scholarly journals The Mind's Eye: Picture as Narrative in Thomas Hardy's 'A Pair of Blue Eyes'

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-273
Author(s):  
Dimitar Karamitev

This paper focuses on Thomas Hardy’s A Pair of Blue Eyes in discussing certain peculiarities of narration. The numerous descriptions of people and scenes in the book are examined as basic building blocks used by the architecturally trained novelist to carry vital narrative information. This decision is approached by way of utilising ideas from the realms of phenomenology, cinema and photographic theory to prove that in addition to carrying aesthetic merits, Hardy’s descriptions are intricate data containers that reflect how the human mind processes experience.

1996 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 73-88
Author(s):  
Werner Hüllen

Summary Concerning the methods of language teaching, Johann Joachim Becher (1635–1682), one of the encyclopedic philosophers of the 17th century, stood in opposition to Jan Amos Comenius (1592–1670), the pedagogue of Europewide influence. He published Methodus didactica (1668) and Novum organon (1672), the latter being a universal nomenclator as they were popular in the 17th century. This nomenclator is organised according to Aristotelian categories which Becher saw expressed in word-classes. It assembles groups of synonyms in Latin and German under headwords which were taken as the simple notions, i.e., the building-blocks, of the human mind. Becher demanded didactic principles to be developed out of these linguistic assumptions. Whereas Comenius shaped his teaching methods according to the situational learning abilities of the individual, Becher regarded them as being dominated by the structures of language seen as structures of the mind, thus foreshadowing Cartesian thinking.


Author(s):  
Lian Sutton

The paper introduces Silat Tua, a traditional Malay martial art, and its relationship to the tropics of the Malaysian Peninsula and Singapore through the imagery work of the four Elements: Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind. In a world of increasing disconnect between Humans and Nature, the Silat Tua practice is a traditional martial art for bringing harmony and healing, as well as an understanding of how the building blocks of Nature can harmonise, complement and resonate with the natural resources of the human mind, body and spirit. Through recounting the legend of the art’s origin, the first proponent of Silat Tua is shown to have gained inspiration and lessons from the inhabited environment. Examples of how a Silat exponent may explore and come to understand the Elements are discussed before venturing into the practical application of the Elements in cultivating mindfulness and influencing behaviour. The physical environment thus, is not only a source of inspiration for movement but indeed an impetus for leading a harmonious and virtuous life. The paper concludes with the connection and implications of the Elements training in Singapore and its potential in navigating oneself through the constant changes inevitable in life.


1970 ◽  
pp. 51
Author(s):  
Anne Aurasmaa

In the 17th century collections became ideally more or less the presence of all things material. Interest leaned towards the mundane and the common and collecting became a gathering of everything. This trend can already be seen to some extent in the natural history collections of the 16th century. As a counterbalance to this I would like to put forward in this paper the idea that the 16th century collections pictured the whole universe as a construction combining time and space. It was not the intention just to fill rooms with collected material examples but to present the phenomena by showing their boundaries and to help the spectator to understand the building blocks of the universal hierarchy. The theatrum mundi – or curiosity cabinet, as 16th century collections are more commonly referred to – was conceived as a presence of all that existed in one place. Instead of collecting everything, and claiming that such a collection would represent the world as it is (or as it can be perceived by the senses), rhetorical themes, abstract ideas and universal structures were visualized by means of displaying the strangest objects from the most faraway places. The function of such displays was to bridge the gap between the universal logos2 and the human logos. Logos meaning reason and structure is the opposite of myth and personal sensory experience and as such includes thinking, speech, relations and regularities. The concept can be used both in reference to universal order and to the faculties of the human mind. 


1997 ◽  
Vol 161 ◽  
pp. 23-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis J. Allamandola ◽  
Max P. Bernstein ◽  
Scott A. Sandford

AbstractInfrared observations, combined with realistic laboratory simulations, have revolutionized our understanding of interstellar ice and dust, the building blocks of comets. Since comets are thought to be a major source of the volatiles on the primative earth, their organic inventory is of central importance to questions concerning the origin of life. Ices in molecular clouds contain the very simple molecules H2O, CH3OH, CO, CO2, CH4, H2, and probably some NH3and H2CO, as well as more complex species including nitriles, ketones, and esters. The evidence for these, as well as carbonrich materials such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), microdiamonds, and amorphous carbon is briefly reviewed. This is followed by a detailed summary of interstellar/precometary ice photochemical evolution based on laboratory studies of realistic polar ice analogs. Ultraviolet photolysis of these ices produces H2, H2CO, CO2, CO, CH4, HCO, and the moderately complex organic molecules: CH3CH2OH (ethanol), HC(= O)NH2(formamide), CH3C(= O)NH2(acetamide), R-CN (nitriles), and hexamethylenetetramine (HMT, C6H12N4), as well as more complex species including polyoxymethylene and related species (POMs), amides, and ketones. The ready formation of these organic species from simple starting mixtures, the ice chemistry that ensues when these ices are mildly warmed, plus the observation that the more complex refractory photoproducts show lipid-like behavior and readily self organize into droplets upon exposure to liquid water suggest that comets may have played an important role in the origin of life.


Author(s):  
D.E. Brownlee ◽  
A.L. Albee

Comets are primitive, kilometer-sized bodies that formed in the outer regions of the solar system. Composed of ice and dust, comets are generally believed to be relic building blocks of the outer solar system that have been preserved at cryogenic temperatures since the formation of the Sun and planets. The analysis of cometary material is particularly important because the properties of cometary material provide direct information on the processes and environments that formed and influenced solid matter both in the early solar system and in the interstellar environments that preceded it.The first direct analyses of proven comet dust were made during the Soviet and European spacecraft encounters with Comet Halley in 1986. These missions carried time-of-flight mass spectrometers that measured mass spectra of individual micron and smaller particles. The Halley measurements were semi-quantitative but they showed that comet dust is a complex fine-grained mixture of silicates and organic material. A full understanding of comet dust will require detailed morphological, mineralogical, elemental and isotopic analysis at the finest possible scale. Electron microscopy and related microbeam techniques will play key roles in the analysis. The present and future of electron microscopy of comet samples involves laboratory study of micrometeorites collected in the stratosphere, in-situ SEM analysis of particles collected at a comet and laboratory study of samples collected from a comet and returned to the Earth for detailed study.


Author(s):  
Yeshayahu Talmon

To achieve complete microstructural characterization of self-aggregating systems, one needs direct images in addition to quantitative information from non-imaging, e.g., scattering or Theological measurements, techniques. Cryo-TEM enables us to image fluid microstructures at better than one nanometer resolution, with minimal specimen preparation artifacts. Direct images are used to determine the “building blocks” of the fluid microstructure; these are used to build reliable physical models with which quantitative information from techniques such as small-angle x-ray or neutron scattering can be analyzed.To prepare vitrified specimens of microstructured fluids, we have developed the Controlled Environment Vitrification System (CEVS), that enables us to prepare samples under controlled temperature and humidity conditions, thus minimizing microstructural rearrangement due to volatile evaporation or temperature changes. The CEVS may be used to trigger on-the-grid processes to induce formation of new phases, or to study intermediate, transient structures during change of phase (“time-resolved cryo-TEM”). Recently we have developed a new CEVS, where temperature and humidity are controlled by continuous flow of a mixture of humidified and dry air streams.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aire Mill ◽  
Anu Realo ◽  
Jüri Allik

Abstract. Intraindividual variability, along with the more frequently studied between-person variability, has been argued to be one of the basic building blocks of emotional experience. The aim of the current study is to examine whether intraindividual variability in affect predicts tiredness in daily life. Intraindividual variability in affect was studied with the experience sampling method in a group of 110 participants (aged between 19 and 84 years) during 14 consecutive days on seven randomly determined occasions per day. The results suggest that affect variability is a stable construct over time and situations. Our findings also demonstrate that intraindividual variability in affect has a unique role in predicting increased levels of tiredness at the momentary level as well at the level of individuals.


Author(s):  
Sander Martens ◽  
Addie Johnson ◽  
Martje Bolle ◽  
Jelmer Borst

The human mind is severely limited in processing concurrent information at a conscious level of awareness. These temporal restrictions are clearly reflected in the attentional blink (AB), a deficit in reporting the second of two targets when it occurs 200–500 ms after the first. However, we recently reported that some individuals do not show a visual AB, and presented psychophysiological evidence that target processing differs between “blinkers” and “nonblinkers”. Here, we present evidence that visual nonblinkers do show an auditory AB, which suggests that a major source of attentional restriction as reflected in the AB is likely to be modality-specific. In Experiment 3, we show that when the difficulty in identifying visual targets is increased, nonblinkers continue to show little or no visual AB, suggesting that the presence of an AB in the auditory but not in the visual modality is not due to a difference in task difficulty.


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