www.rspb.org.uk/reserves/guide/s/southstackcliffs/seasona...

 

About South Stack Cliffs

Enjoy a close-up view onto a wonderful cliff-side nesting colony, with binoculars and telescopes provided. You'll be able to watch guillemots, razorbills and puffins all raising their young, while live television pictures give you an even closer view of the nests! Rare choughs can also be seen on the reserve.

 

In spring and summer, the heathland becomes a riot of colour. Look closely and you may see a basking adder, while out to sea there may be porpoises and dolphins.

 

Opening times

The RSPB reserve is open year round; Ellins Tower, the RSPB visitor centre, is open from Easter to September.

 

Entrance charges

Free, but donations to help us continue our work here are welcome.

 

If you are new to birdwatching...

This reserve is good for birdwatching in the summer only.

 

Information for families

Some interactive materials in Ellins Tower Information Centre.

 

Information for dog owners

Some access for dogs. Please contact the reserve office for more information

  

Star species

Our star species are some of the most interesting birds you may see on your visit to the reserve.

 

Chough

The chough is the rarest member of the crow family in the UK. They can be found feeding in fields around South Stack, probing for invertebrates with their curved, red bill.

 

Guillemot

Guillemots look ungainly when they shuffle around on their nesting ledges on the cliffs, but underwater their streamlined shape comes into its own and they become agile and manoeuvrable.

 

Peregrine

Keep an eye out for a commotion among birds on the cliffs - a peregrine may be making a fly past. They are a regular sight overhead when a pair is nesting in the area.

 

Puffin

Enjoy the comical antics of puffins in spring and early summer from the viewing points on the cliffs. Watch the adults returning from fishing forays at sea with sandeels hanging from their colourful beaks.

 

Razorbill

Very similar to guillemots, razorbills spend most of their lives at sea in the Atlantic, only coming to land to breed between March and July.

  

Seasonal highlights

Each season brings a different experience at our nature reserves. In spring, the air is filled with birdsong as they compete to establish territories and attract a mate. In summer, look out for young birds making their first venture into the outside world. Autumn brings large movements of migrating birds - some heading south to a warmer climate, others seeking refuge in the UK from the cold Arctic winter. In winter, look out for large flocks of birds gathering to feed, or flying at dusk to form large roosts to keep warm.

 

Spring

Marvel at the wildflowers including kidney vetch, thrift and scurvey grass amid the cliff top grassland and heathland. Particularly eyecatching is the spring squill, which carpets areas of heathland that have recently been burnt. Look out for stonechats and linnets perched on top of bushes and listen out for the first skylarks. As spring takes hold, watch out for choughs and ravens collecting material to build their nests and don't miss the breeding seabirds crammed onto the narrow ledges on the cliffs in front of Ellins Tower.

 

Summer

Ellins tower provides excellent views of the seabird city with guillemots, razorbills, puffins, fulmars and gulls. Try to spot razorbill and guillemot chicks on the narrow cliff ledges, but don't leave it too late as these seabirds will be leave for the open ocean in July. Listen for the distinctive calls of choughs. They will be active gathering food for their ever growing young. Look out for the endemic spatulate fleawort amongst the cliff top grassland where you might be lucky and see an adder basking in the sun. Search out the rare silver-studded blue butterflies amid the shorter heathland.

 

Autumn

The heathland will be ablaze with colour as the mauves and purples of the heather flowers mingle with yellow gorse flowers. Look out for family groups of choughs. You will probably hear them first as the newly-fledged youngsters beg noisily for food from their parents. In the tidal races just offshore, look out for feeding gannets, passing shearwaters, porpoises and dolphins.

 

Winter

Look out for flocks of feeding choughs. These comprise of the newly-independent first year birds along with sub-adult birds from the last couple of years. A good place to search them out is the RSPB managed farmland (from the permissive path). This land is managed to provide foraging opportunities for chough throughout the year. Listen and look out for ravens as they begin to display, a sure sign that spring is round the corner.

 

Facilities

 

Facilities

•Information centre

•Car park : RSPB car park located at SH211818, complete with three marked disabled car parking bays and cycle racks.

•Binocular hire

•Group bookings accepted

•Guided walks available

•Remote location

•Good for walking

•Pushchair friendly

 

Viewing points

Spectacular views of the breeding seabird colonies from Ellins Tower visitor centre (open Easter to September) with binoculars and telescopes provided.

 

Nature trails

The South Stack reserve is very popular with visitors for many reasons. Visitor activity is concentrated around Ellins Tower (the RSPB information centre), where the paths are maintained to a higher standard than elsewhere on the reserve. The heathland areas and their network of paths are open to the public (on foot) at all times. These paths cross a mix of coastal and heathland terrain and some pass close to cliff edges. There are no specific RSPB trails, but the route of the Ynys Gybi circular walk and the Isle of Anglesey Coastal footpath are waymarked along with the routes of the public footpaths. The nature of the terrain makes many of the paths steep and rocky, making access difficult for anyone with impaired mobility. However, a well-surfaced, high-quality 2 m wide track with benches runs from the RSPB car park (complete with three disabled parking bays) into the heathland and onto a viewpoint in front of Ellins Tower. Access to Ellins Tower is via a steep flight of stairs. The permissive path through the farmland connects the two areas of heathland. This path is open to the public (on foot) at all times (except 10 December each year). Grazing animals are present, so please take care and keep dogs under close control. Access to the Isle of Anglesey Council's 'South Stack Island and the Lighthouse' visitor attraction is via approximately 400 steps of variable rise and tread width down the cliff (not part of the RSPB reserve).

 

Tearoom

Fantastic News! We are delighted to announce we have just taken over the ownership of South Stack Kitchen Café. The staff and builders at South Stack have been working furiously over the last 2 weeks since being handed the keys to carry out essential work needed to open the Café with a fresh, vibrant feel and we hope to reopen by the 28 May (sooner if we can) Once open the Café will be serving a range of hot and cold drinks, light bites and snacks for your enjoyment.

 

Refreshments available

•Hot drinks

•Cold drinks

•Hot meals

•Cold meals

•Snacks

  

Accessibility

The majority of visitor activity at the RSPB South Stack nature reserve is concentrated around Ellins Tower, the RSPB information centre, and occurs during the summer months. South Stack reserve comprises a mix of coastal and heathland terrain with steep sea cliffs which support breeding seabirds.

 

Nature trails

The nature of the terrain makes many of the paths steep and rocky making access difficult for anyone with impaired mobility. In view of the visitor pressure, the paths in the vicinity of Ellins Tower are maintained to a higher standard than elsewhere on the reserve.

The most accessible path for people of impaired mobility runs from the RSPB car park into the heathland and onto a viewpoint in front of Ellins Tower. The track is well-surfaced and high quality (2 m wide) with benches and leads from three marked disabled car-parking bays in the RSPB car park.

 

Visitor centre

From Easter to September, Ellins Tower is open daily from 10 am to 5.30 pm. Access to Ellins Tower, which is a Grade 2 Listed castellated folly near to the cliff edge, is via a steep flight of stairs. Views of the dramatic seascape and some of the breeding seabird colony can be gained from the viewpoint by those who are unable to gain access to Ellins Tower.

  

Our work here

Our South Stack reserve on Anglesey comprises heathland, farmland and offshore stacks and caves. The RSPB is managing these habitats for the benefit of their breeding seabirds and choughs, as well as a wide variety of other fauna and flora. We are also working to provide an excellent wildlife and landscape experience for visitors.

 

Chough haven

The reserve is especially important for its breeding choughs, with our nine pairs representing 2% of the UK population. We are maintaining the heathland and farmland to provide suitable nesting and feeding conditions for this rare bird.

 

Healthy heath

The reserve’s heathland is part of the largest area of maritime heath in North Wales. Besides choughs, this important habitat supports the endemic plant spatulate fleawort, and the uncommon silver-studded blue butterfly, plus adders, common lizards and a range of other flora and fauna. Controlled burning helps us to manage this habitat for the benefit of all its wildlife.

 

Seabird spectacular

The sea cliffs provide nest sites for around 4,000 seabirds, including puffins, guillemots, razorbills and fulmars. Other birds to use this habitat include peregrines and ravens. We are monitoring our seabird populations and working to minimise any disturbance to the colony.

 

Visitor value

The scenic beauty of the reserve, together with its seabird spectacle, operational lighthouse, and many sites of geological and archaeological interest, make it very popular with visitors. Around 35,000 people visit our information centres each summer.

We are maintaining and enhancing our facilities, including our visitor centre at Ellins Tower and our network of paths. We are also providing more information to help people to get the most from their visit, while promoting the aims of the RSPB. We run seven events per year and encourage an active volunteer programme.

 

Community care

South Stack is a major tourist attraction on Anglesey and plays a significant part in the local economy. We will continue to advertise the site to enhance the flow of tourist income to the island and, where possible, will support local communities and business in developing the reserve.

 

Been a couple months and a bit of frustration since the last time I was able to log on. It was all that Google/Yahoo thing they did that locked me out of this account. But now that I'm back, it's good to be back. ^^

 

It may take a while to get updated on things. I have 340 contact notifications, so yeah, with take a while to get through all those and caught up there. <.<

 

So anyways, can consider this my spooky Halloween pic, if you like. I just happen to enjoy playing with shadows and depth of field. And no, this is not on the XP. It's on a HP running Windows 8. Still waiting to try Windows 10, but the jury's still out on that one...

I was able to acquire 4 rolls of ancient Kodak film (1940s?) that were unused but also out of their packaging. I expected the edges to be a disaster and they were. A different subject would have been creepy in a good way. This is a 15 second exposure in afternoon sun. Developed in D76.

CLICK PHOTO or PRESS "Z" to ENLARGE!

 

With a preening and stretching juvenile White Wagtail (Linerle / Motacilla alba) sitting on top of your car it is not hard to get interesting photos. So interesting that I wasn't able to just pick 4-5 shots for the series. 10 was minimum. :-)

If I translated directly from norwegian I would say that the bird or situation was a "grateful subject (or motive)" - but would a British or American say it the same way? Help appreciated!! :-)

 

Canon 70D, Canon EF 100-400 f4.5-5.6 L USM IS.

 

There are more birds with a high cuteness factor in my White Wagtail album, and even more in the White Wagtail - evening gymnastics set.

The past few days have been very busy for the b-36. I’ve been able to make substantial progress to the outer portions of the wing and have even been able to make the engine pods. I still need to do quite a bit of work on the underside of the model including adding the main engine intakes along with completing the tile work on the underside of the wing. The engines are now fully functional and I still have yet to make the 3 other engine covers for the wing. Structural integrity has been a challenge on this model with an almost 6 ft wing span especially when it comes to warp in the wing. Since this model is designed to be portable in order to facilitate transport the main internal structure on the wing is split up into 6 pieces. This causes a load of issues when it comes to the structure of the model. However, by adding more to the bottom surface of the wing that should help resolve any remaining warp. Sorry about the poor picture quality but I just wanted to share a bit of progress with the community.

I'm finally able to use my Canon 5d again so my wife and I headed up to the Blue Ridge Parkway. Once there, we started heading north just to be on the Parkway. She is great to travel with because she likes going wherever we wind up. In this case, we looked up what was nearby on GPS and Grayson Highlands was only 29 miles away.

To be able to rise from the earth;

to be able, from a station in outer space,

to see the relationship of the planet earth to other planets;

to be able to contemplate the billions of factors in precise and beautiful combination that make human existence possible;

to be able to dwell on an encounter of the human brain and spirit with the universe—

all this enlarges the human horizon . . .

 

Model:) My daughter.

 

Was able to view and photograph this beautiful bird from the South America in Palm Beach County, Florida. The first record for Florida and possibly for North America. I was one of 100+ birders to record this event over the last 3 days. Feeling very fortunate. Appears to be snacking on a Halloween Pennant.

I've been wanting to do a 365 Project for a while now. But every time I thought about it I chickened out because I thought I wouldn't be able to fit it in.

 

I've now decided and promised myself, I will do one photograph, every day - i.e. 365 project!

 

I hope you enjoy looking at this album, and hopefully it'll be fun to look through, almost as fun as it will be to shoot... who knows where things will be in a years time!

  

1/365

Was able to get my hands on HMNI cloe and Selfie Yasmin. HMNI Jade is on her way. I really love these girls, the quality is great. The only bummer is the lack of arm artiulation. Other then that these girls are slaying. Im glad all these "doll youtubers" are supporting them as well. Seems like they are finally able to compete with mattel again.

Aruna and the Raging Sun - an outstanding outdoor performance by over 100 differently - at Lady Wellingdon College campus in Chennai, UK based Graeae Theatre Company in collaboration with Spanish La Fura dels baus and British Council on saturday, Featuring 24 metre tall puppets, fireworks, jaw-droping aerial acts, and other fantastic feats, the performance told the story of a differently-abled superhero helping humanit overcome the challenges of climate change. The performance was supported by Arts

Council England and British Council. (C)H.K.Rajashekar.

Parabiotic with Messor spp, Pheidole pallidula, Tapinoma magnum.

 

Illustration for a comparative ecophylogenetic analysis of local myrmecofaunas, based on r/K selection theory and intra / interspecific parabiosis / lestobiosis, particularly focused on allochthonous and invasive species.

 

[Euryopis Menge 1868: 75 (IT: 8) spp]

 

Conspecific sympatric 5 d.o. ♀ spiderling feasting on an adult ♂ of Messor wasmanni (20151015205451ZW4).

 

E. episinoides is a tiny Theridiidæ occurring in southern Europe. It builds a small retreat made of few strands of silk under rocks or any flat object. This species was found to catch only ants in nature, particularly of the genus Messor. It hunts prey on the ground without the use of web. The spider positions itself near an ant trail with its prosoma on the ground and its abdomen and a pair of hind-legs outstretched and raised in the air and waits until a prey passes by. It catches prey by throwing strands of silk drawn from spinnerets. In the laboratory, the spiders were able to catch few prey types, including flies. Adaptive significance of food imprinting and associated learning may differ between specialists and generalists. Associated learning may be more important than food imprinting for generalist species, as they need to consume a wide variety of prey types in order to balance their nutrient intake. It is also advantageous in a changing environment where different types of prey co-occur. Food imprinting, on the other hand, should be important for specialists as they need to consume only one or a few closely related prey (e.g. ants) which shows rather stable occurrence. Food imprinting should allow actively searching specialised predators to optimise their foraging behaviour and to focus on cues of their focal prey.

 

REFERENCES

 

W.C. Wheeler & al. 2016: Araneæ ToL.

S. Pekar & M.C. Guerrero 2015: Innate prey preference overridden by familiarisation with detrimental prey in a specialised myrmecophagous predator.

H. Bellmann 1997: Spinnentiere Europas.

Escape from Planet A to Planet B - is it a real way out or a dream that will never be able to unfold

I wasn't able to get any new pics this past weekend, so I decided to post this black/white conversion of a picture I first posted last October. I almost like this better than the original color version.

 

Mt Rainier, reflected in a small tarn in Spray Park. Mt Rainier Nat'l Park, WA

A few weeks ago I was finally able to get away from all the hustle and bustle of living downtown Chicago on a college campus, and find some solitude in nature. It was super refreshing. Despite the extreme winds off the tip of door county peninsula, and the coldest temperatures of the season; just being out in God's creation was a needed respite.

 

Ice is one of my favorite things to photograph. It is always changing, it is extreme, and it often makes fascinating shapes. Unfortunately, we have literally had almost no ice build up in Illinois this year. Many of my friends are thankful for the mild winter, but it leads to lackluster photographic opportunities. So, being able to get away and enjoy some monumental ice formations such as these was an oasis in a photographically dry desert of a winter.

I was able to catch a meteor in this image. One cool thing about tonight was seeing some kind of bioluminescence organism that was floating in the ocean. In this photo you can see them lit up at the surface in the lower middle of the frame. The light on top of the trees is from a truck driving on the Over Seas Highway.

I am not able to make the most of the great weather at the moment so I am delving into my early years when scanning and editing permits.

 

I found this well known location based on a recommendation by a colleague at the post office. His name was Chris Groves, a Wolves fan who was well known by many. He happened to be my PHG whom I worked under on many sorting areas at the site which is known as The Mail Box in Birmingham city centre back in the 1980's

I did'nt think i would be able to fit this feature and keep the structural strength at the same time, after removing several pieces to make the space.

On my 'wacky races - mean machine' i used 2x 4L bars to hold the body together, the same has worked here, and can be seen here below the rocket...

Unfortunately, ive not yet worked out how to make it fire....

might try and sqeeze in a spring shooter...

If only i could make it work the same as on the old dinky toy version.., by pushing on the front suspension, fires the missile..

(Shortlisted for Digital Camera Photographer Of The Year 2011 - landscape category)

 

(Honourable Mention in the 2012 International Photography Awards landscape category, as part of my 'Sand, Sea & Silence' set of five photographs)

 

I had one attempt at this exposure before a fisherman came and perched next to the marker. In fairness he did ask first, and although I'd have felt more comfortable being able to take a couple more to allow for light variances, cloud movement, etc, I think I was quite lucky how this one turned out. It's funny how sometimes a photograph comes together seemingly of it's own accord, yet on other occasions you can put all the effort in the world into an image and still walk away empty-handed.

 

Yesterday was a good example by comparison. I got up at 4.20am, having checked the tide times, weather report and photographer's ephemeris the night before. I had one or two shots in mind that seemed to suit the likely conditions and with those firmly planted headed off to Lyme Regis, finding myself standing on The Cobb about half an hour before sunrise - and for once without another photographer in prime position blocking my shot! Despite this, somehow everything seemed... wrong. There had been hints of a good smattering of promising looking cloud as I'd driven through the darkness, yet the approaching onslaught of dawn had banished it completely from the skies before me... I took a few shots half-heartedly as the light grew, thinking perhaps it was time to just head home given how bright the day seemed determined to become. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained - the rest of my day went like this:

 

Ask for sausage and egg baguette in cafe before leaving Lyme Regis. Realise wrong filling in baguette once back at car. Eat baguette anyway. Reluctantly admit cafe's choice had been pretty good.

 

Decide to try several other locations in the hope that a little cloud might provide some relief from the increasingly harsh conditions. Curse incorrect weather report.

 

Drive to Seatown. Make mental note of limited photographic possibilities for a different day.

 

Head on to Charmouth. Remember why I have never taken any photographs there before. Has anyone found anything to photograph in Charmouth?!

 

Continue onwards to West Bay. Wince as my sun visor comes down and I wonder just how many ND filters I can stack at the same time. Park at West Bay. Abandon camera and head off in search of food and water. Take photograph of large strawberry and cream flavour ice cream in waffle cone on my phone to tease my wife (toiling away at work), ruefully aware it may be my finest image of the day.

 

Watch as cloud starts to build inland. Wait nearly an hour as cumulus stubbornly refuses to head towards me. Race back in the direction of Colmer's Hill, a wonderful location I've tried to shoot several times previously and failed. Leave car in nearby Symondsbury, figuring it will be a good idea to trek to the top of the hill. I climb. I swear. I climb. I swear. I climb. I swear. I... oh, you get the idea.... Once at the summit, I discover picturesque though the surrounding scenery is, a good photograph it does not necessarily make. Spend several moments contemplating this green and pleasant land. Glimpse hints of cloud in the direction of West Bay.

 

Return to West Bay. Realise hints of cloud were just there to tease me and force my hand for more petrol money.

 

Give it all up as a bad job and start the return journey. Stop at shop and buy more food... and drink. I am far from fat. Despite my better judgement, somehow convince myself there are no bad conditions, only bad photographers - and embark on a detour to Sidmouth. Arrive at Sidmouth, cruise the length of the sea front in dismay trying not to knock down the milling throng of tourists who apparently forgot to go home after the school holidays.

 

Leave Sidmouth. Go home.

 

320/366: Light Painting With The Supermoon

 

After being able to spend some more time with the photographs I took last night of the Supermoon, this is my favorite of all from last night. As I said in yesterday's post - I was struggling with what focal range to use and then I did what I always do - I went wide and for a long exposure.

 

The lake provided a perfect equation for me to be creative with my own style. This is one exposure, however, I did some light painting on the bush in the front and side. The front bush was light painted with my flashlight and the bushes to the side were light painted with my headlamp. The supermoon light painted the rest of the foreground and the sky, and also provided a magnificent reflection on Lake Grapevine.

 

Taken with my Nikon D810 for an exposure time of 63 seconds at f/8.0, ISO 100 - 24mm - with the camera down low to the ground.

 

© Cathy Neth

Portfolio | thedook.com |

365 Photo Project | thedook.com/365 |

Follow me on Facebook | www.facebook.com/cnethphotography |

Follow me on Instagram | www.instagram.com/cneth_photography |

Dawes Glacier is at the head of Endicott Arm Fjord in southeast Alaska.

 

Dawes Glacier is actually three glaciers that merge to form the half-mile wide tidewater glacier.

 

On my excursion, the small boat was able to get pretty close to the glacier. From water level, the glacier seems quite tall.

 

I visited Endicott Arm Fjord in May 2016 on the Carnival Legend.

A big success by any standard both in and out of competition, the Lancia Stratos was developed as a homologation Special for European rallying. After production ceased it became a cult car and is now highly priced as the ‘modern classis' it is. Conceived strictly for rallying, the Lancia Stratos however makes an exciting road car, though it is very far from GT standards in both luxury and refinement.

 

The concept vehicle responsible for providing the inspiration for the Lancia Stratos Rally car is the Lancia (Bertone) Stratos. The Stratos featured a 1584 cc V4 DOHC with 115 bhp horsepower at 200 rpm. Designed by Marcello Gandini, the same designer responsible for the Lamborghini Countach and Lamborghini Miura, the Stratos concept was a development of the Bertone designed Alfa Romeo Carabo concept from 1968. The Carabo concept was also a Gandini creation.

 

First revealed at the Turin Motor Show in October of 1970, the Lancia Stratos HF prototype was a styling exercise for Bertone. A futuristic design, the Stratos featured a wedge shaped profile that stood just 33 inches from the ground. Since the vehicle was so low, conventional doors could not be used and instead one accessed the interior of the Stratos by a hinged windscreen. Drivers had to flip up the windscreen and walk into the vehicle. Once inside, visibility was quite restricted since the front windscreen was narrow. The cockpit of the Lancia Stratos was designed specifically for fast forest flying.

 

The body design was predictably minimal to hold down weight and bulk with its most distinctive features being semi-concealed A-pillars and a door beltline that sharply upswept to the top of the daylight opening. The shape of the resulting unbroken expanse of glass gave the tunnelback roof the appearance of a futuristic crash helmet.

 

The main body structure was steel, like the chassis, and weight-saving fiberglass was used for tilt-up nose and tail sections. A small box above and behind the powertrain was where cargo space was held. Bins were also molded into the interior door panels for storing helmets.

 

The same engine utilized on the Lancia 1600 HF Fulvia was used on the Bertone designed Lancia Stratos Zero prototype. A triangular shaped panel hinged upwards to allow access to the mid-mounted engine. Developed for rallying purposes, the legendary Lancia Stratos was unveiled in 1974. The production vehicle Stratos was powered by a 2.4 liter mid-mounted V6 from the Ferrari Dino.

 

Like no other Lancia before or after, the Lancia Stratos was a shock that left enthusiasts and rally fans breathless. For almost a decade the Stratos streaked across the rally landscape much like a brilliant comet, while discarding past principles, it also fearlessly represented something undeniably new. A phenomenal rally car, the Lancia Stratos set an example to every other car manufacturer in the world. The first viable purpose-built rally car ever built, the Stratos was probably the last purpose-built rally car.

 

Created by the Bertone coachbuilding company, the Stratos was both radical, yet fully functional. Fiorio realized that for Lancia to continue to compete in the World Rally Championship, the Fulvia HF would need a much more powerful replacement. A the time, four-wheel drive was not an option, so a mid-engined configuration seemed ideal. To reinforce Fiori's convictions, the Bertone show car was featured soon after with a mid-engine Fulvia V4.

 

The introduction of the Ford mid-engine purpose-built GT70 rally car at the 1971Brussels Motor Show was what truly inspired the impetus behind the Stratos proect. It was after this appearance that Lancia's general manager, Pierugo Gobbato contacted Nuccio Bertone. Though the GT70 was actually never put in production by Ford, it was this that sparked the inspiration of the Lancia Stratos.

 

As always, there was a minimum production requirement, 500 units for the Lancia Stratos. This was an awkward figure that would necessitate funds for at least semi-permanent tooling as well as design and development. This was a job well suited to the Italian industry. Fiorio masterminded the project, and he envisioned a short, wide coupe with transverse midships drivetrain. Bertone was immediately contracted to style the vehicle and built its unit body/chassis structure.

 

43 months passed in between the time of conception to the actual birth of the Lancia Stratos. The vehicle was developed to take over and make Lancia the outright world rally champ. The Stratos was both short and wide, with a wheelbase of only 7 feet 1.8 inches, the width of the vehicle was only 5 feet 8.9 inches. Weighing only 1958 lbs, the Stratos was only 3 feet 7.9 inches high. Able to easily exceed 140 mph, the Stratos featured 190 horsepower in roadgoing trim.

 

Having studied every possible powerteam in the Fiat/Lancia group, Fiorio secured 2.4 liter V-6s and 5-speed transaxles from Ferrari, which was an ideal chouse as they'd be installed exactly as the Dino 246. All-independent suspension, rack-and-pinion steering and four-wheel disc brakes were all specifically designed for the Lancia Stratos.

 

After 1978 the Stratos was officially retired and no longer was officially entered by the Lancia factory, the vehicle was still going strong. The Lancia team was headed by by Sandro Munari who won its first event as a homologated entry in October of 1974. Mun ari entered alone 40 events with the Lancia Stratos and won 14. The Stratos also won the World Rally Championship in 1974, 1975, and 1976 and remained competitive for another four years. The final major win came in 1979 when a Lancia Stratos entered by the Monaco importer won the famed Monte Carlo Rally. Finally the factory retired the Stratos.

 

By Jessica Donaldson

 

[Text from ConceptCarz.com]

 

www.conceptcarz.com/z21737/Lancia-Stratos-HF.aspx

 

This Lego miniland-scale Lancia Stratos Rally Racer has been created for Flickr LUGNuts' 100th Build Challenge - our Centenary, titled 'One Hundred Ways to Win!'. In this challenge, a list of 100 challenges is available, kept by the admins. Individuals wishing to enter, request a number from 1-100 (so long as it has not already been requested) - and the admins assign the individual build challenge associated with that number.

 

In the case of admins entering models - they request that a general LUGNuts member assigns a number - and the admin must build to that challenge number.

 

In this case, the number 78 was chosen for me, corresponding to the challenge: '78.Any vehicle from the year you were born'. I was born in 1972, the year that the first Stratos rally cars were built, entering in the Rally Championship as Group 5 (un-homologated) entries.

 

The road cars required to homologate for Group 4 were built through 1973 to 1978.

 

As can be seen in some of the images here, not only does the car open and close (a real challenge when you look at the chassis), but it also uses the Lego Group RC Rollerskate - so it can zoom around under its own power.

 

The magnetic motor will be cheaper than a standard motor to make, as the rotor and stator assemblies can be set into plastic housings, due to the fact that the system creates very little heat. Further, with the motor's energy efficiency, it will be well suited for any application where a motor has limited energy to drive it. While development is still focused on replacing existing devices, Minato says that his motor has sufficient torque to power a vehicle. With the help of magnetic propulsion, it is feasible to attach a generator to the motor and produce more electric power than was put into the device. Minato says that average efficiency on his motors is about 330 percent.

 

Mention of Over Unity devices in many scientific circles will draw icy skepticism. But if you can accept the idea that Minato's device is able to create motion and torque through its unique, sustainable permanent magnet propulsion system, then it makes sense that he is able to get more out of the unit than he puts in in terms of elctrical power. Indeed, if the device can produce a surplus of power for longer periods, every household in the land will want one.

 

"I am not in this for the money," Minato says. "I have done well in my musical career, but I want to make a contribution to society -- helping the backstreet manufacturers here in Japan and elsewhere. I want to reverse the trends caused by major multinationals. There is a place for corporations. But as the oil industry has taught us, energy is one area where a breakthrough invention like this cannot be trusted to large companies."

 

Minato was once close to making a deal with Enron. But today, he is firmly on a mission to support the small and the independent -- and to go worldwide with them and his amazing machine. "Our plan is to rally smaller companies and pool their talent, and to one day produce the technology across a wide range of fields."

 

When we first got the call from an excited colleague that he'd just seen the most amazing invention -- a magnetic motor that consumed almost no electricity -- we were so skeptical that we declined an invitation to go see it. If the technology was so good, we thought, how come they didn't have any customers yet?

We forgot about the invitation and the company until several months later, when our friend called again. "OK," he said. "They've just sold 40,000 units to a major convenience store chain. Now will you see it?" In Japan, no one pays for 40,000 convenience store cooling fans without being reasonably sure that they are going to work.

 

The Maestro ~

 

The streets of east Shinjuku are littered with the tailings of the many small factories and workshops still located there -- hardly one's image of the headquarters of a world-class technology company. But this is where we are first greeted outside Kohei Minato's workshop by Nobue Minato, the wife of the inventor and co-director of the family firm. The workshop itself is like a Hollywood set of an inventor's garage. Electrical machines, wires, measuring instruments and batteries are strewn everywhere. Along the diagram-covered walls are drill presses, racks of spare coils, Perspex plating and other paraphernalia. And seated in the back, head bowed in thought, is the 58-year-old techno maestro himself. Minato is no newcomer to the limelight. In fact, he has been an entertainer for most of his life, making music and producing his daughter's singing career in the US. He posseses an oversized presence, with a booming voice and a long ponytail. In short, you can easily imagine him onstage or in a convertible cruising down the coast of California -- not hunched over a mass of wires and coils in Tokyo's cramped backstreets. Joining us are a middle-aged banker and his entourage from Osaka and accounting and finance consultant Yukio Funai. The banker is doing a quick review for an investment, while the rest of us just want to see if Minato's magnetic motors really work. A prototype car air conditioner cooler sitting on a bench looks like it would fit into a Toyota Corolla and quickly catches our attention. Seeing is Believing ~

Nobue then takes us through the functions and operations of each of the machines, starting off with a simple explanation of the laws of magnetism and repulsion. She demonstrates the "Minato Wheel" by kicking a magnet-lined rotor into action with a magnetic wand. Looking carefully at the rotor, we see that it has over 16 magnets embedded on a slant -- apparently to make Minato's machines work, the positioning and angle of the magnets is critical. After she kicks the wheel into life, it keeps spinning, proving at least that the design doesn't suffer from magnetic lockup. She then moves us to the next device, a weighty machine connected to a tiny battery. Apparently the load on the machine is a 35kg rotor, which could easily be used in a washing machine. After she flicks the switch, the huge rotor spins at over 1,500 rpms effortlessly and silently. Meters show the power in and power out. Suddenly, a power source of 16 watt or so is driving a device that should be drawing at least 200 to 300 watts. Nobue explains to us that this and all the other devices only use electrical power for the two electromagnetic stators at either side of each rotor, which are used to kick the rotor past its lockup point then on to the next arc of magnets. Apparently the angle and spacing of the magnets is such that once the rotor is moving, repulsion between the stators and the rotor poles keeps the rotor moving smoothly in a counterclockwise direction. Either way, it's impressive. Next we move to a unit with its motor connected to a generator. What we see is striking. The meters showed an input to the stator electromagnets of approximately 1.8 volts and 150mA input, and from the generator, 9.144 volts and 192mA output. 1.8 x 0.15 x 2 = 540mW input and 9.144 x 0.192 = 1.755W out. But according to the laws of physics, you can't get more out of a device than you put into it. We mention this to Kohei Minato while looking under the workbench to make sure there aren't any hidden wires. Minato assures us that he hasn't transcended the laws of physics. The force supplying the unexplained extra power out is generated by the magnetic strength of the permanent magnets embedded in the rotor. "I'm simply harnessing one of the four fundamental forces of nature," he says. Although we learned in school that magnets were always bipolar and so magnetically induced motion would always end in a locked state of equilibrium, Minato explains that he has fine-tuned the positioning of the magnets and the timing of pulses to the stators to the point where the repulsion between the rotor and the stator (the fixed outer magnetic ring) is transitory. This creates further motion -- rather than a lockup. (See the sidebar on page 41 for a full explanation). Real Products ~ Nobue Minato leads us to the two devices that might convince a potential investor that this is all for real. First, she shows us the cooling fan prototype that is being manufactured for a convenience store chain's 14,000 outlets (3 fans per outlet). The unit looks almost identical to a Mitsubishi-manufactured fan unit next to it, which is the unit currently in wide use. In a test, the airflow from both units is about the same. The other unit is the car air conditioning prototype that caught our eye as we came in. It's a prototype for Nippon Denso, Japan's largest manufacturer of car air conditioners. The unit is remarkably compact and has the same contours and size as a conventional unit. Minato's manufacturing skills are clearly improving.

The Banker and his Investment ~

Minato has good reason to complain about Japan's social and cultural uniformity. For years, people thought of him as an oddball for playing the piano for a living, and bankers and investors have avoided him because of his habit of claiming that he'd discovered a breakthrough technology all by himself -- without any formal training. However, the Osaka banker stands up after the lecture and announces that before he goes, he will commit \100 million to the investment pool. Minato turns to us and smiles. We brought him good luck, and this was his third investor in as many weeks to confirm an interest. Bringing the Tech to the Table ~ With the audience gone, we ask Minato what he plans to do to commercialize the technology. His game plan is simple and clear, he says. He wants to retain control, and he wants to commercialize the technology in Japan first -- where he feels he can ensure that things get done right. Why doesn't he go directly to the US or China? His experiences in both countries, he suggests, have been less than successful. "The first stage is critical in terms of creating good products and refining the technology. I don't want to be busy with legal challenges and IP theft while doing that." Still, the export and licensing of the technology are on his agenda, and Minato is talking to a variety of potential partners in other countries. Whereas another inventor might be tempted to outsource everything to a larger corporation, part of what drives Minato is his vision of social justice and responsibility. The 40,000 motors for the convenience store chain are being produced by a group of small manufacturers in Ohta-ku and Bunkyo-ku, in the inner north of Tokyo -- which is becoming a regional rust belt. Minato is seized with the vision of reinvigorating these small workshops that until the 80s were the bedrock of Japan's manufacturing and economic miracle. Their level of expertise will ensure that the quality of the motors will be as good as those from any major company. International Prep " Despite his plan to do things domestically first, Minato is well prepared for the international markets. He is armed with both six years of living and doing business in Los Angeles in the early 90s -- and with patent protection for over 48 countries. His is hardly a provincial perspective. His US experience came after playing the piano for a living for 15 years. He began tinkering with his invention in the mid-70s. The idea for his magnetic motor design came from a burst of inspiration while playing the piano. But Minato decided to drop everything in 1990 to help his daughter Hiroko, who at the age of 20 decided that she wanted to be a rhythm and blues star in the US. Minato is a strong believer in family: If Hiroko was going to find fame and fortune in the US, Dad had better be there to help manage her. He suceeded in helping Hiroko to achieve a UK dance chart number one hit in 1995. In 1996 Minato returned to Japan and his magnetic motor project. The following year he displayed his prototypes to national power companies, government officials and others at a five-day conference in Mexico City. Interest was palpable, and Minato realized that his invention might meet a global need for energy-saving devices.

Subsequent previews and speeches in Korea and Singapore further consolidated his commitment to bringing the invention to fruition, and he was able to bring in several early-stage investors.

During the late 90s, Minato continued to refine his prototypes. He also stayed in constant contact with his lawyer, registering patents in major countries around the world. Through his experiences in the US he realized that legal protection was critical, even if it meant delaying release of the technology by a couple of years. Ironically, by the time he'd won patents in 47 countries, the Japanese patent office turned him down on the grounds that "[the invention] couldn' t possibly work" and that somehow he was fabricating the claims. But a few months later they were forced to recant their decision after the US patent office recognized his invention and gave him the first of two patents. As Minato notes: "How typical of Japan's small-minded bureaucrats that they needed the leadership of the US to accept that my invention was genuine." By 2001, the Minatos had refined their motors and met enough potential investors to enter into a major international relationship, initially with a Saudi company, to be followed thereafter by companies in the US and elsewhere. However, fate dealt the investors and Minato's business a serious blow when the World Trade Center was attacked in New York. The Saudis retreated, and Minato's plans fell back to square one. Now Minato is once again ready to move. With the first order in the works and more orders pending successful prototypes, he has decided that investors don't have to be primary partners. He is actively accepting inquiries from corporate investors who can bring strategic advantages and corporate credibility with them. His company, Japan Magnetic Fan, will make a series of investment tie-up announcements in the first and second quarters of 2004. Implications ~ Minato's motors consume just 20 percent or less of the power of conventional motors with the same torque and horse power. They run cool to the touch and produce almost no acoustic or electrical noise. They are significantly safer and cheaper (in terms of power consumed), and they are sounder environmentally. The implications are enormous. In the US alone, almost 55 percent of the nation's electricity is consumed by electric motors. While most factory operators buy the cheapest motors possible, they are steadily being educated by bodies like NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) that the costs of running a motor over a typical 20-year lifespan comprise a purchase price of just 3 percent of the total, and electricity costs of 97 percent. It is not unusual for a $2,000 motor to consume $80,000 of electricity (at a price of .06 cents per kilowatt hour). Since 1992, when efficiency legislation was put into place at the US federal level, motor efficiency has been a high priority -- and motors saving 20 percent or so on electrical bills are considered highly efficient. Minato is about to introduce a motor which saves 80 percent, putting it into an entirely new class: The $80,000 running cost will drop to just $16,000. This is a significant savings when multiplied by the millions of motors used throughout the USA and Japan -- and eventually, throughout the world. The Devices ; Minato's invention and its ability to use remarkably less power and run without heat or noise make it perfect for home appliances, personal computers, cellphones (a miniature generator is in the works) and other consumer products.

  

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US Patent # 4,751,486

(Cl. 335/272)

 

Magnetic Rotation Apparatus

 

(June 14. 1998)

 

Kohei Minato

 

Abstract --- The magnetic rotation apparatus of the present invention has first and second rotors rotatably supported and juxtaposed. The first and second rotors are connected so as to be rotatable in opposite directions in a cooperating manner. A number of permanent magnets are arranged on a circumferential portion of the first rotor at regular intervals, and just as many permanent magnets are arranged on a circumferential portion of the second rotor at regular intervals. Each permanent magnet has one magnetic polarity located radially outward from the rotors, and has the other magnetic polarity located radially inward toward the rotors. The polarity of each permanent magnet, which is located radially outward from the rotors, is identical. When the first and second rotors are rotated in a cooperating manner, the phase of rotation of the permanent magnets of one rotor is slightly advanced from that of the permanent magnets of the other rotor. One of the permanent magnets of one rotor is replaced with the electromagnet. The radially outward polarity of the electromagnet can be changed by reversing the direction in which a current is supplied to the electromagnet.

  

TECHNICAL FIELD

 

The present invention relates to a magnetic rotation apparatus in which a pair of rotors are rotated by utilizing a magnetic force.

 

BACKGROUND ART

 

An electromotor is well known as a rotation apparatus utilizing a magnetic force. For example, an AC electromotor comprises a rotor having a coil, a stator surrounding the rotor, and a plurality of electromagnets, disposed on the stator, for generating a rotating magnetic field. An electric power must be constantly supplied to the electromagnets in order to generate the rotating magnetic field and keep the rotor rotating, i.e., an external energy, or electric energy, is indispensable for the rotation of the rotor. Under the circumstances, a magnetic rotation apparatus, which employs permanent magnets in lieu of electromagnets and can rotate a rotor only by a magnetic force of the permanent magnets, is highly desirable. The present application proposes a magnetic rotation apparatus which comprises a pair of rotors rotatable in opposite directions in a cooperating manner, and a plurality of permanent magnets stationarily arranged at regular intervals on the peripheral portion of each rotor. One end portion of each permanent magnet of both rotors, which has the same polarity, is located radially outward of the rotors. When the two rotors are rotated in a cooperating fashion, a permanent magnet on one rotor and a corresponding permanent magnet on the other, which form a pair, approach and move away from each other periodically. In this case, the phase of rotation of the magnet on one rotor advances a little from that of the corresponding magnet on the other rotor. When the paired permanent magnets approach each other, magnetic repulsion causes one rotor to rotate. The rotation of one rotor is transmitted to the other rotor to rotate the same. In this manner, other pairs of magnets on both rotors sequentially approach each other, and magnetic repulsion occurs incessantly. As a result, the rotors continue to rotate. In the above apparatus, in order to stop the rotation of the rotors, a brake device is required. If an ordinary brake device is mounted on the magnetic rotation apparatus, the entire structure of the apparatus becomes complex, and a driving source for the brake device must be provided separately. The present invention has been developed in consideration of the above circumstances, and its object is to provide a magnetic rotation apparatus including a brake device for suitably stopping the rotation of rotors.,DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The magnetic rotation apparatus of the present invention is provided with magnetic force conversion means which is substituted for at least one pair of permanent magnets of the paired rotors. In a normal state, the magnetic force conversion means causes a magnetic repulsion, as in the other pairs of permanent magnets. When it is intended for the rotors to stop, the magnetic force conversion means causes a magnetic attraction force. Since a magnetic attraction force can be produced between the rotors at any time, the magnetic attraction force serves to stop the rotors. The brake device constituted by the magnetic force conversion means differs from an ordinary brake device which forcibly stops a pair or rotors by using a frictional force. In the brake device of this invention, by converting a magnetic repulsion force to a magnetic attraction force, the rotors can be braked in the state that the movement of the rotors is reduced. Thus, the rotors can be stopped effectively. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic perspective view showing a magnetic rotation apparatus according to an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view showing the relationship between the first and second rotors; FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a permanent magnet; FIG. 4 shows an electromagnet, a permanent magnet cooperating with the electromagnet, and a driving circuit the electromagnet; and FIG. 5 is a view for explaining how a pair of rotors rotate. BEST MODE OF CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION FIG. 1 shows a magnetic rotation apparatus embodying the present invention. The magnetic rotation apparatus has frame 1. Frame 1 is provided with a pair of rotation shafts 2 which extend vertically and in parallel to each other. Shafts 2 are located at a predetermined distance from each other. Upper and lower ends of each shaft 2 are rotationally supported on frame 1 via bearing 3. First rotor 4a is mounted on one of rotation shafts 2, second rotor 4b is mounted on the other rotation shaft 2. First and second rotors 4a and 4b are arranged on the same level. Rotors 4a and 4b have similar structures. For example, each rotor 4a (4b) comprises two ring-shaped plates 5 which are spaced apart from each other in the axial direction of the rotation shaft 2. Gears 6a and 6b made of synthetic resin are, as cooperating means, attached to lower surfaces of first and second rotors 4a and 4b. The diameters of gears 6a and 6b are identical but larger than those of rotors 4a and 4b. Gears 6a and 6b mesh with each other. First and second rotors 4a and 4b are thus rotatable in opposite directions in a cooperating manner. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 7 indicates support arms for supporting first and second rotors 4a and 4b.

For example, 16 magnets are arranged at regular intervals on a peripheral portion of first rotor 4a. These magnets are secured between two ring-shaped plates 5. In this embodiment, among the 16 magnets, one is electromagnet 9a (see FIG. 2), and the others are permanent magnets 8a. FIG. 2 shows only some of permanent magnets 8a. As shown in FIG. 3, permanent magnet 8a comprises case 10, and a plurality of rod-like ferromagnetic members 11 housed in case 10. Ferromagnetic member 11 is, for example, a ferrite magnet. Ferromagnetic members 11 of each permanent magnet 8a are arranged such that ferromagnetic members 11 have the same polarity at one end. In first rotor 4a, for example, an N-polarity end portion of each permanent magnet 8a faces radially outward, and an S-polarity end portion of magnet 8a faces radially inward. As shown in FIG. 2, when each permanent magnet 8a is located between two shafts 2, angle C formed by longitudinal axis A of magnet 8a and imaginary line B connecting two shafts 2 is, for example, set to 30.degree. C. On the other hand, electromagnet 9a is, as shown in FIG. 4, constituted by U-shaped iron core 12, and coil 13 wound around core 12. Electromagnet 9a is arranged such that both N- and S-polarity end portions face radially outward of first rotor 4a, and the above-mentioned angle C is formed, similarly to the case of permanent magnet 8a. The same number of permanent magnets (8b,9b) as the total number of all permanent magnets and electromagnet (8a,9a) of first rotor 4a are secured on a peripheral portion of second rotor 4b at regular intervals. In FIG. 2, when first and second rotors 4a and 4b are rotated in opposite directions, each permanent magnet of second rotor 4b periodically moves toward and away from the corresponding one of the magnets (8a,9a) of first rotor 4a. The permanent magnets (8b,9b) of second rotor 4b will now be described in greater detail. Permanent magnets 8b of second rotor 4b, which periodically move toward and away from permanent magnets 8a of first rotor 4a in accordance with the rotation of rotors 4a and 4b, have a structure similar to that of permanent magnets 8a of first rotor 4a. The polarity of that end portion of each permanent magnet 8b which is located radially outward from second rotor 4b, is identical with that of the end portion of each permanent magnet 8a of first rotor 4a. That is, the radially outward portion of each permanent magnet 8b has an N-polarity. Permanent magnet 9b of second rotor 4b, which periodically moves toward and away from electromagnet 9a of first rotor 4a, has a structure shown in FIG. 4. Permanent magnet 9b has a structure similar to that of permanent magnets 8a. Both polarities of electromagnet 9a face radially outward from first rotor 4a. Permanent magnet 9b has two different polarities which face radially outward from second rotor 4b and correspond to both polarities of electromagnet 9a. As shown in FIG. 2, when each permanent magnet 8b,9b is located between two rotation shafts 2, angle E formed by longitudinal axis D of the magnet (8b,9b) and imaginary line B connecting two shafts 2 is, for example, set to 56.degree. C. In addition, when rotors 4a and 4b are rotated in opposite directions, as shown by arrows, the magnets (8a,9a) of first rotor 4a move a little ahead of the corresponding permanent magnets (8b,9b) of second rotor 4b, in a region in which both magnets (8a,9a; 8b,9b) approach one another. In other words, the phase of rotation of the magnets (8a,9a) of first rotor 4a advances by a predetermined angle in relation to the permanent magnets (8b,9b) of second rotor 4b. As shown in FIG. 4, electromagnet 9a of first rotor 4a is electrically connected to drive circuit 14. Drive circuit 14 includes a power source for supplying an electric current to coil 13 of electromagnet 9a. While rotors 4a and 4b rotate, drive circuit turns on electromagnet 9a upon receiving a signal from first sensor 15 only when electromagnet 9a and permanent magnet 9b are in a first region in which they periodically approach each other. First sensor 15 is an optical sensor comprising a light-emitting element and a light-receiving element. As shown in FIG. 1, first sensor 15 is attached to a portion of frame 1 above first rotor 4a. First sensor 15 emits light in a downward direction. The light is reflected by reflection plate 16 projecting radially inward from the inner edge of first rotor 4a. First sensor 15 receives the reflected light, and feeds a signal to drive circuit 14. Thus, drive circuit 14 turns on electromagnet 9a. The circumferential length of reflection plate 16 is equal to that of the above-mentioned first region. When magnets 9a and 9b enter the first region, first sensor 15 is turned on, and when they leave the first region, first sensor 15 is turned off. When drive circuit 14 receives a signal from first sensor 15, it excites electromagnet 9a such that both polarities of electromagnet 9a correspond to those of permanent magnet 9b of second rotor 4b. Drive circuit 14 is electrically connected to switching circuit 17. When brake switch 18 is operated, switching circuit 17 reverses the direction in which an electric current is supplied to electromagnet 9a. When the current supplying direction of drive circuit 14 is reversed, drive circuit 14 excites electromagnet 9a only in a time period in which drive circuit 14 receives a signal from second sensor 19. Second sensor 19 has a structure similar to that of first sensor 15, and is attached to frame 1 so as to be located closer to the center of rotor 4a than first sensor 15. Reflection plate 20, which corresponds to the position of second sensor 19, is formed integral to an inner edge portion of reflection plate 16. As shown in FIG. 2, compared to reflection plate 16, reflection plate 20 extends in rotational direction of first rotor 4a, indicated by the arrow. The operation of the above-described magnetic rotation apparatus will now be explained with reference to FIG. 5. In FIG. 5, rotation shaft 2 of first rotor 4a is denoted by 01, and rotation shaft 2 of second rotor 4b is denoted by 02. Only the radially outward polarity, that is, N-polarity, of the magnets of rotors 4a and 4b is shown, for the sake of convenience. Although electromagnet 9a and permanent magnet 9b have both polarities located radially outward, only the N-polarity thereof is shown. When first and second rotors 4a and 4b are put in a position shown in FIG. 5, magnetic pole Nb1 of one permanent magnet of second rotor 4b is located in a line connecting shafts 01 and 02. In this case, polarity Na1 of first rotor 4a, which is paired with polarity Nb1, is a little advanced from polarity Nb1 in the rotational direction of first rotor 4a. For example, as shown in FIG. 5, magnetic pole Na1 is advanced from polarity Nb1 by an angle of X.degree.. Polarities Na1 and Nb1 exert repulsion force F1 upon each other along line L. Supposing that an angle, formed by line M, which is drawn from shaft 01 perpendicularly to line L, and the line connecting shafts 01 and 02 is represented by Y, and that the length of line K is represented by R, torques Ta1 and Tb1 caused by repulsion force F1 to rotate first and second rotors 4a and 4b can be given by: Ta1=F1.multidot.R.multidot.cos (Y-X)

Tb1=F1.multidot.R.multidot.cos Y Since cos (Y-X)>cos Y, Ta1>Tb1.

As shown in FIG. 5, since magnetic pole Na1 is advanced from magnetic pole Nb1 by angle X.degree., first rotor 4a receives a greater torque than second rotor 4b. Thus, first rotor 4a forwardly rotates in the direction of the arrow in FIG. 5. Mention is now made of paired magnets of rotors 4a and 4b in the vicinity of magnetic poles Na1 and Nb1. Magnetic poles Nan and Nan-1 of first rotor 4a are advanced ahead of magnetic pole Nal in the rotational direction. Magnetic poles Nan and Nan-1 receive a torque produced by a repulsion force acting between magnetic poles Nan and Nan-1 and corresponding magnetic poles Nbn and Nbn-1. In FIG. 5, magnetic poles Nan and Nan-1 receive a smaller torque, as they rotate farther from the location of magnetic pole Na1. It is well known that a torque of first rotor 4a, which is caused by a repulsion force acting on magnetic poles Nan and Nan-1, is decreased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance between paired magnetic poles Na and Nb.

Magnetic poles Na2 and Na3, behind magnetic pole Na1, receive a torque which tends to rotate rotor 4a in the reverse direction. This torque is considered to be counterbalanced with the torque acting on magnetic poles Nan and Nan-1. In FIG. 5, attention should be paid to the region of magnetic poles Na1 and Na2. As first rotor 4a forwardly rotates, the direction in which a torque applies to magnetic pole Na2, is changed from the reverse direction to the forward direction, before magnetic pole Na2 reaches the position of magnetic pole Na1. The torque for forwardly rotating rotor 4a is larger than that for reversely rotating rotor 4a. Therefore, first rotor 4a is easily rotated in the direction shown in FIG. 2. Second rotor 4b is considered to receive a torque in a direction reverse to the direction shown in FIG. 2, as seen from the description of first rotor 4a. It is obvious that second rotor 4b receives a maximum torque at the position of magnetic pole Nb1. As seen from the above formula, torque Tb1 applied to second rotor 4b in a direction reverse to that denoted by the arrow is smaller than torque Ta1 applied to first rotor 4a in the forward direction. The rotation of first rotor 4a is transmitted to second rotor 4b through gears 6a and 6b. By determining the relationship between the strengths of torques Ta1 and Tb1, second rotor 4b is thus rotated in a direction reverse to the rotational direction of first rotor 4a, against the torque applied to second rotor in the direction. As a result, first and second rotors 4a and 4b are kept rotating, since a torque for rotating rotors 4a and 4b in a cooperating manner is produced each time magnetic poles Na of first rotor 4a pass across the line connecting shafts 01 and 02. In a diagram shown in the right part of FIG. 5, a solid line indicates a torque applied to first rotor 4a, and a broken line indicates a torque applied to second rotor 4b. The ordinate indicates a distance between each magnetic pole and the line connecting shafts 01 and 02 of rotors 4a and 4b. The first region in which electromagnet 9a of first rotor 4a is turned on is set in a range of Z during which a torque is applied to first rotor 4a in the forward direction. In order to stop the cooperative rotation of rotors 4a and 4b, brake switch is turned on to operate switching circuit 17. Thus, the direction in which drive circuit 14 supplies a current to electromagnet 9a is reversed. The polarities of electromagnet 9a are reversed. The torque applied to electromagnet 9a in the forward direction is stopped. When electromagnet 9a approaches permanent magnet 9b, a magnetic attract:on force is produced. As a result, the rotation of rotors 4a and 4b is effectively slowed down and stopped. Since the second region, in which electromagnet 9a is excited, is larger than the first region, a large braking force can be obtained from a magnetic attraction force. In the above embodiment, since electromagnet 9a is excited only in a specific region, a large electric power is not required. In addition, since electromagnet 9a rotates and brakes rotors 4a and 4b, a braking mechanism for a magnetic rotation apparatus can be obtained without having to make the entire structure of the apparatus complex. The present invention is not restricted to the above embodiment. With the exception of the paired electromagnet and permanent magnet, all permanent magnets of the rotors are arranged such that their end portions of the same polarity face radially outward from the rotors. However, it is possible that the polarities of the radially outward end portions of the permanent magnets are alternately changed. Namely, it should suffice if the polarities of the radially outward end portions of the first rotor are identical to those of the corresponding radially outward end portions of the second rotor. The magnets may have different magnetic forces. Furthermore, an electric power for exciting the electromagnet can be derived from the rotation of the rotors or from the revolving magnetic field of the permanent magnet.

Angles C and E are not restricted to 30.degree. and 56.degree.. They may be freely determined in consideration of the strength of the magnetic force of the permanent magnet, a minimum distance between adjacent magnets, angle x, and the like. The number of magnets of the rotor is also freely chosen.

Industrial Applicability ~ As described above, the magnetic rotation apparatus of the present invention can be used as a driving source in place of an electric motor, and as an electric generator. US Patent # 5,594,289 (Cl. 310/152) Magnetic Rotating Apparatus (January 14, 1997) Kohei Minato Abstract --- On a rotor which is fixed to a rotatable rotating shaft, a plurality of permanent magnets are disposed along the direction of rotation such that the same magnetic pole type thereof face outward. In the same way, balancers are disposed on the rotor for balancing the rotation of this rotor. Each of the permanent magnets is obliquely arranged with respect to the radial direction line of the rotor. At the outer periphery of the rotor, an electromagnet is disposed facing this rotor, with this electromagnet intermittently energized based on the rotation of the rotor. According to the magnetic rotating apparatus of the present invention, rotational energy can be efficiently obtained from permanent magnets. This is made possible by minimizing as much as possible current supplied to the electromagnets, so that only a required amount of electrical energy is supplied to the electromagnets. Claims --- [ Claims not included here ] Description BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic rotating apparatus, and more particularly, to a magnetic rotating apparatus which utilizes repulsive forces produced between a permanent magnet and an electromagnet.

2. Description of the Prior Art In a conventional electric motor, an armature as a rotor consists of turns of wires, and electric field as a stator consists of a permanent magnet. In such the conventional electric motor, however, current must be usually supplied to windings of the armature which is rotated. When the current is supplied, heat is generated, which gives rise to the problem that not much driving force is efficiently generated. This, in turn, gives wise to the problem that the magnetic forces cannot be efficiently obtained from the permanent magnet. In addition, in the conventional electric motor, since the armature is so constructed as consisting of the windings, the moment of inertia cannot be made very high, so that enough torque cannot be obtained. To overcome the above-described problems of such the conventional electric motor, the inventor proposed, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61868/1993 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,486) a magnetic rotating apparatus in which a plurality of the permanent magnets are disposed along the two rotors, respectively, at a predetermined angle, and in which an electromagnet is disposed at one of the rotors. In a generally constructed conventional electric motor, there is a limit as to how much the efficiency of energy conversion can be increased. In addition, the torque of the electric motor cannot be made high enough. For the above reasons, hitherto, various improvements have been made on existing electric motors, without any success in producing an electric motor so constructed has providing satisfactory characteristics. In the magnetic rotating apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 6868/1993 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,486) a pair of rotors is rotated. Therefore, it is necessary for each of the rotors to have high precision, and in addition, measures must be taken for easier rotation control. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION In view of the above-described problems, the object of the present invention is to provide a magnetic rotating apparatus in which rotational energy can be efficiently obtained from the permanent magnet with a minimum amount of electrical energy, and in which rotation control can be carried out relatively easily. According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a magnetic rotating apparatus comprising a rotating shaft; a rotor which is fixed to the rotating shaft and which has disposed thereon permanent magnet means and means for balancing rotation, the permanent magnet means being disposed such that a plurality of magnetic poles of one (or first) polarity type is arranged along an outer peripheral surface in the direction of rotation, and a plurality of magnetic poles of the other (or second) polarity type arranged along an inner peripheral surface, with each pair of corresponding magnetic poles of one and the other polarities obliquely arranged with respect to a radial line; electromagnet means, which is disposed facing this rotor, for developing a magnetic field which faces the magnetic field of the permanent magnet means of the rotor and detecting means for detecting rotating position of the rotor to allow the electromagnet means to be energized. According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a magnetic rotating apparatus comprising a rotating shaft a rotor which is fixed to the rotating shaft and which has disposed thereon a plurality of permanent magnets and balancers for balancing rotation, the permanent magnets being disposed such that one magnetic polarity type is arranged along an outer peripheral surface in the direction of rotation and the other magnetic polarity type arranged along an inner peripheral surface, with each pair of corresponding magnetic poles of one and the other polarities obliquely arranged with respect to a radial line; an electromagnet, which is disposed facing this rotor, for developing a magnetic field which produces the other magnetic polarity type on the facing surface; and energizing means for intermittently energizing the electromagnet means from where the leading permanent magnet, based on the rotation of the rotor, passes the facing surface of the electromagnet in the direction of rotation. According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided magnetic rotating apparatus comprising a rotating shaft; a first rotor which is fixed to the rotating shaft and which has disposed thereon permanent magnet means and means for balancing rotation, the permanent magnet means being disposed such that a plurality of magnetic poles of the second polarity type is arranged along an outer peripheral surface in the direction of rotation, and a plurality of magnetic poles of the first pole type arranged along an inner peripheral surface, with each pair of corresponding magnetic poles of one and the other polarities obliquely arranged with respect to a radial line; a second rotor which rotates along with the first rotor and is fixed to the rotating shaft, having disposed thereon a plurality of permanent magnets and balancers for balancing rotation, the permanent magnets being disposed such that one magnetic polarity type is arranged along an outer peripheral surface in the direction of rotation and the other magnetic polarity type arranged along an inner peripheral surface, with each pair of corresponding magnetic poles of one and the other polarities obliquely arranged with respect to a radial line a first and a second electromagnet means, which are magnetically connected and disposed facing the first and second rotors, respectively, for developing a magnetic field which faces the magnetic field of the permanent magnet means of the first and second rotors; and detecting means for detecting rotating position of the rotors to allow the electromagnet means to be energized. The nature, principle and utility of the invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS In the accompanying drawings: FIG. 1 is a perspective view schematically illustrating a magnetic rating apparatus according to one embodiment of the present invention FIG. 2 is a side view of the magnetic rotating apparatus illustrated in FIG. 1; FIG. 3 is a plan view of a rotor of the magnetic rotating apparatus illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2;

FIG. 4 is a circuit diagram illustrating a circuit in the magnetic rotating apparatus shown in FIG. 1; FIG. 5 is a plan view showing a magnetic field distribution formed between the rotor and the electromagnet of the magnetic rotating apparatus shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, and FIG. 6 is an explanatory view illustrating a torque which causes rotation of the rotor of the magnetic rotating apparatus shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The magnetic field developed by an electromagnet means and that of a permanent magnet means of a rotor repel each other. In addition, the magnetic field of the permanent magnet means is flattened by the magnetic fields of other nearby permanent magnets and electromagnet means. Therefore, a torque is produced therebetween to efficiently rotate the rotor. Since the rotor has a high inertial force, when the rotor starts rotating, its speed increases by the inertial force and the turning force. A magnetic rotating apparatus related to one embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the following drawings. FIGS. 1 and 2 are schematic diagrams of a magnetic rotating apparatus related to one embodiment of the present invention. In the specification, the term "magnetic rotating apparatus" will include an electric motor, and from its general meaning of obtaining turning force from the magnetic forces of permanent magnets, it will refer to a rotating apparatus utilizing the magnetic forces. As shown in FIG. 1, in the magnetic rotating apparatus related to one embodiment of the present invention, a rotating shaft 4 is rotatably fixed to a frame 2 with bearings 5. To the rotating shaft 4, there are fixed a first magnet rotor 6 and a second magnet rotor 8, both of which produce turning forces and a rotated body 10, which has mounted therealong a plurality of rod-shaped magnets 9 for obtaining the turning forces as energy. They are fixed in such a manner as to be rotatable with the rotating shaft 4. At the first and second magnet rotors 6 and 8, there are provided, as will be described later in detail with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2, a first electromagnet 12 and a second electromagnet 14 respectively are energized in synchronism with rotations of the first and second magnet rotors 6 and 8, both of which face each other and are each disposed in a magnetic gap. The first and second electromagnets 12 and 14 are respectively mounted to a yoke 16, which forms a magnetic path. As shown in FIG. 3, the first and second magnet rotors 6 and 8 each have disposed on its disk-shaped surface a plurality of tabular magnets 22A through 22H for developing a magnetic field for generating the turning forces and balancers 20A through 20H, made of non-magnetic substances, for balancing the magnet rotors 6 and 8. In the embodiments, the first and second magnet rotors 6 and 8 each have disposed along the disk-shaped surface 24 at equal intervals the eight tabular magnets 22A through 22H along half of the outer peripheral area and +the eight balancers 20A through 20H along the other half of the outer peripheral area.

As shown in FIG. 3, each of the tabular magnets 22A through 22H are disposed so that its longitudinal axis 1 makes an angle D with respect to a radial axis line 11 of the disk-shaped surface 24. In the embodiment, an angle of 30 degrees and 56 degrees have been confirmed for the angle D. An appropriate angle, however, can be set depending on the radius of the disk-shaped surface 24 and the number of tabular magnets 22A through 22H to be disposed on the disk-shaped surface 24. As illustrated in FIG. 2, from the viewpoint of effective use of the magnetic field, it is preferable that the tabular magnets 22A through 22H on the first magnet rotor 6 are positioned so that their N-poles point outward, while the tabular magnets 22A through 22H on the second magnet rotor 8 are positioned so that their S-poles point outward. Exterior to the first and second magnet rotors 6 and 8, the first and second electromagnets 12 and 14 are disposed facing the first and second magnet rotors 6 and 8 respectively in the magnetic gap. When the first and second electromagnets 12 and 14 are energized, they develop a magnetic field identical in polarity to the their respective tabular magnets 22A through 22H so that they repel one anther. In other words, as shown in FIG. 2, since the tabular magnets 22A through 22H on the first magnet rotor 6 have their N-poles facing outwards, the first electromagnet 12 is energized so that the side facing the first magnet rotor 6 develops an N-polarity. In a similar way, since the tabular magnets 22A through 22H on the second magnet rotor 8 have their S-poles facing outwards, the second electromagnet 14 is energized so that the side facing the tabular magnets 22A through 22H develops a S-polarity. The first and second electromagnets 12 and 14, which are magnetically connected by the yoke 16, are magnetized so that the sides facing their respective magnet rotors 6 and 8 are opposite in polarity with respect to each other. This means that the magnetic fields of the electromagnets 12 and 14 can be used efficiently. A detector 30, such as microswitch, is provided to either one of the first magnet rotor 6 or second magnet rotor 8 to detect the rotating position of the magnet rotors 6 and 8. That is, as shown in FIG. 3, in a rotational direction 32 of the tabular magnets 22A through 22H, the first and the second magnet rotors 6 and 8 are respectively energized when the leading tabular 22A has passed. In other words, in the rotational direction 32, the electromagnet 12 or 14 is energized when starting point So, located between the leading tabular magnet 22A and the following tabular magnet 22B coincides with the center point Ro of either the electromagnet 12 or 14. In addition, as illustrated in FIG. 3, in the rotational direction 32 of the tabular magnets 22A through 22H, the first and the second magnet rotors 6 and 8 are de-energized when the last tabular magnet 22A has passed. In the embodiment, an end point Eo is set symmetrical to the starting point So on the rotating disk-shaped surface 24. When the end point Eo coincides with the center point Ro of either the electromagnet 12 or 14, the electromagnet 12 or 14 is de-energized, respectively. As will be described later, with the center point Ro of the electromagnet 12 or 14 arbitrarily set between the starting point So and the end point Eo, the magnet rotors 6 and 8 start to rotate when the electromagnets 12 and 14 and their tabular magnets 22A through 22H face one another. When a microswitch is used as the detector 30 for detecting the rotating position, the contact point of the microswitch is allowed to slide along the surface of the rotating disk-shaped surface 24. A step is provided for the starting point So and the end point Eo so that the contact of the microswitch closes between the starting point So and the end point Eo. The area along the periphery therebetween protrudes beyond the other peripheral areas of the rotating disk-shaped surface 24. It is apparent that a photo sensor or the like may be used instead of the microswitch as the detector 30 for detecting the rotating position. As shown in FIG. 4, the windings of the electromagnets 12 and 14 are connected to a DC power source 42 through a movable contact of a relay 40, which is connected in series with the windings. A series circuit containing the relay 40 (solenoid) and the detector 30 or microswitch is connected to the DC power source 42. In addition, from the viewpoint of energy conservation, a charger 44 such as a solar cell is connected to the DC power source 42. It is preferable that the DC power source 42 is constantly chargeable using solar energy or the like. In the magnetic rotating apparatus illustrated in FIGS. 1 and 2, a magnetic field distribution shown in FIG. 5 is formed between the tabular magnets 22A through 22H, disposed on each of the magnet rotors 6 and 8, and the electromagnets 12 and 14 which face them, respectively. When the electromagnet 12 or 14 is energized, a magnetic field of a tabular magnet of the tabular magnets 22A through 22H, adjacent to the electromagnet 12 or 14, is distorted in the longitudinal direction in correspondence with the rotational direction. This results in the generation of a repulsive force therebetween. As is apparent from the distortion of the magnetic field, the repulsive force has a larger component in the longitudinal or perpendicular direction, and produces a torque, as shown by an arrow 32. Similarly, a magnetic field of a tabular magnet of the tabular magnets 22A through 22H, which next enters the magnetic field of the electromagnet 12 or 14, is distorted. the repulsive force produced between the tabular magnets of the tabular magnets 22A through 22H, which have already entered the magnetic field of the electromagnets, a repulsive force operates between both of the poles M and M' of the tabular magnet at the rotating side and the electromagnet at the stationary side, respectively. Therefore, from the relationship illustrated in FIG. 6, an angular torque T is generated based on the formula: T=F. a.cos (.alpha.-.beta.), where in a is a constant. The angular torque starts the rotation of the rotating disk-shaped surface 24. After the rotating disk-shaped surface 24 has started rotating, its rotating speed gradually increases due to an inertial moment thereof, which allows a large turning driving force to be produced. After a stable rotation of the rotating disk-shaped surface 24 has been produced, when a necessary electromotive force can be developed in an electromagnetic coil (not illustrated) by externally bringing it near a rotated body 10 to be rotated along with the rotating disk-shaped surface 24. This electric power can be used for other applications. This rotating principle is based on the rotating principle of the magnetic rotating apparatus already disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 61868/1993 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,486) by the inventor. That is, even if an electromagnet, provided for one of the rotors of the magnetic rotating apparatus disclosed in the same Patent Application, is fixed, it is rotated in accordance with the rotating principle disclosed therein. For details, refer to the above Japanese Patent Publication No. 61868/1993 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,751,486).

The number of tabular magnets 22A through 22H is not limited to "8" as shown in FIGS. 1 and 3. Any number of magnets may be used. In the above-described embodiment, although the tabular magnets 22A through 22H are disposed along half of the peripheral area of the disk-shaped surface 24, and the balancers 20A through 20H are disposed along the other half of the peripheral area, the tabular magnets may further be disposed along other areas of the disk-shaped surface 24. It is preferable that balancers, in addition to magnets, are provided along a portion of the peripheral area on the disk-shaped surface. The counter weights, which do not need to be formed into separate blocks, may be formed into one sheet of plate which extends on the outer peripheral area of the disk-shaped surface. In addition, in the above-described embodiments, while the construction is such as to allow the electromagnets to be energized for a predetermined period of time for every rotation of the rotating disk-shaped surface, the circuit may be so constructed as to allow, upon increased number of rotations, energization of the electromagnets for every rotation of the rotating disk-shaped surface, starting from its second rotation onwards. Further, in the above-described embodiment, a tabular magnet has been used for the permanent magnet, but other types of permanent magnets may also be used. In effect, any type of magnet may be used as the permanent magnet means as long as a plurality of magnetic poles of one type is disposed along the outer surface of the inner periphery and a plurality of magnetic poles of the other type are disposed along the inner peripheral surface of the disk-shaped surface, so that a pair of corresponding magnetic poles of one and the other polarities is obliquely arranged, with respect to the radial line 11, as shown in FIG. 3. Although the tabular magnets 22A through 22H are mounted on the magnet rotors 6 and 8 in the above embodiment, they may be electromagnets. In this case, the electromagnets 12 and 14 may be the alternative of electromagnets or permanent magnets.

According to the magnetic rotating apparatus of the present invention, rotational energy can be efficiently obtained from permanent magnets. This is made possible by minimizing as much as possible current supplied to the electromagnets, so that only a required amount of electrical energy is supplied to the electromagnets. It should be understood that many modifications and adaptations of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art and it is intended to encompass such obvious modifications and changes in the scope of the claims appended hereto. KeelyNet: BBS Posting from Henry Curtis (11-18-1997)

Korean Magnetic Perpetual Motion Wheel I must apologize for not having all the details of this interesting device but will update the file when I get more info from the source. In email communications with John Schnurer, I happened to mention it and he's been on me since then to send him a diagram, yet I felt like it would simply be confusing because its operation is not clear or readily apparent from the information I had.The information that I have comes directly from long time friend Henry Curtis of Colorado. We both attended the 1997 ISNE conference in Denver and Henry was telling about this interesting machine he had seen while on a trip to the Phillipines. He said there was a free energy conference held there and he noticed a spinning bicycle wheel that was attached to a stand that sat on a table.The wheel was running when he first saw it, yet there did not appear to be any driving force such as a motor, belts, gears, etc..Henry said he watched it for quite awhile and it never stopped running. On expressing curiosity about the wheel, he was invited to stop it and start it up without any outside assistance.Henry reports the wheel was brought to a complete stop, then he gave it a spin with his hand and it began moving on its own. I am uncertain if it followed the tendency of other such devices to establish its own speed. Some devices like this can be spun up to high speed from an outside source, then will slow to a speed which is determined by the geometry and strength of the repelling or attracting forces that operate it.Henry swears it was the neatest thing he'd ever seen and drew a crude diagram of the arrangement on my notepad. Unfortunately, we were a bit rushed and I did not achieve a complete understanding of how it operated. That is why I did not want to blow smoke about it until more detail had been received, god knows, we don't need any more of that.However, perhaps someone can figure it out from the limited information I do have. The following drawing shows the wheel arrangement, one half was weighted, the other half had slanted magnets. I do not know whether they are all repelling, attracting or a mix of these forces. As you can imagine, the weight of the magnets must equal the weight of the other half of the wheel to balance out. Apparently the force of the magnetic repulsion or attaction provides the actual imbalance.Henry also said there was a patent on this device that is dated January 14, 1997. The inventor is a Japanese man named Minatu. The spelling of this name is uncertain. I did a search on the IBM server but found nothing even remote. Henry specifically said this was a United States patent. So, here it is. Perhaps Henry can come up with some more detail which can be used to update this file in future. Good luck.... KeelyNet: Update and Corrections from Henry Curtis (Wed, 19 Nov 1997) ~

From: Henry Curtis ~ To: Jerry Decker Subject: Bicycle wheel correction and update Jerry, Again we see that communication is difficult and memories are fallable. Obviously I am remiss in not having sent this to you months ago as I intended to, but as a sage of old observed "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is slow." During the first weekend of May, 1997, a group in Soeul, Korea headed up by Mr. Chi San Park, held The First International New Energy Conference in Seoul, Korea. I attended this conference and gave a talk on various approcahes to free energy. It was at this conference in Seoul, Korea that I saw the bicycle wheel and had the opportunity to work with it unattended by anyone else.The inventor is Kohei Minato, a Japanese rock musician, who reports that he has spent a million dollars out of his own pocket developing magnetic motors, because the world needs a better source of energy. He has several patents in various countries. His latest patent that I am aware of is United States Patent # 5,594,289. His development efforts have gone in the general direction of the Adams motor which the above patent is similar to. He had a working prototype of this design at the conference and reported that it used 150 watts power input and produced 450 watts output on a sustained basis. About a year ago CNN (in the US) had a 10 minute segment about him and his motors. In this video he is shown demonstrating two of his magnetic motors. I have a copy of this film clip that he gave to me. I will make a copy and send it to you. Unfortunately, the editors were not attuned to technical details and the pictures of the running machines show little useful detail. The Phillipine connection that you mention is completely erroneous. It was in Korea. The drawing on the web site is essentially correct with the following exceptions. The counter weight is a single curved piece of aluminum covering 180 degrees. Each of the several individual magnets on the other half of the wheel are slightly asymmetric, crescent shaped and nested. They are magnetised end to end with the N poles out. The motor is actuated by moving the N pole of a large permanet magnet (the drive magnet) toward the wheel. As this magnet is moved toward the wheel, the wheel starts to spin. As the magnet is moved closer to the wheel it spins faster. The acceleration of the wheel is rapid. So rapid in fact, as to be startling. To put it another way I was very impressed. The motor works. And it works very well. In the film clip a slight pumping action of Minato's hand holding the magnet is apparent. When I braced my hand so that there was no pumping action, the motor still ran. In fact it seemed to run better. Pumping action by the hand held magnet is not the power that drives the motor. When the drive magnet is moved away from the wheel it coasts rather quickly to a stop and comes to rest in a manner typical of any spinning bicycle wheel. Again when the wheel is at rest and a large magnet is moved up to the wheel it starts to spin. At no time is it necessary to touch the wheel to get it to rotate. Simply bring the N pole of a large magnet several inches from the wheel. The particular orientation of the wheel when it is at rest seems to have no effect on how well it starts to turn. Irrespective of how the wheel and the magnets on it are sitting; move the drive magnet near, it starts to spin. Move the magnet closer it spins faster. Move the magnet further away it slows up. The wheel was mounted on a stand made of aluminum angle pieces bolted together similar to the diagram in the above mentioned patent. The axle of the wheel was mounted parellel to the surface of the planet. I have attached a rough diagram of the wheel. Apparently the geometry of the magnets on the wheel is very important and subtle. I have built several small models none of which have shown the free energy effects of Minato's machine. The conference in Seoul was attended by several hundred people, most appeared to be under 40 and evenly divided between men and women. Presenters were from Korea, US, Japan, and China. Simultaneous translation was provided for all talks in the 3 day conference. Jerry, I hope this information is useful. I may be contacted by e-mail at mailto:hcurtis@mindspring.com or by phone at 303.344.1458.

KeelyNet: Email from Gene Mallove at Infinite Energy ~ I spoke to Bob Vermillion of Tri-Cosmos Development (Los Angeles, CA 310-284-3250 or fax 310-284-3260) today, just before he left for the three-day demonstrations of the Minato magnetic motor being held in Mexico City, Mexico on July 8, 9, 10th.Three (3) Minato Motors (MM), covered by US Patents # 5,594,289 (Jan 14, 1997) and # 4,751,486 (June 14, 1988), have been brought over from Japan. One was allegedly tested last evening by Grupo Bufete Industrial (supposedly one of the largest power generation construction companies in Mexico and South America). The company engineers were said (by Vermillion) to have measured an output /input ratio of 4.3 / 1. The printed literature, which I received in a Fedex packet from Vermillion states that the device can put out 500 watts (maximum) with an input of 34 watts.For those of you who wonder why the device is not self-sustaining -- oral info from Vermillion is that Minato *will* in the course of one of the demonstrations *remove the battery power supply* and let the device self-run -- presumably with a load. The press release makes no bones about the physics-busting character of the MM: "As rotations per minute (rpm's) increase, the electromagnetic consumption of the stator decreases. This phenomenon is in direct conflict with accepted laws of physics and is achieved through the repelling magnetic fields. It operates without heat, noise, or pollution of any kind. It can be produced in size from ultra-small to very large." It is said in the press release that applications from cell phones to laptop computers are under development. Vermillion told me of other parties who were planning to attend the demonstrations, which will be conducted both in public displays and with private party measurements. These include: ENRON, Bechtel, Tejas (a division of Shell Oil Corporation), Fluor Daniels, Kellogg Corp. .He told me that Hal Fox of New Energy News and the Fusion Information Center will be there (I confirmed with Hal that he will be there and will give us a full report.) I considered going myself (I was invited), but I trust Hal Fox to provide a full report --

www.japaninc.com/article.php?articleID=1302

  

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent_magnet_motor

seen 02/03/15 turning off the Euston rd in London

I was able to catch the UP 1995 on Saturday leading the MNPML.

This is from the Sutro Baths ruins after sunset (prior photo). By this time everyone had left, so I was able to get this shot in the dim twilight with no one else around. 60 second exposure.

 

Are you on Facebook? I have a new page on Facebook for my website waterfallswest.com. Become a fan! Click here to learn more.

 

View in larger size and read about my adventure on my blog.

 

Copyright © Leon Turnbull Photography.

This photo may not be used in any form without prior permission. All rights reserved.

 

EHEH Eindhoven 16-09-2023

After many months of not being able to get out to expose 10x8 film, I've now made two outings in the last few days, and using the opportunity to progress with my setup and equipment.

FIrst, I've been able at long last to expose some of the new Portra 160 I bought three boxes of a while back. Second, I've taken my home developing, inc. of colour, to the next level, by purchasing a Jobo 3005 expert drum.

My home developing with 10x8 has thus progressed from BTZS tubes (which I still have but haven't used in over a year) and two Stearman Press SP810 trays. The latter are brilliant and a huge improvement over the tubes for ease of use in a minimal home setup (NB I don't have a darkroom or even, particularly, the opportunity to set one up).

The Stearman trays work perfectly for both B&W and colour following some experimentation, and are especially useful for B&W when you have two different development times for a couple of sheets.

However, esp. for E6 colour with the long-lasting Bellini 6-bath chemistry, where the overall processing time not including setup is about 45mins, the Stearman trays thus have their limitations if you have multiple sheets to process - even two sheets, with two trays, takes up a whole evening.

Last night I processed all three of my exposed sheets of E6 Velvia 50 in one go in the Jobo 3005 (which can take a total of 5 sheets). Tonight or tomorrow I will aim to process the Portra 160.

The expert drums are really designed to work on the large Jobo processors; sadly my processing area and wallet are both too small to allow for such a monster, but all is not lost, as long as you understand the process and do your research (via e.g. Youtube, blogs, and LFPF). Fingers crossed, I seem to have developed the E6 sheets in the tank at least as well as in the Stearman.

Further details on my blog: dwfnaturephoto.wordpress.com/2021/04/03/new-home-developi...

May update it with more pics later.

I was able to capture this unique photo due to a tip-off from HAL member Bob Prokop. Thanks Bob!

 

The Moon was 22 hours and 17 minutes old, elongated 12.5 degrees from the Sun, and illuminated 1.2%. This is the "youngest" Moon, the thinnest crescent, and closest Moon to the Sun that I have imaged to date.

 

At the time of this photo, the Moon's elevation was a scant 3d 31' 47.1" above the astronomical horizon. I almost had to dig this one out of the dirt! I was seconds away from losing the Moon in the trees by the time I found it, got it centered, and got the scope focused.

 

Canon EOS 60Da

TeleVue NP101is

Losmandy GM8

Worlds End Sri Lanka. We was lucky to be able to watch out from the high mountain to the other side in few minutes 3 times

I drove into my office car park to take a few pics, and rev videos. Wanted to do a start-up video as well, but there was a problem with my CF card, and I wasn't able to salvage it.

 

Still, some pics turned out OK. I quite like the 'mood' in this shot.

 

Funny story - the guard in this car park came up to me and asked me to park the car properly. I thought that he was going to tell me to get out because I was making such loud noises!

Daniel and his engineer roll train 68W down into Cohutta, GA behind a pair of ES44s and an SD70. 68Ws and Xs haven't run down the I line in quite sometime now. The last few have come from Pride, Alabama. Glad I was able to shoot a few before they "possibly" disappeared from the I line for good. Here the train passes by the Red Clay state park and into GA from Bradley County, TN.

So here we come, Pia Glacier is the glacier we took a zodiac boat to, and landed on the wonder of the world.

 

This was the glacier we got closest by the ship - and we landed very close to it. We were able to see and learn more about glaciers itself. For example the bluer the color is, the older the glacier is. They look blue because it lacks air within, and there are "dirty glaciers" that erode the land and get mixed up with all these sediments. Also there were many interesting plants in Patagonia that we had never seen before.

 

It was one of the first things we did in Patagonia, and while it's rather touristy, it was still adventurous, fun and cool.

 

If you like my photos, please "follow" or "like my pages below!

 

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I finally was able to go through last weeks photos that I took at Ding Darling NWR in Sanibel, Florida. As I stated last week, there was a plethora of pink and I have plenty more.

 

Enjoy and have a great weekend.

 

View Large On Black

 

EOS 1d Mark II

Canon 400 5.6L

1/1600

ƒ/5.6

ISO 400

Manual Metering + 1 off blue sky

Able to relocate this Townsend's Solitaire this morning and even had some better light, sunlight for about an hour.

 

An adult Townsend's Solitaire was found at Rock Cut State Park in Northern Illinois in late November and refound this morning. New county bird!!

1. The Mind-Body Problem and the History of Dualism

1.1 The Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem is the problem: what is the relationship between mind and body? Or alternatively: what is the relationship between mental properties and physical properties?

Humans have (or seem to have) both physical properties and mental properties. People have (or seem to have)the sort of properties attributed in the physical sciences. These physical properties include size, weight, shape, colour, motion through space and time, etc. But they also have (or seem to have) mental properties, which we do not attribute to typical physical objects These properties involve consciousness (including perceptual experience, emotional experience, and much else), intentionality (including beliefs, desires, and much else), and they are possessed by a subject or a self. Physical properties are public, in the sense that they are, in principle, equally observable by anyone. Some physical properties – like those of an electron – are not directly observable at all, but they are equally available to all, to the same degree, with scientific equipment and techniques. The same is not true of mental properties. I may be able to tell that you are in pain by your behaviour, but only you can feel it directly. Similarly, you just know how something looks to you, and I can only surmise. Conscious mental events are private to the subject, who has a privileged access to them of a kind no-one has to the physical. The mind-body problem concerns the relationship between these two sets of properties. The mind-body problem breaks down into a number of components. The ontological question: what are mental states and what are physical states? Is one class a subclass of the other, so that all mental states are physical, or vice versa? Or are mental states and physical states entirely distinct?

The causal question: do physical states influence mental states? Do mental states influence physical states? If so, how?

Different aspects of the mind-body problem arise for different aspects of the mental, such as consciousness, intentionality, the self. The problem of consciousness: what is consciousness? How is it related to the brain and the body? The problem of intentionality: what is intentionality? How is it related to the brain and the body? The problem of the self: what is the self? How is it related to the brain and the body? Other aspects of the mind-body problem arise for aspects of the physical. For example:

 

The problem of embodiment: what is it for the mind to be housed in a body? What is it for a body to belong to a particular subject?

The seemingly intractable nature of these problems have given rise to many different philosophical views.

 

Materialist views say that, despite appearances to the contrary, mental states are just physical states. Behaviourism, functionalism, mind-brain identity theory and the computational theory of mind are examples of how materialists attempt to explain how this can be so. The most common factor in such theories is the attempt to explicate the nature of mind and consciousness in terms of their ability to directly or indirectly modify behaviour, but there are versions of materialism that try to tie the mental to the physical without explicitly explaining the mental in terms of its behaviour-modifying role. The latter are often grouped together under the label ‘non-reductive physicalism’, though this label is itself rendered elusive because of the controversial nature of the term ‘reduction’.

 

Idealist views say that physical states are really mental. This is because the physical world is an empirical world and, as such, it is the intersubjective product of our collective experience.

 

Dualist views (the subject of this entry) say that the mental and the physical are both real and neither can be assimilated to the other. For the various forms that dualism can take and the associated problems, see below.

 

In sum, we can say that there is a mind-body problem because both consciousness and thought, broadly construed, seem very different from anything physical and there is no convincing consensus on how to build a satisfactorily unified picture of creatures possessed of both a mind and a body.

 

Other entries which concern aspects of the mind-body problem include (among many others): behaviorism, consciousness, eliminative materialism, epiphenomenalism, functionalism, identity theory, intentionality, mental causation, neutral monism, and physicalism.

 

1.2 History of dualism

In dualism, ‘mind’ is contrasted with ‘body’, but at different times, different aspects of the mind have been the centre of attention. In the classical and mediaeval periods, it was the intellect that was thought to be most obviously resistant to a materialistic account: from Descartes on, the main stumbling block to materialist monism was supposed to be ‘consciousness’, of which phenomenal consciousness or sensation came to be considered as the paradigm instance.

 

The classical emphasis originates in Plato’s Phaedo. Plato believed that the true substances are not physical bodies, which are ephemeral, but the eternal Forms of which bodies are imperfect copies. These Forms not only make the world possible, they also make it intelligible, because they perform the role of universals, or what Frege called ‘concepts’. It is their connection with intelligibility that is relevant to the philosophy of mind. Because Forms are the grounds of intelligibility, they are what the intellect must grasp in the process of understanding. In Phaedo Plato presents a variety of arguments for the immortality of the soul, but the one that is relevant for our purposes is that the intellect is immaterial because Forms are immaterial and intellect must have an affinity with the Forms it apprehends (78b4–84b8). This affinity is so strong that the soul strives to leave the body in which it is imprisoned and to dwell in the realm of Forms. It may take many reincarnations before this is achieved. Plato’s dualism is not, therefore, simply a doctrine in the philosophy of mind, but an integral part of his whole metaphysics.

 

One problem with Plato’s dualism was that, though he speaks of the soul as imprisoned in the body, there is no clear account of what binds a particular soul to a particular body. Their difference in nature makes the union a mystery.

 

Aristotle did not believe in Platonic Forms, existing independently of their instances. Aristotelian forms (the capital ‘F’ has disappeared with their standing as autonomous entities) are the natures and properties of things and exist embodied in those things. This enabled Aristotle to explain the union of body and soul by saying that the soul is the form of the body. This means that a particular person’s soul is no more than his nature as a human being. Because this seems to make the soul into a property of the body, it led many interpreters, both ancient and modern, to interpret his theory as materialistic. The interpretation of Aristotle’s philosophy of mind – and, indeed, of his whole doctrine of form – remains as live an issue today as it was immediately after his death (Robinson 1983 and 1991; Nussbaum 1984; Rorty and Nussbaum, eds, 1992). Nevertheless, the text makes it clear that Aristotle believed that the intellect, though part of the soul, differs from other faculties in not having a bodily organ. His argument for this constitutes a more tightly argued case than Plato’s for the immateriality of thought and, hence, for a kind of dualism. He argued that the intellect must be immaterial because if it were material it could not receive all forms. Just as the eye, because of its particular physical nature, is sensitive to light but not to sound, and the ear to sound and not to light, so, if the intellect were in a physical organ it could be sensitive only to a restricted range of physical things; but this is not the case, for we can think about any kind of material object (De Anima III,4; 429a10–b9). As it does not have a material organ, its activity must be essentially immaterial.

 

It is common for modern Aristotelians, who otherwise have a high view of Aristotle’s relevance to modern philosophy, to treat this argument as being of purely historical interest, and not essential to Aristotle’s system as a whole. They emphasize that he was not a ‘Cartesian’ dualist, because the intellect is an aspect of the soul and the soul is the form of the body, not a separate substance. Kenny (1989) argues that Aristotle’s theory of mind as form gives him an account similar to Ryle (1949), for it makes the soul equivalent to the dispositions possessed by a living body. This ‘anti-Cartesian’ approach to Aristotle arguably ignores the fact that, for Aristotle, the form is the substance.

 

These issues might seem to be of purely historical interest. But we shall see in below, in section 4.5, that this is not so.

 

The identification of form and substance is a feature of Aristotle’s system that Aquinas effectively exploits in this context, identifying soul, intellect and form, and treating them as a substance. (See, for example, Aquinas (1912), Part I, questions 75 and 76.) But though the form (and, hence, the intellect with which it is identical) are the substance of the human person, they are not the person itself. Aquinas says that when one addresses prayers to a saint – other than the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is believed to retain her body in heaven and is, therefore, always a complete person – one should say, not, for example, ‘Saint Peter pray for us’, but ‘soul of Saint Peter pray for us’. The soul, though an immaterial substance, is the person only when united with its body. Without the body, those aspects of its personal memory that depend on images (which are held to be corporeal) will be lost.(See Aquinas (1912), Part I, question 89.)

 

The more modern versions of dualism have their origin in Descartes’ Meditations, and in the debate that was consequent upon Descartes’ theory. Descartes was a substance dualist. He believed that there were two kinds of substance: matter, of which the essential property is that it is spatially extended; and mind, of which the essential property is that it thinks. Descartes’ conception of the relation between mind and body was quite different from that held in the Aristotelian tradition. For Aristotle, there is no exact science of matter. How matter behaves is essentially affected by the form that is in it. You cannot combine just any matter with any form – you cannot make a knife out of butter, nor a human being out of paper – so the nature of the matter is a necessary condition for the nature of the substance. But the nature of the substance does not follow from the nature of its matter alone: there is no ‘bottom up’ account of substances. Matter is a determinable made determinate by form. This was how Aristotle thought that he was able to explain the connection of soul to body: a particular soul exists as the organizing principle in a particular parcel of matter.

 

The belief in the relative indeterminacy of matter is one reason for Aristotle’s rejection of atomism. If matter is atomic, then it is already a collection of determinate objects in its own right, and it becomes natural to regard the properties of macroscopic substances as mere summations of the natures of the atoms.

 

Although, unlike most of his fashionable contemporaries and immediate successors, Descartes was not an atomist, he was, like the others, a mechanist about the properties of matter. Bodies are machines that work according to their own laws. Except where there are minds interfering with it, matter proceeds deterministically, in its own right. Where there are minds requiring to influence bodies, they must work by ‘pulling levers’ in a piece of machinery that already has its own laws of operation. This raises the question of where those ‘levers’ are in the body. Descartes opted for the pineal gland, mainly because it is not duplicated on both sides of the brain, so it is a candidate for having a unique, unifying function.

 

The main uncertainty that faced Descartes and his contemporaries, however, was not where interaction took place, but how two things so different as thought and extension could interact at all. This would be particularly mysterious if one had an impact view of causal interaction, as would anyone influenced by atomism, for whom the paradigm of causation is like two billiard balls cannoning off one another.

 

Various of Descartes’ disciples, such as Arnold Geulincx and Nicholas Malebranche, concluded that all mind-body interactions required the direct intervention of God. The appropriate states of mind and body were only the occasions for such intervention, not real causes. Now it would be convenient to think that occasionalists held that all causation was natural except for that between mind and body. In fact they generalized their conclusion and treated all causation as directly dependent on God. Why this was so, we cannot discuss here.

 

Descartes’ conception of a dualism of substances came under attack from the more radical empiricists, who found it difficult to attach sense to the concept of substance at all. Locke, as a moderate empiricist, accepted that there were both material and immaterial substances. Berkeley famously rejected material substance, because he rejected all existence outside the mind. In his early Notebooks, he toyed with the idea of rejecting immaterial substance, because we could have no idea of it, and reducing the self to a collection of the ‘ideas’ that constituted its contents. Finally, he decided that the self, conceived as something over and above the ideas of which it was aware, was essential for an adequate understanding of the human person. Although the self and its acts are not presented to consciousness as objects of awareness, we are obliquely aware of them simply by dint of being active subjects. Hume rejected such claims, and proclaimed the self to be nothing more than a concatenation of its ephemeral contents.

 

In fact, Hume criticised the whole conception of substance for lacking in empirical content: when you search for the owner of the properties that make up a substance, you find nothing but further properties. Consequently, the mind is, he claimed, nothing but a ‘bundle’ or ‘heap’ of impressions and ideas – that is, of particular mental states or events, without an owner. This position has been labelled bundle dualism, and it is a special case of a general bundle theory of substance, according to which objects in general are just organised collections of properties. The problem for the Humean is to explain what binds the elements in the bundle together. This is an issue for any kind of substance, but for material bodies the solution seems fairly straightforward: the unity of a physical bundle is constituted by some form of causal interaction between the elements in the bundle. For the mind, mere causal connection is not enough; some further relation of co-consciousness is required. We shall see in 5.2.1 that it is problematic whether one can treat such a relation as more primitive than the notion of belonging to a subject.

 

One should note the following about Hume’s theory. His bundle theory is a theory about the nature of the unity of the mind. As a theory about this unity, it is not necessarily dualist. Parfit (1970, 1984) and Shoemaker (1984, ch. 2), for example, accept it as physicalists. In general, physicalists will accept it unless they wish to ascribe the unity to the brain or the organism as a whole. Before the bundle theory can be dualist one must accept property dualism, for more about which, see the next section.

 

A crisis in the history of dualism came, however, with the growing popularity of mechanism in science in the nineteenth century. According to the mechanist, the world is, as it would now be expressed, ‘closed under physics’. This means that everything that happens follows from and is in accord with the laws of physics. There is, therefore, no scope for interference in the physical world by the mind in the way that interactionism seems to require. According to the mechanist, the conscious mind is an epiphenomenon (a notion given general currency by T. H. Huxley 1893): that is, it is a by-product of the physical system which has no influence back on it. In this way, the facts of consciousness are acknowledged but the integrity of physical science is preserved. However, many philosophers found it implausible to claim such things as the following; the pain that I have when you hit me, the visual sensations I have when I see the ferocious lion bearing down on me or the conscious sense of understanding I have when I hear your argument – all have nothing directly to do with the way I respond. It is very largely due to the need to avoid this counterintuitiveness that we owe the concern of twentieth century philosophy to devise a plausible form of materialist monism. But, although dualism has been out of fashion in psychology since the advent of behaviourism (Watson 1913) and in philosophy since Ryle (1949), the argument is by no means over. Some distinguished neurologists, such as Sherrington (1940) and Eccles (Popper and Eccles 1977) have continued to defend dualism as the only theory that can preserve the data of consciousness. Amongst mainstream philosophers, discontent with physicalism led to a modest revival of property dualism in the last decade of the twentieth century. At least some of the reasons for this should become clear below.

 

2. Varieties of Dualism: Ontology

There are various ways of dividing up kinds of dualism. One natural way is in terms of what sorts of things one chooses to be dualistic about. The most common categories lighted upon for these purposes are substance and property, giving one substance dualism and property dualism. There is, however, an important third category, namely predicate dualism. As this last is the weakest theory, in the sense that it claims least, I shall begin by characterizing it.

 

2.1 Predicate dualism

Predicate dualism is the theory that psychological or mentalistic predicates are (a) essential for a full description of the world and (b) are not reducible to physicalistic predicates. For a mental predicate to be reducible, there would be bridging laws connecting types of psychological states to types of physical ones in such a way that the use of the mental predicate carried no information that could not be expressed without it. An example of what we believe to be a true type reduction outside psychology is the case of water, where water is always H2O: something is water if and only if it is H2O. If one were to replace the word ‘water’ by ‘H2O’, it is plausible to say that one could convey all the same information. But the terms in many of the special sciences (that is, any science except physics itself) are not reducible in this way. Not every hurricane or every infectious disease, let alone every devaluation of the currency or every coup d’etat has the same constitutive structure. These states are defined more by what they do than by their composition or structure. Their names are classified as functional terms rather than natural kind terms. It goes with this that such kinds of state are multiply realizable; that is, they may be constituted by different kinds of physical structures under different circumstances. Because of this, unlike in the case of water and H2O, one could not replace these terms by some more basic physical description and still convey the same information. There is no particular description, using the language of physics or chemistry, that would do the work of the word ‘hurricane’, in the way that ‘H2O’ would do the work of ‘water’. It is widely agreed that many, if not all, psychological states are similarly irreducible, and so psychological predicates are not reducible to physical descriptions and one has predicate dualism. (The classic source for irreducibility in the special sciences in general is Fodor (1974), and for irreducibility in the philosophy of mind, Davidson (1971).)

 

2.2 Property Dualism

Whereas predicate dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of predicates in our language, property dualism says that there are two essentially different kinds of property out in the world. Property dualism can be seen as a step stronger than predicate dualism. Although the predicate ‘hurricane’ is not equivalent to any single description using the language of physics, we believe that each individual hurricane is nothing but a collection of physical atoms behaving in a certain way: one need have no more than the physical atoms, with their normal physical properties, following normal physical laws, for there to be a hurricane. One might say that we need more than the language of physics to describe and explain the weather, but we do not need more than its ontology. There is token identity between each individual hurricane and a mass of atoms, even if there is no type identity between hurricanes as kinds and some particular structure of atoms as a kind. Genuine property dualism occurs when, even at the individual level, the ontology of physics is not sufficient to constitute what is there. The irreducible language is not just another way of describing what there is, it requires that there be something more there than was allowed for in the initial ontology. Until the early part of the twentieth century, it was common to think that biological phenomena (‘life’) required property dualism (an irreducible ‘vital force’), but nowadays the special physical sciences other than psychology are generally thought to involve only predicate dualism. In the case of mind, property dualism is defended by those who argue that the qualitative nature of consciousness is not merely another way of categorizing states of the brain or of behaviour, but a genuinely emergent phenomenon.

 

2.3 Substance Dualism

There are two important concepts deployed in this notion. One is that of substance, the other is the dualism of these substances. A substance is characterized by its properties, but, according to those who believe in substances, it is more than the collection of the properties it possesses, it is the thing which possesses them. So the mind is not just a collection of thoughts, but is that which thinks, an immaterial substance over and above its immaterial states. Properties are the properties of objects. If one is a property dualist, one may wonder what kinds of objects possess the irreducible or immaterial properties in which one believes. One can use a neutral expression and attribute them to persons, but, until one has an account of person, this is not explanatory. One might attribute them to human beings qua animals, or to the brains of these animals. Then one will be holding that these immaterial properties are possessed by what is otherwise a purely material thing. But one may also think that not only mental states are immaterial, but that the subject that possesses them must also be immaterial. Then one will be a dualist about that to which mental states and properties belong as well about the properties themselves. Now one might try to think of these subjects as just bundles of the immaterial states. This is Hume’s view. But if one thinks that the owner of these states is something quite over and above the states themselves, and is immaterial, as they are, one will be a substance dualist.

 

Substance dualism is also often dubbed ‘Cartesian dualism’, but some substance dualists are keen to distinguish their theories from Descartes’s. E. J. Lowe, for example, is a substance dualist, in the following sense. He holds that a normal human being involves two substances, one a body and the other a person. The latter is not, however, a purely mental substance that can be defined in terms of thought or consciousness alone, as Descartes claimed. But persons and their bodies have different identity conditions and are both substances, so there are two substances essentially involved in a human being, hence this is a form of substance dualism. Lowe (2006) claims that his theory is close to P. F. Strawson’s (1959), whilst admitting that Strawson would not have called it substance dualism.

 

3. Varieties of Dualism: Interaction

If mind and body are different realms, in the way required by either property or substance dualism, then there arises the question of how they are related. Common sense tells us that they interact: thoughts and feelings are at least sometimes caused by bodily events and at least sometimes themselves give rise to bodily responses. I shall now consider briefly the problems for interactionism, and its main rivals, epiphenomenalism and parallelism.

 

3.1 Interactionism

Interactionism is the view that mind and body – or mental events and physical events – causally influence each other. That this is so is one of our common-sense beliefs, because it appears to be a feature of everyday experience. The physical world influences my experience through my senses, and I often react behaviourally to those experiences. My thinking, too, influences my speech and my actions. There is, therefore, a massive natural prejudice in favour of interactionism. It has been claimed, however, that it faces serious problems (some of which were anticipated in section 1).

 

The simplest objection to interaction is that, in so far as mental properties, states or substances are of radically different kinds from each other, they lack that communality necessary for interaction. It is generally agreed that, in its most naive form, this objection to interactionism rests on a ‘billiard ball’ picture of causation: if all causation is by impact, how can the material and the immaterial impact upon each other? But if causation is either by a more ethereal force or energy or only a matter of constant conjunction, there would appear to be no problem in principle with the idea of interaction of mind and body.

 

Even if there is no objection in principle, there appears to be a conflict between interactionism and some basic principles of physical science. For example, if causal power was flowing in and out of the physical system, energy would not be conserved, and the conservation of energy is a fundamental scientific law. Various responses have been made to this. One suggestion is that it might be possible for mind to influence the distribution of energy, without altering its quantity. (See Averill and Keating 1981). Another response is to challenge the relevance of the conservation principle in this context. The conservation principle states that ‘in a causally isolated system the total amount of energy will remain constant’. Whereas ‘[t]he interactionist denies…that the human body is an isolated system’, so the principle is irrelevant (Larmer (1986), 282: this article presents a good brief survey of the options). This approach has been termed conditionality, namely the view that conservation is conditional on the physical system being closed, that is, that nothing non-physical is interacting or interfering with it, and, of course, the interactionist claims that this condition is, trivially, not met. That conditionality is the best line for the dualist to take, and that other approaches do not work, is defended in Pitts (2019) and Cucu and Pitts (2019). This, they claim, makes the plausibility of interactionism an empirical matter which only close investigation on the fine operation of the brain could hope to settle. Cucu, in a separate article (2018), claims to find critical neuronal events which do not have sufficient physical explanation.This claim clearly needs further investigation.

 

Robins Collins (2011) has claimed that the appeal to conservation by opponents of interactionism is something of a red herring because conservation principles are not ubiquitous in physics. He argues that energy is not conserved in general relativity, in quantum theory, or in the universe taken as a whole. Why then, should we insist on it in mind-brain interaction?

 

Most discussion of interactionism takes place in the context of the assumption that it is incompatible with the world’s being ‘closed under physics’. This is a very natural assumption, but it is not justified if causal overdetermination of behaviour is possible. There could then be a complete physical cause of behaviour, and a mental one. The strongest intuitive objection against overdetermination is clearly stated by Mills (1996: 112), who is himself a defender of overdetermination.

 

For X to be a cause of Y, X must contribute something to Y. The only way a purely mental event could contribute to a purely physical one would be to contribute some feature not already determined by a purely physical event. But if physical closure is true, there is no feature of the purely physical effect that is not contributed by the purely physical cause. Hence interactionism violates physical closure after all.

 

Mills says that this argument is invalid, because a physical event can have features not explained by the event which is its sufficient cause. For example, “the rock’s hitting the window is causally sufficient for the window’s breaking, and the window’s breaking has the feature of being the third window-breaking in the house this year; but the facts about prior window-breakings, rather than the rock’s hitting the window, are what cause this window-breaking to have this feature.”

 

The opponent of overdetermination could perhaps reply that his principle applies, not to every feature of events, but to a subgroup – say, intrinsic features, not merely relational or comparative ones. It is this kind of feature that the mental event would have to cause, but physical closure leaves no room for this. These matters are still controversial.

 

The problem with closure of physics may be radically altered if physical laws are indeterministic, as quantum theory seems to assert. If physical laws are deterministic, then any interference from outside would lead to a breach of those laws. But if they are indeterministic, might not interference produce a result that has a probability greater than zero, and so be consistent with the laws? This way, one might have interaction yet preserve a kind of nomological closure, in the sense that no laws are infringed. Because it involves assessing the significance and consequences of quantum theory, this is a difficult matter for the non-physicist to assess. Some argue that indeterminacy manifests itself only on the subatomic level, being cancelled out by the time one reaches even very tiny macroscopic objects: and human behaviour is a macroscopic phenomenon. Others argue that the structure of the brain is so finely tuned that minute variations could have macroscopic effects, rather in the way that, according to ‘chaos theory’, the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in China might affect the weather in New York. (For discussion of this, see Eccles (1980), (1987), and Popper and Eccles (1977).) Still others argue that quantum indeterminacy manifests itself directly at a high level, when acts of observation collapse the wave function, suggesting that the mind may play a direct role in affecting the state of the world (Hodgson 1988; Stapp 1993).

 

3.2 Epiphenomenalism

If the reality of property dualism is not to be denied, but the problem of how the immaterial is to affect the material is to be avoided, then epiphenomenalism may seem to be the answer. According to this theory, mental events are caused by physical events, but have no causal influence on the physical. I have introduced this theory as if its point were to avoid the problem of how two different categories of thing might interact. In fact, it is, at best, an incomplete solution to this problem. If it is mysterious how the non-physical can have it in its nature to influence the physical, it ought to be equally mysterious how the physical can have it in its nature to produce something non-physical. But that this latter is what occurs is an essential claim of epiphenomenalism. (For development of this point, see Green (2003), 149–51). In fact, epiphenomenalism is more effective as a way of saving the autonomy of the physical (the world as ‘closed under physics’) than as a contribution to avoiding the need for the physical and non-physical to have causal commerce.

 

There are at least three serious problems for epiphenomenalism. First, as I indicated in section 1, it is profoundly counterintuitive. What could be more apparent than that it is the pain that I feel that makes me cry, or the visual experience of the boulder rolling towards me that makes me run away? At least one can say that epiphenomenalism is a fall-back position: it tends to be adopted because other options are held to be unacceptable.

 

The second problem is that, if mental states do nothing, there is no reason why they should have evolved. This objection ties in with the first: the intuition there was that conscious states clearly modify our behaviour in certain ways, such as avoiding danger, and it is plain that they are very useful from an evolutionary perspective.

 

Frank Jackson (1982) replies to this objection by saying that it is the brain state associated with pain that evolves for this reason: the sensation is a by-product. Evolution is full of useless or even harmful by-products. For example, polar bears have evolved thick coats to keep them warm, even though this has the damaging side effect that they are heavy to carry. Jackson’s point is true in general, but does not seem to apply very happily to the case of mind. The heaviness of the polar bear’s coat follows directly from those properties and laws which make it warm: one could not, in any simple way, have one without the other. But with mental states, dualistically conceived, the situation is quite the opposite. The laws of physical nature which, the mechanist says, make brain states cause behaviour, in no way explain why brain states should give rise to conscious ones. The laws linking mind and brain are what Feigl (1958) calls nomological danglers, that is, brute facts added onto the body of integrated physical law. Why there should have been by-products of that kind seems to have no evolutionary explanation.

 

The third problem concerns the rationality of belief in epiphenomenalism, via its effect on the problem of other minds. It is natural to say that I know that I have mental states because I experience them directly. But how can I justify my belief that others have them? The simple version of the ‘argument from analogy’ says that I can extrapolate from my own case. I know that certain of my mental states are correlated with certain pieces of behaviour, and so I infer that similar behaviour in others is also accompanied by similar mental states. Many hold that this is a weak argument because it is induction from one instance, namely, my own. The argument is stronger if it is not a simple induction but an ‘argument to the best explanation’. I seem to know from my own case that mental events can be the explanation of behaviour, and I know of no other candidate explanation for typical human behaviour, so I postulate the same explanation for the behaviour of others. But if epiphenomenalism is true, my mental states do not explain my behaviour and there is a physical explanation for the behaviour of others. It is explanatorily redundant to postulate such states for others. I know, by introspection, that I have them, but is it not just as likely that I alone am subject to this quirk of nature, rather than that everyone is?

 

For more detailed treatment and further reading on this topic, see the entry epiphenomenalism.

3.3 Parallelism

The epiphenomenalist wishes to preserve the integrity of physical science and the physical world, and appends those mental features that he cannot reduce. The parallelist preserves both realms intact, but denies all causal interaction between them. They run in harmony with each other, but not because their mutual influence keeps each other in line. That they should behave as if they were interacting would seem to be a bizarre coincidence. This is why parallelism has tended to be adopted only by those – like Leibniz – who believe in a pre-established harmony, set in place by God. The progression of thought can be seen as follows. Descartes believes in a more or less natural form of interaction between immaterial mind and material body. Malebranche thought that this was impossible naturally, and so required God to intervene specifically on each occasion on which interaction was required. Leibniz decided that God might as well set things up so that they always behaved as if they were interacting, without particular intervention being required. Outside such a theistic framework, the theory is incredible. Even within such a framework, one might well sympathise with Berkeley’s instinct that once genuine interaction is ruled out one is best advised to allow that God creates the physical world directly, within the mental realm itself, as a construct out of experience.

 

4. Arguments for Dualism

4.1 The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism

One category of arguments for dualism is constituted by the standard objections against physicalism. Prime examples are those based on the existence of qualia, the most important of which is the so-called ‘knowledge argument’. Because this argument has its own entry (see the entry qualia: the knowledge argument), I shall deal relatively briefly with it here. One should bear in mind, however, that all arguments against physicalism are also arguments for the irreducible and hence immaterial nature of the mind and, given the existence of the material world, are thus arguments for dualism.

 

The knowledge argument asks us to imagine a future scientist who has lacked a certain sensory modality from birth, but who has acquired a perfect scientific understanding of how this modality operates in others. This scientist – call him Harpo – may have been born stone deaf, but become the world’s greatest expert on the machinery of hearing: he knows everything that there is to know within the range of the physical and behavioural sciences about hearing. Suppose that Harpo, thanks to developments in neurosurgery, has an operation which finally enables him to hear. It is suggested that he will then learn something he did not know before, which can be expressed as what it is like to hear, or the qualitative or phenomenal nature of sound. These qualitative features of experience are generally referred to as qualia. If Harpo learns something new, he did not know everything before. He knew all the physical facts before. So what he learns on coming to hear – the facts about the nature of experience or the nature of qualia – are non-physical. This establishes at least a state or property dualism. (See Jackson 1982; Robinson 1982.)

 

There are at least two lines of response to this popular but controversial argument. First is the ‘ability’ response. According to this, Harpo does not acquire any new factual knowledge, only ‘knowledge how’, in the form of the ability to respond directly to sounds, which he could not do before. This essentially behaviouristic account is exactly what the intuition behind the argument is meant to overthrow. Putting ourselves in Harpo’s position, it is meant to be obvious that what he acquires is knowledge of what something is like, not just how to do something. Such appeals to intuition are always, of course, open to denial by those who claim not to share the intuition. Some ability theorists seem to blur the distinction between knowing what something is like and knowing how to do something, by saying that the ability Harpo acquires is to imagine or remember the nature of sound. In this case, what he acquires the ability to do involves the representation to himself of what the thing is like. But this conception of representing to oneself, especially in the form of imagination, seems sufficiently close to producing in oneself something very like a sensory experience that it only defers the problem: until one has a physicalist gloss on what constitutes such representations as those involved in conscious memory and imagination, no progress has been made.

 

The other line of response is to argue that, although Harpo’s new knowledge is factual, it is not knowledge of a new fact. Rather, it is new way of grasping something that he already knew. He does not realise this, because the concepts employed to capture experience (such as ‘looks red’ or ‘sounds C-sharp’) are similar to demonstratives, and demonstrative concepts lack the kind of descriptive content that allow one to infer what they express from other pieces of information that one may already possess. A total scientific knowledge of the world would not enable you to say which time was ‘now’ or which place was ‘here’. Demonstrative concepts pick something out without saying anything extra about it. Similarly, the scientific knowledge that Harpo originally possessed did not enable him to anticipate what it would be like to re-express some parts of that knowledge using the demonstrative concepts that only experience can give one. The knowledge, therefore, appears to be genuinely new, whereas only the mode of conceiving it is novel.

 

Proponents of the epistemic argument respond that it is problematic to maintain both that the qualitative nature of experience can be genuinely novel, and that the quality itself be the same as some property already grasped scientifically: does not the experience’s phenomenal nature, which the demonstrative concepts capture, constitute a property in its own right? Another way to put this is to say that phenomenal concepts are not pure demonstratives, like ‘here’ and ‘now’, or ‘this’ and ‘that’, because they do capture a genuine qualitative content. Furthermore, experiencing does not seem to consist simply in exercising a particular kind of concept, demonstrative or not. When Harpo has his new form of experience, he does not simply exercise a new concept; he also grasps something new – the phenomenal quality – with that concept. How decisive these considerations are, remains controversial.

 

4.2 The Argument from Predicate Dualism to Property Dualism

I said above that predicate dualism might seem to have no ontological consequences, because it is concerned only with the different way things can be described within the contexts of the different sciences, not with any real difference in the things themselves. This, however, can be disputed.

 

The argument from predicate to property dualism moves in two steps, both controversial. The first claims that the irreducible special sciences, which are the sources of irreducible predicates, are not wholly objective in the way that physics is, but depend for their subject matter upon interest-relative perspectives on the world. This means that they, and the predicates special to them, depend on the existence of minds and mental states, for only minds have interest-relative perspectives. The second claim is that psychology – the science of the mental – is itself an irreducible special science, and so it, too, presupposes the existence of the mental. Mental predicates therefore presuppose the mentality that creates them: mentality cannot consist simply in the applicability of the predicates themselves.

 

First, let us consider the claim that the special sciences are not fully objective, but are interest-relative.

 

No-one would deny, of course, that the very same subject matter or ‘hunk of reality’ can be described in irreducibly different ways and it still be just that subject matter or piece of reality. A mass of matter could be characterized as a hurricane, or as a collection of chemical elements, or as mass of sub-atomic particles, and there be only the one mass of matter. But such different explanatory frameworks seem to presuppose different perspectives on that subject matter.

 

This is where basic physics, and perhaps those sciences reducible to basic physics, differ from irreducible special sciences. On a realist construal, the completed physics cuts physical reality up at its ultimate joints: any special science which is nomically strictly reducible to physics also, in virtue of this reduction, it could be argued, cuts reality at its joints, but not at its minutest ones. If scientific realism is true, a completed physics will tell one how the world is, independently of any special interest or concern: it is just how the world is. It would seem that, by contrast, a science which is not nomically reducible to physics does not take its legitimation from the underlying reality in this direct way. Rather, such a science is formed from the collaboration between, on the one hand, objective similarities in the world and, on the other, perspectives and interests of those who devise the science. The concept of hurricane is brought to bear from the perspective of creatures concerned about the weather. Creatures totally indifferent to the weather would have no reason to take the real patterns of phenomena that hurricanes share as constituting a single kind of thing. With the irreducible special sciences, there is an issue of salience , which involves a subjective component: a selection of phenomena with a certain teleology in mind is required before their structures or patterns are reified. The entities of metereology or biology are, in this respect, rather like Gestalt phenomena.

 

Even accepting this, why might it be thought that the perspectivality of the special sciences leads to a genuine property dualism in the philosophy of mind? It might seem to do so for the following reason. Having a perspective on the world, perceptual or intellectual, is a psychological state. So the irreducible special sciences presuppose the existence of mind. If one is to avoid an ontological dualism, the mind that has this perspective must be part of the physical reality on which it has its perspective. But psychology, it seems to be almost universally agreed, is one of those special sciences that is not reducible to physics, so if its subject matter is to be physical, it itself presupposes a perspective and, hence, the existence of a mind to see matter as psychological. If this mind is physical and irreducible, it presupposes mind to see it as such. We seem to be in a vicious circle or regress.

 

We can now understand the motivation for full-blown reduction. A true basic physics represents the world as it is in itself, and if the special sciences were reducible, then the existence of their ontologies would make sense as expressions of the physical, not just as ways of seeing or interpreting it. They could be understood ‘from the bottom up’, not from top down. The irreducibility of the special sciences creates no problem for the dualist, who sees the explanatory endeavor of the physical sciences as something carried on from a perspective conceptually outside of the physical world. Nor need this worry a physicalist, if he can reduce psychology, for then he could understand ‘from the bottom up’ the acts (with their internal, intentional contents) which created the irreducible ontologies of the other sciences. But psychology is one of the least likely of sciences to be reduced. If psychology cannot be reduced, this line of reasoning leads to real emergence for mental acts and hence to a real dualism for the properties those acts instantiate (Robinson 2003).

 

4.3 The Modal Argument

There is an argument, which has roots in Descartes (Meditation VI), which is a modal argument for dualism. One might put it as follows:

 

It is imaginable that one’s mind might exist without one’s body.

therefore

 

It is conceivable that one’s mind might exist without one’s body.

therefore

 

It is possible one’s mind might exist without one’s body.

therefore

 

One’s mind is a different entity from one’s body.

The rationale of the argument is a move from imaginability to real possibility. I include (2) because the notion of conceivability has one foot in the psychological camp, like imaginability, and one in the camp of pure logical possibility and therefore helps in the transition from one to the other.

 

This argument should be distinguished from a similar ‘conceivability’ argument, often known as the ‘zombie hypothesis’, which claims the imaginability and possibility of my body (or, in some forms, a body physically just like it) existing without there being any conscious states associated with it. (See, for example, Chalmers (1996), 94–9.) This latter argument, if sound, would show that conscious states were something over and above physical states. It is a different argument because the hypothesis that the unaltered body could exist without the mind is not the same as the suggestion that the mind might continue to exist without the body, nor are they trivially equivalent. The zombie argument establishes only property dualism and a property dualist might think disembodied existence inconceivable – for example, if he thought the identity of a mind through time depended on its relation to a body (e.g., Penelhum 1970).

 

Before Kripke (1972/80), the first challenge to such an argument would have concerned the move from (3) to (4). When philosophers generally believed in contingent identity, that move seemed to them invalid. But nowadays that inference is generally accepted and the issue concerns the relation between imaginability and possibility. No-one would nowadays identify the two (except, perhaps, for certain quasi-realists and anti-realists), but the view that imaginability is a solid test for possibility has been strongly defended. W. D. Hart ((1994), 266), for example, argues that no clear example has been produced such that “one can imagine that p (and tell less imaginative folk a story that enables them to imagine that p) plus a good argument that it is impossible that p. No such counterexamples have been forthcoming…” This claim is at least contentious. There seem to be good arguments that time-travel is incoherent, but every episode of Star-Trek or Doctor Who shows how one can imagine what it might be like were it possible.

 

It is worth relating the appeal to possibility in this argument to that involved in the more modest, anti-physicalist, zombie argument. The possibility of this hypothesis is also challenged, but all that is necessary for a zombie to be possible is that all and only the things that the physical sciences say about the body be true of such a creature. As the concepts involved in such sciences – e.g., neuron, cell, muscle – seem to make no reference, explicit or implicit, to their association with consciousness, and are defined in purely physical terms in the relevant science texts, there is a very powerful prima facie case for thinking that something could meet the condition of being just like them and lack any connection with consciousness. There is no parallel clear, uncontroversial and regimented account of mental concepts as a whole that fails to invoke, explicitly or implicitly, physical (e.g., behavioural) states.

 

For an analytical behaviourist the appeal to imaginability made in the argument fails, not because imagination is not a reliable guide to possibility, but because we cannot imagine such a thing, as it is a priori impossible. The impossibility of disembodiment is rather like that of time travel, because it is demonstrable a priori, though only by arguments that are controversial. The argument can only get under way for those philosophers who accept that the issue cannot be settled a priori, so the possibility of the disembodiment that we can imagine is still prima facie open.

 

A major rationale of those who think that imagination is not a safe indication of possibility, even when such possibility is not eliminable a priori, is that we can imagine that a posteriori necessities might be false – for example, that Hesperus might not be identical to Phosphorus. But if Kripke is correct, that is not a real possibility. Another way of putting this point is that there are many epistemic possibilities which are imaginable because they are epistemic possibilities, but which are not real possibilities. Richard Swinburne (1997, New Appendix C), whilst accepting this argument in general, has interesting reasons for thinking that it cannot apply in the mind-body case. He argues that in cases that involve a posteriori necessities, such as those identities that need discovering, it is because we identify those entities only by their ‘stereotypes’ (that is, by their superficial features observable by the layman) that we can be wrong about their essences. In the case of our experience of ourselves this is not true.

 

Now it is true that the essence of Hesperus cannot be discovered by a mere thought experiment. That is because what makes Hesperus Hesperus is not the stereotype, but what underlies it. But it does not follow that no one can ever have access to the essence of a substance, but must always rely for identification on a fallible stereotype. One might think that for the person him or herself, while what makes that person that person underlies what is observable to others, it does not underlie what is experienceable by that person, but is given directly in their own self-awareness.

 

This is a very appealing Cartesian intuition: my identity as the thinking thing that I am is revealed to me in consciousness, it is not something beyond the veil of consciousness. Now it could be replied to this that though I do access myself as a conscious subject, so classifying myself is rather like considering myself qua cyclist. Just as I might never have been a cyclist, I might never have been conscious, if things had gone wrong in my very early life. I am the organism, the animal, which might not have developed to the point of consciousness, and that essence as animal is not revealed to me just by introspection.

 

But there are vital differences between these cases. A cyclist is explicitly presented as a human being (or creature of some other animal species) cycling: there is no temptation to think of a cyclist as a basic kind of thing in its own right. Consciousness is not presented as a property of something, but as the subject itself. Swinburne’s claim that when we refer to ourselves we are referring to something we think we are directly aware of and not to ‘something we know not what’ that underlies our experience seemingly ‘of ourselves’ has powerful intuitive appeal and could only be overthrown by very forceful arguments. Yet, even if we are not referring primarily to a substrate, but to what is revealed in consciousness, could it not still be the case that there is a necessity stronger than causal connecting this consciousness to something physical? To consider this further we must investigate what the limits are of the possible analogy between cases of the water-H2O kind, and the mind-body relation.

 

We start from the analogy between the water stereotype – how water presents itself – and how consciousness is given first-personally to the subject. It is plausible to claim that something like water could exist without being H2O, but hardly that it could exist without some underlying nature. There is, however, no reason to deny that this underlying nature could be homogenous with its manifest nature: that is, it would seem to be possible that there is a world in which the water-like stuff is an element, as the ancients thought, and is water-like all the way down. The claim of the proponents of the dualist argument is that this latter kind of situation can be known to be true a priori in the case of the mind: that is, one can tell by introspection that it is not more-than-causally dependent on something of a radically different nature, such as a brain or body. What grounds might one have for thinking that one could tell that a priori?

 

The only general argument that seem to be available for this would be the principle that, for any two levels of discourse, A and B, they are more-than-causally connected only if one entails the other a priori. And the argument for accepting this principle would be that the relatively uncontroversial cases of a posteriori necessary connections are in fact cases in which one can argue a priori from facts about the microstructure to the manifest facts. In the case of water, for example, it would be claimed that it follows a priori that if there were something with the properties attributed to H2O by chemistry on a micro level, then that thing would possess waterish properties on a macro level. What is established a posteriori is that it is in fact H2O that underlies and explains the waterish properties round here, not something else: the sufficiency of the base – were it to obtain – to explain the phenomena, can be deduced a priori from the supposed nature of the base. This is, in effect, the argument that Chalmers uses to defend the zombie hypothesis. The suggestion is that the whole category of a posteriori more-than-causally necessary connections (often identified as a separate category of metaphysical necessity) comes to no more than this. If we accept that this is the correct account of a posteriori necessities, and also deny the analytically reductionist theories that would be necessary for a priori connections between mind and body, as conceived, for example, by the behaviourist or the functionalist, does it follow that we can tell a priori that consciousness is not more-than-causally dependent on the body?

 

It is helpful in considering this question to employ a distinction like Berkeley’s between ideas and notions. Ideas are the objects of our mental acts, and they capture transparently – ‘by way of image or likeness’ (Principles, sect. 27) – that of which they are the ideas. The self and its faculties are not the objects of our mental acts, but are captured only obliquely in the performance of its acts, and of these Berkeley says we have notions, meaning by this that what we capture of the nature of the dynamic agent does not seem to have the same transparency as what we capture as the normal objects of the agent’s mental acts. It is not necessary to become involved in Berkeley’s metaphysics in general to feel the force of the claim that the contents and internal objects of our mental acts are grasped with a lucidity that exceeds that of our grasp of the agent and the acts per se. Because of this, notions of the self perhaps have a ‘thickness’ and are permanently contestable: there seems always to be room for more dispute as to what is involved in that concept. (Though we shall see later, in 5.2.2, that there is a ‘non-thick’ way of taking the Berkeleyan concept of a notion.)

 

Because ‘thickness’ always leaves room for dispute, this is one of those cases in philosophy in which one is at the mercy of the arguments philosophers happen to think up. The conceivability argument creates a prima facie case for thinking that mind has no more than causal ontological dependence on the body. Let us assume that one rejects analytical (behaviourist or functionalist) accounts of mental predicates. Then the above arguments show that any necessary dependence of mind on body does not follow the model that applies in other scientific cases. This does not show that there may not be other reasons for believing in such dependence, for so many of the concepts in the area are still contested. For example, it might be argued that identity through time requires the kind of spatial existence that only body can give: or that the causal continuity required by a stream of consciousness cannot be a property of mere phenomena. All these might be put forward as ways of filling out those aspects of our understanding of the self that are only obliquely, not transparently, presented in self-awareness. The dualist must respond to any claim as it arises: the conceivability argument does not pre-empt them.......

5.2 The Unity of the Mind

Whether one believes that the mind is a substance or just a bundle of properties, the same challenge arises, which is to explain the nature of the unity of the immaterial mind. For the Cartesian, that means explaining how he understands the notion of immaterial substance. For the Humean, the issue is to explain the nature of the relationship between the different elements in the bundle that binds them into one thing. Neither tradition has been notably successful in this latter task: indeed, Hume, in the appendix to the Treatise, declared himself wholly mystified by the problem, rejecting his own initial solution (though quite why is not clear from the text).

plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/

Finally! I was able to go to Yoshinoyama in Nara Prefecture, Japan during spring and was lucky enough that there are already cherry blossoms in bloom :)

 

The hike was relatively easy, and the mountain is fairly developed. The path we followed was paved and there are many shops and eateries along the way. Also, there are sakura trees everywhere!

I have still not been able to get out for new photos, so I am adding another five photos from my archives, yet again. If I wrote a description under a previously posted photo taken on the same outing, I will add it to tonight's uploads.

 

"This particular bird resides at the Alberta Bird of Prey Centre in Coaldale, southern Alberta, a wonderful place that rehabilitates and releases (whenever possible) various birds of prey - hawks, owls, Bald Eagles, Turkey Vultures,and Golden Eagle. Some of these birds act as Wildlife Ambassadors, too, educating the public.

 

It had been a few years since my last visit there - I've been maybe three or four times - and I had been longing to go back. Much too far and all new driving territory for me to even think about driving there myself. However, three days ago, on 9 September 2016, that is exactly what I did. A friend had said she would come along, too, but she emailed me at 1:00 am to say that she assumed the trip had been cancelled, as she hadn't heard back about the time to meet. In fact, I had sent two emails giving the time, so I don't know what happened there. Very unfortunate, as it would have been great to have had company on such a long drive.

 

I knew it would be a long day and further than I would normally drive - and in a brand new car that I have yet to learn to drive! It doesn't look or feel quite as new now, after travelling 481 km! Only got lost twice, one minor and the other major. Must have taken a wrong turn somewhere down south and I ended up in the city of Lethbridge, that I had very carefully planned to avoid. After three and three-quarter hours, I finally arrived, to my huge relief.

 

Despite getting there later than I had hoped, I still had more than enough time to wander round the grounds and photograph the various raptors. Some were tethered out in a grassy area and others were in large outdoor cages. Wonderful to get such a close look at the various majestic birds.

 

I took a slightly different way home via #845 (?) making absolutely sure that I didn't accidentally find myself in Lethbridge again and it wasn't too long before I found myself in the area that I had driven a few weeks ago, when I went SW of Vulcan to look for Common NIghthawks (without any luck). Just so happy that I finally made myself do this drive. When I Googled the Centre's website a few days ago, I discovered that they were closing two days later for the winter. So, it was either a case of going the next day or not at all till next May onwards.

 

The very next day, 10 September 2016, I took my daughter on a long drive in Kananaskis. This was yet another place that I had longed to be able to drive for many years - and finally I did it! I had been lots of times with various friends, but this was the very first time I had ever driven myself."

Loved every minute I was able to spend with the puffins.

This will be my last upload for a few days as I've now run out of new stuff! Plus we're away this weekend, and the forecast isn't that great so it might be a while before I'm able to upload anything new. But I shall keep looking at all your lovely shots and leaving some comments.

 

So it was out into my back garden as the little pink weed is back again! This was taken using my nifty fifty and the good old Raynox DCR250 and my homemade flash diffuser :-)

 

Thanks for taking the time to visit. Any comments or faves are appreciated

Yesterday, 27 May 2019 - one of the new problems on Flickr today is having comments and faves not appear. If you get a first comment or make a first comment on someone else's photo, that comment will disappear. The comment is listed under the "bell", but does not appear under the photo. The "bell" stated that I had a comment under each of the five photos I posted today. These were the first comments to be made. Two of the comments stayed, but there was no sign of the other three. The same with faves - some show up, others don't. Other people are having the same problem and have reported it to the Help Forum.

 

On 23 May 2019, Flickr was unusable and some of the channels on TV were also not working. Combined, these two things made me decide that enough is enough, and that I needed to go for a short drive.

 

My first stop was at a local pond in the city, where I enjoyed seeing this Lesser Scaup, a Coot, Mallards, and a Common Grackle or two. It was also fun to come across a small group of children with their "care-givers". I identified a Coot for them and told them that it was not a duck and that their babies were so ugly that they were very, very cute. I did see one Red-necked Grebe swimming, but I didn't venture further along the path as I zoomed in on two Police officers checking out a parked car along the pathway.

 

After spending a bit of time at this location, I drove westwards to my "usual" area, wondering if I would see Mountain Bluebirds and a Snipe. I was in luck with both. This is the area that my small "team" covers for the annual May Species Count, so I was curious as to what I/we might see. The 23rd annual Count took place the day before yesterday, on 26 May. The weather was good (3C - 17C) - no sign of the rain that we've been getting on far too many days recently. However we desperately need the moisture. There are already wild fires in Alberta and the number will only increase over the summer. It is supposed to be another bad summer with fires and smoke.

 

There were nine of us on the May Species Count, travelling in two cars. We were out for 7 hours, travelling 52 km in our Count area, and saw 66 bird species. I will add the list of species in a comment box below so that I will be able to look back in a year's time and remind myself of what we saw in 2019.

I was able to make pictures for AutoJunior. Read out the test drive on autojunior.be. Please like AutoJunior on facebook.

This paper wasp came in to avoid the unseasonably low temperature today, and I was able to get a few unposed macro shots as it moved around on the sliding glass door.

 

Pentax K1 DSLR with SMC Pentax-F 100mm f/2.8 macro lens and AF3660FGZ flash with softbox modifier.

You will always be able to see what someone is truly feeling by simply peering into their eyes.

  

I've had this photo idea in mind for quite some time. Take the extra minute to see if those who you know are truly okay, and if they aren't help them out. To much pain saturates the world, and it is from our own blindness that it continues to rise.

 

Check my facebook page to see a before and after :)

 

Interested in a print? Click here to view my Society6 gallery!

 

More fun here:

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This is my list of my favorite 2018 songs.

 

This year I was able to listen to a much broader range of songs than in the past thanks to a great new website (Popnable) that lists the top YouTube listens for an astonishing range of countries (from Kyrgyzstan to Cameroon).

 

Unfortunately, much of the local music throughout the world is the same factory-produced, autotuned, syndrum-drenched crap that dominates American radio, just in more obscure languages. Ultimately, I weeded through 4000-plus songs to come up with this list of just under 100 songs.

 

If anyone wants to actually hear any of the songs on this list, go to Spotify and search on “2018 Snopes Favorites.” That should turn up the entire playlist. Or just go to YouTube and start searching song by song.

 

89 – The Carters – “Apeshit” – It is a sign of the times that President Obama’s year-end best songs list (which was pretty good) includes this song by husband and wife Jay-Z and Beyonce, which includes the line “get off my d**k.” This was an absolutely sex-drenched year in music, and the number of songs about female private parts was astonishing.

 

88 - MC MM, DJ RD – “So Quer Vrau” – This seemingly German oompah band song is actually by Brazilian hardcore rappers.

 

87 - Nickie Minaj “Barbie Dreams” – This song disses a whole bunch of rappers in the filthiest ways imaginable. It’s hilarious.

 

86 - EAZ, Xen, Ledri Vula – “Nasty Girl” – Most of the lyrics to this gentle rap song are in Albanian, but the English chorus seems to be about a female derriere.

 

85 – Poppy – “Girls In Bikinis” – Poppy is a former Rockette from Boston. From Wikipedia, she seems to live a cosplay life. She has recently started the Poppy.Church.

 

84 - Tayna, Don Phenom – “Columbiana” – Another song mostly in Albanian. It seems to be about marijuana. It’s an obvious ripoff of Camila Cabelo’s “Havana,” but it sure sounds good.

 

83 - Yemi Alade – “Bum Bum” – This hooky song by a Nigerian rapper is another about the female derriere, this time about “shaking your bum bum bum.”

 

82 - Pistol Annies - “Got My Name Changed Back” – Miranda Lambert, Ashley Monroe, and Angaleena Presley are the Pistol Annies. Aggressively feminist country music. “Well I've got me an ex that I adored/But he got along good with a couple road whores/Got my name changed back (yeah yeah)/I got my name changed back (yeah yeah)/I don't wanna be a Missus on paper no more/I got my name changed back (yeah yeah) … I broke his heart and took his money….”

 

81 - Ashley McBryde – “Girl Goin' Nowhere” – McBryde is a heavily tattooed Nashville singer-songwriter who’s gotten a lot of critical buzz for her first album. This is a good song, but I’m a little skeptical about her long term potential.

 

80 - Meghan Trainor – “Let You Be Right” – Catchy mainstream pop with cute lyrics:” I don't wanna fight tonight/ I'ma let you be right (let you be right)/We can make up if you just kiss me at the next traffic light”

 

79 - MC Stojan - “La Miami” – This is classical sounding Arabic pop, with a circular rhythm and sinuous guitar lines – but it’s in Serbian. Even using Google Translate, I can’t figure out what this song is about, although I assume Miami has something to do with it.

 

78 - Pasha, RebMoe – “I Don't Speak French” – Goofy and catchy song by a Norwegian rapper.

 

77 – Shenseea – “Body Good” – Shenseea is a Jamaican dancehall performer. This song is a tribute to (in keeping with 2018’s dominant theme) the goodness of female genitalia.

 

76 - Haifa Wehbe – “Touta” – In 2006, Wehbe was on People Magazine’s 50 Most Beautiful People list. Wehbe won the title of Miss South Lebanon at the age of sixteen and was a runner-up at the Miss Lebanon competition, which was revoked after it was discovered that she was ineligible because she had been married and had a child. (I love Wikipedia.)

 

75 – Badshah – “She Move It Like” – Badshah is India’s most popular rapper. Google Translate couldn’t handle the lyrics to this song, but I’m betting it’s about the female derriere.

 

74 - Becky Warren – “Carmen” – Bouncy, upbeat country/Americana love song to Carmen.

 

73 - Richard Thompson – “The Rattle Within” – Wonderful to hear a good new Richard Thompson song. One of the greatest guitarists ever.

 

72 - M3NSA – “God Is Good God Is Good God Is Good” – Ghanaian singer and producer M3NSA savagely mocks the minister of the International Central Gospel Church, who was implicated in a financial scandal.

 

71 – Litany – “Call On Me” – female singer from Harrogate, UK. Smooth and polished request for a one-night stand.

 

70 - 24hrs, Lil Pump – “Lie Detector” – 24 Hours is an Atlanta rapper (is everyone who lives in Atlanta a famous rapper?). The song incorporates a brief tribute to female genitalia.

 

69 - Clay Parker and Jodi James - "Easy, Breeze" – Gillian Welch lives.

 

68 - Lost Frequencies, James Blunt – “Melody” – The sweetest song of the year is from a Belgian DJ.

 

67 - Alice Merton – “Why So Serious” – An old-fashioned anthemic female belter by a German/English singer.

 

66 - Emmanuel Jal, Nyaruach – “Ti Chuong” – Christian Sudanese gospel rapper, formerly a conscript child soldier in the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army.

 

65 - Colin Self - “Story” - Mr. Self’s self-description: “Colin Self was born in 1987 in Portland, Oregon. He lives and works in Berlin and Brooklyn. Self graduated in 2010 with a BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A composer, choreographer, and performance artist, Self often works in and with interdisciplinary collectives, using the voice, the body, and digital technologies to explore gender, communication, our relationships to the biological and the technological, the potential for social transformation, and the spaces between and across binaries and boundaries.”

 

64 - Sebongile Kgaila – “Gladys” – From the great compilation album, “I’m Not Here to Hunt Rabbits.” Apparently, Botswanans play guitar differently than everyone else in the world.

 

63 - Rodney Crowell, Mary Karr – “Christmas In Vidor” – I wonder what the Beaumont, Texas suburb of Vidor ever did to piss Rodney Crowell off so bad to warrant this piece of pure venom.

 

62 - Orquesta Akokan – “Mambo Rapidito” – 14-piece mambo band from Havana.

 

61 - Future, Juice WRLD – “Fine China” – Classic trap artist from Atlanta rhymes “fine china, “I remind her,” “I’m a divah,” and “vagina.” Really pretty song.

 

60 - King Princess – “Pu**y Is God” – Brooklynite King Princess is very fond of what the Victorians called pudenda. I hesitate to put a gender label on “King Princess,” but she presents as female.

 

59 – cupcakke – “Duck Duck Goose” – “Easy Bake Oven and this pu**y so similar….” If cupcakke got her mind out of the gutter, she wouldn’t have no mind at all.

 

58 - Courtney Barnett – “Need A Little Time” – Sydney, Australia singer with an irresistible deadpan singing voice. Classic rock and roll. Barnett has three songs on the 2018 list.

 

57 - Janelle Monae – “Make Me Feel” – Monae is probably the best of the big-voiced women who dominate the pop radio charts.

 

56 – Rosalia – “Que No Salga La Luna - Cap.2: Boda” – I’ve long wondered why the distinctive rhythms of Spanish flamenco have not crossed over to the mainstream. It looks like Rosalia might be the first flamenco artist to reach a wider audience. She deserves it, this is gorgeous music.

 

55 - Car Seat Headrest – “My Boy (Twin Fantasy)” – Leesburg, Virginia’s greatest (now in Seattle).

 

54 - Courtney Barnett – “City Looks Pretty” – Buzzy guitars wrap around Pavementesque lyrics like this – “Friends treat you like a stranger and strangers treat you like their best friend, oh well.” Addictive.

 

53 - Thee Oh Sees – “Enrique El Cobrador” – Black Sabbath lives! (and can play their instruments way better than they used to)

 

52 – XXXTENTACION – “Sad!” – Stereotypically, rapper XXXTENTACION’s career got a huge boost (this song has 878 million Spotify streams) when he was gunned down in Deerfield Beach, Florida in June at age 20. Unstereotypically, his music was innovative and interesting (and not exclusively about female genitalia). It’s really too bad.

 

51 – Spiritualized – “The Morning After” – Still spacy after all these years.

 

50 - David Byrne – “ I Dance Like This” – The B-side to “Burning Down the House.”

 

49 - Soccer Mommy – “Your Dog” – A bracing lyric from the rare Nashville native – “I don’t want to be your f**king dog that you drag around, a collar on my neck tied to a pole, leave me in the freezing cold.” Ringing guitars to boot.

 

48 - The Chainsmokers – “Sick Boy” – It is an enduring mystery why the Chainsmokers, who are 100% American, sing in a British accent. But, boy do they sound great.

 

47 - Laura Marling, LUMP, Mike Lindsay – “Curse of the Contemporary” – Eric Burdon meets Heart, with Fleetwood Mac avant-garde garnishes. Maybe the most purely pretty song of 2018.

 

46 - Cardi B – “Get Up 10” – “Look, they gave a bitch two options: strippin' or lose/ Used to dance in a club right across from my school/ I said "dance" not "f**k", don't get it confused/Had to set the record straight 'cause bitches love to assume.”

 

45 - Mary Gauthier - “The War After the War” – Political correctness can be both beautiful and, well, correct.

 

44 - Car Seat Headrest - “Stop Smoking (We Love You)” – The title is the sum total of the lyrics.

 

43 - Mercedes Peon – “Deixaas” – I’m predicting this is by far the best Galician music you’ve ever heard. Driving beat over lovely intertwined female voices … how could you go wrong?

 

42 – Odette – “Lotus Eaters” – Piano and voice from a 20-year old woman from Sydney with a plummy fake accent. It ought to be awful, but it really is not. Not at all.

 

41 - Priscilla Renea – “Gentle Hands” – “I want a strong man with gentle hands.”

 

40 - Rodney Crowell, Brennen Leigh – “Merry Christmas From An Empty Bed” – Rodney Crowell’s “Christmas Everywhere” is the best Christmas album since the 1981 classic “A Christmas Record” on Ze records. This heartbreaker is the best traditional heartbreaker on the album, though not the best song on the album (which has 4 songs on this list).

 

39 - Courtney Barnett – “I'm Not Your Mother I'm Not Your Bitch” – Message delivered with a deluge of feedback.

 

38 - Sofi Tukker – “Batshit” – This duo, who met at Brown University, have a lock in case the Guinness Book of World Records ever decides to add a category of “most times the word ‘batshit’ has been used in a single song.” Autotuned, syndrummed, very polished … and yet really really good.

 

37 - Alec Benjamin – “If We Have Each Other” – A song to tide us over since Ed Sheeran did nothing new this year. And it’s not bad at all. Maybe Ed should be looking over his shoulder.

 

36 - Too $hort – Balance – Another female derriere tribute song, but it rises above the genre. “It must be a challenge, trying to keep your balance, with a ass like that, yeah it’s fat, okay…”

 

35 - Valee, Jeremih – “Womp Womp” – A portion of her physique “tastes like peach cobbler.” Valee is flying a little under the radar because he’s trying to do trap out of Chicago (where it gets way colder than Atlanta, which makes it hard to pull off trap levels of chill). Another very pretty song with extremely sexually explicit lyrics.

 

34 - Otoboke Beaver “anata watashi daita ato yome no meshi” – These Tokyo women don’t just pay tribute to HarDCore, they run straight over HarDCore.

 

33 - Rodney Crowell – “Let's Skip Christmas This Year” – Toni loves to put on Christmas music starting pretty much the day after Thanksgiving, but she doesn’t understand how Spotify works so I’m in charge of the playlist. This Rodney Crowell anti-classic will be added to the short list from now on.

 

32 - Y La Bamba – “Mujeres”– As someone who firmly believes that didacticism and politics are the surest combination for producing terrible music, if you’d have told me that this “Mujeres” is a “battle cry against machismo” by Portland-based Latinx Luz Elena Mendoza I would have confidently predicted a constricted dry monstrosity. ‘Wrong, Moose Breath!,” as Carnak the Magnificent often chastised the magnificently predictable Ed McMahon.

 

31 - Kapil Seshasayee – “The Ballad of Bant Singh” – If you explore the body of work of Glasgow jazzbo Kapil Seshasayee you’ll find way too much unlistenable experimentation, usually at great length. But this three-minute piece about Bant Singh, an Untouchable who was beaten nearly to death for protesting his daughter’s gang rape, is tightly focused and moving.

 

30 - Mountain Man - “Stella” – An acapella piece by an unknown three-woman group from Raleigh, North Carolina should have been easy to delete when assembling this list from a starting conglomeration of 4000-plus songs. It wasn’t.

 

29 - Tal National – “Entente” – For music critics, 2018 was the year of the Tuareg guitarists. The Tuaregs are a Berber tribal group who inhabit the Sahara on the southern fringes of North Africa and northern fringes of sub-Saharan Afria (including portions of Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Nigeria). Apparently, Jimi Hendrix’s music was extremely popular among the Tuareg and there are a bunch of Tuareg guitarists who have built on Hendrix to produce a guitar-drenched wall of sound. Toni and I and our friends Carol and Jack saw a great show by Tuaregan guitarist Mdou Mocstar at Drom in the East Village in January. But Mocstar released no new music in 2018 and I couldn’t find any music released in 2018 by Tuareg guitarists that measured up to that show. The closest I found was this song by Tal National, a pan-North African group that includes at least one Tuareg. They’re very different from the Tuareg guitarists, but are worthwhile i their own right (if a touch “World Music-ish”).

 

28 – XXXTENTACION - “Moonlight” – One of the last songs from this 20-year-old is both inspiring and depressing in its intertwining of the beauty of femininity in the moonlight and a “Smith and Wesson” and a “knife in the intestine.”

 

27 - Sebongile Kgaila – “Tika Molamu (Knobkerrie Throw)” – You guitarists out there should try to put aside your preconceptions and really listen to this new way of playing the guitar from Botswana. Fascinating and energetic.

 

26 - A$AP Rocky – “Sundress” – A$AP Rocky moved from Harlem to New Jersey where he has been inspired by his fellow intellectual New Jersey-ites Yo La Tengo and the Feelies.

 

25– Fontaines D.C. – “Chequeless Reckless - Darklands Version” – An idiot is someone who lets their education do all their thinking.

 

24 - Lucy Dacus – “Night Shift” – A song about recovery from breaking up with your first love. “The first time I ever tasted somebody else’s spit, I had a coughing fit. I mistakenly called them by your name.”

 

23 – Wussy – “One Per Customer” – Wussy, a Cincinnati band, is the greatest American band that basically no one has ever heard of (Robert Christgau, the venerable rock critic, is a huge fan, but as he’s almost 80 no one listens to him any more). “Don’t you wish you could have been an astronaut, back when astronauts had more appeal?”

 

22 - 88rising, Joji, Rich Brian, Higher Brothers, AUGUST 08 – “Midsummer Madness” – “Can’t look me in the eyes when you’re sober … last night I lost all my patience … you were f**ked up I was wasted… midsummer madness … I can’t take it … no more.” Beautiful tenor lead and lovely harmonies.

 

21 - Rodney Crowell, Daddy Cool & The Yule – “All For Little Girls & Boys” – Rodney Crowell actually doesn’t sing on the best song on his brilliant Christmas album “Christmas Everywhere.” This piece is almost 1920’s Appalachian in its sensibilities.

 

20 - Ammar 808, Sofiane Saidi – “Kahl el inin” – Tunisian-led bass-heavy trance music band.

 

19 - XXXTENTACION, Rio Santana, Judah, Carlos Andrez – “I don't even speak spanish lol” – A lovely song by the doomed 20-year-old celebrating lust on the dance floor with (for once) no trace of foreboding about his imminent murder. “Dance with me through the night.”

 

18 - Rita Ora, Bebe Rexha, Charli XCX, Cardi B – “Girls” – Gorgeous autotuned anthem, “Sometimes I just want to kiss girls, girls, girls….”

 

17 – Rosalia – “MALAMENTE - Cap.1: Augurio” – This fairly traditional flamenca song (admittedly heavily syndrummed) has 67 million streams on Spotify. That is definitely progress for this radically underappreciated Spanish music.

 

16 - Saba Andemariam – “Halengaye” – I have probably wildly overrated this song since I’m not really very familiar with Ethiopian and Eritrean music. I might be a note-for-note copy for some other Tigrayan classic, for all I know. But to my ignorant ears, it’s a densely structured, edgy gem.

 

15 - Cole Swindell – “Break up in the End” – Country to the core. “I'll introduce you to my mom and dad/Say ‘I think I love her’ when you leave that room/I'd still not take their advice when I say you're moving in/Even though we break up in the end”

 

14 - Amen Dunes – “Miki Dora” – NYC solo musician backed by a rotating group of musicians, but they make some shamelessly gorgeous music.

 

13 - Pistol Annies – “Milkman” – Second best country music song of the year. “If mama would've loved the milkman/Maybe she wouldn't judge me/If she'd've had a ride in his white van/Up and down Baker Street/On a Monday with her hair down and hand about to slide between his knees/But mama never did love nothin' but daddy and me”

 

12 - 03 Greedo – “Bacc to Jail” – I usually have a visceral reaction against songs that heavily use the n-word (or the n***ah word). But this song is an exception. The word fits the singer’s helpless acceptance that he is being sentenced to many years in prison for the victimless crimes of drug dealing and gun possession.

 

11 - Moon Hooch – “Light It Up” – As far as I can tell, Moon Hooch is by far the best jazz band playing today. Not a trace of ossification here.

 

10 - Kane Brown – “Short Skirt Weather” – Kane Brown is about to take popular country music by storm and it’s tempting to label him the “new Charley Pride” since he’s black. But “Short Skirt Weather” is way better than anything Pride ever did. “Oh my baby's made for short skirt weather/Yeah she makes me wish summer would just go on forever/From them yellow polka dots/From blue jeans to leather/Oh my baby's made for short skirt weather.” Brown is going to transcend color (no pun intended).

 

9 - Janelle Monae, Pharrell Williams – “I Got The Juice” – The title says it all.

 

8 – The Low Anthem – “Give My Body Back” - After a terrible auto accident after a Washington, DC show, the Low Anthem became very introspective … and very interior, without any real concern about what might be commercial. They did a DC show this spring that was one of the most intellectually challenging shows I’ve ever seen. “Give My Body Back,” a song about a cube-shaped salt doll who walks into the ocean to determine who she really is, has to be their most commercially palatable song of their recent work. This is definitely the most pretentious song on this list, but it was also a serious contender for the best song of the year.

 

7 - Ashley Monroe – “Hands On You” – Mainstream country yet the most genuinely erotic song of a year filled with sex-drenched songs. “I wish I would've laid my hands on you/ Shown you a thing or two/I wish I would've pushed you against the wall/Lock the door and bathroom stall, windows and the screen/I wish you would've laid your hands on me/That kind gon' bring me to my knees/I wish I would've let you lay me down/'Cause I wouldn't be here wishing now/ I wish I would've laid my hands on you”

 

6 – Wussy – “Gloria” – “Now he checks the page again/To find the thing he might have missed/Is she a phantom or a memory/Or the girl that you once kissed/So he is typing in her name to prove/That she does not exist/Her name is Gloria”

 

5 - Fuse ODG, KiDi, Kuami Eugene – “New African Girl” – The most hopeful song of the year came from this British-Ghanaian group: “African girl show them…. Aaah show them/ Ghanaian girl show them…/ Aaaahh show them Cameroonian girl, show them… / Aaahh show them Jamaican girl show them… / aaahh show them our skin so smooth/ Like lotion baby girl come wine that thing/ She got a big bum bum/ Bigger than the ocean/ Are you gonna gimme that thing yeah/ I want to be with you for life/ Oh let me take you on a ride/ yeah I give you what you want ooh cia bella/Let your body talk talk/Make your body talk talk/You African girl talk talk (Oh lord of mercy )/ bad gal talk”

 

4 - Priscilla Renea – “Jonjo” – The most genuinely poetic song of the year, about a girl and her brother and a treehouse. Purportedly country music, though I’m skeptical that any of Ms. Renea’s songs will ever crack those unsubtle charts.

 

3 - Childish Gambino – “This Is America” – If videos counted, this would be number 1. But why should Atlanta win everything?

 

2 - girl in red – “i wanna be your girlfriend”- “Oh hannah/I wanna feel you close/Oh hannah/Come lie with my bones”

 

1 - Bastian Baker – “Blame It on Me” – “Driving, the gun’s in the seat between us/It might be loaded, it might be loaded/And someday I won’t have to ask that question/It’s always loaded, it’s always loaded/And it all breaks down when you fire that gun” ---– “I’d have walked away, but the blood is on both of our hands.”

Solar Eclipse (08-21-2017)

 

Shots of the Eclipse from the East Bay, CA. We were only able to see a partial eclipse since the path of totality was over 500+ miles north in Oregon.

 

Cloudy, overcast conditions actually helped photograph the event. A cardboard shaded, tripod mounted binocular, was used to project the eclipse stages onto a white foam-board when the Sun was too bright and free of the clouds. Moon coverage peak was ~75% at 10:15am.

 

Unfortunately, no crescent shadow projections were visible through the trees because of the clouds.

 

Closest city with related data :

www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/livermore

 

On Monday, August 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse, frequently referred to as the "Great American Eclipse", was visible within a band across the entire contiguous United States passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_21,_2017

 

NOTE: 1st 3 shots (P1200306, P1200307, P1200309) camera clock timestamp should be one hour ahead (9am not 8am)

This young Barn Swallow allowed me to approach really close in the car so I was able to get a couple of shots off before a cyclist came along the track and made it fly off

St Andrew and St Patrick, Elveden, Suffolk

 

As you approach Elveden, there is Suffolk’s biggest war memorial, to those killed from the three parishes that meet at this point. It is over 30 metres high, and you used to be able to climb up the inside. Someone in the village told me that more people have been killed on the road in Elveden since the end of the War than there are names on the war memorial. I could well believe it. Until about five years ago, the busy traffic of the A11 Norwich to London road hurtled through the village past the church, slowed only to a ridiculously high 50 MPH. If something hits you at that speed, then no way on God's Earth are you going to survive. Now there's a bypass, thank goodness.

 

Many people will know St Andrew and St Patrick as another familiar landmark on the road, but as you are swept along in the stream of traffic you are unlikely to appreciate quite how extraordinary a building it is. For a start, it has two towers. And a cloister. And two naves, effectively. It has undergone three major building programmes in the space of thirty years, any one of which would have sufficed to transform it utterly.

 

If you had seen this church before the 1860s, you would have thought it nothing remarkable. A simple aisle-less, clerestory-less building, typical of, and indistinguishable from, hundreds of other East Anglian flint churches. A journey to nearby Barnham will show you what I mean.

 

The story of the transformation of Elveden church begins in the early 19th century, on the other side of the world. The leader of the Sikhs, Ranjit Singh, controlled a united Punjab that stretched from the Khyber Pass to the borders of Tibet. His capital was at Lahore, but more importantly it included the Sikh holy city of Amritsar. The wealth of this vast Kingdom made him a major power-player in early 19th century politics, and he was a particular thorn in the flesh of the British Imperial war machine. At this time, the Punjab had a great artistic and cultural flowering that was hardly matched anywhere in the world.

 

It was not to last. The British forced Ranjit Singh to the negotiating table over the disputed border with Afghanistan, and a year later, in 1839, he was dead. A power vacuum ensued, and his six year old son Duleep Singh became a pawn between rival factions. It was exactly the opportunity that the British had been waiting for, and in February 1846 they poured across the borders in their thousands. Within a month, almost half the child-Prince's Kingdom was in foreign hands. The British installed a governor, and started to harvest the fruits of their new territory's wealth.

 

Over the next three years, the British gradually extended their rule, putting down uprisings and turning local warlords. Given that the Sikh political structures were in disarray, this was achieved at considerable loss to the invaders - thousands of British soldiers were killed. They are hardly remembered today. British losses at the Crimea ten years later were much slighter, but perhaps the invention of photography in the meantime had given people at home a clearer picture of what was happening, and so the Crimea still remains in the British folk memory.

 

For much of the period of the war, Prince Duleep Singh had remained in the seclusion of his fabulous palace in Lahore. However, once the Punjab was secure, he was sent into remote internal exile.

 

The missionaries poured in. Bearing in mind the value that Sikh culture places upon education, perhaps it is no surprise that their influence came to bear on the young Prince, and he became a Christian. The extent to which this was forced upon him is lost to us today.

 

A year later, the Prince sailed for England with his mother. He was admitted to the royal court by Queen Victoria, spending time both at Windsor and, particularly, in Scotland, where he grew up. In the 1860s, the Prince and his mother were significant members of London society, but she died suddenly in 1863. He returned with her ashes to the Punjab, and there he married. His wife, Bamba Muller, was part German, part Ethiopian. As part of the British pacification of India programme, the young couple were granted the lease on a vast, derelict stately home in the depths of the Suffolk countryside. This was Elveden Hall. He would never see India again.

 

With some considerable energy, Duleep Singh set about transforming the fortunes of the moribund estate. Being particularly fond of hunting (as a six year old, he'd had two tutors - one for learning the court language, Persian, and the other for hunting to hawk) he developed the estate for game. The house was rebuilt in 1870.

 

The year before, the Prince had begun to glorify the church so that it was more in keeping with the splendour of his court. This church, dedicated to St Andrew, was what now forms the north aisle of the present church. There are many little details, but the restoration includes two major features; firstly, the remarkable roof, with its extraordinary sprung sprung wallposts set on arches suspended in the window embrasures, and, secondly, the font, which Mortlock tells us is in the Sicilian-Norman style. Supported by eight elegant columns, it is very beautiful, and the angel in particular is one of Suffolk's loveliest. You can see him in an image on the left.

 

Duleep Singh seems to have settled comfortably into the role of an English country gentleman. And then, something extraordinary happened. The Prince, steeped in the proud tradition of his homeland, decided to return to the Punjab to fulfill his destiny as the leader of the Sikh people. He got as far as Aden before the British arrested him, and sent him home. He then set about trying to recruit Russian support for a Sikh uprising, travelling secretly across Europe in the guise of an Irishman, Patrick Casey. In between these times of cloak and dagger espionage, he would return to Elveden to shoot grouse with the Prince of Wales, the future King Edward VII. It is a remarkable story.

 

Ultimately, his attempts to save his people from colonial oppression were doomed to failure. He died in Paris in 1893, the British seemingly unshakeable in their control of India. He was buried at Elveden churchyard in a simple grave.

 

The chancel of the 1869 church is now screened off as a chapel, accessible from the chancel of the new church, but set in it is the 1894 memorial window to Maharaja Prince Duleep Singh, the Adoration of the Magi by Kempe & Co.

 

And so, the Lion of the North had come to a humble end. His five children, several named after British royal princes, had left Elveden behind; they all died childless, one of them as recently as 1957. The estate reverted to the Crown, being bought by the brewing family, the Guinnesses.

 

Edward Cecil Guinness, first Earl Iveagh, commemorated bountifully in James Joyce's 1916 Ulysses, took the estate firmly in hand. The English agricultural depression had begun in the 1880s, and it would not be ended until the Second World War drew the greater part of English agriculture back under cultivation. It had hit the Estate hard. But Elveden was transformed, and so was the church.

 

Iveagh appointed William Caroe to build an entirely new church beside the old. It would be of such a scale that the old church of St Andrew would form the south aisle of the new church. The size may have reflected Iveagh's visions of grandeur, but it was also a practical arrangement, to accommodate the greatly enlarged staff of the estate. Attendance at church was compulsory; non-conformists were also expected to go, and the Guinnesses did not employ Catholics.

 

Between 1904 and 1906, the new structure went up. Mortlock recalls that Pevsner thought it 'Art Nouveau Gothic', which sums it up well. Lancet windows in the north side of the old church were moved across to the south side, and a wide open nave built beside it. Curiously, although this is much higher than the old and incorporates a Suffolk-style roof, Caroe resisted the temptation of a clerestory. The new church was rebenched throughout, and the woodwork is of a very high quality. The dates of the restoration can be found on bench ends up in the new chancel, and exploring all the symbolism will detain you for hours. Emblems of the nations of the British Isles also feature in the floor tiles.

 

The new church was dedicated to St Patrick, patron Saint of the Guinnesses' homeland. At this time, of course, Ireland was still a part of the United Kingdom, and despite the tensions and troubles of the previous century the Union was probably stronger at the opening of the 20th century than it had ever been. This was to change very rapidly. From the first shots fired at the General Post Office in April 1916, to complete independence in 1922, was just six years. Dublin, a firmly protestant city, in which the Iveaghs commemorated their dead at the Anglican cathedral of St Patrick, became the capital city of a staunchly Catholic nation. The Anglicans, the so-called Protestant Ascendancy, left in their thousands during the 1920s, depopulating the great houses, and leaving hundreds of Anglican parish churches completely bereft of congregations. Apart from a concentration in the wealthy suburbs of south Dublin, there are hardly any Anglicans left in the Republic today. But St Patrick's cathedral maintains its lonely witness to long years of British rule; the Iveagh transept includes the vast war memorial to WWI dead, and all the colours of the Irish regiments - it is said that 99% of the Union flags in the Republic are in the Guinness chapel of St Patrick's cathedral. Dublin, of course, is famous as the biggest city in Europe without a Catholic cathedral. It still has two Anglican ones.

 

Against this background then, we arrived at Elveden. The church is uncomfortably close to the busy road, but the sparkle of flint in the recent rain made it a thing of great beauty. The main entrance is now at the west end of the new church. The surviving 14th century tower now forms the west end of the south aisle, and we will come back to the other tower beyond it in a moment.

 

You step into a wide open space under a high, heavy roof laden with angels. There is a wide aisle off to the south; this is the former nave, and still has something of that quality. The whole space is suffused with gorgeously coloured light from excellent 19th and 20th century windows. These include one by Frank Brangwyn, at the west end of the new nave. Andrew and Patrick look down from a heavenly host on a mother and father entertaining their children and a host of woodland animals by reading them stories. It is quite the loveliest thing in the building.

 

Other windows, mostly in the south aisle, are also lovely. Hugh Easton's commemorative window for the former USAAF base at Elveden is magnificent. Either side are windows to Iveaghs - a gorgeous George killing a dragon, also by Hugh Easton, and a curious 1971 assemblage depicting images from the lives of Edward Guinness's heir and his wife, which also works rather well. The effect of all three windows together is particularly fine when seen from the new nave.

 

Turning ahead of you to the new chancel, there is the mighty alabaster reredos. It cost £1,200 in 1906, about a quarter of a million in today’s money. It reflects the woodwork, in depicting patron Saints and East Anglian monarchs, around a surprisingly simple Supper at Emmaus. This reredos, and the Brangwyn window, reminded me of the work at the Guinness’s other spiritual home, St Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, which also includes a window by Frank Brangwyn commisioned by them. Everything is of the highest quality. Rarely has the cliché ‘no expense spared’ been as accurate as it is here.

 

Up at the front, a little brass plate reminds us that Edward VII slept through a sermon here in 1908. How different it must have seemed to him from the carefree days with his old friend the Maharajah! Still, it must have been a great occasion, full of Edwardian pomp, and the glitz that only the fabulously rich can provide. Today, the church is still splendid, but the Guinesses are no longer fabulously rich, and attendance at church is no longer compulsory for estate workers; there are far fewer of them anyway. The Church of England is in decline everywhere; and, let us be honest, particularly so in this part of Suffolk, where it seems to have retreated to a state of siege. Today, the congregation of this mighty citadel is as low as half a dozen. The revolutionary disappearance of Anglican congregations in the Iveagh's homeland is now being repeated in a slow, inexorable English way.

 

You wander outside, and there are more curiosities. Set in the wall are two linked hands, presumably a relic from a broken 18th century memorial. They must have been set here when the wall was moved back in the 1950s. In the south chancel wall, the bottom of an egg-cup protrudes from among the flints. This is the trademark of the architect WD Caroe. To the east of the new chancel, Duleep Singh’s gravestone is a very simple one. It is quite different in character to the church behind it. A plaque on the east end of the church remembers the centenary of his death.

 

Continuing around the church, you come to the surprise of a long cloister, connecting the remodelled chancel door of the old church to the new bell tower. It was built in 1922 as a memorial to the wife of the first Earl Iveagh. Caroe was the architect again, and he installed eight bells, dedicated to Mary, Gabriel, Edmund, Andrew, Patrick, Christ, God the Father, and the King. The excellent guidebook recalls that his intention was for the bells to be cast to maintain the hum and tap tones of the renowned ancient Suffolk bells of Lavenham... thus the true bell music of the old type is maintained.

 

This church is magnificent, obviously enough. It has everything going for it, and is a national treasure. And yet, it has hardly any congregation. So, what is to be done?

 

If we continue to think of rural historic churches as nothing more than outstations of the Church of England, it is hard to see how some of them will survive. This church in particular has no future in its present form as a village parish church. New roles must be found, new ways to involve local people and encourage their use. One would have thought that this would be easier here than elsewhere.

 

The other provoking thought was that this building summed up almost two centuries of British imperial adventure, and that we lived in a world that still suffered from the consequences. It is worth remembering where the wealth that rebuilt St Andrew and St Patrick came from.

 

As so often in British imperial history, interference in other peoples’ problems and the imposition of short-term solutions has left massive scars and long-cast shadows. For the Punjab, as in Ireland, there are no simple solutions. Sheer proximity has, after several centuries of cruel and exploitative involvement, finally encouraged the British government to pursue a solution in Ireland that is not entirely based on self-interest. I fear that the Punjab is too far away for the British to care very much now about what they did there then.

Here the very early 'big' Traction without boot lid again. This one was in course of restoration by Morel Classique Carrosserie. They worked hard to be able to show the car at this meeting.

 

@Les 90 ans de la Traction Avant, Circuit de Charade, Clermont Ferrand 2024