“The Modi-God Dialogues” by Mukundan PR begins with the story of Mahatma Modi, a saint troubled by the issues facing his country and the direction the world was taking. The book discusses a profound spiritual perspective, in the form of a dialogue with God, rooted in the teachings of Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, that addresses the mystery of existence, the divine plan for the evolution of life, and the spiritual decline of humanity. According to this view, human life and the (...) universe are intertwined in a grand spiritual scheme that must be unraveled for one's life to gain true meaning and peace. Guru's teachings emphasize the importance of rediscovering this divine order, or God’s Will, and the consequences of humanity's deviation from it. -/- The book explores the fundamental basis of Hindu Dharma, contrasting the traditional view of the Trimurti (Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva) as creators with the concept of Manu as the supreme Creator in Hindu philosophy. According to Navajyoti Sri Karunakara Guru, the Trimurti system, which gained prominence during the seventh Chatur Yuga of the current Vaivasvata Manvantara, has overshadowed the original understanding of Manu as the true Creator. Historically, Manu was regarded as the architect of creation, and the concept of time and space was linked to him through the Manvantaras. The idea of Brahma being the Creator, which gained traction through the Puranas, represents a distortion in Hindu spirituality. The Puranic tradition, which is largely focused on temple rituals, priestcraft, and the worship of deities like Shiva, Vishnu, and others, deviates from the original monotheistic vision of Sanatana Dharma. -/- The Guru critiques the shift in Hinduism from a Manu-centric system, guided by epochal Gurus (Kalanthara Gurus), to one centered around the Trimurti and devata worship. The spiritual administration of Manu Parampara, which focuses on universal and timeless truths, has been sidelined in favor of Puranic traditions that emphasize ritualistic worship. This shift led to the rise of caste-based divisions and priestly monopolies, distorting the true essence of Hindu Dharma. The Guru emphasizes that the goal of Hindu spirituality should not be limited to ritualistic worship but should focus on higher spiritual realization, mukthi (liberation), which can only be attained through the guidance of a realized Guru within the Manu Parampara. In essence, the basis of Hindu Dharma is not the Trimurti but Manu, the Cosmic Purusha, who is the true Creator according to the Vedic and Upanishadic teachings. The Guru calls for a return to this original understanding and highlights the importance of following the path of Kalanthara Gurus for spiritual evolution and liberation. -/- . (shrink)

Background: According to the Declaration of Helsinki, patients who take part in a clinical trial must be adequately informed about the trial's aims, methods, expected benefits, and potential risks. The declaration does not, however, elaborate on what “adequately informed” might amount to, in practice. Medical researchers and Local Research Ethics Committees attempt to ensure that the information which potential participants are given is pitched at an appropriate level, but few studies have considered whether the patients who take part in such (...) trials feel they have been given adequate information, or whether they feel able to understand that information.Objectives: To explore trial participants' views on the amount of information provided, and of their own understanding of that information.Design: Structured interviews of patients participating in clinical trials for the treatment of chronic medical condition.Findings: Patients generally felt they were given an appropriate amount of information, and that they were able to understand all or most of it. They felt they were given adequate time to ask questions before agreeing to take part. In comparison with treatment given outwith the research setting, patients generally felt they received more information when participating in a clinical trial.Conclusions: Researchers sometimes complain that patients are given too much information during clinical trials, and have limited understanding of that information. The present study shows that this perception is not necessarily shared by patients. More research is needed in this area, particularly to gauge whether patient understanding is indeed accurate. (shrink)

We analyze phase-space approaches to relativistic quantum mechanics from the viewpoint of the causal interpretation. In particular, we discuss the canonical phase space associated with stochastic quantization, its relation to Hilbert space, and the Wigner-Moyal formalism. We then consider the nature of Feynman paths, and the problem of nonlocality, and conclude that a perfectly consistent relativistically covariant interpretation of quantum mechanics which retains the notion of particle trajectory is possible.

One of the gains to be reckoned from the study of nomenclature in the sepulchral inscriptions of the early empire is the gradual abandonment of attempts to distinguish between slave and freeborn on the basis of personal name or cognomen alone, especially when this is of Latin derivation. Nevertheless, one still finds personal cognomina in undated inscriptions adduced as sole evidence for the origin or status of individuals below senatorial rank. Thus in a standard work on freedmen in the early (...) empire, recently reprinted, names such as Agilis, Amandus, Auctus, Communis, Donatus, Faustus, Felix, etc., are said to be commonly servile, but others such as Aquila, Bassus, Capito, Cams, Celer, Crescens, etc., are taken as ingenuous. The criteria used in making such a distinction are subjective and arbitrary and the statistics based on them are largely valueless. It is the purpose of this note to consider briefly on this question the evidence of the personal nomenclature of the Imperial slaves and freedmen. In this group, the Familia Caesaris, no problem of status arises, and the fact that the majority of their inscriptions can be dated, at least approximately, makes it possible to trace the chronological development of the use of cognomina ingenua by one important group of servile origin from the first to the early third century A.D. Moreover, such a development is useful evidence for change in the social structure of the early empire. (shrink)

In his discussion of Virgilian imitations of Lucretian phraseology Cyril Bailey examines the phenomenon of what he terms the ‘doublet’, that is, the procedure whereby Virgil imitates separate elements of a Lucretian phrase at different points in his own work. Take, for example, De Rerum Natura 1. 210–12: esse videlicet in terris primordia rerum, quae nos fecundas vertentes vomere glebas terraique solum subigentes cimus ad ortus.

The status nomenclature of the Imperial slaves, as that of the Imperial freedmen, is important mainly for its bearing on the difficult problems of dating slave sepulchral inscriptions, but also as a means of determining who were Imperial slaves belonging to the Familia Caesaris with the significant social status this implied. Bang's careful but brief treatment of the subject, published in 1919, was not based on a complete collection of the material—admittedly difficult to obtain—and much has appeared in the interval. (...) Moreover, a deeper analysis of the evidence necessitates some revision of his conclusions. (shrink)

Lily Ross Taylor in an interesting recent article on the proportion of freedmen to freeborn in the sepulchral inscriptions of Imperial Rome discusses the increasing omission of status nomenclature by freedmen in the first and second centuries A.D. and the consequent difficulty of determining the status of persons whose names appear in the epitaphs. One contributory factor to this decline in the traditional nomenclature which she mentions is the growing numbers and importance of the freedmen of the emperor, the Augusti (...) liberti. While non-imperial freedmen were anxious to record their acquisition of citizenship, but not their inferior status in the citizen body, the emperor's freedmen, on the other hand, increasingly formalized their status nomenclature so that the formula ‘Aug. lib.’ proclaimed not only the fact of their manumission within the Familia Caesaris but also the higher social status which they enjoyed. An examination of the nomenclature of the Imperial freedmen might help to throw some light on this process, particularly on the problem of dating. (shrink)

In conjunction with the Imperial status-indication, the Imperial nomina gentilicia provide the basic dating criterion for the Augusti liberti. Especially useful is the terminus ad quem, which is, in general, approximately 40 years after the death of the last possible manumitting emperor. Thus, the inscription of a Ti. Claudius Aug. lib. is not likely to be later than A.D. 100 and certainly not later than A.D. IIO.

India has produced several drafts of data policies. In this work, they are referred to [1] JBNSCR 2018, [2] DPDPR 2018, [3] NSAI 2018, [4] RAITF 2018, [5] PDPB 2019, [6] PRAI 2021, [7] JPCR 2021, [8] IDAUP 2022, [9] IDABNUP 2022. All of them consider Artificial Intelligence (AI) a social problem solver at the societal level, let alone an incentive for economic growth. However, these policy drafts warn of the social disruptions caused by algorithms and encourage the careful use (...) of computational technologies in various social contexts. Hence, the emerging data society and its implications in India's social contexts demand immense social science attention, which needs to be improved in the policy drafts, primarily because they are creations of industry stakeholders, technocrats, bureaucrats, and experts from tech schools. In the larger social milieu of digital infrastructure emerging, the fundamental question is whether India's national philosophy envisioned in the Indian constitution is reflected in the policy papers. The paper enquires whether the national data policy upholds the core values dispersed through the philosophy of the Indian constitution, which, among other things, is not confined only to inclusion, diversity, rights, liberty, justice and equality. By focusing on constitutional values, the paper seeks to offer a broader and more critical understanding of India's approach to AI policy by bringing together analyses of a wide array of policy documents available in the public realm. (shrink)

According to the causal interpretation of quantum mechanics, one can precisely define the state of an individual particle in a many-body system by its position, momentum, and spin. It is shown in the EPR spin experiment that the quantum torque brings about an instantaneous change in the state of one of the particles when the other undergoes a local interaction, but that such a transfer of “information” cannot be extracted by any experiment subject to the laws of quantum mechanics.