The Point of View of the Universe: Sidgwick and Contemporary Ethics

My choice of Kraepelin as a point of departure for this lecture has definite reasons. If one wants to stay within the field of clinical psychiatry (as opposed to psychiatric history), that is as far back as one can reasonably go. By this no slight is intended upon the pre-Kraepelinian psychiatrists. For our topic Henry Maudsley would indeed have been a most appropriate starting point, and by no means for reasons of courtesy. His general point of view is admirably sound as a basis for the scientific study of prognosis in psychiatry. I quote: “There is no accident in madness. Causality, not casualty, governs its appearance in the universe, and it is very far from being a good and sufficient practice simply to mark its phenomena and straightway to pass on as if they belonged not to an order but to a disorder of events that called for no explanation.” On the special problem of prognosis he shows his clinical acumen by stating that the outlook is poor when the course of illness is insidious, but this only means that these cases develop their psychoses on the basis of mental deviations which go very far back in the patient's life, so that in fact they are generally in a chronic stage at the time of their first admission to hospital. Here he actually corrects a mistake which is still quite often made. He shows his dynamic attitude when he says that prognosis is to a large extent modified by external conditions, in particular by the attitude of friends and relatives. Maudsley's dynamic reasoning was limited by the narrow framework of the degeneration hypothesis of those days. He had a sceptical attitude towards classification, which he regarded as artificial and dangerously pseudo-exact. His own classification was deliberately provisional, with very wide groups. He held that a description of various sub-forms of chronic insanity was useless, as it would mean nothing but a tiresome enumeration of unconnected details.

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PHILOSOPHY AND THE MEANING OF LIFE

Think ◽

10.1017/s1477175621000312 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (60) ◽

pp. 33-49

Author(s):

William Lyons

Keyword(s):

Human Life ◽

Meaning Of Life ◽

Point Of View ◽

Eternal Life ◽

Evolution Of The Universe ◽

Life On Earth ◽

The Universe

The author sets out to respond to the student complaint that ‘Philosophy did not answer “the big questions”’, in particular the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ The response first outlines and evaluates the most common religious answer, that human life is given a meaning by God who created us and informs us that this life is just the pilgrim way to the next eternal life in heaven. He then discusses the response that, from the point of view of post-Darwinian science and the evolution of the universe and all that is in it, human life on Earth must be afforded no more meaning than the meaning we would give to a microscopic planaria or to some creature on another planet in a distant universe. All things including human creatures on Planet Earth just exist for a time and that is that. There is no plan or purpose. In the last sections the author outlines the view that it is we humans ourselves who give meaning to our lives by our choices of values or things that are worth pursuing and through our resulting sense of achievement or the opposite. Nevertheless the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ can mean quite different things in different contexts, and so merit different if related answers. From one point of view one answer may lie in terms of the love of one human for another.

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DARK GEOMETRY

International Journal of Modern Physics D ◽

10.1142/s0218271804006322 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 13 (10) ◽

pp. 2275-2279 ◽

Cited By ~ 31

Author(s):

J. A. R. CEMBRANOS ◽

A. DOBADO ◽

A. L. MAROTO

Keyword(s):

Dark Matter ◽

Extra Dimensions ◽

Degrees Of Freedom ◽

Planck Scale ◽

Point Of View ◽

Missing Mass ◽

Brane Worlds ◽

Mass Problem ◽

Extra Space ◽

The Universe

Extra-dimensional theories contain additional degrees of freedom related to the geometry of the extra space which can be interpreted as new particles. Such theories allow to reformulate most of the fundamental problems of physics from a completely different point of view. In this essay, we concentrate on the brane fluctuations which are present in brane-worlds, and how such oscillations of the own space–time geometry along curved extra dimensions can help to resolve the Universe missing mass problem. The energy scales involved in these models are low compared to the Planck scale, and this means that some of the brane fluctuations distinctive signals could be detected in future colliders and in direct or indirect dark matter searches.

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What are the wild waves saying? Yet another meditation on the predictions, searches for, and detections of gravitational waves

International Journal of Modern Physics D ◽

10.1142/s0218271818300094 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (14) ◽

pp. 1830009

Author(s):

Virginia Trimble

Keyword(s):

General Relativity ◽

Gravitational Waves ◽

Point Of View ◽

Large Majority ◽

Laboratory Apparatus ◽

New Information ◽

Theory Of Gravity ◽

To Come ◽

The Universe

A large majority of the physics and astronomy communities are now sure that gravitational waves exist, can be looked for, and can be studied via their effects on laboratory apparatus as well as on astronomical objects. So far, everything found out has agreed with the predictions of general relativity, but hopes are high for new information about the universe and its contents and perhaps for hints of a better theory of gravity than general relativity (which even Einstein expected to come eventually). This is one version of the story, from 1905 to the present, told from an unusual point of view, because the author was, for 28.5 years, married to Joseph Weber, who built the first detectors starting in the early 1960s and operated one or more until his death on 30 September 2000.

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Bandersnatch: o mundo virtual e a realidade na interatividade do cinema

AVANCA | CINEMA ◽

10.37390/ac.v0i0.67 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Francisco Malta ◽

Fernando Rodrigues ◽

Renan Oliveira

Keyword(s):

Point Of View ◽

The Universe ◽

The Way

The transformations that technology propitiates take the audiovisual narratives to seek new resources in the way of telling a story, such elements appear in the composition of this new audiovisual grammar. Bandersnatch by Charlie Brooker is an interactive film screened on Netflix, coming from the Black Mirror series known for breaking the classic rules of format in their stories. The plot brings the concept of interactivity, offering the viewer to change the course of history. Is this a market trend? From the writer’s point of view, how to put together a story with these features? These are some of the questions the article will answer. The process of creating a script is done based on the construction of the characters and the universe inhabited by them.

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Sign languages to unfold the Universe

10.5194/epsc2021-701 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Stefania Varano

Keyword(s):

Sign Language ◽

Hearing Impaired ◽

Point Of View ◽

Deaf People ◽

Single Word ◽

Natural Languages ◽

Sign Languages ◽

Italian Language ◽

Main Medium ◽

The Universe

Sign languages &#8203;&#8203;arise from the need of communities of deaf people to communicate with each other and with others. Like all natural languages, they are tied to the traditions and cultures of the communities that invented and developed them. The sign language used in Italy is the Italian Sign Language, LIS. The strong iconicity of LIS is very interesting from the point of view of communication and didactics of astronomy, also for the hearing impaired. The signs used for astronomical concepts and objects often express the meaning and nature of what is represented, much more than a single word in the Italian language does. LIS is therefore effective not only for inclusive communication aimed at deaf people, but it can be effective for everyone, both in terms of equity and awareness of diversity and in terms of knowledge of astronomy and its link with culture and tradition. We will present a set of videos published on EduINAF, the outreach and education online magazine of the Italian National Isntitute for Astrophysics, in which the LIS is the main medium of the storytelling. Each video has subtitles, in order to make the LIS understandable for all.

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The fifth force: An enigma in this Universe

Modern Physics Letters A ◽

10.1142/s0217732319500561 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 34 (09) ◽

pp. 1950056 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Koijam Manihar Singh ◽

Kangujam Priyokumar Singh

Keyword(s):

Theoretical Calculations ◽

Point Of View ◽

Theoretical Point ◽

Experimental Proof ◽

Fifth Force ◽

Theory Of Everything ◽

Discovery Science ◽

Near Future ◽

The Universe ◽

High Hope

In an attempt to explain some of the unknown phenomena of nature, including dark energy and dark matter, we explore the possibility of the existence of a fifth fundamental force of nature as also cited by some researchers. With the inclusion of such a force in the system, some of the vague things can be explained and there is high hope of its importance in building up a “theory of everything”. With this intention, we investigate some manifestations of the fifth force which stand from theoretical calculations or from theoretical point of view, though till now there is less experimental proof. However, the theoretical results obtained indicate the existence of a fifth force which will lead to the completion in defining the laws of physics and nature. With this discovery, science may be able to explain the whole complexity of the Universe in near future.

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Notes on Cosmology

Symposium - International Astronomical Union ◽

10.1017/s0074180900005891 ◽

1972 ◽

Vol 44 ◽

pp. 404-406 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

J. Pachner

Keyword(s):

Point Of View ◽

World Model ◽

Present Epoch ◽

Cosmological Principle ◽

Cosmic Evolution ◽

Cosmic Space ◽

Walker Metric ◽

Theory Of Gravitation ◽

Isotropic Expansion ◽

The Universe

The present short notes on cosmology start with two conclusions based on observational data. The first of them is the well-known conclusion that the Universe from the global point of view is at the present epoch of its evolution in a uniform and isotropic expansion. If we accept the very convincing arguments of Bondi (1962) that the geometry of the cosmic space is Riemannian, its properties are described at the present epoch of the cosmic evolution by the well-known Robertson-Walker metric expressing the cosmological principle (Robertson, 1935, 1936; Walker, 1936). The form of the geodesical lines depends on the assumed theory of gravitation. For instance, in the closed Friedman world model they are cycloids with a singularity at the start of the expansion.

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Discovery of the first heavily obscured QSO candidate at z > 6 in a close galaxy pair

Astronomy and Astrophysics ◽

10.1051/0004-6361/201935924 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 628 ◽

pp. L6 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

F. Vito ◽

W. N. Brandt ◽

F. E. Bauer ◽

R. Gilli ◽

B. Luo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Black Holes ◽

Early Universe ◽

Column Density ◽

Early Growth ◽

Point Of View ◽

X Ray ◽

Confidence Levels ◽

The Universe ◽

Companion Galaxy

While theoretical arguments predict that most of the early growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) happened during heavily obscured phases of accretion, current methods used for selecting z > 6 quasars (QSOs) are strongly biased against obscured QSOs, thus considerably limiting our understanding of accreting SMBHs during the first gigayear of the Universe from an observational point of view. We report the Chandra discovery of the first heavily obscured QSO candidate in the early universe, hosted by a close (≈5 kpc) galaxy pair at z = 6.515. One of the members is an optically classified type-1 QSO, PSO167–13. The companion galaxy was first detected as a [C II] emitter by Atacama large millimeter array (ALMA). An X-ray source is significantly (P = 0.9996) detected by Chandra in the 2–5 keV band, with < 1.14 net counts in the 0.5–2 keV band, although the current positional uncertainty does not allow a conclusive association with either PSO167–13 or its companion galaxy. From X-ray photometry and hardness-ratio arguments, we estimated an obscuring column density of NH > 2 × 1024 cm−2 and NH > 6 × 1023 cm−2 at 68% and 90% confidence levels, respectively. Thus, regardless of which of the two galaxies is associated with the X-ray emission, this source is the first heavily obscured QSO candidate at z > 6.

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Joseph Hall and Neo-Stoicism

PMLA ◽

10.2307/459725 ◽

1950 ◽

Vol 65 (6) ◽

pp. 1130-1145 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Audrey Chew

Keyword(s):

Eighteenth Century ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Point Of View ◽

Natural Religion ◽

Ethical Point ◽

Rule Of Life ◽

Right Reason ◽

The Individual ◽

Thomas Browne ◽

The Universe

During his own lifetime Bishop Joseph Hall was nicknamed “our spiritual Seneca” by Henry Wotton and later called “our English Seneca” by Thomas Fuller; as a result it has recently become fashionable to associate him with seventeenth-century English Neo-Stoicism. A seventeenth-century Neo-Stoic is of interest presumably because he points in the direction of eighteenth-century Neo-Stoicism, away from a revealed religion toward a natural religion, away from faith toward reason. In a recent article Philip A. Smith calls Hall “the leading Neo-Stoic of the seventeenth century” and says that he enthusiastically preached the “Neo-Stoic brand of theology” to which Sir Thomas Browne objected. This theology maintained that “to follow ‘right reason’ was to follow nature, which was the same thing as following God.” Smith goes on to say that “what most attracted seventeenth-century Christian humanists like Bishop Hall was the fact that Stoicism attempted to frame a theory of the universe and of the individual man which would approximate a rule of life in conformity with an ‘immanent cosmic reason‘”—though in the same paragraph he also mentions the point “that Neo-Stoic divines of the seventeenth century were interested in Stoicism almost exclusively from the ethical point of view.” He cites Lipsius to show how a Christian might reach an approximation between the Stoic Fate and Christian Providence, leaving the reader to assume that Hall might also have made this approximation. He says that “the natural light of reason, as expounded by the Stoic philosophers, became, for seventeenth-century Neo-Stoics, the accepted guide to conduct” and that “religious and moral writers endeavored to trace a relationship between moral and natural law which in effect resulted in the practical code of ethical behavior commonly associated with Neo-Stoicism.”

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