bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Ideal Intellectual Cognition in Timaeus 37 A 2–C 5
Authors: Corcilius Klaus
Published: June 2018

Plato's depiction of the world soul's cognitive activity in Timaeus 37 A 2‐C 5 offers a general account of intellectual cognition. He gives this account by describing the activity of an ideal cognitive agent, involving the very same comparative mechanism that governs human intellectual activity, namely, the active production of a propositional grasp of sameness and difference that things have in relation to each other in several respects. Plato depicts the world soul's intellectual activity as entirely devoid of immediate forms of cognition such as perception and/or intellectual intuition: everything the world soul cognizes is the outcome of its active comparison of things with each other. In particular, there is no direct cognitive grasp of the being of things. The paper ends with a suggestion as to how to understand Plato's account of the world soul's activity as an instance of the ‘like is known by like’ principle of cognition.
Beyond Rights Minimalism
Authors: Sweet Alec Stone , Ryan Clare
Published: June 2018

This chapter focuses on the European Court’s approach to adjudicating the qualified rights: to privacy and family life, and to the freedoms of expression, conscience, and religion. Facilitated by the progressive development of (i) general principles, (ii) iterative dialogues with domestic apex courts, and (iii) consensus analysis, the Court has engaged in majoritarian activism, a strategy that has enabled it to raise standards of protection, and to overcome rights minimalism. Under the tutelage of the Court, the regime has worked to secure the equal juridical status of formerly marginalized or excluded groups, including through the consolidation of positive state duties of recognition and protection. As important, the trustee courts of Europe now share a common approach to assessing the validity of state measures that would limit a qualified right, requiring officials to justify restrictions under a pressing social need standard, and to ensure their proportionality.
Beyond Borders
Authors: Sweet Alec Stone , Ryan Clare
Published: June 2018

This chapter charts the growing capacity of the European Court to protect the rights of those who are not citizens of member states of the Council of Europe. The Court’s sustained commitment to robustly enforcing the right to life, the prohibition of torture and inhuman treatment, and the right to a court and judicial remedy facilitated the development of three strains of cosmopolitan jurisprudence. The first operationalizes the Kantian principle of hospitality, covering expulsion, extradition, and the treatment of refugees. The second extends protections to persons whose rights have been violated by states who are not parties to the Convention, or by state parties exercising jurisdiction outside of Convention territory. The third instantiates dialogues with other treaty-based regimes when it comes to overlapping obligations to protect rights. These dialogues suggest that constitutional pluralism is an emergent property of the structure of international law beyond Europe.
The Apocalypse that Never Was
Authors: Hoover Jesse A.
Published: June 2018

Chapter 1 focuses on the ways in which Donatist appeals to the apocalyptic have been understood by those outside the dissident communion. Four patterns in particular are discussed. In the militant rhetoric of its early opponents, Donatist eschatological claims were dismissed as evidence of “madness.” By the nineteenth century, Donatists were no longer seen as madmen, but their apparent preoccupation with the end of the world caused many to brand them as anachronistic in an age of Christian emperors. Later reassessments would attempt to link apocalyptic rhetoric with socioeconomic protest against Roman oppression or attempt to downplay apocalyptic motifs altogether.
Material World and Objective Reality
Authors: Di Ventra Massimiliano
Published: June 2018

This chapter defines the object of study of the Natural Sciences: the unique material reality existing irrespective of the observer. This is a logical necessity for scientists to even start doing Science. It also reminds the reader that this unique material reality is the only object of study for Science. Nothing else that is not testable with empirical means can be accessed by Science.
Can One Theory Be “Derived” from Another?
Authors: Di Ventra Massimiliano
Published: June 2018

This chapter makes the point that theories built on different hypotheses are fundamentally different; hence, they cannot truly be considered as limiting cases of one another.
The “What” and “Why” Questions
Authors: Di Ventra Massimiliano
Published: June 2018

This chapter clarifies that Science cannot address either ontological (“What”) or teleological (“Why”) questions about the natural world. Therefore, “understanding” in Science is completely different from “understanding” in Philosophy or Religion.
The Historical Development of Taverns, Inns, and Public Houses
Authors: Lane Christel
Published: June 2018

This largely descriptive chapter introduces the reader to the specific features and functions of each type of hostelry and provides a broad-brush picture of their historical development, activities, ways they influenced each other, and importance in their role in out-of-home consumption of food, drink, and sociality. It outlines their social, economic, and political functions, and places them in their societal context. The pub was always the lowest in the social hierarchy among the three. Yet, it has been the longest survivor and has gradually taken over some of the functions formerly performed by inns and taverns. Inns and taverns, however, persist in the British social imagination and, where their buildings have survived, they lend distinction to a village or part of town. Both continuities and changes over time, as well as some overlap between the three hostelries, are described using examples of places and personalities.
Reflection
Authors: Lefkowitz Jeremy B.
Published: June 2018

The legendary Aesop, whom Herodotus (Histories, 2.134) places on Samos in the sixth century BCE, did not write a single fable with his own hand. The fables that have survived under his name were written in the centuries after his death, composed by a diverse set of writers who labeled their stories “Aesop’s” with little concern for historical accuracy. We are left with hundreds of tales and anecdotes scattered across the remains of classical literature, in both Greek and Latin, in prose and in verse, each one with murky origins and dubious links to the life of Aesop....
Reflection
Authors: Sung Hou-mei
Published: June 2018

Representations of animals in traditional Chinese painting are among the oldest known motifs and are filled with rich symbolic implications. Animal paintings make animals a part of the harmonious existence of all living beings in the universe. To the Chinese, animals are more than merely beasts in nature; they are living symbols with philosophical, historical, and metaphorical associations. This explains why in early Chinese painting animals are typically portrayed with distinct attitudes or in particular poses, for example, dragons emerging from the clouds, tigers roaring with the wind, cranes calling toward heaven, carp leaping above the waves, and minnows darting playfully among water weeds. Many of these early conceptual depictions of animals were directly linked to the ancient Chinese ...
The Contemporary Debate in Animal Ethics
Authors: Garner Robert
Published: June 2018

This final chapter explores the range of ideas current in the contemporary animal ethics debate. Much of the chapter is devoted to documenting the critique of the animal welfare ethic, which holds that, while animals have moral standing, humans, being persons, have a superior moral status. Three different strands of this critique—based on utilitarian, rights, and contractarian approaches—are identified and explored. The final part of the chapter documents the fragmentation of the animal ethics debate in recent years. This has included a more nuanced position which seeks to decouple animal rights from abolitionism, accounts of animal ethics from virtue ethics and capabilities perspectives, and a relational turn associated with the feminist care ethic tradition and, more recently, the utilization of citizenship theory by Donaldson and Kymlicka.
Introduction
Authors: Dagger Richard
Published: June 2018

This book aims to develop a unified theory of political obligation and the justification of punishment that takes its bearings from the principle of fair play. Much has been written on each of these subjects, of course, including numerous essays in recent years that approach one or the other topic in fair-play terms. However, there has been no sustained effort to link the two in a fair-play theory of political obligation and punishment. This book undertakes such an effort. This introduction explains why such a theory is an attractive possibility and how the argument for it unfolds in the succeeding chapters.
Political Obligation
Authors: Dagger Richard
Published: June 2018

Although it is an ancient and much-discussed problem, political obligation continues to pose challenges to political and legal philosophers. Some of these challenges are conceptual, for they require explanations of what a political obligation is and how it differs from other obligations, duties, or responsibilities. Other challenges concern the practical matters of whether and to what extent political obligations are truly binding on us. In this respect, the foremost challenge is that of anarchism, including the “philosophical anarchism” that has become increasingly influential in recent decades. This chapter aims to meet these challenges by setting out a coherent account of political obligation and providing reason to believe that neither political nor philosophical anarchists have made a satisfactory a priori case against the possibility of a compelling theory of political obligation.
Fair Play and Cooperative Practices
Authors: Dagger Richard
Published: June 2018

The moral principle at the foundation of the theory developed in this book is sometimes called the principle of fairness and sometimes the principle of fair play. In this chapter, I argue for the latter term because it more clearly indicates that questions about one person’s moral duties to others typically arise within cooperative enterprises or endeavors, such as games. To support this claim, the chapter begins by distinguishing fair play from broader considerations of fairness, after which I turn to explication of the concept of a cooperative practice. To establish the connection of fair play to moral duties and political obligations, I then examine the relationship among cooperation, justice, and fair play. I conclude that the polity is properly conceived not only as a cooperative practice, but as a cooperative meta-practice—that is, a cooperative practice that enables people to engage in narrower cooperative practices.
Fair Play and Its Rivals
Authors: Dagger Richard
Published: June 2018

Proponents of the fair-play theory of political obligation face challenges not only from those who reject or discount the possibility of political obligations, such as philosophical anarchists, but also from the advocates of competing theories of political obligation. This chapter supports the case for fair-play theory by demonstrating its superiority to its three principal rivals among such theories. Those three rival theories are grounded in either consent, association, or natural duty. All three have their attractions, but they are also vulnerable to serious objections. Their attractions, moreover, often derive from an implicit reliance on considerations of fair play.
Playing Fair with Punishment
Authors: Dagger Richard
Published: June 2018

Chapter 6 turns from the explication and defense of legal punishment as a general practice to the task of developing and defending the fair-play theory of punishment in particular. As developed by Herbert Morris and others, the theory holds that punishment is justified, ceteris paribus, because law breakers try to enjoy the benefits of a legal system without bearing its burdens, thereby taking unfair advantage of those who obey the laws. I elaborate this account by drawing out the connection between legal systems and cooperative practices, arguing that the analogy between fair play in a game and fair play in a polity, or legal system, is not simply misguided. I then respond to five serious objections that critics have leveled against fair play as an account of punishment. I conclude by considering the gentler complaint that fair play is too narrow to provide a satisfactory justification for legal punishment.
Where Is All My Relation?
Authors: Chaney Michael A.
Published: June 2018

This book provides a critical introduction to David Drake, or Dave the Potter, an enslaved pottery maker and author of inscribed verses and couplets, who lived and worked in Edgefield, South Carolina, from the 1830s until the Civil War period. Various scholars, artists, and historians in the present volume join together to interpret the meaning of a figure who signed the prodigious vessels he made with the single name “Dave.” Topics in the volume range from considerations of the production forces shaping Dave the Potter’s activity to a study of the West African traces of artistry and religion in the vessels. With contributions drawing on disciplines ranging from literary history, poetry and poetics, and African American phenomenology to archaeology and material culture studies, the collection provides an exhaustive assessment of the competing meanings of a range of topics in the multifaceted writing and wares of Dave the Potter: slavery and the self, notions of mastery and the thing, dates and the slave signature, themes of alienation, plenty, creativity, and unintelligibility. In their totality, the essays finally comment on the (in)accessibility of the slave past and the ethics of representing a slave who is also a nameable exception.
Conclusion
Authors: Radcliffe Elizabeth S.
Published: June 2018

The Conclusion addresses several ways in which Hume’s treatment of the passions is supposed to contribute to his general philosophical views. It may function as: (1) a solution to the skeptical problem of the self that emerges from Book 1 of the Treatise; (2) a medium for his account of morality and moral sentiment; (3) a phenomenon that makes sociability and psychological well-being possible; (4) an instrument to explain the psychological aspects of religious belief; (5) a means to explain paradoxical emotions like aesthetic appreciation of tragedy; and (6) a naturalistic alterative to religious perspectives on human action and morality. Hume’s psychology of the passions serves all of these purposes and can only do so because the signature feature of the passions is their role in initiating action.
Sentimental Fiction of the 1760s and 1770s
Authors: Thompson Helen
Published: June 2018

This chapter discusses sentimental fiction of the 1760s and 1770s. Sentimental novels of these decades are highly aware of their philosophical, figural, and generic conventions; many of them intermittently subvert moralizing, sympathizing, or feminizing reflex, whether by amplifying the textuality of feeling's representation or by foregrounding feeling's improbable excess. These novels employ sentimental discourse as the vehicle of what might be called meta-sentimental critique to query the sentimental actor's powers of judgement and, inextricably, the resemblance of sentimental and aesthetic objects. The sympathetic person's ability to determine who or what elicits feeling, and the conversion of sympathy into deracinated sensation, are addressed in Laurence Sterne's A Sentimental Journey (1768), Oliver Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Henry Mackenzie's Julia de Roubigné (1777), and Sarah Scott's The History of Sir George Ellison (1766).
Epistolary Fiction
Authors: Watson Nicola J.
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines epistolary fiction. The heyday of epistolary fiction, the novel told entirely or mostly in letters, stretched from the 1750s until the late 1790s, before it suffered abrupt decline and extinction. This pre-eminence is attributable to the century's well-documented investment in letter writing as the prime way of constituting the social and sociability, whether conceived as the private domain of the family or as the wider public sphere. A letter-writing and letter-publishing culture flourished in relation to economics, politics, religion, housekeeping, medicine, travel, and, especially, questions of conduct. Indeed, a new middle-class culture of writing was in the making, and letter writing and the depiction of letter writing played its own part in constructing that culture.
Fiction in the Magazines
Authors: Hughes Gillian
Published: June 2018

This chapter focuses on magazine fiction. Magazine fiction before 1820 has been viewed as irredeemably derivative and ephemeral. Notions of the canon, however, are now wider than they were and there is more interest in the typical as well as in the best fiction of the period. Novelists themselves read magazine fiction, which formed part of the cultural context from which their work developed and in which it may be understood: specific strands of eighteenth-century magazine fiction share ground with the writings of Jane Austen, for instance, or anticipate the subject matter of the Brontës. Indeed, the emergence of the professionally written tale in the 1820s can be seen as meeting a growing desire for more sophisticated magazine fiction and as providing for the needs of those who were attempting to produce it.
Non-Fictional Discourses and the Novel
Authors: Richetti John
Published: June 2018

This chapter looks at how readers of eighteenth-century British fiction seem to have possessed less carefully policed divisions between fact and fiction. It speculates that their credulity was more flexible than that of current critics and readers. Into the 1750s and beyond, many narratives that were obviously fictional featured titles or subtitles that gestured toward the kind of factuality to be found in such ‘news’: fiction that was somehow truthful or claimed a kind of non-literal truth. The chapter notes that, from antiquity onwards historians were ignorant of many things. And of course the classical tradition of historical writing allowed or indeed encouraged invented speeches and concocted descriptions.
The Pamela Debate
Authors: Lockwood Thomas
Published: June 2018

This chapter examines a decisive period in English literary history during the 1740s. This decade saw Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding falling into an unplanned but extraordinary artistic competition that would open two vital channels of production in the novel-writing to come: in Richardson's case toward the representation of inward experience as if mediated by no external authority, in Fielding's toward worldly experience as if mediated wholly by an authoritative storyteller. They did not compete in the usual sense, but such was their entangled proximity it nevertheless seemed a contest. The decade began with Richardson's Pamela (1740), followed by Fielding's Joseph Andrews (1742), and ended with Richardson's Clarissa (1747–8) and Fielding's Tom Jones (1749). This second pair of novels has long since established itself as the more powerful of the two, rightly enough, but against any other novels of the period the first would easily command superiority.
The Lattice Boltzmann Equation
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

Over the past near three decades, the Lattice Boltzmann method has gained a prominent role as an efficient computational method for the numerical simulation of a wide variety of complex states of flowing matter across a broad range of scales, from fully developed turbulence, to multiphase micro-flows, all the way down to nano-biofluidics and lately, even quantum-relativistic subnuclear fluids. After providing a self-contained introduction to the kinetic theory of fluids and a thorough account of its transcription to the lattice framework, this book presents a survey of the major developments which have led to the impressive growth of the Lattice Boltzmann across most walks of fluid dynamics and its interfaces with allied disciplines, such as statistical physics, material science, soft matter and biology. This includes recent developments of Lattice Boltzmann methods for non-ideal fluids, micro- and nanofluidic flows with suspended bodies of assorted nature and extensions to strong non-equilibrium flows beyond the realm of continuum fluid mechanics. In the final part, the book also presents the extension of the Lattice Boltzmann method to quantum and relativistic fluids, in an attempt to match the major surge of interest spurred by recent developments in the area of strongly interacting holographic fluids, such as quark-gluon plasmas and electron flows in graphene. It is hoped that this book may provide a source information and possibly inspiration to a broad audience of scientists dealing with the physics of classical and quantum flowing matter across many scales of motion.
From Kinetic Theory to Navier–Stokes Hydrodynamics
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

This Chapter illustrates the derivation of the macroscopic fluid equations, starting from Boltzmann’s kinetic theory. Two routes are presented, the heuristic derivation based on the enslaving of fast modes to slow ones, and the Hilbert–Chapman–Enskog procedure, based on low-Knudsen number asymptotic expansions. The former is handier but mathematically less rigorous than the latter. Either ways, the assumption of weak departure from local equilibrium proves crucial in recovering hydrodynamics as a large-scale limit of kinetic theory.
Kinetic Theory of Dense Fluids
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

This chapter presents the basic elements of the kinetic theory of non-ideal fluids, to which both kinetic and potential energy contribute on comparable footing. Non-ideal fluids lie at the heart of many complex fluid-dynamic applications, such as those involving multiphase and multicomponent flows. This chapter features a degree of abstraction which may not come by handy to the reader with limited interest to the formal theory of classical many-body systems. The interested readers can safely skip the math and retain the basic bottomline. They may just skip this chapter altogether, but in this author’s opinion, this is likely to come with a toll on the full appreciation of Lattice Boltzmann theory for non-ideal fluids, in fact one of the most successful offsprings of Lattice Boltzmann theory.
Stochastic Particle Dynamics
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

Dense fluids and liquids molecules are in constant interaction; hence, they do not fit into the Boltzmann’s picture of a clearcut separation between free-streaming and collisional interactions. Since the interactions are soft and do not involve large scattering angles, an effective way of describing dense fluids is to formulate stochastic models of particle motion, as pioneered by Einstein’s theory of Brownian motion and later extended by Paul Langevin. Besides its practical value for the study of the kinetic theory of dense fluids, Brownian motion bears a central place in the historical development of kinetic theory. Among others, it provided conclusive evidence in favor of the atomistic theory of matter. This chapter introduces the basic notions of stochastic dynamics and its connection with other important kinetic equations, primarily the Fokker–Planck equation, which bear a complementary role to the Boltzmann equation in the kinetic theory of dense fluids.
Lattice Boltzmann for Turbulent Flows
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

This chapter presents the main ideas behind the application of LB methods to the simulation of turbulent flows. The attention is restricted to the case of direct numerical simulation, in which all scales of motion within the grid resolution are retained in the simulation. Turbulence modeling, in which the effect of unresolved scales on the resolved ones is taken into account by various forms of modeling, will be treated in a subsequent chapter.
Extensions of the Pseudo-Potential Method
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

This chapter provides an account of subsequent extensions of the Shan-Chen pseudo-potential method, including more elaborated potentials which extend beyond the first Brillouin cell. These extensions permit us to lift a number of limitations of the original model and considerably expand its scope and range of applications. In Chapter 27, a variety of LB techniques for nonideal fluids have been discussed. As usual, each method comes with its ups and downs, but actual evidence shows that the Shan–Chen (SC) model has enjoyed increasing popularity over the years. Interestingly, such popularity stands in the face of a fair amount of substantial criticism. In this chapter, first the Shan–Chen model is revisited in some more detail along with a discussion of ways out of the above criticism. Subsequently, the extension of the SC technique to the case of multi-range potentials extending beyond the first Brillouin cell is discussed. This extension proves pretty effective in softening many of the weaknesses of the original formulation, thereby considerably expanding its scope and range of applications.
QLB for Quantum Many-Body and Quantum Field Theory
Authors: Succi Sauro
Published: June 2018

Chapter 32 expounded the basic theory of quantum LB for the case of relativistic and non-relativistic wavefunctions, namely single-particle quantum mechanics. This chapter goes on to cover extensions of the quantum LB formalism to the overly challenging arena of quantum many-body problems and quantum field theory, along with an appraisal of prospective quantum computing implementations. Solving the single particle Schrodinger, or Dirac, equation in three dimensions is a computationally demanding task. This task, however, pales in front of the ordeal of solving the Schrodinger equation for the quantum many-body problem, namely a collection of many quantum particles, typically nuclei and electrons in a given atom or molecule.
Sara Jeanette Duncan
Authors: Johnstone Tiffany
Published: June 2018

This chapter looks at Sara Jeanette Duncan. Throughout Duncan's prolific career, she wrote approximately twenty novels about early Canadian nation-building, transatlantic and Anglo-Indian cultures, and the New Woman. Duncan is hailed as a central figure of Canadian literature. While relatively under-analysed compared to her more well-known novels such as The Imperialist (1904), Duncan's early journalism and the Canadian section of her first novel A Social Departure: How Orthodocia and I Went Round the World by Ourselves (1890) illuminate her nuanced life-long inquiry into colonial and gendered identities. In A Social Departure, Duncan offers an iconic image of Canadian, transatlantic, and women's literature at the turn of the twentieth century. Ultimately, she presents herself as both an emblem of cultural progress and a catalyst for social change.
Robin Hyde
Authors: Elleray Michelle
Published: June 2018

This chapter explores the novels of Iris Guiver Wilkinson, who wrote as Robin Hyde. Three of her novels— Check to Your King (1936), Passport to Hell (1936), and Nor the Years Condemn (1938)—counter claims of historical absence or irrelevance by fictionalizing historical people involved in key moments in New Zealand's history, specifically the mid-nineteenth century efforts to establish New Zealand as a colony, the First World War, and the Great Depression. Meanwhile, with Wednesday's Children (1937), Hyde turns to history's antithesis, fantasy, as an alternative route to investigating New Zealand's settler culture. Hyde's five novels exhibit a recurring set of concerns: the articulation of New Zealand as a settler nation and its relationship to the international; the lives of those marginalized by respectable middle-class society; the role of social institutions in the maintenance of middle-class hegemony; and the asymmetry of opportunity, mobility, and sexual freedom for women.
Abstraction and the Question of Symmetry
Authors: Linnebo Øystein
Published: June 2018

Frege and many thinkers inspired by him defend a symmetric conception of abstraction according to which the two sides of an acceptable abstraction principle provide different “recarvings” of one and the same content. Some defenses of the symmetric conception are criticized: first, a seductive argument based on a generalized notion of identity; then, an argument by Rayo based on the notion of a “just is”-statement. Instead, an asymmetric conception of abstraction is defended according to which the two sides of an acceptable abstraction principle are not on a par with respect to all worldly properties. For example, the parallelism of two lines grounds the existence of their shared direction, but not vice versa.
Experience, Dreaming, and the Phenomenology of Wakeful Consciousness
Authors: Crowther Thomas
Published: June 2018

This chapter works towards a better understanding of the contribution made by the state of wakeful consciousness to the stream of consciousness over time. It does this through reflection on what is missing in certain cases of non-wakeful consciousness. Granting the assumption that dreaming is a mode of perceptual imagination, the chapter contrasts perceptual imagination in the wakeful condition with perceptual imagination in dreaming sleep. It makes a suggestion about what is missing that draws on claims about the wakeful condition made by Brian O’Shaughnessy. According to this suggestion, what is missing is the occurrence of intentional mental action accompanied by non-inferential self-awareness. Building on a critique of O’Shaughnessy’s discussion, the chapter develops a ‘Capacitation Thesis’ about wakeful consciousness, according to which wakefulness is a state of being capacitated with respect to a range of relevant capacities. Imagination in the dream is discussed in the light of this thesis.
Civil War
Authors: Cheng Christine
Published: June 2018

Building on Liberia’s social and political inheritance, this chapter places the Liberian civil war in historical context and shows how conflict dynamics affected the development of extralegal groups. It examines the period of political instability leading up to the war (1979–89) and the post-conflict transition period that followed it (post-2003), as well as the war itself (1989–2003). The emphasis is not on the battles fought, nor the military tactics employed. Instead, the intention is to understand how the practices and interactions that were specific to Liberia’s war impacted upon the emergence of extralegal groups. Understanding the war economy, its incentives, and the patterns of interaction embedded within it is critical to the commodity chapters that follow. War leaves behind a legacy of conflict capital, and this legacy of relationships, interactions, and social expectations persists long after war ends.
Life
Authors: Prescott Tony J.
Published: June 2018

A core tenet of the emerging field of research in living machines is that biological entities that live and act—organisms—have much in common with certain kinds of man-made entities—machines—that can display autonomous behaviour. But underlying this parallel, which is made even more persuasive by observing the life-like behaviour of many of the artifacts described in this book, are a host of critical, and still only partially answered questions. Perhaps the most fundamental of these is “what is life?” This section of the Handbook of Living Machines delves into this core question, exploring some of the most fundamental properties of living systems, such as their capacity to self-organize, to evolve, to grow, to metabolize, to self-repair, and to reproduce. This introduction provides a brief discussion about the nature of life, seen from a systems perspective, followed by summaries of each of the contributed chapters in this section.
Energy and metabolism
Authors: Ieropoulos Ioannis A. , Ledezma Pablo , Scandroglio Giacomo , Melhuish Chris , Greenman John
Published: June 2018

Energy resulting from metabolism is essential for any living system—from single-cell to multicellular organisms. This also applies to symbiotic robots (SymBots), which function utilizing the energy (electricity) generated by living microorganisms. In the context of living technologies, artificial symbiosis between the living and the artificial entities of the machine becomes vital for the whole system. If the living entity stops generating energy, the mechatronic system ceases to work yet it is the mechatronic system that provides the microbes with food, and gets rid of their waste. This chapter presents and discusses SymBots, based on EcoBots that operate using Microbial Fuel Cells as onboard living energy devices. The interface between science and engineering is exemplified through the study and optimization of MFCs, producing the necessary data for technological implementation. Biological inspiration stems from living organisms metabolizing and adapting to the environment (homeostasis), which is the main process transferred to engineering.
Reproduction
Authors: Moses Matthew S. , Chirikjian Gregory S.
Published: June 2018

Computing pioneer and polymath John von Neumann introduced the concept of a Universal Constructor as part of his effort to develop a mathematical theory describing living organisms. A Universal Constructor is a kinematic machine able to manipulate and assemble primitive building blocks. Von Neumann showed how this hypothetical constructor, being itself composed of the same primitive blocks, could self-reproduce and evolve. Remarkably, although this model system pre-dates the discovery of the genetic code, it applies to cell molecular biology as well as man-made machines. This chapter describes some key laboratory demonstrations related to universal construction and machine self-reproduction, and discusses parallels between reproduction processes in machines and biological cells.
Touch
Authors: Lepora Nathan F.
Published: June 2018

Touch is the ability to perceive the world through physical contact. This article describes three principles underlying biological touch sensing and how these principles can result in biomimetic devices. First, that cutaneous touch is superresolved, in that the accuracy of perceiving fine stimulus detail is finer than the spacing between individual sensory mechanoreceptors. Second, that touch is active, in that animals actively select and refine sensations in a purposive manner. Third, that touch is exploratory, in that animals deploy purposive action patterns to encode properties of objects via a lexicon of exploratory procedures. Biomimetic tactile systems have utilized these principles to result in superior sensing capabilities, including systems that mimic the human fingertip and hand (cutaneous touch) and the rodent whisker system (vibrissal touch). Future biomimetic touch could rival human capabilities, enabling tactile sensors to have technological applications spanning across prosthetics, telehaptics, surgical robotics, wearable computing, medical probes, and manufacturing.
Rhythms and oscillations
Authors: Selverston Allen
Published: June 2018

The study of identifiable neurons, a common feature of invertebrate nervous systems, has made it possible to construct a detailed cell-to-cell connectivity map using electrophysiological methods that can inspire the design of biomimetic systems. This chapter describes how the analysis of the neural circuitry in the lobster stomatogastric ganglion (STG) has provided some general principles underlying oscillatory and rhythmic behavior in all animals. The rhythmic and oscillatory patterns produced by the two STG central pattern generating (CPG) circuits are a result of two cooperative mechanisms, intrinsically bursting pacemaker neurons and synaptic network properties. Also covered are the major neuromodulatory and neural control mechanisms. The chapter discusses how a deep knowledge of the stomatogastric circuitry has led to the development of electronic neurons for biomimetic devices that can be used for experimental and prosthetic applications The chapter concludes with a section on new techniques that may help with unraveling oscillatory circuits in the brain.
Skin and dry adhesion
Authors: Pang Changhyun , Lee Chanseok , Jeong Hoon Eui , Suh Kahp-Yang
Published: June 2018

Close observation of various attachment systems in animal skins has revealed various exquisite multi-scale architectures for essential functions such as locomotion, crawling, mating, and protection from predators. Some of these adhesion systems of geckos and beetles have unique structural features (e.g. high-aspect ratio, tilted angle, and hierarchical nanostructure), resulting in mechanical interlocking mediated by van der Waals forces or liquid secretion (capillary force). In this chapter, we present an overview of recent advances in bio-inspired, artificial dry adhesives, and biomimetics in the context of nanofabrication and material properties. In addition, relevant bio-inspired structural materials, devices (clean transportation device, interlocker, biomedical skin patch, and flexible strain-gauge sensor) and microrobots are briefly introduced, which would shed light on future smart, directional, and reversible adhesion systems.
Perception
Authors: Leibo Joel Z. , Poggio Tomaso
Published: June 2018

This chapter provides an overview of biological perceptual systems and their underlying computational principles focusing on the sensory sheets of the retina and cochlea and exploring how complex feature detection emerges by combining simple feature detectors in a hierarchical fashion. We also explore how the microcircuits of the neocortex implement such schemes pointing out similarities to progress in the field of machine vision driven deep learning algorithms. We see signs that engineered systems are catching up with the brain. For example, vision-based pedestrian detection systems are now accurate enough to be installed as safety devices in (for now) human-driven vehicles and the speech recognition systems embedded in smartphones have become increasingly impressive. While not being entirely biologically based, we note that computational neuroscience, as described in this chapter, makes up a considerable portion of such systems’ intellectual pedigree.
Learning and control
Authors: Herreros Ivan
Published: June 2018

This chapter discusses basic concepts from control theory and machine learning to facilitate a formal understanding of animal learning and motor control. It first distinguishes between feedback and feed-forward control strategies, and later introduces the classification of machine learning applications into supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning problems. Next, it links these concepts with their counterparts in the domain of the psychology of animal learning, highlighting the analogies between supervised learning and classical conditioning, reinforcement learning and operant conditioning, and between unsupervised and perceptual learning. Additionally, it interprets innate and acquired actions from the standpoint of feedback vs anticipatory and adaptive control. Finally, it argues how this framework of translating knowledge between formal and biological disciplines can serve us to not only structure and advance our understanding of brain function but also enrich engineering solutions at the level of robot learning and control with insights coming from biology.
Communication
Authors: Wortham Robert H. , Bryson Joanna J.
Published: June 2018

From a traditional engineering perspective, communication is about effecting control over a distance, and its primary concern is the reliability of transmission. This chapter reviews communication in nature, describing its evolution from the perspective of the selfish gene. Communication in nature is ubiquitous and generally honest, and arises as much from collaboration as manipulation. We show that context and relevance allow effective communication with little information transfer, particularly between organisms with similar capacities and goals. Human language differs fundamentally from the non-verbal communication we share with other animals; robots may need to accommodate both. We document progress in AI capacities to generate synthetic emotion and to sense and classify human emotion. Communication in contemporary biomimetic systems is between robots in swarm robotics, but also between robot and human for both autonomous and collaborative systems. We suggest increased future emphasis on capacities to receive and comprehend signs, and on the pragmatic utility of communication and cooperation.
Consciousness
Authors: Seth Anil K.
Published: June 2018

Consciousness is perhaps the most familiar aspect of our existence, yet we still do not know its biological basis. This chapter outlines a biomimetic approach to consciousness science, identifying three principles linking properties of conscious experience to potential biological mechanisms. First, conscious experiences generate large quantities of information in virtue of being simultaneously integrated and differentiated. Second, the brain continuously generates predictions about the world and self, which account for the specific content of conscious scenes. Third, the conscious self depends on active inference of self-related signals at multiple levels. Research following these principles helps move from establishing correlations between brain responses and consciousness towards explanations which account for phenomenological properties—addressing what can be called the “real problem” of consciousness. The picture that emerges is one in which consciousness, mind, and life, are tightly bound together—with implications for any possible future “conscious machines.”
Toward living nanomachines
Authors: Mast Christof , Möller Friederike , Kreysing Moritz , Schink Severin , Obermayer Benedikt , Gerland Ulrich , Braun Dieter
Published: June 2018

How does inanimate matter become transformed into animate matter? Living systems evolve by replication and selection at the molecular level and this chapter considers how to establish a synthetic, minimal system that can support molecular evolution and thus life. Molecular evolution cannot be explained by starting with high concentrations of activated chemicals that react toward their chemical equilibrium; persistent non-equilibria are required to maintain continuous reactivity and we especially consider thermal gradients as an early driving force for Darwinian molecular evolution. The temperature difference across water-filled compartments implements a laminar fluid convection with periodic temperature oscillations that allow for the melting and replication of DNA. Simultaneously, dissolved molecules are moved along the thermal gradient by an effect called thermophoresis. The combined result is an efficient molecule trap that exponentially favors long over short DNA and thus maintains complexity. Future experiments will reveal how thermal gradients could actively drive the Darwinian process of replication and selection.
Soft-bodied terrestrial invertebrates and robots
Authors: Trimmer Barry
Published: June 2018

Studies of animal locomotion and its control have generally focused on species with articulated, stiff skeletons, largely ignoring the contributions of soft tissues. Attempts to create animal-like performance in robots illustrate the limitations of using rigid-body mechanics alone. There is a growing appreciation that soft structures are critical for producing robust and adaptable behaviors in complex environments. Studies of predominantly soft animals could help to accelerate our understanding of the biomechanical role of deformable materials and their control. This chapter focuses on our current understanding of locomotion in terrestrial soft animals. It highlights the critical distinction between purely hydrostatic systems that control movements by pressurization and those that can remain relatively soft and exploit stiff substrates (the environmental skeleton strategy). The final section describes biomimetic devices that have been inspired by both animal strategies to show how such biological solutions might be employed to build controllable, highly deformable mobile machines.
Winged artifacts
Authors: Send Wolfgang
Published: June 2018

Winged artifacts aim at the imitation of nature’s ingenious method to produce thrust with slim and smart-shaped flapping surfaces—the bending-torsional drive. The kinematics of these surfaces shows, in three dimensions, a bending motion coupled with a simultaneous torsion. This chapter describes the design and development of the artificial bird SmartBird, which was introduced in 2011 on the occasion of the annual international industry fair Hannovermesse. This artwork with articulated wings received worldwide attention through its unprecedented agility. The efficient motion of bodies heavier than air rests on the optimization of target functions like total weight to be balanced by lift, flow resistance to be balanced by thrust, structural layout and reliability, energy storage and, last but not least, smart flight control. From the author’s point of view, the bending-torsional drive just has started its career as a new player in this optimization game.
Hippocampal memory prosthesis
Authors: Song Dong , Berger Theodore W.
Published: June 2018

Damage to the hippocampus and surrounding regions of the medial temporal lobe can result in a permanent loss of the ability to form new long-term memories. Hippocampal memory prosthesis is designed to restore this ability. The animal model described here is the memory-dependent, delayed nonmatch-to-sample (DNMS) task in rats, and the core of the prosthesis is a biomimetic multi-input, multi-output (MIMO) nonlinear dynamical model that predicts hippocampal output (CA1) signals based on input (CA3) signals. When hippocampal CA1 function is pharmacologically blocked, successful DNMS behavior is abolished. However, when MIMO model predictions are used to re-instate CA1 memory-related activities with electrical stimulation, successful DNMS behavior and long-term memory function are restored. The hippocampal memory prosthesis has been successfully implemented in rodents and nonhuman primates, but the current system requires major advances before it can approach a working prosthesis. Looking forward, a deeper knowledge of neural coding will provide further insights.
Human relationships with living machines
Authors: Millings Abigail , Collins Emily C.
Published: June 2018

This chapter discusses the possibility of long-term human relationships with living machines, particularly robots, exploring this concept via psychological research on human–human relationships. The main focus is attachment theory, a general systems perspective on the bond that develops between an infant and its caregiver via a series of systems that are ideally kept within certain limits in order to ensure infant survival. The chapter highlights the importance of taking into consideration psychological first principles of human–human relationship formation, when exploring the idea of potential relationship formation between a human and a robot. It also discusses the role of individual differences that shape behavioral systems. The chapter concludes by considering the potential for robotic machines to fulfil human attachment needs.