In this lecture, given on 17 June 2004, the author describes the conditions for proper disclosure of the wisdom of Kabbalah. He explains that today everyone is entitled and indeed is required to know about its true meaning. Expounding on the three past bans - "no need to disclose," "impossible to disclose," and "the Creator's personal secret" - Makaron demonstrates why today they have been (at least partially) lifted.

People feel they understand complex phenomena with far greater precision, coherence, and depth than they really do; they are subject to an illusion—an illusion of explanatory depth. The illusion is far stronger for explanatory knowledge than many other kinds of knowledge, such as that for facts, procedures or narratives. The illusion for explanatory knowledge is most robust where the environment supports real‐time explanations with visible mechanisms. We demonstrate the illusion of depth with explanatory knowledge in Studies 1–6. Then we show (...) differences in overconfidence about knowledge across different knowledge domains in Studies 7–10. Finally, we explore the mechanisms behind the initial confidence and behind overconfidence in Studies 11 and 12, and discuss the implications of our findings for the roles of intuitive theories in concepts and cognition. (shrink)

Big History provides a unique opportunity to consider the development of the Universe as a single process. Within Big History studies one can distinguish some common evolutionary laws and principles. However, it is very important to recognize that there are many more such integrating principles, laws, mechanisms and patterns of evolution at all its levels than it is usually supposed. In the meantime, we can find the common traits in development, functioning, and interaction of apparently rather different processes and phenomena (...) of Big History. Of special importance is the point that many principles, patterns, regularities, and rules of evolution, which we tend to find relevant only for the biological and social levels of evolution, may be also applied to the cosmic phase of evolution. The present article attempts (within such a framework for the first time in the Big History framework) at combining Big History potential with the potential of Evolutionary Studies. It does not only analyze the history of the Cosmos. It studies similarities between evolutionary laws, principles, and mechanisms at various levels and phases of Big History. Such an approach opens up some new perspectives for our understanding of evolution and Big History, their driving forces, vectors, and trends; it creates a consolidated field for interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Have Morsella et al. examined the fundamentals of consciousness? An experiment by Bar et al. (2006) has demonstrated the fundamental aspects of conscious and unconscious mechanisms of perception. The mental representations are not crisp and conscious like the perceived objects are, but vague and unconscious. This experiment points to the fundamental function of the neural mechanisms of consciousness in perception. Consciousness is also fundamental for the highest emotions.

B a c k g r o u nd. The article focuses on the study of modern adaptations and modifications of Marxist principles in the context of the practice of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Focusing on the process of modernization, the article explores how Marxism developed and adapted to China's unique socio-political and economic landscape. Through an in-depth analysis of the CCP's policy and ideological changes, the article sheds light on the distinctive features characterizing the modernization of Marxism in (...) the Chinese context. The study covers not only theoretical aspects but also practical aspects, providing a refined understanding of the specifics of the relationship between Marxist ideology and the dynamic realities of Chinese governance. M e t h o d s. The article uses an in-depth analysis of the politics, ideological changes, and practical aspects of the CCP. The research is based on an analysis of primary sources, including official documents, political speeches and ideological narratives. R e s u l t s. The authors found that the ideology of the CCP is based on Marxism, but adapted to the unique historical context of China, often framed in the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics". This adaptation reflects the CCP's recognition of China's special conditions, cultural heritage, and development needs. At its core, Marxism provides the theoretical foundation for the ideology of the CCP, emphasizing class struggle, historical materialism, and the ultimate goal of achieving a classless communist society. However, the CCP recognizes that the application of Marxist principles must take into account the specific realities of China, distinguishing its path from the classical Marxist trajectory. C o n c l u s i o n s. The study highlights that the CCP recognizes the importance of adapting Marxist principles to the specific conditions of China. Acceptance of the concept of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" defines a pragmatic approach to the integration of Marxist ideology with the conditions of the country, taking into account its path of economic development and modernization. (shrink)

v. 1. Mathematical expression of the main categories of philosophy and logic -- Kinematics and dynamics of exchange -- v. 2. Structure of space of the universe -- electrostatic and electromagnetic fields -- Particles and exchange in the electromagnetic field -- v. 3. Atomic structure of matter-space-time and physical properties of substance -- Physics and philosophy.

The thesis represents the analysis of strategies in contemporary philosophy as for synthesis with irrational mystical doctrines in general and Buddhism in particular. The definition is given to the historical philosophical sense of mysticism as a phenomenon. The logic of development which determines European and Ukrainian traditions of Buddhology is being revealed.

The target article by Lindquist et al. considers discrete emotions. This commentary argues that these are but a minor part of human emotional abilities, unifying us with animals. Uniquely human emotions are aesthetic emotions related to the need for the knowledge of “high” cognition, including emotions of the beautiful, cognitive dissonances, and musical emotions. This commentary touches on their cognitive functions and origins.

Published as a tribute to the memory of Elisha Pazner, this book contains a collection of essays providing a comprehensive view of the design and evaluation of economic mechanisms, written and edited by the major contributors to the field. Amongst the topics included are bargaining theory and the economics of competitive bidding. The surveys are preceded by 'A Perspective', by Leo Hurwicz which contains a systematic account of the development of the literature on mechanism design, and this provides a context (...) for both the surveys and the six published papers authored or co-authored by Elisha Pazner that complete the book and demonstrate Pazner's interest in and contribution to the study of economic mechanisms. Leonid Hurwitcz is the Nobel Prize Winner 2007 for The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, along with colleagues Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson, for his work on the effectiveness of markets. (shrink)

There is no doubt that periodization is a rather effective method of data ordering and analysis, but it deals with exceptionally complex types of processual and temporal phenomena and thus it simplifies historical reality. Many scholars emphasize the great importance of periodization for the study of history. In fact, any periodization suffers from one-sidedness and certain deviations from reality. However, the number and significance of such deviations can be radically diminished as the effectiveness of periodization is directly connected with its (...) author's understanding of the rules and peculiarities of this methodological procedure. In this paper we would like to suggest a model of periodization of history based on our theory of historical process. We shall also demonstrate some possibilities of mathematical modeling for the problems concerning the macroperiodization of the world historical process. This analysis identifies a number of cycles within this process and suggests its generally hyperexponential shape, which makes it possible to propose a number of forecasts concerning the forthcoming decades. (shrink)

Lotman’s conception of semiosphere opens the way to development of spatial semiotics as a special branch of sign theory. There are a lot of peculiarities in the spatial semiosis, which distinguish it from the temporal ones. These distinctions are connected with some special features of semiotized space, and they touch both upon the spatial texts and upon the spatial codes. The spatial syntax has its own specific structures, which can be reversed, non-linear and continual, created without discrete signs. The differentiation (...) relates also to semantics of spatial signs and texts, which are mainly motivated by their denotates due to similarity or contiguity. There are some pragmatic peculiarities of the spatial semiosis: the greater connection with the praxis, on the one hand, and the greater ability for the preservation of the cultural memory, on the other hand. The mainly visual character of spatial texts in plane of expression can be also considered as its specific pragmatic property. These peculiarities give some special possibilities for the spatial semiosis and make necessary its participation in the various spheres of the culture, where diverse spatial codes interact in different ways between each other and with temporal codes as well. (shrink)

The article presents a verbal and mathematical model of medium-term business cycles (with a characteristic period of 7–11 years) known as Juglar cycles. The model takes into account a number of approaches to the analysis of such cycles; in the meantime it also takes into account some of the authors' own generalizations and additions that are important for understanding the internal logic of the cycle, its variability and its peculiarities in the present-time conditions. The authors argue that the most important (...) cause of cyclical crises stems from strong structural disproportions that develop during economic booms. These are not only disproportions between different economic sectors, but also disproportions between different societal subsystems; at present these are also disproportions within the World System as a whole. The proposed model of business cycle is based on its subdivision into four phases: – recovery phase (which could be subdivided into the start sub-phase and the acceleration sub-phase); – upswing/prosperity/expansion phase (which could be subdivided into the growth sub-phase and the boom/overheating sub-phase); – recession phase (within which one may single out the crash/bust/acute crisis subphase and the downswing sub-phase); – depression/stagnation phase (which we could subdivide into the stabilization subphase and the breakthrough sub-phase). The article provides a detailed qualitative description of macroeconomic dynamics at all the phases; it specifies driving forces of cyclical dynamics and the causes of transition from one phase to another (including psychological causes); a special attention is paid to the turning point from the peak of overheating to the acute crisis, as well as to the turning point from the downswing to recovery. The proposed mathematical model of Juglar cycle takes into account the following effects that are typical for the market economy: • positive feedbacks between various economic processes; • presence of a certain inertia, time lags in reactions of the economic subsystem to the change in conditions; • amplification by the financial subsystem of positive feedbacks and time lags in the economic subsystem; • excessive reaction to changing conditions during the acute crisis sub-phase. The authors suggest that the current crisis turns out to be rather similar to classical Juglar crises; however, there is also a significant difference, as the current crisis occurs at a truly global scale. Yet, due to this truly global scale of the current crisis, the possibilities of regulation with the national state's measures have turned out to be ineffective,whereas the suprastate regulation of financial processes hardly exists. It is shown that all these have led to the reproduction of the current crisis according to a classical Juglar scenario. (shrink)

The article offers forecasts of the geopolitical and geo-economic development of the world in the forthcoming decades. One of the main accusations directed toward globalization is that it deepens the gap between the developed and developing countries dooming them to eternal backwardness. The article demonstrates that the actual situation is very different. It is shown that this is due to the globalization that the developing countries are generally growing much faster than the developed states, the World System core starts weakening (...) and its periphery begins to strengthen. At the same time there is a continuing divergence between the main bulk of developing countries and the group of the poorest developing states. The article also explains why the globalization was bound to lead to the explosive rise of many developing countries and the relative weakening of the developed economies. In the forthcoming decades this trend is likely to continue. It is a.. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a description of the history of Pythagorean societies after the death of Pythagoras. It then considers the criteria used by Aristoxenus in compiling his list of Pythagoreans. Compared with those applied in modern works, it is argued that, beyond a critical approach to the sources, we enjoy no special advantages over the first historian of Pythagoreanism. This is followed by a discussion of the prosopography and chronology of the Pythagoreans.

This essay considers the origins of the arithmological genre, the first specimen of which was an anonymous Neopythagorean treatise of the first century BCE. Arithmology as a special genre of philosophical writings dealing with the properties of the first ten numbers should be distinguished from number symbolism, which is a universal cultural phenomenon related to individual significant numbers. As our analysis shows, the philosophical foundations of arithmology were laid down in the treatise of Plato’s successor Speusippus On Pythagorean Numbers, who (...) relied on the Platonic doctrine of the ten ideal numbers, whereas in ancient Pythagoreanism arithmological notions, unlike number symbolism, are not attested. In the first century BCE, an epoch of revival of Platonism and Aristotelianism, Speusippus’ ideas received a second birth, thus marking the beginning of arithmology as a popular genre. (shrink)

In ancient tradition, Pythagoras emerges as a wise teacher, an outstanding mathematician, an influential politician, and as a religious and ethical reformer. This volume offers a comprehensive study of Pythagoras, Pythagoreanism, and the early Pythagoreans through an analysis of the many representations of the individual and his followers.

In Soviet ethical literature, the study of the language of morals is denoted as “the study of ethical categories”. These categories include the concepts of good and evil, duty, conscience, dignity, happiness and meaning of life. The set of categories is open but these traditional categories will always constitute the core of the system of ethical concepts. Remarkable difficulties in interpreting the nature of ethical categories result from the fact that they develop on the borderland between two forms of social (...) consciousness – morality and ethics conceived of as the science of morals. Thus, on the one hand, they are scientific notions, but, on the other, they retain the specific qualities of morality: prescriptivity, evaluativeness and evocativeness. While professing his allegiance to the programme of Marxist ethics as a science intended to develop a system of ethical categories the author points out the danger of overrating the role of the economic factor as this may lead to misapprehending the specific qualities of ethics. (shrink)

O dvizhenii istorii v budushchee -- Strannai︠a︡ "ti︠u︡rʹma" istoricheskoĭ neobkhodimosti -- Istoricheskai︠a︡ novizna poni︠a︡tiĭ "individualʹnostʹ" i "lichnostʹ" -- Ob avtobiografizme -- Statʹ Evropoĭ.

Introduction. The article analyzes the problem of memory of the Great Patriotic War in the story “Quarry” by the Belarusian writer Vasil Bykov. The memory of the War, as the authors of the article demonstrate, has special qualities and characteristics for those who participated in it, for those who really want to remember the War and really remember it. The purpose of the study. The paper shows how it is possible to interpret the phenomenon of memory in mythological and religious (...) modes based on the material of V. Bykov’s novel “The Quarry”. Methods. The article uses the phenomenological method of A. Augustine and M. Heidegger, which leads to the existential time series of the “inner man”, as well as the method of creative hermeneutics, which allows to trace stable semantic structures behind the artistic canvas of V. Bykov’s text. The scientific novelty of the research. The mythological aspect of memory returns the characters to the point and event of the “beginning”, in which the formation of an integral self-aware personality took place, into an ontological event constituting the foundation of human identification. Such an event is a tragic, existential event. This event remains relevant in memory, not transient, not disappeared, and determines the characteristics of the subjectmemory all his life. This aspect of memory is opposed to “historical time”, according to which the past has already passed in memory; one should live and think today-the present and the future. The religious aspect of the story’s memory, as interpreted by the authors of the article, lies in the importance of memory, which it has in overcoming the power of time. Based on Augustine’s analysis, proposed by him in Confessions, the authors bring together the logic of V. Bykov’s memory research in this story and the reasoning of Bishop Hippo. Results. Memory endows the events of the past with living qualities of the present time and, thus, memory as a “memory of the sacrifice-ransom”, on the one hand, constantly encourages a Christian believer to think about death, and on the other hand, it is also an instrument of victory over it. In the matter of salvation, a religious person must remember himself, his deeds/offenses, his loved ones, the sacrifice of those and the One who redeemed this life and life in general with his death. In popular culture, in the religious worldview, in the historical attitude to life, such an attitude to memory is denied and causes misunderstanding. Hence, the attitude to the memory of the War in V. Bykov’s work seems outdated, archaic and irrelevant, which the authors of this article disagree with. Conclusions. The authors of the article conclude that the position of the writer front-line soldier V. Bykov in relation to the memory of the War is the position of “paradoxical evidence” and this position allows the author to really, most reliably and psychologically accurately describe from the “inanimate world” that area of the dead, terrible, inhuman that War creates and produces. And it turns out that it is necessary to remember this and think about it in order to be truly alive. (shrink)

Introduction. Modernism as a culture -- Culture and cognition -- Culture, mythology, politics -- Culture, community, cartography -- Cultural spaces and their travelers -- The toponymical labyrinth of Russian modernist culture. Early Russian modernism and its "isms" ; The Russian domestication of the term Modernism ; New names, old problems ; Politics and cultural toponymy ; Naming the field -- The errant compass rose of Russian modernist studies. Realism as a cardinal direction ; Tradition and innovation as cardinal directions -- (...) Russian modernism in time and space. The myth of 1917 ; Culture and border patrol ; Putting late Russian modernism on the map ; Chronologies of Russian modernism -- Navigating Russia's cultures of modernity. The intelligentsia and the two avant-gardes ; The two avant-gardes and mass culture -- Russian modernism in the cultural market. The economics of Russian cultural modernity ; The formalist writer-type and the evolving institution of authorship ; The political economy of Russian modernism -- Conclusion. (shrink)

Издание содержит: модельно-конструктивное мышление в логике и математике; модельно-конструктивное мышление в политэкономике; особенности модельно-конструктивного мышления и идеологии.

This introductory chapter focuses on the Pythagorean question, which remains one of the most intricate in the history of early Greek science, philosophy, and religion, and has every chance of being consigned to the category of insoluble problems. It suggests that like any other complex scientific problem, it can be broken down into a number of smaller, particular ones, which may prove amenable to solution. There are many facts on which agreement may be reached; there is also an undoubted hierarchy (...) of interpretations, ranging from those admittedly impossible or unverifiable to those which are more probable and internally consistent. (shrink)

This chapter reviews references to Pythagoras by the authors of the pre-Platonic period. It shows that in the course of the fourth century, studies in mathematics, particularly geometry and arithmetic, became a constant element of the tradition of Pythagoras; astronomy and harmonics are less frequently mentioned. Mathematics did not displace metempsychosis and wonders, nor did the tradition of Pythagoras the politician which emerged concurrently with it, yet they did edge them aside, completing the ambivalent, contradictory image of Pythagoras, which was (...) retained by his Neoplatonic biographers and passed from them into modern scholarship. It concludes that Pythagoras the mathematician is as little a product of the Academy as Pythagoras the philosopher. (shrink)

Interview of Vlada Davidenko, Ryenat Shvets, Sofia Bryl with Leonid Finberg.

Henri JM Claessen Was the State Inevitable? ● Leonid E. Grinin The Early State and Its Analogues: A Comparative Analysis ...

The present monograph considers some macrohistorical trends along with the aspects of globalization. Macrohistory is history on the large scale that tells the story of the entire world or of some major dimensions of historical process. For the present study three aspects of macrohistory have been chosen. These are technological and political aspects, as well as the one of historical personality. Taken together they give a definite picture of unfolding historical process which is described from the beginning of human society (...) formation to the present day and near future. The combination in the monograph title of the two terms – macrohistory and globalization – is in no way artificial. On the contrary, the connection of these terms is organic at least as the real goal of macrohistory is to find mean-ing in the past so as to create new possibilities of meaning for the future. The analysis of globalization also includes three aspects: political, economic and futurological as today the world may well be regarded as being at the start of a new global reconfiguration. The author presents his ideas of the world prospective political and in some respects social-economic development basing on the analysis of macrohistory and contemporary globalization processes. The monograph also considers some global scenarios of the World System's near future. (shrink)