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It is undeniable that we invented God so that our wretchedness might be forbidden by somebody greater than that: God is the dialectical opposite of human imperfections. Ideal entities serve as compensations for wretchedness; that is why the qualities ascribed to the gods delineate by contradiction the failings and servilities of their creators. The absolute is the sum of the compensations for human wretchedness. To create so perfect a notion, one has been obliged to renounce this peculiarity and miserable content. The absolute is powerful because is perfectly empty: it is thanks to this characteristic that it represents the perfection of truth. Nothing can be demonstrated by the absolute: the absolute is precisely that supreme truth that remains indemonstrable. Only the details and the interludes can be demonstrated. Yet it is precisely this impossibility of proving the absolute that makes it irrefutable. It is impossible to shatter a lie which, having no object, cannot be related to anything: the lie, in effect, can be proven only if an object, which is readily and at first glance observed, does not seem consistent; which amounts to saying, in instances without importance. The lie limited by an object can be proven, but never the artifice of construction because that excludes the object. It is in this way that works of art are indestructible, on account of their being separate, like the absolute, from the object. The absolute is the greatest expenditure of energy made by humans; we then seek to recoup the energy expended by means of prayers: from which it is evident that one is unable to separate from them in order to find 16 and of our own.


A dictionary would begin as of the moment when it no longer provided the meanings of words but their tasks. In this way, formless is not only an adjective having such and such a meaning, but a term serving to declassify, requiring in general that everything should have a form. What it designates does not, in any sense whatever, possess rights, and everywhere gets crushed like a spider or an earthworm. For academics to be satisfied, it would be necessary, in effect, for the universe to take on a form. The whole of philosophy has no other aim; it is a question of fitting what exists into a frock­ coat, a mathematical frock-coat. To affirm on the contrary that the universe resembles nothing at all and is only formless, amounts to saying that the universe is something akin to a spider or a gob of spittle.


In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the listener. Typical examples are the echo produced by the bottom of a well, by a building, or by the walls of an enclosed room and an empty room. A true echo is a single reflection of the sound source.

The word echo derives from the Greek ἠχώ (ēchō), itself from ἦχος (ēchos), "sound". Echo in the Greek folk story is a mountain nymph whose ability to speak was cursed, leaving her able only to repeat the last words spoken to her. Some animals use echo for location sensing and navigation, such as cetaceans (dolphins and whales) and bats.


The phenomena of nature are a vast alphabet of symbols - which we draw to forge many of our expressions. Who is not aware of the coup de foudre upon love at first sight], the déjeuner de soleil [flash in the pan], the "brainstorm," and the "avalanche of compliments"? Worn-out as most of these images may be, there is none the less one which remains moving, because of its brutal and implacable concision, a word quite precisely "thrown together" [båclē], with that very haste which characterises disasters - I mean the word débâcle. Employed regarding the war of 1870 by Zola, in a work which bears it as its title, and popularized above all to designate collapses in monetary value and financial crashes, this expression is still today very powerful, all the more powerful, indeed, since given present circumstances, it could pass as prophetic.


Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of a periodically applied force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts. When an oscillating force is applied at a resonant frequency of a dynamic system, the system will oscillate at a higher amplitude than when the same force is applied at other, non-resonant frequencies.

In the field of acoustics, a diaphragm is a transducer intended to inter-convert mechanical vibrations to sounds, or vice versa. It is commonly constructed of a thin membrane or sheet of various materials, suspended at its edges. The varying air pressure of sound waves imparts mechanical vibrations to the diaphragm which can then be converted to some other type of signal; examples of this type of diaphragm are found in microphones and the human eardrum. Conversely a diaphragm vibrated by a source of energy beats against the air, creating sound waves. Examples of this type of diaphragm are loudspeaker cones and earphone diaphragms and are found in air horns.


Like the term ‘(generalized) neoteny’, Simondon uses this term to overcome, better than Henri Bergson did, the opposition between mechanism and vitalism. Mechanism reduces the living to physico-chemical processes; vitalism, on the other hand, renders the living incomprehensible by starting from the physical. In L’Individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information, Simondon takes up a decisive position in this debate, and he is in this sense the precursor of philosophies of ‘emergence’; he conceives of the physical and the living as different types of the same process of polarization. The crystal is polarized, in the same way that the affectivity of the living animal is, and between the two there is a polarization of the cellular membrane, where the first difference between the physical and the living is marked. In the crystal on the path of formation, the limit that is in progress is the one that separates the past from the future. In the living cell, on the other hand, the membrane separates the interior from the exterior since the interior is not past but contemporaneous to the membrane.


Common usage suggests that we speak of the machine as a sub­ set of technology. We should, however, consider the problemat­ic of technology as dependent on machines, and not the inverse. The machine would become the prerequisite for technology rather than its expression. Machinism is an object of fascination, sometimes of delire, about which there's a whole historical "bes­tiary. " Since the origin of philosophy, the relationship between man and machine has been the object of interrogation. Aristotle thought that the goal of techne was to create what nature found impossible to accomplish. Being of the order of "knowledge" and not of "doing," techne interposes a kind of creative mediation between nature and humanity whose status of intercession is a source of perpetual ambiguity. "Mechanist" conceptions of the machine empty it of everything that would enable it to avoid a simple construction partes extra partes. "Vitalist" conceptions assimilate the machine to living beings; unless it is living beings that are assimilated to machines.

Wave propagation is any of the ways in which waves travel. With respect to the direction of the oscillation relative to the propagation direction, we can distinguish between longitudinal wave and transverse waves. For electromagnetic waves, propagation may occur in a vacuum as well as in the material medium. Other wave types cannot propagate through a vacuum and need a transmission medium to exist. The propagation and reflection of plane waves—e.g. Pressure waves (P-Wave) or Shear waves (SH or SV-Waves) are phenomena that were first characterized within the field of classical seismology, and are now considered fundamental concepts in modern seismic tomography. The analytical solution to this problem exists and is well known. The frequency domain solution can be obtained by first finding the Helmholtz decomposition of the displacement field, which is then substituted into the wave equation. From here, the plane wave eigenmodes can be calculated.

The scale ratio of a model represents the proportional ratio of a linear dimension of the model to the same feature of the original. Examples include a 3-dimensional scale model of a building or the scale drawings of the elevations or plans of a building. In such cases the scale is dimensionless and exact throughout the model or drawing. The scale can be expressed in four ways: in words (a lexical scale), as a ratio, as a fraction and as a graphical (bar) scale. Thus on an architect's drawing one might read 'one centimeter to one meter', 1:100, 1/100, or 1/100. A bar scale would also normally appear on the drawing.

Hyperstition is a positive feedback circuit including culture as a component. It can be defined as the experimental (techno-) science of self-fulfilling prophecies. Superstitions are merely false beliefs, but hyperstitions – by their very existence as ideas – function causally to bring about their own reality. Capitalist economics is extremely sensitive to hyperstition, where confidence acts as an effective tonic, and inversely. The (fictional) idea of Cyberspace contributed to the influx of investment that rapidly converted it into a technosocial reality.
Abrahamic Monotheism is also highly potent as a hyperstitional engine. By treating Jerusalem as a holy city with a special world-historic destiny, for example, it has ensured the cultural and political investment that makes this assertion into a truth. Hyperstition is thus able, under ‘favorable’ circumstances whose exact nature requires further investigation, to transmute lies into truths.
Hyperstition can thus be understood, on the side of the subject, as a nonlinear complication of epistemology, based upon the sensitivity of the object to its postulation (although this is quite distinct from the subjectivistic or postmodern stance that dissolves the independent reality of the object into cognitive or semiotic structures). The hyperstitional object is no mere figment of ‘social construction’, but it is in a very real way ‘conjured’ into being by the approach taken to it.

A user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine from the human end, while the machine simultaneously feeds back information that aids the operators' decision-making process. Examples of this broad concept of user interfaces include the interactive aspects of computer operating systems, hand tools, heavy machinery operator controls, and process controls. The design considerations applicable when creating user interfaces are related to, or involve such disciplines as, ergonomics and psychology. User interfaces are composed of one or more layers, including a human–machine interface (HMI) that interfaces machines with physical input hardware such as keyboards, mice, or game pads, and output hardware such as computer monitors, speakers, and printers. A device that implements an HMI is called a human interface device (HID). Other terms for human–machine interfaces are man–machine interface (MMI) and, when the machine in question is a computer, human–computer interface. Additional UI layers may interact with one or more human senses, including: tactile UI (touch), visual UI (sight), auditory UI (sound), olfactory UI (smell), equilibrial UI (balance), and gustatory UI (taste).

In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats. It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, troughs, or zero crossings, and is a characteristic of both traveling waves and standing waves, as well as other spatial wave patterns. The inverse of the wavelength is called the spatial frequency. Wavelength is commonly designated by the Greek letter lambda (λ). The term wavelength is also sometimes applied to modulated waves, and to the sinusoidal envelopes of modulated waves or waves formed by interference of several sinusoids. Assuming a sinusoidal wave moving at a fixed wave speed, wavelength is inversely proportional to frequency of the wave: waves with higher frequencies have shorter wavelengths, and lower frequencies have longer wavelengths. Wavelength depends on the medium (for example, vacuum, air, or water) that a wave travels through. Examples of waves are sound waves, light, water waves and periodic electrical signals in a conductor. A sound wave is a variation in air pressure, while in light and other electromagnetic radiation the strength of the electric and the magnetic field vary. Water waves are variations in the height of a body of water. In a crystal lattice vibration, atomic positions vary. The range of wavelengths or frequencies for wave phenomena is called a spectrum. The name originated with the visible light spectrum but now can be applied to the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as to a sound spectrum or vibration spectrum. 

(from Latin: anima, 'breath, spirit, life')is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Potentially, animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and perhaps even words—as animated and alive. Animism is used in the anthropology of religion as a term for the belief system of many Indigenous peoples, especially in contrast to the relatively more recent development of organised religions. Although each culture has its own different mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to "animism" (or even "religion"); the term is an anthropological construct. Animism encompasses the beliefs that all material phenomena have agency, that there exists no categorical distinction between the spiritual and physical (or material) world and that soul or spirit or sentience exists not only in humans but also in other animals, plants, rocks, geographic features such as mountains or rivers or other entities of the natural environment: water sprites, vegetation deities, tree spirits, etc. Animism may further attribute a life force to abstract concepts such as words, true names, or metaphors in mythology. Some members of the non-tribal world also consider themselves animists (such as author Daniel Quinn, sculptor Lawson Oyekan, and many contemporary Pagans).

In axiomatic set theory and the branches of logic, mathematics, and computer science that use it, the axiom of extensionality, or axiom of extension, is one of the axioms of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory. It says that sets having the same elements are the same set.

The present (or here and now) is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is a period of time between the past and the future, and can vary in meaning from being an instant to a day or longer. It is sometimes represented as a hyperplane in space-time, typically called "now", although modern physics demonstrates that such a hyperplane cannot be defined uniquely for observers in relative motion. The present may also be viewed as a duration (see specious present).


It would be necessary to say: non-aesthetics. The plural designates the fragmentation of the grand traditional text of the thought of art, and the eventual extraction of possible aesthetics issuing from particular generalizations (non- Bachelardian, non-Kierkegaardian, non-Baudelairian, etc.) which are still philosophical symptoms of a universal non-aesthetic in the radical sense of this word. The term is not directly present in philosophy. It nevertheless retains an air of familiarity with the philosophical concept of non-philosophy from which it seems to present a sort of analogical prolonging under the form of a particular application to the artistic domain. This is a new way of thinking philosophy in recourse to peripheral categories traditionally belonging to the artistic domain. For example, to this procedure corresponds the reflection on hypnotism in Bergsonian Givens. The aesthetic illusions surrounding storybook hypnotism intends the restoration of a simulation of duration through the fragmented tools of expression. The “non-”philosophical is then a peripheral manner of recommencing philosophy. This activity of philosophy since its pictorial, literary, etc. margins is not merely contemporary (Derridian or Deleuzian). It corresponds to a very ancient use incessantly reactualized. Let us designate it with the term “non aesthetics,” without the feature of a union, so as to differentiate it from its rigorous or non-philosophical usage. This is essentially a more or less differentiated mimesis, thus a cloning still imaginary or intra-philosophical.

Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism or noctambulism, is a phenomenon of combined sleep and wakefulness. It is classified as a sleep disorder belonging to the parasomnia family. It occurs during slow wave sleep stage, in a state of low consciousness, with performance of activities that are usually performed during a state of full consciousness. These activities can be as benign as talking, sitting up in bed, walking to a bathroom, consuming food, and cleaning, or as hazardous as cooking, driving a motor vehicle, violent gestures and grabbing at hallucinated objects. Sleepwalking occurs during slow-wave sleep (N3) of non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM sleep) cycles. It typically occurs within the first third of the night when slow-wave sleep is most prominent. Usually, it will occur once in a night, if at all.

A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication or non-vocal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of, or in conjunction with, speech. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body. Gestures differ from physical non-verbal communication that does not communicate specific messages, such as purely expressive displays, proxemics, or displays of joint attention. Gesture is pronounced with a soft 'g' sound as jeschur, but in some areas of the UK and other parts of the world it is also pronounced with a hard 'g' as geschur due to different regional dialects. Gestures allow individuals to communicate a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and affection, often together with body language in addition to words when they speak. Gesticulation and speech work independently of each other, but join to provide emphasis and meaning.

Volume is a scalar quantity expressing the amount of three-dimensional space enclosed by a closed surface. For example, the space that a substance (solid, liquid, gas, or plasma) or 3D shape occupies or contains. Volume is often quantified numerically using the SI derived unit, the cubic metre. The volume of a container is generally understood to be the capacity of the container; i.e., the amount of fluid (gas or liquid) that the container could hold, rather than the amount of space the container itself displaces. Three dimensional mathematical shapes are also assigned volumes. Volumes of some simple shapes, such as regular, straight-edged, and circular shapes can be easily calculated using arithmetic formulas. Volumes of complicated shapes can be calculated with integral calculus if a formula exists for the shape's boundary. One-dimensional figures (such as lines) and two-dimensional shapes (such as squares) are assigned zero volume in the three-dimensional space. The volume of a solid (whether regularly or irregularly shaped) can be determined by fluid displacement. Displacement of liquid can also be used to determine the volume of a gas. The combined volume of two substances is usually greater than the volume of just one of the substances. However, sometimes one substance dissolves in the other and in such cases the combined volume is not additive.

Borders are geographic boundaries, imposed either by geographic features such as oceans, or by arbitrary groupings of political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Borders are established through warfare, colonization, or simple symbiotic agreements between the political entities that reside in those areas; the creation of these agreements is called boundary delimitation. Some borders—such as most states' internal administrative borders, or inter-state borders within the Schengen Area—are open and completely unguarded. Most external borders are partially or fully controlled, and may be crossed legally only at designated border checkpoints; adjacent border zones may also be controlled. Borders may even foster the setting up of buffer zones. A difference has also been established in academic scholarship between border and frontier, the latter denoting a state of mind rather than state boundaries.

Most materialists, despite wanting eliminate all spiritual entities, ended up describing an order of things whose hierarchical relations mark out as specifically idealist. They have situated dead matter at the summit of a conventional hierarchy of diverse types of facts, without realizing that in this way they have submitted to an obsession with an ideal form of matter, with a form which approaches closer than any other to that which matter should be. Dead matter, the pure idea, and God, all in fact answer a question in the same way - perfectly, and as flatly as a docile student in a classroom - question that can perhaps only be posed by idealist philosophers, the question of the essence of things, in other words of exactly the idea by means of which things become intelligible. The classical materialists did not really even substitute causation the quamobrem, that is to say, determinism for destiny, the past for the future). Due to the functional role they are unconsciously attributed to the idea of ​​science, their need for external authority in fact placed the must be on all appearance. If the principle of things they defined constitutes precisely the stable element that permitted science to acquire an apparently unshakeable position, a veritable divine eternity, this choice cannot be attributed to chance. Most materialists have simply substituted the conformity of dead matter to the idea of ​​science for the religious relations earlier established between the divinity and his the must be (the quare for the one being the idea of ​​the others.

Oikophobia (Greek: oîkos, 'house, household' + phóbos, 'fear'; related to domatophobia and ecophobia) is an aversion to a home environment, or an abnormal fear (phobia) of one's home. In psychiatry, the term is also more narrowly used to indicate a phobia of the contents of a house: "fear of household appliances, equipment, bathtubs, household chemicals, and other common objects in the home." In contrast, domatophobia specifically refers to the fear of a house itself. The term has been used in political contexts to refer critically to political ideologies that are held to repudiate one's own culture and laud others. One prominent such usage was by Roger Scruton in his 2004 book England and the Need for Nations.

System dynamics is an aspect of systems theory. A method to understand the dynamic behavior of complex systems. The basis of the method is the recognition that the structure of any system, the many circular, interlocking, sometimes time-delayed relationships among its components, is often just as important in determining its behavior as the individual components themselves. Examples are chaos theory and social dynamics. It is also claimed that because there are often properties-of-the-whole which cannot be found among the properties-of-the-elements, in some cases the behavior of the whole cannot be explained in terms of the behavior of the parts.

In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the carrier signal, with a separate signal called the modulation signal that typically contains information to be transmitted. For example, the modulation signal might be an audio signal representing sound from a microphone, a video signal representing moving images from a video camera, or a digital signal representing a sequence of binary digits, a bitstream from a computer. The carrier is higher in frequency than the modulation signal. The purpose of modulation is to impress the information on the carrier wave, which is used to carry the information to another location. In radio communication the modulated carrier is transmitted through space as a radio wave to a radio receiver. Another purpose is to transmit multiple channels of information through a single communication medium, using frequency division multiplexing (FDM). For example in cable television which uses FDM, many carrier signals, each modulated with a different television channel, are transported through a single cable to customers. Since each carrier occupies a different frequency, the channels do not interfere with each other. At the destination end, the carrier signal is demodulated to extract the information bearing modulation signal. A modulator is a device or circuit that performs modulation. A demodulator (sometimes detector) is a circuit that performs demodulation, the inverse of modulation. A modem (from modulator–demodulator), used in bidirectional communication, can perform both operations. The frequency band occupied by the modulation signal is called the baseband, while the higher frequency band occupied by the modulated carrier is called the passband. 

Affordance is what the environment offers the individual. James J. Gibson coined the term in his 1966 book, The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, and it occurs in many of his earlier essays. However, his best-known definition is taken from his seminal 1979 book, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception:
The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good or ill. The verb to afford is found in the dictionary, the noun affordance is not. I have made it up. I mean by it something that refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environment.

Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began with AM radio, which came into popular use around 1920 with the spread of vacuum tube radio transmitters and receivers. Before this, all forms of electronic communication (early radio, telephone, and telegraph) were one-to-one, with the message intended for a single recipient. The term broadcasting evolved from its use as the agricultural method of sowing seeds in a field by casting them broadly about. It was later adopted for describing the widespread distribution of information by printed materials or by telegraph. Examples applying it to "one-to-many" radio transmissions of an individual station to multiple listeners appeared as early as 1898.

Sadomasochism (/ˌseɪdoʊˈmæsəkɪzəm/ SAY-doh-MASS-ə-kiz-əm) is the giving and receiving of pleasure from acts involving the receipt or infliction of pain or humiliation. Practitioners of sadomasochism may seek sexual pleasure from their acts. While the terms sadist and masochist refer respectively to one who enjoys giving and receiving pain, some practitioners of sadomasochism may switch between activity and passivity.

(from Latin tectonicus; from Ancient Greek τεκτονικός (tektonikos) 'pertaining to building') are the processes that control the structure and properties of the Earth's crust and its evolution through time. These include the processes of mountain building, the growth and behavior of the strong, old cores of continents known as cratons, and the ways in which the relatively rigid plates that constitute the Earth's outer shell interact with each other. Tectonics also provide a framework for understanding the earthquake and volcanic belts that directly affect much of the global population.

In physics, attenuation or, in some contexts, extinction is the gradual loss of flux intensity through a medium. For instance, dark glasses attenuate sunlight, lead attenuates X-rays, and water and air attenuate both light and sound at variable attenuation rates. Hearing protectors help reduce acoustic flux from flowing into the ears. This phenomenon is called acoustic attenuation and is measured in decibels (dBs). In electrical engineering and telecommunications, attenuation affects the propagation of waves and signals in electrical circuits, in optical fibers, and in air. Electrical attenuators and optical attenuators are commonly manufactured components in this field. 

In parapsychology, an apparitional experience is an anomalous experience characterized by the apparent perception of either a living being or an inanimate object without there being any material stimulus for such a perception.
In academic discussion, the term "apparitional experience" is to be preferred to the term "ghost" in respect of the following points: The term ghost implies that some element of the human being survives death and, at least under certain circumstances, can make itself perceptible to living human beings. There are other competing explanations of apparitional experiences.

In scientific visualization and computer graphics, volume rendering is a set of techniques used to display a 2D projection of a 3D discretely sampled data set, typically a 3D scalar field. A typical 3D data set is a group of 2D slice images acquired by a CT, MRI, or MicroCT scanner. Usually these are acquired in a regular pattern (e.g., one slice for each millimeter of depth) and usually have a regular number of image pixels in a regular pattern. This is an example of a regular volumetric grid, with each volume element, or voxel represented by a single value that is obtained by sampling the immediate area surrounding the voxel. To render a 2D projection of the 3D data set, one first needs to define a camera in space relative to the volume. Also, one needs to define the opacity and color of every voxel. This is usually defined using an RGBA (for red, green, blue, alpha) transfer function that defines the RGBA value for every possible voxel value.

Enclosure or Inclosure[a] is a term that refers to the appropriation of "waste[b]" or "common land[c]" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their ancient rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land could be either through a "formal" or "informal" process. The process could normally be accomplished in three ways. First there was the creation of "closes[d]", taken out of larger common fields by their owners.[e] Secondly, there was enclosure by proprietors, owners who acted together, usually small farmers or squires, leading to the enclosure of whole parishes. Finally there were enclosures by Acts of Parliament. The primary reason for enclosure was to improve the efficiency of the agriculture. However, there were other motives too, one example being that the value of the land enclosed would be substantially increased. There were social consequences to the policy, with many protests at the removal of rights from the common people. Enclosure riots are seen by historians as 'the pre-eminent form' of social protest from the 1530s to 1640s. 

Agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of deliberate, culturally-induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data. More generally, the term also highlights the condition where more knowledge of a subject leaves one more uncertain than before. Coined in 1995 by Stanford University professor Robert N. Proctor, along with linguist Iain Boal, the word is based on the Neoclassical Greek word agnōsis (ἄγνωσις, 'not knowing'; cf. Attic Greek ἄγνωτος, 'unknown') and -logia (-λογία). Proctor cites as a prime example the tobacco industry's 40-year public relations campaign to manufacture doubt about the adverse health effects of tobacco use. This technique and its subsequent adoption by the fossil fuel industry in a similar campaign against the scientific consensus on climate change is the focus of the 2010 book Merchants of Doubt by Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. Active causes of culturally-induced ignorance can include the influence of the media, corporations, and governmental agencies, through secrecy and suppression of information, document destruction, and selective memory. Another example is climate change denial, where oil companies paid teams of scientists to downplay the effects of climate change. Passive causes include structural information bubbles, including those created by segregation along racial and class lines, that create differential access to information. Agnotology also focuses on how and why diverse forms of knowledge do not "come to be," or are ignored or delayed. For example, knowledge about plate tectonics was censored and delayed for at least a decade because some evidence remained classified military information related to undersea warfare.

Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. When surfaces in contact move relative to each other, the friction between the two surfaces converts kinetic energy into thermal energy (that is, it converts work to heat). This property can have dramatic consequences, as illustrated by the use of friction created by rubbing pieces of wood together to start a fire. Kinetic energy is converted to thermal energy whenever motion with friction occurs, for example when a viscous fluid is stirred. Another important consequence of many types of friction can be wear, which may lead to performance degradation or damage to components. Friction is a component of the science of tribology. Friction is not itself a fundamental force. Dry friction arises from a combination of inter-surface adhesion, surface roughness, surface deformation, and surface contamination. The complexity of these interactions makes the calculation of friction from first principles impractical and necessitates the use of empirical methods for analysis and the development of theory.

According to ancient and medieval science, aether (/ˈiːθər/, alternative spellings include æther, aither, and ether), also known as the fifth element or quintessence, is the material that fills the region of the universe beyond the terrestrial sphere.[1] The concept of aether was used in several theories to explain several natural phenomena, such as the traveling of light and gravity. In the late 19th century, physicists postulated that aether permeated all throughout space, providing a medium through which light could travel in a vacuum, but evidence for the presence of such a medium was not found in the Michelson–Morley experiment, and this result has been interpreted as meaning that no such luminiferous aether exists.

Drafting or slipstreaming is an aerodynamic technique where two vehicles or other moving objects are caused to align in a close group, reducing the overall effect of drag due to exploiting the lead object's slipstream. Especially when high speeds are involved, as in motor racing and cycling, drafting can significantly reduce the paceline's average energy expenditure required to maintain a certain speed and can also slightly reduce the energy expenditure of the lead vehicle or object.

Psychologists most commonly use the term "identity" to describe personal identity, or the idiosyncratic things that make a person unique. Sociologists, however, often use the term to describe social identity, or the collection of group memberships that define the individual. However, these uses are not proprietary, and each discipline may use either concept and each discipline may combine both concepts when considering a person's identity. It is what it is. Social psychologists may speak of "psycho-social identity". Neuroscientists draw upon these fields to study the neurobiological basis of personal and social identity.

Interpreting is a translational activity in which one produces a first and final translation on the basis of a one-time exposure to an expression in a source language. The most common two modes of interpreting are simultaneous interpreting, which is done at the time of the exposure to the source language, and consecutive interpreting, which is done at breaks to this exposure.

A vacuum is a space devoid of matter. The word is derived from the Latin adjective vacuus for "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure. Physicists often discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they sometimes simply call "vacuum" or free space, and use the term partial vacuum to refer to an actual imperfect vacuum as one might have in a laboratory or in space. In engineering and applied physics on the other hand, vacuum refers to any space in which the pressure is considerably lower than atmospheric pressure. The Latin term in vacuo is used to describe an object that is surrounded by a vacuum.

§01.Acceleration is initially proposed as a cybernetic expectation. In any cumulative circuit, stimulated by its own output, and therefore self-propelled, acceleration is normal behavior. Within the diagram­ mable terrain of feedback directed processes, there are found only explosions and traps, in their various complexions. Accelerationism identifies the basic diagram of modernity as explosive.

§02. Explosions are manifestly dangerous. from any perspective that is really (which is to say historically) instantiated. Only in the most radically anomalous cases can they be durably sustained. It is the firm prediction of accelerationism, therefore, that the typical practical topic of modern civilization will be the controlled explosion, commonly translated as governance. or regulation.

Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service, or practice is no longer maintained, required, or degraded even though it may still be in good working order. The international standard IEC 62402:2019 Obsolescence Management defines obsolescence as the "transition from available to unavailable from the manufacturer in accordance with the original specification". Obsolescence frequently occurs because a replacement has become available that has, in sum, more advantages compared to the disadvantages incurred by maintaining or repairing the original. Obsolete also refers to something that is already disused or discarded, or antiquated. Typically, obsolescence is preceded by a gradual decline in popularity. 

In eighteenth and nineteenth century German philosophy, Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst] ("spirit of the age") is an invisible agent or force dominating the characteristics of a given epoch in world history. Now the term is usually associated with Georg W.F. Hegel, contrasting with Hegel's use of Volksgeist "national spirit" and Weltgeist "world-spirit". Its coinage and popularization precedes Hegel, and is mostly due to Herder and Goethe. Other philosophers who were associated with such concepts include Spencer[year needed] and Voltaire. Contemporary use of the term may, more pragmatically refer to a schema of fashions or fads that prescribes what is considered to be acceptable or tasteful for an era, e.g. in the field of architecture. 

In mathematics, particularly in category theory, a morphism is a structure-preserving map from one mathematical structure to another one of the same type. The notion of morphism recurs in much of contemporary mathematics. In set theory, morphisms are functions; in linear algebra, linear transformations; in group theory, group homomorphisms; in topology, continuous functions, and so on. In category theory, morphism is a broadly similar idea: the mathematical objects involved need not be sets, and the relationships between them may be something other than maps, although the morphisms between the objects of a given category have to behave similarly to maps in that they have to admit an associative operation similar to function composition. A morphism in category theory is an abstraction of a homomorphism.

Paths play an important role in the fields of Topology and Mathematical analysis. For example, a topological space for which there exists a path connecting any two points is said to be path-connected. Any space may be broken up into path-connected components. The set of path-connected components of a space X {\displaystyle X} X is often denoted π 0 ( X ) . {\displaystyle \pi _{0}(X).} {\displaystyle \pi _{0}(X).} One can also define paths and loops in pointed spaces, which are important in homotopy theory. If X {\displaystyle X} X is a topological space with basepoint x 0 , {\displaystyle x_{0},} x_0, then a path in X {\displaystyle X} X is one whose initial point is x 0 {\displaystyle x_{0}} x_{0}. Likewise, a loop in X {\displaystyle X} X is one that is based at x 0 {\displaystyle x_{0}} x_{0}.

In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscule in older texts) is a small localized object to which can be ascribed several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from subatomic particles like the electron, to microscopic particles like atoms and molecules, to macroscopic particles like powders and other granular materials. Particles can also be used to create scientific models of even larger objects depending on their density, such as humans moving in a crowd or celestial bodies in motion. The term particle is rather general in meaning, and is refined as needed by various scientific fields. Anything that is composed of particles may be referred to as being particulate. However, the noun particulate is most frequently used to refer to pollutants in the Earth's atmosphere, which are a suspension of unconnected particles, rather than a connected particle aggregation. 

In digital audio using Pulse-Code Modulation (PCM), bit depth is the number of bits of information in each sample, and it directly corresponds to the resolution of each sample. Examples of bit depth include Compact Disc Digital Audio, which uses 16 bits per sample, and DVD-Audio and Blu-Ray Disc which can support up to 24 bits per sample. In basic implementations, variations in bit depth primarily affect the noise level from quantization error—thus the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) and dynamic range. However, techniques such as dithering, noise shaping and oversampling mitigate these effects without changing the bit depth. Bit depth also affects bit rate and file size.

In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave (a continuous signal) to a sequence of samples (a discrete-time signal). A sample is a value or set of values at a point in time and/or space. A sampler is a subsystem or operation that extracts samples from a continuous signal. A theoretical ideal sampler produces samples equivalent to the instantaneous value of the continuous signal at the desired points. The original signal is retrievable from a sequence of samples, up to the Nyquist Limit, by passing the sequence of samples through a type of low pass filter called a reconstruction filter. 

Gloom is a low level of light which is so dim that there are physiological and psychological effects. Human vision at this level becomes monochrome and has lessened clarity. Light conditions may be considered gloomy when the level of light in an environment is too low for the proper function of cone cells, and colour vision is lost. In a study by Rothwell and Campbell, light levels described as "gloomy" fell between 28 and 3.6 cd/m^-2.Low light and lack of colour of this sort may be associated with depression and lethargy. This association was made as far back as the 2nd century by the ancient Greek physician, Aretaeus of Cappadocia, who said, "Lethargics are to be laid in the light and exposed to the rays of the sun, for the disease is gloom." Also, some studies have found weaker electrical activity in the retinas of depressed people, which gave the individuals studied poor visual contrast, meaning that they saw the world in grayer hues. The naturally weak daylight during winter at extreme latitudes can cause seasonal affective disorder, although a percentage of people experience SAD during summer. A solarium or other source of bright light may be used as light therapy to treat winter SAD. 

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Feedback occurs when outputs of a system are routed back as inputs as part of a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The system can then be said to feed back into itself. Self-regulating mechanisms have existed since antiquity, and the idea of feedback had started to enter economic theory in Britain by the 18th century, but it was not at that time recognized as a universal abstraction and so did not have a name. The first ever known artificial feedback device was a float valve, for maintaining water at a constant level, invented in 270 BC in Alexandria, Egypt. This device illustrated the principle of feedback: a low water level opens the valve, the rising water then provides feedback into the system, closing the valve when the required level is reached. This then reoccurs in a circular fashion as the water level fluctuates.

In category theory, a branch of mathematics, a stable ∞-category is an ∞-category such that
(i) It has a zero object.
(ii) Every morphism in it admits a fiber and cofiber.
(iii) A triangle in it is a fiber sequence if and only if it is a cofiber sequence.
The homotopy category of a stable ∞-category is triangulated. A stable ∞-category admits finite limits and colimits.
Examples: the derived category of an abelian category and the ∞-category of spectra are both stable.
A stabilization of an ∞-category C having finite limits and base point is a functor from the stable ∞-category S to C. It preserves limit. The objects in the image have the structure of infinite loop spaces; whence, the notion is a generalization of the corresponding notion (stabilization (topology)) in classical algebraic topology.
By definition, the t-structure of a stable ∞-category is the t-structure of its homotopy category. Let C be a stable ∞-category with a t-structure. Then every filtered object X ( i ) , i ∈ Z {\displaystyle X(i),i\in \mathbb {Z} } X(i),i\in {\mathbb {Z}} in C gives rise to a spectral sequence E r p , q {\displaystyle E_{r}^{p,q}} E_{r}^{{p,q}}, which, under some conditions, converges to π p + q colim ⁡ X ( i ) . {\displaystyle \pi _{p+q}\operatorname {colim} X(i).} \pi _{{p+q}}\operatorname {colim}X(i).[4] By the Dold–Kan correspondence, this generalizes the construction of the spectral sequence associated to a filtered chain complex of abelian groups.

In telecommunications, transmission is the process of sending and propagating an analog or digital signal using a wired, optical, or wireless electromagnetic transmission medium. Transmission of a digital message, or of a digitized analog signal, is known as data transmission.Transmission technologies typically refer to physical layer protocol duties such as modulation, demodulation, line coding, equalization, error control, bit synchronization and multiplexing, but it may also involve higher-layer protocol duties, for example, digitizing an analog signal, and data compression. Examples of transmission are the sending of signals with limited duration, for example, a block or packet of data, a phone call, or an email. 

A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of a physical quantity. The protocol defines the rules, syntax, semantics and synchronization of communication and possible error recovery methods. Protocols may be implemented by hardware, software, or a combination of both.Communicating systems use well-defined formats for exchanging various messages. Each message has an exact meaning intended to elicit a response from a range of possible responses pre-determined for that particular situation. The specified behavior is typically independent of how it is to be implemented. Communication protocols have to be agreed upon by the parties involved. To reach an agreement, a protocol may be developed into a technical standard. A programming language describes the same for computations, so there is a close analogy between protocols and programming languages: protocols are to communication what programming languages are to computations. An alternate formulation states that protocols are to communication what algorithms are to computation.Internet communication protocols are published by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) handles wired and wireless networking and the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) handles other types. The ITU-T handles telecommunication protocols and formats for the public switched telephone network (PSTN). As the PSTN and Internet converge, the standards are also being driven towards convergence. 

Space is the boundless three-dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction. In classical physics, physical space is often conceived in three linear dimensions, although modern physicists usually consider it, with time, to be part of a boundless four-dimensional continuum known as spacetime. The concept of space is considered to be of fundamental importance to an understanding of the physical universe. However, disagreement continues between philosophers over whether it is itself an entity, a relationship between entities, or part of a conceptual framework.

Perception (from the Latin perceptio, meaning gathering or receiving) is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system, which in turn result from physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system. For example, vision involves light striking the retina of the eye; smell is mediated by odor molecules; and hearing involves pressure waves. Perception is not only the passive receipt of these signals, but it's also shaped by the recipient's learning, memory, expectation, and attention. Sensory input is a process that transforms this low-level information to higher-level information (e.g., extracts shapes for object recognition). The process that follows connects a person's concepts and expectations (or knowledge), restorative and selective mechanisms (such as attention) that influence perception. Perception depends on complex functions of the nervous system, but subjectively seems mostly effortless because this processing happens outside conscious awareness.

Acoustic enhancement is a subtle type of sound reinforcement system used to augment direct, reflected, or reverberant sound. While sound reinforcement systems are usually used to increase the sound level of the sound source (like a person speaking into a microphone, or musical instruments in a pop ensemble), acoustic enhancement systems are typically used to increase the acoustic energy in the venue in a manner that is not noticed by the audience. The correctly installed systems replicate the desired acoustics of early reflections and reverberation from a room that is properly designed for Acoustic Music. An additional benefit of these systems is that the room acoustics can be changed or adjusted to be matched to the type of performance. The use of Acoustic Enhancement as Electronic Architecture offers a good solution for multi-use performance halls that need to be "dead" for amplified music, and are used occasionally for acoustic performances. These systems are often associated with acoustic sound sources like a chamber orchestra, symphony orchestra, or opera, but have also found acceptance in a variety of applications and venues that include rehearsal rooms, recording facilities conference rooms, sound stages, sports arenas, and outdoor venues.

Impurities are chemical substances inside a confined amount of liquid, gas, or solid, which differ from the chemical composition of the material or compound. Firstly, a pure chemical should appear thermodynamically in at least one chemical phase and can also be characterized by its one-component-phase diagram. Secondly, practically speaking, a pure chemical should prove to be homogeneous (i.e., will show no change of properties after undergoing a wide variety of consecutive analytical chemical procedures). The perfect pure chemical will pass all attempts and tests of further separation and purification. Thirdly, and here we focus on the common chemical definition, it should not contain any trace of any other kind of chemical species. In reality, there are no absolutely 100% pure chemical compounds, as there is always some minute contamination. Indeed, as detection limits in analytical chemistry decrease, the number of impurities detected tends to increase.

In imperative programming, a computer program is a sequence of instructions in a programming language that a computer can execute or interpret. In declarative programming, a computer program is a set of instructions. A computer program in its human-readable form is called source code. Source code needs another computer program to execute because computers can only execute their native machine instructions. Therefore, source code may be translated to machine instructions using the language's compiler. (Machine language programs are translated using an assembler.) The resulting file is called an executable. Alternatively, source code may execute within the language's interpreter. The programming language Java compiles into an a intermediate form which is then executed by a Java interpreter.

The term “orality” refers to the structures of consciousness found in cultures that do not employ –or employ minimally–, the technologies of writing. Walter J. Ong’s work was foundational for the study of orality, and reminds us that despite the striking success and subsequent power of written language, the vast majority of languages are never written, and the basic orality of language is permanent.

In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F {\displaystyle F} F of some real variable t {\displaystyle t} t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t {\displaystyle t} t. It is denoted ϕ ( t ) {\displaystyle \phi (t)} \phi (t) and expressed in such a scale that it varies by one full turn as the variable t {\displaystyle t} t goes through each period (and F ( t ) {\displaystyle F(t)} F(t) goes through each complete cycle). It may be measured in any angular unit such as degrees or radians, thus increasing by 360° or 2 π {\displaystyle 2\pi } 2\pi as the variable t {\displaystyle t} t completes a full period. This convention is especially appropriate for a sinusoidal function, since its value at any argument t {\displaystyle t} t then can be expressed as the sine of the phase ϕ ( t ) {\displaystyle \phi (t)} \phi (t), multiplied by some factor (the amplitude of the sinusoid). (The cosine may be used instead of sine, depending on where one considers each period to start.)

Amplitude, in physics, the maximum displacement or distance moved by a point on a vibrating body or wave measured from its equilibrium position. It is equal to one-half the length of the vibration path. The amplitude of a periodic variable is a measure of its change in a single period (such as time or spatial period). There are various definitions of amplitude, which are all functions of the magnitude of the differences between the variable's extreme values. In older texts, the phase of a periodic function is sometimes called the amplitude.

The density (more precisely, the volumetric mass density; also known as specific mass), of a substance is its mass per unit volume. The symbol most often used for density is ρ (the lower case Greek letter rho), although the Latin letter D can also be used. Mathematically, density is defined as mass divided by volume:

ρ = m V {\displaystyle \rho ={\frac {m}{V}}} {\displaystyle \rho ={\frac {m}{V}}}

where ρ is the density, m is the mass, and V is the volume. In some cases (for instance, in the United States oil and gas industry), density is loosely defined as its weight per unit volume, although this is scientifically inaccurate – this quantity is more specifically called specific weight.

(French: multiplicité) is a philosophical concept developed by Edmund Husserl and Henri Bergson from Riemann's description of the mathematical concept. It forms an important part of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, particularly in his collaboration with Félix Guattari, Capitalism and Schizophrenia (1972–80). In his Foucault (1986), Deleuze describes Michel Foucault's The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969) as "the most decisive step yet taken in the theory-practice of multiplicities."

Determination is a positive emotional feeling that involves persevering towards a difficult goal in spite of obstacles. Determination occurs prior to goal attainment and serves to motivate behavior that will help achieve one's goal. Empirical research suggests that people consider determination to be an emotion; in other words, determination is not just a cognitive state, but rather an affective state.[3] In the psychology literature, researchers have studied determination under other terms, including challenge and anticipatory enthusiasm; this may explain one reason for the relative lack of research on determination compared to other positive emotions.

Physicalism is closely related to materialism. Physicalism grew out of materialism with advancements of the physical sciences in explaining observed phenomena. The terms are often used interchangeably, although they are sometimes distinguished, for example on the basis of physics describing more than just matter (including energy and physical law).

In statistics, the range of a set of data is the difference between the largest and smallest values. Difference here is specific, the range of a set of data is the result of subtracting the sample maximum and minimum. However, in descriptive statistics, this concept of range has a more complex meaning. The range is the size of the smallest interval (statistics) which contains all the data and provides an indication of statistical dispersion. It is measured in the same units as the data. Since it only depends on two of the observations, it is most useful in representing the dispersion of small data sets.

An archive is an accumulation of historical records – in any media – or the physical facility in which they are located.[1] Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization's lifetime, and are kept to show the function of that person or organization. Professional archivists and historians generally understand archives to be records that have been naturally and necessarily generated as a product of regular legal, commercial, administrative, or social activities. They have been metaphorically defined as "the secretions of an organism", and are distinguished from documents that have been consciously written or created to communicate a particular message to posterity.

In anthropology, liminality (from the Latin word līmen, meaning "a threshold") is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete. During a rite's liminal stage, participants "stand at the threshold" between their previous way of structuring their identity, time, or community, and a new way, which completing the rite establishes.

A patch is a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, with such patches usually being called bugfixes or bug fixes. Patches are often written to improve the functionality, usability, or performance of a program. The majority of patches are provided by software vendors for operating system and application updates. atches may be installed either under programmed control or by a human programmer using an editing tool or a debugger. They may be applied to program files on a storage device, or in computer memory. Patches may be permanent (until patched again) or temporary.

In developmental psychology and moral, political, and bioethical philosophy, autonomy is the capacity to make an informed, uncoerced decision. Autonomous organizations or institutions are independent or self-governing. Autonomy can also be defined from a human resources perspective, where it denotes a (relatively high) level of discretion granted to an employee in his or her work. In such cases, autonomy is known to generally increase job satisfaction. Self-actualized individuals are thought to operate autonomously of external expectations. In a medical context, respect for a patient's personal autonomy is considered one of many fundamental ethical principles in medicine.

Gilbert Simondon utilises transduction, which is at the same time technological and biological, in order to give it a new meaning, one that will become absolutely central in the thought of individuation. In Piaget’s work, transduction refers to a mental operation that is different from both the deductive and inductive operations. One finds the same understanding of transduction in Simondon, but just as with the term ontogenesis, the term ‘transduction’ refers first of all to the process of individuation of the real itself. This is why transduction is defined as ‘a physical, biological, mental, social operation through which an activity propagates gradually within a domain, by founding this propagation on a structuration of the domain that is realized from one place to the next’. The paradigm or exemplary case of transduction is therefore crystallization, in so far as it is ‘the simplest image of the transductive operation’. It is understood here that the notion of transduction is susceptible to auto-complexification, so that it can apply to different regimes of individuation. This is why the ‘transposition’ of physical schemata used by Simondon is at the same time a ‘composition’, which enables one to avoid reduction- ism. The notion of transduction also enables Simondon to found a new thought of analogy.

Recursion (adjective: recursive) occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type. Recursion is used in a variety of disciplines ranging from Linguistics to Logic. The most common application of recursion is in Mathematics and Computer Science, where a function being defined is applied within its own definition. While this apparently defines an infinite number of instances (function values), it is often done in such a way that no infinite loop or infinite chain of references can occur.

Stereophonic Sound or, more commonly, stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two or more independent audio channels through a configuration of two or more loudspeakers (or stereo headphones) in such a way as to create the impression of sound heard from various directions, as in natural hearing. Thus the term "stereophonic" applies to so-called "quadraphonic" and "surround-sound" systems as well as the more common two-channel, two-speaker systems. Stereo sound has been in common use since the 1970s in entertainment media such as broadcast radio, TV, recorded music, internet, computer audio, video cameras, and cinema.

In fluid dynamics, drag (sometimes called air resistance, a type of friction, or fluid resistance, another type of friction or fluid friction) is a force acting opposite to the relative motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fluid. This can exist between two fluid layers (or surfaces) or a fluid and a solid surface. Unlike other resistive forces, such as dry friction, which are nearly independent of velocity, drag force depends on velocity. Drag forces always tend to decrease fluid velocity relative to the solid object in the fluid's path. 

First of all, Hegel opposes plasticity to flexibility – that is, an excessive liquidity, and rigidity, an excessive hardness. So, to be plastic means that everything that happens to you fashions you but at the same time does not destroy you. Plasticity is the way in which time shapes or fashions us, constitutes our subjectivity and at the same time allows for resistance.

It is entirely wrong to suppose that there are by nature two opposite regions dividing the universe between them, one ‘below,’ towards which all things sink that have bodily bulk, the other ‘above,’ towards which everything is reluctant to rise. For since the whole heaven is spherical in shape, all the points which are extreme in virtue of being equally distant from the centre, must be extremities in just the same manner; while the centre, being distant by the same measure from all the extremes, must be regarded as at the point ‘opposite’ to them all. Such being the nature of the ordered world, which of the points mentioned could one call either ‘above’ or ‘below’ without being justly censured for using a quite unsuitable term? ... When a thing is uniform in every direction, what pair of contrary terms can be applied to it and in what sense could they be properly used? If we further suppose that there is a solid body poised at the centre of it all, this body will not move towards any of the points on the extremity, because in every direction they are all alike....