How can an experiment which occurs only in thought lead to new and accurate conclusions about the world beyond thought? What makes thought experiments relevant to the domains they are designed to explore? One answer is that successful thought experiments are grounded. Explaining the nature of this grounding relationship, especially as it applies to ethics, is the main task of this dissertation. A thought experiment is an experiment that occurs in thought. The "thought" label distinguishes it from an ordinary physical experiment, while the "experiment" label distinguishes it from other types of merely analogical, conjectural, or hypothetical reasoning. Many of the components that are necessary for a successful physical experiment are also necessary for a successful thought experiment. A thought experiment, like a physical experiment, must isolate and vary variables in order to answer a question within a given theoretical context. The result of the experiment has repercussions for its theoretical context. The grounding relationship holds between the components of the thought experiment and the theoretical context of the thought experiment. In order for the thought experiment to be successful, both the experimental set-up and our responses to it need to be grounded in the thought experiment's theoretical context. An experimental set-up will be grounded whenever it meets the following conditions. The concepts used must be defined normally, dependent and independent variables must be isolated and relevantly related, and the propositions of the thought experiment (excepting those describing extraneous particulars) must be relevantly related to the given theoretical context and the question under examination. Grounding responses to thought experiments will then be largely a matter of anticipating and disarming distorting influences. Factors influencing responses include the individual's knowledge of the theoretical context, the state of development of that context, the nature of the presentation of the thought experiment, and subjective filters. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether a thought experiment in ethics is grounded. This is largely due to the nature of the theoretical context of thought experiments in ethics. In order to assess the relationship of thought experiments in ethics to their theoretical context, I advocate employing a contextualist methodology involving the process of wide reflective equilibrium. While contextualists use this approach to arrive at considered judgements relating to specific ethical problems, I show that wide reflective equilibrium can also be used to examine the grounding of thought experiments. I conclude the dissertation with an examination of the relationship of thought experiments to computer simulations, a study of various common thought experiment distortions, and some tests and methods designed to aid constructing successful thought experiments.

A generalized inclusion (g.i.) frame consists of a set of points (or "worlds") W and an assignment of a binary relation Rw on W to each point w in W. generalized inclusion frames whose Rw are partial orders are called comparison frames. Conditional logics of various comparative notions, for example, Lewis's V-logic of comparative possibility and utilitarian accounts of conditional obligation, model the dyadic modal operator > on comparison frames according to (what amounts to) the following truth condition: oc>13"holds at w" if every point in the truth set of a bears Rw to some point where holds. In this essay I provide a relational frame theory which embraces both accessibility semantics and g.i. semantics as special cases. This goal is achieved via a philosophically significant generalization of universal strict implication which does not assume accessibility as a primitive. Within this very general setting, I provide the first axiomatization of the dyadic modal logic corresponding to the class of all g.i. frames. Various correspondences between dyadic logics and first order definable subclasses of the class of g.i. frames are established. Finally, some general model constructions are developed which allow uniform completeness proofs for important sublogics of Lewis' V.

As the level of integrated circuit (IC) complexity continues to increase, the post-silicon validation stage is becoming a large component of the overall development cost. To address this, we propose a reconfigurable post-silicon debug infrastructure that enhances the post-silicon validation process by enabling the observation and control of signals that are internal to the manufactured device. The infrastructure is composed of dedicated programmable logic and programmable access networks. Our reconfigurable infrastructure enables not only the diagnoses of bugs; it also allows the detection and potential correction of errors in normal operation. In this thesis we describe the architecture, implementation and operation of our new infrastructure. Furthermore, we identify and address three key challenges arising from the implementation of this infrastructure. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to implement an effective reconfigurable post-silicon infrastructure that is able to observe and control circuits operating at full speed, with an area overhead of between 5% and 10% for many of our target ICs.

Counterfactuals generated by people who have experienced traumatic life events were examined to elucidate their significance for the coping process. In Study 1, 93 respondents were interviewed 4-7 years after the loss of their spouse or child in a motor vehicle accident. In Study 2, 124 respondents were interviewed 3 weeks and 18 months following the death of their child to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Across these two studies it was found that (a) counterfactuals that undid the traumatic event were commonly reported; (b) the focus of counterfactuals was typically on one's own (in)actions, rather than on the behavior of others; (c) the more freguently respondents were undoing the event, the more distress they reported; and (d) this relation held even after controlling for more general ruminations. In Study 3, 106 respondents were interviewed one week following their spinal cord injury. In this study, self-implicating counterfactuals were shown to predict ascriptions of self-blame, controlling for causal attributions and foreseeability estimates. Taken together, these field data suggest that counterfactuals play an important role in how people cope with traumatic life events. Possible roles that these counterfactual thoughts might play are discussed.

<p>Abstract models of computation, such as Turing machines, &lambda;-calculus and logic gates, allow us to express computation without being concerned about the underlying technology that realizes them in the physical world. These models embrace a classical worldview wherein computation is essentially irreversible. From the perspective of quantum physics however, the physical world is one where every fundamental interaction is essentially reversible and various quantities such as energy, mass, angular momentum are conserved. Thus the irreversible abstractions we choose as the basis of our most primitive models of computing are at odds with the underlying reversible physical reality and hence our thesis: By embracing irreversible physical primitives, models of computation have also implicitly included a class of computational effects which we call information effects. </p><p> To make this precise, we develop an information preserving model of computation (in the sense of Shannon entropy) wherein the process of computing does not gain or lose information. We then express information effects in this model using an arrow meta-language, in much the same way that we model computational effects in the &lambda;-calculus using a monadic metalanguage. A consequence of this careful treatment of information, is that we effectively capture the gap between reversible computation and irreversible computation using a type-and-effect system. </p><p> The treatment of information effects has a parallel with open and closed systems in physics. Closed physical systems conserve mass and energy and are the basic unit of study in physics. Open systems interact with their environment, possibly exchanging matter or energy. These interactions may be thought of as effects that modify the conservation properties of the system. Computations with information effects are much like open systems and they can be converted into pure computations by making explicit the surrounding information environment that they interact with. </p><p> Finally, we show how conventional irreversible computation such as the &lambda;-calculus can be embedded into this model, such that the embedding makes the implicit information effects of the &lambda;-calculus explicit. </p>

Det här projektet har handlat om att jag ska bli mer självständig som musiker i frågor gällande inspelning och arrangering av min egenkomponerade musik. Men det har kanske främst kommit att handla om min egen inlärningsprocess och de svårigheter jag stött på under arbetets gång. Arbetet har resulterat i en inspelning av låten Kött och socker som jag komponerat och spelat in tillsammans med Kalle Edin. / <p>Bilaga: 1 CD</p>

A lot of work has been done in developing energy efficient network and user devices to reduce the power consumption of nodes and devices in networks. This thesis proposes an innovative approach using fuzzy logic for power saving and extending the life time of network nodes and user devices. Using the concept of silent networking we will define an actionable silent period-this is the period during which the network node or the user device does not expect to originate, receive or relay any traffic. The decision of switching the network interface or user device in the silent mode depends on the history of the network activity. Secondly, if the actionable silent period is high enough, then we can switch the entire interface in power down mode leaving just the timer ON to wake up the interface at the end of silent period. Fuzzy logic is used in mapping the history of the network interface and based on the fuzzy rules that we define, the actionable silent period for interfaces is formulated. Experimental analysis using simulations has been done to view the power saving that can be achieved using this method. Furthermore, a methodology for extending the lifetime of the networked devices is formulated. Using this innovative approach we can save a considerable amount of energy and proportionally increase the lifetime of the networked devices.

Thesis (PhD, Education) -- Queen's University,1912

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No description available.