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Topic Review
Object
An object is a philosophical term often used in contrast to the term subject. A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed. For modern philosophers like Descartes, consciousness is a state of cognition that includes the subject—which can never be doubted as only it can be the one who doubts—and some object(s) that may be considered as not having real or full existence or value independent of the subject who observes it. Metaphysical frameworks also differ in whether they consider objects existing independently of their properties and, if so, in what way. The pragmatist Charles S. Peirce defines the broad notion of an object as anything that we can think or talk about. In a general sense it is any entity: the pyramids, gods, Socrates, Alpha Centauri, the number seven, a disbelief in predestination or the fear of cats. In a strict sense it refers to any definite being. A related notion is objecthood. Objecthood is the state of being an object. One approach to defining it is in terms of objects' properties and relations. Descriptions of all bodies, minds, and persons must be in terms of their properties and relations. The philosophical question of the nature of objecthood concerns how objects are related to their properties and relations. For example, it seems that the only way to describe an apple is by describing its properties and how it is related to other things. Its properties may include its redness, its size, and its composition, while its relations may include "on the table", "in the room" and "being bigger than other apples". The notion of an object must address two problems: the change problems and the problems of substances. Two leading theories about objecthood are substance theory, wherein substances (objects) are distinct from their properties, and bundle theory, wherein objects are no more than bundles of their properties.
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  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
AI-Control Problem
In artificial intelligence (AI) and philosophy, the AI-control problem is the hypothetical puzzle of how to build a superintelligent agent that will aid its creators, and avoid inadvertently building a superintelligence that will harm its creators. Its study is motivated by the claim that the human race will have to get the control problem right "the first time", as a misprogrammed superintelligence might rationally decide to "take over the world" and refuse to permit its programmers to modify it after launch. In addition, some scholars argue that solutions to the control problem, alongside other advances in "AI safety engineering", might also find applications in existing non-superintelligent AI. Potential strategies include "capability control" (preventing an AI from being able to pursue harmful plans), and "motivational control" (building an AI that wants to be helpful).
  • 1.6K
  • 15 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Agency (LDS Church)
Agency (also referred to as free agency or moral agency), in the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), is "the privilege of choice which was introduced by God the Eternal Father to all of his spirit children in the premortal state". Mortal life is viewed as a test of faith, where our choices are central to the plan of salvation in Latter-day Saint teaching. "It was essential for their eternal progression that they be subjected to the influences of both good and evil". LDS Church members believe that Lucifer rebelled against the God's plan, which resulted in a war in heaven, and Lucifer being cast out of heaven and becoming Satan. Church members believe that all individuals have the ability to differentiate between good and evil and that Satan and his followers are not able to tempt people beyond the point where they can resist. This implies that mortals can be held accountable for their actions; mortals will be judged by God based on a combination of one's faith and works (with salvation coming only through the power, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ).
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  • 01 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Narcissistic Abuse
Narcissistic abuse is a hypernym for the psychological, financial, sexual, and physical abuse of others by someone with narcissistic traits or suffering from narcissistic personality disorder (NPD). Narcissistic Personality Disorder has been referred to as a mental health condition by several medical research and journal organisations, such as, for example, the United States National Library of Medicine, Mayo Clinic, and Cochrane medical journals.
  • 1.6K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Emotional Intelligence in Education Settings
Emotional intelligence (EI) represents the ability of individuals to reason and employ self-emotions for the enrichment of thoughts and knowledge. EI is a genuine skill based on the adaptive use of emotions to solve the problems that emerge from the different school environments and learning conditions from the theoretical foundation presented. Due to the benefits reported to educators and learners, emotional intelligence (EI) is an issue of consideration in many educational settings
  • 1.6K
  • 31 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Adrishta
The Fifth Chapter of the Vaisheshika Sutras of Kanada deals with the notion of action and the connected concept of effort; and also deals with the various special phenomenon of nature to the supersensible force, called Adrishta.
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  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Neural Circuit
A neural circuit, is a population of neurons interconnected by synapses to carry out a specific function when activated. Neural circuits interconnect to one another to form large scale brain networks. Biological neural networks have inspired the design of artificial neural networks.
  • 1.5K
  • 19 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Compulsive Hoarding
Compulsive hoarding, also known as hoarding disorder, is a behavioral pattern characterized by excessive acquisition of and an inability or unwillingness to discard large quantities of objects that cover the living areas of the home and cause significant distress or impairment. Compulsive hoarding behavior has been associated with health risks, impaired functioning, workplace impairment, economic burden, and adverse effects on friends and family members. When clinically significant enough to impair functioning, hoarding can prevent typical uses of space, enough so that it can limit activities such as cooking, cleaning, moving through the house, and sleeping. It can also put the individual and others at risk of fires, falling, poor sanitation, and other health concerns. Researchers have recognized compulsive hoarding as a phenomenon since at least the 1980s, but only recently have begun to study hoarding, and it was first defined as a mental disorder in the 5th edition of the DSM in 2013. It was not clear whether compulsive hoarding is a separate, isolated disorder, or rather a symptom of another condition, such as OCD, but the current DSM lists hoarding disorder as both a mental disability and a possible symptom for OCD. Prevalence rates have been estimated at 2% to 5% in adults, though the condition typically manifests in childhood with symptoms worsening in advanced age, at which point collected items have grown excessive and family members who would otherwise help to maintain and control the levels of clutter have either died or moved away. Hoarding appears to be more common in people with psychological disorders such as depression, anxiety and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Other factors often associated with hoarding include alcohol dependence and paranoid, schizotypal and avoidance traits.
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  • 20 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Emotional Dysregulation
Emotional dysregulation is a term used in the mental health community that refers to emotional responses that are poorly modulated and do not lie within the accepted range of emotive response. Emotional dysregulation can be associated with an experience of early psychological trauma, brain injury, or chronic maltreatment (such as child abuse, child neglect, or institutional neglect/abuse), and associated disorders such as reactive attachment disorder. Emotional dysregulation may be present in people with psychiatric disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorders, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. In such cases as borderline personality disorder and complex post-traumatic stress disorder, hypersensitivity to emotional stimuli causes a slower return to a normal emotional state. This is manifested biologically by deficits in the frontal cortices of the brain. Possible manifestations of emotional dysregulation include extreme tearfulness, angry outbursts or behavioral outbursts such as destroying or throwing objects, aggression towards self or others, and threats to kill oneself. Emotional dysregulation can lead to behavioral problems and can interfere with a person's social interactions and relationships at home, in school, or at place of employment.
  • 1.5K
  • 25 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Āyatana
Āyatana (Pāli; Sanskrit: आयतन) is a Buddhist term that has been translated as "sense base", "sense-media" or "sense sphere". In Buddhism, there are six internal sense bases (Pali: ajjhattikāni āyatanāni; also known as, "organs", "gates", "doors", "powers" or "roots") and six external sense bases (bāhirāni āyatanāni or "sense objects"; also known as vishaya or "domains"). There are six internal-external (organ-object) saḷāyatana (Pāli; Skt. ṣaḍāyatana), pairs of sense bases:[note 1][note 2] Buddhism and other Indian epistemologies identify six "senses" as opposed to the Western identification of five. In Buddhism, "mind" denotes an internal sense organ which interacts with sense objects that include sense impressions, feelings, perceptions and volition.
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  • 18 Oct 2022
Topic Review
J. M. E. McTaggart
John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart[lower-alpha 1] FBA (1866–1925) was an English idealist metaphysician. For most of his life McTaggart was a fellow and lecturer in philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was an exponent of the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and among the most notable of the British idealists. McTaggart is known for "The Unreality of Time" (1908), in which he argues that time is unreal. The work has been widely discussed through the 20th century and into the 21st.
  • 1.4K
  • 09 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Three Roots
The Three Roots (Tibetan: tsa sum) of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition are the lama (Sanskrit: guru), yidam (Sanskrit: ishtadevata) and protector, which may be a khandroma (Sanskrit: dakini) or chokyong (Sanskrit: dharmapala). The Three Roots are the second of three Tibetan Buddhist refuge formulations, the Outer, Inner and Secret forms of the Three Jewels. The 'Outer' form is the 'Triple Gem', (Sanskrit:triratna), the 'Inner' is the Three Roots and the 'Secret' form is the 'Three Bodies' or trikaya of a Buddha. These alternative refuge formulations are employed by those undertaking Deity Yoga and other tantric practices within the Tibetan Buddhist Vajrayana tradition as a means of recognizing the universality of Buddha Nature. The Three Roots are commonly mentioned in the Nyingma and Kagyu literature of Tibetan Buddhism. Unlike most aspects of Tibetan Buddhism, which originated in India, the Three Roots may be an original Tibetan formulation from the time of Padmasambhava. The functions of the Three Roots are: In the Yangzab compilation of Dzogchen texts the 'Yangzab Three Roots' is the primary Deity Yoga practice. The Three Roots in this cycle are: Guru Rinpoche (the guru), Hayagriva (the yidam), and Vajravarahi (the dakini). This empowerment is required for the practitioner to study the Yangzab Treasure teaching cycle. The three roots are symbolized in the Gankyil.
  • 1.4K
  • 09 Nov 2022
Biography
L. Taylor Hansen
L. (Lucile) Taylor Hansen (November 30, 1897 – May 1976) was a writer of science fiction popular science articles and books who used a male writing persona for the early part of her career. She is the author of eight short stories, nearly sixty nonfiction articles popularizing anthropology and geology, and three nonfiction books. An autobiographical sketch by Hansen begins with her memory o
  • 1.4K
  • 29 Dec 2022
Topic Review
African-American Studies
African-American studies (alternately named Afroamerican studies, or in US education, black studies) is an interdisciplinary academic field that is primarily devoted to the study of the history, culture, and politics of black people from the United States . African American studies are a sub-field of African diaspora studies and Africana studies, the study of the people of African origin worldwide. The field has been defined in different ways, but taken broadly, it not only studies African slave descendants but also any community of the African diaspora linked to the Americas. The field includes scholars of African-American (as well as Caribbean, African, and Afro-European) literature, history, politics, and religion as well as those from disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, psychology, education, and many other disciplines within the humanities and social sciences. And, increasingly, African-American Studies departments are hiring and partnering with STEM scholars. Intensive academic efforts to reconstruct African American history began in the late 19th century (W. E. B. Du Bois, The Suppression of the African Slave-trade to the United States of America, 1896). Among the pioneers in the first half of the 20th century were Carter G. Woodson, Herbert Aptheker, Melville Herskovits, and Lorenzo Dow Turner. Programs and departments of African American Studies were first created in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of inter-ethnic student and faculty activism at many universities, sparked by a five-month strike for black studies at San Francisco State. In February 1968, San Francisco State hired sociologist Nathan Hare to coordinate the first black studies program and write a proposal for the first Department of Black Studies; the department was created in September 1968 and gained official status at the end of the five-months strike in the spring of 1969. The creation of programs and departments in black studies was a common demand of protests and sit-ins by minority students and their allies, who felt that their cultures and interests were underserved by the traditional academic structures. Black studies is a systematic way of studying black people in the world – such as their history, culture, sociology, policies, experience, issues and religion. It is a study of the black experience and the effect of society on them and their effect within society. This study aims to, among other things, help eradicate many racial stereotypes. Black studies implements history, family structure, social and economic pressures, stereotypes, and gender relationships.
  • 1.4K
  • 17 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Wall Mosaics: on-site non-invasive diagnostics
This entry concerns the challenges and perspectives of on-site non-invasive measurements applied to valuable wall mosaics. The choice of the appropriate technique or combination of different techniques depends on a variety of factors: the depth of investigation, the resolution, the possibility to have direct contact with the surfaces or, on the contrary, limited accessibility of the wall mosaics due to their location (e.g., vaults), as well as deterioration problems, (e.g., voids, detachments, or humidity effects). This entry illustrates briefly the current state of the art in the field of non-invasive diagnostic methodsavailable for the study of wall mosaics (IRT, GPR, DHSPI, DHSPI-SIRT, SLDV, HSR), considering their potentials, limitations and future development frontiers. 
  • 1.4K
  • 10 Nov 2020
Topic Review
Infinity
In philosophy and theology, infinity is explored in articles under headings such as the Absolute, God, and Zeno's paradoxes. In Greek philosophy, for example in Anaximander, 'the Boundless' is the origin of all that is. He took the beginning or first principle to be an endless, unlimited primordial mass (ἄπειρον, apeiron). The Jain metaphysics and mathematics were the first to define and delineate different "types" of infinities. The work of the mathematician Georg Cantor first placed infinity into a coherent mathematical framework. Keenly aware of his departure from traditional wisdom, Cantor also presented a comprehensive historical and philosophical discussion of infinity. In Christian theology, for example in the work of Duns Scotus, the infinite nature of God invokes a sense of being without constraint, rather than a sense of being unlimited in quantity.
  • 1.4K
  • 16 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Luso-Flemish Master of Lourinhã
The Master of Lourinhã masterpieces are the best that Renaissance painting produced in Portugal during the governance of King D. Manuel I, in the Luso-Flemish period. The paintings were commissioned c. 1515 by Queen D. Maria, second wife of King D. Manuel I. Its underdrawing, the fineness of the landscapes and the transparency of chromatic material, reveal the talent of a great flemish artist following Bruges and Antuerpian models.
  • 1.4K
  • 30 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Three Mothers (2006) by Dina Zvi-Riklis
Dina Zvi-Riklis’ film Three Mothers (2006) reveals a complex approach to the issue of immigration, an issue that is central to both the Jewish religion and Israeli identity. While for both, reaching the land of Israel means arriving in the Promised Land, they are quite dissimilar in that one is a religious command while the other is an ideological imperative. But more than anything, the two approaches share a common imperative to forget the past. However, this imperative does not apply to the heroines of Three Mothers, a film which follows the extraordinary trajectory of triplet sisters, born to a rich Jewish family in Alexandria, who were forced to leave Egypt after King Farouk’s abdication and immigrate to Israel. This article demonstrates that Three Mothers represents an outstanding achievement because it dares to deal with its heroines’ longing for the world left behind and the complexity of integrating the past into the present. Following Nicholas Bourriaud’s Radicant theory, designating an organism that grows roots and adds new ones as it advances, this article will prove that though the heroines of Three Mothers never avow their longing for Egypt, the film’s narrative succeeds in revealing a subversive démarche through which the sisters succeed in integrating Egypt into their present.
  • 1.4K
  • 19 Aug 2020
Topic Review
Spinning Dancer
The Spinning Dancer, also known as the Silhouette Illusion, is a kinetic, bistable, animated optical illusion GIF image showing a silhouette of a pirouetting female dancer. The illusion, created in 2003 by Japanese web designer Nobuyuki Kayahara, involves the apparent direction of motion of the figure. Some observers initially see the figure as spinning clockwise (viewed from above) and some counterclockwise. Additionally, some may see the figure suddenly spin in the opposite direction. The illusion derives from the lack of visual cues for depth. For instance, as the dancer's arms move from viewer's left to right, it is possible to view her arms passing between her body and the viewer (that is, in the foreground of the picture, in which case she would be circling counterclockwise on her right foot) and it is also possible to view her arms as passing behind the dancer's body (that is, in the background of the picture, in which case she is seen circling clockwise on her left foot). When she is facing to the left or to the right, her breasts and ponytail clearly define the direction she is facing, although there is ambiguity in which leg is which. However, as she moves away from facing to the left (or from facing to the right), the dancer can be seen facing in either of two directions. At first, these two directions are fairly close to each other (both left, say, but one facing slightly forward, the other facing slightly backward) but they become further away from each other until we reach a position where her ponytail and breasts are in line with the viewer (so that neither her breasts nor her ponytail are seen so readily). In this position, she could be facing either away from the viewer or towards the viewer, so that the two possible positions are 180 degrees apart. Another interesting aspect of this illusion can be triggered by placing a mirror vertically, besides the image. The natural expectation would be for the normal image and its reflection to spin in opposite directions. This does not necessarily happen, and provides a paradoxical situation where both mirrored dancers spin in the same direction.
  • 1.4K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Jurimetrics
Jurimetrics is the application of quantitative methods, and often especially probability and statistics, to law. In the United States, the journal Jurimetrics is published by the American Bar Association and Arizona State University. The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies is another publication that emphasizes the statistical analysis of law. The term was coined in 1949 by Lee Loevinger in his article "Jurimetrics: The Next Step Forward". Showing the influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Loevinger quoted Holmes' celebrated phrase that: The first work on this topic is attributed to Nicolaus I Bernoulli in his doctoral dissertation De Usu Artis Conjectandi in Jure, written in 1709.
  • 1.4K
  • 14 Oct 2022
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