scholarly journals Misbelief, Marlovian Promises, and Planets

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Gergő Dávid
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The World ◽  
Social Conduct ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Doctor Faustus

The paper argues that Marlowe presents a sceptical worldview on religious and social conduct in his plays. However, his scepticism does not affect his views of the natural world, which is represented by the planetary influences. The ability to exert one’ s will over the world is called into question and substituted by the deterministic power of the planets. The paper is concerned with the idea of promises in terms of human interaction from various perspectives, such as religious and political points of view. Both religious and secular promises are either void or turn on themselves. In my reading of Marlowe’ s plays (The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus, Tamburlaine Parts I and II), notions of promises and scepticism are strongly intertwined, which might help us understand why Marlowe’ s works are seen as the products of a cynical mind with atheistic traits.

The story of a tree and what its tells us about our life

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Bruun
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Public Understanding ◽  
New Combinations ◽  
Group Participation ◽  
Phytoplankton Communities ◽  
The World ◽  
Thinking Process ◽  
Points Of View

<p>Our natural world presents many fascinating and often bizarre phenomena to us. The way primary producers convert sunlight with nutrients as part of the existence of life is simply amazing. This gives rise to phytoplankton communities in the oceans and the growth of trees across the world. The signals of our dynamic world, its chronology and patterns of how this life grows are indelibly written into these trees as well as in mineral and oceanic floor strata. In this session I’d like to symbolically ask a generic tree “what were the choices made 150 years ago that led to our current warming?” As interdisciplinary scientists – the thinking process we use whilst embedded in logic and reason – is also closely related to our personal creative and imagining aptitudes. Our social norms also reflect the scope of decisions that we choose to talk about and identify with. By enabling a platform that frames the co-existence of contemporary scientific reasoning together with the artistic expression we re-imagine and further create possibilities, through stories, drawing, metaphor, sound and dance. With this, a wider community of scientists can engage with topics that previously seem technically obscure. A deeper public understanding of geosciences also develops. In the first part of this session I’ll narrate a story of climate change choices see by the generic tree seen over the last 500 years linking this to tree ring records, personal geoscience learning and the EGU photo archive. In the second part – I invite the audience to share their creative points of view about these climatic era’s and to further explore what stories this generic tree may be telling us about our world. The aim of this work is to enable group participation and share creative ideas. My hope is that we may envisage new combinations of opportunities about climatic futures that can enable a more resilient future for us all.</p>

scholarly journals Ecology, physics, process philosophies, Buddhism, Daoism, and language: A case study of William Golding’s The Inheritors and Pincher Martin

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Goatly
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
David Bohm ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Grammatical Analysis ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Gaia Theory ◽  
Ecological Worldview

Abstract Much has been written about the ecological perspectives of Buddhism and Daoism, as examples of philosophies which emphasize process, impermanence, interconnectedness, and compassion for nature. And the interconnectedness of the various elements of the biosphere and the Earth’s crust is the basis of ecological Gaia theory. Some physicists and process philosophers have drawn attention to the inadequacies of European languages to represent the world of quantum reality, radical undifferentiated wholeness and interconnectedness, and the dynamism and uncontrollability of the material world. Notable among these were physicists David Bohm and David Peat, who looked to Blackfoot, an Algonquin language of North America, for a better representation of the natural world as interacting processes. This article explores some of the commonalities between Buddhism/Daoism, process philosophies, modern physics and ecological theory. It then addresses the question of the affordances different languages and grammars provide for a deep ecological representation in tune with quantum physics and Buddhism/Daoism. The climax of the article starts with the work of Michael Halliday on the local grammar of William Golding’s The Inheritors (Golding, William. 1961 [1955]. The Inheritors. London: Faber), and performs a similar grammatical analysis of two passages from Golding’s later work Pincher Martin (Golding, William. 1956. Pincher Martin. London: Faber). It concludes that the Neanderthal mind style and life style in The Inheritors and the world of the drowning Pincher Martin are represented in a grammatical style more appropriate for a Buddhist/Daoist/quantum physics/deep ecological worldview of human interaction with the natural world.

Shaping the Geography of Empire

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Political Power ◽  
Physical Reality ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Multiple Worlds ◽  
The World ◽  
Form Part ◽  
Narrative Voices ◽  
Geographical Space

This is a book about the multiple worlds that Herodotus creates in his narrative. The constructed landscape in Herodotus’ work incorporates his literary representation of the natural world from the broadest scope of continents right down to the location of specific episodes. His ‘charging’ of those settings through mythological associations and spatial parallels adds further depth and resonance. The physical world of the Histories is in turn altered by characters in the narrative whose interactions with the natural world form part of Herodotus’ inquiry, and add another dimension to the meaning given to space, combining notions of landscape as physical reality and as constructed reality. Geographical space is not a neutral backdrop, nor simply to be seen as Herodotus’ ‘creation’, but it is brought to life as a player in the narrative, the interaction with which reinforces the positive or negative characterizations of the protagonists. Analysis of focalization is embedded in this study of Herodotean geography in two ways—firstly, in the configurations of space contributed by different viewpoints on the world; and secondly, in the opinions about human interaction with geographical space which emerge from different narrative voices. The multivocal nature of the narrative complicates whether we can identify a single ‘Herodotean’ world, still less one containing consistent moral judgements. Furthermore, the mutability of fortune renders impossible a static Herodotean world, as successive imperial powers emerge. The exercise of political power, manifested metaphorically and literally through control over the natural world, generates a constantly evolving map of imperial geography.

Modulation of Germination and Growth of Plants by Meditation

2001 ◽  
Vol 29 (03n04) ◽  
pp. 393-401 ◽  
Author(s):  
Max Haid ◽  
Shankar Huprikar
Keyword(s):  
Germination Rate ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Treated Water ◽  
The World ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
Inhibition Experiment ◽  
Germination And Growth ◽  
Green Peas

So called primitive peoples of the world share a philosophy that human interaction via ceremony or ritual can affect that natural world. Is it possible to affect the germination and growth of plants by imbuing them with an intent to stimulate or inhibit them? We conducted a double blind series of experiments to determine whether a process of meditation on the water (referred to as "treated") given to a controlled planting of green peas or wheat would affect their germination. Peas were given water treated with stimulating intent. Statistical analysis was done using contingency table, Fisher's test, and Mantel-Haenszel analysis. The germination rate of 504 seeds receiving treated water with stimulating intent was 60.3% compared to 51.8% for the 504 controls (p = 0.006, 0.047, 0.003 respectively). A similar experiment was conducted with wheat with the intent of inhibiting germination. The germination rate of 2970 wheat seeds receiving treated water with inhibitaory intent was 70.7% versus 74.9% for 2970 controls (p < 0.001, 0.0001, 0.001 respectively). During the sixth run of the wheat (inhibition) experiment, the seedlings were harvested and individually weighed on the tenth day after planting to dtermine whether there was any different in growth. The mass of the treated seedlings was statistically significantly lower (mean = 97 mg versus 106 mg for the controls) when compared by analysis of variance (p = 0.000056). We conclude that meditation upon the water supplied to green peas and wheat can affect their germination rates and growth.

scholarly journals Sydney Clouts’s poetry: Looking inwards, looking outwards

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-37
Author(s):  
Michael Chapman
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Detailed Account ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
To Receive

Intimate Lightning, by Dan Wylie, presents a detailed account and evaluation of Sydney Clouts’s poetry as phenomenologically driven: a poetry that invites readers to look inwards to the “speck and the fleck” of things in the natural world. At the same time, Wylie posits that Clouts is the finest poet of his generation in South Africa of the 1960s. In this article, I acknowledge Wylie’s engagement with the poetry while I question whether the somewhat relentless focus inwards is not too neglectful of those poems in which Clouts looks outwards to human interaction in the world. Such poems of abbreviated narrative, some of which I analyse in the course of my argument, suggest that looking outwards is necessary, at least, to consider Wylie’s claim that Clouts’s poetry is yet to receive its wider and just recognition. Given that Wylie offers little, if any, substantiation of Clouts’s standing as a poet among his peers, I move to a ‘summary’ perspective on Clouts in relation to what, I contend, is a rich and various poetry scene in 1960s South Africa. This leads me to the conclusion that the question of whether Clouts is the finest poet of his generation is not perhaps the question best pursued in Intimate Lightning. Where Wylie’s study succeeds is in reminding us that Clouts is a poet quite unlike any other we will encounter.

A Māori Girl Watches, Listens, and Learns – Coming of Age from an Indigenous Viewpoint: Mauri (Merata Mita, 1988)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Fox
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous People ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Feature Film ◽  
Indigenous Woman ◽  
Spiritual Dimension ◽  
The World ◽  
Life Force ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter examines Merata Mita’s Mauri, the first fiction feature film in the world to be solely written and directed by an indigenous woman, as an example of “Fourth Cinema” – that is, a form of filmmaking that aims to create, produce, and transmit the stories of indigenous people, and in their own image – showing how Mita presents the coming-of-age story of a Māori girl who grows into an understanding of the spiritual dimension of the relationship of her people to the natural world, and to the ancestors who have preceded them. The discussion demonstrates how the film adopts storytelling procedures that reflect a distinctively Māori view of time and are designed to signify the presence of the mauri (or life force) in the Māori world.

Varieties of Understanding

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Cognitive Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
Historical Tradition ◽  
Normative Considerations ◽  
Shed Light

According to a long historical tradition, understanding comes in different varieties. In particular, it is said that understanding people has a different epistemic profile than understanding the natural world—it calls on different cognitive resources, for instance, and brings to bear distinctive normative considerations. Thus in order to understand people we might need to appreciate, or in some way sympathetically reconstruct, the reasons that led a person to act in a certain way. By comparison, when it comes to understanding natural events, like earthquakes or eclipses, no appreciation of reasons or acts of sympathetic reconstruction is arguably needed—mainly because there are no reasons on the scene to even be appreciated, and no perspectives to be sympathetically pieced together. In this volume some of the world’s leading philosophers, psychologists, and theologians shed light on the various ways in which we understand the world, pushing debates on this issue to new levels of sophistication and insight.

Fundamentality

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Healey
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Theory ◽  
High Energy Physics ◽  
Physical Property ◽  
Natural World ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Quantum Field Theories ◽  
Fundamental Physics ◽  
The World ◽  
Energy Physics

The metaphor that fundamental physics is concerned to say what the natural world is like at the deepest level may be cashed out in terms of entities, properties, or laws. The role of quantum field theories in the Standard Model of high-energy physics suggests that fundamental entities, properties, and laws are to be sought in these theories. But the contextual ontology proposed in Chapter 12 would support no unified compositional structure for the world; a quantum state assignment specifies no physical property distribution sufficient even to determine all physical facts; and quantum theory posits no fundamental laws of time evolution, whether deterministic or stochastic. Quantum theory has made a revolutionary contribution to fundamental physics because its principles have permitted tremendous unification of science through the successful application of models constructed in conformity to them: but these models do not say what the world is like at the deepest level.

Beyond Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Garrett Millikan
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Language Function ◽  
Natural Signs ◽  
Transmission Of Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Natural Information ◽  
Natural Ontology

This book weaves together themes from natural ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language and information, areas of inquiry that have not recently been treated together. The sprawling topic is Kant’s how is knowledge possible? but viewed from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Novelties are the introduction of unitrackers and unicepts whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience, a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms, a naturalist sketch of uniceptual—roughly conceptual— development, a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information, a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction, a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs, new descriptions of indexicals and demonstratives and of intensional contexts and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions.

The New Historicism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marjorie Levinson
Keyword(s):  
Dialectical Materialism ◽  
The Other ◽  
New Historicism ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The World ◽  
Previous Decade ◽  
Critical Turn ◽  
The Relationship

Chapter 2 studies the relationship between historicism and Romanticism. It locates the two between Enlightenment materialism, on one side, and Marxian historical and dialectical materialism, on the other. In so doing, it isolates a paradox of materialism—namely, its production of the very concepts that undo it. These include the ideas of knowing as dissociated conceptual activity, and consciousness as absolute negativity. Romanticism and historicism, it is argued, represent solutions to a common problem—a claim defended through a reading of Wordsworth’s sonnet “The world is too much with us.” In considering how we position ourselves in relation to past literature, the chapter evaluates the choices between contemplation and empathy, knowledge and power, blame and defense. As such, it represents the first move in a self-critical turn on the new historicist method that had shaped the author’s—and part of the field’s—work in the previous decade.

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