Children,childhood, and development in evolutionary perspective

We examine children, childhood, and development from an evolutionary perspective. We begin by reviewing major assumptions of evolutionary–developmental psychology, including the integration of “soft” developmental systems theory with ideas from mainstream evolutionary psychology. We then discuss the concept of adaptive developmental plasticity and describe the core evolutionary concept of developmental programming and some of its applications to human development, as instantiated in life history theory and the theory of differential susceptibility to environmental influence. We then discuss the concept of adaptation from an evolutionary–developmental perspective, including ontogenetic and deferred adaptations, and examine the development of some adaptations of infancy and childhood from the domains of folk psychology and folk physics. We conclude that evolutionary theory can serve as a metatheory for developmental science.     

Effects of product type and contextual cues on eliciting naive theories of popularity and exclusivity

This research shows in a series of studies that exposing consumers to functional products evokes the naive theory of popularity, whereas exposing them to self-expressive products induces belief in the naive theory of exclusivity. The research further demonstrates that when the naive theory elicited by product type is matched by the appropriate contextual purchasing cues regarding the interest of others, it results in greater purchase intentions than when those cues are mismatched. The research specifies that the matching effect for functional products is mediated by consumers' perceptions of product quality, whereas mediation for self-expressive products occurs through consumers' self-perceptions regarding the extent to which the product conveys uniqueness. Finally, the research illustrates that an explicit signal of product quality (e.g., a favorable rating in Consumer Reports) attenuates the effect associated with the contextual cues regarding the interest of others.     

The physics of evolution: From chaos to evolution and deep ecology

This paper summarizes the various physical science elements of the evolutionary story. The “nonlinear” revolution includes chaos, self‐organization theory, the thermodynamics of evolution, and biological evolution. The key result of the revolution is a physical understanding of how order emerges and change is driven. This paper brings the lessons of each branch of the revolution together into a single easily understood thread. The unexpected result of this revolution is an understanding of evolution as a single inexorable physical process that has given rise to everything from molecules to humankind. Here evolution is driven by energy flow and involves increasing efficiency, the growth of complexity, and the acceleration of change. This paper ties the resulting physical insights to an evolving ecological world view, looks at its ties to spirituality and applies the rules that govern the growth of complexity to business and its current crisis. The net result of the nonlinear revolution is a radical change in our everyday understanding of how the world works, a shift away from classical science's machine world to the vision of an evolving deeply ecologically intertwined world.     

Consciousness,Vorticity, and Dipoles

As spin is a fundamental feature of the universe, preliminary evidence suggests that its study could help in understanding consciousness. Research detailed in this article further develops the author's work in Keen (2005) Keen, J. 2005. Consciousness, intent, and the structure of the universe, Canada: Trafford. Available at http://www.trafford.com/robots/04-2320.html [Google Scholar]. The findings demonstrate that rotating objects generate fields that are also associated with mind-generated fields. Numerous quantitative properties of these fields generated by rotation are shown to be very different to fields associated with static objects. Dipole antenna radiation patterns are also discovered. The conclusions suggest that vorticity is not only involved in consciousness, but also has wider implications in understanding our universe, and therefore the subject warrants further research.     

QUANTUM ASPECTS OF LIFE: RELATING EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY WITH THEOLOGY VIA MODERN PHYSICS

Abstract In the present paper, I shall argue that quantum theory can contribute to reconciling evolutionary biology with the creation hypothesis. After giving a careful definition of the theological problem, I will, in a first step, formulate necessary conditions for the compatibility of evolutionary theory and the creation hypothesis. In a second step, I will show how quantum theory can contribute to fulfilling these conditions. More precisely, I claim that (1) quantum probabilities are best understood in terms of ontological indeterminism, but (2) reflect nevertheless causal openness rather than divine indifference or arbitrariness, and (3) such a genuinely creative universe can be considered as the work of a loving Creator. I ask subsequently whether these necessary conditions are also sufficient for the compatibility of evolutionary theory and the creation hypothesis. Finally, I will show that relating evolutionary biology with theology via quantum theory could also shed some light on the nature of life.     

Divine Activity and Motive Power in Descartes's Physics

This paper is the second of a two-part reexamination of causation in Descartes's physics. Some prominent contemporary scholars, including Gary Hatfield and Daniel Garber, have argued that Descartes is an Occasionalist about natural motion. On their reading, Descartes holds that God alone causes the motions that are not caused by the free actions of finite minds. Hatfield and Garber offer similar, but independent arguments that Descartes's views about physics – in particular, his arguments that the laws of nature are grounded in God's immutability – entail Occasionalism about natural motion. In this paper I argue contra Hatfield and Garber that Descartes's natural philosophy does not entail Occasionalism. Descartes holds that God is a direct efficient cause of every natural motion. Yet he does not take this to imply that bodies lack genuine causal powers. According to Descartes, God concurs with bodies to cause natural motion in such a way that both God and bodies are genuine, efficient causes of motion. I conclude by presenting an account of how Descartes's theory of body is compatible with the thesis that bodies have intrinsic active causal powers.     

Intuitive understanding of the relation between velocities and masses in simulated collisions

The participants in our experiments were asked to judge whether simulated horizontal collisions appeared to be “natural” or “unnatural”. We manipulated the implied masses and the velocity ratio of two colliding objects. Implied masses were varied through manipulations of the objects' simulated materials (Experiment 1) and sizes (Experiments 2 and 3). For each participant, we determined the interval of velocity ratios that produced “natural” responses most of the time and evaluated how this interval varied as a function of implied masses. The results revealed a fair degree of consistency between predictions of Newtonian mechanics and the participants' responses; this consistency was greater when the implied masses of the colliding objects were varied through manipulations of the simulated materials. Overall, the results support the hypothesis that the cognitive system can integrate multiple sources of stimulus information, enabling individuals to understand multidimensional mechanical events.     

The transferential chimera II: some theoretical considerations

The author develops here a theoretical model to account for the different levels of organization and functioning of the transference chimera of which he gave a clinical presentation in an earlier article. From his reading of Jung's 'Psychology of the transference' he derives a dynamic model of the chimera and links it to quantum mechanics and chaos theory not so much to describe the reality of the phenomenon, but to offer a model of representation as a conceptual and meditative tool for analysts to use in their practice. The main hypothesis of this work is that the chimera arises from the intimate interplay of the respective de-integrates of the analyst and of the patient, thus constituting a genuine self in the transference. The author concludes with some implications for the analyst's own internal position.     

SIMONE WEIL'S SPIRITUAL CRITIQUE OF MODERN SCIENCE: AN HISTORICAL‐CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

Simone Weil is widely recognized today as one of the profound religious thinkers of the twentieth century. Yet while her interpretation of natural science is critical to Weil's overall understanding of religious faith, her writings on science have received little attention compared with her more overtly theological writings. The present essay, which builds on Vance Morgan's Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science, Necessity, and Love (2005), critically examines Weil's interpretation of the history of science. Weil believed that mathematical science, for the ancient Pythagoreans a mystical expression of the love of God, had in the modern period degenerated into a kind of reification of method that confuses the means of representing nature with nature itself. Beginning with classical (Newtonian) science's representation of nature as a machine, and even more so with the subsequent assimilation of symbolic algebra as the principal language of mathematical physics, modern science according to Weil trades genuine insight into the order of the world for symbolic manipulation yielding mere predictive success and technological domination of nature. I show that Weil's expressed desire to revive a Pythagorean scientific approach, inspired by the “mysterious complicity” in nature between brute necessity and love, must be recast in view of the intrinsically symbolic character of modern mathematical science. I argue further that a genuinely mystical attitude toward nature is nascent within symbolic mathematical science itself.