Interpreting Level 2 Quotes

The difference between supermind and Big Mind (if we take Big Mind to mean the state experience of nondual Suchness, or turiyatita) is that Big Mind can be experienced or recognized at virtually any lower level or rung. Magic to Integral. In fact, one can be at, say, the Pluralistic stage, and experience several core characteristics of the entire sequence of state-stages (gross to subtle to causal to Witnessing to Nondual), although, of course, the entire sequence, including nondual Suchness, will be interpreted in Pluralistic terms. This is unfortunate in many ways—interpreting Dharma in merely Pluralistic terms (or Mythic terms, or Rational, and so on)—because it is so ultimately reductionistic; but it happens all the time, given the relative independence of states and structures at 1st and 2nd tier. Supermind, on the other hand, as a basic structure-rung (conjoined with nondual Suchness) can only be experienced once all the previous junior levels have emerged and developed, and as in all structure development, stages cannot be skipped. Therefore, unlike Big Mind, supermind can only be experienced after all 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-tier junior stages have been passed through. While, as Genpo Roshi has abundantly demonstrated, Big Mind state experience is available to virtually anybody at almost any age (and will be interpreted according to the View of their current stage), supermind is an extremely rare recognition. Supermind, as the highest structure-rung to date, has access to all previous structures, all the way back to Archaic—and the Archaic itself, of course, has transcended and included, and now embraces, every major structural evolution going all the way back to the Big Bang. (A human being literally enfolds and embraces all the major transformative unfoldings of the entire Kosmic history—strings to quarks to subatomic particles to atoms to molecules to cells, all the way through the Tree of Life up to its latest evolutionary emergent, the triune brain, the most complex structure in the known natural world.) Supermind, in any given individual, is experienced as a type of “omniscience”—the supermind, since it transcends and includes all of the previous structure-rungs, and inherently is conjoined with the highest nondual Suchness state, has a full and complete knowledge of all of the potentials in that person. It literally “knows all,” at least for the individual.

First-century discipleship was expressed as a servant-master relationship (see Matthew 10:24). Once accepted as a disciple, a young man started as a talmidh, or beginner, who sat in the back of the room and could not speak. Then he became a distinguished student, who took an independent line in his approach or questioning. At the next level, he became a disciple-associate, who sat immediately behind the rabbi during prayer time. Finally he achieved the highest level, a disciple of the wise, and was recognized as the intellectual equal of his rabbi.'" 2. Memorizing the teacher's words: Oral tradition provided the basic way of studying. Disciples learned the teacher's words verbatim to pass along to the next person. Often disciples learned as many as four interpretations of each major passage in the Torah. 3. Learning the teacher's way of ministry: A disciple learned how his teacher kept God's commands, including how he practiced the Sabbath, fasted, prayed, and said blessings in ceremonial situations. He would also learn his rabbi's teaching methods and the many traditions his master followed. 4. Imitating the teacher's life and character: Jesus said that when a disciple is fully taught, he "will be like his teacher" (Luke 6:40). The highest calling of a disciple was to imitate his teacher. Paul called on Timothy to follow his example (see 2 Timothy 3:10-14), and he didn't hesitate to call on all believers to do the same (see 1 Corinthians 4:14-16; 1 1:1; Philippians 4:9). One story in ancient tradition tells of a rabbinical student so devoted to his teacher that he hid in the teacher's bedchamber to discover the mentor's sexual technique. To be sure, this is a bit extreme, yet it demonstrates the level of commitment required to be a disciple. 5. Raising up their own disciples: When a disciple finished his training, he was expected to reproduce what he'd learned by finding and training his own apprentices. He would start his own school and call it after his name, such as the House of Hillel.

In North America, there is no nostalgia for the postwar period, quite simply because the Trente Glorieuses never existed there: per capita output grew at roughly the same rate of 1.5–2 percent per year throughout the period 1820–2012. To be sure, growth slowed a bit between 1930 and 1950 to just over 1.5 percent, then increased again to just over 2 percent between 1950 and 1970, and then slowed to less than 1.5 percent between 1990 and 2012. In Western Europe, which suffered much more from the two world wars, the variations are considerably greater: per capita output stagnated between 1913 and 1950 (with a growth rate of just over 0.5 percent) and then leapt ahead to more than 4 percent from 1950 to 1970, before falling sharply to just slightly above US levels (a little more than 2 percent) in the period 1970–1990 and to barely 1.5 percent between 1990 and 2012. Western Europe experienced a golden age of growth between 1950 and 1970, only to see its growth rate diminish to one-half or even one-third of its peak level during the decades that followed. [...] If we looked only at continental Europe, we would find an average per capita output growth rate of 5 percent between 1950 and 1970—a level well beyond that achieved in other advanced countries over the past two centuries. These very different collective experiences of growth in the twentieth century largely explain why public opinion in different countries varies so widely in regard to commercial and financial globalization and indeed to capitalism in general. In continental Europe and especially France, people quite naturally continue to look on the first three postwar decades—a period of strong state intervention in the economy—as a period blessed with rapid growth, and many regard the liberalization of the economy that began around 1980 as the cause of a slowdown. In Great Britain and the United States, postwar history is interpreted quite differently. Between 1950 and 1980, the gap between the English-speaking countries and the countries that had lost the war closed rapidly. By the late 1970s, US magazine covers often denounced the decline of the United States and the success of German and Japanese industry. In Britain, GDP per capita fell below the level of Germany, France, Japan, and even Italy. It may even be the case that this sense of being rivaled (or even overtaken in the case of Britain) played an important part in the “conservative revolution.” Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in the United States promised to “roll back the welfare state” that had allegedly sapped the animal spirits of Anglo-Saxon entrepreneurs and thus to return to pure nineteenth-century capitalism, which would allow the United States and Britain to regain the upper hand. Even today, many people in both countries believe that the conservative revolution was remarkably successful, because their growth rates once again matched continental European and Japanese levels. In fact, neither the economic liberalization that began around 1980 nor the state interventionism that began in 1945 deserves such praise or blame. France, Germany, and Japan would very likely have caught up with Britain and the United States following their collapse of 1914–1945 regardless of what policies they had adopted (I say this with only slight exaggeration). The most one can say is that state intervention did no harm. Similarly, once these countries had attained the global technological frontier, it is hardly surprising that they ceased to grow more rapidly than Britain and the United States or that growth rates in all of these wealthy countries more or less equalized [...] Broadly speaking, the US and British policies of economic liberalization appear to have had little effect on this simple reality, since they neither increased growth nor decreased it.

What is instructive about these examples is that a similar pattern is emerging today regarding people who are homosexual. Those who oppose homosexuality claim that (1) the Bible records God’s judgment against the sin of homosexuality from its first mention in Scripture; (2) people who are homosexual are somehow inferior in moral character and incapable of rising to the level of full heterosexual “Christian civilization”; and (3) people who are homosexual are willfully sinful, often sexually promiscuous and threatening, and deserve punishment for their own acts. The church is once again repeating the mistakes of the past. And, as I will show in subsequent chapters, the reason why many people fail to apply Jesus’ gospel to the issue of homosexuality is that they are once again using a “commonsense” method of biblical interpretation and are following the lead of fundamentalist theologians whose methods are similar to those of Turretin. We are thankful that most Christians no longer believe in racial and gender hierarchy. Why? What changed our minds? How was the church able to change? In the next chapter we will review the way in which a new, Christ-centered approach to biblical interpretation carried forth the best insights of the dissenting abolitionists and expanded and applied them. This christological approach, which used the whole Bible, with Jesus as its central character and interpreter, enabled the church to change its mind and heart on issues of race and women. Let us examine this new approach.

In Ahab and in his beatnik, quasi-criminal prototype, Jackson (in 'Redburn'), Melville gave expression both to the megatechnic 'Khans' of the global Pentagon and to the counter-forces they had brought into being. And the fact that Ahab's torment and hatred had gone so far that he had lost control of himself and, through his own mad reliance upon power, had become dominated completely by the creature that had disabled him, only makes Melville's story a central parable in the interpretation of modern man's destiny. In Ahab's throwing away compass and sextant at the height of the chase, Melville even anticipated the casting out of the orderly instruments of intelligence, so characteristic of the counter-culture and anti-life happenings of today. Similarly, by his maniacal concentration, Ahab rejects the inner change that might have saved the ship and the crew, when he turns a deaf ear to the pleas of love uttered by sober Starbuck in words and by Pip, a fright-shocked child and an African primitive, in dumb gesture. Outwardly mankind is still committed tot he grim chase Melville described, lured by the adventure, the prospect of oil and whalebone, the promptings of pride, an above all by a love-rejecting pursuit of power. But it has also begun consciously to face the prospect of total annihilation, which may be brought about by the captains who now have command of the ship. Against that senseless fate every act of rebellion, every exhibition of group defiance, every assertion of the will-to-live, every display of autonomy and self-direction, at however primitive a level, diminishes the headway of the doom-threatened ship and delays the fatal moment when the White Whale will shatter its planks and drown the crew. All the infantile, criminal, and imbecile manifestations in the arts today, everything that now expresses only murderous hatred and alienation, might still find justification if they performed their only conceivable rational function-that of awakening modern man sufficiently to his actual plight, so that he seizes the wheel and, guided by the stars, heads the ship to a friendlier shore.

Finally, in terms of overall spiritual intelligence—which we have been briefly tracking—on the other side of the leading edge of evolution we have 3 or 4 higher, at this point mostly potential, levels of development, including levels of spiritual intelligence. Individually, their basic strcture-rungs are referred to as para-mind, meta-mind, overmind, and supermind; collectively, they are called 3rd tier. What all 3rd-tier structures have in common is some degree of direct transpersonal identity and experience. Further, each 3rd-tier structure of consciousness is integrated, in some fashion, with a particular state of consciousness (often, para-mental with the gross, meta-mental with subtle, overmind with causal/Witnessing, and supermind with nondual, although this varies with each individual’s actual history). Previously, in 1sst and 2nd tier, structures and states were relatively independent. One could have a state center of gravity at gross and yet structurally evolve all the way to Integral without fully objectifying the gross stage (i.e., fully making it an object, fully transcending it). But beginning with the 3rd-tier para-mind, whenever you experience that structure, you also implicitly or intuitively understand or experience the gross realm as objectified, which means that state is intimately connected to the structure at this level, which gives rise, or can give rise, to expanded states such as nature mysticism (this can be experienced at earlier levels but not inherently, and is interpreted according to the Views of those lower levels; but at this level becomes an inherent potential). Likewise, because of the conjunction with the gross state, this level often carries variations of the realization that the physical world is not merely physical, but is rather psychophysical in its true nature. This can also evoke flashes of higher state presences, such as Witnessing states or even nondual. And so on with the subtle state and meta-mind; causal/Witnessing and overmind; and nondual Suchness and supermind. Those states are all “minimally” connected to those structures, in the sesne that, for example, a person at meta-mind might have already and previously moved his or her state center of gravity to subtle, but if not, the person cannot proceed beyond the meta-mind without doing so at this point. And likewise with causal/Witnessing and overmind; and nondual Suchness and supermind.

The dialogue needs to ensure that team members (1) are interpreting the standard in the same way, (2) have agreement on the level of rigor and what might constitute proficiency, and (3) have identified the prerequisite skills and knowledge necessary for students to be successful in mastering the new standard.

open coding; development of concepts; grouping concepts into categories; formation of a theory. In the open coding stage, we analyze the text and identify any interesting phenomena in the data. Normally each unique phenomenon is given a distinctive name or code. The procedure and methods for identifying coding items are discussed in section 11.5.2. In the second stage, collections of codes that describe similar contents are grouped together to form higher level “concepts.” In the third stage, broader groups of similar concepts are identified to form “categories” and there is a detailed interpretation of each category. In this process, we are constantly searching for and refining the conceptual construct that may explain the relationship between the concepts and categories (Glaser, 1978). In the last stage, theory formulation, we aim at creating inferential and predictive statements about the phenomena recorded in the data.

significantly different? Because the variances are equal, we read the t-test statistics from the top line, which states “equal variances assumed.” (If variances had been unequal, then we would read the test statistics from the second line, “equal variances not assumed.”). The t-test statistic for equal variances for this test is 2.576, which is significant at p = .011.13 Thus, we conclude that the means are significantly different; the 10th graders report feeling safer one year after the anger management program was implemented. Working Example 2 In the preceding example, the variables were both normally distributed, but this is not always the case. Many variables are highly skewed and not normally distributed. Consider another example. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) collects information about the water quality of watersheds, including information about the sources and nature of pollution. One such measure is the percentage of samples that exceed pollution limits for ammonia, dissolved oxygen, phosphorus, and pH.14 A manager wants to know whether watersheds in the East have higher levels of pollution than those in the Midwest. Figure 12.4 Untransformed Variable: Watershed Pollution An index variable of such pollution is constructed. The index variable is called “pollution,” and the first step is to examine it for test assumptions. Analysis indicates that the range of this variable has a low value of 0.00 percent and a high value of 59.17 percent. These are plausible values (any value above 100.00 percent is implausible). A boxplot (not shown) demonstrates that the variable has two values greater than 50.00 percent that are indicated as outliers for the Midwest region. However, the histograms shown in Figure 12.4 do not suggest that these values are unusually large; rather, the peak in both histograms is located off to the left. The distributions are heavily skewed.15 Because the samples each have fewer than 50 observations, the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality is used. The respective test statistics for East and Midwest are .969 (p = .355) and .931 (p = .007). Visual inspection confirms that the Midwest distribution is indeed nonnormal. The Shapiro-Wilk test statistics are given only for completeness; they have no substantive interpretation. We must now either transform the variable so that it becomes normal for purposes of testing, or use a nonparametric alternative. The second option is discussed later in this chapter. We also show the consequences of ignoring the problem. To transform the variable, we try the recommended transformations, , and then examine the transformed variable for normality. If none of these transformations work, we might modify them, such as using x⅓ instead of x½ (recall that the latter is ).16 Thus, some experimentation is required. In our case, we find that the x½ works. The new Shapiro-Wilk test statistics for East and Midwest are, respectively, .969 (p = .361) and .987 (p = .883). Visual inspection of Figure 12.5 shows these two distributions to be quite normal, indeed. Figure 12.5 Transformed Variable: Watershed Pollution The results of the t-test for the transformed variable are shown in Table

The test statistics of a t-test can be positive or negative, although this depends merely on which group has the larger mean; the sign of the test statistic has no substantive interpretation. Critical values (see Chapter 10) of the t-test are shown in Appendix C as (Student’s) t-distribution.4 For this test, the degrees of freedom are defined as n – 1, where n is the total number of observations for both groups. The table is easy to use. As mentioned below, most tests are two-tailed tests, and analysts find critical values in the columns for the .05 (5 percent) and .01 (1 percent) levels of significance. For example, the critical value at the 1 percent level of significance for a test based on 25 observations (df = 25 – 1 = 24) is 2.797 (and 1.11 at the 5 percent level of significance). Though the table also shows critical values at other levels of significance, these are seldom if ever used. The table shows that the critical value decreases as the number of observations increases, making it easier to reject the null hypothesis. The t-distribution shows one- and two-tailed tests. Two-tailed t-tests should be used when analysts do not have prior knowledge about which group has a larger mean; one-tailed t-tests are used when analysts do have such prior knowledge. This choice is dictated by the research situation, not by any statistical criterion. In practice, two-tailed tests are used most often, unless compelling a priori knowledge exists or it is known that one group cannot have a larger mean than the other. Two-tailed testing is more conservative than one-tailed testing because the critical values of two-tailed tests are larger, thus requiring larger t-test test statistics in order to reject the null hypothesis.5 Many statistical software packages provide only two-tailed testing. The above null hypothesis (men and women do not have different mean incomes in the population) requires a two-tailed test because we do not know, a priori, which gender has the larger income.6 Finally, note that the t-test distribution approximates the normal distribution for large samples: the critical values of 1.96 (5 percent significance) and 2.58 (1 percent significance), for large degrees of freedom (∞), are identical to those of the normal distribution. Getting Started Find examples of t-tests in the research literature. T-Test Assumptions Like other tests, the t-test has test assumptions that must be met to ensure test validity. Statistical testing always begins by determining whether test assumptions are met before examining the main research hypotheses. Although t-test assumptions are a bit involved, the popularity of the t-test rests partly on the robustness of t-test conclusions in the face of modest violations. This section provides an in-depth treatment of t-test assumptions, methods for testing the assumptions, and ways to address assumption violations. Of course, t-test statistics are calculated by the computer; thus, we focus on interpreting concepts (rather than their calculation). Key Point The t-test is fairly robust against assumption violations. Four t-test test assumptions must be met to ensure test validity: One variable is continuous, and the other variable is dichotomous. The two distributions have equal variances. The observations are independent. The two distributions are normally distributed. The first assumption, that one variable is continuous and the other dichotomous,

Self-translation, therefore, can occur both on the level of story and on the level of narration. In both cases, the linguistic hybridity on the level of text represents translation as object. Example 2.1

For executives, simulator-style training is occasionally available in crisis leadership courses, where trainees are invited to take their turn at the helm in a crisis response exercise. But absent a crisis, most executive teams operate without any special training to help them interpret the myriad signals available or recognize important conditions quickly and pick the best response to different scenarios. In the absence of such training, many executive teams muddle through, having learned most of what they know through their own experience on the way up through the managerial ranks rather than through formal training. As one chief noted, the closest equivalent to executive-level simulator training is when one department has the opportunity to learn from the misery of another. A collegial network of police executives, ready to share both their successes and failures, is a valuable asset to the profession (see box 2-1).

it is the character who performs the act of translation by switching from his native language, Igbo, to English. This self-translation occurs on the level of story and is represented on the level of text. Example 2.2, however, is a case of translational mimesis: it is the narrator who performs the translation of the character’s discourse and signals the event of this translation through the use of hybrid language. This act of translation occurs on the level of narration. What both cases have in common is the fact that (i) the translator is a textual agent and (ii) that the translation occurs not on the level of text, but on a deeper narrative level. We can therefore construct the notion of what I will call the fictional translator, for want of a better term. This fictional translator inhabits the story-world or the level of narration—both in the ST and, provided no TT shift occurs when the ST is translated into another language, also in the TT. In other words, the fictional translator can be either a narrator or a character.

Vattimo is very different from Heidegger, and he clearly understands the importance and the centrality of Christian belief in defining the destiny of Western culture and civilization, and in fact at the end he dwells on the notion of agape as the result of the anti-metaphysical revolution of Christianity.40 However, it seems to me that there is a problem in his religious perspective because he does not place enough emphasis on the Cross. As I recently wrote, he sees only interpretations in human history and no facts.41 He aligns himself with the post-Nietzschean tradition in claiming the nonviability of any historical ‘truth’ and confining the novelty of Christianity to a purely discursive level. For him Christianity is mainly a textual experience, which we only believe in because somebody whom we trust and love told us to do so.42 Although this is a concept which is quite close to the idea of ‘positive internal mediation’, as proposed by Fornari, there is no grounding, no point of departure in this long chain of good imitation; or at least it is a loose one: the book, that, according to a strict hermeneutical approach, can be subject to any possible interpretation. Paul says that the only things he knows are Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2.2), and this seems to me to be an indirect answer to Vattimo: one can deconstruct any form of mythical or ideological ‘truth’, but not the Cross, the actual death of the Son of God. That is the centre around which our culture rotates and from which it has evolved. Why should the world have changed if that event did not convey a radical and fundamental anthropological truth to the human being? God provided the text, but also the hermeneutical key with which to read it: the Cross. The two cannot be separated.

Although it is somewhat vague, the central tenets of the Copenhagen interpretation seem to be (1) that all we have access to are the results of observations, and so it is simply pointless to ask questions about the quantum reality behind those observations, and (2) that although observation is necessary for establishing the reality of quantum phenomena, no form of consciousness, human or otherwise, is necessary for making an observation. Rather, an observer is anything that makes a record of an event, and so it is at the level of macroscopic measuring instruments (such as Geiger counters) that the actual values of quantum phenomena are randomly set from a range of statistical possibilities.

was interested in human reaction, human behavior in emergencies. The general picture was the following. In most cases, everyday workers displayed great courage and responsibility after the accident. They realized that these events had dangerous consequences, but they didn't have enough information to estimate the real extent of the disaster. Authorities at different levels tried to interpret the known information in the most soothing manner—and the higher the authority’s level was, the more obvious this manner was. They weren’t preventing the creation of panic—and they often talked about this later—so much as they were trying to distort the objective picture of those terrible events. Although the majority of people demonstrated courage during the disaster, they weren’t brave enough to tell the truth to others, or to come to serious decisions. Unit 3, situated in the same building with the unsafe Unit 4, went on working. Ventilation of Units 1 and 2 went on working also, gradually filling the rooms with radioactive aerosols. More and more people were affected by nuclear radiation.

The fifth account was the Gospel of John, the very last one, written more than sixty years after Jesus’s death. In this one, Jesus does describe himself as a god—on par with his father. When it was written, Romans had started calling their emperors gods, which could explain why the anonymous author had Jesus ascribing this status to himself. Regardless, had Jesus ever claimed to be on par with God, or to be the Son of God, this would have been the most important statement he ever made. If he had made this claim, many scholars find it highly unlikely that none of the four other written sources—earlier sources—would have contained a single mention of it.” Sage paused once again. “To be fair, highly unlikely doesn’t mean impossible,” it continued. “And even if Jesus never did claim to be a god, this doesn’t mean he wasn’t. Or didn’t become one. Many have interpreted the scripture to suggest that Jesus was either a human or angel on Earth, and that because of his service, his sacrifice, God rewarded him by exalting him to the level of a god. But only after his death.

12 Ways to Improve & Project Confident Posture 1. Go people watching. Note how you interpret the different postures you observe. This will expand your awareness of how posture impacts first impressions and will help you become more aware of yours. 2. Stand in front of a mirror to see what other people are seeing. Are your shoulders level? Are your hips level? Do you appear aligned? Are you projecting confidence or timidity? 3. Take posture pictures to provide you with points of reference and a baseline over time. Look at past photos of yourself. 4. Stand with your back against a wall and align your spine. 5. Evenly balance on both feet, spaced hip-width apart. 6. Take yoga or Pilates classes to strengthen your core muscles, improve flexibility, and balance, all which support your posture. 7. Consciously pull your shoulders back, stand erect with chin held high. 8. Practice tucking in your stomach, pulling your shoulders back, raising your chin, and looking straight ahead. 9. Sit up straight without being rigid. 10. Enter a room like you belong there or own it. 11. Stand with an open stance to be welcoming and approachable. 12. Angle your body towards the person to whom you are speaking. Angling your body away may signify that you are indifferent, fearful, putting up a barrier, or trying to get away from them.

What is the book (or books) you’ve given most as a gift, and why? Or what are one to three books that have greatly influenced your life? Books that influenced me the most: The Transformed Cell by Steven A. Rosenberg Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere with anything on it, what would it say? Are there any quotes you think of often or live your life by? Well, assuming it’s a big billboard, I’d lobby for the following: “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”—Bertrand Russell “For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”—John F. Kennedy “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”—Albert Einstein “If you set a goal, it should meet these two conditions: 1) It matters; 2) You can influence the outcome.”—Peter Attia

Implicit in the enterprise of traditio-historical criticism is the understanding that the NT texts—and specifically the Gospels—are not simply play-by-play accounts of the ministry of the historical Jesus. It was not the intention of the Gospel writers, for instance, to give a complete, unbiased, or even journalistic view of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Rather, as with all historical documents on some level, their contents are selected, ordered, and emphasized based on the—in these cases, especially theological and christological—agenda of the authors and their communities.2 Thus, the Gospels should be regarded as documents derived from a variety of traditions and narrating a story of Jesus that has been shaped by the early church community.3 The NT texts as we now have them, then, are not regarded as purely historical (as we typically use the term today). Rather, they are narratives whose backgrounds are formed by oral traditions that take as their starting point the life of the historical Jesus. This, however, does not mark these traditions as unreliable accounts of Jesus. This issue of the reliability of early—particularly oral—traditions will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter.

Astrology Course 101: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners to Professional Level Astrology Course - You should approach astrology with an open mind and a critical viewpoint if you're interested in knowing more about it. Here are some tips to get you started learning about astrology: Know Its Nature: A belief system that has not been proven by science is astrology. The scientific community discredits it as a pseudoscience because none of its tenets are supported by empirical data. Consider astrology as a sort of entertainment or personal belief rather than as a science. Basic Knowledge: Learn the basic principles of astrology, such as the meanings of the zodiac signs, natal charts, planets, aspects, and houses, before moving on. There are numerous publications, websites, and educational programmes that can offer a solid foundation. Analyze Your Natal Chart: Your birth date, time, and location can be used to make your own natal chart. You may create your chart for free with the aid of several online tools and programmes. A map of the celestial bodies' positions at the moment of your birth is called your natal chart. Analyze Your Natal Chart: Spend some time studying your natal chart once you have one. Find out what each house's planets mean and how they interact with one another. Your personality, weaknesses, and prospective life path will all be revealed by this. Observe Your Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs by Reading This: Your Sunrise (or Ascendant) sign affects your outward behavior, while your Moon sign and Sun sign both reflect your emotional nature. A more complete understanding of these signs might give you a better understanding of your astrological profile. Consult with Expert Astrologers: Consider speaking with a qualified astrologer if you want a more thorough examination of your chart or if you have specific queries. Based on your chart, they can provide unique insights and interpretations. Use astrology to reflect on yourself: Astrology is a useful tool for introspection and personal development. Examine how your own experiences and emotions align with the astrological insights. Use it to gain a deeper understanding of who you are and the course of your life. Keep in Mind That Symbolism: Numerous people have called astrology a symbolic language. Astrologers interpret the locations and aspects of celestial bodies as symbols in their own unique ways. It does not accurately describe how the cosmos affects your life. Learn to Think Critically: Keep a critical mindset while you research astrology. Recognise that connections drawn by astrology lack scientific support and that correlation does not imply causation. Consider several points of view and be willing to be skeptical. Respect for Various Beliefs: Regarding astrology, people hold a variety of beliefs and practices. Even if they differ from your own, respect other people's decisions and ideas. For some people, astrology holds significant personal value. Science and balance: Astrology is not a replacement for critical thinking or decision-making based on evidence. Use more trustworthy information and logic while making crucial life decisions. In Conclusion - Astrology has the potential to be a fascinating and contemplative activity that provides insights into personality and self-awareness. But it's crucial to approach it from a well-informed and impartial standpoint, mindful of its limitations and cognizant that it is largely a belief system rather than a science. For More Details : Click Here

Such creatures were what they saw, because they now rigidly coded the neurons responsible for the sight. For humans too, the brain loses some of its unbounded intelligence whenever it perceives the universe across boundaries. That partial blindness remains inescapable without the ability to transcend. Impressions on our neurons are constantly being set for each of the senses, not just sight. Though we usually call the heavier impressions "stress," all impressions actually create some limitation. For illustrate: In the early 1980s, M.I.T. experts began studying how human hearing function. Hearing seems passive, but in fact every person listens quite selectively to the world and puts his own interpretation on the raw data that comes into his ears. (For example, a skilled singer hears pitch and harmony where a tone-deaf person hears noise.) One experiment involves people listening to fast, basic rhythms (1-2-3 and 1-2-3 and 1-2-3), and teaching them to hear the rhythm differently (1, 2, 3-and-l, 2, 3-and-l, 2). After the noises started to be interpreted distinctly, the participants indicated that the sounds became more vibrant and fresher. The experiment evidently had taught people to change their unseen limits somewhat. The really interesting result, however, was that when they went home these people found the colours seemed lighter, music sounded better, the taste of food immediately became more pleasant, and everyone around them seemed lovable. Just the slightest consciousness opening induced a change in reality. Meditation causes a bigger shift because it opens more channels of awareness and opens them to a deeper level. The shift does not separate us from the normal way we use our consciousness. Building borders will continue to be a fact of life. The twist provided by the rishis was to infuse this behavior with liberation, increasing it to a level which transcends the alienated ego's petty thoughts and desires. The ego typically has no choice but to actively waste life erecting one wall after another.

Table 14.1 also shows R-square (R2), which is called the coefficient of determination. R-square is of great interest: its value is interpreted as the percentage of variation in the dependent variable that is explained by the independent variable. R-square varies from zero to one, and is called a goodness-of-fit measure.5 In our example, teamwork explains only 7.4 percent of the variation in productivity. Although teamwork is significantly associated with productivity, it is quite likely that other factors also affect it. It is conceivable that other factors might be more strongly associated with productivity and that, when controlled for other factors, teamwork is no longer significant. Typically, values of R2 below 0.20 are considered to indicate weak relationships, those between 0.20 and 0.40 indicate moderate relationships, and those above 0.40 indicate strong relationships. Values of R2 above 0.65 are considered to indicate very strong relationships. R is called the multiple correlation coefficient and is always 0 ≤ R ≤ 1. To summarize up to this point, simple regression provides three critically important pieces of information about bivariate relationships involving two continuous variables: (1) the level of significance at which two variables are associated, if at all (t-statistic), (2) whether the relationship between the two variables is positive or negative (b), and (3) the strength of the relationship (R2). Key Point R-square is a measure of the strength of the relationship. Its value goes from 0 to 1. The primary purpose of regression analysis is hypothesis testing, not prediction. In our example, the regression model is used to test the hypothesis that teamwork is related to productivity. However, if the analyst wants to predict the variable “productivity,” the regression output also shows the SEE, or the standard error of the estimate (see Table 14.1). This is a measure of the spread of y values around the regression line as calculated for the mean value of the independent variable, only, and assuming a large sample. The standard error of the estimate has an interpretation in terms of the normal curve, that is, 68 percent of y values lie within one standard error from the calculated value of y, as calculated for the mean value of x using the preceding regression model. Thus, if the mean index value of the variable “teamwork” is 5.0, then the calculated (or predicted) value of “productivity” is [4.026 + 0.223*5 =] 5.141. Because SEE = 0.825, it follows that 68 percent of productivity values will lie 60.825 from 5.141 when “teamwork” = 5. Predictions of y for other values of x have larger standard errors.6 Assumptions and Notation There are three simple regression assumptions. First, simple regression assumes that the relationship between two variables is linear. The linearity of bivariate relationships is easily determined through visual inspection, as shown in Figure 14.2. In fact, all analysis of relationships involving continuous variables should begin with a scatterplot. When variable

to the measures described earlier. Hence, 90 percent of the variation in one variable can be explained by the other. For the variables given earlier, the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is .274 (p < .01), which is comparable to r reported in preceding sections. Box 14.1 illustrates another use of the statistics described in this chapter, in a study of the relationship between crime and poverty. SUMMARY When analysts examine relationships between two continuous variables, they can use simple regression or the Pearson’s correlation coefficient. Both measures show (1) the statistical significance of the relationship, (2) the direction of the relationship (that is, whether it is positive or negative), and (3) the strength of the relationship. Simple regression assumes a causal and linear relationship between the continuous variables. The statistical significance and direction of the slope coefficient is used to assess the statistical significance and direction of the relationship. The coefficient of determination, R2, is used to assess the strength of relationships; R2 is interpreted as the percent variation explained. Regression is a foundation for studying relationships involving three or more variables, such as control variables. The Pearson’s correlation coefficient does not assume causality between two continuous variables. A nonparametric alternative to testing the relationship between two continuous variables is the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient, which examines correlation among the ranks of the data rather than among the values themselves. As such, this measure can also be used to study relationships in which one or both variables are ordinal. KEY TERMS   Coefficient of determination, R2 Error term Observed value of y Pearson’s correlation coefficient, r Predicted value of the dependent variable y, ŷ Regression coefficient Regression line Scatterplot Simple regression assumptions Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient Standard error of the estimate Test of significance of the regression coefficient Notes   1. See Chapter 3 for a definition of continuous variables. Although the distinction between ordinal and continuous is theoretical (namely, whether or not the distance between categories can be measured), in practice ordinal-level variables with seven or more categories (including Likert variables) are sometimes analyzed using statistics appropriate for interval-level variables. This practice has many critics because it violates an assumption of regression (interval data), but it is often

COEFFICIENT The nonparametric alternative, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (r, or “rho”), looks at correlation among the ranks of the data rather than among the values. The ranks of data are determined as shown in Table 14.2 (adapted from Table 11.8): Table 14.2 Ranks of Two Variables In Greater Depth … Box 14.1 Crime and Poverty An analyst wants to examine empirically the relationship between crime and income in cities across the United States. The CD that accompanies the workbook Exercising Essential Statistics includes a Community Indicators dataset with assorted indicators of conditions in 98 cities such as Akron, Ohio; Phoenix, Arizona; New Orleans, Louisiana; and Seattle, Washington. The measures include median household income, total population (both from the 2000 U.S. Census), and total violent crimes (FBI, Uniform Crime Reporting, 2004). In the sample, household income ranges from $26,309 (Newark, New Jersey) to $71,765 (San Jose, California), and the median household income is $42,316. Per-capita violent crime ranges from 0.15 percent (Glendale, California) to 2.04 percent (Las Vegas, Nevada), and the median violent crime rate per capita is 0.78 percent. There are four types of violent crimes: murder and nonnegligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. A measure of total violent crime per capita is calculated because larger cities are apt to have more crime. The analyst wants to examine whether income is associated with per-capita violent crime. The scatterplot of these two continuous variables shows that a negative relationship appears to be present: The Pearson’s correlation coefficient is –.532 (p < .01), and the Spearman’s correlation coefficient is –.552 (p < .01). The simple regression model shows R2 = .283. The regression model is as follows (t-test statistic in parentheses): The regression line is shown on the scatterplot. Interpreting these results, we see that the R-square value of .283 indicates a moderate relationship between these two variables. Clearly, some cities with modest median household incomes have a high crime rate. However, removing these cities does not greatly alter the findings. Also, an assumption of regression is that the error term is normally distributed, and further examination of the error shows that it is somewhat skewed. The techniques for examining the distribution of the error term are discussed in Chapter 15, but again, addressing this problem does not significantly alter the finding that the two variables are significantly related to each other, and that the relationship is of moderate strength. With this result in hand, further analysis shows, for example, by how much violent crime decreases for each increase in household income. For each increase of $10,000 in average household income, the violent crime rate drops 0.25 percent. For a city experiencing the median 0.78 percent crime rate, this would be a considerable improvement, indeed. Note also that the scatterplot shows considerable variation in the crime rate for cities at or below the median household income, in contrast to those well above it. Policy analysts may well wish to examine conditions that give rise to variation in crime rates among cities with lower incomes. Because Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient examines correlation among the ranks of variables, it can also be used with ordinal-level data.9 For the data in Table 14.2, Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient is .900 (p = .035).10 Spearman’s p-squared coefficient has a “percent variation explained” interpretation, similar

Mayfield Realties was situated on the sixtieth floor of Trump Tower in the bourgeoning business district of New York City. A little after eight a.m. Jett Mayfield sat in his office overlooking the busy street below. The people and yellow taxis looked like ants in constant motion: always hurried, always tense. Like the city, Jett had once been abuzz with life—or his former interpretation of it: live hard, work even harder. Until he met her. There was something about Brooke Stewart that had changed something inside him. It wasn’t her beautiful chestnut eyes, nor the way she moved—confident and yet reserved. She had talked to him on a deeper level, touching something he had thought untouchable. His initial intention had been different though. His agenda had been to make her fall for him, not through words, but through actions and sex, lots of the latter, because he had wanted something she had. Not for himself, but for the man and for the company to which he owed everything. But events

An indication that greed reflects the perception rather than the reality of scarcity is that rich people tend to be less generous than poor people. In my experience, poor people quite often lend or give each other small sums that, proportionally speaking, would be the equivalent of half a rich person's net worth. Extensive research backs up this observation. A large 2002 survey by Independent Sector, a nonprofit research organization, found that Americans making less than $25,000 gave 4.2 percent of their income to charity, as opposed to 2.7 percent for people making over $100,000. More recently, Paul Piff, a social psychologist at University of California-Berkeley, found that "lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth." Piff found that when research subjects were given money to anonymously distribute between themselves and a partner (who would never know their identity), their generosity correlated inversely to the socioeconomic status. While it is tempting to conclude from this that greedy people become wealthy, an equally plausible interpretation is that wealth makes people greedy. Why would this be? In a context of abundance greed is silly; only in a context of scarcity is it rational. The wealthy perceive scarcity where there is none. They also worry more than anybody else about money. Could it be that money itself causes the perception of scarcity? Could it be that money, nearly synonymous with security, ironically brings the opposite? The answer to both these questions is yes. On the individual level, rich people have a lot more "invested" in their money and are less able to let go of it. (To let go easily reflects an attitude of abundance.) On the systemic level, as we shall see, scarcity is also built in to money, a direct result of the way it is created and circulated.

THERE IS A LINE among the fragments of the Greek poet Archilochus which says: ‘The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.’2 Scholars have differed about the correct interpretation of these dark words, which may mean no more than that the fox, for all his cunning, is defeated by the hedgehog’s one defence. But, taken figuratively, the words can be made to yield a sense in which they mark one of the deepest differences which divide writers and thinkers, and, it may be, human beings in general. For there exists a great chasm between those, on one side, who relate everything to a single central vision, one system, less or more coherent or articulate, in terms of which they understand, think and feel – a single, universal, organising principle in terms of which alone all that they are and say has significance – and, on the other side, those who pursue many ends, often unrelated and even contradictory, connected, if at all, only in some de facto way, for some psychological or physiological cause, related to no moral or aesthetic principle. These last lead lives, perform acts and entertain ideas that are centrifugal rather than centripetal; their thought is scattered or diffused, moving on many levels, seizing upon the essence of a vast variety of experiences and objects for what they are in themselves, without, consciously or unconsciously, seeking to fit them into, or exclude them from, any one unchanging, all-embracing, sometimes self-contradictory and incomplete, at times fanatical, unitary inner vision. The first kind of intellectual and artistic personality belongs to the hedgehogs, the second to the foxes; and without insisting on a rigid classification, we may, without too much fear of contradiction, say that, in this sense, Dante belongs to the first category, Shakespeare to the second; Plato, Lucretius, Pascal, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Ibsen, Proust are, in varying degrees, hedgehogs; Herodotus, Aristotle, Montaigne, Erasmus, Molière, Goethe, Pushkin, Balzac, Joyce are foxes.

Neither nature nor history can tell us what we ought to do. Facts, whether those of nature or those of history, cannot make the decision for us, they cannot determine the ends we are going to choose. It is we who introduce purpose and meaning into nature and into history. Men are not equal; but we can decide to fight for equality. Human institutions such as the state are not rational, but we can decide to fight to make them more rational. We ourselves and our ordinary language are, on the whole, emotional rather than rational; but we can try to become a little more rational, and we can train ourselves to use our language as an instrument not of self-expression (as our romantic educationists would say) but of rational communication. History itself I mean the history of power politics, of course, not the non-existent story of the development of mankind has no end nor meaning, but we can decide to give it both. We can make it our fight for the open society and against its antagonists (who, when in a corner, always protest their humanitarian sentiments, in accordance with Pareto's advice) and we can interpret it accordingly. Ultimately, we may say the same about the 'meaning of life'. It is up to us to decide what shall be our purpose in life, to determine our ends. This dualism of facts and decisions is, I believe, fundamental. Facts as such have no meaning; they can gain it only through our decisions. Historicism is only one of many attempts to get over this dualism; it is born of fear, for it shrinks from realizing that we bear the ultimate responsibility even for the standards we choose. But such an attempt seems to me to represent precisely what is usually described as superstition. For it assumes that we can reap where we have not sown; it tries to persuade us that if we merely fall into step with history everything will and must go right, and that no fundamental decision on our part is required; it tries to shift our responsibility on to history, and thereby on to the play of demoniac powers beyond ourselves; it tries to base our actions upon the hidden intentions of these powers, which can be revealed to us only in mystical inspirations and intuitions; and it thus puts these actions and decisions on the moral level of one who, inspired by horoscopes and dreams, chooses his lucky number in a lottery.

The judges who breach, violate, and break the concept of the constitution and law are not fair to society, even to themselves; they just put the mask on their faces as the judge. However, history is their judge that does not ignore the reality. A verdict is neither a vote nor a consensus nor a customary decision; it is the interpretation and conclusion of the constitution and law, and judges set it accordingly in the context of that and ensure its implementation. The constitution is like a rose; foreign policy is its fragrance that flies freely everywhere, and everyone feels equally beyond restrictions. Sure, such context carries beauty, dignity, self-determination, freedom, and success; otherwise, the sting of thorns becomes a painful risk. In a civilized century, it is a tragedy that one dares not express one’s feelings that may abuse God, prophets, or sacred figures. But more than that, one cannot speak a word against the wrongdoing of a handful of army generals or ISI officials. In Pakistan, veteran journalists, top judges, and other key figures draw breath under the spying eyes of the ISI; even higher and minister-level personalities are the victims of such conduct. One has to live in such surroundings. Tit for Tat is neither a constitution nor a law; it is just an act of revenge. If it continues, be sure everything collapses wherever it happens. The cheap army, undemocratic state, and corrupt nation neither fulfill their oath nor comply with their constitution.