Chaotic Curiosity or Curios Chaos

Chaotic Curiosity or Curios Chaos Abhishek Tiwari The word science comes from â€Å"scientia†, Latin word for knowledge. Webster’s dictionary defines science as â€Å"the knowledge covering the general truths of the operations of general laws, especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method and concerned with the physical world†. In a layman’s interpretation science is a systematic way to obtain the knowledge about the mystifying secrets of Mother Nature by few known facts, observations, and few approximate estimations. New theories and laws in science are proposed by using two points- 1) repetition or reproducibility of the data, and 2) computational simulation. But what happens if these fundamental rules are not followed in a system? As they say, exceptions to rules form new rules, these infringing systems fall into the category of â€Å"Chaotic systems†. Chaotic systems are those in which the distant results are practically unknowable. The Theory of Chaos rules this domain of sci ence. Today chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics with several applications in the fields of biology, cosmology, economics, engineering, meteorology, and physics. It talks about deterministic dynamic systems which are not just highly but infinitely sensitive to the initial conditions. Under such circumstances even with a fraction of difference in the initial stages would yield into complete different outcomes every time the process is started hence defying the first basic rule in experimentation. Every technology is built with its own error, limitations and approximation, and therefore computer simulation of such a dynamic system to know about its fate at certain point in space-time would either require a huge amount of initially defined components or a long time calculations which would still differ with the actual outcome. In other words the deterministic nature of such dynamic systems may not help in determining their future. Meteorologist Edward Lorenz was the first pe rson to talk about chaotic systems. He summarized this theory as, â€Å"when the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determines the future†. In 1972 Edward Lorenz wrote a paper titled as â€Å"Predictability: Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?† on the theory of Chaos. Edward Lorenz accidentally came across this topic while doing his work on weather forecast. Using a simple computer of his time, he was running a weather simulation. However due to time constraints he started his work mid way and to his astonishment he got a completely diverted results from the previous output. He concluded that the difference was generated due to the rounding-off of the numbers in the input. The consensus of the difference should practically have no effect on the immediate prediction but in a long run produced a significant difference. The word chaos is generally taken as complete disarray is a misnomer for this theory. The chaotic systems are not cluttered but are disciplined to an extent. Like we know for sure that the moon would not collide with earth in few weeks but the prediction remains uncertain for a longer time period. Similarly weather forecasts are known most accurately about a week before. Therefore chaotic systems are predictable for a while but later on with time it becomes random. The effectiveness of our prediction can be determined by following factors:- The extent of randomness acceptable The accuracy in defining the present state of the system The relative time scale (called Lyapunov time). In the hunt for defining the accurate state of the system the information increases tremendously and the uncertainty in the forecast increases exponentially over the time, thereby rendering distant forecasts meaningless. The state of the system is defined by a set number of points which tends to be accurate in describing it, but each one of it having a different fate over long duration. Thus, for a reason, chaotic systems are practically not possible in Euclidian Geometry. In 1982, Benoit Mandelbrot Published â€Å"The Fractal Geometry of Nature † in which he argues that a twine ball when observed from a far distance looks like a point, from fair distance like a ball and from close like a curved strand. He argued that the appearance of an object is dependent upon the observer and they can be fractional. The book became one of the classics for the â€Å"chaologists† as some of them called themselves. A double rod pendulum is the easiest example of a chaotic system. It f ollows the general rule and also oscillates almost in the same pattern as the pendulum but with time there arises difference of fractals which causes a large deviation. The slight initial conditions causes complete different trajectory. The Theory of chaos very soon became a law governing many interdisciplinary subjects. The field of biology has great implications as the understanding of the nervous system, and the circulatory system, are proved to fit a fractal model. Biological evolution, eye tracking disorder in schizophrenics can also be explained in mathematical form using the chaos model. The natural phenomena like earthquakes, its intensities and its distribution became easier to explain with the model of fractals. More researches can be done on such knowledge to explore the darkest realms of reality. Another such phenomena which is not completely explored by the present knowledge of science due to some limits is the Theory of Black Hole. Elbert Einstein proposed the existence of such phenomena years before astronomers actually spotted one. According to Einstein one of the fate of a giant size star is that when its nuclear fuel exhausts the force of gravity starts pulling in the mass around it. The star becomes as tiny as possible and the star becomes highly dense. When the size of the star reduces the gravitational pull increases square times and when the size decreases to such an extent that to escape from the field of gravitational influence one would need to attain the speed of light; a black hole is born. The radius at such stage is called as the event horizon. The point when black hole is formed, scientist believes that at the centre the space-time phenomenon is destroyed. It is also called the ideal black body, as it reflects no light. The idea of such a massive body from which no matter can escape was put forth by John Michell in 1783. Earlier in times, such massive objects were not seen of any importance or rather a fancy sci-fi stuffs because scientists failed to understand how gravity would affect a mass-less wave such as light. All the black holes have mass, some have angular momentum and also electric charge. Black holes are classified on the basis of their masses and independent of the other two properties. They are, namely, supermassive black holes (~400A.U), intermediate mass black hole (~1000km), stellar black hole (~30km), and micro black hole (~0.1mm). The size of the black hole is determined by the radius of the event horizon. A particle can move randomly in space when it is away from the black hole. As the particle nears the black hole more paths lead it towards event horizon and less paths away from it. Once inside event horizon the particle has only one path and that is towards the centre where the mass is concentrated. It is then no longer possible for that particle to escape. Event horizon gets its name because any event occurring inside that boundary cannot reach outside observer by any means thus making one impaired to notice if such event took place. Another phenomena that takes place to an object nearing the black hole is that the time slows down. To an observer falling into the black hole the clock ticks normally but to a distant observer the time difference is significant. This phenomena is called Gravitational time dilation and was first proposed by Elbert Einstein in his theory of Relativity. Consequently experiments were carried out and it was found that atomic clocks placed at different altitudes that caused them to experience different gravitational pull differed in nanoseconds. The difference in the time between a clock on the surface of the earth and the satellite revolving around it is significantly different making it compulsion to correct the global positioni ng system’s clock after equal intervals. The Gravitational Time dilation was wonderfully showed in the 2014 Hollywood blockbuster Interstellar. With the clock slowing down from a free falling object into the black hole the light emitted or reflected by this object changes to red. This is known as the gravitational red shift or Einstein’s shift. This primarily happens because the frequency of the light wave is slowed down by the gravitational pull of the black hole changing the color to red. Red shift is denoted by dimensionless variable (z). , Where, ÃŽ »o stands for wavelength of the electromagnetic radiation recorded by the observer, ÃŽ »e stands for the wavelength of the radiation at the source of emission. Thus red shift can be defined as the fractional change in the wavelength of the emitted radiation. There is a corresponding phenomenon to red shift known as blue shift and it occurs when some object is pulled towards a stronger gravitational pull from an area of weak gravity. However the observer free falling into the black hole does not realize these changes. Basically this means that the observer does not realize when he entered the event horizon. As per one theory when the person reaches the point of singularity i.e. the centre of the black hole where the space-time graph extends to infinity, they are crushed to infinite density and its mass is added to the mass of the black hole. Just before reaching the point of singularity the object is torn apart by the tidal forces which is often called as â€Å"spaghettification†. However this can be avoided in a charged black hole or reissner-nordstrom black hole. It is hypothetically said that the black hole takes the object to another space-time by acting as a wormhole. Since no information can be transmitted out of the event ho rizon, knowing exactly of what takes place inside is impossible and hence the mystery is still unsolved The gas falling into a gravitational well will form a disc like structure due to the conservation of angular momentum. Friction caused within this formation should heat up the gases and they would start radiating x-rays. This is known to happen around neutron stars and white dwarfs. It is called accretion of mass. It is the most efficient way of producing large amounts of energy still known about 40% as compared to nuclear fusion generating 0.7% of mass as energy. It is now accepted that the centre of every galaxy contains a supermassive black hole. The evidence of this can be the motion of stars around the centre of any galaxy. Astronomers are studying a region call Sagittarius A from the year 1995. They found that there is about 4.3 million solar mass contained in a radius of less than 0.002 light years. This mass-distance ratio is 3000 times more than the mass-distance ratio of event horizon. It is therefore conclusive that the centre homes a supermassive black hole and nothing el se like a star cluster. Stephen Hawking, in 1974, proposed that the black holes might release some radiation. These radiations are hypothetical and are called Hawking radiations. It is suggested that if black holes emit radiations they may shrink. To this, Hawking suggested that the microwave radiation entering the black hole has far more energy in comparison to the energy emitted. In 1970’s he proposed that the total area of a black hole can never decrease even if two of them collide and merge. This became the second law of black hole mechanics and has striking similarity to second law of thermodynamics which states that the entropy of universe continues to increase. As per the old thinking it was considered that the black holes having absolute zero temperature had zero entropy. If this was the case then the second law of thermodynamics would be violated and the entropy of the universe would decrease. Therefore, Bekenstein along with Hawking formulated the entropy of a black hole as follows:- Where, Entropy = S; speed of light = c; Area of black hole = A ; Newton’s constant = G; Boltzmann constant = k; and reduced Plank constant = H. One striking thing to be noticed in the equation is that the entropy is related to the area of the black hole and not its volume which is rather the case in normal entropy calculation. With many such theories put forth by the great minds the human knowledge has greatly increased. Not just that the knowledge but also the interpretation of the universe around us has greatly changed. From discovering the way to measure time to discussing about its deviation with gravity and from the time when we placed earth in the centre of universe till proving the big bang theory not just the technology has evolved but also the way of living life on the planet and knowing how greatly we affect the surroundings has been brought to daily prospects. Can this evolution or the progress of human mind be infinite? Will someday religion be taken over by pure and fundamental science? Will human evolve as the creator and destroyer of the universe? What will happen then? Among these few questions are unknown and few are unknowable which will be revealed in the course of time. But one thing is assured that the curiosity in the human brain will keep driving it to discover the perplexity of the world around him. This will eventually help science to progress in every possible dimension. The counter side to the above promises is far bigger, which justifies the fact that humans have to face limitations, some created by their own laws and some by the nature. Everything that humans make has its own errors, and it is well known that nature does not work on approximations. The point where humans cannot visualize and the power to understand gives up is the region where religion rules. May be one day science will enable mankind to have super powers or may be one day humans will succumb to the super powers of the Mother Nature.

Psychological Inquiry Essay

Discuss the role of the researcher in psychological inquiry, referring to at least two of Heuristic and hermeneutics.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The role of the researcher in psychological inquiry has traditionally focused on the manner and means of developing valid and reliable general knowledge about the human realm.   The researcher is concerned with working out a step-by-step method that, if he will follow properly, would assure the correctness of his findings.   The researcher should include using a statistical analysis method that infers the general characteristics of a population by examining only a limited number of its members.   Then, implicit in this kind of psychological inquiry is that the researcher should apply its generalized knowledge in particular situations.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In addition, the researcher should produce valid and reliable general knowledge.   The logic of practice inquiry assumed in this move is that the psychological inquiry consists of determining which set of therapeutic techniques work with the kind of client being treated.   As well be developed, the researcher should based not on a general to specific logic, but on a contextualized dialogic between a particular researcher and a particular client.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the main, psychology has held that psychological inquiry should consist of applying the knowledge that is generated by research inquiries. Psychological research, following models of research developed for the physical and biological sciences, aims at discovering the consistent and regular relations that hold across human behaviors, thoughts and feelings. It produces generalized knowledge claims in a logical form: ‘If a person is a member of a category (e.g. phobic), then he/she will likely respond in a specific manner to an environmental event (e.g. cognitive restructuring).’ This understanding of the researchers` role simply involves determining the category of which the client is an instance (diagnosis) and then utilizing those research-established techniques that have been found to produce the desired outcome for this kind of client.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   This traditional role of researcher – the application of research-developed general knowledge to specific situations- misdescribes the way researchers actually work with the research. Researchers work in particular situations with a particular study.   Practice inquiry role of the researcher, is for the most part, carried out without conscious deliberation about what should be done. The researcher should have the role of an ongoing conversation.   When researchers` non-deliberative   activities appear not to advance the study toward their goals, researchers engage in practical problem-solving.   Researchers` performances are informed by their practical knowledge rather than by research-generated generalized knowledge.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Researchers consistently report (e.g. Marten & Heimberg, 1995; Stiles, 1992) that they rarely look to generalized research findings in determining what they do with the inquiry.   Instead, their actions draw on their own experiences, their discussions with other researchers, and clinically based literature.   The gap between the traditional model of application and psychological practice has been problematic, if not embarrassing, for the discipline.   The discipline’s call that researchers limit their therapeutic actions to empirically validated sets of techniques (Nathan & Goran, 1998) continues the traditional model of application.   An alternate direction for psychology is inquiry that actually researchers` activity.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Two basic philosophical responses, the heuristics and hermeneutics, were proposed to the notion that there can be no certain knowledge. French postmodernists such as Deleuze and Gutari (1987) and Foucault (1979) are heuristics.   They counseled that people resist the constriction of possibilities that inheres in the belief in certain knowledge.   The awareness that knowledge is uncertain provides a release form the restraining power of culturally imposed norms clothed as necessary, natural or universal knowledge (Bernstein, 1992).   The end of epistemology makes it possible for people to destabilize and subvert culturally dominant forces and thereby gain power over their own self-formation.   The concern of the heuristics was a prescription of how to live in a world without certainties (McGowan, 1991). The hermeneutics involved a shift from instruction about how to live without certainty. That is, how     people practically deal with the world and others to accomplish everyday tasks and achieve their goals, even though their knowledge is not certain.   Because of the postmodern rejection of the notion that true knowledge can be methodologically generated, the study of researcher inquiry becomes essential.   If the research inquiry does not produce trustworthy knowledge, the notion that practice should consist of application of this knowledge to a particular situations is undercut.   The philosophical study of how people inquire about what to do focuses on the everyday activities in which people are engaged and not specifically on inquiry in psychological practice.   The two most important philosophers to study people’s everyday inquiry are Heidegger and Gadamer. Heidegger’s Being and Time (1962) was pivotal in bringing Continental philosophy’s attention to everyday inquiry.   Gadamer, who was a student of Heidegger, extended Heidegger’s position to include the study of how everyday understanding takes place.   I am particularly interested in what Gadamer`s hermeneutics to understanding how psychological researchers determine what to say and do. Gadamer mistrusted experimental science, as he understood it.   Weinsheimer (1985) points out that Gadamer`s view of science is of the pre-1960s variety, and that ‘some of his characterizations of the methods of natural science are now no longer tenable’ (p. 20).   Gadamer`s heritage was the continental hermeneutic tradition that reached back to Schleiermacher.     Ã‚  Gadamer advanced from a hermeneutic of text interpretation to a philosophical hermeneutics, that is, a general theory of how people understand and how this understanding informs action. Demonstrate your knowledge of Freud, Jung, Hillman and the philosophical commitments of depth psychology. The term depth psychology is the container for a number of psychologies that concern themselves with the unconscious. Though its existence was known and utilized by mesmerists and hypnotists (Meissner, 2000), the unconscious gained its first scientific foothold in modern times with Freud. However, the psyche recovered its greater depths in Jungian psychology and Hillman’s (1975) archetypal psychology, In all, the rational, intentional human mind, waking consciousness, or gift of reason, is only one player in a much larger field of consciousness. These depth psychologists believe that the ego consciousness, our daytime â€Å"I,† is not the master of the psychological house. They feel this was proven early on by the word association tests (Jung, 1910, 1970), where the individual, after an initial ease with associating words with given prompts, would begin to take extra long for some responses, draw blanks, give answers that rhymed. The unexpected or what went wrong, when taken together would often exhibit a thematic quality, be connected to returning emotions, memories, repressed instincts, which came to be known as the complexes. The word association tests demonstrated that in spite of our intentions, something other, not known to the daytime â€Å"I,† could interfere and participate in our behavior. Over the years, the metaphoric characters and the inner dramas of the complexes led psychologists to call their approach to the psyche a â€Å"poetic basis of mind† (Hillman, 1975, p. xi). Since the appearance of Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams in 1900, the existence of the unconscious has held as a psychological fact. The exact nature of what is in the unconscious is what distinguishes the different depths of the depth psychologies. For Freud, the unconscious contained various forms of instinct and memory in the form of complexes, a personal unconscious that had emotional and somatic/physical attributes. For Jung (1959), that personal unconscious rested upon an even deeper layer, the collective unconscious or the objective psyche, which was far more ancient than an individual lifetime and contained the primordial images, the archetypes. The archetypes featured not only emotional and somatic attributes, but also spiritual and worldly attributes that appeared in vision, dream and synchronicity. Synchronicity is Jung’s word for the meaningful coincidences that are part and parcel of deep psychological experience. For Jung, the objective psyche also contained a guiding, organizing center, the Self, very much like the Hindu Parusha, the God Within. Hillman (1975) wished to keep psychology free from the dogmatism of Jung’s Self. He said that our psychological depths do contain archetypes, but they are best served by an understanding that respects their full autonomy. In other words, for Hillman, the depths are polycentric and if there is a Self, we honor it best by not dictating how it should behave. Hillman pushes archetypal theory to its fullest stature. For him, an archetype and a God, in the classic (e.g., Grecian or polytheistic) sense of the word, are the same. Additionally, he prefers the word soul to the words personal or collective unconscious. Hillman amplified the term â€Å"soul† by using these related words: â€Å"mind, spirit, heart, life, warmth, humanness, personality, individuality, intentionality, essence, innermost purpose, emotion, quality, virtue, morality, sin, wisdom, death, God† (Hillman, 1964, p. 44). Jungian idea of the collective unconscious as the â€Å"most serviceable in the creation of an ecopsychology† (p. 302). Today we call this theory Gala. Earth itself is a living being and through our becoming conscious, she becomes conscious: â€Å"the collective unconscious, at its deepest level, shelters the compacted ecological intelligence of our species, the source from which culture finally unfolds as the self-conscious reflection of nature’s own steadily emergent mindlikeness† (p. 301). Evaluate heuristic and hermeneutics. The heuristic psychology was based on a quite simple idea. The theory was designed to explain the prevalence of cognitive biases in reasoning tasks and the puzzling fact that logical competence demonstrated on one task often failed to be exhibited on another (Evans, 1989). The heuristicanalytic theory proposed that two kinds of cognitive process were involved: heuristic processes, which generated selective representations of problem content, and analytic processes, which derived inferences or judgments from these representations. Biases were accounted for by the proposal that logically relevant information might be omitted or logically irrelevant information included at the heuristic stage. Since analytic reasoning could be applied only to these heuristically formed representations, biases could result. In the revised theory, the heuristic-analytic terminology is retained, with an attempt to define more precisely the nature of the interaction between the two processes and to assist in the generation of experimental predictions about particular reasoning tasks. At the same time, assumptions about dual systems are kept to a minimum. The present account draws heavily on the theory of hypothetical thinking put forward by Evans, Over, and Handley (2003) in an attempt to gain greater understanding of how the analytic (or explicit) system works and how it interacts with the heuristic (or implicit) system. Evans, Over, and Handley (2003) were attempting to advance in more specific terms the idea proposed by Evans and Over (1996) that the analytic system is involved whenever hypothetical thought is required. Hypothetical thinking involves the imagination of possibilities that go beyond the representation of factual knowledge about the world. Examples include hypothesis testing, forecasting, consequential decision making, and (on certain assumptions) deductive reasoning. The relevance principle concerns the generation of mental models and hypotheses by the heuristic system. It refers to the powerful tendency to contextualize all problems with reference to prior knowledge elicited by contextual cues and the current goals that are being pursued. This has been described as the fundamental computational bias by Stanovich (1999), although the term bias should certainly not be taken here in a pejorative sense. Given the notorious frame problem of artificial intelligence, we might describe the fundamental computational bias in computers as the failure to contextualize problems. What Stanovich (1999) is getting at is the fact that we need, in a modern technological society, to be capable also of abstract, decontextualized reasoning, which he believes the analytic system can achieve. Note that the relevance principle contrasts with the principle of truth in the mental model theory (Johnson-Laird & Byrne, 2002), in which it is proposed that people represent only true possibilities. By default, I assume that people represent what is believable or plausible (true is too strong a term) but also that this default can be altered according to context. Our attention can easily be focused on hypotheses that are improbable (buying health insurance to cover emergencies on a particular vacation) or most improbable (thinking about the consequences of life being discovered on Mars). The heuristic-analytic theory does not offer an original or profound solution to the problem of how relevant knowledge is delivered by the heuristic system. However, in our proposals about mental representations, we have drawn on the notion that implicatures may be added to our mental models (Evans & Over, 2004). The discipline called hermeneutics has been thriving for more than 300 years. Hermeneutics has played an increasingly influential role in what PoIkinghorne (1983) calls the â€Å"long debate† in modern times over the proper mode of inquiry in the human sciences. Should they emulate the methods of the natural sciences or develop their own distinctive approach? Are human beings different in kind from objects in the natural world: Are they requiring such a different approach? Hermeneutics as a self-conscious procedure arose in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, concerned mainly with the interpretation of the bible and classic texts. Even though these works were consulted for important insights or truths concerning human life, reflective interpretation was often felt to be required because, as the modern world dawned, they seemed to be products of quite different and somewhat alien cultures of the past. Also, the Reformation had, in many quarters, undermined the Church’s exclusive authority to interohmpret the Bible. Friedrich Schliermacher (1768-1834) broadened the scope of hermeneutics and clarified the role of the famous â€Å"hermeneutic circle,† according to which our understanding of any part of a text, work of art, or individual life is shaped by our initial or assumed understanding of the whole of it, at the same time that our understanding of that whole is continually revised by our encounter with and modified understanding of its parts. Some hermeneutic philosophers (Heidegger, 1962; Gadamer, 1989; Guignon, 1983; Taylor, 1989), sometimes termed ontological hermeneutics, might contribute to a more plausible picture of the world and the place of humans in it that would be open to religious claims and meanings. Also, I will suggest a few key ways in which such an ontology calls for a revised understanding of the aims and methods of the social sciences, including psychology. Finally, I suggest that a hermeneutic perspective gives us insights into what might be the most fruitful kind of interaction between psychology and religion. Some view them as essentially in conflict, of course, while others avoid such conflict by sealing them off from another in separate spheres. Neither approach is very helpful, obviously, to religiously inclined psychologists who want to draw in their work on possibly valid ideas from each realm. At this point, the alternative of seeking an intellectually and spiritually sound â€Å"integration† of religion and psychology beckons. From a hermeneutic standpoint, much of the spirit of this approach seems right on target, but still the idea or theory of integrating these fields seems flawed in important ways that call for rethinking the nature of their interchange. Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-1911) expanded Schliermacher’s ideas into a general theory of interpretation for the human sciences. A strictly naturalistic view of inquiry in the human sciences began to harden with the publication of John Stuart Mill’s influential System of Logic in 1843, which presented a philosophical and logical foundation for empiricism and advocated the use of natural science methods in the study of human phenomenon as the only cure for what Mill thought of as the â€Å"backward state of the moral sciences.† However, Dilthey argued forcefully that we simply do not understand our objects in the â€Å"human studies† or â€Å"human sciences† (Geisteswissenschaften) by subsuming them under general laws. â€Å"We explain nature; man we must understand† (Dilthey, 195.8, p. 144). Rather, in these disciplines we need â€Å"to forge new models for the interpretation of human phenomena †¦ derived from the character of lived experience itself †¦ to be based on categories of ‘meaning’ instead of ‘power,’ history instead of mathematics† (Palmer, 1969, p. 103).1 In these fields, according to Dilthey, we immediately grasp the meaning or import of a work of art or historical event in terms of categories of significance, purpose, or value, through a combined exercise of all our powers of cognitive reflection, empathy, and moral imagination. At the start of the twentieth century, a major transformation in hermeneutic thought took place, reflecting the growing awareness that devising rules for interpreting humans is impossible and that the whole fascination with method is a byproduct of the very scientism being called in question. The result was a shift from seeing hermeneutics as primarily epistemological or methodological, where the aim is developing an art or technique of interpretation, to today’s ontological hermeneutics, which aims to clarify the being of the entities that interpret and understand, namely, ourselves (Richardson, Powers, & Guignon, 1999). An essential part of this transformation involves becoming clear that the aspiration to pristine, a historical standards for understanding, or truly an Archimedean point for discriminating knowledge from illusion and error, is not only unattainable but reflects, in part, questionable and, in a moral or spiritual sense, somewhat inauthentic motives or goals for humans. I hope to suggest some possible reasons for this claim and provide glimpses of an ontological hermeneutic alternative to scientism, dogmatism, and relativism in the remainder of this article, in line with the effort by some leading thinkers and theologians today to â€Å"steer a course between Enlightenment foundationalism and postmodern relativism† (Browning, 2004). References Aziz, R. ( 1990). C. G. Jung’s psvchalogv of religion and syn-chronicity. Albany: SUNY. Coppin, J.(2005)The art of inquiry a depth psychological perspective. Evans. J. ST. B. T., & OVER, D. E. (1996). Rationality and reasoning. Hove, U.K.: Psychology Press. Evans, J. ST. B. T., & OVER, D. E. (1989). Explicit representations in hypothetical thinking. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 22, 763-764. Evans, J. ST. B. T., OVER, D. E., & HANDLEY, S. J. (2003). A theory of hypothetical thinking. In D. Hardman & L. Maachi (Eds.), Thinking: Psychological perspectives on reasoning, judgement and decision making (pp. 3-22). Chichester, U.K.: Wiley. Frankel. R. (1998). The adolescent psyche: Jungian ami Winnicottian perspectives. New York: Roulledge. Freud. S. (1900/1965). The interpretation of dreams: trans. James Strachey. New York: Avon Books. Gadamer, H. G. (1975). Truth and method. (J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.) (Rev. ed.). New York: Continuum. (Original work published 1960) Goertzel. V., & Goertzel, M. G. (1962). Cradles of eminence. Boston: Little, Brown. Hawke, C. (2000). Jung and the postmodern: The interpretation of realities. London: Routledge. Heidegger, M. (1990). Nietzsche (Vois 3 & 4). New York: Harpe rCollins.Hillman, J. (1964). Suicide and the soul. New York: Harper & Row. Hillman, J. (1975). Re-visioning psychology. New York: Harper Colophon Books. Hillman, J. (1983). The bad mother: An archetypal approach. Spring, I, 165-181. Hillman, J. (1996). The soul’s code: In search of character and calling. New York: Random House. Hillman, J. (1999). The force of character and the lasting life. New York: Random House. Jung, C. G. (1910). The association method. American Journal of Psychology, 31, 219- 269. Jung, C. G. (1959). Symbols of transformation. Collected Works (Vol. 5). Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Foundation. Jung, C. G. (1965). Memories, dreams, reflections. New York: Vintage.Jung, C. G. (1970) Collected Works. 18 vols. Princeton, NJ: Bollingen Foundation. Moustakas, C. (1990)Heuristic research design, methodology and applications. Newberry Park,CA: Sage Publications Stanovich, K. E. ( 1999). Who is Rational? Studies of Individual Differences in Reasoning. Mahway, NJ: Erlbaum.   

What Is Kurtosis in Statistics

Distributions of data and probability distributions are not all the same shape. Some are asymmetric and skewed to the left or to the right. Other distributions are bimodal and have two peaks. Another feature to consider when talking about a distribution is the shape of the tails of the distribution on the far left and the far right. Kurtosis is the measure of the thickness or heaviness of the tails of a distribution. The kurtosis of a distribution is in one of three categories of classification: MesokurticLeptokurticPlatykurtic We will consider each of these classifications in turn. Our examination of these categories will not be as precise as we could be if we used the technical mathematical definition of kurtosis. Mesokurtic Kurtosis is typically measured with respect to the normal distribution. A distribution that has tails shaped in roughly the same way as any normal distribution, not just the standard normal distribution, is said to be mesokurtic. The kurtosis of a mesokurtic distribution is neither high nor low, rather it is considered to be a baseline for the two other classifications. Besides normal distributions, binomial distributions for which p is close to 1/2 are considered to be mesokurtic. Leptokurtic A leptokurtic distribution is one that has kurtosis greater than a mesokurtic distribution. Leptokurtic distributions are sometimes identified by peaks that are thin and tall. The tails of these distributions, to both the right and the left, are thick and heavy. Leptokurtic distributions are named by the prefix lepto meaning skinny. There are many examples of leptokurtic distributions. One of the most well known leptokurtic distributions is Students t distribution. Platykurtic The third classification for kurtosis is platykurtic. Platykurtic distributions are those that have slender tails. Many times they possess a peak lower than a mesokurtic distribution. The name of these types of distributions come from the meaning of the prefix platy meaning broad. All uniform distributions are platykurtic. In addition to this, the discrete probability distribution from a single flip of a coin is platykurtic. Calculation of Kurtosis These classifications of kurtosis are still somewhat subjective and qualitative. While we might be able to see that a distribution has thicker tails than a normal distribution, what if we don’t have the graph of a normal distribution to compare with? What if we want to say that one distribution is more leptokurtic than another? To answer these kinds of questions we need not just a qualitative description of kurtosis, but a quantitative measure. The formula used is ÃŽ ¼4/ÏÆ'4 where ÃŽ ¼4 is Pearson’s fourth moment about the mean and sigma is the standard deviation. Excess Kurtosis Now that we have a way to calculate kurtosis, we can compare the values obtained rather than shapes. The normal distribution is found to have a kurtosis of three. This now becomes our basis for mesokurtic distributions. A distribution with kurtosis greater than three is leptokurtic and a distribution with kurtosis less than three is platykurtic. Since we treat a mesokurtic distribution as a baseline for our other distributions, we can subtract three from our standard calculation for kurtosis. The formula ÃŽ ¼4/ÏÆ'4 - 3 is the formula for excess kurtosis. We could then classify a distribution from its excess kurtosis: Mesokurtic distributions have excess kurtosis of zero.Platykurtic distributions have negative excess kurtosis.Leptokurtic distributions have positive excess kurtosis. A Note on the Name The word kurtosis seems odd on the first or second reading. It actually makes sense, but we need to know Greek to recognize this. Kurtosis is derived from a transliteration of the Greek word kurtos. This Greek word has the meaning arched or bulging, making it an apt description of the concept known as kurtosis.

What Are Ovoviviparous Animals

The term viviparity simply means live birth. Ovoviviparity can be considered a subset of the larger classification—although, the term ovoviviparity (also known as aplacental viviparity) is largely being struck from use since many feel its not as clearly defined as the term histotrophic viviparity. In cases of pure histotrophy, a developing embryo receives nutrition from its mothers uterine secretions (histotroph), however, depending on species, ovoviviparous offspring can be nourished by one of several sources including unfertilized egg yolks or cannibalizing their siblings. Internal Fertilization and Incubation In ovoviviparous animals, egg fertilization takes place internally, usually as a result of copulation. For example, a male shark inserts his clasper into the female and releases sperm. The eggs are fertilized while they are in the oviducts and continue their development there. (In the case of guppies, females can store extra sperm and can use it to fertilize eggs for up to eight months.) When the eggs hatch, the young remain in the females oviducts and continue to develop until theyre mature enough to be born and survive in the outside environment. Ovoviviparity vs. Oviparity and Mammal Development Its important to distinguish between live-bearing animals that have placentas—which includes most species of mammals—and those that do not. Ovoviviparity is distinct from oviparity (egg-laying). In oviparity, the eggs may or may not be fertilized internally, but they are laid and rely on the yolk sac for nourishment until they hatch. Certain species of sharks (such as the basking shark), as well as guppies and other fish, snakes, and insects are ovoviviparous, and its the only form of reproduction for rays. Ovoviviparous animals produce eggs, but instead of laying them, the eggs develop and hatch inside the mothers body and remain there for a time. Ovoviviparous offspring are first nourished by yolk from their egg sac. After hatching, they remain inside their mothers bodies, where they continue to mature. Ovoviviparous animals do not have umbilical cords that attach embryos to their mothers, nor do they have placenta with which to provide food, oxygen, and waste exchange. Some ovoviviparous species, however—such as sharks and rays—do provide a gas exchange with developing eggs inside the womb. In such cases, the egg sac is extremely thin or is simply a membrane. When their development is complete, the young are born live. Ovoviviparous Birth By delaying birth after hatching, the offspring are more capable of feeding and defending themselves when born. They enter the environment in a more advanced stage of development than oviparous young. They can be of a larger size than similar animals that hatch from eggs. This is also true of viviparous species. In the case of the garter snake, young are born still enclosed in an amniotic sac, however, they escape it quickly. For insects, young may be born as larvae when theyre able to hatch more rapidly, or they may be born at a later stage of development. The number of young ovoviviparous mothers give birth to at a given time depends on the species. Basking sharks, for example, give birth to one or two live young, while a female guppy can drop up to 200 babies (known as fry) over the course of several hours.