Robot free will

We introduce the perspex machine which unifies projective geometry and Turing computation and results in a supra-Turing machine. We show two ways in which the perspex machine unifies symbolic and non-symbolic AI. Firstly, we describe concrete geometrical models that map perspexes onto neural networks, some of which perform only symbolic operations. Secondly, we describe an abstract continuum of perspex logics that includes both symbolic logics and a new class of continuous logics. We argue that an axiom in symbolic logic can be the conclusion of a perspex theorem. That is, the atoms of symbolic logic can be the conclusions of sub-atomic theorems. We argue that perspex space can be mapped onto the spacetime of the universe we inhabit. This allows us to discuss how a robot might be conscious, feel, and have free will in a deterministic, or semi-deterministic, universe. We ground the reality of our universe in existence. On a theistic point, we argue that preordination and free will are compatible. On a theological point, we argue that it is not heretical for us to give robots free will. Finally, we give a pragmatic warning as to the double-edged risks of creating robots that do, or alternatively do not, have free will.

Progress report from the strategic sanctuary for the destruction of free will

Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will presents a new work combining film, music and installation that juxtaposes the setting of the institution with the aesthetics of psychedelia.Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will is an installation, film and sound work that takes over the gallery. Using plain white card, it distorts the structure of the gallery’s architecture, producing a paranoid shrunken space. Inside this space, performers in cardboard costumes re-enact abstracted, broken gestures drawn from video documentation of acid trips, psychedelic dancing, rehab sessions and radical psychotherapy workshops. Progress Report from the Strategic Sanctuary for the Destruction of Free Will has been formed through Pil and Galia Kollectiv’s research into the anti-psychiatry movement, their interests in counter cultural movements and their studies around biopolitics and the proliferation of societal medication. In 1958, having had a life changing experience with LSD, former alcoholic Charles Dederich founded Synanon, a drug rehabilitation program based on residential care and an aggressive form of group therapy called ‘The Game’. The organisation gradually evolved into a controversial alternative community, described in a critical pamphlet as creating Strategic Sanctuaries for the Destruction of Free Will, “a subversive program for mixing delinquents and lefties”. In 1984, anti-psychiatrist R. D. Laing described tranquillizers as chemical straight jackets. With our growing understanding of the plasticity of the brain and the potential to shape it, the tension between liberation and control in the struggle over the mind continues to define our relationship to labour, culture and production. Interrogating these ideas, the exhibition poses the question of whether a collective body can overcome the solipsism of the incommunicable experience of the individual mind.

Why compatibilist intuitions are not mistaken: a reply to Feltz and Millan

In the past decade, a number of empirical researchers have suggested that laypeople have compatibilist intuitions. In a recent paper, Feltz and Millan (2015) have challenged this conclusion by claiming that most laypeople are only compatibilists in appearance and are in fact willing to attribute free will to people no matter what. As evidence for this claim, they have shown that an important proportion of laypeople still attribute free will to agents in fatalistic universes. In this paper, we first argue that Feltz and Millan’s error-theory rests on a conceptual confusion: it is perfectly acceptable for a certain brand of compatibilist to judge free will and fatalism to be compatible, as long as fatalism does not prevent agents from being the source of their actions. We then present the results of two studies showing that laypeople’s intuitions are best understood as following a certain brand of source compatibilism rather than a “free-will-no-matter-what” strategy.

Divine premotion

According to divine premotionism, God does not merely create and sustain the universe. He also moves all secondary causes to action as instruments without undermining their intrinsic causal efficacy. I explain and uphold the premotionist theory, which is the theory of St Thomas Aquinas and his most prominent exponents. I defend the premotionist interpretation of Aquinas in some textual detail, with particular reference to Suarez and to a recent paper by Louis Mancha. Critics, including Molinists and Suarezians, raise various objections to the view that premotion is compatible with genuine secondary causation. I rebut a number of these objections, in the course of which I respond to the central challenge that premotionism destroys free will. I also offer a number of positive reasons for embracing the premotionist theory.

What will be the risk-free rate and benchmark yield curve following European monetary union?

Using a linear factor model, we study the behaviour of French, Germany, Italian and British sovereign yield curves in the run up to EMU. This allows us to determine which of these yield curves might best approximate a benchmark yield curve post EMU. We find that the best approximation for the risk free yield is the UK three month T-bill yield, followed by the German three month T-bill yield. As no one sovereign yield curve dominates all others, we find that a composite yield curve, consisting of French, Italian and UK bonds at different maturity points along the yield curve should be the benchmark post EMU.

Uptake of a free coronary heart disease risk screening programme in community pharmacy: the Healthy Heart Assessment service

Introduction Health promotion (HP) aims to enhance good health while preventing ill-health at three levels of activity; primary (preventative), secondary (diagnostic) and tertiary (management).1 It can range from simple provision of health education to ongoing support, but the effectiveness of HP is ultimately dependent on its ability to influence change. HP as part of the Community Pharmacy Contract (CPC) aims to increase public knowledge and target ‘hard-to-reach’ individuals by focusing mainly on primary and tertiary HP. The CPC does not include screening programmes (secondary HP) as a service. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in the UK. While there is evidence to support the effectiveness of some community pharmacy HP strategies in CHD, there is paucity of research in relation to screening services.2 Against this background, Alliance Pharmacy introduced a free CHD risk screening programme to provide tailored HP advice as part of a participant–pharmacist consultation. The aim of this study is to report on the CHD risk levels of participants and to provide a qualitative indication of consultation outcomes. Methods Case records for 12 733 people who accessed a free CHD risk screening service between August 2004 and April 2006 offered at 217 community pharmacies were obtained. The service involved initial self-completion of the Healthy Heart Assessment (HHA) form and measurement of height, weight, body mass index, blood pressure, total cholesterol and highdensity lipoprotein levels by pharmacists to calculate CHD risk.3 Action taken by pharmacists (lifestyle advice, statin recommendation or general practitioner (GP) referral) and qualitative statements of advice were recorded, and a copy provided to the participants. The service did not include follow-up of participants. All participants consented to taking part in evaluations of the service. Ethical committee scrutiny was not required for this service development evaluation. Results Case records for 10 035 participants (3658 male) were evaluable; 5730 (57%) were at low CHD risk (<15%); 3636 (36%) at moderate-to-high CHD risk (≥15%); and 669 (7%) had existing heart disease. A significantly higher proportion of male (48% versus 30% female) participants were at moderate- to-high risk of CHD (chi-square test; P < 0.005). A range of outcomes resulted from consultations. Lifestyle advice was provided irrespective of participants’ CHD risk or existing disease. In the moderate-to-high-risk group, of which 52% received prescribed medication, lifestyle advice was recorded for 62%, 16% were referred and 34% were advised to have a re-assessment. Statin recommendations were made in 1% of all cases. There was evidence of supportive and motivational statements in the advice recorded. Discussion Pharmacists were able to identify individuals’ level of CHD risk and provide them with bespoke advice. Identification of at-risk participants did not automatically result in referrals or statin recommendation. One-third of those accessing the screening service had moderate-to-high risk of CHD, a significantly higher proportion of whom were men. It is not known whether these individuals had been previously exposed to HP but presumably by accessing this service they may have contemplated change. As effectiveness of HP advice will depend among other factors on ability to influence change, future consultations may need to explore patients’ attitude towards change in relation to the Trans Theoretical Model4 to better tailor HP advice. The high uptake of the service by those at moderate-to-high CHD risk indicates a need for this type of screening programme in community pharmacy, perhaps specifically to reach men who access medical services less.

Assessing hepatic metabolic changes during progressive colonization of germ-free mouse by 1H NMR spectroscopy

It is well known that gut bacteria contribute significantly to the host homeostasis, providing a range of benefits such as immune protection and vitamin synthesis. They also supply the host with a considerable amount of nutrients, making this ecosystem an essential metabolic organ. In the context of increasing evidence of the link between the gut flora and the metabolic syndrome, understanding the metabolic interaction between the host and its gut microbiota is becoming an important challenge of modern biology.1-4 Colonization (also referred to as normalization process) designates the establishment of micro-organisms in a former germ-free animal. While it is a natural process occurring at birth, it is also used in adult germ-free animals to control the gut floral ecosystem and further determine its impact on the host metabolism. A common procedure to control the colonization process is to use the gavage method with a single or a mixture of micro-organisms. This method results in a very quick colonization and presents the disadvantage of being extremely stressful5. It is therefore useful to minimize the stress and to obtain a slower colonization process to observe gradually the impact of bacterial establishment on the host metabolism. In this manuscript, we describe a procedure to assess the modification of hepatic metabolism during a gradual colonization process using a non-destructive metabolic profiling technique. We propose to monitor gut microbial colonization by assessing the gut microbial metabolic activity reflected by the urinary excretion of microbial co-metabolites by 1H NMR-based metabolic profiling. This allows an appreciation of the stability of gut microbial activity beyond the stable establishment of the gut microbial ecosystem usually assessed by monitoring fecal bacteria by DGGE (denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis).6 The colonization takes place in a conventional open environment and is initiated by a dirty litter soiled by conventional animals, which will serve as controls. Rodents being coprophagous animals, this ensures a homogenous colonization as previously described.7 Hepatic metabolic profiling is measured directly from an intact liver biopsy using 1H High Resolution Magic Angle Spinning NMR spectroscopy. This semi-quantitative technique offers a quick way to assess, without damaging the cell structure, the major metabolites such as triglycerides, glucose and glycogen in order to further estimate the complex interaction between the colonization process and the hepatic metabolism7-10. This method can also be applied to any tissue biopsy11,12.

The impact of a seasonally ice free Arctic Ocean on the temperature, precipitation and surface mass balance of Svalbard

The observed decline in summer sea ice extent since the 1970s is predicted to continue until the Arctic Ocean is seasonally ice free during the 21st Century. This will lead to a much perturbed Arctic climate with large changes in ocean surface energy flux. Svalbard, located on the present day sea ice edge, contains many low lying ice caps and glaciers and is expected to experience rapid warming over the 21st Century. The total sea level rise if all the land ice on Svalbard were to melt completely is 0.02 m. The purpose of this study is to quantify the impact of climate change on Svalbard’s surface mass balance (SMB) and to determine, in particular, what proportion of the projected changes in precipitation and SMB are a result of changes to the Arctic sea ice cover. To investigate this a regional climate model was forced with monthly mean climatologies of sea surface temperature (SST) and sea ice concentration for the periods 1961–1990 and 2061–2090 under two emission scenarios. In a novel forcing experiment, 20th Century SSTs and 21st Century sea ice were used to force one simulation to investigate the role of sea ice forcing. This experiment results in a 3.5 m water equivalent increase in Svalbard’s SMB compared to the present day. This is because over 50 % of the projected increase in winter precipitation over Svalbard under the A1B emissions scenario is due to an increase in lower atmosphere moisture content associated with evaporation from the ice free ocean. These results indicate that increases in precipitation due to sea ice decline may act to moderate mass loss from Svalbard’s glaciers due to future Arctic warming.

Lichens used as monitors of atmospheric pollution around Agadir (Southwestern Morocco) - a case study predating lead-free gasoline

More than 30 epiphytic lichens, collected in Agadir (Morroco) and along a 150-km transect from the Atlantic Ocean eastward, were analyzed for their metal content and lead isotopic composition. This dataset was used to evaluate atmospheric metal contamination and the impact of the city on the surrounding area. The concentrations of Cu, Pb, and Zn (average ± 1 SD) were 20.9 ± 15.2 μg g−1, 13.8 ± 9.0 μg g−1, and 56.6 ± 26.6 μg g−1, respectively, with the highest values observed in lichens collected within the urban area. The 206Pb/207Pb and 208Pb/207Pb ratios in the lichens varied from 1.146 to 1.186 and from 2.423 to 2.460, respectively. Alkyllead-gasoline sold in Morocco by the major petrol companies gave isotopic ratios of 206Pb/207Pb = 1.076–1.081 and 208Pb/207Pb = 2.348–2.360. These new, homogeneous values for gasoline-derived lead improve and update the scarce isotopic database of potential lead sources in Morocco, and may be of great value to future environmental surveys on the presence of lead in natural reservoirs, where it persists over time (e.g., soils and sediments). The interest of normalizing metal concentrations in lichens to concentrations of a lithogenic element is demonstrated by the consistency of the results thus obtained with lead isotopic ratios. Leaded gasoline contributed less than 50% of the total amount of lead accumulated in lichens, even in areas subject to high vehicular traffic. This strongly suggests that the recent banishment of leaded gasoline in Morocco will not trigger a drastic improvement in air quality, at least in Agadir.

The Greenland Ice Sheet's surface mass balance in a seasonally sea-ice free Arctic

General circulation models predict a rapid decrease in sea ice extent with concurrent increases in near surface air temperature and precipitation in the Arctic over the 21st century. This has led to suggestions that some Arctic land ice masses may experience an increase in accumulation due to enhanced evaporation from a seasonally sea ice free Arctic Ocean. To investigate the impact of this phenomenon on Greenland ice sheet climate and surface mass balance (SMB) a regional climate model, HadRM3, was used to force an insolation-temperature melt SMB model. A set of experiments designed to investigate the role of sea ice independently from sea surface temperature (SST) forcing are described. In the warmer and wetter SI + SST simulation Greenland experiences a 23% increase in winter SMB but 65% reduced summer SMB, resulting in a net decrease in the annual value. This study shows that sea ice decline contributes to the increased winter balance, causing 25% of the increase in winter accumulation; this is largest in eastern Greenland as the result of increased evaporation in the Greenland Sea. These results indicate that the seasonal cycle of Greenland's SMB will increase dramatically as global temperatures increase, with the largest changes in temperature and precipitation occurring in winter. This demonstrates that the accurate prediction of changes in sea ice cover is important for predicting Greenland SMB and ice sheet evolution.

The lottery-panel task for bi-dimensional parameter-free elicitation of risk attitudes

We propose first, a simple task for the eliciting attitudes toward risky choice, the SGG lottery-panel task, which consists in a series of lotteries constructed to compensate riskier options with higher risk-return trade-offs. Using Principal Component Analysis technique, we show that the SGG lottery-panel task is capable of capturing two dimensions of individual risky decision making i.e. subjects’ average risk taking and their sensitivity towards variations in risk-return. From the results of a large experimental dataset, we confirm that the task systematically captures a number of regularities such as: A tendency to risk averse behavior (only around 10% of choices are compatible with risk neutrality); An attraction to certain payoffs compared to low risk lotteries, compatible with over-(under-) weighting of small (large) probabilities predicted in PT and; Gender differences, i.e. males being consistently less risk averse than females but both genders being similarly responsive to the increases in risk-premium. Another interesting result is that in hypothetical choices most individuals increase their risk taking responding to the increase in return to risk, as predicted by PT, while across panels with real rewards we see even more changes, but opposite to the expected pattern of riskier choices for higher risk-returns. Therefore, we conclude from our data that an “economic anomaly” emerges in the real reward choices opposite to the hypothetical choices. These findings are in line with Camerer's (1995) view that although in many domains, paid subjects probably do exert extra mental effort which improves their performance, choice over money gambles is not likely to be a domain in which effort will improve adherence to rational axioms (p. 635). Finally, we demonstrate that both dimensions of risk attitudes, average risk taking and sensitivity towards variations in the return to risk, are desirable not only to describe behavior under risk but also to explain behavior in other contexts, as illustrated by an example. In the second study, we propose three additional treatments intended to elicit risk attitudes under high stakes and mixed outcome (gains and losses) lotteries. Using a dataset obtained from a hypothetical implementation of the tasks we show that the new treatments are able to capture both dimensions of risk attitudes. This new dataset allows us to describe several regularities, both at the aggregate and within-subjects level. We find that in every treatment over 70% of choices show some degree of risk aversion and only between 0.6% and 15.3% of individuals are consistently risk neutral within the same treatment. We also confirm the existence of gender differences in the degree of risk taking, that is, in all treatments females prefer safer lotteries compared to males. Regarding our second dimension of risk attitudes we observe, in all treatments, an increase in risk taking in response to risk premium increases. Treatment comparisons reveal other regularities, such as a lower degree of risk taking in large stake treatments compared to low stake treatments and a lower degree of risk taking when losses are incorporated into the large stake lotteries. Results that are compatible with previous findings in the literature, for stake size effects (e.g., Binswanger, 1980; Antoni Bosch-Domènech & Silvestre, 1999; Hogarth & Einhorn, 1990; Holt & Laury, 2002; Kachelmeier & Shehata, 1992; Kühberger et al., 1999; B. J. Weber & Chapman, 2005; Wik et al., 2007) and domain effect (e.g., Brooks and Zank, 2005, Schoemaker, 1990, Wik et al., 2007). Whereas for small stake treatments, we find that the effect of incorporating losses into the outcomes is not so clear. At the aggregate level an increase in risk taking is observed, but also more dispersion in the choices, whilst at the within-subjects level the effect weakens. Finally, regarding responses to risk premium, we find that compared to only gains treatments sensitivity is lower in the mixed lotteries treatments (SL and LL). In general sensitivity to risk-return is more affected by the domain than the stake size. After having described the properties of risk attitudes as captured by the SGG risk elicitation task and its three new versions, it is important to recall that the danger of using unidimensional descriptions of risk attitudes goes beyond the incompatibility with modern economic theories like PT, CPT etc., all of which call for tests with multiple degrees of freedom. Being faithful to this recommendation, the contribution of this essay is an empirically and endogenously determined bi-dimensional specification of risk attitudes, useful to describe behavior under uncertainty and to explain behavior in other contexts. Hopefully, this will contribute to create large datasets containing a multidimensional description of individual risk attitudes, while at the same time allowing for a robust context, compatible with present and even future more complex descriptions of human attitudes towards risk.