32,908 research outputs found
Cain and Abel: Re-Imagining the Immigration 'Crisis'
This essay proposes to interpret the significance of the so-called immigration crisis in the light of the ancient story of Cain and Abel. Much more than a mere conflict between brothers, this essay will argue that the story of Cain and Abel presents two archetypal ways of dwelling in the world: the sedentary and the nomadic. As such, the story sheds a shocking new light on our present crisis, deeply problematizing the sedentary and revealing in an amazing tour de force, the hidden potentialities of the nomadic and the powerful rejuvenating force that comes with its inclusion and welcoming in the sedentary landscape that characterizes our Western societies
Reasonable Inferences From Quantum Mechanics: A Response to āQuantum Misuse in Psychic Literatureā
This invited article is a response to the paper āQuantum Misuse in Psychic Literature,ā by Jack A. Mroczkowski and Alexis P. Malozemoff, published in this issue of the Journal of Near-Death Studies. Whereas I sympathize with Mroczkowskiās and Malozemoffās cause and goals, and I recognize the problem they attempted to tackle, I argue that their criticisms often overshot the mark and end up adding to the confusion. I address nine specific technical points that Mroczkowski and Malozemoff accused popular writers in the fields of health care and parapsychology of misunderstanding and misrepresenting. I argue that, by and largeāand contrary to Mroczkowskiās and Malozemoffās claimsāthe statements made by these writers are often reasonable and generally consistent with the current state of play in foundations of quantum mechanics
Relativity of a Free Will Concept Depending on Both Conscious Indeterminism and Unconscious Determinism
Free will is difficult to classify with respect to determinism or indeterminism, and its phenomenology in consciousness often shows both aspects. Initially, it is felt as unlimited and indeterminate will power, with the potentiality of multiple choices. Thereafter, reductive deliberation is led by determinism to the final decision, which realises only one of the potential choices. The reductive deliberation phase tries to find out the best alternative and simultaneously satisfying vague motivations, contextual conditions and personal preferences. The essential sense of free will is the introduction of personal preferences, which allows a higher diversity of reactions to vague motivations. With an oversimplified model of determinism as a chain of events, incompatibilists define āfreeā as āundeterminedā so that determinism becomes incompatible with any free choice between alternatives. In consciousness, free will requires a more complex model of network determinism as well as the consideration of unconsciousness as a causal factor. When āfreeā defined as āundeterminedā is applied to the context of consciousness, it should be reinterpreted as āunconscious of being determinedā or not aware of underlying determinism. Lacking information on determinism generates a feeling of āfreeā in consciousness and, therefore, gives the impression of indeterminism. Lacking information may be induced by an uncertain future without determined eventsāan unconscious past with biological reactions suddenly emerging from the unconsciousness or an unknown present unable to distinguish determinism of complex events. Therefore, at the level of human consciousness, the experience of free will is associated with apparent indeterminism although it is based on unconscious determinism. The concepts of compatibilism and incompatibilism are only two different aspects of the same phenomenon and correspond to consciousness and unconsciousness. Nevertheless, they can be considered together with a free will concept based on relativity depending on two different reference framesāthe first personās experience frame or the Laplaceās demon frame with knowledge on every molecule of the universe. Only relativity of the free will concept avoids the contradiction between āfreeā and āunfreeā for the same phenomenon and could be a compromise for considering compatibilism and incompatibilism equally
Educating through communities of practice
The aim of this paper is to attempt at building a bridge between education and situated learning. The etymology of the word education outlines the two major ways of envisioning education. The meaning which we give to the term āeducationā surely influences the ways in which the process of education unfolds and is actually conducted. The Constructivist Approach which is being used in education today is characterised by its studentcenteredness rather than teacherācenteredness. The adoption of Communities of Practice from the industrial sphere to the realm of Catholic schools is a way in which education as bringing forth from the student (eāducere) and the constructivist approach developed earlier can be put into practice in Catholic Schools. Communities of practice create the right condition for situated learning in Catholic schools today. It is here that legitimate peripheral participation can be put into practice, thus fulfilling the Churchās mission of
evangelisation in our contemporary culture by drawing students from the periphery of the educational endeavour, making them active participants at the core.peer-reviewe
What Can Consciousness Anomalies Tell Us About Quantum Mechanics?
In this paper, I explore the link between consciousness and
quantum mechanics. Often explanations that invoke consciousness to help
explain some of the most perplexing aspects of quantum mechanics are
not given serious attention. However, casual dismissal is perhaps unwarranted,
given the persistence of the measurement problem, as well as the
mysterious nature of consciousness. Using data accumulated from experiments
in parapsychology, I examine what anomalous data with respect to
consciousness might tell us about various explanations of quantum mechanics.
I examine three categories of quantum mechanics interpretations
that have some promise of fitting with this anomalous data. I conclude that
explanations that posit a substratum of reality containing pure information
or potentia, along the lines proposed by Bohm and Stapp, off er the best fit
for various categories of this data
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