This book presents an attempt to develop a theory of knowledge and a philosophy of mind using ideas derived from the mathematical theory of communication developed by Claude Shannon. Information is seen as an objective commodity defined by the dependency relations between distinct events. Knowledge is then analyzed as information caused belief. Perception is the delivery of information in analog form for conceptual utilization by cognitive mechanisms. The final chapters attempt to develop a theory of meaning by viewing meaning as (...) a certain kind of information-carrying role. (shrink)

Known as self-illness ambiguity, subjective confusion about whether patients or their mental illnesses are in control may partly stem from clinical methods mimicking medical models that diagnose illnesses (e.g. viruses) as present or not irrespective of sufferers’ life stories. Researchers accordingly propose narrative contextualization as a way of disambiguating self from illness. But what if heightened self-attention is symptomatic of mental illness? Wellbeing may then associate with a smaller ‘me’ versus ‘not-me’ divide, a position Csikszentmihalyi’s flow psychology and Dewey’s (...) aesthetics both support. What I call aesthetic flow involves embodied, non-linguistic dramatic structure, suggesting another way to view narrativity. By lessening self-preoccupation – and perhaps illness severity – this kind of narrativity may help dissolve self-illness ambiguity. However, a perplexity remains. Aesthetic flow depends on encountering resistance, including psychological obstacles. In life, as in art, this resistance delineates and individuates. Thus, aesthetic flow might lead to a temporary loss of self, followed by its reemergence in more immersively relational forms. A second complexity is that experiences of ‘self’ vary across time, cultures, and individuals – much like concepts of ‘justice’ or ‘love.’ This fluidity makes broad generalizations about selfhood and illness problematic. My solution partly sidesteps this by downplaying the importance of self. (shrink)

Participation in, and attendance at, court often positions people amid a charged emotional environment, where the evidence frequently involves distressing accounts and the stakes of decision-making are high. Research has explored the impact of this environment on various court protagonists. What this research has failed to consider in detail, however, are the ways in which such vectors of emotional reaction, containment and contagion interact and flow across the criminal court space: yielding affective environments in which emotion is not a (...) commodity held (or denied) by one person, but a force that permeates and seeps into the spaces of justice. In this article, we set out the case for why such an understanding is necessary and instructive. (shrink)

This paper develops a speculative model of gravity based on the idea that the universe is filled with an invisible, unobservable medium, denoted R, and that all masses act as sinks for this medium. Smaller masses swallow R slowly and thus attract matter weakly; larger masses swallow R more intensely and produce stronger attraction. This “R-medium” picture is loosely analogous to a drain in a pool pulling surrounding water toward it. We situate the model within the historical context of aether (...) concepts, Le Sage-type kinetic gravitation, and more recent sink-flow approaches to gravity, then propose a simple continuum formulation in which R obeys a steady-state continuity equation with sink terms proportional to mass. Under spherical symmetry, the resulting flow field leads to an effective inverse-square gravity law and permits bound orbits in a way that addresses a limitation of my earlier “ground is falling to apple” reinterpretation of gravity, which denied stable orbits. The present work is explicitly nonstandard and likely incompatible with relativity and some known constraints on drag and energy dissipation; its purpose is to serve as a focused articulation of a long-held intuition rather than a replacement for established gravitational theory. (shrink)

We present a latent-space formulation of adaptive temporal reparametrization for continuous-time dynamical systems. The method, called temporal lifting, introduces a smooth monotone mapping t↦τ​(t) that regularizes near-singular behavior of the underlying flow while preserving its conservation laws. In the lifted coordinate, trajectories such as those of the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations on the torus T3 become globally smooth. From the standpoint of machine-learning dynamics, temporal lifting acts as a continuous-time normalization or time-warping operator that can stabilize physics-informed neural networks and (...) other latent-flow architectures used in AI systems. The framework links analytic regularity theory with representation-learning methods for stiff or turbulent processes. (shrink)

Causation has traditionally been analyzed either as a relation of nomic dependence or as a relation of counterfactual dependence. I argue for a third program, a physicalistic reduction of the causal relation to one of energy-momentum transference in the technical sense of physics. This physicalistic analysis is argued to have the virtues of easily handling the standard counterexamples to the nomic and counterfactual analyses, offering a plausible epistemology for our knowledge of causes, and elucidating the nature of the relation between (...) causation and physical science. (shrink)

This study provides novel evidence of the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) on investment sensitivity to cash flows. We posit that CSR affects investment–cash flow sensitivity (ICFS) through information asymmetry and agency costs, commonly viewed as the two channels through which investment responds to the availability of internal cash flows. We find that CSR performance leads to a decrease in ICFS. We further find that ICFS decreases (increases) when CSR strengths (concerns) increase. Finally, we find that the effect (...) of CSR on ICFS is driven by the areas Community, Diversity, and Human Rights. In sum, the findings of this study stress the relevance of CSR—in particular, of CSR activities that extend beyond compliance behavior and reflect what is desired by society—in reducing market frictions and improving firms’ access to financial capital. (shrink)

Can firms overcome credit constraints with a corporate culture of high integrity? We empirically address this question by studying their investment–cash flow sensitivities. We identify firms with a culture of integrity through textual analysis of public documents in a sample of Chinese listed firms and also through corporate culture statements. Our results show that firms with an integrity-focused culture have lower investment–cash flow sensitivity, even after we address endogeneity concerns. However, we also find that for the culture to (...) reduce the investment–cash flow sensitivity, external stakeholders must be able to verify this culture through a low information asymmetry environment. Overall, our findings show that a corporate culture of high integrity can mitigate a firm’s external transaction costs. (shrink)

It is common for social theorists to utilize the metaphors of ‘flow’, ‘fluidity’, and ‘liquidity’ in order to substantiate the ways in which speed and mobility form the basis for a new kind of information or network society. Yet rarely have these concepts been sufficiently theorized in order to establish their relevance or appropriateness. This article contends that the notion of flow as utilized in social theory is profoundly metaphysical in nature, and needs to be judged as such. (...) Beginning with a discussion of the accelerating timescape that characterizes the network society, it will then move on to examine three main issues with this ‘metaphysics of flux’. First, that the concept of flows unjustly privileges the process of becoming and, as a result, is unable to account for the materiality, substantiality, and agency of the objects being mobilized, and the contingency of their mediation. Second, that it posits the accelerating tendencies of capital as an ontological inevitability, thus discounting resistance to such forces. Finally, that it ignores the human faculty for reason and speculative thought in developing alternative means of political praxis. The solution, it will be argued, is not to abandon metaphysical accounts of the network society, but rather to challenge those accounts that, in exhibiting a crude empiricism, work to justify the status quo. (shrink)

To date, game-based learning programs that include comprehensive creativity skills and disposition training are still very limited. The present researchers developed a comprehensive game-based creativity learning program for fifth and sixth grade pupils. Further analysis presented relationship trends between mindful learning experience, flow experience, self-efficacy, and mastery experience. Eighty-three 5th and 6th grade participants undertook the six-week game-based creativity learning program. Upon the completion of experimental instruction, those who scored higher on the concerned variables improved more in self-evaluation of (...) both creativity ability and confidence, than their counterparts. Additionally, path model analysis revealed that mindful learning experience was a powerful predictor of both mastery experience and flow experience; it also influenced mastery experience through flow experience and self-efficacy during game-based creativity learning. The findings support the effectiveness of the game-based learning program developed in this study. Moreover, this study contributes to the theoretical construction of how game-based learning can be designed to facilitate mindful learning experience, flow experience, self-efficacy, and mastery experience during creativity training among pupils. Effective mechanisms include providing rewards for high-quality performance, challenging tasks, free choices of design components, immediate feedback, and idea sharing. The profound theoretical framework proposed in this study provides a valuable approach for creativity instruction through game-based learning or classroom instruction. (shrink)

Previous findings demonstrate that people often do not feel how they want to feel, supporting the distinction between “actual affect” and “ideal affect.” But are there certain activities that reduce the discrepancy between actual and ideal affect? Based on flow theory and socioemotional selectivity theory, we examined whether the discrepancy between people’s actual and ideal positive affect would be smaller during activities that were more conducive to flow (a state of intense absorption and concentration), pleasant, and familiar. In (...) Study 1, U.S. participants aged 17–79 (N = 393) reported their ideal affect and how they felt during activities with varying degrees of challenges and skills. For both low-arousal positive affect (LAP) and high-arousal positive affect (HAP), participants reported smaller actual-ideal affect discrepancies during flow-conducive activities (when skills matched challenges). Study 2 was a 14-day experience sampling study, in which Hong Kong participants aged 18–83 (Nindividual = 109) reported their momentary actual and ideal affect, and how pleasant and familiar their activities were (Nexperience = 3,815). Greater activity familiarity was associated with smaller discrepancies in actual-ideal LAP, while greater activity pleasantness was associated with smaller discrepancies in actual-ideal HAP. These findings provide insights on the activities that help people achieve their ideal affect more easily. (shrink)

One of the many senses of the word spirituality—surely one of the vaguest words in the modern English language—is that of a special quality of life, a sublime fulfillment that somehow transcends the vicissitudes of fortune. According to this sense, spiritual people experience life as having such abundance of value or meaning that they can endure great hardship and tragedy without coming to despair. This abiding fullness and the equanimity it provides are perhaps the greatest prize of the spiritual life.Spiritual (...) fulfillment was once claimed as the special reward of religion, but no longer. In late modernity "spiritual but not religious" has become a commonplace self-description, and presumably this concept of.. (shrink)

Based on the transcript of a fragment from a philosophical practice session carried by Oscar Brenifier, I flesh out several aspects of this dialogical form of philosophical practice. First, it is a form of interaction grounded in the interlocutors’ interaffection. Second, the main mechanism of carrying through the dialogic interaction is the practitioner’s repeating the other’s words, writing them down, and then questioning them, thus extracting them from the other’s discursive flow and making them shared objects for an intersubjective (...) gaze. Third, this form of dialogue is asymmetrical: while the other is providing the “content”, the practitioner is responsible for explicating it. (shrink)

A convenience sample of 171 students ( M = 23.9 yrs., SD = 6.91) answered a questionnaire indicating their religious orientations (Intrinsic, Extrinsic) and the frequency and intensity of their flow experiences (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975, 1982, 2000; Fave & Massimini, 1988). Flow experiences are similar to athletes’ experiences of “being in the zone.” Intrinsics live by their religion, and Intrinsic religiosity was associated with fewer flow experiences in everyday activities. Extrinsics want the benefits of belonging. Extrinsic religiosity correlated (...) with less intense flow experiences, and these experiences were more frequent during public religious gatherings than private prayer or meditation. (shrink)

With special relativity, we seem to be facing a conundrum. It is a very well-tested theory; in this way, the Minkowski spacetime must be “capturing” essential features of space and time. However, its geometry seems to be incompatible with any sort of global notion of time. We might only have local notions of now (present moment) and time flow, at best. In this note, we will explore the possibility that a pretty much global notion of now (and time (...) class='Hi'>flow) might be hiding in plain sight in the geometry of the Minkowski spacetime. (shrink)

Apresentamos uma proposta de debate entre a filosofia da técnica de Vittorio Hösle (1960-) e a psicologia ambiental, mais especificamente a psicologia do _flow _de Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934-2021). O pensamento de Hösle sobre técnica e ecologia é uma expansão do pensamento de Hans Jonas (1903-1993), porém enfatizando temas como valores e economia. A partir de paralelos entre os raciocínios de Hösle e Csikszentmihalyi, buscamos verificar afinidade entre a psicologia ambiental e teses hösleanas. Em seguida, a partir de estudos atuais sobre (...) psicologia do _flow_ e psicologia ambiental, averiguamos se há ampliação da filosofia da técnica com o conteúdo empírico sobre ecologia e economia, com vistas a um aprofundamento do vínculo entre os dois domínios, tal como proposto pelo próprio Hösle, incentivando o estudo de dois pensadores ainda pouco trabalhados no país. (shrink)

It is shown how the temporal-modal system of events TM (axiomatized in Appendix) allows for the avoidance of the logical determinism without the rejection of the principle of bivalence. The point is that the temporal and the modal parts of TM are so inter-related that modalities are in-the-real-world-inherent modalities independently of whether they concern actual or only possible events. Though formulated in a tenseless language, whose interpretation does not require the assumption of tense facts at the basic level of reality, (...) TM implies an objective, observer-independent difference between tenses based only on the way in which modalities are distributed along the time continuum. The conclusion is that the arrow of time is an intra-model characteristic of any model of TM that describes the non-deterministic real world up to a certain point of its history, while the flow of time is an inter-model characteristic of the continuous transition between these models. (shrink)

Osteons are cylindrical structures of bone created by matrix resorbing osteoclasts, followed by osteoblasts that deposit new bone. Osteons align with the principal loading direction and it is thought that the osteoclasts are directed by osteocytes, the mechanosensitive cells that reside inside the bone matrix. These osteocytes are presumably controlled by interstitial fluid flow, induced by the physiological loading of bones. Here I consider the stimulation of osteocytes while the osteon is closed by osteoblasts. In a conceptual finite element (...) model, bone is considered a poro‐elastic material and subjected to locomotion‐induced loading conditions. It appears that the magnitude of flow is constant along the closing cone, while shear strain rate in the bone matrix diminishes linearly with the deposition of bone. This suggests that shear strain rate, rather than fluid flow, is the physical cue that controls osteocytes and bone deposition in newly formed osteons. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy in the 20 th century was largely hostile territory to the self as traditionally conceived, and this tradition has been continued in two recent works: Mark Johnston’s Surviving Death, and Galen Strawson’s Selves. I have argued previously that it is perfectly possible to combine a naturalistic worldview with a conception of the self as a subject of experience, a thing whose only essential attribute is a capacity for unifi ed and continuous experience. I argue here that this conception (...) of the self is unthreatened by the otherwise valuable considerations advanced by Johnston and Strawson. Both are inclined to identify selves-at-times with momentary episodes of experience (or centres or ‘arenas’ of consciousness). Both go on to argue, albeit in diff erent ways, that individual selves cannot extend beyond the confi nes of these brief episodes. However, in so doing they give insuffi cient weight to an important phenomenological datum: the continuity of our ordinary experience. When the latter is recognized, and appropriately understood, it provides us with a secure basis upon which a more recognizable conception of the self can be constructed. (shrink)

The extension of quantum mechanics to a general functional space (“rigged Hilbert space”), which incorporates time-symmetry breaking, is applied to construct extract dynamical models of entropy production and entropy flow. They are illustrated by using a simple conservative Hamiltonian system for multilevel atoms coupled to a time-dependent external force. The external force destroys the monotonicity of the ℋ-function evolution. This leads to a model of the entropy flow that allows a steady nonequilibrium structure of the emitted field around (...) the unstable particles. (shrink)

Sustained peripheral somatosensory stimulations, such as high-frequency repetitive somatosensory stimulation (HF-RSS) and vibrated stimulation, are effective in altering the balance between excitation and inhibition in the somatosensory cortex (S1) and motor cortex (M1). A recent study reported that whole-hand water flow (WF) stimulation induced neural disinhibition in the M1. Based on previous results, we hypothesized that whole-hand WF stimulation would lead to neural disinhibition in the S1 because there is a strong neural connection between M1 and S1 and aimed (...) to examine whether whole-hand WF stimulation would change the neural balance between excitation and inhibition in the S1. Nineteen healthy volunteers were studied by measuring excitation and inhibition in the S1 before and after each of the four 15-min interventions. The excitation and inhibition in the S1 were assessed using somatosensory evoked potentials (SEPs) and paired-pulse inhibition (PPI) induced by single- and paired-pulse stimulations, respectively. The four interventions were as follows: control, whole-hand water immersion, whole-hand WF, and HF-RSS. The results showed no significant changes in SEPs and PPI following any intervention. However, changes in PPI with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of 30 ms were significantly correlated with the baseline value before whole-hand WF. Thus, the present findings indicated that the whole-hand WF stimulation had a greater decreased neural inhibition in participants with higher neural inhibition in the S1 at baseline. Considering previous results on M1, the present results possibly show that S1 has lower plasticity than M1 and that the duration (15 min) of each intervention may not have been enough to alter the balance of excitation and inhibition in the S1. (shrink)

Creative role identity is an important antecedent of innovative behaviors. Both the mechanism of how external factors and individual factors affect the formation of creative role identity and details of this process have yet to be discovered. Based on data collected from 226 students in 6 classes at a university in Guangdong during the development of innovative projects, the influence of innovation climate on the students’ creative role identity, especially the mediating effect of flow, was investigated. The results show (...) that the innovation climate has a positive impact on creative role identity and that flow plays a partial mediating role in this relationship. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present a new Polish tool for measuring the flow experience in professional tasks - a FLOW-W Questionnaire. The questionnaire was inspired by Csikszentmihalyi’s (1990) flow theory and flow in Bakker’s work (2008). On its basis a set of positions was established, on which subsequently an exploratory (study 1, N = 101) and confirmatory (study 2, N = 275) factor analysis was conducted. The analysis showed the possibility of a uni- (...) or bifactorial solution. After checking the theoretical and empirical validity of both solutions, the unifactorial solution was adopted. The validity of the questionnaire was examined, i.a. by correlations with theoretically related variables: work engagement with the UWES questionnaire (Szabowska-Walaszczyk, Zawadzka, Wojtaś, 2011) and affect at work (Zalewska, 2002). The studies showed a significant positive correlation between flow at work and work engagement (0.84) and between flow and positive affect (0.74). The reliability of the questionnaire is very high; α = 0.96. The tool has very good psychometric properties. (shrink)

This thesis defends a dynamic view of time by drawing a sustained analogy between money and time. Neither, I argue, is merely an abstract quantity or externally grounded dimension - each is an impredicative system that derives measures of value or duration by means of self-reference. Time flows, and it does so at a rate of one second per one second. While this rate has been dismissed by some philosophers as meaningless, I argue that its structural form reveals an essential (...) feature of temporal passage. This thesis not only seeks to rehabilitate the dynamic view of time but does so by treating money as a philosophical analogue capable of illuminating the flow of time. Chapter 1 defends Tim Maudlin's claim that time flows meaningfully against Huw Price's objection that rates such as 'one second per one second' are tautological or nonsensical. I argue that such rates are structurally informative and consistent with how other basic measurement practices function. In Chapter 2, I expand on the Temporal Regress Argument (TRA) introduced in Chapter 1. The TRA challenges the coherence of the dynamic view of time only if one assumes that each moment of time must be grounded in a prior or external standard. This regress mirrors a similar issue in monetary theory: if the value of money must always be grounded in something else (e.g. gold, labour, utility), a similar regress arises, which I call the Monetary Regress Argument (MRA). The problem isn't one of fundamentality. Money isn't fundamental. The problem is one of direction of fit. Any supposed more fundamental value must ground the value of money without in turn being measured. Chapter 3 develops the MRA, applying the formal structure of the TRA to the ontology of monetary value. I argue that the value of money is not grounded externally but rather internally, by its impredicative structure - money measures value because it is defined in terms of its own purchasing power. This impredicative structure is also central to time. In Chapter 4, I explore the ontological implications of this view. I suggest that both time and money gain important features not through reference to an external standard, but through self-reference. This explains both their universality and their role as metrics within broader social and physical systems. Chapter 5 engages with recent positions which I collectively label the Embedded Perspective View (EPV). This holds that important features of time - like flow, passage or asymmetry - are merely features of human perspective rather than mind-independent reality. I counter this view by raising doubts about whether there can be creatures which do not experience manifest time. Likewise, I show that our money practice simply reflects the temporal asymmetry of past, present and future and the real modal change as the present becomes the past. Money isn't merely an analogue to money. Money interacts with time in a specific way. This change suggests that time possesses structure that is irreducible to the mere appearance of manifest time for creatures like us. I argue this structure is necessary for all information gathering and utilisation systems. Finally, Chapter 6 examines financial instruments like yield curves, which embed dynamic temporal dimensions in both axes and data points. These graphs do not just measure time; they represent it as structured flow, akin to how time manifests in lived experience and dynamic metaphysical accounts. Just as money is defined by money, time is defined by time. We can measure both only impredicativily, and both exhibit a metaphysical structure that resists reduction to static or external reference. (shrink)

Recent research into how musicians coordinate their expressive timing, phrasing, articulation, dynamics, and other stylistic characteristics during performances has highlighted the role of predictive processes, as musicians must anticipate how their partners will play in order to be together. Several studies have used information flow techniques such as Granger causality to show that upcoming movements of a musician can be predicted from immediate past movements of fellow musicians. Although musicians must move to play their instruments, a major goal of (...) music making is to create a joint interpretation through the sounds they produce. Yet, information flow techniques have not been applied previously to examine the role that fellow musicians' sound output plays in these predictive processes and whether this changes as they learn to play together. In the present experiment, we asked professional violinists to play along with recordings of two folk pieces, each eight times in succession, and compared the amplitude envelopes of their performances with those of the recordings using Granger causality to measure information flow and cross-correlation to measure similarity and synchronization. In line with our hypotheses, our measure of information flow was higher from the recordings to the performances than vice versa, and decreased as the violinists became more familiar with the recordings over trials. This decline in information flow is consistent with a gradual shift from relying on auditory cues to predict the recording to relying on an internally-based (learned) model built through repetition. There was also evidence that violinists became more synchronized with the recordings over trials. These results shed light on the planning and learning processes involved in the aligning of expressive intentions in group music performance and lay the groundwork for the application of Granger causality to investigate information flow through sound in more complex musical interactions. (shrink)

Hierarchies occur widely in evolving self‐organizing ecological, biological, technological, and social networks, but detecting and comparing hierarchies is difficult. Here we present a metric and technique to quantitatively assess the extent to which self‐organizing directed networks exhibit a flow hierarchy. Flow hierarchy is a commonly observed but theoretically overlooked form of hierarchy in networks. We show that the ecological, neurobiological, economic, and information processing networks are generally more hierarchical than their comparable random networks. We further discovered that hierarchy (...) degree has increased over the course of the evolution of Linux kernels. Taken together, our results suggest that hierarchy is a central organizing feature of real‐world evolving networks, and the measurement of hierarchy opens the way to understand the structural regimes and evolutionary patterns of self‐organizing networks. Our measurement technique makes it possible to objectively compare hierarchies of different networks and of different evolutionary stages of a single network, and compare evolving patterns of different networks. It can be applied to various complex systems, which can be represented as directed networks. (shrink)

This aim of this thesis is to provide an account of our experience of the flow of time. I will be employing a naturalistic approach to this philosophical question, which chiefly involves being heavily influenced by the natural sciences. I explore ways of incorporating the flow of time in our fundamental physical theories and end up defending a view that is consistent with there being no flow of time present in our fundamental physical theories. Instead, the (...) class='Hi'>flow of time arises from the adoption of a particular perspective that an embedded agent with a particular cognitive architecture possesses. I go on to describe such an agent in detail and show how this account sheds light on a variety of philosophical and scientific issues. I argue that this account of temporal flow naturally lends itself to a variety of scientific and philosophical applications. From explaining disparate sets of psychological phenomena under a unified mechanism, to providing insights into how to build better artificial intelligence systems, to addressing long-standing debates within the philosophy of time surrounding the relationship between our experiences of time and the metaphysics of time, and finally pointing to new directions for empirical work into our experience of time. I believe that the account presented in this thesis does justice to our experience of the flow of time, its ubiquity, and its seeming intangibility. While other accounts have argued that such an experience is a mere illusion or cognitive error, I argue it can (and should) be thought of as veridical and that it arises from the core of what it means to be an embodied agent. (shrink)

Based on the environmental-cultural coupling perspective of ecosystem service flow, this study explored the flow, distribution and interaction of ecosystem services in different regions in Gansu Province, in order to provide scientific basis for ecological protection and resource management in the province. In this paper, InVEST model, MaxEnt model and coupling coordination degree model are adopted. Based on the quantitative assessment of the supply and demand of ecosystem services, the hot spot analysis and the measurement method of ecosystem (...) service flow based on circuit theory are combined. Linkage Mapper was used to construct ecological resistance surfaces, simulate ecological processes, identify ecological corridors, and analyze the spatial distribution and flow patterns of service flows. The results show that there are significant regional differences in the supply of ecosystem services in Gansu Province, and there are contradictions between cultural services and ecological services in regional coordination. There is a large spatial difference in the coupling coordination degree of environment-cultural services, that is, there are four main types of ecosystem service supply-demand ratio: The spatial distribution characteristics of ecosystem service flows of high-supply-high demand, high-supply-low demand, low-supply-high demand, and low-supply-low demand indicate that environmental service flows and cultural service flows present different flow paths and connectivity in Gansu Province. Based on the above analysis results, this paper divides the ecological function zone of Gansu Province into ecological culture protection zone, ecological culture maintenance zone and ecological culture development zone, which is closely combined with the territorial spatial planning of Gansu Province, and adopts regional policies to ensure the ecological security and sustainable development of Gansu Province. (shrink)

Many physicists regard the flow of time as an illusion. There is an upper level flow of time, the phenomenon of past/present/future; and there is a lower level flow of time which is really a flow of events. Perceptual completion accounts for the lower level flow of time in a few ways: apparent movement; amodal completion; and dynamic change as exemplified by a newly described modal completion that we called happening. It acts like an illusory (...) percept connecting discrete stimuli in all sensory modalities. The past/present/future distinction cannot exist unless an object is perceived to be the same now as it is then. This cognition requires object persistence. Experiments with object persistence suggest the circumstances when that, too, is an illusory percept. The illusory percepts of object persistence and perceptual completion can account for the entire flow of time. Our findings and conclusions are congruent with a few time theories and cosmologies that suggest that the flow of time is an illusion. (shrink)

Flow describes a state of intense experiential involvement in an activity that is defined in terms of nine dimensions. Despite increased interest in understanding the flow experience of musicians in recent years, knowledge of how characteristics of the musician and of the music performance context affect the flow experience at the dimension level is lacking. In this study, we aimed to investigate how musicians’ general music performance anxiety level and the presence of an audience influence the nine (...) flow dimensions. The participants were 121 university music students who performed solo a music piece once by themselves and once in front of an audience. Their general MPA level was measured with an adapted version of the STAI and ranged from 27 to 76. The level of the nine flow dimensions was assessed with the Flow State Scale-2 after each performance. The levels of “concentration on task at hand,” “sense of control,” and “autotelic experience” decreased significantly with increasing general MPA level. The levels of “unambiguous feedback” and “loss of self-consciousness” decreased significantly with increasing general MPA level during the public performance only. The level of “sense of control” was significantly lower during the public performance than the private performance across participants. The level of “unambiguous feedback” was significantly lower during the public performance than the private performance for participants with a general MPA level higher than 47. The level of “loss of self-consciousness” was significantly lower during the public performance than the private performance for participants with a general MPA level higher than 32. In contrast, the general MPA level and the audience did not significantly affect the levels of “challenge-skill balance,” “clear goals,” and “action-awareness merging.” These results show that the effects of general MPA level and audience vary greatly across flow state dimensions. We conclude that musicians’ flow state should be analyzed at the dimension level rather than as a global score. We discuss how our findings could inform the development and implementation of interventions. (shrink)

The flow state – an experience of complete absorption in an activity – is linked with less self-referential processing and increased arousal. We used the heart-evoked potential, an index representing brain–heart interaction, as well as indices of peripheral physiology to assess the state of flow in individuals playing a video game. 22 gamers and 21 non-gamers played the video game Thumper for 25 min while their brain and cardiorespiratory signals were simultaneously recorded. The more participants were absorbed in (...) the game, the less they thought about time and the faster time passed subjectively. On the cortical level, the fronto-central HEP amplitude was significantly lower while playing the game compared to resting states before and after the game, reflecting less self-referential processing while playing. This HEP effect corresponded with lower activity during gameplay in brain regions contributing to interoceptive processing. The HEP amplitude predicted the level of absorption in the game. While the HEP amplitude was overall lower during the gaming session than during the resting states, within the gaming session the amplitude of HEP was positively associated with absorption. Since higher absorption was related to higher performance in the game, the higher HEP in more absorbed individuals reflects more efficient brain–heart interaction, which is necessary for efficient game play. On the physiological level, a higher level of flow was associated with increased overall sympathetic activity and less inhibited parasympathetic activity toward the end of the game. These results are building blocks for future neurophysiological assessments of flow. (shrink)

Flow prediction in a vegetated channel has been extensively studied in the past few decades. A number of equations that essentially differ from each other in derivation and form have been developed. Because the process is extremely complex, getting the deterministic or analytical form of the process phenomena is too difficult. Hybrid neural network model is particularly useful in modeling processes where an adequate knowledge of the physics is limited. This hybrid model is presented here as a complementary tool (...) to model channel flow–vegetation interactions in submerged vegetation conditions. The hybrid model is used to overcome the local minima limitations of a feed-forward neural network. The prediction capability of model has been found to be better than past empirical predictors. The model developed herein showed significantly better results in several model performance criteria compared with empirical models. (shrink)

The nature of time is one of the crucial problems in the philosophy of science and it cannot be solved by an appraisal of past formulations of the time concept, nor by introspective examination of our awareness of time. Among the philosopher's tasks is the seemingly thankless one of scrutinizing the advance of modern science for significant facts and ideas, and to integrate these into the larger notions he has formed of time. Recent physics bears suggestions of peculiar interest in (...) this regard; chief among them is the theory of quantum electrodynamics developed by Feynman which involves reversals in the course of time and thereby cherishes, in the minds of many, an age-old phantasy of more than scientific appeal. To appraise that theory in philosophic terms is the purpose of this note. (shrink)

The 3D Prandtl fluid flow through a bidirectional extending surface is analytically investigated. Cattaneo–Christov fluid model is employed to govern the heat and mass flux during fluid motion. The Prandtl fluid motion is mathematically modeled using the law of conservations of mass, momentum, and energy. The set of coupled nonlinear PDEs is converted to ODEs by employing appropriate similarity relations. The system of coupled ODEs is analytically solved using the well-established mathematical technique of HAM. The impacts of various physical (...) parameters over the fluid state variables are investigated by displaying their corresponding plots. The augmenting Prandtl parameter enhances the fluid velocity and reduces the temperature and concentration of the fluid. The momentum boundary layer boosts while the thermal boundary layer mitigates with the rising elastic parameter strength. Furthermore, the enhancing thermal relaxation parameter ) reduces the temperature distribution, whereas the augmenting concentration parameter drops the strength of the concentration profile. The increasing Prandtl parameter declines the fluid temperature while the augmenting Schmidt number drops the fluid concentration. The comparison of the HAM technique with the numerical solution shows an excellent agreement and hence ascertains the accuracy of the applied analytical technique. This work finds applications in numerous fields involving the flow of non-Newtonian fluids. (shrink)

Henri Bergson created a rich and detailed theory of consciousness beginning with the publication of Time and Free Will in 1889 and continuing through the publication of The Two Sources of Morality and Religion in 1932. His theory had much in common with William James’s views in that both emphasized consciousness as a continuous process. James's famous ‘stream of consciousness’ is strikingly similar to Bergson's early notion of duration (duree), even if Bergson more strongly emphasized the temporal qualities of consciousness. (...) Bergson later modified his understanding of consciousness, creating a metaphysical vision that he hoped might not only overcome determinism and materialism, but also offer a sophisticated way to understand parapsychological phenomena such as telepathy and clairvoyance (topics of concern to many major theorists of the time). During his life, Bergson’s ideas were widely celebrated in the United States and in Europe. (shrink)

Part II: Modeling Chapter 3: Single Populations Chapter 4: Multiple Populations Chapter 5: Information [ “The Use of Information Theory in Epistemology”, Philosophy of Science ...] Chapter 6: A two level model for Bacterial Epistemology Chapter 7: A three level model for Bumblebee Epistemology [ “Reliability and Novelty”.