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Social Organism
Social organism is a sociological concept, or model, wherein a society or social structure is regarded as a "living organism". The various entities comprising a society, such as law, family, crime, etc., are examined as they interact with other entities of the society to meet its needs. Every entity of a society, or social organism, has a function in helping maintain the organism's stability and cohesiveness. History The model, or concept, of society-as-organism is traced by Walter M. Simon from Plato ('the organic theory of society'), and by George R. MacLay from Aristotle (384–322 BCE) through 19th-century and later thinkers, including the French philosopher and founder of sociology, Auguste Comte, the English philosopher and polymath Herbert Spencer, and the French sociologist Émile Durkheim.George R. MacLay, ''The Social Organism: A Short History of the Idea that a Human Society May Be Regarded as a Gigantic Living Creature'', North River Press, 1990, . According to Durk ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sociological
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. While some sociologists conduct research that may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes and phenomenological method. Subject matter can range from micro-level analyses of society (i.e. of individual interaction and agency) to macro-level analyses (i.e. of social systems and social structure). Traditional focuses of sociology include social stratification, social class, social mobility, religion, secularization, law, sexuality, gender, and deviance. As all spheres of human activity are affected by the interplay between social structure and individual a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Economics
Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes what's viewed as basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyzes the economy as a system where production, consumption, saving, and investment interact, and factors affecting it: employment of the resources of labour, capital, and land, currency inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. Other broad distinctions within economics include those between positive economics, describing "what is", and normative economics, advocating "what ought to be"; between economic theory and applied economics; between rational a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Noosphere
The noosphere (alternate spelling noösphere) is a philosophical concept developed and popularized by the Russian-Ukrainian Soviet biogeochemist Vladimir Vernadsky, and the French philosopher and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Vernadsky defined the noosphere as the new state of the biosphere and described as the planetary "sphere of reason". The noosphere represents the highest stage of biospheric development, its defining factor being the development of humankind's rational activities. The word is derived from the Greek νόος ("mind", "reason") and σφαῖρα ("sphere"), in lexical analogy to " atmosphere" and " biosphere". The concept, however, cannot be accredited to a single author. The founding authors Vernadsky and de Chardin developed two related but starkly different concepts, the former being grounded in the geological sciences, and the latter in theology. Both conceptions of the noosphere share the common thesis that together human reason and the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Global Brain
The global brain is a neuroscience-inspired and futurological vision of the planetary information and communications technology network that interconnects all humans and their technological artifacts. As this network stores ever more information, takes over ever more functions of coordination and communication from traditional organizations, and becomes increasingly intelligent, it increasingly plays the role of a brain for the planet Earth. Basic ideas Proponents of the global brain hypothesis claim that the Internet increasingly ties its users together into a single information processing system that functions as part of the collective nervous system of the planet. The intelligence of this network is collective or distributed: it is not centralized or localized in any particular individual, organization or computer system. Therefore, no one can command or control it. Rather, it self-organizes or emerges from the dynamic networks of interactions between its components. This i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Superorganism
A superorganism or supraorganism is a group of synergetically interacting organisms of the same species. A community of synergetically interacting organisms of different species is called a holobiont. Concept The term superorganism is used most often to describe a social unit of eusocial animals, where division of labour is highly specialised and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods. Ants are the best-known example of such a superorganism. A superorganism can be defined as "a collection of agents which can act in concert to produce phenomena governed by the collective", phenomena being any activity "the hive wants" such as ants collecting food and avoiding predators, or bees choosing a new nest site. In challenging environments, micro organisms collaborate and evolve together to process unlikely sources of nutrients such as methane. This process called syntrophy ("eating together") might be linked to the evolution of eukaryote cells a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Body Politic
The body politic is a polity—such as a city, realm, or state—considered metaphorically as a physical body. Historically, the sovereign is typically portrayed as the body's head, and the analogy may also be extended to other anatomical parts, as in political readings of Aesop's fable of " The Belly and the Members". The image originates in ancient Greek philosophy, beginning in the 6th century BC, and was later extended in Roman philosophy. Following the high and late medieval revival of the Byzantine ''Corpus Juris Civilis'' in Latin Europe, the "body politic" took on a jurisprudential significance by being identified with the legal theory of the corporation, gaining salience in political thought from the 13th century on. In English law the image of the body politic developed into the theory of the king's two bodies and the Crown as corporation sole. The metaphor was elaborated further from the Renaissance on, as medical knowledge based on Galen was challenged by thinker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oliver Luckett
William Oliver Luckett (born 1974) is an American entrepreneur. He founded Revver, DigiSynd, and theAudience, all of which have since been sold. He currently lives in Iceland, where he heads the marketing startup, EFNI. Early life and education Luckett grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi. He attended Vanderbilt University, where he received a BA in French literature in 1996. His father, Bill, co-owns the Ground Zero blues club with actor Morgan Freeman. Career After graduating from Vanderbilt, Luckett moved to San Francisco. He began working at telecommunications provider Qwest, rising to the position of chief IP services architect. He left the company in 1999 to co-found the wireless data broadcasting network iBlast with television entrepreneur Michael Lambert. Luckett departed the company after three years and traveled in Spain. He returned to L.A. in 2003 and worked at Declare Yourself, a nonpartisan, nonprofit online voter-registration initiative established by television prod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multilevel Selection Theory
Group selection is a proposed mechanism of evolution in which natural selection acts at the level of the group, instead of at the level of the individual or gene. Early authors such as V. C. Wynne-Edwards and Konrad Lorenz argued that the behavior of animals could affect their survival and reproduction as groups, speaking for instance of actions for the good of the species. In the 1930s, R.A. Fisher and J.B.S. Haldane proposed the concept of kin selection, a form of altruism from the gene-centered view of evolution, arguing that animals should sacrifice for their relatives, and thereby implying that they should not sacrifice for non-relatives. From the mid 1960s, evolutionary biologists such as John Maynard Smith, W. D. Hamilton, George C. Williams, and Richard Dawkins argued that natural selection acted primarily at the level of the gene. They argued on the basis of mathematical models that individuals would not altruistically sacrifice fitness for the sake of a group unless ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darwin's Cathedral
''Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society'' () is a 2002 book by David Sloan Wilson which proposes that religion is a multi-level adaptation—i.e., a product of cultural evolution developed through multi-level selection.Andrew Brown"'I wanted to show how niceness evolves'" ''The Guardian'', July 24, 2003.Natalie Angier"A Conversation with David Sloan Wilson; The Origin of Religions, From a Distinctly Darwinian View" ''The New York Times'', December 24, 2002. Reception The ''Journal of the American Academy of Religion'' called it "a welcome book because it unsettles everybody, evolutionary biologist and religious believer alike"."Review: Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Sloan Wilson
David Sloan Wilson (born 1949) is an American evolutionary biologist and a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences and Anthropology at Binghamton University. He is a son of author Sloan Wilson, and co-founder of the Evolution Institute, and co-founder of the spinoff nonprofiProsocial World Academic career Wilson graduated with a B.A. with high honors in 1971 from the University of Rochester. He completed his Ph.D. in 1975 at Michigan State University. Wilson then worked as a Research Fellow in the Biological Laboratories at Harvard University from 1974-1975. He held a dual position as Research Associate in Zoology at the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Washington from 1975 to 1976. After this he was a Senior Research Officer at the South African National Research Institute for the Mathematical Sciences from 1976 to 1977. Wilson moved back to the United States and held an Assistant Professorship in the Division of Environmental Studies ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Health
Health, according to the World Health Organization, is "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease and infirmity".World Health Organization. (2006)''Constitution of the World Health Organization''– ''Basic Documents'', Forty-fifth edition, Supplement, October 2006. A variety of definitions have been used for different purposes over time. Health can be promoted by encouraging healthful activities, such as regular physical exercise and adequate sleep, and by reducing or avoiding unhealthful activities or situations, such as smoking or excessive stress. Some factors affecting health are due to individual choices, such as whether to engage in a high-risk behavior, while others are due to structural causes, such as whether the society is arranged in a way that makes it easier or harder for people to get necessary healthcare services. Still, other factors are beyond both individual and group choices, such as genetic disorders. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
