What is Real

Western science has traditionally emphasized reductionism as the road to understanding. Reductionism, of course, is a process that involves the systematic labeling, categorizing and compartmentalizing of objects. Unfortunately, the western world has also somewhere along the line lost sight of the fact that the universe is ojjc, essentially unlmgmented, whole. 

As Watanabe s Ugly Duckling Theorem reminds us, there can never be a rigorously objective way to ascribe a ineasnre of similarity (or dissimilarity) between any two randomly chosen subsets of a given sc t. An asymmetry can be induced only via some external aesthetic measure. The absolute validity of any partitioning of the world into a specific set of objects and rela tions - which, as we have argued, constitutes the very essence of physics - is therefore, fundamentally, arbitrary.  

As far as an external aesthetic is concerned, we do have two important clues to help guide us (1) chaos theory, from which we learn that natural processes that appear complicated can often be well understood using relatively simple rules, and (2) complex systems theory, from which wc learn that interesting phenomena often emerge on higher levels from parts that are mutually interacting on the lower levels of a hierarchy. 

Of course, physics has long used the idea of arbitrary labeling to its advantage in solving problems. Consider, for example, the following system of equations dxi/dt = 

This system may describe the reaction of n chemicals with Xi representing concentrations of the reactants and aij representing the various rate constants. Depending on the rate-constant matrix otij, the solution to this set of coupled equations can be quite complicated. Suppose there exists an invertible matrix Tij such that (1) pi = TljXj and (2) the rate constants aC for the system defined by the effective concentrations rji is diagonal (i.e. aU = o-ijdijj, 

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Egan, G, (1995) Quarantine. New York HarperCollins. The human mind creates the universe it perceives by quantum-mechanically destroying all other possible universes. The book s characters (and the readers) are forced to ask what is real. 

What do we do with consciousness By a simple extension of the tremendous attachment to and faith in the maps of external reality we already have, we equate consciousness with the operations of the brain. In formal terms, we accept the reality of the psychoneural identity hypothesis, which says that every little nuance of experience is identical to, is caused by, and can be reduced to specific neural processes within the brain and nervous system. What is real is what is physical, and consciousness is just an interesting manifestation of basic physical laws within the physical structure of the brain. 

Of course, the drug dose does not produce the transcendent experience. It merely acts as a chemical key - it opens the mind, frees the nervous system of its ordinary patterns and structures. The nature of the experience depends almost entirely on set and setting. Set denotes the preparation of the individual, including his personality structure and his mood at the time. Setting is physical - the weather, the room s atmosphere social -feelings of persons present towards one another and cultural - prevailing views as to what is real. It is for this reason that manuals or guide-books are necessary. Their purpose is to enable a person to understand the new realities of the expanded consciousness, to serve as road maps for new interior territories which modem science has made accessible. 

Sensing (S)-Intuition (N). Describes how people prefer to take in information focused on what is real and actual or on patterns and meanings in data. 

Differential misclassification occurs when the classification of disease is dependent on the exposure status or the classification of exposure is dependent on the disease status. Differential misclassification can bias the RR in either direction, and often the direction is unknown. Some examples of differential misclassification of exposure are recall bias and observer bias. Recall bias, which is limited to case-control studies, occurs when the cases remember exposure differently than healthy controls this type of bias usually results in finding a greater effect than what is real. Observer bias can occur if the observers, such as study interviewers, incorrectly assign exposure because they know the outcome status of an individual, or it can occur in the follow-up of disease if the observer knows the exposure status of the subject. Ideally, the observer should be blind to the outcome or exposure status of the study subjects. 

In both the examples just presented, the adequacy of the comparison between observed and simulated data was made by the analyst, the same person who did the simulation, which should not really be done. A more valid approach is the Turning test (1950) wherein data are simulated under the model and given to independent experts for comparison. In this manner, the inherent bias of the analyst is avoided in the comparison process. Ideally, the experts are blinded as to what is real and what is simulated. If the experts cannot determine what is real and what is simulated, the model is validated. Models validated under this method have a high degree of credibility, but to date, no PopPK analyses have been validated using this test. 

It is human nature to try to harmonize our universe—to attempt to unify the infinite with the infinitesimal. Pythagoras and his followers developed a purely mathematical conception of the universe. As Pullman notesd Indeed, the Pythagoreans held that numbers are the essence of all things. Numbers are the source of what is real they themselves constitute the things of the world. ... 

BALDWIN, I.T., KESSLER, A., HALITSCHKE, R., Volatile signaling in plant-plant-herbivore interactions what is real , Curr. Opin. Plant Biol., 2002, 5, 351-354. 

It is only in his painfully transformed state that Robert can challenge his new friend in an equivalent way to that with which he had tried to open his mother s eyes. The girl has a red blanket which she fantasises burns like a fire to comfort and warm her. Robert s enhanced ontological, existential vision sees and understands the limits of imagined materiality and the profound, radical reimagining of what is real through encounter with the real ... 

Polish formism was related but not identical to Russian formalism it was less literary analysis and more artistic practice. One of its leading practitioners, Leon Chwistek, was best known for his theory of the multiplicity of reality in art. There is no defined way, he insisted, of presenting what is real - on the contrary the same object can be presented in many different ways. 34 In the journal Formisci, Chwistek explained Those who... 

Psychosis Mental state defined by a failure to differentiate between what is real and what is not in terms of thoughts and perceptions. 

This example illustrates that what is invested in our safety apprehension is less reality than a particular knowledge of what is real [...]. The knowledge contained in the mythical concept is a confuse knowledge, formed by smooth and unlimited associations. This open character of the concept must be stressed this is absolutely not an abstract and purified essence it is a non-formed, instable, unclear condensation which unit and coherence particularly depend of its function. In this sense, one can say that the fundamental character of the mythical concept is to be appropriated (Barthes 1957). The real image of safety is deleted for injunction on safety metaconcept which is a system in a system dealing with sense and interpretation. 

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