The Plausible Impossible: Chinese Adults Hold Graded Notions of Impossibility

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 76-93
Author(s):  
Tianwei Gong ◽  
Andrew Shtulman
Keyword(s):  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Causal Knowledge ◽  
Chinese Adults

Abstract Events that violate the laws of nature are, by definition, impossible, but recent research suggests that people view some violations as “more impossible” than others (Shtulman & Morgan, 2017). When evaluating the difficulty of magic spells, American adults are influenced by causal considerations that should be irrelevant given the spell’s primary causal violation, judging, for instance, that it would be more difficult to levitate a bowling ball than a basketball even though weight should no longer be a consideration if contact is no longer necessary for support. In the present study, we sought to test the generalizability of these effects in a non-Western context – China – where magical events are represented differently in popular fiction and where reasoning styles are often more holistic than analytic. Across several studies, Chinese adults (n = 466) showed the same tendency as American adults to honor implicit causal constraints when evaluating the plausibility of magical events. These findings suggest that graded notions of impossibility are shared across cultures, possibly because they are a byproduct of causal knowledge.

Women at Work: Innkeeping in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland 1790–1840

2017 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Mackay
Keyword(s):  
Rural Women ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Travel Patterns ◽  
Economic Diversity

Between 1790 and 1840 Scotland's Highlands and Islands saw a rise in the number of travellers due to transportation changes, war on the Continent, and popular fiction. Consequently, the number of inns increased in response to this shift in local travel patterns and influx of visitors. By examining where the growth in inns happened, who managed them, and what services were offered, this article argues that the Highlands and Islands economy was both complex and commercial. It establishes that rural women were innkeepers of multifaceted hospitality operations responding to market demands and enabling economic diversity in their communities, the result of which was the hospitality infrastructure for tourism.

GENERATION AND PROPERTIES OF INFRARED RADIATION

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-137
Author(s):  
RUSTAM KHAKIMOVICH RAKHIMOV
Keyword(s):  
Electromagnetic Radiation ◽  
Infrared Radiation ◽  
Radiation Spectrum ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Ceramic Materials ◽  
Experimental Results ◽  
Ir Radiation ◽  
Scattering Of Light

The article presents the main basic laws of nature and modern theories of the nature of electromagnetic radiation, its generation, characteristics, and laws of reflection, absorption and scattering of light. The principle of transformation of the radiation spectrum of the primary source using the developed ceramic materials are shown, as well as experimental results of the interaction of IR radiation with matter and various mechanisms of influence on various objects and processes are described.

INEVITABILITY OF REVIVAL: PRO AND COUNTER ANTINATALISM

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-88
Author(s):  
Nikolay S. Savkin
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Systematic Approach ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Arthur Schopenhauer ◽  
Expected Effect ◽  
Philosophy Of Life ◽  
Active Subject ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Natural Way

Introduction. Radical pessimism and militant anti-natalism of Arthur Schopenhauer and David Benathar create an optimistic philosophy of life, according to which life is not meaningless. It is given by nature in a natural way, and a person lives, studies, works, makes a career, achieves results, grows, develops. Being an active subject of his own social relations, a person does not refuse to continue the race, no matter what difficulties, misfortunes and sufferings would be experienced. Benathar convinces that all life is continuous suffering, and existence is constant dying. Therefore, it is better not to be born. Materials and Methods. As the main theoretical and methodological direction of research, the dialectical materialist and integrative approaches are used, the realization of which, in conjunction with the synergetic technique, provides a certain result: is convinced that the idea of anti-natalism is inadequate, the idea of giving up life. A systematic approach and a comprehensive assessment of the studied processes provide for the disclosure of the contradictory nature of anti-natalism. Results of the study are presented in the form of conclusions that human life is naturally given by nature itself. Instincts, needs, interests embodied in a person, stimulate to active actions, and he lives. But even if we finish off with all of humanity by agreement, then over time, according to the laws of nature and according to evolutionary theory, man will inevitably, objectively, and naturally reappear. Discussion and Conclusion. The expected effect of the idea of inevitability of rebirth can be the formation of an optimistic orientation of a significant part of the youth, the idea of continuing life and building happiness, development. As a social being, man is universal, and the awareness of this universality allows one to understand one’s purpose – continuous versatile development.

Passover Plots

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 201-222
Author(s):  
Richard G. Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Medical Student ◽  
Da Vinci ◽  
Popular Fiction ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
First Time ◽  
Foucault’S Pendulum

Various modern fictions, building upon the skeptical premises of biblical scholars, have claimed that the gospels covered up the real story about Jesus. Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is one recent, popular example. While conspiracy theories may seem peculiar to modern media, the gospels have their own versions of hidden secrets. For Mark, e.g., Roman discourse about crucifixion obscures two secret plots in Jesus’ passion, which the gospel reveals: the religious leaders’ conspiracy to dispatch Jesus and the hidden divine program to sacrifice Jesus. Mark unveils these secret plots by minimizing the passion’s material details (the details of suffering would glorify Rome), substituting the Jewish leaders for the Romans as the important human actors, interpreting the whole as predicted by scripture and by Jesus, and bathing the whole in an irony that claims that the true reality is other than it seems. The resulting divine providence/conspiracy narrative dooms Jesus—and everyone else—before the story effectively begins. None of this would matter if secret plots and infinite books did not remain to make pawns or “phantoms of us all” (Borges). Thus, in Borges’ “The Gospel According to Mark,” an illiterate rancher family after hearing the gospel for the first time, read to them by a young medical student, crucifies the young man. Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum is less biblical but equally enthralled by conspiracies that consume their obsessive believers. Borges and Eco differ from Mark, from some scholarship, and from recent popular fiction, in their insistence that such conspiracy tales are not “true” or “divine,” but rather humans’ own self-destructive fictions. Therein lies a different kind of hope than Mark’s, a very human, if very fragile, hope.

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