A Reality Based on Consciousness

"This paper addresses the central idea of nonlocal consciousness: that all life is interconnected and interdependent, that we are part of a matrix of life, but even more fundamentally than spacetime itself arises from consciousness, not consciousness from spacetime. It is not a new idea. The excavation of burials dating to the Neolithic (≈ 10,200-2,000 BCE) has revealed that early humans had a sense of spirituality and some concept about the nature of human consciousness. It discusses the bargain made between the Roman Church, and the emerging discipline of science in the 16th century, one taking consciousness (packaged as “spirit”), the other spacetime, and how this led to physicalism taking root as a world view and becoming the prevailing materialist paradigm. It describes the emergence of a new paradigm that incorporates consciousness and lays out the four relevant descriptors helping to define what this new paradigm will look like. They are: • Only certain aspects of the mind are the result of physiologic processes. • Consciousness is causal, and physical reality is its manifestation. • All consciousnesses, regardless of their physical manifestations, are part of a network of life which they both inform and influence and are informed and influenced by; there is a passage back and forth between the individual and the collective. • Some aspects of consciousness are not limited by the time/space continuum and do not originate entirely within an organism’s neuroanatomy. "

How to reason about religious beliefs

Intractable disagreements are commonly analyzed in terms of the semantic opposition of (at least) couples of disputed beliefs (purely epistemic view, from here on PEV). While such a view seems to be a very natural starting point, my intuitions are that such an approach is misleadingly unrealistic, and that an empirical modeling towards how individuals hold beliefs in intractable opposition constitutes a strong defeater for PEV. My work addresses disagreements within the religious domain. Accordingly, I will be concerned with developing my empirical understanding of religious beliefs, and will show the consequences of such proposal on how to answer the problem of religious diversity.

Aristotle’s Mean in Politics and Religion

In this paper, we investigate the political and religious projection of Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Mean. According to Aristotle and his virtue ethics theory, humans succeed the mean when they acknowledge in what they are physically inclined to. If someone knows towards where she is deviating, either in terms of exaggeration or understatement, then she can, at some point, achieve the mean as the end goal of ethical virtue. But what if these moral evaluations refer to collective processes, such as politics, culture and religion? In this case, the notion of “intermediate” could be paralleled with the notion of ‘optimized’. A way of locating the optimized point on the political or cultural public sphere is to acknowledge in what people are politically or culturally inclined to. This seems to be guided by their cultural traditions, political history and aims. In politics and modern democracies, the doctrine may be applied in virtues, such as justice. Excess in the administration of justice causes "witch hunts" and deficiency lawlessness. Respectively, in today’s religious-oriented societies - countries that could be ranked according to their religiosity – where there is little tolerance in their permissible cultural patterns, the application of Aristotle’s mean reveals interesting findings. More specifically, in the case of the virtue of honor, the excess may lead to honor crimes and deficiency to contempt.

Cultural Education towards Exclusivism. Or, the Role of Education in shaping Exclusivism

The way in which the “traditional” system of education ends up deflecting people's attention from the things that make us, human beings, a whole, a species, and a unity, is constantly and ascendingly challenged and thought against. Currently, we need to find out what features of the former educational system, especially those institutionalized, maintained by the school and society, are highlighted here to be eliminated and what is their authentic value in the system. In the present approach, we will refer, as an example, to religious education. These characteristics that we intend to discuss here do not target a “radical” pedagogy but question the educational system in relation to the inclusion-exclusion binomial. The stereotype, bias, and pretentious choices strained by exclusivism through education actually dehumanize us and stress on features that do not honor us. Is it possible to ever lose them along with all their harmful social consequences?

History and future of life on Earth - a synthesis of natural science and theology

"A synthesis of research results of modern natural sciences and fundamental statements of the Christian faith is attempted. The creation of the universe is addressed. Four important events in the history of the Earth as well as the diversity of living beings are shortly discussed. There are good reasons to believe that the universe was created by a transcendent superior being, which we call God, and that this superior being intervened in evolution and Earth history to promote the development of intelligent life. Furthermore, it can be concluded that intelligent life is very rare in the universe. This is the explanation for the “Fermi paradox”. Intelligent life on planet Earth has cosmic significance. The overabundance of this universe inspires the hope for participating in the fulfilled eternity of the Creator in transcendence. Prehistoric humans had long had hope for life after biological death. While scientific speculation about the end of the universe prophesies scenarios of destruction, the Christian faith says that humanity is destined to be united with Jesus Christ. Furthermore, all evolution will be completed with the Creator in transcendence. Then the whole of creation will “obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God”. From the first primitive living cell, an abundance of the most diverse living beings has evolved. Comparably, humanity has differentiated into a plethora of different cultures. This entire abundance will find its unification and fulfilment in transcendence with the Creator of the universe, without its diversity being erased."

Governing Dynamics in Complex Systems using Big Data Information

The paper is presenting different dynamics of an economic complex system, based on certain assumptions made within each of the presented models in the paper. The assumptions used are allowing estimating and forecasting the evolution of the respective complex economic system. This estimation can be made in the “classical” way, which is to say without the use of big data, in which case the results are more prone to errors, or with the use of the recordings of big data, which delivers a much more accurate estimation of the evolution within the complex systems. Throughout the paper the term “with sustainable growth” is used with the meaning of “ecological growth” and it refers to durable economic systems where the environmental issues are taken into consideration, whereas the term “without sustainable growth” or “conventional growth” refers to the economic systems where the environmental issues are not taken into account.

Assuming diversity and difference in the educational process. Limits, opportunities, consequences

The traditional pedagogy is built following a homogeneous, unitary public speaking from a cultural, ethnic, linguistic, spiritual point of view. In fact, the school was designed to serve a monolithic community with members presenting the same relief and socio-cultural characteristics. In the meantime, the design and operation of a ‘community’ have changed. The community is no longer historically linear, undifferentiated, or congruent by ethnic or spiritual lineage. Not to mention the fact that socio-economic unevenness leads to cultural stratification or belonging to different value positions. The class of students brings together dissonances or contrasts that can hardly be modeled or managed by the action frameworks or procedural assumptions of yesteryear. Educational policies at the macro or micro level have also changed, satisfying particular needs or situations that were traditionally not taken into account. What would be the guiding principle for adopting and implementing options when it comes to taking on the different and differentiating in training? By what strategies and ways can the requirement of respecting diversity be met? What are the constraints, limits, and obstacles - objective, technical, circumstantial - that may arise in activating this principle? What are the consequences of dissipation and fragmentation of values or actions from the perspective of didactic teleology and praxeology? These are some questions to which we propose some answers in this intervention.

Grigore Nandriș. Bridging the East and the West through the History of Language, Culture, Religion

In a recent context in which Romania is confronted with the problem of emigration, this article portrays the life and works of Grigore Nandriș (1895-1968), university professor and patriot, who offers an example of devotion to his profession and country that could be set as a standard for all the following generations. He defended Romania in the war, as a soldier, and then at home in the academia, at the University of Chernivtsi and abroad, in France, at the Romanian School at Fontenay-aux-Roses, and in England, at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. Brilliant linguist, speaking 14 foreign languages, he left a considerable amount of books, articles, reviews, conferences on linguistics, folklore, religion, and culture, being mainly interested in establishing links between language and place and culture and neighbouring nations. And above all, Grigore Nandriș’s personality remains a landmark among scholars in his field and colleagues, friends, students, and followers, who admired his devotedness to the Romanian cause abroad.

Determination of essential elements and trace heavy metals in agricrops by photoneutron activation analysis and X-ray fluorescence methods

Applicative researches in the field of environmental protection like X-ray fluorescence analysis, neutron activation analysis, and other methods, present real increasing importance related to the climate changes that can be observed nowadays. Scientific methods will enter step by step in our life, first of all, due to the accelerated technological development and due to the objective motivations of environmental monitoring necessary to take correct measures for the preservation and protection of nature on the Earth. Determination of some inorganic components, mainly heavy metals, in agricultural crops, is frequently required in health-related environmental studies, due to the high toxicity of trace amounts of such elements for the human organism. The main sources of trace elements to agricrops are their growing media, as soil-water-air ecosystem from which those nutrients are taken up by the root to the foliage. The goal of the present research was to determine the extent to which industrial inorganic pollutants are transferred to the crops. It was achieved by using multielement techniques as photon neutron activation method and X-ray fluorescence methods and statistical modeling in order to determine levels, pathways, and fate of toxic and non-toxic bioactive elements in selected agricrops along with the root soil. Some of the experimental trace metal values exceeded the threshold established by Romanian and EU regulations to protect vegetation and explain the estimated significant crop losses. Multivariate modeling by factor analysis and neural network simulation of the elemental concentration data showed always the component loaded with specific elements coming from industrial emissions. These kinds of studies are very requested regarding the vegetable meant for the human diet.

Unexplored implications of the diversity of early belief in Jesus

The Christian canonical and authoritative texts are the result of complex and layered trajectories and should be understood to reflect - for the most part, debates within the Jesus movement—not struggles with external religious communities. Unexplored implications of the diversity of early belief in Jesus emerge out of deconstructing these debates. Contrary to traditional views and despite a complexity and a variety of contexts, Judaism, Gnosticism, and Paganism were not participants in this struggle. They were the subjects of a debate, (mostly) among Gentile believers, about what belief in Jesus should be.