Kind Of Paradox Research Articles

Paradoxical oddities in two multiwinner elections from Scotland

If you were a candidate in an election, would you prefer more support from voters or less? Put another way: would you prefer that your campaign staff persuade more voters to vote for you, or fewer? These questions seem silly, because of course you would want more support from voters. Surprisingly, when using certain voting methods it is actually possible for more voter support to produce a worse result for a candidate; such an outcome is a type of monotonicity paradox. In [1], we searched for various types of monotonicity paradoxes in 1079 single-transferable vote (STV) elections from a database of Scottish local government elections. The purpose of this article is to present in detail two of the most interesting elections revealed by our search. These two elections are arguably the most paradox-riddled real-world political ranked choice elections ever documented, perhaps rivalled only by four single-winner examples from the United States: the 2009 mayoral election in Burlington, Vermont ([2, 3]); a 2021 city council race in Minneapolis, Minnesota [4]; the 2022 Special Election for US House in Alaska [5]; and the 2022 District 4 School Director election in Oakland, California [6]. The first election we present is the 2017 council election in the Buckie Ward of the Moray Council Area, which demonstrated the most extreme instance of a committee size monotonicity paradox ever observed in an actual election. The second election is the 2012 council election in the Steòrnabhagh a Tuath Ward of the Nah-Eileanan Siar Council Area, which demonstrated upward and downward monotonicity paradoxes, as well as a no-show paradox. To contextualise these elections, as part of our discussion we indicate how often these kinds of paradoxes occur in Scottish local government elections.

Physical-information model of the immune system as a development of P.K. Anokhin’s theory of functional systems

The article deals with the standard immunological model, which is based on the principles of random combination of molecules and cells and their random encounter with their complementary sites, which is accompanied by the formation of reversible complexes and/or a cascade of subsequent reactions. In its purity, such a model gives rise to various kinds of paradoxes that do not correspond to the reality of immune processes. As a rule, the development of immunology is expressed in the construction of more and more detailed links of immunologic events, but the addition of each new event to the chain of links should lead not to acceleration, but to slowing down of the final process within the combinatorial-complementary system. In this connection, the question of a new possible model of the immune system is raised, which is based on P.K. Anokhin’s theory of functional systems. As its further development the physical-information model (PhIM) of the immune system is proposed, which assumes two plans, informational and physical, of the immune system organization and their coordination on the basis of the ideas of organic potential and processes of conjugation. The information plan is represented as an abstract space of degrees of freedom of the system, analogous to phase space in physics. The current and final state of the system can be represented as points of the state space, the activity of the system with the transition from the current to the final state, as a trajectory in this space. The acceptor of the action result in the theory of functional systems of P.K. Anokhin is connected in this case with the image of the final state as the result of the system action. The construction of the trajectory of the system’s activity can be represented as the direction of reduction of the organic potential of the system, by analogy with that in the case of physical systems and their physical potentials. The organic potential reaches a minimum in the final state and expresses the need of the biosystem as a result of action.

Parliament Hidden in Small Streets and Squares. The Significance of Parliament’s Seat for the Constitutional System

Abstract Parliament is the space where politics and (constitutional) law literally take shape. Here, collective decisions take form in a specific setting where relationships between various political actors are organized through architecture. The architecture of spaces of political congregation is not only an abstract expression of a political culture – it participates in politics and it is part of the constitutional system. This paper focuses on the question, whether the location (and architecture) of the seat of the parliament is somehow significant for decision-making practices and for the role of the parliament in the constitutional system and for its values. This is discussed based on the example of the seat of the Parliament of the Czech Republic. The parliament (and especially the Chamber of Deputies) is one of the key institutions in Czech constitutional system. This is kind of paradox, because unlike other significant parliaments, the buildings of the Parliament of the Czech Republic are not dominant of the city of Prague.

Саморегулівні організації: юридичні особи на межі приватного і публічного права

The article analyses the legal status of self-regulatory organisations (SROs). These organisations are formed among the actors of various types of professional and business activity (lawyers, doctors, auditors, accountants, etc.), but the notion ‘self-regulatory organization’ has started to be used in legislation only recently. The main function of these organisations is to carry out self-regulation, i.e. to regulate the activity of their own members by adopting rules of conduct and monitoring compliance with them. However, these organisations often acquire regulatory powers not only from their members, who voluntarily agree to be subject to their regulation, but also from the state, which delegates to them or recognizes their public regulatory powers. This creates a kind of paradox: on the one hand, SROs are established in a manner typical of private law entities. However, on the other hand, their activities acquire the features of administrative activity. This raises a number of issues in law enforcement practice. Firstly, there are difficulties with the type of legal regulation that should be applied to the activities of these organisations - general permissive or special permissive. Secondly, the issue of court jurisdiction is ambiguous as well, i.e. which courts (administrative or commercial) have competence to resolve disputes arising between self-regulatory organisations and their members. Thirdly, the issue of compulsory membership in self-regulatory organisations is also quite acute, as this may lead to a violation of the right to freedom of association. Finally, the question of whether SROs are liable in the event of damage caused by them when exercising public authority is also ambiguous. There is a question concerning the conditions of their liability: shoud these be general conditions (Articles 1166-1167 of the Civil Code of Ukraine) or special conditions according to the rule of ‘truncated’ composition, which is typical for the liability of public authorities (Article 1173 of the Civil Code of Ukraine). This article provides a detailed analysis of these and other issues and outlines the ways to resolve them

МАТЕМАТИЧНЕ МОДЕЛЮВАННЯ ПЕРЕХІДНИХ ПРОЦЕСІВ В ІЄРАРХІЧНИХ СТРУКТУРАХ ДЕРЖАВНОГО УПРАВЛІННЯ З НЕЛІНІЙНИМИ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКАМИ

The last decades are characterized by a large number of studies of state and public figures, which can be called an era of deep (fundamental) and rapid changes. Society is experiencing qualitative changes and serious challenges, therefore there is a kind of paradox when the imperatives of a new era force the development of a theoretical basis in the semantic field of common sense, which is associated with permanence and qualitative changes in political, economic and social life [1, 2, 3] . In state administration and local self-government bodies, relations between people, rapid unpredictable changes in the situation in the country and in regions (political, economic, social, etc.) are non-linear management systems. Moreover, any physical system when examined in more detail is always nonlinear. The effectiveness of managing a nonlinear system, taking into account disturbing factors, depends on the accuracy of forecasting the dynamics of changes in individual elements of such a system. This is a multifaceted problem [15]. A characteristic feature of non-linear hierarchical structures (NIS) in the public service (state administration - DU and local self-government - MS) is a continuous and discrete change in the processes of development of events, which distinguishes them from other internal and external influences, such as those that cause the transformation of linear communication into non-linear, which ultimately leads to new changes. This is the first thing. Second, subject-object relationships can have uncoordinated actions caused by real-world circumstances. Such uncoordinated actions can occur even more in transitional processes of society (for example, the speed of their flow) due to the inertia of individual elements or the social system itself as a whole. As a result of these phenomena, the linear relationship between discrete changes is broken and the previous hierarchical structure changes, which leads to non-linear information relationships in the state administration (SU) and local self-government bodies (MS). For example, G. Pocheptsov and other scientists associate this nonlinearity with chaos, the growing complexity of social processes, globalization, with a threat to state security, with the manifestation of unpredictability and instability [1-5]. Strict requirements are imposed on the management process in the new state of DU and MS: - resilience of the management system; - the system should be described as continuous-discrete (its dynamics); - the management process must ensure the necessary accuracy of matching the indicators of the new state of the system with the previous one. A number of problems appear in newly formed non-linear hierarchical structures (NIS) in DU and MS: - lack of a priori information about processes with non-linear connections; - inaccuracy of structural identification; - inaccuracy in the choice of criteria for assessing the situation; - restructuring processes; - wrong choice of states of nature; - incorrect determination of the importance of the selected criteria according to the scale of importance; - incorrectly chosen dependence of alternatives on the criterion; - insufficient degree of awareness of the complexity of the situation. Solving the above problems requires experimental research. If the process of stabilization of the NIS in the DU is considered as an object of regulation, then it is enough to establish the dependence of this stability on the control action and the main disturbance, and all other actions are considered as disturbances on the object of study. Such a description will reflect the main dynamic characteristics of such a process and will be sufficient for the synthesis and development of an optimal regulation system with the aim of achieving stable (stable) processes in such systems (including DU and MS). In the future, we will approach the DU as a non-linear hierarchical system (NHS) and depict the NIS as a multidimensional continuous system, in which the state of nature is the regulated quantity, and the input is the action of managers in the DU and MS (management decisions made by them - PUR) regarding regulation , coordination and perturbations acting on the system.

A Capacity‐Based Approach for Assessing Changes in Responsibility Sharing in the EU: Comparing the Syrian and Ukrainian Refugee Crises

AbstractThis study explores whether the European Union's (EU's) response to the large‐scale refugee displacement from Ukraine in 2022 has led to a more equitable sharing of responsibilities amongst member states with regard to the Syrian refugee crisis. To do so, responsibility sharing is assessed by comparing actual and capacity‐based refugee shares for each country, drawing the definition of the latter from an improved version of the European Commission's distribution key. Our analysis reveals that whilst disparities in actual refugee shares between countries are somewhat smaller in the current emergency humanitarian situation compared with the Syrian crisis, such disparities almost double when countries' reception capacities are incorporated as a benchmark. Thus, the study reveals a kind of paradox: greater disparities in responsibility sharing in a context of high solidarity amongst countries for the reception of refugees.

Truth Meets Vagueness. Unifying the Semantic and the Soritical Paradoxes

Semantic and soritical paradoxes display remarkable family resemblances. For one thing, several non-classical logics have been independently applied to both kinds of paradoxes. For another, revenge paradoxes and higher-order vagueness—among the most serious problems targeting solutions to semantic and soritical paradoxes—exhibit a rather similar dynamics. Some authors have taken these facts to suggest that truth and vagueness require a unified logical framework, or perhaps that the truth predicate is itself vague. However, a common core of semantic and soritical paradoxes has not been identified yet, and no explanation of their relationships has been provided. Here we aim at filling this lacuna, in the framework of many-valued logics. We provide a unified diagnosis of semantic and soritical paradoxes, identifying their source in a general form of indiscernibility. We then develop our diagnosis into a theory of paradoxicality, which formalizes both semantic and soritical paradoxes as arguments involving specific instances of our generalized indiscernibility principle, and correctly predicts which logics can non-trivially solve them.

Capital's absorption of anti-capitalist discourse in a consumer society

The article is devoted to the ability of capital to neutralize the anti-capitalist and anti-consumer discourse. The following kind of paradox is observed: advertising manipulates, at the same time seeks to appeal to spiritual intentions, standardizes and at the same time offers to emphasize individuality. What was once recognized as standing in opposition to the values of consumption is turning not just into a weak ideological barrier to the spread of consumer culture, but, on the contrary, into a rich material for commerce and advertising discourse. The article analyzes the absorption that touched the image of Che Guevara and anti-capitalist youth subcultures. Commercialization covers clothing paraphernalia of protest communities. Even anti-advertising discourse is captured by consumer networks and commodified. There is a phenomenon of capitalization of protest against capitalism, consumerization of rebellion against consumerism. Scientific rationality, being integrated by capital, rises to the service of commerce and finds new methods of irrational manipulation of consciousness and absorption of protest discourse.

Artificial Forms of Life

The logical problem of artificial intelligence—the question of whether the notion sometimes referred to as ‘strong’ AI is self-contradictory—is, essentially, the question of whether an artificial form of life is possible. This question has an immediately paradoxical character, which can be made explicit if we recast it (in terms that would ordinarily seem to be implied by it) as the question of whether an unnatural form of nature is possible. The present paper seeks to explain this paradoxical kind of possibility by arguing that machines can share the human form of life and thus acquire human mindedness, which is to say they can be intelligent, conscious, sentient, etc. in precisely the way that a human being typically is.

University Research Centres, Scientific Freedom, and the Jester’s Paradox

AbstractThe key norm of good science is research integrity, which includes the freedom to inquire as an independent, self-organising system, and the responsibility to identify, frame, and engage in the problems of society, in a scientific manner. This paper investigates the challenges to scientific integrity experienced by university research centres. Research centres are organised around specific problematic fields in society and are expected to have specific societal impacts. Therefore, they are born with the paradox of being restricted in terms of scientific freedom yet required to meet science standards. As an example, we analyse the Danish Centre for Rural Research (CLF) which, like many other institutions of science and research centres, has become increasingly dependent on various external funding over the past decades. In social systems theoretical terms, research centres are hybrid organisations that operate simultaneously in the function systems of science, politics, and economy. The question is whether it is possible for research centres to uphold the requisite research integrity to provide society with truthful and critical knowledge – i.e. to uphold the necessary autopoiesis of the science function system, operating in the medium of truth – and at the same time be able to navigate in the structures of power that the centre is faced with, in terms of funding, outside control, and expectations of expectations. The medieval court jester, who was able to speak unwelcome truths to the all-mighty king without getting his head cut off, was a solution to this kind of paradox. The question is how we can handle this paradox in contemporary sciences, increasingly depending on external funding.

Tautomerization ensures quality clicks

Chemists looking to develop new techniques in bioorthogonal chemistry can encounter a kind of paradox. Stable, biocompatible molecules are required for use in living tissues. But the reactants must also work swiftly and selectively when called upon—for example, to release a cancer drug in a tumor or attach an imaging label to a target protein. Some previous studies have looked to molecules that can be triggered by light or oxidation to control their reactivity, but while these strategies work well in the culture dish, they would be tricky to implement in more complex settings, such as inside a human body. Now, Qing Lin and his coworkers at the University at Buffalo describe a new strategy to strike that elusive balance between stability and reactivity using a mainstay of organic chemistry: the type of interconvertible isomers known as tautomers ( J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023, DOI: 10.1021/jacs.2c12325 ). The researchers took

L’usage du référent chrétien dans le débat public contemporain en France: Essai de typologie

The use of the Christian referent in contemporary public debate in France raises the question of the imaginary to which societies have recourse in order to construct their memory and establish their foundation. The contents of these representations and mental configurations give meaning to collective coexistence and can evolve over time, under the effect of changes in social structures, mobilization strategies carried by elites, and the demands of public opinion. The situation in contemporary France illustrates these changes. Until the 1980s, the “civil religion” produced by the governmental elites in such a way as to consolidate the political bond did not match the “common religion” lived by the populations: Christianity, at least in its Catholic form, remained outside the official mode of representation of society. The situation has changed in recent decades. By a kind of paradox, while the Church sees its social audience regressing, Christianity becomes again central in the image that France intends to give of itself. In this article, we would like to describe, in a typological way, the forms of this newfound alliance, based on public discourse over the last forty years. An immediate examination of contemporary elaborations leads us to identify three essential figures - culturalist, foundationalist, deliberative - of the articulation of politics and religion, distinct from the rationalist paradigm of the Third Republic. The developments in these pages will attempt to test this pluralist hypothesis.

Between predictability and perplexity

Abstract This article focuses on the relationship between academia, the gendered division of labor, and the pandemic. After briefly canvassing preliminary research about the effects of the pandemic on academic women, it discusses the gendered division of caregiving responsibilities, both inside the family and in academic institutions. Through the lens of feminist theory, the article aims to understand what can be perceived as a kind of paradox or contradiction: on the one hand, there is something deeply predictable about the fact that women have shouldered relatively disproportionate caregiving responsibilities during the pandemic. On the other hand, and because these gendered effects are so predictable, there is something somewhat perplexing in the lack of institutional response. This article explains what is predictable about the phenomenon as an instantiation of misogyny and the gendered division of labor—a reproduction of already existing issues. The somewhat perplexing nature of the phenomenon comes from the lack of institutional response to deeply predictable effects, but it is also related to how resilient the gendered nature of caregiving obligations has proven to be, even during the extraordinary circumstances of a pandemic. This resilience, the article suggests, might be explained by the intersection of misogyny and economic exploitation.

EFFECTS OF USING INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES ON RELATIONSHIPS WITH OTHERS AND PERSONAL WELL-BEING

Paradoxes of using technology imply phenomena where the same option of a particular technological device both improves and undermines the well-being of people. In this paper, we deal with the present-absent paradox, which is related to the freed-enslaved paradox. The phenomenon of absent presence is examined in contemporary research through two constructs: technoference and phubbing. The general model of the effects of using information and communication technology on the relationships assumes that disrupting interactions leads to conflict; conflict lowers relational well-being, also lowering personal well-being. At the same time, the person becomes attached to the device, usually the telephone, and is “enslaved.” Specific models are also offered as part of the phubbing test. The paper also summarizes the results of empirical research on the two phenomena to illustrate specific, confirmed effects the use of ICT devices has on the relationship with others and personal wellbeing. Conscious use of technology could significantly reduce the repercussions, but this also seems a kind of paradox.

THE PARADOX OF KUBROSISWO'S ART IDENTITY: BETWEEN ISLAM AND JAVANESENESS

This study was motivated by intellectual anxiety about the study of the art of Kubrosiswo. So far, most of the existing studies have focused on the discourse of Islamic identity attached to this art. This study intends to look at the arts in terms of two sides of identity, namely Islamic and Javanese. The method used in this study is a qualitative research method with steps that include: data collection, data validation, analysis, and synthesis. The results of this study show that the art of Kubrosiswo since its birth has brought religious sentiments, in the form of anti-communism. This articulation is manifested in his extra-aesthetic identity which contains elements of Islamic culture, especially from the songs used. Even so, there is another side to this art, especially those that show Javanese characteristics, such as the use of offerings and the presence of a trance session from each performance. This to some extent becomes a kind of paradox of identity for this art.

O nieprzydatności testu Ástráðsson wobec prezydenckiej prerogatywy – glosa do wyroku Naczelnego Sądu Administracyjnego z dnia 4 listopada 2021 r. (III FSK 3626/21)

On the Inappropriateness of the Ástráðsson Test against the Presidential Prerogative: A Gloss to the Judgment of the Supreme Administrative Court of November 4, 2021 (III FSK 3626/21) The Supreme Administrative Court in the commented judgment unfortunately made an unsuccessful attempt to carry out the Ástráðsson test with regard to a person appointed by the President at the request of a politically subordinate (in violation of the Constitution) National Council of the Judiciary. Failure to do so is a kind of paradox of the commented judgment. A significant part of it relates to supranational and international law. „Europeanness” is ubiquitous in the judgment and was additionally included in its thesis. According to its content, assessors and judges are European judges. However, this otherwise catchy statement is not confirmed by the application of the judgment of the ECtHR to the assessment of an judge. On the constitutional level, the judgment also deserves criticism. The court considered it justified to refer to the judicature of the Supreme Administrative Court, the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Tribunal, referring to some extent to the presidential prerogative of appointing judges at the request of the National Council of the Judiciary, in order to reach a conclusion about the almost „magically healing” effect of the presidential act of appointment to the office of judge. The NSA also did not comment on the total deprivation of any real influence of the judiciary on the nomination procedure. Therefore, one should ask what is the balancing of the legislative and executive powers with the judiciary power absent from the National Council of the Judiciary?

Précis of Uncut

Uncut is a book about two kinds of paradoxes: paradoxes involving truth and its relatives, like the liar paradox, and paradoxes involving vagueness. There are lots of ways to look at these paradoxes, and lots of puzzles generated by them, and Uncut ignores most of this variety to focus on a single issue. That issue: do our words mean what they seem to mean, and if so, how can this be? I claim that our words do mean what they seem to, and yet our language is not undermined by paradox. By developing a distinctive theory of meaning, I show how this can be.

KURT GÖDEL ON LOGICAL, THEOLOGICAL, AND PHYSICAL ANTINOMIES

AbstractThis paper presents hitherto unpublished writings of Kurt Gödel concerning logical, epistemological, theological, and physical antinomies, which he generally considered as “the most interesting facts in modern logic,” and which he used as a basis for his famous metamathematical results. After investigating different perspectives on the notion of the logical structure of the antinomies and presenting two “antinomies of the intensional,” a new kind of paradox closely related to Gödel’s ontological proof for the existence of God is introduced and completed by a compilation of further theological antinomies. Finally, after a presentation of unpublished general philosophical remarks concerning the antinomies, Gödel’s type-theoretic variant of Leibniz’Monadology, discovered in his notes on the foundations of quantum mechanics, is examined. Most of the material presented here has been transcribed from the Gabelsberger shorthand system for the first time.

How to reconcile team innovation paradox? An explorative study from the perspectives of members’ cognitive style “composition” and “configuration”

<p id="C3">In recent years, “How to improve team innovative performance?” is a popular topic in both management practice and academia fields. Because innovation is an ambidextrous activity including both “exploration” and “exploitation”, understanding how to balance the paradoxical relationship between them is crucial to improve team innovative performance. Based on a micro-perspective of team members’ cognitive styles, “compositional approach” and “configurational approach” were adopted to explore how to reconcile this kind of paradox. Specifically, (1) the complementary effects between members’ cognitive composition and team leader behaviors will contribute to the reconciliation of team innovation paradox; (2) an appropriate “members’ cognitive styles-work role requirements” configuration incorporated with a high level of team coordination climate will be useful to reconcile team innovation paradox. Further, based on the ideology of yin-yang philosophy, the mechanism embedded in the process of reconciling team innovation paradox was also studied. To justify the relevant theoretical propositions, three sub-projects will be conducted to examine the proposed research model with both quantitative and qualitative methods. The findings will not only enrich two streams of literature regarding exploration of the antecedents of team innovation and the approaches to management paradox from a micro perspective, but also provide suggestions on the innovation management practices of companies.

Paradoxes of freedom. An archaeological analysis of educational online platform interfaces

ABSTRACT Many schools and students across the globe are now engaging with educational digital platforms in their teaching and learning experience. Platforms are changing what education is and how it is experienced. In response, educational research has devoted increasing attention to the so-called platformisation of education. This article contributes to this focus of attention, proposing a conceptual framework for the analysis of the configuration of platforms and the kinds of learning experience and learners they create the conditions of possibility for. Using Foucauldian archaeological methods, we present an analytics that focuses on three interrelated axes, the spatial, temporal and ethical configurations of educational platforms. We identify some theoretical tools for the analysis of the educational experience that platforms make possible, thinkable and desirable. We show how digital platforms produce a paradoxical kind of digital learner, whose autonomy and freedom to choose, connect, produce, accumulate, perform and enact is configured within an epistemological space demarcated by the tensions between modularisation and hypertextuality, linearity and co-existence, performance and character/potential. Reflecting on this, we consider the working of a careful, unrelenting, and empirically vigilant digital gaze, which secures a very specific educational experience.