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Topic Review
Secular Religion
A secular religion is a communal belief system that often rejects or neglects the metaphysical aspects of the supernatural, commonly associated with traditional religion, instead placing typical religious qualities in earthly entities. Among systems that have been characterized as secular religions are capitalism, communism, anarchism, fascism, nationalism, Auguste Comte's Religion of Humanity and the Cult of Reason and Cult of the Supreme Being that developed after the French Revolution .
  • 4.5K
  • 04 Nov 2022
Topic Review
LifePower
LifePower, (LP), is an Applied Spiritual Philosophy that attempts to improve the lives of people whilst focusing on the personal life span, using and applying a variety of tools and exercises. LP focuses on the power of the self, in the relief of suffering from past traumatic experiences and seeks to meet a high level of consciousness, communication and serenity. It consists of several techniques as well as practices, called “drills” and draws on so-called 'Listening Processes'. The LP philosophy´ was founded and created by Dani Lemberger after he studied in-depth general philosophies on life, self and existence which in combination with studying Ron Hubbard´s philosophy, led him to develop the LifePower philosophy. LifePower focuses on the power of the self, in the relief of suffering from past traumatic experiences and seeks to meet a high level of consciousness, communication and serenity. It is based on the idea, that the human being is an eternal spirit. The philosophy founder claims that by applying it, a person can enhance their abilities, attain and gain personal power to create an enjoyable and meaningful life for themselves.
  • 4.4K
  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Bodhi
The English term enlightenment is the western translation of the abstract noun bodhi, (/ˈboʊdi/; Sanskrit: बोधि; Pali: bodhi), the knowledge or wisdom, or awakened intellect, of a Buddha. The verbal root budh- means "to awaken," and its literal meaning is closer to "awakening." Although the term buddhi is also used in other Indian philosophies and traditions, its most common usage is in the context of Buddhism. The term "enlightenment" was popularised in the Western world through the 19th century translations of Max Müller. It has the western connotation of general insight into transcendental truth or reality. The term is also being used to translate several other Buddhist terms and concepts, which are used to denote (initial) insight (prajna (Sanskrit), wu (Chinese), kensho and satori(Japanese)); knowledge (vidhya); the "blowing out" (Nirvana) of disturbing emotions and desires and the subsequent freedom or release (vimukti); and the attainment of supreme Buddhahood (samyak sam bodhi), as exemplified by Gautama Buddha. What exactly constituted the Buddha's awakening is unknown. It may probably have involved the knowledge that liberation was attained by the combination of mindfulness and dhyāna, applied to the understanding of the arising and ceasing of craving. The relation between dhyana and insight is a core problem in the study of Buddhism, and is one of the fundamentals of Buddhist practice. In the western world the concept of (spiritual) enlightenment has taken on a romantic meaning. It has become synonymous with self-realization and the true self and false self, being regarded as a substantial essence being covered over by social conditioning.
  • 4.3K
  • 22 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Utopia
A utopia (/juːˈtoʊpiə/ yoo-TOH-pee-ə) is an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its citizens. The term was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island society in the south Atlantic Ocean off the coast of South America. The opposite of a utopia is a dystopia, which dominates the fictional literature from the 1950s onwards, chiefly because of the impact of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949. However, the term can also denote actual experiments in what participants regard as a vastly superior manner of living, generally in what are termed intentional communities. In common parlance it is synonymous with "impossible", "far-fetched", and "deluded". Literary utopias focus on, amongst other things, equality, in such categories as economics, government and justice, with the method and structure of proposed implementation varying based on ideology. Lyman Tower Sargent argues that the nature of a utopia is inherently contradictory because societies are not homogeneous and have desires which conflict and therefore cannot simultaneously be satisfied. According to Sargent:
  • 4.3K
  • 08 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Sophia (Gnosticism)
Sophia (Koinē Greek: Σοφíα "Wisdom", Coptic: ⲧⲥⲟⲫⲓⲁ "the Sophia") is a major theme, along with Knowledge (γνῶσις gnosis, Coptic sooun), among many of the early Christian knowledge-theologies grouped by the heresiologist Irenaeus as gnostikoi (γνωστικοί), ‘knowing’ or ‘men that claimed to have deeper wisdom’. Gnosticism is a 17th-century term expanding the definition of Irenaeus' groups to include other syncretic and mystery religions. In Gnosticism, Sophia is a feminine figure, analogous to the human soul but also simultaneously one of the feminine aspects of God. Gnostics held that she was the syzygy (female twin divine Aeon) of Jesus (i.e. the Bride of Christ), and Holy Spirit of the Trinity. She is occasionally referred to by the Hebrew equivalent of Achamōth (Ἀχαμώθ, Hebrew: חכמה‎ chokhmah) and as Prunikos (Προύνικος). In the Nag Hammadi texts, Sophia is the lowest Aeon, or anthropic expression of the emanation of the light of God. She is considered to have fallen from grace in some way, in so doing creating or helping to create the material world.
  • 4.2K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Physical Body
In physics, a physical body or physical object (or simply a body or object) is an identifiable collection of matter, which may be constrained by an identifiable boundary, and may move as a unit by translation or rotation, in 3-dimensional space. In common usage, an object is a collection of matter within a defined contiguous boundary in 3-dimensional space. The boundary must be defined and identified by the properties of the material. The boundary may change over time. The boundary is usually the visible or tangible surface of the object. The matter in the object is constrained (to a greater or lesser degree) to move as one object. The boundary may move in space relative to other objects that it is not attached to (through translation and rotation). An object's boundary may also deform and change over time in other ways. Also in common usage, an object is not constrained to consist of the same collection of matter. Atoms or parts of an object may change over time. An object is defined by the simplest representation of the boundary consistent with the observations. However the laws of Physics only apply directly to objects that consist of the same collection of matter. Each object has a unique identity, independent of any other properties. Two objects may be identical, in all properties except position, but still remain distinguishable. In most cases the boundaries of two objects may not overlap at any point in time. The property of identity allows objects to be counted. Examples of models of physical bodies include, but are not limited to a particle, several interacting smaller bodies (particles or other), and continuous media. The common conception of physical objects includes that they have extension in the physical world, although there do exist theories of quantum physics and cosmology which may challenge this. In modern physics, "extension" is understood in terms of the spacetime: roughly speaking, it means that for a given moment of time the body has some location in the space, although not necessarily a point. A physical body as a whole is assumed to have such quantitative properties as mass, momentum, electric charge, other conserving quantities, and possibly other quantities. A body with known composition and described in an adequate physical theory is an example of physical system.
  • 4.1K
  • 12 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Secularity
Secularity (from Latin saeculum, "worldly" or "of a generation") is the state of being separate from religion, or of not being exclusively allied with or against any particular religion. Historically, the word secular was not related or linked to religion, but was a freestanding term in Latin which would relate to any mundane endeavour. However, the term, saecula saeculorum (saeculōrum being the genitive plural of saeculum) as found in the New Testament in the Vulgate translation (circa 410) of the original Koine Greek phrase εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων (eis toùs aionas ton aiṓnōn), e.g. at Galatians 1:5, was used in the early Christian church (and is still used today), in the doxologies, to denote the coming and going of the ages, the grant of eternal life, and the long duration of created things from their beginning to forever and ever. The idea of a dichotomy between religion and the secular originated in the European Enlightenment. Furthermore, since religion and secular are both Western concepts that were formed under the influence of Christian theology, other cultures do not necessarily have words or concepts that resemble or are equivalent to them. In many cultures, "little conceptual or practical distinction is made between 'natural' and 'supernatural' phenomena" and the very notions of religious and nonreligious dissolve into unimportance, nonexistence, or unawareness, especially since people have beliefs in other supernatural or spiritual things irrespective of belief in God or gods. Conceptions of what is and what is not religion vary in contemporary East Asia as well. The shared term for "irreligion" or "no religion" (無宗教, Chinese pron. wú zōngjiào, Japanese pron. mu shūkyō) with which the majority of East Asian populations identify themselves implies non-membership in one of the institutional religions (such as Buddhism and Christianity) but not necessarily non-belief in traditional folk religions collectively represented by Chinese Shendao (shén dào) and Japanese Shinto (both meaning "ways of gods").[lower-alpha 1] In modern Japan, religion has negative connotation since it is associated with foreign belief systems so many identify as "nonreligious" (mushukyo), but this does not mean they have a complete rejection or absence of beliefs and rituals relating to supernatural, metaphysical, or spiritual things. In the Meiji era, the Japanese government consciously excluded Shinto from the category of religion in order to enforce State Shinto while asserting their state followed American-mandated requirements for freedom of religion; this has fed into the contemporary Japanese experience of "secularity" as well as the government's regulation of religious beliefs and institutions from the Meiji era into the present day. One can regard eating and bathing as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them. Nevertheless, some religious traditions see both eating and bathing as sacraments, therefore making them religious activities within those world views. Saying a prayer derived from religious text or doctrine, worshipping through the context of a religion, performing corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and attending a religious seminary school or monastery are examples of religious (non-secular) activities. The "secular" is experienced in diverse ways ranging from separation of religion and state to being anti-religion or even pro-religion, depending on the culture. For example, the United States has both separation of church and state and pro-religiosity in various forms such as protection of religious freedoms; France has separation of church and state (and French Revolution was strongly anti-religious); the Soviet Union was anti-religion; in India, people feel comfortable identifying as secular while participating in religion; and in Japan, since the concept of "religion" is not indigenous to Japan, people state they have no religion while doing what appears to be religion to Western eyes. A related term, secularism, involves the principle that government institutions and their representatives should remain separate from religious institutions, their beliefs, and their dignitaries. Many businesses and corporations, and some governments operate on secular lines. This stands in contrast to theocracy, government with deity as its highest authority.
  • 4.0K
  • 27 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Theravada
Theravāda (/ˌtɛrəˈvɑːdə/; Pāli, lit. "School of the Elders") is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching in the Pāli Canon. The Pāli Canon is the only complete Buddhist canon surviving in a classical Indian language, Pāli, which serves as the school's sacred language and lingua franca. For over a millennium, theravādins have endeavored to preserve the dhamma as recorded in their school's texts.[web 1] In contrast to Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, Theravāda tends to be conservative in matters of doctrine and monastic discipline. Modern Theravāda derives from the Mahāvihāra sect, a Sri Lankan branch of the Vibhajjavādins, a sub-sect of the Indian Sthavira Nikaya, which began to establish itself on the island from the 3rd century BCE onwards. It was in Sri Lanka that the Pāli Canon was written down and the school's commentary literature developed. From Sri Lanka, the Theravāda Mahāvihāra tradition subsequently spread to the rest of Southeast Asia. It is the dominant religion in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand and is practiced by minorities in India, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, and Vietnam. The diaspora of all of these groups, as well as converts around the world, also practice Theravāda. During the modern era, new developments have included Buddhist modernism, the Vipassana movement which reinvigorated Theravāda meditation practice [web 1] and the Thai Forest Tradition which reemphasized forest monasticism.
  • 4.0K
  • 05 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Individuation
The principle of individuation, or principium individuationis, describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinguished from other things. The concept appears in numerous fields and is encountered in works of Carl Gustav Jung, Gilbert Simondon, Alan Watts, Bernard Stiegler, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, David Bohm, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, and Manuel De Landa.
  • 3.9K
  • 28 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Encyclopedia—A Peer-Reviewed Scholarly Community Project
Encyclopedia (ISSN 2309-3366) is a multidisciplinary open access journal that records high-quality entries in encyclopedia format in all research fields. All submitted entries should be peer reviewed before publication online. 
  • 3.8K
  • 15 Jul 2021
Topic Review
You're Either with Us, or Against Us
In political communication, the phrase "you're either with us, or against us" and similar variations are used to depict situations as being polarized and to force witnesses, bystanders, or others unaligned with some form of pre-existing conflict to either become allies of the speaking party or lose favor. The implied consequence of not joining the team effort is to be deemed an enemy. An example is the statement of the former US President George W. Bush, who said after 9/11 at the launch of his anti-terrorism campaign in the form "Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
  • 3.8K
  • 23 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Pride
Pride is an emotional state deriving positive affect from the perceived value of a person or thing with which the subject has an intimate connection. It may be inwardly or outwardly directed. With a negative connotation pride refers to a foolishly and irrationally corrupt sense of one's personal value, status or accomplishments, used synonymously with hubris. With a positive connotation, pride refers to a content sense of attachment toward one's own or another's choices and actions, or toward a whole group of people, and is a product of praise, independent self-reflection, and a fulfilled feeling of belonging. Philosophers and social psychologists have noted that pride is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a sense of self and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions (e.g. that pride is distinct from happiness and joy) through language-based interaction with others. Some social psychologists identify the nonverbal expression of pride as a means of sending a functional, automatically perceived signal of high social status. In contrast, pride could also be defined as a lowly disagreement with the truth. One definition of pride comes from St. Augustine: "the love of one's own excellence". A similar definition comes from Meher Baba: "Pride is the specific feeling through which egoism manifests." Pride is sometimes viewed as corrupt or as a vice, sometimes as proper or as a virtue. While some philosophers such as Aristotle (and George Bernard Shaw) consider pride (but not hubris) a profound virtue, some world religions consider pride's fraudulent form a sin, such as is expressed in Proverbs 11:2 of the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, pride is called the root of all evil. When viewed as a virtue, pride in one's abilities is known as virtuous pride, greatness of soul or magnanimity, but when viewed as a vice it is often known to be self-idolatry, sadistic contempt, vanity or vainglory. Pride can also manifest itself as a high opinion of one's nation (national pride), ethnicity (ethnic pride) and sexual identity.
  • 3.6K
  • 02 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Sannyasa
Sannyasa (saṃnyāsa) is the life stage of renunciation within the Hindu philosophy of four age-based life stages known as ashramas, with the first three being Brahmacharya (bachelor student), Grihastha (householder) and Vanaprastha (forest dweller, retired). Sannyasa is traditionally conceptualized for men or women in late years of their life, but young brahmacharis have had the choice to skip the householder and retirement stages, renounce worldly and materialistic pursuits and dedicate their lives to spiritual pursuits. Sannyasa is a form of asceticism, is marked by renunciation of material desires and prejudices, represented by a state of disinterest and detachment from material life, and has the purpose of spending one's life in peaceful, love-inspired, simple spiritual life. An individual in Sanyasa is known as a Sannyasi (male) or Sannyasini (female) in Hinduism, which in many ways parallel to the Sadhu and Sadhvi traditions of Jain monasticism, the bhikkhus and bhikkhunis of Buddhism and the monk and nun traditions of Christianity, respectively. Sannyasa has historically been a stage of renunciation, ahimsa (non-violence) peaceful and simple life and spiritual pursuit in Indian traditions. However, this has not always been the case. After the invasions and establishment of Muslim rule in India, from the 12th century through the British Raj, parts of the Shaiva and Vaishnava ascetics metamorphosed into a military order, to rebel against persecution, where they developed martial arts, created military strategies, and engaged in guerrilla warfare. These warrior sanyasis (ascetics) played an important role in helping European colonial powers establish themselves in India.
  • 3.6K
  • 08 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Dromomania
Dromomania was a historical psychiatric diagnosis whose primary symptom was uncontrollable urge to walk or wander. Dromomania has also been referred to as travelling fugue. Non-clinically, the term has come to be used to describe a desire for frequent traveling or wanderlust.
  • 3.5K
  • 01 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Grandfather Paradox
The grandfather paradox is a paradox of time travel in which inconsistencies emerge through changing the past. The name comes from the paradox's description: a person travels to the past and kills their own grandfather before the conception of their father or mother, which prevents the time traveller's existence. Despite its title, the grandfather paradox does not exclusively regard the contradiction of killing one's own grandfather to prevent one's birth. Rather, the paradox regards any action that alters the past, since there is a contradiction whenever the past becomes different from the way it was.
  • 3.5K
  • 18 Nov 2022
Topic Review
State of Nature
The state of nature, in moral and political philosophy, religion, social contract theories and international law, is the hypothetical life of people before societies came into existence. Philosophers of the state of nature theory deduce that there must have been a time before organized societies existed, and this presumption thus raises questions such as: "What was life like before civil society?"; "How did government first emerge from such a starting position?," and; "What are the hypothetical reasons for entering a state of society by establishing a nation-state?". In some versions of social contract theory, there are no rights in the state of nature, only freedoms, and it is the contract that creates rights and obligations. In other versions the opposite occurs: the contract imposes restrictions upon individuals that curtail their natural rights. Societies existing before or without a political state are currently studied in such fields as paleolithic history, and the anthropological subfields of archaeology, cultural anthropology, social anthropology, and ethnology, which investigate the social and power-related structures of indigenous and uncontacted peoples living in tribal communities.
  • 3.4K
  • 11 Nov 2022
Topic Review
Identification and Extraction of Microplastics
Microplastics (MPs) are plastic wastes with particulates less than 5 mm in size that are absorbed by sediment, water, the atmosphere, and living beings before affecting health.
  • 3.4K
  • 12 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Relational Theory
In physics and philosophy, a relational theory (or relationism) is a framework to understand reality or a physical system in such a way that the positions and other properties of objects are only meaningful relative to other objects. In a relational spacetime theory, space does not exist unless there are objects in it; nor does time exist without events. The relational view proposes that space is contained in objects and that an object represents within itself relationships to other objects. Space can be defined through the relations among the objects that it contains considering their variations through time. The alternative spatial theory is an absolute theory in which the space exists independently of any objects that can be immersed in it. The relational point of view was advocated in physics by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Ernst Mach (in his Mach's principle). It was rejected by Isaac Newton in his successful description of classical physics. Although Albert Einstein was impressed by Mach's principle, he did not fully incorporate it into his general theory of relativity. Several attempts have been made to formulate a full Machian theory, but most physicists think that none have so far succeeded. For example, see Brans–Dicke theory. Relational quantum mechanics and a relational approach to quantum physics have been independently developed, in analogy with Einstein's special relativity of space and time. Relationist physicists such as John Baez and Carlo Rovelli have criticised the leading unified theory of gravity and quantum mechanics, string theory, as retaining absolute space. Some prefer a developing theory of gravity, loop quantum gravity for its 'backgroundlessness'. A recent synthesis of relational theory, called R-theory, continuing the work of the mathematical biologist Robert Rosen (who developed "relational biology" and "relational complexity" as theories of life) takes a position between the above views. Rosen's theory differed from other relational views in defining fundamental relations in nature (as opposed to merely epistemic relations we might discuss) as information transfers between natural systems and their organization (as expressed in models). R-theory extends the idea of organizational models to nature generally. As interpreted by R-theory, such "modeling relations" describe reality in terms of information relations (encoding and decoding) between measurable existence (expressed as material states and established by efficient behavior) and implicate organization or identity (expressed as formal potential and established by final exemplar), thus capturing all four of Aristotle's causalities within nature (Aristotle defined final cause as immanent from outside of nature). Applied to space-time physics, it claims that space-time is real but established only in relation to existing events, as a formal cause or model for the location of events relative to each other; and in reverse a system of space-time events establishes a template for space-time. R-theory is thus a form of model-dependent realism. It claims to more closely follow the views of Mach, Leibniz, Wheeler and Bohm, suggesting that natural law itself is system-dependent.
  • 3.3K
  • 21 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Mental Chronometry
Mental chronometry is the study of reaction time (RT; also referred to as "response time") in perceptual-motor tasks to infer the content, duration, and temporal sequencing of mental operations. Mental chronometry is one of the core methodological paradigms of human experimental and cognitive psychology, but is also commonly analyzed in psychophysiology, cognitive neuroscience, and behavioral neuroscience to help elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying perception, attention, and decision-making across species. Mental chronometry uses measurements of elapsed time between sensory stimulus onsets and subsequent behavioral responses. It is considered an index of processing speed and efficiency indicating how fast an individual can execute task-relevant mental operations. Behavioral responses are typically button presses, but eye movements, vocal responses, and other observable behaviors can be used. RT is constrained by the speed of signal transmission in white matter as well as the processing efficiency of neocortical gray matter. Conclusions about information processing drawn from RT are often made with consideration of task experimental design, limitations in measurement technology, and mathematical modeling.
  • 3.3K
  • 10 Oct 2022
Topic Review
Taiji
Taiji or Tai chi (simplified Chinese: 太极; traditional Chinese: 太極; pinyin: tàijí; literally: 'great pole') is a Chinese cosmological term for the "Supreme Ultimate" state of undifferentiated absolute and infinite potential, the oneness before duality, from which Yin and Yang originate. It can be compared with the old Wuji (無極, "without pole"). The term Taiji and its other spelling T'ai chi (using Wade–Giles as opposed to Pinyin) are most commonly used in the West to refer to Taijiquan (or T'ai chi ch'uan, 太極拳), an internal martial art, Chinese meditation system and health practice. This article, however, refers only to the use of the term in Chinese philosophy and in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism.
  • 3.3K
  • 24 Oct 2022
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