Geological Time Scale Natural History Museum
This heritage is formed not only by maternal care and nurture but also by a very specific rationality that often is concealed within the maudlin term «mother love.» For it is not only love that the mother ordinarily gives her child, but a rationality of «otherness» that stands sharply at odds with its modern arrogant counterpart. Fromm’s evocation of «mother love» as a spontaneous, unconditional sentiment of caring, free from any reciprocating obligations by the child, yields more than the total deobjectification of person that I emphasized earlier. «Mother love» also yields a rationality of deobjectification that is almost universal in character, indeed, a resubjectivization of experience that sees the «other» within a logical nexus of mutuality. The «other» becomes the active component that it always has been in natural and social history, not simply the «alien» and alienated that it is in Marxian theory and the «dead matter» that it is in classical physics.
Industrial and intellectual culture by no means
advances uniformly in all its branches, and in fact excellence
in various of its details is often obtained under conditions
28which keep back culture as a whole. But there actually have to be
taken into account developments of science and art which
tend directly against culture. To have learnt to give poison
secretly and effectually, to have raised a corrupt literature
to pestilent perfection, to have organized a successful
scheme to arrest free enquiry and proscribe free expression,
are works of knowledge and skill whose progress toward
their goal has hardly conduced to the general good.
One family of languages, the Athapascan, contains both appá and mama
as terms for ‘father,’ in the Tahkali and Tlatskanai. Toward the sources of the Missouri, see Buschmann,
‘Spuren der Aztekischen Sprache im Nördlichen Mexico,’ &c., in
Abh. For the connexion between the Natchez and Maya languages
see Daniel G. Brinton, in ‘American Historical Magazine,’ 1867, vol. Imitative Words—Human actions named from sound—Animals’ BBPeopleMeet names from
cries, &c.—Musical Instruments—Sounds reproduced—Words modified
to adapt sound to sense—Reduplication—Graduation of vowels to
express distance and difference—Children’s Language—Sound-words
as related to Sense-words—Language an original product of the lower
Culture. The first step in such investigation is to gain a clear idea
of the various elements of which spoken language is made
up.
Difference Between Relative Dating and Absolute Dating
To leave it unquestioned is to ignore the most fundamental problems of humanity’s interaction with nature. I say this not from any conviction that the mind is necessarily fixed by any innate, neo-Kantian structures that define the imaginative process as such. Rather, I contend that the mind and certainly the technical imagination, short of attaining the self-consciousness that western philosophy has established as its most abiding ideal, remain highly vulnerable not only to society’s on-going barrage of cultural stimuli, but also to the very imagery that forms the language of the imagination itself. Let me begin my exploration of technics and the contrasting images that shape its form and destiny by examining the ideologies that exist around labor — that most human of all technical categories. Short of sexuality, no subject has been more intractable to a reasonably unprejudiced analysis and more encrusted by highly embattled ideologies. Labor, perhaps even more than any single human activity, underpins contemporary relationships among people on every level of experience — whether in terms of the rewards it brings, the privileges it confers, the discipline it demands, the repressions it produces, or the social conflicts it generates.
Hence nature, even as the matrix and source of ethical meaning, does not have to assume such delightfully human attributes as kindness, virtue, goodness and gentleness; nature need merely be fecund and creative — a source rather than a «paradigm.» By contrast, what we commonly regard as reason — more properly, as «reasonable» — is a strictly functional mentality guided by operational standards of logical consistency and pragmatic success. We formulate «reasonable» strategies for enhancing our well-being and chances of survival. Reason, in this sense, is merely a technique for advancing our personal opinions and interests. It is an instrument to efficiently achieve our individual ends, not to define them in the broader light of ethics and the social good.
Are we missing a good definition for ABSOLUTE DATING? Don’t keep it to yourself…
Without enumerating to
the same purpose the remaining industries of savage life, it
may be said generally that their facts resist rather than
require a theory of degradation from higher culture. They
agree with, and often necessitate, the same view of development
which we know by experience to account for the origin
and progress of the arts among ourselves. 4Now it appears that this view of human will and conduct
as subject to definite law, is indeed recognised and acted
upon by the very people who oppose it when stated in
the abstract as a general principle, and who then complain
that it annihilates man’s free will, destroys his sense of personal
responsibility, and degrades him to a soulless machine. Such a one will sum up the experience of years spent in
complex relations with society, by declaring his persuasion
that there is a reason for everything in life, and that where
events look unaccountable, the rule is to wait and watch in
hope that the key to the problem may some day be found.
Types of material in this collection may include include neighborhood plans, analyses, environmental impact studies and regional community plans. This series contains survey data, summary statistics, correspondence and reports relating to county-wide planning for schools, fire districts, and general community development. This series consists of large scale neighborhood maps (many based on Kroll maps) showing the nature of built structures or land utilization during the time period. The Vashon-Maury Island street addressing file consists of a manual and project history compiled at BALD’s request by geodata technician Ken Brooks. The manual comprises text sections illustrated with copies of forms, worksheets, maps, correspondence, etc.; section topics include socio-cultural background and community information; measuring and recording fieldwork; road designations; address number assignment; map and sign preparation; quality checks; and project wrap-up.
The next step in radiometric dating involves converting the number of half-lives that have passed into an absolute (i.e., actual) age. This is done by multiplying the number of half-lives that have passed by the half-life decay constant of the parent atom (again, this value is determined in a laboratory). Isotopes are important to geologists because each radioactive element decays at a constant rate, which is unique to that element. These rates of decay are known, so if you can measure the proportion of parent and daughter isotopes in rocks now, you can calculate when the rocks were formed.
This appears in the accounts, very
suggestive from this point of view, of the Polynesian art of
divination by spinning the ‘niu’ or coco-nut. In the
Tongan Islands, in Mariner’s time, the principal purpose
for which this was solemnly performed was to enquire if a
sick person would recover; prayer was made aloud to the
patron god of the family to direct the nut, which was then
spun, and its direction at rest indicated the intention of the
81god. On other occasions, when the coco-nut was merely
spun for amusement, no prayer was made, and no credit
given to the result.
At first, there were not many methods of dating were available, but now with advancement in the technology, we mainly have two types of techniques to ascertain ages of ancient belongings. Relative Dating and Absolute Dating are two types of such techniques which are under practice to determine the age of the fossils, objects or civilizations. The relative dating is the technique in the Geology through which the age is determined with relation to the other objects. In other words, we can say that in relative dating the archaeologist determines that which of the two fossil or the artifacts are older.
What is Relative Dating?
The conventional definition of matter betrays this utterly spiritless conception in a generally despiritized world. It is the stuff that occupies space — the homogeneous material whose presence can be quantitatively determined by its weight and volume. This ethical world, to be sure, did not hang freely suspended in the ethereal air of idealism, nor did it arise from high-minded inspiration alone. It emerged from a richly textured social context of human-scaled towns, vibrant and highly variegated neighborhoods, and closely-knit villages.