Creatio Continua and Quantum Randomness

Some thinkers in the Christian and Islamic traditions assert that God doesn’t only create the universe ex nihilo, but that he also continuously recreates the universe in order to preserve its existence. This chapter will discuss randomness vis-à-vis the doctrine of continuous creation as understood in both religious traditions. We argue that the doctrine of continuous creation in its version that is held by both Christians and Muslims would preclude ontic quantum randomness. The reason is that in the doctrine of continuous creation, God is ultimately and meticulously responsible for the existence of objects and properties at every single moment.

Wobec kapitalistycznej (pseudo)wolności. Teatralne manifesty na postjugosłowiańskich scenach

The turn of the millennia was full of events fundamental to negotiating and reinterpreting freedom. The citizens of the collapsing federal Yugoslavia, and then the seven new states that were forming, experienced this in a special way. Post-Yugoslav authors of theatrical manifestos, such as Maja Pelević and Olga Dimitrijević from Serbia, Borut Šeparović from Croatia, András Urbán and Zlatko Paković active in the supralocal area, show a special flair for unmasking. They warn that modern ways of exercising freedom leave much to be desired, since they are limited to the consumption of goods and, consequently, to escaping responsibility. In their performances, they are critical of capitalism in its dehumanising, alienating form, which is only an illusion of freedom. These artists, however, do not offer ready-made solutions — their projects are a starting point for further debate on devising the future of the country and region, on attitudes and relationships (including interpersonal), on (re)constructing identity and on the continuous creation of new ranges of possibilities and effects. They use artistic freedom to speak openly about the boundaries of freedom.

The Covid-19 Pandemic and Meaning in Life

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, where death, sickness and suffering persist, there is some hint that there is nothing so special about the human race that particularly makes it immune to decimation. This is at odds with the general feeling that there is something significant, purposeful and/or meaningful about human life. Thus, the question that immediately comes to mind is whether the present pandemic and the negative situations it presents, destroy any hope of attaining meaning in life. In this article, we critically examine how the Covid-19 pandemic affects meaning in life. While it is not far-fetched to assume that the pandemic, suffering, isolation, economic hardship, and so forth disrupt humanity’s abilities at creating moments of meaning in life, it is our claim that it does not destroy it altogether, as many persons have found new ways of creating such moments, albeit small, through self-sacrifice/care, solidarity, and more. Finally, we conclude that in the face of this tragedy, what humanity can best hope for is the continuous creation of moments of meaning in life in order to reduce despair and sustain hope, however small. We expect that this article will foster future discussions about the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the question of meaningfulness.

Chamber of Popular Micro-Businesses, Popular Brands, and Multi-Place Fairs

Monte Sinai is a town located in the northwest of the city of Guayaquil, Ecuador, and has about 99,325 hectares. There are some signs that this population is in the process of being transformed into a satellite city, given the increasing number of startups and the formation of small markets to buy and sell raw materials. Also, extreme poverty has increased from 7.9% to 15% from 2010 to 2020. There are approximately 12,152 businesses: cyber shops (spaces for renting internet services by the hour or fraction thereof), grocery stores, canteens, pharmacies, bazaars, hairdressers, chicken restaurants, creative entertainment services, among others. This fact implies an economically active population of 34,584 (there are no rigorous statistics on the population), which means a possibility of a very varied supply at the retail level. The objective of this chapter is to propose a Chamber of Popular Entrepreneurs that will lead to the continuous creation of popular brands. For this goal, the authors analyze the Multiplazas Itinerant Fairs as a strategy for popular micro businesses.

"Continuous Creation": two Perspectives in the Cartesian Нhorizon

The article argues that V. Podoroga and M. Mamardashvili's understanding of the concept of “continuous creation” is noticeably different in a number of aspects. Descartes breathed new life into the old idea of creatio continua, which thus fell into the Modern times arsenal of ideas; Mamardashvili and Podoroga, in turn, gave it today's reading, in which there are both areas of intersection and characteristic differences. V. Podoroga questions the Cartesian connection between freedom and duration in Mamardashvili's version. In the interpretation of Cartesian freedom, he believes, Mamardashvili follows Sartre: in this case, man takes on the function of God and becomes a necessary condition for his own existence. However, an analysis of classical texts shows that Mamardashvili's interpretation is quite correct: Descartes (and Mamardashvili) proceed from the discreteness of the moments in time, which require special efforts to assemble. The effort of God maintains the existence of the world; the effort of the cogito maintains the being of thought. Mamardashvili draws attention, as Descartes advises, precisely to the causes of being (secundum esse) and to the intuition of discreteness of moments of time, which is important for Descartes. It is also clear that the one who performs the act of cogito does not at all assume the function of God: on the contrary, he discovers in himself dependence on the higher being, which gives the power of creation. The roll-overs and dissonances of these interpretations show that Podoroga's thesis about the absence of "new" in Mamardashvili's ideas, replaced by the creative energy of his "Voice" in the act of thought, needs correction and clarification. It can be said that the transfer of a number of functions from the Logos to the Voice, carried out by V. Podoroga, led to a certain preponderance of corporality in understanding the peculiar method of Mamardashvili. But still, this does not depreciate the significance of the deciphering of the phenomenon of Mamardashvili, which is unique in its versatility, undertaken by him.