Classical mechanics is formulated without reference to conscious experience. Quantum mechanics, in contrast, is, both by design, and in actual practice, a theory of relationships between the actions we choose and the consequences we experience. The theory includes not only laws that define a continuous evolution described in purely physical terms, but also an elaborate theoretical machinery tha...

We discuss the link between the observations of distant quasars and those of massive dark objects in the cores of many local galaxies. We show how the formation of early black holes gives rise to the luminosity function of high z quasars, while it imprints into their dark local relics a related shape of the mass-dispersion correlation. We propose that in its lower section the correlation slope ...

Very general concepts of scatter, extending the traditional notion of covariance matrices, have become classical tools in robust multivariate analysis. In many problems of practical importance (principal components, canonical correlation, testing for sphericity), only homogeneous functions of the scatter matrix are of interest. In line with this fact, scatter functionals often are only defined ...

This paper establishes a new criterion for the identi cation of recursive linear models in which some errors are correlated. We show that identi cation is ensured as long as error correlation does not exist between a cause and its direct e ect; no restrictions are imposed on errors associated with indirect causes.

Two arguments due to Russell are examined, and found to show that the notion of causation as full determination doesn’t mesh easily with deterministic global physics and the distinction between effective and ineffective strategies. But a local notion of causation as involving a certain kind of counterfactual dependence is, I argue, compatible with Russell’s conclusions. I defend it from a resur...

1. Singular vs. general causation In many people, caffeine causes slight muscle tremors, particularly in their hands. In general, the Caffeine → Muscle Tremors causal connection is a noisy one: someone can drink coffee and experience no hand shaking, and there are many other factors that can lead to muscle tremors. Now suppose that Jane drinks several cups of coffee and then notices that her ha...

Introduction There have recently been a number of strong claims that normative considerations, broadly construed, influence many philosophically important folk concepts and perhaps are even a constitutive component of various cognitive processes. writes that " [m]oral considerations actually figure in the fundamental competencies people use to make sense of the world, " while Pettit and Knobe (...

The objective of this paper is to study the work of children and adolescents and the vicious circle of poverty from the perspective of Guinar Myrdal’s Theory of Circular Cumulative Causation. The objective is to show that if a person starts working in the juvenile phase of life they will be classified as poor or extremely poor when they are adult, which can to be observed in the case of Brazil,...

More and more, judges and juries are being asked to handle torts and other cases in which establishing liability involves understanding large bodies of complex scientific evidence. When establishing causation is involved, the evidence can be diverse, can involve complicated statistical models, and can seem impenetrable to non-experts. Since the decision in Daubert v. Merril Dow Pharms., Inc. in...