This paper contains the motivation for the study of critical surfaces in [2]. In that paper, the only justification given for the definition of this new class of surfaces is the strength of the results. However, when viewed as the topological analogue to index 2 minimal surfaces, critical surfaces become quite natural.

Story understanding is a central competence that illuminates all other aspects of human intelligence. In this work, I demonstrate how our story understanding ability sheds light on our ability to think in terms of hypothetical situations. Using the Genesis story understanding system as a substrate, I develop a story-enabled hypothetical reasoning system that models several high-level human abil...

Talking even about rather ordinary circumstances appears to implicate directly certain metaphysically loaded identifications. For example, if Dr. Gustav Lauben is a doctor then it seems to follow that he has the property of being a doctor; just as if he is injured, he has the property (or the characteristic) of being injured. Moreover, if Frege should come to believe that the good doctor is inj...