Americans now live in a time and a place in which freedom and autonomy are valued above all else and in which expanded opportunities for self-determination are regarded as a sign of the psychological well-being of individuals and the moral well-being of the culture. This article argues that freedom, autonomy, and self-determination can become excessive, and that when that happens, freedom can b...

The initial majority identification task is a fundamental test problem in cellular automaton research. To pass the test, two-state has to attain uniform configuration consisting of only state that was initially majority. It does so solely through its local, internal dynamics—i.e., success an example emergent computation. Finding new, better-performing automata continues be interest for what add...

In this paper we examine the problem of computing majority functionMAJn on n bits by depthtwo formula, where each gate is a majority function on at most k inputs. We present such formula that gives the first nontrivial upper bound for this problem, with k = 2 3n + 4. This answers an open question in [7]. We also look at this problem in adaptive setting — when we are allowed to query for value o...

Although it may seem easy to compare states in terms of the number of their citizens and the size and shape of their countries, the connection between the democratic state and the numerical and spatial considerations is more subtle and complex, for theoretical views of society and the state tend to diverge into opposing positions that explore themutually exclusive extremes ofatomism and holism....