Abstract In this introductory study, we place the articles collected in special issue on ‘spirituality’ a more general context. so doing, contest idea that alternative spirituality is best studied within conceptual framework of ‘vernacular.’ We argue such an approach tends to unintentionally overstate empirical particularities and overlook broader aspects subject question, which results unrefle...

Abstract Descartes's arguments in support of his claim that the mind is an immaterial substance are examined and found wanting. But despite flaws dualistic view mind, Descartes has fascinating important things to say about how much human experience involves ‘intermingling’ body. There still philosophical lessons be learnt from legacy.

The relative expressive power of a sentential operator U]o~ is compared to that of a syntactical predicate L('c~') in the setting of first-order logics. Despite results by Montague and by Thomason that claim otherwise, any of the so-called CCmodal" logics of knowledge and belief can be translated into classical first-order logics that have a corresponding predicate on sentences.

The implicit claim is that such a machine can learn at speeds comparable to learning in humans, and will not require evolutionary time-scales, despite having no specific knowledge about the environment initially, nor even any concepts (an ontology) specific to the environment. This is closely related to the ancient "tabula rasa" theory of knowledge acquisition, summarised here: http://en.wikipe...