Egg or sperm? The mechanism of sexual fate decision in germ cells has been a long‐standing issue in biology. A recent analysis identified foxl3 as a gene that determines the sexual fate decision of germ cells in the teleost fish, medaka. foxl3/Foxl3 acts in female germline stem cells to repress commitment into male fate (spermatogenesis), indicating that the presence of mitotic germ cells in the female is critical for continuous sexual fate decision of germ cells in medaka gonads. Interestingly, foxl3 (...) is found in most vertebrate genomes except for mammals. This provides the interesting possibility that the sexual fate of germ cells in mammals is determined in a different way compared to foxl3‐possessing vertebrates. Considering the fact that germline stem cells are the cells where foxl3 begins to express and sexual fate decision initiates and mammalian ovary does not have typical germline stem cells, the mechanism in mammals may have been co‐evolved with germline stem cell loss in mammalian ovary. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is increasingly integrated into medical decision-making, often framed as a supportive tool that enhances accuracy while leaving final judgment to clinicians. This paper argues that such framing obscures a deeper structural shift: medical action may proceed without any judgment ever occurring. AI systems do not judge; they generate outputs through statistical transduction. Clinicians, under institutional and legal pressures, may relay these outputs without regenerating them as their own reasons. When neither AI nor clinician generates judgment, decisions are enacted (...) without a judging subject. While judgment without a judging subject may be sustainable elsewhere, medicine renders this absence unsustainable. Medical practice is characterized by irreversibility, case-specificity, meaning-demand, and relational accountability—features that presuppose judgment as a human act. Even clinically correct outcomes do not guarantee that patients will recognize a decision as right for them. When judgment disappears, informed consent persists only as a procedural ritual, simulating understanding without grounding it. To make this absence explicit, the paper introduces Metaqualia Theory (MTQ), distinguishing patient experience (Q), technical transduction (T), and judgment as meaning-generating endorsement (M). This leads to a prior ethical question: Is there an M here? This question precedes concerns about explainability and helps clarify the conditions under which consent and responsibility remain meaningful. The analysis suggests that when AI outputs are not regenerated as human judgment, their role in medical practice raises structural limits that cannot be addressed by transparency alone. (shrink)

precise introduction to Advaita Vedanta, on the basis of something more.

Buddhist philosophers have investigated the techniques and methodologies of debate and argumentation which are important aspects of Buddhist intellectual life. This was particularly the case in India, where Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy originated. But these investigations have also engaged philosophers in China, Japan, Korea and Tibet, and many other parts of the world that have been influenced by Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy. Several elements of the Buddhist tradition of philosophy are thought to be part of this investigation. -/- There are (...) interesting reasoning patterns discernible in the writings of Buddhist philosophers. For instance, the Mādhyamika philosopher Nāgārjuna presents arguments for the emptiness of all things in terms of catuṣkoṭi (four ‘corners’: roughly speaking, truth, false, both, neither). There are also the Indian vāda (debate) literature and Tibetan bsdus grwa (collected topics) that list techniques of debates. -/- The main interest here is the tradition of Buddhist philosophy, sometimes referred to as Pramāṇavāda, whose central figures are Dignāga (approx. 480–540 CE) and Dharmakīrti (6th– 7th CE). This philosophy is understood to be the Buddhist school of logic-epistemology. ‘Pramāṇavāda’ is not a doxographical term traditionally used to refer to a recognised school of Buddhist philosophy. It is a conventional term that is sometimes used in modern literature. Nevertheless, in what follows, we think of it as a tradition within Buddhist philosophy and ‘Buddhist logic’ refers to what is developed in this tradition. -/- Buddhist logicians have systematically analysed the kind of reasoning involved in acquiring knowledge. They hold that there are valid ways to reason that are productive of knowledge. In what follows, some of the main elements of their analyses will be described. Note, however, that, while exegetical studies of Buddhist texts are important, we must step back from them and consider what is involved in taking a Buddhist approach to logic in light of modern formal logic. This analysis will be done against the backdrop of the contemporary literature on logic and related subjects in contemporary philosophy to make sense of the logical studies by Buddhist logicians. (shrink)

Human societies are characterized by pervasive practices of accumulation: People accumulate wealth, status, credentials, moral merit, experiences, reputations and even forms of absence such as simplicity or purity. While sociology has extensively analysed capital, institutions and value, it has lacked a unified theoretical account of why accumulation itself so consistently generates meaning across domains. This article introduces Accumuland Theory, a structural model of value formation that explains how accumulation organizes motivation, identity and social order. An accumuland is defined as any (...) entity designated as a target of increase or preservation such that actions and experiences are evaluated in relation to its trajectory over time. The central claim is that accumulation is not merely domain-specific behaviour but a general mechanism of meaning-making: Dispersed actions acquire significance when they are interpreted as contributing to the continuity, growth or protection of an accumuland. This explains why heterogeneous objects—money, credentials, religious merit, social metrics or symbolic absence—can function as comparable anchors of value. The article further conceptualizes institutions as macro-level regulators that define legitimate accumulands, specify accumulation practices and project future horizons. From this perspective, phenomena such as hoarding, credential inflation, compulsive achievement, moral scrupulosity and digital metric dependence are understood as structural imbalances of accumulation rather than domain-specific pathologies. By reframing accumulation as a core architecture of meaning-making, Accumuland Theory provides a unified framework for analysing value, commitment and institutional power in modern societies. (shrink)

When People were falsely accused, and yet there existed no human means to testify to the truth, to whom did they resort for the final judgment? In ancient India, it was a sort of ordeal ( divya ), which was inseparable from oath ( śapatha ) and act of truth ( satya-kriyā ). Here we present some examples and investigate who appear in these contexts. As a result, we could classify them into (1) mahā−bhuūta (fire, wind, water, etc.), (2) heavenly (...) bodies (sun moon, etc.), (3) inner principles (heart, soul, etc.) and (4) gods (Agni, Vāyu, Indra, Yama, etc.). All these witnesses observe ( paś -) the act of a human being, right as well as wrong, either transcendently from above like the sun, or immanently from inside like wind which circulates human body in the form of vital breath. (shrink)

Over the last few years, I have attended several political meetings concerned with the refugee crisis, multiculturalism or Indigenous rights in Australia, meetings at which liberal democratic–minded ‘left-wing’ people came together to discuss, or agitate for change in, governmental policies. At these meetings, I always found it difficult to accept the slogans on their placards and in their speeches: ‘Shame Australia! Reconciliation for a united Australia’, ‘Wake up Australia! We welcome refugees!’ or ‘True Australians are tolerant! Let’s celebrate multicultural Australia!’ (...) My uncomfortable feeling came not only from the fact that I was left out because of my Japanese nationality but also because I had never seen or heard words like ‘shame Japan’, ‘wake up Japan’ or ‘true Japanese are...’ at Japanese ‘left-wing’ political gatherings. In Japan, these are words used only by right-wing nationalists. Indeed it is difficult to even imagine liberal-left intellectuals in postwar Japan calling for a ‘true Japanese’ political response, such is the extent to which the idea of ‘good nationalism’ is now regarded as an oxymoron. This is my starting point for an essay in which I want to be attentive to the different roles played by national in the Japanese and Australian political environments. (shrink)

A new field of gene expression regulation research is emerging that has previously been overlooked. This new area is concerned with distinguishing the expression of a single gene from the averaged expression of many gene copies within the cell population. This paper reviews research focused on individual genes in inducible gene expression systems. The main experimental strategy is to measure the gene expression level of a single cell containing a single reporter gene molecule. In contrast to the commonly held belief, (...) gene induction is found to be stochastic under certain conditions. The possible mechanisms and implications are discussed. (shrink)