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Ontological Basicness
No full textAbstract: This very short paper tries to identify what we believe is our most basic ontological state and truth.
Résumé : ce très court texte cherche à cerner ce que nous concevons être notre état ontologique le plus réel et basique
Gradientology: Foundations of the Primordial Triad — Treatise IX: The Derivation of the Inversion Principle and the Birth of Time
No full textThis treatise inaugurates Part IV: The Dynamic Resolution of Gradientology by deriving the Inversion Principle as the necessary algebraic transformation that resolves the primordial crisis of multiplicative fragility. We demonstrate that the static Multiplicative Trap (G = E × C × F ) must undergo a topological inversion to G = (E × C)/F to establish cybernetic stability through negative feedback. Through dimensional analysis, we prove that Phase I yields a physically incoherent cubic flux ([rate]3), while Phase II restores dimensional consistency as linear flux ([rate]), validating the transformation as the birth of directed force. Calculating the Order Parameter yields m ≈ 0.702, identifying this as the fundamental constant of emergent existence. We then synthesize the Cosmic Algorithm: a recursive function where the universe perpetually computes its own stability. From this, we derive Time (τ ) as the iteration count of computational steps, establishing the arrow of time via informational irreversibility. Finally, we prove the Relational Field’s Turing Completeness, demonstrating that the triadic primitives constitute a universal computer capable of generating infinite complexity. The universe is thus revealed as a self-resolving logical equation
The New Challenge of Preemption and Overdetermination
No full textAccording to the popular counterfactual account of harm and benefit, something benefits (harms) someone just in case it leaves them better (worse) off than they would have been without it. As its name suggests, the counterfactual account foregrounds counterfactual dependence as the guide to the nature of harm and benefit. In spite of this account’s many attractions, it is known to face extensional difficulties in cases of preemption and overdetermination. In this paper, I argue that the true significance of cases of preemption and overdetermination has been overlooked, and I raise a new challenge of preemption and overdetermination. This challenge highlights how metaphysical dependence (i.e., grounding) matters for harm and benefit. I argue that no version of the counterfactual account adequately answers the new challenge, and I defend a novel account that answers the challenge and, in doing so, illuminates the role of grounding in the theory of harm and benefit
Eduard von Hartmann, Pessimism, and the Europeanization of Buddhism
No full textEduard von Hartmann was one of the most influential public philosophers of his era, known primarily through his Philosophy of the Unconscious. A conservative nationalist in politics, he positioned himself as a cultural and religious reformer and modernist advocate of a “religion of the future” of self-redemption (autosoterism), one that reconciled pessimism and a panpneumatic impersonal unconscious with rationality and individual responsibility. This paper traces how Buddhism served as a primary albeit imperfect exemplar in his thought, how his ethical and symbolic interpretative strategy, based on the unconscious, drew him into proximity and conflict with esoteric spiritist discourses, and how this context informed his Daodejing interpretation. German Idealism disclosed the unity of reason, will, and nature, while Buddhist teachings demonstrated the world’s fundamentally contradictory and illusory character through nothingness (emptiness), nirvāṇa, and objective illusionism and phenomenalism. Hartmann’s secularized moral and symbolic adaptation of Buddhism entailed a resigned yet heroic embrace of suffering life rather than what he deemed ascetic and quietist acquiescence. His hermeneutics reveal his modernizing vision of Buddhism as an exemplary model (if suitably reformed to accentuate a heroic response to suffering and karma) for the future
Generative AI-Driven Automated Financial Advisory Systems: Integrating NLP and Reinforcement Learning for Personalized Investment Strategies in FinTech Applications
No full textThe advent of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the financial technology (FinTech) sector has created unprecedented opportunities for automating and enhancing financial advisory systems. This research focuses on the application of generative AI to develop automated financial advisory platforms, integrating natural language processing (NLP) and reinforcement learning (RL) for the formulation of personalized investment strategies. Traditional financial advisory models, often characterized by manual processes, human bias, and limited scalability, are increasingly unable to meet the demands of a fast-paced and diverse investment landscape. In response, AI-driven systems present a transformative approach, leveraging the power of generative models to process vast amounts of data and provide real-time, tailored financial recommendations to both retail and institutional investors. This study delves into the technical mechanisms underpinning the integration of generative models with NLP and RL frameworks. Generative models, including variational autoencoders (VAEs) and generative adversarial networks (GANs), play a critical role in simulating complex financial scenarios and generating investment strategies that reflect dynamic market conditions. By synthesizing vast amounts of historical market data, these models create high-dimensional representations of financial environments, which are then used to train reinforcement learning agents. The RL agents learn optimal investment strategies through continuous interaction with these simulated environments, dynamically adjusting to new market information and user preferences. This ability to simulate and optimize investment decisions allows for more sophisticated, personalized strategies, as compared to conventional rule-based systems. Natural language processing enhances the system by enabling it to process unstructured data from various sources, including financial news, reports, and social media, which can significantly impact market trends. NLP models, particularly transformer-based architectures like BERT and GPT, are employed to extract, interpret, and summarize relevant textual information in real-time, feeding it into the generative and RL models. This integration allows the financial advisory system to understand and respond to both quantitative and qualitative factors affecting financial markets. Moreover, the NLP component supports direct interaction between the AI-driven system and users, facilitating personalized communication and user-specific strategy recommendations. This two-way communication is pivotal in enhancing customer engagement, as users can input preferences, risk tolerance, and financial goals, which the system continuously refines and incorporates into its investment strategy formulation. Reinforcement learning plays a pivotal role in the adaptive learning process, allowing the system to improve its decision-making over time by receiving feedback from the environment, such as market performance and user satisfaction. Specifically, model-free RL approaches like Q-learning and policy gradient methods are applied to optimize investment strategies. These approaches enable the system to evaluate multiple potential actions in real-time and select those with the highest expected return, given the current market state and individual user profile. Over time, the RL agent learns to maximize cumulative returns by balancing exploration of new strategies with the exploitation of known profitable actions. By leveraging RL in tandem with generative models, the system can autonomously adjust its strategy in response to changing market conditions and user requirements, thereby delivering a highly customized investment plan that evolves with the investor’s financial landscape. The potential of these AI-driven advisory systems lies not only in their technical sophistication but also in their ability to democratize financial planning. Traditionally, high-quality financial advisory services have been accessible primarily to affluent individuals or large institutions due to the high cost of personalized financial advice. By automating the advisory process through AI, these systems can provide personalized financial planning at scale, making high-quality investment strategies accessible to a broader range of users, including those with limited financial literacy or smaller investment portfolios. This democratization of financial services is particularly significant in the context of retail investors, who can now access sophisticated financial insights and recommendations that were previously reserved for institutional clients. Furthermore, this paper explores the broader implications of AI-driven financial advisory systems on investor behavior and decision-making. By providing real-time, data-driven insights and personalized investment strategies, these systems have the potential to mitigate common cognitive biases in financial decision-making, such as overconfidence, loss aversion, and herd behavior. Through continuous learning and adaptation, AI-driven systems can guide users towards more rational, objective investment decisions, potentially improving overall financial outcomes for both retail and institutional investors. However, the paper also addresses the challenges associated with the deployment of AI in financial advisory systems, including issues of data privacy, algorithmic transparency, and the need for robust regulatory frameworks to ensure the ethical and responsible use of AI in financial decision-making
_To Gar Auto_: Heidegger on Identity in Parmenides B3
No full textThe chapter studies the main stages in the evolution of Heidegger’s readings of Parmenides B3, constituting perhaps the philosophically most pregnant facet of Heidegger’s Parmenides interpretations.
B3, perhaps the best-known fragment of Parmenides’ Poem, consists of a single line: _to gar auto noein estin te kai einai_, literally, 'for the same is thinking (_noein_) as well as being (_einai_)'. From the Neoplatonists Plotinus and Proclus up to the nineteenth century, this fragment was read as asserting, in some sense, the identity of thinking and being. With the general reaction against German idealism, scholars such as Eduard Zeller and John Burnet tried to rid the fragment of its alleged 'identity idealism' by reading it in the sense of 'what can be thought and what can be are the same', but this revised reading is not entirely persuasive. Whether or not we need to suspect Parmenides of 'idealism' depends entirely on the sense in which the sameness of identity (_to auto_) in B3 is understood.
Throughout his career, from his very earliest lectures to his final 1973 seminar, Heidegger kept returning to the sense of this identity. He constantly insisted that to auto in B3 does not mean 'empty' identity in the sense of equivalence or homogeneity, but rather a reciprocal belonging-together and interdependence of thinking and being. In his later thought, Heidegger takes to auto as the subject of the fragment, equating it with _Ereignis_, the dynamic event or 'taking place' of meaningful presence that ties together both givenness and receptivity, being and thinking. In the final stage of his engagement with Parmenides, Heidegger emphasises that this was a philologically untenable imposition of his own 'postmetaphysical' thinking of _Ereignis_ upon Parmenides’ 'protometaphysical' thinking of being as sheer meaningful presence/accessibility (_Anwesen_).
Ultimately, Heidegger makes it clear that we need to distinguish between three different types of identity: (1) Parmenidean identity in which thinking (receptivity) is referred back to being (intelligible givenness); (2) modern, 'idealistic' identity in which being (as the object of thinking) is referred back to the cognitive activity of the thinking ego (as in Berkeley’s dictum _esse est percipi_); and (3) Heidegger’s own, postmetaphysical sense of identity in which both thinking and being are referred to a primal event of meaningful reciprocity
Time and Modality
No full textThis chapter offers a brief overview of the main analogies between time and modality. The first part of the chapter is devoted to the analogy between presentism and actualism. The second part explores the analogy between non-presentist theories and possibilism. The third part discusses the analogy between temporal and modal persistence
Evaluation of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education Programme of National Teachers Institute in Akwa Ibom State , Nigeria
No full textGraduates of distance education institutions (DEIs) often face limited social and economic opportunities, yet there is no evidence that DEI programmes are of lower academic quality than those of conventional universities. This study is an evaluation of the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) programme of the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) in three study centres in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. This is a census study of all 402 enrolled students, who responded to a 30-item achievement test and participated in a direct observation of teaching practice, assessed with a standard rubric. Secondary data were obtained from the National Minimum Benchmark for PGDE programmes and a checklist of physical facilities and equipment. Data were analysed using frequency counts, percentages, means, and standard deviations. Findings showed that students had a weak understanding of the philosophical and psychological foundations of education, though their knowledge of the sociological foundations was strong. Even though the academic staff met the minimum qualification requirements, the pedagogical skills of NTI students was low, and physical facilities were below the national benchmark. Overall, the programme in Akwa Ibom State did not fully align with national standards. These shortcomings in implementation of the programme may hinder the attainment of the PGDE objectives. Therefore, strengthening instruction in the philosophical and psychological foundations of education, enhancing pedagogical skills, and improving physical facilities are necessary steps for improving the quality of the programme
A naturalistic argument against libertarian free will scepticism
No full textA common reason for scepticism about the idea that we express any sort of free will incompatible with determinism being true (i.e. libertarian free will) has been that it wouldn’t be advantageous for us to express any kind of agency incompatible with determinism being true. Against this scepticism, I argue that we have good naturalistic reason for thinking we sometimes express this form of agency; namely—that it would be evolutionarily advantageous for us to settle matters that aren’t already settled precisely in those instances where some of what we do provides unique predictive and explanatory value. I start by examining a prevailing naturalistic theory about our origins which has contributed to this scepticism about us expressing libertarian free will. I then examine neuroscientific discoveries about neural matters underlying a pivotal expression of our rationality: decision-making. This allows me to develop my argument and discuss its implications
Image Encryption and Decryption Algorithm using XOR Operator
No full textAs the result of the rapid development of technology, information science has become much easier, and therefore the problem of information security is growing. This paper deals with the secretiveness of images, so image encryption is that the latest trend in information caching. The novelty of the work lies in generating crucial images for encryption. The crucial image is then created with the assistance of a secret alphanumeric key. Each alphanumeric key will have an 8bit value generated by the binary key table. The challenge is to return up with an image encryption algorithm that is simple yet safe, with featherweight computer processing. This encryption algorithm which mixes Playfair cipher and therefore the Vigenere cipher gives better results. An experiment showed a correlation between the precipitation of the image after encryption and its decline. Supported the standard of quality of encryption, the speed of change of image pixels was high enough for the cipher image to be difficult to spot. The image is meant to be more distorted in this fashion. The deciphered image is obtained by applying the backward process.XOR technique is used in the present paper, for security analysis using XOR technique is an effective method of scrambling, in visual component which may be used as an important visual cryptography. For secure transmission of an image XOR cipher is a best technique