The Universe as a Saturated Phenomenon: The Christian Concept of Creation in View of Modern Philosophical and Scientific Developments

Abstract

The article develops an argument that the Christian concept of creation of the world, being an issue of the modern dialogue between theology and science, must be rethought and reformulated along the lines of recent advancements in cosmology and philosophy. It is argued that the prevailing natural attitude to the issue of the creation of the universe (whether based on Biblical hermeneutics or scientific theories) is philosophically inadequate because it does not account for the facticity of the articulating consciousness, which itself is the modality of the created. Correspondingly, the issue of creation receives a different interpretation: it is the coming into existence of personal life in the Divine image, capable of recognizing its createdness, and articulating creation as hypostatically distant from the comprehending subjectivity. Creation as inseparable from the life of subjectivity thus acquires the status of a saturated phenomenon to which neither successive quantitative, nor qualitative synthesis, nor temporal synthesis can be applied; it also escapes a rubric of relation. The created world, or the universe as a whole, gives itself to us from its own “self” to such an extent that it affects us, changes us and almost constitutes us, and stages us out of its own giving itself to us. The universe is present in the background of our existence through relationship and communion in such a way that we can express this presence ecstatically—through music, painting, poetry etc.—that presence which cannot be formalized in definitions of physics and mathematics. It is the living humanity that is the only and ultimate manifestation of God through its creation.     

An Analogue Study of the Psychological and Psychosocial Processes Associated With Post‐concussion Symptoms

This study used an analogue design to investigate post‐concussion syndrome and the psychological and psychosocial processes associated with post‐concussion symptom (PCSx) reporting. The study examined the role of expectation in reporting of PCSx, the nature of associated psychological and psychosocial difficulties, and the “good‐old‐days” phenomenon. Forty‐five healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups: (1) a control group or (2) an expectation group who were asked to perform as if they had experienced a mild traumatic brain injury. Fourteen psychiatric patients comprised the clinical group. Self‐report questionnaires assessing PCSx and psychological and psychosocial variables were administered. It was hypothesised that PCSx would be non‐specific, that the expectation group would report greater dysfunction than controls, and that the “good‐old‐days” phenomenon would cause the expectation and clinical groups to underestimate pre‐morbid PCSx. All participants reported some degree of dysfunction, and the expectation and clinical groups underestimated past PCSx. The expectation group reported more PCSx and psychological and psychosocial dysfunction than controls, resembling the clinical group. The results demonstrate that expectation can cause otherwise healthy individuals to resemble a clinical group in terms of their level of endorsement of psychological and psychosocial dysfunction.     

What is Classical and Non-Classical Knowledge?

Mamardašvili’s ‘classical’ paradigm of knowledge is seen to be minimally based on extrapolations from Descartes’ classical philosophy to which Mamardašvili attributes features that rather anticipate his own post-classical ontology. The latter is oriented towards the primacy of perception as a subjective process, in which the self-conscious subject constructs the world, not as illusion, but as a ‘picture’ or ‘model’ (Wittgenstein’s Bild). By examining Mamardašvili’s definition of the ‘phenomenon’ against the␣background of Husserl’s ‘reduction’, Wittgenstein’s ‘object’ and the Freudian and post-structuralist psychoanalytic model of subjectivity, the paper arrives at the inference that Mamardašvili is essentially a post-Structuralist thinker who appropriates concepts from various critical and philosophical disciplines to construct his own multi-disciplinary theory of consciousness and perception.     

再生障碍性贫血发病机制的探讨

目前再生障碍性贫血发病机制有如下解释:造血干(祖)细胞缺陷;造血微环境功能缺陷;免疫功能紊乱.这些解释显示着深刻的哲学意义,正确地应用哲学思维将有助于对再生障碍性贫血发病机制的进一步深入研究.     

The Impact of Individual and Interpersonal Factors on Perceived News Media Bias

A large percentage of the public believes that the news media are biased, and the majority of these individuals consider the direction of bias to be against their own viewpoints. Past research has examined how individual factors such as strength of partisanship or extent of political involvement heighten bias perceptions, but little attention has been paid to interpersonal factors such as the ideological similarity or dissimilarity of personal communication networks. Results of a national survey show that perceptions of media bias were unrelated to the overall amount of discussion but were positively related to conversations with ideologically like–minded individuals. Moreover, the impact of conversations with similar others was stronger among Republicans than among Democrats, a finding consistent with recent work on news self–coverage of media bias claims.     

从“富士康事件”看员工自杀心理及其预防

最近,富士康集团发生的一系列"跳楼"事件,将这个"代工巨人"推向了舆论的风口浪尖。究竟是工作压力过大还是另有隐情?是个人原因还是企业文化的问题?再反观近几年华为、交通银行、移动公司等一系列的自杀事件,根源又是什么?本文将结合"富士康事件"从心理学角度探讨自杀者所具有的一般心理特征,并就自杀的预防提出了一些建议和对策。     

Nostalgia as a Linking Phenomenon

Immigrants and refugees who leave behind their countries, loved ones, and cultural environment experience loss and are obliged to go through a mourning process which may become complicated due to a variety of factors. Many such individuals create linking objects or linking phenomena that help them to continue to have contact with the past, while adjusting to their new environment. Nostalgia is the affect that accompanies linking objects and linking phenomena and at times functions itself as a linking phenomenon. The lack of nostalgia, poisoned nostalgia, and nostalgia in the service of adaptation are discussed with clinical examples.     

The statistical regression phenomenon: I. A metamodel

A metamodel for the traditional regression concept—consisting of two general parts—is proposed. The first part contains the basic and general definition of the concept, together with the central assumptions. The phenomenon is essentially defined as a conditional trend, predicted within a linear and bivariate regression system for a specified population, and as a function of the imperfectness of the correlation and of the extremeness of the selected score. The second part of the metamodel consists of special cases of the regression phenomenon, which are defined with respect to various psychometrical/distributional aspects, to various "sources" which reduce the correlation coefficient, and to observed and true scores. Also, the general features of the metamodel are elaborated, and correct and incorrect interpretations are pointed out.     

The time course of access to semantic information in high-performing older adults: Behavioral evidence for the hemispheric asymmetry reduction in OLDer individuals

ABSTRACT

The possibility that the HAROLD phenomenon (i.e., Hemispheric Asymmetry Reduction in OLDer adults) is manifested in the course of access to semantic information, in particular the meaning of emotional words, was investigated using the visual half-field priming paradigm. The time course of priming was tracked in the cerebral hemispheres across three SOAs: 150, 300, and 750 ms. The results showed older and young adults had the same level of accuracy. While priming occurred unilaterally in young participants, the pattern of priming in older participants appeared to be bilateral whenever it was present, that is, at the 300- and 750-ms SOAs. The delay in the appearance of priming in older adults may be due to an increase in sensory thresholds that causes older adults to need more time to encode stimuli and fully activate their semantic network. It is concluded that the bilateral pattern of priming in the presence of an equivalent level of performance in older adults provides behavioral evidence supporting the compensatory role of the HAROLD phenomenon for this particular task.     

药物治疗的矛盾现象、产生原因及其处理

药物治疗的矛盾表现在药物的选择和联合、剂型和给药途径、剂量、给药方法和疗程上.而引起药物治疗矛盾的因素主要有病情因素（如病因、诱因、临床表现、并发症和伴发症等）、患者因素（如生理因素、特殊体质、社会人文因素及依从性等）、药物因素（如禁忌证和适应证、药效学、药代动力学、药物不良反应和药物相互作用等）和其他治疗措施（如手术、透析等）4个方面.我们可以通过调整治疗的重点、治疗的措施、治疗的目标或预期结果,以及调整治疗的方案入手解决矛盾,特别需要避免人为的制造、扩大或激化矛盾.