and promise of history was the total negation of everything conducive to restricting freedom and reason; and they proceeded to mount radical critiques, first of religion and then of the Prussian political system. They rejected anti-utopian aspects of his thought that "Old Hegelians" have interpreted to mean that the world has already essentially reached perfection.
  • 3.6K
  • 11 Nov 2022
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