Tackling the Existential Threats from Quantum Computers and AI

Although AI and quantum computing (QC) are fast emerging as key enablers of the future Internet, experts believe they pose an existential threat to humanity. Responding to the frenzied release of ChatGPT/GPT-4, thousands of alarmed tech leaders recently signed an open letter to pause AI research to prepare for the catastrophic threats to humanity from uncontrolled AGI (Artificial General Intelligence). Perceived as an “epistemological nightmare”, AGI is believed to be on the anvil with GPT-5. Two computing rules appear responsible for these risks. 1) Mandatory third-party permissions that allow computers to run applications at the expense of introducing vulnerabilities. 2) The Halting Problem of Turing-complete AI programming languages potentially renders AGI unstoppable. The double whammy of these inherent weaknesses remains invincible under the legacy systems. A recent cybersecurity breakthrough shows that banning all permissions reduces the computer attack surface to zero, delivering a new zero vulnerability computing (ZVC) paradigm. Deploying ZVC and blockchain, this paper formulates and supports a hypothesis: “Safe, secure, ethical, controllable AGI/QC is possible by conquering the two unassailable rules of computability.” Pursued by a European consortium, testing/proving the proposed hypothesis will have a groundbreaking impact on the future digital infrastructure when AGI/QC starts powering the 75 billion internet devices by 2025.

What is Beneath The Surface——Analysis of Hemingway's 'A Clean,Well-lighted Place'

This thesis is to analyze Hemingway's 'A Clean,Well-lighted Place'-a story to which the author applies his famous 'iceberg theory'.Hemingway relates his stories to an iceberg with only one-eighth actually showing and the other seven-eighths under water.This thesis is to show what is beneath the surface and the hidden meaning of the story.

Syntactic Study on Existential Sentences and Inspiration for the Teaching

As a special construction,existential sentences(ES) are wildly used in English.However,the Chinese,having different grammatical system,master this construction with much attention,occurring different levels of mistakes during each period of learning.In this paper,the author tries to study on ES from the syntactic perspective and provide some help for English teaching through the result of an experiment.

A Study of Characteristics and Translation of Existential Sentences in Chinese and English

The syntactic characteristics of existential sentences (ES) in Chinese and English are systematically discussed. Chinese existential sentences have three major components: A, B, and C, i.e., the locative phrase, the existential verb, and the existential noun phrase. English existential sentences consist of the expletive “there”, existential verb, existential noun or noun phrase and locative phrase. In terms of syntactic characteristics, similarities and dissimilarities coexist. When translating ES in Chinese and English, some important skills are needed, such as replacement of locative phrase, addition or deletion of “there”, adjustment of verbs, and the change of determiners before the existential noun.

Alienation and Existential Predicaments of Clones:Interpreting Never Let Me Go in the Context of Posthumanism

The literary background of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go sets in a highly developed scientific and technological world where clones are created by human and“educated”in the Hailsham School for the sake of“donating”their vital organs to human three or four times before death.By depicting miserable fate of clones,the novel conveys deep concerns on the consequences of abusing technology in modern society.Ever since the burgeoning development of life science and artificial intelligence in the 1990s,the trend of posthumanism/transhumanism has emerged.Posthumanism promotes approaches to enhancing human body condition and organism,and extending human lifespan to augment human capacity and well-being by the advancement of technology.In literary field,contemplation on the relationship between human beings and technology has become a major concern of posthumanism.Putting Never Let Me Go in the context of posthumanism,this essay probes into the significant themes of the novel from three aspects:(1)clones’torments in the existential predicaments imposed by human;(2)human’s violation to the principles of bioethics causing the existential predicaments of alienated clones;(3)appealing to human to ruminate on the relationship between scientific technology and ethics.

Negation in Amharic and Ezha:A comparative perspective

This article offers a description of negation marking in the two Ethio-Semitic languages:Amharic and Ezha.The description has been made from the perspective of synchronic comparison.The article discloses that both Amharic and Ezha make use of negative prefixes in order to reverse the truth condition of an affirmative expression.The negative morphemes employed by each of the two languages have two allomorphic variants whose alternation is grammatically conditioned.The two allomorphs of the negative marker in Amharic are al-which occurs with perfective and imperative verbs,and a-that surfaces with imperfective and jussive verbal conjugations.Similarly,the Ezha negative prefix appears as an-with perfective verbal bases,and as a-with imperfective,jussive and imperative verb forms.In both languages,the negative prefixes attach to verbs preceding person prefixes and following subordinators in negative subordinate clauses.When it comes to copular and existential verbs,as compared to prototypical verbs,negation in both languages can be expressed in two ways:in some cases,the aforementioned negative prefixes are employed;and in some other cases,completely different verb forms rendering negative readings are introduced,hence,lexical negation via suppletion.

A Cognitive Linguistic Analysis of English Existential Sentences

Due to the particularity of structure and the universality of use,English existential sentences have always been one of the topics concerned by linguists.Within the framework of cognitive linguistics,this paper uses a variety of theoretical perspectives(iconicity principle;grammaticalization;Prototype Category Theory)to make a multi-dimensional analysis of English existential sentences,including the generation,development and meaning expansion of English existential sentences.Cognitive linguistics contributes to the deepening of the study of English existential sentences,and the focus of the study shifts from the surface level to the deeper level.

High-frequency Grammatical Errors in Academic Writings by Chinese Students in International School

This research investigates four categories of high-frequency grammatical errors from 45 students’academic writings via script analysis.A group of 36 students responded to a questionnaire focusing on their beliefs regarding these grammatical constructions.The participants are enrolled in an international school in Suzhou City.A total of 646 sentences were analyzed,among which295(45.7%)are inaccurate.Of the 364 errors found,most of them(64.0%)fall into the category of Subject-verb agreement,followed by subordinate clauses(28.6%);errors in English existential construction and the passive voice are a few.Also,the usage rate of subordinate clause is 42.7%,of which a large proportion was incorrect.

The Transformational Model of Authenticity Towards The Global Hermeneutic Circle of Being and Time

This paper focuses on the question concerning the order of priority between authenticity and inauthenticity in Heidegger’sBeing and Time.Heidegger’s own words suggest sometimes that authenticity precedes inauthenticity,sometimes the opposite.This has given rise to a dispute,not only about exegesis,but also about the normative implication of the book.Engaging with interpreters like Dreyfus,Zimmerman,Stambaugh,andGuignon,I argue that it is problematic to assume a distinct mode of“undifferentiatedness”apart from the modes of authenticity and inauthenticity,for the model neither finds textual support nor is systematically tenable.Textual analysis shows that what Heidegger calls a“modal undifferentiatedness”does not itself constitute a distinct undifferentiated mode.Systematic examination shows that the assumption of a distinct mode of undifferentiatedness would oblige the interpreter to assume a“seed”of inauthenticity in this undifferentiatedness,which,once taken seriously,would make superfluous the distinction between undifferentiatedness and inauthent-icity.Moreover,this interpretation leaves incomprehensible how one begins to pursue authenticity.I suggest,instead,a“transformational model”of authenticity,for which philosophical understanding entails a transformation of one’s way of living.To make sense of Heidegger’s seemingly contradictory claims,I distinguish between the existential and the existentiell level of discourse.Authenticity is prior to inauthenticity at the existential level(of understanding),while inauthenticity is prior to authenticity at the existentiell level(of factical existence).I demonstrate that,thanks to a dialogue between these two levels,a global hermeneutic circle is at work in the overall project ofBeing and Time,where authentic living feeds into authentic understanding and vice versa.This makes the tension between authenticity and inauthenticity productive rather than aporetic;it also gives an idea of how the book would‘work’,in an intertwinement of two levels,for a reader as a Dasein.

Attribute-Based Signature with Policy-and-Endorsement Mechanism

In this paper a new signature scheme,called Policy-Endorsing Attribute-Based Signature,is developed to correspond with the existing Ciphertext-Policy Attribute-Based Encryption.This signature provides a policy-and-endorsement mechanism.In this mechanism a single user,whose attributes satisfy the predicate,endorses the message.This signature allows the signer to announce his endorsement using an access policy without having to reveal the identity of the signer.The security of this signature,selfless anonymity and existential unforgeability,is based on the Strong Diffie-Hellman assumption and the Decision Linear assumption in bilinear map groups.

How to signcrypt a message to designated group

In an open network environment, the protection of group communication is a crucial problem. In this article, a novel broadcast group-oriented signcryption scheme is presented for group communication scenarios in distributed networks, Anyone in this scheme can signcrypt a message and distribute it to a designated group, and any member in the receiving group can unsigncrypt the ciphertext. The ciphertext and public key in the scheme are of constant size. In addition, this new scheme offers public verification of the ciphertext. This property is very important to the large-scale group communication since the gateway can filter the incorrect ciphertext and alleviate the receiver＇s workload. Finally, a proof in the random oracle model is given to show that the scheme is secure against chosen ciphertext attack and existential forgery.

The Love-Suicide Mystique of Naxi： Experiential Tourism and Existential Authenticity

Love-suicide （xunqing 殉情） is often hailed as a representative component of the Naxi culture. This article examines how representations of love-suicide have transformed from an obscure social taboo to an invaluable Naxi tradition in the last two decades. While Han and Naxi cultural elites aestheticize love-suicide as a cultural symbol of moral sublimity, tourists further transform the discourse into a simultaneously spiritual and erotic experience in which they seek and create their own existential authenticity. The apparent revival is not simply a result of Naxi political resistance to the external regime or a natural return to their ＂authentic＂ culture. It rather marks another tide of radical transformation in a multi-agent and highly commercialized global world within which both minority cultures and tourists＇ identities are transformed.

Forgeability of Wang-Zhu-Feng-Yau’s Attribute-Based Signature with Policy-and-Endorsement Mechanism

Recently, Wang et al. presented a new construction of attribute-based signature with policy-and-endorsement mechanism. The existential unforgeability of their scheme was claimed to be based on the strong Diffie-Hellman assumption in the random oracle model. Unfortunately, by carefully revisiting the design and security proof of Wang et alfs scheme, we show that their scheme cannot provide unforgeability, namely, a forger, whose attributes do not satisfy a given signing predicate, can also generate valid signatures. We also point out the flaws in Wang et al.＇s proof.

Articulating Consciousness:Brentano and Husserl on Descriptive Analysis

The paper aims at reconstructing the conception of descriptive analysis shared by Brentano and the early Husserl.According to this shared conception,the descriptive analysis consists in the articulation of the multi-layered part-whole structure of consciousness.Focusing on the problem of intentional reference,the paper shows how they make different distinctions among parts of consciousness to carry out the descriptive analyses thus defined.Further,it shows how such a difference is closely connected to the two philosophers'views on the nature of intentional reference.

Chinese Religiosity and Chinese Science of Nature

Fung Yu-lan has suggested that Chinese philosophers have been unreceptive to modern science. This suggestion, however, has not been substantiated. This essay is an attempt to provide a justification of Fung＇s assertion through an existential analysis of the Chinese concepts of nature. The essay will examine Chinese existential concerns prevailing in Daoism and Confucianism, and these systems＇ distaste for the type of scientific study which has become prevalent in the modern world. I also intend to defend the claim that the ultimate concern of the Zhuangzi and the Zhongyong is completely contrary to the one that sustains modern science. A brief comparative discussion between Xu Guangqi and Galileo Galilei will be used to support this claim. My discussion will raise the contention that, to have a better understanding of the development of modern science in China, we have to understand the attitude toward religion that has underpinned modern science.