scholarly journals Drawing New Boundaries: Finding the Origins of Dragons in Carboniferous Plant Fossils

Leonardo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
DorothyBelle Poli ◽  
Lisa Stoneman
Keyword(s):  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Plant Fossils ◽  
Fossil Evidence ◽  
Early Humans ◽  
Constructed Meaning

Dragons thrive in gaps between and beyond spatial boundaries. Can science help explain their existence? Did humans’ investigation of natural phenomena create bits and pieces of dragon lore across cultures? The researchers used a transdisciplinary lens to reveal data unique among extant dragon origin explanations, including fossil evidence and descriptions of Carboniferous-Period plants, dragon folklore descriptions and locations and geographic correlations between the fossils and folklore. The hypothesis is that early humans came across these fossils, constructed meaning for them contextualized by current knowledge of the natural world and created or enhanced dragon lore narratives.

Squaring the Circle

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-82
Author(s):  
Ciaran McMorran
Keyword(s):  
James Joyce ◽  
Euclidean Geometry ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Curved Surfaces ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Visual Objects ◽  
Squaring The Circle ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Geometric Objects

This chapter highlights the practical and metaphysical issues which James Joyce associates with the application of Euclidean geometry as a geo-meter (a measure of the Earth) in “Ithaca.” It demonstrates how the “mathematical catechism” of “Ithaca” geometrizes the visible world, translating natural phenomena into their ideal Euclidean equivalents. In a topographical context, it illustrates how variably curved surfaces undergo a process of rectification as they are mediated by the catechetical narrative, and how this leads to a confusion between maps and their territories. In light of the narrative’s conceptualization of Molly Bloom as both a human and a heavenly body, this chapter also examines the mythical notions which originate from the mathematical catechism’s conflation of geometric objects and the visible world. By evoking an incongruity between visual objects and their meters, it argues, Joyce explores the possible limits of squaring the circle, both topographically (in terms of projecting a curved natural surface onto a two-dimensional map, as in Mercator’s projection) and figuratively (in the sense that the irregularly curved features of the natural world are rectified as they are represented textually on a rectilinear page).

scholarly journals Animism and Language Evolution

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eldar T. Hasanov
Keyword(s):  
Communication Systems ◽  
Language Evolution ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Evolution Of Language ◽  
Early Humans ◽  
Language Communication ◽  
Ritual Speech ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Evolutionarily Stable ◽  
Do So

The exact mechanism of the evolution of language remains unknown. One of the central problems in this field is the issue of reliability and deceit that can be characterized in terms of honest signaling theory. Communication systems become vulnerable to dishonesty and deceit when there are conflicting interests between the signaler and receiver. The handicap principle explains how evolution can prevent animals from deceiving each other even if they have a strong incentive to do so. It suggests that the signals must be costly in order to provide accurate and reliable communication between animals. Language-like communication systems, being inherently vulnerable to deception, could only evolve and become evolutionarily stable if they had some mechanisms that can make the communication hard to fake and trustworthy. One of the theories that try to solve the problem of reliability and deception is the ritual/speech coevolution hypothesis. According to this theory, hard-to-fake rituals evolved concurrently with language - by reinforcing trust and solidarity among early humans and preventing deceitful and manipulative behavior within the group. One of the drawbacks of this hypothesis is that the relationship between ritual and speech is too indirect. Rituals could not have a real-time effect on every instance of speech and encompass all aspects of everyday language communication. Therefore they are not efficient enough to provide instant verification mechanisms to guarantee honest communication. It is more likely that the animistic nature of language itself, rather than ritual, was the handicap-like cost that helped to ensure the reliability of language during its origin. The belief in the parallel dimension of animistic spirits emerged concurrently with language as a hard-to-fake attestation mechanism that ensured inviolability of one's speech. The notion that animism emerged because of early behaviorally modern humans’ incoherent and flawed observations about the natural world is unlikely, because it implies a very improbable scenario, that there had been a more coherent and rational pre-animistic period which later degraded to animistic one.

scholarly journals Making The Connection: Are We Forgetting To Communicate?

2017 ◽  
pp. 8-9
Author(s):  
Marta Gritti
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Method ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Scientific Progress ◽  
Research Field ◽  
High Tech ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Single Experiment ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Push Forward ◽  
Multicultural Communities

When your job is a research job, it is easy to spend plenty of hours in the lab, and to work in international environments, far from your hometown, mainly developing friendships with other people involved in a research job, leading to multicultural communities where it is possible to share ideas, hypotheses and, even more simply, the genuine passion and amazement that move every researcher to pursue his studies despite all the frustrations which come as the other side of the medal. This looks like a beautiful scenario, but it leads to some crucial consequences that should be taken into account. For each honest researcher, every step of investigation, independently on the research field, is governed by the rule of the scientific method, and every advance, from a single experiment that works, to the rare and great discoveries that allow the big jumps in our knowledge, is welcomed with curiosity, optimism and enthusiasm, and with the pride to be, even if as a little drop in the ocean, part of the ‘team’. But what is missing? For an ‘insider’, it is crystal clear that science tries to explain natural phenomena, and to apply the current knowledge to ameliorate technologies and life style, and that every theory is just the starting point to push forward the scientific progress. But, despite all this, especially in the high-tech and wealthy western societies, we are facing a symptomatic and anachronistic ‘war’ against the scientific discoveries, and we assist to the rise of movements which, if at the beginning could be considered just as funny or pathetic, are now having an impact on the society itself. Just to make an example, we can consider the anti-vaccination group: there is no scientific reason to follow this theories; still, we are assisting to the representations of former eradicated pathologies, and the consequences of that are there for all to see.

scholarly journals THE CONCEPT OF NATURE IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH METAPHOR RIDDLES (COMPARATIVE ASPECT)

2021 ◽  
pp. 116-123
Author(s):  
Елена Витальевна Николаева ◽  
Анна Ивановна Савельева
Keyword(s):  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Folk Art ◽  
Symbolic Representation ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
The Past ◽  
Methods Of Analysis ◽  
Comparative Aspect ◽  
The World

В данной статье рассматриваются русские и английские загадки, содержащие в себе метафору и посвященные теме «Природа». Вклад загадки в народное творчество значителен, и, в частности, благодаря ей возможно воссоздать картину мира народов прошлого. В настоящей работе предпринята попытка суммировать актуальные знания по вопросу русской и английской загадки, а также провести исследование метафоричных русских и английских загадок на предмет репрезентации природы. Актуальность данной работы обусловлена интересом к символичной репрезентации природы в жанре метафоричной загадки и недостатком работ, посвященных данной узкой теме. В ходе исследования были использованы методы анализа, сравнения, обобщения и контекстуального толкования. Основными сходствами русских и английских загадок являются яркая иносказательная репрезентация объектов и явлений природы, одушевление флоры и фауны, природных стихий, а также их символизация. Основными отличиями являются различия в количестве загадок, посвященных определенной тематике, расхождения в репрезентируемой флоре и фауне, а также в используемой коннотации. This article analyzes the Russian and English riddles containing a metaphor and devoted to the theme “Nature”. The contribution of the riddle to folk art is significant and this fact makes it possible to recreate the picture of the world of the peoples of the past. This work makes an attempt to summarize the current knowledge on the issue of the Russian and English riddles as well as to study metaphorical riddles. The relevance of this work is due to the interest in the symbolic representation of nature in the genre of metaphorical riddles and the lack of works devoted to this narrow topic. The study employs the methods of analysis, comparison, generalization and contextual interpretation. The main similarities between Russian and English riddles are vivid allegorical representations of objects and natural phenomena, animation of flora and fauna, natural elements, and symbolism. The main differences lie in the number of riddles devoted to a particular topic, discrepancies in the flora and fauna represented, and the employed connotation.

The Conquest of Nature

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Specific Language ◽  
Metaphorical Language ◽  
Natural Beauty ◽  
And Control

This chapter examines in detail the metaphorical language of desire, control, war and conquest which characterizes Herodotus’ account of Persian interaction with the natural world. After considering the appeal of beautiful lands more generally, it focuses on the particular and excessive desire for natural beauty which is most strongly manifested by Persian kings and their advisers. It argues that Herodotus associates a specific language of rage, passionate desire, punishment, enslavement, and control with the Persians in relation to their imperial bids, which marks them out as distinct from other characters. The argument is strengthened by Herodotus’ application of the metaphor of the alliance of the natural world with some of the victims of Persian imperialism. The idea that ‘the divine’ responds to the narrative through natural phenomena is also explored.

The Nature of Organizing: A Relational Approach to Understanding Business Sustainability

2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 359-383
Author(s):  
Jason Good ◽  
Andrea Thorpe
Keyword(s):  
Development Process ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Current Management ◽  
Business Sustainability ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Management Literature ◽  
Framework Development ◽  
Organizational Literature

Organizational and natural phenomena mutually constitute one another through time and across space. Yet the current management literature that involves both organizational and natural phenomena is piecemeal and dualistic. In being piecemeal, domains are disconnected, and in being dualistic, they tend to assume that organizations and nature are separate and opposing. This article addresses these issues by developing an analytical framework of the relations that mutually constitute organizational and natural phenomena, while couching the effort in the burgeoning sustainability management literature. The framework development process produces four types of relations that mutually constitute organizational and natural phenomena: here-now, here-then, there-now, and there-then relations. The article then uses this framework to connect disparate domains of the organizational literature that involve natural phenomena. Ultimately, the article suggests an overarching proposition for further research, as well as practical questions for organizations to consider in order to better manage their relations with the natural world.

From Psychology to Morality

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Deigh
Keyword(s):  
Moral Judgment ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Practical Reason ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Moral Thought ◽  
Human Psychology ◽  
Modern Thought

The essays in this collection belong to the tradition of naturalism in ethics. Its program is to explain moral thought and action as wholly natural phenomena, that is, to explain such thought and action without recourse to either a reality separate from that of the natural world or volitional powers that operate independently of natural forces. Naturalism’s greatest exponent in ancient thought was Aristotle. In modern thought Hume and Freud stand out as the most influential contributors to the tradition. All three thinkers made the study of human psychology fundamental to their work in ethics. All three built their theories on studies of human desires and emotions and assigned to reason the role of guiding the actions that spring from our desires and emotions toward ends that promise self-fulfillment and away from ends that are self-destructive. The collection’s essays draw inspiration from their ideas and are arranged to follow the lead of Aristotle’s and Hume’s ethics. The first three survey and examine general theories of emotion and motivation. The next two focus on emotions that are central to human sociability. Turning to distinctively cognitive powers necessary for moral thought and action, the sixth and seventh essays discuss the role of empathy in moral judgment and defend Bernard Williams’s controversial account of practical reason. The final five essays use the studies in moral psychology of the previous essays to treat questions in ethics and social philosophy. The treatment of these questions exemplifies the implementation of a naturalist program in these disciplines.

"The sea fryseth not": science and the open polar sea in the nineteenth century

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-351
Author(s):  
Christopher Carter
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Field ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Natural World ◽  
High Latitudes ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Earth’S Magnetic Field ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Earth's Magnetic Field ◽  
Unified View ◽  
Pole Theory

While generally dismissed by historians as a romantic fantasy, the theory of an open polar sea fit into the context of a more unified view of the natural world developed in the early nineteenth century and exemplified by romantic philosophical ideas. Oersted's discovery of electromagnetism encouraged research into the possible connections between electricity, magnetism, heat and light. At the same time, there was renewed interest in geomagnetism inspired by Hansteen's revival of the four-pole theory of the Earth's magnetic field. Incorporating these works into a new theory of climate created a space for an ice-free Arctic by allowing a milder climate in the high latitudes. This attempt to fuse the study of meteorology and geomagnetism reinforced existing beliefs in an open polar sea and placed this sailor's dream into a holistic worldview that joined different natural phenomena in an effort to find one unifying principle behind all of nature.

Natura machinata: artifacts and nature as reciprocal models in Vitruvius

Apeiron ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-445
Author(s):  
Courtney Roby
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
Material Model ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural System ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Natural Systems ◽  
Roman Culture

Abstract The De architectura of Vitruvius represents architecture as a discipline blending elements of theory and practice, science and social utility, and Greek and Roman culture. His vision of architecture accordingly embraces both the natural and the artificial, emphasizing the connections between their governing principles rather than a polar or antagonistic opposition. He uses this connection to clarify and simplify his descriptions of both natural systems and mechanical artifacts, and to reinforce each body of knowledge using what is known from the other. The analogy between the natural and artificial appears as well in other ancient authors, but Vitruvius restructures this analogy in a distinctive way. His version is predicated on the careful observation of a specific set of mechanical artifacts, each chosen because it models some natural phenomenon particularly well. Artifacts that model natural phenomena, such as clocks and celestial models, help the user to visualize natural systems that may not be subject to direct sensory apprehension because of their great size. He insists that mechanical cleverness can elucidate the divinity within the principles of natural phenomena, which would otherwise remain hidden in the heavens. Vitruvius complements this type of modeling with a reciprocal version in which natural phenomena serve as models to shape technological works like theaters. Throughout the De architectura, Vitruvius proposes a variety of ways in which the natural and artificial can model one another. A material model may replicate the behavior of a natural system which is already known from observation; a material model may replicate unknown but hypothesized behavior of such a system; finally, a hypothesized material model may replicate the hypothesized behavior of a natural system through a kind of thought-experiment. Alternatively, the unknown behavior of one natural system may be hypothesized to resemble the behavior of another natural system known from observation, and this hypothesis applied to the design of man-made artifacts. From this viewpoint, describing technological artifacts and explaining the natural world are mutually reinforcing activities. So, in composing the De architectura, Vitruvius is not merely attempting to provide a picture of the state of the art of technology in his day, but is at the same time seeking to communicate a particular technologically-informed way of understanding natura itself.

Sustainable Cinema

2012 ◽  
pp. 90-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Hessels
Keyword(s):  
Natural Environment ◽  
Sustainable Energy ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Power Sources ◽  
Moving Image ◽  
Actual Form ◽  
Natural Power

While nature has often inspired art, a subset of artists has given the natural world an even more influential role in the outcome of their work. These artists have harnessed the physics, biology, and ecology of the natural environment as artistic tools and have used natural phenomena as a co-creator in the realization of their work. This use of natural force impacting the actual form of an artwork has also been explored in the kinetic and moving image arts. As one of several artists now working in sustainable energy, the author of this chapter has created a series of kinetic public sculptures that use natural power sources to create the moving image. These sculptures will be presented here as a case study for a larger perspective on the continuing relationship between the forces of nature and the materials of the moving image.

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