The relationship between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India has traditionally been seen in terms of the interaction of two different trends—cooperation and competition. At the same time, the positive or negative dynamics of China–Indian contacts have mostly been shaped by the extent to which the political leadership of China and India have been prepared at various times to be guided by pragmatic interests and the desire to overcome the legacy of the past. This set of (...) problems includes long-standing territorial disputes, New Delhi’s suspicions of the “all-weather strategic partnership” between Beijing and Islamabad, as well as the sensitive issues of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. Although the idea of ChIndia, as a condominium of the global interests of the two Asian giants and a manifestation of their growing interdependence, is no longer relevant, this article argues that cooperation or confrontation between China and India should not be linked solely to historical matters, but should be viewed from a broader regional and international perspective. (shrink)

In recent decades, scientists and philosophers have developed several naturalistic theories of consciousness, in which they try to work out some theoretical foundations for a satisfactory solution to the problem of voluntary acts, in particular the genesis of voluntary bodily movements. From the author’s point of view, depending on which concept of consciousness scientists rely on in their empirical studies of voluntary movements, volition can be understood either as a generative act or as a perceptual act. The first part of (...) the article shows that nowadays there are two competing philosophical and scientific models of volition: the generative model (dualistic and casualistic types) and the perceptual model (strong and weak types). The second part of the article deals with some experimental data from cognitive psychology and neuroscience related to the study of voluntary movements and concludes that they are in favor of the perceptive model of volition. (shrink)

In this article, the author describes the far Eastern Federal district as one of the subjects, considers the socio-economic development of the Far East, especially the timber industry. Since this industry is a priority of socio-economic development. The author also describes the problems of development of the timber industry in the Far East, focusing on the production potential, the object of attention also includes customs duties, the cost of forest products. The author considers solutions to problems through the development of (...) foreign economic cooperation with the countries of the Northeast Asia, namely through foreign investment in the timber industry, construction of common enterprises on mutually beneficial terms, etc. (shrink)

Мифы пронизывают всю современную жизнь. Для нормального существования общества они не менее важны, чем экономика или система обороны. Мифы бывают светлыми и темными, духовно облагораживающими.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Invisible ChildrenMaureen KelleyИсчезаю в весне,в толпе,в лужах,в синеве.И не ищите.Мне так хорошо...I fade into spring,or into a crowd,or into a puddle,sometimes into the blue.There's no sense in looking for me.I feel fine...—¾"Absentee" by Arvo Mets"You have to go through Lesha to get to Danil," Alexandra told me. Lesha was a small but unmoving dog with matted hair and a fierce growl. The dog was pressed against the (...) little boy, who looked no more than three or four years old. Alexandra later told me he was eight. Danil was wearing a Spider Man shirt that was four sizes too big and came down to his feet and mismatched sandals. He was huddled against his dog not only for security but warmth. His tiny arm circled Lesha's neck and he looked at me with a mix of curiosity and caution. I knelt and put my hand out for Lesha to smell me. Apparently I didn't pass the smell test. The dog didn't budge from his post. We stood like that for a long time, at the base of the steps to the shelter. I tried the few Russian words I had learned while visiting as a volunteer. The dog didn't understand my broken Russian, or pretended not to, but I managed to get a shy smile from Danil.Alexandra, a nurse volunteer at the shelter, eventually mediated the standoff by giving Lesha, the dog, a cookie. I introduced myself to the little boy. And just like that, he leaned up against me and put both arms around my legs. It didn't matter that I was a stranger, and a stranger who spoke terrible Russian. "Spidey" was an affectionate little guy. He gripped my hand while Alexandra led us up the steps and Lesha followed close behind. Inside was a small room, warm and full of color. One wall was covered in kids' drawings. Another had public health posters in Russian, some with instructions for condom use, others on literacy. There were about fifteen kids in the shelter that afternoon. The young ones were drawing pictures at a low table. Two teenage boys were hunched over a small TV playing a video game. There was only one teenage girl, Irina. She was cooing at the little kid's drawings, showing one girl how to draw a princess. Alexandra said quietly to me, "Most of the teenage girls are only here in the morning. The rest are back at work right now." I found out later "back at work" meant on the streets as sex workers. This city was frequented by businessmen and itinerant workers heading to the factories or lumber mills in the North. The best money for homeless girls was in prostitution. Danil unwrapped himself from me and ran over to the two older boys playing video games. One put his controller down long enough to pull Danil into his lap. The three boys stared intently as Super Mario hopped from mushroom to magic cloud, golden coins spinning above his cartoon head.To the right of the main room was a closet-sized office for the shelter director, Anya, a pediatrician who donated her time to running the shelter for homeless and orphaned youth living on the streets. Alexandra and I stood in the doorway waiting for Anya to finish a phone conversation. Her desk was covered in papers. Behind her were photos of the kids who had "graduated" from the streets. There were cards and letters pinned to a cork board. When [End Page E4] she finished, Anya greeted us with bear hugs and showed us to the clinic area. Next to her office was a small bathroom with a shower and tub. She explained that bath days were on Wednesdays. Around back, with a separate entrance was the small clinic space. The outside metal door had a sliding window that you see at some nightclubs. They ran a needle exchange program out of that door. It was funded for street youth, but from time to time they would get adult addicts. Anya was adamant that this side of the clinic remain separate from the central space for the children. In reality the distance... (shrink)

Voprosy filosofii is publishing V. I. Danilov-Danil'ian's article "Is the ‘Coevolution of Nature and Society’ Possible?" in which he discusses at the same time the problems of sustainable development. It is a well-written, sharp polemic directed against my use of the concept "coevolution of nature and society." The article is reads easily and contains many interesting ideas. I believe it will spark the reader's interest, especially as it contains a number of debatable assertions, and may be regarded as the (...) opening of a debate on the problem of the coevolution of nature and society. A number of my works on this issue have been published and the fullest exposition of my position is contained in the monograph Sovremmenyi ratsionalizm, published in 1995. (shrink)

In the last few decades we have become aware of the ecological problem, a problem of unprecedented scale and urgency. It consists of the danger that within our or the succeeding generation all life on earth, including the human species, will become extinct. This possibility rests on the one hand on the conspicuous changes in the global environment that are being effeted by human activity and, on the other, on a new physical theory of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. According to this discipline, (...) complex dynamic systems like the earth's biosphere are extremely unstable. When internal or external fluctuations exceed a certain threshold, such systems collapse into a state of chaos, the outcome of which is in principle unpredictable. The new systems that emerge from chaos are more complex, flexible, and efficient in utilizing free energy, but their components and structure cannot be foreseen. By applying this theory to our biosphere we can infer that if the man-caused disturbances in it exceed a certain level, the biosphere will break down and, eventually, a radically different environment will form. Such catastrophes have already occurred in the course of evolution, wiping out chains of interdependent species and restructuring the biosphere. As two of our authors—V. I. Kurashov and V. I. Danilov-Danil'ian—point out, the fact that we cannot determine our biosphere's threshold and predict at what point the biosphere will descend into chaos is no comfort; on the contrary, it makes our situation all the more dangerous. It is clear that we must immediately drastically reduce our impact on the natural environment. How to do so is not at all clear. (shrink)