Auditory system and optical system Essay Example for Free

Auditory system and optical system Essay Two of the most important sensory systems in human body are optical system and auditory system. Optical system or sometime called visual system involved in the process of taken amount of stimuli and transfer it into some figure that we can perceive as images that make senses. Auditory systems involved in sound wave that transduced by drum ear into some kind of vibration that eventually gets converted back into wave what we perceive as noise. There are a lot of similarities in their mechanisms of how they gather, carry and prepare those informations from sensory neurons. However, there are also a lots of differences on how each system operated and where does it takes information into difference area of the brain. For both systems, optical and auditory, the information comes from our environment in many forms. For example, optical system detected all still images and image in motion as far as human eyes can see. The auditory is ready to absorb any noise or sound for twenty-four hours a day. Their structures and mechanisms are similar in a way they gather information, prepare and perceive those information into something that make sense in our brain. After the sensory neurons carry information into specific system each detect, transduce and coding those information before they being send to central system, the brain. Both systems have similar structure that transmit those information to the final destination, the brain. Even though, both system basic the same. Each system perceive those information that perceive from sensory neuron in totally different way. For instance, optical system receive visible spectrum of wave of electromagnetic radiation. The frequency of wave created color and distinguish brightness by amplitude. In auditory system, the frequency of wave created tone ( pitch) and loudness by amplitude. For the optical system, the cornea gather light rays that pass into inferior of the eyes. The information such as lights brightness, hue/color or motion are translate into coded neural impulse. The codes then carried by optic nerves to the brain. However, the information from one side are send to the opposite side of hemisphere but stimuli go to the same side hemisphere. The optical information are stored in occipital lobes where it was process and try to make sense of those information base on experience and individual perception. For the auditory system, the sounds wave goes through the ear canal and hit the ear drum. They activate the the drum and the information being send through the fluid as a result it bents the hair cell in the cochlea and the information then translate into neural impulse. The intensity of sound waves determine by how many hair cell are fire as well as how frequently they fire. The auditory information then carried by auditory nerve from one side of the ear are sent to the opposite hemisphere. The auditory information are stored in temporal lobes where it was process and try to make sense of those information base on past experience and pattern. In conclusion, the optical and auditory systems have basically the same structure and mechanism but they both different in how they gathering, preparing, detecting, and translating those information. Each system are unique and unbelievably complex structure that we need to learn more.

Destroying Your Health By Smoking Cigarettes :: Argumentative Persuasive Example Essays

Destroying Your Health By Smoking Cigarettes If you really want to ruin your health then smoking cigarettes is one of the best ways I know how to do it. Smoking cigarettes cause lung cancer, emphysema, and the one thing that most people notice right off hand is bad breath. If you are into destroying your health, I want you to follow these step so that you can be on your way to an unhappy and unhealthy life, number one buy the cigarettes, number two smoke them, and number three this one is really important never ever quit smoking. I have found that most people who want to destroy themselves quickly will smoke a no filtered brand of cigarettes, so let say you picked out the brand Pallmall-Reds. I understand these are one of the strongest brands of cigarettes you can buy. Yes, there are plenty of other brands of cigarettes out there but why bother going threw all that money to pick the right one when you can take my word on it? These are really strong cigarettes. How do I know, because take one out and look at it, you will notice that there is no filter on the end of it. Due to no filter you will get none of the toxins filtered Without filtering out some of the toxins you will destroy yourself quicker; that is the goal we are seeking, is it not? Lets take out one of our friends (we will call them that to be funny) and look at it. It is about five to six inches in length, maybe a half inch wide with little brown things that look somewhat like coffee grounds inside a thin white paper cylinder. Smell it, a significant number of people actually enjoy the way tobacco products smell, but they will not smoke them. I myself find that ominously odd. Now smoking the cigarette is very important. If you do not smoke it you will not reach your goal to destroy your health. So let us begin with the lighting of the cigarette. Place the cigarette in your mouth, just the tip of it. Do not bother with looking to put the filtered end in your mouth, because if you remember there is no filter on is brand of cigarette. After you have placed our friend in your mouth you will need to tilt your head. Tilting is something most people do when â€Å"lighting up," this process is what majority of people do. Now when you tilt your head it really does not make a difference

Existentialism: Does Life Have Meaning? Essay

Most people would like to think that their life has some kind of meaning or purpose. However how this meaning in life is obtained can cause some differing views. One may believe that they were born with a purpose in life and the other may believe that it is their own responsibility to give their own life meaning. While the first belief may be the preferred option, it doesn’t seem very practical. Existentialists believe that one must give meaning to their own life, which in all reality seems to be the truth. In the novels Their Eyes Were Watching God, Crime and Punishment, The Awakening, The Stranger, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the existential view that the individual is responsible for giving their own life meaning is confirmed through the character’s actions, pressures of society, and the overall meanings of the works. The behaviors of the characters in these various novels help explain their search for meaning in life. In the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God by Nora Zeal Hurston, the main character Janie is on a search for her true purpose in life. She spent her whole life being controlled by her grandmother and her first two husbands, and now that she is living her life with her third husband Teacakes, she is beginning to discover her true potential. Janie is always trying to serve the men in her life so much to the point that she belittles herself into having no meaning to her own life. Janie began to try to find her own meaning in life early in the novel. In chapter two it states, â€Å"Janie was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid. † At this point Janie realizes that it is her own responsibility to create her own purpose in life and she sets out to do so. By the end of the novel, Janie realizes that she can only depend on herself to be happy and she must put her own needs before the needs of others, thus finding her meaning of life. The actions of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, seem to be a constant search for the meaning of life. In Act Three, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have a conversation after they realize that their mission they were sent on is now useless. They say, â€Å"Guildenstern: We’ve travelled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation. Rosencrantz: Be happy—if you’re not even happy what’s so good about surviving? We’ll be all right. I suppose we just go on. † Guildenstern has clearly determined that life has no meaning to it at all and that he is just waiting for death. However, Rosencrantz recognizes that they must make their own meaning of life. Rosencrantz indicates that the fact that life as a whole does not have any obvious meaning does not mean that it is impossible for any individual life to have meaning. Rosencrantz’s response is an attempt to find meaning and purpose on precisely this individual level. When faced with the chaos of life, Rosencrantz decides that his personal purpose will be to seek pleasure for himself. They begin to realize that they must make their life meaningful on their own rather than by the expectations of others, supporting the existential view. Societal expectations play a big part on one’s quest to find the meaning of life. In the The Stranger by Albert Camus and Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, the main characters are conflicted by the pressures of society and doing what they want to do. In The Stranger, Meursault kills a man on the beach and is going through a trial, where he is eventually sentenced to the death penalty. Meursault knows that society is against him and wants him to be put to death. However, Meursault doesn’t want to die. Like all people, Meursault comes to realize that he has been born, will die, and will have no further importance. Only after Meursault reaches this seemingly dismal realization is he able to attain happiness. When he fully comes to terms with the inevitability of death, he understands that it does not matter whether he dies by execution or lives to die a natural death at an old age. This understanding enables Meursault to put aside his fantasies of escaping execution by filing a successful legal appeal. Meursault sees that his hope for sustained life has been a burden. His liberation from this false hope of not being executed means he is free to live life for what it is, and to make the most of his remaining days. With this, Meursault discovers the existential view that it was his own responsibility to give his life meaning and he should stop worrying about societal pressures. Raskolnikov, the main character in Crime and Punishment, finds himself in a similar situation to Meursault. He murders two women and is now debating on whether to turn himself into the police or not. This ultimately leads to Raskolnikov’s existential crisis: to live or to die. In the novel Raskolnikov says â€Å"Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or think, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be! † This shows that by the end of the novel, Raskolnikov understands that he must make his life meaningful in order for him to want to live. He knows that he was born into this world with no meaning and he has to give himself a purpose in life to strive towards, no matter what society says. Society wants Raskolnikov to just get executed, but he decides to serve his time in person so that he could still make meaning in his life after he got out of prison. Raskolnikov came to understand that only he could fulfill his purpose in life and he must live in order to do so. In the novel The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the overall meaning of trying to find one’s true self helps support the existential belief of the responsibility of creating one’s purpose in life. Edna Pontellier is unhappy with her life and she begins to try to find a way out. â€Å"In short, Mrs. Pontellier was beginning to realize her position in the universe as a human being, and to recognize her relations as an individual to the world within and about her. † She has this â€Å"awakening† where she realizes that she needs to stop living for everyone else and instead live for herself. Towards the end of the novel she says, â€Å"†I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me. † She has discovered that her meaning in life was not to be the perfect wife or mom, but to live for what is best for her. Edna knows that she needs to create her own meaning for her life so she decides to leave her old life behind and set out to do so. By the end of the novel, Edna commits suicide because she realizes that the only way she can escape her life that she is living for everyone else is just to end her life all together. All in all, the existential belief that one must create their own meaning in life is supported in the novels through the characters’ actions, societal pressures, and the overall meanings of the works. Many of the characters can teach the readers a lesson on how to live for oneself and not be influenced by the wants of others. One only has a single life, so they must make the most of it and create their own purpose in life in order to actually live. If one doesn’t live for their own meaning and purpose in life, then what is the point of living? It’s your choice, but just remember, you only live once.

Why Has The Concept of Sovereignty Proved Such a Powerful Political Concept - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 8 Words: 2330 Downloads: 8 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Politics Essay Type Argumentative essay Level High school Did you like this example? Why has the concept of Sovereignty proved such a powerful political concept? Introduction That the concept of sovereignty still is a powerful concept can be seen with regard to European integration. The gradual transfer of core powers from EU member states to supranational institutions is a case in point, which consistently reveals the crucial importance of the concept of sovereignty: In the 2009 German Constitutional Court ruling on the Lisbon treaty, the court held that German state sovereignty cannot be transferred to a supranational level as it is ‘simply another name for German democracy’ (Koskenniemi 2010, 241, cf. Grimm 2009). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Why Has The Concept of Sovereignty Proved Such a Powerful Political Concept" essay for you Create order Hence, the question emerges as to why the concept of sovereignty has been able to exert this long-lasting impact. I will argue that this is enabled by its becoming inextricably linked to notions of self-determination and democratic accountability. I will look at this argument from different perspectives, carving out a view on sovereignty as a concept which is fundamentally political, and which is powerful because it provides space for interpretation. My argument will operate against the backdrop of sovereignty conceived of as ‘supreme authority within a territory’ (Philpott 2014, n.p.). Throughout modernity sovereignty has been associated with the state, namely as a conditio sine qua non of the latter. This prevalence of the state is undergoing profound transformations since the second half of the twentieth century. Based on this observation I will explore how linking sovereignty to self-determination and democratic accountability is more relevant for explaining i ts success than to examine its link with the state. The first part thus analyses the historicity of the concept within the paradigm of state sovereignty, the second looks at its contemporary applicability beyond the state. I. Sovereignty and modernity According to Robert Jackson (2007), since the emergence of modernity in the early sixteenth century the concept of sovereignty became tied up to the notion of the supreme and independent state, which marks its connotation as a fundamentally ‘politicallegal term’ (Jackson 2007, 20). Sovereignty became a constitutive part of the state, closely related to its authority. Moreover, this association of sovereignty with the modern state enabled a shift in the ‘locus of sovereignty’ in the course of the following centuries up to the present day, ‘from rulers and dynasties to parliaments and estates or social classes, and then to the nation or people as a whole’ (Jackson 2007, 22). Jackson’s historical account asserts that while the locus of sovereignty changes over time, the basic tenets of political life remained stable: [T]he land surface of the planet is partitioned into a number of separate bordered territories, †¦ a certain de terminate authority is supreme over all other authorities in each territory, and †¦ those supreme authorities are independent of all foreign authorities. (Jackson 2007, 22) For the present argument, however, what is crucial is the locus of sovereignty: the trajectory from absolutist rulers enthroned by the will of all, as stipulated in Hobbes or Bodin (cf. Hobbes 2008; Bodin 1962), to the notion of ‘popular sovereignty’ (cf. Jackson 2007, 78ff.), in which â€Å"the people† hold sovereignty. It is evident in the answer given to the question for who is entitled to sovereignty: in the notion of popular sovereignty, ‘the authority of the final word resides in the political will or consent of the people of an independent state’ (Jackson 2007, 78). This shift in the understanding of self-determination – from a theoretical self-determination as can be found in Hobbes, where people surrender their sovereignty to the Leviathan voluntarily in order to overcome the primordial state of nature and war of all against all, to the factual self-determination of a nation – is of prime importance for the lasting influence of the concept of sovereignty. But how can this change in conceiving the locus of sovereignty be conceptualised? The shift sheds light on the ‘polemical’ dimension of sovereignty, which surfaces in its its deployment not as a ‘marker of an entity’s sociological thickness but of the needs of present politics’ (Koskenniemi 2010, 232). From this follows a concept of sovereignty operating on two different levels, namely as a term which ‘simultaneously invokes the registers of both description and prescription’ (Kalmo and Skinner 2010, 8). It can be employed both in order to analyse a certain status quo and to express a normative dimension, a desire for a certain outcome. It thus points to the present and the past as well as to the future. Therefore, i t is invested with a fundamentally political dimension, which makes it subject to interpretation. The space opened up by this contestability can be seen as a crucial factor for the longevity of the concept: appealing to sovereignty can serve both to repress and justify absolutist rule and to demand emancipation. It is crucially related to the idea of agency, to the question of who de facto holds and exerts sovereignty, and who is seen to be actually entitled to it. In the course of the twentieth century, for instance, the appeal to self-determination served colonised peoples to demand an end to European imperialism (cf. Jackson 2007, 76). While ‘[i]n the mid-twentieth century the â€Å"self† in self-determination was juridical and territory-focused more often that [sic] it was sociological and people-focused’ (Jackson 2007, 106), the national liberation movements of the second half of the century were built on the right to assert a certain, i.e. national , self-determination. At this juncture, another crucial aspect of sovereignty surfaces, namely the issue of accountability. It manifests itself in the notion of consent expressed by the governed towards those governing. In a representative democracy, consent is volatile and can be both confirmed and withdrawn in the course of elections. This process is to guarantee that the government consistently takes into account the public will – a relation which in the parts of the world colonised by European states was obviously not given (cf. Jackson 2007, 76). Accordingly, the appeal both to self-determination and to the requirement of consent by the governed – democratic accountability – form part of the discourse on sovereignty. This discursive dynamic with which the concept of sovereignty is invested provides a clear view on why it has proved to be as long-lasting. II. Sovereignty beyond the state From those considerations one can deduct a notion of sovereignty as a discursive instrument serving different causes in the hands of different actors. The profoundly political character of appealing to sovereignty can be considered a strong explanation of the powerful role the concept of sovereignty still plays. This can be further explored with reference to the approach developed by Cynthia Weber in Simulating Sovereignty (1995). The work is conceived against the backdrop of the perceived ignorance on behalf of most of International Relations scholars as regards the concept’s historicity (cf. Weber 1995, 2) – a critique in which resonates Rousseau’s dictum that ‘the Sovereign, by the mere fact that it is, is always everything it ought to be’ (Rousseau 1997, 52). I would argue that the critique launched by Weber emerges precisely from the political dimension of sovereignty, a dimension she sees obscured in the mainstream discourse which begs the question as to how a community is constituted (cf. Weber 1995, 8). This again touches on the problematic regarding the notion of â€Å"the people†: how is this abstract entity, which by no means corresponds to the empirical population (cf. Kalmo and Skinner 2010, 11), to be conceived? For Weber, who crucially draws on the work of Baudrillard, especially his Symbolic Exchange and Death (1988), considering this question must take into account the profound change from a ‘logic of representation’ to a ‘logic of simulation’ (Weber 1995, 127), which occurs during the second half of the twentieth century. While the first logic implies the production of an original truth which sovereignty can refer to and which enables political representation (cf. Weber 1995, 123f.), the second logic prevails once the credibility of traditional referents such as â€Å"god† or â€Å"the people† has vanished. Truth is not produced anymore, but †™seduced’ (Weber 1995, 125). Weber examines the logic of representation for the relation between sovereignty and several twentieth century military interventions, that is, actual violations of sovereignty. Through the very violation of sovereignty in a specific case, however, the concept itself is reproduced. The conceptual pair sovereignty/intervention creates a boundary which ‘produces, represents, or writes the state’ (Weber 1995, 125). In a logic of simulation, in contrast, the sovereignty/intervention boundary collapses and is replaced by an interchangeability of both, giving way to the emergence of a new term Weber calls â€Å"sovereigntyintervention† (Weber 1995, 127). This shift creates the need for the ‘simulation’ of this boundary, in order to keep up the concept of the state and sovereignty itself. Weber illuminates this with regard to the US intervention in Panama, which essentially obliterated the difference between sov ereignty and intervention. With Baudrillard, Weber argues that an ‘abili [sic, read: alibi] function’ is deployed, a function which is based on self-referentiality and the closed circulation of interchangeable signifiers (Weber 1995, 128). In a vain ‘to rescue the â€Å"reality principle†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Weber 1995, 128, cf. Baudrillard 1988, 2), in this case, the reality of sovereignty, intervention is appealed to. Weber describes the resulting circular relation as follows: For intervention to be meaningful, sovereignty must exist because intervention implies a violation of sovereignty. To speak of intervention, then, is to suggest that sovereignty does exist. In Baudrillard’s terms, intervention or transgression proves sovereignty or the law. (Weber 1995, 128f.) From this Baudrillardian perspective the persistence of the concept of sovereignty can be explained as an attempt to perpetuate first referents in a time in which those referents have l ost their foundation. Against the backdrop of the non-existence of â€Å"the people†, the appeal to sovereignty can only remain credible if it occurs within a network of other concepts. However, each of those other concepts in itself depends on being embedded in a network of signifiers, thus creating the above mentioned self-referentiality: there is nothing beyond the sign, it is pure simulation: a network of simulacra. From this Weber concludes that ‘[i]nvestigating state sovereignty †¦ requires investigating how states are simulated’ (Weber 1995, 129). Those displacements of the discursive use of the concept of sovereignty reflect its prolonged attraction. In other words, returning to the above mentioned ambiguity as regards its use (it can be employed to describe as well as to prescribe), sovereignty’s very texture has been characterised as ‘sponge-concept’ (Bartelson 1995, 237), from which derives an ‘uncertainty about what sovereignty is’ (Walker 1995, 27). Therefore, Kalmo and Skinner hold that if sovereignty is conceived of ‘as an argument, as a claim to authority, than there is no sense at all in which it can be â€Å"reduced† (Kalmo and Skinner 2010, 7). This brings us back to my argument as to the importance of the factors of self-determination and democratic accountability. First, precisely because self-determination has no empirical referent, but depends on invoking an abstract â€Å"people†, this people’s sovereignty can never be achieved, and therefore has to be appealed to persistently. In the hands of different actors it takes different shapes and refers to different aims, but it always has a prescriptive dimension. The same holds, second, for democratic accountability. Consent is never fixed, because â€Å"the people† who articulates this consent are not. Accordingly, democratic accountability is instable, too, as the governing have to take into account the possibility of the popular consent being withdrawn. The appeal to sovereignty by the multitude, Hardt and Negri (2000), for instance, hold, is floating, and per definition as ‘inconclusive [a] constitutive relation’ as the multitude itself (Hardt and Negri 2000, 103). One answer to the question for the ongoing impact of the concept of sovereignty therefore is that it is an ‘argumentative resource’ (Kalmo and Skinner 2010, 24), while the credibility of its functioning as an analytical tool erodes. Conclusion The Baudrillardian theoretical construct is geared to devaluate all â€Å"traditional† ways of conceptualising sovereignty, as here it is subsumed under a theoretical framework in which simulation has substituted all â€Å"reality†. Yet it provides an enriching perspective on the discursive character of the concept of sovereignty, and therefore helps understanding the persistence of its use. The very intangibility of the concepts sovereignty refers to, be it â€Å"the people† or â€Å"consent†, leaves open a gap which contestation can pierce into. My argument showed that those referents of sovereignty, however, are mediated through the factors self-determination and democratic accountability, which therefore provide the essential link through which the discourse on sovereignty proceeds. Accordingly, while the Baudrillardian perspective developed by Weber mainly looks at the appeals to sovereignty by states themselves, it can also serve emancipatory movements for articulating political demands. What can be said in conclusion, then, is that the very ambiguity of the concept of sovereignty as expressed in the demand for self-determination, for instance, is what made and makes it successful. Bibliography Bartelson J 1995, A Genealogy of Sovereignty, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP. Baudrillard J 1988, ‘Symbolic Exchange and Death’, in: idem., Poster M (ed. and intr.), Selected Writings, pp. 119-148, Stanford: Stanford UP. Bodin J 1962, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale ,McRae K D (ed.), Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. Grimm , D 2009, Souverà ¤nità ¤t. Herkunft und Zukunft eines Schlà ¼sselbegriffs , Berlin: Berlin UP.Hobbes T 2008, Leviathan, Gaskin J C A (ed.), Oxford: Oxford UP. Hardt M and Negri A 2000, Empire, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP. Jackson R 2007, Sovereignty: The Evolution of an Idea, Cambridge, Malden, Mass.: Polity. Kalmo H and Skinner Q 2010, ‘Introduction: a concept in fragments’, in: idem., Sovereignty in fragments: the past, present and future of a contested concept, pp. 1-25, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP. Koskenniemi M 2010, ‘Conclusion. vocabularies of sovereignty – powers of a paradox’, in: Kalmo H and Skinner Q (eds.), Sovereignty in fragments: the past, present and future of a contested concept, pp. 222-242, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP. Philpott D 2014, ‘Sovereignty’, in: Zalta E N (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 Edition), URL https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/sovereignty, accessed 08 Feb. 15. Rousseau J J 1997, The social contract and other later political writings, Gourevitch V (ed.), Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP. Walker R B J 1995, ‘From International Relations to World Politics’ in: Camilleri J A, Jarvis A P and Pasolini A J (eds.), The State in Transition: Reimagining Political Space, pp. 21–38, Boulder, Colo.: L. Rienner. Weber, C 1995, Simulating Sovereignty, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge UP.