The IKEA effect: When labor leads to love

In four studies in which consumers assembled IKEA boxes, folded origami, and built sets of Legos, we demonstrate and investigate boundary conditions for the IKEA effect—the increase in valuation of self-made products. Participants saw their amateurish creations as similar in value to experts' creations, and expected others to share their opinions. We show that labor leads to love only when labor results in successful completion of tasks; when participants built and then destroyed their creations, or failed to complete them, the IKEA effect dissipated. Finally, we show that labor increases valuation for both “do-it-yourselfers” and novices.     

论医学思路对医学创新的作用

思路,有广义和狭义之分。党的思想路线作为广义的思路,在中国革命和建设的两次历史性飞跃中起决定性作用。说明思路对创新起决定作用。医学思路作为狭义的思路,在医学创新及对创新成果实践检验中同样起决定作用。徐荣祥教授以医学思路变革为先导创立ＭＥＢＴ／ＭＥＢＯ及各派按不同思路对它实践检验而结果相反,典型地表现着这种关系。具有普遍指导意义。     

In Memoriam: Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928–2014)

Prompted by the September 4, 2014 passing of a Continental titan of Protestant systematic theology, this article summarizes the life and thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg. A brief review is offered of his conversion from atheism to the Christian faith, student studies, and faculty positions along with his corpus of writings. An in‐depth analysis is offered of Pannenberg's key theological commitments to creation, eschatology, Christology, Trinity, retroactive ontology, prolepsis, anthropology, and the relationship between time and eternity. The scale and complexity and subtlety of Pannenberg's worldview renders it vulnerable to charges of incoherence; but few can doubt the masterful achievement of the gift of this person's life—a gift from God—to the world of Christian theology.     

New ideas for brain modelling 3

This paper considers a process for the creation and subsequent firing of sequences of neuronal patterns, as might be found in the human brain. The scale is one of larger patterns emerging from an ensemble mass, possibly through some type of energy equation and a reduction procedure. The links between the patterns can be formed naturally, as a residual effect of the pattern creation itself. This paper follows-on closely from the earlier research, including two earlier papers in the series and uses the ideas of entropy and cohesion. With a small addition, it is possible to show how the inter-pattern links can be determined. A compact Grid form of an earlier Counting Mechanism is also demonstrated and may be a new clustering technique. It is possible to explain how a very basic repeating structure can form the arbitrary patterns and activation sequences between them, and a key question of how nodes synchronise may even be answerable.     

论死亡的认知与接纳

综述分析国内外死亡心理的研究及死亡教育的探索,探讨个体对死亡的认知与反应以及对应的预防及干预措施。死亡心理理论探索对死亡呈现出积极或消极的认识,其恐惧管理理论与创生理论以死亡意识的不同阶段研究所得结论立场不一,可纵向研究死亡心理认知阶段达成理论整合。死亡教育途径包含课程融入、艺术引导、家庭分享、文化传承等,但针对成年群体的死亡教育资源相对较少。认识并接纳死亡,为生者带来更贴切的情绪感受与生活体验,死亡心理理论的完善与死亡教育资源的普及两者缺一不可。

     

Luther and Gender: Shifts in Paradigms and Orientations

Considering the tenderness and detail with which Luther attends to matters “all about Eve” in his Genesis lectures—and how he treats the matriarchs in the Genesis narrative—we can say that gender and women constitute a central interest for the reformer. He developed, in his context, a new theological anthropology that valued women's biological distinction, difference within sameness in creation, and absolute equality in redemption and callings. While his gender ideology is a work in progress, Luther's instincts are modern, if not even feminist, when placing the uterus at the central place of the delivery of the saving incarnate Word.     

The eye of faith and the eye of science: Regin Prenter and Niels Henrik Gregersen on God's creation

One the one hand, Regin Prenter gets it right theologically: creation and redemption belong together. On the other hand, Prenter's method is visually impaired; he looks at God's creation with only one eye, the eye of faith. If he would open his other eye and look at creation as a scientist sees it, his doctrine of creation would be broader, deeper, and more textured. This is what two‐eyed Niels Henrik Gregersen does when he incorporates into his theological vision the scientific idea of autopoiesis—that is, nature's own creative advance.     

A GOD THAT COULD BE REAL IN THE NEW SCIENTIFIC UNIVERSE

We are living at the dawn of the first truly scientific picture of the universe‐as‐a‐whole, yet people are still dragging along prescientific ideas about God that cannot be true and are even meaningless (e.g., omniscience) in the universe we now know we live in. This makes it impossible to have a coherent big picture of the modern world that includes God. But we don't have to accept an impossible God or else no God. We can have a real God if we redefine God in light of knowledge no one ever had before. The key question is, “Could anything actually exist in the scientific universe that is worthy of the name, God?” My answer is yes: God is an “emergent phenomenon,” as real as the global economy or the government or the worldwide web, which are all emergent phenomena. But God arose from something deeper: the complex interactions of all humanity's aspirations. An emerging God has enormous implications.     

“You knit me together in my mother’s womb”: a theology of creation and divine action in light of intersex

ABSTRACT

Some Christian theologians and intersex Christians maintain that intersex is part of God’s good and intended creation, in contrast to those who view intersex as a pathological result of fallen nature. The former claim that intersex bodies “are how God made them” and that “God does not make mistakes;” however, these statements risk implying a belief in special creation or divine intervention, two theological positions which have been challenged by evolutionary theory and contemporary natural sciences. This paper provides a more nuanced theology of creation and divine action as a foundation for a positive theology of intersex. Drawing from the work of Thomas Aquinas on primary and secondary causality, the author argues that God, as primary cause, creates the intersex person through the free interplay of secondary causes, in the same way and to the same extent that God acts in the creation of every other person.     

The Contingency of Creation and Modern Science

The Bible reveals a free, contingent act of the triune, personal God as the origin of the world. This paper explores the fruitfulness of taking the contingency of creation as the starting-point for our thinking about the natural world. We will see that the contingency of creation implies a conception of the natural order which is in harmony with modern science. It is the foundation for the experimental method and the use of mathematics, provides an understanding of contingent laws of nature, shows that natural order is open to historical evolution, and makes room for chance and novelty.