Inclusive electron scattering in a relativistic Green function approach

A relativistic Green function approach to the inclusive quasielastic (e,e') scattering is presented. The single particle Green function is expanded in terms of the eigenfunctions of the nonhermitian optical potential. This allows one to treat final state interactions consistently in the inclusive and in the exclusive reactions. Numerical results for the response functions and the cross sections for different target nuclei and in a wide range of kinematics are presented and discussed in comparison with experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, REVTeX

Heroic intelligence: The hero’s journey as an evolutionary and existential blueprint

This article revisits the hero’s journey—and heroic behaviour as understood in its emerging contemporary conceptualisations—as a seat of intelligence across the biological, psychological, social, cultural, historical, phenomenological, and existential domains. In so doing, we acknowledge Joseph Campbell’s assertions about several changes that occur in heroes, one being differences or amplifications in certain types of cognitive activity. First, the hero’s journey is examined as a deeply ingrained event in our evolution, providing a foundation for the interconnection between heroism, intelligence, and the transformative process. We also examine the possibility that heroism can have biological implications, perhaps extending to epigenetic expression. Next, heroic behaviour is considered as intelligent behaviour that is embodied and embedded in our evolution and the everyday. The concept of the heroic as a discrete form of physical intelligence is examined through a phenomenological and existential lens; this supports a reading of human organisms as ‘hero organisms’, capable of heightened cognitive, physical, and transcendent action. The article concludes with a discussion on a physically grounded heroic intelligence as fundamentally a question of consciousness that is intimately bound to existential pursuits, and the legacy of Joseph Campbell’s work potentially re-defining the concept of evolutionary design

Heroism and the human experience: Foreword to the special issue

Provenance has always been important to me. Knowing who has handled a set of ideas, and how those ideas were shaped, helps us as scholars to understand the intentions given to those ideas and how best to apply them in future work. Heroism’s relationship to humanistic and existential psychology is not a modern one. Humanistic/existential approaches have their grounding in virtue, based on the ideas of the ancient Greeks; likewise, the word hero itself is Greek, and the ideal of courage and physical perfection extend from the pre-Socratics (Kahn, 1992), to Aristotle and Plato (Hardie, 1978; Kendrick, 2010), to modern philosophy (Roudinesco, 2008). Over time, the meaning of hero changed from focusing on physical prowess and fame to the physical or social expression of virtue ethics. From this perspective, heroism can be seen as the embodiment of actions that hold us to the highest standard of caring for another, even against great personal costs (Franco, Efthimiou, & Zimbardo, 2016)

Heroism and Eudaimonia: Sublime actualization through the embodiment of virtue

The philosophical roots of eudaimonia lie in “Aristotle’s view of the highest human good involving virtue and the realization of one’s potential … It begins with Aristotle’s emphasizing choice and suggesting that virtue, which is central to eudaimonia, involves making the right choices” (Deci and Ryan, J Happiness Stud 9(1):1–11, 2008, pp. 4, 7). Although the Aristotelian meaning of ‘virtue’ is somewhat contested (Keyes & Annas, 2009), its association with heroic action as an ideal state is immediate. Eudaimonic happiness “actively expresses excellency of character or virtue” (Haybron, 2000, p. 3). Heroism and heroes have been considered to be the pinnacle of human excellence and virtue in history. In his reading of Merleau-Ponty’s 1948 address of heroism, Smyth (2010, p. 178) notes that “the hero is someone who ‘lives to the limit … his relation to men and the world’”. Allison and Goethals (2014, p. 167) concur that, “The human tendency to bestow a timeless quality to heroic leadership is the culmination of a pervasive narrative about human greatness [emphasis added] that people have been driven to construct since the advent of language”. This peak state, and the idea of transcendence that is associated with it, go to the basis of the word ‘eudaimonia’, the ‘daemon’, i.e., being taken over by the ‘good spirit’ (Bošković and Šendula Jengić, 2008; Froh et al, 2009)

Heroism and wellbeing in the 21st century: Applied and emerging perspectives

There has been significant intellectual fervor over the past two decades on wellbeing and optimal human behaviors. These research trends have been especially reflected in the heightened activity surrounding the study of heroism and heroic leadership over the last decade, spearheaded by world-renowned US psychologist Emeritus Professor Philip Zimbardo. A growing number of leading and emerging researchers across a number of disciplines are discovering the epistemological and empirical value of heroism, giving rise to the nascent field of “heroism science” (Allison, Goethals, and Kramer 2017)