The argument from fine tuning is supposed to establish the existence of God from the fact that the evolution of carbon-based life requires the laws of physics and the boundary conditions of the universe to be more or less as they are. We demonstrate that this argument fails. In particular, we focus on problems associated with the role probabilities play in the argument. We show that, even grant...

A coamoeba is the image of a subvariety of a complex torus under the argument map to the real torus. We describe the structure of the boundary of the coamoeba of a variety, which we relate to its logarithmic limit set. Detailed examples of lines in three-dimensional space illustrate and motivate these results.

To facilitate the application of semantics in statistical machine translation, we propose a broad-coverage predicate-argument structure mapping technique using automated resources. Our approach utilizes automatic syntactic and semantic parsers to generate Chinese-English predicate-argument structures. The system produced a many-to-many argument mapping for all PropBank argument types by computi...

We present a model for inducing sentential argument structure, which distinguishes arguments from optional modifiers. We use this model to study whether representing an argument/modifier distinction helps in learning argument structure, and whether a linguistically-natural argument/modifier distinction can be induced from distributional data alone. Our results provide evidence for both hypotheses.

We introduce assured safety arguments, a new structure for arguing safety in which the safety argument is accompanied by a confidence argument that documents the confidence in the structure and bases of the safety argument. This structure separates the major components that have traditionally been confused within a single safety argument structure. Separation gives both arguments greater clarit...

The design argument is one of three main arguments for the existence of God; the others are the ontological argument and the cosmological argument. Unlike the ontological argument, the design argument and the cosmological argument are a posteriori. And whereas the cosmological argument can focus on any present event to get the ball rolling (arguing that it must trace back to a first cause, name...

Argument visualisation (AV) tools facilitate structured debates utilising elements such as issues, positions and arguments. In this way, AV tools seem promising for improving eParticipation e.g. by avoiding repetition and enhancing clarity in debates. In this paper we present and discuss citizens’ opinion on utilising an AV platform for eParticipation, specifically for discussing the emerging t...

This essay is about how four deeply important Kantian ideas can significantly illuminate some essentially intertwined issues in philosophical theology, philosophical logic, the metaphysics of agency, and above all, morality. These deeply important Kantian ideas are: (1) Kant’s argument for the impossibility of the Ontological Argument, (2) Kant’s first “postulate of pure practical reason,” immo...

Social psychology shows that the effect of a persuasive argument depends on characteristics of the person to be persuaded, including the person’s involvement with the topic and the discrepancy between the person’s current position on the topic and the argument’s position. Via a series of experiments, this paper provides insight into how the receiver’s position can be modelled computationally, a...