May 9, 2013
Lilith is a female demon in Jewish legends, found first in the Dead Sea scrolls (the earliest known copy of the old testament, discovered in 1947 and written between 408 BCE and 318 CE). The legend is related both to a Hebrew language term ‘lilith’ which appears in a list of wilderness animals and birds in the ‘Book of Isaiah,’ and also is linked to beliefs about demons called ‘lili’ (‘spirit,’ associated with the night, wind, and owls.) in ancient Babylon.
Evidence in later Jewish materials is plentiful, but little information has been found relating to the original Akkadian and Babylonian view of these demons. The relevance of two sources previously used to connect the Jewish ‘Lilith’ to an Akkadian ‘Lilitu’ – the ‘Gilgamesh’ appendix and the Arslan Tash amulets – are now both disputed by recent scholarship. Continue reading →
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May 8, 2013
‘Colorless green ideas sleep furiously‘ is a sentence composed by linguist Noam Chomsky in his 1957 book ‘Syntactic Structures’ as an example of a sentence that is grammatically correct, but semantically nonsensical. The term was originally used in his 1955 thesis ‘Logical Structures of Linguistic Theory.’
Although the sentence is grammatically correct, no obvious understandable meaning can be derived from it, and thus it demonstrates the distinction between syntax (linguistic rules) and semantics (symbolic meaning). As an example of a category mistake (a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property), it was used to show inadequacy of the then-popular probabilistic models of grammar, and the need for more structured models. Continue reading →
Posted in Games, Language, Philosophy |
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May 8, 2013
Borg is a collective proper noun for a fictional alien race that appears as recurring antagonists in various incarnations of the ‘Star Trek’ franchise. The Borg are a collection of species that have been turned into cybernetic organisms functioning as drones of the Collective, or the hive. A pseudo-race, dwelling in the Star Trek universe, the Borg force other species into their collective and connect them to ‘the hive mind’; the act is called assimilation and entails violence, abductions, and injections of cybernetic implants. The Borg’s ultimate goal is ‘achieving perfection.’
Aside from being the main threat in ‘Star Trek: First Contact,’ the Borg play major roles in ‘The Next Generation’ and ‘Voyager’ television series, primarily as an invasion threat to the United Federation of Planets, but also of some use to the Voyager. The Borg have become a symbol in popular culture for any juggernaut against which ‘resistance is futile.’
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May 7, 2013
Libertarian science fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that focuses on the politics and social order implied by libertarian philosophies with an emphasis on individualism and a limited state—and in some cases, no state whatsoever.
As a category, libertarian fiction is unusual because the vast majority of its authors are self-identified as science fiction authors. This contrasts with the authors of much other social criticism who are largely academic or mainstream novelists who tend to dismiss any genre classification. Continue reading →
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May 7, 2013
Social science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction concerned less with technology and space opera and more with sociological speculation about human society. In other words, it ‘absorbs and discusses anthropology,’ and speculates about human behavior and interactions.
Exploration of fictional societies is a significant aspect of science fiction, allowing it to perform predictive (H. G. Wells, ‘The Final Circle of Paradise’) and precautionary (Ray Bradbury, ‘Fahrenheit 451’) functions, to criticize the contemporary world (Russian author Alexander Gromov’s ‘Antarctica-online’ ) and to present solutions (B.F. Skinner’s ‘Walden Two’), to portray alternative societies (World of the Noon, a fictional future setting for a number of hard science fiction novels written by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky) and to examine the implications of ethical principles (the works of Russian science fiction author Sergei Lukyanenko).
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Posted in Politics, Science |
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May 7, 2013
Walden Two is a utopian novel written by behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner, first published in 1948. In its time, it could have been considered to be science fiction, since science-based methods for altering people’s behavior did not yet exist. (Such methods exist now and are known as applied behavior analysis, formerly behavior modification).
‘Walden Two’ is controversial because it includes a rejection of free will, the proposition that human behavior is controlled by a non-corporeal entity, such as a spirit or a soul. The book embraces the proposition that the behavior of organisms, including humans, is determined by genetic and environmental variables, and that systematically altering environmental variables can generate a sociocultural system that very closely approximates utopia. Continue reading →
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May 7, 2013
The term Dumbing down describes the deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of the content of schooling and education, of literature and cinema, and of news and culture. The idea of and the term dumbing down originated in 1933 as slang, used by motion picture screenplay writers, to mean: ‘revise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence.’ Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu noted cultural capital as a means of social mobility, which is diminished by the processes of dumbing down.
The occurrences of dumbing down vary in nature, according to the subject matter under discussion and the purpose of the simplifier, but the dumbing-down usually involves the over-simplification of critical thought to the degree of conceptually undermining the intellectual standards of language and of learning of a society; by such simplistic means the writer and the speaker justifies the trivialization of cultural, artistic, and academic standards, as in the case of popular culture.
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May 7, 2013
The subject of the damsel in distress, or persecuted maiden, is a classic theme in world literature, art, film and video games. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. She has become a stock character of fiction, particularly of melodrama.
Though she is usually human, she can also be of any other species, including fictional or folkloric species; and even divine figures such as an angel or deity. The word ‘damsel’ derives from the French ‘demoiselle,’ meaning ‘young lady,’ and the term ‘damsel in distress’ in turn is a translation of the French ‘demoiselle en détresse.’ Continue reading →
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May 7, 2013
Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does.
Proposed by Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields including sports, arts, and science. Popular terms for this or similar mental states include: ‘to be in the moment,’ ‘present,’ ‘in the zone,’ ‘on a roll,’ ‘wired in,’ ‘in the groove,’ ‘on fire,’ ‘in tune,’ ‘centered,’ or ‘singularly focused.’ Continue reading →
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May 7, 2013
David LaChapelle (b. 1963) is an American photographer and film director. He is best known for his photography, which often references art history and sometimes conveys social messages. His style has been described as ‘hyper-real and slyly subversive’ and as ‘kitsch pop surrealism.’ One 1996 article called him the ‘Fellini of photography,’ a phrase that continues to be applied to him.
He grew up in Connecticut and North Carolina. He has said to have loved the public schools in Connecticut and thrived in their art program as a child and teenager, although he struggled with bullying growing up. He was bullied in his North Carolina school for being gay. When he was 15 years old, he ran away from home to become a busboy at Studio 54 in New York. Eventually he returned home to enroll in the North Carolina School of Arts. He would later attend the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Continue reading →
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May 6, 2013
Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an ‘escape’ from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life. It can also be used as a term to define the actions people take to help relieve persisting feelings of depression or general sadness.
Entire industries have sprung up to foster a growing tendency for people to remove themselves from the rigors of daily life. Many activities that are normal parts of a healthy existence (e.g., eating, sleeping, exercise, sexual activity) can also become avenues of escapism when taken to extremes or out of proper context. Continue reading →
Posted in Health, Politics |
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May 6, 2013
Fantasy in a psychological sense is broadly used to cover two different senses, conscious and unconscious (sometimes spelled ‘phantasy’). A conscious fantasy is a situation imagined by an individual that expresses certain desires or aims on the part of its creator. Fantasies sometimes involve situations that are highly unlikely; or they may be quite realistic. Fantasies can also be sexual in nature.
Another, more basic meaning of fantasy is something which is not ‘real,’ as in perceived explicitly by any of the senses, but exists as an imagined situation of object to subject.
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