Fernando Pessoa, a par de diatribes ao regímen republicano implantado em Portugal a 5 de Outubro de 1910, enuncia como e porquê o verdadeiro regímen político português: «república nova», promoverá liberdade e humanismo autênticos sob a organização de um escol de eleitos indispensáveis ao «Império de Cultura» capaz de colocar Portugal de novo como grande potência europeia constituindo uma «Confederação Ibérica», assim cultive a virtude da nação germânica.

This paper presents a method for investigating counterfactual histories of science. A central notion to our theory of science are "advances" (ideas, data, etc.), which are units passed among scientists and which would be conserved in passing from one possible history to another. Advances are connected to each other by nets of causal influence, and we distinguish strong and weak influences. Around sixty types of advances are grouped into ten classes. As our case study, we examine the beginning of the (...) Old Quantum Theory, using a computer to store and process historical information. We describe four plausible possible histories, along with six other implausible ones. (shrink)

This paper presents a method for investigating counterfactual histories of science. A central notion to our theory of science are "advances" , which are units passed among scientists and which would be conserved in passing from one possible history to another. Advances are connected to each other by nets of causal influence, and we distinguish strong and weak influences. Around sixty types of advances are grouped into ten classes. As our case study, we examine the beginning of the Old Quantum (...) Theory, using a computer to store and process historical information. We describe four plausible possible histories, along with six other implausible ones. (shrink)

In visual science the term filling-inis used in different ways, which often leads to confusion. This target article presents a taxonomy of perceptual completion phenomena to organize and clarify theoretical and empirical discussion. Examples of boundary completion (illusory contours) and featural completion (color, brightness, motion, texture, and depth) are examined, and single-cell studies relevant to filling-in are reviewed and assessed. Filling-in issues must be understood in relation to theoretical issues about neuralignoring an absencejumping to a conclusionanalytic isomorphismCartesian materialism, a particular (...) neural stage that forms the immediate substrate of perceptual experience enactiveanimatesubpersonal” considerations about internal processing, but rather by considerations about the task of vision at the level of the animal or person interacting with the world. (shrink)

InThe Cognitive-Emotional Brain(Pessoa 2013), I describe the many ways that emotion and cognition interact and are integrated in the brain. The book summarizes five areas of research that support this integrative view and makes four arguments to organize each area. (1) Based on rodent and human data, I propose that the amygdala's functions go beyond emotion as traditionally conceived. Furthermore, the processing of emotion-laden information is capacity limited, thus not independent of attention and awareness. (2) Cognitive-emotional interactions in the (...) human prefrontal cortex (PFC) assume diverse forms and are not limited to mutual suppression. Particularly, the lateral PFC is a focal point for cognitive-emotional interactions. (3) Interactions between motivation and cognition can be seen across a range of perceptual and cognitive tasks. Motivation shapes behavior in specific ways – for example, by reducing response conflict or via selective effects on working memory. Traditional accounts, by contrast, typically describe motivation as a global activation independent of particular control demands. (4) Perception and cognition are directly influenced by information with affective or motivational content in powerful ways. A dual competition model outlines a framework for such interactions at the perceptual and executive levels. A specific neural architecture is proposed that embeds emotional and motivational signals into perception and cognition through multiple channels. (5) A network perspective should supplant the strategy of understanding the brain in terms of individual regions. More broadly, in a network view of brain architecture, “emotion” and “cognition” may be used as labels of certain behaviors, but will not map cleanly into compartmentalized pieces of the brain. (shrink)

Although emotion is closely associated with motivation, and interacts with perception, cognition, and action, many conceptualizations still treat emotion as separate from these domains. Here, a comparative/evolutionary anatomy framework is presented to motivate the idea that long-range, distributed circuits involving the midbrain, thalamus, and forebrain are central to emotional processing. It is proposed that emotion can be understood in terms of large-scale network interactions spanning the neuroaxis that form “functionally integrated systems.” At the broadest level, the argument is made that (...) we need to move beyond a Newtonian view of causation to one involving complex systems where bidirectional influences and nonlinearities abound. Therefore, understanding interactions between subsystems and signal integration becomes central to unraveling the organization of the emotional brain. (shrink)

This paper articulates a case for supposing that all shades of colour are visually complex.

In this response, I suggest that the focus of “emotion” researchers should be more on striving to develop a science of brain and behavior than on deciding what is the proper status of emotion. Because structure and function are closely intertwined in biological systems, advancing our understanding of complex behaviors will necessitate researching their brain substrates.

Lindquist et al. provide a convincing case against what they call the locationist account of emotion. Their quantitative approach elegantly illustrates the shortcomings of this still-entrenched viewpoint. Here, I discuss how a network perspective will advance our understanding of structure-function mappings in general, and the relationship between emotion and cognition in the brain.

This work examines whether the environmentally-induced decoherence approach in quantum mechanics brings us any closer to solving the measurement problem, and whether it contributes to the elimination of subjectivism in quantum theory. A distinction is made between ,collapse, and ,decoherence,, so that an explanation for decoherence does not imply an explanation for collapse. After an overview of the measurement problem and of the open-systems paradigm, we argue that taking a partial trace is equivalent to applying the projection postulate. A criticism (...) of Zurek's decoherence approach to measurements is also made, based on the restriction that he must impose on the interaction between apparatus and environment. We then analyze the element of subjectivity involved in establishing the boundary between system and environment, and criticize the incorporation of Everett's branching of memory records into the decoherence research program. Sticking to this program, we end by sketching a proposal for ‘environmentally-induced collapse’. (shrink)

Experiments on scene perception and change blindness suggest that the visual system does not construct detailed internal models of a scene. These experiments therefore call into doubt the traditional view that vision is a process in which detailed representations of the environment must be constructed. The non-existence of such detailed representations, however, does not entail that we do not perceive the detailed environment. The “grand illusion hypothesis” that our visual world is an illusion rests on (1) a problematic “reconstructionist” conception (...) of vision, and (2) a misconception about the character of perceptual experience. (shrink)

This paper investigates forms of metaphysical vertigo that can appear when contrasts between humans and animals are challenged. Distinguishing three forms of vertigo and four ways of differentiating humans and animals, the paper attempts to achieve a perspicuous representation of what could be termed “the difficulty of being humans when we are animals”; or alternatively, “the difficulty of being animals when we are humans”.

This paper presents a method for investigating counterfactual histories of science. A central notion to our theory of science are “advances”, which are units passed among scientists and which would be conserved in passing from one possible history to another. Advances are connected to each other by nets of causal influence, and we distinguish strong and weak influences. Around sixty types of advances are grouped into ten classes. As our case study, we examine the beginning of the Old Quantum Theory, (...) using a computer to store and process historical information. We describe four plausible possible histories, along with six other implausible ones. (shrink)

In 1966 the Brazilian physicist Klaus Tausk (b. 1927) circulated a preprint from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy, criticizing Adriana Daneri, Angelo Loinger, and Giovanni Maria Prosperi`s theory of 1962 on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. A heated controversy ensued between two opposing camps within the orthodox interpretation of quantum theory, represented by Leon Rosenfeld and Eugene P. Wigner. The controversy went well beyond the strictly scientific issues, however, reflecting philosophical and political commitments within the (...) context of the Cold War, the relationship between science in developed and Third World countries, the importance of social skills, and personal idiosyncrasies. (shrink)

Este artigo visa analisar modos de axiologizar o bem-estar na escola em enunciados produzidos por alunos do 9º ano do ensino fundamental de uma escola municipal do interior baiano. Interessa-nos, especialmente, compreender como os sujeitos semiotizam, em seus enunciados, o que consideram o evento mais marcante de suas experiências ao longo dos anos finais do ensino fundamental e o que isso nos informa sobre os valores ali mobilizados relativos ao papel social e institucional da escola e(m) suas modalidades de convivência (...) intersubjetiva. As análises destacam que as memórias verbo-visualmente materializadas não se limitam a registros, abrigados na consciência, mas são repositórios de experiências afetivas de e em diversos cronotopos. O fato de as memórias apresentadas recobrirem diferentes eventos interacionais oferecem-nos uma visão crítica dos estudantes de como percebem e matizam complexidades das interações por eles rememoradas e enunciadas. Trabalhos, como o nosso, que se interessam pelos afetamentos de alunos, contribuem, localmente, para que o contexto escolar seja (re)(des)coberto, tensionando como percepções sociais são semiotizadas em horizontes apreciativos de experiências. (shrink)

The investigation of a method for postulating counterfactual histories of science has led to the development of a theory of science based on general units of knowledge, which are called “advances”. Advances are passed on from scientist to scientist, and may be seen as “causing” the appearance of other advances. This results in networks which may be analyzed in terms of probabilistic causal models, which are readily encodable in computer language. The probability for a set of advances to give rise (...) to another advance is taken to be invariant through history, but depends on a typical time span which is an inverse function of the degree of development of science. Examples are given from the early science of magnetism and from the 19th century physics. (shrink)

According to the colored-brain thesis, sense data or qualia are real physical-chemical qualities, located inside the brain, possibly at a specific locus. Our hypothesis is that the seats of phenomenal consciousness have a structure and a materiality. According to the proposed view, a chromatic quale emerges when a certain pixel of the visual sensorium is fed with a certain pattern Σ of spikes; a change in this pattern quickly changes the color that is subjectively generated. How could one manage to (...) measure chromatic qualia? In principle, with nanoscopical techniques, one could capture all the patterns that fall on the sensorium, and transmit the information to other media. But this does not capture the qualia. However, if the patterns are made to fall on a tissue of the same kind, typically inside another person’s brain, this other person will have roughly the same subjective experience as the first person. The model is used to explore two different situations involving qualia inversion. The paper also explores Cartesian materialism, and the claim that phenomenal time and space are identical to a region of physical time and space. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the ascription of probabilities in a causal model of an episode in the history of science. The aim of such a quantitative approach is to allow the implementation of the causal model in a computer, to run simulations. As an example, we look at the beginning of the science of magnetism, “explaining” — in a probabilistic way, in terms of a single causal model — why the field advanced in China but not (...) in Europe (the difference is due to different prior probabilities of certain cultural manifestations). Given the number of years between the occurrences of two causally connected advances X and Y, one proposes a criterion for stipulating the value pY/X of the conditional probability of an advance Y occurring, given X. Next, one must assume a specific form for the cumulative probability function pY/X(t), which we take to be the time integral of an exponential distribution function, as is done in physics of radioactive decay. Rules for calculating the cumulative functions for more than two events are mentioned, involving composition, disjunction and conjunction of causes. We also consider the problems involved in supposing that the appearance of events in time follows an exponential distribution, which are a consequence of the fact that a composition of causes does not follow an exponential distribution, but a “hypoexponential” one. We suggest that a gamma distribution function might more adequately represent the appearance of advances. (shrink)

A visual experience, as understood here, is a sensory event that is conscious, or like something to undergo. This chapter focuses on three issues concerning such experiences. The first issue is the so-called ‘transparency’ of experiences. The chapter distinguishes a number of different interpretations of the suggestion that visual experiences are ‘transparent’. It then discusses in what sense, if any, visual experiences are ‘transparent’, and what further conclusions one can draw from that. The second issue is which properties we are (...) presented with in visual experiences. It is widely accepted that we sometimes experience red for example. But exactly which properties do we sometimes visually experience, and which properties do we never visually experience? The third issue is which particulars, if any, we are presented with in visual experiences. Do we for example sometimes visually experience mind-independent particulars like trees? Do we sometimes visually experience mind-dependent, particular ‘sense-data’? (shrink)

The following points are discussed in response to the commentaries: (1) A taxonomy of perceptual completion phenomena should rely on both phenomenological and mechanistic criteria. (2) Certain forms of perceptual completion are caused by topographically organized neural processes the view that there must be a pictorial or spatial neural-perceptual isomorphism at the bridge locus – should be rejected. Although more abstract kinds of isomorphism are central to the neural-perceptual mapping, the perceptual cannot be exhaustively explained in terms of the neural, (...) and therefore the explanation of perception cannot be reduced to uncovering neural-perceptual isomorphisms. (5) The task of vision is to guide action in the world, not to construct a detailed world-model in the head. (6) Neural filling-in facilitates the integration of information and thereby helps the animal find out about its environment. (7) Perceptual content needs to be understood at the level of the person or animal interacting in the world. (shrink)

A presente pesquisa realiza um estudo de caso de uma rádio transmitida por meio do aplicativo WhatsApp e suas dinâmicas interativas em páginas em redes sociais online. Entre os objetivos deste estudo de inspiração etnográfica de uma rádio segmentada estão a descrição e análise dos processos de transmissão, circulação da produção de textos audioverbovisuais, modelo de negócio e interação com os ouvintes usuários do aplicativo. Pretende-se compreender possíveis experiências de pessoas comuns em ambientes digitais que provocam tensões entre os modos (...) de fazer rádio, as tecnologias digitais, a visibilidade e o suposto empoderamento do ouvinte. (shrink)

The question of which is the logic that underlies quantum physics does not have an absolute answer, but only in relation to a conventional choice of interpretation . Most of the interpretations that have been offered work within the framework of classical logic. In contrast to these, we examine the corpuscular interpretation which is assumed in the application of non-distributive logic . The experiment in which single photons pass through a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is examined, indicating the difficulty of employing a (...) realist corpuscular interpretation in this context. One way to save this interpretation would be to use non-distributive logic to analyze the experiment, but this is not satisfactory . However, the use of an alethic modal logic solves the problem, blocking the argument that put the aforementioned corpuscular interpretation into difficulty. In the discussion of the conceptual problems involved, we suggest that a stochastic corpuscular interpretation is well adapted to this logical description. The project of extending this modal logical approach to other experiments in quantum physics, and of providing a rigorous logical treatment, is left open. (shrink)

(1) The main issue with regard to modal and amodal completion is not which phenomena are cognitive, and which perceptual. At the level of the animal, both are visuo-cognitive. At the level of visual processing, however, we need to dissect the different functional effects of these kinds of completion. (2) Resonant binding between distributed cortical areas may play a role in perceptual completion, but evidence is needed.

Relato e balanço da aplicação da Pedagogia Histórico-Crítica no Colégio Estadual Cristo Rei – Ensino Normal como política pública do Estado do Paraná, analisando-se as gestões de governo consideradas progressistas, até a atual gestão. Percebe-se que a referida Pedagogia não se efetivou totalmente.

An extended definition of “observation” is developed in order to account for the usage in the physical sciences and in neuropsychology. An observation is initially defined as a perception that has a focus of attention and is guided by theoretical considerations. Since the focus may change, one adopts a pluralist position according to which the object of perception may involve any stage of the causal chain that leads to perception, such as the source of light or sound, the obstructions, the (...) medium or even the receptor. The “neutral” observations of the empiricists are seen as involving only low-level or medium-level theorization. Examples are examined, such as a lunar eclipse, the rainbow, and observations mediated by instruments, whose “artifacts” are considered observations of the instrument itself. One also defines null-effect observations. Observations of photographs and drawings may be considered either the observation of a printed sheet of paper or the observation of the pictured object or people. This causal-pluralist metatheory of observation also accepts that one may “observe light”, observe the retina, and observe parts of the brain which are outside the region of the “sensorium”. Illusions and hallucinations are analyzed within this “observational materialism”, which considers that qualia are self-observations of the brain. Criticisms that the approach is too wide in scope are analyzed in the conclusion. (shrink)