scholarly journals Camoufl-Ages: Body Assemblages at the Time of the Apocalypse

2013 ◽  
pp. 113
Author(s):  
Giuseppina Botta
Keyword(s):  
Genetic Engineering ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
The Self ◽  
Living Matter ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Oryx And Crake

Performance deals with embodiment, presence, agency and event. It is related to representation and consists in the display of an action with the presence of observers (Schechner). In Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake (2003) and The Year of the Flood (2009) performance is connected with the protagonists’ struggle for survival, which proves particularly complex because of the complete subversion of the environmental conditions, in a post-apocalyptic future dominated by the harsh consequences of an unscrupulous exploitation of genetic engineering. Scholars have discussed the theme of survival in Atwood’s novels with regard to power politics and victimhood. In my essay through a series of ecocritical studies (Warren, Otto, Castricano, Sehadri), I will explore the distorted relationship between human culture and environment provoked by the excessive manipulation of the living matter, whether human or animal, which alters the perception of the self and of being in general. My focus will be on the notions of mimicry and camouflage.

COLONY OF THE FUNGUS Aspergillus oryzae AND SELF-AFFINE FRACTAL GEOMETRY OF GROWTH FRONTS

Fractals ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 01 (01) ◽  
pp. 11-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHU MATSUURA ◽  
SASUKE MIYAZIMA
Keyword(s):  
Aspergillus Oryzae ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Fractal Geometry ◽  
Nutrient Concentration ◽  
Incubation Temperature ◽  
Characteristic Exponent ◽  
Growth Front ◽  
Favorable Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Mean

A variety of colony shapes of the fungus Aspergillus oryzae under varying environmental conditions such as the nutrient concentration, medium stiffness and incubation temperature are obtained, ranging from a homogeneous Eden-like to a ramified DLA-like pattern. The roughness σ(l, h) of the growth front of the band-shaped colony, where h is the mean front height within l of the horizontal range, satisfies the self-affine fractal relation under favorable environmental conditions. In the most favorable condition of our experiments, its characteristic exponent is found to be a little larger than that of the 2-dimensional Eden model.

Assimilation and the Problems of Sex, Violence, and Sickness unto Death

2018 ◽  
pp. 64-86
Author(s):  
Wes Furlotte
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
The Self ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Grounding System ◽  
Animal Organism ◽  
Human Culture ◽  
Organic Life ◽  
External Variables ◽  
Finite Subjectivity

This chapter intensifies the problem of the animal organism’s over-determination by external variables. The chapter concentrates on Hegel’s analyses of eating, sex, violence, sickness and, ultimately, death. These phenomena exemplify how the animal organism is perpetually given over to external circumstances that threaten its self-perpetuating activity. Taken together they indicate, for Hegel, the truth of organic life: it must die. Organic life must prove a necessary yet insufficient condition for the life of conceptuality proper. In other words, the life of spirit requires embodiment and more. Conceptuality can only come into a robust self-relation in something that is, simultaneously, anticipatorily grounded in nature and yet, irreducible to those grounds. The space in which such self-mediation occurs is what Hegel refers to as the life of spirit (Geist). The self-grounding system of thought proper does not find sufficient existence in the natural world because the radical exteriority of the latter is hostile to the auto-dictates of conceptuality, its self-grounding basis. The chapter concludes with a question: what must this ‘monstrous’ conception of nature mean for human culture, specifically finite subjectivity and socio-political freedom?

scholarly journals Living Matter and the Laws of Thermodynamics for the Biosphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nabil H. Swedan
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Life Changes ◽  
Living Matter ◽  
Maximum Extent ◽  
Mathematical Expressions ◽  
Laws Of Thermodynamics ◽  
Evolution With Time ◽  
Biosphere Evolution

The laws of thermodynamics have been developed for inert matter, and living matter has not been considered as a variable in these laws. Living matter possesses properties that have had major effects on biosphere evolution with time. The zeroth property is “Living matter is produced from living matter only.” The first property may be summarized as ”Living matter occupies the available spaces to the maximum extent when environmental conditions are favorable and no obstacles are present.” And the second property is “ Living matter mutates, changes, and adapts to maintain the continuity of life and size as large as possible when environmental conditions are unfavorable.” While the zeroth property is objective in nature, the first and second properties are subjective, in that they are driven by internal stimuli characterizing living matter. Their interaction with the laws of thermodynamics may be thought of as “philosophy intertwining with science.” Accordingly, the laws of thermodynamics are revised to factor in life as a variable. Mathematical expressions of the first and second laws are derived and some of their applicability to the biosphere and climate is explained and discussed. The main conclusion is that life changes climates and the fabric of the biosphere.

scholarly journals Dimension of Dialectic Politics

2004 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-28
Author(s):  
Mahendra Bhushan Thapa
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
The Self ◽  
View Point ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Power Politics ◽  
Human Interest ◽  
The Core ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
The World

The world is guided by power politics. The power politics is the core process for regulating human behaviour activised in the society. The society is regulated and maintained with the provision of law and order sanctioned by power politics. Everybody has strong willingness for gaining power for the fulfilment of the self-interest and also for the betterment of the society. But from the view point of human nature, self-interest is more stronger than the interest in the society. The objective of this article is to analyze power politics for the fulfilment of human interest based on the struggle for power. Journal of Political Science Vol.7(1) 2004 20-28

scholarly journals How a life-like system emerges from a simplistic particle motion law

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Schmickl ◽  
Martin Stefanec ◽  
Karl Crailsheim
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Parameter Space ◽  
Particle Motion ◽  
The Self ◽  
Size Distributions ◽  
Full Understanding ◽  
Living Matter ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Size Scales

Abstract Self-structuring patterns can be observed all over the universe, from galaxies to molecules to living matter, yet their emergence is waiting for full understanding. We discovered a simple motion law for moving and interacting self-propelled particles leading to a self-structuring, self-reproducing and self-sustaining life-like system. The patterns emerging within this system resemble patterns found in living organisms. The emergent cells we found show a distinct life cycle and even create their own ecosystem from scratch. These structures grow and reproduce on their own, show self-driven behavior and interact with each other. Here we analyze the macroscopic properties of the emerging ecology, as well as the microscopic properties of the mechanism that leads to it. Basic properties of the emerging structures (size distributions, longevity) are analyzed as well as their resilience against sensor or actuation noise. Finally, we explore parameter space for potential other candidates of life. The generality and simplicity of the motion law provokes the thought that one fundamental rule, described by one simple equation yields various structures in nature: it may work on different time- and size scales, ranging from the self-structuring universe, to emergence of living beings, down to the emergent subatomic formation of matter.

Derrida's Error and Immunology

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eszter Timár
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Living Matter ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Way

While Derrida's work is often seen as removed from matter, influential arguments have also been made about deconstruction's capacity to capture some foundational logic of matter or life. I offer an example of the way Derrida's work may be read to suggest the latter, even in a case where Derrida may be wrong: based on Thomas Pradeu's Limits of the Self, I suggest that Derrida's arguably erroneous use of autoimmunity anticipated recent developments in immunology. However, instead of simply concluding that Derrida ‘anticipates’ immunology, I suggest that Pradeu's theory had earlier been prefigured in immunology around the term ‘allergy’ in agreement with the Derridean use of it in ‘Plato's Pharmacy’. Last, I will briefly consider what Derrida calls ‘life in general’, in order to demonstrate a resistance in his work to be simply proven right within what he understands as the organicist discourse of living matter.

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