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Transhumanism is an emerging philosophical and social movement that aims, through technology, to extend human life and radically expand intellectual, physical, and psychological capabilities. Many of transhumanism's goals overlap the eschatological hopes of Christians, such as the elimination of sickness and death. Yet observers who see transhumanism and Christianity in monolithic terms often portray them as adversaries. Against this view, I argue that within each community are factions that have comparable, but contested, views on God, the divine attributes, and human origins, responsibility, and destiny. As a result, an emerging dialog between particular transhumanists and Christians seeks to shape the future of humanity by integrating the basic commitments of transhumanism and Christianity. Bruno Latour's concept of modes of existence offers a framework for both developing and analyzing diplomacy between and within Christian and transhumanist communities. Specifically, Latour's work allows for the identification of category mistakes that set the terms of intermodal conflicts and dialog. Some transhumanists and most Christians hold beliefs about the nature and meaning of God. Christians believe in a Trinitarian God that is the preexistent, eternal, and personal creator of the universe. By contrast, elements of the transhumanist movement believe that in the future an artificial God will inevitably emerge as an omniscient and omnipotent supercomputer. The attributes, concepts and purposes of God and, by extension, nature lend a basis for developing diplomatic relationships between factions of transhumanism and Christianity. Diplomacy between transhumanism and Christianity exists via social media and virtual meeting places. At the forefront of this movement is a new Christian Transhumanist Association that I analyze in some depth. It is only a couple of years old, but its leaders have already attracted international attention. Their strategy of theological minimalism seeks to reduce friction among stakeholders. I show that this strategy sacrifices the insights that Christian theology and philosophy could bring to the development of transhumanism. I conclude that in order to affect transhumanism Christians must find ways to apply their insights into personal creator-creature relationships to the challenges of safely developing artificial superintelligence. / Ph. D.

Epilepsy -- the condition of recurrent, unprovoked seizures -- manifests in brain voltage activity with characteristic spatio-temporal patterns. One of the patterns typically observed during a seizure is a traveling wave. To characterize these waves, we analyze high-density local field potential (LFP) data recorded in vivo from human cortex during a seizure from three patients. We show that traveling wave patterns emerge in the LFP with consistent quantitative features. Using a mean-field approach we model the neuronal population activity observed in the LFP and obtain explicit traveling wave solutions for this model. We then employ the LFP data to constrain the model and obtain parameter configurations that support traveling wave solutions with features consistent with the observed LFP waves. In particular, our model formulation is able to capture the "reverberation" of the activity following the traveling wave that was found in the clinical data. We obtain biologically reasonable parameter estimates for two important features: the timescales of the model and the extent of the connectivity. In this way, we link the observed LFP waves during seizure to proposed biological mechanisms. We also study the linear stability of the traveling wave solutions by constructing an Evans function. We find for some parameters the existence of two waves: one wave is slow and narrow whereas the other wave is fast and wide. Moreover, the fast and wide wave has speed and width consistent with the observed LFP waves. We numerically analyze the Evans function to determine stability (instability) of the fast (slow) wave.

There is a debate in the philosophy of time over the status of non-present entities. Do these things exist, and if so, what sorts of things are they? Recently, the debate has split into two groups, presentists and eternalists. Presentists hold that no past or future things exist now. Socrates does not now exist, though he did in the past; my future daughter does not now exist, though she may in the future. Ontologically, the present is distinct, serving to demarcate all that currently has existence. As far as the eternalist is concerned, all entities - whether past, present, or future - are equally real. If it was, is, or will be, it can be found in the eternalist picture of time. As such, there is no distinct present at which some entities exist while others do not; rather, everything enjoys the same ontological status. I will be concerned to offer an assessment of the presentist view. Common objections against presentism will be examined, amplified, and answered where appropriate. I will not examine the arguments in favor of the presentist view. Rather, I wish to describe why it is that the eternalist feels compelled to deny presentism. Ultimately, my goal will be to show that although presentism survives some of the current objections raised against it, it does not survive them all. Presentism is an interesting, but ultimately unsatisfactory view. There is a modified form of presentism (call it presentism*) that can meet the objections raised against the original position, and after noting some of the objections raised against presentism, I will sketch the outlines of presentism* in some detail. I intend to show that presentism* is able to retain what is most valuable about presentism, while also withstanding certain objections that the latter view could not.

In this dissertation I study theories on auctions with participation costs with various information structure. Chapter II studies equilibria of second price auctions with differentiated participation costs. We consider equilibria in independent private values environments where bidders? entry costs are common knowledge while valuations are private information. We identify two types of equilibria: monotonic equilibria in which a higher participation cost results in a higher cutoff point for submitting a bid, and neg-monotonic equilibria in which a higher participation cost results in a lower cutoff point. We show that there always exists a monotonic equilibrium, and further, that the equilibrium is unique for concave distribution functions and strictly convex distribution functions with some additional conditions. There exists a neg-monotonic equilibrium when the distribution function is strictly convex and the difference of the participation costs is sufficiently small. We also provide comparative static analysis and study the limit status of equilibria when the difference in bidders' participation costs approaches zero. Chapter III studies equilibria of second price auctions when values and participation costs are both privation information and are drawn from general distribution functions. We consider the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium. It is shown that there always exists an equilibrium for this general economy, and further there exists a unique symmetric equilibrium when all bidders are ex ante homogenous. Moreover, we identify a sufficient condition under which we have a unique equilibrium in a heterogeneous economy with two bidders. Our general framework covers many relevant models in the literature as special cases. Chapter IV characterizes equilibria of first price auctions with participation costs in the independent private values environment. We focus on the cutoff strategies in which each bidder participates and submits a bid if his value is greater than or equal to a critical value. It is shown that, when bidders are homogenous, there always exists a unique symmetric equilibrium, and further, there is no other equilibrium when valuation distribution functions are concave. However, when distribution functions are elastic at the symmetric equilibrium, there exists an asymmetric equilibrium. We find similar results when bidders are heterogenous.

Reproduction de : Thèse doctorat : Philosophie : Poitiers : 2009. / Titre provenant de l'écran titre. Bibliogr. f. [260-266]. Notes bibliogr.

There is a debate in the philosophy of time over the status of non-present entities. Do these things exist, and if so, what sorts of things are they? Recently, the debate has split into two groups, presentists and eternalists. Presentists hold that no past or future things exist now. Socrates does not now exist, though he did in the past; my future daughter does not now exist, though she may in the future. Ontologically, the present is distinct, serving to demarcate all that currently has existence. As far as the eternalist is concerned, all entities - whether past, present, or future - are equally real. If it was, is, or will be, it can be found in the eternalist picture of time. As such, there is no distinct present at which some entities exist while others do not; rather, everything enjoys the same ontological status. I will be concerned to offer an assessment of the presentist view. Common objections against presentism will be examined, amplified, and answered where appropriate. I will not examine the arguments in favor of the presentist view. Rather, I wish to describe why it is that the eternalist feels compelled to deny presentism. Ultimately, my goal will be to show that although presentism survives some of the current objections raised against it, it does not survive them all. Presentism is an interesting, but ultimately unsatisfactory view. There is a modified form of presentism (call it presentism*) that can meet the objections raised against the original position, and after noting some of the objections raised against presentism, I will sketch the outlines of presentism* in some detail. I intend to show that presentism* is able to retain what is most valuable about presentism, while also withstanding certain objections that the latter view could not.

Diss. : Philosophisch-pädagogische Fakultät : Eichstätt : 1983. - Bibliogr. p. 367-373. -

Thesis (D.Com.(Financial Management Sciences))--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references.