From Noosphere to Theosphere: Cyclotrons, Cyberspace, and Teilhard's Vision of Cosmic Love

Two theme–setting quotations introduce this essay—that of Yeats's falcon, deaf to the falconer's call, adrift in space above the blood–dimmed tide, counterpoised to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin's call to abandon old nationalistic prejudices and build the earth. With primary references to the thought of Teilhard, along with, among others, to Ewert Cousins, Andrew M. Greeley, Karl Jaspers, Marshall McLuhan, Ilya Prigogine, Karl Rahner, Leonard Swidler, David Tracy, and Alfred North Whitehead, I argue that the most crucial intellectual paradigm shift of the twenty–first century will challenge humanity to take the turn from uncritical attachment to rigid absolutism or atomistic fragmentation toward a sense of open–ended, off–centered centeredness and fluid connections—from a static to a dynamic model of reality. Central to my argument is the Teilhardian reinterpretation of the Christian metaphors of creation, fall, incarnation, salvation, and the eschaton in the evolutionary terms of the emergence of cosmic consciousness from the chrysalis of the world of the past—from chaos to order, from biosphere via noosphere to theosphere. Facilitated by the exponential growth of populations, collaborative research, science, technology, and global communication (most dramatically manifested by the Internet), this emergent understanding of what it means to be human can, first, foster the awareness that in humanity evolution has become conscious of itself, and then, gradually, precipitate the formation of “the global village” (the mystical body of Christ), as respectful dialogue replaces diatribe and the dualistic pugilism of Samuel Huntington's “Clash of Civilizations” is gradually transformed into a nonadversarial mentality that values shared humanity and a common purpose. Thus, eons hence, empowered by love–energy, the transmutation of the human into the ultra–human can take the ultimate quantum leap into a yet higher dimension where spirit/energy is no longer in need of flesh/mass, and Earth can be safely left behind.     

Revisiting Westphalia, Discovering Post-westphalia

This article explores the structure of world order fromthe perspective of the Treaty of Westphalia, which is treated asthe benchmark for the emergence of the modern system of sovereignstates. Emphasis is placed on Westphalia as historical event, ideaand ideal, and process of evolution, and also on developments thatsupersede this framing of world politics, especially, globalizationand the megaterrorist challenge of September 11, 2001. At issue is whether the state system is resilient enough to adapt to new globalconditions or is in the process of being supplanted, and whether thesequel to Westphalia is moving toward humane global governance orsome dysutopic variant, or both at once.     

Modeling Clustered Data with Very Few Clusters

Small-sample inference with clustered data has received increased attention recently in the methodological literature, with several simulation studies being presented on the small-sample behavior of many methods. However, nearly all previous studies focus on a single class of methods (e.g., only multilevel models, only corrections to sandwich estimators), and the differential performance of various methods that can be implemented to accommodate clustered data with very few clusters is largely unknown, potentially due to the rigid disciplinary preferences. Furthermore, a majority of these studies focus on scenarios with 15 or more clusters and feature unrealistically simple data-generation models with very few predictors. This article, motivated by an applied educational psychology cluster randomized trial, presents a simulation study that simultaneously addresses the extreme small sample and differential performance (estimation bias, Type I error rates, and relative power) of 12 methods to account for clustered data with a model that features a more realistic number of predictors. The motivating data are then modeled with each method, and results are compared. Results show that generalized estimating equations perform poorly; the choice of Bayesian prior distributions affects performance; and fixed effect models perform quite well. Limitations and implications for applications are also discussed.     

Negation in context: Evidence from the visual world paradigm

Literature assumes that negation is more difficult to understand than affirmation, but this might depend on the pragmatic context. The goal of this paper is to show that pragmatic knowledge modulates the unfolding processing of negation due to the previous activation of the negated situation. To test this, we used the visual world paradigm. In this task, we presented affirmative (e.g., her dad was rich) and negative sentences (e.g., her dad was not poor) while viewing two images of the affirmed and denied entities. The critical sentence in each item was preceded by one of three types of contexts: an inconsistent context (e.g., She supposed that her dad had little savings) that activates the negated situation (a poor man), a consistent context (e.g., She supposed that her dad had enough savings) that activates the actual situation (a rich man), or a neutral context (e.g., her dad lived on the other side of town) that activates neither of the two models previously suggested. The results corroborated our hypothesis. Pragmatics is implicated in the unfolding processing of negation. We found an increase in fixations on the target compared to the baseline for negative sentences at 800?ms in the neutral context, 600?ms in the inconsistent context, and 1450?ms in the consistent context. Thus, when the negated situation has been previously introduced via an inconsistent context, negation is facilitated.     

Reviews

Rottschaefer, William A. The Biology and Psychology of Moral Agency
Mccutcheon, Russell T. Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia
Drengson, Alan The Practice of Technology: Exploring Technology,Ecophilosophy, and Spiritual Disciplines for Vital Links
Burrell, David B. and Mcginn, Bernard (eds.) God and Creation: An Ecumenical Symposium     

What Is Transforming Discipleship?

In 2018, the Conference on World Mission and Evangelism of the World Council of Churches took place in Arusha, Tanzania, on the theme “Moving in the Spirit: Called to Transforming Discipleship.” This article considers how this injunction corresponds to the biblical call, namely to love God more than anyone else; to deny ourselves and to take up the cross; and to abandon all that we have. How well does The Arusha Call to Discipleship describe the ambitious demand of discipleship to which the apostles were called by Jesus Christ? This article offers a critical biblical assessment of the qualities a disciple should have; who can be a disciple; the conditions and requirements of being a disciple according to the gospel; and the path of transforming discipleship in the challenging world in which we live today.     

Infant gaze following depends on communicative signals: An eye‐tracking study of 5‐ to 7‐month‐olds in Vanuatu

Gaze is considered a crucial component of early communication between an infant and her caregiver. When communicatively addressed, infants respond aptly to others’ gaze by following its direction. However, experience with face‐to‐face contact varies across cultures, begging the question whether infants’ competencies in receiving others’ communicative gaze signals are universal or culturally specific . We used eye‐tracking to assess gaze‐following responses of 5‐ to 7‐month olds in Vanuatu, where face‐to‐face parent–infant interactions are less prevalent than in Western populations. We found that—just like Western 6‐month‐olds studied previously—5‐ to ‐7‐month‐olds living in Vanuatu followed gaze only, when communicatively addressed. That is, if presented gaze shifts were preceded by infant‐directed speech, but not if they were preceded by adult‐directed speech. These results are consistent with the notion that early infant gaze following is tied to infants’ early emerging communicative competencies and rooted in universal mechanisms rather than being dependent on cultural specificities of early socialization.