Sunday, January 26, 2020

Time Series Space Phase Qualitative Analysis and Application

Time Series Space Phase Qualitative Analysis and Application Dan CHICEA1 and Silviu REI2 ABSTRACT: In a coherent light scattering experiment using a laser beam and a cuvette containing a suspension the interference field has a boiling speckle aspect. Using a detector and a data acquisition system a time series can be recorded. A possible definition for the space phase of a time series is defined. The distribution of the velocities and the trajectory in the phase space are analyzed both for computer simulated samples and for recordings on two suspensions that have the average particle size measured using Dynamic Light Scattering procedure. The results reveal that the distribution of the velocities and the trajectory in the phase space can be used in a qualitative way to characterize the average particle size in suspension. KEY WORDS: time series, phase space, velocity distributions, suspensions 1 INTRODUCTION If coherent light is incident on a medium with scattering centers (SC hereafter) a non-uniformly illuminated image is obtained, currently named speckled image, having a statistical distribution of the intensity over the interference field. The speckled image appears as a result of the interference of the wavelets scattered by the SC, each wavelet having a different phase and amplitude in each location of the interference field. The image changes in time as a consequence of the SC hereafter complex motion of both sedimentation and Brownian motion [1-3]. This complex motion produces fluctuations of the image intensity in each location of the interference field, giving the aspect of â€Å"boiling speckles†. The speckled image can be observed either in free space and is named objective speckle or on the image plane of a diffuse object illuminated by a coherent source and it is named subjective speckle in [4]. The review paper [5] names the two types of speckled images as far field speckle and image speckle. In this work the objective speckle, respectively the far field speckle is considered, recorded and analysed. Although light propagation through disperse systems such as biological cells in suspensions or grouped in tissues has been studied extensively, especially using image processing techniques [6], [7] the scattering process modelling and characterization is not straightforward. Recording the far field fluctuations on a certain location using a detector and a data acquisition system will produce a time series. Time series have been extensively analyzed using different procedures. A widely used class of procedures start with the Fourier transform to produce the power spectrum density (PSD). The shape of the PSD depends of two parameters. Finding them using a least squares fit will provide information on the size and size distribution of the particles in suspension. Just some of the papers that describe in detail and report results found using the above mentioned procedure, currently named Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), are [8-12]. An alternative procedure to analyse time series, whether produced by a detector and a data acquisition system in a light scattering experiment or extracted from a recording using a charged coupled device (CCD) [13], in a qualitative manner, using the patterns of the time signal in the space phase, is presented in the next section. 2 SPACE PHASE The space phase (SP hereafter) is the collection of all states for a system. A time series is actually a vector x(i), i=1à ·n, containing the collection of values, intensity if we record a far interference field in a light scattering experiment, and n is the total number of recorded values. Typically, the values are recorded at equal time intervals, Δt=1/fs, where fs is the sampling rate of the data acquisition system. We can define a velocity at time t, hence corresponding to the value x(i) of the time series, as the variation rate of the time signal at that moment: (1) We therefore find a pair of [x(i), v(i)] for each value in the time series, a total of n-1 pairs. Each pair represents a point in the 2 dimensional space, which we can define as the space phase (SP) for the time series. First a simple algorithm to generate in a realistic manner time series that were recorded during a DLS experiment was established. A time series, as results from the Fourier analysis of the recorded data [8-11], can be modelled as an overlapping of harmonic functions of different frequencies. Moreover, the smaller the particles in suspension are, the bigger the turnover point is [8] in the PSD. With these facts in mind, a program to generate the time series with a sampling rate fs was written and used. The program generates a certain number nf (50 for the work reported here) of amplitudes ai in the range [1, 10] using a uniform random distribution, with a random initial seed, computed using the system clock. It also generates nf frequencies fi in the range [f1, f2] and initial phases φi in the range [0, 2Ï€] and the vector containing the moments ti with the desired number of values, equally spaced at Δt. Each value xi is computed using equation (2): (2) In [8-12] it is stated that the smaller the particles are, the bigger the frequencies are, therefore an attempt to simulate experimentally recorded time series for different particles in suspension must have different frequency ranges. Several time series were used in the simulation presented in this work and two of them were selected. We call the first s1, having the 50 frequencies generated in the range 100-200 Hz and the second s2 with the frequencies in the range 2000-2500 Hz. Each series lasted for 2 seconds and fs was 10000 Hz, thus having 20000 values each. Figure 1:A 0.5 s sequence of each series. The blue line is for s1 and the red line for s2. A plot of a 0.5 s sequence of each series is presented in Fig. 1. It reveals a faster variation of the s2 time series than in s1, as expected. The SP for the two time series, s1 and s2 is presented in Figs. 2 and 3. We notice the big difference in the SP shape. S1 that contains slower fluctuations is elliptic closer to a circle for this axes range selection while s2 that contains faster fluctuations is a prolonged ellipsis. The distribution of the velocity values v, in SP, for the two series, each value calculated with equation (1), is presented in Fig.4. We notice the difference between the two distributions, laying in being wider for the s2 time series containing faster fluctuations. Moreover, we notice that the distribution is symmetrical in both situation and the resemblance with the Gaussian is very good. Figure 2:The SP for s1. Figure 3:The SP for s2. Figure 4:The distribution of the velocity values v, in SP, for the two series. The blue line is for s1 and the red line is for s2. 3 RESULTS and discussion The results of the qualitative analysis presented in the previous section were compared with experimental results. A water sample from a river was extracted after a heavy raining and was analyzed using the DLS procedure described in details in [8 12]. The DLS results reveal that the average diameter was 0.134 ÃŽ ¼m. We name this time series rw1. After 24 h the sample was analyzed again and the average diameter was found to be 0.635 ÃŽ ¼m. We name this time series rw2. The average diameter increased because the inorganic suspensions, like sand and silt, which have the biggest concentration and smaller diameter, became sediment, while the organic particles having the density closer to the water density remained suspended. Fig. 5 reveals the SP for the experimental rw1 time series and Fig. 6 for the experimental rw2 series having bigger particles in suspension. Examining the two imagines we notice that the SP of rw1 appears to have more domains, as there are at least two groups of particles in suspension, the inorganic particles, having bigger concentration and the organic particles, which remained suspended. Figure 5:The SP for rw1. Figure 6:The SP for rw2. The other feature of the SP that appears to present differences was the velocity distribution. The distribution for the velocity distributions of rw1 and rw2 time series recorded during a DLS experiment are presented in Fig. 7. Examining the velocity distributions we notice that the distribution of rw2 is wider than the distribution of rw1. Moreover, we notice that the distributions cannot be viewed as simple Gaussian distributions but as a complex overlap of several distributions and this can be the result of the fact that the particles in suspension, both in rw1 and rw2 have a complex size distribution rather than a mono dispersed distribution, therefore the simple observation from Fig. 4 does not stand in all situations. Figure 7:The distribution of the velocity values v, in SP, for the two series. The blue line is for rw2 and the red line is for rw1. 4 CONCLUSION The SP was defined for a time series as the collection of all possible states. Several time series were generated using a computer code written for this purpose. The time series were the sum of 50 harmonic functions with random amplitudes, phases and frequencies, the last being generated in a certain interval. Two series with frequencies in the intervals 100 – 200 Hz and 2000 – 2500 Hz were generated starting from the assumption that the frequency of the fluctuations in a DLS time series strongly depends of the suspended particle size. A scatter plot in the SP and a velocity distribution are presented for each of the two samples. The simulation reveals that the plot of the SP can give a qualitative image about the particles assumed to be in suspension. The smaller the particles are and the narrower the particle size distribution is (reflected in smaller frequency range), the more prolonged the image in the SP is. Moreover, smaller particles (hence bigger frequencies) produce a wider velocity distribution. A narrow frequency interval produces a symmetrical distribution resembling very well a Gaussian. These qualitative conclusions are confirmed in part by the results of the same procedures applied on experimentally recorded time series during a DLS experiment. Using the two river water samples, we found the shape of the image of the SP appears to exhibit different domains if there are more types of particles in suspension. And more, the velocity distribution appears to be the sum of several distributions, under the same circumstances. These conclusions suggest a simple procedure that can be used in monitoring the evolution of the particle size in a suspension, as in sedimentation of particles in rivers, colloid aggregation or biological fluids. The shape of the space phase and the width and shape of the velocity distribution can provide qualitative information on the distribution of the average suspended particle diameter. Work is scheduled to simulate the time series in a more realistic manner, considering a complex size distribution of the suspended particles. Here are mentioned the institutes from where are the authors (Style 1, Times New Roman, 10 points, left, normal)[R1] 1 Professor, Ph.D., Faculty of Sciences, Department of Environmental Sciences, Physics, Physical Education and Sports, University â€Å"Lucian Blaga†, Sibiu, Romania 2 Physicist, M.S., Group Leader, Continental Automotive Systems, Sibiu, Romania E-mail: [emailprotected]; [emailprotected] 5 REFERENCES à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Coherent Light Scattering on Nanofluids Computer Simulation Results, Applied Optics, Vol. 47, No. 10, pp. 1434-1442, (2008). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, A Simple Algorithm to Simulate Nanoparticles Motion in a Nanofluid, U.P.B. Sci. Bull., Series A, Vol. 76, Iss. 2, pp: 199-206, (2014). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Radu Chicea, Liana Maria Chicea, Using Chodin to Simulate Coherent Light Scattering Dynamics on Biological Suspensions, Romanian Journal of Biophysics, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 157–170, (2010). à ¢- º Joseph.W. Goodman, Statistical Properties of Laser Speckle Patterns, in Laser speckle and related phenomena, Vol.9 in series Topics in Applied Physics, J.C. Dainty, Ed., Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, Tokyo, (1984). à ¢- º David Briers, Laser Doppler, Speckle and Related Techniques for Blood Perfusion Mapping and Imaging, Physiol. Meas. 22, R35–R66, (2001). à ¢- º David Briers, Donald D. Duncan, Evan Hirst, Sean J. Kirkpatrick, Marcus Larsson, Wiendelt Steenbergen, Tomas Stromberg, and Oliver B. Thompson, Laser speckle contrast imaging: theoretical and practical limitations, Journal of Biomedical Optics 18(6), 066018(1-9), (2013). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Biospeckle Size and Contrast Measurement Application in Particle Sizing and Concentration Assessment, Romanian Journal of Physics, Vol. 52, Numbers 5-7, pp. 581-587, (2007). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, A Study of Nanoparticle Aggregation by Coherent Light Scattering, Current Nanoscience, vol. 8 issue 6, pp. 259-265, 2012, doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2174/157341312800167704. à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Revealing FE3O4 Nanoparticles Aggregation Dynamics Using Dynamic Light Scattering, Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials – Rapid Communications vol. 3, no. 12, pp. 1299 – 1305, (2009). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Nanoparticles And Nanoparticle Aggregates Sizing by DLS and AFM, D. Chicea, Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials – Rapid Communications vol. 4, issue 9, pp. 1310 – 1315, (2010). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Emil Indrea, Carmen Monica Cretu, Assesing FE3O4 Nanoparticle Size by DLS, XRD AND AFM, Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced MaterialsVol: 14,Issue: 5-6, pp: 460-466, (2012). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Revealing FE3O4 Nanoparticle Aggregation in Aqueous Suspension by Nonconventional Optical Methods, Journal of Optoelectronics And Advanced Materials Vol. 15, No. 9 10, pp. 982 – 988, (2013). à ¢- º Dan Chicea, Application of Whole Blood Coherent Light Scattering Dynamics Analysis Journal of Optoelectronics and Advanced Materials,Vol. 10, No. 8, pp. 2163-2167, (2008). 6 notation The following symbols are used in this paper: 1 ACADEMIC JOURNAL OF MANUFACTURING ENGINEERING, VOL. 7,ISSUE 1/2009 [R1]Trebuie facut un review la povestea asta !!!

Friday, January 17, 2020

Atheism vs Theism Essay

The problem Atheists have with Theists and the premise of God, a Being who is all good, omniscient, omnipotent and eternal, is that they believe that since science and the world cannot prove that such a being exists and since life seems to sustain itself without any external help, then this Being probably does not exists nor can this Being ever be proven to exist. This method of thinking stems directly from a belief, not that science is god, but more that mankind is a self-sufficient, self-reliant being along with the philosophy of materialism and evolution which denies the possibility of soul or the immaterial. This resulted in the hijacking of science to prove what materialists already believed, that everything is relative and truth exists only if it can be proven by science. This is, as a materialist already knows, an issue that can only relate to the corporeal. The conflict that occurs is many theists belief that there is a truth and it can be known by reason which includes science but also can be discovered using every aspect of the human person. This includes the spiritual, corporeal, and even the emotive aspect of the man. The another debate in this issue pits the clinging to classical thought by the theists against claim that classical thought is unsubstantiated, old fashioned and that only modern thought is relevant because it is the most progressive. So there seems to be an intrinsic impossibility for a materialist atheist to believe in God because it is diametrically opposed to the dogmatic belief in science, materialism, and man as a creature of nature not of the immaterial. The Atheists’ beliefs The atheists’ core beliefs have already been brought to attention but in order for a complete argument to take place, a simple overview is not sufficient, so a more in depth analysis is needed to better understand this ideological battle. To be fair to atheists, there is a diversity of ideas and beliefs why God cannot exist. Some of these reasons behind this belief can be simple and unfounded arguments or elaborate systems which argue God out of the picture. While it would be easy to discredit and disprove the simple arguments, such as â€Å"I don’t see God’s involvement in the world and it seems like the world functions on its own, therefore, God doesn’t exist,† there are plenty of arguments that have shown this type of thinking as shallow and wrong. The more significant arguments are the views of atheism include a mechanistic view of the world along with a materialist understanding of the operations of the world. This is the view, according to Edward Feser, that most serious atheists hold and is responsible for the understanding that God does not exist in the world, that the world is self sufficient and that man is simple a creature of evolution. Of course what follows from this belief is the understanding that man is not bound to anything spiritual or moral since there is no such thing as morals since that entails something immaterial. They believe instead that morality is either a construct of the mind, which is influenced by Kant, or that morality is the conditioning of the culture to make man feel guilty, which is influenced by Nietzsche. Feser points to the origin of this mode of thinking, explaining that it stems from the removal of the formal and final cause of things of Aristotle’s natural science in which all things have a material, efficient, formal and final cause. When the formal and final cause is removed then people don’t have a final end other than survival nor does anything have a nature or is there a correct form. What this does is it removes the importance of religion. When there is no afterlife or purpose of a person to be moral then there is no need for God or religion. Feser also claims that once formal and final causes were removed, and then it paved the way to materialism, which, if there is a formal or final cause of things, is the only reasonable understanding of the world. Materialism is the belief that everything can be reduced to their material function and there is nothing outside of empirical evidence. There means there is no soul or spiritual aspect of a human person. People are given the impression that science can explain everything, but Feser explains that â€Å"For the reason science has â€Å"explained† almost everything other than the mind is precisely because everything that doesn’t fit the mechanistic model has been swept under the rug of the mind, treated as a mere projection. † The very essence of today’s atheism is that the world can be explained and if there is something that cannot be explained then they say that science will explain it after we have a better understanding of the object in question. This belief that science can and will explain everything is held so strongly that atheists become as Feser describes them, â€Å"the very thing they argue against† namely, dogmatic and irrational. This is a result of the belief that there is no truth. Science, although it has improved the quality of life and has led to many discoveries, is to blame for a particular mentality that is felt all over the world, that of progress. Along with thinkers like Hegel, who believe that all of history is progress and that everything has been leading up to our point in time today, the mentality within science is that progress is always good. This is another assumption held by atheists in that they believe that science is progress and if there is progress then the time this progress was a lesser time and held views that were lesser and imperfect. So from this understanding, Christianity and religion in general is old fashioned and wrong, while science is right and the only truth that is, if there can even be truth. It is science that focuses on the efficient and material causes of things. In other words, it is science that ignores formal or final causes. Because of this belief it makes the place of religion irrelevant. Materialist atheists use science, the study of material objects with their molecular makeup and the like and use what we have discovered by means of science to explain questions of metaphysical nature. Feser explains that â€Å"empirical science of its very nature cannot give us the full story about these matters; but metaphysics just is the rational investigation if them. † Also on the same topic of the separation between religion and science, Stephen Jay Gould explains that â€Å"the net of science covers the empirical realm: what he universe is made of and why does it work this way. The net of religion extends over question of moral meaning and value. † (Gould p. 522) A conflict has occurred however because as was mentioned previously, when the final and formal cause is removed, then the nature’s of things don’t exist but so does purpose and without purpose then going beyond the what is impossible. Atheists hold central to their beliefs that there is nothing beyond this world and that all operations of the world are contained within it. Richard Dawkins believes rather that our â€Å"morality† has been changing and that the Old Testament God is â€Å"will not be adopted as a literal role model by anybody you or I would wish to know. † He means that social norms have been changing and that our morality can be explained through science of culture and society, not dependent on God or scripture. Dawkins continues saying that other aspects of the Christian religion are in conflict with science. He claims that the assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven is false and assumes that heaven is a â€Å"physical reality – how else could the physical body of a woman go there? Dawkins brings this up to make the point that everything is under the realm of science; he even goes as far as to say that the â€Å"sudden injection if an immortal soul in the time-line is an anti-evolutionary intrusion into the domain of science. Dawkins’ point is that there is not a separation of religion and science; metaphysical claims are even under the claims of science. In the case of the mind, Dawkins and others believe it can be explained. And even though there is religion, it is a simple social construct to control the ignorant. Their truth is that science can explain everything even prove that a metaphysical world cannot exist. The Theist’s Side The theists fall back on something a little different, tradition. Now contrary to atheist’s beliefs, theism does use reason to justify keep God in the discussion but also to keep other metaphysical claims. Christianity has an understanding that the world is a transitory with God as its creator. From an understanding that God is creator, it is reasonable to expect everything in nature to abide by a law, to be ordered and have the ability to be understood. Also from the tradition of the philosophers of history, this belief has been thought over and many rational arguments have been made in favor of theism. These arguments even came from antiquity. Plato and Aristotle gave many arguments defending the immaterial. Both philosophers believed that the soul was immaterial and that all life had a soul or rather, the soul was the life giving principle. Now along with the idea of the soul, Aristotle provides an in depth account of the four causes mentioned earlier, namely material, efficient, formal, and final. This encompasses all aspects of substances. This provided a very thorough description of life. From the four causes, it gave reason to the nature of things and that there is a definite correct way of acting for any particular thing. So with the four causes, especially the formal and final cause, man now has a purpose and a proper way of acting. In other words, man then must have a morality it must adhere to. This morality has been lived out by people before philosophy influenced people; it is pre-science and therefore more â€Å"natural† to man. The fact that it is backed up by metaphysical observations only strengthens the argument for theists. Natural science, the understanding of the natural world is something lost upon atheists. It is essential to the proper understanding of this life to understand that there are, in fact, natures. As Feser puts it, â€Å"admit formal and final causes into the world and at once you are stuck –with God, the soul, and natural law. † This natural law is also vital to an understanding of life on earth as well as an understanding of the human person. While atheists struggle with an understanding of how the mind works (not the brain), have a very weak argument for morality, and have no argument for why anyone should have rights or respect shown to anyone, the theists however, have strong, well founded arguments for these very things which come natural to everyone. A theist understands natural law as participating in eternal law, this gives natural law authority. It is something which all men must abide by. Natural law is the respect and dignity which all men are due. It is what assures man that he shouldn’t kill one another. Robert Adams even uses this principle of the morality from natural law as a proof of God’s existence; he claims that â€Å"the moral rightness and wrongness consist in agreement and disagreement, respectively, with the will or commands of a loving God. † There are many laws within natural law that when broken are recognized as going against natural order, granting men the authority under God to rebel against whomever or whatever threatens to take away the privileges given by natural law. It is how we understand concepts of justice. This follows from the fact that God is just and any disobedience of this law is seen as unjust. God is the foundation of morality; natural law is the foundation of morality. Along with natural law, the theists also are able to give a better account of the mind. It is held that the mind is immaterial; it is directly tied to the soul. When the body dies, the soul continues on and we retain our â€Å"mind† because we retain rationality in the afterlife. In the same way Aristotle believed that the soul is the life giving aspect to all creatures and plants, so the human soul is also responsible for the mind and the intellect. Otherwise if the materialist view was to be accepted, we would have a similar thought process to any other intelligent creature without rationality. The mind is also responsible for the specific function of contemplation. No animal, even with a larger, more advanced brain would ever be able to understand concepts such as justice, peace, and generosity, it must be related to the form that humans have and the soul which humans have been given. This goes so beyond any physical aspect of our bodies that to confine the mind to ability within the brain seems foolish. Even the ability to learn concepts is a mystery. J. J. Haldane provides an analysis of the topic and explains that some concepts, especially early on, must be taught. Someone must have taught concepts to people. The example he gives is the example of a cat. One might see a cat and understand the concept of cat, but what if one had never seen a cat? It would be necessary to explain the concept of cat to that person, after which the person would be able to recognize a cat if he saw one. The same applies to all concepts. Now the tricky part is, if evolution is taken back to the origin of man or even if God created man, then how did man learn all of these concepts? Haldane’s solution to the question is that God must have been responsible, regardless of whether evolution is responsible for man or not. The reasoning behind this is that God must have taught the 1st man all these concepts which he could then pass down to his children. While this explanation requires an open mindedness of the listener, it is very plausible and would account for many of the questions that atheists still deal with today. So Who’s Right? So while some might claim that there isn’t even a right answer and that choosing to be an atheist or theist is just personal preference. However, according to the theists, there is truth and there is a right answer. As for atheists, while some of their positions were explained, they still have gaps within their arguments. When confronted with these gaps, it seems that atheists are unable to provide an answer other than resorting to science which asks how and why, but not â€Å"that† something is. As mentioned earlier, there is the question of morality and why people act as they do. Even Atheists believe in some sort of morality even they do not wish to call it by its name. Feser cleverly points out that â€Å"An atheist or naturalist can believe in morality – that is a psychological fact – but he cannot have a rational justification for his belief – that is a philosophical fact. † It is impossible to limit the natural drive for morality in people. Again, â€Å"where morality was concerned, Kant’s aim was to show that there is just something in the nature of reason itself that requires that we be moral. † This seems oolish to believe that something material explains something as complicated as human emotions and the free will to do good or bad and the consequences it has on the person itself. Feser points out that the understanding of modern atheists of morality is a conditioning itself, all of modern philosophy tries to prove that everything can be contained by science, even the topic of morality. He is convinced that this is due to a rejection of formal and final causes. He explains that â€Å"the bottom line is that by abandoning formal and final causes, modern philosophy necessarily denied itself any objective basis for morality. This points to how modern philosophy has gotten to this point and it is simply that modern philosophers have ignored the question of whether there are formal and final causes and have considered the topic as irrelevant. What this means however that â€Å"First, the modern â€Å"mechanistic understanding of the natural world has led to problems, paradoxes, and absurdities that are far more egregious than anything the scholastics were ever accused of. Second, Aristotelian formal and final causes are simply unavoidable if we are to make sense of modern science and reason themselves. Now as has been shown, theists hold on the Aristotelian views of formal and final causes not only does it make sense, but it provides a foundation for a host of other arguments. These arguments cannot be explained away by science, Feser points out why, which is because â€Å"empirical science of its very nature cannot give us the full story about these matters; but metaphysics just is the rational investigation of them. † to make a further point, as has been suggested, it seems that an atheist’s account of the mind is also insufficient as it is a series of poor and confusing arguments which try to prove the existence of mind within a person. Feser claims that the reason for the misunderstanding of the mind by atheists is that it is â€Å"the denial of final causes that most clearly poses an absolutely insurmountable obstacle to any attempt to explain the mind in purely material terms. † What this means is that with this understanding of purpose for the human person beyond survival, then there is new meaning to a person’s life and that each person should and ought to work to fulfill this purpose. If not, then it is impossible to explain the mind sufficiently. The reason for intellect, the purpose of the mind, is contemplation but also to use reason to become virtuous. Once morality is believed to exist, then it follows that morality should be followed but the only way to do that is to form habits of virtue, which is only possible through the mind. It also hints at the soul, which is also taken to exist in that it is the principle of life but more specifically, nothing corporeal could be the principle of life or â€Å"every body would be a living thing. † More specifically, Aquinas explains that since the intellect has an operation apart from the body â€Å"per se† then we must conclude, therefore, that the  human soul, which is called the  intellect  or the  mind, is something incorporeal and subsistent. So according to Feser, the only way to solve this problem that the atheist’s have of the mind, is to â€Å"return to the Aristotelian –Thomistic conception of the soul as the form of the body, having certain immaterial operations but nevertheless â€Å"interacting with the material world as formal rather than efficient cause. † Feser also hints at there being a need to be intellectually honest about some of these arguments. Since many Atheists have ignored the arguments or Aristotle and Aquinas, Feser has been calling for them to actually refute them and that instead of wanting something to be true and trying to argue for it, to instead accept truth as an objective reality and something to be sought after. The point that Feser wants to make is not to â€Å"determine whether this project was good or bad, but rather to emphasize that to a very great extent it was a desire to further the project, and not an actual refutation of Aristotle, that moved modern thinkers away from his metaphysics. The agenda determined the arguments rather than the other way around. This is ultimately the solution to the question to atheism because it seems as though Atheism is artificial, Denys Turner implies that atheism has to be ‘worked at or practiced in his article â€Å"How to be an Atheist. † It is the mentality of trying to convince others that your reality is truth instead of being receptive to truth as the classical and medieval philosophers were.

Thursday, January 9, 2020

The Pain Of The Death Penalty - 1435 Words

Austin Reinoehl ENG 105 – 55 Chase Edwards October 23, 2014 The Pain in the Death Penalty Throughout history, societies have witnessed deviance and criminality among its citizens, and criminologists have spent centuries attempting to understand what causes deviance, why do people act how they act and do what they do. No matter how criminals come to be, the criminal justice systems have consequences in place in order to maintain peace in the communities. One of these consequences is capital punishment, the authorized killing of a person as punishment for a crime, and in most states in the United States of America, lethal injection is the common practice used for ending the life of someone. In one state particularly, Arizona, many citizens are calling for a reexamination of the death penalty due to its effect on the economy and crime rate, and how it is arbitrarily applied within the criminal justice system. The practice of legally killing somebody via lethal injection in the United States is damaging the country’s economy. According to the video, The 2% Death Penalty, capital punishment cases only come from a small number of counties in the United States, and one of the largest is Arizona’s very own Maricopa County. All state taxpayers share the high cost of legally injecting someone with lethal chemicals, and it is estimated that the total cost of one death sentence in about $3 million after being applied. â€Å"The death penalty is much more expensive than life without paroleShow MoreRelated The Death Penalty Essay1740 Words   |  7 PagesThe Death Penalty The Death Penalty seems to haunt the US mindset. While more countries are dropping the procedure as cruel the US still holds on. Eighty percent of Americans are still for the Death Penalty, citing revenge as the main reason, which is why families are allowed to watch the execution . Organizations like Amnesty International condemn the US regularly, as well as most Democratic nations. What I want to address is why the dialogue is ineffective. The proponents of the DeathRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is A Complex Issue924 Words   |  4 Pagesa complex issue with many different opinions and viewpoints. Deciding whether a person should be punished by death is not a trivial ordeal nor should it be treated as such. How do you know when a crime is punishable by death or not? â€Å"A popular bumper sticker says, ‘We kill people to show people that killing people is wrong’† (Carmical). This slogan misses the idea that the death penalty does not chastise people for ki lling, but for murder. Murder is the purposeful action of killing another humanRead MoreEssay about The Debate Over Capital Punishment1141 Words   |  5 Pages The debate over capital punishment has been raging on for countless number of years. Capital punishment has been used for thousands of years due to the physiological fear it inflicts on the people who witness and learn about the death penalty. The use of this punishment has helped to reduce crime and alter the minds of future criminals to deter them against committing heinous crimes such as murder, treason, espionage, terrorism and in some cases aggravated kidnapping. Advocates say it deters crimeRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is Cruel And Unusual Punishment988 Words   |  4 PagesThe death penalty has been around for centuries. It dates back to when Hammurabi had his laws codified; it was â€Å"an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth†. Capital punishment in America started when spies were caught, put on trial and hung. In the past and still today people argue that, the death penalty is cruel, unusual punishment and should be illegal. Yet many people argue that it is in fact justifiable and it is not cruel and unusual. Capital punishment is not cruel and unusual; the death penaltyRead MoreCapital Punishment And The Death Penalty1714 Words   |  7 PagesCapital punishment, or the death penalty is the legally authorized death of an individual as punishment for a heinous crime, typically one that involves murder. The legality of it varies by state and it continues to be a contentious topic of discussion in the United States. Furthermore, in recent decades, public opinion has been shifting from a supportive stance to an unsupportive stance on the use of the death penalty. It is now perceived by most people to be an unethical, immoral, and expensiveRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is An Inhumane Capital Punishment882 Words   |  4 PagesThe death penalty is an inhumane capital punishment that is accompan ied by many disadvantages. Among these are; the deaths of innocent people, failed executions, and morality of human execution. We are all people and just like justice Thurgood Marshall said, â€Å"No matter how careful courts are, the possibility of perjured testimony, mistaken honest testimony, and human error remain all too real. We have no way of judging how many innocent persons have been executed, but we can be certain that thereRead MoreThe Death Penalty. .The Death Penalty Is Currently Used1365 Words   |  6 PagesThe Death Penalty The death penalty is currently used by 34 states and is used by the federal government for punishing federal crimes. And in most cases the death penalty is used when the criminal has been convicted of murder. However, two people have been sentenced to death for the rape of a minor. The definition of the death penalty is: execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. This begs the question does the government have theRead More Capital Punishment: Does Death Equal Justice? Essay1661 Words   |  7 PagesCapital Punishment: Does Death Equal Justice? Capital punishment causes the death of someone because that person killed someone else, yet only murderers suffer such a fate. Rapists do not endure rape, thieves do not have their possessions robbed, and those convicted of assault do not undergo a similar assault. or hundreds of years people have considered capital punishment a deterrence of crime. Seven hundred and five individuals have died since 1976, by means of capital punishment; twenty-twoRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is Also Commonly Referred As Capital1729 Words   |  7 PagesThe death penalty is also commonly referred as capital punishment. The definition of the death penalty is defined as by Merriam-Webster as â€Å"Execution of an offender sentenced to death after a conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense.† Capital punishment has been widely being used for centuries it is known today, as well as the debates that arise with this subject. The history of the Capital punishment goes back as far as Ancient Laws of China. The death penalty was established as punishmentRead MoreThe Death Penalty Essay1262 Words   |  6 PagesThe death penalty is currently used by 34 states and is used by the federal government for punishing federal crimes. And in most cases the death p enalty is used when the criminal has been convicted of murder. However, two people have been sentenced to death for the rape of a minor. The definition of the death penalty is: execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. This begs the question does the government have the right to take away someone’s

Wednesday, January 1, 2020

Ethical Dilemmas in Counseling and Working with Diverse Clients Free Essay Example, 1250 words

Counselors may find it difficult to compartmentalize their feelings and values in counseling clients with beliefs different from theirs. In case a counselor would now fail to compartmentalize his feelings and values and use his own values to counsel the client, the multicultural client may now feel that he is misunderstood, that the counseling session is ineffective, or that counseling is a discriminatory practice as it fails to consider his values or culture (Sadeghi, Fischer, House, 2003). In these instances, counseling then becomes about the counselor, not anymore about the client. Counselors may find it difficult to compartmentalize their feelings and values in counseling clients with beliefs different from theirs. In case a counselor would now fail to compartmentalize his feelings and values and use his own values to counsel the client, the multicultural client may now feel that he is misunderstood, that the counseling session is ineffective, or that counseling is a discri minatory practice as it fails to consider his values or culture (Sadeghi, Fischer, House, 2003). In these instances, counseling then becomes about the counselor, not anymore about the client. In a paper by Muller and Desmond (1992), the authors set out to assess the ethical dilemmas counselors face in counseling the Chinese. One of the main dilemmas is on issuing bad news or revealing an unfavorable medical diagnosis. In most cultures, relaying the news directly to the family is often preferred and is expected. However, for the Chinese, it is not a favored practice because they believe that when a person is sick, he should be treated like a child (Muller Desmond, 1992). They believe that acknowledging or mentioning the fact that a person is about to die or is really sick is a bad omen; it is as good as goading fate into taking the patient s life or making his condition worse. The dilemma for some counselors and for others in the health profession is on being honest, and on living up to the principles of full disclosure; this is weighed against a patient s values and beliefs which may not be true but because he believes it to be true can still make the patient even more anxious and desperate about his health situation. We will write a custom essay sample on Ethical Dilemmas in Counseling and Working with Diverse Clients or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page