In the beginning, religion was the central concern of social scientists, who came to a remarkable consensus about the key elements of religion with the notable exceptions of Adam Smith,1 and to lesser extents, Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch.2 Social scientists aimed to explain the persistence of irrational beliefs in the face of modernity. Eventually, the accumulation of unconvincing theories pr...

There seems to be little consensus on what an agent architecture is. In this paper I will talk about architectures in computer design, and programming languages, and what their distinctions are. I will then discuss agent architectures relative to that distinction. Finally, I will discuss recent work I have done on building better computer architectures for agency. One of the problems with writi...

The distinction between reversible and irreversible phenomena in biological information systems provides a basis for distinguishing microevolution from macroevolution. Biological transitions encompass the entire class of irreversible changes in biological systems, including physiological and developmental phenomena. Evolutionary transitions are the subset of biological transitions that have an ...

I was working recently with a group of Danish doctors on a course where they had a chance to talk about some of their most difficult patients: complex cases, challenging ones, people who had worn them down over the years by consulting very often but never getting any better. One theme came up again and again in their stories. It was the theme of risk. The doctors on the course didn’t mean the k...

We propose first order formal theories Γn, with n ≥ 1, and Γ = ⋃ n≥1 Γn, which can be roughly described as follows: each one of these theories axiomatizes a bounded universe, with a greatest element, modelled on Sergeyev’s so-called grossone; each such theory is consistent if predicative arithmetic I∆0 + Ω1 is; inside each such theory one can represent (in a weak, precisely specified, sense) th...

Historically, philosophers of biology have tended to sidestep the problem of development by focusing primarily on evolutionary biology and, more recently, on molecular biology and genetics. Quite often, development has been misunderstood as simply, or even primarily, a matter of gene activation and regulation. Nowadays a growing number of philosophers of science are focusing their analyses on t...

IDEAS AND MATERIAL SUBSTANCE While there are many arguments on various topics to be found in Berkeley's published works, the two issues which have received the most attention from philosophers are: (1) Berkeley's rejection of Abstract Ideas; and, (2) Berkeley's rejection of Material Substance, which is commonly referred to as Berkeley's "immaterialism." These two issues were first addressed by ...

The aim of this paper is to make the case for a systematic engagement of transition studies with complexity theory and research. We argue that transition research is important for the understanding and development of possible sustainable future pathways. However, there are several controversies in transition research, including, the role of agency in transitions; the relationships between level...

With rapid urbanization in China, the dramatic land-use changes are one of most prominent features that have substantially affected land ecosystems, thus seriously threatening sustainable development. However, current studies focused more on evaluating economic efficiency land-use, while loss and degradation ecosystem services barely considered. To address these issues, this study first propose...