This book delves into esoteric knowledge, describing the structure of the universe (Brahmanda or Cosmic Egg) as a series of astral biospheres. These biospheres, or lokas, are linked to spiritual consciousness and degrees of divine bliss (Ananda). Advanced spiritual figures, such as Rishis and Mahatmas, can navigate these realms and help others evolve. The article presents a detailed comparison between “Puranic Hinduism” and “Sanatana Dharma”, specifically addressing their differences in cosmogenesis and spiritual evolution. The difference between the cosmogenesis of Puranic (...) Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma is that while the former is founded on the concept of Trimurti as taught by the Puranas, the latter is a Manu-centric and Guru-centric spiritual system. This has a lot of significance concerning the rituals and the social order they have produced. Here, the Cosmic Purusha is identifiable with Manu, not with Trimurti or the God of Abrahamic religions, because of their different spiritual status in the cosmological hierarchy. (shrink)

The book deals with the notion of Downward Causation from a wide array of perspectives, including physics, biology, psychology, social science, communication studies, text theory, and philosophy. The book includes proponents as well as opponents discussing the validity of the notion.

Those philosophers who gave a negative answer to all four questions were called "eel-wrigglers" by the Buddhists. It was impossible to fix their position either for approval or for rejection. They would criticize any view, positive or negative, but would not themselves hold any. And it was difficult for a serious person to enter into any controversy with them.

The influential proposal that the analytical component of a theory is captured by its ‘Carnap sentence’ is critically scrutinized. A counterexample which makes the suggestion problematic is presented.

The Upanishads reveal that in the beginning, nothing existed: “This was but non-existence in the beginning. That became existence. That became ready to be manifest”. (Chandogya Upanishad 3.15.1) The creation began from this state of non-existence or nonduality, a state comparable to (0). One can add any number of zeros to (0), but there will be nothing except a big (0) because (0) is a neutral number. If we take (0) as Nirguna Brahman (God without any form and attributes), then (...) from where and how did the universe come into existence? -/- The neutral power (0) cannot produce anything without having an element of duality in it. Although Nirguna Brahman is neutral, it has a positive, negative, and neutral pole, constituting its Prakriti or nature. Prakriti has three latent Gunas (modes or qualities): Satva, Rajas, and Tamas. They are related to Gyana Shakti (the power of knowledge) Sankalpa Shakti (the power of ideation), and Kriya Shakti (the power of action). Science says that Atom is the basic element from which the universe evolved. The Atom has three nuclei- electron, pluton, and neutron. The Satva, Rajas, and Tamas in Indian spirituality are nothing but the mystical names for the nuclei of an atom. -/- According to Bhagavata Purana, Prakriti is also constituted of the elements of Time, Karma (action/destiny) and Swabhava (innate nature). Time disturbs the equilibrium of Gunas. From the aspect of Karma is produced an entity called Mahat, in the form of intelligence. Mahat is dominated by Satva and Rajas. From Mahat manifests the next evolute dominated by Tamas with three predominant qualities – Dravya (substance), Kriya (action), as well as intelligence. It forms to become the Ego principle (Ahamkara). -/- Ahamkara has three modes – Satvic, Rajasic and Tamasic. Satvic is Jnana oriented, Rajasic action-oriented and Tamasic Dravya (substance) oriented. From the Tamasic Ahankara, five gross elements are produced (ether, air, fire, water, and earth - Akash, Vayu, Agni, Jal and Prithvi). From the Satvic Ahamkara, guardian deities (the sun and moon, deities of sense organs, and organs of action) and from Rajasic Ahamkara, ten senses (Indriyas), five senses of perception, five organs of action, the faculties of intellect and Prana (life breath) are produced. -/- Bhagavata says that since these energies, elements, and faculties remained disassociated, they were combined to form a Cosmic Egg. The egg floats in the primal waters for a thousand years. Then God enters this Cosmic Egg and manifests himself as the Cosmic Purusha. He is the first nucleus, the God particle equivalent to the number (1) which is the embodiment of everything in the universe. The concept of creation and dissolution in Hinduism can be compared to the waves in an ocean that appear and disappear incessantly. The Manvantaras are such successive episodes of creation emerging from the Cosmic Person, the Manu who is embodied God-Consciousness, God himself. These episodes of creation are measured in Hinduism in terms of Manvantaras, the epochs of Manus. -/- Manu is the ‘First-Born’ (1) of God, the Cosmic Purusha from whom the world has originated. This Cosmic Person (Purusha) has been described as having fourteen biospheres (heavens) that are inhabited by various life forms in the order of evolution of consciousness. If we begin from the human biosphere (Bhuloka), there are ten astral biospheres that a man must transcend to attain liberation or Mukti from the cycle of births and deaths. -/- The number (1) produces the primary numbers up to (9) through the transmutation of the creational energies and qualities. The process can be related to the descent and cyclical evolution of (1) through ten spiritual stages, finally merging with the nondual (0). The number (10) marks the merger of (1) with (0). The Hindu worldview is that all life forms in an episode of creation must evolve to become one with the non-dual state (0) to attain liberation from the cycle of births and deaths in a cyclical process. -/- . (shrink)

I argue for accepting a pluralist approach to species, while rejecting the realism about species espoused by P. Kitcher and a number of other philosophers of biology. I develop an alternative view of species concepts as divisions of organisms into groups for study which are relative to the systematic explanatory interests of biologists at a particular time. I also show how this conception resolves a number of difficult puzzles which plague the application of particular species concepts.

United States of America demographic profiles illustrate a nation rich in cultural and racial diversity. Approximately 29% of the population are minorities and demographic projections indicate an increase to 50% by the year 2050. This creates a highly mobile and constantly changing environment, revealing the need for new levels of cultural awareness and sensitivity. These issues are particularly critical in the medical community where medical professionals must understand the impact cultural differences and barriers can have on evaluation, treatment, and rehabilitation. (...) During times of stress, such as when injury strikes, problems associated with lack of cultural sensitivity are intensified. Cultural diversity is of particular concern when standard measures for diagnosis and prognosis are derived from established norms for responding, because culture defines norms. This paper details a ten point checklist designed to facilitate cultural awareness and sensitivity in medical settings to ensure maximum successful recovery and outcomes for all patients. (shrink)

The title I have chosen naturally suggests the question: What are you saying omnipotence is irrelevant to? I reply: This doctrine is irrelevant to worthwhile discussion of the problem of evil. By this phrase I understand: the problem how the existence of a God with the attributes traditionally ascribed to him in Christian belief can be reconciled with the occurrence of the sorts of evil that we find in the world.

In this article, the concept of system of symbolic 2-plithogenic linear equations and its solutions are introduced and studied. The Cramer's rule was applied to solve the system of symbolic 2-plithogenic linear equations. Also, provided enough examples for each case to enhance understanding.

A ring is said to be clean if every element of the ring can be written as a sum of an idempotent element and a unit element of the ring and a ring is said to be nil-clean if every element of the ring can be written as a sum of an idempotent element and a nilpotent element of the ring. In this paper, we generalize these arguments to symbolic 2-plithogenic structure. We introduce the structure of clean and nil-clean symbolic (...) 2-plithogenic rings and some of its elementary properties are presented. Also, we have found the equivalence between classical clean(nil-clean) ring R and the corresponding symbolic 2-plithogenic ring 2-SPR. (shrink)

Chapter Promising in Law and Morals Promissory and contractual obligations raise many issues of common interest to philosophers and lawyers. ...

The difficulties of undertaking good quality effectiveness research in palliative medicine are well documented. Much of the ethical literature in this area focuses on the vulnerability of the palliative care population. It is clear that a wider ethical approach will need to be used to justify research in the terminally ill. Some themes of ethical thought are underutilised in considering the ethics of palliative care research. Three arguments to justify the need for effectiveness research in palliative care should be highlighted: (...) there is evidence of an untapped altruism amongst the population of palliative care patients who would be keen to be involved in such research; traditional Aristotelean and Thomistic virtue ethics would point to the need to gain knowledge in and of itself, but especially in palliative medicine for the benefit of patients: virtue also accrues in the acquisition of a stock of research experience which in turn makes further research feasible; most compellingly, justice would dictate that palliative treatments are effective, that futile or useless treatments are avoided and that patients are not party to “n of 1” trials by default. The current state of the evidence base of effectiveness in palliative care leads us to the uncomfortable position where patients are in precisely the position of being unwitting participants in “n of 1” clinical trials by default, without their explicit consent. (shrink)

A woman and a man desire to come together stirred by the primal fire of Kama and the man deposits his egg in the womb of the woman. This egg develops into a human undergoing nine or ten months of evolution. This process is the microscopic replication of the method evolved by God to create the universe. Rigveda (10.121) mentions Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Egg as the source of the creation of the universe. It is said that God, wishing to create (...) the world, produced an egg as big as the cosmos. God meditated for a thousand years sitting inside the egg and when the egg burst, the Lord himself was born out of the egg as the Progenitor of the universe (“He made Himself by Himself.”, Taitiriya Upanishad: 2.7.1). The Rishis called the Egg Brahmanda (the Cosmic Egg), and the Progenitor Manu. Scientists have discovered that the universe has an oval shape. Like the nine months of the evolution of the human egg, the Cosmic Egg also undergoes nine stages of evolution before it gets dissolved during what we call ‘Maha Pralaya’. The Puranas mention that Brahmanda has 14 biospheres, seven nether and seven upper inhabited by different types of souls. If we count from the human world, there are ten dimensions of consciousness. Rishis called these astral biospheres Mandalas/Lokas with different wavelengths and colours. Sri Karunakara Guru referred to them as Avasthas, or spiritual stages. The Buddhists and Hindu esoteric sects such as the Theosophical Society explain these levels of the Absolute in terms of Physical plane, Astral plane, Mental plane, Buddhic plane, Atmic plane, Anupadaka plane, Adi plane and Shiv and Shakti. These Avasthas are related to the expanding consciousness reaching up to the core of the Cosmic Egg, the Paramatma. Like a spider which creates a web around it sitting in the centre, and withdraws it in the end, Paramatma creates and withdraws webbed multi-dimensional universes. Nobody can say when it started and when it will end as it is a beginningless and endless process. (shrink)

We characterise explicitly the decidable predicates on integers of Infinite Time Turing machines, in terms of admissibility theory and the constructible hierarchy. We do this by pinning down ζ, the least ordinal not the length of any eventual output of an Infinite Time Turing machine (halting or otherwise); using this the Infinite Time Turing Degrees are considered, and it is shown how the jump operator coincides with the production of mastercodes for the constructible hierarchy; further that the natural ordinals associated (...) with the jump operator satisfy a Spector criterion, and correspond to the L ζ -stables. It also implies that the machines devised are "Σ 2 Complete" amongst all such other possible machines. It is shown that least upper bounds of an "eventual jump" hierarchy exist on an initial segment. (shrink)

The clinical decision is supposed to be based on evidence. In fact, what counts as evidence is far from being established. Some definition of "proof" is needed to distinguish between scientific medicine and charlatanism. My thesis is that unfortunately a clear-cut boundary between evidence and lack of evidence cannot be found, for several reasons that I summarise in the paper. Evidence in medicine very often has fuzzy boundaries, and dichotomising fuzziness and uncertainty can have serious consequences. Physicians and patients should (...) accept the irreducible fuzziness of many of the concepts they use when dealing with health and disease. (shrink)

We know that John Milton read Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy with very great care, and there is evidence suggesting that initially he found its argument attractive. In the end, however, he repudiated Machiavelli’s peculiar populism in no uncertain terms, and he did so by embracing Aristotle and Cicero in a manner that highlights the radical break which the Florentine initiated with the republicanism of the ancient Romans and Greeks.

During the past three decades, there has been an ongoing debate on the quality of health care. Defining quality is an important part of it. This paper offers a review of definitions and a conceptual analysis in order to understand and explain the differences between them. The analysis results in a semantic rule, expressing the meaning of quality as an optimal balance between possibilities realised and a framework of norms and values. This rule is postulated as a formal criterion of (...) meaning, e.g. when (correctly) applied people understand each other. The rule suits the abstract nature of the term quality. Quality doesn't exist as such. It is constructed in an interaction between people. This interaction is guided by rules in order to transfer information, e.g. communicate on quality. The rule improves our ability to discuss the debate on quality and to develop a theory grounding actions such as quality assurance or quality improvement. (shrink)

The author clarifies the existential philosophy that is implicit in Kurt Goldstein's philosophy of organism (Goldstein, 1963; 1995). Situated in response to the growing trend that psychological phenomena are reducible to the nervous system, the author argues for the reverse: that the significance of nervous system activity can only be understood by viewing it as background to foreground performances. Like the organization of perception into meaningful figure-- ground Gestalts, the existential modes of embodiment, sociality, temporality, spatiality, and attunement are organized (...) together to accomplish foreground performances. It is only within this context that the activity of the nervous system may be understood as significant or insignificant. Speech is given as an example. The article concludes with a commentary on how the trend of reducing psychological phenomena to neurological phenomena has impaired our understanding of brain disorders and psychological disorders. (shrink)

The natural replacement of damaged cells by stem cells occurs actively and often in adult tissues, especially rapidly dividing cells such as blood cells. An exciting case in Boston, however, posits a kind of natural stem cell therapy provided to a mother by her fetus—long after the fetus is born. Because there is a profound lack of medical intervention, this therapy seems natural enough and is unlikely to be morally suspect. Nevertheless, we feel morally uncertain when we consider giving this (...) type of therapy to patients who would not naturally receive it. Much has been written about the ethics of stem cell research and therapy; this paper will focus on how recent advances in biotechnology and biological understandings of development narrow the debate. Here, the author briefly reviews current stem cell research practices, revisits the natural stem cell therapy case for moral evaluation, and ultimately demonstrates the importance of permissible stem cell research and therapy, even absent an agreement about the definition of when embryonic life begins.Although one promising technology, blighted ovum utilisation, uses fertilised but developmentally bankrupt eggs, it is argued that utilisation of unfertilised eggs to derive totipotent stem cells obviates the moral debate over when life begins. There are two existing technologies that fulfil this criterion: somatic cell nuclear transfer and parthenogenic stem cell derivation. Although these technologies are far from therapeutic, concerns over the morality of embryonic stem cell derivation should not hinder their advancement. (shrink)

Praised for its unique combination of accessibility and comprehensiveness, Philosophy: The Quest for Truth provides an excellent selection of ninety-one classical and contemporary readings—on nineteen key problems in philosophy—carefully organized so that they present pro/con dialogues that allow students to compare and contrast the philosophers' positions. Each of the readings is accompanied by study questions, end-of-reading reflective questions, and an individual introduction featuring a biographical sketch of the philosopher. A tutorial on logic and argument, a time line, boldfaced key terms, (...) a detailed glossary, and an appendix on reading and writing philosophy papers further enhance the text's pedagogical value. In addition, each major section opens with a substantial introduction and ends with a short bibliography. NEW TO THIS EDITION * Ten new selections, two of which appear in a new section on same-sex marriage * A completely revised introduction to Part V: Freedom of the Will and Determinism * An updated Instructor's Manual and Test Bank on CD that includes sample syllabi, selection summaries, key terms with definitions, web links, and multiple-choice, true/false, and essay questions * An updated Companion Website at www.oup.com/us/pojman containing all of the material from the Instructor's CD along with student resources—essay questions, interactive quizzes, flashcards, and additional web links. (shrink)

This volume provides, for the first time, multidisciplinary perspectives on the problem of awareness of deficits following brain injury. Such deficits may involve perception, attention, memory, language, or motor functions, and they can seriously disrupt an individual's ability to function. However, some brain-damaged patients are entirely unaware of the existence or severity of their deficits, even when they are easily noticed by others. In addressing these topics, contributors cover the entire range of neuropsychological syndromes in which problems with awareness of (...) deficit are observed: hemiplegia and hemianopia, amnesia, aphasia, traumatic head injury, dementia, and others. On the clinical side, leading researchers delineate the implications of awareness of deficits for rehabilitation and patient management, and the role of defense mechanisms such as denial. Theoretical discussions focus on the importance of awareness disturbances for better understanding such cognitive processes as attention, consciousness, and monitoring. (shrink)

Slovenian political philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek, in the documentary _The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology _(2012), examines various films and their ideas. Among the movies, he discusses the film _Titanic _(1997). His overall arguments about the movie move toward the opinion that _Titanic_ is a capitalist movie. Hence, in this article, I have converted his statement into my research question, and I enquire whether _Titanic_ is a capitalistic movie or not. If capitalistic, what kind of capitalistic elements that the film (...) shows? And how far is the movie capitalistic in nature? If not capitalistic, what elements or ideologies does the film show? (or) Is Žižek wrong about the movie? With the help of these research questions, I analyse the movie in this article to find out whether the film _Titanic_ is a pro-capitalist movie or not. (shrink)

One of the problems usually encountered in comparative studies on systems of thought belonging to cultures far removed in space and time is the difference in the manner in which they conceptualize their experience. This difference in conceptualization is reflected in the difference in the words and other linguistic forms adopted in articulating their experience. Studying the thought of a specific social group involves studying the concepts special and peculiar to that group through the language that mirrors their mode of (...) thinking, their peculiar conceptual categories and forms of life. These facts have to be borne in mind in any attempt to search for the ideas of the good in Buddhism from the perspective of comparative philosophy. (shrink)