What Makes Time Special?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Callender
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Relativity Theory ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Natural Reaction ◽  
Physical Time ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Behavior

As we navigate through life, we model time as flowing, the present as special, and the past as “dead.” This model of time—manifest time—develops in childhood and later thoroughly infiltrates our language, thought, and behavior. It is part of what makes a human life recognizably human. Yet if physics is correct, this model of the world is deeply mistaken. This book is about this conflict between manifest and physical time. The first half dives into the physics and philosophy to establish the conflict’s existence; but it also argues that the claim that physics “spatializes” time is overstated. Rather, even relativity theory makes time special in deep and significant ways. The second half turns to psychology, biology, and more, seeking to understand why creatures like us develop manifest time. The novel picture that results is that manifest time is a natural reaction to the many cognitive and evolutionary challenges that we face. For subjects embedded in our circumstances, it makes sense to develop—even if fundamentally wrong.

scholarly journals On Philosophical Themes in Marcel Proust’s Works

2018 ◽  
pp. 78-95
Author(s):  
I. I. Blauberg
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Philosophical Psychology ◽  
Optical Instrument ◽  
The Past ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
The World ◽  
Lost Time

Marcel Proust’s works contain a lot of ideas consonant with the ideas that were actively discussed by philosophers of his time. Many philosophers focused on the issues of perception, memory, will, freedom, personal identity, etc., which constituted an important part of academic curriculum. Proust familiarized himself with the issues studying philosophy at the Lyceum (he was taught by Alphonse Darlu) and at the Sorbonne. In his novel In Search of Lost Time, Proust describes an existential experience of his character viewing these issues from a particular perspective, through the prism of the main character’s lifelong search of his calling. He gradually proceeds from philosophical psychology exploring the interaction of memories and impressions in a particular perception, to philosophy proper, to metaphysics aimed at understanding the truth, at going beyond time. The article traces some moments of this transition, shows that for Proust it is not just the work of memory that is important but the emphasis on those states of consciousness where the present and the past coincide, merge, and thereby we go beyond time, to eternity. The author analyzes some images and signs that accompanied the character of the novel on the way to the realization of his calling. Particular attention is paid to the Proustian interpretation of the role of art in changing and enriching the perception of the world, as well as the importance in human life of a habit in which positive and negative aspects are highlighted. Proust himself believed that a work of art is an optical instrument through which the readers begin to discern in themselves what they would otherwise fail to see. His own novel was such an instrument.

Camus's Absurd and the World of Melville's Confidence-Man

PMLA ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-27
Author(s):  
Leon F. Seltzer
Keyword(s):  
Careful Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Novel ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
Critical Attention ◽  
Confidence Man ◽  
Ugly Duckling ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In recent years, The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, a difficult work and for long an unjustly neglected one, has begun to command increasingly greater critical attention and esteem. As more than one contemporary writer has noted, the verdict of the late Richard Chase in 1949, that the novel represents Melville's “second best achievement,” has served to prompt many to undertake a second reading (or at least a first) of the book. Before this time, the novel had traditionally been the one Melville readers have shied away from—as overly discursive, too rambling altogether, on the one hand, or as an unfortunate outgrowth of the author's morbidity on the other. Elizabeth Foster, in the admirably comprehensive introduction to her valuable edition of The Confidence-Man (1954), systematically traces the history of the book's reputation and observes that even with the Melville renaissance of the twenties, the work stands as the last piece of the author's fiction to be redeemed. Only lately, she comments, has it ceased to be regarded as “the ugly duckling” of Melville's creations. But recognition does not imply agreement, and it should not be thought that in the past fifteen years critics have reached any sort of unanimity on the novel's content. Since Mr. Chase's study, which approached the puzzling work as a satire on the American spirit—or, more specifically, as an attack on the liberalism of the day—and which speculated upon the novel's controlling folk and mythic figures, other critics, by now ready to assume that the book repaid careful analysis, have read the work in a variety of ways. It has been treated, among other things, as a religious allegory, as a philosophic satire on optimism, and as a Shandian comedy. One critic has conveniently summarized the prevailing situation by remarking that “the literary, philosophical, and cultural materials in this book are fused in so enigmatic a fashion that its interpreters have differed as to what the book is really about.”

When the Absence of Reasoning Breeds Meaning

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carey K. Morewedge ◽  
Daniella M. Kupor
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
External Source ◽  
Judgment And Decision Making ◽  
Dream Interpretation ◽  
The Self ◽  
The World ◽  
Religious Thoughts ◽  
The Many ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Insight Into

Intuitions, attitudes, images, mind-wandering, dreams, and religious messages are just a few of the many kinds of uncontrolled thoughts that intrude on consciousness spontaneously without a clear reason. Logic suggests that people might thus interpret spontaneous thoughts as meaningless and be uninfluenced by them. By contrast, our survey of this literature indicates that the lack of an obvious external source or motive leads people to attribute considerable meaning and importance to spontaneous thoughts. Spontaneous thoughts are perceived to provide meaningful insight into the self, others, and the world. As a result of these metacognitive appraisals, spontaneous thoughts substantially affect the beliefs, attitudes, decisions, and behavior of the thinker. We present illustrative examples of the metacognitive appraisals by which people attribute meaning to spontaneous secular and religious thoughts, and the influence of these thoughts on judgment and decision-making, attitude formation and change, dream interpretation, and prayer discernment.

L’Antartide è veramente un "awful place"? I caratteri ambientali del continente più freddo della Terra

2012 ◽  
pp. 29-46
Author(s):  
Claudio Smiraglia
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Population ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
South Pole ◽  
The Past ◽  
Unique Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Harsh Climate ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Antarctic

The Antarctic continent is certainly made an "awful" place by its harsh climate: in the past, explorers and researchers endured terrible hardships and the climate remains a challenge today, in spite of the many improvements in knowledge and technology. The Antarctic may be termed "the continent of the extremes", as it occupies an area unlike any other on earth. It is the farthest and most inaccessible and isolated continent; the most regular because of its rounded shape, with the South Pole at the centre; the coldest continent, with temperatures falling to -90°C; the driest (with an average of 130 mm of precipitation); the windiest, the highest, the most glacialized (it contains 91% of the volume of the earth’s ice). It also displays the most monotonous landscapes and presents the greatest contrast between marine and terrestrial ecosystems. But the Antarctic is also "extreme" because it is the least populated continent, with no indigenous population at all, while its few settlements (consisting in scientific bases) are concentrated on the coast; it is the only place that does not belong to one nation, but to all the world; it is the place where unique information on the past, present and future of humankind is revealed.

The Sphere of the Human

2019 ◽  
pp. 267-322
Author(s):  
Helmuth Plessner ◽  
J. M. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Human Activity ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Psychological Experience ◽  
The World ◽  
Forms Of Life ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Way

“Centric positionality” is a form of organism-environment relation exhibited by animal forms of life. Human life is characterized not only by centric but also by excentric positionality—that is, the ability to take a position beyond the boundary of one’s own body. Excentric positionality is manifest in: the inner, psychological experience of human beings; the outer, physical being of their bodies and behavior; and the shared, intersubjective world that includes other human beings and is the basis of culture. In each of these three worlds, there is a duality symptomatic of excentric positionality. Three laws characterize excentric positionality: natural artificiality, or the natural need of humans for artificial supplements; mediated immediacy, or the way that contact with the world in human activity, experience, and expression is both transcendent and immanent, both putting humans directly in touch with things and keeping them at a distance; and the utopian standpoint, according to which humans can always take a critical or “negative” position regarding the contents of their experience or their life.

How is Technology Changing Talent Management?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Gavan O'Shea ◽  
Kerrin E. Puente
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Talent Management ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Technological Advances ◽  
The World ◽  
Research Findings ◽  
The Many

Technological advances have touched nearly every aspect of human life in recent decades, including the world of work. This chapter provides an overview of how these advances have specifically affected talent management. Organized around the primary elements of the talent-management lifecycle (identifying talent, acquiring talent, developing talent, and evaluating talent), each section provides a summary of current research findings and practice trends, examples illustrating those trends, and questions to guide future research. Several themes cut across these sections, including (1) the potential for technology to help individuals to identify, grow, and manage their talent in a more proactive ways, (2) the increasing use of engaging simulations for recruitment, selection, and developmental purposes, and (3) the need for systematic research to investigate the many intriguing questions raised by technology’s dramatic influence throughout the talent-management field.

Preserving the world for Christ

2008 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Harvey
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Conceptual Basis ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
City Of God ◽  
Common Life ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World

AbstractThe practices, habits and convictions that once allowed the inhabitants of Christendom to determine what they could reasonably do and say together to foster a just and equitable common life have slowly been displaced over the past few centuries by new configurations which have sought to maintain an inherited faith in an underlying purpose to human life while disassociating themselves from the God who had been the beginning and end of that faith. In the end, however, these new configurations are incapable of sustained deliberations about the basic conditions of our humanity. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theology provides important clues into what it takes to make and keep human life human in such a world. The first part of this essay examines Bonhoeffer's conception of the last things, the things before the last, and what binds them together. He argues that the things before the last do not possess a separate, autonomous existence, and that the positing of such a breach has had disastrous effects on human beings and the world they inhabit. The second part looks at Bonhoeffer's account of the divine mandates as the conceptual basis for coping with a world that has taken leave of God. Though this account of the mandates has much to commend it, it is hindered by problematic habits of interpretation that leave it vacillating between incommensurable positions. Bonhoeffer's incomplete insights are thus subsumed within Augustine's understanding of the two orders of human society set forth in City of God.

Four Hundred Years of Freemasonry in Scotland

2011 ◽  
Vol 90 (2) ◽  
pp. 280-295 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Social Status ◽  
High Status ◽  
Negative Stereotypes ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Many

Scotland has the oldest masonic lodges and the oldest masonic records in the world, predating their English counterparts by over a century. Yet freemasonry is usually neglected by social and cultural historians, partly, it may be, through ignorance and negative stereotypes of the movement and partly through the excessive secrecy of freemasons in the past. It is the purpose of this paper to survey the movement's development and indicate the many aspects of ‘the Craft’ that could prove rich subjects for research. Scottish lodges began as organisations of stonemasons but, at first slowly, began to admit men from other crafts and men of higher social status. This process accelerated fast after the foundation of a Grand Lodge in London in 1717: freemasonry became fashionable. But though many lodges came to be dominated by men of high status, many others remained – and remain – skilled working class in membership.

Dogs

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Domestic Dogs ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Human Interactions ◽  
The Past ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Relationship

The relationship between humans and dogs has garnered considerable attention within archaeological research around the world. Investigations into the lived experiences of domestic dogs have proven to be an intellectually productive avenue for better understanding humanity in the past. This book examines the human-canine connection by moving beyond asking when, why, or how the dog was domesticated. While these questions are fundamental, beyond them lies a rich and textured history of humans maintaining a bond with another species through cooperation and companionship over thousands of years. Diverse techniques and theoretical approaches are used by authors in this volume to investigate the many ways dogs were conceptualized by their human counterparts in terms of both their value and social standing within a variety of human cultures across space and time. In this way, this book contributes a better understanding of the human-canine bond while also participating in broader anthropological discussions about how human interactions with domesticated animals shape their practices and worldviews.

Formation of the Institute of Human Rights in Russia: Historical Aspects and Modernity

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 153
Author(s):  
Viktor Yu. MELNIKOV ◽  
Yuri A. KOLESNIKOV ◽  
Alla V. KISELEVA ◽  
Bika B. DZHAMALOVA ◽  
Aleksandra I. NOVITSKAYA
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Human Potential ◽  
Historical Aspects ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of

Without understanding the past can be neither a viable present and no decent future. The appeal of the nation to its history – this is not an attempt to escape from the present and uncertainty about the future. This understanding of who we are, where we came from. Based on our experience, we can confidently move forward. Not happen in the Russian revolution, which way went the history of the world? Can we learn from the past to prevent another disaster? The lessons of history are there – they just need to be able to retrieve. The main lesson we can learn from what happened in 1917 – the need to value human life. Russia of the late XIX – early XX century was an incredible human potential.

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