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Guide to Social Activity/Body Language

Interpersonal Body Language
Women on average are better at body language than men; it could even be said to be an innate knowledge. Thus, understanding body language is of great importance if you want to approach attractive women.

It's up to men to decipher the implied meanings of their actions, but sadly, most men are generally lacking in this area.

The consequence would be this: a man feeling that everything is going perfectly -- until the woman suddenly leaves him.

When you meet a woman who interests you, one of the first things you should do is to observe the way she carries herself; the way she moves, stands, makes conversation with others, dilated pupils, shiny eyes, so on and so forth.

Your own body language
List of things to consider:
 * Eye contact
 * Eyebrows
 * Smiling
 * Avoiding movement during a sitting interaction
 * Hands
 * Feet tend to point out their direction, so it's important that this language be conciliatory.
 * Look forward and at one direction.
 * Do not wiggle or jerk around.
 * Maintain symmetry. If one side of the body does not match the other, that suggests that you only have half interest in the other person, that you are distracted with something else and not saying why.
 * One suggestion is to look natural, which means to not think about this list.

If you stay in one place, then you can let the other person or persons find a comfortable distance from you. Continue to stay in one place while talking with the other person. If leaving the person, leave discretely, before the other person becomes completely disinterested with you.

Good posture potentially improves your confidence and the impression you make. Sit and stand straight, keep your shoulders back and your chest up. If you avoid reacting to your own humorous remarks, the other persons might react more.

Do not change the angle of your body. That is, if the other person approached you first, and your body does not face the body of the other person, then do not reorient yourself. If you must reorient yourself, leave and return. It is best to show other persons that you are stable and consistent.

Body language of other person
The meaning of some of the body language in this list has not yet been documented here.

 * licking lips
 * maintaining eye contact
 * looking at you "from below" (persons might be trying to exaggerate the height difference between you)
 * playing with hair
 * touching your upper arm

In a social setting, try comparing the other person's body language with a third person with its interactions with you.

The "personal space" test consists of moving a little bit closer to another person at a social setting so that you are standing close and reducing the size of the space around another person. A person less interested in you will attempt to move away.

People instinctively raise their eyebrows when they meet interesting people. Use this to attempt to measure the interest that other people have with you. Interested or excited people will also have shiny eyes. The eyes have a tiny gland on the bottom of the eyelid secreting liquids such as tears and lubrication. When a person is interested or excited, the glands tend to secrete liquid thus giving the eyes the shiny appearance. Maintaining eye contact shows a person's confidence level.

Closed versus Open
Some persons form a barrier: arms crossed, legs crossed, or holding an object in front of themselves. Their body is closed. It is better to seek persons who have arms apart, legs uncrossed, and are facing in your direction; their body is open.

As an exception, if two persons like themselves well, then they might close their bodies while standing or sitting opposite each other. These persons are acting open; their bodies are only closed because they are closed to themselves.

Leaning Forward versus Away
When sitting at a table, persons can either lean forward or away. If you lean forward, then you are more visible to other persons at the table; it is easier to converse with other persons who lean forward.

When comfort and trust have not yet been secured, leaning forward can be taken subconsciously as a sign of hostility. This can be used to subconsciously manipulate or train the other person's actions to your liking.

In contrast, leaning backward, away from the table, is a sign of disinterest. However, a person that leans backward but has their body open might simply be relaxing. Try using some jokes or humor to gain the interest of this person so that they begin leaning forward.

Therefore, if you want to invite someone home, or plan another social meeting with them, suggest making the invitation when the other person or persons are leaning forward with open bodies. Invite the person to meet with you for coffee or some other beverage, or tell them to write their telephone number, even if they must write it with your pen on your arm.

Rapport
Rapport is the technique of mimicking the body language of the other person. If your body language mirrors the body language of other persons in the conversation, then you are implementing rapport. For example:

 * If you are approaching a sitting person, you sit too.
 * If the body of the other person is closed, avoid being open; that would seem intrusive.

Other persons sometimes check if you mirror their body language, and have more interest in persons with rapport. For the converse, you can check if the other person mirrors you.

Definitions
Binocular Disparity

The difference between the two retinal images of an object. Because the right and the left eye are at slightly different positions from each other, they have to turn inwards in order to keep focus on an object as it approaches closer. The closer the object the more the eyes turn inwards. A listener can tell how alert the other person is by the angle or the eyes turning inwards. Binocular Disparity is what allows us to have three dimensional vision.

While talking to a person, subconsciously one can tell if the other person is paying attention. The more a listener focuses their vision on the speaker, the more the eyes turn inwards. A listener whose eyes are both turned straight forward reveals that he's not paying attention. Even though there is eye contact, the eyes should be turned in slightly in order to focus on the speaker.

Binocular Disparity can be used to subconsciously communicate relaxation or aggression. By focusing the eyes on a dot on the other person's face, one is perceived to be alert. Maintaining focus on the dot for longer time would make the person appear as aggressive or even angry such as zeroing in on a target.

On the contrary, looking at the whole face of the other person, and unfocusing the eyes, makes one come across as relaxed and friendly or even easy going. Unfocusing the eyes can be used as an aid in argument resolution. The decreased angle of the eyes turning inward makes one look as having relaxed. As a result, the other person sees a relaxed look of the eyes and tends to relax himself.

See Also: Pupil Dilation, Shining Eyes

Cut Off / Facing Away

A form of gaze avoidance or intrusion avoidance in which the head or the whole body is turned fully away to one side.

A sudden cut-off gesture in conversation may indicate uncertainty or disagreement with a speaker's remarks. Sustained cut-off may reveal shyness or disliking.

A cut off is a form of angular distance. People also turn away as a form of being considerate and giving the other person space in a setting where moving away physically is impractical. During an intermission, the candidates in a debate would respectfully turn away, so as to give each other room to breathe.

In salesmanship, looking suddenly up and to the side is a signal of the prospects skepticism. The sales agent themselves could turn their head or the whole body to the side to make their presence less pushy to the prospect. While walking away discourages prospects because of the retreating nature, the cut off can be used as a substitute for angular distance.

Facing away is a reaction to spatial invasion either one's own of the other persons. After the host and the various guests embrace, they back off and one or both always look away as an equilibrium-maintaining technique to re-establish a proper level of proximity.

Males and people of greater physical size turn their heads away to the side more than do females and people of smaller stature who in turn find it more comfortable and easier to create distance by walking.

Both gaze aversion and torso rotation increase dramatically in conditions of crowding.

Dancing as a Seduction Tool

Dancing is one of those things that can either greatly enhance or totally destroy your chances to score depend on how good you are at it. Many guys would actually be better off just standing around trying to look cool, if the alternative is dancing badly. Women treat dancing as a form of "safe sex" (a fun, sensual activity without any of the risks or downsides of actual sex), and a guy's ability to close-contact dance with women is often viewed by them as an indicator of sexual ability.

There's a certain breed of guy called "the dance partner". This guy likes to hang out all night in clubs, dance for hour after hour with many women, and go home with none of them. He might either be gay, or simply have no idea on how to translate the dancing into sex. Or simply like dancing.

A famous receiver for the Oakland Raiders named Fred Biletnikoff used to say that "if you can put your hands on a pass, you should be able to catch it. If you have a woman in your arms, you should be able to get her into your bed. Dancing is an excellent way to get her into your arms. If she is with a group of girls, ask everyone at the table to dance one by one and work over to the one you want. If they are sitting there drinking and talking, watching the dance floor and keeping time to the music, they are ready to dance. Go ask, if they say no, laugh and have your comeback line ready. I have had girls that said no come back to me and want to know why I didn't ask them again. Usually those are the one's that go home with you too. I would say that 9 1/2 out of ten girls I ask to dance, go out on the floor with me. Energize them, then let things flow. Firm but gentle works most of the time."

Ears, Right Ear vs. Left Ear

If you're stuck chatting up a "mumbler" (someone who will mumble their words instead of speaking clearly) at a cocktail party, lean in with your right ear. It's better than your left at following the rapid rhythms of speech, according to researchers at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. If, on the other hand, you're trying to identify a song playing softly in the elevator, turn your left ear toward the sound. The left ear is better at picking up music tones.

Eyebrow Raise

The tendency for people to raise their eyebrows as one approaches them face-to-face is usually indicative of esteem. If you walk down the street and encounter someone you don't know then the chances are that neither of you will raise your eyebrows. If you recognize each other, however, even if you do not greet each another, then eyebrows will likely raise and lower. Of particular interest here in a business-place context is that if one person is not rated highly by the other person then that person will not raise their eyebrows, even though they acknowledge the presence of the first person.

While meeting a person, briefly raise and lower the eyebrows to communicate greetings as the person enters your scope of vision. When accompanied by a slight backwards head tilt, the greeting gesture can be made to come across as very sincere and genuine. Both the zygomatic smile and the eyebrow movement are very popular body language tools used by sales people and politicians.

Hugging (Rocking)

Primate holding in the arms, a natural mothering response, is met with clinging, an infantile sign of needing to be mothered. Thus, embracing is the evolutionary correct way to say "I love you," and the proper primate way to say "I need you" as well. As humans embrace, a gentle rocking motion from side to side occurs. Swaying, a positive sign, stimulates pleasure centers linked to the inner ear's vestibular sense. Not only do we rock babies, but also the adults we love.

Kinesics

The importance of body language is recognized worldwide - there will not be a training for sales people and management in which the study of body language is absent, for instance. In 1970 Julius Fast wrote his famous book "Body Language." In it he writes about the study of the language of the body and called it: kinesica. More recent developed theories on human functioning have given life to Neuro Linguistic Programming. NLP uses body language as its main source of information to tell more about the way we operate as people, by ourselves or when we are together. For instance, we adjust our body position all the time to our environment when we are in company or in a public place. It has been researched that we have a higher success rate of getting our message across to another when we take on a similar position as him/her. Unconsciously we copy the others movements like crossing and uncrossing legs, turning our bodies this way or that. In NLP this process is called mirroring and could also be referred to as building rapport.

Love Signals

A great deal of our nonverbal communication bespeaks sexuality. Despite speech, courtship is best transacted in an unspoken medium through, e.g., lip-pouts, head-tilts, and shoulder-shrugs. Verbally saying "I love you" before showing love nonverbally in gesture, posture, and deed is apt to scare a partner away.

The lesson here? Don't tell a girl "I love you" too soon. Instead use body language gestures and nonverbal communication to show your feelings of interests. If you tell her your feelings, but you're too nervous and your body language in not in tune, she might perceive your verbal speech as insincere. First try to use non verbal signals. See also Rapport and Mirroring.

Masculinity

"Keep shoulders broad but posture not *too* straight; keep eye contact; look other men in the eye and don't do the "down & away"; don't cover face unless you are acting mischievous; slow movements; deep tonality; move from either the hips or the shoulders (generally); broad arm movements; move with a sense that you occupy a great deal of space -- that you have a large domain or territory; make your eyes expressive of emotion and not of excitement; learn to really dance (waltz, salsa, samba, flamenco, etc.) and this'll become second nature." alt.seduction.fast

Right Brain vs. Left Brain

This theory of the structure and functions of the mind suggests that the two different sides of the brain control two different "modes" of thinking.

Experimentation has shown that the two different sides, or hemispheres, of the brain are responsible for different manners of thinking. The following table illustrates the differences between left-brain and right-brain thinking:

Left Brain:

Logical

Sequential

Rational

Analytical

Objective

Looks at parts

Right Brain: Random

Intuitive

Holistic

Synthesizing

Subjective

Looks at wholes

Some individuals have a distinct preference for one of these styles of thinking. Some, are more whole-brained and equally adept at both modes. In general, academia tend to favor left-brain modes of thinking, while downplaying the right-brain ones. Left-brain scholastic subjects focus on logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy. Right-brained subjects, on the other hand, focus on aesthetics, feeling, and creativity.

Pacing and Leading

Pacing and leading is one of the keys to influencing people. It refers to meeting them at their map of the world (pacing) and then taking them where you want them to go (leading.) Rapport is a basic, behavioural signal that you have met someone at their map of the world. The simplest, most effective test for rapport is "if you lead, they follow."

2) Choose a safe situation to practise mirroring an element of someone else's behaviour. When you have mirrored them for a while, and think you are in rapport with the person, scratch your nose. If they lift their hand to their face within the next minute or so, congratulate yourself: you have led their behaviour!

Skilled communicators have a wide range of behaviours they can mirror to build rapport. You can find a way to mirror virtually anything you can observe.

3) Increase the range of behaviours that you can mirror, and introduce deliberate rapport-building into situations where it will benefit you and others (nb. Use your common sense and choose low-risk situations to practice in.)

Note: It is possible to get rapport without pacing by being outrageous and/or dynamic in a way that drawn in the audience and catches their attention.

See Also: Mirroring, Rapport

Pupil Dilation

The dilation of the pupils is an increase in the diameter of the pupils as they get bigger to take in more light as it gets darker. Dilating pupils is also indicative of interest. One can subconsciously tell if the other person is eager to see them by the size of the pupils in the other persons eyes. When the pupils are large in normal lighting conditions, the persons eagerness and alert perception is noticed. A person with fake interest would be smiling and showing positive gestures, but their pupils would remain small, thus giving the person away.

Pupil Dilation combined with Shining Eyes and Binocular Disparity could be used in communicating enthusiasm and warmth towards the subject.

Push Pull Technique

In the song Yellow by Coldplay, Chris Martin demonstrates using body language a Push Pull example.

"Because I love you so". Stops, looks back, turns around, gives you a chance to leave, gives you space. Then when he sees that you really do want him, you would wait for him and you in the camera are there slowing down to stay with him. The camera was moving gradually along the beach and he was walking forward along the beach. Both he and the camera were together, that is how we could see him, and now that he slows down, we see that we are slowing down for him. But he doesn't make us, the audience wait, he is the one who comes back. The camera is staying there, looking at him and he comes back, tight after he looks around first: Push, Pull.

Make your move, then if the girl's not going for it by saying yes right away, just give some space. If she waits for you to come back; she's yours.

Reconnaissance

Upon re-entering our home (after several hours of absence), we feel a peculiar need to wander about the space to "check" for intruders. In mammals, this behavior is known as reconnaissance: ". . . in which the animal moves round its range in a fully alerted manner so that all its sense organs are used as much as possible, resulting in maximal exposure to stimuli from the environment. It thus 'refreshes its memory' and keeps a check on everything in its area. This is a regular activity in an already familiar environment, which does not require the stimulus of a strange object.

Shining Eyes

The eyes have a tiny gland on the bottom of the eyelid secreting liquids such as tears for use as lubrication. When a person is interested or excited, the glands tend to secrete liquid thus giving the eyes a shiny appearance.

During courtship, shining eyes are used extensively to indicate a sign or attraction in the other person. When describing a guy, the girl might say "there was something in his eyes." "The lover's eyes" is another term used to mark their characteristic appearance.

In practice, it is very hard to have shining eyes without having genuine intentions, therefore there is the belief that people can tell one another's motives subconsciously through face to face interaction.

Shining Eyes combined with Pupil Dilation and Binocular Disparity subconsciously communicate enthusiasm and warmth towards the subject.

Symmetry

The body plans of most animals, including humans, exhibit mirror symmetry, also called bilateral symmetry. They are symmetric about a plane running from head to tail (or toe).

Bilateral symmetry is so prevalent in the animal kingdom that many scientists think that it can't be a coincidence. After all, there are infinitely more ways to construct an asymmetrical body than a symmetrical one. And yet, fossilized evidence shows that bilateral symmetry had already taken hold in animals as early as 500 million years ago.

Therefore, bilateral symmetry must have evolved for a reason, the thinking goes. And over the years, scientists have come up with a number of hypotheses about what that reason might be. According to one, a body that is bilaterally symmetrical is easier for the brain to recognize while in different orientations and positions, thus making visual perception easier.

Another popular hypothesis is that symmetry evolved to help with mate selection. Experiments with birds and insects revealed that females prefer to mate with males possessing the most symmetrical sexual ornaments. Peahens, for example, prefer peacocks with more extravagant and symmetrical tails, and female barn swallows prefer males with long, symmetrical tail feathers.

Human experiments also show similar patterns.

Experiments have found that women are more attracted to men who have features that are more symmetrical than other men. One study even found that women have more orgasms during sex with men who were more symmetrical, regardless of their level of romantic attachment or the guys' sexual experience.

The connection between body symmetry and mate selection began to make sense when researchers started finding correlations between symmetry and health. One study found that men with asymmetric faces tend to suffer more from depression, anxiety, headaches and even stomach problems. Women with facial asymmetry are less healthy and more prone to emotional instability and depression.

Another study found that the more asymmetric a person's body was, the more likely they were to show signs of aggression when provoked.

Symmetry is also prevalent in the physical sciences and is woven into the very laws that govern our universe.

Tapping

Tapping is a defensive gesture or a warning sign for a person not to come any closer. It doesn't necessarily mean that one wants the other person to leave, unless the tapping becomes very loud and even audible from a distance, which is then the area from which the person doing the tapping wants the people around them to clear.

It is not an aggressive signal, but that of mainly wanting to hold things off, not come any close, keep things the way they are. The auditory effect of the tapping also has the verbal effect of not wanting to be disturber with conversation. The sound itself is meant to block of other sound as another person might try to speak and has a psychological effect of distracting the brains auditory cortex. It's like turning on the radio to distract oneself from noisy neighbors arguing across the hall, or pretending to be listening to a walkman when someone is trying to start a conversation.

Tapping in a physical sense also serves to designate one's territory. In a classroom setting or an office environment, one might tap their pencil against the side of the table meaning that he/she's busy so that nobody sits next to them in order to maintain the concentration.

Tense Eyes

The eyes themselves don't tense as much as the eye lids around them and in tense situation, more particularly the lower eye lids. The eye lids close in around the eyes limiting their vision and in effect having an expression of zeroing in or targeting someone. When the eye lids are smaller it's hard to see the surrounding area, so the person has one location in their scope of vision in mind. It is the opposite of open body language and a sign of closed body language. In open body language a person is friendly willing and receptive. When the eyes are smaller, they are showing that they are not receptive. They are focused on one particular area of importance usually because it is perceived as a threat or a source of trouble.

The eyes can also be tense sometimes when a person is concentrating on a task, such as reading an important document, or working on an assignment, however, when dealing with personal interaction, tense eyes are very specifically associated with unfriendliness or hostility. Tensing of the eyelids could also help one so see better as the tension helps in the shaping of the eyes to focus. When a person is working on a task and not involved in a social setting, tense eyes would indeed be a method for the person to focus better. In a social setting people have adapted to use tense eyes as a means of communicating suspicion or wariness, particularly of an intellectual basis as opposed to emotional or personal.

A tense or unfriendly expression in the eyes is a sign that the person is disliking something that is something analytical or of technical nature. For instance when one's wife has tense eyes it could mean that she doesn't trust her husband in something like doing the bills or renovating the house. It doesn't mean that she's suspecting him of having an affair or believes he's forming an emotional attachment with another woman. The eyes mainly reveal thought processes and not matters of the hearth, unless a person evaluates their personal relationships on an analytical level, which is rarely so.

Tense Mouth

Tense mouth is indicative of hostility or disagreement. It is closely related to the usage of the lower teeth which are associated with unfriendliness. It is an attempt to hide or not show off the lower teeth or make an offensive gesture with the mouth while in conversation with someone not particularly liked.

A tense mouth is visible through flattening and thinning of the lips. As opposed to full lips, the person is subconsciously tensing their lips in effect making them seem smaller and less visible. The lips are a very friendly and encouraging part of the face. When a person doesn't like someone, they inevitably find it hard to show their lips as a way of saying that they are not happy and they are not inviting. At the same time the person is trying not to show off their lower teeth too much, although this might happen, as this could be a very offensive and at times inappropriate display of facial expression.

The opposite of a tense mouth would be the lower lip protrusion, plumping lips (as in flirting), showing upper teeth and in effect smiling.

Through Look

Psychological technique to get oneself unattached to a particular person by not avoiding them in the field of vision, and at the same time to slowing down to make eye contact, so as to be uninfluenced. Used very often by public speakers. Public speakers are trained to make eye contact, to scan the room and at the same time not fixate on any one particular person or area. The purpose is to give everyone recognition and a chance to speak up, if a member of the audience has a question, but not to be otherwise distracted by any one particular person or object.

Touch (First Touch)

The first touch—a milestone in courtship—is likely to seem casual, unpremeditated, and "accidental" rather than serious. An eager hand reaches out to a neutral body part (a forearm or shoulder, e.g.) which reacts by accepting the contact or by pulling away. Sensitive pads of our fingertips used as tactile antennae gauge the slightest startle, tenseness, or hesitation of response.

Negative replies include angling away, leaning away, and no reaction.

Positive responses include

 * lifting the shoulders, shoulder shrug
 * sideward head-tilt, and
 * returning the touch with a touch.

Thus, partners learn a great deal from the first manual contact, which deftly probes beneath spoken words to feelings. Touching another's body captures full attention, and is the evolutionary true test of where a partner stands.

Touching

Research shows: "Wives under stress are soothed by husbands' touch."

Casual touching is one of the most powerful attraction triggers. The soothing effect of the touch could be seen in MRI scans of areas deep in the brain that are involved in registering emotional and physical alarm.

The 'touch' most commonly referred to is hand holding. There are other important reasons for holding her hand, but as this research confirms, it has an INSTANT soothing affect.

It is believed that casual touching, and hand holding in particular has a massive effect on success in long term relationships.

Researcher notes that this effect is many times more powerful with married couples, but even a complete stranger STILL had an effect on the woman's brain. It is possible for a total stranger, can trigger a soothing effect on any woman, DEEP in her subconscious mind, simply through the use of a simple touch.

Verbal Plumage - The lip sinking that is attractive in men and unattractive in women

Verbal Plumage is quite simply using exaggerated facial expressions and lips and mouth movement to talk with the face. We all move our lips and faces when we talk to deliver the sound. Verbal plumage is just that same facial behaviors to a greater volume especially when saying pleasant, soft or deep sounds. What ever kind of movement you make with your mouth and lips when you say words like "you", "on", "feel", "between", "inside", "deep", "always", "forever", "no other" etc. Girls like those words. They are just words to us guys, but to them they have special significance when we say it. The word "special" is another word.

When you say those words exaggerate the lip movement part of the word as if it has special significance for you too. Girls love that. They feel special when they hear those words, and you adding verbal plumage to it makes the word that much more profound as if you really mean it.

Verbal plumage doesn't have to be any particular words. Verbal plumage on its own is simply talking with the face by definition. To use it in the context of seduction would be to increase verbal plumage at particular words and phrases that have deep meaning and feeling attached to them.

Imagine you are talking to a deaf persona and you are trying to make your self understood. Imagine the extra kind of lip sinking you would do to express yourself. Do just that, but only do it with the right words when you are saying words that are pleasant to girls when they hear them. Here are some more words that girls like when you say them:

intention true reality no choice I want appreciation sincere trust come on yes

In comparison, words like: call, go out, maybe, I don't know, no, number, meet etc. Girls don't like those words. They hear them all the time when guys try to hit on them and get their digits. Say less of those words, and when you do use them you are a ventriloquist at the time.

Girls are already very expressive and feeling when they talk. It's not attractive in a woman to use verbal plumage because that makes her even more touchy feely clingy when she talks. But in a guy, it makes him come by as caring and in touch with his feelings when talking to women.

Voice Training

Right before you call stand up and hum a little bit at a moderate to deep tone -- it'll improve the sound of your voice over the phone

Zygomatic Smile

A very "pleasant" smile, and one of the most sincere types of smiles which is very hard to produce on demand, is the zygomatic smile. A zygomatic smile is the real item, a genuine heartfelt smile that involves upturned corners of the mouth, wrinkling at the eyes, or crow's feet, and utilizes very many more facial muscles than we can easily control voluntarily. It is therefore virtually impossible to fake the zygomatic smile, and most of us, while not necessarily knowing it, can distinguish it from a "phony" smile.

title: Guide to Social Activity/Body Language


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Introduction to Philosophy/Utilitarianism

Utilitarian theories of ethics judge an action by its consequences; an action is right, or duty, if it brings about the best balance of intrinsic good over intrinsic bad. Thus, utilitarians place an emphasis on the consequences of our actions or policies. Jeremy Bentham formulates this in his famous "Principle of Utility." Utilitarianism is a well-known example of a branch of ethics known as consequentialism, which states that actions are morally judged by the impartially reckoned value of the consequences. That which is good or bad differs between different types of utilitarianism, hedonistic utilitarianism and preference-respecting utilitarianism being the most noteworthy.

History of utilitarianism
Utilitarianism was founded by Jeremy Bentham and further developed by his disciple, John Stuart Mill. Bentham was most interested in the ramifications that a utilitarian ethics would have for the law, and he developed a precise system for correlating a crime's detrimental effect on utility to the severity of its punishment. Mill explored utilitarianism from a more broadly philosophical perspective, and defended it from the critiques of opposing ethicists. Mill did this by taking Bentham's dictum that what was important was the precise amount of happiness and adding a factor of quality, where quality is determined by "competent judges" who are capable of fully enjoying the given pleasure. More than this, however, Mill suggested that some happiness was of such a high quality that any amount of it would be preferable to any amount of a happiness which was of a lesser quality. This thesis is controversial, partially because it is patronizing, but primarily because Mill's reasoning behind introducing it -- that there are some happinesses which are of such a high quality that a well informed and independent jury would always choose some of that happiness over any amount of another -- is far from rigorous and might simply not be the case.

Another 19th Century Philosopher, Henry Sidgwick, re-interpreted utilitarianism along lines which are more commonly used today. He found that the classification of utility as happiness was clumsy and so began to talk about utility as a measure of desire and satisfaction. Thus, something would be good on utilitarian grounds if it satisfied the desires of many people, and bad if it did not, or if it went against their desires.

Two branches of utilitarianism that are still recognized today eventually developed:

Act utilitarianism, or AU, states that if an agent is faced with a moral decision, it is morally obligatory to make the choice that brings the highest total pleasure to everyone affected.

Rule utilitarianism, or RU, states that it is morally obligatory for everyone to act in accordance with the set of moral rules such that if everyone acts in accordance with this set of rules, more pleasure is produced than if everyone acts in accordance with any other set of moral rules.

Utilitarianism today
Peter Singer is a contemporary philosopher whose basic approach to ethics is utilitarian.

Criticism
Professor James Rachels critiqued the philosophy of utilitarianism, mainly by attacking the following points:
 * 1) Actions are judged to be right or wrong only on the basis of their consequences
 * 2) The only consequence that matters is whether happiness or unhappiness results
 * 3) No one's happiness is more or less important than another's- each are equally important

The first flaw that Rachels identified with Utilitarianism was making happiness the goal that we seek out in our endeavors. While this may be attractive in principle, Rachels claims that it is very flawed in practice. An example proving this is if a friend bad-mouths somebody behind their back, Utilitarianism will claim that it is a moral action, because the person is not aware; Ergo, it did not cause them any harm. Rachels suggests that one should not seek out friends in order to make him or herself happy. Instead, happiness should be a response to what one has achieved or obtained.

Another point that Rachels makes is regarding the dogma of only considering the consequence of an action important, rather than the action itself. For example, if a police officer is accused of abusing somebody based on their race, clearly the best solution according to utilitarianism would be to find the officer guilty, and punish them severely, as this will cause the greatest number of people to achieve happiness. Rachels would refute this by saying that this is not moral, since although more people are happy, one person was ruined without receiving fair representation. Rachels would claim that they should receive a just trial, and be prosecuted according to the law. Another example is if there is a person who has hidden cameras in the washroom, utilitarianism would claim that this is morally right, due to the fact that he didn't cause anybody unhappiness, and increased the happiness of himself. Rachels would deny this, and claim that his actions were immoral.

Rachels also attacks the Utilitarianist argument that everybody is equal, and your own happiness is no more important than anybody else's. He claims that this is completely impractical, as one can usually increase the happiness of somebody else whenever they buy something. For example, if one has $20 that they can either spend on new shoes, or they can donate it to help the poor, obviously donating it will help more people, but is it reasonable to sacrifice the happiness of yourself and your loved ones in order to help complete strangers? Rachels would claim that it is not.

Other often cited criticisms of utilitarianism are that the philosophy doesn't take into account a person's intention. Did a person that took an action intending to maximize happiness do something immoral if the action ends up decreasing happiness? If four people need an organ transplant to live, would it be a moral act to kill one person against his will and transplant his organs into those people so that they will live? If Utilitarianism states that any action that maximizes happiness is good, then killing one person against his will in order to save others would be a moral act.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Introduction to Philosophy/Philosophy of Mind

The philosophy of mind is about the form and content of our thoughts, and how and why we come to think them. Understanding the philosophy of mind gives us some fairly universally applicable rules to understand ourselves, other people, animals and even computers.

Philosophy of mind covers similar domains to psychology, artificial and non-artificial (synthetics) intelligence, developmental and non-developmental psychology, evolutionary and non-evolutionary psychology, evolutionary and non-evolutionary developmental psychology, forensics and non-forensics-based developmental psychology, developmental and non-developmental neuropsychology, epistemology, etymology, phenomenology, anthropology, ethnography, sociology and psychiatry, and helps us look at these disciplines within a specifically philosophical context. There is now growing evidence of a computational theory of mind.

You can either look at things in a hermetic (closed) or empirical (open) way.

Philosophy of mind is closely connected to cognitive psychology. It is connected also to neuroscience, which is still attempting to sort out (once and for all) whether our minds and our brains are separate.

Questions one may ask are: 'What is the difference between reality and illusion?', 'How is the mind related to the body, or to physical things in general?', 'How do I know that other minds exist?' In studying these questions one might start with Descartes' Meditations, then go on to study George Berkeley, Edmund Husserl and Gilbert Ryle, to mention just one or two.

Further questions include: 'What, if anything, is the "subconscious"?' If this cannot be put on a sound footing, how do we talk about 'self deception'? 'What, if anything, is "mental illness"?'

Another area of philosophy of mind that grew during the second half of the 20th Century is artificial intelligence. The Turing test challenges us to say whether we are talking to a human being or to a computer. People have been developing computers to the point where these tools could be said to have minds. Perhaps they will think autonomously.

Philosophy of mind can be expressed as 'thoughts about thoughts'.

Reading List
Wikibook on Consciousness Studies : pursues the problem of mind from Aristotle to fMRI.

Descartes, R. Meditations on First Philosophy

Kim, Jaegwon. "Philosophy of Mind" Westview, 2006.

Ryle, G. The Concept of Mind  1949

Turing, A. 'Computing Machinery and Intelligence'  Mind 1950, pp. 433-460

Searle, J. The Rediscovery of the Mind 1992

Sternberg, E. Are You a Machine? 2007

also see Thinking And Moral Problems []

Further Inquiries into Philosophy of Mind involve questions of whether specific thoughts or activities of the mind such as perception of color or feeling pain can be identified, in a strict sense, with the physical brain event which corresponds to such mental activities, or whether there is a distinction between the two. See Saul Kripke's "Naming and Necessity".


text:
Civ/Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri/Diplomacy

Negotiating with factions
Negotiation with other factions is allowed once you have their commlink frequency, which means you must encounter them physically on the map (you units need to be in adjected squares), receive it from a faction you already have contact with, discover it in a Unity pod, or receive it through the Empath Guild Secret Project. Negotiating with other factions is very important, as it allows you to exchange technologies, maps and commlink frequencies, enter into formal treaties and pacts, declare war on one another, and synchronise your attacks on a third faction.

Formal Relationships
Your relationship with other factions consists of one formal value and an informal one. Your formal status with other factions is one of the following: Vendetta, Truce, Treaty and Pact. Additionally, you may have an "informal truce" with another faction.

"Vendetta" is rather self-explanatory: this faction leader has made a promise to destroy your faction, or at least bust it up pretty good. Unless you are the aggressor, of course. "Truce" (or "Blood Truce") means that your two factions have agreed not to attack each other, at least for the time being. "Treaty" ("Treaty of Friendship") is just that, a treaty which represents your two factions' friendship. More importantly, a Treaty means the citizens and organizations of two faction will now trade with each other, meaning you get extra energy credits, straight into the state coffers. The final kind of formal relationship is the Pact ("Pact of Brotherhood"). This means your two factions are committed to helping each other out, which has several manifestations. First, commerce rates double between your two factions, and secondly, your units may stack theirs. This means closer military cooperation is possible, you may defend each other's bases, and your pact mate might even give you units "to defend your territory against aggression".

When you first meet a faction, you have no formal relationship, or an informal truce. This means that you are not at war with this faction, but no actual agreements have been made. From this point, you may engage in war with the other faction, remain at an unease peace, or commit to a formal relationship. Whether the other faction agrees to a treaty or a pact depends on how they feel towards you, which is the next thing we're going to talk about.

Informal Relationships & Reputation
The informal relationship with another faction is simply how much the other faction leader likes you. This value ranges from "Magnanimous" (or "Submissive" if threatened) to "Seething", and it hinges on three things: how strong your faction is (the stronger the faction, the more respect other factions have for you, and the more they like you), your actions towards this faction, and your Social Engineering choices. If you have attacked this faction (or worse; are at war with it) the faction leader will like you less, whereas if you have traded or presented gifts to this faction, they will like you more.

As you might have guessed by now, a faction leader's opinion of you decides how likely it is that he or she will attack you. Another factor also plays into this, the faction leader's personality. Some, such as Yang or Santiago, are more likely to attack you than others, such as Deidre and Aki-Zeta. This is important to keep in mind, especially in the beginning of the game, so that you can plan the training and construction of military forces accordingly. If you start next to, say, the Usurpers, you can be sure that unless you are far stronger than them, they will declare war soon, especially on higher difficulty levels, and even moreso if you have turned on the "Aggressive Factions" option. Faction leader personalities can be randomized under "Game Rules".

Your Social Engineering choices also play a part in how other faction leaders behave. Each faction has one SE choice on their agenda, and one SE choice aversion (see Understanding the Factions). If you are currently running the SE choice on the agenda of a given faction, this faction will think more highly of you, and if you are employing their aversion, they will criticise you for it, and it may even be a contributing cause for open conflict. Faction leader agendas can also be randomized.

In the course of the game, you will very likely make deals and trades with other factions, as mentioned. Whether or not the other faction leaders will accept the deal you propose depends on their opinion towards you (or "mood"), and your reputation. Reputation starts at "Noble" and can diminish as a result of dishonourable actions; your reputation is affected by whether or not you honour formal agreements. If, for example, you have signed a Treaty of Friendship with another faction, and attack them without waiting for the treaty to expire, your reputation will incur a hit. The same applies to Blood Truce.

Note that while you may not attack a pact mate (your unit will only stack with his or hers), you may still incur a reputation hit if your probe teams are caught trying to operate on one of your pact mate's bases or units. If one of your probe teams are indeed compromised, the target faction has sufficient reason, with regards to reputation, to move against you. This means that if you attempt to steal technology from a pact mate and are caught, your pact mate may declare vendetta against you without going through the normal channels. The same, of course, is the case for a human player.

The Planetary Council
The Planetary Council is a rare feature among Civ games; just like the United Nations of Civilization IV. The Planetary Council consists of every human faction in the game (not counting those who have been eliminated or committed major atrocities). When a player has the commlink factions of all the other human factions, that player may convene the Planetary Council. (When this happens, all the human factions will have each others' comm links.)

The first proposal the Council must consider is electing the Planetary Governor. Only the two factions with the most votes can be eligible. It is advantageous to be the Governor, therefore in some cases it may be best to wait before convening the Council if you haven't enough votes now but have a shot at eligibility within the next few turns.

Proposals
The primary purpose of the Council is to consider various issues which may arise, such as electing a Planetary Governor.

Elect Planetary Governor

 * Prerequisite: N/A

The Planetary Governor can introduce new proposals more often and enjoys automatic infiltration of all factions. That means if the Governor isn't you, it should be somebody you trust.

Global Trade Pact

 * Prerequisite: Planetary Economics

Commerce rates are doubled for all factions. Since choice of faction, social engineering and technologies alter your commerce rating, this proposal can be good or bad accordingly. If your opponents will gain an advantage from increased trading, don't agree to a pact.

Repeal Global Trade Pact

 * Prerequisite: Planetary Economics

Commerce rates are halved for all factions.

Launch Solar Shade

 * Prerequisite: Advanced Spaceflight

Causes global cooling and the sea levels to drop. If a solar shade has already been launched, this proposal will be called "Increase Solar Shade".

Increase Solar Shade
See Launch Solar Shade

Melt Polar Caps
Melts the polar ice caps of Chiron, raising sea levels all around.

Repeal U.N. Charter
Repeals the U.N. Charter, meaning atrocities are counted as normal acts of warfare. The U.N. Charter is in effect when the game starts.

Reinstate U.N. Charter
Self-explanatory: reinstates the U.N. Charter, once again making atrocities subject to harsh penalties.

Salvage Unity Fusion Core
Salvage of the Unity core affords every faction 500 energy credits. Logically, you will not want to do this if you have lots of ECs and your rivals are strapped for cash.

Unite Behind Me As Supreme Leader
All factions unify behind one faction leader, this faction wins and the game is over. When playing with Progenitor in Alien Crossfire, this option is only available after both alien factions are eliminated.


text:
User talk:Donaldz~enwikibooks

The Books I am editing
[半导体器件和工艺简介]]

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title: User talk:Donaldz~enwikibooks


text:
Cookbook:Cuisine of Poland

| European cuisines

The traditional cuisine of Poland is characterised by meat and vegetables, especially potatoes and dills. Lunch and dinner tend to be heavy.

Breakfast is usually simple, often meatless, and taken at 6-9 o'clock. Lunch is taken at 2-3 o'clock and dinner is taken at 4-7 o'clock.

The most well-known dish outside Poland is perhaps bigos. It is a sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) and meat (usually beef) dish.

Poland has recently provided well for those who are vegetarian, and the desserts are usually fruity in nature.

Bigos is a very traditional Polish dish. It is claimed that its origins come from Polish hunting traditions where hunters would cook up their catch with cabbage, wild mushrooms and sausage. Recipes for Bigos vary from family to family but there are several ingredients that are almost universal: Cabbage, Sausage (usually smoked), Onions, Salt Pork, Bacon and Venision. As most modern cooks don't have easy access to good quality venison, pork and, less frequently, beef are often substituted. The variation using beef and referenced in the introduction of this section, is called Bigos Hultajski. (See Polish Heritage Cookbook by Robert and Maria Strybel) Bigos Myśliwski is the version more usually associated as the traditional Bigos. You can also add prunes or wild Polish Mushrooms (Borowik - Boletus edulis).

Specialities by Region

 * Pomerania
 * Warmia and Mazuria
 * Mazovia and Lublin Voivodship
 * Małopolska
 * Silesia
 * Wielkopolska
 * Tatra Mountains

General Dishes

 * Wiejska - a popular variety of kielbasa sausage
 * Rosół z kury - poultry soup
 * Ogórkowa - sour-salted cucumber soup*
 * Pierogi - a stuffed type of dumpling
 * Mazurek Cake - Easter and Christmas cake originally from Poland

Meals for Special Occasions

 * Wigilia (This is Polish Christmas Eve).
 * Wielkanoc (This is Polish Easter).

title: Cookbook:Cuisine of Poland


text:
Occupational Health/Contributors

Arinbasu created this book and had the initial idea for it.

EuropracBHIT found this book on the Humanities shelf, and decided to organise the Table of Contents, as well as the pages on which it will be written.

title: Occupational Health/Contributors


text:
Cookbook:Radish

A radish is a root vegetable, which is usually grown in the spring (Northern Hemisphere) and autumn (Southern Hemisphere). It is grown all over Europe, America, Asia and the Pacific.

It appears as a white vegetable with a tough red skin.

Radish often has a piquant taste and burns the tongue

A radish can be used as a garnish for salads, or in its own right as an ingredient in a pie or soup.

Radish Recipes

 * Radish Pie
 * Radish Tart

title: Cookbook:Radish


text:
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text:
The Voynich Manuscript/Alphabet

The following alphabet layout is based on the number correspondences of f49v. When other researcher's letter values are laid against this table, distinct patterns are formed.

First the number layout:

X  X   X   X 1   X   X   X 2   X   X   X 3   7   X   X 4   X   9   X 5   X   X   X 6   X   X   X 8   X   X   X X   X   X   X X   X   X   X

Here is the alphabet layout (in EVA):

f  p   cFh  cPh o  q   i    x r   ir  iir  iiir y  s   g    b e   ee  ch   sh l   il  iil  iiil k  t   cKh  cTh d  a   u    j m   im  iim  iiim n  in  iin  iiin

Glen Claston's Standard Glyph Set ("S" means "standard"):

S  S   X   X S   S   X   X S   X   X   X S   S   X   X S   S   S   S S   X   X   X S   S   S   S S   S   X   X S   X   X   X X   S   S   X

Jorge Stolfi's (c)rust-(m)antle-(k)ore paradigm:

k  k   k   k c   c   X   c c   X   X   X c   c   c   X m   m   m   m c   X   X   X k   k   k   k c   c   X   X c   X   X   X c   X   X   X

title: The Voynich Manuscript/Alphabet


text:
Evolutionary Biology

Life on Earth is astonishingly complex. There are tens of millions of living species, or kinds of organisms. Some endangered species have just a few individual organisms, while others have quadrillions. Every individual organism is, all by itself, an extremely complicated object, with many interacting parts. Further, organisms interact with other organisms, of the same species and of other species, to form an inconceivably complex network of causes and effects.

Evolutionary biology studies the origin and methods of this complexity. Evolutionary biologists try to answer questions like: Why are there so many species, and how did they come to be? What are the relationships between species and how did these relationships arise? How did organisms develop their intricate structures and ways of life? Why do species become extinct? How did life originate in the first place?

In the last two hundred years, great advances have been made in answering many of these questions. An overarching theory, the theory of evolution by modification and natural selection, first expounded by Charles Darwin in the 1850's, has been very successful at explaining the origin of life's complexity in general, although many puzzling questions remain unanswered.

This book will present our current understanding of how life on Earth got the way it is, and describe current research directions in this profound and fascinating field.

Chapters

 * 1) /Early History of Life on Planet Earth/
 * 2) /Speciation/
 * 3) /Evolution before Darwin/
 * 4) /Darwin's Life and Impact/
 * 5) /Microevolution/
 * 6) /Phylogeny/
 * 7) /Primary endosymbiosis/
 * 8) /Secondary endosymbiosis/

Evolutie

title: Evolutionary Biology


text:
User talk:John Doe~enwikibooks

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What is this, John?

 * What is this John? Alice in Cyberwonderland. -- user:zanimum
 * John, I think Alice in Cyberwonderland violates What Wikibooks is not, rule #4, Wikibooks is not fiction. Gentgeen 20:09, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)

 * Genteen, thanks for pointing this out, as I realize at first glance Alice in Cyberwonderland does appear to be fiction, and your concern gives me an opportunity to talk about the underlying conceptual framework of Alice in Wonderland and how it is intended to serve as a teaching tale.

 * For as Alice journeys through the various doors, windows, gates and digital passageways. etc, she learns - albeit in an uncoventional, fantastic way - about the remarkable and fascinating properties of a real-time, interactive. digital, knowledge-based universe. I have outlined some of the details below, and slightly reorganized what I had written here before. John Doe 01:41, 7 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Alice in Cyberwonderland - A Teaching Tale

 * '4. ... Wikibooks primary mission is to create open source textbooks, how-to guides, and classroom aids. - from What Wikibooks is not

 * Alice in Cyberwonderland - and any such sequels as might emerge, e.g. Alice Through the Windows, Alice's Adventures in Wikiwonderland, although on the surface a work of fiction and fantasy, is being written as an imaginative vehicle of discovery of the wonders of a digital universe: a universe not subject to the constraints of the laws of conservation of mass and energy - as everything that lives in a purely digital form has zero mass, zero physical size, with virtually zero travel time, a universe governed by the laws and properties of information, information systems; a world where the nture of proerty has become transformed, with the nature of information itself favouring the freedom of expression, exploration. inquiry and exchnage that a wiki, open source, open content, interactive information powered by evolving interoperable digital engines whose creative work consumes virtually no energy, where the same entity can be in many places at the same time and in many different forms ...

 * Among the specific examples of how Alice's adventures open up exploration and discovering of the naure of digital universes are the light and colour cubes - soon to be the basis for another Wikibook - and her discovery of the state of the Mesopotamian Marshlands will led her into a journey through time and space where becomes a participant in the emergence of a new knowledge-based civilization in which the restoration of the decimated Mesopotamian Marshes in Southern Iraq serves as a catalyst for a rebirth in the cradle of civilization.

 * Alice also becomes immersed in a world of information species - a few of which have already been identified in the current draft - and begins to become aware of the wonders of information ecosystems and Information Ecology.
 * I could go into more detail - in fact I did so yesterday but neglected to save the draft - and hadn't found the time get back here until a short time go - however, the hour is late. More - or less - later.

A Tale Whose Time Has Come

 * "There is a tide in the affairs of man
 *  Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune
 * On such a full sea are we now afloat;
 * And we must take the current when it serves,
 * Or lose our ventures.
 * Brutus in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
 * Brutus in Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare

A tribute to Lewis Carroll

 * A self-revealing light-hearted tribute to Lewis Carroll - aka Rev. Charles Dodson - and a choice to follow Rev. Dodson's footsteps of anonymity.

 * An exploration of a different wonderland, one that did not exist in Lewis Carroll's time. If Lewis Carroll were alive now, might not he - as a mathematician - have been fascinated by the wonders of digital technology. Might he not have conjured up tales for a modern-day Alice that took place in today's lookinglass - plus microscope and telescope - world of the Internet?

A tribute to mathematics

 * The commmon bond of mathematics is a special bridge to the mind to Lewis Carroll, for the mathematics of information - including zero mass, zero physical size, and virtually zero travel time - and fields such as chaos mathematics, mathematical biology and more have been among the numerous sources of inspiration to John Doe's alter ego in his explorations and appreciation of the dynamics of a digital knowledge-based universe.

An imaginary journey through the wonders of a digital universe

 * For the tale that reveals itself, is a tale of global transofrmation - transition to a center of gravity - and levity too - a new Nash Equilibirum based on the properties and dynamics of the digital knowledge-based universe that many John Does - and Jane Does too - discover themselves immersed in the vast, wonderful and mysterious information ecosystem - see, for example, the wikibook on Information Ecology - with virtually no boundaries, and virtually free from the constraints of the laws of conservation of mass and energy.

Improvisatonal Plays

 * In a world that at time can be osessed with work, Alice in Cyberwonderland is a space for improvisational play - playing with words and meanings, with numbers and mathematical expresions, plays of apparent illusion and disillusion - plays of paradox ... and in the process, rediscovering how we can - and do - learn through interactive play and games.

 * The play's the thing,
 * Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
 * Hamlet in Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2, by William Shakespeare

Revelation of a "Gaia Mind"?

 * Perhaps it will become self-evident that what is arising through the birth and evolution of new forms of collective intelligence is no less than the manifestation of a Gaia Mind - a mind that serves as the key to a new era in the life of Gaia - the Earth and the commuity of life of the Earth

Catalyst: the Mesopotamian Marshlands

 * Who knows? Perhaps the regeneration of the Mesopotamian Marshlands - between the rivers - a cradle of civilization - may be the venue through which clear evidence of the presence and workings of a Gaia Mind become revealed - hotspots, tension points that reflect the convergence of almost all of the dimensions of tension and conflict on the Earth and that may, going beyond the canary in the coal mine, may not only be alerting us to the perils of the distortion of moral and economic values associated with a world addicted to unsustainable fossil-fuel-dependence and a reliance on military force and weapons of destruction to suppress conflict, rather than a way that honours the earth, treasures the healing powers of hwater, and where civilization and the laws of the land uphold nonviolent, peaceful resolution of conflict.

John Doe - Everybody, Anybody

 * In common usage, John Doe is anybody - and everybody - and seems to be a fitting name for a wikibook author

 * In this wikibook, anybody - even you - can be a co-author, a contributor, perhaps even a member of the cast of what might even evolve into a feature-length interactive open source dvd movie ...

John Doe & Lewis Carroll

 * like Lewis Carroll, John Doe's alter ego is a mathematician
 * unlike Lewis Carroll, John Doe's alter ego read mathematics at Cambridge, not Oxford
 * like Lewis Carroll, John Doe's alter ego loves reading imaginary tales to young children
 * unlike Lewis Carroll, John Doe's alter ego is a father - of one daughter and two sons
 * like Lewis Carroll, John Doe's alter ego is a person of faith
 * unlike Lewis Carroll, John Doe's alter ego has no formal credentials as to his faith

John Doe and the Housing Court of Kings

 * While the seeds of Alice in Cyberwonderland had begun to germinatre earlier, it was the appearance of John Doe in the Housing Court of Kings that that both inspired the as-yet barely revealed episodes of Alice in the Housing Court of Kings and led to he adoption of the name of John Doe as the alias under which Alice would be writeen.

John Doe 15:01, 1 Aug 2004 (UTC)
 * }

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title: User talk:John Doe~enwikibooks


text:
Evolutionary Biology/Microevolution

< Evolutionary Biology

Changes within a gene pool occurring from generation to generation is called microevolution. Allele frequencies in a population may change due to gene flow, genetic drift, natural selection and mutation. These are referred to as the four fundamental forces of evolution. Note that only mutation can create new genetic variation. The other three forces simply rearrange this variation within and among populations.

The main factors change frequencies of alleles for a single genetic locus and therefore cause genetic variation on a small scale. The following causes of microevolution allow violations of the Hardy Weinberg assumption
 * 1) Genetic Drift
 * 2) Natural Selection
 * 3) Gene Flow
 * 4) Mutation

Genetic Drift
In genetic drift there is a genetic variation among allele frequencies of that population due to random chance. [This is poorly written to the extent of possibly being false. Genetic drift is a binomial sampling error of the gene pool, or -- put more simply -- a change in allele frequencies due to chance.] Therefore a small population would allow for higher chance of sampling error and a change in allele frequencies as a result would lead to a misrepresentation of the parent generations gene pool. The misrepresentation of allele frequencies causing a change in the population is an evolutionary process.

Bottleneck Effect
The bottleneck effect results in a drastic change of allele frequencies of a gene pool causing genetic drift. This dramatic change in allele's occurs as a result of natural disasters such as earthquakes or floods. The portion of the population that survives such a circumstance will then be overrepresented in the gene pool while causing a reduced population size. Genetic variation is reduced due to the smaller population size and over representation of certain allele frequencies. [This is very confused. When a population is greatly reduced in size, it is said to undergo a bottleneck. In smaller populations, the average size of allele frequency changes due to genetic drift is increased.]

Founder Effect
Another dramatic mechanism for genetic drift is due to the a small number of individuals from an originally larger population inhabiting a new isolated geographic region such as an island, lake, or some other new habitat. This is not to be confused with immigration because in immigration a population already inhabits the region when new individuals to the region begin to inhabit it. These new individuals make up the gene pool of their original population and now represent it in the new habitat but in a smaller proportion. This affects the allele frequencies of that population.

Inbred Populations
Inbreeding refers to non-random mating among closely related individuals. [No, inbreeding is a propensity for individuals to breed with those most closely related to them. The way it is worded now confuses inbreeding (a process) with being inbred (a state, which can result from inbreeding or simply being a member of a small population.] These situations tend to increase the chance of the homozygous condition, thus leading to lower fitness and survival rates. [The first clause is poorly written and the second clause is just plain wrong. My PhD is in evolutionary biology and I am a writer by profession. I'd like to help.]

Inbreeding and homozygous conditions lead to higher-possibilities in expressing recessive or negative traits.

Natural Selection
A population can evolve by natural selection where the traits characterizing a population can change over time when its individuals differ in heritable traits that are responsible for differences in survival and reproduction.

Gene Flow
Gene flow refers to changes in allele frequency that result from migration of individuals between populations. In the absence of gene flow, populations can become genetically distinct from one another through genetic drift, or due to differing natural selection pressures in the different populations. Gene flow has the effect of minimizing the genetic differences between populations. Surprisingly little gene flow is needed to keep populations from diverging. Sewall Wright demonstrated that only one migrant per generation is necessary to prevent two populations from diverging. Natural selection can cause microevolution (change in allele frequencies), with fitness-increasing alleles becoming more common in the population. Fitness is a measure of reproductive success (how many offspring an organism leaves in the next generation, relative to others in the group).

Mutation
Mutation is the ultimate source of all new genetic variation. Mutations are random, heritable changes in DNA that can alter gene expression. However, they occur rarely. Most new mutations are expected to be neutral to mildly deleterious, with relatively fewer highly advantageous or highly deleterious mutations. How quickly a mutation spreads through a population depends on its effect of fitness (advantageous vs. deleterious), and also whether it is dominant, co-dominant, or recessive. In general recessive mutations should spread slowly, since they initially will show up in heterozygotes, so the effect of the new mutation is not seen until two of these heterozygotes mate to produce offspring which are homozygous for the mutation (and therefore the effect of the mutation can be seen). In contrast, dominant mutations may spread quickly, since their effects are seen immediately when they are present in heterozygous form. Mutations are the ONLY source of new alleles.

title: Evolutionary Biology/Microevolution


text:
User:Moolsan~enwikibooks

I'm mainly workin on the german wikibooks project now -> http://de.wikibooks.org/wiki/Benutzer:Moolsan de:Benutzer:Moolsan

title: User:Moolsan~enwikibooks


text:
User talk:Moolsan~enwikibooks

Platz für Kritik, Anregungen und Kommentare ... //

Some place for criticism, comments and whatever comes to your mind ...

Entwurf Hauptseite
Ich finde den Entwurf für die Hauptseite sehr gut. Sollte so bald wie möglich umgesetzt werden. -- Daniel B 20:04, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Bronstein
Igit, das ist doch ein Physikbuch und hat mit Mathe nix zu tun ;-) Ne mal im Ernst: Ich find's super dass du es eingestellt hast. Da merk ich wenigstens, dass es doch noch Leute gibt, die meine Einstellungen da anschauen. Dankeschön!--berni 10:21, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Umzug nach de.wikibooks
Hallo, würde gern ein paar Kisten schleppen, z.B. Katalanisch und Portugiesisch. Wie stelle ich das an? Get-back-world-respect 09:08, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Photoschule
Hi, wichtiger ist wohl, dass mein English nicht reicht. Mir ist das Umbauen einfach zu viel Arbeit. Ich mach´s demnächst rückgängig. besten Gruß lars 15:55, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Image:0von10.png and licensing
G'day, please note the licensing status of this image. A cleanup is in progress, and this image is thus now in peril! cheers, Webaware 01:07, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

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Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:28, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

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title: User talk:Moolsan~enwikibooks


text:
User talk:EuropracBHIT~enwikibooks

Hello EuropracBHIT and welcome to Wikibooks. I saw your edits to the Cookbook, and wanted to thank you for your work. A few tips for you:

 * Peruse Welcome, newcomers and associated pages
 * Sign talk page entries with ~, which is automatically converted to a name and date
 * Ask questions on Staff lounge
 * Have fun.

-- Gentgeen 19:43, 8 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Gentgreen.

I have certainly been having heaps of fun.

What is the difference between the Staff Lounge and the Study Desk? EuropracBHIT 02:32, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * The staff lounge is where you ask questions about the project, like, "should we have a book on pumpkin carving?" or "I just wrote a book about pottery, please check it out and tell me what you think.", while the Study Desk is where you go to get help with a real world problem, like "how wide is the Pacific Ocean at it's widest point?" Hope that helps. Gentgeen 05:52, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Mesopotamian Summer
Hello EuroprachBHT

Thanks for your additions to the discussion page, I have been following so many other streams of information and peeople - as the Mesopotamian Marshlands process have evolved into a Mesopotamian Summer - to be lauched on Sunday, June 20, 8:57 pm (EST). I have not been monitoring this wikibook although I have been substantially expanding the contents and structure of the daabase that gnerated the pages and have been gathering and compiling much information - especially maps - from the early days of mesopotamia

I have also been making a lot of phone calls, and the gathering, organizing, compiling growing quanitities of remarkable infomration, and processively importing then into what will soon be renamed as the MESO-SUM digital engine

I would love to talk with you about the process, and would be happy to phone you if you email me your phone number - I will also send you an email Information Ecologist 06:07, 18 Jun 2004 (UTC)

from attention-tunnel Hello EuropracBHIT, I like to answer you. Is this the way I send messages??

To answer your question: 1) No, I did not ask Edan for approval to use the name 'Aspergia'. Therefore I should maybe change the name to something else. I don't want to cause any trouble. My intent was to rembmer people of the idea of 'Re-Branding Aspergia' of which an explenation is on Aspergia. It really doesn't have to have the names Aspergia. Its about the spirit. 2) Murray and Lesser both agreed and are very happy to have their content made publicly available. I have not yet gotten a response from Walker. They like both Creative Commons and GNU. The idea is 1) to translate the papers by the hlp of wiki technology, 2) have it freely available for everyone, 3) encourage delevopment of this model of mind.

aspergia book
Thanks. I got your message about these autism writings. I haven't looked into the autism and computing books. The only book of which I was aware was the "Aspergia Book". The idea for the book seems to have been posted on the WrongPlanet.net site here. I don't know exactly how much this will fit the purpose of wikibooks, but it seems to be in preliminary stages so I'm inclined to let it stay since it could provide information about Asperger's that could be incorporated into other articles as well. I wouldn't try to get it deleted or anything because it looks harmless right now.

The GFDL violations, however, should not be tolerated. I think it would be a good idea to ask attention-tunnel to provide a link to another site hosting the content. Even if these were under the GFDL, they would probably be more appropriately placed in Wikisource. I hope this helps!

--Perl 15:32, 31 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categories
Hi EuropracBHIT, I noticed that you put Categories on each subpage of The Golden Bough. I think, having the main page of a book in the Categories like Religion or Magic would be enough, as anything else will completely fill up the Categories pages so that they are not usable anymore... --Andreas 16:35, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Book of the month
Hi EuropracBHIT, thanks for the change February->March in the voting for May :-) --Andreas 18:46, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

South America
If you're going to contribute to South American books, please make sure to eliminate any racist white supremacist views out of source material you're using. And just in case they're your views, I know Poles are overwhelmingly racists and white supremacists (and anyone who disagrees is either #1 not Polish, or #2 is a racist) but that doesn't mean you're allowed to try to teach these really despicable views to children. 70.26.56.242 20:33, 6 November 2005 (UTC)

Copyright problem with Image:DemystifyingDepressionFigureTwo.png
--Derbeth talk 22:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Looking for help
Greetings: My name is Ivan Robaina Bychko and I am a 19 years old Cuban Wikipedia who currently works in several articles about Philosophy both in Spanish Wikipedia and at my university (University of Santiago -Universidad de Oriente-/you can see the link here: www.uo.edu.cu). I am very interested in philosophy and I would be very thankful if you would be willing to help me to collect some information about it that is difficult to find in bibliography (It is even harder to find to me since I do not have international internet connectivity). In case you want to contact me, my e-mail account is: nayesda.daria@medired.scu.sld.cu Humbly waiting for your willingness to help me Sincerely yours, Ivan

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called EuropracBHIT. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name EuropracBHIT~enwikibooks that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:11, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
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title: User talk:EuropracBHIT~enwikibooks


text:
Data Structures

This book is about the creation and analysis of efficient data structures. It covers:

 * the primitive node structure;
 * asymptotic notation for mathematically discussing performance characteristics;
 * built-in arrays;
 * list structures built from either nodes or arrays;
 * iterators as an abstract model of enumerating the items in a sequence;
 * stacks and queues for computing with last-in/first-out and first-in/first-out orderings;
 * binary and general tree structures for searching or representing hierarchical relationships;
 * min and max heaps for representing ordering based on priorities;
 * graph structures for representing more general relationships between data elements;
 * hash tables for the efficient retrieval of strings and other objects; and finally
 * trade-offs between the structures, and strategies for picking the most appropriate ones.

To understand the material in this book you should be comfortable enough in a programming language to be capable of working with and writing your own variables, arithmetic expressions, if-else conditions, loops, subroutines (also known as functions), pointers (also known as references or object handles), structures (also known as records or classes), simple input and output, and simple recursion.

Because many different languages approach the construction of data structures differently, we use pseudo-code so that you can translate the code into your own language.

Contribute to the development of this book!
A Wikibook is an undertaking similar to an open-source software project: A contributor creates content for the project to help others, for personal enrichment, or to accomplish something for the contributor's own work (e.g., lecture preparation).

An open book, just like an open program, requires time to complete, but it can benefit greatly from even modest contributions from readers. For example you can fix "bugs" in the text (where the bug might be typographic, expository, technical, aesthetic or otherwise) in order to make a better book. If you find an opportunity to fix a bug, simply click on "edit", make your changes, and click on save. Other contributors may review your changes to be sure they are appropriate for the book. If you are unsure, you can visit the discussion page and ask there. Use common sense.

If you would like to make bigger contributions, you can take a look at the sections or chapters that are too short or otherwise need more work and start writing! Be sure to skim the rest of the book first in order to avoid duplication of content. Additionally, you should read the Guidelines for Contributors page for consistency tips and advice.

Note that you don't need to contribute everything at once. You can add the template " ", to pages and perhaps someone else will finish those parts for you.

This book is intentionally kept narrow-in-focus in order to make contributions easier (because then the end-goal is clearer). This book is part one of a series of three computer science textbooks on algorithms, continuing on to the techniques of algorithms in Algorithms and ending with Advanced Data Structures and Algorithms. If you would like to contribute a topic not already listed in any of the three books try putting it in the Advanced book, which is more eclectic in nature. Or, if you think the topic is fundamental, you can go to either the Algorithms or the Data Structures discussion page and make a proposal.

Additionally, implementations of the data structures (in either Ada, C, C#, Perl, Python, Java, Ruby, or Scheme) as an appendix are welcome.

title: Data Structures