Spice melange is bound up with the motivations of most of the characters. Some forsake everything to gain profit through spice or to ingest it, losing themselves in the drug's intoxicating premonitions. Hedonism eventually morphed into the ethical theory of utilitarianism, which tells us to maximize the pleasure of everyone affected by our actions. This chapter explores hedonism in the Dune universe. The Baron is meant to be the immediate tangible evil in the universe of Dune. Spice (...) has a profound effect on Paul Atreides, his family, and the whole universe. Dune is a universe driven by the desires of humanity, and maybe hedonism is an appropriate way for some to live. Hedonism is richly represented throughout the Dune universe, and not even Paul is excluded from the spice's tantalizing effects. (shrink)

Research into early Chinese olfactory culture is only just beginning. This paper argues that before the arrival of Buddhism, elite scent culture had already begun to be transformed by the importation of foreign aromatics, though these substances arrived shorn of their original cultural context. Prior to the importing of intense foreign perfumes, the aromatics available were mostly local, and traditional Chinese practice stressed the use of individual scents in religious contexts, a concept which also had a profound influence on secular (...) usage. The same is true of early osmographies, which link particular kinds of smells—including many that might be considered unpleasant—to the changing seasons. When foreign spices and aromatics arrived in China for the first time, a phenomenon later literature specifically associates with the reign of Han Wudi, this resulted in the development of new complex and powerful perfumes. This in turn may have had a significant impact upon the material culture of Han China, with the spread of personal scenting devices and incense burners. (shrink)

This paper assesses leading Japanese philosophical thought since the onset of Japan’s modernity: namely, from the Meiji Restoration onwards. It argues that there are lessons of global value for AI ethics to be found from examining leading Japanese philosophers of modernity and ethics, each of whom engaged closely with Western philosophical traditions. Turning to these philosophers allows us to advance from what are broadly individualistically and Western-oriented ethical debates regarding emergent technologies that function in relation to AI, by introducing notions (...) of community, wholeness, sincerity, and heart. With reference to AI that pertains to profile, judge, learn, and interact with human emotion, this paper contends that Japan itself may internally make better use of historic indigenous ethical thought, especially as it applies to question of data and relationships with technology; but also that externally Western and global ethical discussion regarding emerging technologies will find valuable insights from Japan. The paper concludes by distilling from Japanese philosophers of modernity four ethical suggestions, or spices, in relation to emerging technological contexts for Japan’s national AI policies and international fora, such as standards development and global AI ethics policymaking. (shrink)

The paper evaluates Christopher Hookway's claim that individual epistemic vice can enhance the value of collective epistemic virtue. I suggest that this claim can be defended on the grounds of a dynamic account of collective intentional properties that is supplemented by an account of a spontaneous ordering mechanism such as the "intangible hand". Both these accounts try to explain how individual traits integrate into collective traits by way of aggregation. In this respect, they are different from normative and summative accounts (...) of plural subjects. I argue that it is the repeatable and self-amplifying nature of character traits that calls for a dynamic account of collective virtues. With regard to epistemic virtues and their role in the acquisition of knowledge I hold that their dynamic and self-amplifying character warrants their reliability, since it is this character that bottoms out in repeated acts of epistemally correct behavior that constitute a 'responsible practice'. The successful appliance of the latter amplifies the attitude it origins from. If epistemic virtues construed along these lines are attributed to collectives, a dynamic aggregate account supplemented by an account of an "intan-gible hand" device might explain how an aggregate of virtuous efforts of individuals can not only absorb a certain amount of vice but be even enhanced by the 'spice' of some non-intentional epistemically vicious side effects of epistemically virtuous en- deavor. (shrink)

(1982). “MORE THAN HALF A HUNDREDWEIGHT” OF SPICES (JOHN 19,39 NEB) ABUNDANCE AND SYMBOLISM IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN. Bijdragen: Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 234-239.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Vexed Pharmacopeia: Musings on Two Thousand Years of Scholarship Regarding the Ancient Spice Trade ROGER MICHEL ALEXY KARENOWSKA GEORGE ALTSHULER MATTHEW COBB Alice went back to the table. She found a little bottle on it, and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words “DRINK ME” beautifully printed on it in large letters. It was all very well to say “Drink me,” (...) but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. “No, I’ll look first,” she said, “and see whether it’s marked ‘poison’ or not.” However, the bottle was not marked “poison,” so Alice ventured to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast), she very soon finished it off. “What a curious feeling!” said Alice. —Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) যে ব্যামোর দেখবেন সাতান্ন রকমের ওষুধ, বুঝে নেবেন, সে ব্যামো ওষুধে সারে না।1 —Syed Mujtaba Ali, চাচা কাহিনী (1955) introduction Mankind’s fascination with spice dates back at least 8,000 years—both culinary and medicinal herbs are referenced in the Vedas, Hinduism’s oldest religious text. Spice is also peppered throughout the Old Testament.2 The Song of Solomon recites: “Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikearion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 2 a vexed pharmacopeia nard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.”3 Every one of these fruits, plants and spices remained popular in the West throughout antiquity, into the Middle Ages, and beyond. As early as 3000 bc, trade routes had connected the Mediterranean to the near east. Courtesy of this “Spice Road,” ancient Mediterranean civilizations had access to a wide range of horseradishes, mustards, peppers, gingers and other spices. The Greeks and Romans had a special relationship with black pepper—so much so that four out of five recipes in Apicius’s famous 1st century cookbook4 called for a sprinkling of this sometimes-costly commodity. It is perhaps not coincidental that black pepper contains heat-producing alkaloids very similar to those found in New World chili peppers. Much has been written about the important role of chilis in South and Central American culture—a region that, by the Middle Ages, was in many respects the equal of Europe in “artistic sensibility, social complexity, and political organization.”5 The habanero and its capsainoid cousins were at the heart of the culinary and ceremonial customs of Mesoamerica, their biting heat and florid livery an apt metaphor for the “extravagant feats of human butchery”6 —very much in the tradition of the spectacular venationes of ancient Rome—for which the Aztecs at least were well known. To what extent was hot spice also a significant part of the culinary, medical and cultural landscape of the Old World? At a conference hosted by the Institute for Digital Archaeology at the University of Oxford last December, experts from Europe and North America examined the literary, historical, archaeological and scientific evidence around these questions. Their inquiry received a boost from new and rapidly developing techniques for examining the physical evidence of ancient diet and food production—laboratory techniques not available even five years ago. There was also fresh medical evidence to consider: significant research is being done in the area of chemosensation in the context of spicy foods. This Roger Michel, Alexy Karenowska, George Altshuler, Matthew Cobb 3 includes trying to understand how different so-called “TRP channels” in the nervous system process spice information— in particular, the connection between spice and endorphin levels. It appears that many of the hot spices available in antiquity could potentially trigger the same TRP channels as the capsaicin-charged Mesoamerican peppers. This creates a nice connection between old and new world spice that helps to explain and contextualize both. However, in the end, firm conclusions at the Oxford conference were scarce. It quickly became clear that more work, a greater diversity of viewpoints, better refined questions, and a change of venue were required to make additional progress. To paraphrase William Boot, the accidental protagonist of Evelyn Waugh’s autobiographical Scoop (wherein events around... (shrink)

Using Currie's critique as a foil, this paper reconstructs Lakatos's thesis that historiography of science is laden with normative assumptions about scientific rationality. It is argued that this thesis comprises both a heuristic claim and a constitutive claim. The Received Critique of Lakatos fails to see that "internal history" and "rational reconstruction" receive a special meaning (by which they designate "rational preconstructions") when used in the context of the heuristic claim. Currie avoids this mistake, but attributes to Lakatos an "investigation-surrogate (...) claim" which misrepresents the heuristic claim, oversimplifying the relation Lakatos envisions between hard cores and the solutions they generate. (shrink)

This report is the testimony of a man who worked with plants, specifically, in what used to be called the ‘drugs and spices’ trade, selling simples for around 40 years. And what better vantage-point than the trader’s to trace, over several decades, the evolution of the attitude of French people (and Europeans more generally) towards plants and, by extension, towards ‘nature’? Beneath the need for medicinal plants, seasonings or flavourings there is a hidden desire of varying strength for ‘nature’. This (...) account describes the decline and disappearance of herbalism, the ‘return’ to plants and the ‘organic’ movement, the manipulations that ran alongside that ‘comeback’, and the market in ‘bogus nature’ created by the synthesizing laboratories. (shrink)

One way of viewing the organizing structure of the Confessions is to see it as an engagement with various texts at different phases of St. Augustine’s life. In the early books of the Confessions, Augustine describes the disordered state that made him unable to read any text (sacred or profane) properly. Yet following his conversion his entire orientation— not only to texts but also to reality as a whole—changes. This essay attempts to trace the winding paths that lead up to (...) Augustine’s conversion through his various encounters with texts (and individuals) and to examine his struggles both intellectual and spiritual along the way. In the final section, I bring Augustine into conversation with Hans-Georg Gadamer in order to highlight a number of hermeneutical continuities shared by premoderns and postmoderns. After comparing premodern and modern hermeneutical orientations, I conclude that Augustine’s approach to Scripture contrasts sharply with a (strict) modern grammatico-historical biblical methodology, whereas premodern hermeneutics share a number of continuities with Gadamerian and postmodern emphases. Lastly, in light of Gadamer’s famous statement, ‘all of life is hermeneutics’, I suggest that perhaps we could read Augustine’s life as affirming this claim. By taking a close look at Augustine’s story, I will attempt to show how pre-judgments, interpretative traditions and a dynamic/analogical rather than a static/univocal understanding of text (and reality) decisively affected his spiritual and intellectual vision—observations Gadamer would no doubt heartily affirm. (shrink)

Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route. By Steven E. Sidebotham. The California World History Library, vol. 18. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2011. Pp. xvii + 434, illus. $49.95.

Drugs, and the states they induce, play central and interwoven roles in the Dune saga. Spice melange, the most valuable object in the known universe, is a cinnamon‐scented, life‐prolonging, mind‐altering drug found only on the planet of Arrakis. Psychedelics, drugs in the hallucinogen class, share many properties with Arrakeen drugs. It's also intriguing that Imperial denizens refer to the universe's most valuable substance as “spice” and “melange.” Computers, thinking machines, and conscious robots threatened humanity's sovereignty and humanity's unique (...) moral status, particularly from a religious perspective. After years of forced migrations from planet to planet, the Fremen finally settled on Arrakis, becoming its indigenous population. Experiential knowledge will be an important teacher to someone without any prior technical or technological training in sustaining a presence in spiritual realms. Techniques and technologies change the people and societies that use them. (shrink)

Blue is a significant color in science fiction: Star Trek, Star Wars, Avatar, Marvel, and DC all have aliens, mutants, and superheroes that come in shades from aqua to cerulean to cobalt. In Dune, however, blue is not a skin tone, it is an eye color – not for aliens, but for humans. Specifically, it is meant to visualize and symbolize the Fremen, and anyone who is either addicted to spice or has been around it long enough for their (...) eyes to change. Accordingly, the blue eyes of Zendaya and Duncan‐Brewster are not just visually striking, they are culturally striking, especially in light of contemporary philosophy of intersectionality and critical race theory. Thus, Denis Villeneuve's Dune is not just re‐colored, it is re‐contextualized to fit a twenty‐first‐century awareness regarding diversity and cultural pluralism. (shrink)

Kinetic models using enzyme kinetics are developed for the three ways that Louie proved that Rosen’s minimal (M-R)-System can be closed to efficient cause; i.e., how the “replication” component can itself be entailed from within the system. The kinetic models are developed using the techniques of network thermodynamics. As a demonstration, each model is simulated using a SPICE circuit simulator using arbitrarily chosen rate constants. The models are built from SPICE sub-circuits representing the key terms in the chemical (...) rate equations. The models include the addition of an ad hoc semi-permeable membrane so the system can achieve steady state fluxes and also to illustrate the need for all the efficient cause agents to be continually replaced. Comments are made about exactly what is being simulated. (shrink)

When you type the word “serendipity” in a word-processor application such as Microsoft Word, the autocorrection engine suggests you choose other words like “luck” or “fate”. This correcting act turns out to be incorrect. However, it points to the reality that serendipity is not a familiar English word and can be misunderstood easily. Serendipity is a very much scientific concept as it has been found useful in numerous scientific discoveries, pharmaceutical innovations, and numerous humankind’s technical and technological advances. Therefore, there (...) have been many books written around the concept. So why do we need this additional book? This is not just another book about serendipity. It has evolved from the Editor’s question lingering for a decade after finishing his widely cited article (coauthored with Prof. Nancy K. Napier of Boise State University, ID, USA) “Serendipity as a strategic advantage?” in T. Wilkinson’s edited volume Strategic Management in the 21st Century, published by Praeger. The Editor and contributing authors have tried to achieve the following in this title. Demystifying the Serendipity Myth The phenomenon of serendipity has always been thought of as a “miracle”. It is the mystery of human innovation and one of the ultimate secrets of our society. But serendipity is not just a lucky coincidence nor any hidden conspiracy. This book explores the science of the information process behind this seemingly miraculous phenomenon. It connects human society with nature, going back to the root of our existence and looking at the flame of survival to discover the harmony in making creativity. Presenting the nuts and bolts of being an adventurer of science The authors present their conceptual investigations into serendipity’s nature and its mechanism by examining interesting real events and stories. The content is thought-provoking, and readers are led to question and explore their own life stories and problems along the journey of reading this book. Catching an elusive high-value target requires great strategies and efforts. But there are no dark secrets here because this is the “way of nature” – how we humans have always strived for innovation without realizing the blueprints behind such processes. Unlike other books on serendipity, this book will show you that a powerful “secret” is closer than you think. Delivering practical uses for different audiences By understanding the conditionality and survival drivers of serendipity, individuals or organizations can make better decisions on creating the right environment to facilitate the encounter and attainment of this valuable phenomenon. For scientists: With clear explanations of the information processes underlying serendipity, flexible theoretical frameworks of mindsponge and the 3D principle of creativity, researchers are provided with the tools they need to dig deeper into their own fields of study and find practical applications, be it psychology, economics, sociology, or anything that involves innovation (which is, in fact, every scientific discipline). For curious casual readers: Everybody needs innovation to make breakthroughs or spice up one’s life. If you think great ideas come to people randomly from an unknown fairy place, this book will convince you otherwise without taking away that awe and wonder. But above all, you will know how to become more creative, scientifically and straightforwardly, with no snake oil and no weird tricks. For ambitious business people: The flame that brought about great successes throughout human history is within you. But you can only use it if you understand it. While others wait for serendipity to come, you will be able to actively hunt for those precious moments. As it has always been: the best hunters triumph, not the passive wanderers. And in this age of information chaos, finding the golden fruits is not easy. Those from information technology know this problem well, and this book is the treasure map that they have been seeking to navigate that stormy ocean looking for jewels. Like a kingfisher tracking its prey through the water, waiting to gracefully strike, with serendipity, a person seizes the prize of creativity amid the chaos of life. ¤ ¤ ¤ Official introduction: The book explores the nature, underlying causes, and the information processing mechanism of serendipity. It proposes that natural or social survival demands drive serendipity, and serendipity is conditional on the environment and the mindset, on both individual and collective levels. From Darwin's evolution theory to Sun Tzu's war tactics, major innovations throughout human history are unified by this key concept. In the rapidly changing world, information is abundant but rather chaotic. The adaptive power of serendipity allows people to notice treasures within this wild sea, but only for those who understand how it works. To increase the probability of encountering and attaining serendipity, one should employ the mindsponge mechanism and the 3D process of creativity, for without these frameworks, serendipity is truly an elusive target. The book also discusses methods to build environments and cultures rich in navigational and useful information to maximize the chance of finding and capitalizing on serendipity. As a skill, serendipity has a resemblance to how kingfishers observe and hunt their prey. (shrink)

Much in Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is part of a participatory turn within the Technology Assessment (TA) and Science and Technology Studies (STS) community. This has an influence also on the evaluation of Climate Engineering (CE) options, as it will be shown by reference to the SPICE project. The SPICE example and the call for democratisation of science and innovation raise some interesting concerns for the normative evaluation of CE options that will be addressed in the paper. (...) It is by far not clear, or so it will be argued, how much of the innovation process of CE technologies should be put in the hands of social actors and the wider public. This is due not only to special features about CE technologies but also to some more principle concerns against some features of participatory RRI approaches. Still, this does by no way mean that ethical and societal issues in the context of CE technologies should be ignored. Rather, the paper will argue that one can take a step back to expert TA linked to the evolution of approaches of ethical impact analysis in this area. This does not only lead to reconsider the emphasis on participation and democratisation of research and innovation, but also opens up for an alternative evaluative framework for CE technologies developed in the last part of the paper. (shrink)

Is the taste of a wine in our minds or in the glass? Can knowledge make a difference to the pleasure a wine gives us? Do the elaborate descriptions of wines in terms of fruits or spices, their "suppleness" or "brawniness," really mean anything? Questions of Taste is the first book to examine the philosophical issues surrounding our experience and enjoyment of wine. Featuring lucid essays from philosophers, a linguist, a biochemist, a wine producer and a wine critic, these leading (...) thinkers use their critical and analytical skills to address these controversial issues. (shrink)

Desires often come to us unbidden and unwanted, and they can have a dramatic impact, sometimes changing the course of our lives. In On Desire, William B. Irvine takes us on a wide-ranging tour of our impulses, wants, and needs, showing us where these feelings come from and how we can try to rein them in. Irvine spices his account with engaging observations by both ancient and modern writers, philosophers, and religious leaders. Irvine also looks at what modern science can (...) tell us about desire--such as what happens in the brain when we desire something--and advances a new theory about how desire evolved. Irvine concludes that the best way to attain lasting happiness is not to change the world around us or our place in it, but to change ourselves. If we can convince ourselves to want what we already have, we can dramatically enhance our happiness. (shrink)

The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including humans are the end product of a long, slow, natural process of evolution rather than the miraculous creation of an all-powerful God--is one of the truly momentous cultural events in Western Civilization. Darwinism as Religion is an innovative and exciting approach to this revolution through creative writing, showing how the theory of evolution as expressed by Darwin has, from the (...) first, functioned as a secular religion. Drawing on a deep understanding of both the science and the history, Michael Ruse surveys the naturalistic thinking about the origins of organisms, including the origins of humankind, as portrayed in novels and in poetry, taking the story from its beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century right up to the present. He shows that, contrary to the opinion of many historians of the era, there was indeed a revolution in thought and that the English naturalist Charles Darwin was at the heart of it. However, contrary also to what many think, this revolution was not primarily scientific as such, but more religious or metaphysical, as people were taken from the secure world of the Christian faith into a darker, more hostile world of evolutionism. In a fashion unusual for the history of ideas, Ruse turns to the novelists and poets of the period for inspiration and information. His book covers a wide range of creative writers - from novelists like Voltaire and poets like Erasmus Darwin in the eighteenth century, through the nineteenth century with novelists including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and H. G. Wells and poets including Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and on to the twentieth century with novelists including Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, William Golding, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan and Marilynne Robinson, and poets including Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay and Philip Appleman. Covering such topics as God, origins, humans, race and class, morality, sexuality, and sin and redemption, and written in an engaging manner and spiced with wry humor, Darwinism as Religion gives us an entirely fresh, engaging and provocative view of one of the cultural highpoints of Western thought. (shrink)

The primary obscenity futuo is unsurprisingly rare in literary Latin. Apart from a single occurrence in Horace's Satires, its usage is limited to the even lower genre of scoptic epigram, as represented by Catullus, Octavian, Martial and the Priapeia, though it frequently occurs in graffiti. Adams has shown how it tends to be a neutral and even affectionate term, lacking any sense of aggression, though not of the assertion of conventional virility. Nevertheless, it is used almost exclusively of recreational, extramarital (...) and/or illicit sex. This may be in part a function of the way in which its obscenity and low linguistic register restrict it to the low genres which tend to deal with such subject matter, but this is a potentially circular argument and, whether chicken or egg came first, the undeniable result is an association of the verb with intercourse which is not primarily or even in any way aimed at procreation. It is striking and anomalous, therefore, when Martial uses futuo, on five occasions, in contexts relating to the production of children. Of course, on a purely logical and biological level, the connection between futuo and the engendering of children is an obvious one. Nevertheless, the aforementioned strong associations of the verb with sex aimed at everything but procreation renders its use in this context jarring. This incongruity and clash of registers is, of course, characteristic of Martial's technique, and the obscenity gains an added spice from being applied to respectable marital relations. The jarring quality is an end in itself and accounts for itself. Yet I wish to argue that there is a further dimension to this discordant association of ‘fucking’ and ‘begetting’, based on a bilingual wordplay between futuo and its near-homonym, the Greek verb φυτεύω. By means of this pun, Martial mischievously suggests not only that ‘fucking’ can be mentioned in the context of ‘begetting’, but also that the two are—in accordance with biology but against all decorum—identical. (shrink)

This article examines a new dimension in the Nigerian Pentecostal understanding of sexuality, which is influenced by the security gospel emanating from Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries in Nigeria. This new dimension is noted in how Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries intricately connects sexuality with destiny. This article shows how Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries promotes a conservative understanding of sexuality as the key to securing believers' destinies. Understanding sexuality from the security gospel perspective is an indication (...) that the Pentecostal theology of sex is dynamic and ambivalent, especially when the theology is spiced with African traditional beliefs. This is demonstrated through a content analysis of the teachings and messages of Pastor Daniel Olukoya, the founder of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries, which are available in print, audio and video clips. It is argued that the persuasive manner in which these teachings are presented tends to create a phobia of sex in the minds of listeners. (shrink)

Who are the Jews? What do they believe? Why is Israel so important to them? What's all this about self-hating Jews? These are just some of the questions that engage a Reform rabbi and a Humanist philosopher in their lively and intriguing conversations. From Antisemitism to Zionism, from animal slaughter kosher-style to the Zeitgeist of Jewish disparaging humour, rabbi Dan Cohn-Sherbok gives us the flavours, traditions and 'feel' of Jewish life and identity enmeshed in the importance of the Holy Land, (...) while philosopher Peter Cave gets him to dig deeper, revealing philosophical perplexities, unsettling questions -- and even Wittgenstein. The book is unique for it challenges unconscious assumptions such as the Jewish conviction that Judaism must survive and that Hitler must not secure a posthumous victory -- as well as widening eyes to searching questions concerning a nation's identity and what justifies territorial rights. Because Jewish humour plays a crucial role in Jewish life, this wide-ranging and thought-provoking exploration includes Jewish jokes and Dan's Jewish cartoons, all designed to add some spice to the dish of what it is like to be a Jew in these modern times. The dialogues introduce the non-Jewish to the Jewish world of argument, anguish and identity -- and will lead Jews to discover some fresh approaches and challenges to their interests and worries. For both Jews and non-Jews, this book casts lights -- with an engaging and accessible tone -- for, clearly, this rabbi and philosopher enjoy the cut and the thrust. (shrink)

The dervish lodge cuisine in the Ottoman lodge structuring has a central importance. The lodge cuisine helped Anatolia turn into a homeland. Travelers took shelter in the lodges in Anatolia. So, these buildings were a safe haven for those who travel. Lodge’s kitchens were always open. These kitchens offered a delightful “Sheikh Baba’s Soup” anytime and these kitchens gave peace and serenity to Anatolia. This article analyzes the Ottoman lodge food culture in the context of a manuscript which belongs to (...) an imaret. This manuscript called Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid was written in between 1240-1250 (1825-1835) in Istanbul. This work belongs to the period of Sultan Mahmud II and the Hudāyī Lodge Foundation. Institution Employees and accounting records were disclosed in this manuscript in which the names of kitchenware are mentioned and recipes are found. This work gives detailed information about foods that are cooked in the Hudāyī Lodge Foundation’s imaret kitchen. -/- SUMMARY Eating is thought always to be important and it is considered worthwhile to eat with guests and travelers in Turkish culture. In the process of Islamization, the dining table was accepted “Halil İbrahim’s Table” and this approach has strengthened further the hospitality. Eating with people, preparing the table for the guests, travelers and the needy were regarded as a factor increasing the fertility of the table. In addition, these movements were considered an act of social cooperation and deepen the collective consciousness. Especially the sufis played a dominant role in the process of Islamization in Anatolia and depending on this, they undertook various social and cultural functions that including catering. In this regard, the lodge was seen as a complex and this structure encompasses different units such as imaret or soup kitchen, mosque, tomb, library, dervish cells, public fountains, bakery and bathhouse. Travelers stay in the imaret and supply their needs, they also nurture themselves spiritually as well. Lodges were a safe haven for these travelers and lodge’s kitchens were open every hour of the day with serving the delicious “Father’s Soup.” Therefore, lodges became a representative of peace. These kitchens take reference the advices of the prophet about eating and serving meals. In addition, the effects of the old Turkish culture and of the Yesevī tradition on these kitchens are witnessed. While many documents related to the food culture in Anatolia could remain to us, regarding the life of lodges especially, information about the kitchens is still limited. Ali Eşref Dede’s cookbook, Yemek Risalesi, is one of the works written about the dishes of Ottoman period. This work is very important in relation to the Mevleviyye as well. This manuscript was written in the 19th century by Sheikh Ali Eşref Dede at Edirne. Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid, one of the other important sources that should be included in the Ottoman lodge food literature. This manuscript is registered in the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality Atatürk Library Muallim Cevdet Yazmaları (number, 224). Two works were written in the same century. In Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid there are some financial and agricultural information concerning to “Hüdâyî Lodge’s Foundation”. This manuscript includes valuable information about accounting records and officers employed in imaret and other institutions. On the other hand, there are various recipes in this manuscript about the imaret meals, also lists of kitchenware and food materials. This record is thirty pages and was written during Mahmud II. period. Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid is related to Aziz Mahmud Hudāyī Lodge that is placed in a high and strategic location in Uskudar that connects Istanbul to Anatolia. This was a complex structure and established in a place of ten thousand square meters. It consisted of imaret, sheikh’s house (haremlik), mosque, tomb, library, dervish cells, bakery and bath. As mentioned above, Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid contains important information about Aziz Mahmud Hudāyī Lodge’s kitchen and recipes. In fact, the manuscript also provides several alternatives to some of the recipes. This record exhibits the structure of the order and the nutritional forms of the Sufis. Thus, to some extent, it is possible to analyze the theoretical and philosophical direction of the order. Because eating in the lodges is not an action just to satisfy a person's stomach. Rather there is a dining ritual in the lodge. In this frame, the importance of the dining table was emphasized in the lodge tradition in the dimension of human education and socialization. In the sense of Sufism, the information about food reveals symbolic and allegorical meanings, sometimes directly or indirectly. Rituals related to food are closely related to the educational process of the dervishes. In this respect, on the sacred journey of dervish it is necessary to eat food permissible in the religion. In this regard, the books about the customs of the order contain considerable information. Giving valuable information about meals Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid contains main course and dessert recipes. It revealed the food habits of the dervishes and the people who were living at that time. The recipes also contain some interesting features applicable in the Turkish kitchen today. In addition, the names of meals and desserts contribute to the richness of the Turkic language. There are soups and salads, meat grills and stew varieties, fish dishes, pastry varieties, dessert varieties, cookies and halvahs. Meals are cooked with butter mainly. Lamb and sheep are preferred in the meals. The use of spices is high. For example, cinnamon is used even when cooking meat and fish. The manuscript seems to have thirty recipes but there are also different cooking methods in the manuscript. Different cooking methods were used together in some meals as frying, boiling and baking. For this reason, the number of recipes in the manuscript increases even more. This article entitled “The Ottoman Dervish Lodge Cuisine and Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid” has been latinized by simplifying the manuscript based on with a single copy. In this article the place and importance of the lodge cuisine in a mystical life has been analyzed in addition to presenting valuable information about the literature that is related to the Anatolian Lodge Cuisine, the Ottoman Cuisine, and recepies cooked in the Ottoman. Furthermore, the work briefly presents some about the lodge because it is related to Aziz Mahmud Hudāyī lodge. Moreover, a dictionary section has been added for understanding the relatively abandoned words in the manuscript. Similarly, measurements and weigh units are briefly given in Majmūʿa al-fawāʾid. (shrink)

Socioeconomic Darwinism is one of the great dilemmas of our industrialized culture, playing itself out in economic events as it does periodically, in an appalling way. The authors expect marketplace competition to result in the better quality, availability, and affordability of a wider range of goods. In each episode of South Park, the authors talk about the boys reflecting on daily life, spiced up with bizarre imaginative cartoon elements, occasional aliens, a pterodactyl or two, biological mishaps, nuclear meltdowns, celebrity politicians, (...) and an endless stream of adult behavior that can only be classified as stranger than weirdness. Death is the great equalizer, which the boys are just old enough to sense. (shrink)

SUMMARYThis article examines Anglo–Dutch rivalry in the Banda Islands in the period from 1609 to 1621, with a particular focus on the process of claiming initiated by the Dutch East India Company and English East India Company. Historians have paid little attention to the precise legal justifications employed by these organisations, and how they affected the outcome of events. For both companies, treaties with Asian rulers and peoples were essential in staking out claims to trade and territory. Because so many (...) different parties were involved, individual documents had to serve multiple purposes, both on the ground in the East Indies and at the negotiating tables back in Europe. Whenever a VOC or EIC official presented a treaty to a Bandanese leader, he had to recognise local power structures in the Spice Islands, but also needed to consider his European competitors in the area, his superiors in Batavia or Bantam, and the company directors back in Amsterdam or London. Consequently, the safest and most reliable course of action was to make as many arguments as possible, piling them on top of one another. The result was an inherently messy process of claiming, yet one that was also clearly intelligible to most parties involved, including Asian rulers and peoples. A constantly changing legal suite extended to freedom of trade and navigation, contracts and alliances with native peoples, just war, conquest, actual possession, and the surrender of native sovereignty to European authorities. (shrink)

In this work we present an explainable system for emotion attribution and recommendation (called DEGARI (Dynamic Emotion Generator And ReclassIfier) relying on a recently introduced probabilistic commonsense reasoning framework (i.e. the TCL logic, see Lieto & Pozzato 2020) which is based on a human-like procedure for the automatic generation of novel concepts in a Description Logics knowledge base (see also Lieto et al. 2019, Chiodino et al. 2020 for other applications). In particular, in order to model human-like forms of concept (...) combinations, the TCL logic combines a probabilistic description logics of typicality with the HEAD-MODIFIER heuristics coming from cognitive semantics. In the context of our application of such framework, our system exploits the logic TCL to automatically generate novel commonsense semantic representations of compound emotions (e.g. Love as derived from the combination of Joy and Trust according to Plutchik’s theory of emotions, see Plutchik 2001). The generated emotions corresponds to prototypes, i.e. commonsense representations of given concepts, and have been used to reclassify emotion-related contents in a variety of artistic domains. We have tested our system in the context of the H2020 EU project SPICE for providing artistic recommendations of museum items in the Galleria di Arte Moderna (GAM) of Turin. The obtained results (reported in Lieto et al, 2021 and Lieto at al., to appear) show promising results for what concerns both the acceptance of the provided affective recommendation and the explainability associated to each suggestion made by the users. Here we discuss, the open problems and the lessons learned. -/- . (shrink)

ABSTRACT: This paper discusses ancient versions of paradoxes today classified as paradoxes of presupposition and how their ancient solutions compare with contemporary ones. Sections 1-4 air ancient evidence for the Fallacy of Complex Question and suggested solutions, introduce the Horn Paradox, consider its authorship and contemporary solutions. Section 5 reconstructs the Stoic solution, suggesting the Stoics produced a Russellian-type solution based on a hidden scope ambiguity of negation. The difference to Russell's explanation of definite descriptions is that in the Horn (...) Paradox the Stoics uncovered a hidden conjunction rather than a hidden existential sentence. Sections 6 and 7 investigate hidden ambiguities in 'to have' and 'to lose' (including inalienable and alienable possession) and ambiguities of quantification based on substitution of indefinite plural expressions for indefinite or anaphoric pronouns, and Stoic awareness of these. Section 8 considers metaphorical readings and allusions that add further spice to the paradox. (shrink)

The objective of this study is to provide insight into culinary systems. Each culture expresses its own identity through the way in which it transforms food into an elaborated cuisine. The phases of a cooking process start with the choice of ingredients, their preparation, their processing, how they are served, and how they are eaten. Each of these phases makes it possible to understand the semiotic and social behavior of a human group in the moment they choose to prepare and (...) eat a particular food. Therefore, this article contains a contrastive analysis of how Mexican, Texan, and Italian cuisines show how spicy and hot food is interpreted depending on the values that ​​are given to it in regards to being considered a dish, a spice or a vegetable. It bases its analysis on the mechanisms built around the meaning of chile in order to express cultural characteristics and differences. The recipes and their narrative processes, in addition to the use of color, allow the identification of parameters to describe the various cuisines through recipes books. (shrink)

Odor naming is enhanced in communities where communication about odors is a central part of daily life (e.g., wine experts, flavorists, and some hunter‐gatherer groups). In this study, we investigated how expert knowledge and daily experience affect the ability to name odors in a group of experts that has not previously been investigated in this context—Iranian herbalists; also called attars—as well as cooks and laypeople. We assessed naming accuracy and consistency for 16 herb and spice odors, collected judgments of (...) odor perception, and evaluated participants' odor meta‐awareness. Participants' responses were overall more consistent and accurate for more frequent and familiar odors. Moreover, attars were more accurate than both cooks and laypeople at naming odors, although cooks did not perform significantly better than laypeople. Attars' perceptual ratings of odors and their overall odor meta‐awareness suggest they are also more attuned to odors than the other two groups. To conclude, Iranian attars—but not cooks—are better odor namers than laypeople. They also have greater meta‐awareness and differential perceptual responses to odors. These findings further highlight the critical role that expertise and type of experience have on olfactory functions. (shrink)

Back in thirteenth-century Europe, in the early years of the great universities, learning was spiced with the danger of mob violence and a terrifyingly repressive religious censorship. Roger Bacon, a humble and devout English friar, seems an unlikely figure to challenge the orthodoxy of his day - yet he risked his life to establish the basis for true knowledge. Born c.1220, Bacon was passionately interested in the natural world and how things worked. Such dangerous topics were vetoed by his Order, (...) and it was only when a new Pope proved sympathetic that he began compiling his encyclopaedia on everything from optics to alchemy - the synopsis took a year and ran to 800,000 words and he was never to complete the work itself. Sadly, the enlightened Pope died, and Bacon was tried as a magician and incarcerated for ten years. Legend transformed Bacon into a sorcerer, 'Doctor Mirabilis', yet he taught that all magic was based on fraud, and his books were the first flowering of the scientific thinking that would transform our world. He advanced the understanding of optics, made geographical breakthroughs later used by Columbus, predicted everything from horseless carriages to the telescope, and stressed the importance of mathematics to science, a significance ignored for 400 years. His biggest contribution was to insist that a study of the natural world by observation and exact measurement was the surest foundation for truth. Clegg uncovers the realities of life in a medieval university and friary, setting out the shadowy facts of Bacon's life alongside his writings. The result is both a fascinating biography and a picture of the age. (shrink)

AIDSThe sudden appearance of a truly new disease is a wake-up call. A new global pandemic of an infectious agent, transmitted through sexual contact and blood, affecting alienated and/or deprived people and communities, infectious throughout, that causes a slowly progressive breakdown of defence against other infectious diseases, as well as causing dementia in some, and leads to a premature death, occurring in an era of extensive travel and rapid communication, is a veritable tocsin. These crude ingredients of AIDS as a (...) medical and social phenomenon, blended with the poignant personal histories revealed to clinical professionals, spiced — as if this were necessary — by the fear, the prejudice, the wild theorising and the voyeurism, have presented a substantial challenge to practical medical ethics.Familiar ethical debates have been reopened with new perspective and insight, others have been examined thoroughly for the first time. Building on the major developments in medical ethics over recent decades, AIDS has provided an opportunity, indeed a necessity, for its maturation. It continues to present new issues for debate, while those that were present from the outset continue to perplex us, as this issue of the journal should show. In teaching, AIDS offers a plethora of examples to illustrate most of the central tenets and tensions of medical ethics. As an exemplar, it has provided preparation and precedent for addressing some of the issues emerging from new challenges, such as screening for susceptibility to genetic disease.AJPBereavementThe word comes from the same germanic root as “to be robbed excessively”. Bereavement is an intensely personal and disorienting experience, to which people can react with denial, anger, guilt or depression, sometimes prolonged. In Western countries nowadays it is most commonly experienced in mid-life through the death of a parent, or in old age through that of a …. (shrink)

This beautiful, inspiring book features 160 impactful, practical ways to transform everyday tasks into enjoyable, indulgent moments that reduce stress and leave you feeling balanced, connected, and ready to take on the day. In Rituals for Life, you’ll discover how to transform everyday activities such as waking, bathing, eating, and walking into mindfulness exercises. With 160 rituals throughout, you’ll learn how to infuse meaning into your daily life and improve your sense of health, empowerment, peace, prosperity, gratitude, intentionality, groundedness, and (...) renewal. Examples of rituals include: -Greet the dawn -Walk through green space to reflect, refresh, and restore healthy well-being -Heat or cool your body with Ayurvedic spices -Use your breath to find bliss -Create a personal ceremony to bless your healthy body and creative mind Within each chapter, you’ll find suggested ritual sequences to further guide and structure your days. You’ll also discover how to select rituals from the book to create your own unique routines that fit your mood, needs, interests, and desires. With Rituals for Life, you’ll transform mundane tasks into inspiring, enriching ways to savor life and enhance your overall well-being. (shrink)

This paper presents the design, simulation, and experimental verification of the fractional-order multiscroll Lü chaotic system. We base them on op-amp-based approximations of fractional-order integrators and saturated series of nonlinear functions. The integrators are first-order active realizations tuned to reduce the inaccuracy of the frequency response. By an exponential curve fitting, we got a convenient design equation for realizing fractional-order integrators of orders from 0.1 to 0.95. The results include simulations in SPICE of the mathematical description and the electronic (...) implementation and experimental measurements that confirm them. Monte Carlo and sensitivity tests revealed a robust realization. Contrary to its passive counterparts, the suggested realizations significantly reduce design and implementation efforts by favoring resistors and capacitors with commercial values and reducing hardware requirements. (shrink)