Textual Continuity

While textual variation has long been understood as a defining element of the genetic process, and indeed of textuality itself, this essay considers textual continuity not as the absence of revision but as potential revision that does not occur. In the archival materials associated with Toni Morrison’s and Tim O’Brien’s novels, we find various instances of a text remaining meaningfully the “same” across different versions. This emphasis on continuity implies a further possible reorientation, toward a sense of works in development, with individual documents construed less as physical objects or containers and more as “temporal parts”.

New Modification of Vertical Muscle Transposition to Enhance Abducting Force in Sixth Nerve Palsy

Purpose:Since 1907, multiple transposition procedures have been established for the treatment of abducens paralysis. In this study, we try to determine where the transposed muscle should be reattached in order to increase the tangential force necessary to improve abduction.Methods:Retrospective case review of 12 consecutive patients with abducens paralysis. All patients underwent the transposition procedure between 2016 and 2019.Vertical rectus muscles are transposed to the insertion of lateral rectus muscle: The temporal parts are joined and sutured to the sclera on top of the lateral rectus muscle in the middle of the insertion. The nasal parts are sutured to the sclera following the spiral of Tillaux. The muscle junction suture is placed 8 mm from the insertion: The temporal parts of the vertical muscles bellies are joined and sutured to the lateral rectus muscle. A full tendon transposition was performed on 11 patients, a half tendon transposition procedure on one patient. The minimum follow-up was 3 months.Results:The mean preoperative deviation was ET of 37° (range: ET 24° to ET 51°). The mean preoperative abduction limitation was 5 mm from midline (range: -7 to -1mm). The postoperative mean deviation was ET of 2° PD (range: 0 to ET 5°). The postoperative mean abduction improvement was 5mm past midline (range: +2 to +6mm). There were no complications, or signs of anterior segment ischemia. Conclusions:To achieve the maximal abductive force from the transposed muscles, we suggest that the vertical muscles be reattached as close as possible to the middle of the lateral rectus insertion.

Mutability and Relationality: Towards an African Four-Dimensionalist Pan-Psychism

This article challenges a certain Theist conception of God as immutable. I argue that the idea that God is immutable can be challenged on the grounds of its metaphysical groundwork. More precisely, I contend that the idea that God is immutable entails endurantism, which I demonstrate to be mistaken. This view cannot be right because it potentially involves three absurd implications: (a) a violation of the principle of the Indiscernibility of Identicals (b) the idea that God becomes a different God with any change that occurs (c) the view that only the present is real and there is no future and past. As these solutions are absurd, the endurantist view ought to be abandoned. I then suggest an alternative theory that does not meet the same problems, which I call African four-dimensionalist Pan-Psychism. This theory I advance maintains that God is the sum of His spatial and temporal parts, is mutable and has relational properties (e.g., He changes with the occurrence of evil or good in the world). I uphold that this view does not have the absurd implications of its competitors.

The 3+1 formalism in teleparallel and symmetric teleparallel gravity

Teleparallel and symmetric teleparallel gravity offer platforms in which gravity can be formulated in interesting geometric approaches, respectively given by torsion and nonmetricity. In this vein, general relativity can be expressed in three dynamically equivalent ways which may offer insights into the different properties of these decompositions such as their Hamiltonian structure, the efficiency of numerical analyses, as well as the classification of gravitational field degrees of freedom. In this work, we take a $$3+1$$ 3 + 1 decomposition of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity and the symmetric teleparallel equivalent of general relativity which are both dynamically equivalent to curvature based general relativity. By splitting the spacetime metric and corresponding tetrad into their spatial and temporal parts as well as through finding the Gauss-like equations, it is possible to set up a general foundation for the different formulations of gravity. Based on these results, general 3-tetrad and 3-metric evolution equations are derived. Finally through the choice of the two respective connections, the metric $$3+1$$ 3 + 1 formulation for general relativity is recovered as well as the tetrad $$3+1$$ 3 + 1 formulation of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity and the metric $$3+1$$ 3 + 1 formulation of symmetric teleparallel equivalent of general relativity. The approach is capable, in principle, of resolving common features of the various formulations of general relativity at a fundamental level and pointing out characteristics that extensions and alternatives to the various formulations can present.

Discrete Bright-dark Soliton Interaction Dynamic Behaviors for Nonautonomous 2+1-Dimensional Soliton Equation

The non-autonomous discrete bright-dark soliton solutions(NDBDSSs) of the 2+1-dimensional Ablowitz-Ladik(AL) equation are derived. We analyze the dynamic behaviors and interactions of the obtained 2+1-dimensional NDBDSSs. In this paper, we present two kinds of different methods to control the 2+1-dimensional NDBDSSs. In first method, we can only control the wave propagations through the spatial part, since the time function has not effect in the phase part. In second method, we can control the wave propagations through both the spatial and temporal parts. The different propagation phenomena can also be produced through two kinds of managements. We obtain the novel "л"-shape non-autonomous discrete bright soliton solution(NDBSS), the novel "λ"-shape non-autonomous discrete dark soliton solution(NDDSS) and their interaction behaviors. The novel behaviors are considered analytically, which can be applied to the electrical and optical fields.

Fission and Shared Stages

In Chapter 2, a fifth mapping of identity on to fission is considered, one that rejects the assumption that different people cannot shared stages. One variant of this “shared stage” approach is the idea that there are two people all along in fission and these two people wholly share a stage prior to fission. The claimed consequence is that the relation of different stages being stages of a common person and the relation that matters in survival do not diverge from each other in fission. It is pointed out that the relation of being stages of a common person is not the proper analogue—in the framework of temporal parts—of the “identity” of the commonsense proposition that “identity matters.” The proper analogue relation is outlined and the divergence in fission reemerges. An alternate version of the fifth mapping—there are two people all along in fission who only partially overlap prior to fission—does not eliminate this divergence.

Dirac Particles in Coulomb Like Field in FLRW–Space

Behaviour of the Dirac particle in Coulomb like field in FLRW space is investigated. Firstly, the Maxwell equations, in terms of the vector potentials are solved to identify the Lorentz and Coulomb like gauges. The radial Coulomb like potential is solved in terms of Legendre functions. Then the Dirac equation is generalized to include this potential and the angular part is separated and solved. The radial and temporal parts of the mass less case is also separated and solved. But the massive case remains coupled. This is still reduced to the case where the Dirac particle can be represented as being in a combined gravitational and electric potential. This effective potential is found to develop an attractive well, which may require a revisit to the recombination era.

Perdurant Time

Sustainability is a matter of time. For years, scientists have been warning us that our time is up, if we do not “bend the curve” of greenhouse gas emissions. Thinking about future generations calls into question our inherited relationship with nature and the time-scale shift to the Anthropocene. Arguably this trend began with the Industrial Revolution around 1750 and has reached catastrophic levels with the increase of tropical cyclones, wildfires, flash flooding, and heatwaves. The question on most people’s mind is, do we have time to change? Change may occur over eons, such as geological events with the appearance or disappearance of significant life-forms. It may be momentary, such as a flash of insight where our perception of the world changes. Or, indeed, change can happen retroactively - as physicists conceptualize - time can be diffracted, changing the past. This suggests three ontological structures of time. Time is atemporal where things endure and preserve their identity through change. Time is subjective. Or entities have different temporal parts wherein entities unfold through time, referred to as perdurants. Our time is a time of a geological shift. Many geologists agree that we are moving from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene, with the Doomsday Clock ticking ever closer to 12:00 midnight, deeply affecting the mood of the current generation. The battle cry for sustainability, already a contested word, has been appropriated by petroleum companies and big tech with promises of moving towards 50% lower carbon emissions by 2050. But when we read the fine print in their disclaimers, we find the language of “speculation,” “projection,” “forward looking,” and “risk,” rendering the term meaningless. This paper aims to extend the term sustainability to include all three ontologies of time. I will do this by (I) looking at Heidegger’s interpretation of Kant’s transcendental aesthetic in Section 3 of Heidegger’s 1929 monograph Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics, where he overcomes subjective time and the ontology of endurance that accompanies it. (II) Heidegger interchanges between endurance and perdurance in, “The Principle of Identity” (1957) and “The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics” (1956) navigating a knife-edge between identity and difference. (III) I will conclude by suggesting, when thought in terms of perdurance, sustainability can bend the curve in our current trajectory towards ecological destruction, by reimagining a better world.

Foundations for Ontology of Persistence: Beyond Talk of Temporal Parts

Persistence is about how things behave across time. It is generally discussed in terms of endurantism (three-dimensionalism) and perdurantism (four-dimensionalism). Despite the relevance of persistence to ontological modeling, however, there is no clear consensus over how to characterize precisely those two theories of persistence. This paper takes the initial steps towards a foundation for ontology of persistence. In particular, I examine by employing recent findings from philosophy of persistence how some major upper ontologies conceptualize endurantism and perdurantism. My resulting modest suggestion is that formal-ontological discussion on persistence should be updated by expanding its perspective beyond the topic of whether objects have proper temporal parts or not.