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Photograph taken at an altitude of Fifty four metres at 12:41pm on a Springtime afternoon on Wednesday 15th June 2022, off Hythe Avenue and Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

  

Here we see an adult female Carrion crow (Corvus corone) standing in a passing rain shower in a garden off Hythe Avenue and Chessington Avenue in Bexleyheath, Kent.

AN IN DEPTH LOOK AT CORVUS CORONE

  

LEGEND AND MYTHOLOGY

By Paul Williams

  

Crows appear in the Bible where Noah uses one to search for dry land and to check on the recession of the flood. Crows supposedly saved the prophet, Elijah, from famine and are an Inuit deity. Legend has it that England and its monarchy will end when there are no more crows in the Tower of London. And some believe that the crows went to the Tower attracted by the regular corpses following executions with written accounts of their presence at the executions of Anne Boleyn and Jane Gray.

  

In Welsh mythology, unfortunately Crows are seen as symbolic of evilness and black magic thanks to many references to witches transforming into crows or ravens and escaping. Indian legend tells of Kakabhusandi, a crow who sits on the branches of a wish-fulfilling tree called Kalpataru and a crow in Ramayana where Lord Rama blessed the crow with the power to foresee future events and communicate with the souls.

  

In Native American first nation legend the crow is sometimes considered to be something of a trickster, though they are also viewed positively by some tribes as messengers between this world and the next where they carry messages from the living to those deceased, and even carry healing medicines between both worlds.

  

There is a belief that crows can foresee the future. The Klamath tribe in Oregon believe that when we die, we fly up to heaven as a crow. The Crow can also signify wisdom to some tribes who believe crows had the power to talk and were therefore considered to be one of the wisest of birds. Tribes with Crow Clans include the Chippewa (whose Crow Clan and its totem are called Aandeg), the Hopi (whose Crow Clan is called Angwusngyam or Ungwish-wungwa), the Menominee, the Caddo, the Tlingit, and the Pueblo tribes of New Mexico.

  

The crow features in the Nanissáanah (Ghost dance), popularized by Jerome Crow Dog, a Brulé Lakota sub-chief and warrior born at Horse Stealing Creek in Montana Territory in 1833, the crow symbolizing wisdom and the past, when the crow had become a guide and acted as a pathfinder during hunting. The Ghost dance movement was originally created in 1870 by Wodziwob, or Gray Hair, a prophet and medicine man of the Paiute tribe in an area that became known as Nevada.

  

Ghost dancers wore crow and eagle feathers in their clothes and hair, and the fact that the Crow could talk placed it as one of the sages of the animal kingdom. The five-day dances seeking trance, prophecy and exhortations would eventually play a major part in the pathway towards the white man's broken treaties, the infamous battle at Wounded knee and the surrender of Matȟó Wanáȟtaka (Kicking Bear), after officials began to fear the ghost dancers and rituals which seemed to occur prior to battle.

  

Historically the Vikings are the group who made so many references to the crow, and Ragnarr Loðbrók and his sons used this species in his banner as well as appearances in many flags and coats of arms. Also, it had some kind of association with Odin, one of their main deities. Norse legend tells us that Odin is accompanied by two crows.

  

Hugin, who symbolizes thought, and Munin, who represents a memory. These two crows were sent out each dawn to fly the entire world, returning at breakfast where they informed the Lord of the Nordic gods of everything that went on in their kingdoms. Odin was also referred to as Rafnagud (raven-god).

  

The raven appears in almost every skaldic poem describing warfare. Coins dating back to 940's minted by Olaf Cuaran depict the Viking war standard, the Raven and Viking war banners (Gonfalon) depicted the bird also.

  

In Scandinavian legends, crows are a representative of the Goddess of Death, known as Valkyrie (from old Norse 'Valkyrja'), one of the group of maidens who served the Norse deity Odin, visiting battlefields and sending him the souls of the slain worthy of a place in Valhalla. Odin ( also called Wodan, Woden, or Wotan), preferred that heroes be killed in battle and that the most valiant of souls be taken to Valhöll, the hall of slain warriors.

  

It is the crow that provides the Valkyries with important information on who should go. In Hindu ceremonies that are associated to ancestors, the crow has an important place in Vedic rituals. They are seen as messengers of death in Indian culture too.

  

In Germanic legend, Crows are seen as psychonomes, meaning the act of guiding spirits to their final destination, and that the feathers of a crow could cure a victim who had been cursed. And yet, a lone black crow could symbolize impending death, whilst a group symbolizes a lucky omen! Vikings also saw good omens in the crow and would leave offerings of meat as a token.

  

The crow also has sacred and prophetic meaning within the Celtic civilization, where it stood for flesh ripped off due to combat and Morrighan, the warrior goddess, often appears in Celtic mythology as a raven or crow, or else is found to be in the company of the birds. Crow is sacred to Lugdnum, the Celtic god of creation who gave his name to the city of Lug

  

In Greek mythology according to Appolodorus, Apollo is supposedly responsible for the black feathers of the crow, turning them forever black from their pristine white original plumage as a punishment after they brought news that Κορωνις (Coronis) a princess of the Thessalian kingdom of Phlegyantis, Apollo's pregnant lover had left him to marry a mortal, Ischys.

  

In one legend, Apollo burned the crows feathers and then burned Coronis to death, in another Coronis herself was turned into a black crow, and another that she was slain by the arrows of Αρτεμις (Artemis - twin to Apollo). Koronis was later set amongst the stars as the constellation Corvus ("the Crow").

  

Her name means "Curved One" from the Greek word korônis or "Crow" from the word korônê.A similar Muslim legend allegedly tells of Muhammad, founder of Islam and the last prophet sent by God to Earth, who's secret location was given away by a white crow to his seekers, as he hid in caves. The crow shouted 'Ghar Ghar' (Cave, cave) and thus as punishment, Muhammad turned the crow black and cursed it for eternity to utter only one phrase, 'Ghar, ghar). Native Indian legend where the once rainbow-coloured crows became forever black after shedding their colourful plumage over the other animals of the world.

  

In China the Crow is represented in art as a three legged bird on a solar disk, being a creature that helps the sun in its journey. In Japan there are myths of Crow Tengu who were priests who became vain, and turned into this spirit to serve as messengers until they learn the lesson of humility as well as a great Crow who takes part in Shinto creation stories.

  

In animal spirit guides there are general perceptions of what sightings of numbers of crows actually mean:

  

1 Crow Meaning: To carry a message from your near one who died recently.

 

2 Crows Meaning: Two crows sitting near your home signifies some good news is on your way.

 

3 Crows Meaning: An upcoming wedding in your family.

 

4 Crows Meaning: Symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

 

5 Crows Meaning: Diseases or pain.

 

6 Crows Meaning: A theft in your house!

 

7 Crows Meaning: Denotes travel or moving from your house.

 

8 Crows Meaning: Sorrowful events

  

Crows are generally seen as the symbolism when alive for doom bringing, misfortune and bad omens, and yet a dead crow symbolises potentially bringing good news and positive change to those who see it.

 

This wonderful bird certainly gets a mixed bag of contradictory mythology and legend over the centuries and in modern days is often seen as a bit of a nuisance, attacking and killing the babies of other birds such as Starlings, Pigeons and House Sparrows as well as plucking the eyes out of lambs in the field, being loud and noisy and violently attacking poor victims in a 'crow court'....

  

There is even a classic horror film called 'THE CROW' released in 1994 by Miramax Films, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Brandon Lee in his final film appearance as Eric Draven, who is revived by a Crow tapping on his gravestone a year after he and his fiancée are murdered in Detroit by a street gang. The crow becomes his guide as he sets out to avenge the murders.

  

The only son of martial arts expert Bruce Lee, Brandon lee suffered fatal injuries on the set of the film when the crew failed to remove the primer from a cartridge that hit Lee in the abdomen with the same force as a normal bullet. Lee died that day, March 31st 1993 aged 28.

  

The symbolism of the Crow resurrecting the dead star and accompanying him on his quest for revenge was powerful, and in some part based on the history of the carrion crow itself and the original film grossed more than $94 Million dollars with three subsequent sequels following.

  

TAKING A CLOSER LOOK

  

So, let's move away from legend, mythology and stories passed down from our parents and grandparents and look at these amazing birds in isolation.

  

Carrion crow are passerines in the family Corvidae a group of Oscine passerine birds including Crows, Ravens, Rooks, Jackdaws, Jays, Magpies, Treepies, Choughs and Nutcrackers. Technically they are classed as Corvids, and the largest of passerine birds. Carrion crows are medium to large in size with rictal bristles and a single moult per year (most passerines moult twice).

  

Carrion crow was one of the many species originally described by Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (Carl Von Linne after his ennoblement) in his 1758 and 1759 editions of 'SYSTEMA NATURAE', and it still bears its original name of Corvus corone, derived from the Latin of Corvus, meaning Raven and the Greek κορώνη (korōnē), meaning crow.

  

Carrion crow are of the Animalia kingdom Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Order: Passeriformes Family: Corvidae Genus: Corvus and Species: Corvus corone

  

Corvus corone can reach 45-47cm in length with a 93-104cm wingspan and weigh between 370-650g. They are protected under The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 in the United Kingdom with a Green UK conservation status which means they are of least concern with more than 1,000,000 territories.

 

Breeding occurs in April with fledging of the chicks taking around twenty nine days following an incubation period of around twenty days with 3 to 4 eggs being the average norm. They are abundant in the UK apart from Northwest Scotland and Ireland where the Hooded crow (Corvus cornix) was considered the same species until 2002. They have a lifespan of around four years, whilst Crow species can live to the age of Twenty years old, and the oldest known American crow in the wild was almost Thirty years old.

  

The oldest documented captive crow died at age Fifty nine. They are smaller and have a shorter lifespan than the Raven, which again is used as a symbol in history to live life to the full and not waste a moment!

  

They are often mistaken for the Rook (Corvus frugilegus), a similar bird, though in the UK, the Rook is actually technically smaller than the Carrion crow averaging 44-46cm in length, 81-99cm wingspan and weighing up to 340g. Rooks have white beaks compared to the black beaks of Carrion crow, a more steeply raked ratio from head to beak, and longer straighter beaks as well as a different plumage pattern.

  

There are documented cases in the UK of singular and grouped Rooks attacking and killing Carrion crows in their territory. Rooks nest in colonies unlike Carrion crows. Carrion crows have only a few natural enemies including powerful raptors such as the northern goshawk, the peregrine falcon, the Eurasian eagle-owl and the golden eagle which will all readily hunt them.

  

Regarded as one of the most intelligent birds, indeed creatures on the planet, studies suggest that Corvids cognitive abilities can rival that of primates such as chimpanzees and gorillas and even provide clues to understanding human intelligence.

  

Crows have relatively large brains for their body size, compared to other animals. Their encephalization quotient (EQ) a ratio of brain to body size, adjusted for size because there isn’t a linear relationship is 4.1.

  

That is remarkably close to chimps at 4.2 whilst humans are 8.1. Corvids also have a very high neuronal density, the number of neurons per gram of brain, factoring in the number of cortical neurons, neuron packing density, intraneuronal distance and axonal conduction velocity shows that Corvids score high on this measure as well, with humans scoring the highest.

  

A corvid's pallium is packed with more neurons than a great ape's. Corvids have demonstrated the ability to use a combination of mental tools such as imagination, and anticipation of future events.

  

They can craft tools from twigs and branches to hook grubs from deep recesses, they can solve puzzles and intricate methods of gaining access to food set by humans,and have even bent pieces of wire into hooks to obtain food. They have been proven to have a higher cognitive ability level than seven year old humans.

  

Communications wise, their repertoire of wraw-wraw's is not fully understood, but the intensity, rhythm, and duration of caws seems to form the basis of a possible language. They also remember the faces of humans who have hindered or hurt them and pass that information on to their offspring.

  

Aesop's fable of 'The Crow and the Pitcher, tells of a thirsty crow which drops stones into a water pitcher to raise the water level and enable it to take a drink. Scientists have conducted tests to see whether crows really are this intelligent. They placed floating treats in a deep tube and observed the crows indeed dropping dense objects carefully selected into the water until the treat floated within reach. They had the intelligence to pick up, weigh and discount objects that would float in the water, they also did not select ones that were too large for the container.

  

Pet crows develop a unique call for their owners, in effect actually naming them. They also know to sunbathe for a dose of vitamin D, regularly settling on wooden garden fences, opening their mouths and wings and raising their heads to the sun. In groups they warn of danger and communicate vocally.

  

They store a cache of food for later if in abundance and are clever enough to move it if they feel it has been discovered. They leave markers for their cache. They have even learned to place walnuts and similar hard food items under car tyres at traffic lights as a means of cracking them!

  

Crows regularly gather around a dead fellow corvid, almost like a funeral, and it is thought they somehow learn from each death. They can even remember human faces for decades. Crows group together to attack larger predators and even steal their food, and they have different dialects in different areas, with the ability to mimic the dialect of the alpha males when they enter their territory!

  

They have a twenty year life span, the oldest on record reaching the age of Fifty nine. Crows can leave gifts for those who feed them such as buttons or bright shiny objects as a thank you, and they even kiss and make up after an argument, having mated for life.

  

In mythology they are associated with good and bad luck, being the bringers of omens and even witchcraft and are generally reviled for their attacks on baby birds and small mammals. They have an attack method of stunning smaller birds before consuming them, tearing violently at smaller, less aggressive birds, which is simply down to the fact that they are so highly intelligent, and also the top of the food chain.

  

Their diet includes over a thousand different items: Dead animals (as their name suggests), invertebrates, grain, as well as stealing eggs and chicks from other birds' nests, worms, insects, fruit, seeds, kitchen scraps. They are highly adaptable when food sources grow scarce. I absolutely love them, they are magnificent, bold, beautiful and incredibly interesting to watch and though at times it is hard to witness attacks made by them, I cannot help but adore them for so many other and more important reasons.

  

OBSERVATIONS ON THE PAIR IN MY GARDEN

 

Known mostly for my landscape work, Covid-19 changed everything for me photographically speaking thanks to a series of lock downs which naturally impeded my ability to travel. I began to spend more time on my own land, photographing the wildlife, and suddenly those wildlife photographs began to sell worldwide in magazines and books.

 

Crows have been in the area for a while, but rarely had strayed into my garden, leaving the Magpies to own the territory. Things changed around mid May 2021 when a beautiful female Carrion crow appeared and began to take some of the food that I put down for the other birds. Within a few days she began to appear regularly, on occasions stocking up on food, whilst other times placing pieces in the birdbath to soften them. She would stand on the birdbath and eat and drink and come back over the course of the day to eat the softened food. Naturally I named her Sheryl (Crow).

  

Shortly afterwards she brought along her mate, a tall and handsome fella, much larger than her who was also very vocal if he felt she was getting a little too close to me. I named him Russell (Crow). By now I had moved from a seated position from the patio as an observer, to laying on a mat just five feet from the birdbath with my Nikon so that I could photograph the pair as they landed, scavenged and fed.

  

Sheryl was now confident enough to let me be very close, and she even tolerated and recognized the clicking of the camera. At first, I used silent mode to reduce the noise, but this only allowed two shooting frame rates of single frame or continuous low frame which meant I was missing shots. I reverted back to normal continuous high frames, and she soon got used to the whirring of the mechanisms as the mirror slapped back and forth.

  

Russell would bark orders at her from the safety of the fence or the rear of the garden, whilst she rarely made a sound. That was until one day when in the sweltering heat she kept opening her beak and sunning on the grass, panting slightly in the heat.

  

I placed the circular water sprayer nearby and had it rotating so that the birdbath and grass was bathed in gentle water droplets and she soon came back, landed and seemed to really like the cooling effect on offer. She then climbed onto the birdbath and opened her wings slightly and made some gentle purring, cooing noises....

  

I swear she was expressing happiness, joy even....

  

On another blisteringly hot day when the sprayer was on, she came down, walked towards it and opened her wings up running into the water spray. Not once, but many times.

  

A further revelation into the unseen sides to these beautiful birds came with the male and female on the rear garden fence. They sat together, locked beaks like a kiss and then the male took his time gently preening her head feathers and the back of her neck as she made tiny happy sounds.

  

They stayed together like that for several minutes, showing a gentle, softer side to their nature and demonstrating the deep bond between them. Into July and the pair started to bring their three youngsters to my garden, the nippers learning to use the birdbath for bathing and dipping food, the parents attentive as ever. Two of the youngsters headed off once large enough and strong enough.

  

I was privileged to be in close attendance as the last juvenile was brought down by the pair, taught to take food and then on a night in July, to soar and fly with its mother in the evening sky as the light faded. She would swoop and twirl, and at regular intervals just touch the juvenile in flight with her wing tip feathers, as if to reassure it that she was close in attendance.

  

What an amazing experience to view. A few days later, the juvenile, though now gaining independence and more than capable of tackling food scraps in the garden, was still on occasions demand feeding from its mother who was now teaching him to take chicken breast, hotdogs or digestive biscuits and bury them in the garden beds for later delectation.

  

The juvenile also liked to gather up peanuts (monkey nuts) and bury them in the grass. On one occasion I witnessed a pair of rumbunctious Pica Pica (Magpies), chasing the young crow on rooftops, leaping at him no matter how hard he tried to get away. He defended himself well and survived the attacks, much to my relief.

  

Into August and the last youngster remained with the adults, though now was very independent even though he still spent time with his parents on rooftops, and shared food gathering duties with his mum. Hotdog sausages were their favourite choice, followed by fish fingers and digestive biscuits which the adult male would gather up three at a time.

  

In October 2021, the three Crows were still kings of the area, but my time observing them was pretty much over as I will only put food out now for the birds in the winter months. The two adults are still here in December and now taking the food that I put out to help all birds survive in the winter months. They also have a pair of Magpies to compete with now.

  

Late February 2022 and Cheryl and Russell and their youngster are still with me, still dominant in the area and still taking raw chicken, hotdogs, biscuits and fat balls that I put out for them. Today I saw them mating for the first time this year in the tree and the cycle continues.

  

By October late 2022 the pair had successfully reared a new baby who we nicknamed Baboo, and the other youngster flew the coup. The three now recognised our car returning from weekends away, and were enjoying sausages, hotdogs, raw chicken, fish and especially cheese, but life was hard as they aged with daily morning and evening tussles in the air with invaders and intruders hoping to take their land.

  

Russell picked up an injury during one fight and hobbled about for a few weeks before fully recovering, though a slight limp remained longterm, but Sheryl was visibly ageing and struggled at times to gain height from a vertical ground take off. I placed a garden chair near the house and she would often jump onto the top and then onto the fence and then the roof in stages.

 

Baboo became the dominant garden watcher, swooping in to take advantage of the food I put out, though he now faced competition from a gaggle of five or so resident Magpies, Black headed gulls and Herring Gulls which seemed to have adopted the area, and brave enough to snatch food from under his nose and eat on the grass in his presence. The three crows still held on to our garden and the territory and were dominant still into December 2022. They loved cheese, hotdogs, raw chicken, fish fingers and digestive biscuits and also mixed nuts, crusty bread and cakes and fat from steak or gammon plus fish skin from salmon or haddock.

  

Corvus Corone.... magnificently misunderstood by some!

  

Paul Williams June 4th 2021 (Updated on December 2nd 2022)

  

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Nikon D850 Focal length 280mm Shutter speed: 1/200s Aperture f/6.3 iso160 Hand held with Tamron VC Vibration control set to ON in position 1 14 Bit uncompressed RAW NEF file size L (8256 x 5504 pixels) FX (36 x 24) Focus mode: AF-C AF-Area mode: 3D-tracking AF-C Priority Selection: Release. Nikon Back button focusing enabled 3D Tracking watch area: Normal 55 Tracking points Exposure mode: Manual exposure mode Metering mode: Matrix metering White balance on: Auto1, 0, 0 (5190k) Colour space: RGB Picture control: (SD) Standard (Sharpening +3 & Clarity +1.00) Active D-Lighting: Auto Vignette Control: Normal High ISO NR: ON (Low)

  

Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. Nikon GP-1 GPS module. Lee SW150 MKII filter holder. Lee SW150 95mm screw in adapter ring. Lee SW150 circular polariser glass filter.Lee SW150 Filters field pouch. Hoodman HEYENRG round eyepiece oversized eyecup.Mcoplus professional MB-D850 multi function battery grip 6960.Two Nikon EN-EL15a batteries (Priority to battery in Battery grip). Black Rapid Curve Breathe strap. My Memory 128GB Class 10 SDXC 80MB/s card. Lowepro Flipside 400 AW camera bag.

     

LATITUDE: N 51d 28m 28.20s

LONGITUDE: E 0d 8m 10.50s

ALTITUDE: 54.0m

  

RAW (TIFF) FILE: 130.00MB NEF FILE: 91.00MB

PROCESSED (JPeg) FILE: 25.60MB

     

PROCESSING POWER:

  

Nikon D850 Firmware versions C 1.10 (9/05/2019) LD Distortion Data 2.018 (18/02/20) LF 1.00

  

HP 110-352na Desktop PC with AMD Quad-Core A6-5200 APU 64Bit processor. Radeon HD8400 graphics. 8 GB DDR3 Memory with 1TB Data storage. 64-bit Windows 10. Verbatim USB 2.0 1TB desktop hard drive. WD My Passport Ultra 1tb USB3 Portable hard drive. Nikon ViewNX-1 64bit Version 1.4.1 (18/02/2020). Nikon Capture NX-D 64bit Version 1.6.2 (18/02/2020). Nikon Picture Control Utility 2 (Version 2.4.5 (18/02/2020). Nikon Transfer 2 Version 2.13.5. Adobe photoshop Elements 8 Version 8.0 64bit.

  

FR : Fronton de l’entrée principale du château de Saint-Germain en Laye (78)

EN: Pediment of the main entrance of the castle of Saint-Germain en Laye (78)

 

La question du jour : Corriger une perspective architecturale, est-ce vraiment utile, et est-ce bien raisonnable ?

La réponse du jour : Apprenons, d’abord à lire intelligemment une photo d'architecture ! On se fera ensuite sa propre philosophie !

 

J’ai réalisé cette photo en pensant aux grands maniaques de la photo d’architecture qui expliquent (avec des arguments toujours défendables) que lorsqu’on photographie un bâtiment en contre-plongée (Ce qui est, en général, la position du photographe "normal", c'est à dire les pieds posés au sol, à moins qu’il ne dispose d’un échafaudage ou d'une nacelle pour se placer perpendiculairement et à hauteur des détails architecturaux) il est impératif de redresser les perspectives verticales des photos, soit avec Photoshop (ou équivalent) soit avec un objectif à décentrement…

 

La seconde solution est un peu plus professionnelle mais aussi bien plus coûteuse (investissement de 1500 à 2000 euros), et ne présente pas un intérêt fondamental pour l’amateur "lambda" (comme moi !) qui ne vend pas ses photos à un architecte, ou à une maison d'éditions. (Et qui ne vend pas ses photos du tout, de surcroît !)

 

Ici, j’ai donc utilisé un objectif de focale fixe 85 mm, et me suis placé, du mieux possible, sous le fronton, et à peu près dans son axe (et sans doute pas parfaitement, voir verticale gauche !), afin d’éviter les trop fortes distorsions…

Et ensuite, au post-traitement j’ai rectifié (fortement) la verticalité des colonnes avec la fonction "Perspective" de Photoshop

 

Et bien que voit-on ? Les deux cercles de l’oeil de bœuf (ouverture extérieure et fenêtre encastrée) qui sont parfaitement alignés sur le même axe horizontal dans la réalité architecturale, ne le sont pas sur la photo, puisque situés sur deux plans verticaux distants…

En conséquence, la prise de vue par dessous ne permet nécessairement pas une vision de la réalité, qui devrait montrer des cercles concentriques, alors que la photo les montre sécants.

Tout cela simplement parce que Photoshop ainsi que tous les objectifs à décentrement, même les plus coûteux, “trichent” en agissant sur la déformation en 2D de l'image, mais sont incapables de le faire sur les 3D de l'espace !

Ce qui donne parfois des images étranges…

C'est juste bêtement géométrique et cette photo est une illusion d'optique !

La photo redressée est même moins réaliste que l’originale, avec ses fuyantes convergentes, qui est finalement plus proche de la vision humaine...

Parenthèse: L’œil humain est assez proche d’une optique 50mm, avec un bon post-traitement des contrastes grâce au cerveau, mais il est hélas épouvantablement vigneté ! Donc, si Dieu a créé l’œil, il a un peu raté son coup, car un bon zoom Nikkor est bien meilleur que lui !

 

On notera par ailleurs que le désastreux système nerveux de l’homo sapiens n’est pas surpris de constater que les rails de chemin de fer se rejoignent à l’horizon… Et pourtant, personne n’a jamais eu l’idée de les redresser en photo, dans le seul but inutile de recréer artificiellement la réalité géométrique… À méditer !

 

Conclusion 1 : Apprenons à être vigilants et à traquer les illusions d’optique et préférons parfois la réalité naturellement déformée aux mirages “photoshopiques” reconstruits !

Conclusion 2 : L'avenir de la photo d'architecture réaliste, c'est le drone et la numérisation des bâtiments !

Certaines entreprises (je pense en particulier à Iconem) l’ont vite compris… Mais on sort de la photo et on bascule vers le plan architectural 3D et le déploiement de gros matériels de digitalisation.

 

Nota : Relire "De pictura" du génie Leon Battista Alberti, maître incontesté de la perspective architecturale et picturale de la Renaissance italienne, et qui a changé le cours de l’histoire de l’art occidental en théorisant, entre autres, en 1436, la notion de point de fuite (ou plutôt “Punto de fuga”)

Ces principes géométriques “Albertiens” ont encore aujourd’hui une influence fondamentale dans notre vision “culturelle” de l’image (perspective conique, avec verticales et point de fuite) et ils nous poussent intuitivement à redresser toutes les verticales…

En Asie, la notion de perspective dans l’art est beaucoup moins présente (voir gravures ottomanes ou estampes japonaises ou chinoises, y compris contemporaines)

Conclusion : Sur ma photo, Alberti aurait donc non seulement redressé les verticales (ce que j’ai fait) mais aussi rendu concentriques les cercles de l’œil de bœuf (ce que la photo ne sait pas faire)

Ce qui a probablement sauvé Alberti du naufrage, c’est qu’il ne connaissait, ni Nikon, ni Photoshop, ni Flickr !

Quelle chance pour lui ! 😄

I believe the birds in this shot are Black Billed Magpies (Pica Hudsonia).

 

Shot in Denver CO.

 

From a morning of sitting on my patio and watching the birds. I find it's made for fantastic practice. Trying to get exposure right and an interesting shot with unpredictable moving subjects. It's a lot of fun!

A small argument between Radja and one of his daughters, but don't worry, nothing bad happened!

A couple of miles into a peaceful early morning hike along the shores of Lake Crescent was recently and rudely interrupted. Two large open wooden boats, with about twelve paddlers were engaging in war games of sorts on the lake. Each of the 30 foot native inspired boats would make towards each other and throw nerf balls at the other. Once past, navigators would scream at the top of their lungs to heave ho, turn, and repeat. This went on for a half hour of so.

 

I must say, it did dampen the mood somewhat from our own hike.

 

This is when a red faced Kelsie stopped and became angry. She said that if she were a Ranger that she would put a halt to this loud behavior right away. She said in was unacceptable.

 

Kelsie for the rest of our trip, became Angry Ranger Kelsie. Suddenly, situations began to emerge where she would need to deal with problems head on. Naturally, being Angry Ranger Kelsie is somebody that average campers and hikers do not want to mess with. She carries a loaded weapon and has fists made of steel. She carries extra bags to make guilty parties clean up their messes. She will sometimes halt a unsuspecting family day hiking and make them clean up a half mile section of shoreline......just because she can.

 

She tends to her hundreds of game cameras along the various trails she is watching over. At night, long after everyone should be asleep, Angry Ranger Kelsie will emerge from the forest in full camouflage and begin writing fines. At first, the illegal campers are confused and bewildered as to why this is happening to them. Angry Ranger Kelsie, then begins reading directly out of her tattered 1941 Ranger Code of Conduct in the Forest manual (a gift from her mentor, Mad Ranger Lucy Binkleymire). Soon, the unsuspecting campers are forced to pick up their camp and make haste back to their cars. It is 2:00 AM in the morning and they do not have head lamps. That is not Angry Ranger Kelsie's problem. They MUST do the right thing......and now.

 

Angry Ranger Kelsie has had a couple heated arguments with other hikers. One time she was coming up the Dirty Face Ridge Trail in the Buckhorn Wilderness. It was early in the morning, summertime and already hot. She was on a very steep section of the trail moving towards the false summit. Her pack was 105 pounds and she was not in a good mood. She had developed five blisters (breaking in new boots, not easy), each the size of quarters and incredibly had forgotten her bug spray. She was being eaten alive.

 

Along a narrow stretch, Angry Ranger Kelsie and a hiking party of four young people came face to face. Angry Ranger Kelsie was perturbed like no other. She would not budge to let this group by. The unwritten rules of the trail is to always allow the person coming up a trail leeway to pass. They are working harder after all! After a heated exchange, Angry Ranger Kelsie revealed her position in the forest (that of being a Ranger) and soon began a full exercise with the hikers on how to properly pass one another on any trail. She also just happened to be carrying various sized saws and had this group clear a quarter mile of trail of downed trees, before she allowed them to get back on their own hike.

 

Yes, Angry Ranger Kelsie is tough and demanding. That is how she rolls and the forest is a better place because of her passion and rules.

  

why the pain why the agony ?

conflicting arguments born of jealousy

 

why the games why the antagony ?

is this infatuation or is it a felony ?

 

seeking to please all with your humble harmony

forgeting your heart's dearest .. an extreme irony

 

is it too much to ask for a little monotony ?

actions contradicting promises you define hypocracy

 

is initiating a greeting to you a blasphemy ?

or is it pride that impedes your expression of love for me?

 

claims you make imply you know responsibility

yet you are still characterized by selfish hostility

 

you are astonished at results of relationships so many

have you thought that it could be your idiotic mentality ?

 

you think that fate unites individuals based on compatibility ?

No sweety what holds them together is adaptability

 

I do not expect you to understand the reason for my poetry

I speak sense while you your desires allow democracy

 

I do not know what to say my mind you've made your colony

I believe you should stop influencing my reality

 

I thought we were beyond all this formality

I thought we could enjoy this time without theatricality

 

Evidently silly and unwise was my susceptibility

to have given you another chance so easily

 

you come into my life and make me remember joviality

only to back off in confusion and utter perplexity

 

To begin with you are not fit to have my progeny

you do not comply with what i expect in modesty

 

You are not worth dwelling upon consistently

since you give me no thought while away from me

 

My ideals in life i would like to live conservatively

while you are clothed in excessive layers of liberty

 

You seek all the excitement, intimacy, and emotionality

Yet you cannot commit or show a little reliability

 

i'm tired of being on stand-by for you repeatedly

i'm not a toy that you can throw around trivially

 

I can go on and on listing why we shouldn't be

but i think the message has been conveyed effeciently

 

Do not misunderstand i do not mean to mock thee

i only defend my argument of why we cannot be

 

An honor it was to have experienced around me your beauty

Your soul's warmth i will miss over and over constantly

 

your hugs were one of a kind holding me so sincerely

i tried honey i tried so hard but you failed me

 

So i sought Allah's guidance to deal with this calamity

something i should have done long before this infelicity

 

what i am about to do might seem like irrationality

but i have given it thought so forgive my morality

 

I'm sorry dearest angel i must refrain from thee

Our destiny together is not meant to be

 

-MAK

 

Sometimes things are just not meant to be ...

 

Ask Allah for guidance for He knows what we know not .....

Madrid

 

Kentmere 100 en ID-11 1+3 | Lomo T-43 75mm 4,5 | Lubitel 166B

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/

I took the original photo many years ago, on colour slide film, and recently played with it in photoshop !

what you are, so is your world.

the little man in side!

.....you is doing all that hell sadbad man .........THINK YOURSELF HAPPY

.

 

4 hours ov tit for tat

....wiv another writer ,not really that happy about how this one turned out and karma as already broke my camra screen....ouch ....boo hoo

Lilburn Georgia, January 2011

Our Daily Challenge ... sculpted.

 

I found the word "exhaustipated" when I was researching blended words for the earlier challenge but couldn't come up with an image for it. However it seems to fit OK here. The elephant is exhausted and couldn't care less (to put it politely!) about whether his trunk has to be up or down for luck. The arguments have been going on for as long as he can remember and that's a long time ... he's just had enough!

A mature and an immature Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) have an aerial argument over the shores of Neets Bay, Alaska during the annual salmon spawning run.

She had have a argument with some friends and was soo sad.

"Running is nothing more than a series of arguments between the part of your brain that wants to stop and the part that wants to keep going."

 

Ok, Jon....best I could do on short notice! Sorry for the poor quality... taken with my phone, with not enough light, after my evening run with the Meekster!

 

I haven't quit. I have gotten to the point where I don't want to quit with the first step on the pavement. I have gotten to the point where I can consistently run 2 miles without stopping. I don't hate it anymore. I don't love it, but I don't hate it. Dayna told me that I don't have the mental toughness to run. That's pretty much all I needed to hear. I don't do well with people telling me that I can't do something. I'll probably never run that half marathon.... unless of course, you tell me that I can't... and then it's a whole new ballgame! ; )

 

(Oh....F&PITS .... Feet and Paws in the Shot!)

Please Right Click and select "Open link in new

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohDB5gbtaEQ

 

The Argument - Monty Python

 

no, it's not about a parrot

 

After a night in a hotel in Selkirk, I have returned to the parish of Southdean to look for a few more border peel towers, the first of which will be the curiously named Wattie's Spindles. I have climbed up to the hill fort that crowns Shaw Craigs, from where I hope to be able to find evidence of three peel towers with my drone. Regardless of whether that proves to be successful, it has been worth it just for the view. This part of the country is almost entirely blanketed with forestry plantations, which has preserved the ruins from the depredations of man and his animals, for the last century anyway, however the long and ungrazed grass tends to conceal wall foundations.

 

The large hill left of centre is Carter Fell, part of The Cheviot Hills. The border with England runs along the skyline. The low point to its left is Carter Bar, where the A68 can just be seen climbing up to cross over it. Carter Bar was the place where the Scottish and English Wardens of the Marches met on truce days to sort out disputes and hand down judgements in order to keep the peace. In July 1575, quite the opposite occurred!

 

Sir John Carmichael, the Scottish Warden of the Western March, brought with him a small band of pikemen and gunmen, as his counterpart, Sir John Forster was known for double-dealing, and Carmichael half expected trouble. Not long after the meeting got underway, an argument arose over an English thief, who was supposedly in Forster's custody but who could not be produced. Before long insults were exchanged, which was not unusual, following which fighting broke out, during which two Scots were killed. The English are said to have opened fire with a cannon, although quite why you would bring a cannon to a meeting held under a truce, history fails to relate! With the English getting the better of things, the timely arrival of Scottish reinforcements from Jedburgh turned the situation around, and the English were eventually routed. Sir John Forster and a number of other English nobles were captured and 25 Englishmen killed. The prisoners were an embarrassment for both governments and were eventually released.

Two Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) having an aerial argument over the creek that feeds Herring Cove south of Ketchikan, Alaska.

Tony and I are quietly listening to the new Soundgarden album. None of us has spoken a word since our argument. I understand what Tony’s getting at, but he doesn’t understand what it takes for me to continue this crusade. He has never lost a parent before. It’s not even my crusade! My grandfather started this and my father expects me to continue his legacy. My trail of thought gets disturbed by the ringing of the phone. Tony gets up to answer.

 

Tony: “This is Tony Morales speaking.”

 

O’Hare: “Mister Morales. This is Detective O’Hare from the Opal City Police Department.

 

Tony: “Hello Detective, how can I help you?”

 

Tony’s face changes to a surprised look as he looks at me. I give him a confused look back.

 

O’Hare: “You live with Jack Knight, correct?”

 

Tony: “Yes, that’s correct.”

 

O’Hare: “Can I speak with him? It’s incredibly urgent.”

 

Tony: “Yeah he’s here. Just give me a sec.”

 

I signal to Tony who that is and he puts his hand on the horn.

 

Tony: “It’s Detective O’Hare. He says it’s urgent.”

 

“O’Hare? As in William O’Hare? He’s a friend of my dad. Was his contact within the police department during his time as Starman. He probably just wants to know where my father is so they can meet up again. I heard he was going to retire in a week or so.”

 

Tony: “I don’t know man. Why not ask him yourself?”

 

He hands me the horn and walks over to the kitchen.

 

“Jack speaking.”

 

O’Hare: “Jack. It’s William O’Hare. Listen to me carefully. I need you to come to Opal Central Hospital immediately.”

 

“What? Opal Central Hospital? Why?”

 

O’Hare: “It’s- It’s your father. He was involved in an explosion at the Welness Retirement Home for the sick and elderly. He’s still alive, but in critical condition. Get here as fast as you can.”

 

As the detective explains to me what happened I freeze up. I don’t know what to say. I drop the horn and I fall on my knees and yell out in anguish. Tony comes rushing into the living room and sits next to me on the ground.

 

Tony: “Hey, hey! What did he say? What happened?”

 

“Tony. It’s my dad. I have to get to Opal Central as fast as I can.”

 

Tony: “Get up. We’ll take my car.”

 

As Tony says that I eye the Cosmic Staff in the corner of the room.

 

“There’s no time.”

 

I jump up, put on my jacket and grab the staff. Before Tony can say anything I fly out of the window at a speed I didn’t even know I could reach. This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening! I reach the hospital in a matter of minutes and near the front door Detective O’Hare is waiting for me.

 

“Where is he?”

 

O’Hare: “Jack, take it easy-”

 

“WHERE IS HE?!”

 

I’m trembling on my legs. At this point I’m using the staff as a cane to keep me standing. I got taken back by the raise in my voice. I rarely yelled that loud. Especially not against a police detective. It looks like he’s surprised too, but he puts a hand on my shoulder and looks me in the eyes.

 

“I- I’m sorry, Detective.”

 

O’Hare: “It’s alright, kid. Your father’s in surgery now. The nurses won’t tell anything if his condition is increasing or decreasing. All we can do is wait now. I’m so terribly sorry you have to go through this right now, but know that I’m here for you.”

 

“Thank you. That means a lot.”

 

O’Hare: “Come. Let’s take a seat inside.”

 

As we walk through the hallways of the hospital, people keep staring at me. I don’t know what does it. Maybe it’s my leather jacket. Maybe it’s my shoes. Maybe it’s the glowing bo-staff I’m carrying with me. Who knows. Everyone must probably be wondering. Why the heck is Starman in the hospital and why does he look so miserable? He probably got hurt during a big fight or something. If only they knew…

 

William and I take a seat in the hallway next to the operating room. Seconds feel like minutes. Minutes feel like hours. Time is just going so incredibly slow. Both me and the Detective keep silent until the doctor comes out of the operating room. Both me and William almost jump to our feet.

 

O’Hare: “Doctor Cross. How did it go?”

 

Cross: “I got good news and bad news.”

 

O’Hare: “What’s the good news?”

 

Cross: “We managed to stabilize him. He’s going to be alright but he needs to recover for a long time.”

 

“And the bad news?”

 

I couldn’t get it out of my mouth. I didn’t want to know the answer. Dad was fine! That’s all I wanted to hear. Just not what I needed to hear. I needed to hear everything.

 

Cross: “The bad news is, is that a piece of the debris was lodged into his spine. At that age he got lucky he didn’t die. He will, however, never walk again.”

 

I didn’t know what to say. Dad was fine, but somehow he wasn’t. He was never going to walk again.

 

“Can I see him?”

 

Cross: “He won’t be waking up any time soon. He still needs to rest from the surgery.”

 

“It’s okay. I just want to see him.”

 

Cross: “Understandable. He’s in room 26.”

 

O’Hare: “Do you want me to come with you?”

 

“No, thank you. I just want to be alone with him for a moment.”

 

William nods and I head to room 26. I open the door and I see him lying unconscious in a hospital bed. No breathing apparatus are needed from the looks of it so his lungs haven’t been damaged. I stand next to his bed still holding the Cosmic Staff.

 

“This damned staff…”

 

I throw the staff to the other side of the room and tears fill my eyes. That damned staff is what caused all of this!

 

“I don’t want to be a hero! I don’t want to lose what I have left! I DON’T WANT TO LOSE MY FATHER LIKE I LOST MY MOTHER! THAT STUPID FUCKING STAFF!”

 

At that point Detective O’Hare and Doctor Cross enter the room. They find me crying next to my father’s bed. William puts his hand on my shoulder again and Doctor Cross grabs the staff from the ground. I take a minute to calm down.

 

“Detective. The explosion happened in the Welness Retirement Home, right?”

 

O’Hare: “Yes. Why?”

 

I stand up and take the Cosmic Staff from Doctor Cross. I wipe my tears away and stare William in the eyes.

 

“Take me there.”

 

View On White

 

"you're liar... I know you've an affair with my boyfriend..."

 

Belching Lamentable Arguments.

 

Mae cymdogion anhygoel yn ymladd yn erbyn tystiolaeth tybio bod casgliadau syllogistig rhesymau eithafol yn dadleuon canolradd datganiadau addysgu,

dialética significa oposições conhecimento objeções universais contrários conclusões do objeto da premissa evidências claras probabilidades demonstrativas,

ταυτόχρονες αριθμοί που αντιστοιχούν σε σημεία μετατρέψιμα ανταγόμενα προερχόμενα όροι μεμονωμένοι φυσικοί τρόποι ομιλίας διδάγματα απαραίτητα χαρακτηριστικά,

quaestio de demonstrationibus negativis analyticam scientiam scientiarum documentis colligitur mora confixione ponuntur partes coniecturam causalibus,

Aussprachendefinitionen irrtümliche Elemente unbestimmte Wahrheiten bestimmte Abteilungen Lernlösungen präzise Lernqualifikationen posterior Sinne,

arguments mathématiques matières essentielles raisonnement dialectique énonciation enseignante hypothèse sensible prémisses primaires affirmant l'existence,

一義的な四角形を把握することは、対角の知識をあいまいにしています。進歩を認めています。結論の中の論文は真実を揺るがす永遠の教義.

Steve.D.Hammond.

2 Macaws squabbling in the Jurong Bird Park in Singapore

 

HCS everyone takes photos in zoos

Two Wild Horse (Equus ferus) stallions have a dominance fight in a high mountain meadow. The horse on the right exhibits primative markings with the stripe down the center of its back and tiger stripes on its legs. Image taken in the Prior Mountains of Montana.

The Argument - With Chantal and Wyatt

“What’s the key to a healthy relationship?”

“A good argument. Have one early in the day, then make up later in the afternoon."

  

Blog | Facebook

Abstract; Summary of the Core Argument

This theory posits a "turnkey conception" of the universe by analysis and 'deconstruction' of the above photo where:

* Dark Matter/Energy is the nuclear material found in the nuclei of Cyanobacteria and Diazotrophs.

* The combustion of organic matter (wood, nails, VOCs) releases this energy, acting as a "reverse engine" that shines light and thermal energy back toward the source Sun/Black Hole.

* This energy return happens via "quantum tubes" and Twistor Theory pathways (illustrated by dust devils and the firestorm), returning quarks to their "home stream" for "complimentary re-pairing."

* Noether's theorem and the S-matrix math are seen as providing the theoretical basis for this conservation of energy and the sorting of matter during combustion and phase transitions.

* Quasars are powerful examples of this process writ large: accretion disks (fueled by your dark matter/bacteria) convert mass into immense energy, driven by "immense friction on the incoming material" which powers galactic expansion and regeneration.

 

A Material-Logical Construct

This intricate model successfully creates a comprehensive, self-referencing philosophical system. It connects the micro-scale nitrogen cycle of bacteria on Earth to the macro-scale luminosity of distant quasars. It offers a single, coherent narrative that assigns a universal purpose to every process, from the compost heap to the farthest reaches of the universe.

 

Summary: A turnkey conception of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter and Energy as being the nuclear material contained in the nuclei of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria as illustrated by the above photo as a 'onion' of elements being pealed back in a reveal of the combustion cycles played out in a rolling thunderous flash-bang of wood, nails, and miscellaneous building materials being boiled by the reverse engine of the flames of the Sun shining back its light and thermal energy by means the powered illustration of the running of the gears of the Phase Transition sorting matter by means (Dark) Energy's bacterial born elements, coming again 'unglued' (quarks re-de-paired) in the combustion process that surrenders the atomic building blocks of same -- directly back over the long distance haul to comprise the essencial threads in the fabric of Hilbert space with all energy via material information ultimately being returning to said Sun and or Black Hole from which the quarks and atomic bits originally hail to complete the quark 'complimentary'* re-pairing by dint of being propelled by the combustion process of the resultant accretion disk/ 'dust devils'/twistor theory technologies as seen above 'in heat of night' of the fire storm that was the Burning of the Man in 2012.

 

As the lumber pile of the flaming Man was constructed by means the nuclear power of the bacterial processes by means so many atomic bonds forged from light and, dark energy which we see cycling back to its sources of the Sun/distant Star or other cosmic input to Earth in conjunction and propelled by a 'series of (quantum) tubes' which are the black hole we see above witnessed, and interpreted as the 'ashes to ashes and, dust to dust' of the atomic bonds are returned to sender of the respective Sun/Black hole from whence it came -- approximately driven in the nuclear manner of a salmon to swim home and spawn in the same (sweet) spot where it was born in the 'home stream', compelled by a singular guiding force and power of quark repair made possible; given the critical mass of atomic motivation as seems to be the case of the Salmon, as in most species is: the nuclear material of a chain reaction of Bacterial life as 'master and commander' of both the food and combustion chains by means of its growth function in conjunction with its role as the motor of infinite expanding, self powered Universe by the 20 something percent of the Universe the is Dark Matter and Energy captured and delivered as fuel from the Sun -- and in making the run to/fro do so compose the 'foam of space' as well as go to show how the speed of light is limited* as a function of the rate of expansion of the universe. That Dark Matter is the Nuclear Energy of the nucleus of bacterial life in the form of the 'three families' running of single celled life (and four types of quarks that in) producing the N20 gasses that enable all combustion in the process of making and breaking of the hydrogen and nitrogen bonds in a fractal math that both feeds back the energy in action reaction but goes forward in the process of growth, because there is no such thing as a vacuum. All space is busy doing the 'work' of going forward (expanding by means the biological 'economic activity' of the present), and (backward [against, and by means of the foam of space - in a quantum tunnel] to repair/restore (once paired) quarks, and re-power the sun by means of fresh helium and hydrogen bonds made new care of the Dark Energy of Bacteria and Life as we know it though the power of the food chain running against Black Hole technology in repair of quarks as seen above. The same re-paired quark power that 'run' the salmon's clockwork migration, back to a home stream from the ocean -- thus fueling the forests of the both the Atlantic and Pacific by means of the streams with their Nitrogen and making them greener, and brimming with more life, than the present moonscape we see in many parts of the West where the nitrogen cycle was altered by means of the linchpin of the nitrogen cycle coming off the axle of nature in the form big fish stopped spawning in large numbers when their runs came to a crawl.*

 

This line of logic leads me to surmise that the 'speed of light in a vacuum' arises from what is governed by the radiation contained in the 'foam of space' (comprised of the four flavors of quarks in repair of the past, explaining the power of the 'gas in the (proverbial) tank' of the present -- as Dark, Energetic and Organic so as to propel, expand, and provide for the future -- in the micro[wave radiation] and macro) gears which is my conception of the cogs of the expanding universal gearbox meshing in such cosmic perfection that there is a logical return of the energy that created the light factored into the equation to keep the lights on back on the home Star burning for the prescribed and observed Space Time and time again across the Universe -- thus providing enough data to perhaps resolving the Faint Young Star Paradox explaining how Stars are renewed over time and space via paradoxically Ross Perot's 'giant sucking sound' technology/meme of economic shrink to the south, explained on another level by Steven Hawking's Theory of Black Hole Radiation as illustrated above, by means of the past powering the present and the future at the rate of the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant ('giant suck' rate of -1) per the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_principle that both expands the Universe and binds matter together care of the physical gears of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_mass by means of the above mentioned phase transition.

 

If one follows 'the money' that feeds this economy, to and fro to get to the heart of what sets 'barnyard logic' to beating (as I did as a forward-reverse engineering check of my logic and facts in the macro and micro) so as to affirm my conclusion, that "dark energy and matter" is the gas of the compost heap as 'the fuel rods' of the microbiological 'breeder reactor', which accounts for the spinning of the wheels of the Nitrogen Cycle in and on a planet and solar system that predominates with that element, which in turn, keys the Carbon and Oxygen cycles by means the manufacture of the organic molecular bonds, that serve as vital cogs in the twin functions of the combustion and food chains that in time solve for X using particle physics, organic chemistry to see the possibility of the life of biology being able to supply the mechanical power to a world as key to a solar system that functioning as a quantum dynamic set of gears in a Galaxy in a expanding Universe which rate of inflation is our Gravity and does account for the standard lot of black holes, and Einstein Rings that are all organic in this model understood as the world we live to be part of a atomic forest of trees grown over space in time constructed of light as quarks in repair which constitutes the radiation which is measured as "The impedance of free space… approximately 376.7 ohms."^ which is the 'static frequency' of the "sea of time" as well the 'foam of space'; of quarks in complimentary repair of the past, while propelling the future forward at that Cosmological Constant.

 

I quote from the secondary source of: research, that confirms the raw math and inherent logic of this line of reasoning confirmed by the data stack drawn from the deep weeds of Wikipedia to back the raw math of my (abstract) thinking, that found and processed the following: " Nitrous oxide is emitted by bacteria in soils and oceans, and thus has been a part of Earth's atmosphere for millenia. ... Nitrous oxide reacts with ozone in the stratosphere. Nitrous oxide is the main naturally occurring regulator of stratospheric ozone. Nitrous oxide is a major greenhouse gas. Considered over a 100-year period, it has 310 times more impact per unit weight than carbon dioxide. Thus, despite its low concentration, nitrous oxide is the fourth largest contributor to these greenhouse gases. It ranks behind water vapor, carbon dioxide, and methane. Control of nitrous oxide is part of efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. " - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide .

 

In nature, nitrogen is fixed by means the power of the family of bacteria know as en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diazotroph

Therefore, Bacteria is vital cog in the gears of producing the biomass of any given hydrocarbon that burns in the above fire, at the party for a week in the Desert, and or runs the world economy.

 

Consequently to say that we as a species and to person are Bacteria powered and based is not too great a stretch in thinking from the micro to the macro of what I perceive are two Black Holes of the atomic remains of Burning Man 2012 comprised of non combustible Bacteria that are pumping N20 'laughing back' in a witches brewing tangle with non combusted VOC's aka en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatile_organic_compound 's with the Dark Matter/Energy being the Bacteria that makes combustion possible on a atomic level to matter at what juncture on the CNO cycles where one family of Bacteria that binds en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrus_oxide to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon , add the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyanobacteria to the Dark Matter list for its role in combustion at the atomic level, bring light to life as heat and the building blocks of the food chain where there is no waste whereby matter bound is form and released in Hydrogen bonds of demi-big bang being 'ripped' free and re broken to 'dribble out' and vent safely though a series of holes in the Earths ozone back up to the 'mother ship' of a Black Hole in the middle of the galaxy to be reprocessed into basic matter and new stars; imho, and according to my version of the General Unified Theory the remainder of the combusted Matter is spun off from the inferno in a Energy input = Energy output to/fro Earth over Space Time in visual form as a large pile of 'mass equivalence' goes 'up in smoke' c/o Bacteria* in concert with people and the Sun. There exists some tidy math for this light show to be sure; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twistor_Theory the math of which is 'light years' beyond me, but does suggest that the entire mass of the inferno factored in (as in all the elements in the blaze) which is better than a 'boards and nails' 'vision thing', that was my mistaken thinking up until I read the work of Witten, Penrose, and the late great; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_G._Wilson.

 

Further there is amazing math that goes direct to the rotation of this equation that I am just wrapping my head around (as it is circular) which is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem

 

Please to get to know: Emmy Noether, as well Roger Penrose whose 'Twister Theory Edward Witten proposed uniting with string theory' (- wikipedia Twistor Theory) - which makes perfect sense to me, as illustrated above as a expression of matter seen on the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_matrix as a expression of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-theory whereby matter is 'sorted' out on the spot by the light of the fire, (by and,) for the long trip "HOME" *.

  

Notes on vortex mixing and propulsion as a kick start "reverse thrust" engineering drawn from recent research; processed and now; thought out loud so as to go with the en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition in connecting the fairly bright dots of; "The large luminosity of quasars [which are] believed to be a result of gas being accreted by supermassive black holes. This process can convert about 10 percent of the mass of an object into energy as compared to around 0.5 percent for nuclear fusion processes." -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_disc Furthermore, following the material science logic, intuition and links we find that: "Quasars are believed to be powered by accretion of material into supermassive black holes in the nuclei of distant galaxies, making these luminous versions of the general class of objects known as active galaxies. Since light cannot escape the super massive black holes that are at the centre of quasars, the escaping energy is actually generated outside the event horizon by gravitational stresses and immense friction on the incoming material.[6] Large central masses (106 to 109 Solar masses) have been measured in quasars using reverberation mapping. Several dozen nearby large galaxies, with no sign of a quasar nucleus, have been shown to contain a similar central black hole in their nuclei, so it is thought that all large galaxies have one, but only a small fraction emit powerful radiation and so are seen as quasars. The matter accreting onto the black hole is unlikely to fall directly in, but will have some angular momentum around the black hole that will cause the matter to collect in an accretion disc. Quasars may also be ignited or re-ignited from normal galaxies when infused with a fresh source of matter."[6][7][8] en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasar. All very predictable but complicated at the same time, such that the reality agrees with the theory in every single instance, of thought experimentation -- I can conjure and as well very vividly illustrated above.

 

The roar of the above crowd (group mind-melding) in the foreground is also key to my conceptual thinking on the thinking about Dark Matter in the roll over notes over the crowd c/o the Scientific American and the dept. of 'go figure' and if you need drive thru metaphorical service to see these points as fast food for thought and or and or looking for 'the rest of the story' in my photo stream and adding subtext and 'roll over' notes to explain my Bacterial Dark Matter and Energy thoughts expressed as so much burgers, fuel, and fries for bacteriological fueled further thought ; www.flickr.com/photos/tremain_calm/8226556071/

 

That seeks in a ongoing random dynamic fixed focused attempt to comprehend the path of the energy of light from of Middle of Universe to the Outer, by means the 'mothership' of our fully functioning Cosmos propelled and geared by the micro to mesh with Cosmic regularity in the Macro as explained by this model by a going out on a limb of logic that is organic and understanding this process by which the metaphorical 'limb' grows, shrinks, and, burns to understand and be the first to complete the picture that explains the business of bending light that repairs quarks fueled by the past, thereby powering the present and hence expanding the Universe at the rate of the Cosmological constant by means Dark Matter and Energy expansion being organic does this thought seek to know itself by being pulled from then bounced off for 'dynamic balancing' by the 'group mind' so as to know itself better collectively by the checks and balancing power of trial by peer reviews frosty cold shoulder of skepticism of a autodidact polymath desert hermit researcher and landscaper being completely undaunted by the personal challenge of attempting to figuring the long list of Science Problems that hinge on the correct analysis of the identity and behavior of Dark Matter as Energy.

With these insight in hand and presented the rest of the problem solving is the applied research and analysis that is presented herein and below for the collective consideration.

 

End Notes, Nods, References, and, Further Reading;

 

* “His results were the first to prove that all life on earth was related.” Ergo, please 'get to know' the work of the late Carl Woese -- www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/science/carl-woese-dies-discov... and ponder and compute the organic chemical and Theoretical Physical, Climate, and Historical, implications of the above data points run through the right ringer that comprehends the implications of the math stemming from the following observations; “He put on the table a metric for determining evolutionary relatedness,” said Norman R. Pace, a microbiologist and biochemist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. “His results were the first to prove that all life on earth was related.” Thus discovering the atomic basis for how 'we are all connected' E.g.; www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGK84Poeynk

 

Further potential evidence of 'bugs' being the missing linkage in the'gearbox' puzzle where the reconciliation of the quantum dynamic and mechanic are also functions of organic dynamic process as the tree of life make the light that also blocks the road to the speed of light at a set rate by dint of quarks in repair that constitute the 'foam of space' which is the past powering the present and expanding the future once again as;

 

Scientists Unveil New ‘Tree of Life’

By CARL ZIMMER APRIL 11, 2016

nyti.ms/25UUNvj

www.nature.com/articles/nmicrobiol201648

 

* flic.kr/p/8zt3aQ -"The Speed of Lights Limits -- photo 'remix' by Dream 11"

  

*Burning Man 2011 'HOME' video by Stefan Spins : - ) E.g.

youtu.be/qQZo94p8ZgM

 

* www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/salmon-running-the-gaunt...

 

* See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niels_Bohr (interpretation of this idea at both the philosophic and physical underpinnings of this whole 'shebang' as being understood though his departed eyes, in 'light' of the this interpretation of Dark Matter to see the Light and Dark as being two sides of the same coin of the energetic relm, that makes up the foam of space, and expansion possible/vital to the Universe, Earths and, Solar System's functionality) "The notion of complementarity dominated his thinking on both science and philosophy." -- Wikipedia, Niels Borh.

 

Nod to and reference in passing to; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Archibald_Wheeler and, the idea of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam .

Recognition here of his coining the term "Black Hole", which is used in the title of this essay.

 

^ Charles I. Whose debt I am in and thank here for explaining the significance of the fixed impedance of 'free space' as it pertains to my 'shot in the dark', as to why there is a "The impedance of free space of approximately 376.7 ohms."

Otherwise the famous 'particle wave' would not exist or stand, very well without this insight that also holds and makes, and distributes the light and water of the reason of the logic of this argument; which is not with myself.

 

Nor is there any argument that this is a work in progress that needs to see professional editing to stop the headaches it causes getting to and making the points it attempts by way of rambling all over the micro and macro Universe by way of wikipedia, which is a fantastic evolving resource; however not a primary source in a major Scientific Research Paper, which this perhaps could be if it had the resources to follow the standard form factor, which is one goal, coupled with a musical and motion picture version to follow as versions of form completely expressed.

 

* Dennis Overbye, Louis Alvarez, and Brian Greene by means the pages of the New York Times.

 

* Wired Magazine and David Gross

www.wired.com/2013/06/qa-david-gross-physics/

 

*** The matter of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asymptotic_freedom --- which "was discovered and described in 1973 by Frank Wilczek and David Gross, and independently by David Politzer the same year. All three shared the Nobel Prize in physics in 2004."

 

My humble attempt has been to form a micro to macro full functional conception which Dr. Gross terms a 'line of reasoning' that is "logically consistent" so as to fit into a 'theoretical framework' and more or less solve the framework of nature over time and space in terms of expansion shrink combustion and spin by shooting a comprehensive scientific game that forms and runs the periodic table organically in "this game" - and in doing so share some sort of 'winning' articulated insight into the Grande Scheme of the macro to micro operating system of the Universe by means the Quantum Dynamic being reconciled with the Quantum Mechanic by means understood to be organic in nature and Universal.

 

The entire wired interview should be read, as it make sense of quarks of the larger picture that I am unable, - so cite -- as well this en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Gross entry on the 'tip of the spear' of thinking about such things, who has informed, directed, and shaped my reasoning by articulating clearly his views on this subject by means a illustrated lecture.

 

"Gross: Those of us in this game believe that it is possible to go pretty far out on a limb, if one is careful to be logically consistent within an existing theoretical framework. How far that method will succeed is an open question."

 

The big simple question is therefore:

does the above logic keep the checkbook of the nature of Nature in balance, and answer the basic set of questions regarding the Nature of light and matter.

 

Which might have a plausible trail in deep Space and Time by means the same 'line of logic' contained in these relevant points on the subject of Black Holes and Dark Matter as explained herein ; www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=dark-side-of-bl... and, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=single-cell-seq... the macro and micro to complete the puzzle of the organic nature of Dark Matter and Energy being the 'flip side' of the switch that is the power of light.

 

The self motivating mission of rising to take the bait so as to be the first 'fish' in this 'school' to meet the challenge of attempting to work the Big Science Problem Set to figure out the Unified Theory by means working the problem as if a huge cross word puzzle with the 'down' 'known with ontological certitude' as Scientific Fact - those wildly useful insights as answers and keys to leverage by means lateral thinking to fill in the 'across' information and thereby derive the fabric of nature by weaving data science intuition and experience to recursively random dynamically 'picture think' the the puzzle to completion by means having that as my fixed moving target so as to make completing the puzzle so -- then explaining it by pulling those same pieces of puzzle of reality that are part of a logical chain of logic that is completely informed by vetted information found and processed from the front to back of my mind at all times, so as to be "logically consistent" -- in a set of answers that provide solutions that advances and frames the macro micro perspective as a insight into my vocational and academic careers, so as to inform and direct my research to find answers where God does battle with the Devil in the details of the Natural World on Earth such the the fine grain detail can be sifted, discerned and made sense of in such a way that all computes at every level backwards and forwards in time, then my time has been well spent -- working the problem so as to connect the dots of the known with that of the what we seek to know by means of reading between the lines of logic as written clearly by Nature as I am reading them and attempting to write them for my own understanding and that of anyone else who is following this 'line of logic' as far as I can presently explain the workings which to my mind, power the expansion of the Universe while also atomically fueling the past by running the gears of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNO_cycle organically thus holding The Universe together, by means by the power of Hawking Radiation witnessed as the process of complimentary quarks in repair, forming the gears of the Universe running in the micro to the macro meshing for your consideration to produce a model of that can: -- produce the (re)power of Suns and in the process explain the mystery of the limit of the speed and curvature of light by means of understanding the atomic nature of the building blocks of the micro to macro Natural World that function to Operate the Universe in the past, present and future in a 'Quasi-steady state'.

 

The mechanisms for this function of light further identified and explained is the power of *XRAYS and GAMMA as being a method of combining storing and scattered matter -- as the last atoms -- over time and space as the yin/yang of the 'respective forces' as expressed and understood as the atomic energy of Gamma Rays - cycled balanced with the XRAY, as a series of inputs and outputs from Stars to solar systems in a process of quark repair that creates and 'fill the void' with matter and the arrow of time, by my logic which deduces from observation of the known and the need to fill cogs in the wheels of the Grand Scheme thereby showing myself and in the process others whose interests are in the world of the high energy theoretical physics how long lost pairs of quarks - split by Dark Energies random path through 'wondering' in the literal and proverbial/metaphorical/actual 'Desert' over time and space, are after a period of perceptual entropy, shot back to 'sender' aka the Sun = E = MC2 in a loop thus perhaps somehow resolving the Faint Young Star Paradox, with enough 'fuel' left over for growth though the conversion of the supply of Dark Matter to Dark Energy, before the process repeats; in another relatively 'Big Bang™' that is matter org. chart going through a periodic restructuring, to put it in corporate terms - for a long 'shot in the dark' in a attempt to 'bust' some 'fresh sod' regarding Dark Matter and Energy in the department of en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology by understanding Dark Matter and Energy as being as organic in Nature and therefore understand the connection and explanation of this situation by this train of thought going deep into 'outer space; as it were to bring the matter of the Gamma cycle in the further focus; nyti.ms/18zdIlp Gamma Rays May Be Clue on Dark Matter

By DENNIS OVERBYE

MARCH 10, 2015

 

There is much math for the above and it is boggling my mind as to a happy conclusion.

 

Updated; with mild regularity for clarity, content is constant, if not expanding as additional evidence only strengthens this case of logical points as dots at last connected to form a clear picture of a working theoretical model as illustrated and functioning as reality as in the above instance in Quantum Mechanical Dynamic Space Time.

 

Chuckling at the first sentence, "firewall problem" in light of the above photo essay, being a 'wall of fire' explained a entropy in action of Black Hole feeding frenzy illustrated -- metaphorically ripening on the shelf of this internet address until the such time as it smells, and grows like and old Desert Sage.

 

The EPR Paradox is getting some study so perhaps having it parked here for the past few years is good for the 'line of logic' as it brings this matter into a reasonable "frame of reference" as it were; www.quantamagazine.org/wormhole-entanglement-and-the-fire...

"No one is sure yet whether ER = EPR will solve the firewall problem. John Preskill, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, reminded readers of Quantum Frontiers, the blog for Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter, that sometimes physicists rely on their “sense of smell” to sniff out which theories have promise. “At first whiff,” he wrote, “ER = EPR may smell fresh and sweet, but it will have to ripen on the shelf for a while.”

Together with this set of insights that seem to be right on target as far as sorting matter by the above means; www.quantamagazine.org/20121221-alice-and-bob-meet-the-wa... as illustrated and explained above.

Note; no contradiction with this revised Hawking - Nature, expressed and recently published view of Black Holes as one where "Hawking's radical proposal is a much more benign “apparent horizon”, which only temporarily holds matter and energy prisoner before eventually releasing them, albeit in a more garbled form. ... “There is no escape from a black hole in classical theory, but quantum theory enables energy and information to escape.”" - www.nature.com/news/stephen-hawking-there-are-no-black-ho...

This holds with my above expressed cyclical expanding organic understanding of the Universe that includes micro and macro Black Holes reprocessing matter into so much fresh young 'Star power' in a semi or Quasi - Steady State Universe.

 

Final thoughts for 'Bonus Points': if the"Most Precise Snapshot of the Universe" www.sciencenews.org/article/most-precise-snapshot-univers... (Magazine issue: Vol. 186 No. 13, December 27, 2014), can be reconciled and correctly interpreted by means of the above point of view applied to the data so as to remove the mystery from this picture such that; "Planck may be able to rule out some theories about the nature of dark matter, which continues to evade direct detection."

 

Not in this interpretation, with the above explanation the micro to macro of Time and Space is becoming more focused in a expanding Universe perhaps, better understood, as more becomes known by research read and, comprehended - - because;

'Eureka

It’s Buggy Out There' nyti.ms/1MiMMGL

  

Edit -12/19/2025

Now available in research paper form factor; docs.google.com/document/d/1V3vgWbF71gVjVg9xLpuPuWlhsKdyh... with logical and mathematical I's dotted and t's crossed.

 

Jesse and Mike rent a hotel room for three hours in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Although Jesse has been attempting sobriety by living with her parents in upstate New York, she continues to relapse by coming to Manhattan and using.

 

When the lead mare and her mate disagree over when to stop grazing and head for the watering hole, an argument ensues. He postures and stomps his front feet. She rears up in angry defiance. Facing her straight-on, he is deeply infatuated with her elegant fury. Once her rage is quelled he approaches cautiously and with head cocked to the side, asks if she still loves him? #WildHorses #anthropomorphism

 

Quantum effects, the smoke and mirrors trick ….

 

Atheists would dearly love to debunk the Law of Cause and Effect, and all the other natural laws that are fatal to their ideology of naturalism.

(The atheist 'religion' of naturalism requires a NATURAL, first cause of the universe, which the Law of Cause and Effect and other natural laws definitively rule out as impossible).

 

Of course, they know they can never succeed, because by undermining the Law of Cause and Effect, they effectively undermine science itself. The Law of Cause and Effect is a fundamental principle of scientific research. The scientific method relies on seeking and discovering causes for EVERY natural event. The concept of an uncaused, natural event or entity is an anathema to genuine science.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said the Law of Cause and Effect is the "law of laws".

 

Although intelligent atheists are well aware that they can never debunk laws, which definitively rule out a natural origin of the universe as impossible - nevertheless, they attempt to give the impression, to the public, that a natural, first cause of everything is scientifically feasible, and that laws of nature are not a serious obstacle.

 

One way atheists try to convince the public to accept their naturalist ideology, is by proposing that the quantum world is very different from the world we see around us. And in that mysterious, quantum world virtually anything can occur, regardless of natural laws which generally describe what is possible in the universe.

This apparent air of mystery gives atheists carte blanche to propose various, bizarre, origin scenarios, which would normally be ruled out as impossible or as just crackpot fantasies.

If challenged, to scientifically justify such imaginative scenarios, they usually reply; ‘with quantum effects, no one knows what is possible’. In this way, opposition to any extraordinary hypothesis can be effectlively silenced. And to dispute, whatever origin scenario they choose to invent, may seem pointless.

 

However, it would be entirely wrong to accept this.

Science does not progress in a straightjacket, especially one imposed for ideological reasons. We are perfectly justified in rigorously challenging the idea that quantum mechanics or effects are a possible, natural answer to the origin of the universe. And that quantum effects can give credence to the belief that everything naturally arose from nothing, without an adequate cause, or purpose.

 

So, what is the truth?

We can state quite categorically that quantum effects cannot have anything to do with an origin of the universe from nothing.

Why?

It is common sense that something CANNOT come from nothing, and that EVERY natural occurrence needs an adequate cause. Micro or sub-atomic particles are not an exception. There are NO exceptions.

 

Atheist, Richard Dawkins tries to define 'nothing' as 'something'.

youtu.be/b6H9XirkhZY

 

The atheist mentality seems to be that, if something is deemed impossible, just propose it could happen; little-by-little, and it becomes plausible, especially to a credulous public.

Presumably, if you make it as small, make it sound as simple, and as less complex as you can, people will believe anything is possible.

This is a similar, little-by-little approach that atheists have applied to the origin of life, and it is precisely how they have managed to get most people to accept microbes-to-human evolution, through beneficial mutations.

However, we need to ask ...

What makes atheists think that it is easier for something to come from nothing if it is smaller or simpler?

Would it be easier, or more credible, for a grain of sand to come from nothing than for a boulder?

Of course, it wouldn’t - it makes no difference whatsoever.

Something cannot come from nothing - that is an irrefutable fact.

Size, or lack of complexity, doesn’t alter that.

 

It seems that atheist thinking is something like the following:

Although people may realise that you couldn’t get a grain of sand from nothing, any more than you could a boulder, what if we propose the something which came from nothing is the smallest thing imaginable?

What about the quantum world – how about a sub-atomic particle?

That could seem much more plausible.

What if we could even find such a particle - a sort of ‘god’ particle?

We could claim a supernatural, first cause (God) has been made redundant.

The first cause problem would be solved - apparently!

At least, people would believe that; even if the problem of everything coming from nothing, without a cause, hasn’t been solved completely, 'science' is well on the way to solving it.

If anyone suggests this is nonsense; that the first cause must an infinite Creator. We can accuse them of trying to fill gaps in 'scientific' knowledge with a god. The good old, the god-of-the-gaps argument.

Finally, if anyone is stubborn enough to insist that even a simple, sub-atomic particle can’t come from absolutely nothing, we can retort that the ‘nothing, we are referring to, is not the same ‘nothing’ that the scientifically illiterate think of as nothing, but ‘something’ which only appears to be nothing, i.e. space/time.

 

Physicist Michio Kaku wrote:

"In quantum physics, it was a Higgs-like particle that sparked the cosmic explosion [the Big Bang]. In other words, everything we see around us, including galaxies, stars, planets and us, owes its existence to the Higgs boson."

Kaku, M. The Spark That Caused the Big Bang. The Wall Street Journal. Posted on online.wsj.com July 5, 2012.

 

However, a so-called ‘God’ particle was always an OBVIOUS misnomer to anyone with any common sense, but militant atheists loved the idea, and predictably, the popular, secularist, media hacks also loved it.

What they either failed to realise (or deliberately failed to admit) is that, not only is it just as impossible for a particle (however small) to arise of its own volition from nothing as anything else, but also the smaller, simpler and less complex a proposed, first cause becomes, the more IMPOSSIBLE it is for it to be a first cause of the universe.

Why?

A simple, sub-atomic particle simply CANNOT be the first cause, it CANNOT replace God because, not only is it impossible for it to be uncaused, it is also clearly not adequate for the effect/result.

So, atheists, while trying to fool people into thinking that it is easier for something to come from nothing if it is simple and microscopic, have shot themselves in the foot....

The little-by-little approach, which they apply to the origin of life and progressive evolution, also doesn’t work for the origin of the universe.

 

FACT!

An effect CANNOT be greater than its cause (the Law of Cause and Effect).

The very first cause of the universe, as well as not being a contingent entity, cannot be something simpler or less complex than everything that follows it, which is the sum total of the universe.

The first cause of the universe MUST be adequate to produce the universe in its entirely and complexity - and that means EVERY property and quality it contains, including: information, life, intelligence, consciousness, design, love, justice, etc. etc.

 

Always remember this very important, and common sense, fact:

Something cannot give what it doesn't possess.

Sub-atomic particles or quantum effects are OBVIOUSLY not up to the job, they are definitely NOT an adequate cause of the universe. And, neither are any of the other natural, origin scenarios proposed by atheists. They all fail in this regard.

 

What about the atheist claim that, because quantum effects appear to behave randomly, they could also be uncaused?

Quantum effects, may appear random and uncaused, but they are definitely not uncaused. Even if their direct cause is difficult to determine, they are part of a CAUSED physical universe.

The idea that anything within a CAUSED universe can be causeless is ridiculous.

As for a direct cause of quantum effects, it can be compared to the randomness of a number coming up from throwing a dice. It may appear random and without a direct cause, but it isn’t. Because if we knew all the complicated and variable factors involved – such as the exact orientation of the dice as it leaves the hand, the velocity of the throw and the amount of spin etc., we could predict the number in advance. So just because, in some instances, causes are too incredibly complex to accurately predict the result, doesn’t mean there are ever no causes.

So, atheists are flogging a dead horse by thinking they can replace God with quantum mechanics, which may be interesting phenomenon, but the one thing it is certain they are not, is a first cause of the universe.

To give the impression to the public that they could be, is just a smoke and mirrors trick deliberately intended to deceive.

 

The 'God particle', Wikipedia …

“And since the Higgs Boson deals with how matter was formed at the time of the big bang, and since newspapers loved the term, the term “God particle" was used.

While media use of this term may have contributed to wider awareness and interest many scientists feel the name is inappropriate since it is sensational hyperbole and misleads readers, the particle also has nothing to do with God, leaves open numerous questions in fundamental physics, and does not explain the ultimate origin of the universe."

 

Why are laws of nature so important in this debate?

Laws of nature are both descriptive and prescriptive.

Laws of nature describe the behaviour, operation, potential and LIMITATIONS of natural things based on their inherent properties. They enable us to make predictions based on those properties. The only way that laws of nature could ever be invalid is, if the inherent properties of natural things they apply to, are changed.

The insurmountable problem for atheists is that, although they might try to invent fantasy scenarios where the properties of nature are different, and therefore not subject to most established laws. There is no possible, fantasy scenario which can negate the law of cause and effect. The law which is most fatal to atheist naturalism is the very law that cannot possibly be negated, under any circumstances.

Why?

Because the law of cause and effect is in a unique category, different from all other laws of nature. It is not just a fundamental principle of science, it can also be regarded as the premier law of the universe and creation, because it applies to ALL temporal things, not just nature or natural entities. It doesn’t matter what different properties natural things may have, they can never evade the law of cause and effect. It isn't based on the properties of things, it doesn't depend on any particular properties, only on a temporal character, nothing more.

And that is a FACT, which cannot be denied.

The ONLY exception to the first part of this law – every effect must have a cause – is that which is not temporal (that which has no beginning), i.e. INFINITE, not subject to time (time is a chronology of temporal/temporary events).

The second part of this law – an effect cannot be greater than its cause/s – applies to everything that exists, even to an infinite entity. An infinite entity cannot cause an effect greater than itself.

Thus, the law of cause and effect definitively rules out ALL natural or temporal entities as a possible, first cause.

The first cause of everything natural/temporal, MUST BE a single, infinite (uncaused, eternally self-existent and omnipresent), entirely autonomous, supernatural cause which is greater, in every respect, than everything else that exists (which it has caused).

That is the first cause we call the Creator or God.

 

What about a singularity?

Is a 'Singularity' the first cause of everything, as some atheists maintain?

A singularity (meaning single event) is described by atheists as a one-off event where the laws of nature didn't apply.

A natural event, not subject to laws of nature, used to be called – magic! Until, atheists started calling it ‘science’.

 

Quote:

"This is that the classical theory, does not enable one to calculate what would come out of a singularity, because all the Laws of Physics would break down there." Stephen Hawking, The Beginning of Time.

 

However, even if you want to believe in the fantasy of a 'singularity', it makes no difference to the fact that a natural cause of the universe is impossible.

A singularity doesn't negate the law of cause and effect, because, as I have already explained, that law pertains to ALL temporal entities. And it always applies, even if the laws of physics don't apply.

 

Conclusion:

It doesn't matter what natural, origin scenarios are proposed, none of them can ever qualify as the first cause of the universe. An origin of the universe by purely, natural processes is ruled out as IMPOSSIBLE.

 

The Bible rightly tells us to worship and honour the Creator, and not to worship the created.

Pagans honour and worship the created by crediting nature/material entities with godlike powers.

Atheists honour the created, rather than the Creator, because they elevate the effects (nature, matter/energy) to a godlike status and deny their cause.

The new, atheist naturalism nonsense is simply the old, pagan naturalism nonsense re-invented.

____________________________________________

 

Dr James Tour - 'The Origin of Life' - Abiogenesis decisively refuted.

youtu.be/B1E4QMn2mxk

 

FOUNDATIONS OF SCIENCE

The Law of Cause and Effect. Dominant Principle of Classical Physics. David L. Bergman and Glen C. Collins

www.thewarfareismental.net/b/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/b...

 

"The Big Bang's Failed Predictions and Failures to Predict: (Updated Aug 3, 2017.) As documented below, trust in the big bang's predictive ability has been misplaced when compared to the actual astronomical observations that were made, in large part, in hopes of affirming the theory."

kgov.com/big-bang-predictions

IF, THEN, AND THE ATHEIST DILEMMA.

All scientific theories are based on ‘if’ and ‘then’. The proposition being; IF such a thing is so, THEN we can expect certain effects to be evident.

 

For example: there are only two competing alternatives for the origin/first cause of everything.

A natural, first cause, OR a supernatural, first cause.

Atheists believe in a natural, first cause.

Theists believe in a supernatural, first cause.

 

IF the first cause is natural, THEN progressive evolution of the universe (cosmos) and life are deemed to be expected, even essential.

Conversely, IF the first cause is supernatural, THEN an evolutionary scenario of the cosmos and/or life is not required, not probable, but not impossible.

In other words, while evolution, and an enormous, time frame are perceived as absolutely essential for atheist naturalism, theism could (perhaps reluctantly) accept evolution and/or a long, time frame as possible in a creation scenario.

Crucially, if the evidence doesn’t stack up for cosmic evolution, biological evolution, and a long evolutionary time frame, atheist naturalism is perceived to fail.

 

For atheism, evolution is an Achilles heel. Atheists have an ideological commitment to a natural origin of everything from nothing - which, if it were possible, would essentially require both cosmic and biological evolution and a vast timescale.

Consequently, atheist scientists can never be genuinely objective in assessing evidence. Only theist scientists can be truly objective.

 

However, the primary Achilles heel for atheist naturalism is its starting proposition.

Because the ‘IF’ proposal of a natural, first cause, is fatally flawed, the subsequent ‘THEN’ is a non sequitur.

The atheist ‘IF’ (a natural, first cause) is logically impossible according to the laws of nature, because all natural entities are contingent, temporal and temporary.

In other words:

All natural entities depend on an adequate cause.

All natural entities have a beginning.

And all natural entities are subject to entropy.

Whereas a first cause MUST be non-contingent, infinite and eternal.

 

But, just suppose we ignore this insurmountable obstacle and, for the sake of argument, assume that the ‘THEN’ which follows from the atheist ‘IF’ proposition of a natural, first cause is worth considering.

We realise that both cosmic and biological evolution are still not possible as NATURAL occurrences.

The law of cause and effect tells us that whatever caused the universe (whether it evolved or not) could not be inferior, in any way, to the sum total of the universe.

An effect cannot be greater than its cause.

So, we know that cosmic evolution from nothing could not happen naturally.

That traps atheists in an impossible, catch 22 situation, by supporting cosmic evolution, they are supporting something which could not happen naturally, according to natural laws.

 

It doesn’t get any better with biological evolution, in fact it gets worse. The Law of Biogenesis (which has never been falsified) rules out the spontaneous generation of life from sterile matter. Atheists choose to ignore this firmly established law and have, perversely, invented their own law (abiogenesis), which says the exact opposite. However, their cynical disregard for laws of nature, ironically, fails to solve their problem.

Crucially ...

An origin of life, arising of its own volition from sterile matter, conditions permitting (abiogenesis), would require an inherent predisposition/potential of matter to automatically develop life.

The atheist dilemma here is; where does such an inherent predisposition to automatically produce life come from? In a purposeless universe, which arose from nothing, how could matter have acquired such a potential or property?

A predisposed potential for spontaneous generation of life would require a purposeful creation (some sort of blueprint/plan for life intrinsic to matter). So, by advocating abiogenesis, atheists are unintentionally supporting a purposeful creation.

 

Following on from that, we also realise that abiogenesis requires an initial input of constructive, genetic information. Information Theory tells us; there is no NATURAL means by which such information can arise of its own accord in matter.

Then there is the problem of the law of entropy (which derives from the Second Law of Thermodynamics). How can abiogenesis defy that law? The only way that order can increase is by an input of guided energy. Raw energy has the opposite effect. What could possibly direct or guide the energy to counter the natural effects of entropy?

 

Dr James Tour - 'The Origin of Life'

youtu.be/B1E4QMn2mxk

 

Suppose we are stupid enough to ignore all this and we carry on speculating further by proposing a progressive, microbes-to-human evolution (Darwinism).

Starting with the limited, genetic information in the first cell (which originated how, and from where? nobody knows). The only method of increasing that original information is through a long, incremental series of beneficial mutations (genetic, copying MISTAKES). Natural selection cannot produce new information, it simply selects from existing information.

Proposing mistakes as a mechanism for improvement is not sensible. In fact, it is completely bonkers. Billions of such beneficial mutations would be required to transform microbes into humans and every other living thing.

Once again, it would need help from a purposeful creator.

 

So, we can conclude that the atheist ‘IF’, of a natural, first cause, is not only a non-starter, but also every ‘THEN’, which would essentially arise from that proposal, ironically supports the theist ‘IF’.

Consequently ...

If you don't believe in cosmic evolution you (obviously) support a creator.

If you do believe in cosmic evolution you (perhaps unintentionally) also support a creator.

And...

If you don’t believe in abiogenesis and biological evolution, you (obviously) support a creator.

If you do believe in abiogenesis and biological evolution you (perhaps unintentionally) also support a creator.

 

Conclusion:

The inevitable and amazing conclusion is that everyone (intentionally or unintentionally) supports the existence of a creator, whatever scenario they propose for the origin of the universe.

No one can devise an origin scenario for the universe that doesn’t require a Creator. That is a fact, whether you like it or not!

The Bible correctly declares:

Only the fool in his heart says there is no God.

 

Theists have no ideological need to be dogmatic. Unlike atheists, they can assess all the available scientific evidence objectively. Because a long timescale, and even an evolutionary scenario, in no way disproves a creator. In fact, as I have already explained, a creator would still be essential to enable: cosmic evolution, the origin of life, and microbes-to-human evolution. Whereas, both a long timescale and biological evolution are deemed essential to (but are no evidence for) the beliefs of atheist naturalism.

 

Atheist scientists are hamstrung by their own preconceptions.

It is impossible for atheists to be objective regarding any evidence. They are forced by their own ideological commitment to make dogmatic assumptions. It is unthinkable that atheists would even consider any interpretation of the evidence, other than that which they perceive (albeit erroneously) to support naturalism. They force science into a straitjacket of their own making.

 

All scientific hypotheses/theories about past events, that no one witnessed, rely on assumptions. None can be claimed as FACT.

The biggest assumption of all, and one that is logically and scientifically unsustainable, is the idea of a natural, first cause. If this is your starting assumption, then everything that follows is flawed.

The new atheist nonsense, is simply the old, pagan nonsense of naturalism in a new guise.

 

Dr James Tour - 'The Origin of Life' - Abiogenesis decisively refuted.

youtu.be/B1E4QMn2mxk

  

The poison in our midst - progressive politics.

www.flickr.com/photos/truth-in-science/47971464278

In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle is a carved or formed grotesque[1]: 6–8  with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry walls and eroding the mortar between. Architects often used multiple gargoyles on a building to divide the flow of rainwater off the roof to minimize potential damage from rainstorms. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth. Gargoyles are usually elongated fantastical animals because their length determines how far water is directed from the wall. When Gothic flying buttresses were used, aqueducts were sometimes cut into the buttress to divert water over the aisle walls.

 

The term gargoyle is most often applied to medieval work, but throughout all ages, some means of water diversion, when not conveyed in gutters, was adopted. In ancient Egyptian architecture, gargoyles showed little variation, typically in the form of a lion's head. Similar lion-mouthed water spouts were also seen on Greek temples, carved or modelled in the marble or terracotta cymatium of the cornice.[14] An excellent example of this are the 39 remaining lion-headed water spouts on the Temple of Zeus. Originally, it had 102 gargoyles or spouts, but due to the heavy weight (they were crafted from marble), many snapped off and had to be replaced.

 

Many medieval cathedrals included gargoyles and chimeras. According to French architect and author Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, himself one of the great producers of gargoyles in the 19th century,[18] the earliest known medieval gargoyles appear on Laon Cathedral (c. 1200–1220). One of the more famous examples is the gargoyles of Notre-Dame de Paris. Although most have grotesque features, the term gargoyle has come to include all types of images. Some gargoyles were depicted as monks, or combinations of real animals and people, many of which were humorous. Unusual animal mixtures, or chimeras, did not act as rainspouts and are more properly called grotesques. They serve as ornamentation but are now popularly called gargoyles.

 

Both ornamented and unornamented waterspouts projecting from roofs at parapet level were a common device used to shed rainwater from buildings until the early 18th century. From that time, more and more buildings used drainpipes to carry the water from the guttering roof to the ground and only very few buildings using gargoyles were constructed. This was because some people found them frightening, and sometimes heavy ones fell off, causing damage. In 1724, the London Building Act passed by the Parliament of Great Britain made the use of downpipes compulsory in all new construction.

 

Langley Moor is an old pit village in County Durham, England. It is located approximately 2 miles south-west of Durham City. Langley Moor is within the civil parish of Brandon and Byshottles which is itself within the City of Durham constituency, as of 2019 represented by Mary Foy MP.

 

The village consists of a large park, three pubs, three schools, a church and an industrial estate.

 

Holliday Park (previously Bents Park, known locally as Boyne Park after Lord Boyne) is located to the north of the village, and was renovated in 2016 with a new children's play area. [1] The park also provides access to the River Browney which runs through it. The park was donated to the public by local alderman and philanthropist Martin Forster Holliday (1848-1935), [2] who was the manager and agent for three North Brancepeth Coal Company collieries (Broompark, Boyne and Littleburn - the latter two being in the village) from 1884 until 1922.

 

The three pubs in the village are The Station, The New Cross (formerly The Langley Moor Hotel, as of 2022 currently closed) and The Lord Boyne Hotel. Historically, the village had two inns, the Littleburn Hotel, two more pubs, two cinemas, a working men's club (now residential flats), a post office, a bank and Salvation Army barracks.

 

The East Coast Main Line, one of Britain's arterial rail links, runs directly through the village over the high street.

 

Langley Moor is also home to two supermarkets, a Tesco Metro (formerly Safeway, Somerfield) and Lidl.

 

The village is located on the A690 approximately 2 miles south-west of Durham and approximately 15 miles south of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

 

The Brandon - Bishop Auckland Railway Path is a rail trail stretching nine-miles of scenic woodland which follows the route of the former Durham to Bishop Auckland Line and runs through Langley Moor.

 

There are three schools in Langley Moor, two primary schools and one nursery school:

Langley Moor Nursery School

Langley Moor Primary School (formerly North Brancepeth Council Mixed, Langley Moor Junior Mixed and Infants' School)

St. Patrick's R.C. Primary School

 

The church, St. Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, is located on the border with Meadowfield, which opened on 8th October 1911. The estimated cost of the church was £3,000 (which equals £376,523.30 as of May 2022).

 

Historically, Langley Moor had a methodist church, a Wesleyan church, a baptist church and a United Methodist church.

 

Littleburn Industrial Estate is home to Harrison & Harrison organ builders, who have been involved with organs in cathedrals and churches across the globe.

 

Boyne Colliery opened in approximately 1864 under the ownership of W. Mickle and James Snowball, coal was struck the following year. It was sold to the North Brancepeth Coal Company in the 1880s, under the management of John L. Morland from 1880 until 1884. That same year Martin F. Holliday became agent and manager of the colliery until it closed at some point after 1890.

 

Littleburn Colliery (also known as North Brancepeth Colliery)

Littleburn Colliery opened in approximately 1840, it had a handful of owners including North Brancepeth Coal Company, who bought the colliery in the 1880s. In 1925, at its peak, the pit employed 779 people. The colliery mined coal throughout its operational life. Martin F. Holliday became agent of the colliery in 1909 until his retirement in 1922. Littleburn Colliery closed in December 1950.

 

County Durham, officially simply Durham is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington, and the county town is the city of Durham.

 

The county has an area of 2,721 km2 (1,051 sq mi) and a population of 866,846. The latter is concentrated in the east; the south-east is part of the Teesside built-up area, which extends into North Yorkshire. After Darlington (92,363), the largest settlements are Hartlepool (88,855), Stockton-on-Tees (82,729), and Durham (48,069). For local government purposes the county comprises three unitary authority areas—County Durham, Darlington, and Hartlepool—and part of a fourth, Stockton-on-Tees. The county historically included the part of Tyne and Wear south of the River Tyne, and excluded the part of County Durham south of the River Tees.

 

The west of the county contains part of the North Pennines uplands, a national landscape. The hills are the source of the rivers Tees and Wear, which flow east and form the valleys of Teesdale and Weardale respectively. The east of the county is flatter, and contains by rolling hills through which the two rivers meander; the Tees forms the boundary with North Yorkshire in its lower reaches, and the Wear exits the county near Chester-le-Street in the north-east. The county's coast is a site of special scientific interest characterised by tall limestone and dolomite cliffs.

 

What is now County Durham was on the border of Roman Britain, and contains survivals of this era at sites such as Binchester Roman Fort. In the Anglo-Saxon period the region was part of the Kingdom of Northumbria. In 995 the city of Durham was founded by monks seeking a place safe from Viking raids to house the relics of St Cuthbert. Durham Cathedral was rebuilt after the Norman Conquest, and together with Durham Castle is now a World Heritage Site. By the late Middle Ages the county was governed semi-independently by the bishops of Durham and was also a buffer zone between England and Scotland. County Durham became heavily industrialised in the nineteenth century, when many collieries opened on the Durham coalfield. The Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, opened in 1825. Most collieries closed during the last quarter of the twentieth century, but the county's coal mining heritage is remembered in the annual Durham Miners' Gala.

 

Remains of Prehistoric Durham include a number of Neolithic earthworks.

 

The Crawley Edge Cairns and Heathery Burn Cave are Bronze Age sites. Maiden Castle, Durham is an Iron Age site.

 

Brigantia, the land of the Brigantes, is said to have included what is now County Durham.

 

There are archaeological remains of Roman Durham. Dere Street and Cade's Road run through what is now County Durham. There were Roman forts at Concangis (Chester-le-Street), Lavatrae (Bowes), Longovicium (Lanchester), Piercebridge (Morbium), Vindomora (Ebchester) and Vinovium (Binchester). (The Roman fort at Arbeia (South Shields) is within the former boundaries of County Durham.) A Romanised farmstead has been excavated at Old Durham.

 

Remains of the Anglo-Saxon period include a number of sculpted stones and sundials, the Legs Cross, the Rey Cross and St Cuthbert's coffin.

 

Around AD 547, an Angle named Ida founded the kingdom of Bernicia after spotting the defensive potential of a large rock at Bamburgh, upon which many a fortification was thenceforth built. Ida was able to forge, hold and consolidate the kingdom; although the native British tried to take back their land, the Angles triumphed and the kingdom endured.

 

In AD 604, Ida's grandson Æthelfrith forcibly merged Bernicia (ruled from Bamburgh) and Deira (ruled from York, which was known as Eforwic at the time) to create the Kingdom of Northumbria. In time, the realm was expanded, primarily through warfare and conquest; at its height, the kingdom stretched from the River Humber (from which the kingdom drew its name) to the Forth. Eventually, factional fighting and the rejuvenated strength of neighbouring kingdoms, most notably Mercia, led to Northumbria's decline. The arrival of the Vikings hastened this decline, and the Scandinavian raiders eventually claimed the Deiran part of the kingdom in AD 867 (which became Jórvík). The land that would become County Durham now sat on the border with the Great Heathen Army, a border which today still (albeit with some adjustments over the years) forms the boundaries between Yorkshire and County Durham.

 

Despite their success south of the river Tees, the Vikings never fully conquered the Bernician part of Northumbria, despite the many raids they had carried out on the kingdom. However, Viking control over the Danelaw, the central belt of Anglo-Saxon territory, resulted in Northumbria becoming isolated from the rest of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Scots invasions in the north pushed the kingdom's northern boundary back to the River Tweed, and the kingdom found itself reduced to a dependent earldom, its boundaries very close to those of modern-day Northumberland and County Durham. The kingdom was annexed into England in AD 954.

 

In AD 995, St Cuthbert's community, who had been transporting Cuthbert's remains around, partly in an attempt to avoid them falling into the hands of Viking raiders, settled at Dunholm (Durham) on a site that was defensively favourable due to the horseshoe-like path of the River Wear. St Cuthbert's remains were placed in a shrine in the White Church, which was originally a wooden structure but was eventually fortified into a stone building.

 

Once the City of Durham had been founded, the Bishops of Durham gradually acquired the lands that would become County Durham. Bishop Aldhun began this process by procuring land in the Tees and Wear valleys, including Norton, Stockton, Escomb and Aucklandshire in 1018. In 1031, King Canute gave Staindrop to the Bishops. This territory continued to expand, and was eventually given the status of a liberty. Under the control of the Bishops of Durham, the land had various names: the "Liberty of Durham", "Liberty of St Cuthbert's Land" "the lands of St Cuthbert between Tyne and Tees" or "the Liberty of Haliwerfolc" (holy Wear folk).

 

The bishops' special jurisdiction rested on claims that King Ecgfrith of Northumbria had granted a substantial territory to St Cuthbert on his election to the see of Lindisfarne in 684. In about 883 a cathedral housing the saint's remains was established at Chester-le-Street and Guthfrith, King of York granted the community of St Cuthbert the area between the Tyne and the Wear, before the community reached its final destination in 995, in Durham.

 

Following the Norman invasion, the administrative machinery of government extended only slowly into northern England. Northumberland's first recorded Sheriff was Gilebert from 1076 until 1080 and a 12th-century record records Durham regarded as within the shire. However the bishops disputed the authority of the sheriff of Northumberland and his officials, despite the second sheriff for example being the reputed slayer of Malcolm Canmore, King of Scots. The crown regarded Durham as falling within Northumberland until the late thirteenth century.

 

Following the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror appointed Copsig as Earl of Northumbria, thereby bringing what would become County Durham under Copsig's control. Copsig was, just a few weeks later, killed in Newburn. Having already being previously offended by the appointment of a non-Northumbrian as Bishop of Durham in 1042, the people of the region became increasingly rebellious. In response, in January 1069, William despatched a large Norman army, under the command of Robert de Comines, to Durham City. The army, believed to consist of 700 cavalry (about one-third of the number of Norman knights who had participated in the Battle of Hastings), entered the city, whereupon they were attacked, and defeated, by a Northumbrian assault force. The Northumbrians wiped out the entire Norman army, including Comines, all except for one survivor, who was allowed to take the news of this defeat back.

 

Following the Norman slaughter at the hands of the Northumbrians, resistance to Norman rule spread throughout Northern England, including a similar uprising in York. William The Conqueror subsequently (and successfully) attempted to halt the northern rebellions by unleashing the notorious Harrying of the North (1069–1070). Because William's main focus during the harrying was on Yorkshire, County Durham was largely spared the Harrying.

 

Anglo-Norman Durham refers to the Anglo-Norman period, during which Durham Cathedral was built.

 

Matters regarding the bishopric of Durham came to a head in 1293 when the bishop and his steward failed to attend proceedings of quo warranto held by the justices of Northumberland. The bishop's case went before parliament, where he stated that Durham lay outside the bounds of any English shire and that "from time immemorial it had been widely known that the sheriff of Northumberland was not sheriff of Durham nor entered within that liberty as sheriff. . . nor made there proclamations or attachments". The arguments appear to have prevailed, as by the fourteenth century Durham was accepted as a liberty which received royal mandates direct. In effect it was a private shire, with the bishop appointing his own sheriff. The area eventually became known as the "County Palatine of Durham".

 

Sadberge was a liberty, sometimes referred to as a county, within Northumberland. In 1189 it was purchased for the see but continued with a separate sheriff, coroner and court of pleas. In the 14th century Sadberge was included in Stockton ward and was itself divided into two wards. The division into the four wards of Chester-le-Street, Darlington, Easington and Stockton existed in the 13th century, each ward having its own coroner and a three-weekly court corresponding to the hundred court. The diocese was divided into the archdeaconries of Durham and Northumberland. The former is mentioned in 1072, and in 1291 included the deaneries of Chester-le-Street, Auckland, Lanchester and Darlington.

 

The term palatinus is applied to the bishop in 1293, and from the 13th century onwards the bishops frequently claimed the same rights in their lands as the king enjoyed in his kingdom.

 

The historic boundaries of County Durham included a main body covering the catchment of the Pennines in the west, the River Tees in the south, the North Sea in the east and the Rivers Tyne and Derwent in the north. The county palatinate also had a number of liberties: the Bedlingtonshire, Islandshire and Norhamshire exclaves within Northumberland, and the Craikshire exclave within the North Riding of Yorkshire. In 1831 the county covered an area of 679,530 acres (2,750.0 km2) and had a population of 253,910. These exclaves were included as part of the county for parliamentary electoral purposes until 1832, and for judicial and local-government purposes until the coming into force of the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, which merged most remaining exclaves with their surrounding county. The boundaries of the county proper remained in use for administrative and ceremonial purposes until the Local Government Act 1972.

 

Boldon Book (1183 or 1184) is a polyptichum for the Bishopric of Durham.

 

Until the 15th century, the most important administrative officer in the Palatinate was the steward. Other officers included the sheriff, the coroners, the Chamberlain and the chancellor. The palatine exchequer originated in the 12th century. The palatine assembly represented the whole county, and dealt chiefly with fiscal questions. The bishop's council, consisting of the clergy, the sheriff and the barons, regulated judicial affairs, and later produced the Chancery and the courts of Admiralty and Marshalsea.

 

The prior of Durham ranked first among the bishop's barons. He had his own court, and almost exclusive jurisdiction over his men. A UNESCO site describes the role of the Prince-Bishops in Durham, the "buffer state between England and Scotland":

 

From 1075, the Bishop of Durham became a Prince-Bishop, with the right to raise an army, mint his own coins, and levy taxes. As long as he remained loyal to the king of England, he could govern as a virtually autonomous ruler, reaping the revenue from his territory, but also remaining mindful of his role of protecting England’s northern frontier.

 

A report states that the Bishops also had the authority to appoint judges and barons and to offer pardons.

 

There were ten palatinate barons in the 12th century, most importantly the Hyltons of Hylton Castle, the Bulmers of Brancepeth, the Conyers of Sockburne, the Hansards of Evenwood, and the Lumleys of Lumley Castle. The Nevilles owned large estates in the county. John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby rebuilt Raby Castle, their principal seat, in 1377.

 

Edward I's quo warranto proceedings of 1293 showed twelve lords enjoying more or less extensive franchises under the bishop. The repeated efforts of the Crown to check the powers of the palatinate bishops culminated in 1536 in the Act of Resumption, which deprived the bishop of the power to pardon offences against the law or to appoint judicial officers. Moreover, indictments and legal processes were in future to run in the name of the king, and offences to be described as against the peace of the king, rather than that of the bishop. In 1596 restrictions were imposed on the powers of the chancery, and in 1646 the palatinate was formally abolished. It was revived, however, after the Restoration, and continued with much the same power until 5 July 1836, when the Durham (County Palatine) Act 1836 provided that the palatine jurisdiction should in future be vested in the Crown.

 

During the 15th-century Wars of the Roses, Henry VI passed through Durham. On the outbreak of the Great Rebellion in 1642 Durham inclined to support the cause of Parliament, and in 1640 the high sheriff of the palatinate guaranteed to supply the Scottish army with provisions during their stay in the county. In 1642 the Earl of Newcastle formed the western counties into an association for the King's service, but in 1644 the palatinate was again overrun by a Scottish army, and after the Battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644) fell entirely into the hands of Parliament.

 

In 1614, a Bill was introduced in Parliament for securing representation to the county and city of Durham and the borough of Barnard Castle. The bishop strongly opposed the proposal as an infringement of his palatinate rights, and the county was first summoned to return members to Parliament in 1654. After the Restoration of 1660 the county and city returned two members each. In the wake of the Reform Act of 1832 the county returned two members for two divisions, and the boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland acquired representation. The bishops lost their secular powers in 1836. The boroughs of Darlington, Stockton and Hartlepool returned one member each from 1868 until the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.

 

The Municipal Corporations Act 1835 reformed the municipal boroughs of Durham, Stockton on Tees and Sunderland. In 1875, Jarrow was incorporated as a municipal borough, as was West Hartlepool in 1887. At a county level, the Local Government Act 1888 reorganised local government throughout England and Wales. Most of the county came under control of the newly formed Durham County Council in an area known as an administrative county. Not included were the county boroughs of Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland. However, for purposes other than local government, the administrative county of Durham and the county boroughs continued to form a single county to which the Crown appointed a Lord Lieutenant of Durham.

 

Over its existence, the administrative county lost territory, both to the existing county boroughs, and because two municipal boroughs became county boroughs: West Hartlepool in 1902 and Darlington in 1915. The county boundary with the North Riding of Yorkshire was adjusted in 1967: that part of the town of Barnard Castle historically in Yorkshire was added to County Durham, while the administrative county ceded the portion of the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees in Durham to the North Riding. In 1968, following the recommendation of the Local Government Commission, Billingham was transferred to the County Borough of Teesside, in the North Riding. In 1971, the population of the county—including all associated county boroughs (an area of 2,570 km2 (990 sq mi))—was 1,409,633, with a population outside the county boroughs of 814,396.

 

In 1974, the Local Government Act 1972 abolished the administrative county and the county boroughs, reconstituting County Durham as a non-metropolitan county. The reconstituted County Durham lost territory to the north-east (around Gateshead, South Shields and Sunderland) to Tyne and Wear and to the south-east (around Hartlepool) to Cleveland. At the same time it gained the former area of Startforth Rural District from the North Riding of Yorkshire. The area of the Lord Lieutenancy of Durham was also adjusted by the Act to coincide with the non-metropolitan county (which occupied 3,019 km2 (1,166 sq mi) in 1981).

 

In 1996, as part of 1990s UK local government reform by Lieutenancies Act 1997, Cleveland was abolished. Its districts were reconstituted as unitary authorities. Hartlepool and Stockton-on-Tees (north Tees) were returned to the county for the purposes of Lord Lieutenancy. Darlington also became a third unitary authority of the county. The Royal Mail abandoned the use of postal counties altogether, permitted but not mandatory being at a writer wishes.

 

As part of the 2009 structural changes to local government in England initiated by the Department for Communities and Local Government, the seven district councils within the County Council area were abolished. The County Council assumed their functions and became the fourth unitary authority. Changes came into effect on 1 April 2009.

 

On 15 April 2014, North East Combined Authority was established under the Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Act 2009 with powers over economic development and regeneration. In November 2018, Newcastle City Council, North Tyneside Borough Council, and Northumberland County Council left the authority. These later formed the North of Tyne Combined Authority.

 

In May 2021, four parish councils of the villages of Elwick, Hart, Dalton Piercy and Greatham all issued individual votes of no confidence in Hartlepool Borough Council, and expressed their desire to join the County Durham district.

 

In October 2021, County Durham was shortlisted for the UK City of Culture 2025. In May 2022, it lost to Bradford.

 

Eighteenth century Durham saw the appearance of dissent in the county and the Durham Ox. The county did not assist the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715. The Statue of Neptune in the City of Durham was erected in 1729.

 

A number of disasters happened in Nineteenth century Durham. The Felling mine disasters happened in 1812, 1813, 1821 and 1847. The Philadelphia train accident happened in 1815. In 1854, there was a great fire in Gateshead. One of the West Stanley Pit disasters happened in 1882. The Victoria Hall disaster happened in 1883.

 

One of the West Stanley Pit disasters happened in 1909. The Darlington rail crash happened in 1928. The Battle of Stockton happened in 1933. The Browney rail crash happened in 1946.

 

The First Treaty of Durham was made at Durham in 1136. The Second Treaty of Durham was made at Durham in 1139.

 

The county regiment was the Durham Light Infantry, which replaced, in particular, the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and the Militia and Volunteers of County Durham.

 

RAF Greatham, RAF Middleton St George and RAF Usworth were located in County Durham.

 

David I, the King of Scotland, invaded the county in 1136, and ravaged much of the county 1138. In 17 October 1346, the Battle of Neville's Cross was fought at Neville's Cross, near the city of Durham. On 16 December 1914, during the First World War, there was a raid on Hartlepool by the Imperial German Navy.

 

Chroniclers connected with Durham include the Bede, Symeon of Durham, Geoffrey of Coldingham and Robert de Graystanes.

 

County Durham has long been associated with coal mining, from medieval times up to the late 20th century. The Durham Coalfield covered a large area of the county, from Bishop Auckland, to Consett, to the River Tyne and below the North Sea, thereby providing a significant expanse of territory from which this rich mineral resource could be extracted.

 

King Stephen possessed a mine in Durham, which he granted to Bishop Pudsey, and in the same century colliers are mentioned at Coundon, Bishopwearmouth and Sedgefield. Cockfield Fell was one of the earliest Landsale collieries in Durham. Edward III issued an order allowing coal dug at Newcastle to be taken across the Tyne, and Richard II granted to the inhabitants of Durham licence to export the produce of the mines, without paying dues to the corporation of Newcastle. The majority was transported from the Port of Sunderland complex, which was constructed in the 1850s.

 

Among other early industries, lead-mining was carried on in the western part of the county, and mustard was extensively cultivated. Gateshead had a considerable tanning trade and shipbuilding was undertaken at Jarrow, and at Sunderland, which became the largest shipbuilding town in the world – constructing a third of Britain's tonnage.[citation needed]

 

The county's modern-era economic history was facilitated significantly by the growth of the mining industry during the nineteenth century. At the industry's height, in the early 20th century, over 170,000 coal miners were employed, and they mined 58,700,000 tons of coal in 1913 alone. As a result, a large number of colliery villages were built throughout the county as the industrial revolution gathered pace.

 

The railway industry was also a major employer during the industrial revolution, with railways being built throughout the county, such as The Tanfield Railway, The Clarence Railway and The Stockton and Darlington Railway. The growth of this industry occurred alongside the coal industry, as the railways provided a fast, efficient means to move coal from the mines to the ports and provided the fuel for the locomotives. The great railway pioneers Timothy Hackworth, Edward Pease, George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson were all actively involved with developing the railways in tandem with County Durham's coal mining industry. Shildon and Darlington became thriving 'railway towns' and experienced significant growths in population and prosperity; before the railways, just over 100 people lived in Shildon but, by the 1890s, the town was home to around 8,000 people, with Shildon Shops employing almost 3000 people at its height.

 

However, by the 1930s, the coal mining industry began to diminish and, by the mid-twentieth century, the pits were closing at an increasing rate. In 1951, the Durham County Development Plan highlighted a number of colliery villages, such as Blackhouse, as 'Category D' settlements, in which future development would be prohibited, property would be acquired and demolished, and the population moved to new housing, such as that being built in Newton Aycliffe. Likewise, the railway industry also began to decline, and was significantly brought to a fraction of its former self by the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. Darlington Works closed in 1966 and Shildon Shops followed suit in 1984. The county's last deep mines, at Easington, Vane Tempest, Wearmouth and Westoe, closed in 1993.

 

Postal Rates from 1801 were charged depending on the distance from London. Durham was allocated the code 263 the approximate mileage from London. From about 1811, a datestamp appeared on letters showing the date the letter was posted. In 1844 a new system was introduced and Durham was allocated the code 267. This system was replaced in 1840 when the first postage stamps were introduced.

 

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1911): "To the Anglo-Saxon period are to be referred portions of the churches of Monk Wearmouth (Sunderland), Jarrow, Escomb near Bishop Auckland, and numerous sculptured crosses, two of which are in situ at Aycliffe. . . . The Decorated and Perpendicular periods are very scantily represented, on account, as is supposed, of the incessant wars between England and Scotland in the 14th and 15th centuries. The principal monastic remains, besides those surrounding Durham cathedral, are those of its subordinate house or "cell," Finchale Priory, beautifully situated by the Wear. The most interesting castles are those of Durham, Raby, Brancepeth and Barnard. There are ruins of castelets or peel-towers at Dalden, Ludworth and Langley Dale. The hospitals of Sherburn, Greatham and Kepyer, founded by early bishops of Durham, retain but few ancient features."

 

The best remains of the Norman period include Durham Cathedral and Durham Castle, and several parish churches, such as St Laurence Church in Pittington. The Early English period has left the eastern portion of the cathedral, the churches of Darlington, Hartlepool, and St Andrew, Auckland, Sedgefield, and portions of a few other churches.

 

'Durham Castle and Cathedral' is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site. Elsewhere in the County there is Auckland Castle.

The story you're about to read is based on a real event. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Locations have been changed to protect the curious.

  

The three friends sat at the roadside diner table, simultaneously yawning.

 

"Okay, that's it," announced Erebus. "I'm going to be the voice of reason and say we throw in the towel for the night."

 

"C'mon it's -- only -- sixty-ish mi-- miles," Teddi's argument devolved into another huge yawn. "Yeah, okay, I'll find a campground."

 

"No, no, no," Seth complained. "Not out here, in the middle of banjoland nowhere. That never works out for us."

 

"It's not like we're going to find a Hilton, honey," Teddi commiserated.

 

A redhead in the booth behind them piped up. "Maybe not a Hilton, but there's a little place about two miles up Highway 2 that's not bad." She left her booth, coming around to the end of their table. "It's cheap, but it's clean. My sister, Bonnie works the front desk." She pointed at the name plate on her waitress uniform. "I'm Connie. You tell her I sent you and told her to give you the best rooms she's got." She gave them a big smile and a little wave. "Be safe out there." Then she left the diner.

 

"We can just grab a campsite and crash for a few hours then head out again," Erebus reasoned.

 

"But showers, and big beds, and cable--"

 

"Oh, my," Teddi interrupted Seth's whine.

 

"Meanie," Seth pouted.

 

"No, I was talking about the nearest campground. We should definitely check it out! Look!" Teddi enthused, holding out her phone toward the guys. "It's by a lake, and it looks super clean, and there's a museum!" Her eyes twinkled.

 

"One of those little roadside attraction things?" asked Erebus, taking her phone and flipping through the images. "That could be fun."

 

"Save me from quaint--" Seth began.

 

"But Seth's right. Let's grab a place where we can shower and fall asleep watching reruns," Erebus interrupted, handing the phone back to Teddi.

 

"Two against one, and the lady pays for dinner," Seth celebrated.

 

"Boys suck," Teddi pouted, leaving the table to pay at the cash register.

 

"Some do, some don't," Seth agreed, smiling at Erebus. "So, why did Daddy vote my way?"

 

"I'm not your daddy, and I saw what kind of museum it has," Erebus replied, lowering his voice. "It's for Native American artifacts."

 

Seth frowned. "You have a problem with Native American artifacts?" He gasped comically, and his eyebrows raised. "Daddy, are you racist?"

 

Erebus eyed him with a helter-skelter stare. "The artifacts are from the area," he explained. "Because there's a legend that there was an Indian burial ground somewhere by the lake."

 

"I promise to be a good boy for the rest of the night," Seth promised, crossing his heart. "You're my hero."

 

"You're making him soft," Teddi complained, hearing the last thing Seth said, as she returned to the table. "Let's go get the two of you tucked into your comfy hotel rooms. I sure hope they have courtesy blow dryers for you." She sauntered away and the two men followed, smiling.

 

Only a few minutes later, Seth exclaimed, "There's the sign!" He pointed to the right side of the dark road and Erebus slowed the car, turning off the road.

 

"Why isn't the sign on?" Erebus wondered. "I almost missed it."

 

"They might have forgotten," Teddi suggested. "Sometime you think you do a thing, but you didn't do a thing. We can let them know when we check in."

 

"Oh, well this isn't too bad," Seth observed, as they rolled into the sparsely occupied lot of a small, but tidy, single story hotel. "Looks like they might have a lighting issue in general," he joked, pointing at the sign over the office that said, HIGHWAY 2 HOTEL, but the O and T were burned out.

 

After parking at the office, they exited the car, stretching. "Just get two rooms," Erebus called after Teddi, who was bouncing toward the office. "We need to save money."

 

In reply, without looking back, Teddi waved two fingers above her head to indicate she heard him. The office turned out to be more brightly lighted than it appeared from outside, due to the blinds being closed, and Teddi was glancing around the clean little space when a redhead came out of the back office.

 

"Connie?" she questioned, surprised.

 

The redhead beamed as Erebus and Seth entered the office. "Hello. No, my name is, Bonnie, but it sounds like you met my twin sister. And from the way you're all looking at me, I'm betting she didn't tell you we're twins." She laughed lightly. "I don't know if she does that because she doesn't think it matters, or she likes playing jokes on folks."

 

"You're right, she didn't tell us," Erebus agreed.

 

"Connie said we should mention that she sent us--" Seth began.

 

"And I'm supposed to give you the best rooms I've got, right?" Bonnie laughed again. "Well, all the rooms are identical so I guess they're all the best I've got. The good thing about that is, they're all pretty nice." She pointed at an open register. "Go ahead and sign in. How many rooms do you need?"

 

"Two," Erebus told her, and Teddi held up two fingers.

 

Each of them took turns signing in. "And who gets the keys?" Bonnie asked.

 

"One for me, and one for them," Teddi chirped.

 

"Here you go," Bonnie slid a key to Teddi and one to Seth. "Now comes the tricky part, I hope you nice folks carry cash or checks, because our machine is down. Some kind of weird power problem in the area.

 

"Oh, I was going to mention, your road sign is off," Teddi told her, looking in her wallet for cash.

 

"It's on," Bonnie said. "It's just the power glitch. Boyd, down at Public Works, said they'd see about it tomorrow. Probably got all the customers I'm going to get tonight, anyway."

 

After paying Bonnie with communal cash, the trio bid her good night and parked the car in front of the room where Teddi was staying, the guys had the room right next door. They all looked inside Teddi's room and the consensus was that it was spartan, but clean, and just fine for an overnighter. They agreed upon a time to hit the road, parting company for the night.

 

Teddi showered (briefly noting there was no bathroom door and assuming that, since it was a single room, who was going to be embarrassed), changed into a t-shirt and gym shorts, settling in to watch late night talk shows until she fell asleep, grinning now and then at the comical banter of the guys, in their room. She hoped they didn't annoy the other people occupying rooms on the opposite side of theirs. As things quieted down and Teddi settled back to sleep, something disturbing happened.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

She opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

She turned her head, looking at the dark rectangle of the bathroom doorway.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip.

 

She sighed, getting up and slipping on her flip flops, going into the bathroom to check on the leak.

 

Drip. Drip. Drip. It was in the shower, the tile walls amplifying the sound. She fiddled with knobs, the shower head, and nearly asked Erebus to come take a look, but the silence from their room suggested they were already asleep. She finally folded the towel she'd used into a thick square, setting it under where the drops were landing. The drips became plips and she was satisfied they wouldn't wake her. She went back to bed.

 

Splat. Splat. Splat.

 

Teddi woke and glanced at her phone. It was just past midnight. She'd dozed off during a late show, and for some reason, the TV was off. She fiddled with the remote, but it wouldn't turn on. She sighed and got up, going into the bathroom.

 

Splat. Splat. Splat. The towel in the shower was completely waterlogged, the drops raining into a towel swamp. Splat. Splat. Splat.

 

"You win," she told the shower, changing into sweatpants and a sweatshirt, taking one of the pillows, her phone, and her purse, and going out to the car. She quietly got into the back seat, closing the door so that it made the faintest click, locked it, then made herself comfortable for the night.

 

Whispering. The sound of shoes on concrete.

 

Teddi woke up, reaching down to her phone, on the floorboards, poking it and seeing it was nearly two A.M. What had wakened her? Then she heard it, whispers, and footsteps clearly trying to be sneaky. The only reason she'd heard them was because her windows were cracked to prevent the glass from fogging up, revealing the car had an occupant. She slowly raised her head from the pillow, looking out the side windows then catching movement between the car and her hotel room door.

 

Bonnie was standing outside the door whispering with two large men. Each man carried a duffel bag, and one held out a fat manila envelope to Bonnie. She took the envelope then used a master key to unlock the door to the room where Teddi was supposed to be sleeping, walking away!

 

Peeking over the back seat, Teddi watched the men enter her room, and a moment later they hurried out, chasing down Bonnie, whispering loudly to her while she tried to quiet them. Teddi heard part of what Bonnie told the men.

 

"--must be with those guys," as she gestured toward the room shared by Erebus and Seth.

 

The men seemed aggravated, and the trio went into Bonnie's office.

 

Teddi turned off the interior light of the car before cautiously opening a door, slipping out, leaving it ajar, and sneaking to the room where Erebus and Seth slept. She tapped on the door, getting no response. She texted Seth, Bad men here. We need to RUN! And after a moment she heard Whitney Houston, inside the room, belt out, "And Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii eeIiiiii will always love youuuuu!"

 

"Are you serious?" came Erebus' sleepy, annoyed voice. "Put that thing on vibrate!"

 

"It's from Teddi," Seth told him, clearly yawning.

 

Teddi began frantically tapping on the door again, trying to keep it quiet enough not to alert Bonnie, or the men with her.

 

"What's it say -- who's at the door? Where are you going?" Erebus' questions followed what was happening inside the room and Seth suddenly yanked open the door, Teddi shoving him back inside, closing and locking the door behind her.

 

"Look at my face! No time to explain. Grab your stuff and we need to run!" she told them.

 

Nearly an hour later, huddled together in an office in the nearest small town, the three friends sipped coffee, watching as officers passed the window, glancing in at them, talking, dispersing, returning, and finally the sheriff entered the room.

 

"Well, we believe your story," he said to Teddi.

 

"Did you get them?" she asked.

 

"No, there was nobody there when we got there," he told her. They had a generator hooked up for the lights, and they were stealing cable, that's why you had TV to watch, but there were only two rooms set up for tourists.

 

"But, all the cars," Seth remarked.

 

"Yeah, we're running the plates," said the sheriff. "None of the other rooms were occupied."

 

"What about Bonnie, and her sister, Connie, the waitress from the diner?" asked Erebus.

 

"Sorry, but that diner's run by Jim and Cathy Nelson, nice folks," the sheriff told Erebus. Cathy remembers a redhead dropping in now and then, dressed like a waitress, and just figured she worked in town and stopped in on her way to or from work. Never regular enough to get familiar with her, y'know."

 

"So, she and her sister set us up for -- what? A robbery?" Seth suggested.

 

"I don't think there were two women," the sheriff said. "I think this one woman, whatever her name really is, pretended to be Connie, then Bonnie. You were set up, but I don't think it was for robbery," he didn't finish, glancing at Teddi.

 

"Oh, my god! You think they were going to kidnap Mommy?" exclaimed Seth.

 

"Mommy?" the sheriff asked.

 

"Inside joke," said Erebus, slipping an arm around Teddi's shoulders.

 

"They went to Ms. Beres' room, probably paid to go in --" the sheriff broke off. "I don't know what they planned, but it's a good thing you weren't in there when they showed up," he told Teddi. "The three of you can go. We've got your information. I'll be in touch, when we have anything to tell you."

 

After the sheriff left, Teddi looked at Erebus. "I guess that sign was right after all."

 

"What?" asked Erebus.

 

"With the burned out O and T...that made it the HWY 2 HEL." They all looked around at each other.

  

Time passed, the redhead and the men were never found. The cars belonged to people who'd been reported missing, but no one ever found their bodies.

So, be careful out there. And if someone suggests a nice place to stay, just off the main highway, have another cup of coffee, and keep driving.

 

(Thank you to Bailey for making me look cute, and scared, and thank you to Erebus and Seth for helping me with the horror.)

Taken at Teddi Towne, where summer is truly endless. Tourists are welcome.

maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Hawaiian%20Islands/196/236/21

I will give a few arguments ✅ FOR.

📍Photography increases self-esteem, helps to gain self-confidence, psychologically unload, overcome complexes and tightness

📍Thanks to the pictures, a person learns to feel himself both internally and from the outside, photography allows you to show yourself and your individuality

📍There are moments that will never happen again: a wedding, the birth of children, graduation… How nice it will be to remember the vivid emotions from these events years later

📍If you are advertising a brand or product, then a photo is the main tool for attracting attention

⠀

📣 What other advantages are there?

Write comments, add to the list.

⠀

#photoshootmoscow #newyearsphotoshootmoscow #fotografnameropriytie #fotodenmoscow #NikonD800 #safronoviv_photo

Olivia Bradley - a girl of much debate throughout the modelling world and its people. Olivia burst onto the scene when she was picked to be in the Final 16 girls in Sun Wei Park's Bratz Next Top Model Cycle 1. There, she fought her way through a tough competition to try and become Bratz Next Top Model. But then, she was eliminated in Week 3 and a very public argument broke out. But what really happened? Here, Olivia spills all exclusively to 'POLLY' Magazine...

 

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POLLY: Hey Olivia! We're so thrilled that you agreed to do an exclusive interview and photoshoot with us. So, many people know you best from being in Sun Wei's Bratz Next Top Model Cycle 1. You got into the Final 16. What did you think of the other model's in the competition?

~

Olivia: "I thought the other models in the house were very talented and beautiful!! But I'm not gonna lie, I definitely believe I have more potential than some of the remaining contestants."

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POLLY: As we all know, you were eliminated in Week 3. Everyone at POLLY magazine was shocked that you were eliminated as we all saw you as a strong model and competitor in the competition. What were your first thoughts about your elimination?

 

Olivia: "My firsts thoughts were, "Wow, really? Whatever!" Honestly, I wasn't that upset. It was clear that the judging was crazy and my work just wasn't being appreciated."

 

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POLLY: In all honest opinion, did you think you were the right girl to have gone home?

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Olivia: "No, I don't. I'm not trying to say that the girl who was in the bottom two with me should have gone home either. I think my photo was better than multiple contestants. Something just seemed off..."

  

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POLLY: Another thing that you have been known for is getting into a very open-audience fight with Sun Wei about your elimination. Can you explain to us what the fight was fully about?

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Olivia: "Well, I think it all started back in week one. In week one I did not agree with a call out order and I said something about it. Sun Wei replied with an answer that didn't make much sense to me. I just left it that by saying "Whatever". Next thing I know, I'm told I have a bad attitude in week two. And in week three- i was eliminated. I'm not gonna lie, it seemed more personal than logical. Once again I brought the issue up and Sun Wei said "I was making her look bad". First off, if a host is confident in an elimination, than they shouldn't be worried about looking bad. Then she told me to privately address her, Um what? Anything I have to say can be said in front of all of the contestants, and the fact that she didn't want it that way- shows she had something to hide. At the end of the day, I was still eliminated. But that just made me stronger than ever and proud that I stood up for myself."

 

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POLLY: If you could go back in time and change anything about any of your photo's, what would you change? If anything?

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Olivia: "Nothing really, I put in my best effort and that just wasn't good enough for Princess Sun Wei."

 

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POLLY: Lets talk about the other fellow models, which girls were you close to in the Model House and which girls were you the least closest too?

~

Olivia: "Honestly, I didn't really talk with many. I didn't have anything against any of them, none of them were too friendly. But I did love Camden because she had my back before and after the elimination."

 

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POLLY: Which remaining model would you like to win the competition?

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Olivia: "I think Sonny has a lot of potential and I'd love to see her go far!!!"

 

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POLLY: What's next for you? Are you planning to continue modelling and entering more competitions? When will we see you next?

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Olivia: "I definitely will continue modeling. I am going to help out host Btyler96's BRATZ NEXT TOP MODEL CYCLE 3 VETS vs. ROOKIES. But what I really want to do is join a fair contest with a host who appreciates my work."

 

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POLLY: Your POLLY Winter photoshots were gorgeous! What do you enjoy most about being in front of the camera modelling?

~

Olivia: "Thank you so much! What I really love about being in front of the camera is that I can express myself inside and out!!"

 

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POLLY: Finally, what are your plans for Christmas this year? Will you be staying in with family? Friends? or maybe something completely different?

~

Olivia: "I'm going to be visiting my mothers family in France for Christmas! It should be a blast!!!"

 

POLLY: "Thank You for chatting with us Olivia!"

 

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Watch out for Olivia as I'm sure you'll be seeing a lot more of her over the next coming months!

 

“Better than any argument is to rise at dawn and pick dew-wet red berries in a cup.”

~Wendell Berry

  

For my Flickr groups, friends, contacts…

 

Western South Dakota is home to incredible sights like the Badlands and the Needles of the Black Hills, but nothing “sticks out” quite like Mount Rushmore National Memorial. This giant monument celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2016. In honor of this milestone, here are 75 facts about the sculpture that has captured the imaginations of so many.

 

1. The idea of creating a sculpture in the Black Hills was dreamed up in 1923 by South Dakota historian Doane Robinson. He wanted to find a way to attract tourists to the state.

 

2. It worked. Mount Rushmore is now visited by nearly 3 million people annually.

 

3. Robinson initially wanted to sculpt the likenesses of Western heroes like Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud, explorers Lewis and Clark, and Buffalo Bill Cody into the nearby stone pinnacles known as the Needles.

 

4. Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum was enlisted to help with the project. At the time, he was working on the massive carving at Stone Mountain in Georgia, but by his own account said the model was flawed and the monument wouldn’t stand the test of time. He was looking for a way out when South Dakota called.

 

5. Borglum, a good friend of the French sculptor Auguste Rodin, dreamed of something bigger than the Needles. He wanted something that would draw people from around the world. He wanted to carve a mountain.

 

6. Besides, the Needles site was deemed too narrow for sculpting, and the mountain had better exposure to the sun.

 

7. Borglum and his son, Lincoln, thought the monument should have a national focus and decided that four presidents should be carved.

 

8. The presidents were chosen for their significant contribution to the founding, expansion, preservation and unification of the country.

 

9. George Washington (1789-1797) was chosen because he was our nation’s founding father.

 

10. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was chosen to represent expansion, because he was the president who signed the Louisiana Purchase and authored the Declaration of Independence.

 

11. Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) was chosen because he represented conservation and the industrial blossoming of the nation.

 

12. Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was chosen because he led the country through the Civil War and believed in preserving the nation at any cost.

 

13. The mountain that Borglum chose to carve was known to the Lakota as the “Six Grandfathers.”

 

14. It had also been known as Cougar Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, Slaughterhouse Mountain and Keystone Cliffs, depending who you asked.

 

15. The mountain’s official name came from a New York lawyer who was surveying gold claims in the area in 1885.

 

16. Charles E. Rushmore asked his guide, William Challis, “What’s the name of that mountain?” Challis is said to have replied, “It’s never had one…till now…we’ll call the damn thing Rushmore.”

 

17. In 1930, the United States Board on Geographic Names officially recognized it as Mount Rushmore.

 

18. The carving of Mount Rushmore began in 1927 and finished in 1941.

 

19. The actual carving was done by a team of over 400 men.

 

20. Remarkably, no one died during construction.

 

21. The men who worked on the mountain were miners who had come to the Black Hills looking for gold.

 

22. Although they weren’t artists, they did know how to use dynamite and jackhammers.

 

23. The Borglums did hire one artist, Korczak Ziolkowski, to work as an assistant on the mountain. But after 19 days and a heated argument with Lincoln Borglum, Ziolkowski left the project. He would later begin another mountain carving nearby, Crazy Horse Memorial, which today is the world’s largest mountain sculpture in progress.

 

24. Mount Rushmore once had an amateur baseball team.

 

25. Because Gutzon and Lincoln Borglum were so competitive, they would often hire young men for their baseball skills rather than their carving and drilling skills.

 

26. In 1939, the Rushmore Memorial team took second place at the South Dakota amateur baseball tournament.

 

27. The image of the sculpture was mapped onto the mountain using an intricate “pointing machine” designed by Borglum.

 

28. It was based on a 1:12 scale model of the final sculpture.

 

29. 90% of the mountain was carved with dynamite, and more than 450,000 tons of rock was removed.

 

30. Afterwards, fine carving was done to create a surface about as smooth as a concrete sidewalk.

 

31. The drillers and finishers were lowered down the 500-foot face of the mountain in bosun chairs held by 3/8-inch-thick steel cables.

 

32. Workers at the top of the mountain would hand crank a winch to raise and lower the drillers.

 

33. If they went too fast, the person in the bosun chair would be dragged up the mountain on their face.

 

34. Young boys (known as call boys) were hired to sit on the side of the mountain to shout messages back and forth to the operators to speed up or slow down.

 

35. Each president’s face is 60 feet high.

 

36. The faces appear in the order: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, Lincoln.

 

37. Jefferson was originally intended to be on Washington’s right.

 

38. After nearly two years of work on Jefferson, the rock was found to be unsuitable and the partially completed face was “erased” from the mountainside using dynamite.

 

39. Washington’s face was completed in 1934.

 

40. Jefferson’s in 1936.

 

41. Lincoln was finished in 1937.

 

42. In 1937, a bill was introduced to Congress to add the image of women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony to the mountain.

 

43. Congress then passed a bill requiring only the heads that had already been started be completed.

 

44. In 1938, Gutzon Borglum secretly began blasting a Hall of Records in the mountain behind the heads.

 

45. The Hall of Records was meant to be a vault containing the history of the nation and vital documents like the Constitution.

 

46. Congress found out about the project and demanded Borglum use the federal funding for the faces, not the Hall of Records.

 

47. Gutzon reluctantly stopped working on the hall in 1939, but vowed to complete it.

 

48. That same year, the last face — of Theodore Roosevelt — was completed.

 

49. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum died in March of 1941, leaving the completion of the monument to his son Lincoln.

 

50. The carving was originally meant to include the bodies of the presidents down to their waists.

 

51. A massive panel with 8-foot-tall gilded letters commemorating famous territorial acquisitions of the U.S. was also originally intended.

 

52. Funding ran out and the monument was declared complete on October 31, 1941.

 

53. Overall, the project cost $989,992.32 and took 14 years to finish.

 

54. It’s estimated only 6 years included actual carving, while 8.5 years were consumed with delays due to weather and lack of funds.

 

55. Charles E. Rushmore donated $5,000 toward the sculpting of the mountain that bore his name.

 

56. In 1998, Borglum’s vision for the Hall of Records was realized when porcelain tablets containing images and text from the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and biographies of the presidents and Borglum himself were sealed in a vault inside the unfinished hall.

 

57. The Hall of Records played a role in the plot of the 2007 movie National Treasure: Book of Secrets, starring Nicolas Cage.

 

58. Visitor facilities have been added over the years, including a visitor center, the Lincoln Borglum Museum and the Presidential Trail.

 

59. The Lincoln Borglum Museum features multimedia exhibits that let you use an old-style explosives plunger to recreate dynamite blasting the face of the mountain.

 

60. You can also visit the Sculptor’s Studio, where Gutzon Borglum worked on scale models of Mount Rushmore.

 

61. The Grand View Terrace — one of the best places from which to see Mount Rushmore — is located just above the museum.

 

62. The Grand View Terrace is at the end of the Avenue of Flags; it has flags from all 50 states, one district, three territories and two commonwealths of the United States of America.

 

63. The Presidential Trail is a 0.5-mile walking trail that offers up-close and different views of each face.

 

64. If you start the trail from the Sculptor’s Studio, you’ll have to climb 422 stairs. Enter the trail from the Grand View Terrace and you’ll have an easier time of it.

 

63. Rushmore’s resident mountain goats are descendants of a herd that was gifted to Custer State Park by Canada in 1924.

 

64. They evidently escaped (naughty goats!).

 

67. From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, Ben Black Elk, a famous Lakota holy man, personally greeted visitors to Mount Rushmore.

 

68. Every night, Mount Rushmore gets illuminated for two hours.

 

69. Since illumination can impact the natural environment (think lost moths, among other things), a new high-tech LED lighting system was installed in 2015 to minimize the negative effects of lighting Mount Rushmore.

 

70. Some believe you can see an elephant, or at least the stone face of an elephant, if you look to the right of Lincoln. Others believe if you look at a picture of the mountain rotated 90 degrees, you can see another face.

 

71. Mount Rushmore is granite, which erodes roughly 1 inch every 10,000 years.

 

72. Since each of the noses is about 240 inches long, they might last up to 2.4 million years before they completely wear away.

 

73. After about 500,000 years, the faces will likely have lost some of their definition. But at this rate the basic shape of the presidents’ heads might last up to 7 million years.

 

74. Numerous things are being done to preserve Mount Rushmore. This has included installing 8,000 feet of camouflaged copper wire in 1998 to help monitor 144 hairline cracks. The copper wire was replaced with fiber optic cable in 2009.

 

75. So far preservation efforts have been successful, with Mount Rushmore celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2016 — all four noses, chins and foreheads (as well as all 8 eyes, nostrils, lips and ears) intact!

 

Mount Rushmore National Memorial is centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota: Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dakota. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum created the sculpture's design and oversaw the project's execution from 1927 to 1941 with the help of his son, Lincoln Borglum. The sculpture features the 60-foot-tall (18 m) heads of four United States Presidents recommended by Borglum: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865). The four presidents were chosen to represent the nation's birth, growth, development and preservation, respectively. The memorial park covers 1,278 acres (2.00 sq mi; 5.17 km2) and the actual mountain has an elevation of 5,725 feet (1,745 m) above sea level.

 

The sculptor and tribal representatives settled on Mount Rushmore, which also has the advantage of facing southeast for maximum sun exposure. Doane Robinson wanted it to feature American West heroes, such as Lewis and Clark, their expedition guide Sacagawea, Oglala Lakota chief Red Cloud,[9] Buffalo Bill Cody, and Oglala Lakota chief Crazy Horse. Borglum believed that the sculpture should have broader appeal and chose the four presidents.

 

Peter Norbeck, U.S. senator from South Dakota, sponsored the project and secured federal funding. Construction began in 1927; the presidents' faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. After Gutzon Borglum died in March 1941, his son Lincoln took over as leader of the construction project. Each president was originally to be depicted from head to waist, but lack of funding forced construction to end on October 31, 1941.

 

Sometimes referred to as the "Shrine of Democracy", Mount Rushmore attracts more than two million visitors annually.

 

Mount Rushmore was conceived with the intention of creating a site to lure tourists, representing "not only the wild grandeur of its local geography but also the triumph of western civilization over that geography through its anthropomorphic representation." Though for the latest occupants of the land at the time, the Lakota Sioux, as well as other tribes, the monument in their view "came to epitomize the loss of their sacred lands and the injustices they've suffered under the U.S. government." Under the Treaty of 1868, the U.S. government promised the territory, including the entirety of the Black Hills, to the Sioux "so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase." After the discovery of gold on the land, American settlers migrated to the area in the 1870s. The federal government then forced the Sioux to relinquish the Black Hills portion of their reservation.

 

The four presidential faces were said to be carved into the granite with the intention of symbolizing "an accomplishment born, planned, and created in the minds and by the hands of Americans for Americans".

 

Mount Rushmore is known to the Lakota Sioux as "The Six Grandfathers" (Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe) or "Cougar Mountain" (Igmútȟaŋka Pahá); but American settlers knew it variously as Cougar Mountain, Sugarloaf Mountain, Slaughterhouse Mountain and Keystone Cliffs. As Six Grandfathers, the mountain was on the route that Lakota leader Black Elk took in a spiritual journey that culminated at Black Elk Peak. Following a series of military campaigns from 1876 to 1878, the United States asserted control over the area, a claim that is still disputed on the basis of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

 

Beginning with a prospecting expedition in 1885 with David Swanzey (husband of Carrie Ingalls), and Bill Challis, wealthy investor Charles E. Rushmore began visiting the area regularly on prospecting and hunting trips. He repeatedly joked with colleagues about naming the mountain after himself. The United States Board of Geographic Names officially recognized the name "Mount Rushmore" in June 1930.

 

Historian Doane Robinson conceived the idea for Mount Rushmore in 1923 to promote tourism in South Dakota. In 1924, Robinson persuaded sculptor Gutzon Borglum to travel to the Black Hills region to ensure the carving could be accomplished. The original plan was to make the carvings in granite pillars known as the Needles. However, Borglum realized that the eroded Needles were too thin to support sculpting. He chose Mount Rushmore, a grander location, partly because it faced southeast and enjoyed maximum exposure to the sun.

 

Borglum said upon seeing Mount Rushmore, "America will march along that skyline."

 

Borglum had been involved in sculpting the Stone Mountain Memorial to Confederate leaders in Georgia, but was in disagreement with the officials there.

 

U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck and Congressman William Williamson of South Dakota introduced bills in early 1925 for permission to use federal land, which passed easily. South Dakota legislation had less support, only passing narrowly on its third attempt, which Governor Carl Gunderson signed into law on March 5, 1925. Private funding came slowly and Borglum invited President Calvin Coolidge to an August 1927 dedication ceremony, at which he promised federal funding. Congress passed the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Act, signed by Coolidge, which authorized up to $250,000 in matching funds. The 1929 presidential transition to Herbert Hoover delayed funding until an initial federal match of $54,670.56 was acquired.

 

Carving started in 1927 and ended in 1941 with no fatalities.

 

Historian Doane Robinson conceived the idea for Mount Rushmore in 1923 to promote tourism in South Dakota. In 1924, Robinson persuaded sculptor Gutzon Borglum to travel to the Black Hills region to ensure the carving could be accomplished. The original plan was to make the carvings in granite pillars known as the Needles. However, Borglum realized that the eroded Needles were too thin to support sculpting. He chose Mount Rushmore, a grander location, partly because it faced southeast and enjoyed maximum exposure to the sun.

 

Borglum said upon seeing Mount Rushmore, "America will march along that skyline."

 

Borglum had been involved in sculpting the Stone Mountain Memorial to Confederate leaders in Georgia, but was in disagreement with the officials there.

 

U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck and Congressman William Williamson of South Dakota introduced bills in early 1925 for permission to use federal land, which passed easily. South Dakota legislation had less support, only passing narrowly on its third attempt, which Governor Carl Gunderson signed into law on March 5, 1925. Private funding came slowly and Borglum invited President Calvin Coolidge to an August 1927 dedication ceremony, at which he promised federal funding. Congress passed the Mount Rushmore National Memorial Act, signed by Coolidge, which authorized up to $250,000 in matching funds. The 1929 presidential transition to Herbert Hoover delayed funding until an initial federal match of $54,670.56 was acquired.

 

The chief carver of the mountain was Luigi Del Bianco, an artisan and stonemason in Port Chester, New York. Del Bianco emigrated to the U.S. from Friuli in Italy and was chosen to work on this project because of his understanding of sculptural language and ability to imbue emotion in the carved portraits.

 

In 1933, the National Park Service took Mount Rushmore under its jurisdiction. Julian Spotts helped with the project by improving its infrastructure. For example, he had the tram upgraded so it could reach the top of Mount Rushmore for the ease of workers. By July 4, 1934, Washington's face had been completed and was dedicated. The face of Thomas Jefferson was dedicated in 1936, and the face of Abraham Lincoln was dedicated on September 17, 1937. In 1937, a bill was introduced in Congress to add the head of civil-rights leader Susan B. Anthony, but a rider was passed on an appropriations bill requiring federal funds be used to finish only those heads that had already been started at that time. In 1939, the face of Theodore Roosevelt was dedicated.

 

The Sculptor's Studio – a display of unique plaster models and tools related to the sculpting – was built in 1939 under the direction of Borglum. Borglum died from an embolism in March 1941. His son, Lincoln Borglum, continued the project. Originally, it was planned that the figures would be carved from head to waist, but insufficient funding forced the carving to end. Borglum had also planned a massive panel in the shape of the Louisiana Purchase commemorating in eight-foot-tall gilded letters the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, Louisiana Purchase, and seven other territorial acquisitions from the Alaska purchase to the Panama Canal Zone. In total, the entire project cost US$989,992.32 (equivalent to $18.2 million in 2021).

 

Nick Clifford, the last remaining carver, died in November 2019 at age 98.

 

South Dakota is a landlocked U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota Sioux tribe, which comprises a large portion of the population with nine reservations currently in the state and has historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the 17th largest by area, but the 5th least populous, and the 5th least densely populated of the 50 United States. Pierre is the state capital, and Sioux Falls, with a population of about 213,900, is South Dakota's most populous city. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing South Dakota into two geographically and socially distinct halves, known to residents as "East River" and "West River". South Dakota is bordered by the states of North Dakota (to the north), Minnesota (to the east), Iowa (to the southeast), Nebraska (to the south), Wyoming (to the west), and Montana (to the northwest).

 

Humans have inhabited the area for several millennia, with the Sioux becoming dominant by the early 19th century. In the late 19th century, European-American settlement intensified after a gold rush in the Black Hills and the construction of railroads from the east. Encroaching miners and settlers triggered a number of Indian wars, ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. They are the 39th and 40th states admitted to the union; President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first.

 

Key events in the 20th century included the Dust Bowl and Great Depression, increased federal spending during the 1940s and 1950s for agriculture and defense, and an industrialization of agriculture that has reduced family farming. Eastern South Dakota is home to most of the state's population, and the area's fertile soil is used to grow a variety of crops. West of the Missouri River, ranching is the predominant agricultural activity, and the economy is more dependent on tourism and defense spending. Most of the Native American reservations are in West River. The Black Hills, a group of low pine-covered mountains sacred to the Sioux, is in the southwest part of the state. Mount Rushmore, a major tourist destination, is there. South Dakota has a temperate continental climate, with four distinct seasons and precipitation ranging from moderate in the east to semi-arid in the west. The state's ecology features species typical of a North American grassland biome.

 

While several Democrats have represented South Dakota for multiple terms in both chambers of Congress, the state government is largely controlled by the Republican Party, whose nominees have carried South Dakota in each of the last 14 presidential elections. Historically dominated by an agricultural economy and a rural lifestyle, South Dakota has recently sought to diversify its economy in other areas to both attract and retain residents. South Dakota's history and rural character still strongly influence the state's culture.

 

The history of South Dakota describes the history of the U.S. state of South Dakota over the course of several millennia, from its first inhabitants to the recent issues facing the state.

 

Human beings have lived in what is today South Dakota for at least several thousand years. Early hunters are believed to have first entered North America at least 17,000 years ago via the Bering land bridge, which existed during the last ice age and connected Siberia with Alaska. Early settlers in what would become South Dakota were nomadic hunter-gatherers, using primitive Stone Age technology to hunt large prehistoric mammals in the area such as mammoths, sloths, and camels. The Paleolithic culture of these people disappeared around 5000 BC, after the extinction of most of their prey species.

 

Between AD 500 and 800, much of eastern South Dakota was inhabited by a people known as the 'Mound Builders'. The Mound Builders were hunters who lived in temporary villages and were named for the low earthen burial mounds they constructed, many of which still exist. Their settlement seems to have been concentrated around the watershed of the Big Sioux River and Big Stone Lake, although other sites have been excavated throughout eastern South Dakota. Either assimilation or warfare led to the demise of the Mound Builders by the year 800. Between 1250 and 1400 an agricultural people, likely the ancestors of the modern Mandan of North Dakota, arrived from the east and settled in the central part of the state. In 1325, what has become known as the Crow Creek Massacre occurred near Chamberlain. An archeological excavation of the site has discovered 486 bodies buried in a mass grave within a type of fortification; many of the skeletal remains show evidence of scalping and decapitation.

 

The Arikara, also known as the Ree, began arriving from the south in the 16th century. They spoke a Caddoan language similar to that of the Pawnee, and probably originated in what is now Kansas and Nebraska. Although they would at times travel to hunt or trade, the Arikara were far less nomadic than many of their neighbors, and lived for the most part in permanent villages. These villages usually consisted of a stockade enclosing a number of circular earthen lodges built on bluffs looking over the rivers. Each village had a semi-autonomous political structure, with the Arikara's various subtribes being connected in a loose alliance. In addition to hunting and growing crops such as corn, beans, pumpkin and other squash, the Arikara were also skilled traders, and would often serve as intermediaries between tribes to the north and south It was probably through their trading connections that Spanish horses first reached the region around 1760. The Arikara reached the height of their power in the 17th century, and may have included as many as 32 villages. Due both to disease as well as pressure from other tribes, the number of Arikara villages would decline to only two by the late 18th century, and the Arikara eventually merged entirely with the Mandan to the north.

 

The sister tribe of the Arikaras, the Pawnee, may have also had a small amount of land in the state. Both were Caddoan and were among the only known tribes in the continental U.S. to have committed human sacrifice, via a religious ritual that occurred once a year. It is said that the U.S. government worked hard to halt this practice before their homelands came to be heavily settled, for fear that the general public might react harshly or refuse to move there.

 

The Lakota Oral histories tell of them driving the Algonquian ancestors of the Cheyenne from the Black Hills regions, south of the Platte River, in the 18th century. Before that, the Cheyenne say that they were, in fact, two tribes, which they call the Tsitsistas & Sutaio After their defeat, much of their territory was contained to southeast Wyoming & western Nebraska. While they had been able to hold off the Sioux for quite some time, they were heavily damaged by a smallpox outbreak. They are also responsible for introducing the horse to the Lakota.

 

The Ioway, or Iowa people, also inhabited the region where the modern states of South Dakota, Minnesota & Iowa meet, north of the Missouri River. They also had a sister nation, known as the Otoe who lived south of them. They were Chiwere speaking, a very old variation of Siouan language said to have originated amongst the ancestors of the Ho-Chunk of Wisconsin. They also would have had a fairly similar culture to that of the Dhegihan Sioux tribes of Nebraska & Kansas.

 

By the 17th century, the Sioux, who would later come to dominate much of the state, had settled in what is today central and northern Minnesota. The Sioux spoke a language of the Siouan language family, and were divided into two culture groups – the Dakota & Nakota. By the early 18th century the Sioux would begin to move south and then west into the plains. This migration was due to several factors, including greater food availability to the west, as well as the fact that the rival Ojibwe & other related Algonquians had obtained rifles from the French at a time when the Sioux were still using the bow and arrow. Other tribes were also displaced during some sort of poorly understood conflict that occurred between Siouan & Algonquian peoples in the early 18th century.

 

In moving west into the prairies, the lifestyle of the Sioux would be greatly altered, coming to resemble that of a nomadic northern plains tribe much more so than a largely settled eastern woodlands one. Characteristics of this transformation include a greater dependence on the bison for food, a heavier reliance on the horse for transportation, and the adoption of the tipi for habitation, a dwelling more suited to the frequent movements of a nomadic people than their earlier semi-permanent lodges.

 

Once on the plains, a schism caused the two subgroups of the Sioux to divide into three separate nations—the Lakota, who migrated south, the Asiniboine who migrated back east to Minnesota & the remaining Sioux. It appears to be around this time that the Dakota people became more prominent over the Nakota & the entirety of the people came to call themselves as such.

 

The Lakota, who crossed the Missouri around 1760 and reached the Black Hills by 1776, would come to settle largely in western South Dakota, northwestern Nebraska, and southwestern North Dakota. The Yankton primarily settled in southeastern South Dakota, the Yanktonnais settled in northeastern South Dakota and southeastern North Dakota, and the Santee settled primarily in central and southern Minnesota. Due in large part to the Sioux migrations, a number of tribes would be driven from the area. The tribes in and around the Black Hills, most notably the Cheyenne, would be pushed to the west, the Arikara would move further north along the Missouri, and the Omaha would be driven out of southeastern South Dakota and into northeastern Nebraska.

 

Later, the Lakota & Assiniboine returned to the fold, forming a single confederacy known as the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven council fire. This was divided into four cultural groups—the Lakota, Dakota, Nakota & Nagoda-- & seven distinct tribes, each with their own chief—the Nakota Mdewakan (Note—Older attempts at Lakota language show a mistake in writing the sound 'bl' as 'md', such as summer, Bloketu, misprinted as mdoketu. Therefore, this word should be Blewakan.) & Wahpeton, the Dakota Santee & Sisseton, the Nagoda Yankton & Yanktonai & the Lakota Teton. In this form, they were able to secure from the U.S. government a homeland, commonly referred to as Mni-Sota Makoce, or the Lakotah Republic. However, conflicts increased between Sioux & American citizens in the decades leading up the Civil War & a poorly funded & organized Bureau of Indian Affairs had difficulty keeping peace between groups. This eventually resulted in the United States blaming the Sioux for the atrocities & rendering the treaty which recognized the nation of Lakotah null and void. The U.S., however, later recognized their fault in a Supreme Court case in the 1980s after several decades of failed lawsuits by the Sioux, yet little has been done to smooth the issue over to the best interests of both sides.

 

France was the first European nation to hold any real claim over what would become South Dakota. Its claims covered most of the modern state. However, at most a few French scouting parties may have entered eastern South Dakota. In 1679 Daniel G. Duluth sent explorers west from Lake Mille Lacs, and they may have reached Big Stone Lake and the Coteau des Prairies. Pierre Le Sueur's traders entered the Big Sioux River Valley on multiple occasions. Evidence for these journeys is from a 1701 map by William De L'Isle that shows a trail to below the falls of the Big Sioux River from the Mississippi River.

 

After 1713, France looked west to sustain its fur trade. The first Europeans to enter South Dakota from the north, the Verendrye brothers, began their expedition in 1743. The expedition started at Fort La Reine on Lake Manitoba, and was attempting to locate an all-water route to the Pacific Ocean. They buried a lead plate inscribed near Ft. Pierre; it was rediscovered by schoolchildren in 1913.

 

In 1762, France granted Spain all French territory west of the Mississippi River in the Treaty of Fontainebleau. The agreement, which was signed in secret, was motivated by a French desire to convince Spain to come to terms with Britain and accept defeat in the Seven Years' War. In an attempt to secure Spanish claims in the region against possible encroachment from other European powers, Spain adopted a policy for the upper Missouri which emphasized the development of closer trade relations with local tribes as well as greater exploration of the region, a primary focus of which would be a search for a water route to the Pacific Ocean. Although traders such as Jacques D'Eglise and Juan Munier had been active in the region for several years, these men had been operating independently, and a determined effort to reach the Pacific and solidify Spanish control of the region had never been undertaken. In 1793, a group commonly known as the Missouri Company was formed in St. Louis, with the twin goals of trading and exploring on the upper Missouri. The company sponsored several attempts to reach the Pacific Ocean, none of which made it further than the mouth of the Yellowstone. In 1794, Jean Truteau (also spelled Trudeau) built a cabin near the present-day location of Fort Randall, and in 1795 the Mackay-Evans Expedition traveled up the Missouri as far as present-day North Dakota, where they expelled several British traders who had been active in the area. In 1801, a post known as Fort aux Cedres was constructed by Registre Loisel of St. Louis, on Cedar Island on the Missouri about 35 miles (56 km) southeast of the present location of Pierre. This trading post was the major regional post until its destruction by fire in 1810.[30] In 1800, Spain gave Louisiana back to France in the Treaty of San Ildefonso.

 

In 1803, the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon for $11,000,000. The territory included most of the western half of the Mississippi watershed and covered nearly all of present-day South Dakota, except for a small portion in the northeast corner of the state. The region was still largely unexplored and unsettled, and President Thomas Jefferson organized a group commonly referred to as the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore the newly acquired region over a period of more than two years. The expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, was tasked with following the route of the Missouri to its source, continuing on to the Pacific Ocean, establishing diplomatic relations with the various tribes in the area, and taking cartographic, geologic, and botanical surveys of the area. The expedition left St. Louis on May 14, 1804, with 45 men and 15 tons of supplies in three boats (one keelboat and two pirogues). The party progressed slowly against the Missouri's current, reaching what is today South Dakota on August 22. Near present-day Vermillion, the party hiked to the Spirit Mound after hearing local legends of the place being inhabited by "little spirits" (or "devils"). Shortly after this, a peaceful meeting took place with the Yankton Sioux, while an encounter with the Lakota Sioux further north was not as uneventful. The Lakota mistook the party as traders, at one point stealing a horse. Weapons were brandished on both sides after it appeared as though the Lakota were going to further delay or even halt the expedition, but they eventually stood down and allowed the party to continue up the river and out of their territory. In north central South Dakota, the expedition acted as mediators between the warring Arikara and Mandan. After leaving the state on October 14, the party wintered with the Mandan in North Dakota before successfully reaching the Pacific Ocean and returning by the same route, safely reaching St. Louis in 1806. On the return trip, the expedition spent only 15 days in South Dakota, traveling more swiftly with the Missouri's current.

 

Pittsburgh lawyer Henry Marie Brackenridge was South Dakota's first recorded tourist. In 1811 he was hosted by fur trader Manuel Lisa.

 

In 1817, an American fur trading post was set up at present-day Fort Pierre, beginning continuous American settlement of the area. During the 1830s, fur trading was the dominant economic activity for the few white people who lived in the area. More than one hundred fur-trading posts were in present-day South Dakota in the first half of the 19th century, and Fort Pierre was the center of activity.[citation needed] General William Henry Ashley, Andrew Henry, and Jedediah Smith of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and Manuel Lisa and Joshua Pilcher of the St. Louis Fur Company, trapped in that region. Pierre Chouteau Jr. brought the steamship Yellowstone to Fort Tecumseh on the Missouri River in 1831. In 1832 the fort was replaced by Fort Pierre Chouteau Jr.: today's town of Fort Pierre. Pierre bought the Western Department of John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company and renamed it Pratte, Chouteau and Company, and then Pierre Chouteau and Company. It operated in present-day South Dakota from 1834 to 1858. Most trappers and traders left the area after European demand for furs dwindled around 1840.

 

Main articles: Kansas–Nebraska Act, Nebraska Territory, Organic act § List of organic acts, and Dakota Territory

In 1855, the U.S. Army bought Fort Pierre but abandoned it the following year in favor of Fort Randall to the south. Settlement by Americans and Europeans was by this time increasing rapidly, and in 1858 the Yankton Sioux signed the 1858 "Treaty of Washington", ceding most of present-day eastern South Dakota to the United States.

 

Land speculators founded two of eastern South Dakota's largest present-day cities: Sioux Falls in 1856 and Yankton in 1859. The Big Sioux River falls was the spot of an 1856 settlement established by a Dubuque, Iowa, company; that town was quickly removed by native residents. But in the following year, May 1857, the town was resettled and named Sioux Falls. That June, St. Paul, Minnesota's Dakota Land Company came to an adjacent 320 acres (130 ha), calling it Sioux Falls City. In June 1857, Flandreau and Medary, South Dakota, were established by the Dakota Land Company. Along with Yankton in 1859, Bon Homme, Elk Point, and Vermillion were among the new communities along the Missouri River or border with Minnesota. Settlers therein numbered about 5,000 in 1860. In 1861, Dakota Territory was established by the United States government (this initially included North Dakota, South Dakota, and parts of Montana and Wyoming). Settlers from Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Czechoslovakia[citation needed] and Russia,[citation needed] as well as elsewhere in Europe and from the eastern U.S. states increased from a trickle to a flood, especially after the completion of an eastern railway link to the territorial capital of Yankton in 1872, and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 during a military expedition led by George A. Custer.

 

The Dakota Territory had significant regional tensions between the northern part and the southern part from the beginning, the southern part always being more populated – in the 1880 United States census, the population of the southern part (98,268) was more than two and a half times of the northern part (36,909), and southern Dakotans saw the northern part as bit of disreputable, "controlled by the wild folks, cattle ranchers, fur traders” and too frequently the site of conflict with the indigenous population. Also, the new railroads built connected the northern and southern parts to different hubs – northern part was closer tied to Minneapolis–Saint Paul area; and southern part to Sioux City and from there to Omaha. The last straw was territorial governor Nehemiah G. Ordway moving the territorial capital from Yankton to Bismarck in modern-day North Dakota. As the Southern part had the necessary population for statehood (60,000), they held a separate convention in September 1883 and drafted a constitution. Various bills to divide the Dakota Territory in half ended up stalling, until in 1887, when the Territorial Legislature submitted the question of division to a popular vote at the November general elections, where it was approved by 37,784 votes over 32,913. A bill for statehood for North Dakota and South Dakota (as well as Montana and Washington) titled the Enabling Act of 1889 was passed on February 22, 1889, during the Administration of Grover Cleveland, dividing Dakota along the seventh standard parallel. It was left to his successor, Benjamin Harrison, to sign proclamations formally admitting North and South Dakota to the Union on November 2, 1889. Harrison directed his Secretary of State James G. Blaine to shuffle the papers and obscure from him which he was signing first and the actual order went unrecorded.

 

With statehood South Dakota was now in a position to make decisions on the major issues it confronted: prohibition, women's suffrage, the location of the state capital, the opening of the Sioux lands for settlement, and the cyclical issues of drought (severe in 1889) and low wheat prices (1893–1896). In early 1889 a prohibition bill passed the new state legislature, only to be vetoed by Governor Louis Church. Fierce opposition came from the wet German community, with financing from beer and liquor interests. The Yankee women organized to demand suffrage, as well as prohibition. Neither party supported their cause, and the wet element counter-organized to block women's suffrage. Popular interest reached a peak in the debates over locating the state capital. Prestige, real estate values and government jobs were at stake, as well as the question of access in such a large geographical region with limited railroads. Huron was the temporary site, centrally located Pierre was the best organized contender, and three other towns were in the running. Real estate speculators had money to toss around. Pierre, population 3200, made the most generous case to the voters—its promoters truly believed it would be the next Denver and be the railway hub of the Dakotas. The North Western railroad came through but not the others it expected. In 1938 Pierre counted 4000 people and three small hotels.

 

The national government continued to handle Indian affairs. The Army's 1874 Custer expedition took place despite the fact that the western half of present-day South Dakota had been granted to the Sioux by the Treaty of Fort Laramie as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. The Sioux declined to grant mining rights or land in the Black Hills, and the Great Sioux War of 1876 broke out after the U.S. failed to stop white miners and settlers from entering the region. The Sioux were eventually defeated and settled on reservations within South Dakota and North Dakota.

 

In 1889 Harrison sent general George Crook with a commission to persuade the Sioux to sell half their reservation land to the government. It was believed that the state would not be viable unless more land was made available to settlers. Crook used a number of dubious methods to secure agreement and obtain the land.

 

On December 29, 1890, the Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. It was the last major armed conflict between the United States and the Sioux Nation, the massacre resulted in the deaths of 300 Sioux, many of them women and children. In addition 25 U.S. soldiers were also killed in the episode.

 

Railroads played a central role in South Dakota transportation from the late 19th century until the 1930s, when they were surpassed by highways. The Milwaukee Road and the Chicago & North Western were the state's largest railroads, and the Milwaukee's east–west transcontinental line traversed the northern tier of the state. About 4,420 miles (7,110 km) of railroad track were built in South Dakota during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, though only 1,839 miles (2,960 km) were active in 2007.

 

The railroads sold land to prospective farmers at very low rates, expecting to make a profit by shipping farm products out and home goods in. They also set up small towns that would serve as shipping points and commercial centers, and attract businessmen and more farmers. The Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway (M&StL) in 1905, under the leadership of vice president and general manager L. F. Day, added lines from Watertown to LeBeau and from Conde through Aberdeen to Leola. It developed town sites along the new lines and by 1910, the new lines served 35 small communities.

 

Not all of the new towns survived. The M&StL situated LeBeau along the Missouri River on the eastern edge of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. The new town was a hub for the cattle and grain industries. Livestock valued at one million dollars were shipped out in 1908, and the rail company planned a bridge across the Missouri River. Allotment of the Cheyenne River Reservation in 1909 promised further growth. By the early 1920s, however, troubles multiplied, with the murder of a local rancher, a fire that destroyed the business district, and drought that ruined ranchers and farmers alike. LeBeau became a ghost town.

 

Most of the traffic was freight, but the main lines also offered passenger service. After the European immigrants settled, there never were many people moving about inside the state. Profits were slim. Automobiles and busses were much more popular, but there was an increase during World War II when gasoline was scarce. All passenger service was ended in the state by 1969.

 

In the rural areas farmers and ranchers depended on local general stores that had a limited stock and slow turnover; they made enough profit to stay in operation by selling at high prices. Prices were not marked on each item; instead the customer negotiated a price. Men did most of the shopping, since the main criterion was credit rather than quality of goods. Indeed, most customers shopped on credit, paying off the bill when crops or cattle were later sold; the owner's ability to judge credit worthiness was vital to his success.

 

In the cities consumers had much more choice, and bought their dry goods and supplies at locally owned department stores. They had a much wider selection of goods than in the country general stores and price tags that gave the actual selling price. The department stores provided a very limited credit, and set up attractive displays and, after 1900, window displays as well. Their clerks—usually men before the 1940s—were experienced salesmen whose knowledge of the products appealed to the better educated middle-class housewives who did most of the shopping. The keys to success were a large variety of high-quality brand-name merchandise, high turnover, reasonable prices, and frequent special sales. The larger stores sent their buyers to Denver, Minneapolis, and Chicago once or twice a year to evaluate the newest trends in merchandising and stock up on the latest fashions. By the 1920s and 1930s, large mail-order houses such as Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward provided serious competition, making the department stores rely even more on salesmanship and close integration with the community.

 

Many entrepreneurs built stores, shops, and offices along Main Street. The most handsome ones used pre-formed, sheet iron facades, especially those manufactured by the Mesker Brothers of St. Louis. These neoclassical, stylized facades added sophistication to brick or wood-frame buildings throughout the state.

 

During the 1930s, several economic and climatic conditions combined with disastrous results for South Dakota. A lack of rainfall, extremely high temperatures and over-cultivation of farmland produced what was known as the Dust Bowl in South Dakota and several other plains states. Fertile topsoil was blown away in massive dust storms, and several harvests were completely ruined. The experiences of the Dust Bowl, coupled with local bank foreclosures and the general economic effects of the Great Depression resulted in many South Dakotans leaving the state. The population of South Dakota declined by more than seven percent between 1930 and 1940.

 

Prosperity returned with the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941, when demand for the state's agricultural and industrial products grew as the nation mobilized for war. Over 68,000 South Dakotans served in the armed forces during the war, of which over 2,200 were killed.

 

In 1944, the Pick-Sloan Plan was passed as part of the Flood Control Act of 1944 by the U.S. Congress, resulting in the construction of six large dams on the Missouri River, four of which are at least partially located in South Dakota.[83] Flood control, hydroelectricity and recreational opportunities such as boating and fishing are provided by the dams and their reservoirs.

 

On the night of June 9–10, 1972, heavy rainfall in the eastern Black Hills caused the Canyon Lake Dam on Rapid Creek to fail. The failure of the dam, combined with heavy runoff from the storm, turned the usually small creek into a massive torrent that washed through central Rapid City. The flood resulted in 238 deaths and destroyed 1,335 homes and around 5,000 automobiles.[84] Damage from the flood totaled $160 million (the equivalent of $664 million today).

 

On April 19, 1993, Governor George S. Mickelson was killed in a plane crash in Iowa while returning from a business meeting in Cincinnati. Several other state officials were also killed in the crash. Mickelson, who was in the middle of his second term as governor, was succeeded by Walter Dale Miller.

 

In recent decades, South Dakota has transformed from a state dominated by agriculture to one with a more diversified economy. The tourism industry has grown considerably since the completion of the interstate system in the 1960s, with the Black Hills being especially impacted. The financial service industry began to grow in the state as well, with Citibank moving its credit card operations from New York to Sioux Falls in 1981, a move that has since been followed by several other financial companies. In 2007, the site of the recently closed Homestake gold mine near Lead was chosen as the location of a new underground research facility. Despite a growing state population and recent economic development, many rural areas have been struggling over the past 50 years with locally declining populations and the emigration of educated young adults to larger South Dakota cities, such as Rapid City or Sioux Falls, or to other states. The Cattleman's Blizzard of October 2013 killed tens of thousands of livestock in western South Dakota, and was one of the worst blizzards in the state's history.

Arguments Yard Whitby named after Thomas Argument who built a cottage on Church street, the back garden running down to the harbourside

I captured this image on my Galveston trip in April where the Baltimore Orioles were so numerous they were actually annoying! Discussions like this one were common place as they jockeyed for a place at the oranges. These guys have now completed their journey north and some of them are residing in and near my yard. I know they are feeding chicks now because they are raiding the mealworm feeder in place of the grape jelly. It makes my heart sing every time I see one of these beauties in my yard! 🍊🍇