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Brian Tomasik
Brian Tomasik is an American researcher, ethicist, and writer. He is known for his work on suffering-focused ethics, wild animal suffering, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. He has occasionally written under the name Alan Dawrst, a pseudonym he no longer uses. A proponent of consent-based negative utilitarianism, he has written extensively on the welfare and moral consideration of invertebrates such as insects, as well as on artificial sentience and reinforcement learning agents. He co-founded the Foundational Research Institute (now the Center on Long-Term Risk) and is affiliated with the effective altruism movement. He is the author of the website ''Essays on Reducing Suffering'', which contains over a hundred essays on ethics, consciousness, and strategies for reducing suffering in biological and artificial systems. Tomasik's 2009 essay "The Importance of Wild-Animal Suffering" is widely cited and regarded as an early contribution to efforts to frame wild animal suffe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeon (magazine)
''Aeon'' is a digital magazine of ideas, philosophy and culture. Publishing new articles every weekday, Aeon describes itself as a publication which "asks the biggest questions and finds the freshest, most original answers, provided by world-leading authorities on science, philosophy and society." The magazine is published by Aeon Media Group, which has offices in London, New York, and Melbourne. History ''Aeon'' was founded in London in September 2012 by Paul and Brigid Hains, an Australian couple. It now has offices in London, Melbourne and New York. On 1 July 2016, ''Aeon'' became a registered charity with the Australian Charities and Not-For-Profits Commission, in the categories of advancing culture and advancing education. Aeon also registered its affiliate, Aeon America, as a 501(c)(3) charity in the US, in the education category. In April 2020 Aeon launched a sister site, ''Psyche'' magazine, named for the Psyche concept in psychology, which publishes ideas, guides a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suffering-focused Ethics
Suffering-focused ethics are those views in ethics according to which reducing suffering is either a key priority or our only aim. Those suffering-focused ethics according to which the reduction of suffering is a key priority are pluralistic views that include additional aims, such as the prevention of other disvaluable things like inequality, or the promotion of certain valuable things, such as pleasure. Nevertheless, these views still prioritize reducing preventable suffering over these other aims. Different suffering-focused ethics 'Suffering-focused ethics' is an umbrella term that includes different normative positions sharing the common feature of giving priority to the reduction of suffering. One type of suffering-focused view is negative consequentialism. On this kind of view, we should act so that we bring about those situations in which there is less suffering. A particular type of negative consequentialist view is negative utilitarianism. According to this view, we s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hard Problem Of Consciousness
In the philosophy of mind, the hard problem of consciousness is to explain why and how humans and other organisms have qualia, phenomenal consciousness, or subjective experience. It is contrasted with the "easy problems" of explaining why and how physical systems give a human being the ability to discriminate, to integrate information, and to perform behavioural functions such as watching, listening, speaking (including generating an utterance that appears to refer to personal behaviour or belief), and so forth. The easy problems are amenable to functional explanation—that is, explanations that are mechanistic or behavioural—since each physical system can be explained purely by reference to the "structure and dynamics" that underpin the phenomenon. Proponents of the hard problem propose that it is categorically different from the easy problems since no mechanistic or behavioural explanation could explain the character of an experience, not even in principle. Even after all the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qualia
In philosophy of mind, qualia (; singular: quale ) are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term ''qualia'' derives from the Latin neuter plural form (''qualia'') of the Latin adjective '' quālis'' () meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in relation to a specific instance, such as "what it is like to taste a specific this particular apple now". Examples of qualia include the perceived sensation of ''pain'' of a headache, the ''taste'' of wine, and the ''redness'' of an evening sky. As qualitative characteristics of sensations, qualia stand in contrast to propositional attitudes, where the focus is on beliefs about experience rather than what it is directly like to be experiencing. C.S. Peirce introduced the term ''quale'' in philosophy in 1866, and in 1929 C. I. Lewis was the first to use the term "qualia" in its generally agreed upon modern sense. Frank Jackson later defined qualia as "...certain features of the bodily sensations especially, b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics encompasses a wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence, the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being. An influential division is between particulars and universals. Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color . Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore the concepts of space, time, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bivalves
Bivalvia () or bivalves, in previous centuries referred to as the Lamellibranchiata and Pelecypoda, is a class of aquatic molluscs (marine and freshwater) that have laterally compressed soft bodies enclosed by a calcified exoskeleton consisting of a hinged pair of half-shells known as valves. As a group, bivalves have no head and lack some typical molluscan organs such as the radula and the odontophore. Their gills have evolved into ctenidia, specialised organs for feeding and breathing. Common bivalves include clams, oysters, cockles, mussels, scallops, and numerous other families that live in saltwater, as well as a number of families that live in freshwater. Majority of the class are benthic filter feeders that bury themselves in sediment, where they are relatively safe from predation. Others lie on the sea floor or attach themselves to rocks or other hard surfaces. Some bivalves, such as scallops and file shells, can swim. Shipworms bore into wood, clay, or ston ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Entomophagy
Entomophagy (, from Greek wikt:ἔντομον, ἔντομον ', 'insect', and wikt:φαγεῖν, φαγεῖν ', 'to eat') is the practice of eating insects. An alternative term is insectivory. Terms for organisms that practice entomophagy are ''entomophage'' and ''insectivore''. Entomophagy is sometimes defined to also include the eating of arthropods other than insects, such as arachnids and myriapods; eating arachnids may also be referred to as arachnophagy. In non-humans Entomophagy is widespread among many animals, including non-human primates. Animals that feed primarily on insects are called insectivores. Insects, entomopathogenic nematode, nematodes and entomopathogenic fungi, fungi that obtain their nutrition from insects are sometimes termed ''entomophagous'', especially in the context of biological control applications. These may also be more specifically classified into predators, parasitism, parasites or parasitoids, while viruses, bacteria and fungi that g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Simulation
Computer simulation is the running of a mathematical model on a computer, the model being designed to represent the behaviour of, or the outcome of, a real-world or physical system. The reliability of some mathematical models can be determined by comparing their results to the real-world outcomes they aim to predict. Computer simulations have become a useful tool for the mathematical modeling of many natural systems in physics (computational physics), astrophysics, climatology, chemistry, biology and manufacturing, as well as human systems in economics, psychology, social science, health care and engineering. Simulation of a system is represented as the running of the system's model. It can be used to explore and gain new insights into new technology and to estimate the performance of systems too complex for analytical solutions. Computer simulations are realized by running computer programs that can be either small, running almost instantly on small devices, or large-scale ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Directed Panspermia
Directed panspermia is a type of panspermia that implies the deliberate transport of microorganisms into space to be used as introduced species on other astronomical objects. Shklovskii and Sagan (1966) and Crick and Orgel (1973) hypothesized that life on the Earth may have been seeded deliberately by other civilizations. Conversely, Mautner and Matloff (1979) and Mautner (1995, 1997) proposed that humanity should seed other planetary systems, protoplanetary discs or star-forming clouds with microorganisms. Motivations for directed panspermia often stem from panbiotic ethics and as a last resort existential risk mitigation strategy. However, more recently directed panspermia has also been heavily criticised from the perspectives of contamination and interference with indigenous life, wild animal welfare concerns, and procreative ethics, highlighting in particular, concerns about its irreversibility in the context of its uncertain ethical consequences. Directed panspermia is becom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Terraforming
Terraforming or terraformation ("Earth-shaping") is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying the atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology of a planet, moon, or other body to be similar to the environment of Earth to make it habitable for humans to live on. The concept of terraforming developed from both science fiction and actual science. Carl Sagan, an astronomer, proposed the planetary engineering of Venus in 1961, which is considered one of the first accounts of the concept. The term was coined by Jack Williamson in a science-fiction short story (" Collision Orbit") published in 1942 in ''Astounding Science Fiction''. Even if the environment of a planet could be altered deliberately, the feasibility of creating an unconstrained planetary environment that mimics Earth on another planet has yet to be verified. While Venus and the Moon have been studied in relation to the subject, Mars is usually considered to be the most likely candidate for terrafor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gene Editing
Gene editing may refer to: *Genetic engineering of any organism by genome editing. Gene editing is the emerging molecular biology technique which makes very specific targeted changes by insertion, deletion or substitution of genetic material in an organism's DNA to obtain desired results. Examples of gene editing are CRISPR, zinc finger nuclease, transcription activator-like effector nuclease (TALEN), oligonucleotide directed mutagenesis + meganucleases. *Genome editing, a type of genetic engineering *Gene therapy, the therapeutic delivery of nucleic acid polymers into a patient's cells as a drug to treat disease *CRISPR gene editing, a genetic engineering technique.CRISPR are termed as (site directed nucleases) SDN since they target specific part of genome, there are 3 different categories of SDN. SDN1 makes random mutations at target site to repair the damaged host DNA without involving any foreign DNA. SDN2 uses small non coding homologous repair DNA to achieve specific nucleoti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Habitat Reduction
Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease in biodiversity and species numbers. Habitat destruction is in fact the leading cause of biodiversity loss and species extinction worldwide. Humans contribute to habitat destruction through the use of natural resources, agriculture, industrial production and urbanization (urban sprawl). Other activities include mining, logging and trawling. Environmental factors can contribute to habitat destruction more indirectly. Geological processes, climate change, introduction of invasive species, ecosystem nutrient depletion, water and noise pollution are some examples. Loss of habitat can be preceded by an initial habitat fragmentation. Fragmentation and loss of habitat have become one of the most important topics of research in ecology as they a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
