Simulations and Their Philosophical Implications

NACAP 2010 @ Carnegie Mellon University - July 24-26, 2010

Simulations and Their Philosophical Implications

Call for Papers/Proposals

Deadline: February 1st 2010 (firm)

In honor of the 60th Anniversary of the publication of Alan Turing’s groundbreaking article, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” we are centering the 2010 NACAP Conference on simulations and their philosophical implications.

Since the inception of the computer, simulations have become ubiquitous tools of the trade in a wide range of disciplines from astrophysics to sociology, machine learning to logic. When experiments aren’t possible for a variety of reasons (e.g., financial, ethical, lack of a subject pool), researchers have increasingly turned to simulations to test theories, comb through data, make predictions or otherwise take knowledge in new directions. This conference will explore the philosophical implications of this increasing reliance on simulation as it applies to the broader scope of topics studied by our association.

To this end, we are interested in receiving submissions that explore themes in the intersection of philosophy and computing insofar as they involve, for instance:

• Evolutionary game theory
• Machine learning
• Cognitive science
• Political science and sociology
• Molecular biology
• The uses of simulation in the physical sciences
• Automated theorem proving
• Validating models with simulations

Individual submissions might address a range of subtopics, including the epistemic legitimacy of simulations, theoretical analyses of simulation, the implications of computer simulations for issues in the philosophy of mind, etc. We also welcome submissions not directly on the conference theme, though first preference will go to those that fit within the broad parameters outlined here.

We welcome submissions for papers, panels and demonstrations of computing and philosophy applications. Papers and demonstrations will be allotted 40 minutes, including time for commentary and questions (25 minutes for presentation, 5 for commentary and 10 for Q&A). 120-minute slots are available for panels and can be divided as the panelists see fit.

For papers, please limit submission length to 3,000 words, keeping in mind that the IACAP discourages participants from reading their papers to the audience. (Many presenters prepare slides using PowerPoint or some other software package. However, these need not be submitted with your original paper.) Include also a 250-word abstract.

The IACAP discourages "show-and-tell" demonstrations, but welcomes submissions that show a new and interesting application of computers to philosophy. Submissions in this category should consist of a 1,500-word abstract outlining what is innovative about the application and the questions pertinent to philosophy that your demonstration will raise.

For panels, please submit a 1,000-word summary of the panel as a whole, along with 300 to 500-word abstracts for each of its various components.

The conference will be accepting electronic submissions appropriately prepared for blind review on or before February 1st, 2010. Additional details will be sent in a separate CFP sometime in early December, 2009. They will also be posted to the IACAP website at http://ia-cap.org (follow the appropriate conference link) and mailed to the IACAP-announce mailing list. (See http://ia-cap.org/mailinglist.php to join.)

Arsenic and e-Health

Monsieur Homais is one of the less likable characters in Madame Bovary. The deceitful pharmacist fakes a deep friendship for Charles Bovary. In fact, he constantly undermines his reputation with his patients, thus contributing to Charles’ ruin.

Monsieur Homais is not merely wicked. A smart man, he has been convicted in the past for practicing medicine without a license and so he worries, very reasonably, that Charles might denounce him to the authorities for the illicit business of health advice and personal consultations that he keeps organising in his pharmacy.

The ultimate success of the pharmacist's dodgy schemes is not surprising. Those were the days when blacksmiths and barbers could regularly act as dentists and surgeons (after all, Charles is not a doctor either, but only a “health officer”); patients and doctors had to meet face to face in order to interact; and access to health information was the privilege of a few. Mail and telegraph messages were of course commonly available, but neither allowed real-time conversations. Madame Bovary was serialised in 1856, exactly twenty years before Bell was awarded a patent for the electric telephone by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Once ICT (information and communication technologies) of all kinds began to make possible quick consultations and rapid responses, being “on call” acquired a new meaning, telemedicine was born, and the Monsieur Homaiss around the world started to find it increasingly harder to make a living.

Today, we ordinarily speak of e-Health or Health 2.0 as the most recent development in healthcare practices, which are increasingly patient-centred, not just patient-oriented.

Definitions vary, but put simply e-Health is the answer to “what have computer scientists ever done for our health?”. From the empowerment of individuals, who regularly access health-related information on the web, to specialised applications for monitoring populations of patients through their mobile phone, e-Health is a macroscopic phenomenon, which is fast spreading and has immense potentialities.

Two conferences recently organised in the Netherlands – the Second Health 2.0 Conference and the First International E-Mental Health Summit – well illustrate the exponential growth of e-Health and its popularity.

Behind the success of ICT-based medicine and well-being lie two phenomena and two trends.

The first phenomenon may be labelled “the transparent body”. By measuring, monitoring and managing our bodies ever more deeply, accurately and non-invasively, ICT have made us more easily explorable, have increased the scope of possible interactions from without and from within our bodies (e.g. nanotechnology), and made the boundaries between body and environment increasingly porous (e.g. fMRI). We were black boxes, we are quickly becoming white boxes through which anyone can see.


The second phenomenon is that of “the shared body”. “My” body can now be easily seen as a “type” of body, thus easing the shift from “my health conditions” to “health conditions I share with others”. And it is more and more natural to consider oneself not only the source of information (what I tell the doctor) or the owner of information about oneself (my Google health profile), but also a channel to transfer DNA information and corresponding biological features between past and future generations (see 23andme).

The correlated trends are a democratization of health information, which is available, accessible to, and owned by more citizens of any modern Yonville than ever before.

And the socialisation of health conditions: you only need to check “multiple sclerosis” on YouTube, for example, to appreciate how easily and significantly can ICT shape and transform our sense of belonging to a community.

By 2018, the world population will consist of more people over 65 than children under 5, for the first time in the history of humanity. We are getting older, more educated and wealthier, so e-Health can only become an increasingly common, daily experience, one of the pillars of future medical care, and obviously a multi-billion-dollar business, some of which will inevitably be dodgy. Which of course leads us back to Monsieur Homais.

Emma learns from him how to acquire the arsenic with which she will commit suicide. During her horrible agony, her husband desperately “tried to look up his medical dictionary, but could not read it”. Nowadays you only need the usual Wikipedia. Just check under Arsenic poisoning. You will find there both diagnosis and treatment.

How to see a masterpiece: Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, organ

Google Acquisitions and Investments

http://www.meettheboss.com/google-acquisitions-and-investments.html

5th Annual Digital Assembly Conference

5th Annual Digital Assembly Conference, Futures of Digital Studies 2010.
University of Florida, February 25-27
For more information please visit http://www.english.ufl.edu/da/

The Body as Interface