text:
Slash-and-burn

Slash-and-burn agriculture is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. The method begins by cutting down the trees and woody plants in an area. The downed vegetation, or "slash", is then left to dry, usually right before the rainiest part of the year. Then, the biomass is burned, resulting in a nutrient-rich layer of ash which makes the soil fertile, as well as temporarily eliminating weed and pest species. After about three to five years, the plot's productivity decreases due to depletion of nutrients along with weed and pest invasion, causing the farmers to abandon the field and move to a new area. The time it takes for a swidden to recover depends on the location and can be as little as five years to more than twenty years, after which the plot can be slashed and burned again, repeating the cycle. In Bangladesh and India, the practice is known as jhum or jhoom.

Slash-and-burn is a type of shifting cultivation, an agricultural system in which farmers routinely move from one cultivable area to another. A rough estimate is that 250 million people worldwide use slash-and-burn. Slash-and-burn causes temporary deforestation. Ashes from the burnt trees help farmers by providing nutrients for the soil. In low density of human population this approach is very sustainable but the technique is not scalable for large human populations.

A similar term is assarting, which is the clearing of forests, usually (but not always) for the purpose of agriculture. Assarting does not include burning.

History
Historically, slash-and-burn cultivation has been practiced throughout much of the world. Fire was already used by hunter-gatherers before the invention of agriculture, and still is in present times. Clearings created by the fire were made for many reasons, such as to provide new growth for game animals and to promote certain kinds of edible plants.

During the Neolithic Revolution, groups of hunter-gatherers domesticated various plants and animals, permitting them to settle down and practice agriculture, which provided more nutrition per hectare than hunting and gathering. Some groups could easily plant their crops in open fields along river valleys, but others had forests covering their land. Thus, since Neolithic times, slash-and-burn agriculture has been widely used to clear land to make it suitable for crops and livestock.

Large groups wandering in the woodlands was once a common form of society in European prehistory. The extended family burned and cultivated their swidden plots, sowed one or more crops, and then proceeded on to the next plot.

Technique
Slash-and-burn fields are typically used and owned by a family until the soil is exhausted. At this point the ownership rights are abandoned, the family clears a new field, and trees and shrubs are permitted to grow on the former field. After a few decades, another family or clan may then use the land and claim usufructuary rights. In such a system there is typically no market in farmland, so land is not bought or sold on the open market and land rights are traditional.

In slash-and-burn agriculture, forests are typically cut months before a dry season. The "slash" is permitted to dry and then burned in the following dry season. The resulting ash fertilizes the soil and the burned field is then planted at the beginning of the next rainy season with crops such as rice, maize, cassava, or other staples. This work was once done using simple tools such as machetes, axes, hoes and shovels.

Benefits and drawbacks
This system of agriculture provides millions of people with food and income. It has been ecologically sustainable for thousands of years. Because the leached soil in many tropical regions, such as the Amazon, are nutritionally extremely poor, slash-and-burn is one of the only types of agriculture which can be practiced in these areas. Slash-and-burn farmers typically plant a variety of crops, instead of a monoculture, and contribute to a higher biodiversity due to creating mosaic habitats. The general ecosystem is not harmed in traditional slash-and-burn, aside from a small temporary patch.

This technique is most unsuitable for the production of cash crops. A huge amount of land, or a low density of people, is required for slash-and-burn. When slash-and-burn is practiced in the same area too often, because the human population density has increased to an unsustainable level, the forest will eventually be destroyed.

South Asia
Tribal groups in the northeastern Indian states of Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland and the Bangladeshi districts of Rangamati, Khagrachari, Bandarban and Sylhet refer to slash-and-burn agriculture as podu, jhum or jhoom cultivation. The system involves clearing land, by fire or clear-felling, for economically important crops such as upland rice, vegetables or fruits. After a few cycles, the land's fertility declines and a new area is chosen. Jhum cultivation is most often practiced on the slopes of thickly-forested hills. Cultivators cut the treetops to allow sunlight to reach the land, burning the trees and grasses for fresh soil. Although it is believed that this helps fertilize the land, it can leave it vulnerable to erosion. Holes are made for the seeds of crops such as sticky rice, maize, eggplant and cucumber. After considering jhum's effects, the government of Mizoram has introduced a policy to end the method in the state.

Americas
Some American civilizations, like the Maya, have used slash-and-burn cultivation since ancient times. American Indians in the United States also used fire in agriculture and hunting. In the Amazon, many peoples such as the Yanomami Indians also live off the slash and burn method due to the Amazon's poor soil quality.

Northern Europe

Slash-and-burn techniques were used in northeastern Sweden in agricultural systems. In Sweden the practice is known as svedjebruk.

Telkkämäki Nature Reserve in Kaavi, Finland, is an open-air museum where slash-and-burn agriculture is demonstrated. Farm visitors can see how people farmed when slash-and-burn was the norm in the Northern Savonian region of eastern Finland beginning in the 15th century. Areas of the reserve are burnt each year.

Svedjebruk
Svedjebruk is a Swedish and Norwegian term for slash-and-burn agriculture derived from the Old Norse word sviða, which means "to burn". This practice originated in Russia in the region of Novgorod and was widespread in Finland and Eastern Sweden during the Medieval period. It spread to western Sweden in the 16th century when Finnish settlers were encouraged to migrate there by King Gustav Vasa to help clear the dense forests. Later, when the Finns were persecuted by the local Swedes, svedjebruk farming was spread by refugees to eastern Norway, more specifically in the eastern part of Solør, in the area bordering Sweden known as Finnskogen ("the Finnish woods").

The practice also spread to New Sweden in North America. Reinforced by the use of fire in agriculture and hunting by American Indians, it became an important part of pioneering in America.

Description of process
Svedjebruk involved stripping a ring of bark completely around the trunk of coniferous trees like pine or spruce or felling them, allowing them to dry, setting fire to the dried forest and growing crops on the fertile ash-covered soil. The resulting ash was highly fertile, but only for a short period. The clearing was initially planted to rye as soon as the ash had fully settled and sufficiently cooled. When the rain came, it packed the ash around the rye. The rye germinated and grew prolifically, with anywhere from 25 to 100 stalks (or straws), each with multiple grains.

Only two tools were required, the axe and the sickle. The axe cut the trees to start the cycle. When the rye had ripened, it was harvested with a sickle, which could reach among the rocks and stumps where a scythe would have been ineffective.

In the second and third year the field would be sown with turnips or cabbages. It then might be grazed for several years before being allowed to return to woodland.

Svedjebruk culture
Svedjebruk required felling new forest and burning a new area every year. It was necessary to allow the former fields to regrow with forest for 10–30 years before repeating the cycle. As a result, the dwellings were often many kilometers from the fields. Furthermore, since the process was man-power intensive, extended families tended to work together and live in compact communities.

The svedjebruk farming approach required a large area. When forest was plentiful, the Finns were very prosperous. As population grew and restrictions were placed on the forest which could be burned, it became increasingly difficult. By 1710, during the conflict with Sweden, because of their suspect loyalties Norwegian authorities considered expelling them from the border area, but did not do so because it was judged they were too poor to survive if evicted. > >> >> The following content was added by User:Svedjebruk (who seems to be an expert on the matter) and soon after removed by a bot, apparently because of Youtube references. Svedjebruk might be a Swedish citizen and his wording seems awkward to me. I add the statements again, invisible to the reader, hoping someone with more of an insight comes along and translates the meaning of these passages into digestible English. >> >> >> Note: all swedish-language terms not found in the english Merriam-Webster dictionary - excluding placenames and the names of people - should be placed inside a language tag: [term]. >> >> >>

The heads of swidden family groups or clans (noite) had to have, at all times, an overview of their own clan's activities in order to put together these three parameters to a kind of "rubik-cube", according to their own experiences and conscious thought.

The time frame covers the first three cues of removal of the existing vegetation, which is controlled by man. The next three deal with the new vegetation, crops, and regrowth of new forests.

The time between harvest and regrowth varies from direct transition to regrowth through a number of years with a second use of swidden (vuoma) to never regrow, i.e. direct transition from the crop (pühä) to a permanent farm place / settlement (Piha).

Natural influences noite need only register and take into account in assessment: climate with rain, wind, temperature, drainage conditions, soil type, topography, flora and fauna, but he mastered his seeds brought for planting.

Noite coordinate so that all valves within the clans function: technology with adequate treatment of the area at the right time, cutting, burning, and social order. Runic poetry was a faithful helper in the exploitation of past experience and knowledge, and poems thankfully have the ability to survive generations.

Swidden cultivation requires a large number of people in the group to survive as an operational unit. It is a complex cycle of synchronized processes performed by individuals and / or groups in binding cooperation.

Such production union is often called a clan, extended family, kind, thiod, ätt, or tribe; in Russian plemja, rod; in Persian tauma, and Sanskrit jana, kula-. The village name in today's Finno-Ugric languages is küla. The word küllä is a reinforced yes: those that say yes and agree. Each man in swidden society had significance as a participant in the community, not as a person.

Individualism was an unknown phenomenon in this society. Complex cultivation cycles consist of a variety of carefully synchronized tasks, performed by individuals in an intimate partnership. This interaction should be so well established that the individual is synonymous with the community. These sophisticated procedures are perceived badly by outsiders, and in older literature, are often characterized as religious rituals without being given any practical significance. Only rarely have outsiders been able to understand the functional correlation. Swidden cultivation was dependent on that the various procedures were correctly and synchronously executed. Incorrect procedure was disastrous and could not be accepted. So ruled a cult excluding, polytheistic religion. Religion set the bar of worldly knowledge, as well as a communication process where the knowledge was kept alive through constant practical use, and new knowledge was developed and displaced useless routines with new rituals. The code was ruled by the forest, air, and water spiritual beings. Skogsråa / wood nymphs, giants and dwarfs lived in the underworld (allima), and they were given three functions: to help those people who respected and appreciated the forest spirits, to punish those who broke the rules of the forest, and to remind people that in the forest, man is not the boss, and cannot act arbitrarily. Similarly, the air (taevas) and water spirits, (jumal) were both helpers and punishers.

...
Svedjebruk or Slash and burn - shifting cultivation, here means the cultivation of hominids and crops for human consumption on freshly burned vegetation area or forest within a fewer number of years than the time that area is left to natural regeneration (Conklin 1961 27).

This is the oldest form of food production as proto humans have developed it over millions of years. During this long span of time, shifting cultivation developed into a complex process, requiring the coordinated interaction of larger groups of people. This way of life can be traced back to Africa and / or China, where the forerunners of Homo erectus (the erect man) had a nascent rise more than five million years ago. Later they spread out across the world, including northern Europe, less than one million years ago. But it is much less than one million years ago that Homo sapiens (the man who knows and can) came from Africa to Eurasia. They were knowledgeable and experienced people already. Shifting cultivation is highly community-forming. The smallest unit was the clan – the cultivation team – and often several clans would cooperate with one another. The manager, or Kuningas, had many functions. It was not only practical, but also political and religious. Cultivation was mobile; the clan moved to new forests to burn and grow food crops. They had no monumental construction. It is therefore difficult to trace them archaeologically, even from the study of Terra Preta (charcoal-rich soil). The swidden ranged from single ones onsite to periodic settlements, punctuated by moderately long abandonment. This rest period was required for necessary forest regrowth. Surveys of mountain caves and other natural settlements have revealed many cultural layers upon one another with natural forest regrowth in between. This stratigraphy indicates cultural development. Here in random order I will mention a few such places: Catalhöyük in Turkey, Altamira in northern Spain, Jericho in Israel, Kostenki Voronezh in Russia, Skara Brea on Orkeney, and the cave Vistehola at Jæren in Norway.

Nowadays we are accustomed to excess in stationary conditions. We are trained and raised in the European tradition, which considered shifting cultivation as a simple, primitive form of life without significant cultural organization. This attitude is probably the reason why researchers have thoroughly investigated shifting cultivation. There are many characterizing features of shifting cultivation that are widely considered "primitive" and "self-taught".

They were nomads who want to have a few things to carry, for their skill and knowledge was not a heavy load. Shifting cultivation is the foundation of today's society: our values, customs, ideas, and conventions. Arable farming is too young to have influenced the development of mankind's history to any significant degree, yet we still feel its effects in our daily lives. The declining tropical rainforest is the site of most of today's shifting cultivation practices.

"The oldest of all farming methods is shifting cultivation. It has been in Sweden since old times and it seems to permeate every subject the further back in time we go. It is the oldest of all cultivation systems, at least in forested areas" (1923 Arenander 99). "Kauran Karjalan ahoille, Rukeheni Ruotsin maalle, -Vehnät viskoan Virohon - Kylvän ohrat Suomen maalle - Hernehet Hämehen maalle - Jost Vilja virtoavi - Vilja vierahan kätehen" (Kaukonen 1984 II, 252); Oats in Karelia svedjer - Rye on Swedish land - Hveat returns Estonia – Barley grows on Suomi fields - peas on Hämä fields, - Here the grain flows, -The grain is always next. -->

Research
This type of agriculture is discouraged by many developmental or environmentalist organisations, with the main alternatives being promoted are switching to more intensive, permanent farming methods, or promoting a shift from farming to working in different, higher-paying industries altogether. Other organisations promote helping farmers achieve higher productivity by introducing new techniques.

Not allowing the slashed vegetation to burn completely and ploughing the resultant charcoal into the soil (slash-and-char) has been proposed as way to boost yields.

Promoters of a project from the early 2000s claimed that slash-and-burn cultivation could be reduced if farmers grew black pepper crops between Inga trees, which they termed 'Inga alley cropping'.

A method of improving the yields in a type of traditional assarting cultivation used to grow common beans in Central American called 'slash-and-cover', has been proposed, by additionally planting leguminous shrubs to act as a fallow crop after the soil is exhausted and one is ready to clear a new patch of forest.

General literature

 * Nesholen, Birger (1994). "Svedjebrukerne", Østlandske Skogsområder, Den Norske Turistforening.
 * Pyne, Stephen J. (1997). Vestal Fire: An Environmental History, Told Through Fire, of Europe and Europe's Encounter with the World. Seattle and London: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-97596-2.
 * Stagg, Frank Noel (1956). East Norway and Its Frontier. Allen & Unwin.
 * Stagg, Frank Noel (1956). East Norway and Its Frontier. Allen & Unwin.
 * Stagg, Frank Noel (1956). East Norway and Its Frontier. Allen & Unwin.

title: Slash-and-burn


text:
Aerial bombing of cities

The aerial bombing of cities is an optional element of strategic bombing, which became widespread in warfare during World War I. The bombing of cities grew to a vast scale in World War II and is still practiced today. The development of aerial bombardment marked an increased capacity of armed forces to deliver ordnance from the air against combatants, military bases, and factories, with a greatly reduced risk to its ground forces. The killing of civilians and non-combatants in bombed cities has variously been a deliberate goal of strategic bombing, or unavoidable collateral damage resulting from intent and technology. A number of multilateral efforts have been made to restrict the use of aerial bombardment so as to protect non-combatants and other civilians.

Kites
Incendiary kites were first used in warfare by the Chinese. During the Song dynasty the Fire Crow, a kite carrying incendiary powder, a fuse, and a burning stick of incense was developed as a weapon. Walter de Milemete's 1326 De nobilitatibus, sapientiis, et prudentiis regum treatise depicts a group of knights flying kites laden with a black-powder filled firebomb over the wall of city. In the 17th century, the forces of Thai king Phetracha tied gunpowder barrels to kites used for airborne assault.

First Italian War of Independence
In 1849, Austrian forces besieging Venice during the First Italian War of Independence launched some 200 incendiary balloons, each carrying a 24- to 30-pound bomb that was to be dropped from the balloon with a time fuse over the besieged city. The balloons were launched from land and from the Austrian navy ship SMS Vulcano that acted as a balloon carrier, though the attack ended in failure as winds blew the balloons away, none reaching their intended target.

Italian Invasion of Libya
The first ever air raid was conducted during the Italo-Turkish War by Italian forces against the Ottoman province of Libya on November 1, 1911. Giulio Gavotti dropped 1.5 kg of bombs on Ain Zara, a village 8 km west of the capital Tripoli.

Balkan War
Adrianople (presently Edirne) was bombed by Bulgaria in 1912 in the First Balkan War. Historically, it was the first bombardment of a city from a heavier-than-air aircraft. In the morning of 29 October 1912 at 9:30 a.m. the plane Albatros F-3 took off from an airfield near the village of Mustafa Pasha – present day Svilengrad, Bulgaria. The pilot was captain Radul Mikov with spotter and bombardier Prodan Tarakchiev. The airfield was specially created to carry out the take off and landing. According to the report weather conditions were perfect. The flight lasted for 1 hour and 20 minutes and the altitude was 500m. During the flight the crew flew over the city of Edirne, discovered hidden Ottoman forces in the nearby villages and flew towards to city railroad station, near the village of Karaagach. The plane was equipped with two bombs, which were released at 10:00 am over the station. The crew landed successfully at the airfield with 4 holes on the hull. A number of journalists and military attachés attended the site.

Mexican Revolution
In May 1914, during the revolution of 1910–17, General Venustiano Carranza, later president, ordered a biplane to bomb Neveria Hill adjacent to the downtown area of Mazatlán in order to take the city. The bomb landed not on target but in a city street and in the process killed four civilians, including a French diplomat, and wounded several others.

World War I

The first civilian target to be bombed from the air was the Belgian city of Antwerp. This city, at that moment the National Redoubt of Belgium, was bombed during the night of 24–25 August 1914. Instead of targeting the surrounding fortresses, the Zeppelin LZ 25's intention was to bomb the clearly distinguishable historical centre of the city. The zeppelin dropped approximately ten bombs, killing ten people and injuring forty. The British Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) undertook the first Entente strategic bombing missions on 22 September 1914 and 8 October, when it bombed the Zeppelin bases in Cologne and Düsseldorf. The aeroplanes carried twenty-pound bombs, and at least one airship was destroyed. On 19 January 1915 two German Zeppelins dropped 24 fifty-kilogram (110 lb) high-explosive bombs and ineffective three-kilogram incendiaries on the English towns of Great Yarmouth, Sheringham, King's Lynn, and the surrounding villages; in all, four people were killed, 16 injured, and monetary damage was estimated at £7,740.

London was bombed for the first time on 30 May 1915. In July 1916, the German government allowed directed raids against urban centers, sparking 23 airship raids in 1916 in which 125 tons of ordnance were dropped, killing 293 people and injuring 691. Gradually British air defenses improved and the Germans also introduced large bomber aircraft for bombing Britain. In 1917 and 1918 there were only eleven Zeppelin raids against England, and the final raid occurred on 5 August 1918, which resulted in the death of KK Peter Strasser, commander of the German Naval Airship Department. By the end of the war, 51 raids had been undertaken, in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358. In the course of the Zeppelin raids the Germans lost more than half their airships and 40% of their crew. It has been argued that the raids were effective far beyond material damage inflicted, in diverting and hampering wartime production, and diverting twelve squadrons and over 10,000 men to air defenses. The British developed an Independent Force of long-range bombers that could bomb Berlin, but the war ended before these raids began.

After the war, bombers' increasing sophistication led to the general belief that aerial bombing would both destroy cities and be impossible to stop; as Stanley Baldwin stated in a 1932 speech, "The bomber will always get through".

Iraqi revolt against the British
After World War I, there were protests in Iraq against continued British rule. Many Iraqis across a wide spectrum of opinion opposed the British Mandate for Iraq. The Iraqi revolt against the British began, with peaceful demonstrations in May 1920. Initial demands were rejected by the British administration, and fighting broke out in June 1920. This was suppressed, with many deaths, and at very high costs to the Empire. A policy of 'aerial policing', an invention of Winston Churchill's was brought in. This amounted to aerial bombing of rebelling tribesmen, followed up by pacification by ground troops. This continued up to the mid 1920s. The aerial campaign included Sir Arthur Harris, who commanded a Vickers Vernon squadron engaged in the bombing and strafing of revolting tribesmen. Harris once remarked that "the only thing the Arab understands is the heavy hand."

Somaliland Campaign
Following the end of World War I, the British stepped up their efforts in their war against the Dervish movement, their sultan Diiriye Guure and emir, the so-called "Mad Mullah", whom they had been fighting for the control the area formerly known as British Somaliland. However, they had been unable to defeat the Dervish movement for nearly 25 years. In January 1920, the British launched a combined aerial and land attack against the Dhulbahante garesas, bombarding Taleeh, the capital of the revolt. The Somaliland Campaign has been described as one of the bloodiest and longest-running conflicts in the history of sub-Saharan Africa and the Somali forces are noted for concurrently repelling the invading British, Italian and Abyssinian forces for a period of 25 years.

Tulsa race massacre
In the United States during the Tulsa race massacre of May 31 – June 1, 1921, private aircraft flown by white men dropped kerosene bombs on the Greenwood neighborhood.

Cristero War
During the Cristero War in Mexico in 1929, Irish pilot and mercenary Patrick Murphy mistakenly dropped several improvised "suitcase bombs" on the border town of Naco, Arizona, while bombing government forces in the adjacent town of Naco, Sonora, for the Cristero revolutionaries. The bombing, which caused damage to many buildings and injured several bystanders on the American side of the international border, became the first aerial bombardment of the Continental United States by a foreign power in American history.

Second Italo-Abyssinian War
The Italians used aircraft against the Ethiopian cities in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. For example, in February 1936, the Italian invasion forces in the south prepared for a major thrust towards the city of Harar. On 22 March, the Regia Aeronautica bombed Harar and Jijiga as a prelude. Both cities were reduced to ruins even though Harar had been declared an "open city".

Spanish Civil War
During the Spanish Civil War, the Nationalists under Francisco Franco made extensive use of aerial bombing on civilian targets. Nazi Germany gave aircraft to Franco to support the overthrow of the Spanish Republican government. The first major example of this came in November 1936, when German and Spanish aircraft bombed Republican-held Madrid; this bombardment was sustained throughout the Siege of Madrid. Barcelona and Valencia were also targeted in this way. On 26 April 1937, the German Luftwaffe (Condor Legion) bombed the Spanish city of Guernica carrying out the most high-profile aerial attack of the war. This act caused worldwide revulsion and was the subject of a famous painting by Picasso, but by the standards of bombings during World War II, casualties were fairly minor (estimates ranging from 500 to 1,500).

Shortly after, the front-page headlines of the Diario de Almeria, dated June 3, 1937, referred to the press in London and Paris carrying the news of the "criminal bombardment of Almeria by German planes".

Barcelona was bombarded for three days beginning on 16 March 1938, at the height of the Spanish Civil War. Under the command of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, Italian aircraft stationed on the island of Majorca attacked 13 times dropping 44 tons of bombs, aimed at the civil population. The medieval Cathedral of Barcelona suffered bomb damage and more than one thousand people died, including many children. The number of people injured is estimated to be in the thousands. Many others Spanish towns and cities were bombed by the German Legion Condor and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria among them Jaen, Durango, Granollers and Alicante.

The Spanish Republican government also used aerial bombings, but not as extensively, as they did not have as many planes available. Cities such as Valladolid, Granada, Sevilla, Zaragoza or Burgos were bombarded, killing some people. The biggest aerial attack against civil population was in Cabra, a small town away from the war front, and with no strategic value, that was bombed due to an error. 109 people were killed and more than 200 wounded. Planes coming from Barcelona launched three bombs against the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar on August 3, 1936. The bombs failed to detonate, but did damage one of the cupolas painted by Goya. The fact was considered a miracle, as, if the bombs had exploded, the eastern half of the Cathedral would have been completely destroyed.

Second Sino-Japanese War

During the Manchurian Incident of 1931, the Japanese widely used airplanes to indiscriminately bomb key targets and cities, such as Mukden. After the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service, in conjunction with the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service, began relentlessly bombing Shanghai, Beijing (Peking), Tianjin (Tientsin) and several cities on the Chinese coast from the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937.

The bombing campaigns on Nanjing and Canton which started in September 1937 evoked protests from the Western powers culminating in a resolution by the Far Eastern Advisory Committee of the League of Nations. An example of the many expressions of indignation came from Lord Cranborne, the British Under-Secretary of State For Foreign Affairs: Words cannot express the feelings of profound horror with which the news of these raids had been received by the whole civilized world. They are often directed against places far from the actual area of hostilities. The military objective, where it exists, seems to take a completely second place. The main object seems to be to inspire terror by the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians ...

European Theater
At the beginning of World War II, bombing of cities prior to invasion was an integral part of Nazi Germany's strategy. In the first stages of war, the Germans carried out many bombings of towns and cities in Poland (1939), including the capital Warsaw (also bombed in 1944), with Wieluń being the first city destroyed by 75%. The Soviet Union also attempted strategic bombing against Poland and Finland, bombing Helsinki.

Rotterdam was bombed by Germany at 14 May 1940. The city had already surrendered an hour earlier and the attack was called off, but this did not reach the already flying bombers.

Germany began aerial bombing of British cities immediately after the British declaration of war on Germany in September 1939, while the first British bombing raids against Germany were on the night of 15/16 May 1940, with 78 bombers against oil targets, 9 against steelworks and 9 against marshalling yards, all military and industrial targets in the German hinterland. Oil remained the main British objective until the summer of 1941, although German cities and towns were regularly bombed from May 1940. Previous raids had been carried out by the RAF, but when targets were not found, the bombers returned without making an attack.

After the Fall of France, the Luftwaffe redirected its full attention to the United Kingdom. The scale of the attack increased greatly in July 1940, with 258 civilians killed, and again in August with 1,075 dead. During the night of 25 August, British bombers raided targets in and around Greater Berlin for the first time, in response to the misdirected bombing of Oxford Street and the West End by the Luftwaffe while it was bombing the London docks. On 4 September 1940 Hitler, frustrated by the RAF's superiority over the Luftwaffe and enraged by its bombing of German cities, decided to retaliate by bombing London and other cities in the UK. On 7 September the Luftwaffe began massed attacks on London. The bombing campaign was known in the UK as "the Blitz", and ran from September 1940 through to May 1941. The Coventry Blitz and the Belfast Blitz were two of the heaviest of all bombings by the Luftwaffe, killing 568–1,000 civilians of Coventry, killing over 1,100 civilians in Belfast, and destroying much of both city centres.

British bombing policy evolved during the war. In the beginning, the RAF was forbidden to attack urban targets in Germany due to the risk of accidental civilian casualties. Following a German attack on military targets in the Orkney Islands on 16 March 1940 that killed a civilian, the RAF mounted an attack on the seaplane base on the island of Sylt. The RAF began attacking transport targets west of the Rhine on the night of 10 May following the German invasion of the Low Countries, and military targets in the rest of Germany after the bombing of Rotterdam. On 9 September 1940 RAF crews were instructed that due to the "indiscriminate" nature of German bombing, if they failed to find their assigned targets they were to attack targets of opportunity rather than bring their bombs home. On the 15/16 December the RAF carried out its first area bombing attack (destroying 45% of the city of Mannheim), officially in response to the raid on Coventry.

In 1942, the goals of the British attacks were defined: the primary goal was the so-called "morale bombing", to weaken the will of the civil population to resist. Following this directive intensive bombing of highly populated city centers and working class quarters started. On 30 May 1942, the RAF Bomber Command launched the first "1,000 bomber raid" when 1,046 aircraft bombed Cologne in Operation Millennium, dropping over 2,000 tons of high explosive and incendiaries on the medieval town and burning it from end to end. 411 civilians and 85 combatants were killed, more than 130,000 had to leave the city.

Two further 1,000 bomber raids were executed over Essen and Bremen, but to less effect than the destruction at Cologne. The effects of the massive raids using a combination of blockbuster bombs and incendiaries created firestorms in some cites. The most extreme examples were caused by the bombing of Hamburg in Operation Gomorrah (45,000 dead), and the bombings of Kassel (10,000 dead),  Darmstadt (12,500 dead), Pforzheim (21,200 dead), Swinemuende (23,000 dead),  and Dresden (25,000 dead  ).

The Allies also bombed urban areas in the other countries, including occupied France (Caen ) and the major industrial cities of northern Italy, like Milan and Turin. Some cities were bombed at the different times by the Luftwaffe and the Allies, for example Belgrade in Yugoslavia and Bucharest in Romania.

The Luftwaffe also bombed cities in the Soviet Union, destroying Stalingrad in a massive air raid at the start of the Battle of Stalingrad and bombing Leningrad during the siege of the city of 1941–1943. The Soviet bombing of the German cities was limited in comparison with the RAF bombing (destruction caused by the Soviet army was mainly due to the land artillery). The Soviet Air Force also bombed Budapest in Hungary.

Asiatic-Pacific Theater
In the Asiatic-Pacific Theater, Japan continued to bomb Chinese cities and expanded its air operations towards others in Asia such as Singapore, Rangoon, and Mandalay. In the first few months of the war with the Western Powers, Japan projected its airpower on settlements as distant as Honolulu, Darwin, and Unalaska.

The capture of the Mariana Islands in 1944 enabled the United States Army Air Forces to reach the Japanese home islands using the Boeing B-29 Superfortress. The U.S. firebombed Tokyo on the night of March 9–10, 1945, and killed more than 100,000 people in the deadliest conventional bombing in history, known as Operation Meetinghouse. In a few hours, 100,000 people who were in Tokyo including civilians died either by the bombing or the conflagration that followed the bombing by 325 B-29's night attacks. The bombing was meant to burn wooden buildings and indeed the bombing caused fire that created a 50 m/s wind that is comparable to tornadoes. A total of 381,300 bombs amounting to 1783 tons, were used in the bombing.

After the successful Operation Meetinghouse raid, the USAAF went on to firebomb other Japanese cities in effort to pulverize the Japanese war industry and shatter Japanese civilian morale. From March to August 1945, the U.S. firebombing of 67 Japanese cities had killed 350,000 civilians. In addition, the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed 120,000 people.

Korean War
During the Korean War of 1950–1953, U.S.-led UN air forces heavily bombed the cities in North Korea and the North-occupied South Korea, including their respective capital cities. There were also plans to use nuclear weapons against North Korea and the People's Republic of China.

Vietnam War

From 1965 to 1968, during the Vietnam War, the United States Air Force conducted an aerial campaign known as Operation Rolling Thunder. The campaign began with interdiction of supply lines in rural areas of southern North Vietnam but incrementally spread northward throughout the country. In 1966, restrictions against bombing the capital city of Hanoi and the country's largest port, Haiphong, were lifted, and they were bombed by the USAF and Navy. The bombing of the city centers continued to be prohibited. However, the South Vietnamese cities seized by the communists were bombed, including the former capital of Huế during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

The Republic of Vietnam Air Force bombed contested cities in South Vietnam in 1968, 1972 and 1975, while the Vietnam People's Air Force attacked Southern cities (including the capital city of Saigon) in 1975.

Arab-Israeli Conflict
Israeli cities were bombed by Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian aircraft during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and the Six-Day War. The bombing included attacks on some of Israel's largest cities, such as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. The Lebanese capital of Beirut was attacked by the Israeli aircraft during the Siege of Beirut in 1982, and during the 2006 Lebanon War (using guided munitions). Israel also conducted air strikes targeting Palestinian targets during the Second Intifada, including against Hamas in Gaza.

Wars in Afghanistan
In March 1979, in response to an uprising, the Khalq-control army of Democratic Republic of Afghanistan carpet-bombed the Afghanistan's third-largest city of Herat, causing massive destruction and some 5,000 to 25,000 deaths. Herat was also repeatedly bombed during the following Soviet involvement in the Afghan civil war.

Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S.-led coalition attacked the urban targets in Afghanistan using mainly precision-guided munitions (or "smart bombs"). The United States government maintains that it has a policy of striking only significant combatant targets while doing all possible to avoid what it terms "collateral damage" to civilians and non-combatants during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

Iran–Iraq War
Saddam Hussein's Iraq attacked civilian targets in Iranian cities in the War of the Cities during the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, with Iranians retaliating in kind (both sides soon switched to ballistic missile attacks). Iraqi aircraft also bombed the Iraqi Kurdistan city of Halabja in 1988 with conventional and chemical weapons in 1988, killing more than 5,000 people in the largest aerial poison gas attack in history.

Somalia's campaign against Isaaq
In 1988 Somali Air Force aircraft conducted intense aerial bombardment of major Isaaq cities targeting civilian Isaaqs during its campaign against Somali National Movement in the north of the country. Civilians were also strafed by Somali Air Force aircraft as they were fleeing the aerial bombardment. The artillery shelling and aerial bombardment caused the deaths of estimated 50,000–200,000 Isaaq civilians, as well as the complete destruction of Somalia's second and third largest cities. It also caused up to 500,000 Somalis (primarily of the Isaaq clan) to flee and cross the border into Hartasheikh in Ethiopia as refugees in what was described as "one of the fastest and largest forced movements of people recorded in Africa", and resulted in the creation of the world's largest refugee camp then (1988), with another 400,000 being internally displaced. The scale of destruction led to Hargeisa being known as the 'Dresden of Africa'.

Gulf War
The Iraqi Air Force attacked Kuwait City in 1990 and bombed their own cities during the 1991 uprisings in Iraq, targeting civilians with the use of bomb-carrying helicopters (use of airplanes was banned by the Coalition as part of the ceasefire agreement that ended hostilities of the Gulf War but not the war itself).

UN-led coalition aircraft attacked targets in Iraqi cities, including in the capital Baghdad and the largest southern city of Basra during Operation Desert Storm in 1991.

On 13 February 1991, a United States Air Force (USAF) warplane fired two laser-guided missiles at an air raid shelter in the Al-A'amiriya neighborhood of Baghdad, killing at least 408 civilians sheltering there. U.S. officials subsequently claimed that the shelter also served as a communications center for the Iraqi military. BBC correspondent Jeremy Bowen, who was one of the first television reporters on the scene, was given access to the shelter and claimed that he did not find any evidence of it being used by the Iraqi military. His claims were later contradicted by Iraqi general Wafiq al-Samarrai, who claimed that the shelter was used by the Iraqi Intelligence Service, and that Saddam Hussein had personally made visits to it. The day after the bombing of the shelter, a Royal Air Force (RAF) fighter jet fired two laser-guided missiles which were aimed at a bridge in Fallujah which was used as part of an Iraqi military supply line. The missiles malfunctioned and struck Fallujah's largest marketplace (which was situated in a residential area), killing between 50 and 150 non-combatants and wounding many more. After news of the mistake became public, an RAF spokesman, Group Captain David Henderson issued a statement noting that the missile had malfunctioned but admitted that the Royal Air Force had made an error.

Yugoslav wars
At the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars, in Croatia (1991), the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) carried out aerial bombing of Dubrovnik and Vukovar.

NATO's aerial bombing of FR Yugoslavia in 1999 included targeted aerial bombing throughout Serbia, notably of targets in Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš. In addition to military casualties, there were at least 500 civilian casualties. Despite the NATO campaign appearing to violate NATO's charter, the UNSC rebutted the case on March 24 and March 26, 1999. In addition to purely military targets NATO targeted the national power grid (leaving many cities in the dark), water purification plants, oil refineries, fertilizer factories, and a petrochemical plant in Pancevo. The 78-day bombing campaign is assessed as having been an 'economic catastrophe', cutting the Yugoslav economy in half.

Chechen wars
Post-Soviet Russia heavily bombed the Chechen capital of Grozny from the air with mostly unguided munitions (including fuel-air explosives) as well as bombarding it with a massive artillery barrages (1994–1995, 1996 and 1999–2000), killing thousands of people (some estimates say 27,000 civilians were killed during the 1994–1995 siege alone ) including civilians during the First and Second Chechen Wars. Although the Russian pilots and soldiers were ordered to attack designated targets only, such as the Presidential Palace, due to their inexperience and lack of training, Russian soldiers and pilots bombed and shelled random targets inside the city. In 2003, the UN still called Grozny the most destroyed city on earth.

Iraq War
In 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the U.S.-led coalition aircraft again bombed Iraq, including the Shock and Awe campaign of precision bombing of government targets in the city centers. From 2003 to 2011 and 2014 to 2018, coalition aircraft attacked Iraqi insurgent targets, including in urban locations like Najaf, Fallujah, Mosul, Basra, and Baghdad. There are frequent reports of civilian casualties, though it is often hard to distinguish guerrillas and civilians.

Syria
Syrian MiG-23s bombed the city of Aleppo on 24 July 2012, the first use of aerial bombing in the Syrian Civil War. Over the course of the war, the Syrian government has dropped tens of thousands of bombs, mostly unguided barrel bombs, on the cities of Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, Hama, Deir ez-Zor, Hasakah, Daraa, Darayya, and Al-Bab.

Ukraine
Russia has strategically bombed the Ukrainian civilian power grid, with low or null military purpose, in order to weaken Ukraine resistance or distract it from attacking and taking back Russian occupied territories. This is in addition to Russian bombing of civilian buildings such as apartment blocks, retail shops, offices, schools, hospitals, etc.

Other conflicts
Budapest was attacked by intense Soviet air strikes in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution. A year before, on 16 June 1955, Casa Rosada, the Argentine government seat at Buenos Aires, was the target of four waves of fighter-bombers during a military uprising to overthrow Juan Peron. Fourteen-tons of bombs scattered on a wide area, killing hundreds of civilian passers-by as well as 11 soldiers. In 2008, the cities of Tskhinvali and Gori were hit by the Georgian and Russian aircraft during the war in Georgia.

International law

Air warfare, theoretically, must comply with laws and customs of war, including international humanitarian law by protecting the victims of the conflict and refraining from attacks on protected persons.

These restraints on aerial warfare are covered by the general laws of war, because unlike war on land and at sea – which are specifically covered by rules such as the 1907 Hague Convention and Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions, which contain pertinent restrictions, prohibitions and guidelines – there are no treaties specific to aerial warfare.

To be legal, aerial operations must comply with the principles of humanitarian law: military necessity, distinction, and proportionality: An attack or action must be intended to help in the defeat of the enemy; it must be an attack on a legitimate military objective, and the harm caused to protected civilians or civilian property must be proportional and not excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

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

title: Aerial bombing of cities


text:
Explanatory gap

In the philosophy of mind, the explanatory gap is the difficulty that physicalist philosophies have in explaining how physical properties give rise to the way things feel subjectively when they are experienced. It is a term introduced by philosopher Joseph Levine. In the 1983 paper in which he first used the term, he used as an example the sentence, "Pain is the firing of C fibers", pointing out that while it might be valid in a physiological sense, it does not help us to understand how pain feels.

The explanatory gap has vexed and intrigued philosophers and AI researchers alike for decades and caused considerable debate. Bridging this gap (that is, finding a satisfying mechanistic explanation for experience and qualia) is known as "the hard problem". The hardness of the problem is such that mysterians believe it can never be solved by humans.

An example of a phenomenon in which there is no gap is a modern computer's behavior, which can be adequately explained by its physical components alone, such as its circuitry and software. In contrast, it is thought by many mind-body dualists (e.g. René Descartes, David Chalmers) that subjective conscious experience constitutes a separate effect that demands another cause that is either outside the physical world (dualism) or due to an as yet unknown physical phenomenon (see for instance quantum mind, indirect realism).

Proponents of dualism claim that the mind is substantially and qualitatively different from the brain and that the existence of something metaphysically extra-physical is required to "fill the gap". Similarly, some argue that there are further facts—facts that do not follow logically from the physical facts of the world—about conscious experience. For example, they argue that what it is like to experience seeing red does not follow logically from the physical facts of the world.

Implications
The nature of the explanatory gap is disputed. Some consider it to be simply a limit on our current explanatory ability. They argue that future findings in neuroscience or future work from philosophers could close the gap. Others argue that the gap is a definite limit on our cognitive abilities as humans—no amount of further information will allow us to close it. There is no consensus about what metaphysical conclusions the existence of the gap provides. Those who use its existence to support dualism have often taken the position that an epistemic gap—particularly if it is a definite limit on our cognitive abilities—necessarily entails a metaphysical gap.

Joseph Levine and others opt to either remain silent on the matter or argue that no such metaphysical conclusion should be drawn. He agrees that conceivability (as used in the Zombie and inverted spectrum arguments) the theory is flawed as a means of establishing metaphysical realities; but argues that even if we come to the metaphysical conclusion that qualia are physical, they still present an explanatory problem. "While I think this materialist response is right in the end, it does not suffice to put the mind-body problem to rest. Even if conceivability considerations do not establish that the mind is in fact distinct from the body, or that mental properties are metaphysically irreducible to physical properties, still they do demonstrate that we lack an explanation of the mental in terms of the physical."

However, such an epistemological or explanatory problem might indicate an underlying metaphysical issue—the non-physicality of qualia, even if not proven by conceivability arguments, is far from ruled out. "In the end, we are right back where we started. The explanatory gap argument doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature, but a gap in our understanding of nature. Of course, a plausible explanation for there being a gap in our understanding of nature is that there is a genuine gap in nature. But so long as we have countervailing reasons for doubting the latter, we have to look elsewhere for an explanation of the former."

At the core of the problem, according to Levine, is our lack of understanding of what it means for a qualitative experience to be fully comprehended. He emphasizes that we do not even know to what extent it is appropriate to inquire into the nature of this kind of experience. He uses the laws of gravity as an example, which laws seem to explain gravity completely yet do not account for the gravitational constant. Similarly to the way in which gravity appears to be an inexplicable brute fact of nature, the case of qualia may be one in which we are either lacking essential information or in which we are exploring a natural phenomenon that simply is not further apprehensible. Levine suggests that for this reason perhaps we should consider whether it is necessary to find a more complete explanation of qualitative experience.

Levine points out that understanding how much there is to be known about qualitative experience seems even more difficult because we lack a way to articulate what it means for actualities to be knowable in the manner that he has in mind. He concludes that there are good reasons to want a more complete explanation of qualitative experiences. One is that consciousness appears to manifest only where mentality is demonstrated in physical systems that are quite highly organized. Levine argues that it seems counterintuitive to accept this implication that the human brain, so highly organized as it is, could be no more than a routine executor. He notes that while materialism appears to entail reducibility of anything that is not physically primary to an explanation of its dependence on a mechanism that can be described in terms of physical fundamentals, that kind of reductionism does not attempt to reduce psychology to physical science. However, it still entails that there are inexplicable classes of facts which are not treated as relevant to statements pertinent to psychology.

Many philosophers have doubted that the explanatory gap can be solved. As proponents of the argument use it to support arguments against materialism, physicalism, and naturalism, its arguments appear to resist any scientific or philosophical solution to the problem. David Chalmers acknowledged that even when science bridges the gap to some degree, the problem will persist.

History
Leibniz's passage describing the explanatory gap is as follows: "It must be confessed, moreover, that perception, and that which depends on it, are inexplicable by mechanical causes, that is, by figures and motions, And, supposing that there were a mechanism so constructed as to think, feel and have perception, we might enter it as into a mill. And this granted, we should only find on visiting it, pieces which push one against another, but never anything by which to explain a perception. This must be sought, therefore, in the simple substance, and not in the composite or in the machine."

title: Explanatory gap


text:
User:Daniel Quinlan

Here are some articles I started (or rewrote) in order of newest to oldest:

 * Tadaaki Kuwayama
 * List of Indices of Freedom
 * Pinghua (linguistics)
 * Xiang (linguistics)
 * Mount Terror (Antarctica)
 * Nitrobenzol
 * Alternative names for the British
 * Acetate
 * Prisoner of War Medal
 * Distinguished Flying Cross (U.S.)
 * Vinyon
 * M3 Grease Gun
 * Benjamin Stoddert
 * John Machin
 * United States Federal Executive Departments
 * United States Secretary of the Army
 * Aramid
 * PBI
 * Sulfar
 * Synthetic fiber
 * OVRA

Some older Wikipedia writings and projects:

 * Redirect project
 * Deletion is a tool
 * How to game Wikipedia

title: User:Daniel Quinlan


text:
Talk:Explanatory gap

Is the explanatory gap an argument at all?
I doubt that the explanatory gap can be seen as an argument at all, because to put it bluntly it can be summed up to "We are all just too stupid to understand why I am right!". With that kind of "argument" you can "proof" anything, even the greatest nonsense. Even worse from a mathematical/logical point of view a statement which can proof anything right is a false statement.

For example I could argue "All Chinese people are in reality Americans" and if anybody would ask me why I would just answer: "All Chinese people are in reality Americans" because -> "explanatory gap" -> true!

Mat11001 (talk) 19:50, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

 * I would say the explanatory gap is not an argument (just like dark energy/matter are not arguments), rather, it is just a name for (one technical component of) a still unsolved problem.

 * But that's as far as I agree with you, I don't find the topic contentless. The topic is a way of stating the notion that it is difficult to conceive of any way (even in principle) in which 'the conscious experience of first-person awareness' could arise from any mechanistic system (which is different from simply not knowing how our particular consciousness arises from our particular neuroarchitecture). It's analogous to the notion that it is difficult to conceive of any way that absolute moral laws could be derived from objective scientific facts, which is often attributed to Hume. Sam Harris recently expressed it this way: even if you trace a spectrum of simpler nervous systems than humans, toward the mind with the smallest glimmer of consciousness, it is still no easier to understand how such consciousness can arise from a mechanistic system (to wit, how can you decide whether a thermostat is conscious? This seems like a failure of reductionist techniques).

 * It is comparatively very easy to explain how mechanistic processes give rise to the functional behaviour of a robot, a zombie, or another person, including their verbal behaviour such as speech claiming to assert their own consciousness. But we don't even know how to begin to imagine describing a mechanistic explanation for someone's own actual subjective consciousness. Similarly, we don't have the first clue about how to authenticate whether a system really is conscious or else is not conscious but just trickily arranged to act in false pretense as if it were. Of course, different philosophers may disagree, but that's just more evidence that the topic is not as contentless as you suggest. Cesiumfrog (talk) 00:50, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

 * "But we don't even know how to begin to imagine describing a mechanistic explanation for someone's own actual subjective consciousness." That's exactly the point. But instead of accepting that their theory failed the materialists come now up with the "explanatory gap" to "proof" they are right despite they are wrong. That's the whole purpose of the thing. Dualists don't need the "explanatory gap" because they don't assume that the material world is the only entity that exists at all.
 * Mat11001 (talk) 20:15, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

 * I think your problem is just that you mistakenly assumed the explanatory gap was an argument for materialism. It's not. In fact, its existence is indeed used as an argument for the views of (quasi-) dualists such as Searle and Chalmers. (Nonetheless, the topic is normally couched in the language of materialism because that is by far the more dominant paradigm among experts. Note that in the article we can not be imposing our own conclusions about who may be wrong.) Cesiumfrog (talk) 22:58, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Free will v consciousness
Hm. This article appears to confuse free will with consciousness. -- The Anome

Searle's chinese room argument proposes that information processors are just a collection of bits and that the encoded information on the patterns of bits has no meaning to the machine. The question facing proponents of strong AI is how a collection of clusters of electrons on a chip could know anything at any instant. The preferred answers are emergentism and direct realism, neither of which are very convincing.

Criticism
This article lacks a section on criticism of the explanatory gap. I don't know it well enough, but Dennett has a counter-argument in Consciousness Explained, and Patricia Smith Churchland's Brain-Wise: Studies in Neurophilosophy has another.Hinakana (talk)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Explanatory gap. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110514060312/http://www.imprint.co.uk/hardprob.html to http://www.imprint.co.uk/hardprob.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 02:28, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Objection to statement

“To take an example of a phenomenon in which there is no gap, imagine a modern computer: as marvelous as these devices are, their behavior can be fully explained by their circuitry.”

I vehemently object to this statement. It is totally false and should be removed.

The circuitry of a computer explains nothing of its ‘behavior’. The circuitry may include a camera, yet it cannot ‘see’; a microphone, yet it cannot ‘hear’; a touch screen, yet it cannot ‘feel’; a keyboard and printer, yet it knows not of ‘language’; a CD-ROM, yet it cannot ‘read’; a hard drive, yet it cannot ‘write’; memory, yet it cannot ‘remember’; a network interface, WiFi, or Bluetooth, yet it is not ‘social’. A computer described only by its circuitry is the quintessential ‘Tabula Rosa’. It has no ‘behavior’, it is a paper weight and it matters not whether the power switch is ON or OFF. It has no behavior unless and until it is given a PROGRAM. A program brings its senses to life at which time it may begin to collect data. At this point the ‘behavior’ of the computer is equal to that of an imbecile.

In order for the computer to have ‘meaningful’ behavior the ‘program’ must have a ‘purpose.’ Taken together, the behavior of a computer may now be fully explained – circuitry, program, data, and purpose.

I don’t see this as being much different than general problem being discussed here. The brain is relational to the computer circuitry, although in the case of the brain, the circuitry of the brain is itself fluid, changeable. What seems to be missing in all the arguments for hundreds of years is the concept of ‘program.’ In the case of animals, all animals, the program is called ‘consciousness’.

Consciousness, as a program, is itself fluid, changeable. It is malleable and adaptable based on the ‘data’ received by the senses. Consciousness also has ‘purpose.’ Some of those ‘purposes’ are built in, such as the ‘purpose’ of self preservation or procreation. Some ‘purposes’ are the direct result of cultural influences. Some ‘purposes’ are selectable by the individual which is called ‘free will.’

The mind is a brain in action; it is what a brain does. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MFelixHunter (talk • contribs) 15:42, 20 January 2018 (UTC)

title: Talk:Explanatory gap


text:
Cyanotype

The cyanotype (from κυάνεος, kyáneos dark blue and τύπος, týpos mark, impression, type) is a slow-reacting, economical photographic printing formulation sensitive to a limited near ultraviolet and blue light spectrum, the range 300 nm to 400 nm known as UVA radiation. It produces a monochrome, blue coloured print on a range of supports, often used for art, and for reprography in the form of blueprints. For any purpose, the process usually uses two chemicals: ferric ammonium citrate or ferric ammonium oxalate, and potassium ferricyanide, and only water to develop and fix. Announced in 1842, it is still in use.

History
The cyanotype was discovered, and named thus, by Sir John Herschel who in 1842 published his investigation of light on iron compounds, expecting that photochemical reactions would reveal, in form visible to the human eye, the infrared extreme of the electromagnetic spectrum detected by his father William Herschel and the ultra-violet or 'actinic' rays that had been discovered in 1801 by Johann Ritter. Though Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner had published in 1831 in German on the light-sensitivity of ferric oxalate, of which Herschel became aware during his visit to Hamburg, it is too lightly toned to form a satisfactory image and would require a second reaction to make a permanent print.

Alfred Smee had in 1840 used electrochemistry to isolate a pure form of potassium ferricyanide, which he sent to Herschel whose innovation was to use the ammonium iron(III) citrate or tartrate, then commercially available as an iron tonic and also introduced to him by Smee, for photographic purpose. He mixed the ammonium ferric citrate in a 20% aqueous solution, with 16% of the potassium ferricyanide, to make the sensitizer for coating plain paper. Exposed to sunlight, the ferric salt is reduced then combines with the ferricyanide to yield ferric ferrocyanide; Prussian blue (also known as Turnbull's blue, or Berlin Blue in Germany). Intensifying and fixing is achieved simply by rinsing the print in water in which unexposed sensitizer and reaction products are readily soluble.

Anna Atkins, a friend of the Herschel family, over 1843–61 and with the assistance of Anne Dixon, hand-printed several albums of botanical and textile specimens, especially Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions, effectively the world's first photographically-illustrated books. After the Ross Antarctic Expedition (1839–1843) John Davis, artist and naturalist on the expedition, made or commissioned some cyanotypes in 1848 from seaweeds collected on the voyage. Also in the Antipodes, Herbert Dobbie in imitation of Atkins produced a book New Zealand ferns: 148 varieties, but with double-sided pages of cyanotype prints, in 1880.

John Mercer in the 1850s used the process for printing photographs onto cotton textiles and discovered means of toning the cyanotype violet, green, brown, red, or black.

As with all of his photographic inventions, Herschel did not patent his cyanotype process. Chemist George Thomas Fisher Jr. quickly disseminated information on the new medium internationally in his popular 1843 fifty-page manual Photogenic manipulation, containing plain instructions in the theory and practice of the arts of photography: calotype, cyanotype, ferrotype, chrysotype, anthotype, daguerreotype, and thermography, which the following year was translated into German and Dutch. The medium was immediately taken up and perfected by notable photographic practitioners of the time, including William Henry Fox Talbot and Henry Bosse. The latter in making fine presentation albums of bridges and structural steel, foresaw an appropriate effect in colour: the intense blues of his refined cyanotypes from large glass plates were printed on fine French paper 37 cm x 43.6 cm, watermarked ''Johannot et Cie. Annonay, aloe's satin'' and leather bound.

Commercial use came only in 1872, the year after Herschel's death. Marion and Company of Paris were first to market the cyanotype, under the proprietary name of "Ferro-prussiate", for reprography of plans and technical drawings and to advantage due to its low cost and simplicity of processing which required only water. In this application and with the manufacture of blueprint papers, it remained the dominant reprographic process until the 1940s. During the 217-day Siege of Mafeking of the town of Mafeking (Mafikeng) in South Africa during the Second Boer War from October 1899, the process was used to print stamps and banknotes.

On the other hand the simple technology of the cyanotype remained accessible in the non-industrial realm and contributed to folk art; Francois Brunet notes the cyanotypes on cloth used by American home quilt-makers after 1880, and Geoffrey Batchen cites thirty or more early cyanotyped family snapshots on cloth, sewn into pillow slips or quilts, in the collection of Eastman House. Sandra Sider perpetuates this tradition in her own quilt making and as a proponent for increased museum acquisitions of Art Quilts.

The cyanotype produced negatives, reversing the darks and lights of the image or object exposed on it, but Herschel also contrived a version, though more complex, to produce positives which he hoped would aid in his ambition to achieve images of full natural colour. Its difficulties were overcome by Henri Pellet in 1877 in his gum arabic iron cyanofer direct positive photographic tracing method, which he commercialised.

Herschel's formula and method
In a typical procedure, equal volumes of an 8.1% (w/v) solution of potassium ferricyanide and a 20% solution of ferric ammonium citrate are mixed. The overall contrast of the sensitizer solution can be increased with the addition of approximately 6 drops of 1% (w/v) solution potassium dichromate for every 2 ml of sensitizer solution.

This mildly photosensitive solution is then applied to a receptive surface (such as paper or cloth) and allowed to dry in a dark place. Cyanotypes can be printed on any support capable of soaking up the iron solution. Although watercolor paper is a preferred medium, cotton, wool and even gelatin sizing on nonporous surfaces have been used. Care should be taken to avoid alkaline-buffered papers, which degrade the image over time.

An image can be produced by exposing sensitised paper to a source of ultraviolet light (such as sunlight) as a contact print. The combination of UV light and the citrate reduces the iron(III) to iron(II). This is followed by a complex reaction of the iron(II) with ferricyanide. The result is an insoluble, blue pigment (ferric ferrocyanide) known as Prussian blue. The exposure time varies widely, from a few seconds in strong direct sunlight, to 10–20 minute exposures on a dull day.

After exposure, the paper is developed by washing in cold running water: the water-soluble iron(III) salts are washed away. The parts that were exposed to ultraviolet turn blue as the non-water-soluble Prussian blue pigment remains in the paper. This is what gives the print its typical blue color. The blue color darkens upon drying.

Improved formula
The ingredients have remained mostly unchanged since its inception in 1840. In 1994 Mike Ware improved on Herschel's formula with ammonium iron(III) oxalate, also known as ferric ammonium oxalate, to replace the variable and unreliable ammonium ferric citrate. It has the advantages of being made up as a convenient single stock solution with a good shelf-life that does not nourish mould growth. The solution is well-absorbed by paper fibres, so it does not pool on the surface or result in a 'tackiness' which may adhere to negatives. The paper better retains the pigment, with little of the Prussian blue image being lost in the washing stage, and exposure is shorter (ca. 4-8 times) than the traditional process. The cyanotype solution, even once its excess is washed off with water, remains photo-sensitive to some degree. A print that has been stored or displayed in bright light will eventually fade, the light causing a chemical reaction that changes the Prussian blue of the cyanotype to white. However, this process can be reversed by storing the cyanotypes in darkness. This will return them to their original vibrancy.

Different composition levels of ferric ammonium citrate (or oxalate) and potassium ferricyanide will result in a variety of effects in the final cyanotypes. Mixtures of half ferric ammonium citrate and half potassium ferricyanide will produce a medium, even shade of blue that is most commonly seen in a cyanotype. A mix of one third ferric ammonium citrate and two thirds potassium ferricyanide will produce a darker blue, and a more high-contrast final print.

Disadvantages of the Ware formula are a higher cost, more complicated preparation, and a level of toxicity.

Printmaking

The simplest kind of cyanotype print is a photogram, made by arranging objects on sensitised paper. Fresh or pressed plants are a typical subject but any opaque to translucent object will create an image. A sheet of glass will press flat objects into close contact with the paper, resulting in a sharp image. Otherwise, three-dimensional objects or less than perfectly flat ones will create a more or less blurred image depending on the incidence and breadth of the light source.

A variant of photograms are chemigrams. The cyanotype solution is applied, poured or sprayed irregularly. A variant of action painting results from repeated washing and application, placing objects on top.

More sophisticated prints can be made from artwork or photographic images on transparent or translucent media. The cyanotype process reverses light and dark, so a negative original is required to print as a positive image. Large format photographic negatives or transparent digital negatives can produce images with a full tonal range, or lithographic film can be used to create high-contrast images.

The cyanotype may be combination-printed with gumoil, or with a gum bichromate image, in which, for full-colour imaging from colour separations, it may form the blue layer; or it may be combined with a hand-painted or hand-drawn drawn layer.

Toning
In a cyanotype, blue is usually the desired color. However, a variety of alternative effects can be achieved. These fall into three categories: reducing, intensifying, and toning. It is common to bleach prints before toning them, but also possible to achieve different effects by toning prints without bleaching.
 * Bleaching processes are ways of decreasing the intensity of the blue. Sodium carbonate, ammonia, borax, Dektol photographic developer and other chemicals can be used to do this. Household bleach is also effective, but tends to destroy the paper base. How much and how long to bleach depends on the image content, emulsion thickness and what kind of toning is being used. When using a bleaching agent it is important to control the bleaching process by washing in clean water as soon as the desired effect is achieved, to prevent loss of detail in the highlights.
 * Intensifying processes will strengthen the blue effect. Chemicals used are hydrogen peroxide or mild acidic substances: citric acid, lemon juice, vinegar or acetic acid etc. These can also be used to speed up the oxidation process that creates the blue pigment.
 * Toning processes are used to change the color of the iron oxide in the print. The color change varies with the reagent used. A variety of agents can be used, including various types of tea, coffee, wine, urine, tannic acid or pyrogallic acid, resulting in tones varying from brown to black. Most toning processes will to some extent tint the white parts of a print.

Long-term preservation
One of the most robust of Victorian print technologies, cyanotypes are quite stable on their own, but in contrast to most historical and present-day processes, the prints do not react well to basic environments. As a result, it is not advised to store or present the print in chemically buffered museum board, as this makes the image fade. Another unusual characteristic of the cyanotype is its regenerative behavior: prints that have faded due to prolonged exposure to light can often be significantly restored to their original tone by simply temporarily storing them in a dark environment.

Cyanotypes on cloth are permanent but must be washed by hand with non-phosphate soap so as to not turn the blue to yellow.

Artistic potential
The cyanotype's success as a form of artistic expression lies in its capacity for manipulation or distortion. It produces distinctive effects and is versatile, enabling prints to be made on a wide variety of surfaces, including paper, wood, fabric, glass, Perspex, bone, shell and eggshell, plaster and ceramics, and at any scale; to date 2017, the largest is 276.64 m$2$ (2977.72 ft$2$), created by Stefanos Tsakiris in Thessaloniki, Greece, on 18 September 2017. Robin Hill in 2001 exhibited Sweet Everyday, a 30.5 m (100 ft) cyanotype enwrapping Lennon, Weinberg, Inc.'s Soho gallery, and evoking wavy brushstrokes by placing ordinary shopping bags on photo-sensitive paper exposed to light. For photographic negatives or positives enlargement directly onto the emulsion is not feasible due to the low sensitivity of the emulsion (except with a solar enlarger), so requires contact printing at 1:1 ratio. The low sensitivity permits progress to be inspected in a printing frame during exposure. Consequently and because of its long exposure scale it suits most negatives whether of high or low contrast. As a recognisably 19th century technology, artists like John Dugdale use it to evoke, or to critique, Victorian aesthetics and social constructs.

The artist is not restricted to the reproduction of existing photographic negatives. Prints can be made of three-dimensional objects, utilising the ability of the objects to be placed on top of the photosensitive material. Once exposed to light, the final print is of an outline of an item with internal detail where they allow light, depending on their relative transparency and exposure, to filter through; Anna Atkin's botanical cyanotypes sharply register the more transparent segments of a petal or leaf. An object original, used to make a cyanotype photogram, including the human figure for example, is reproduced at actual size. Robert Rauschenberg's and Susan Weil's collaborative cyanotypes, including Untitled (Double Rauschenberg), c. 1950 were made by both artists lying down, hands held, on a large piece of photosensitive paper (treated with cyanotype chemicals). The resulting prints of their bodies in various poses are currently part of the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. In France, from the end of the 1970s, Nancy Wilson-Pajic made cyanotype photograms of everything from a broken windshield to herself (Falling Angels), and eventually several long series of museum collections and of Haute-Couture robes by Christian Lacroix and other designers. The results have been shown all over the world and are in major institutions and public collections.

The blue hue naturally associates symbolically with sea or sky. As German photographer Thomas Kellner notes of his 1997 Cubist multi-pinhole portraits of porcelain dolls; "I am specially happy with the blue colour in this series as the blue has a different depth in the background than a black print. Blue is still infinite, whereas black usually has the character of ending." The negative form may be disorienting or surreal; while white is often used to frame or highlight a central subject in many artistic media, the opposite may be true in the cyanotype, requiring the artist to adapt their ideas to the effect.

Equally important is the expressive potential of the application of emulsion using brush, squeegee, roller or cloth, or by stamping, for calligraphic effect.

The cyanotype process is quite flexible, and it can be scaled up to incredible sizes. For example, in 2017, Stefanos Tsakiris created a 276.64 square meter cyanotype in Thessaloniki, Greece. The print, which holds the world record for the largest cyanotype print, was made to help teach people about cyanotype photography and increase environmental awareness.

Britain
Anna Atkins, who was also an accomplished watercolorist, in her cyanotype botanical specimens, is considered the first to make art with the medium in which the sea plants appear suspended in an oceanic blue, and while her hundreds of images satisfy a scientific curiosity, their aesthetic quality has served as inspiration for cyanotype artists ever since.

Cyanotype photography was popular in Victorian England, but became less popular as photography improved. By the mid-1800s few photographers continued to exploit its accessible qualities and at the Great Exhibition of 1851, despite extensive displays of photographic technology, only a single example of the cyanotype process was included. Peter Henry Emerson exemplified the British attitude that cyanotypes were unworthy of purchase or exhibition with his assertion that: "No one but a vandal would print a landscape in red, or in cyanotype."

Consequently, the process devolved to the proofing of domestic negatives by hobbyist photographers and to postcards, though another British scientist, Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society Washington Teasdale, delivered hundreds of lectures throughout his lifetime and was among the first to illustrate them with lantern slides, and, up to 1890, to record his experiments and specimens, used the  cyanotype, a collection of which is held at the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford.

Edwin Linley Sambourne used cyanotypes as an archive of reference images for his Punch cartoons.

France
Curators and practitioners in France embraced the process. Caricaturist, illustrator, writer and portrait photographer Bertall (born Charles Albert, vicomte d' Arnoux, comte de Limoges-Saint-Saëns) as partner of Hippolyte Bayard was commissioned in the 1860s to make cyanotype portraits from glass negatives for the Société d'Ethnographie for their publication Collection anthropologique. While artistic in execution they also satisfy with the scientific interests of the group as each subject is photographed nude with front, back and profile views, not in the field but in his studio. The project also takes advantage of the ease of making multiples of cyanotypes for the publication Henri Le Secq's cyanotypes, which he made after he gave up photography after 1856 to continue painting and collecting art, were reprints of his famous works and made around 1870 as he was afraid of possible loss due to fading. He gave the reprints dates of the original negatives, some of which are still in good condition. They are well-represented in French collections. From the early 1850s through the 1870s Corot, with associated artists working in and near the town Barbizon adopted the hand-drawn cliché-verre, and though most were printed on salted or albumenized paper, some used the cyanotype.

United States
In the US the medium persevered into the 20th century. Eadweard Muybridge made cyanotype contact prints of his animal locomotion sequences, and Edward Curtis' ethnographic cyanotypes of native North Americans are preserved in the George Eastman House.

Pictorialism
Pictorialists, throughout Europe and other western countries, in efforts to have photography accepted as an art form, emphasised handcraft in printing, in imitation of painting and drawing, and drew on Symbolist subject matter and themes. Many of the practitioners were respected amateurs whose work was rewarded in a system of international 'salons' run by such organisations as the Camera Club of New York, and competition promoted an elevated level of technical experimentation with all of the then-current processes, such as calotypy, cyanotypy, gum printing, platinum printing, bromoil and Autochrome colour.

Clarence White's impeccable domestic and plein-air pictures are indebted in their bold composition to his contemporaries the painters Thomas Wilmer Dewing, William Merritt Chase and John White Alexander. His labor-intensive process entailed developing the negatives then making tests on cyanotype, playing with dimensions, proportions, and other variables, before making a print in platinum, which he then meticulously and expressively retouched. Alfred Steiglitz in White's portrait of him (1907) held in Princeton University Art Museum, appears gloweringly critical in the cyanotype print preserved there.

At the turn of the century, painter-photographer Edward Steichen, then associated with Alfred Steiglitz who promoted the Photo-Secession and Pictorialism through his Camera Work (1903–1917) produced prints of Midnight Lake George now held in The Alfred Stieglitz Collection: Photographs at the Art Institute of Chicago where in 2007 scientific examination of the prints and his records concluded that cyanotype had been incorporated in their predominant gum bichromate over platinum production. Steichen argued provocatively in the first issue of Camera Work that "every photograph is a fake from start to finish, a purely impersonal, unmanipulated photograph being practically impossible."

Photo-Secessionist Franco-American Paul Burty-Havilland, involved through marriage with the Lalique company, evinces a Japonisme in his moody cyanotype portraits and nudes made between 1898–1920. Another American Pictorialist Fred Holland Day made cyanotypes of youths, nude or in sailor suits, in 1911, that are held in the Library of Congress, and French artist Charles-François Jeandel printed his erotic imagery of bound women in his painting workshop in Paris and then in Charente 1890–1900.

The more traditional American printmaker Bertha Jaques, aligned with the antimodernist views of the late Victorian Arts and Crafts movement, from 1894 produced more than a thousand cyanotype photographs of wildflowers.

Impressionism
American artist Theodore Robinson painted in Giverny 1887–1892, contemporaneous with Monet of whom he made a portrait in cyanotype, and of the haystacks that Monet famously painted. He noted that "Painting directly from nature is difficult as things do not remain the same; the camera helps to retain the picture in your mind." He often drew a grid over his cyanotypes or albumen prints to assist transferring the composition, with compositional amendments, onto canvas, though conscious that "I must beware of the photo, get what I can of it and then go." His photographic imagery is held in the Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery and the Terra Foundation for the Arts.

Modernism
Arthur Wesley Dow's modernist approach was influential on the Pictorialists in the eloquently simple compositions of his New England environment, like Pine Tree (1895), a cyanotype, related to his interest, while studying in France, in the flat, decorative qualities of Japanese art and that of Les Nabis.

In Europe, Josef Sudek, the 'Poet of Prague' sometimes employed the cyanotype to impressionist effect during the early Modernist period.

Milan-born photographer, printmaker, painter, set designer and experimental film-maker, Luigi Veronesi, well-informed about the international debate on abstraction, was impressed with the abstract potential of the photogram. He participated in a 1934 exhibition in Paris with the international group of abstract artists 'Abstraction-Création', through which he met with Fernand Léger. He drew inspiration from Léger's Ballet Mécanique, Surrealism via the Metaphysical painting of Georgio de Chirico, and fellow photographer Giuseppe Cavalli with whom, convinced of the essential 'uselessness' of art, in 1947 he founded a group named La Bussola (The Compass). Influenced by Constructivist theories (and politically aligned with Communism), Veronesi used the cyanotype photogram after 1932 as a means of revealing metaphysical qualities in objects.

Late modern
In a 2008 essay A.D. Coleman perceived a return of the legacy Pictorialist methods being applied in art photography from 1976, a tendency represented in Francesca Woodman's late cyanotypes and in contact prints by Barbara Kasten and Bea Nettles. Weston Naef, curator of photography at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, in a 1998 New York Times article by critic Lyle Rexer, confirmed that "Looking back at [photography's] pioneers, today's artists see a way to restore expression to an art beguiled by technology," referring to the loss of 'intimacy' in digital imaging to account for artists' attraction to daguerreotypes, tintypes, cyanotypes, stereopticon images, albumen prints, collodion wet plates; all physical and 'hands-on' methods. Artists David McDermott and Peter McGough, who met in the East Village New York art scene of the 1980s, and until 1995 took the phenomenon to the extreme of reconstructing themselves as Victorian gentlemen, adopting the lifestyle and documenting it and their possessions using vintage cameras and materials, first inspired by their discovery of the cyanotype, and dating their contemporary works in the nineteenth century.

Contemporary
Since 2000 around 10 books, and in growing numbers, are published each year in English in which 'cyanotype' appears in the title, compared to only 95 in total from 1843 to 1999. Though it has been an artform since its inception, the numbers of artists now employing the cyanotype process have burgeoned, and they are not solely photographers. In the book of the 2022 British exhibition Squaring the Circles of Confusion: Neo-Pictorialism in the 21st Century eight contemporary artists: Takashi Arai, Céline Bodin, Susan Derges, David George, Joy Gregory, Tom Hunter, Ian Phillips-McLaren and Spencer Rowell employ the craft of photography for postmodern purpose, including the cyanotype.

International
Many were included in the first American international survey of the cyanotype in 2016; the Worcester Art Museum's Cyanotypes: Photography's Blue Period which displayed uses of the medium that extend well beyond the utilitarian contact-printing of negatives; Annie Lopez stitched together cyanotypes printed on tamale paper to create dresses; Brooke Williams tea-toned her cyanotypes, adjusting their color to accord with her story as a Jamaican American woman; and Hugh Scott-Douglas experimented with photograms and abstraction.

In 2018, the New York Public Library exhibited the work of nineteen contemporary artists who employ the medium. Mounted 175 years after Anna Atkin's first book of cyanotypes, British Algae, the exhibition was titled Anna Atkins Refracted: Contemporary Works.

Amongst others currently working in, or with, cyanotype are;

United States
Christian Marclay who suggests musical scores in his grids of cassette tapes or their unspooling.

Kate Cordsen applies Japanese aesthetics and non-Cartesian perspective in her mural-scale cyanotype landscapes.

Betty Hahn was early to incorporate cyanotype with other art media including hand-painting with embroidery as a feminist statement

Meghann Riepenhoff reprises Anna Atkins by exposing her prepared papers underneath the waves, so light filters through moving sand, shells, and water currents.

Canada
Canadian Erin Shirreff translates her sculptural interests into large-scale cyanotype photograms of temporary three-dimensional compositions in her studio with hours-long exposures during which component forms are moved, added or subtracted for transparent effect.

Germany
German artist Marco Breuer abrades cyanotype prints on watercolour paper in representations of the passing of time.

Iceland
Icelandic artist and filmmaker Inga Lísa Middleton employs the cyanotype for nostalgic representations of her homeland, and as a symbolic colour in imagery alerting audiences to an emerging catastrophe in the marine environment.

United Kingdom
British-born American resident Walead Beshty' s Barbican Art Gallery installation of 12,000 cyanotype prints traces a visual time line from October 2013 to September 2014 in a work called A Partial Disassembling of an Invention Without a Future: Helter-Skelter and Random Notes in Which the Pulleys and Cogwheels Are Lying Around at Random All Over the Workbench, produced from each object from the artists' studio being exposed on cyanotype-coated found paper, card or wood.

title: Cyanotype