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THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF QUANTAVOLUTION AND CATASTROPHISM

AIDS to affection

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acquired immune deficiency syndrome, (AIDS) A condition in which the immune system is suppressed leaving the patient vulnerable to illnesses which eventually prove to be fatal. AIDS was noticed when several homosexual men succumbed to pneumocystis carinii, a rare form previously seen only in cancer patients with drug induced suppressed immune systems.

The disease is attributed to a virus which after introduction to the body alters the genetic material of the host. The disease has a long latency period leaving the host unaware of the infection for a decade or longer. During this latency period the patient becomes infectious and can spread the disease unknowingly to any person whose bodily fluids come into intimate contact with bodily fluids from the infected person. The most common means of spreading AIDS is through sexual contact and by intravenous drug users who share needles. It can be communicated by biting if the skin is broken.

The original diagnosis of AIDS was made in the United States but the disease was soon found to be widespread among homosexual men in Haiti. Then a similar disease was discovered in East Africa where heterosexuals are infected. The disease now is found in most parts of the globe. In the Orient it is prevalent in Thailand where it spreads from contact with prostitutes; about one in five of the active prostitutes are infected.

In the first decade know cases of AIDS in the United States rose from 5 to 150,000. About 700,000 cases are reported world­wide. Presently the estimates of those carrying the AIDS infection are one million in the US, and 8­10 million elsewhere. In the next decade these numbers are expected to double. About 5 million of the current AIDS infections are in sub­Saharan East Africa.

By the end of the millennium 90% of the transfers of aids are expected to be through heterosexual encounters. The disease is spreading about four times faster in smaller cities than in the larger ones. It has gained a foothold in the teenage group. A major deterrent to the spread of the disease is prudishness and self­deception among the populace. The beliefs that only "bad people" get infected and that scientists will quickly find a "cure" for AIDS are major hindrances to the containment of the disease.

An AIDS­like condition has been found among domestic cats in the United States. About 1­3% of cats are currently infected. The disease can be spread by bites. So far other animals and humans are not at risk from infected cats. The feline disease has a three to six year period of incubation. Similar but less virulent diseases are found in horses, sheep, goats, monkeys, and cattle. In animals the AIDS­resembling diseases do not appear to spread sexually.

Until recently, treatments for AIDS have only slowed down the degeneration of the immune response system. Patients eventually succumb because of immunological insufficiency. Very recently (1996) therapies utilising combinations of drugs, always including at least one protease inhibitor, have had spectacular results in decreasing the levels of the presence of the virus, to the point where it becomes undetectable. Symptoms, even in some patients at a severe stage of the disease, often vanish, but tend to reappear as soon as treatment is interrupted. It is too early at this point to say whether these improvements in the condition of those affected by HIV or AIDS will endure beyond a few years. That they are considerably life-prolonging seems without a doubt. The high costs of these treatments (over US$15,000 a year) makes its benefits all but attainable to the masses of the poor of the world, or even to those in the United States. Only in the advanced industrial societies of Western Europe and Oceania are the treatments available to all those affected with HIV or AIDS, with governments carrying most or all of the costs.

Acropolis Meaning: high city. A fortified hilltop site, often a sanctuary for the city gods. Ruins of many A. testify to their use for religious ceremonies. The most famous A. is in Athens which since ancient times contained a temple dedicated to Pallas­Athene, mistress of the Arts and Sciences, (q) Venus, protege of Zeus. The central terrace with the temple to Athena was the site of a Mycenaean megaron; this temple was remodelled and embellished several times until its destruction by the Persians in -479. The new temples were built around the terrace which, though devoid of any buildings, remained the centerpiece of Pericles' reconstruction. The Parthenon was located to the S of the earlier Athena temple. It was built after -446 using Pentelic marble. Two radical changes in plan were made during the single constructive effort by which it was erected. The remainder of an earlier "Peisistratid" temple not totally destroyed by the Persians was removed and its cult was transferred to the Erechtheion.

actinide elements Atoms having atomic number between 90 and 103. The actinides all have two outer <7s>­electrons so are chemically similar. The actinides differ because each has a different number of <5f> and <6d> electrons. These levels are close in energy so that the filling pattern is complex as one progresses up the series. Members between Actinium and Americium can form bonds with their <5f> electrons and so show variable valency. Like the transition metals they form co­ordination complexes. The heavier members Curium to Lawrencium do not bond with their <5f> electrons, they form compounds as A+++ ions resembling, in this sense, the Lanthanides.

action at a distance Conception that a physical force can act on a distant body without direct contact. Action at a distance describes the notion that the Sun's gravity keeps the Earth in orbit as a planet, and the Earth's gravity keeps the Moon as a satellite, without any tangible connection between the bodies. The concept replaces an earlier notion whereby any transaction between two bodies requires some medium to communicate the action, as in the nebular or vortical theory of the Solar System by which swirls of subtle material moved the gravity from the Sun to each planet.

The idea of action at a distance implies something extraordinary only in the sense that space is empty. From its introduction into physics during Isaac Newton's lifetime until about 1895 physicists conceived of space as filled with an aether which transported light and gravity. Only for a few decades, until spacecrafts detected the solar wind, was space envisioned as truly empty. Even during this brief hiatus many physicists were postulating the need for a new aether to reconnect the now isolated bodies across the empty space. Einstein's curved space and Dirac's electron­sea were disguised aethers whose function filled the void created by the concept of empty space.

action, unit of The fundamental unit of quantum theory. Energy transfers between radiation and matter occur in discrete amounts, or quanta. The energy transferred is proportional to the frequency of the radiation involved. h, Planck's constant (the elementary quantum of action) relates energy to frequency. It has the value 6.624 x 10 exp­34 joule­second. Planck's constant represents the intrinsic spin of electromagnetic radiation times a spatial factor equal to 2. The 2 factor can be interpreted as the phase of the action when radiation transacts with matter. The quantum of action is equivalent to the angular­momentum of classical physics. Using this equivalence the incident radiation can be likened to a spinning flywheel transporting stored energy from place to place. When the radiation encounters an atom whose energy states match the stored energy a transfer may occur. If the transfer is made the radiation ceases to exist. Any amount of energy can be converted into radiation. The sole condition is that only integer units of energy can be transferred: 1.65 quanta can not be transported.

actor, acting pretender of someone other than the ingrained self; also, a subject or protagonist in action while under study. Can be common sense meaning of the projection of a role in a theater or other life situations, or, technically, player of a role that may or not be conscious. Animals can pretend, instinctively (though the definition of instinctive should not be accepted on faith, for the animal is making a "deliberate" choice and choosing a strategy), as the bird pretending to have a crippled wing to draw predators from her young, or the opossum "playing 'possum." Ordinarily only certain mammals are credited with acting, primates, domesticates, and humans, because of the element of self­awareness required for the assumption of a role or second self, together with the ability to abandon the role at will. The gap between consummate acting and the loss of identity with the assumption of another or several others is bridged on traumatic occasions. There would appear to be (q) no incident discoverable in natural disaster or the human responses to catastrophe that does not sooner or later find itself into acting in the role of the destroyers and the destroyed, embodied in legend, drama, everyday behavior, customs, religious worship and thought. Masks and a large variety of costumes and make­ups are universally employed to heighten the conditioned response of the viewers and rehearsers of the primal scenes. "Acting out" is a term employed to designate the recreation unconsciously of deeply troubling scenes from earlier life or ages of culture by the method of bringing them into contemporary reality. The "pay­off" is the relief that the actor gets from the explosive effect. One of the more dangerous elements in allowing possession of religious and political power and terrible weapons to humans is that they are tempted to bring about deeply felt wishes to destroy the world or one's enemies blindly or in the name of some god or ideology or as a paranoid belief that someone else (the enemy) is about to do the same.

Adam & Eve According to the Book of Genesis Adam was the first man and father of the human race. The story tells of Adam being made from dust. His wife, Eve, was made from one of his ribs. Judeo­Christian conceptions of sinfulness and divine retribution arise from events leading to Adam's temptation and from the couple's expulsion from Paradise.

A less paternalistic variant has Adam made from the clay of the Earth­goddess and given life by her blood. By this version the idea of Adam's rib is ascribed to a Sumerian story that children were formed from their mother's ribs.

A third interpretation is that Adam is allegorically the mountain top god. This "man" could be dangerous. His name is associated with "dam" which can mean "blood" as well as "sin." In this version the later creation of woman represents the new theology of the "ark box" in which god's essence (possibly static electricity of great potency) could be stored (hidden from the eye) in the same way a baby could develop in the womb.

The Sumerian first man was called Adapa. After his creation the exalted tiara and throne of kingship were lowered from heaven to Eridu.

The fall of Adam and Eve has an Egyptian parallel which includes the serpent as tempter and a pomegranate (symbolic of the temptation). A depiction of this story is found in the Temple of Osiris at Phylae. The tale can be interpreted as a lament at the passing of power from the mountain god worshipers to the later arc­worshipers. The serpent in the Egyptian story roars like a lion and has a sword facing in all directions reminiscent of an electric discharge of great power.

Adams, Robert McC. U. of Chicago archaeologist, working in Middle East, in (c,q) ca 3500 digs of Kassite civilization, discovered "major westwards shift of the Euphrates systems of channels as a whole," incurring a long dark age of abandoned settlements and reduced populations. His theory requires general revision of the (c) belief regarding stability of geology of area.

Adams, Walker S. American astronomer, in 75, detected water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars, using the 2.5m diameter telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California. In the same year he confirmed the spectrum lines of Sirius B were shifted to the red relative to those of its larger binary partner (Sirius A). His observation was taken as confirmation that the gravity field associated with the "B" star was affecting the spectrum lines. He claimed the stars gravity was some twenty times stronger than that of the sun.

Adams attitude revealed in his correspondence with (q) are a shining example of how scientists properly deal with ideas whose interpretation conflicts with the currently accepted scientific position.

Aden, Gulf of body of water connecting the Indian Ocean with the Red Sea, passing between Somalia in the South and Yemen in the North. Its base houses a fracture connecting East with the Carlsberg Ridge, Northwest with the Red Sea fracture, thus actually forming a feature of the world­girdling system (q) that must be assigned an age in conformity with that of the whole system, hence as late as the Holocene. The Strait, Bab el­Mandeb (Gate of Tears), that connects with the Red Sea, is said by the peoples living around it to have received its name from the large number of people who perished in the great convulsions of quake, volcano and tide when Arabia pulled away from Africa.

adhesion, bonding Sticking together as if glued. Chemical bonding, effected by the exchange of one or more electrons between molecules is an example. Adsorption of a surface film is another.

adiabatic process A process involving no gain or loss of heat. The change often involves alteration in temperature, as in the adiabatic expansion of a gas where the gas cools because work is done by expanding it. The vertical flow of atmosphere is an example, rising air expands and cools; falling air contracts and heats.

Aditi Indian pre­Vedic creatrix who exercised dominion over the world. Her name means infinity. Her function embraced all life. She is a redeemer who releases her devotees from sickness, need and the taint of sin. Aditi supposedly knew the mystery of time. She presided over the stars which marked time.

Adityas Seven or eight children of Aditi mentioned in the "Rig Veda". This epic is (c) dated to 3700 and is associated with the Aryan invaders of the Harappa and Mohenjo­Daro cultures of the Indus Valley.

Varuna, a cognate of Ouranos, heads the Adityas. He guards cosmic order (rita) and is lord of the night. Post Vedic literature poses twelve Adityas in the role of the sun­gods who ruled over the months of the year, which began in the autumn.

administration: the planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting of the activities of a group of humans with regard to achieving goals of sponsors or actors or clientele or public. Bureaucracy is a synonym, though often used to mean "bad administration." Animals, especially insects, evidence "administrative behavior;" it is unconscious and unvaried apparently, and therefore without the clash of motives and desires and the alternative instrumental complexes that typify human administration. Administration cannot exist without foresight, therefore cannot have appeared before humanization. Administration characterizes almost all scientific activity today; hence the effects of administrative processes upon creativity, neutrality, openness, compensation and motivation of science and scientists are often important to the success of scientific undertakings. Who controls administration effectively guides hypothesis and scientific method. Still, like sending astronauts into space to perform scientific operations without instructing them as to the effects of the internal environment of the spacecraft, scientific training almost never encompasses the study of the sociology and psychology of administration.

Adonis Greek demi­god, connected with Hebrew word for "Lord," "Adonai," killed in the interplay of loves and jealousies of Aphrodite and Ares, Aphrodite and Persephone, etc. acc to sundry myths. He was born of Myhrra, a virgin temple­woman and adopted by Aphrodite who later loved him. He was torn to pieces by a boar, directed by Ares; he was also castrated; both are sacrifices of a hero or god or king for the rites of fertility. His phallus became ithyphallic Priapus, who carried a pruning knife to commemorate his father. He was said to have been born at Bethlehem in the same cave where Mary bore Jesus. His beauty was the focus of his extensive worship. Greek­Hebrew­Syrian­Canaanite ecumene is evident in Adonis myths. Despite or because of his varied record, (q) has not been able to use his material yet.

Adrastus of Cyzicus Mathematician, from Cyzicus, who is reported by Marcus Varro [Of the Race of the Roman People] to have dated a change in the behavior of Venus to the time of the Flood of Ogyges. Varro noted that the "star" Venus changed its color, size, form, and course. Varro went on to state that this occurrence has never happened before or since.

The incident reported likely occurred many years before the time of Adrastus in that Cyzicus, in Asia Minor, was not founded until -755. Varro wrote his works before -26, the year he died.

adrenal gland Two complex glands, one above each kidney. The adrenal medulla is a part of the autonomic nervous system. It produces two hormones, adrenaline (sometimes named epinephrine) and noradrenaline (norepinephrine). The adrenal cortex is triggered by the pituitary secretion A.C.T.H. (Adrenal Cortex Trophic Hormone). The hormones of the cortex regulate sexual development, glucose metabolism, and electrolyte balance in the body.

Asking what is most determinant of human nature one thinks of the brain. In particular the speed of neural activity. One can suspect that to be human implies confusion of an ever restless mind. In particular the link between the brain and the adrenals is of interest, in that the fight/flight mechanism seems to be incessant resulting in a "nonclinical" over­stimulation of the cortex, and indirectly of the medulla as well. The endocrine system (hypothalamus, pituitary glands, spinal cord, celiac plexus, along with the adrenals) is fully functional a few days after birth. There is no reason to deny the (q) assertion that primal fear may be hereditary or even pre­natal. The "higher" control centers of the brain perceive outside crises and institute some kind of "stimulus­logical response" for which the body reacts in every way like that invoked by "lower" control centers for crises within the body. The result is always arousal.

Adriatic Coast The Italian Coast along the W side of the Adriatic Sea is low. The Po and Adige rivers are the largest rivers draining into that sea. Farming is extensive. Along the Dalmatian (E) coast conditions are more harsh. The coastline is rugged, marked by jagged bays and offshore islands, where the Dinaric Alps are drowned by the sea. Soil is sparse, in marked contrast to the condition on the Italian side. Very little agriculture is possible except within valleys fed by rivers. Surface rivers are commonly interrupted and the waters disappear into limestone caverns. The arid Mediterranean climate and absence of surface water on the E side reduces the visible erosion. Nevertheless many gravel pits of eroded limestone extend into the sea (c) at times extending to 17M has to be explained. The sparse soil layer is blamed upon millennia of farming. The scarcity of alluvia from the Dinars and the ineffectiveness of wave action on the shoreline are blamed for the absence of beaches and other common coastal landforms. In (q) terms the abruptness of the events creating both the Adriatic seabed and the rise of the Dinaric Alps and the proximity of that event to our time helps to excuse the state of the Dalmatian coastline. It is a recent landscape which is located in a region where rainfall is light, and surface water is uncommon. What else can be expected in about 7 or 8Mn?

Adriatic Sea arm of the Mediterranean Sea running 800km from the Gulf of Venice to the Strait of Otranto. It runs the length of the Italian Peninsula. It is bounded on the E by a part of the mountainous Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic Sea is very shallow except near its outlet where the channel has a maximum depth of 1.25km about one third of the maximum depth in the Mediterranean. Such shallowness suggests (q) an origin as an extension of the great African Rift-Red Sea fracture that may have then been overrun at its Northern section by the rising Alps and filled in by mountains of debris running off abruptly from the flood- and rain-soaked surroundings.

The area occupied by the Adriatic Sea was (c) a part of the extensive Tethys Sea, whose warm waters it is believed fostered extensive coral growth. At the end of the Mesozoic Era the limestone layers were buried by sediments which became folded into alternating anticlinal ridges and synclinal valleys when the Alps rose during the Oligocene and Miocene Epochs. In (q) terms these changes are dated to the Period of Late Quantavolutions, beginning in the Ouranean Age and completing themselves in the Lunarian Age. The Tethys Sea is ascribed to the earlier Period of Pangean Stability. Between these periods humans probably inhabited the present floor of the Adriatic Sea.

Adriatica name of the (q) hypothetical civilization supposedly to have subsisted in pre­history in the Adriatic Sea basin, and then flooded or sunk in natural catastrophe, along with enough similar situations in the Mediterranean Sea to support further study of the problem as a whole. The Adriatic Sea is almost as shallow (100m) as the Aegean, except for the incredibly rectangular great Abyss of the Doges (q.v.) of 1250m depth, channeling out into the Ionian Sea.

adsorption the formation of a layer of a material on the surface of a solid or a liquid.

1. Chemisorption involves chemical bonding of a single molecular layer of the absorbate to a surface.

2. Physisorption involves the weaker van der Waal's force. Van der Waal's force likely is electrostatic in origin: unlike the classical chemical bond no electrons are exchanged, rather, permanent or induced polarization within the adsorbed molecule allows surface charges to attract and hold the adsorbate.

Aegea name given the larger part of the Aegean Sea basin that was supposedly the site of a now­drowned civilization, or possibly the Early Cycladic culture. The waters were said to have been above the Islands of the Aegean Sea and later on diminished to allow them to appear, Delos, for example, the sacred Island of Apollo and center of Hellenic cults. The Aegean is actually continental crust with water to depths under 100m in large part. Candidates as cause for the event would be (q) the encroachment of the Noachian deluges that raised the oceans everywhere greatly, the collapse of the west wall of the Gobi Sea, now an immense desert, in western China, that travelled as a flood all the way into the Mediterranean basin, or (c) a sinking owing to plate tectonics.

Aegean region area of islands and mainland surrounding the Aegean Sea, itself about 700 x 320 k large, with Thessaly at the North and Crete boundary of the South. Region is a prolific source of pre­Hellenic and Hellenic legends, art, and technology. Believed by the Greeks to have been all land, then flooded, then dotted with the resurrected portions of land, providing the famous islands of Delos, Naxos, Samos, Limnos, Eubea, Thera, Milos, and many more. Its island civilization, called the Cycladic, endured for 1000+y, was related to and transfigured by the Minoan culture, blended finally into Mycenean and then, if not always, firmly Hellenicized. It survived a catastrophic period of (c)4300. Probably in connection with other disasters of the same time, around ~3000y its highly cultured island, now called Thera­Santorini, was partially exploded by its volcano, leaving a spectacular crescent island over a yawning but beautiful gulf. The islands and western Aegean are presently united with the western mainland under Greek dominion after 2000y occupation by the Romans, Venetians, and Ottoman Turks, while the eastern continent is fully Turkish. The fairly neat separation of Greeks and Turks stems from a wrenching exchange of populations in 1920's.

aegis a magic shield, particularly of Zeus, lent on occasion to his favored daughter Athene, appearing on statues as a short scaly cloak of goatskin (like a bullet­proof vest). The word may derive from "aix" (goat) and from "aissein," (to dart quickly). It is fringed with snake­like tassels, and in Homer's words, "crowned with fear." On it are displayed Strife, Might, and Rout, and the head of the monster Gorgon is prominent. It is often depicted in art and sung of in Poetry. Lightning was supposed to flash from the Gorgon's eyes, which could represent the fission (q) of Jupiter­Saturn. The Gorgon was also related to Phaeton and Lucifer, thus to pin on himself, Zeus, what he had destroyed and reveal the destruction inherent in him.

Aeneas Prince of Troy, son of Anchises, refugee to Italy, settled in Latium, leading shortly afterwards to the founding of Rome, according to legend, ancient consensus, and some modern evidence, superior to competing evidence. He was believed to be the grandfather of Romulus and Remus, orphan sucklings of the wolf of Rome (the Mars symbol), hence sons of the God of War Mars. Recent archaeology has tended to support the epic Aeneid of the poet Virgil, writing perhaps 7ky after the event (1200ky by (c). The main reason for the closing of the gap comes from the recent discharge of the "Dark Ages of Greece," five centuries between Mycenean and archaic Greece of which practically no evidence has existed. With the Dark Ages gone, Aeneas is born, fights for and flees Troy, meets Dido, Queen of Carthage, lands in Latium, raises a family and leaves descendants capable of handling the expansion into Etruscan territory. Virgil says Aeneas entered the underworld realm at Cumai, a word very close to the Aramaic­Hebrew root for "arise, "cum­", one of many details available and to be discovered of the great Mediterranean ecumene of the 3000's.

aeon, eon A long time, an age. The longest unit of geologic time, which is divided into eras. Originally aeon implied about a gigayear (1000 million years). Here, aeon is used discussing cosmic and planetary events on the long (c) timescale. The short (q) timescale posits cosmic events, including stellar and biological development, can be accomplished in periods which need not exceed a megayear (million years).

aerial photography the recording of images concerning the Earth's and planetary surfaces using methods that do not involve actual contact with the object or part of it being registered. Early aerial photographs generally were made from low­flying airplanes. As photographic emulsions with increased resolution and sensitivity to light were developed flights at higher altitudes could be used successfully to record greater expanses of surface in one view. In the case of astronomical bodies the first images were made photographically using telescopic cameras. In the more recent age of spacecraft, digital and video techniques have been combined with electronic stabilization of images to allow sensing to be done successfully from greater altitude and from platforms in space moving at large velocity relative to the target being sensed.

In the beginning most records were recorded on photographic emulsions sensitive to energy in the near­ultraviolet, visible, and short­infrared, however supplemental information is obtained today using electronic and other detectors responding to narrow bands of energy both in the range of photographs and beyond it at both the high and low energy ends of the continuum. Stereoscopic images can be obtained using multiple overlapping images and by radar range measurements. Using this last technique the energy being recorded is transmitted from the recording station, is reflected by the surface being probed and the reflection is read by the detecting apparatus.

Since the 1870's, when the Moon and Sun were first photographed, the advantage of permanent images over visual observation and sketching have been apparent. Now most of the major bodies of the Solar System have been mapped, some only partially, over a wide range of energies. Comparison of images produced by using different energy ranges (radar, infrared, visible, and ultraviolet) allow information to be gained which helps estimate the biological, chemical, and physical status of the surfaces being sensed. Such information can not be gathered as simply by other methods. The overview provided by seeing the Earth from space has aided geologists immensely.

aerosol colloidal dispersion of solids or liquids in a gas. Aerosols layers are thought to accumulate in the stratospheric layers of planetary atmospheres, including that of the earth. Aerosol particles are tens of micrometers in diameter. The smaller the particle the longer it is likely to remain suspended with out settling.

Colloidal suspensions of solids in liquids, particularly water, are common in nature and especially in living matter. Excepting for the medium involved they resemble aerosols. In turbid water colloidal particles may exceed 25mm in diameter. Much smaller suspensions are invisible. Colloidal suspensions can not penetrate animal membranes whereas solutions can diffuse through such barriers. Colloidal particles possess an electric charge. If the colloid is treated its particles flocculate (coagulate) and drop from suspension.

Aerosol layers are electrically charged which is likely why they migrate into the stratosphere when created or liberated in the lower atmosphere. In the earth's stratosphere the charged colloidal particles are suspected of decomposing ozone. Some of the aerosols present are natural to the earth while others are the result of human civilization. The amount of ozone is effected by solar events and the passage of meteorological systems. On the short term the consequence of the observed decline in the ozone levels cannot be interpreted. Observations must be made over more than one solar cycle before any meaningful downward trend would be detectable. Possibly over a whole solar cycle (or sequence of cycles) the effect of man­made aerosols on the ozone concentration, if real, can be overcome by increased production of ozone as the solar activity reaches a maximum. At this time the outer regions of the earth are subjected to increased solar outbursts accompanying the maximum.

Aeschylus Greek tragic dramatist of -556 to -425 who was born at Eleusis (home of the Mysteries), fought at Marathon and Salamis against the Persians, and divided his time between Athens and Sicily, where he died. Of his plays only 7 of 85 remain. "Prometheus Bound" depicts the fate of the demi­God who taught the arts of living to humankind, but violated the rule of the (significantly) New God Zeus keeping back fire from man, and taught man to make fire too. For this he was chained forever and tortured. Aeschylus spoke somewhat like a prophet of Israel, and not much later, and already in a humanitarian spirit, for it almost appears as if he hates god, the ruthless lightning­hurler world­shaking gift­withholder. The relentless character of "Force" drives even the God Haephaestus to empinion cruelly the Christ­like Prometheus. The two sequels to the drama are lost; they apparently did not change the fate of the world, but only softened through outside intervention (especially Hercules) the fate of Prometheus.

aesthetics the theory, standards and databases of the arts. Included as arts are the planning of settlements, housing design and practice, modeling, poetics, graphics, photography, singing, reciting, music, the crafts (especially in their non­routine aspects), etc. Indeed, all human activity may be considered to have an aesthetic element, in that it can be judged to be pleasing according to vague but essential notions of artistry. So one encounters in science "the elegant theory," in labor, "the neatly dug ditch," as well as "the masterpiece of sculpture" or the "beautifully­shaped woman's shoe." One can have "a well­written report on sewage," and a "marvelously­drawn map of the heavens." Even a horror can be beautiful, as the explosion of a volcano or the sight of a tornado. All drawing of lines to exclude any human activities whatsoever from the reach of aesthetic theory is illogical and probably anti­utilitarian.

What is the underlying basis of the so­called "aesthetic sense."? It is little known and understood. No one has been able to sample randomly the full range of mankind and subject it to interview, get it to fill out a questionnaire, and obtain a history of its behavior, such that one could analyze the data and emerge with a set of propositions denoting the extent of common standards and how they are applied in thought and practical life. It is likely q/ that humans derive their basic aestheticism from a catastrophized outer and inner setting and experience. That is, every human is genetically induced or heavily trained by genetic types to sublimate the totality of his perception and cognition of the world such that one cannot "take the world as it is." One must make something of it, and that "something" is cloaked in thoughts and symbols, communicating interpersonally, which brings about a set of perceptions and representations and productions reflecting the aesthetic standards of one and all. The one never escapes the all and the all must tolerate the one, no matter how uneasy the relationship between the artist and his groups.

A principal problem or dilemma facing aesthetics and the artist of every kind is how to confess his catastrophied mind and at the same time deny it. So a poet like Ovid will write of frightful metamorphoses of humans and at the same time cloak them in beautiful settings of brooks, flowers, dells, and lovers. Or, contemporary furniture designers (the best of which would be Eames), in a permissive society urging them to express their libido frankly, devise chairs that, as Benjamin Nelson said, "forces us to suffer because of how they hated their mothers." The q/ would say that a large part of all artistic production, especially that which need not be routinely functional, is the displacement upon art and one's audience of the essential schizoid fear of losing control over one's selves so as to get the comfort of the others' sharing the fear and even converting it into enjoyment.

Catastrophe as a theme in itself is a vivid engrossing portion of all artistic production, especially in sacral art everywhere, for it is the "function" of religion to manage catastrophic fear by dispensing controlled suffering ­­ including art that depicts or enacts suffering. The flight from the suffering and openly expressed fear (of damnation, etc.) that religion provides often takes bizarre forms in which artists unconsciously reveal their denial of primal fears or express them in shapes and structures that, it sometimes would seem, everyone but themselves can grasp.

What is beautiful, good, true, satisfying, and useful all at the same time would be the ideal aesthetic form or thing. And, in a strict sense, nothing can be perfect aesthetically by just being "beautiful," for it cannot be such, that is, this is a contradiction in terms. It must have elements of all the other traits to qualify at a decent level. (This is not to say that many aestheticians and artists have not denied the need of anything but "beauty." Their position usually ends up absorbing the other qualities in the process of denying them.) Perhaps one needs to say that the "best" art is that which helps oneself and the most others control the mind, letting out its energies in satisfying, constructive ways. The aesthetic dimension of existence is so huge that endless opportunities to develop and practice the "best art" are available to all.

aether, ether 1. (t) The space above the Earth's atmosphere in which celestial bodies move.

2. An all­pervading, infinitely elastic, non-resistive, subtle medium necessary to connect physical bodies occupying otherwise empty space. The aether was a medium through which light "waves" and gravity could be communicated across space. Physicists encountered difficulties reconciling Newton's Universality postulate: that the basic formulations (laws of nature) must be the same everywhere (at all places regardless of the local state of motion). Rather, it turned out that way in which a scientific relationship (law) was transformed (mapped onto the other place, differently moving than the Earth) determined its form. Faced with this dilemma the Lorentz­Fitzgerald Contraction hypothesis was accepted, whereby the properties of bodies become a function of their motion. Using the system of equations know as L­F transformation the laws of nature finally were written to remain the same everywhere. The next step was to postulate the aether into obsolescence. Although the problem of dealing with the medium in which physical transactions occur and are communicated are eliminated with the demise of the aether the need for some kind of communicative matrix between the objects in nature will not vanish.

The question remains as to what the ancient's meant by the aether? The Greek root is ambiguous in that aether could mean <to run always> or <to burn>. Some think the aether refers only to material collected in the plane of the planets.

Afar Depression the conjunction of two great fractures of the global surface, where the East African Rift, moving Northeast, intersects the fracture passing through the Gulf of Aden from the South and moving into the Red Sea. The history of clashing forces in the area produces in the literature a Babel of geological nomenclature and age distinctions. Volcanism is rampant in the area. The mountains on the Ethiopian side are split from their extension across the narrow Strait in Yemen, both very tall (over 3000m) and plunge into the Depression on the South. The rock around the area is pre­cambrian, but largely covered with lava. The Depression itself is considered (c) Tertiary and Quaternary extrusives. Salts and sands cover numerous low areas. A great many faults crisscross the area. The fit of the Arabian Peninsula into Africa (socketed in northern Somalia) below Afar is one of the neatest in the world, tending (q) with the sharpness of the rock everywhere and the numerous hardly extinct volcanoes to belie age estimates into the Miocene. It is almost (c) as well as (q) to argue that the hominid and homo remains found not too far away up the Rift delta debris were eye­witnesses of the tearing apart of the region.

affection a sentiment of intimate oneness with another, that may extend only to occasional or spasmodic feelings, or to an around­the­clock, universal and all­embracing sentiment, and brings a euphoria whose hormonal structure is more complicated than genitality alone produces. Thus many people felt their heart go out to the Russian crowd defying the reactionary junta in the August 91 days of the hateful coup. Thus, too, Christians speak of an all­loving God, meaning specifically Jesus, or of a person as being of a loving character. If it were not for two types of affection, motherly love and sexual love, both of which often become total, affection would have a small place in the values that men seek; power, prestige, wealth, skill, and health would overpower it. Affection finds a strong place in political appeals, if only because it is considered too rare, so that movements have often in history called for brotherly love. The powerful maternal and sexual sources of affection apply to such large portions of one's life­span, however, that they often overwhelm the search for the several other values. It is therefore crucial to understanding, that both of these are profoundly instinctual in the human, mammalian, primate in behavioral terms, going back to the discovery of sexual reproduction in the history of life. Like all other human values they take on myriad guises. For instance the idea of the Virgin Mary, in numerous forms, takes in and gives off large numbers of indirect and sublimated signs, sentiments, impressions of affection of a mothering, sistering, and wifing character, all things to all men. The figure of woman in Christianity has regained its primordial interest to a degree but has hardly recovered from its shocking treatment at the hands of the Old Testament, where women are degraded to an extent hardly appreciated by feminists themselves. It begins with the abomination of Eve, the First Woman, and continues throughout with an alternation of neglect, denigration, even horrifying of roles (as with Eve, Sarah, and Esther, the exceptional Ruth being a Moabite). In general, only in black Africa (including some largely misunderstood New World manifestations wherever black influence is strong) and in the upper and intellectual classes of Europe do women act liberated. Nevertheless, a large portion of humanity yearns for a more general and intense diffusion of loving relationships, for the love of a mother and a partner in love is a highly constructive model for human satisfaction and even happiness. Affection plays so large a part in the nurturing and training of an infant that it naturally becomes an area of fixation for many problems of other instinctive zones besides the sexual. Affection becomes attached to all manner of seemingly irrelevant encounters and objects. It is plucked out and considered then the basic drive, even in its more intense sexual form by Freud. But it is not that at all, self­=control, if anything, being the source of all specialized instinctually derived drives. The central nervous system is laced with interconnections of affections. Once the larger world is opened to the baby, the baby must begin to accept those displacements that her attendants point out as the true sources of indulgences and deprivations. His teachers, while pointing to various nearby objects with a cause­and­effect connection that is fairly obvious even to the very young, are especially interested in leading her on to some very great abstractions as the ultimate causes of her well­being or ill­being, as the case may be. Nor are they scrupulous in following logic or evidence in the pursuit of cause and consequence. What blocks a larger development of the affectional urge in humanity is, according to H­S (q) theory, the fear of oneself within oneself in its myriad projections that tend to organize around the value of self­control (expanded to world­control) that must preoccupy the human soul, leaving a small and uncertain role for an expanding value of love. Given that the material qualities of all other values are acceptable within the framework of H­S ­­ the drives for wealth, health, knowledge, respect, and power ­­ the affectional drive is the most likely to be abandoned in the general confusion, perplexity, ambivalence, and fright of the selves within a person. That is, by H­S theory, the processes that are typically human as against animal, beginning with the primordial trait of self­awareness, happen to bolster these values at the expense of affection. In the press and film, ordinary people are surprised at the behavior of social institutions dedicated to love or whose priests and priestesses of love behave contrarily. They act unfeeling, cold, inhuman, interested in abstract things such as sin and goodness or rite and ritual. These "welfare officials" who are supposed to be basically dispensing affection, actually deprive people of affection, taking with the one hand what they give with the other. The reasons for this lie partly in the fundamental anhedonism and personal aversiveness inherent in H­S, whether they express their own character in so doing or the character of the institutions they represent, that is the collectivity whose agents they are. A climactic case of a love institution built upon a great fear and hatred is afforded by the 1970's U.S.A. American utopian community of Jonestown briefly located in Guyana, South America, where nearly a thousand people belonging to a community of love were suddenly transformed by their paranoid and panic­stricken leaders into a community of killers and suicides, to the end that within a few hours almost no one was left alive. The words of the last hours were filled with terror and doom. Only were there to be restrictions upon all of the normal processes of H­S, and only if the other values held within limits, would the affectional drive begin to assume prominence. Since, therefore, the affectional institutions of society are its weakest, save for the mothering and sexual instincts, a reformer of H­S might say that the production and expansion of affection beyond these two limited spheres into the larger society of work, politics, consumption, and life style should be the objective of social policies, and on a much magnified scale compared with history and today's world.

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