The Semi-Aquatic Theory

2013 ◽  
pp. 16-31
Author(s):  
George S. Campbell ◽  
David F.J. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Real World ◽  
Aquatic Environment ◽  
Social Ecology ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Early Hominids ◽  
Evolutionary Phase

This article presents the semi-aquatic theory motivated to provide an explanation for why or how did language of the modern humans develop? Key propositions of this theory are early hominids went through a semi-aquatic evolutionary phase and that this semi-aquatic environment exposed the early hominids to frequent visual reflections of their own image, thus transforming a “potential sense of self” to an “active sense of self”, which supported the language development of early hominids. In the epilog of this article, the semi-aquatic theory is being framed and assessed in context of a broader discussion that receives analytical input from “Conceptualized Evolution” and social ecology. Conceptualized Evolution distinguishes between “possible worlds of evolution” and “real worlds of evolution”. However, Conceptualized Evolution stresses that based on “theoretical” (theoretically designed) examples of evolution, even if they never existed empirically, much could be learned for an understanding of our real world. The semi-aquatic theory qualifies at least as a conceptually possible scenario of evolution.

The Semi-Aquatic Theory

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
George S. Campbell ◽  
David F.J. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Language Development ◽  
Real World ◽  
Aquatic Environment ◽  
Social Ecology ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Early Hominids ◽  
Evolutionary Phase

This article presents the semi-aquatic theory motivated to provide an explanation for why or how did language of the modern humans develop? Key propositions of this theory are early hominids went through a semi-aquatic evolutionary phase and that this semi-aquatic environment exposed the early hominids to frequent visual reflections of their own image, thus transforming a “potential sense of self” to an “active sense of self”, which supported the language development of early hominids. In the epilog of this article, the semi-aquatic theory is being framed and assessed in context of a broader discussion that receives analytical input from “Conceptualized Evolution” and social ecology. Conceptualized Evolution distinguishes between “possible worlds of evolution” and “real worlds of evolution”. However, Conceptualized Evolution stresses that based on “theoretical” (theoretically designed) examples of evolution, even if they never existed empirically, much could be learned for an understanding of our real world. The semi-aquatic theory qualifies at least as a conceptually possible scenario of evolution.

Imagining between possible and realized: Creative world-making as politically situated knowledge production

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 150-153 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Paul Catungal
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Real World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Situated Knowledge ◽  
Social Difference ◽  
Geographical Knowledge ◽  
Artistic Works

In this rejoinder to Dragos Simandan’s (2019) consolidated theory of the partiality of geographical knowledge, I draw on feminisms of colour, including Black and Chicanx feminisms, to re-place power at the heart of how we understand the situatedness and limitations of how we know, experience and produce worlds. Furthermore, dissatisfied with Simandan’s binary construction of ‘possible worlds’ (in plural) and the ‘realized world’ (in singular), and his call to move beyond ‘ simply social difference’ (my emphasis) in how we theorize the partiality of geographical knowledge, I centre creative practices by marginalized people as practices that conjoin navigating the unjust ‘real’ world and imagining different, more just worlds. The artistic works of Cree/Irish artist Kent Monkman provide powerful examples of art as geographical knowledge that makes room both for critiques of the gender, racial and sexual violence of settler colonial world-making and for the agentive production of alternate worlds by Indigenous people, including through their creative practices.

scholarly journals Hot and counter-rotating star-forming disc galaxies in IllustrisTNG and their real-world counterparts

2021 ◽  
Vol 503 (1) ◽  
pp. 726-742
Author(s):  
Shengdong Lu ◽  
Dandan Xu ◽  
Yunchong Wang ◽  
Yanmei Chen ◽  
Ling Zhu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Transient State ◽  
Mass Range ◽  
Galaxy Interactions ◽  
Stellar Orbits ◽  
Star Forming ◽  
Evolutionary Phase ◽  
Rotating Star ◽  
Disc Galaxies

ABSTRACT A key feature of a large population of low-mass, late-type disc galaxies are star-forming discs with exponential light distributions. They are typically also associated with thin and flat morphologies, blue colours, and dynamically cold stars moving along circular orbits within co-planar thin gas discs. However, the latter features do not necessarily always imply the former, in fact, a variety of different kinematic configurations do exist. In this work, we use the cosmological hydrodynamical IllustrisTNG simulation to study the nature and origin of dynamically hot, sometimes even counter-rotating, star-forming disc galaxies in the lower stellar mass range (between $5\times 10^9\, \mathrm{M_{\odot }}$ and $2\times 10^{10}\, \mathrm{M_{\odot }}$). We find that being dynamically hot arises in most cases as an induced transient state, for example due to galaxy interactions and merger activities, rather than as an age-dependent evolutionary phase of star-forming disc galaxies. The dynamically hot but still actively star-forming discs show a common feature of hosting kinematically misaligned gas and stellar discs, and centrally concentrated on-going star formation. The former is often accompanied by disturbed gas morphologies, while the latter is reflected in low gas and stellar spins in comparison to their dynamically cold, normal disc counterparts. Interestingly, observed galaxies from MaNGA with kinematic misalignment between gas and stars show remarkably similar general properties as the IllustrisTNG galaxies, and therefore are plausible real-world counterparts. In turn, this allows us to make predictions for the stellar orbits and gas properties of these misaligned galaxies.

scholarly journals Thyroid Hormone Signalling in Human Evolution and Disease: A Novel Hypothesis

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Polyxeni Mantzouratou ◽  
Angelo Michele Lavecchia ◽  
Christodoulos Xinaris
Keyword(s):  
Thyroid Hormone ◽  
Human Evolution ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Modern Humans ◽  
Early Hominids ◽  
Promising Therapeutic Target ◽  
History Of ◽  
Pleiotropic Actions ◽  
Hormone Signalling

Thyroid hormone (TH) signalling is a universally conserved pathway with pleiotropic actions that is able to control the development, metabolism, and homeostasis of organisms. Using evidence from paleoecology/palaeoanthropology and data from the physiology of modern humans, we try to assess the natural history of TH signalling and its role in human evolution. Our net thesis is that TH signalling has likely played a critical role in human evolution by facilitating the adaptive responses of early hominids to unprecedently challenging and continuously changing environments. These ancient roles have been conserved in modern humans, in whom TH signalling still responds to and regulates adaptations to present-day environmental and pathophysiological stresses, thus making it a promising therapeutic target.

scholarly journals Relevance in Belief Update

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 ◽  
pp. 251-283
Author(s):  
Theofanis Aravanis
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Belief Change ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Partial Solution ◽  
Possible World ◽  
New Class ◽  
New Information

It has been pointed out by Katsuno and Mendelzon that the so-called AGM revision operators, defined by Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson, do not behave well in dynamically-changing applications. On that premise, Katsuno and Mendelzon formally characterized a different type of belief-change operators, typically referred to as KM update operators, which, to this date, constitute a benchmark in belief update. In this article, we show that there exist KM update operators that yield the same counter-intuitive results as any AGM revision operator. Against this non-satisfactory background, we prove that a translation of Parikh’s relevance-sensitive axiom (P), in the realm of belief update, suffices to block this liberal behaviour of KM update operators. It is shown, both axiomatically and semantically, that axiom (P) for belief update, essentially, encodes a type of relevance that acts at the possible-worlds level, in the context of which each possible world is locally modified, in the light of new information. Interestingly, relevance at the possible-worlds level is shown to be equivalent to a form of relevance that acts at the sentential level, by considering the building blocks of relevance to be the sentences of the language. Furthermore, we concretely demonstrate that Parikh’s notion of relevance in belief update can be regarded as (at least a partial) solution to the frame, ramification and qualification problems, encountered in dynamically-changing worlds. Last but not least, a whole new class of well-behaved, relevance-sensitive KM update operators is introduced, which generalize Forbus’ update operator and are perfectly-suited for real-world implementations.

Possible Worlds of History

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 164-182
Author(s):  
Ilkka Lähteenmäki
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
The Real ◽  
Metaphorical Interpretation

Abstract The theory of possible worlds has been minimally employed in the field of theory and philosophy of history, even though it has found a place as a tool in other areas of philosophy. Discussion has mostly focused on arguments concerning counterfactual history’s status as either useful or harmful. The theory of possible worlds can, however be used also to analyze historical writing. The concept of textual possible worlds offers an interesting framework to work with for analyzing a historical text’s characteristics and features. However, one of the challenges is that the literary theory’s notion of possible worlds is that they are metaphorical in nature. This in itself is not problematic but while discussing about history, which arguably deals with the real world, the terminology can become muddled. The latest attempt to combine the literary and philosophical notions of possible worlds and apply it to historiography came from Lubomír Doležel in his Possible Worlds of Fiction and History: The Postmodern Stage (2010). I offer some criticism to his usage of possible worlds to separate history and fiction, and argue that when historiography is under discussion a more philosophical notion of possible worlds should be prioritized over the metaphorical interpretation of possible worlds.

Taking Possible Worlds Seriously

2019 ◽  
pp. 106-126
Author(s):  
Palle Yourgrau
Keyword(s):  
Modal Logic ◽  
Real World ◽  
Actual World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
David Lewis ◽  
Saul Kripke ◽  
Abstract Entities

The discussion so far has been employing the notion of possible worlds, popularized via the semantics of modal logic. How seriously, however, should possible worlds be taken? David Lewis held them to be genuine, concrete worlds, no less real than ours, the actual world, whereas Robert Stalnaker and Saul Kripke take them to be, rather, abstract entities, properties of the actual world—the only real world—which it might possibly possess. I agree with Lewis that possible worlds are no less real than the actual world, but I also agree with Stalnaker that only our world actually exists. I affirm that merely possible worlds, though they lack existence, possess being. I develop the notion of possible worlds, in which possible individuals exist, but also point to unsolved problems, such as how to account for the contingency of the actuality of the actual world.

Pandemic Practice: Horror Fans and Morbidly Curious Individuals Are More Psychologically Resilient During the COVID-19 Pandemic

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coltan Scrivner ◽  
John Anthony Johnson ◽  
Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen ◽  
Mathias Clasen
Keyword(s):  
Coping Strategies ◽  
Real World ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Horror Films ◽  
Psychological Resilience ◽  
Pandemic Preparedness ◽  
Alien Invasion

One explanation for why people engage in frightening fictional experiences is that these experiences can act as simulations of actual experiences from which individuals can gather information and model possible worlds. Conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, this study (n = 310) tested whether past and current engagement with thematically relevant media fictions, including horror and pandemic films, was associated with greater preparedness for and psychological resilience toward the pandemic. Since morbid curiosity has previously been associated with horror media use during the COVID-19 pandemic, we also tested whether trait morbid curiosity was associated with pandemic preparedness and psychological resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that fans of horror films exhibited greater resilience during the pandemic and that fans of “prepper” genres (alien-invasion, apocalyptic, and zombie films) exhibited both greater resilience and preparedness. We also found that trait morbid curiosity was associated with positive resilience and interest in pandemic films during the pandemic. Taken together, these results are consistent with the hypothesis that exposure to frightening fictions allow audiences to practice effective coping strategies that can be beneficial in real-world situations.

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