This paper proposes a model for an artificial autonomous moral agent (AAMA), which is parsimonious in its ontology and minimal in its ethical assumptions. Starting from a set of moral data, this AAMA is able to learn and develop a form of moral competency. It resembles an “optimizing predictive mind,” which uses moral data (describing typical behavior of humans) and a set of dispositional traits to learn how to classify different actions (given a given background knowledge) as morally right, wrong, (...) or neutral. When confronted with a new situation, this AAMA is supposedly able to predict a behavior consistent with the training set. This paper argues that a promising computational tool that fits our model is “neuroevolution,” i.e. evolving artificial neural networks. (shrink)

Some philosophers of science have suggested that contemporary science should be the source of inspiration to the new analytic metaphysics (A. Chakra vartty, C. Callender, S. French, J. Ladyman, T. Maudlin, etc.). This paper explores the prospect of a string metaphysics: a research program in analytic metaphysics based on string theory. Different forms of fundamentalism and pluralism are discussed in this context. The paper focus on string metaphysics with S-dualities (a relation between models of string theory at different coupling regimes) (...) and argues that fundamentality and compositionality have to be reconceptualized. String metaphysics with dualities is better couched in terms of metaphysical pluralism. Grounding, as well as a sketch of a string modality, are briefly discussed. The paper concludes with a suggestion for future work: the metaphysician may find a productive ground for research in discussing other dualities (especially the T-dualities, or the AdS/CFT duality), the emergence of spacetime, the concept of time in string theory, the multiverse etc. (shrink)

Book review: _Mechanistic Explanations in Physics and Beyond_, Brigitte Falkenburg and Gregor Schiemann, editors, _European Studies in Philosophy of Science_, Vol. 11, Springer International Publishing, Cham 2019, pp.220.

Trust is defined as a belief of a human H (‘the trustor’) about the ability of an agent A (the ‘trustee’) to perform future action(s). We adopt here dispositionalism and internalism about trust: H trusts A iff A has some internal dispositions as competences. The dispositional competences of A are high-level metacognitive requirements, in the line of a naturalized virtue epistemology. (Sosa, Carter) We advance a Bayesian model of two (i) confidence in the decision and (ii) model uncertainty. To trust (...) A, H demands A to be self-assertive about confidence and able to self-correct its own models. In the Bayesian approach trust can be applied not only to humans, but to artificial agents (e.g. Machine Learning algorithms). We explain the advantage the metacognitive trust when compared to mainstream approaches and how it relates to virtue epistemology. The metacognitive ethics of trust is swiftly discussed. (shrink)

In string theory with S-dualities, there is an object-oriented realism and a structure-oriented realism. This paper discusses the advantages of “string structural realism”, a form of the latter, having a multi-aspected structure with a “model-oriented” pluralistic ontology, and grounded in the relation among fundamental objects of various string models.

In this paper I discuss Tim Maudlin’s attempt to reject the theory of universals based on the interpretation of gauge theories in the fiber bundle framework. The project is novel and assuring, but, I argue, it is vulnerable to several objections stemming from both metaphysics and physics. I complement his project by emphasizing two missing elements: first, a commitment to realism; second, the fundamentality or non-fundamentality of gauge theories.

We argue that the concepts of mechanism and autonomy appear to be antagonistic when autonomy is conflated with agency. Once these concepts are disentangled, it becomes clearer how autonomy emerges from complex forms of control. Subsequently, current biomimetic strategies tend to focus on homeostatic regulatory systems; we propose that research in AI and robotics would do well to incorporate biomimetic strategies that instead invoke models of allostatic mechanisms as a way of understanding how to enhance autonomy in artificial systems.

In this chapter I discuss the attempts by Theodor Kaluza [Kaluza, T., 1921. Zum Unitätproblem der Physik. Sitzungsber. der K. Ak. der Wiss. zu Berlin, 966–972] and by Oskar Klein [Klein, O., 1926a. Quantentheorie und fünfdimensionale Relativitätstheorie. Zeitschrift für Physik 37 (12), 895–906; Klein, O., 1926b. The atomicity of electricity as a quantum theory law. Nature 118, 516], respectively, to unify electromagnetism and general relativity within a five-dimensional Riemannian manifold. I critically compare Kaluza's results to Klein's. Klein's theory possesses more (...) explanatory power and unificatory strength and uses less types of brute facts than Kaluza's. The characteristic feature of Klein's theory is that it relies on an extrinsic element of unification, i.e. the wavefunction behavior, which is not intrinsic to EM or GR. Finally, I compare and discuss Kaluza's and Klein's theories in the context of Tim Maudlin's [Maudlin, T., 1996. On the unification of physics. Journal of Philosophy 93 (3), 129–144] ranking of unification and I clarify in what sense they constitute counterexamples to some of Margaret Morrison's [Morrison, M., 2000. Unifying Scientific Theories: Physical Concepts and Mathematical Structures. Cambridge University Press] assertions about unification. (shrink)

This paper is a survey of the theories of time travel in a perspective close to theories of time. In the last section we discuss the special ontology of the objects that exist on closed timelike curves. We simply assert that CTC need a new ontology and these objects are not simply impossible or unconcevaible.