Ever noticed how many opportunities have you passed up because you could not understand/speak/write English? How many times you have apologized for not knowing English?
Learning English has become essential to boost your confidence in your work life or social life. Success in today's competitive world lies in learning English. If you aspire to make a difference to yourself and bring changes to the people around, you have to learn English.
English is a second or a third language for most people around the world. But, as the world is turning to be global village where English is the mode of communication and web is the medium, learning English online has become a necessity. English is one language that is used in communication of any kind, be it social, political or job related. Keeping this issue in mind En101 has started out a mission – “One World, One Language”. En101 aims that no one should feel left out, everyone must feel confident and comfortable in presenting oneself in English.
In fact, many want to learn English but they are not sure as to which is right way to learn English for business and career benefits. Many have doubt over what is the affordable, fast and sure-shot way for learning English? Well, En101 opens new vistas for learning English online. The best thing about it is that you can learn English and earn big money from referring others to En101.
En101 is an ideal option for you, as it gives you a business opportunity along with the learning experience. However, you can try for others where they provide the kind of hand-holding that one can rarely find, and where learning is really fun and practical. Most importantly, learn English from an organization that gives full multimedia supports and where you can do real time interaction.
Bear in mind, learning English online should not be a difficult task at all. Remember how you learnt your mother tongue? It is by real life interaction. You should also learn English by real life interactions with your peers and courseware experts. In my opinion learning everyday English should be your first priority than reading the epics. You should have an undercurrent of doing things the English way, i.e., take note of the peculiar usages and pronunciations. Besides, take online one-to-one pronunciation tests, and guidance from an English.
While learning English, the worst part is spelling and pronunciation. If you mistake those things or you are misled to pronounce the wrong way, you have fallen into pitfall. But you won’t face this problem with the organizations of international repute like En101. They make learning easy. And you learn English online from home in a comfortable and relaxed manner.
En101 employs a personalized (one-on-one) teaching method to give each person a sense of "specialized" learning experience. It is so real that it seems like the teachers are in the same room with you.
Despite its world class standard quality education, it has kept the costs at a minimum. En101 owns and maintains the product, and, since the product can be delivered online (globally) in a matter of seconds, there are no shipping and handling costs. That's why it has made learning experience not only affordable, enjoyable too. Once you Enroll in En101.com - everyone in your household learns - at a very affordable price!
The author is a social worker. She is heading an organization to teach English to the underprivileged.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Dutch progression: The changes in the Dutch language in the 20th century
The Dutch language is spoken by more than 22 million people, most of them in countries like the Netherlands and Belgium. Given this statistic, Dutch can be considered as one of the more popular languages in Europe.
Before the 17th century the Dutch language was not yet standardized. There were many dialects in existence that it was beginning to pose a problem.
After the 17th century, after the standardization of the Dutch language has taken place, it became so much easier to identify the distinctions between the standard Dutch language and its dialects. But the developments surrounding the Dutch language has continued well into the 19th and 20th century. Because of the influences being exerted by other languages like German, French, and English, the standard Dutch language is undergoing a change.
One of the more noticeable change in the Dutch language over the past century is with regards to pronunciation. The voiceless pronunciation of certain letters or syllables are now entering the standard language and is a unique feature that was more commonly heard from a dialect found in a province in Holland. These voiceless pronunciations commonly revolve around “v” as “f”, “z” as “s” and “g” as “x”. This current trend mirrors the desire for a change in spelling Dutch as near to its phonological sound as possible. This would mean that each particular sound is represented by a single letter or that a grapheme is only made in one particular way.
There is also a shift in how three diphthongs are being pronounced. The diphthongs in reference are ei, ui, and ou. The current shift for these are now moving towards aai, ou, and aau. This change was first seen among women who are middle aged and well educated and who come from the upper middle class. These women are identified with the world of the academia, politics, arts and literature.
From these beginnings the practice eventually spread out to women from other demographics. But lately even men have started employing this language change. It is also becoming employed by children, even those under the age of ten years and from very diverse backgrounds.
Already, this change can be heard in large parts of the Netherlands, but most especially among women of Turkish or Moroccan descent.
There are also some changes being seen in the area of morphology. One very significant change is inclusion of plural endings ( -s) even for nouns. This change is mostly seen in words that end in –e – for example, hoogte – de hoogtes, which was usually hoogten.
Even the suffix –baar is becoming more and more prevalently used in modern Dutch usage more often in the use of neologisms. In turn, the suffix -(e)lijk is becoming less and less used and in fact is being ignored in favor of the aforementioned –baar.
There is even a rising use of “concentrations” in modern Dutch. This is most commonly seen when using multi part compound nouns.
Before the 17th century the Dutch language was not yet standardized. There were many dialects in existence that it was beginning to pose a problem.
After the 17th century, after the standardization of the Dutch language has taken place, it became so much easier to identify the distinctions between the standard Dutch language and its dialects. But the developments surrounding the Dutch language has continued well into the 19th and 20th century. Because of the influences being exerted by other languages like German, French, and English, the standard Dutch language is undergoing a change.
One of the more noticeable change in the Dutch language over the past century is with regards to pronunciation. The voiceless pronunciation of certain letters or syllables are now entering the standard language and is a unique feature that was more commonly heard from a dialect found in a province in Holland. These voiceless pronunciations commonly revolve around “v” as “f”, “z” as “s” and “g” as “x”. This current trend mirrors the desire for a change in spelling Dutch as near to its phonological sound as possible. This would mean that each particular sound is represented by a single letter or that a grapheme is only made in one particular way.
There is also a shift in how three diphthongs are being pronounced. The diphthongs in reference are ei, ui, and ou. The current shift for these are now moving towards aai, ou, and aau. This change was first seen among women who are middle aged and well educated and who come from the upper middle class. These women are identified with the world of the academia, politics, arts and literature.
From these beginnings the practice eventually spread out to women from other demographics. But lately even men have started employing this language change. It is also becoming employed by children, even those under the age of ten years and from very diverse backgrounds.
Already, this change can be heard in large parts of the Netherlands, but most especially among women of Turkish or Moroccan descent.
There are also some changes being seen in the area of morphology. One very significant change is inclusion of plural endings ( -s) even for nouns. This change is mostly seen in words that end in –e – for example, hoogte – de hoogtes, which was usually hoogten.
Even the suffix –baar is becoming more and more prevalently used in modern Dutch usage more often in the use of neologisms. In turn, the suffix -(e)lijk is becoming less and less used and in fact is being ignored in favor of the aforementioned –baar.
There is even a rising use of “concentrations” in modern Dutch. This is most commonly seen when using multi part compound nouns.
Don't Forget A Spanish Dictionary!
On a recent tour through Mexico and Central America, I realized that I had forgotten many things for my journey. For some reason I made it out of my house without my toothbrush and toothpaste, but fortunately I was able to replace them as soon as I realized my mistake. I also forgot film for my camera but was able to purchase some once I got to Mexico as well. Far worse than forgetting those things, however, was the realization that I had forgotten my Spanish dictionary that I had received and practiced with just for this trip.
My best friend gave me the Spanish dictionary a few months before I headed out on my trip because she remembered what a difficult time I had in high school Spanish class. She assumed rightly that my Spanish skills were even more poor fifteen years after my last Spanish class. She handed me the Spanish dictionary and wisely advised me to practice the basic words and phrases found in the front of the dictionary every day until I left on my trip. I've never been good at following any advice that included the phrase "every day," so naturally I only picked up my Spanish dictionary a few times before I headed out on my journey.
Many people warned me that having a Spanish dictionary would be one of the best tools for me as I traveled alone throughout several Spanish speaking and foreign countries. I certainly believed the warnings of friends and family, but I had no real idea until I landed in Mexico how true their warnings had been. I was like a lost puppy or a child without her mother. I couldn't talk with locals or even begin to make out the words on signs or billboards.
I made it through the three week tour, but not without much stress and too many miscommunications. I learned quickly that gestures and pointing can go a long way when no words can be communicated. I made it to every city on my itinerary, so I did not miss out on anything in that sense, but I realized quite quickly that forgetting my Spanish dictionary made me miss out on what would have perhaps been the biggest blessing of the trip. Without a tool to help me communicate with the locals, I missed out on a lot of potentially amazing conversations and on getting to know the ins and outs of Spanish cultures from locals.
I will always regret forgetting my Spanish dictionary when I went on that trip, and not just because I couldn't get around with ease. I'll regret it even more because of the lovely Spanish people that I didn't have the privilege of conversing with during my journey.
My best friend gave me the Spanish dictionary a few months before I headed out on my trip because she remembered what a difficult time I had in high school Spanish class. She assumed rightly that my Spanish skills were even more poor fifteen years after my last Spanish class. She handed me the Spanish dictionary and wisely advised me to practice the basic words and phrases found in the front of the dictionary every day until I left on my trip. I've never been good at following any advice that included the phrase "every day," so naturally I only picked up my Spanish dictionary a few times before I headed out on my journey.
Many people warned me that having a Spanish dictionary would be one of the best tools for me as I traveled alone throughout several Spanish speaking and foreign countries. I certainly believed the warnings of friends and family, but I had no real idea until I landed in Mexico how true their warnings had been. I was like a lost puppy or a child without her mother. I couldn't talk with locals or even begin to make out the words on signs or billboards.
I made it through the three week tour, but not without much stress and too many miscommunications. I learned quickly that gestures and pointing can go a long way when no words can be communicated. I made it to every city on my itinerary, so I did not miss out on anything in that sense, but I realized quite quickly that forgetting my Spanish dictionary made me miss out on what would have perhaps been the biggest blessing of the trip. Without a tool to help me communicate with the locals, I missed out on a lot of potentially amazing conversations and on getting to know the ins and outs of Spanish cultures from locals.
I will always regret forgetting my Spanish dictionary when I went on that trip, and not just because I couldn't get around with ease. I'll regret it even more because of the lovely Spanish people that I didn't have the privilege of conversing with during my journey.
Creative Use of your Computer Can Make Language Learning Easier
Your computer can be used as a creative tool in your quest to learn a foreign language. Some innovative ideas can turn your language education into an entertaining, truly memorable experience.
* Audio Modification
Many companies produce software packages that enable you to transform your voice (or someone else's). You can make your voice feminine, masculine, or robotic. It can be raised to a high pitch or lowered to bass tones.
So how does this help you learn a new language?
Many foreign languages (French and German, for example) assign gender to nouns. When learning new vocabulary, why not record feminine nouns in a female voice, masculine nouns in a male voice, and neuter nouns in a robotic voice? This approach can also be used with other types of vocabulary learning. Perhaps you could record a list of German dative verbs in a woman's voice and a list of German accusative verbs in a male voice. You can even take audio files that have been recorded by other people and make them more interesting by morphing voices or adding sound effects.
An internet search for 'voice cloaking' or 'voice modification software' will provide numerous resources to choose from.
* Don't Just Print
If you own a color printer you can spice up your vocabulary lists with bursts of color - perhaps feminine nouns in red, masculine nouns in blue, and neuter in dark grey. You might want to highlight irregular verbs in another color - or perhaps apply bold or italics to make them stand out on the page. Experiment with various fonts and weights.
* Websites and Online Sources
Every language student should have at least one online dictionary bookmarked (preferably several). Each dictionary will work a little differently. Some provide audio clips. Others will allow users to submit new words and expressions. (Be aware that not all user submissions will be 100% accurate.) The best dictionaries will clearly indicate 'verified' user submissions and will mark colloquial and dialect expressions appropriately.
Are you a poet? Help is as close as your computer. Online language resources include helpful rhyming dictionaries. An internet search for 'rhyming dictionary French', 'rhyming dictionary German', 'rhyming dictionary Spanish' etc. will give you good results.
Try to rely on accredited educational sites (domains ending in .edu) when doing grammar research. For instance, if you are looking for Hungarian verb conjugations, try a search like 'Hungarian verb conjugations site:.edu'. Although at the time of writing the previous search doesn't work at MSN, it does work at Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, and many others. The 'site:edu' portion of the search restricts results to domains ending in '.edu' - which are usually universities and other similar educational institutions.
* Online Chatting and Video Conferencing
Video-cams, VOIP, microphones . . . put them all together and talk with foreign friends from all over the world. Using a language in conversation is probably the quickest way to learn.
Whatever you do, remember that the more senses you stimulate during the learning process, the more firmly imprinted the learning becomes. Turn your language education into a fun-filled sensory experience and you will probably stick with it. If it becomes monotonous, you may lose interest.
* Audio Modification
Many companies produce software packages that enable you to transform your voice (or someone else's). You can make your voice feminine, masculine, or robotic. It can be raised to a high pitch or lowered to bass tones.
So how does this help you learn a new language?
Many foreign languages (French and German, for example) assign gender to nouns. When learning new vocabulary, why not record feminine nouns in a female voice, masculine nouns in a male voice, and neuter nouns in a robotic voice? This approach can also be used with other types of vocabulary learning. Perhaps you could record a list of German dative verbs in a woman's voice and a list of German accusative verbs in a male voice. You can even take audio files that have been recorded by other people and make them more interesting by morphing voices or adding sound effects.
An internet search for 'voice cloaking' or 'voice modification software' will provide numerous resources to choose from.
* Don't Just Print
If you own a color printer you can spice up your vocabulary lists with bursts of color - perhaps feminine nouns in red, masculine nouns in blue, and neuter in dark grey. You might want to highlight irregular verbs in another color - or perhaps apply bold or italics to make them stand out on the page. Experiment with various fonts and weights.
* Websites and Online Sources
Every language student should have at least one online dictionary bookmarked (preferably several). Each dictionary will work a little differently. Some provide audio clips. Others will allow users to submit new words and expressions. (Be aware that not all user submissions will be 100% accurate.) The best dictionaries will clearly indicate 'verified' user submissions and will mark colloquial and dialect expressions appropriately.
Are you a poet? Help is as close as your computer. Online language resources include helpful rhyming dictionaries. An internet search for 'rhyming dictionary French', 'rhyming dictionary German', 'rhyming dictionary Spanish' etc. will give you good results.
Try to rely on accredited educational sites (domains ending in .edu) when doing grammar research. For instance, if you are looking for Hungarian verb conjugations, try a search like 'Hungarian verb conjugations site:.edu'. Although at the time of writing the previous search doesn't work at MSN, it does work at Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, and many others. The 'site:edu' portion of the search restricts results to domains ending in '.edu' - which are usually universities and other similar educational institutions.
* Online Chatting and Video Conferencing
Video-cams, VOIP, microphones . . . put them all together and talk with foreign friends from all over the world. Using a language in conversation is probably the quickest way to learn.
Whatever you do, remember that the more senses you stimulate during the learning process, the more firmly imprinted the learning becomes. Turn your language education into a fun-filled sensory experience and you will probably stick with it. If it becomes monotonous, you may lose interest.
Cockney Rhyming Slang
Sir Winston Churchill once observed that Americans and the British are 'a common people divided by a common language' ...
Never was that as true as when describing the Cockneys.
You've certainly heard their accent, made famous in everything from movies based on Dickens and George Bernard Shaw novels to computer-generated gekkos telling real gekkos how to go forth and sell car insurance. The Australian accent has its roots in Cockney culture, as they comprised a large percentage of prisoners who were shipped there by the British when they viewed the Land Down Under as an ideal penal colony. Cockneys are the crafty characters from east London who admire those among their lot who can make a living simply by 'ducking and diving, mate,' which is their version of wheeling and dealing on a working-class level.
To be a 'true' Cockney, one must be born 'within the sounds of the Bow bells.' That's a reference to the St Mary-le-Bow Church in the Cheapside district of London 'proper.' Their sound carries to a distance of approximately three miles, which defines the Cockney digs better than any zoning ordinance could do.
The term 'Cockney' first appeared in the 1600s, but its actual origins are vague. Its first known reference was related to the Bow bells themselves in a period satire that gave no reason for the association.
Some believe that 'Cockney' came from the second wave of Vikings, known as the Normans. These were descendants of the Northmen ('Norman' was the French word for 'Viking') who settled in that part of northern France that came to be known as Normandy when King Charles the Simple ceded it to the Vikings in exchange for ceasing their annual summer sackings of Paris. William the Conqueror was a Norman, and when he took England in 1066, a considerable amount of French influence permeated the Anglican language.
Normans often referred to London as the Land of Sugar Cake, or 'Pais de Cocaigne,' which was an allusion to what they saw as 'the good life' that could be had by living there. Ultimately, this gave rise to a term for being spoiled, 'cockering,' and from there, Cockney was a short derivative away.
Cockneys are famous for dropping the 'H' from the start of words and infamous in the mind of every grammar teacher for their coining the word 'ain't' to replace the formal contraction for 'is not.' However, their most unique feature is their distinctive and catchy rhyming slang.
Legend has it that, during the course of their 'ducking and diving,' they would occasionally run afoul of the law. It was not uncommon for groups of Cockneys to be transported together to and from custody and courtroom, obviously in the company of policemen. So that they could speak openly to each other and deny the officers any ability to understand what they were saying, Cockneys devised a word/phrase association system that only the truly-indoctinated could follow. This became known as their rhyming slang.
It's simple, really. For example:
Dog-and-bone = telephone
Apples-and-pears = stairs
Troubles-and-strife = wife
So, if a Cockney wanted you to go upstairs to tell his wife that there's a phone call for her, he'd ask you to 'take the apples and tell the trouble she's wanted on the dog.'
As a general observation, their technique is that the second word of a rhyming phrase is the link between the 'translated' word and the first word in the rhyming phrase, which becomes the word used when speaking. Sometimes, though, to emphasize the word, the entire phrase might be used. Thus, if you are absolutely exhausted and want to make a point of it, you would exclaim, 'I'm cream crackered!' This is because 'knackered' is an English term for being tired; cream crackers, incidenally, go well with tea.
There are even dictionaries for Cockney rhyming slang, from pocket versions tailored for tourists to online listings. Two good sites for the latter are London Slang and Cockney Rhyming Slang. As with most slang, its vibrance is cause for constant expansion and/or modification of terms, so the Cockney rhymes are always a work in progress.
One note of caution: nothing sounds worse than a visitor attempting to over-Cockney their speech. If you're thinking of touring an East End market or pub and want to pay your respects by using the local vernacular, be prepared with a few simple terms and deploy them with a smile only when the occasion permits. Otherwise, not being sure if you're 'taking the Mickey' out of them or just ignorant, the Cockneys will most likely view you as a 'right Charley Ronce' and turn away.
Given that 'ponce' is common English slang for a fool --- which had its origins in describing a 'fancy man,' now known as a 'pimp' in modern times --- you may first need a 'British' translator to tell you what word the Cockney was using. By that time, you'll no doubt agree that Churchill wasn't 'alf Pete Tong (ie- wrong).
In fact, he didn't even need to refer to another country in order to be right.
Never was that as true as when describing the Cockneys.
You've certainly heard their accent, made famous in everything from movies based on Dickens and George Bernard Shaw novels to computer-generated gekkos telling real gekkos how to go forth and sell car insurance. The Australian accent has its roots in Cockney culture, as they comprised a large percentage of prisoners who were shipped there by the British when they viewed the Land Down Under as an ideal penal colony. Cockneys are the crafty characters from east London who admire those among their lot who can make a living simply by 'ducking and diving, mate,' which is their version of wheeling and dealing on a working-class level.
To be a 'true' Cockney, one must be born 'within the sounds of the Bow bells.' That's a reference to the St Mary-le-Bow Church in the Cheapside district of London 'proper.' Their sound carries to a distance of approximately three miles, which defines the Cockney digs better than any zoning ordinance could do.
The term 'Cockney' first appeared in the 1600s, but its actual origins are vague. Its first known reference was related to the Bow bells themselves in a period satire that gave no reason for the association.
Some believe that 'Cockney' came from the second wave of Vikings, known as the Normans. These were descendants of the Northmen ('Norman' was the French word for 'Viking') who settled in that part of northern France that came to be known as Normandy when King Charles the Simple ceded it to the Vikings in exchange for ceasing their annual summer sackings of Paris. William the Conqueror was a Norman, and when he took England in 1066, a considerable amount of French influence permeated the Anglican language.
Normans often referred to London as the Land of Sugar Cake, or 'Pais de Cocaigne,' which was an allusion to what they saw as 'the good life' that could be had by living there. Ultimately, this gave rise to a term for being spoiled, 'cockering,' and from there, Cockney was a short derivative away.
Cockneys are famous for dropping the 'H' from the start of words and infamous in the mind of every grammar teacher for their coining the word 'ain't' to replace the formal contraction for 'is not.' However, their most unique feature is their distinctive and catchy rhyming slang.
Legend has it that, during the course of their 'ducking and diving,' they would occasionally run afoul of the law. It was not uncommon for groups of Cockneys to be transported together to and from custody and courtroom, obviously in the company of policemen. So that they could speak openly to each other and deny the officers any ability to understand what they were saying, Cockneys devised a word/phrase association system that only the truly-indoctinated could follow. This became known as their rhyming slang.
It's simple, really. For example:
Dog-and-bone = telephone
Apples-and-pears = stairs
Troubles-and-strife = wife
So, if a Cockney wanted you to go upstairs to tell his wife that there's a phone call for her, he'd ask you to 'take the apples and tell the trouble she's wanted on the dog.'
As a general observation, their technique is that the second word of a rhyming phrase is the link between the 'translated' word and the first word in the rhyming phrase, which becomes the word used when speaking. Sometimes, though, to emphasize the word, the entire phrase might be used. Thus, if you are absolutely exhausted and want to make a point of it, you would exclaim, 'I'm cream crackered!' This is because 'knackered' is an English term for being tired; cream crackers, incidenally, go well with tea.
There are even dictionaries for Cockney rhyming slang, from pocket versions tailored for tourists to online listings. Two good sites for the latter are London Slang and Cockney Rhyming Slang. As with most slang, its vibrance is cause for constant expansion and/or modification of terms, so the Cockney rhymes are always a work in progress.
One note of caution: nothing sounds worse than a visitor attempting to over-Cockney their speech. If you're thinking of touring an East End market or pub and want to pay your respects by using the local vernacular, be prepared with a few simple terms and deploy them with a smile only when the occasion permits. Otherwise, not being sure if you're 'taking the Mickey' out of them or just ignorant, the Cockneys will most likely view you as a 'right Charley Ronce' and turn away.
Given that 'ponce' is common English slang for a fool --- which had its origins in describing a 'fancy man,' now known as a 'pimp' in modern times --- you may first need a 'British' translator to tell you what word the Cockney was using. By that time, you'll no doubt agree that Churchill wasn't 'alf Pete Tong (ie- wrong).
In fact, he didn't even need to refer to another country in order to be right.
Lost Relatives and Ancestors: A Beginner’s Guide
“Collecting Dead Relatives and Sometimes a Live Cousin” and “My Family Tree is Lost in the Forest” are just some of the catchy slogans found printed on the shirts of genealogy enthusiasts. These avid researchers are looking to fill the holes in their family trees. It’s work that most have been at for decades.
My wife and I wanted to get started finding our lost relatives, but we didn’t know where to begin. She had a binder full of information that one of her relatives had put together, but other than that, we were the ones who were lost.
We started by going to the Genealogy library at Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library, but you can also do this online.
The first step to finding your lost relatives is to download all the information that has already been compiled. We did this by using the Ancestral File database that is indexed at the world’s largest genealogy library, The Family History Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. We remotely accessed the database and first found my wife’s records. We saw on her pedigree chart that some relatives had already compiled information on her mother’s line, but her father’s line was empty. After downloading my wife’s pedigree chart onto a GEDCOM file, we did some research on her father’s line. The family history consultant told us that it’s possible that there has been work done on her father’s line, but it just hasn’t been connected to my wife’s file.
By typing in her paternal grandfather’s name into the search, we were able to find much more information. The consultant told us that we needed to download his pedigree chart, take it home to our computer and merge his file with my wife’s file. That would associate all his information with my wife’s.
The best computer program for compiling Family History information is Personal Ancestral File (PAF) which is currently in the 5.2 release. The software is free, so you should be able to find it in any search engine.
Check back again for the next installment which will deal with doing your own research.
My wife and I wanted to get started finding our lost relatives, but we didn’t know where to begin. She had a binder full of information that one of her relatives had put together, but other than that, we were the ones who were lost.
We started by going to the Genealogy library at Brigham Young University’s Harold B. Lee Library, but you can also do this online.
The first step to finding your lost relatives is to download all the information that has already been compiled. We did this by using the Ancestral File database that is indexed at the world’s largest genealogy library, The Family History Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. We remotely accessed the database and first found my wife’s records. We saw on her pedigree chart that some relatives had already compiled information on her mother’s line, but her father’s line was empty. After downloading my wife’s pedigree chart onto a GEDCOM file, we did some research on her father’s line. The family history consultant told us that it’s possible that there has been work done on her father’s line, but it just hasn’t been connected to my wife’s file.
By typing in her paternal grandfather’s name into the search, we were able to find much more information. The consultant told us that we needed to download his pedigree chart, take it home to our computer and merge his file with my wife’s file. That would associate all his information with my wife’s.
The best computer program for compiling Family History information is Personal Ancestral File (PAF) which is currently in the 5.2 release. The software is free, so you should be able to find it in any search engine.
Check back again for the next installment which will deal with doing your own research.
Eulogy For A Good Book: PowerPoint and the Two Reasons You Need to Understand it
Good bye Moby Dick! Farewell Crime and Punishment! Adios National Geographic and Readers Digest!
PowerPoint and the generation of the 7th Millennium rules.
If you're a "Baby Boomer", PowerPoint will likely not appeal to you. Perhaps you will even feel it is evil. But I'll give you two good reasons you ought to understand and appreciate PowerPoint. Your children and grandchildren.
PowerPoint is the way the Generation of the 7th Millennium and beyond will cope in this fast-paced, frenetic world of iPods, search engines and micro-minute attention spans. (If man came on to the scene in the year 4026 BCE then 1975 would mark the beginning of the seventh Millennium
Yes, if you were a teen in '75, you remember reading novels and composing essays for your teachers and professors. On the weekends, you caught movies like Dog Day Afternoon, Mahogany, The Man Who Would Be King, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Love Story, The Stepford Wives, Three Days of the Condor and Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("Sir, by what name be ye known?" …reply? "Some call me Tim?")
A good plot, drama, and wit (ok, we weren’t perfect then either) ruled the big screen.
But times have evolved. What was a "New York Minute" back then is a New York milli-second today.
The big screen stars born in that notable year include Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, and Kate Winslet.
In '75, there were five notable deaths -- Marjorie Main (Ma Kettle), Susan Hayward, The Three Stooges' Larry Fine and Moe Howard. The fifth death at the birth of the 7th Millennium was not noted for almost 20 years.
The death of which I am speaking is the death of reading and comprehension skills.
Many college professors trace the decline of student reading and retention to 1975, or the beginning of the 7th Millennium.
This is manifested by students who take no notes, wear stylish headsets that re-play lectures which were recorded by professors.
Look at how many professors today use PowerPoint presentations and give copies of the slides to their students to use as a study guide.
Do you really think students have time to read when the Internet furnishes information in lightning-quick fashion?
Why are newspapers folding, libraries closing and reader's club subscriptions falling? Perhaps the biggest indictment is the Internet. Yes, the industrial age has died and the information age is alive and well. That is, if you like looking at pictures in shades of PowerPoint blue.
Delivering and receiving information has changed. There are a new set of rules for writing and reading on the web.
One sentence paragraphs are acceptable. None are longer than three sentences. On the better sites, articles are generally no longer than 750 words. That's because reading is done by scanning.
To engage a reader (or scanner as the case may be), psychological tricks like connectives are used to tie one paragraph to the next.
There are two kinds of copy on the Internet. One appeals to traditional readers, the other to the newer generation of the 7th Millennium.
The key to educating 7th Millennium students is PowerPoint. The challenge facing educators, speakers and presenters is creating a lecture that can stand on its own merit, utilizing Power Point as a visual aid rather than making Power Point the presentation.
The generation of the 7th Millennium becomes easily bored. Stimulating students' grey matter neurons requires using our own little grey box of tricks, using word illustrations and probing questions to elevate thinking. Power Point presentations combined with effective speaking tactics are a dynamic one-two punch in the lecture hall.
The future will remember non-predictions of the past as was the case with Jules Vern’s novel conception of a facsimile machine several decades before its creation.
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and The Max Headroom Story will be ‘novel’ predictions of the future.
Moving forward, we will no longer look for 15 minutes of fame. No more New York minutes. On the web, things happen in seconds. Our future will soon become our past.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is that everybody will be somebody for 27 seconds. In a world of sound bites, images flashing before our eyes and action movies, the reality is that 27 seconds is an eternity on the net.
Capturing the attention of the generation of the 7th Millennium requires pictures, images, and attention-grabbing devices. PowerPoint is the solution. It is the salvation of tomorrow's classroom.
May we use Power Point Presentations wisely.
PowerPoint and the generation of the 7th Millennium rules.
If you're a "Baby Boomer", PowerPoint will likely not appeal to you. Perhaps you will even feel it is evil. But I'll give you two good reasons you ought to understand and appreciate PowerPoint. Your children and grandchildren.
PowerPoint is the way the Generation of the 7th Millennium and beyond will cope in this fast-paced, frenetic world of iPods, search engines and micro-minute attention spans. (If man came on to the scene in the year 4026 BCE then 1975 would mark the beginning of the seventh Millennium
Yes, if you were a teen in '75, you remember reading novels and composing essays for your teachers and professors. On the weekends, you caught movies like Dog Day Afternoon, Mahogany, The Man Who Would Be King, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Love Story, The Stepford Wives, Three Days of the Condor and Monty Python and the Holy Grail ("Sir, by what name be ye known?" …reply? "Some call me Tim?")
A good plot, drama, and wit (ok, we weren’t perfect then either) ruled the big screen.
But times have evolved. What was a "New York Minute" back then is a New York milli-second today.
The big screen stars born in that notable year include Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, and Kate Winslet.
In '75, there were five notable deaths -- Marjorie Main (Ma Kettle), Susan Hayward, The Three Stooges' Larry Fine and Moe Howard. The fifth death at the birth of the 7th Millennium was not noted for almost 20 years.
The death of which I am speaking is the death of reading and comprehension skills.
Many college professors trace the decline of student reading and retention to 1975, or the beginning of the 7th Millennium.
This is manifested by students who take no notes, wear stylish headsets that re-play lectures which were recorded by professors.
Look at how many professors today use PowerPoint presentations and give copies of the slides to their students to use as a study guide.
Do you really think students have time to read when the Internet furnishes information in lightning-quick fashion?
Why are newspapers folding, libraries closing and reader's club subscriptions falling? Perhaps the biggest indictment is the Internet. Yes, the industrial age has died and the information age is alive and well. That is, if you like looking at pictures in shades of PowerPoint blue.
Delivering and receiving information has changed. There are a new set of rules for writing and reading on the web.
One sentence paragraphs are acceptable. None are longer than three sentences. On the better sites, articles are generally no longer than 750 words. That's because reading is done by scanning.
To engage a reader (or scanner as the case may be), psychological tricks like connectives are used to tie one paragraph to the next.
There are two kinds of copy on the Internet. One appeals to traditional readers, the other to the newer generation of the 7th Millennium.
The key to educating 7th Millennium students is PowerPoint. The challenge facing educators, speakers and presenters is creating a lecture that can stand on its own merit, utilizing Power Point as a visual aid rather than making Power Point the presentation.
The generation of the 7th Millennium becomes easily bored. Stimulating students' grey matter neurons requires using our own little grey box of tricks, using word illustrations and probing questions to elevate thinking. Power Point presentations combined with effective speaking tactics are a dynamic one-two punch in the lecture hall.
The future will remember non-predictions of the past as was the case with Jules Vern’s novel conception of a facsimile machine several decades before its creation.
Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and The Max Headroom Story will be ‘novel’ predictions of the future.
Moving forward, we will no longer look for 15 minutes of fame. No more New York minutes. On the web, things happen in seconds. Our future will soon become our past.
Perhaps the best we can hope for is that everybody will be somebody for 27 seconds. In a world of sound bites, images flashing before our eyes and action movies, the reality is that 27 seconds is an eternity on the net.
Capturing the attention of the generation of the 7th Millennium requires pictures, images, and attention-grabbing devices. PowerPoint is the solution. It is the salvation of tomorrow's classroom.
May we use Power Point Presentations wisely.
Choice Theory
You have listened to me for a year now talking about Choice Theory but I know I’ve never really explained what Choice Theory is. Choice Theory is actually an explanation of all human behavior developed by Dr. William Glasser.
There are basically five components of this theory—the basic human needs, the quality world, the perceived world, the comparing place and total behavior. I’ll give a brief overview of each one, starting with the five basic human needs.
The Basic Human Needs
We are born with five basic human needs—survival, love & belonging, power, freedom and fun. We are all born with these needs but we experience them to varying degrees. One person might have a high love & belonging need, while another person is high in freedom. We are born with these needs and are biologically driven to get them met in the best way available to us.
The Quality World
This is a place that exists inside all of us where we store pictures of things that have satisfied one or more of our basic needs in the past or things we think may satisfy them in the future. These things do not have to meet society’s definition of quality. Alcohol is in the quality world of an alcoholic, steeling cars in the quality world of a car thief, and domestic violence is in the quality world of a batterer. The only two requirements for entry into the quality world are that it meets one or more of our needs and it feels good.
The Perceived World
There is much to be said about the perceived world but for the purposes of this article, all I want to say is that we each have our own perceptions of the world. Our sensory system takes in information through sight, touch, sound, taste and scent, however we all have unique ways of processing that information based on our life experiences, our culture, and our values.
The main thing to remember about the perceived world is that if you encounter others whose perceived world doesn’t match yours, it doesn’t mean one of you is wrong. It simply means you are different. Remembering this simply statement will reduce much of the disagreements and fighting that occurs in people’s lives. Acceptance of this fact would mean we could give up the need to convince others of our point of view. We could simply accept the fact that we see things differently and move on.
The Comparing Place
The comparing place is where we weigh what we want from our quality world against our perceptions of what we believe we are actually getting. When these two things are a match, all is well.
However, when our perceptions and quality world don’t line up, in other words we perceive we are not in possession of the things we want, then we are driven to action to get those things we are thinking about. People generally don’t make a lot of progress or change the things they are currently doing unless they are in some degree of discomfort—the greater the pain the more motivation to try something different.
This is where conventional wisdom tells us that if we want what’s best for other people in our lives, then it is our responsibility to raise their pain level to get them to do things differently because we generally know what’s best for them. Right?
Wrong. We can only know what’s best for ourselves. Remember, our perceived worlds are all different. We have unique values and experiences. How can we possibly know what’s best for someone else when we haven’t been in their skin or lived their life? We can only know what’s best for ourselves.
Total Behavior
There are two main things about behavior. One is that all behavior is purposeful and two is that all behavior is total. Let’s begin with the idea that all behavior is total. There are four inseparable components of behavior—action, thinking, feeling and physiology. These all exist simultaneously during any given behavior in which we engage. The first two components—acting and thinking—are the only components over which we can have direct control. This means that if we want to change how we are feeling or something that is happening in our bodies (physiology), then we must first consciously change what we are doing or how we are thinking.
As for all behavior being purposeful, all behavior is our best attempt to get something we want. We are never acting in response to some external stimulus. We are always acting proactively to get something we want. This means that when I would yell at my son to clean his room after asking him nicely several times, I wasn’t yelling because my son “made me mad.” I was yelling because I was still using my best attempt to get him to do what I wanted, which was to clean his room. This seems like I’m splitting hairs but it’s an important distinction to make when you are attempting to move from a victim’s role to that of an empowered person.
The Implications
Choice Theory pretty much rids us of the idea that people are “misbehaving.” All anyone is doing is their best attempt to get something they want. Of course in the process, they may break laws, disregard rules and hurt others but those are really side effects of doing the best they know how to get their needs met. We are all doing our best—some of us simply have better tools, resources and behaviors at our disposal than others.
If we embrace Choice Theory’s concepts, then our function should be more to educate and help others self-evaluate the effectiveness of their own behavior. Know that often they will continue to do things exactly as they have because it’s familiar and/or because what they are doing really is getting them something they want. It is not our job to stop them, nor is it our job to rescue them from the consequences of their own behavior.
We can only make our best attempt to help others evaluate the effectiveness of their behavior and to choose a different way that perhaps is not against the rules or doesn’t hurt the person or someone else. Then, we need to get out of the way and let the situation play out. This may seem hard to do—like you aren’t doing your job as a parent, teacher, counselor, or supervisor, however, I ask, what is the alternative?
When you attempt to force or coerce or bribe another person to do things he or she doesn’t want to do, you may be successful. You may be able to find the right reward or create a painful enough consequence to get another person to do what you want but in so doing you are breeding resentment and contempt. Your relationship will suffer. If you believe, as I do, that relationship is the root of all influence, then you are losing your ability to influence another by using external control.
There are basically five components of this theory—the basic human needs, the quality world, the perceived world, the comparing place and total behavior. I’ll give a brief overview of each one, starting with the five basic human needs.
The Basic Human Needs
We are born with five basic human needs—survival, love & belonging, power, freedom and fun. We are all born with these needs but we experience them to varying degrees. One person might have a high love & belonging need, while another person is high in freedom. We are born with these needs and are biologically driven to get them met in the best way available to us.
The Quality World
This is a place that exists inside all of us where we store pictures of things that have satisfied one or more of our basic needs in the past or things we think may satisfy them in the future. These things do not have to meet society’s definition of quality. Alcohol is in the quality world of an alcoholic, steeling cars in the quality world of a car thief, and domestic violence is in the quality world of a batterer. The only two requirements for entry into the quality world are that it meets one or more of our needs and it feels good.
The Perceived World
There is much to be said about the perceived world but for the purposes of this article, all I want to say is that we each have our own perceptions of the world. Our sensory system takes in information through sight, touch, sound, taste and scent, however we all have unique ways of processing that information based on our life experiences, our culture, and our values.
The main thing to remember about the perceived world is that if you encounter others whose perceived world doesn’t match yours, it doesn’t mean one of you is wrong. It simply means you are different. Remembering this simply statement will reduce much of the disagreements and fighting that occurs in people’s lives. Acceptance of this fact would mean we could give up the need to convince others of our point of view. We could simply accept the fact that we see things differently and move on.
The Comparing Place
The comparing place is where we weigh what we want from our quality world against our perceptions of what we believe we are actually getting. When these two things are a match, all is well.
However, when our perceptions and quality world don’t line up, in other words we perceive we are not in possession of the things we want, then we are driven to action to get those things we are thinking about. People generally don’t make a lot of progress or change the things they are currently doing unless they are in some degree of discomfort—the greater the pain the more motivation to try something different.
This is where conventional wisdom tells us that if we want what’s best for other people in our lives, then it is our responsibility to raise their pain level to get them to do things differently because we generally know what’s best for them. Right?
Wrong. We can only know what’s best for ourselves. Remember, our perceived worlds are all different. We have unique values and experiences. How can we possibly know what’s best for someone else when we haven’t been in their skin or lived their life? We can only know what’s best for ourselves.
Total Behavior
There are two main things about behavior. One is that all behavior is purposeful and two is that all behavior is total. Let’s begin with the idea that all behavior is total. There are four inseparable components of behavior—action, thinking, feeling and physiology. These all exist simultaneously during any given behavior in which we engage. The first two components—acting and thinking—are the only components over which we can have direct control. This means that if we want to change how we are feeling or something that is happening in our bodies (physiology), then we must first consciously change what we are doing or how we are thinking.
As for all behavior being purposeful, all behavior is our best attempt to get something we want. We are never acting in response to some external stimulus. We are always acting proactively to get something we want. This means that when I would yell at my son to clean his room after asking him nicely several times, I wasn’t yelling because my son “made me mad.” I was yelling because I was still using my best attempt to get him to do what I wanted, which was to clean his room. This seems like I’m splitting hairs but it’s an important distinction to make when you are attempting to move from a victim’s role to that of an empowered person.
The Implications
Choice Theory pretty much rids us of the idea that people are “misbehaving.” All anyone is doing is their best attempt to get something they want. Of course in the process, they may break laws, disregard rules and hurt others but those are really side effects of doing the best they know how to get their needs met. We are all doing our best—some of us simply have better tools, resources and behaviors at our disposal than others.
If we embrace Choice Theory’s concepts, then our function should be more to educate and help others self-evaluate the effectiveness of their own behavior. Know that often they will continue to do things exactly as they have because it’s familiar and/or because what they are doing really is getting them something they want. It is not our job to stop them, nor is it our job to rescue them from the consequences of their own behavior.
We can only make our best attempt to help others evaluate the effectiveness of their behavior and to choose a different way that perhaps is not against the rules or doesn’t hurt the person or someone else. Then, we need to get out of the way and let the situation play out. This may seem hard to do—like you aren’t doing your job as a parent, teacher, counselor, or supervisor, however, I ask, what is the alternative?
When you attempt to force or coerce or bribe another person to do things he or she doesn’t want to do, you may be successful. You may be able to find the right reward or create a painful enough consequence to get another person to do what you want but in so doing you are breeding resentment and contempt. Your relationship will suffer. If you believe, as I do, that relationship is the root of all influence, then you are losing your ability to influence another by using external control.
Saturday, June 14, 2014
Debunking Psychics
Have you ever been curious about your future? Have you ever called a phone psychic to get some answers?
If you wonder how “psychics” work, read on. This article is for you.
Most “psychics” are plain scammers. They use cold reading to make calculated guess about the sitters. Cold reading is an interactive psychological technique which extracts information from a person through verbal and non verbal cues. More often than not, psychics utilize known psychology techniques that can apply to almost anyone. An example would be claiming the sitter is cursed and he or she could lift that curse for a fee, because most people visit a psychic when they are down and depressed, “being cursed” is a quick, convenient reason to blame. Paying the fee to lift the curse would be the quickest solution to their complicated life problems.
There seems to be several common factors in psychic readings. The psychic usually:
+Skillfully extracts information from non verbal cues such as breathing patterns, voice, dress, skin color, and body language.
+ Makes statements that seem to give information when they are actually out to fish for it. E.g. Prompts feedback from sitters by saying “I see a man in uniform, why would that be?”
+Feeds back to the subject what the latter wants to hear
+Makes general “Barnum statements” such as “You are worrisome on the outside but insecure on the inside.”
The sitter of the reading is the key to a 'successful' reading. The sitter's willingness to connect vague 'clues' came up by the psychic will often decide how successful the reading is. Many sitters who try to contact their deceased loved ones are very motivated in the first place, and will take the psychic's message as a sign that he or she have made contact with the other side. That is why psychics subtly encourage cooperation before and during the reading. Once the psychic gains the trusts of the sitter, the latter usually actively supply information and clarifications.
Although facial expressions and body languages could mean differently to people from different cultural backgrounds, many psychologists believe that certain facial and body expressions are universal to the mankind.
How to tell dominance: People who dominates have a tenancy to stand up with an erected body, speaks slowly and rarely, and look people in their eyes for an extended period of time. Because of the demonstrated link between testosterone and aggression, people with square jaws ( testosterone induced feature) are thought as more domineering and aggressive.
How to tell submissiveness: Submissive people touches themselves a lot when they are confronted with a difficult situation. This is because human have an inborn mechanism acquired very early on in life to link physical touching with comfort and safety.
If you wonder how “psychics” work, read on. This article is for you.
Most “psychics” are plain scammers. They use cold reading to make calculated guess about the sitters. Cold reading is an interactive psychological technique which extracts information from a person through verbal and non verbal cues. More often than not, psychics utilize known psychology techniques that can apply to almost anyone. An example would be claiming the sitter is cursed and he or she could lift that curse for a fee, because most people visit a psychic when they are down and depressed, “being cursed” is a quick, convenient reason to blame. Paying the fee to lift the curse would be the quickest solution to their complicated life problems.
There seems to be several common factors in psychic readings. The psychic usually:
+Skillfully extracts information from non verbal cues such as breathing patterns, voice, dress, skin color, and body language.
+ Makes statements that seem to give information when they are actually out to fish for it. E.g. Prompts feedback from sitters by saying “I see a man in uniform, why would that be?”
+Feeds back to the subject what the latter wants to hear
+Makes general “Barnum statements” such as “You are worrisome on the outside but insecure on the inside.”
The sitter of the reading is the key to a 'successful' reading. The sitter's willingness to connect vague 'clues' came up by the psychic will often decide how successful the reading is. Many sitters who try to contact their deceased loved ones are very motivated in the first place, and will take the psychic's message as a sign that he or she have made contact with the other side. That is why psychics subtly encourage cooperation before and during the reading. Once the psychic gains the trusts of the sitter, the latter usually actively supply information and clarifications.
Although facial expressions and body languages could mean differently to people from different cultural backgrounds, many psychologists believe that certain facial and body expressions are universal to the mankind.
How to tell dominance: People who dominates have a tenancy to stand up with an erected body, speaks slowly and rarely, and look people in their eyes for an extended period of time. Because of the demonstrated link between testosterone and aggression, people with square jaws ( testosterone induced feature) are thought as more domineering and aggressive.
How to tell submissiveness: Submissive people touches themselves a lot when they are confronted with a difficult situation. This is because human have an inborn mechanism acquired very early on in life to link physical touching with comfort and safety.
Words To Live By?
Watching the news the other day, it occurred to me that people who have "words to live by" often begin to attack and even kill others. I thought back to my own angry youth, when I could easily use words to justify violent thoughts which might have become violent actions. Words are tools, and yet it seems that they can be more dangerous than gunpowder.
Imagine two men facing each other, pointing past one another. One is pointing at a tornado that is coming, and the other at a raging fire headed towards them. Each sees their own truth and is angry at the sight of the other's hand. Each feels that the other's hand is "wrong." This may seem silly, but replace the tornado and fire with any modern issues, and the hands with words, and this scene describes how we often try to communicate.
We point past each other with our words, arguing as though we are looking at the same facts and experiences. We want to prove our words are the right ones, instead of learning to look at what the other's words are pointing at. Words are seductive, and for all their undeniable usefulness, they also can lead us away from understanding when we focus on them, when we make them more important than the truth they are meant to point at.
There Are No Words To Live By
This isn't just about communication with others. We focus on, and get trapped in a net of words that we use to explain the world to ourselves. We call things "right" or "wrong" for example, according to how they compare to our "definitions." Unlike mathematics, though, word formulas and definitions can never be so precise. They cannot encompass the whole truth of reality. For example, with the least effort, you can create a circumstance where "stealing" would be right, and "helping" someone wrong.
This isn't an argument against using language or logic. It is just that both only go so far. Like a car that takes you across the country or world, they are useful, but like a car, they are only useful in certain ways, and you have to get out of them when you arrive at your various destinations. Taking a car to the lake isn't a problem, but taking it into the lake is. This is what we do when our words and logic take us to dangerous situations.
Can having words to live by be dangerous, though? Absolutely. I once heard an otherwise compassionate person say he was against animal cruelty laws because he couldn't find a logical and defensible set of words to defend them. If he saw a new machine, would he refuse to believe it existed until he could explain it and describe it? Reality, and the reality of right and wrong exist outside of words - they are not the words themselves.
I watched a man say on the evening news that we have the right to drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq, and that we should. As he explained why, you could see that whatever compassionate impulses he had, they were over-ruled by his total allegiance to his words, logic, and where these take him. It never occurred to him that maybe there is truth outside of his words and logic.
It's great to have guidelines, like "don't lie," or "we have the right to defend ourselves." It is even better to remember that these rules will someday fail us, and we will have to make new ones. Words are just tools. There are words to die by, but there are no words to live by.
Imagine two men facing each other, pointing past one another. One is pointing at a tornado that is coming, and the other at a raging fire headed towards them. Each sees their own truth and is angry at the sight of the other's hand. Each feels that the other's hand is "wrong." This may seem silly, but replace the tornado and fire with any modern issues, and the hands with words, and this scene describes how we often try to communicate.
We point past each other with our words, arguing as though we are looking at the same facts and experiences. We want to prove our words are the right ones, instead of learning to look at what the other's words are pointing at. Words are seductive, and for all their undeniable usefulness, they also can lead us away from understanding when we focus on them, when we make them more important than the truth they are meant to point at.
There Are No Words To Live By
This isn't just about communication with others. We focus on, and get trapped in a net of words that we use to explain the world to ourselves. We call things "right" or "wrong" for example, according to how they compare to our "definitions." Unlike mathematics, though, word formulas and definitions can never be so precise. They cannot encompass the whole truth of reality. For example, with the least effort, you can create a circumstance where "stealing" would be right, and "helping" someone wrong.
This isn't an argument against using language or logic. It is just that both only go so far. Like a car that takes you across the country or world, they are useful, but like a car, they are only useful in certain ways, and you have to get out of them when you arrive at your various destinations. Taking a car to the lake isn't a problem, but taking it into the lake is. This is what we do when our words and logic take us to dangerous situations.
Can having words to live by be dangerous, though? Absolutely. I once heard an otherwise compassionate person say he was against animal cruelty laws because he couldn't find a logical and defensible set of words to defend them. If he saw a new machine, would he refuse to believe it existed until he could explain it and describe it? Reality, and the reality of right and wrong exist outside of words - they are not the words themselves.
I watched a man say on the evening news that we have the right to drop a nuclear bomb on Iraq, and that we should. As he explained why, you could see that whatever compassionate impulses he had, they were over-ruled by his total allegiance to his words, logic, and where these take him. It never occurred to him that maybe there is truth outside of his words and logic.
It's great to have guidelines, like "don't lie," or "we have the right to defend ourselves." It is even better to remember that these rules will someday fail us, and we will have to make new ones. Words are just tools. There are words to die by, but there are no words to live by.
When the Morning Dawns
When darkness turns to day, the sun moves over the horizon and touches everything in sight. This movement across the landscape brightens everything. Such an illumination awakens us all. We rise with energy moving in and through us allowing us to create a new day. A day unique from all the rest and creatively woven into our soul.
This is the landscape of our soul. As you can see, nature has a way of showing us just how powerful we are. The same power that created the moon and the stars and the movement of all space and time lies within the human heart. It is the heart of creation itself, and perhaps, the heart of our Creator.
Human beings are fortunate to be able to be aware of our awareness. This awareness gives us an opportunity to reflect on our soul and find blessing in being alive. Our consciousness of a creative force inside us guiding us into this world, through it, and eventually to our eternal home allows us to fulfill a purpose on this earth.
Such a purpose is beyond our own ability to really know. Yet, we can open our heart enough to allow our purpose to find us. This is done by recognizing that the things in life that really matter ARE the things in life that isn't matter.
Yes, it is our soul's longing to fulfill the purpose for which we came to earth for. No one really knows how a baby is conceived totally. Science and human understanding still hasn't been able to fully comprehend such a force of nature. We can only embrace what is beyond us and find a way to bring into being forces of nature such as a tiny child.
When a child is born, we are in awe. The miracle of birth creates something inside us all. It is the remembrance that life does not come from us. Instead, life comes through us. As such, we are living in a dream come true. All of us are probably living our soul's purpose more than we know, and even, can know. It is the mystery of all mysteries.
This does not explain why some of us find peace and other's find pain. But, such a philosophy will enable us all to find grace in knowing our lives create in our world facets of ourselves we all are a part of. An understanding of such grace gives every one of us a chance to find mercy and grace and the same unconditional love we came into the world with when we were born.
Samuel Oliver, author of, "What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living"
For more on this author; http://www.soulandspirit.org
This is the landscape of our soul. As you can see, nature has a way of showing us just how powerful we are. The same power that created the moon and the stars and the movement of all space and time lies within the human heart. It is the heart of creation itself, and perhaps, the heart of our Creator.
Human beings are fortunate to be able to be aware of our awareness. This awareness gives us an opportunity to reflect on our soul and find blessing in being alive. Our consciousness of a creative force inside us guiding us into this world, through it, and eventually to our eternal home allows us to fulfill a purpose on this earth.
Such a purpose is beyond our own ability to really know. Yet, we can open our heart enough to allow our purpose to find us. This is done by recognizing that the things in life that really matter ARE the things in life that isn't matter.
Yes, it is our soul's longing to fulfill the purpose for which we came to earth for. No one really knows how a baby is conceived totally. Science and human understanding still hasn't been able to fully comprehend such a force of nature. We can only embrace what is beyond us and find a way to bring into being forces of nature such as a tiny child.
When a child is born, we are in awe. The miracle of birth creates something inside us all. It is the remembrance that life does not come from us. Instead, life comes through us. As such, we are living in a dream come true. All of us are probably living our soul's purpose more than we know, and even, can know. It is the mystery of all mysteries.
This does not explain why some of us find peace and other's find pain. But, such a philosophy will enable us all to find grace in knowing our lives create in our world facets of ourselves we all are a part of. An understanding of such grace gives every one of us a chance to find mercy and grace and the same unconditional love we came into the world with when we were born.
Samuel Oliver, author of, "What the Dying Teach Us: Lessons on Living"
For more on this author; http://www.soulandspirit.org
Vampires: the Romantic Ideology behind Them
The French Revolution constituted for the conscience of the dominant aristocratic class a fall from innocence, and upturning of the natural chain of events that resounded all over Europe; the old regime became, in their imaginary, a paradise lost. This explains why some romantic poets born in the higher classes were keen on seeing themselves as faded aristocrats, expelled from their comfortable milieu by a reverse of fortune or a design of destiny. Byron and Shelley are the prime instances of this vital pose. In The Giaour he writes on a vampiric character: “The common crowd but see the gloom/ Of wayward deeds and fitting doom;/ The close observer can espy/A noble soul, and lineage high.”
Byron departed from England leaving a trail of scandal over his marital conduct and since then saw himself as an exiled expatriate. Shelley was expelled from Oxford and he fell in disgrace by marrying an in-keeper’s daughter; he always struggled to reconcile his origin with his political ideas: “Shelley could find no way of resolving his own contradictory opinions” (Cronin, 2000).
This icon of the fallen aristocrat is rooted on another character revered by romantic poets: the fallen angel. As Mario Praz proves, miltonic Satan became the rebel figure of choice among romantic poets. Milton reversed the medieval idea of a hideous Satan and wrapped its figure with the epic grandeur of an angel fallen in disgrace. Many of the byronic heros share with Milton’s Satan this fallen-from-grace condition, such as Lara: "There was in him a vital scorn of all:/
As if the worst had fall'n which could befall,/ stood a stranger in this breathing world,/An erring spirit from another hurl’d" ( Lara XVIII 315-16)
There is another social factor that is behind the formation of the romantic myth of the vampire. In the early nineteen century, the foundations of what would later become a mass society were laid; the expansion of the press and of the reading public produced an increased diffusion for literary works and fostered movements such as the gothic and the sensation novel. Byron himself experienced the event of being turned into a proto-bestseller. The unification of literary taste and preferences that was a correlate to this social changes could not be more alien to the romantic notion of individual gusto and original sensibility. In order to combat this unifying forces, romantic poets revered the individual who stands outside society and is free from common concerns. Many of Byron’s heros look down on the masses from above, even though they walk among them and do not lean towards wordsworthian escapades into nature; they achieve to remain untainted by the masses in a sort of exile within the world akin to that of a ghost or a dammed spirit. This self-definition of Manfred is revelatory:
From my youth upwards
My spirit walk’d not with the souls of men,
Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, (Manfred II, ii, 50-58)
Not only Byron’s works contrived to produce the modern image of the vampire in relation to the Male Seducer archetype, but also some odd events in his life and the life of those surrounding him exercised a decisive influence. A critical study bundled with an anthology of vampire tales (Conde de Siruela, 2001) attributes to the short story The Vampire (1819) by John William Polidori the fixation of the “classical images of the literary vampire as a villanious, cold and enigmatic aristocrat; but, above all, perverse and fascinating for women”. Mario Praz, in the same line, also states that Byron was “largely responsible for the vogue of vampirism”. Polidori was the unfortunate doctor and personal assistant of Lord Byron who died half-crazy at 25. The idea for the tale published in 1819 came from the famous meetings at Villa Diodati on June 1816 between Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Polidori, in what was probably the most influential gathering for fantastic fiction in the history of modern literature. In order to pass the stormy and ether-fuelled nights, they agreed to write each one a ghost story. Mary Shelley (who was then 17 years old) got during these nights the idea of what later became Frankenstein and Polidori wrote the tale The Vampire that he would publish three years later. The story appeared in the New Monthly Magazine falsely attributed by the editor to Lord Byron (taking advantages of the aura of Satanism that surrounded the poet in the popular view to promote the sales of the magazine). A misguided Goethe hailed the story as the best that Lord Byron had ever written. The tale was, actually, a covert portrait of Lord Byron disguised as the vampire Lord Ruthven, a cruel gambler and killer of innocent girls. Polidori had introduced in the story fragments from an autobiographical and revengeful novel called Glenarvon written by Caroline Lamb, an ex-lover of Byron. The Lord´s reaction was a threat to the editor and the denouncing of a commercial imposture with his name. Eventually Stoker´s Dracula (1897) blended, according to Siruela (2001), this tradition derived from Polidori´s Lord Ruthven with some old romano-hungarian tales of wandering dead and enchanted castles, fixating thus the modern images of the vampire.
The vampire is closely linked to another romantic archetype: the dissatisfied lover. Rafael Argullol summarizes its traits: “el enamorado romántico reconoce en la consumación amorosa el punto de inflexión a partir del cual la pasión muestra su faz desposedora y exterminadora.”. The romantic lover begins to feel a sense of dissatisfaction, caducity and mortality at the very moment when his passion is fulfilled. This feeling prompts him to embark in a sentimental rollercoaster where each peak of satisfaction is followed by a valley of despair and the impulse to seek satisfaction in a new object of love in order to renew the faded passion (the extreme of this attitude is the character of Don Juan). The vampire goes one step further than the seducer: for him the loved one stands as an image of his own dissatisfaction and it must be destroyed at the very moment when the longing for her disappears; at the instant of consummation. Again Byron in Manfred expresses this transference, which Argullol opportunely labels as romantic self-mirroring: “I loved her, and destroy'd her! (211)”. Keats conveys in his Ode on Melancholy the feeling of mortality that is hidden in the moment of pleasure for the romantic: “Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:/ Ay, in the very temple of Delight/Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,/ Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue/Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine”. La belle dame sans merci is according to Argullol also a poem where “vida y muerte se vivifican y complementan mutuamente [...] se hallan en total simbiosis”. But there is a crucial difference between Byron and Keats in their approach to the fatal lover: Byron’s characters are fatal males, epitomized in the vampire, while Keats’ characters are femmes fatales. This difference underlines a different attitude to gender issues: Byron liked to emanate a dominant masculinity which is imprinted in all his leading characters. Keats, however, had a passive approach to love, his poetic personas like to be seduced even if that means, as we have seen, to be killed. Byron is the male aristocrat who thinks all women are naturally his, they are his possessions and, as such, disposable at will. Keats, who disliked Byron’s Don Juan - in a letter to his brother, he referred to it as “Lord Byron's last flash poem”, announces a more modern and non-patriarchal approach to love where the woman is free to be the seducer. Nevertheless, as we have seen, they both share the extreme notion of love as creation and destruction at the same time; and their characters, though of different gender, are vampire lovers. This different attitude is not only personal but it mirrors a wider and epochal distinction. Mario Praz has observed how the fatal and cruel lovers of the first half of the nineteenth century are chiefly males, while in the second half of the century the roles are gradually inverted until late century decadentism is dominated by femmes fatales. This literary process mirrors the advancement of social changes throughout the century, and the slow but continuous emancipation of love from patriarchal standards. Gender issues shift focus, but power and domination remain at the core of the portrayals of love even in the fully bourgeoisie society of the late nineteenth century. Goodland (2000) has explored the role of women as a redundant class subject to another classes and the gender/class dialectic found in the vampire.
Not only Byron and Keats were fascinated by the myth of the vampire, but we can find its presence in most romantic poets, even in the proto-romantic early Goethe. A list of authors who use such characters made by Twitchell (1981) comprises: Southey in Thalaba the destroyer, Coleridge in Christabel and Wordsworth in The Leech Gatherer.
As we have seen throughout this paper the figure of the vampire is shaped in the romantic period under the form of an ideological knot where many social forces converge: the French Revolution, an embryonic mass society, the decline of aristocracy and the gradual shifting apart of gender divisions from the patriarchal model. Therefore, it constitutes a myth that may be read as a battleground for the play of discourses of its era, shedding light on other romantic attitudes towards existence. As such it is subject to an analysis that, as new historicisms maintain, is aware of the historicity of a text and the textuality of history.
Byron departed from England leaving a trail of scandal over his marital conduct and since then saw himself as an exiled expatriate. Shelley was expelled from Oxford and he fell in disgrace by marrying an in-keeper’s daughter; he always struggled to reconcile his origin with his political ideas: “Shelley could find no way of resolving his own contradictory opinions” (Cronin, 2000).
This icon of the fallen aristocrat is rooted on another character revered by romantic poets: the fallen angel. As Mario Praz proves, miltonic Satan became the rebel figure of choice among romantic poets. Milton reversed the medieval idea of a hideous Satan and wrapped its figure with the epic grandeur of an angel fallen in disgrace. Many of the byronic heros share with Milton’s Satan this fallen-from-grace condition, such as Lara: "There was in him a vital scorn of all:/
As if the worst had fall'n which could befall,/ stood a stranger in this breathing world,/An erring spirit from another hurl’d" ( Lara XVIII 315-16)
There is another social factor that is behind the formation of the romantic myth of the vampire. In the early nineteen century, the foundations of what would later become a mass society were laid; the expansion of the press and of the reading public produced an increased diffusion for literary works and fostered movements such as the gothic and the sensation novel. Byron himself experienced the event of being turned into a proto-bestseller. The unification of literary taste and preferences that was a correlate to this social changes could not be more alien to the romantic notion of individual gusto and original sensibility. In order to combat this unifying forces, romantic poets revered the individual who stands outside society and is free from common concerns. Many of Byron’s heros look down on the masses from above, even though they walk among them and do not lean towards wordsworthian escapades into nature; they achieve to remain untainted by the masses in a sort of exile within the world akin to that of a ghost or a dammed spirit. This self-definition of Manfred is revelatory:
From my youth upwards
My spirit walk’d not with the souls of men,
Nor look’d upon the earth with human eyes;
The thirst of their ambition was not mine,
The aim of their existence was not mine;
My joys, my griefs, my passions, and my powers
Made me a stranger; though I wore the form,
I had no sympathy with breathing flesh, (Manfred II, ii, 50-58)
Not only Byron’s works contrived to produce the modern image of the vampire in relation to the Male Seducer archetype, but also some odd events in his life and the life of those surrounding him exercised a decisive influence. A critical study bundled with an anthology of vampire tales (Conde de Siruela, 2001) attributes to the short story The Vampire (1819) by John William Polidori the fixation of the “classical images of the literary vampire as a villanious, cold and enigmatic aristocrat; but, above all, perverse and fascinating for women”. Mario Praz, in the same line, also states that Byron was “largely responsible for the vogue of vampirism”. Polidori was the unfortunate doctor and personal assistant of Lord Byron who died half-crazy at 25. The idea for the tale published in 1819 came from the famous meetings at Villa Diodati on June 1816 between Byron, Percy Shelley, Mary Shelley and Polidori, in what was probably the most influential gathering for fantastic fiction in the history of modern literature. In order to pass the stormy and ether-fuelled nights, they agreed to write each one a ghost story. Mary Shelley (who was then 17 years old) got during these nights the idea of what later became Frankenstein and Polidori wrote the tale The Vampire that he would publish three years later. The story appeared in the New Monthly Magazine falsely attributed by the editor to Lord Byron (taking advantages of the aura of Satanism that surrounded the poet in the popular view to promote the sales of the magazine). A misguided Goethe hailed the story as the best that Lord Byron had ever written. The tale was, actually, a covert portrait of Lord Byron disguised as the vampire Lord Ruthven, a cruel gambler and killer of innocent girls. Polidori had introduced in the story fragments from an autobiographical and revengeful novel called Glenarvon written by Caroline Lamb, an ex-lover of Byron. The Lord´s reaction was a threat to the editor and the denouncing of a commercial imposture with his name. Eventually Stoker´s Dracula (1897) blended, according to Siruela (2001), this tradition derived from Polidori´s Lord Ruthven with some old romano-hungarian tales of wandering dead and enchanted castles, fixating thus the modern images of the vampire.
The vampire is closely linked to another romantic archetype: the dissatisfied lover. Rafael Argullol summarizes its traits: “el enamorado romántico reconoce en la consumación amorosa el punto de inflexión a partir del cual la pasión muestra su faz desposedora y exterminadora.”. The romantic lover begins to feel a sense of dissatisfaction, caducity and mortality at the very moment when his passion is fulfilled. This feeling prompts him to embark in a sentimental rollercoaster where each peak of satisfaction is followed by a valley of despair and the impulse to seek satisfaction in a new object of love in order to renew the faded passion (the extreme of this attitude is the character of Don Juan). The vampire goes one step further than the seducer: for him the loved one stands as an image of his own dissatisfaction and it must be destroyed at the very moment when the longing for her disappears; at the instant of consummation. Again Byron in Manfred expresses this transference, which Argullol opportunely labels as romantic self-mirroring: “I loved her, and destroy'd her! (211)”. Keats conveys in his Ode on Melancholy the feeling of mortality that is hidden in the moment of pleasure for the romantic: “Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:/ Ay, in the very temple of Delight/Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,/ Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue/Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine”. La belle dame sans merci is according to Argullol also a poem where “vida y muerte se vivifican y complementan mutuamente [...] se hallan en total simbiosis”. But there is a crucial difference between Byron and Keats in their approach to the fatal lover: Byron’s characters are fatal males, epitomized in the vampire, while Keats’ characters are femmes fatales. This difference underlines a different attitude to gender issues: Byron liked to emanate a dominant masculinity which is imprinted in all his leading characters. Keats, however, had a passive approach to love, his poetic personas like to be seduced even if that means, as we have seen, to be killed. Byron is the male aristocrat who thinks all women are naturally his, they are his possessions and, as such, disposable at will. Keats, who disliked Byron’s Don Juan - in a letter to his brother, he referred to it as “Lord Byron's last flash poem”, announces a more modern and non-patriarchal approach to love where the woman is free to be the seducer. Nevertheless, as we have seen, they both share the extreme notion of love as creation and destruction at the same time; and their characters, though of different gender, are vampire lovers. This different attitude is not only personal but it mirrors a wider and epochal distinction. Mario Praz has observed how the fatal and cruel lovers of the first half of the nineteenth century are chiefly males, while in the second half of the century the roles are gradually inverted until late century decadentism is dominated by femmes fatales. This literary process mirrors the advancement of social changes throughout the century, and the slow but continuous emancipation of love from patriarchal standards. Gender issues shift focus, but power and domination remain at the core of the portrayals of love even in the fully bourgeoisie society of the late nineteenth century. Goodland (2000) has explored the role of women as a redundant class subject to another classes and the gender/class dialectic found in the vampire.
Not only Byron and Keats were fascinated by the myth of the vampire, but we can find its presence in most romantic poets, even in the proto-romantic early Goethe. A list of authors who use such characters made by Twitchell (1981) comprises: Southey in Thalaba the destroyer, Coleridge in Christabel and Wordsworth in The Leech Gatherer.
As we have seen throughout this paper the figure of the vampire is shaped in the romantic period under the form of an ideological knot where many social forces converge: the French Revolution, an embryonic mass society, the decline of aristocracy and the gradual shifting apart of gender divisions from the patriarchal model. Therefore, it constitutes a myth that may be read as a battleground for the play of discourses of its era, shedding light on other romantic attitudes towards existence. As such it is subject to an analysis that, as new historicisms maintain, is aware of the historicity of a text and the textuality of history.
The Science of Superstitions
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, 1931
The debate between realism and anti-realism is, at least, a century old. Does Science describe the real world - or are its theories true only within a certain conceptual framework? Is science only instrumental or empirically adequate or is there more to it than that?
The current - mythological - image of scientific enquiry is as follows:
Without resorting to reality, one can, given infinite time and resources, produce all conceivable theories. One of these theories is bound to be the "truth". To decide among them, scientists conduct experiments and compare their results to predictions yielded by the theories. A theory is falsified when one or more of its predictions fails. No amount of positive results - i.e., outcomes that confirm the theory's predictions - can "prove right" a theory. Theories can only be proven false by that great arbiter, reality.
Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William James concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Maybe so, but there is little doubt today that beliefs are somehow involved in the formation of many scientific ideas, if not of the very endeavor of Science. After all, Science is a human activity and humans always believe that things exist (=are true) or could be true.
A distinction is traditionally made between believing in something's existence, truth, value of appropriateness (this is the way that it ought to be) - and believing that something. The latter is a propositional attitude: we think that something, we wish that something, we feel that something and we believe that something. Believing in A and believing that A - are different.
It is reasonable to assume that belief is a limited affair. Few of us would tend to believe in contradictions and falsehoods. Catholic theologians talk about explicit belief (in something which is known to the believer to be true) versus implicit one (in the known consequences of something whose truth cannot be known). Truly, we believe in the probability of something (we, thus, express an opinion) - or in its certain existence (truth).
All humans believe in the existence of connections or relationships between things. This is not something which can be proven or proven false (to use Popper's test). That things consistently follow each other does not prove they are related in any objective, "real", manner - except in our minds. This belief in some order (if we define order as permanent relations between separate physical or abstract entities) permeates both Science and Superstition. They both believe that there must be - and is - a connection between things out there.
Science limits itself and believes that only certain entities inter-relate within well defined conceptual frames (called theories). Not everything has the potential to connect to everything else. Entities are discriminated, differentiated, classified and assimilated in worldviews in accordance with the types of connections that they forge with each other.
Moreover, Science believes that it has a set of very effective tools to diagnose, distinguish, observe and describe these relationships. It proves its point by issuing highly accurate predictions based on the relationships discerned through the use of said tools. Science (mostly) claims that these connections are "true" in the sense that they are certain - not probable.
The cycle of formulation, prediction and falsification (or proof) is the core of the human scientific activity. Alleged connections that cannot be captured in these nets of reasoning are cast out either as "hypothetical" or as "false". In other words: Science defines "relations between entities" as "relations between entities which have been established and tested using the scientific apparatus and arsenal of tools". This, admittedly, is a very cyclical argument, as close to tautology as it gets.
Superstition is a much simpler matter: everything is connected to everything in ways unbeknown to us. We can only witness the results of these subterranean currents and deduce the existence of such currents from the observable flotsam. The planets influence our lives, dry coffee sediments contain information about the future, black cats portend disasters, certain dates are propitious, certain numbers are to be avoided. The world is unsafe because it can never be fathomed. But the fact that we - limited as we are - cannot learn about a hidden connection - should not imply that it does not exist.
Science believes in two categories of relationships between entities (physical and abstract alike). The one is the category of direct links - the other that of links through a third entity. In the first case, A and B are seen to be directly related. In the second case, there is no apparent link between A and B, but a third entity, C could well provide such a connection (for instance, if A and B are parts of C or are separately, but concurrently somehow influenced by it).
Each of these two categories is divided to three subcategories: causal relationships, functional relationships and correlative relationship.
A and B will be said to be causally related if A precedes B, B never occurs if A does not precede it and always occurs after A occurs. To the discerning eye, this would seem to be a relationship of correlation ("whenever A happens B happens") and this is true. Causation is subsumed by a the 1.0 correlation relationship category. In other words: it is a private case of the more general case of correlation.
A and B are functionally related if B can be predicted by assuming A but we have no way of establishing the truth value of A. The latter is a postulate or axiom. The time dependent Schrödinger Equation is a postulate (cannot be derived, it is only reasonable). Still, it is the dynamic laws underlying wave mechanics, an integral part of quantum mechanics, the most accurate scientific theory that we have. An unproved, non-derivable equation is related functionally to a host of exceedingly precise statements about the real world (observed experimental results).
A and B are correlated if A explains a considerable part of the existence or the nature of B. It is then clear that A and B are related. Evolution has equipped us with highly developed correlation mechanisms because they are efficient in insuring survival. To see a tiger and to associate the awesome sight with a sound is very useful.
Still, we cannot state with any modicum of certainty that we possess all the conceivable tools for the detection, description, analysis and utilization of relations between entities. Put differently: we cannot say that there are no connections that escape the tight nets that we cast in order to capture them. We cannot, for instance, say with any degree of certainty that there are no hyper-structures which would provide new, surprising insights into the interconnectedness of objects in the real world or in our mind. We cannot even say that the epistemological structures with which we were endowed are final or satisfactory. We do not know enough about knowing.
Consider the cases of Non-Aristotelian logic formalisms, Non-Euclidean geometries, Newtonian Mechanics and non classical physical theories (the relativity theories and, more so, quantum mechanics and its various interpretations). All of them revealed to us connections which we could not have imagined prior to their appearance. All of them created new tools for the capture of interconnectivity and inter-relatedness. All of them suggested one kind or the other of mental hyper-structures in which new links between entities (hitherto considered disparate) could be established.
So far, so good for superstitions. Today's superstition could well become tomorrow's Science given the right theoretical developments. The source of the clash lies elsewhere, in the insistence of superstitions upon a causal relation.
The general structure of a superstition is: A is caused by B. The causation propagates through unknown (one or more) mechanisms. These mechanisms are unidentified (empirically) or unidentifiable (in principle). For instance, al the mechanisms of causal propagation which are somehow connected to divine powers can never, in principle, be understood (because the true nature of divinity is sealed to human understanding).
Thus, superstitions incorporate mechanisms of action which are, either, unknown to Science – or are impossible to know, as far as Science goes. All the "action-at-a-distance" mechanisms are of the latter type (unknowable). Parapsychological mechanisms are more of the first kind (unknown).
The philosophical argument behind superstitions is pretty straightforward and appealing. Perhaps this is the source of their appeal. It goes as follows:
There is nothing that can be thought of that is impossible (in all the Universes);
There is nothing impossible (in all the Universes) that can be thought of;
Everything that can be thought about – is, therefore, possible (somewhere in the Universes);
Everything that is possible exists (somewhere in the Universes).
If something can be thought of (=is possible) and is not known (=proven or observed) yet - it is most probably due to the shortcomings of Science and not because it does not exist.
Some of these propositions can be easily attacked. For instance: we can think about contradictions and falsehoods but (apart from a form of mental representation) no one will claim that they exist in reality or that they are possible. These statements, though, apply very well to entities, the existence of which has yet to be disproved (=not known as false, or whose truth value is uncertain) and to improbable (though possible) things. It is in these formal logical niches that superstition thrives.
APPENDIX - From "The Cycle of Science"
"There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe that there ever was such a time... On the other hand, I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics... Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?', because you will get 'down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."
R. P. Feynman (1967)
"The first processes, therefore, in the effectual studies of the sciences, must be ones of simplification and reduction of the results of previous investigations to a form in which the mind can grasp them."
J. C. Maxwell, On Faraday's lines of force
" ...conventional formulations of quantum theory, and of quantum field theory in particular, are unprofessionally vague and ambiguous. Professional theoretical physicists ought to be able to do better. Bohm has shown us a way."
John S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
"It would seem that the theory [quantum mechanics] is exclusively concerned about 'results of measurement', and has nothing to say about anything else. What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of 'measurer'? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer, for some better qualified system ... with a Ph.D.? If the theory is to apply to anything but highly idealized laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less 'measurement-like' processes are going on more or less all the time, more or less everywhere. Do we not have jumping then all the time?
The first charge against 'measurement', in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors the shifty split of the world into 'system' and 'apparatus'. A second charge is that the word comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context. When it is said that something is 'measured' it is difficult not to think of the result as referring to some pre-existing property of the object in question. This is to disregard Bohr's insistence that in quantum phenomena the apparatus as well as the system is essentially involved. If it were not so, how could we understand, for example, that 'measurement' of a component of 'angular momentum' ... in an arbitrarily chosen direction ... yields one of a discrete set of values? When one forgets the role of the apparatus, as the word 'measurement' makes all too likely, one despairs of ordinary logic ... hence 'quantum logic'. When one remembers the role of the apparatus, ordinary logic is just fine.
In other contexts, physicists have been able to take words from ordinary language and use them as technical terms with no great harm done. Take for example the 'strangeness', 'charm', and 'beauty' of elementary particle physics. No one is taken in by this 'baby talk'... Would that it were so with 'measurement'. But in fact the word has had such a damaging effect on the discussion, that I think it should now be banned altogether in quantum mechanics."
J. S. Bell, Against "Measurement"
"Is it not clear from the smallness of the scintillation on the screen that we have to do with a particle? And is it not clear, from the diffraction and interference patterns, that the motion of the particle is directed by a wave? De Broglie showed in detail how the motion of a particle, passing through just one of two holes in screen, could be influenced by waves propagating through both holes. And so influenced that the particle does not go where the waves cancel out, but is attracted to where they co-operate. This idea seems to me so natural and simple, to resolve the wave-particle dilemma in such a clear and ordinary way, that it is a great mystery to me that it was so generally ignored."
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
"...in physics the only observations we must consider are position observations, if only the positions of instrument pointers. It is a great merit of the de Broglie-Bohm picture to force us to consider this fact. If you make axioms, rather than definitions and theorems, about the "measurement" of anything else, then you commit redundancy and risk inconsistency."
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
"To outward appearance, the modern world was born of an anti religious movement: man becoming self-sufficient and reason supplanting belief. Our generation and the two that preceded it have heard little of but talk of the conflict between science and faith; indeed it seemed at one moment a foregone conclusion that the former was destined to take the place of the latter... After close on two centuries of passionate struggles, neither science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting its adversary.
On the contrary, it becomes obvious that neither can develop normally without the other. And the reason is simple: the same life animates both. Neither in its impetus nor its achievements can science go to its limits without becoming tinged with mysticism and charged with faith."
Pierre Thierry de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man"
I opened this appendix with lengthy quotations of John S. Bell, the main proponent of the Bohemian Mechanics interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (really, an alternative rather than an interpretation). The renowned physicist, David Bohm (in the 50s), basing himself on work done much earlier by de Broglie (the unwilling father of the wave-particle dualism), embedded the Schrödinger Equation (SE throughout this article) in a deterministic physical theory which postulated a non-Newtonian motion of particles. This is a fine example of the life cycle of scientific theories.
Witchcraft, Religion, Alchemy and Science succeeded one another and each such transition was characterized by transitional pathologies reminiscent of psychotic disorders. The exceptions are (arguably) medicine and biology. A phenomenology of ossified bodies of knowledge would make a fascinating read. This is the end of the aforementioned life cycle: Growth, Pathology, Ossification.
This article identifies the current Ossification Phase of Science and suggests that it is soon to be succeeded by another discipline. It does so after studying and rejecting other explanations to the current state of science: that human knowledge is limited by its very nature, that the world is inherently incomprehensible, that methods of thought and understanding tend to self-organize to form closed mythic systems and that there is a problem of the language which we employ to make our inquiries of the world describable and communicable.
Kuhn's approach to Scientific Revolutions is but one of a series of approaches to issues of theory and paradigm shifts in scientific thought and its resulting evolution. Scientific theories seem to be subject to a process of natural selection as much as organisms are in nature.
Animals could be construed to be theorems (with a positive truth value) in the logical system "Nature". But species become extinct because nature itself changes (not nature as a set of potentials - but the relevant natural phenomena to which the species are exposed). Could we say the same about scientific theories? Are they being selected and deselected partly due to a changing, shifting backdrop?
Indeed, the whole debate between "realists" and "anti-realists" in the philosophy of Science can be thus settled, by adopting this single premise: that the Universe itself is not a fixture. By contrasting a fixed subject of the study ("The World") with the moving image of Science - anti-realists gained the upper hand.
Arguments such as the under-determination of theories by data and the pessimistic meta-inductions from past falsity (of scientific "knowledge") emphasized the transience and asymptotic nature of the fruits of the scientific endeavor. But all this rests on the implicit assumption that there is some universal, immutable, truth out there (which science strives to approximate). The apparent problem evaporates if we allow both the observer and the observed, the theory and its subject, the background, as well as the fleeting images, to be alterable.
Science develops through reduction of miracles. Laws of nature are formulated. They are assumed to encompass all the (relevant) natural phenomena (that is, phenomena governed by natural forces and within nature). Ex definitio, nothing can exist outside nature - it is all-inclusive and all-pervasive, omnipresent (formerly the attributes of the divine).
Supernatural forces, supernatural intervention - are a contradiction in terms, oxymorons. If it exists - it is natural. That which is supernatural - does not exist. Miracles do not only contravene (or violate) the laws of nature - they are impossible, not only physically, but also logically. That which is logically possible and can be experienced (observed), is physically possible. But, again, we confront the "fixed background" assumption. What if nature itself changes in a way to confound everlasting, ever-truer knowledge? Then, the very shift of nature as a whole, as a system, could be called "supernatural" or "miraculous".
In a small way, this is how science evolves. A law of nature is proposed. An event or occurs or observation made which are not described or predicted by it. It is, by definition, a violation of the law. The laws of nature are modified, or re-written entirely, in order to reflect and encompass this extraordinary event. Hume's distinction between "extraordinary" and "miraculous" events is upheld (the latter being ruled out).
The extraordinary ones can be compared to our previous experience - the miraculous entail some supernatural interference with the normal course of things (a "wonder" in Biblical terms). It is through confronting the extraordinary and eliminating its abnormal nature that science progresses as a miraculous activity. This, of course, is not the view of the likes of David Deutsch (see his book, "The Fabric of Reality").
The last phase of this Life Cycle is Ossification. The discipline degenerates and, following the psychotic phase, it sinks into a paralytic stage which is characterized by the following:
All the practical and technological aspects of the discipline are preserved and continue to be utilized. Gradually the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings vanish or are replaced by the tenets and postulates of a new discipline - but the inventions, processes and practical know-how do not evaporate. They are incorporated into the new discipline and, in time, are erroneously attributed to it. This is a transfer of credit and the attribution of merit and benefits to the legitimate successor of the discipline.
The practitioners of the discipline confine themselves to copying and replicating the various aspects of the discipline, mainly its intellectual property (writings, inventions, other theoretical material). The replication process does not lead to the creation of new knowledge or even to the dissemination of old one. It is a hermetic process, limited to the ever decreasing circle of the initiated. Special institutions are set up to rehash the materials related to the discipline, process them and copy them. These institutions are financed and supported by the State which is always an agent of conservation, preservation and conformity.
Thus, the creative-evolutionary dimension of the discipline freezes over. No new paradigms or revolutions happen. Interpretation and replication of canonical writings become the predominant activity. Formalisms are not subjected to scrutiny and laws assume eternal, immutable, quality.
All the activities of the adherents of the discipline become ritualized. The discipline itself becomes a pillar of the power structures and, as such, is commissioned and condoned by them. Its practitioners synergistically collaborate with them: with the industrial base, the military powerhouse, the political elite, the intellectual cliques in vogue. Institutionalization inevitably leads to the formation of a (mostly bureaucratic) hierarchy. Rituals serve two purposes. The first is to divert attention from subversive, "forbidden" thinking.
This is very much as is the case with obsessive-compulsive disorders in individuals who engage in ritualistic behavior patterns to deflect "wrong" or "corrupt" thoughts. And the second purpose is to cement the power of the "clergy" of the discipline. Rituals are a specialized form of knowledge which can be obtained only through initiation procedures and personal experience. One's status in the hierarchy is not the result of objectively quantifiable variables or even of judgment of merit. It is the result of politics and other power-related interactions. The cases of "Communist Genetics" (Lysenko) versus "Capitalist Genetics" and of the superpower races (space race, arms race) come to mind.
Conformity, dogmatism, doctrines - all lead to enforcement mechanisms which are never subtle. Dissidents are subjected to sanctions: social sanctions and economic sanctions. They can find themselves ex-communicated, harassed, imprisoned, tortured, their works banished or not published, ridiculed and so on.
This is really the triumph of text over the human spirit. The members of the discipline's community forget the original reasons and causes for their scientific pursuits. Why was the discipline developed? What were the original riddles, questions, queries? How did it feel to be curious? Where is the burning fire and the glistening eyes and the feelings of unity with nature that were the prime moving forces behind the discipline? The cold ashes of the conflagration are the texts and their preservation is an expression of longing and desire for things past.
The vacuum left by the absence of positive emotions - is filled by negative ones. The discipline and its disciples become phobic, paranoid, defensive, with a blurred reality test. Devoid of new, attractive content, the discipline resorts to negative motivation by manipulation of negative emotions. People are frightened, threatened, herded, cajoled. The world without the discipline is painted in an apocalyptic palette as ruled by irrationality, disorderly, chaotic, dangerous, even lethally so.
New, emerging disciplines, are presented as heretic, fringe lunacies, inconsistent, reactionary and bound to lead humanity back to some dark ages. This is the inter-disciplinary or inter-paradigm clash. It follows the Psychotic Phase. The old discipline resorts to some transcendental entity (God, Satan, the conscious intelligent observer in the Copenhagen interpretation of the formalism of Quantum Mechanics). In this sense, it is already psychotic and fails its reality test. It develops messianic aspirations and is inspired by a missionary zeal and zest. The fight against new ideas and theories is bloody and ruthless and every possible device is employed.
But the very characteristics of the older nomenclature is in its disfavor. It is closed, based on ritualistic initiation, patronizing. It relies on intimidation. The numbers of the faithful dwindles the more the "church" needs them and the more it resorts to oppressive recruitment tactics. The emerging knowledge wins by historical default and not due to the results of any fierce fight. Even the initiated desert. Their belief unravels when confronted with the truth value, explanatory and predictive powers, and the comprehensiveness of the emerging discipline.
This, indeed, is the main presenting symptom, distinguishing hallmark, of paralytic old disciplines. They deny reality. The are a belief-system, a myth, requiring suspension of judgment, the voluntary limitation of the quest, the agreement to leave swathes of the map in the state of a blank "terra incognita". This reductionism, this avoidance, their replacement by some transcendental authority are the beginning of an end.
Consider physics:
The Universe is a complex, orderly system. If it were an intelligent being, we would be compelled to say that it had "chosen" to preserve form (structure), order and complexity - and to increase them whenever and wherever it can. We can call this a natural inclination or a tendency of the Universe.
This explains why evolution did not stop at the protozoa level. After all, these mono-cellular organisms were (and still are, hundreds of millions of years later) superbly adapted to their environment. It was Bergson who posed the question: why did nature prefer the risk of unstable complexity over predictable and reliable and durable simplicity?
The answer seems to be that the Universe has a predilection (not confined to the biological realm) to increase complexity and order and that this principle takes precedence over "utilitarian" calculations of stability. The battle between the entropic arrow and the negentropic one is more important than any other (in-built) "consideration". This is Time itself and Thermodynamics pitted against Man (as an integral part of the Universe), Order (a systemic, extensive parameter) against Disorder.
In this context, natural selection is no more "blind" or "random" than its subjects. It is discriminating, exercises discretion, encourages structure, complexity and order. The contrast that Bergson stipulated between Natural Selection and Élan Vitale is grossly misplaced: Natural Selection IS the vital power itself.
Modern Physics is converging with Philosophy (possibly with the philosophical side of Religion as well) and the convergence is precisely where concepts of Order and disorder emerge. String theories, for instance, come in numerous versions which describe many possible different worlds. Granted, they may all be facets of the same Being (distant echoes of the new versions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics).
Still, why do we, intelligent conscious observers, see (=why are we exposed to) only one aspect of the Universe? How is this aspect "selected"? The Universe is constrained in this "selection process" by its own history - but history is not synonymous with the Laws of Nature. The latter determine the former - does the former also determine the latter? In other words: were the Laws of Nature "selected" as well and, if so, how?
The answer seems self evident: the Universe "selected" both the Natural Laws and - as a result - its own history. The selection process was based on the principle of Natural Selection. A filter was applied: whatever increased order, complexity, structure - survived. Indeed, our very survival as a species is still largely dependent upon these things. Our Universe - having survived - must be an optimized Universe.
Only order-increasing Universes do not succumb to entropy and death (the weak hypothesis). It could even be argued (as we do here) that our Universe is the only possible kind of Universe (the semi-strong hypothesis) or even the only Universe (the strong hypothesis). This is the essence of the Anthropic Principle.
By definition, universal rules pervade all the realms of existence. Biological systems must obey the same order-increasing (natural) laws as physical ones and social ones. We are part of the Universe in the sense that we are subject to the same discipline and adhere to the same "religion". We are an inevitable result - not a chance happening.
We are the culmination of orderly processes - not the outcome of random events. The Universe enables us and our world because - and only for as long as - we increase order. That is not to imply that there is an intention to do so on the part of the Universe (or a "higher being" or a "higher power"). There is no conscious or God-like spirit. There is no religious assertion. We only say that a system that has Order as its founding principle will tend to favor order, to breed it, to positively select its proponents and deselect its opponents - and, finally, to give birth to more and more sophisticated weapons in the pro-Order arsenal. We, humans, were such an order-increasing weapon until recently.
These intuitive assertions can be easily converted into a formalism. In Quantum Mechanics, the State Vector can be constrained to collapse to the most Order-enhancing event. If we had a computer the size of the Universe that could infallibly model it - we would have been able to predict which event will increase the order in the Universe overall. No collapse would have been required then and no probabilistic calculations.
It is easy to prove that events will follow a path of maximum order, simply because the world is orderly and getting ever more so. Had this not been the case, evenly statistically scattered event would have led to an increase in entropy (thermodynamic laws are the offspring of statistical mechanics). But this simply does not happen. And it is wrong to think that order increases only in isolated "pockets", in local regions of our universe.
It is increasing everywhere, all the time, on all scales of measurement. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that quantum events are guided by some non-random principle (such as the increase in order). This, exactly, is the case in biology. There is no reason why not to construct a life wavefunction which will always collapse to the most order increasing event. If we construct and apply this wave function to our world - we will probably find ourselves as one of the events after its collapse.
Appendix - Interview granted to Adam Anderson
1. Do you believe that superstitions have affected American culture? And if so, how?
A. In its treatment of nature, Western culture is based on realism and rationalism and purports to be devoid of superstitions. Granted, many Westerners - perhaps the majority - are still into esoteric practices, such as Astrology. But the official culture and its bearers - scientists, for instance - disavow such throwbacks to a darker past.
Today, superstitions are less concerned with the physical Universe and more with human affairs. Political falsities - such as anti-Semitism - supplanted magic and alchemy. Fantastic beliefs permeate the fields of economics, sociology, and psychology, for instance. The effects of progressive taxation, the usefulness of social welfare, the role of the media, the objectivity of science, the mechanism of democracy, and the function of psychotherapy - are six examples of such groundless fables.
Indeed, one oft-neglected aspect of superstitions is their pernicious economic cost. Irrational action carries a price tag. It is impossible to optimize one's economic activity by making the right decisions and then acting on them in a society or culture permeated by the occult. Esotericism skews the proper allocation of scarce resources.
2. Are there any superstitions that exist today that you believe could become facts tomorrow, or that you believe have more fact than fiction hidden in them?
A. Superstitions stem from one of these four premises:
That there is nothing that can be thought of that is impossible (in all possible Universes);
That there is nothing impossible (in all possible Universes) that can be thought of;
That everything that can be thought of – is, therefore, possible (somewhere in these Universes);
That everything that is possible exists (somewhere in these Universes).
As long as our knowledge is imperfect (asymptotic to the truth), everything is possible. As Arthur Clark, the British scientist and renowned author of science fiction, said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
Still, regardless of how "magical" it becomes, positive science is increasingly challenged by the esoteric. The emergence of pseudo-science is the sad outcome of the blurring of contemporary distinctions between physics and metaphysics. Modern science borders on speculation and attempts, to its disadvantage, to tackle questions that once were the exclusive preserve of religion or philosophy. The scientific method is ill-built to cope with such quests and is inferior to the tools developed over centuries by philosophers, theologians, and mystics.
Moreover, scientists often confuse language of representation with meaning and knowledge represented. That a discipline of knowledge uses quantitative methods and the symbol system of mathematics does not make it a science. The phrase "social sciences" is an oxymoron - and it misleads the layman into thinking that science is not that different to literature, religion, astrology, numerology, or other esoteric "systems".
The emergence of "relative", New Age, and politically correct philosophies rendered science merely one option among many. Knowledge, people believe, can be gleaned either directly (mysticism and spirituality) or indirectly (scientific practice). Both paths are equivalent and equipotent. Who is to say that science is superior to other "bodies of wisdom"? Self-interested scientific chauvinism is out - indiscriminate "pluralism" is in.
3. I have found one definition of the word "superstition" that states that it is "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation." What is your opinion about said definition?
A. It describes what motivates people to adopt superstitions - ignorance and fear of the unknown. Superstitions are, indeed, a "false conception of causation" which inevitably leads to "trust in magic". the only part I disagree with is the trust in chance. Superstitions are organizing principles. They serve as alternatives to other worldviews, such as religion or science. Superstitions seek to replace chance with an "explanation" replete with the power to predict future events and establish chains of causes and effects.
4. Many people believe that superstitions were created to simply teach a lesson, like the old superstition that "the girl that takes the last cookie will be an old maid" was made to teach little girls manners. Do you think that all superstitions derive from some lesson trying to be taught that today's society has simply forgotten or cannot connect to anymore?
A. Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William James concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Superstitions permeate our world. Some superstitions are intended to convey useful lessons, others form a part of the process of socialization, yet others are abused by various elites to control the masses. But most of them are there to comfort us by proffering "instant" causal explanations and by rendering our Universe more meaningful.
5. Do you believe that superstitions change with the changes in culture?
A. The content of superstitions and the metaphors we use change from culture to culture - but not the underlying shock and awe that yielded them in the first place. Man feels dwarfed in a Cosmos beyond his comprehension. He seeks meaning, direction, safety, and guidance. Superstitions purport to provide all these the easy way. To be superstitious one does not to study or to toil. Superstitions are readily accessible and unequivocal. In troubled times, they are an irresistible proposition.
Albert Einstein, The World as I See It, 1931
The debate between realism and anti-realism is, at least, a century old. Does Science describe the real world - or are its theories true only within a certain conceptual framework? Is science only instrumental or empirically adequate or is there more to it than that?
The current - mythological - image of scientific enquiry is as follows:
Without resorting to reality, one can, given infinite time and resources, produce all conceivable theories. One of these theories is bound to be the "truth". To decide among them, scientists conduct experiments and compare their results to predictions yielded by the theories. A theory is falsified when one or more of its predictions fails. No amount of positive results - i.e., outcomes that confirm the theory's predictions - can "prove right" a theory. Theories can only be proven false by that great arbiter, reality.
Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William James concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Maybe so, but there is little doubt today that beliefs are somehow involved in the formation of many scientific ideas, if not of the very endeavor of Science. After all, Science is a human activity and humans always believe that things exist (=are true) or could be true.
A distinction is traditionally made between believing in something's existence, truth, value of appropriateness (this is the way that it ought to be) - and believing that something. The latter is a propositional attitude: we think that something, we wish that something, we feel that something and we believe that something. Believing in A and believing that A - are different.
It is reasonable to assume that belief is a limited affair. Few of us would tend to believe in contradictions and falsehoods. Catholic theologians talk about explicit belief (in something which is known to the believer to be true) versus implicit one (in the known consequences of something whose truth cannot be known). Truly, we believe in the probability of something (we, thus, express an opinion) - or in its certain existence (truth).
All humans believe in the existence of connections or relationships between things. This is not something which can be proven or proven false (to use Popper's test). That things consistently follow each other does not prove they are related in any objective, "real", manner - except in our minds. This belief in some order (if we define order as permanent relations between separate physical or abstract entities) permeates both Science and Superstition. They both believe that there must be - and is - a connection between things out there.
Science limits itself and believes that only certain entities inter-relate within well defined conceptual frames (called theories). Not everything has the potential to connect to everything else. Entities are discriminated, differentiated, classified and assimilated in worldviews in accordance with the types of connections that they forge with each other.
Moreover, Science believes that it has a set of very effective tools to diagnose, distinguish, observe and describe these relationships. It proves its point by issuing highly accurate predictions based on the relationships discerned through the use of said tools. Science (mostly) claims that these connections are "true" in the sense that they are certain - not probable.
The cycle of formulation, prediction and falsification (or proof) is the core of the human scientific activity. Alleged connections that cannot be captured in these nets of reasoning are cast out either as "hypothetical" or as "false". In other words: Science defines "relations between entities" as "relations between entities which have been established and tested using the scientific apparatus and arsenal of tools". This, admittedly, is a very cyclical argument, as close to tautology as it gets.
Superstition is a much simpler matter: everything is connected to everything in ways unbeknown to us. We can only witness the results of these subterranean currents and deduce the existence of such currents from the observable flotsam. The planets influence our lives, dry coffee sediments contain information about the future, black cats portend disasters, certain dates are propitious, certain numbers are to be avoided. The world is unsafe because it can never be fathomed. But the fact that we - limited as we are - cannot learn about a hidden connection - should not imply that it does not exist.
Science believes in two categories of relationships between entities (physical and abstract alike). The one is the category of direct links - the other that of links through a third entity. In the first case, A and B are seen to be directly related. In the second case, there is no apparent link between A and B, but a third entity, C could well provide such a connection (for instance, if A and B are parts of C or are separately, but concurrently somehow influenced by it).
Each of these two categories is divided to three subcategories: causal relationships, functional relationships and correlative relationship.
A and B will be said to be causally related if A precedes B, B never occurs if A does not precede it and always occurs after A occurs. To the discerning eye, this would seem to be a relationship of correlation ("whenever A happens B happens") and this is true. Causation is subsumed by a the 1.0 correlation relationship category. In other words: it is a private case of the more general case of correlation.
A and B are functionally related if B can be predicted by assuming A but we have no way of establishing the truth value of A. The latter is a postulate or axiom. The time dependent Schrödinger Equation is a postulate (cannot be derived, it is only reasonable). Still, it is the dynamic laws underlying wave mechanics, an integral part of quantum mechanics, the most accurate scientific theory that we have. An unproved, non-derivable equation is related functionally to a host of exceedingly precise statements about the real world (observed experimental results).
A and B are correlated if A explains a considerable part of the existence or the nature of B. It is then clear that A and B are related. Evolution has equipped us with highly developed correlation mechanisms because they are efficient in insuring survival. To see a tiger and to associate the awesome sight with a sound is very useful.
Still, we cannot state with any modicum of certainty that we possess all the conceivable tools for the detection, description, analysis and utilization of relations between entities. Put differently: we cannot say that there are no connections that escape the tight nets that we cast in order to capture them. We cannot, for instance, say with any degree of certainty that there are no hyper-structures which would provide new, surprising insights into the interconnectedness of objects in the real world or in our mind. We cannot even say that the epistemological structures with which we were endowed are final or satisfactory. We do not know enough about knowing.
Consider the cases of Non-Aristotelian logic formalisms, Non-Euclidean geometries, Newtonian Mechanics and non classical physical theories (the relativity theories and, more so, quantum mechanics and its various interpretations). All of them revealed to us connections which we could not have imagined prior to their appearance. All of them created new tools for the capture of interconnectivity and inter-relatedness. All of them suggested one kind or the other of mental hyper-structures in which new links between entities (hitherto considered disparate) could be established.
So far, so good for superstitions. Today's superstition could well become tomorrow's Science given the right theoretical developments. The source of the clash lies elsewhere, in the insistence of superstitions upon a causal relation.
The general structure of a superstition is: A is caused by B. The causation propagates through unknown (one or more) mechanisms. These mechanisms are unidentified (empirically) or unidentifiable (in principle). For instance, al the mechanisms of causal propagation which are somehow connected to divine powers can never, in principle, be understood (because the true nature of divinity is sealed to human understanding).
Thus, superstitions incorporate mechanisms of action which are, either, unknown to Science – or are impossible to know, as far as Science goes. All the "action-at-a-distance" mechanisms are of the latter type (unknowable). Parapsychological mechanisms are more of the first kind (unknown).
The philosophical argument behind superstitions is pretty straightforward and appealing. Perhaps this is the source of their appeal. It goes as follows:
There is nothing that can be thought of that is impossible (in all the Universes);
There is nothing impossible (in all the Universes) that can be thought of;
Everything that can be thought about – is, therefore, possible (somewhere in the Universes);
Everything that is possible exists (somewhere in the Universes).
If something can be thought of (=is possible) and is not known (=proven or observed) yet - it is most probably due to the shortcomings of Science and not because it does not exist.
Some of these propositions can be easily attacked. For instance: we can think about contradictions and falsehoods but (apart from a form of mental representation) no one will claim that they exist in reality or that they are possible. These statements, though, apply very well to entities, the existence of which has yet to be disproved (=not known as false, or whose truth value is uncertain) and to improbable (though possible) things. It is in these formal logical niches that superstition thrives.
APPENDIX - From "The Cycle of Science"
"There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe that there ever was such a time... On the other hand, I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics... Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, 'But how can it be like that?', because you will get 'down the drain' into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that."
R. P. Feynman (1967)
"The first processes, therefore, in the effectual studies of the sciences, must be ones of simplification and reduction of the results of previous investigations to a form in which the mind can grasp them."
J. C. Maxwell, On Faraday's lines of force
" ...conventional formulations of quantum theory, and of quantum field theory in particular, are unprofessionally vague and ambiguous. Professional theoretical physicists ought to be able to do better. Bohm has shown us a way."
John S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
"It would seem that the theory [quantum mechanics] is exclusively concerned about 'results of measurement', and has nothing to say about anything else. What exactly qualifies some physical systems to play the role of 'measurer'? Was the wavefunction of the world waiting to jump for thousands of millions of years until a single-celled living creature appeared? Or did it have to wait a little longer, for some better qualified system ... with a Ph.D.? If the theory is to apply to anything but highly idealized laboratory operations, are we not obliged to admit that more or less 'measurement-like' processes are going on more or less all the time, more or less everywhere. Do we not have jumping then all the time?
The first charge against 'measurement', in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors the shifty split of the world into 'system' and 'apparatus'. A second charge is that the word comes loaded with meaning from everyday life, meaning which is entirely inappropriate in the quantum context. When it is said that something is 'measured' it is difficult not to think of the result as referring to some pre-existing property of the object in question. This is to disregard Bohr's insistence that in quantum phenomena the apparatus as well as the system is essentially involved. If it were not so, how could we understand, for example, that 'measurement' of a component of 'angular momentum' ... in an arbitrarily chosen direction ... yields one of a discrete set of values? When one forgets the role of the apparatus, as the word 'measurement' makes all too likely, one despairs of ordinary logic ... hence 'quantum logic'. When one remembers the role of the apparatus, ordinary logic is just fine.
In other contexts, physicists have been able to take words from ordinary language and use them as technical terms with no great harm done. Take for example the 'strangeness', 'charm', and 'beauty' of elementary particle physics. No one is taken in by this 'baby talk'... Would that it were so with 'measurement'. But in fact the word has had such a damaging effect on the discussion, that I think it should now be banned altogether in quantum mechanics."
J. S. Bell, Against "Measurement"
"Is it not clear from the smallness of the scintillation on the screen that we have to do with a particle? And is it not clear, from the diffraction and interference patterns, that the motion of the particle is directed by a wave? De Broglie showed in detail how the motion of a particle, passing through just one of two holes in screen, could be influenced by waves propagating through both holes. And so influenced that the particle does not go where the waves cancel out, but is attracted to where they co-operate. This idea seems to me so natural and simple, to resolve the wave-particle dilemma in such a clear and ordinary way, that it is a great mystery to me that it was so generally ignored."
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
"...in physics the only observations we must consider are position observations, if only the positions of instrument pointers. It is a great merit of the de Broglie-Bohm picture to force us to consider this fact. If you make axioms, rather than definitions and theorems, about the "measurement" of anything else, then you commit redundancy and risk inconsistency."
J. S. Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
"To outward appearance, the modern world was born of an anti religious movement: man becoming self-sufficient and reason supplanting belief. Our generation and the two that preceded it have heard little of but talk of the conflict between science and faith; indeed it seemed at one moment a foregone conclusion that the former was destined to take the place of the latter... After close on two centuries of passionate struggles, neither science nor faith has succeeded in discrediting its adversary.
On the contrary, it becomes obvious that neither can develop normally without the other. And the reason is simple: the same life animates both. Neither in its impetus nor its achievements can science go to its limits without becoming tinged with mysticism and charged with faith."
Pierre Thierry de Chardin, "The Phenomenon of Man"
I opened this appendix with lengthy quotations of John S. Bell, the main proponent of the Bohemian Mechanics interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (really, an alternative rather than an interpretation). The renowned physicist, David Bohm (in the 50s), basing himself on work done much earlier by de Broglie (the unwilling father of the wave-particle dualism), embedded the Schrödinger Equation (SE throughout this article) in a deterministic physical theory which postulated a non-Newtonian motion of particles. This is a fine example of the life cycle of scientific theories.
Witchcraft, Religion, Alchemy and Science succeeded one another and each such transition was characterized by transitional pathologies reminiscent of psychotic disorders. The exceptions are (arguably) medicine and biology. A phenomenology of ossified bodies of knowledge would make a fascinating read. This is the end of the aforementioned life cycle: Growth, Pathology, Ossification.
This article identifies the current Ossification Phase of Science and suggests that it is soon to be succeeded by another discipline. It does so after studying and rejecting other explanations to the current state of science: that human knowledge is limited by its very nature, that the world is inherently incomprehensible, that methods of thought and understanding tend to self-organize to form closed mythic systems and that there is a problem of the language which we employ to make our inquiries of the world describable and communicable.
Kuhn's approach to Scientific Revolutions is but one of a series of approaches to issues of theory and paradigm shifts in scientific thought and its resulting evolution. Scientific theories seem to be subject to a process of natural selection as much as organisms are in nature.
Animals could be construed to be theorems (with a positive truth value) in the logical system "Nature". But species become extinct because nature itself changes (not nature as a set of potentials - but the relevant natural phenomena to which the species are exposed). Could we say the same about scientific theories? Are they being selected and deselected partly due to a changing, shifting backdrop?
Indeed, the whole debate between "realists" and "anti-realists" in the philosophy of Science can be thus settled, by adopting this single premise: that the Universe itself is not a fixture. By contrasting a fixed subject of the study ("The World") with the moving image of Science - anti-realists gained the upper hand.
Arguments such as the under-determination of theories by data and the pessimistic meta-inductions from past falsity (of scientific "knowledge") emphasized the transience and asymptotic nature of the fruits of the scientific endeavor. But all this rests on the implicit assumption that there is some universal, immutable, truth out there (which science strives to approximate). The apparent problem evaporates if we allow both the observer and the observed, the theory and its subject, the background, as well as the fleeting images, to be alterable.
Science develops through reduction of miracles. Laws of nature are formulated. They are assumed to encompass all the (relevant) natural phenomena (that is, phenomena governed by natural forces and within nature). Ex definitio, nothing can exist outside nature - it is all-inclusive and all-pervasive, omnipresent (formerly the attributes of the divine).
Supernatural forces, supernatural intervention - are a contradiction in terms, oxymorons. If it exists - it is natural. That which is supernatural - does not exist. Miracles do not only contravene (or violate) the laws of nature - they are impossible, not only physically, but also logically. That which is logically possible and can be experienced (observed), is physically possible. But, again, we confront the "fixed background" assumption. What if nature itself changes in a way to confound everlasting, ever-truer knowledge? Then, the very shift of nature as a whole, as a system, could be called "supernatural" or "miraculous".
In a small way, this is how science evolves. A law of nature is proposed. An event or occurs or observation made which are not described or predicted by it. It is, by definition, a violation of the law. The laws of nature are modified, or re-written entirely, in order to reflect and encompass this extraordinary event. Hume's distinction between "extraordinary" and "miraculous" events is upheld (the latter being ruled out).
The extraordinary ones can be compared to our previous experience - the miraculous entail some supernatural interference with the normal course of things (a "wonder" in Biblical terms). It is through confronting the extraordinary and eliminating its abnormal nature that science progresses as a miraculous activity. This, of course, is not the view of the likes of David Deutsch (see his book, "The Fabric of Reality").
The last phase of this Life Cycle is Ossification. The discipline degenerates and, following the psychotic phase, it sinks into a paralytic stage which is characterized by the following:
All the practical and technological aspects of the discipline are preserved and continue to be utilized. Gradually the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings vanish or are replaced by the tenets and postulates of a new discipline - but the inventions, processes and practical know-how do not evaporate. They are incorporated into the new discipline and, in time, are erroneously attributed to it. This is a transfer of credit and the attribution of merit and benefits to the legitimate successor of the discipline.
The practitioners of the discipline confine themselves to copying and replicating the various aspects of the discipline, mainly its intellectual property (writings, inventions, other theoretical material). The replication process does not lead to the creation of new knowledge or even to the dissemination of old one. It is a hermetic process, limited to the ever decreasing circle of the initiated. Special institutions are set up to rehash the materials related to the discipline, process them and copy them. These institutions are financed and supported by the State which is always an agent of conservation, preservation and conformity.
Thus, the creative-evolutionary dimension of the discipline freezes over. No new paradigms or revolutions happen. Interpretation and replication of canonical writings become the predominant activity. Formalisms are not subjected to scrutiny and laws assume eternal, immutable, quality.
All the activities of the adherents of the discipline become ritualized. The discipline itself becomes a pillar of the power structures and, as such, is commissioned and condoned by them. Its practitioners synergistically collaborate with them: with the industrial base, the military powerhouse, the political elite, the intellectual cliques in vogue. Institutionalization inevitably leads to the formation of a (mostly bureaucratic) hierarchy. Rituals serve two purposes. The first is to divert attention from subversive, "forbidden" thinking.
This is very much as is the case with obsessive-compulsive disorders in individuals who engage in ritualistic behavior patterns to deflect "wrong" or "corrupt" thoughts. And the second purpose is to cement the power of the "clergy" of the discipline. Rituals are a specialized form of knowledge which can be obtained only through initiation procedures and personal experience. One's status in the hierarchy is not the result of objectively quantifiable variables or even of judgment of merit. It is the result of politics and other power-related interactions. The cases of "Communist Genetics" (Lysenko) versus "Capitalist Genetics" and of the superpower races (space race, arms race) come to mind.
Conformity, dogmatism, doctrines - all lead to enforcement mechanisms which are never subtle. Dissidents are subjected to sanctions: social sanctions and economic sanctions. They can find themselves ex-communicated, harassed, imprisoned, tortured, their works banished or not published, ridiculed and so on.
This is really the triumph of text over the human spirit. The members of the discipline's community forget the original reasons and causes for their scientific pursuits. Why was the discipline developed? What were the original riddles, questions, queries? How did it feel to be curious? Where is the burning fire and the glistening eyes and the feelings of unity with nature that were the prime moving forces behind the discipline? The cold ashes of the conflagration are the texts and their preservation is an expression of longing and desire for things past.
The vacuum left by the absence of positive emotions - is filled by negative ones. The discipline and its disciples become phobic, paranoid, defensive, with a blurred reality test. Devoid of new, attractive content, the discipline resorts to negative motivation by manipulation of negative emotions. People are frightened, threatened, herded, cajoled. The world without the discipline is painted in an apocalyptic palette as ruled by irrationality, disorderly, chaotic, dangerous, even lethally so.
New, emerging disciplines, are presented as heretic, fringe lunacies, inconsistent, reactionary and bound to lead humanity back to some dark ages. This is the inter-disciplinary or inter-paradigm clash. It follows the Psychotic Phase. The old discipline resorts to some transcendental entity (God, Satan, the conscious intelligent observer in the Copenhagen interpretation of the formalism of Quantum Mechanics). In this sense, it is already psychotic and fails its reality test. It develops messianic aspirations and is inspired by a missionary zeal and zest. The fight against new ideas and theories is bloody and ruthless and every possible device is employed.
But the very characteristics of the older nomenclature is in its disfavor. It is closed, based on ritualistic initiation, patronizing. It relies on intimidation. The numbers of the faithful dwindles the more the "church" needs them and the more it resorts to oppressive recruitment tactics. The emerging knowledge wins by historical default and not due to the results of any fierce fight. Even the initiated desert. Their belief unravels when confronted with the truth value, explanatory and predictive powers, and the comprehensiveness of the emerging discipline.
This, indeed, is the main presenting symptom, distinguishing hallmark, of paralytic old disciplines. They deny reality. The are a belief-system, a myth, requiring suspension of judgment, the voluntary limitation of the quest, the agreement to leave swathes of the map in the state of a blank "terra incognita". This reductionism, this avoidance, their replacement by some transcendental authority are the beginning of an end.
Consider physics:
The Universe is a complex, orderly system. If it were an intelligent being, we would be compelled to say that it had "chosen" to preserve form (structure), order and complexity - and to increase them whenever and wherever it can. We can call this a natural inclination or a tendency of the Universe.
This explains why evolution did not stop at the protozoa level. After all, these mono-cellular organisms were (and still are, hundreds of millions of years later) superbly adapted to their environment. It was Bergson who posed the question: why did nature prefer the risk of unstable complexity over predictable and reliable and durable simplicity?
The answer seems to be that the Universe has a predilection (not confined to the biological realm) to increase complexity and order and that this principle takes precedence over "utilitarian" calculations of stability. The battle between the entropic arrow and the negentropic one is more important than any other (in-built) "consideration". This is Time itself and Thermodynamics pitted against Man (as an integral part of the Universe), Order (a systemic, extensive parameter) against Disorder.
In this context, natural selection is no more "blind" or "random" than its subjects. It is discriminating, exercises discretion, encourages structure, complexity and order. The contrast that Bergson stipulated between Natural Selection and Élan Vitale is grossly misplaced: Natural Selection IS the vital power itself.
Modern Physics is converging with Philosophy (possibly with the philosophical side of Religion as well) and the convergence is precisely where concepts of Order and disorder emerge. String theories, for instance, come in numerous versions which describe many possible different worlds. Granted, they may all be facets of the same Being (distant echoes of the new versions of the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics).
Still, why do we, intelligent conscious observers, see (=why are we exposed to) only one aspect of the Universe? How is this aspect "selected"? The Universe is constrained in this "selection process" by its own history - but history is not synonymous with the Laws of Nature. The latter determine the former - does the former also determine the latter? In other words: were the Laws of Nature "selected" as well and, if so, how?
The answer seems self evident: the Universe "selected" both the Natural Laws and - as a result - its own history. The selection process was based on the principle of Natural Selection. A filter was applied: whatever increased order, complexity, structure - survived. Indeed, our very survival as a species is still largely dependent upon these things. Our Universe - having survived - must be an optimized Universe.
Only order-increasing Universes do not succumb to entropy and death (the weak hypothesis). It could even be argued (as we do here) that our Universe is the only possible kind of Universe (the semi-strong hypothesis) or even the only Universe (the strong hypothesis). This is the essence of the Anthropic Principle.
By definition, universal rules pervade all the realms of existence. Biological systems must obey the same order-increasing (natural) laws as physical ones and social ones. We are part of the Universe in the sense that we are subject to the same discipline and adhere to the same "religion". We are an inevitable result - not a chance happening.
We are the culmination of orderly processes - not the outcome of random events. The Universe enables us and our world because - and only for as long as - we increase order. That is not to imply that there is an intention to do so on the part of the Universe (or a "higher being" or a "higher power"). There is no conscious or God-like spirit. There is no religious assertion. We only say that a system that has Order as its founding principle will tend to favor order, to breed it, to positively select its proponents and deselect its opponents - and, finally, to give birth to more and more sophisticated weapons in the pro-Order arsenal. We, humans, were such an order-increasing weapon until recently.
These intuitive assertions can be easily converted into a formalism. In Quantum Mechanics, the State Vector can be constrained to collapse to the most Order-enhancing event. If we had a computer the size of the Universe that could infallibly model it - we would have been able to predict which event will increase the order in the Universe overall. No collapse would have been required then and no probabilistic calculations.
It is easy to prove that events will follow a path of maximum order, simply because the world is orderly and getting ever more so. Had this not been the case, evenly statistically scattered event would have led to an increase in entropy (thermodynamic laws are the offspring of statistical mechanics). But this simply does not happen. And it is wrong to think that order increases only in isolated "pockets", in local regions of our universe.
It is increasing everywhere, all the time, on all scales of measurement. Therefore, we are forced to conclude that quantum events are guided by some non-random principle (such as the increase in order). This, exactly, is the case in biology. There is no reason why not to construct a life wavefunction which will always collapse to the most order increasing event. If we construct and apply this wave function to our world - we will probably find ourselves as one of the events after its collapse.
Appendix - Interview granted to Adam Anderson
1. Do you believe that superstitions have affected American culture? And if so, how?
A. In its treatment of nature, Western culture is based on realism and rationalism and purports to be devoid of superstitions. Granted, many Westerners - perhaps the majority - are still into esoteric practices, such as Astrology. But the official culture and its bearers - scientists, for instance - disavow such throwbacks to a darker past.
Today, superstitions are less concerned with the physical Universe and more with human affairs. Political falsities - such as anti-Semitism - supplanted magic and alchemy. Fantastic beliefs permeate the fields of economics, sociology, and psychology, for instance. The effects of progressive taxation, the usefulness of social welfare, the role of the media, the objectivity of science, the mechanism of democracy, and the function of psychotherapy - are six examples of such groundless fables.
Indeed, one oft-neglected aspect of superstitions is their pernicious economic cost. Irrational action carries a price tag. It is impossible to optimize one's economic activity by making the right decisions and then acting on them in a society or culture permeated by the occult. Esotericism skews the proper allocation of scarce resources.
2. Are there any superstitions that exist today that you believe could become facts tomorrow, or that you believe have more fact than fiction hidden in them?
A. Superstitions stem from one of these four premises:
That there is nothing that can be thought of that is impossible (in all possible Universes);
That there is nothing impossible (in all possible Universes) that can be thought of;
That everything that can be thought of – is, therefore, possible (somewhere in these Universes);
That everything that is possible exists (somewhere in these Universes).
As long as our knowledge is imperfect (asymptotic to the truth), everything is possible. As Arthur Clark, the British scientist and renowned author of science fiction, said: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".
Still, regardless of how "magical" it becomes, positive science is increasingly challenged by the esoteric. The emergence of pseudo-science is the sad outcome of the blurring of contemporary distinctions between physics and metaphysics. Modern science borders on speculation and attempts, to its disadvantage, to tackle questions that once were the exclusive preserve of religion or philosophy. The scientific method is ill-built to cope with such quests and is inferior to the tools developed over centuries by philosophers, theologians, and mystics.
Moreover, scientists often confuse language of representation with meaning and knowledge represented. That a discipline of knowledge uses quantitative methods and the symbol system of mathematics does not make it a science. The phrase "social sciences" is an oxymoron - and it misleads the layman into thinking that science is not that different to literature, religion, astrology, numerology, or other esoteric "systems".
The emergence of "relative", New Age, and politically correct philosophies rendered science merely one option among many. Knowledge, people believe, can be gleaned either directly (mysticism and spirituality) or indirectly (scientific practice). Both paths are equivalent and equipotent. Who is to say that science is superior to other "bodies of wisdom"? Self-interested scientific chauvinism is out - indiscriminate "pluralism" is in.
3. I have found one definition of the word "superstition" that states that it is "a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation." What is your opinion about said definition?
A. It describes what motivates people to adopt superstitions - ignorance and fear of the unknown. Superstitions are, indeed, a "false conception of causation" which inevitably leads to "trust in magic". the only part I disagree with is the trust in chance. Superstitions are organizing principles. They serve as alternatives to other worldviews, such as religion or science. Superstitions seek to replace chance with an "explanation" replete with the power to predict future events and establish chains of causes and effects.
4. Many people believe that superstitions were created to simply teach a lesson, like the old superstition that "the girl that takes the last cookie will be an old maid" was made to teach little girls manners. Do you think that all superstitions derive from some lesson trying to be taught that today's society has simply forgotten or cannot connect to anymore?
A. Jose Ortega y Gasset said (in an unrelated exchange) that all ideas stem from pre-rational beliefs. William James concurred by saying that accepting a truth often requires an act of will which goes beyond facts and into the realm of feelings. Superstitions permeate our world. Some superstitions are intended to convey useful lessons, others form a part of the process of socialization, yet others are abused by various elites to control the masses. But most of them are there to comfort us by proffering "instant" causal explanations and by rendering our Universe more meaningful.
5. Do you believe that superstitions change with the changes in culture?
A. The content of superstitions and the metaphors we use change from culture to culture - but not the underlying shock and awe that yielded them in the first place. Man feels dwarfed in a Cosmos beyond his comprehension. He seeks meaning, direction, safety, and guidance. Superstitions purport to provide all these the easy way. To be superstitious one does not to study or to toil. Superstitions are readily accessible and unequivocal. In troubled times, they are an irresistible proposition.
The Basics of Western Astrology Explained
This article covers the basics of Astrology and how they are inter-related. Astrology is defined as 'the art or practice of determining the supposed influences of the planets and their motions on human affairs and human disposition'. From this practice a horoscope can be produced - a diagram (or chart) of the relative positions of planets and signs of the Zodiac at a specific time, usually the time of birth. A forecast can then be produced.
The Zodiac:
Western Astrology originated way back, around 500 BC, with a concept called the Zodiac being developed. This comprised of an imaginary sphere surrounding the earth, which followed the path of the Sun through the constellations during the year. The Zodiac was split into twelve sections, each named after the specific constellation noted in that area.
Elements:
Many ancient philosophies used a set of classical elements to explain the way nature behaved. Each sign was connected to one of the classical elements (fire, earth, air, or water) and was also related to a region of focus; social, personal or universal.
* Water signs are related to growth processes, identification and emotion. In tandem with the other elements, water feels that fire will make it boil, air will evaporate it, but earth will shape and channel it.
* Fire signs are related to action, passion, and energy. In tandem with the other elements, fire feels that earth will smother it, water will drown it, but air will fan and enliven it.
* Air signs are related to thought, perspective and communication. In tandem with the other elements, air feels that water will obscure it, earth will suffocate it, but fire will inspire and uplift it.
* Earth signs are related to sensation, stability, and practicality. In tandem with the other elements, earth feels that air will dry it, fire will dry it, but water will refresh and nourish it.
Modalities:
Each sign is connected to one of three modalities; cardinal (sometimes referred to as movable), fixed, and mutable.
There are four quadrants following the order of the zodiacal signs, with three signs in each. Each quadrant describes a season, beginning with a cardinal sign, continuing to a fixed sign, and ending with a mutable sign.
Modalities and Related Zodiac Signs:
* Mutable signs are related to adaptability, resourcefulness and holism. They are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces.
* Fixed signs are related to determination, focus and individuality. They are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius.
* Cardinal signs are related to creativity and initiation. They are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn.
Summary of Zodiac Sign Characteristics:
* Aries (cardinal, fire, personal): defensive, energetic, head down, assertive, impulsive.
* Taurus (fixed, earth, personal): patient, indulgent, resourceful, thorough, devoted.
* Gemini (mutable, air, personal): quick, logical, inquisitive.
* Cancer (cardinal, water, personal): clinging, protective, sensitive.
* Leo (fixed, fire, social): theatrical, generous, proud.
* Virgo (mutable, earth, social): critically, practical, efficient.
* Libra (cardinal, air, social): lazy, co-operative, fair.
* Scorpio (fixed, water, social): anxious, passionate, sensitive.
* Sagittarius (mutable, fire, universal): careless, free, straightforward.
* Capricorn (cardinal, earth, universal): suspicious, prudent, cautious.
* Aquarius (fixed, air, universal): detached, democratic, unconventional.
* Pisces (mutable, water, universal): distracted, imaginative, sensitive.
The Zodiac:
Western Astrology originated way back, around 500 BC, with a concept called the Zodiac being developed. This comprised of an imaginary sphere surrounding the earth, which followed the path of the Sun through the constellations during the year. The Zodiac was split into twelve sections, each named after the specific constellation noted in that area.
Elements:
Many ancient philosophies used a set of classical elements to explain the way nature behaved. Each sign was connected to one of the classical elements (fire, earth, air, or water) and was also related to a region of focus; social, personal or universal.
* Water signs are related to growth processes, identification and emotion. In tandem with the other elements, water feels that fire will make it boil, air will evaporate it, but earth will shape and channel it.
* Fire signs are related to action, passion, and energy. In tandem with the other elements, fire feels that earth will smother it, water will drown it, but air will fan and enliven it.
* Air signs are related to thought, perspective and communication. In tandem with the other elements, air feels that water will obscure it, earth will suffocate it, but fire will inspire and uplift it.
* Earth signs are related to sensation, stability, and practicality. In tandem with the other elements, earth feels that air will dry it, fire will dry it, but water will refresh and nourish it.
Modalities:
Each sign is connected to one of three modalities; cardinal (sometimes referred to as movable), fixed, and mutable.
There are four quadrants following the order of the zodiacal signs, with three signs in each. Each quadrant describes a season, beginning with a cardinal sign, continuing to a fixed sign, and ending with a mutable sign.
Modalities and Related Zodiac Signs:
* Mutable signs are related to adaptability, resourcefulness and holism. They are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius and Pisces.
* Fixed signs are related to determination, focus and individuality. They are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius.
* Cardinal signs are related to creativity and initiation. They are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn.
Summary of Zodiac Sign Characteristics:
* Aries (cardinal, fire, personal): defensive, energetic, head down, assertive, impulsive.
* Taurus (fixed, earth, personal): patient, indulgent, resourceful, thorough, devoted.
* Gemini (mutable, air, personal): quick, logical, inquisitive.
* Cancer (cardinal, water, personal): clinging, protective, sensitive.
* Leo (fixed, fire, social): theatrical, generous, proud.
* Virgo (mutable, earth, social): critically, practical, efficient.
* Libra (cardinal, air, social): lazy, co-operative, fair.
* Scorpio (fixed, water, social): anxious, passionate, sensitive.
* Sagittarius (mutable, fire, universal): careless, free, straightforward.
* Capricorn (cardinal, earth, universal): suspicious, prudent, cautious.
* Aquarius (fixed, air, universal): detached, democratic, unconventional.
* Pisces (mutable, water, universal): distracted, imaginative, sensitive.
Religion and Science
There are many kinds of narratives and organizing principles. Science is driven by evidence gathered in experiments, and by the falsification of extant theories and their replacement with newer, asymptotically truer, ones. Other systems - religion, nationalism, paranoid ideation, or art - are based on personal experiences (faith, inspiration, paranoia, etc.).
Experiential narratives can and do interact with evidential narratives and vice versa.
For instance: belief in God inspires some scientists who regard science as a method to "peek at God's cards" and to get closer to Him. Another example: the pursuit of scientific endeavors enhances one's national pride and is motivated by it. Science is often corrupted in order to support nationalistic and racist claims.
The basic units of all narratives are known by their effects on the environment. God, in this sense, is no different from electrons, quarks, and black holes. All four constructs cannot be directly observed, but the fact of their existence is derived from their effects.
Granted, God's effects are discernible only in the social and psychological (or psychopathological) realms. But this observed constraint doesn't render Him less "real". The hypothesized existence of God parsimoniously explains a myriad ostensibly unrelated phenomena and, therefore, conforms to the rules governing the formulation of scientific theories.
The locus of God's hypothesized existence is, clearly and exclusively, in the minds of believers. But this again does not make Him less real. The contents of our minds are as real as anything "out there". Actually, the very distinction between epistemology and ontology is blurred.
But is God's existence "true" - or is He just a figment of our neediness and imagination?
Truth is the measure of the ability of our models to describe phenomena and predict them. God's existence (in people's minds) succeeds to do both. For instance, assuming that God exists allows us to predict many of the behaviors of people who profess to believe in Him. The existence of God is, therefore, undoubtedly true (in this formal and strict sense).
But does God exist outside people's minds? Is He an objective entity, independent of what people may or may not think about Him? After all, if all sentient beings were to perish in a horrible calamity, the Sun would still be there, revolving as it has done from time immemorial.
If all sentient beings were to perish in a horrible calamity, would God still exist? If all sentient beings, including all humans, stop believing that there is God - would He survive this renunciation? Does God "out there" inspire the belief in God in religious folks' minds?
Known things are independent of the existence of observers (although the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics disputes this). Believed things are dependent on the existence of believers.
We know that the Sun exists. We don't know that God exists. We believe that God exists - but we don't and cannot know it, in the scientific sense of the word.
We can design experiments to falsify (prove wrong) the existence of electrons, quarks, and black holes (and, thus, if all these experiments fail, prove that electrons, quarks, and black holes exist). We can also design experiments to prove that electrons, quarks, and black holes exist.
But we cannot design even one experiment to falsify the existence of a God who is outside the minds of believers (and, thus, if the experiment fails, prove that God exists "out there"). Additionally, we cannot design even one experiment to prove that God exists outside the minds of believers.
What about the "argument from design"? The universe is so complex and diverse that surely it entails the existence of a supreme intelligence, the world's designer and creator, known by some as "God". On the other hand, the world's richness and variety can be fully accounted for using modern scientific theories such as evolution and the big bang. There is no need to introduce God into the equations.
Still, it is possible that God is responsible for it all. The problem is that we cannot design even one experiment to falsify this theory, that God created the Universe (and, thus, if the experiment fails, prove that God is, indeed, the world's originator). Additionally, we cannot design even one experiment to prove that God created the world.
We can, however, design numerous experiments to falsify the scientific theories that explain the creation of the Universe (and, thus, if these experiments fail, lend these theories substantial support). We can also design experiments to prove the scientific theories that explain the creation of the Universe.
It does not mean that these theories are absolutely true and immutable. They are not. Our current scientific theories are partly true and are bound to change with new knowledge gained by experimentation. Our current scientific theories will be replaced by newer, truer theories. But any and all future scientific theories will be falsifiable and testable.
Knowledge and belief are like oil and water. They don't mix. Knowledge doesn't lead to belief and belief does not yield knowledge. Belief can yield conviction or strongly-felt opinions. But belief cannot result in knowledge.
Still, both known things and believed things exist. The former exist "out there" and the latter "in our minds" and only there. But they are no less real for that.
Experiential narratives can and do interact with evidential narratives and vice versa.
For instance: belief in God inspires some scientists who regard science as a method to "peek at God's cards" and to get closer to Him. Another example: the pursuit of scientific endeavors enhances one's national pride and is motivated by it. Science is often corrupted in order to support nationalistic and racist claims.
The basic units of all narratives are known by their effects on the environment. God, in this sense, is no different from electrons, quarks, and black holes. All four constructs cannot be directly observed, but the fact of their existence is derived from their effects.
Granted, God's effects are discernible only in the social and psychological (or psychopathological) realms. But this observed constraint doesn't render Him less "real". The hypothesized existence of God parsimoniously explains a myriad ostensibly unrelated phenomena and, therefore, conforms to the rules governing the formulation of scientific theories.
The locus of God's hypothesized existence is, clearly and exclusively, in the minds of believers. But this again does not make Him less real. The contents of our minds are as real as anything "out there". Actually, the very distinction between epistemology and ontology is blurred.
But is God's existence "true" - or is He just a figment of our neediness and imagination?
Truth is the measure of the ability of our models to describe phenomena and predict them. God's existence (in people's minds) succeeds to do both. For instance, assuming that God exists allows us to predict many of the behaviors of people who profess to believe in Him. The existence of God is, therefore, undoubtedly true (in this formal and strict sense).
But does God exist outside people's minds? Is He an objective entity, independent of what people may or may not think about Him? After all, if all sentient beings were to perish in a horrible calamity, the Sun would still be there, revolving as it has done from time immemorial.
If all sentient beings were to perish in a horrible calamity, would God still exist? If all sentient beings, including all humans, stop believing that there is God - would He survive this renunciation? Does God "out there" inspire the belief in God in religious folks' minds?
Known things are independent of the existence of observers (although the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics disputes this). Believed things are dependent on the existence of believers.
We know that the Sun exists. We don't know that God exists. We believe that God exists - but we don't and cannot know it, in the scientific sense of the word.
We can design experiments to falsify (prove wrong) the existence of electrons, quarks, and black holes (and, thus, if all these experiments fail, prove that electrons, quarks, and black holes exist). We can also design experiments to prove that electrons, quarks, and black holes exist.
But we cannot design even one experiment to falsify the existence of a God who is outside the minds of believers (and, thus, if the experiment fails, prove that God exists "out there"). Additionally, we cannot design even one experiment to prove that God exists outside the minds of believers.
What about the "argument from design"? The universe is so complex and diverse that surely it entails the existence of a supreme intelligence, the world's designer and creator, known by some as "God". On the other hand, the world's richness and variety can be fully accounted for using modern scientific theories such as evolution and the big bang. There is no need to introduce God into the equations.
Still, it is possible that God is responsible for it all. The problem is that we cannot design even one experiment to falsify this theory, that God created the Universe (and, thus, if the experiment fails, prove that God is, indeed, the world's originator). Additionally, we cannot design even one experiment to prove that God created the world.
We can, however, design numerous experiments to falsify the scientific theories that explain the creation of the Universe (and, thus, if these experiments fail, lend these theories substantial support). We can also design experiments to prove the scientific theories that explain the creation of the Universe.
It does not mean that these theories are absolutely true and immutable. They are not. Our current scientific theories are partly true and are bound to change with new knowledge gained by experimentation. Our current scientific theories will be replaced by newer, truer theories. But any and all future scientific theories will be falsifiable and testable.
Knowledge and belief are like oil and water. They don't mix. Knowledge doesn't lead to belief and belief does not yield knowledge. Belief can yield conviction or strongly-felt opinions. But belief cannot result in knowledge.
Still, both known things and believed things exist. The former exist "out there" and the latter "in our minds" and only there. But they are no less real for that.
China – Its Global Economy and Favored Chinese Language
China is emerging as one of the strong global economy since the last two decade and is the world’s biggest holder of foreign exchange reserves with the reserves touching 1.2 trillion US dollars few months back (March, 2007). Many countries around the world are interested in business with China and are actively involved in learning Chinese language to understand and enhance the business opportunities.
Napoleon Bonaparte has once said that “China is the sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep for when she awakens she will tremble the world.” Nearly two century after the visionary statement of the legend, China’s dormant economy emerged so drastically that economic power that country holds now directly affects and facilitates the pace of global market.
People around the world and countries are now deliberately moving forward to exchange business relation with world’s fastest growing nation, a nation which is experiencing huge transition from a central-planned economy to a global-oriented market and has become a dominant player in the international economy and financial system. Hence for better business understanding, business opportunity and cultural exchange, learning Chinese language has become an all time high with approximately thirty million people are studying Chinese in universities, colleges or private courses.
Chinese is considered to be one of the world’s most popular languages and is a simple structured and tonal language where a single word can have different meaning depending upon the way it is pronounced. There are number of dialects in Chinese spoken in different province but the popularity is gaining by Mandarin language and this has also been recognized as the official language of China.
To follow the suit, the United States is investing huge sums in establishing Chinese learning schools and passing bills to encourage the Chinese language programming in schools across the U.S. and cultural exchanges to improve the ties between the two countries.
Despite learning Chinese language in home countries, people often prefer to travel to China and spend time there to get acclimatized with their tradition, culture and to gather experiences of being like a Chinese. With huge demands of Chinese language, major cities in China are overcrowded with Mandarin learning schools and many of which provides superb accommodation facilities, native Chinese speaking teachers and well qualified individuals to teach Chinese as foreign language.
Furthermore, students can choose Chinese language with a hope of getting easy employment in areas like banking, trade, financial, diplomatic work, academics, news media, content management, tours and travel and many more. Each of these fields is very challenging and gives one an enough exposure to Chinese society, culture and tradition.
Hence, if you are feeling the urgency of learning Chinese language and align yourself in the fast track of business by learning Chinese language, this is the right time to start. If you cannot afford to go to China to learn typical Chinese language, there are plenty of online resources such as free online Chinese learning course, audio guidelines and other scripts which can make you perfect in Chinese language and help you actively participate in various business processes.
Napoleon Bonaparte has once said that “China is the sleeping giant. Let her lie and sleep for when she awakens she will tremble the world.” Nearly two century after the visionary statement of the legend, China’s dormant economy emerged so drastically that economic power that country holds now directly affects and facilitates the pace of global market.
People around the world and countries are now deliberately moving forward to exchange business relation with world’s fastest growing nation, a nation which is experiencing huge transition from a central-planned economy to a global-oriented market and has become a dominant player in the international economy and financial system. Hence for better business understanding, business opportunity and cultural exchange, learning Chinese language has become an all time high with approximately thirty million people are studying Chinese in universities, colleges or private courses.
Chinese is considered to be one of the world’s most popular languages and is a simple structured and tonal language where a single word can have different meaning depending upon the way it is pronounced. There are number of dialects in Chinese spoken in different province but the popularity is gaining by Mandarin language and this has also been recognized as the official language of China.
To follow the suit, the United States is investing huge sums in establishing Chinese learning schools and passing bills to encourage the Chinese language programming in schools across the U.S. and cultural exchanges to improve the ties between the two countries.
Despite learning Chinese language in home countries, people often prefer to travel to China and spend time there to get acclimatized with their tradition, culture and to gather experiences of being like a Chinese. With huge demands of Chinese language, major cities in China are overcrowded with Mandarin learning schools and many of which provides superb accommodation facilities, native Chinese speaking teachers and well qualified individuals to teach Chinese as foreign language.
Furthermore, students can choose Chinese language with a hope of getting easy employment in areas like banking, trade, financial, diplomatic work, academics, news media, content management, tours and travel and many more. Each of these fields is very challenging and gives one an enough exposure to Chinese society, culture and tradition.
Hence, if you are feeling the urgency of learning Chinese language and align yourself in the fast track of business by learning Chinese language, this is the right time to start. If you cannot afford to go to China to learn typical Chinese language, there are plenty of online resources such as free online Chinese learning course, audio guidelines and other scripts which can make you perfect in Chinese language and help you actively participate in various business processes.
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