In this thesis we investigate two approaches to quantum gravity. The first is the emergence of gravity from a discrete fundamental theory, and the second is the direct quantisation of gravity. For the first we develop tools to determine with relatively high accuracy the speed of propagation of information in collective modes which ultimately should give us some information about the emergent causal structure. We found a way of finding the dependence on the relative interaction strengths of the Hamiltonian and we also managed to calculate this speed in the case where the operators in the Hamitonian were not necessarily bounded. For the second approach, we investigated the phenomenology of Loop Quantum Gravity. We found that ultra light black holes (lighter than the Planck mass) have interesting new properties on top of being non-singular. First their horizon is hidden behind a Plancksized wormhole, second their specific heat capacity is positive and they are quasi-stable, they take an infinite amount of time evaporate. We investigated the dynamics of their collapse and evaporation explicitly seeing that not only was there no singularity, but there is also no information loss problem. Looking at how primordial black holes were in existence, we found that they might account for a significant portion of dark matter. And if they did, their radiation spectrum is such that the black holes in the dark matter halo of our galaxy could be the source for the ultra high energy cosmic rays we observe on earth.

The aim of this investigation is to study the various cinematic and rhetorical strategies that Chilean filmmaker Patricio Guzmán uses to construct a complex image of the postdictatorial Chilean society. By analyzing three of his documentaries from the late 1990s and early 2000s (Chile, Obstinate Memory; The Pinochet Case and Island of Robinson Crusoe), I argue that Guzmán's cinematic images expose the challenges of constructing a collective memory of the 1973 coup in Chile and its aftermath. In an attempt to interrogate the social, political and economic dynamics of the Chilean transition to democracy that began in the year 1990, Guzmán's documentaries also explore the consequences of the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1989) in the present. The historical conjuncture of postdictatorial Chile is connected to at least three geopolitical phenomenons: the Post-Cold War international arena formed after the dissolution of existent socialist regimes, the advent of neoliberalism as a transnational economic paradigm, and the struggle for global human rights. The documentaries of Patricio Guzmán are poetic responses to each of these geopolitical phenomenons that affect the constitution of the Chilean present. / Dissertation

In 1719, Daniel Defoe wrote his first fiction The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe without knowing that the protagonist of the novel, Robinson Crusoe, would be liberated from his cultural matrix and deployed as a dominant economic metaphor with the advent of the so-called marginalist revolution in the second half of the nineteenth century. This thesis intends to: i) with reference to an habits of thought approach, unearth the institutional nature of the metamorphosis of Crusoe from a figure of the literary realm to the economic man of neoclassical economics, and ii) based on a rereading of Defoe&rsquo / s original text, offer an alternative reinterpretation which would turn upside down the prevalent presuppositions of neoclassical economics portraying an isolated, universal and axiomatically rational Crusoe. Accordingly, in this study, Crusoe is presented as a specific time- and space-bound human being preserving and perpetuating his institutionally forged character traits even during his sojourn on the &lsquo / institution-free&rsquo / uninhabited island / a methodological and expeditious man, whose rationality was based not on the fulfillment of axioms but on reasoning / and an entrepreneur aiming at economic development through innovation.

This thesis argues that all subjects are constructed through discourse or ideology and are incapable of acting or thinking outside the limits of that discursive or ideological construction. Based on Louis Althusser¡¦s theory, ¡§individuals are always-already subjects,¡¨ living in ¡§the system of the ideas and representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group.¡¨ This Marxist notion serves as the point of departure for the thesis, which defines a subject¡¦s imaginary relation to the world. For Defoe and Swift, their ideological subjection to ¡§the system of the ideas and representations¡¨ is presented in their narratives, which relate the respective subject¡¦s imagination to the world in the eighteenth century. The first chapter begins with Ian Watt¡¦s critique of the eighteenth century individualism, which demands domestic alienation. It argues that if Gulliver¡¦s misanthropy loses its moral dimension, his domestic alienation is questionable. As Gulliver¡¦s counterpart, Crusoe bases his autonomy upon nonreciprocal human relationships, and his self-claimed omnipotence, under constant threats, is false and illusory. The second chapter modifies Helene Moglen¡¦s dualistic interpretation of Crusoe¡¦s consciousness and analyzes his internal contradictions from the perspective of Hegelian dialectics. The course of establishing the colonial hierarchy in Robinson Crusoe further exposes the dialectical reality of colonial tension and contradiction, which also lends itself to interpreting the triangular relationships among the Houyhnhnms, Gulliver, and the Yahoos in Gulliver¡¦s Travels. In the third chapter, the focus of concern shifts to the representation of sexual other. Though Roxana and Moll are constructed to emulate Crusoe and embody the female versions of economic autonomy, these two female-based narratives, Roxana and Moll Flanders, bring to light the paradoxes of eighteenth-century male subjectivity that discriminates men from women in terms of domesticity and individualism. While Roxana is further commodified to be enlisted in the service of imperialist ideology to mask the reality of colonial aggression and imperialist expansion, the same sleight of substitution also underlies Swift¡¦s systematic attacks on women in his Irish Tracts and misogynist poems. Lastly, the fourth chapter aims to bring these two categories of difference together. Through Swift¡¦s and Defoe¡¦s imagination, the racial other and their sexual counterpart enter into a metaphorical alliance. Thus Defoe¡¦s Amazon and Swift¡¦s Yahoo trope not only synthesize what are considered two discrete and separate categories of discrimination, but also demonstrate that their creations of race and gender derive from the same source of reference.

Thesis (Th.M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [65]-71). Issued also in microform.

Thesis--Freiburg i. B. / Mimeographed copy of typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 532-550).

Not available / text

This dissertation examines Socrates' method of examining interlocutors, referred to as the elenchus, in Plato's definitional dialogues. It contains three parts. The first part lays out various theories of the elenchus. The first chapter examines the seminal view of Richard Robinson. The second sketches the development and aftermath of Vlastos' constructivist view. The third focuses on Socrates' own testimony about the elenchus in the Apology. These pictures of the elenchus form a selection of views against which various definitional dialogues may be compared. The second part, containing six chapters, provides a detailed commentary on the Euthyphro. Various features of that dialogue suggest that neither the prominent forms of constructivism, nor their non-constructivist alternatives presented in the first part adequately capture Socrates' procedure. The third part, consisting of one chapter, presents my view of the Socratic elenchus, which I term “technical destructivism.” I argue that this view provides a straight-forward solution to a number of problems which the alternative treatments leave unsolved. It also helps to explain some otherwise puzzling features of Socrates' procedure in the shorter definitional dialogues, including his use of the technē analogy, and his appeal to the priority of definitional knowledge. / Philosophy / text

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

Can sustainability work in the real world? John Robinson is determined to prove it with his forcoming "greener than green" living laboratory.