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A bhikkhu (Pali: भिक्खु Sanskrit: भिक्षु , bhikṣu) is an ordained male monastic ("monk") in Buddhism. Male and female monastics ("nun", bhikkhunī, Sanskrit bhikṣuṇī) are members of the Buddhist community. The lives of all Buddhist monastics are governed by a set of rules called the prātimokṣa or pātimokkha. Their lifestyles are shaped to support their spiritual practice: to live a simple and meditative life and attain nirvana. A person under the age of 20 cannot be ordained as a bhikkhu or bhikkhuni but can be ordained as a śrāmaṇera or śrāmaṇērī.

2.1K
31 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.

2.1K
10 Oct 2022

Topic Review

A world view or worldview is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing the whole of the individual's or society's knowledge and point of view. A world view can include natural philosophy; fundamental, existential, and normative postulates; or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. The term is a calque of the German word Weltanschauung [ˈvɛltʔanˌʃaʊ.ʊŋ] (listen), composed of Welt ('world') and Anschauung ('view' or 'outlook'). The German word is also used in English. It is a concept fundamental to German philosophy and epistemology and refers to a wide world perception. Additionally, it refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs forming a global description through which an individual, group or culture watches and interprets the world and interacts with it. Worldview remains a confused and confusing concept in English, used very differently by linguists and sociologists. It is for this reason that James W. Underhill suggests five subcategories: world-perceiving, world-conceiving, cultural mindset, personal world, and perspective. Worldviews are often taken to operate at a conscious level, directly accessible to articulation and discussion, as opposed to existing at a deeper, pre-conscious level, such as the idea of "ground" in Gestalt psychology and media analysis. However, core worldview beliefs are often deeply rooted, and so are only rarely reflected on by individuals, and are brought to the surface only in moments of crises of faith.

2.1K
26 Oct 2022

Topic Review

Upāsaka and Upāsikā

Upāsaka (masculine) or Upāsikā (feminine) are from the Sanskrit and Pāli words for "attendant". This is the title of followers of Buddhism (or, historically, of Gautama Buddha) who are not monks, nuns, or novice monastics in a Buddhist order, and who undertake certain vows. In modern times they have a connotation of dedicated piety that is best suggested by terms such as "lay devotee" or "devout lay follower".

2.0K
23 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.

2.0K
11 Nov 2022

Topic Review

The Panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The scheme of the design is to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, they are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour. The name may also allude to the many-eyed giant Panoptes in Greek mythology, some of whose eyes were always awake, making him a highly effective watchman. The design consists of a circular structure with an "inspection house" at its centre, from which the manager or staff of the institution is able to watch the inmates. The inmates, who are stationed around the perimeter of the structure, are unable to see into the inspection house. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, and asylums, but he devoted most of his efforts to developing a design for a Panopticon prison. It is his prison that is now most widely meant by the term "panopticon". Bentham described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example". Elsewhere, in a letter, he described the Panopticon prison as "a mill for grinding rogues honest".

2.0K
24 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.

2.0K
12 Jun 2023

Topic Review

Cultural Additivity

This entry provides the conceptual development of “cultural additivity.” It reviews the three most relevant concepts namely syncretism, cultural hybridity, and creolization, and then makes a case for the usefulness of “cultural additivity” in explaining the adoption and rejection of emerging cultural values. The newly introduced concept utilizes a well-developed theory called mindsponge theory.

2.0K
02 Sep 2022

Topic Review

Sangha is a Sanskrit word used in many Indian languages, including Pali(saṅgha)meaning "association", "assembly", "company" or "community". It was historically used in a political context to denote a governing assembly in a republic or a kingdom. It is used in modern times by groups such as the political party and social movement Rashtriya Seva Sangh. It has long been commonly used by religious associations including by Buddhists,Jains and Sikhs. In Buddhism, sangha refers to the monastic community of bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkhunis (nuns). These communities are traditionally referred to as the bhikkhu-sangha or bhikkhuni-sangha. As a separate category, those who have attained any of the four stages of enlightenment, whether or not they are members of the monastic community, are referred to as the āryasaṅgha "noble Sangha". According to the Theravada school, the term "sangha" does not refer to the community of sāvakas (lay followers) nor the community of Buddhists as a whole.

2.0K
23 Nov 2022

Topic Review

Legal norms are binding rules, or norms, of conduct that organisations of sovereign power promulgate and enforce in order to regulate social relations. Legal norms determine the rights and duties of individuals who are the subjects of legal relations within the governing jurisdiction at a given point in time. Competent state authority issue and publish basic aspects of legal norms through a collection of laws that individuals under that government must abide to, which is further guaranteed by state coercion. There are two categories of legal norms: normativity, that regulates the conduct of people, and generality, which are binding for the indefinite number of people and cases. Diplomatic and legislative immunity refers to instances where legal norms are constructed to be targeted towards a minority and are specifically only binding for them, such as soldiers and public officials. In a legal sense, retro-activity refers to a law that impairs or invalidates the vested rights of an individual acquired under existing laws by creating new obligations to considerations that have been pre-established. Legal norms can either classify under true retro-activity, where norms influence the legal relations that have existed before its effect, or pseudo retro-activity, referring to how the validity of old legal relations can be influenced by derogated norms. Legal norms become validated from the moment it is published as part of legal order and become in effect from the moment it binds the subjects of the law. The Latin phrase, ‘vacatio legis’ refers to the period of time between a legal norm’s validity and effect. As the validity of a legal norm is limited from the moment of its adoption by legal institutions, a lapse of time can cause its termination. Legal norms can either be terminated by explicit derogation by the competent state authority, or through automatic derogation whereby the authoritative organisation adopts a new normative act that regulates the same relations, effectively replacing the old one.

1.9K
19 Oct 2022

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