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Talk:Autoeroticism

Would narcissism be considered a form of autoeroticism? Perhaps it's a stretch, but it seems to fit... Of course, I would have to add the explicit clarification that narcissism would be a sub group of the various types of autoeroticisms.--BlackGriffen

 * I don't know if it's a form of autoeroticism, but it's certainly related. Maybe a mention and a link. --Dmerrill

You're thinking of autophilia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:1FC6:1A00:F48B:B160:CE4C:D3E2 (talk) 16:20, 11 July 2016 (UTC)

Merger

 * Don't Merge: Autoeroticism and autosexuality are entirely different things. Autoeroticism can occurs in a homo-, hetero-, bisexual orientation, etc.  Autosexuality is usually (but not always) a orientation parallel to those aforementioned. --Zippanova 19:29, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
 * I second that: I'd say why, but I'd be repeating what's been said above. MessedRocker 03:50, August 15, 2005 (UTC)
 * Don't merge: one article is about the practice of self-gratification, the other is about a preference for self-gratification. These topics are only similar on the surface. --Icarus 09:48, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Oops, I didn't know there was a discussion going on before I merged, until it ws brought to my attention by Icarus. However, autoeroticism is a physical manifestation of autosexuality. Obviously, if most want to de-merge, then go ahead. Brisvegas 07:24, 9 October 2005 (UTC)

It seems pretty irrelevant to have autofellatio linked to there and discussed as requiring flexibility, etc. or at least, somewhat sexist. no? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.216.53.189 (talk) 07:53, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Undoing this consensus-free merge
Hi folks. I have undone this old merge, which seems to have been carried out without consensus.

Autoeroticism is stimulating yourself sexually. Almost everyone does this, and almost none of the people who do it are subject to the unusual paraphilia of autosexuality, which means being attracted to yourself sexually. Your average teenage boy thinks about a girl, feels attracted to her, and then beats off. He doesn't say "Oh my dear right hand, I love you so!" except in dirty jokes! Dan B † Dan  D  01:33, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge status as of May 2007
Late last month somebody put up another merge template thing, though did not mention it here. Well... This doesn't appear very active though, and considering it's been debated before, I don't think anybody should be merging this. Cheers, Rothery 08:57, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Don't merge: They are different things. It would be like merging fruit and apple.
 * I agree, I think masturbation is a type of autoeroticism but it doesn't work the other way around. Yonatan talk 18:02, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Not quite a double negative
Intro, para 4, line 3: The potential for injury or even death that exists while engaging in the partnered versions of these fetishes (the erotic asphyxiation and bondage, respectively) becomes drastically increased due to the isolation and lack of assistance...." How does having a partner increase risk of "injury or even death"? From all that I have read, quite the opposite is true: a partner will prevent injury if the play goes beyond the bounds of safety, and will prevent death if the play is'' injury. The linked ref (}does not point to anything specific so I cannot argue against it just on language. 71.234.215.133 (talk) 13:14, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

I caught that too. I think it was just a mistake, I fixed it. --71.84.126.174 (talk) 04:17, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

Completely random inclusion
Look at the end of the roman catholic church deal. After explaining that the Catholic Church believes masturbation to be immoral, it suddenly cuts to saying that women can masturbate using different means, and then the paragraph ends abruptly. Delete? -CommieComrade —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.23.91.97 (talk • contribs) 00:52, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

 * Fixed. It was caused by this edit. Graham 87 12:53, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

"though it is clear that most men would engage in this practice if they could"
i removed this part because is unnutral and sexist.82.22.152.255 (talk)

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title: Talk:Autoeroticism


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Articolo 31

Articolo 31 is a band from Milan, Italy, formed in 1990 by J-Ax and DJ Jad, combining hip hop, funk, pop and traditional Italian musical forms. They are one of the most popular Italian hip hop groups.

Band history
Articolo 31 were formed by rapper J-Ax (real name Alessandro Aleotti) and DJ Jad (Vito Luca Perrini). In the spoken intro of the album Strade di Città ("City Streets"), it is stated that the band is named after the article of the Irish constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press, although article 31 of the Irish constitution is not about the freedom of the press. They probably meant the Section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act.

Articolo 31 released one of the first Italian hip hop records, Strade di città, in 1993. Soon, they signed with BMG Ricordi and started to mix rap with pop music – a move that earned them great commercial success but that alienated the underground hip hop scene, who perceived them as traitors. In 1997, DJ Gruff dissed Articolo 31 in a track titled 1 vs 2 on the first album of the beatmaker Fritz da Cat, starting a feud that would go on for years.

In 2001, Articolo 31 collaborated with the American old school rapper Kurtis Blow on the album XChé SI!. In the same year, they made the film Senza filtro (in English, "Without filter"). Their producer was Franco Godi, who also produced the music for the Signor Rossi animated series.

Their 2002 album Domani smetto represented a further departure from hip hop, increasingly relying on the formula of rapping over pop music samples. Several of their songs rotate around the theme of soft drugs legalization in Italy (pointing strongly in favour).

Following their 2003 album "Italiano medio", the band took a break. Both J-Ax and DJ Jad have been involved with solo projects. In 2006, the group declared an indefinite hiatus.

Their posse, Spaghetti Funk, includes other popular performers like Space One and pop rappers Gemelli DiVersi.

On 4 December 2022, it was officially announced Articolo 31 participation in the Sanremo Music Festival 2023. "Un bel viaggio" was later announced as their entry for the Sanremo Music Festival 2023.

Band members

 * J-Ax – vocals
 * DJ Jad – turntables

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

title: Articolo 31


text:
Talk:Aromatherapy

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 6 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): BGarrett333. Peer reviewers: Emilygdeng, Kangw01, Roopeterson, PatDillard, Jaselleee, Andrianicole1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 25 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Haleighj.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Who actually thinks this works?
(Except as a placebo or calming the user down)

REDsEngineer (talk) 03:44, 29 January 2019 (UTC)
 * A lot of people mistakenly think this works. TylerDurden8823 (talk) 00:10, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

 * Surely that depends upon what you expect it to do? John2o2o2o (talk) 23:38, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

Aromatherapy: Not a Pseudoscience
Aromatherapy, when practiced in clinical settings, in particular, is a form of complementary medicine. A quick search of PubMed reveals numerous published articles from scientific journals carried out at respected medical institutions that demonstrate the positive effects of certain inhaled essential oils for the mitigation of symptoms including anxiety, stress, nausea, and insomnia. Legitimate aromatherapists do not claim to "cure" diseases with essential oils, nor do they reject medical science. Instead, they offer adjunct, first-line comfort care options to patients that do not carry the risks of many pharmaceutical interventions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.132.117.81 (talk) 17:07, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * It's well sourced it's a pseudoscience, and that a lot of crap research is done into it. A quick search show that indeed, "out there" on the web wild claims are made for it, like that it cures herpes. Alexbrn (talk) 18:37, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
 * No True Scotsman Fallacy aside, I find it incorrect to characterize it so strongly as a “Pseudoscience”, when there are actual laws regulating it as complementary medicine, for example in Germany and Austria, and none of the licensed practitioners there would ever even think of making pseudoscientific claims about it, let alone act like it’s a “science” in the first place. If I go on the Internet and spread rumors that going on a low-carb diet makes your skin smoother, does that turn low-carb into a “pseudoscience”, just because there’s now documented sources on the Internet of somebody making pseudoscientific claims about it? Personally, I would find it more unbiased to edit the article to say “Aromatherapy is a form of complementary medicine, which has gained pseudoscientific character in recent years because of unverifiable claims about its effectiveness.” 78.132.42.146 (talk) 13:13, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * We follow sources, not the special pleasing of editors. Alexbrn (talk) 13:26, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
 * In fairness, it could be just nonsense rather than pseudoscience, but the sources say the latter. Guy (help!) 18:06, 24 November 2019 (UTC)

The term pseudoscience is an opinion of the author of this article. The citation [1] does not support that opinion. A article of a reputable source should be used otherwise the word 'pseudoscience' should be removed.

If indeed a article is found then as Aromatherapy is linked to phytochemistry and aromatology, the term pseudoscience should be applied to these too.

Wikipedia entry on 'Olbas oil' which consists of essential oils, should be edited to state its method of action is placebo. ERP416 (talk) 08:17, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * That source is used to support the fact that people actually do use aromatherapy, "... claims for improving psychological or physical well-being." not the pseudoscience factoid. That is supported by the rest of the article, and is obviously well sourced. Regarding your comment on other articles, well, WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 15:10, 11 January 2020 (UTC)
 * , nobody claims that olbas oil cures cancer. The claimed mechanism of action of olbas oil is that eucalyptus oil and the rest can relieve nasal congestion. That's entirely plausible.
 * Olbas also claim symptomatic relief of sciatica, which is very obviously bollocks and - if the placebo effect were a thing - would be a placebo effect. In other words, it's due to biased reporting and/or biased analysis. Guy (help!) 09:39, 12 January 2020 (UTC)
 * There was another recent study at the University of California, Irvine that found a significant improvement in memory recall for users of aromatherapy. Jarble (talk) 18:03, 3 September 2023 (UTC)
 * That's an extremely well-understood phenomenon tying multi-sensory experiences to recall. Music, smells and tactile sensations can recall specific things. It doesn'#t validate in any way the abject nonsense spouted by most aromatherapy shills. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:53, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't want to argue about whether aromatherapy "is" pseudoscience, but can we at least reach some kind of consensus on whether it is "characterized" as pseudoscience? This article is currently categorized under List of topics characterized as pseudoscience, but the article itself doesn't even mention the fact that it is viewed as such. If it's not actually characterized as pseudoscience, it should be removed from that category; or, if it is, then that is notable enough to actually mention in the article's text. 72.66.107.22 (talk) 20:20, 4 June 2024 (UTC)

Quackery
The article is overly polite. I can understand the reasons to be polite and forgiving but quackery needs to be called out as such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.93.233.24 (talk) 15:03, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

No, I think you're being extremely rude. It is a form of complementary medicine, not intended to replace traditional medicine. John2o2o2o (talk) 23:40, 26 September 2021 (UTC)

 * It's not a form of medicine at all. Guy (help! - typo?) 18:51, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

Use of a odorant diffuser improves cognition/memory
A 2023 study at the University of California, Irvine, found that odorant diffuser therapy improved cognition in subjects over 60 years old by 226%. See https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnins.2023.1200448/full.

An earlier study with a more intricate protocol showed improvement in elderly patients with neurological problems such as dementia, Parkinson's disease, etc. See https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/ggi.14287 Waltwooton (talk) 18:50, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

 * , I agree with you. Actually the topic had been well-researched by the Japanese since years ago. Those are researchers and doctors working in reputated hospitals that train new doctors (I watched the information on TV). It seems that they are not very interested in sharing their findings in English journals or Pubmed though. I think that’s one of the reasons why the West is not so keen on that. I do believe one has to be careful when using aromatherapy though, since the constituents of oil vary with different manufacturers, and people are often confused between fragrance oil and essential oil, while the former can be quite harmful. Also, odourant diffuser can be a source of bacteria or pathogens. -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 10:16, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * In fact there are many reviews on Pubmed, but it seems that Wikipedia choose to ignore them. Here are some reviews about the antidepressant effects of essential oils:
 * https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33316383/
 * https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37298210/
 * -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 10:30, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * These all sound like great sources, albeit primary ones. If you can find a secondary source corroborating their claims I would recommend adding this info to the article (as always). In the meantime I’ll check the current page’s grammar. OverzealousAutocorrect (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Goodness yes. Apologies. That looked so much like an article space edit I mistook it! Bon courage (talk) 16:51, 19 December 2023 (UTC)
 * It’s ok, it happens :) -- Dustfreeworld (talk) 19:06, 19 December 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Aromatherapy


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Alexander Kerensky

Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky (4 May 1881 – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months from late July to early November 1917 (N.S.)

After the February Revolution of 1917, he joined the newly formed provisional government, first as Minister of Justice, then as Minister of War, and after July as the government's second Minister-Chairman. He was the leader of the social-democratic Trudovik faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Kerensky was also a vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, a position that held a sizable amount of power. Kerensky became the prime minister of the Provisional Government, and his tenure was consumed with World War I. Despite mass opposition to the war, Kerensky chose to continue Russia's participation. His government cracked down on anti-war sentiment and dissent in 1917, which made his administration even more unpopular.

Kerensky remained in power until the October Revolution. This revolution saw the Bolsheviks create a government led by Vladimir Lenin, to replace Kerensky's government. Kerensky fled Russia and lived the remainder of his life in exile. He divided his time between Paris and New York City. Kerensky worked for the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Early life and activism
Alexander Kerensky was born in Simbirsk (now Ulyanovsk) on the Volga river on 4 May 1881 and was the eldest son in the family. His father, Fyodor Mikhailovich Kerensky, was a teacher and director of the local gymnasium and was later promoted to be an inspector of public schools. His paternal grandfather Mikhail Ivanovich served as a priest in the village of Kerenka in the Gorodishchensky district of the Penza Governorate from 1830. The surname Kerensky comes from the name of this village. His maternal grandfather was head of the Topographical Bureau of the Kazan Military District. His mother, Nadezhda Aleksandrovna (née Adler), was the granddaughter of a former serf who had managed to purchase his freedom before serfdom was abolished in 1861. He subsequently embarked upon a mercantile career, in which he prospered. This allowed him to move his business to Moscow, where he continued his success and became a wealthy Moscow merchant.

Members of the Kerensky and Ulyanov families were friends; Kerensky's father was the teacher of Vladimir Ulyanov (Lenin) and had even secured him acceptance into the University of Kazan. In 1889, when Kerensky was eight, the family moved to Tashkent, where his father had been appointed the main inspector of public schools (superintendent). Alexander graduated with honours in 1899. The same year he entered St. Petersburg University, where he studied history and philology. The next year he switched to law. He earned his law degree in 1904 and married Olga Lvovna Baranovskaya, the daughter of a Russian general, the same year. Kerensky joined the Narodnik movement and worked as a legal counsel to victims of the Revolution of 1905. At the end of 1904, he was jailed on suspicion of belonging to a militant group. Afterwards, he gained a reputation for his work as a defence lawyer in a number of political trials of revolutionaries.

In 1912, Kerensky became widely known when he visited the goldfields at the Lena River and published material about the Lena massacre. In the same year, Kerensky was elected to the Fourth Duma as a member of the Trudoviks, a socialist, non-Marxist labour party founded by Alexis Aladin that was associated with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party, and joined a Freemason society uniting the anti-monarchy forces that strived for democratic renewal of Russia. In fact, the Socialist Revolutionary Party bought Kerensky a house, as he otherwise would not be eligible for election to the Duma, according to the Russian property-laws.

During the 4th Session of the Fourth Duma in spring 1915, Kerensky appealed to Mikhail Rodzianko with a request from the Council of elders to inform the tsar that to succeed in the war he must: 1) change his domestic policy, 2) proclaim a General Amnesty for political prisoners, 3) restore the Constitution of Finland, 4) declare autonomy of Poland, 5) provide national minorities autonomy in the field of culture, 6) abolish restrictions against Jews, 7) end religious intolerance, 8) stop the harassment of legal trade union organizations.

In August he became a significant member of the Progressive Bloc, which included several socialist parties, Mensheviks, and Liberals – but not Bolsheviks. He was a brilliant orator and skilled parliamentary leader of the socialist opposition to the government of Tsar Nicholas II.

Kerensky was an active member of the irregular Freemasonic lodge, the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples, which derived from the Grand Orient of France. Kerensky was Secretary-General of the Grand Orient of Russia's Peoples and stood down following his ascent to the government in July 1917. He was succeeded by a Menshevik, Alexander Halpern.

Rasputin
In response to bitter resentments held against the imperial favourite Grigori Rasputin in the midst of Russia's failing effort in World War I, Kerensky, at the opening of the Duma on 2 November 1916, called the imperial ministers "hired assassins" and "cowards", and alleged that they were "guided by the contemptible Grishka Rasputin!" Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich, Prince Georgy Lvov, and General Mikhail Alekseyev attempted to persuade the Emperor Nicholas II to send away the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Rasputin's steadfast patron, either to the Livadia Palace in Yalta or to Britain. Mikhail Rodzianko, Zinaida Yusupova (the mother of Felix Yusupov), Alexandra's sister Elisabeth, Grand Duchess Victoria and the empress's mother-in-law Maria Feodorovna also tried to influence and pressure the imperial couple to remove Rasputin from his position of influence within the imperial household, but without success. According to Kerensky, Rasputin had terrorised the empress by threatening to return to his native village.

Members of the nobility murdered Rasputin in December 1916, and he was buried near the imperial residence in Tsarskoye Selo. Shortly after the February Revolution of 1917, Kerensky ordered soldiers to re-bury the corpse at an unmarked spot in the countryside. However, the truck broke down or was forced to stop because of the snow on Lesnoe Road outside of St. Petersburg. It is likely the corpse was incinerated (between 3 and 7 in the morning) in the cauldrons of the nearby boiler shop  of the Saint Petersburg State Polytechnical University, including the coffin, without leaving a single trace.

Russian Provisional Government of 1917

When the February Revolution broke out in 1917, Kerensky – together with Pavel Milyukov – was one of its most prominent leaders. As one of the Duma's most well-known speakers against the monarchy and as a lawyer and defender of many revolutionaries, Kerensky became a member of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma and was elected vice-chairman of the newly formed Petrograd Soviet. These two bodies, the Duma and the Petrograd Soviet, or – rather – their respective executive committees, soon became each other's antagonists on most matters except regarding the end of the tsar's autocracy.

The Petrograd Soviet grew to include 3000 to 4000 members, and their meetings could drown in a blur of everlasting orations. At the meeting of 12 March 1917 to 13 March 1917 the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, or Ispolkom, formed a self-appointed committee, with (eventually) three members from each of the parties represented in the Soviet. Kerensky became one of the members representing the Socialist Revolutionary Party (the SRs).

On 14 March 1917, without any consultation with the government, the Ispolkom of the Soviet issued the infamous Order No. 1, intended only for the 160,000-strong Petrograd garrison, but soon interpreted as applicable to all soldiers at the front. The order stipulated that all military units should form committees like the Petrograd Soviet. This led to confusion and "stripping of officers' authority"; further, "Order No. 3" stipulated that the military was subordinate to Ispolkom in the political hierarchy. The ideas came from a group of socialists and aimed to limit the officers' power to military affairs. The socialist intellectuals believed the officers to be the most likely counterrevolutionary elements. Kerensky's role in these orders is unclear, but he participated in the decisions. But just as before the revolution he had defended many who disliked the tsar, he now saved the lives of many of the tsar's civil servants about to be lynched by mobs. Additionally, the Duma formed an executive committee which eventually became the Russian Provisional Government. As there was little trust between Ispolkom and this government (and as he was about to accept the office of Attorney General in the Provisional Government), Kerensky gave a most passionate speech, not just to the Ispolkom, but to the entire Petrograd Soviet. He then swore, as minister, never to violate democratic values, and ended his speech with the words "I cannot live without the people. In the moment you begin to doubt me, then kill me." The huge majority (workers and soldiers) gave him great applause, and Kerensky now became the first and the only one who participated in both the Provisional Government and the Ispolkom. As a link between Ispolkom and the Provisional Government, the quite ambitious Kerensky stood to benefit from this position.

After the first government crisis over Pavel Milyukov's secret note re-committing Russia to its original war-aims on 2–4 May, Kerensky became the Minister of War and the dominant figure in the newly formed socialist-liberal coalition government. On 10 May (Julian calendar), Kerensky started for the front and visited one division after another, urging the men to do their duty. His speeches were impressive and convincing for the moment, but had little lasting effect. Under Allied pressure to continue the war, he launched what became known as the Kerensky Offensive against the Austro-Hungarian/German South Army on 1 July 1917. At first successful, the offensive soon met strong resistance and the Central Powers riposted with a strong counter-attack. The Russian army retreated and suffered heavy losses, and it became clear from many incidents of desertion, sabotage, and mutiny that the army was no longer willing to attack.

The military heavily criticised Kerensky for his liberal policies, which included stripping officers of their mandates and handing over control to revolutionary-inclined "soldier committees" (солдатские комитеты) instead; abolition of the death penalty; and allowing revolutionary agitators to be present at the front. Many officers scornfully referred to commander-in-chief Kerensky as the "persuader-in-chief".

On 2 July 1917 the Provisional Government's first coalition collapsed over the question of Ukraine's autonomy. Following the July Days unrest in Petrograd (3–7 July [16–20 July, N.S.] 1917) and the official suppression of the Bolsheviks, Kerensky succeeded Prince Georgy Lvov as Russia's prime minister on 21 July 1917. Following the Kornilov Affair, an attempted military coup d'état at the end of August, and the resignation of the other ministers, he appointed himself Supreme Commander-in-Chief, as well.

On 15 September Kerensky proclaimed Russia a republic, which was contrary to the non-socialists' understanding that the Provisional Government should hold power only until a Constituent Assembly should meet to decide Russia's form of government, but which was in line with the long-proclaimed aim of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. He formed a five-member Directory, which consisted of himself, Minister of Foreign Affairs Mikhail Tereshchenko, Minister of War General Aleksandr Verkhovsky, Minister of the Navy Admiral Dmitry Verderevsky and Minister of Posts and Telegraphs. He retained his post in the final coalition government in October 1917 until the Bolsheviks overthrew it on 7 November 1917.

Kerensky faced a major challenge: three years of participation in World War had exhausted Russia, while the provisional government offered little motivation for a victory outside of continuing Russia's obligations towards its allies. Russia's continued involvement in the war was not popular among the lower and middle classes, and especially not popular among the soldiers. They had all believed that Russia would stop fighting when the Provisional Government took power, and subsequently felt deceived. Furthermore, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik party were promising "peace, land, and bread" under a communist system. The Russian army, war-weary, ill-equipped, dispirited and ill-disciplined, was disintegrating, with soldiers deserting in large numbers. By autumn 1917, an estimated two million men had unofficially left the army.

Kerensky and other political leaders continued Russia's involvement in World War I, thinking that a glorious victory was the only road forward, and fearing that the economy, already under huge stress from the war effort, might become increasingly unstable if vital supplies from France and from the United Kingdom ceased flowing. The dilemma of whether to withdraw was a great one, and Kerensky's inconsistent and impractical policies further destabilised the army and the country at large.

Furthermore, Kerensky adopted a policy that isolated the right-wing conservatives, both democratic and monarchist-oriented. His philosophy of "no enemies to the left" greatly empowered the Bolsheviks and gave them a free hand, allowing them to take over the military arm or "voyenka" (Военка) of the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. His arrest of Lavr Kornilov and other officers left him without strong allies against the Bolsheviks, who ended up being Kerensky's strongest and most determined adversaries, as opposed to the right wing, which evolved into the White movement.

October Revolution of 1917
During the Kornilov Affair, Kerensky had distributed arms to the Petrograd workers, and by November most of these armed workers had gone over to the Bolsheviks. On 1917, the Bolsheviks launched the second Russian revolution of the year. Kerensky's government in Petrograd had almost no support in the city. Only one small force, a subdivision of the 2nd company of the First Petrograd Women's Battalion, also known as The Women's Death Battalion, was willing to fight for the government against the Bolsheviks, but this force was overwhelmed by the numerically superior pro-Bolshevik forces, defeated, and captured. The Bolsheviks overthrew the government rapidly by seizing governmental buildings and the Winter Palace.

Kerensky escaped the Bolsheviks and fled to Pskov, where he rallied some loyal troops for an attempt to re-take the city. His troops managed to capture Tsarskoye Selo but were beaten the next day at Pulkovo. Kerensky narrowly escaped, and he spent the next few weeks in hiding before fleeing the country, eventually arriving in France. During the Russian Civil War, he supported neither side, as he opposed both the Bolshevik regime and the White Movement.

Personal life
Kerensky was married to Olga Lvovna Baranovskaya and they had two sons, Oleg (1905–1984) and Gleb (1907–1990), who both went on to become engineers. Kerensky's grandson (also named Oleg), according to the Internet Movie Database, played his grandfather's role in the 1981 film Reds. Kerensky and Olga were divorced in 1939 soon after he settled in Paris, and, in 1939, while visiting the United States he met and married Lydia Ellen "Nell" Tritton (1899–1946) in a secret wedding, the Australian former journalist who had become his press secretary and translator. The marriage took place in Martins Creek, Pennsylvania.

When Germany invaded France in 1940, they emigrated to the United States. After the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Kerensky offered his support to Joseph Stalin.

When his wife Nell became terminally ill in 1945, Kerensky travelled with her to Brisbane, Australia, and lived there with her family. She suffered a stroke in February 1946, and he remained there until her death on 10 April 1946. Kerensky then returned to the United States, where he spent the rest of his life.

Kerensky eventually settled in New York City, living on the Upper East Side on 91st Street near Central Park but spent much of his time at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University in California, where he both used and contributed to the Institution's huge archive on Russian history, and where he taught graduate courses. He wrote and broadcast extensively on Russian politics and history. His last public lecture was delivered at Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in October 1967.

Death
Kerensky died of arteriosclerotic heart disease at St. Luke's Hospital in New York City on 11 June 1970 after being initially admitted from injuries sustained in a fall. At 89, he was one of the last surviving major participants in the turbulent events of 1917. The local Russian Orthodox Churches in New York City refused to grant Kerensky burial rites because of his association with Freemasonry, and because they saw him as largely responsible for the Bolsheviks seizing power. A Serbian Orthodox Church also refused burial rites. Kerensky's body was flown to London, where he was buried at the non-denominational Putney Vale Cemetery.

Works

 * The Prelude to Bolshevism (1919). ISBN 0-8383-1422-8.
 * The Catastrophe (1927)
 * The Crucifixion of Liberty (1934)
 * Russia and History's Turning Point (1965)
 * Memoirs (1966)

Archives
Papers of the Kerensky family are held at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.

title: Alexander Kerensky


text:
Ansgar

Ansgar (8 September 801 – 3 February 865), also known as Anskar, Saint Ansgar, Saint Anschar or Oscar, was Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen in the northern part of the Kingdom of the East Franks. Ansgar became known as the "Apostle of the North" because of his travels and the See of Hamburg received the missionary mandate to bring Christianity to Northern Europe.

Life
Ansgar was the son of a noble Frankish family, born near Amiens (present day France). After his mother's early death, Ansgar was brought up in Benedictine monastery of Corbie in Picardy. According to the Vita Ansgarii ("Life of Ansgar"), when the little boy learned in a vision that his mother was in the company of Mary, mother of Jesus, his careless attitude toward spiritual matters changed to seriousness. His pupil, successor, and eventual biographer Rimbert considered the visions (of which this was the first) to have been Ansgar's main life motivator.

Ansgar acted in the context of the phase of Christianization of Saxony (present day Northern Germany) begun by Charlemagne and continued by Charlemagne's son and successor, Louis the Pious. In 822 Ansgar became one of many missionaries sent to found the abbey of Corvey (New Corbie) in Westphalia, where he became a teacher and preacher. A group of monks including Ansgar were sent further north to Jutland with the king Harald Klak, who had received baptism during his exile. With Harald's downfall in 827 and Ansgar's companion Autbert having died, their school for the sons of courtiers closed and Ansgar returned to Germany. Then in 829, after the Swedish king Björn at Hauge requested missionaries for his Swedes, King Louis sent Ansgar, now accompanied by friar Witmar from New Corbie as his assistant. Ansgar preached and made converts, particularly during six months at Birka, on Lake Mälaren, where the wealthy widow Mor Frideborg extended hospitality. Ansgar organized a small congregation with her and the king's steward, Hergeir, as its most prominent members.

In 831 Ansgar returned to Louis' court at Worms and was appointed to the Archbishopric of Hamburg-Bremen. This was a new archbishopric, incorporating the bishoprics of Bremen and Verden and with the right to send missions into all the northern lands, as well as to consecrate bishops for them. Ansgar received the mission of evangelizing pagan Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The King of Sweden decided to cast lots as to whether to admit the Christian missionaries into his kingdom. Ansgar recommended the issue to the care of God, and the lot was favorable. Ansgar was consecrated as a bishop in November 831, with the approval of Gregory IV. Before traveling north once again, Ansgar traveled to Rome to receive the pallium directly from the pope's hands, and was formally named legate for the northern lands. Ebbo, Archbishop of Reims had previously received a similar commission, but would be deposed twice before his death in 851, and never actually traveled so far north, so the jurisdiction was divided by agreement, with Ebbo retaining Sweden for himself. For a time Ansgar devoted himself to the needs of his own diocese, which was still a missionary territory and had few churches. He founded a monastery and a school in Hamburg. Although intended to serve the Danish mission further north, it accomplished little.

After Louis the Pious died in 840, his empire was divided and Ansgar lost the abbey of Turholt, which Louis had given to endow Ansgar's work. Then in 845, the Danes unexpectedly raided Hamburg, destroying all the church's treasures and books. Ansgar now had neither see nor revenue, and many helpers deserted him. The new king, Louis' third son, Louis the German, did not re-endow Turholt to Ansgar, but in 847 he named the missionary to the vacant diocese of Bremen, where Ansgar moved in 848. However, since Bremen had been suffragan to the Bishop of Cologne, combining the sees of Bremen and Hamburg presented canonical difficulties. After prolonged negotiations, Pope Nicholas I would approve the union of the two dioceses in 864.

Through this political turmoil, Ansgar continued his northern mission. The Danish civil war compelled him to establish good relations with two kings, Horik the Elder and his son, Horik II. Both assisted him until his death; Ansgar was able to secure permission to build a church in Sleswick north of Hamburg and recognition of Christianity as a tolerated religion. Ansgar did not forget the Swedish mission, and spent two years there in person (848–850), averting a threatened pagan reaction. In 854, Ansgar returned to Sweden when king Olof ruled in Birka. According to Rimbert, he was well disposed to Christianity. On a Viking raid to Apuole (current village in Lithuania) in Courland, the Swedes plundered the Curonians.

Death and legacy
Ansgar was buried in Bremen in 865. His successor as archbishop, Rimbert, wrote the Vita Ansgarii. He noted that Ansgar wore a rough hair shirt, lived on bread and water, and showed great charity to the poor. Adam of Bremen attributed the Vita et miracula of Willehad (first bishop of Bremen) to Ansgar in Gesta Hammenburgensis ecclesiæ; Ansgar is also the reputed author of a collection of brief prayers Pigmenta (ed. J. M. Lappenberg, Hamburg, 1844). Pope Nicholas I declared Ansgar a saint shortly after the missionary's death. The first actual missionary in Sweden and the Nordic countries (and organizer of the Catholic church therein), Ansgar was later declared "Patron of Scandinavia".

Relics are located in Hamburg in two places: St. Mary's Cathedral (Ger.: Domkirche St. Marien) and St. Ansgar's and St. Bernard's Church (Ger.: St. Ansgar und St. Bernhard Kirche). Statues of Bishop Ansgar stand in Hamburg, Copenhagen and Ribe, as well as a stone cross at Birka. His feast day (Lesser Festival) is 3 February, as it is in the Church of England, the Episcopal Church, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Visions
Although a historical document and primary source written by a man whose existence can be proven historically, the Vita Ansgarii ("The Life of Ansgar") aims above all to demonstrate Ansgar's sanctity. It is partly concerned with Ansgar's visions, which, according to the author Rimbert, encouraged and assisted Ansgar's remarkable missionary feats.

Through the course of this work, Ansgar repeatedly embarks on a new stage in his career following a vision. According to Rimbert, his early studies and ensuing devotion to the ascetic life of a monk were inspired by a vision of his mother in the presence of Mary, mother of Jesus. Again, when the Swedish people were left without a priest for some time, he begged King Horik to help him with this problem; then after receiving his consent, consulted with Bishop Gautbert to find a suitable man. The two together sought the approval of King Louis, which he granted when he learned that they were in agreement on the issue. Ansgar was convinced he was commanded by heaven to undertake this mission and was influenced by a vision he received when he was concerned about the journey, in which he met a man who reassured him of his purpose and informed him of a prophet that he would meet, the abbot Adalhard, who would instruct him in what was to happen. In the vision, he searched for and found Adalhard, who commanded, "Islands, listen to me, pay attention, remotest peoples", which Ansgar interpreted as God's will that he go to the Scandinavian countries as "most of that country consisted of islands, and also, when 'I will make you the light of the nations so that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth' was added, since the end of the world in the north was in Swedish territory".

title: Ansgar


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Talk:Art

Richard Wollheim's distinctions
Richard Wollheim's distinctions of views on art as either 'realistic', 'objectivistic' or 'relativistic' may be said to be pertaining to, even symptomatic of the predominantly anglo-american school of Analytic philosophy, as opposed to the Continental philosophy; the proposed other major stream in the currents of occidental philosophy. If this is acknowledged it is problematic that the wikipedia article on art, in its current reading, frames art in this fashion. That is predominantly because of the current position in the article of Richard Wollheims distinctions. I will argue that it is at odds with the neutrality policy. In the extension of this argument, one should seek to adapt the habit of adressing the cultural position of information. This can be done in a simple and elegant way without problem; for instant. in the context of analytical philosophy, Richard Wollheim suggests three different views on arts practices... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xact (talk • contribs) 12:16, 23 September 2009

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Community Economic and Social Development II
— Assignment last updated by SINGH KHUSHWINDER (talk) 17:47, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Art


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Automated theorem proving

Automated theorem proving (also known as ATP or automated deduction) is a subfield of automated reasoning and mathematical logic dealing with proving mathematical theorems by computer programs. Automated reasoning over mathematical proof was a major impetus for the development of computer science.

Logical foundations
While the roots of formalised logic go back to Aristotle, the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries saw the development of modern logic and formalised mathematics. Frege's Begriffsschrift (1879) introduced both a complete propositional calculus and what is essentially modern predicate logic. His Foundations of Arithmetic, published in 1884, expressed (parts of) mathematics in formal logic. This approach was continued by Russell and Whitehead in their influential Principia Mathematica, first published 1910–1913, and with a revised second edition in 1927. Russell and Whitehead thought they could derive all mathematical truth using axioms and inference rules of formal logic, in principle opening up the process to automatisation. In 1920, Thoralf Skolem simplified a previous result by Leopold Löwenheim, leading to the Löwenheim–Skolem theorem and, in 1930, to the notion of a Herbrand universe and a Herbrand interpretation that allowed (un)satisfiability of first-order formulas (and hence the validity of a theorem) to be reduced to (potentially infinitely many) propositional satisfiability problems.

In 1929, Mojżesz Presburger showed that the first-order theory of the natural numbers with addition and equality (now called Presburger arithmetic in his honor) is decidable and gave an algorithm that could determine if a given sentence in the language was true or false.

However, shortly after this positive result, Kurt Gödel published On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems (1931), showing that in any sufficiently strong axiomatic system there are true statements that cannot be proved in the system. This topic was further developed in the 1930s by Alonzo Church and Alan Turing, who on the one hand gave two independent but equivalent definitions of computability, and on the other gave concrete examples of undecidable questions.

First implementations
Shortly after World War II, the first general-purpose computers became available. In 1954, Martin Davis programmed Presburger's algorithm for a JOHNNIAC vacuum-tube computer at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. According to Davis, "Its great triumph was to prove that the sum of two even numbers is even". More ambitious was the Logic Theorist in 1956, a deduction system for the propositional logic of the Principia Mathematica, developed by Allen Newell, Herbert A. Simon and J. C. Shaw. Also running on a JOHNNIAC, the Logic Theorist constructed proofs from a small set of propositional axioms and three deduction rules: modus ponens, (propositional) variable substitution, and the replacement of formulas by their definition. The system used heuristic guidance, and managed to prove 38 of the first 52 theorems of the Principia.

The "heuristic" approach of the Logic Theorist tried to emulate human mathematicians, and could not guarantee that a proof could be found for every valid theorem even in principle. In contrast, other, more systematic algorithms achieved, at least theoretically, completeness for first-order logic. Initial approaches relied on the results of Herbrand and Skolem to convert a first-order formula into successively larger sets of propositional formulae by instantiating variables with terms from the Herbrand universe. The propositional formulas could then be checked for unsatisfiability using a number of methods. Gilmore's program used conversion to disjunctive normal form, a form in which the satisfiability of a formula is obvious.

Decidability of the problem
Depending on the underlying logic, the problem of deciding the validity of a formula varies from trivial to impossible. For the common case of propositional logic, the problem is decidable but co-NP-complete, and hence only exponential-time algorithms are believed to exist for general proof tasks. For a first-order predicate calculus, Gödel's completeness theorem states that the theorems (provable statements) are exactly the semantically valid well-formed formulas, so the valid formulas are computably enumerable: given unbounded resources, any valid formula can eventually be proven. However, invalid formulas (those that are not entailed by a given theory), cannot always be recognized.

The above applies to first-order theories, such as Peano arithmetic. However, for a specific model that may be described by a first-order theory, some statements may be true but undecidable in the theory used to describe the model. For example, by Gödel's incompleteness theorem, we know that any consistent theory whose axioms are true for the natural numbers cannot prove all first-order statements true for the natural numbers, even if the list of axioms is allowed to be infinite enumerable. It follows that an automated theorem prover will fail to terminate while searching for a proof precisely when the statement being investigated is undecidable in the theory being used, even if it is true in the model of interest. Despite this theoretical limit, in practice, theorem provers can solve many hard problems, even in models that are not fully described by any first-order theory (such as the integers).

Related problems
A simpler, but related, problem is proof verification, where an existing proof for a theorem is certified valid. For this, it is generally required that each individual proof step can be verified by a primitive recursive function or program, and hence the problem is always decidable.

Since the proofs generated by automated theorem provers are typically very large, the problem of proof compression is crucial, and various techniques aiming at making the prover's output smaller, and consequently more easily understandable and checkable, have been developed.

Proof assistants require a human user to give hints to the system. Depending on the degree of automation, the prover can essentially be reduced to a proof checker, with the user providing the proof in a formal way, or significant proof tasks can be performed automatically. Interactive provers are used for a variety of tasks, but even fully automatic systems have proved a number of interesting and hard theorems, including at least one that has eluded human mathematicians for a long time, namely the Robbins conjecture. However, these successes are sporadic, and work on hard problems usually requires a proficient user.

Another distinction is sometimes drawn between theorem proving and other techniques, where a process is considered to be theorem proving if it consists of a traditional proof, starting with axioms and producing new inference steps using rules of inference. Other techniques would include model checking, which, in the simplest case, involves brute-force enumeration of many possible states (although the actual implementation of model checkers requires much cleverness, and does not simply reduce to brute force).

There are hybrid theorem proving systems that use model checking as an inference rule. There are also programs that were written to prove a particular theorem, with a (usually informal) proof that if the program finishes with a certain result, then the theorem is true. A good example of this was the machine-aided proof of the four color theorem, which was very controversial as the first claimed mathematical proof that was essentially impossible to verify by humans due to the enormous size of the program's calculation (such proofs are called non-surveyable proofs). Another example of a program-assisted proof is the one that shows that the game of Connect Four can always be won by the first player.

Applications
Commercial use of automated theorem proving is mostly concentrated in integrated circuit design and verification. Since the Pentium FDIV bug, the complicated floating point units of modern microprocessors have been designed with extra scrutiny. AMD, Intel and others use automated theorem proving to verify that division and other operations are correctly implemented in their processors.

Other uses of theorem provers include program synthesis, constructing programs that satisfy a formal specification. Automated theorem provers have been integrated with proof assistants, including Isabelle/HOL.

Applications of theorem provers are also found in natural language processing and formal semantics, where they are used to analyze discourse representations.

First-order theorem proving
In the late 1960s agencies funding research in automated deduction began to emphasize the need for practical applications. One of the first fruitful areas was that of program verification whereby first-order theorem provers were applied to the problem of verifying the correctness of computer programs in languages such as Pascal, Ada, etc. Notable among early program verification systems was the Stanford Pascal Verifier developed by David Luckham at Stanford University. This was based on the Stanford Resolution Prover also developed at Stanford using John Alan Robinson's resolution principle. This was the first automated deduction system to demonstrate an ability to solve mathematical problems that were announced in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society before solutions were formally published.

First-order theorem proving is one of the most mature subfields of automated theorem proving. The logic is expressive enough to allow the specification of arbitrary problems, often in a reasonably natural and intuitive way. On the other hand, it is still semi-decidable, and a number of sound and complete calculi have been developed, enabling fully automated systems. More expressive logics, such as higher-order logics, allow the convenient expression of a wider range of problems than first-order logic, but theorem proving for these logics is less well developed.

Relationship with SMT
There is substantial overlap between first-order automated theorem provers and SMT solvers. Generally, automated theorem provers focus on supporting full first-order logic with quantifiers, whereas SMT solvers focus more on supporting various theories (interpreted predicate symbols). ATPs excel at problems with lots of quantifiers, whereas SMT solvers do well on large problems without quantifiers. The line is blurry enough that some ATPs participate in SMT-COMP, while some SMT solvers participate in CASC.

Benchmarks, competitions, and sources
The quality of implemented systems has benefited from the existence of a large library of standard benchmark examples—the Thousands of Problems for Theorem Provers (TPTP) Problem Library —as well as from the CADE ATP System Competition (CASC), a yearly competition of first-order systems for many important classes of first-order problems.

Some important systems (all have won at least one CASC competition division) are listed below.
 * E is a high-performance prover for full first-order logic, but built on a purely equational calculus, originally developed in the automated reasoning group of Technical University of Munich under the direction of Wolfgang Bibel, and now at Baden-Württemberg Cooperative State University in Stuttgart.
 * Otter, developed at the Argonne National Laboratory, is based on first-order resolution and paramodulation. Otter has since been replaced by Prover9, which is paired with Mace4.
 * SETHEO is a high-performance system based on the goal-directed model elimination calculus, originally developed by a team under direction of Wolfgang Bibel. E and SETHEO have been combined (with other systems) in the composite theorem prover E-SETHEO.
 * Vampire was originally developed and implemented at Manchester University by Andrei Voronkov and Kryštof Hoder. It is now developed by a growing international team. It has won the FOF division (among other divisions) at the CADE ATP System Competition regularly since 2001.
 * Waldmeister is a specialized system for unit-equational first-order logic developed by Arnim Buch and Thomas Hillenbrand. It won the CASC UEQ division for fourteen consecutive years (1997–2010).
 * SPASS is a first-order logic theorem prover with equality. This is developed by the research group Automation of Logic, Max Planck Institute for Computer Science.

The Theorem Prover Museum is an initiative to conserve the sources of theorem prover systems for future analysis, since they are important cultural/scientific artefacts. It has the sources of many of the systems mentioned above.

Popular techniques

 * First-order resolution with unification
 * Model elimination
 * Method of analytic tableaux
 * Superposition and term rewriting
 * Model checking
 * Mathematical induction
 * Binary decision diagrams
 * DPLL
 * Higher-order unification
 * Quantifier elimination

Free software

 * Alt-Ergo
 * Automath
 * CVC
 * E
 * IsaPlanner
 * LCF
 * Mizar
 * NuPRL
 * Paradox
 * Prover9
 * PVS
 * SPARK (programming language)
 * Twelf
 * Z3 Theorem Prover

Proprietary software

 * CARINE
 * Wolfram Mathematica
 * ResearchCyc

title: Automated theorem proving