The Dynamics Of Ambiguity

A fascinating topic! A fascinating book! Quite often, science and art are considered as the "two cultures" dividing our society into two separate groups. However, important phenomena in science and art have a common root. By using the concept of broken symmetries the author enlightens the similarities between the process of creation of an art work and of a scientific theory, as well as the similarity between the process of perception and measurement. Symmetry is a no-change as the outcome of a change. In order to obtain information, the symmetry of an initially balanced system must be broken. The consequence is ambiguity, the critical point of any dynamical instability. Here the world of physics and emotional and rational spheres match.The dynamics of perception (the transformation leading to a choice) involve well known physical phenomena like symmetry, entropy and others. Many illustrations and a strict ratio between popular inserts and technical chapters make this a scintillating book explaining why sciences and arts have in common the feature of universality.

This book investigates the dynamic intertwinement of law and morality, with a focus on new and developing fields of law. Taking as its starting point the debates and mutual misunderstandings between proponents of different philosophical traditions, it argues that this theoretical pluralism is better explained once law is accepted as an essentially ambiguous concept. Continuing on, the book develops a robust theory of law that increases our grasp on global legal pluralism and the dynamics of law. This theory of legal interactionism, inspired by the work of Lon Fuller and Philip Selznick, also helps us to understand apparent anomalies of modern law, such as international law, the law of the European Convention on Human Rights and horizontal interactive legislation. In an ecumenical approach, legal interactionism does justice to the valuable core of truth in natural law and legal positivism. Shedding new light on familiar debates between authors such as Fuller, Hart and Dworkin, this book is of value to academics and students interested in legal theory, jurisprudence, legal sociology and moral philosophy.

Ambiguity in Mind and Nature is the result of cognitive multistability, the phenomenon in which an unchanging stimulus, usually visual, gives rise in the subject to an oscillating perceptual interpretation. The vase/face picture is one of the most famous examples. In this book scientists from many disciplines including physics, biology, psychology, maths and computer science, present recent progress in this fascinating area of cognitive science. Using the phenomenon of multistability as a paradigm they seek to understand how meaning originates in the brain as a consequence of cognitive processes. New advances are achieved by applying concepts such as self-organization, chaos theory and complex systems to the latest results of psychological and neurophysical experiments.

This book defends an account of ambiguity which illuminates the aesthetic possibilities of film and the nature of film criticism. Ambiguity typically describes the condition of multiple meanings. But we can find multiple meanings in what appears unambiguous to us. So, what makes ambiguity ambiguous? This study argues that a sense of uncertainty is vital to the concept. Ambiguity is what presses us to inquire into our puzzlement over a movie, to persistently ask “why is it as it is?” Notably, this account of the concept is also an account of its criticism. It recognises that a satisfying assessment of what is ambiguous involves both our reason and doubt; that is, reason and doubt can work together in our practice of reading. This book, then, considers ambiguity as a form of reasonable doubt, one that invites us to reflect on our critical efforts, rethinking the operation of film criticism.

The book is inspired by the second seminar in a cycle connected to the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Politecnico di Milano. "Working with the Image Description Processing Prediction" was the motto of this meeting, aiming to point out the role of Visual Language not only in describing reality, but also in supporting the thinking processes in Science (prediction), in Art (invention), in Technical studies (prevision) and in identifying and working on both visible and invisible phenomena. As John Barrow states, "So often a picture is better than a thousand words" and "The visual language is the most natural, while the other language could reasonably be considered as 'postscripts' to the human story". The essays included in the volume (from lectures, the poster session, interviews and round table) will show the wide range of technical possibilities connected with the present use of the Image, especially thanks to Computer Graphics, from 3D Modeling to Augmented Reality, while also offering a glimpse of interesting theoretical perspectives. In the end, as noted by Martin Heidegger, the word "theory" not only comes from the Ancient Greek verb "theoreo", that is "to see, to observe", but it also echoes the words "theos" and "thea", namely "god" and "goddess", and above all, it shares the root with the term "aletheia", which is the "truth", which is not far from the ultimate goal of research.

Grounded in ethnography, this monograph explores the ambiguity of English as a lingua franca by focusing on identity politics of language and race in contemporary South Africa. The book adopts a multidisciplinary approach which highlights how ways of speaking English constructs identities in a multilingual context. Focusing primarily on isiZulu and Afrikaans speakers, it raises critical questions around power and ideology. The study draws from literature on English as a lingua franca, raciolinguistics, and the cultural politics of English and dialogues between these fields. It challenges long-held concepts underpinning existing research from the global North by highlighting how they do not transfer and apply to identity politics of language in South Africa. It sketches out how these struggles for belonging are reflected in marginalisation and empowerment and a vast range of local, global and glocal identity trajectories. Ultimately, it offers a first lens through which global scholarship on English as a lingua franca can be decolonised in terms of disciplinary limitations, geopolitical orientations and a focus on the politics of race that characterize the use of English as a lingua franca all over the world. This book will be of interest to students and researchers in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, World Englishes, ELF and African studies.