The Upanishads reveal that in the beginning, nothing existed: “This was but non-existence in the beginning. That became existence. That became ready to be manifest”. (Chandogya Upanishad 3.15.1) The creation began from this state of non-existence or nonduality, a state comparable to (0). One can add any number of zeros to (0), but there will be nothing except a big (0) because (0) is a neutral number. If we take (0) as Nirguna Brahman (God without any form and attributes), then (...) from where and how did the universe come into existence? -/- The neutral power (0) cannot produce anything without having an element of duality in it. Although Nirguna Brahman is neutral, it has a positive, negative, and neutral pole, constituting its Prakriti or nature. Prakriti has three latent Gunas (modes or qualities): Satva, Rajas, and Tamas. They are related to Gyana Shakti (the power of knowledge) Sankalpa Shakti (the power of ideation), and Kriya Shakti (the power of action). Science says that Atom is the basic element from which the universe evolved. The Atom has three nuclei- electron, pluton, and neutron. The Satva, Rajas, and Tamas in Indian spirituality are nothing but the mystical names for the nuclei of an atom. -/- According to Bhagavata Purana, Prakriti is also constituted of the elements of Time, Karma (action/destiny) and Swabhava (innate nature). Time disturbs the equilibrium of Gunas. From the aspect of Karma is produced an entity called Mahat, in the form of intelligence. Mahat is dominated by Satva and Rajas. From Mahat manifests the next evolute dominated by Tamas with three predominant qualities – Dravya (substance), Kriya (action), as well as intelligence. It forms to become the Ego principle (Ahamkara). -/- Ahamkara has three modes – Satvic, Rajasic and Tamasic. Satvic is Jnana oriented, Rajasic action-oriented and Tamasic Dravya (substance) oriented. From the Tamasic Ahankara, five gross elements are produced (ether, air, fire, water, and earth - Akash, Vayu, Agni, Jal and Prithvi). From the Satvic Ahamkara, guardian deities (the sun and moon, deities of sense organs, and organs of action) and from Rajasic Ahamkara, ten senses (Indriyas), five senses of perception, five organs of action, the faculties of intellect and Prana (life breath) are produced. -/- Bhagavata says that since these energies, elements, and faculties remained disassociated, they were combined to form a Cosmic Egg. The egg floats in the primal waters for a thousand years. Then God enters this Cosmic Egg and manifests himself as the Cosmic Purusha. He is the first nucleus, the God particle equivalent to the number (1) which is the embodiment of everything in the universe. The concept of creation and dissolution in Hinduism can be compared to the waves in an ocean that appear and disappear incessantly. The Manvantaras are such successive episodes of creation emerging from the Cosmic Person, the Manu who is embodied God-Consciousness, God himself. These episodes of creation are measured in Hinduism in terms of Manvantaras, the epochs of Manus. -/- Manu is the ‘First-Born’ (1) of God, the Cosmic Purusha from whom the world has originated. This Cosmic Person (Purusha) has been described as having fourteen biospheres (heavens) that are inhabited by various life forms in the order of evolution of consciousness. If we begin from the human biosphere (Bhuloka), there are ten astral biospheres that a man must transcend to attain liberation or Mukti from the cycle of births and deaths. -/- The number (1) produces the primary numbers up to (9) through the transmutation of the creational energies and qualities. The process can be related to the descent and cyclical evolution of (1) through ten spiritual stages, finally merging with the nondual (0). The number (10) marks the merger of (1) with (0). The Hindu worldview is that all life forms in an episode of creation must evolve to become one with the non-dual state (0) to attain liberation from the cycle of births and deaths in a cyclical process. -/- . (shrink)

A woman and a man desire to come together stirred by the primal fire of Kama and the man deposits his egg in the womb of the woman. This egg develops into a human undergoing nine or ten months of evolution. This process is the microscopic replication of the method evolved by God to create the universe. Rigveda (10.121) mentions Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Egg as the source of the creation of the universe. It is said that God, wishing to create (...) the world, produced an egg as big as the cosmos. God meditated for a thousand years sitting inside the egg and when the egg burst, the Lord himself was born out of the egg as the Progenitor of the universe (“He made Himself by Himself.”, Taitiriya Upanishad: 2.7.1). The Rishis called the Egg Brahmanda (the Cosmic Egg), and the Progenitor Manu. Scientists have discovered that the universe has an oval shape. Like the nine months of the evolution of the human egg, the Cosmic Egg also undergoes nine stages of evolution before it gets dissolved during what we call ‘Maha Pralaya’. The Puranas mention that Brahmanda has 14 biospheres, seven nether and seven upper inhabited by different types of souls. If we count from the human world, there are ten dimensions of consciousness. Rishis called these astral biospheres Mandalas/Lokas with different wavelengths and colours. Sri Karunakara Guru referred to them as Avasthas, or spiritual stages. The Buddhists and Hindu esoteric sects such as the Theosophical Society explain these levels of the Absolute in terms of Physical plane, Astral plane, Mental plane, Buddhic plane, Atmic plane, Anupadaka plane, Adi plane and Shiv and Shakti. These Avasthas are related to the expanding consciousness reaching up to the core of the Cosmic Egg, the Paramatma. Like a spider which creates a web around it sitting in the centre, and withdraws it in the end, Paramatma creates and withdraws webbed multi-dimensional universes. Nobody can say when it started and when it will end as it is a beginningless and endless process. (shrink)

Background: According to the Declaration of Helsinki, patients who take part in a clinical trial must be adequately informed about the trial's aims, methods, expected benefits, and potential risks. The declaration does not, however, elaborate on what “adequately informed” might amount to, in practice. Medical researchers and Local Research Ethics Committees attempt to ensure that the information which potential participants are given is pitched at an appropriate level, but few studies have considered whether the patients who take part in such (...) trials feel they have been given adequate information, or whether they feel able to understand that information.Objectives: To explore trial participants' views on the amount of information provided, and of their own understanding of that information.Design: Structured interviews of patients participating in clinical trials for the treatment of chronic medical condition.Findings: Patients generally felt they were given an appropriate amount of information, and that they were able to understand all or most of it. They felt they were given adequate time to ask questions before agreeing to take part. In comparison with treatment given outwith the research setting, patients generally felt they received more information when participating in a clinical trial.Conclusions: Researchers sometimes complain that patients are given too much information during clinical trials, and have limited understanding of that information. The present study shows that this perception is not necessarily shared by patients. More research is needed in this area, particularly to gauge whether patient understanding is indeed accurate. (shrink)

This paper argues that, contrary to the claims of Alan Chalmers, Boyle understood his experimental work to be intimately related to his mechanical philosophy. Its central claim is that the mechanical philosophy has a heuristic structure that motivates and gives direction to Boyle's experimental programme. Boyle was able to delimit the scope of possible explanations of any phenomenon by positing both that all qualities are ultimately reducible to a select group of mechanical qualities and that all explanations of natural phenomena (...) are to be in terms of the operations of machines and are to appeal only to qualities that are already familiar. This is illustrated by his investigations into the Torricellian experiment. Boyle's explanation of the elevation of the mercurial cylinder by appeal to the spring of the air was an intermediate mechanical explanation. Boyle was convinced that the spring of the air was ultimately reducible to the mechanical qualities. This in turn had implications for his research into the cause of respiration. In a move that was both parsimonious and consistent with the broad requirements of the mechanical philosophy, Boyle was able to solve the problem of the cause of the inflow of air into the lungs by appeal to his research in pneumatics. This application of a mechanical explanation in pneumatics to physiology is just what one would expect if the mechanical philosophy was as universal as Boyle claimed it to be. Therefore, far from Boyle's experiments having a life of their own, they were clearly directed by and understood in terms of the mechanical philosophy. (shrink)

In recent times, a previously unchallenged and longstanding communis opinio concerning the extant manuscript tradition of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica has been shattered by Prof. W.-W. Ehlers in his revelation that the fifteenth-century Laurentianus plut. 39.38, L, written by the Florentine scholar, Niccolò Niccoli, is independent of the much exalted oldest witness, Vaticanus Latinus 3277, V, copied in Fulda in the second quarter of the ninth century. With equally silent subservience to the hazardous and now discredited principle, vetustissimus et optimus, second (...) place in the tradition had commonly been given to a manuscript of similar age to that of V, namely S, discovered in 1416 at the monastery of St. Gall by three humanist scholars, Poggio Bracciolini, Cencio Rustici and Bartolomeo da Montepulciano, and subsequently lost, except through reconstruction from six extant fifteenth-century apographa, each instantly recognizable from the fact that they contain only 1.1–4.317. Between V and S, however, as Ehlers and others before him have argued, a common exemplar, a, must be deduced to exist. (shrink)

"The Foundations is for the general reader who possesses 'common rational knowledge of morality' but lacks a philosophical theory of it."--Translator's introduction.

India has produced several drafts of data policies. In this work, they are referred to [1] JBNSCR 2018, [2] DPDPR 2018, [3] NSAI 2018, [4] RAITF 2018, [5] PDPB 2019, [6] PRAI 2021, [7] JPCR 2021, [8] IDAUP 2022, [9] IDABNUP 2022. All of them consider Artificial Intelligence (AI) a social problem solver at the societal level, let alone an incentive for economic growth. However, these policy drafts warn of the social disruptions caused by algorithms and encourage the careful use (...) of computational technologies in various social contexts. Hence, the emerging data society and its implications in India's social contexts demand immense social science attention, which needs to be improved in the policy drafts, primarily because they are creations of industry stakeholders, technocrats, bureaucrats, and experts from tech schools. In the larger social milieu of digital infrastructure emerging, the fundamental question is whether India's national philosophy envisioned in the Indian constitution is reflected in the policy papers. The paper enquires whether the national data policy upholds the core values dispersed through the philosophy of the Indian constitution, which, among other things, is not confined only to inclusion, diversity, rights, liberty, justice and equality. By focusing on constitutional values, the paper seeks to offer a broader and more critical understanding of India's approach to AI policy by bringing together analyses of a wide array of policy documents available in the public realm. (shrink)

Pharmacogenomics is a quickly evolving field of research that increasingly impacts individuals and society. As some innovations in biotechnology have experienced strong public opposition during the 1990s, interaction between producers and users of these innovations may help in increasing their success in social and economic terms. However, conditions for effective interaction have so far remained under-explored. This paper explores user-producer interactions in pharmacogenomics from an innovation and science communication perspective in the Netherlands. To find possible ways of engaging stakeholders in (...) an early stage of technology development, ie, when science policy is in the making, we present communication activities derived from the field of policy analysis. To articulate motives for two-way public participation in genomics innovation processes, we describe two levels at which pharmacogenomics developments will have an input:1) at the meso-level of medical practice with already established medical technologies, values and routines, suppliers and health professionals (general practitioners, pharmacists), and 2) at the macro-level of society at large, with established institutions, infrastructures, and broadly shared values and beliefs among citizens in general. Thereby we offer a starting point for optimising decision-making processes in the field of pharmacogenomics innovations, including important aims to be reached, stakeholders to be involved, and some criteria for designing interactive communication activities. (shrink)

Lily Ross Taylor in an interesting recent article on the proportion of freedmen to freeborn in the sepulchral inscriptions of Imperial Rome discusses the increasing omission of status nomenclature by freedmen in the first and second centuries A.D. and the consequent difficulty of determining the status of persons whose names appear in the epitaphs. One contributory factor to this decline in the traditional nomenclature which she mentions is the growing numbers and importance of the freedmen of the emperor, the Augusti (...) liberti. While non-imperial freedmen were anxious to record their acquisition of citizenship, but not their inferior status in the citizen body, the emperor's freedmen, on the other hand, increasingly formalized their status nomenclature so that the formula ‘Aug. lib.’ proclaimed not only the fact of their manumission within the Familia Caesaris but also the higher social status which they enjoyed. An examination of the nomenclature of the Imperial freedmen might help to throw some light on this process, particularly on the problem of dating. (shrink)

The status nomenclature of the Imperial slaves, as that of the Imperial freedmen, is important mainly for its bearing on the difficult problems of dating slave sepulchral inscriptions, but also as a means of determining who were Imperial slaves belonging to the Familia Caesaris with the significant social status this implied. Bang's careful but brief treatment of the subject, published in 1919, was not based on a complete collection of the material—admittedly difficult to obtain—and much has appeared in the interval. (...) Moreover, a deeper analysis of the evidence necessitates some revision of his conclusions. (shrink)

Lily Ross Taylor in an interesting recent article on the proportion of freedmen to freeborn in the sepulchral inscriptions of Imperial Rome discusses the increasing omission of status nomenclature by freedmen in the first and second centuries A.D. and the consequent difficulty of determining the status of persons whose names appear in the epitaphs. One contributory factor to this decline in the traditional nomenclature which she mentions is the growing numbers and importance of the freedmen of the emperor, the Augusti (...) liberti. While non-imperial freedmen were anxious to record their acquisition of citizenship, but not their inferior status in the citizen body, the emperor's freedmen, on the other hand, increasingly formalized their status nomenclature so that the formula ‘Aug. lib.’ proclaimed not only the fact of their manumission within the Familia Caesaris but also the higher social status which they enjoyed. An examination of the nomenclature of the Imperial freedmen might help to throw some light on this process, particularly on the problem of dating. (shrink)

In recent times, a previously unchallenged and longstanding communis opinio concerning the extant manuscript tradition of Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica has been shattered by Prof. W.-W. Ehlers in his revelation that the fifteenth-century Laurentianus plut. 39.38, L, written by the Florentine scholar, Niccolò Niccoli, is independent of the much exalted oldest witness, Vaticanus Latinus 3277, V, copied in Fulda in the second quarter of the ninth century. With equally silent subservience to the hazardous and now discredited principle, vetustissimus et optimus, second (...) place in the tradition had commonly been given to a manuscript of similar age to that of V, namely S, discovered in 1416 at the monastery of St. Gall by three humanist scholars, Poggio Bracciolini, Cencio Rustici and Bartolomeo da Montepulciano, and subsequently lost, except through reconstruction from six extant fifteenth-century apographa, each instantly recognizable from the fact that they contain only 1.1–4.317. Between V and S, however, as Ehlers and others before him have argued, a common exemplar, a, must be deduced to exist. (shrink)