With the rise of virtual anchors, humanness has become a crucial lens to examine how these features influence the parasocial relationships between virtual anchors and their audiences. Most studies focus on how virtual anchors resemble humans but barely scrutinize the nature of “humanness” in different contexts for these digital personas. Thus, this study examines how the humanness of virtual anchors has been socially constructed over the past two decades, alongside the development of the virtual anchor industry in China. We argue (...) that the nature of humanness in virtual anchors has evolved through four distinct phases: from “pixelated humanness” during the experiment period (2000–2004), to “pent-up humanness” in the stagnation period (2005–2014), to “expressive humanness” in the revival period (2015–2017), and finally to “biopolitical humanness” in the current boom period (2018–present). Furthermore, we elaborate on how these four stages of humanness are co-constructed by the technologies underpinning virtual anchor production and the institutions that shape the industry. This study offers a nuanced understanding of humanness, a key assumption in many empirical discussions surrounding human–computer relations. (shrink)

A digital solution to the problems caused by US military personnel misusing their digital cameras, pixelization (the intentional post-production enlargement of pixels to obscure potentially disturbing content) has become a defining feature of newsmedia visualizations of American military atrocity during the War on Terror. Here, I consider the ethics and politics of pixelizing photographs depicting torture at Abu Ghraib, the exploits of the American ‘Kill Team’ in Afghanistan, and the carnality of US Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban soldiers. (...) Ostensibly, as a technique applied to those parts of the photograph that reveal the corporeal truth of war most graphically, such redaction is meant to protect the victims. But it also renders their appearance variable, subject to editorial whim, and pixelization alters not only the appearance of the photograph, but how it signifies. I query whether pixelization offers any meaningful redress for the victims and the extent to which it blunts photography’s capacity to document harm. (shrink)

Pixelism is the combination of three metaphysical thesis, namely a radical form of exdurantism, mereological nihilism and counterpart theory. Pixelism is a theory that evaluates all the metaphysical phenomena of persistence, composition and modality in a homogeneous and consistent manner. In a pixel world, there is no identity over time and over possible worlds and nothing persists over more than an instant or a world. Entities can be univocally identified by a five-coordinates system (the three spatial dimensions, the temporal one (...) and the possible worlds), and their relation is a counterpart relation both in different worlds and at different times or different regions of space. In this paper I will provide two models for pixelism: the first one takes pixels to be hypercubes, i. e. four-dimensional cubes, the acceptance of which is conditional on the acceptance of extended simples. The second one considers pixels as points in a four-dimensional space. (shrink)

Research in face recognition has largely been divided between those projects concerned with front‐end image processing and those projects concerned with memory for familiar people. These perceptual and cognitive programmes of research have proceeded in parallel, with only limited mutual influence. In this paper we present a model of human face recognition which combines both a perceptual and a cognitive component. The perceptual front‐end is based on principal components analysis of face images, and the cognitive back‐end is based on a (...) simple interactive activation and competition architecture. We demonstrate that this model has a much wider predictive range than either perceptual or cognitive models alone, and we show that this type of combination is necessary in order to analyse some important effects in human face recognition. In sum, the model takes varying images of “known” faces and delivers information about these people. (shrink)

In the modern world, where artificial intelligence is becoming not just a tool, but an active agent of cultural production, the visual environment is undergoing radical changes. This work offers a philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of algorithmic aesthetics as a new stage in the evolution of visual culture, in which traditional ideas about image, authorship and meaning undergo a profound transformation. Generative neural networks and machine learning algorithms not only automate the creation of images, but also redefine the very (...) anthropology of perception. Visual experience ceases to be the result of an intentional act of the subject, giving way to machine processes of statistical pattern redistribution. Under these conditions, aesthetic interaction shifts from contemplation and interpretation to the reactive consumption of visual stimuli, where the subject's attention is directed not so much by an internal impulse as by algorithmic mechanisms. The authors introduce the concept of algorithmic aesthetics as a paradigm in which the classical triad "image, author, meaning" is destroyed. Aesthetic validity is now formed not in the space of human communication, but in the infrastructure of algorithmic distribution, where images are devoid of stable ontology, and the subject's gaze turns into a function of directed attention. This gives rise to a phenomenology of virtual perception, where traditional categories of sensory experience lose their stability. Special attention is paid to the problems of loss of authorial subjectivity, aesthetic homogenization and visual entropy as symptoms of a deep cultural transformation that threatens aesthetic diversity and reflective perception. The article substantiates the need for humanitarian expertise and the development of a philosophy of digital visuality capable of diagnosing the risks of aesthetic degeneration and suggests turning to digital hygiene and the ecology of perception as a solution. In conclusion, the question is raised: is it possible to preserve the space of human creativity and reflexive gaze in an environment where reality is increasingly being simulated by algorithms? The answer to this challenge will determine the future not only of visual culture, but also of human subjectivity itself in the digital age. (shrink)

The rapid development of computer vision technologies and applications has brought forth a range of social and ethical challenges. Due to the unique characteristics of visual technology in terms of data modalities and application scenarios, computer vision poses specific ethical issues. However, the majority of existing literature either addresses artificial intelligence as a whole or pays particular attention to natural language processing, leaving a gap in specialized research on ethical issues and systematic solutions in the field of computer vision. This (...) paper utilizes bibliometrics and text-mining techniques to quantitatively analyze papers from prominent academic conferences in computer vision over the past decade. It first reveals the developing trends and specific distribution of attention regarding trustworthy aspects in the computer vision field, as well as the inherent connections between ethical dimensions and different stages of visual model development. A life-cycle framework regarding trustworthy computer vision is then presented by making the relevant trustworthy issues, the operation pipeline of AI models, and viable technical solutions interconnected, providing researchers and policymakers with references and guidance for achieving trustworthy CV. Finally, it discusses particular motivations for conducting trustworthy practices and underscores the consistency and ambivalence among various trustworthy principles and technical attributes. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the reasons for, and consequences of, expanding our notions of human embodiment to virtual worlds. Increasingly, it is within virtual environments that we seek to extend, and enhance, who we are. Yet, philosophical worries persist about what sorts of selves count as moral agents, and the extent to which self-enhancements affect personal identity and agency. This paper critiques and expands the discourse on embodiment and personal identity by locating it within the virtual environments of Second Life, (...) challenging the prevailing limitations of what counts as identity-constituting embodiment. I argue that more inclusive notions of embodiment make possible a deeper understanding of its moral and epistemic force that constitutes and locates our identities in a universe of shared moral understandings. Thus, by including enhanced virtual embodiments alongside the non-virtual, not only do we expand our ideas of what it might mean to be embodied, but we also deepen our moral vocabularies of the self. (shrink)

Bioimage analysis plays a critical role in extracting information from biological images, enabling deeper insights into cellular structures and processes. The integration of machine learning and deep learning techniques has revolutionized the field, enabling the automated, reproducible, and accurate analysis of biological images. Here, we provide an overview of the history and principles of machine learning and deep learning in the context of bioimage analysis. We discuss the essential steps of the bioimage analysis workflow, emphasizing how machine learning and deep (...) learning have improved preprocessing, segmentation, feature extraction, object tracking, and classification. We provide examples that showcase the application of machine learning and deep learning in bioimage analysis. We examine user‐friendly software and tools that enable biologists to leverage these techniques without extensive computational expertise. This review is a resource for researchers seeking to incorporate machine learning and deep learning in their bioimage analysis workflows and enhance their research in this rapidly evolving field. (shrink)

The field of ecocritical game studies has grown significantly in recent years. Reading videogames through the demands of the climate crisis and the social debates around what ecology and nature mean helps us assess their role in culture and as culture. This paper combines the analysis of game content and of the ways of playing afforded by that content to delineate a draft of a map of games about and in defense of nature. The guiding questions are how they create (...) their discourses and what strategies they use for that, distinguishing between representation (or how nature appears) and ecocriticism (or what is said about the relationship between people and their environment), as well as what type of player behaviour they allow and favour. To study that, I employ three central intellectual concepts: ecocriticism, the theory of moral consideration in animal rights philosophy, and the economic theory of degrowth. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The World of Screen Creatures” by Bin Liu. Abstract: I examine the premise that Liu’s screen creatures duplicate the images of a first-person shooter. I raise questions about the first-person perspective of screen creatures and their use of language.

Purpose: Traditional cognitive tasks isolate cognitive parameters but miss how cognition naturally operates. I argue that games can be used to study cognition as it unfolds in ecological settings. Methodology: Drawing from predictive coding and embodied cognition, I show that the very embodiment in the brain also works with tools and virtual tools. An avatar in a game is treated by the brain as a body part, such as a hand. Given this insight, I derive five design principles for games (...) to reinstate ecological settings in virtual worlds: autonomous goal pursuit, embodied avatar control, consistent rules, continuous temporal flow, and complex environments. Results: Commercial games unintentionally include classic cognitive paradigms: racing games demand continuous visuomotor control that can't be accomplished through discrete trials; FIFA leverages executive functions beyond traditional working memory assessments. Main Contribution: Given findings of body schema and peripersonal spaces, and embodied mind and predictive coding frameworks, I provide methodological guidance for behavioural, physiological, and neural measurements during gameplay, offering researchers tools to assess cognition while preserving experimental rigour. Practical Implications: Beyond novel experimental designs that allow for the exploration of unaddressed neural processes, adopting ecological games has the potential to aid neurodegenerative and neurodiverse conditions. (shrink)

We report the design and characterization of a CMOS pixel direct charge sensor, Topmetal-II-, fabricated in a standard 0.35 μm CMOS Integrated Circuit process. The sensor utilizes exposed metal patches on top of each pixel to directly collect charge. Each pixel contains a low-noise charge-sensitive preamplifier to establish the analog signal and a discriminator with tunable threshold to generate hits. The analog signal from each pixel is accessible through time-shared multiplexing over the entire array. Hits are read out digitally through (...) a column-based priority logic structure. Tests show that the sensor achieved a <15e- analog noise and a 200e- minimum threshold for digital readout per pixel. The sensor is capable of detecting both electrons and ions drifting in gas. These characteristics enable its use as the charge readout device in future Time Projection Chambers without gaseous gain mechanism, which has unique advantages in low background and low rate-density experiments. (shrink)

Introduction. The digital : an aesthetic ontology -- From analog pictures to digital notations -- Points, divisions, and pixels : from modern to contemporary digitality -- Vasarely, Watz, and the new abstraction : from op art to generative art -- Spectral analogies : From wall drawing to the art of programming -- Conclusion. Amalgamations : from digital painting to information visualization.

When wrote this I had not found pg984 of Sayre and Mens Rea, referring Bracton and the mortal sin of a Judge, the premise was always there it seems without it, the authority of one side of modern law helps me with the other older side presumed silently. And one other correction for the purists, it is really one light day not year, but its very very far away all the same. -/- From the Pnyx to the Pixel: The Trinity's (...) Final Whisper Brian Kelly MCIArb This monograph argues that United Kingdom statutory law already prohibits the exercise of judicial authority by artificial intelligence. The barrier is not aspirational. It is positive law. For almost 700 years, judges in England and Wales have been required to swear a binding oath before they may lawfully sit. The Promissory Oaths Act 1868 formalised that requirement. The Oaths Act 1978 carried it forward. The oath is not a formality. It is a constitutive condition. It presupposes an interior conscience capable of being bound. Where there is no conscience, there is nothing of value to swear upon. The monograph introduces the Trinity of Jurisdiction: three conditions that must all be satisfied before lawful judicial authority can be exercised. Physical presence. Rational mind. Interior conscience. AI satisfies the first two. It cannot satisfy the third. It has no phenomenal consciousness, no moral subjectivity, no capacity to bear the weight of judgment or to address the conscience of the judged. The bilateral conscience exchange that makes judgment morally binding simply cannot occur. The argument is developed through five chapters and a conclusion. Chapter One sets out the statutory framework and the Soulshield argument. Chapter Two introduces the conscience token taxonomy, distinguishing weighted tokens issued by formed human consciences from plain tokens generated by AI systems. Chapter Three maps the philosophical drift from inner to outer authority, tracing the movement from Augustine and Luther through Weber, Marx, Wittgenstein, Foucault, and Dennett, and recording the resistance mounted by Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Levinas, Searle, and Nagel. Chapter Four develops the yeast metaphor: conscience is the ingredient law has forgotten. Chapter Five reads the Voyager record as an emblem of the problem. We sent conscience to the stars. We are erasing it from the bench. The versioning problem adds a further barrier. A conscience must be continuous and inviolate. An AI system updated between hearings is not the same system. Equal treatment before a stable judicial conscience is destroyed by patching. The monograph concludes that the question posed by Sir Geoffrey Vos in February 2026 — what judicial decisions must always remain human — is answered by the existing statutory framework. All of them, for as long as the oath requirement stands. Parliament may change that. Deployment cannot. From the Pnyx, where citizens spoke in their own voice, to the pixel, where algorithms speak in ours, the question remains: who bears the weight? Only a judge with presence, mind, and interiority can stand in the gap. Only conscience can bear what calculation cannot close. (shrink)

Digital imaging has provided scientists with new opportunities to acquire and manipulate data using techniques that were difficult or impossible to employ in the past. Because digital images are easier to manipulate than film images, new problems have emerged. One growing concern in the scientific community is that digital images are not being handled with sufficient care. The problem is twofold: (1) the very small, yet troubling, number of intentional falsifications that have been identified, and (2) the more common unintentional, (...) inappropriate manipulation of images for publication. Journals and professional societies have begun to address the issue with specific digital imaging guidelines. Unfortunately, the guidelines provided often do not come with instructions to explain their importance. Thus they deal with what should or should not be done, but not the associated ‘why’ that is required for understanding the rules. This article proposes 12 guidelines for scientific digital image manipulation and discusses the technical reasons behind these guidelines. These guidelines can be incorporated into lab meetings and graduate student training in order to provoke discussion and begin to bring an end to the culture of data beautification. (shrink)

The quantization error in a fixed-size Self-Organizing Map (SOM) with unsupervised winner-take-all learning has previously been used successfully to detect, in minimal computation time, highly meaningful changes across images in medical time series and in time series of satellite images. Here, the functional properties of the quantization error in SOM are explored further to show that the metric is capable of reliably discriminating between the finest differences in local contrast intensities and contrast signs. While this capability of the QE is (...) akin to functional characteristics of a specific class of retinal ganglion cells (the so-called Y-cells) in the visual systems of the primate and the cat, the sensitivity of the QE surpasses the capacity limits of human visual detection. Here, the quantization error in the SOM is found to reliably signal changes in contrast or colour when contrast information is removed from or added to the image, but not when the amount and relative weight of contrast information is constant and only the local spatial position of contrast elements in the pattern changes. While the RGB Mean reflects coarser changes in colour or contrast well enough, the SOM-QE is shown to outperform the RGB Mean in the detection of single-pixel changes in images with up to five million pixels. This could have important implications in the context of unsupervised image learning and computational building block approaches to large sets of image data (big data). (shrink)

The project “Artificial and Artistic Vision. Computer Vision and Art History in Practical-Methodical Cooperation” is interdisciplinary by definition and also in its personnel composition and combines the humanities, engineering, and natural sciences. Together, prototypes and methodological approaches to an automatic vision that assists art history are being developed in the form of basic research.

In 2003, Nick Bostrom published his highly influential “Simulation Argument” in _Philosophical Quarterly_(Bostrom, 2003), an idea taken so seriously that even Bank of America has sent out alerts to its clients. But what, exactly, would that mean? And, more importantly, why is the idea of a simulated universe not being pursued in regard to cancer—and every other disease? We understand, in magnificently precise, granular ways, exactly what is going wrong in the body. But do we understand, in a coarser way, (...) what the granules are made of? In a holographic universe, the images we perceive are not necessarily what they appear to be; they might exist against a background. But the background would create a context that participates in the image that emerges. Green can be rendered as green. Or as “blue yellow blue” or “yellow blue yellow.” Perhaps the act of rendering generates variables that have been overlooked in our understanding of illness: scale and spin. (shrink)

In Spinoza’s metaphysics Antonio Negri, whose writings have had a great influence on contemporary theories of cognitive capitalism, finds a new “materialism” for a post-1968 world: a materialism grounded in “constitutive ontology” at the center of which is the potentia of the multitude. Negri’s biomaterialism and its influence on contemporary theories of the “common” is analyzed in the chapter, which argues that the role of the “common” is to displace the class contradictions and class relations of capitalism as a strategy (...) to invent a “new” capitalism in which “knowledge” and “subjectivity” and the “productive” power of “life” itself become the basis of value production. Which is another way of saying that the ultimate effect of the biomaterialist abandoning of the source of value in material production is the fashioning of a metaphysics for liberal (spiritual) capitalism. (shrink)

This article will explore the processes and concepts embedded within Dennis Doty’s fine arts studio practice, giving examples of how the work has developed from traditional paintings into its current interdisciplinary form. It examines why it is important to integrate traditional art-making skills with contemporary new media software and approaches. The article aims to illuminate some of the complex interdisciplinary processes that Doty employs to develop multiple bodies of work, including stereoscopic video paintings and projection-mapping artworks. His work explores ideas (...) of spatial perception and the changes that have been happening to our understanding of both physical and digital environments since the invention of the Internet. Doty’s processes demonstrate ways of finding connections between different mediums, analysing and unifying components in a way that can be helpful and inspiring for various professional fields. (shrink)

Different summarized shape indices, like mean shape index (MSI) and area weighted mean shape index (AWMSI) can change over multiple size scales. This variation is important to describe scale heterogeneity of landscapes, but the exact mathematical form of the dependence is rarely known. In this paper, the use of fractal geometry (by the perimeter and area Hausdorff dimensions) made us able to describe the scale dependence of these indices. Moreover, we showed how fractal dimensions can be deducted from existing MSI (...) and AWMSI data. In this way, the equality of a multiscale tabulated MSI and AWMSI dataset and two scale-invariant fractal dimensions has been demonstrated. (shrink)

Buddhism, the Internet and Digital Media: The Pixel in the Lotus explores Buddhist practice and teachings in an increasingly networked and digital era. Contributors consider the ways Buddhism plays a role and is present in digital media through a variety of methods including concrete case studies, ethnographic research, and content analysis, as well as interviews with practitioners and cyber-communities. In addition to considering Buddhism in the context of technologies such as virtual worlds, social media, and mobile devices, authors ask how (...) the Internet affects identity, authority and community, and what effect this might have on the development, proliferation, and perception of Buddhism in an online environment. Together, these essays make the case that studying contemporary online Buddhist practice can provide valuable insights into the shifting role religion plays in our constantly changing, mediated, hurried, and uncertain culture. (shrink)

Nonprofit organizations can utilize social networking sites for their activities. Like individual users, they can create SNS accounts, upload posts to show what they are doing, and communicate with other users. Thus, their accounts can be investigated from the same perspective of personality which has been one of the key lenses through which SNS posts of individual users was investigated. In the line of literature that analyzed the personality of non-human objects such as products, stores, brands, and websites, the present (...) research analyzed the personality of NPOs’ Instagram accounts using an online AI service. Also, it investigated how their personality traits were related to the characteristics of the uploaded photos at content and pixel levels. The results of analysis of 223,446 photos on 177 Instagram accounts suggested that the personality of NPOs’ Instagram accounts can be summarized as being high in openness and agreeableness but low in extraversion and neuroticism. And it was found that openness and agreeableness were the personality traits that associated the most with the photo features. Also, the personality traits of NPOs’ Instagram accounts, except neuroticism, were predicted from the photo features with an acceptable level of accuracy. Implications of this research and suggestions for further research were presented. (shrink)

This article examines digital dance, not in opposition to physical bodies but in material continuity with them. By offering an expansive notion of ‘presence’ in dance, we intend to supersede the binarism that condemns the digital as mere traces of the ‘real’ or as a blunt synonym for the ‘virtual’ and the ‘immaterial’. We depart from a historical overview of attempts to capture bodily creativity into mediated forms according to the values of each epoch. Thus, considering the current moment of (...) dance digitalisation immersed in the information society, we formulate our argument by discussing how presence and virtuality transcend within the attempts to digitalise dance. Later, we address how, although transformed, the material dimension of the body persists through its digital capturing. In the last section, we address the relational ontologies that the digitalisation of dance can unleash in diverse cultural contexts, as dance-data regains its virtuality. (shrink)

Modifying images for scientific publication is now quick and easy due to changes in technology. This has created a need for new image processing guidelines and attitudes, such as those offered to the research community by Doug Cromey (Cromey 2010). We suggest that related changes in technology have simplified the task of detecting misconduct for journal editors as well as researchers, and that this simplification has caused a shift in the responsibility for reporting misconduct. We also argue that the concept (...) of best practices in image processing can serve as a general model for education in best practices in research. (shrink)

Reframing reveals possibilities. This article highlights how conceptual shifts regarding ‘sustainability’ occurring inside China’s municipalities and major corporations are opening the way for new collaborations with technology companies and technology artists. These shifts – from predetermined accounting to systems thinking – reveal new opportunities to intervene in the biophysical and economic challenges facing China today. In companies, this shift implies placing financially relevant environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors at the core of business strategy. In municipalities, this shift necessitates designing (...) and implementing systems that track ecosystem services rather than simply stocks of natural resources and recognizing interdependencies between these services and economic development. This article suggests that this sustainability reframing can draw heavily on systems thinking from environmental science, technology companies’ drive to develop products that meet these emerging demands, corporations’ need to compete in an uncertain developing market and the reframing skills of artists, particularly digital artists. This article concludes with opportunities for digital artists to intervene and collaborate with sustainability practitioners to open new directions for cities and companies in China. (shrink)

This dissertation studies the way entities inhabit our world. According to my analysis, there is only one way to exist, i.e. being an arrangements of atomic entities with a five-dimensional shape. I call this thesis “pixelism”.

This paper develops a philosophical account of low-resolution perception as an ontological condition rather than a technological defect. Across visual and sonic media—blur, pixelation, compression, and lo-fi noise—it argues that degraded detail exposes the instability of appearance rather than its failure. Reframing resolution as the degree of structural completeness rather than clarity, the paper proposes a low-resolution ontology in which beings emerge through partiality, attenuation, and atmospheric drift. Drawing on phenomenology, media theory, and contemporary ontology, it positions blur as (...) a structural mode of worldhood rather than an aesthetic error. (shrink)

In the realm of pixels and virtual spaces, the art of placemaking transcends physical confines, weaving a digital mosaic of voices and visions. Feminist digital placemaking emerges as a vibrant brushstroke on this canvas, painting online environments with the hues of inclusion, safety, and empowerment. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement in Iran, mirrored in the "Year of Hope" digital exhibition, showcases the transformative power of feminist digital placemaking in amplifying voices, knitting solidarity, and challenging oppressive narratives. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" (...) movement, sparked by the tragic demise of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, unfolds like a poignant narrative, with women scripting the chapters of resistance. This movement, a collage of courage and defiance, has found a digital stage in the "Year of Hope" exhibition, where each artwork tells a story, each pixel a testament to the unyielding spirit of Iranian women. (shrink)

Before graphics addressed pixels, they addressed oceans. This essay offers a genealogy of computable graphics in maritime navigation and visual media including sea charts, ephemerides, baroque painting, literature, and video games. From Johannes Vermeer’s The Geographer to Herman Melville’s whale charts, it reconstructs a history graphics as planetary technologies of calculating, addressing, and navigating worlds. The digital interface isn’t a window onto the world; it’s a helm.

Delisted in the building directory, my name stripped from my cramped quarters just off the corpus callosum, I am impossible to find. In petitioning for official reinstatement, I have agreed to the humiliating lab investigations required for documentation. I have waved, howled, screamed, pleaded, and moaned into the latest scanners, and generally made a fool of myself. But researchers, after extensive soul-searching, and being unable to capture me as pixels and waveforms, have moved on to greener pastures. So be it. (...) I accept official non-existence. (shrink)

It is common to distinguish two great families of representation. Symbolic representations include logical and mathematical symbols, words, and complex linguistic expressions. Iconic representations include dials, diagrams, maps, pictures, 3-dimensional models, and depictive gestures. This essay describes and motivates a new way of distinguishing iconic from symbolic representation. It locates the difference not in the signs themselves, nor in the contents they express, but in the semantic rules by which signs are associated with contents. The two kinds of rule have (...) divergent forms, occupying opposite poles on a spectrum of naturalness. Symbolic rules are composed entirely of primitive juxtapositions of sign types with contents, while iconic rules determine contents entirely by uniform natural relations with sign types. This distinction is marked explicitly in the formal semantics of familiar sign systems, both for atomic first-order representations, like words, pixel colors, and dials, and for complex second-order representations, like sentences, diagrams, and pictures. (shrink)

According to one productive and influential approach to cognition, categorization, object recognition, and higher level cognitive processes operate on a set of fixed features, which are the output of lower level perceptual processes. In many situations, however, it is the higher level cognitive process being executed that influences the lower level features that are created. Rather than viewing the repertoire of features as being fixed by low-level processes, we present a theory in which people create features to subserve the representation (...) and categorization of objects. Two types of category learning should be distinguished. Fixed space category learning occurs when new categorizations are representable with the available feature set. Flexible space category learning occurs when new categorizations cannot be represented with the features available. Whether fixed or flexible, learning depends on the featural contrasts and similarities between the new category to be represented and the individual's existing concepts. Fixed feature approaches face one of two problems with tasks that call for new features: If the fixed features are fairly high level and directly useful for categorization, then they will not be flexible enough to represent all objects that might be relevant for a new task. If the fixed features are small, subsymbolic fragments (such as pixels), then regularities at the level of the functional features required to accomplish categorizations will not be captured by these primitives. We present evidence of flexible perceptual changes arising from category learning and theoretical arguments for the importance of this flexibility. We describe conditions that promote feature creation and argue against interpreting them in terms of fixed features. Finally, we discuss the implications of functional features for object categorization, conceptual development, chunking, constructive induction, and formal models of dimensionality reduction. Key Words: concept learning; conceptual development; features; perceptual learning; stimulus encoding. (shrink)

This is the formal capstone of the Cosmological Codas of the Principia Cybernetica 2025. Contemporary physics remains haunted by the apparent arbitrariness of nature’s fundamental constants: the fine-structure constant α⁻¹ ≈ 137, the baryon asymmetry ∼10⁻⁹, the MOND acceleration scale a₀ ≈ 1.2 × 10⁻¹⁰ m/s², and the dark energy fraction ∼68%. Standard models treat these as free parameters—numerological inputs without causal explanation. This final entry of the Cosmological Coda series replaces numerology with geometric necessity, demonstrating that all constants emerge (...) from a single structural principle: the universe is a tetrahedral lattice in continuous self-organization. We posit that the vacuum is not a smooth continuum but a dynamical, pixelated geometry undergoing perpetual “Jitterbug” collapse from vector equilibrium to tetrahedral stability. This living lattice imposes two competing imperatives: perfect packing at the irrational golden angle (137.508°, solving the Thomson Problem) and quantization into rational harmonic closure (137.036°). The geometric strain between these angles—approximately α—becomes the fundamental incompleteness that manifests as physical phenomena. From this strain we derive: α⁻¹ ≈ 137 as the crystallized golden angle—the resonant closure of infinite potential into finite structure; the baryon asymmetry ∼10⁻⁹ as the exponential residue of chiral filtration through the lattice; dark energy (Ω_Λ ≈ 68.17%) as the tensegrity recoil of the lattice, geometrically fixed as 1 − 1/π; the MOND scale a₀ = c H₀ / 2π as the critical acceleration where inertial wavelengths exceed the cosmic cavity circumference; and gravity as the entropic cost of maintaining geometric strain, unifying Landauer’s principle with Hawking temperature. The framework resolves long-standing anomalies without new particles or fields: dark matter effects arise from holographic inertia below a₀; the Hubble tension reflects varying lattice strain in voids versus structures; the hierarchy problem is the scale gap between Planckian pixels and hadronic standing waves. Time itself is discrete, emerging as the “click rate” of the Jitterbug at the Planck frequency. We predict precise convergence of Ω_Λ to 1 − 1/π, a geometric origin for Chern–Simons terms in electroweak knots, and laboratory signatures of lattice thermodynamics. The constants are not random; they are the immutable signature of a universe wrestling infinite potential into finite, stable form—a cosmic geometry writing its own laws. (shrink)

System Requirements System requirements Minimum 80486, 66MHz IBM PC or full compatible (Pentium recommended); Minimum 16MB RAM 177MB hard disk space to store and run the Nachlass, an extra 12MB in addition to this should be available during installation. SVGA monitor set to 800x600 pixels, 16-bit colour (64K, "High colour"), or higher setting recommended to use and display the transcription text and facsimiles; Quad-speed CD-ROM drive or higher; Windows 3.1, 3.11; Windows 95/98; Windows NT 4.0; Windows 2000. Microsoft mouse or (...) compatible Network versions Windows NT 4, and Novell networks. Customers with Wide Area Networks (ie Networks used on multiple sites) should ring Customer Services to discuss specific requirements. Customer Service Contact: Customer Services, Electronic Publishing Tel: +44 (0) 1865 267979 Fax: +44 (0) 1865 267990 Email: [email protected]. (shrink)

Robots are widely expected—and pushed—to transform open-field agriculture, but these visions remain wedded to optimizing monocultural farming systems. Meanwhile there is little pull for automation from ecology-based, diversified farming realms. Noting this gap, we here explore the potential for robots to foster an agroecological approach to crop production. The research was situated in The Netherlands within the case of _pixel cropping_, a nascent farming method in which multiple food and service crops are planted together in diverse assemblages employing agroecological practices (...) such as intercropping and biological pest control. Around this case we engaged with a variety of specialists in discussion groups, workshops, and design challenges to explore the potential of field robots to meet the multifaceted demands of highly diverse agroecological cropping systems. This generated a spectrum of imaginations for how automated tools might—or might not—be appropriately used, ranging from fully automated visions, to collaborative scenarios, to fully analogue prototypes. We found that automating agroecological cropping systems requires finding ways to imbue the ethos of agroecology into designed tools, thereby seeking to overcome tensions between production aims and other forms of social and ecological care. We conclude that a rethinking of automation is necessary for agroecological contexts: not as a blueprint for replacing humans, but making room for analogue and hybrid forms of agricultural work. These findings highlight a need for design processes which include a diversity of actors, involve iterative design cycles, and incorporate feedback between designers, practitioners, tools, and cropping systems. (shrink)

Time appears to ow for observers, yet general relativity describes a static block uni-verse. A spacetime diusivity eld ϵ(s) with dimensions [L2T−1] governs causal information resolution. Two Lorentz-invariant postulatesds/dt = c and dϵ/ds = cpromote ϵˆ and mˆ to canonical conjugates obeying [ϵˆ,mˆ ] = iℏ, yielding the Cosmological Uncertainty Principle: ∆ϵ·∆m ≥ k·ℏ/2. Information-Pixel Amplication extends this principle through spacetime’s granular structure: each Planck-length coherence cell contributes independent quantum ac-tion, yielding ∆ϵ·∆m ≥ (ℏ/2)·(D/ℓcoh) for distance D. Using an area-diusion (...) parameter, the framework further achieves an operational scale unication, deriving both Planck time (tP = ℓP /c) and Hubble time (tH = 1/H0) across 60 orders of magnitude. The theory gener-ates testable predictions: a cosmological horizon temperature TCUP = π ·TdS ≈ 9×10−30 K, and quantitative reproduction of Milky Way dark matter uncertainties (∼ 4 × 1041 kg) us-ing FRB-motivated diusivity parameters. Temporal ow emerges as information transport constraints, unifying quantum mechanics and cosmology while providing falsiable tests of spacetime’s quantum structure through precision astronomical measurements. (shrink)

One of the main challenges with the responsible use of machine learning algorithms is their opacity: we typically do not know why the algorithm produces a particular output for a given input. As a result, a wide range of research is being done into methods that explain these outputs. An upcoming trend in these methods is to try to go beyond a calculation of which inputs contributed (and to what degree) to the output, and to instead explain the output using (...) concepts. For example, one may aim for an explanation that says the model labelled an image as a kitchen because it contains a sink, even though the input space consists of individual pixels. However, methods that extract concepts from AI systems yield compositions of pixels that are wildly different from how humans would conceptualize images. On the other hand, methods that let humans attribute concepts to AI systems introduce inaccuracies in the explanation. This chapter investigates this disconnect that occurs in concept-based XAI to determine the prospect of such explanations. I link the literature on social externalist concept attribution to AI and the current XAI tools to formulate a cautiously optimistic answer in our use of concepts to explain the functioning of AI systems over limited domains. However, the conceptual disconnect does dim the promise of explanations from current ML methods that are as good as the explanations humans can offer for their own reasoning. (shrink)