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Sound localization

Sound localization is a listener's ability to identify the location or origin of a detected sound in direction and distance.

The sound localization mechanisms of the mammalian auditory system have been extensively studied. The auditory system uses several cues for sound source localization, including time difference and level difference (or intensity difference) between the ears, and spectral information. Other animals, such as birds and reptiles, also use them but they may use them differently, and some also have localization cues which are absent in the human auditory system, such as the effects of ear movements. Animals with the ability to localize sound have a clear evolutionary advantage.

How sound reaches the brain
Sound is the perceptual result of mechanical vibrations traveling through a medium such as air or water. Through the mechanisms of compression and rarefaction, sound waves travel through the air, bounce off the pinna and concha of the exterior ear, and enter the ear canal. In mammals, the sound waves vibrate the tympanic membrane (ear drum), causing the three bones of the middle ear to vibrate, which then sends the energy through the oval window and into the cochlea where it is changed into a chemical signal by hair cells in the organ of Corti, which synapse onto spiral ganglion fibers that travel through the cochlear nerve into the brain.

Neural interactions
In vertebrates, interaural time differences are known to be calculated in the superior olivary nucleus of the brainstem. According to Jeffress, this calculation relies on delay lines: neurons in the superior olive which accept innervation from each ear with different connecting axon lengths. Some cells are more directly connected to one ear than the other, thus they are specific for a particular interaural time difference. This theory is equivalent to the mathematical procedure of cross-correlation. However, because Jeffress's theory is unable to account for the precedence effect, in which only the first of multiple identical sounds is used to determine the sounds' location (thus avoiding confusion caused by echoes), it cannot be entirely used to explain the response. Furthermore, a number of recent physiological observations made in the midbrain and brainstem of small mammals have shed considerable doubt on the validity of Jeffress's original ideas.

Neurons sensitive to interaural level differences (ILDs) are excited by stimulation of one ear and inhibited by stimulation of the other ear, such that the response magnitude of the cell depends on the relative strengths of the two inputs, which in turn, depends on the sound intensities at the ears.

In the auditory midbrain nucleus, the inferior colliculus (IC), many ILD sensitive neurons have response functions that decline steeply from maximum to zero spikes as a function of ILD. However, there are also many neurons with much more shallow response functions that do not decline to zero spikes.

Human auditory system
Sound localization is the process of determining the location of a sound source. The brain utilizes subtle differences in intensity, spectral, and timing cues to localize sound sources.

Localization can be described in terms of three-dimensional position: the azimuth or horizontal angle, the elevation or vertical angle, and the distance (for static sounds) or velocity (for moving sounds).

The azimuth of a sound is signaled by the difference in arrival times between the ears, by the relative amplitude of high-frequency sounds (the shadow effect), and by the asymmetrical spectral reflections from various parts of our bodies, including torso, shoulders, and pinnae.

The distance cues are the loss of amplitude, the loss of high frequencies, and the ratio of the direct signal to the reverberated signal.

Depending on where the source is located, our head acts as a barrier to change the timbre, intensity, and spectral qualities of the sound, helping the brain orient where the sound emanated from. These minute differences between the two ears are known as interaural cues.

Lower frequencies, with longer wavelengths, diffract the sound around the head forcing the brain to focus only on the phasing cues from the source.

Helmut Haas discovered that we can discern the sound source despite additional reflections at 10 decibels louder than the original wave front, using the earliest arriving wave front. This principle is known as the Haas effect, a specific version of the precedence effect. Haas measured down to even a 1 millisecond difference in timing between the original sound and reflected sound increased the spaciousness, allowing the brain to discern the true location of the original sound. The nervous system combines all early reflections into a single perceptual whole allowing the brain to process multiple different sounds at once. The nervous system will combine reflections that are within about 35 milliseconds of each other and that have a similar intensity.

Duplex theory
To determine the lateral input direction (left, front, right), the auditory system analyzes the following ear signal information:

In 1907, Lord Rayleigh utilized tuning forks to generate monophonic excitation and studied the lateral sound localization theory on a human head model without auricle. He first presented the interaural clue difference based sound localization theory, which is known as Duplex Theory. Human ears are on different sides of the head, and thus have different coordinates in space. As shown in the duplex theory figure, since the distances between the acoustic source and ears are different, there are time difference and intensity difference between the sound signals of two ears. We call those kinds of differences as Interaural Time Difference (ITD) and Interaural Intensity Difference (IID) respectively.

From the duplex theory figure we can see that for source B1 or source B2, there will be a propagation delay between two ears, which will generate the ITD. Simultaneously, human head and ears may have a shadowing effect on high-frequency signals, which will generate IID.

 * Interaural time difference (ITD) – Sound from the right side reaches the right ear earlier than the left ear. The auditory system evaluates interaural time differences from: (a) Phase delays at low frequencies and (b) group delays at high frequencies.
 * Theory and experiments show that ITD relates to the signal frequency $$f$$. Suppose the angular position of the acoustic source is $$\theta$$, the head radius is $$r$$ and the acoustic velocity is $$c$$, the function of ITD is given by: $$ITD= \begin{cases} 3\times\frac{r}{c}\times\sin\theta, & \text{if }f\leq\text{4000Hz } \\ 2\times\frac{r}{c}\times\sin\theta, & \text{if }f>\text{ 4000Hz} \end{cases}$$. In above closed form, we assumed that the 0 degree is in the right ahead of the head and counter-clockwise is positive.
 * Interaural intensity difference (IID) or interaural level difference (ILD) – Sound from the right side has a higher level at the right ear than at the left ear, because the head shadows the left ear. These level differences are highly frequency dependent and they increase with increasing frequency. Massive theoretical researches demonstrate that IID relates to the signal frequency $$f$$ and the angular position of the acoustic source $$\theta$$. The function of IID is given by:  $$IID=1.0+(f/1000)^{0.8}\times\sin\theta$$
 * For frequencies below 1000 Hz, mainly ITDs are evaluated (phase delays), for frequencies above 1500 Hz mainly IIDs are evaluated. Between 1000 Hz and 1500 Hz there is a transition zone, where both mechanisms play a role.
 * Localization accuracy is 1 degree for sources in front of the listener and 15 degrees for sources to the sides. Humans can discern interaural time differences of 10 microseconds or less.

For frequencies below 800 Hz, the dimensions of the head (ear distance 21.5 cm, corresponding to an interaural time delay of 626 μs) are smaller than the half wavelength of the sound waves. So the auditory system can determine phase delays between both ears without confusion. Interaural level differences are very low in this frequency range, especially below about 200 Hz, so a precise evaluation of the input direction is nearly impossible on the basis of level differences alone. As the frequency drops below 80 Hz it becomes difficult or impossible to use either time difference or level difference to determine a sound's lateral source, because the phase difference between the ears becomes too small for a directional evaluation.

For frequencies above 1600 Hz the dimensions of the head are greater than the length of the sound waves. An unambiguous determination of the input direction based on interaural phase alone is not possible at these frequencies. However, the interaural level differences become larger, and these level differences are evaluated by the auditory system. Also, delays between the ears can still be detected via some combination of phase differences and group delays, which are more pronounced at higher frequencies; that is, if there is a sound onset, the delay of this onset between the ears can be used to determine the input direction of the corresponding sound source. This mechanism becomes especially important in reverberant environments. After a sound onset there is a short time frame where the direct sound reaches the ears, but not yet the reflected sound. The auditory system uses this short time frame for evaluating the sound source direction, and keeps this detected direction as long as reflections and reverberation prevent an unambiguous direction estimation. The mechanisms described above cannot be used to differentiate between a sound source ahead of the hearer or behind the hearer; therefore additional cues have to be evaluated.

Pinna filtering effect

Duplex theory shows that ITD and IID play significant roles in sound localization, but they can only deal with lateral localization problems. For example, if two acoustic sources are placed symmetrically at the front and back of the right side of the human head, they will generate equal ITDs and IIDs, in what is called the cone model effect. However, human ears can still distinguish between these sources. Besides that, in natural sense of hearing, one ear alone, without any ITD or IID, can distinguish between them with high accuracy. Due to the disadvantages of duplex theory, researchers proposed the pinna filtering effect theory. The shape of the human pinna is concave with complex folds and asymmetrical both horizontally and vertically. Reflected and direct waves generate a frequency spectrum on the eardrum, relating to the acoustic sources. Then auditory nerves localize the sources using this frequency spectrum.

These spectrum clues generated by the pinna filtering effect can be presented as a head-related transfer function (HRTF). The corresponding time domain expressions are called the Head-Related Impulse Response (HRIR). The HRTF is also described as the transfer function from the free field to a specific point in the ear canal. We usually recognize HRTFs as LTI systems:

$$H_L=H_L(r,\theta,\varphi,\omega,\alpha)=P_L(r,\theta,\varphi,\omega,\alpha)/P_0(r,\omega)$$ $$H_R=H_R(r,\theta,\varphi,\omega,\alpha)=P_R(r,\theta,\varphi,\omega,\alpha)/P_0(r,\omega),$$

where L and R represent the left ear and right ear respectively, $$P_L$$ and $$P_R$$ represent the amplitude of the sound pressure at the entrances to the left and right ear canals, and $$P_0$$ is the amplitude of sound pressure at the center of the head coordinate when listener does not exist. In general, an HRTF's $$H_L$$ and $$H_R$$ are functions of source angular position $$\theta$$, elevation angle $$\varphi$$, the distance between the source and the center of the head $$r$$, the angular velocity $$\omega$$ and the equivalent dimension of the head $$\alpha$$.

At present, the main institutes that work on measuring HRTF database include CIPIC International Lab, MIT Media Lab, the Graduate School in Psychoacoustics at the University of Oldenburg, the Neurophysiology Lab at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Ames Lab of NASA. Databases of HRIRs from humans with normal and impaired hearing and from animals are publicly available.

Other cues
The human outer ear, i.e. the structures of the pinna and the external ear canal, form direction-selective filters. Depending on the sound input direction, different filter resonances become active. These resonances implant direction-specific patterns into the frequency responses of the ears, which can be evaluated by the auditory system for sound localization. Together with other direction-selective reflections at the head, shoulders and torso, they form the outer ear transfer functions. These patterns in the ear's frequency responses are highly individual, depending on the shape and size of the outer ear. If sound is presented through headphones, and has been recorded via another head with different-shaped outer ear surfaces, the directional patterns differ from the listener's own, and problems will appear when trying to evaluate directions in the median plane with these foreign ears. As a consequence, front–back permutations or inside-the-head-localization can appear when listening to dummy head recordings, or otherwise referred to as binaural recordings. It has been shown that human subjects can monaurally localize high frequency sound but not low frequency sound. Binaural localization, however, was possible with lower frequencies. This is likely due to the pinna being small enough to only interact with sound waves of high frequency. It seems that people can only accurately localize the elevation of sounds that are complex and include frequencies above 7,000 Hz, and a pinna must be present.

When the head is stationary, the binaural cues for lateral sound localization (interaural time difference and interaural level difference) do not give information about the location of a sound in the median plane. Identical ITDs and ILDs can be produced by sounds at eye level or at any elevation, as long as the lateral direction is constant. However, if the head is rotated, the ITD and ILD change dynamically, and those changes are different for sounds at different elevations. For example, if an eye-level sound source is straight ahead and the head turns to the left, the sound becomes louder (and arrives sooner) at the right ear than at the left. But if the sound source is directly overhead, there will be no change in the ITD and ILD as the head turns. Intermediate elevations will produce intermediate degrees of change, and if the presentation of binaural cues to the two ears during head movement is reversed, the sound will be heard behind the listener. Hans Wallach artificially altered a sound's binaural cues during movements of the head. Although the sound was objectively placed at eye level, the dynamic changes to ITD and ILD as the head rotated were those that would be produced if the sound source had been elevated. In this situation, the sound was heard at the synthesized elevation. The fact that the sound sources objectively remained at eye level prevented monaural cues from specifying the elevation, showing that it was the dynamic change in the binaural cues during head movement that allowed the sound to be correctly localized in the vertical dimension. The head movements need not be actively produced; accurate vertical localization occurred in a similar setup when the head rotation was produced passively, by seating the blindfolded subject in a rotating chair. As long as the dynamic changes in binaural cues accompanied a perceived head rotation, the synthesized elevation was perceived.

In the 1960s Batteau showed the pinna also enhances horizontal localization.

Distance of the sound source
The human auditory system has only limited possibilities to determine the distance of a sound source. In the close-up-range there are some indications for distance determination, such as extreme level differences (e.g. when whispering into one ear) or specific pinna (the visible part of the ear) resonances in the close-up range.

The auditory system uses these clues to estimate the distance to a sound source:
 * Direct/ Reflection ratio: In enclosed rooms, two types of sound are arriving at a listener: The direct sound arrives at the listener's ears without being reflected at a wall. Reflected sound has been reflected at least one time at a wall before arriving at the listener. The ratio between direct sound and reflected sound can give an indication about the distance of the sound source.
 * Loudness: Distant sound sources have a lower loudness than close ones. This aspect can be evaluated especially for well-known sound sources.
 * Sound spectrum: High frequencies are more quickly damped by the air than low frequencies. Therefore, a distant sound source sounds more muffled than a close one, because the high frequencies are attenuated. For sound with a known spectrum (e.g. speech) the distance can be estimated roughly with the help of the perceived sound.
 * ITDG: The Initial Time Delay Gap describes the time difference between arrival of the direct wave and first strong reflection at the listener. Nearby sources create a relatively large ITDG, with the first reflections having a longer path to take, possibly many times longer. When the source is far away, the direct and the reflected sound waves have similar path lengths.
 * Movement: Similar to the visual system there is also the phenomenon of motion parallax in acoustical perception. For a moving listener nearby sound sources are passing faster than distant sound sources.
 * Level Difference: Very close sound sources cause a different level between the ears.

Signal processing
Sound processing of the human auditory system is performed in so-called critical bands. The hearing range is segmented into 24 critical bands, each with a width of 1 Bark or 100 Mel. For a directional analysis the signals inside the critical band are analyzed together.

The auditory system can extract the sound of a desired sound source out of interfering noise. This allows the listener to concentrate on only one speaker if other speakers are also talking (the cocktail party effect). With the help of the cocktail party effect sound from interfering directions is perceived attenuated compared to the sound from the desired direction. The auditory system can increase the signal-to-noise ratio by up to 15 dB, which means that interfering sound is perceived to be attenuated to half (or less) of its actual loudness.

In enclosed rooms not only the direct sound from a sound source is arriving at the listener's ears, but also sound which has been reflected at the walls. The auditory system analyses only the direct sound, which is arriving first, for sound localization, but not the reflected sound, which is arriving later (law of the first wave front). So sound localization remains possible even in an echoic environment. This echo cancellation occurs in the Dorsal Nucleus of the Lateral Lemniscus (DNLL).

In order to determine the time periods, where the direct sound prevails and which can be used for directional evaluation, the auditory system analyzes loudness changes in different critical bands and also the stability of the perceived direction. If there is a strong attack of the loudness in several critical bands and if the perceived direction is stable, this attack is in all probability caused by the direct sound of a sound source, which is entering newly or which is changing its signal characteristics. This short time period is used by the auditory system for directional and loudness analysis of this sound. When reflections arrive a little bit later, they do not enhance the loudness inside the critical bands in such a strong way, but the directional cues become unstable, because there is a mix of sound of several reflection directions. As a result, no new directional analysis is triggered by the auditory system.

This first detected direction from the direct sound is taken as the found sound source direction, until other strong loudness attacks, combined with stable directional information, indicate that a new directional analysis is possible. (see Franssen effect)

Auditory transmission stereo system
This kind of sound localization technique provides us the real virtual stereo system. It utilizes "smart" manikins, such as KEMAR, to glean signals or use DSP methods to simulate the transmission process from sources to ears. After amplifying, recording and transmitting, the two channels of received signals will be reproduced through earphones or speakers. This localization approach uses electroacoustic methods to obtain the spatial information of the original sound field by transferring the listener's auditory apparatus to the original sound field. The most considerable advantages of it would be that its acoustic images are lively and natural. Also, it only needs two independent transmitted signals to reproduce the acoustic image of a 3D system.

3D para-virtualization stereo system
The representatives of this kind of system are SRS Audio Sandbox, Spatializer Audio Lab and Qsound Qxpander. They use HRTF to simulate the received acoustic signals at the ears from different directions with common binary-channel stereo reproduction. Therefore, they can simulate reflected sound waves and improve subjective sense of space and envelopment. Since they are para-virtualization stereo systems, the major goal of them is to simulate stereo sound information. Traditional stereo systems use sensors that are quite different from human ears. Although those sensors can receive the acoustic information from different directions, they do not have the same frequency response of human auditory system. Therefore, when binary-channel mode is applied, human auditory systems still cannot feel the 3D sound effect field. However, the 3D para-virtualization stereo system overcome such disadvantages. It uses HRTF principles to glean acoustic information from the original sound field then produce a lively 3D sound field through common earphones or speakers.

Multichannel stereo virtual reproduction
Since the multichannel stereo systems require many reproduction channels, some researchers adopted the HRTF simulation technologies to reduce the number of reproduction channels. They use only two speakers to simulate multiple speakers in a multichannel system. This process is called as virtual reproduction. Essentially, such approach uses both interaural difference principle and pinna filtering effect theory. Unfortunately, this kind of approach cannot perfectly substitute the traditional multichannel stereo system, such as 5.1/7.1 surround sound system. That is because when the listening zone is relatively larger, simulation reproduction through HRTFs may cause invert acoustic images at symmetric positions.

Animals
Since most animals have two ears, many of the effects of the human auditory system can also be found in other animals. Therefore, interaural time differences (interaural phase differences) and interaural level differences play a role for the hearing of many animals. But the influences on localization of these effects are dependent on head sizes, ear distances, the ear positions and the orientation of the ears. Smaller animals like insects use different techniques as the separation of the ears are too small. For the process of animals emitting sound to improve localization, a biological form of active sonar, see animal echolocation.

Lateral information (left, ahead, right)
If the ears are located at the side of the head, similar lateral localization cues as for the human auditory system can be used. This means: evaluation of interaural time differences (interaural phase differences) for lower frequencies and evaluation of interaural level differences for higher frequencies. The evaluation of interaural phase differences is useful, as long as it gives unambiguous results. This is the case, as long as ear distance is smaller than half the length (maximal one wavelength) of the sound waves. For animals with a larger head than humans the evaluation range for interaural phase differences is shifted towards lower frequencies, for animals with a smaller head, this range is shifted towards higher frequencies.

The lowest frequency which can be localized depends on the ear distance. Animals with a greater ear distance can localize lower frequencies than humans can. For animals with a smaller ear distance the lowest localizable frequency is higher than for humans.

If the ears are located at the side of the head, interaural level differences appear for higher frequencies and can be evaluated for localization tasks. For animals with ears at the top of the head, no shadowing by the head will appear and therefore there will be much less interaural level differences, which could be evaluated. Many of these animals can move their ears, and these ear movements can be used as a lateral localization cue.

In the median plane (front, above, back, below)
For many mammals there are also pronounced structures in the pinna near the entry of the ear canal. As a consequence, direction-dependent resonances can appear, which could be used as an additional localization cue, similar to the localization in the median plane in the human auditory system. There are additional localization cues which are also used by animals.

Head tilting
For sound localization in the median plane (elevation of the sound) also two detectors can be used, which are positioned at different heights. In animals, however, rough elevation information is gained simply by tilting the head, provided that the sound lasts long enough to complete the movement. This explains the innate behavior of cocking the head to one side when trying to localize a sound precisely. To get instantaneous localization in more than two dimensions from time-difference or amplitude-difference cues requires more than two detectors.

Localization with coupled ears (flies)
The tiny parasitic fly Ormia ochracea has become a model organism in sound localization experiments because of its unique ear. The animal is too small for the time difference of sound arriving at the two ears to be calculated in the usual way, yet it can determine the direction of sound sources with exquisite precision. The tympanic membranes of opposite ears are directly connected mechanically, allowing resolution of sub-microsecond time differences and requiring a new neural coding strategy. Ho showed that the coupled-eardrum system in frogs can produce increased interaural vibration disparities when only small arrival time and sound level differences were available to the animal's head. Efforts to build directional microphones based on the coupled-eardrum structure are underway.

Bi-coordinate sound localization (owls)
Most owls are nocturnal or crepuscular birds of prey. Because they hunt at night, they must rely on non-visual senses. Experiments by Roger Payne have shown that owls are sensitive to the sounds made by their prey, not the heat or the smell. In fact, the sound cues are both necessary and sufficient for localization of mice from a distant location where they are perched. For this to work, the owls must be able to accurately localize both the azimuth and the elevation of the sound source.

Dolphins
Dolphins (and other odontocetes) rely on echolocation to aid in detecting, identifying, localizing, and capturing prey. Dolphin sonar signals are well suited for localizing multiple, small targets in a three-dimensional aquatic environment by utilizing highly directional (3 dB beamwidth of about 10 deg), broadband (3 dB bandwidth typically of about 40 kHz; peak frequencies between 40 kHz and 120 kHz), short duration clicks (about 40 μs). Dolphins can localize sounds both passively and actively (echolocation) with a resolution of about 1 deg. Cross-modal matching (between vision and echolocation) suggests dolphins perceive the spatial structure of complex objects interrogated through echolocation, a feat that likely requires spatially resolving individual object features and integration into a holistic representation of object shape. Although dolphins are sensitive to small, binaural intensity and time differences, mounting evidence suggests dolphins employ position-dependent spectral cues derived from well-developed head-related transfer functions, for sound localization in both the horizontal and vertical planes. A very small temporal integration time (264 μs) allows localization of multiple targets at varying distances. Localization adaptations include pronounced asymmetry of the skull, nasal sacks, and specialized lipid structures in the forehead and jaws, as well as acoustically isolated middle and inner ears.

The role of Prestin in sound localization:

In the realm of mammalian sound localization, the Prestin gene has emerged as a pivotal player, particularly in the fascinating arena of echolocation employed by bats and dolphins. Discovered just over a decade ago, Prestin encodes a protein located in the inner ear's hair cells, facilitating rapid contractions and expansions. This intricate mechanism operates akin to an antique phonograph horn, amplifying sound waves within the cochlea and elevating the overall sensitivity of hearing.

In 2014 Liu and others delved into the evolutionary adaptations of Prestin, unveiling its critical role in the ultrasonic hearing range essential for animal sonar, specifically in the context of echolocation. This adaptation proves instrumental for dolphins navigating through turbid waters and bats seeking sustenance in nocturnal darkness.

Noteworthy is the emission of high-frequency echolocation calls by toothed whales and echolocating bats, showcasing diversity in shape, duration, and amplitude. However, it is their high-frequency hearing that becomes paramount, as it enables the reception and analysis of echoes bouncing off objects in their environment. A meticulous dissection of Prestin protein function in sonar-guided bats and bottlenose dolphins, juxtaposed with nonsonar mammals, sheds light on the intricacies of this process.

Evolutionary analyses of Prestin protein sequences brought forth a compelling observation – a singular amino acid shift from threonine (Thr or T) in sonar mammals to asparagine (Asn or N) in nonsonar mammals. This specific alteration, subject to parallel evolution, emerges as a linchpin in the mammalian echolocation narrative.

Subsequent experiments lent credence to this hypothesis, identifying four key amino acid distinctions in sonar mammals that likely contribute to their distinctive echolocation features. The confluence of evolutionary analyses and empirical findings provides robust evidence, marking a significant juncture in comprehending the Prestin gene's role in the evolutionary trajectory of mammalian echolocation systems. This research underscores the adaptability and evolutionary significance of Prestin, offering valuable insights into the genetic foundations of sound localization in bats and dolphins, particularly within the sophisticated realm of echolocation.

History
The term 'binaural' literally signifies 'to hear with two ears', and was introduced in 1859 to signify the practice of listening to the same sound through both ears, or to two discrete sounds, one through each ear. It was not until 1916 that Carl Stumpf (1848–1936), a German philosopher and psychologist, distinguished between dichotic listening, which refers to the stimulation of each ear with a different stimulus, and diotic listening, the simultaneous stimulation of both ears with the same stimulus.

Later, it would become apparent that binaural hearing, whether dichotic or diotic, is the means by which sound localization occurs.

Scientific consideration of binaural hearing began before the phenomenon was so named, with speculations published in 1792 by William Charles Wells (1757–1817) based on his research into binocular vision. Giovanni Battista Venturi (1746–1822) conducted and described experiments in which people tried to localize a sound using both ears, or one ear blocked with a finger. This work was not followed up on, and was only recovered after others had worked out how human sound localization works. Lord Rayleigh (1842–1919) would do these same experiments and come to the results, without knowing Venturi had first done them, almost seventy-five years later.

Charles Wheatstone (1802–1875) did work on optics and color mixing, and also explored hearing. He invented a device he called a "microphone" that involved a metal plate over each ear, each connected to metal rods; he used this device to amplify sound. He also did experiments holding tuning forks to both ears at the same time, or separately, trying to work out how sense of hearing works, that he published in 1827. Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) and August Seebeck (1805–1849) and William Charles Wells also attempted to compare and contrast what would become known as binaural hearing with the principles of binocular integration generally.

Understanding how the differences in sound signals between two ears contributes to auditory processing in such a way as to enable sound localization and direction was considerably advanced after the invention of the stethophone by Somerville Scott Alison in 1859, who coined the term 'binaural'. Alison based the stethophone on the stethoscope, which had been invented by René Théophile Hyacinthe Laennec (1781–1826); the stethophone had two separate "pickups", allowing the user to hear and compare sounds derived from two discrete locations.

title: Sound localization


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Virgilia (plant)

Virgilia is a genus of Southern African trees in the family Fabaceae that is known for its very fast growth (4.5m in 2 years) and a tendency to fall over as it matures (15 years or so). The common name in South Africa (in Afrikaans) is keurboom, meaning 'choice tree'. Valued as useful ornamental trees by gardeners, the genus's two species are also known as tree-in-a-hurry, cape lilac, blossom tree and pink blossom tree.

Taxonomy
The genus was described by Jean Louis Marie Poiret and published in Encyclopédie Méthodique in 1808. Most botanists feel that the two species are simply forms and should be lumped under one species, Virgilia oroboides. That would mean that the current V. divaricata is simply a darker form limited to the forested region of Knysna, South Africa. Virgilia oroboides had a number of synonyms, while both V. oroboides and V. divaricata had both been named V. capensis by different authors.

Species
Below is a list of offers species of the genus Virgilia accepted as of July 2014, sorted alphabetically. For each one, the binomial name followed by the author is indicated, abbreviated according to the conventions and uses.

 * Virgilia divaricata Adamson
 * Virgilia oroboides (P.J.Bergius) T.M.Salter

Description
These are small to medium sized trees, up to 15 to 20 meters tall, filling space easily in the garden. The tree has shiny green, fern-like, pinnate foliage and displays attractive pea-like, mauve/pink, fragrant flowers (which smell like bubblegum) during warmer months that will be followed by dark, leathery seed pods.

Cultivation
Growing in full sun to partially shade, they prefer well drained soils; some will then grow 2m in the first season. They will tolerate wind and have dense foliage growing close to the ground, so they are useful as pioneer species for privacy and wind protection, despite having a comparatively short life (15 years). Popular in the UK since the 18th century or so, they are also now commonly present in the USA and Australia.

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

title: Virgilia (plant)


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Virgin Digital

Virgin Digital was an online music store operated in the United Kingdom and United States by the Virgin Group. It launched on 2 September 2005 in the UK, and was refreshed in November 2006 to run through an internet browser, rather than the former Virgin Digital Player. The site closed down in late 2006 in the US, while the UK store closed in October 2007.

Virgin Digital offered individual tracks at £0.79 and most albums for about £6.49. Its subscription service, Digital Music Club, cost £9.99 per month. It had the singular distinction of being among the largest collected online music library, with over two and a half million downloadable tracks.

Purchased tracks could be transferred to other devices and burned to CDs. Subscription tracks were tethered to the PC (up to 3) and could be transferred to a portable music player, although this required the premium subscription service, at £14.99 per month. Song previews were 30 seconds in the Music Store, although full length tracks were available to subscribers.

A chat function was considered to let subscribers communicate while browsing, downloading or listening to tracks.

Closure
Virgin Digital originally operated in both the United Kingdom and United States. The US store was discontinued in late 2006, and this website now redirects to Napster.

On Friday 21 September 2007, an announcement appeared on the Virgin Digital UK website stating the following: "Dear customer, we regret to announce that the Virgin Digital service is due to close. We will be taking no new customers from today, Friday 21 September."

The UK store finally closed on Friday 19 October 2007. Virgin have stated on their website that the decision to close Virgin Digital was so that the company could concentrate on offering digital media through Virgin Media, which has its own music store operated by OD2.

title: Virgin Digital


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Talk:Mary Daly

Why not RS?
Can you explain why you opined that Bitch is "probably not a reliable source"? It's not exactly obvious. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:07, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

 * It's been a few years, but if I had to guess, I'd say I probably wasn't aware of WP:RSOPINION. I've removed the tag. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:12, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Removed Third Paragraph in "Views on Men" Section Due To Misused Citations & Misleading Text
Citations #28-#30 are are improper. The claims of the (wiki) writer in this section are at best misleading (#28), at worst outright wrong (#29-30). The actual passages cited do not support the claims being made.

The wiki text: "She argued against sexual equality in Gyn/Ecology (1978),[28] believing that women ought to govern men;[29] Daly advocated a reversal of sociopolitical power between the sexes.[30]"

Citation #28: This citation directs the reader to G/E 384 & 375-376. Daly does discuss "equality of the sexes" in the cited passages. However, p.375-6 do not argue that the sexes are unequal moral agents or unequal under law, as the text of the wiki suggests. Instead Daly makes an tactical argument against the way in which "equality" discourses can be used to (a) distract women from radical change by focusing on legal reforms and (b) to de-center women from feminism, à la "feminism is humanism." Neither of these points are the same as a stance against legal or moral equality of the sexes. As written, however, the wiki passage seems to suggest precisely that, because "sexual equality" is generally understood, if one does not specify otherwise, to be from the vantage point of legal or moral "rights" discourses. It is therefore misleading not to clarify this. Page 384 suggests that "Hags" (radical women) do not find the discourse of "equality" to be especially useful to their radical aims: "[they] do not haggle over" it. This is, again, not at all the same as being against legal or moral equality of the sexes; rather, it is a question of tactics and focus.

Citation #29: This citation refers the reader to G/E p.xxvi and 15, neither of which supports the claim that Daly believes that "women ought to govern men." The misunderstanding here seems to revolve around some of the terminology Daly uses, terminology like “reversal,” which is a concept she creates in G/E. Page xxvi discusses Daly's "reversal of patriarchal reversals," which it seems the writer of the wiki text misunderstood to mean a reversal of political (governing) roles. Not so. For Daly "patriarchal reversals," a basic weapon and feature of patriarchy, are the way in which patriarchal narratives tend to tell a story about the sexes that is not just untrue, but the direct opposite of the truth. These reversals allow patriarchal culture to hide the truth about, e.g., women's power and male crimes against women. A classic patriarchal reversal states that Eve [female] came from Adam [male's] body, although it is plain biological fact that all males are born literally from women's bodies. Daly states on the same page (p.xxvi) that when we reverse the patriarchal theme "women are vessels controlled by men," "we [women] direct our own vessels/crafts [...] we become crafty." In other words, women govern themselves. She does NOT say that when we reverse the patriarchal reversals, women govern men. Page 15 in G/E again discusses the anti-patriarchal idea of women governing themselves. She states, “Women traveling into feminist time/space are creating Hag-ocracy, the place we govern.[…] we are learning individually and together to pilot the space/time ships of our voyage. The vehicles of our voyage may be any creative enterprises that further women’s process. The point is that they should be governed by the Witch within—the Hag within.” Again, this is about women governing themselves—each her own self. Men are not mentioned here. “Hag-ocracy” is way of talking about female self-governance as a metaphor for a female-centered culture where women are in control of themselves, and therefore allowed to discover themselves and create from their true selves, unimpeded by patriarchy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Menthesanscafeine (talk • contribs) 09:12, 18 March 2017 (UTC)
 * These are interesting interpretations and you might want to add them to the article. However, we don't delete sourced content because another paraphrasing is possible. What you may do is quote or paraphrase from the cited pages or elsewhere in the book in order to support your understanding of what she wrote or find other reliable sources on the subject of what Daly meant in Gyn/Ecology. If there are differing, even contradictory, views of what she wrote in that book, we would report all sides of the issue.
 * I don't have the book handy. It'll take me a little while to get it. But I would be surprised if she did not see inequality between the sexes in the society in which we live(d), an inequality that meant that men had more power than women had, not an inequality she endorsed.
 * I don't recall her doing a legal analysis (she was not a lawyer) but she was a self-described feminist ethicist and I'm not sure that she wasn't commenting on moral agency. She may well have considered tactics as well as ends. I don't doubt that female-centeredness was something she sought for the benefit of females and she wrote extensively on males reversing in language and history. These are all matters that could be added to the article.
 * I note that she later reached a position even further along the continuum from, about a decade earlier than Gyn/Ecology, seeking equality to, 21 years after Gyn/Ecology, she predicted "a drastic reduction of the population of males" (article & n. 31). I think women governing men comes in between, both chronologically and developmentally.
 * I suggest you draft and insert replacement content that you might expand to cover the points you raised. I'll wait a reasonable time for that or a response.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 01:01, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I want to be clear that what is at issue—at least the issue as I raised it—is a question of whether the specific citations provided actually supported, in any way, the assertions in the wiki text. They didn't. You are conjecturing that some citations that do support those assertions exist, somewhere in Daly's work, which is a logical possibility. But as of now I do not know of them, and you do not know of them, and no one else present knows of them. So I feel it was responsible to delete the text I did. I cannot disprove a negative, so I am dealing with assessing the actual citations and linked assertions that we have in front of us.

Although it may arguably be a matter of "interpretation" with the first citation/assertion I contested (the "equality of the sexes" issue), the second two are outright false as pertains to G/E, not a matter of me coming up with interesting interpretations. Anyone who read the book would understand this. I think it's very clear from the text, and is widely understood in the field, what Daly meant in the arguments that were cited in G/E. If someone wants to find other citations—in G/E or in any other book—whose contents actually do provide support for the wiki text I disputed, I am completely open to that. If those citations provide support, the assertions can come back. Until then, they can't be included any more than I could write "Mary Daly advocated a paleo diet" and cite p.45 in G/E and no one could delete it, even once they went to page 45 and saw that no evidence for this assertion exists on that page.

You say, "But I would be surprised if she did not see inequality between the sexes in the society in which we live(d), an inequality that meant that men had more power than women had, not an inequality she endorsed." I agree. She obviously did. However saying that someone "argued against equality of the sexes" is clearly a very misleading gloss on the idea that "someone noticed that inequality of the sexes existed in the world." It is begging to be misread, and would be by almost anyone, to mean that Daly was advocating against legal or moral equality of the sexes rather than merely observing inequality of the sexes (and, to boot, opposing it). That section in the wiki text was clearly written as a narrative of progress, where Daly started out believing in equal rights for men and women, started shifting focus away from equal rights, and ended by opposing equal rights in the specific guise of advocating that women should govern men. As far as I am concerned this is patently false, both in its individual parts and as a narrative. I cannot prove a negative, i.e., I cannot prove that no citations exist anywhere in the world that would support this claim (and I have not read every Mary Daly book), but I can disprove a positive: the assertions are definitely not supported by the citations given.

Thank you for the invitation to write some alternate text. Menthesanscafeine (talk) 12:22, 19 March 2017 (UTC)

deleted paraphrases were accurate
On whether "[Daly] argued against sexual equality in Gyn/Ecology", these quotations are from Gyn/Ecology (Boston: 1990 (6th [printing?], printing[?] of [19]98)), in the order cited in the article before the recent revision:

Page 384: ". . . Hags do not haggle over 'equality,' for we know there is no equality among unique Selves." Context: ". . . . This uprising of Amazon Fire . . . is the hellfire deserved and dreaded by the Grand Inquisitors. . . . [I]t is simply the expression/expansion of gynergy for its own sake, and this transcendence of Fury itself is the Renaissance of Fire. . . . This is . . . his ["the patriarchal male"'s] Last End. . . . As this Sparking communication occurs, Hags do not haggle over 'equality,' for we know there is no equality among unique Selves. Noting that one definition of the term equal is 'capable of meeting the requirements of a situation or a task,' Jan Raymond observes that what each asks of the other is that she be equal to the task at hand." The endnote is omitted here.

P. 375: "[T]okenism . . . is guised as Equal Rights, . . . which yields token victories".

P. 376: "[T]okenism . . . attempt[s] to assimilate woman-for-woman erotic love. . . . [T]he very meaning of sexuality has been dwarfed to fit patriarchal standards."

At p. 375, she appears to have equated "'unselfconscious inclusion'" with "tokenism" and argued that "[it] function[ed] to pollute the sense of sisterhood" and therefore it (along with another quality) should be "thoroughly exorcised".

P. 384 states an argument that equality is about being equal to a task and the context makes clear that Daly did not consider men to be equal to that task (they would have had their "Last End") while women, at least potentially, are. Therefore, she argued against the two genders being equal to each other; one (men's) might have had more power than the other had but the other had at least the potential for having more power than the first. In feminist discourse, equality generally means equality of power. Thus, in her view, they were not equal to each other.

Paraphrases are generally preferred in Wikipedia to quotations.

On p. 375, she put equal rights, which, it is generally agreed, refers to rights of equality between the genders, down as "tokenism" and, on p. 376, put tokenism by extension beneath "patriarchal standards". Her treatment of what is usually termed equal rights as between the genders as mere tokenism and her argument against tokenism is an argument against sexual equality as widely understood in feminism. Thus, pp. 375–376, while not being the main support for the Wikipedia passage in question, do support p. 384 and all three pages thus support the Wikipedia passage in question, the part supported by what was then note 28, "[s]he argued against sexual equality".

In the larger view of her views, whether her argument "against sexual equality" was tactical is not important except insofar as being tactical means it being only temporary. No doubt her view was partly tactical; but, in her text as cited by either of us, her argument was not that it was just tactical and therefore to be terminated in favor of "sexual equality" before other changes, essentially revolutionary, had been implemented. For the time she was writing of, she advocated against equality of either gender with the other.

On whether Daly "believ[ed] . . . that women ought to govern men" and "Daly advocated a reversal of sociopolitical power between the sexes", the following quotations are from the same printing as that for the Gyn/Ecology above:

P. 15: "Women traveling into feminist time/space are creating Hag-ocracy, the place we govern. To govern is to steer, to pilot. We are learning individually and together to pilot the time/spaceships of our voyage. The vehicles of our voyage may be any creative enterprises that further women's process. The point is that they should be governed by the Witch within—the Hag within."

P. xxvi: "My Time Traveling adventures and my life as a Pirate have been possible because of my Craft. . . . My own particular Craft involves writing and the forging of philosophical theories. . . . [W]omen under phallocratic rule are confined to the role of vessels/carriers, directed and controlled by men. Since that role is the basic base reversal of the very be-ing of Voyaging/Spiraling women, when we direct our own Crafts/Vessels we become reversers of that deadly reversal." I don't think there's any doubt that she wanted women to become those reversers. She did not want women and men to mix together in a way that would ignore their respective genders or devalue women's. She wanted the roles to be reversed, so that women's would be the more powerful role, thus that women would be more powerful than men. She did not deny that men would exist; she did not describe men being only where women would not be; and she did not describe men and women being in the same place and time and yet not, at least sometimes, exercising power over each other. There is thus no interpretational choice but that when "we [women] become reversers of that deadly reversal" women will be "direct[ing] . . . and controll[ing] . . . men" and that she was advocating for that, "a reversal of sociopolitical power between the sexes".

You were using the 1991 edition, which, I understand from worldcat.org as of last April 22, was published in London, rather than in Boston. I assume its text and pagination are the same as those in the edition I quoted from in this reply, but feel free to report any differences. I was next in line for a library copy of the 1978 edition but, according to the library, it seems to have recently been lost. I have borrowed what appears to be the 1st printing of 1990 and, at a few glances, it seems to have the same text and pagination as what I quoted above.

Daly did not "argue that the sexes are unequal [specifically as] moral agents or [specifically as] unequal under law" (re pp. 384 & 375–376) (your words except the bracketed are mine) but argued that "we know there is no equality among unique Selves" (supra) and that means that, in her view, there was "no equality" between the "unique Selves" of one gender and the "unique Selves" of the other gender, the genders being subsets of all the "unique Selves". (A potential argument that in her view "unique Selves" existed only among women and that men could therefore be equal seems difficult to sustain.) Whether the inequality was specifically moral or legal is beyond the scope of the Wikipedia fragment in question and of its sourcing (various kinds of inequality existed, regardless of whatever she may have written on it), but less-specific inequality was in the page-particular sourcing and therefore could be in Wikipedia.

She has written about reversals in stories. But pp. 15 and xxvi do not limit the concept of reversal to stories. She explicitly speaks of "the place we govern" (supra), what governing means, and that it may be through "any creative enterprises that further women's process" (supra). She sought to reverse "phallocratic rule" (supra), and that kind of rule is not restricted to phallocratic views, which is what phallocratic stories express. Rule is more wide-ranging and Daly wrote of "control" (supra), so she meant more than story reversal. This does not appear to be a editorial error in the manuscript but an intentional area of coverage in her book.

She was indeed writing of a "female-centered culture" (your words), but that is not necessarily, or usually, a female-only culture. Several writers have written of female-only cultures, at least in genres of fiction and theory, and it's hard to imagine that such a possibility had not occurred to Daly before writing either p. 15 by or in 1978 or p. xxvi by or in 1990. And we don't have to imagine that it did not or did occur to her; we can go by her words. Her words are not limited to the realm of story.

I was not suggesting that citations should be found elsewhere rather than according to the citations in Wikipedia for the now-deleted content but that the book might offer pages supporting the points you raised about content you described.

I read the book years ago. It did not appear to have been written as a tactician's guide or a political organizer's handbook but as an aspiration for the kind of world Daly wanted to find. Others may have read it as an organizer's guide or as describing an interim phase in human societal development, but that would have been their reading of it, their interpretation, and not inconsistent with Daly's intentions (I don't think she opposed political organizing in principle), but that was not Daly's main writing in this book (I think there's an organizer's short passage somewhere in it, but I don't recall that or anything else in the book contradicting the now-deleted content).

I am not arguing that what you wrote for the article is wrong, but it addresses different points. (I think parts of what you wrote should be in the past tense, since Daly is dead, but, relatively speaking, the tense issue is minor. I would also move them out of the Views on Men section, perhaps into a new section, like Views on Feminist Equality.) Therefore, what she wrote about men per se is now missing, being accurately sourced content that was deleted without replacement on point. The passages were properly supported and sourced and were neither wrong nor misleading, but perhaps the connection with the sourcing could have been written more clearly. Restoration, perhaps in a different form, is therefore appropriate and edits and suggestions to that end are welcome. It may be a good idea to clarify that, for instance, the inequality may not be explicitly and narrowly moral or legal but was, in her argument, an inequality and one that should be reversed in favor of women (not necessarily temporarily). It may also be appropriate to quote rather than paraphrase for portions.

Nick Levinson (talk) 02:53, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

 * There having been no further discussion, I'm implementing the last paragraph above by moving the new content to a new subsection, Views on Feminism, since that is what all of that content is about, and by editing the tense for Daly's statememts, since she is dead. Also, I'm adding commas, straightening quotation marks and apostrophes, capitalizing template names to prevent redirects, replacing some soft spaces with nonbreaking spaces, replacing parameters for single pages with params for multiple pages, and replacing hyphens in page ranges with en-dashes. Nick Levinson (talk) 00:31, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

Removed as original research
I just removed the following paragraph:
 * She argued against sexual equality in Gyn/Ecology (1978), specifically that "hags do not haggle over 'equality,' for we know there is no equality among unique Selves", relying on a definition of equal as 'equal to a task or situation' and believing that men would have had what she called their "Last End", while women would potentially be equal to a task, thus that men are not equal to women. She wrote that "women traveling into feminist time/space are creating Hag-ocracy, the place we govern", and so believed that women ought to govern men. She wrote, "women under phallocratic rule are confined to the role of vessels/carriers, directed and controlled by men. Since that role is the basic base reversal of the very be-ing of Voyaging/Spiraling women, when we direct our own Crafts/Vessels we become reversers of that deadly reversal" and thus advocated for a reversal of power between the sexes.

Perhaps unintentionally, this paragraph takes Daly's words out of context and twists them so they're meaningless. For example, "hags do not haggle over 'equality,' for we know there is no equality among unique Selves" does not refer to equality between men and women, it refers to discussions among women ("hags") about equality among themselves. The "Last End" referred to in the following sentence? Here's how Daly describes it: "In its light, the patriarchal male is forced to see his history of holocausts, to re-view the multitudes of women sacrificed as burnt offerings to his gods. This is his 'beatific vision,' his Last End." Not quite what it seems like in the preceding paragraph, is it? Finally, twice the material summarized after "thus" represents the editor's views, not Daly's, and that's why it has no source either time—because it cannot be sourced.

I encourage Nick to look for a reliable secondary source or two that summarize Gyn/Ecology instead of inventing his own summary, which is impermissible original research. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:11, 20 August 2017 (UTC)

 * Thank you for acknowledging the possibility of good faith. I posted the preceding discussion so that it could be discussed and I assume editors had time to read it, but maybe they were too busy during the three months until I edited the article. There's an advantage to weighing in on a talk page when something like the above is posted, as quotations and paraphrases can be considered before editing. For example, one point in the newly-deleted text with which you disagreed was a point I made in the Talk subsection above, and you were welcome to respond there and then or since. That point, supra: "Daly ... argued that 'we know there is no equality among unique Selves' ... and that means that, in her view, there was 'no equality' between the 'unique Selves' of one gender and the 'unique Selves' of the other gender, the genders being subsets of all the 'unique Selves'. (A potential argument that in her view 'unique Selves' existed only among women and that men could therefore be equal seems difficult to sustain.)" You disagree. I would have been helped by knowing that.
 * There's no twisting and the resulting content was meaningful and either sourced or apparently uncontroverted, but we three editors are reading the same source differently. Daly clearly, in her writing, wanted women to have more power and men to have less, and not by eliminating men but with both women and men living in some degree of proximity. We can hew closely to the original text whether quoting or paraphrasing, but that, I think, would make the result far too lengthy, so I think concision is better. That a statement in Wikipedia is unclear is not the same as it being wrong, and both editors critiquing argued that some content would be misunderstood; in this case, the clarification that would be needed might make the passage longer than due weight.
 * Since that "Hags ... know there is no equality among unique Selves" is exclusively about women or a subset thereof, then either Daly is not considering men as "unique Selves" (an argument about Daly that I said above is difficult to sustain) or Daly is not considering men as equal to given situations or tasks regardless of uniqueness. To say all are nonetheless equal posits people who are not equal to given situations or tasks as equal to people who are equal to given situations or tasks. I think that contradicts what Daly was saying. If everyone is either equal to given situations or tasks or not, we can agree that all people exist, but that is not the same as saying that all people are equal. Daly was saying that they're not.
 * The last end: Daly, by your description, is describing men as taking pleasure in women's destruction or as having failed by causing that destruction. Thomas Aquinas (fl. A.D. 13th century) argued (http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum134.htm as accessed 8-26-17) that man has only one last end ("[i]t is impossible for one man's will to be directed at the same time to diverse things, as last ends") and the last end is happiness ("all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness"). According to the Vatican and its catechism: "Our holy mother, the Church, holds and teaches that God ... [is] the first principle and last end of all things...." (http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s1c1.htm as accessed 8-26-17.) But Daly said (your quotation), "[i]n its light, the patriarchal male is forced to see his history of holocausts, to re-view the multitudes of women sacrificed as burnt offerings to his gods. This is his 'beatific vision,' his Last End." Per Catholicism, a beatific vision comes to people in heaven or souls in heaven (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm & https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/beatific%20vision both as accessed 8-26-17). The beatific vision is therefore, in the theology, after the person's death. Roman Catholic theology was Daly's framework. That contradicts any notion that Daly would have patriarchal men lead or substantially share in governing women or people if she had any choice in the matter, because the men would be either dead or, if alive and patriarchal, disqualified.
 * You did not specify a disagreement on her writing on "Hag-ocracy" as being part of Daly's views on men, yet you deleted that, too. I'm interested in your objection to that particular content. I don't think anyone would argue that Daly in Gyn/Ecology thought that most men were Hags and therefore that most men should be at the level of governing in a Hag-ocracy. It appears that a statement about hagocracy can be in the article as part of Daly's views on men; I'd like to know what you think of that.
 * I invite you and all other editors to add content giving Daly's views on men and/or patriarchy as found at least in Gyn/Ecology. She stated her views on both in that work.
 * It might be easier to summarize what she said of patriarchy and what women's relation to patriarchy should be and to create a separate subsection on views on patriarchy. Summaries are not original research and are permissible, especially since, as far as I know, there may not be a secondary source offering one.
 * Thank you.
 * Nick Levinson (talk) 22:26, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

 * I don't think Daly was particularly concerned about men or patriarchy, so you may be looking for something that isn't there.
 * Daly wrote in a language of her own, and I don't presume to know what she meant all the time. But I think you're 100% wrong about the "Last End". Yes, of course she knew what the phrase means in Catholicism, and its history (as well as the meaning and history of "beatific vision"). But she's not "describing men as taking pleasure in women's destruction or as having failed by causing that destruction" (and I wrote no such thing). What she wrote is that women's energy, in her language, "Amazon Fire, our life-loving, be-ing" is feared by men ("the hellfire deserved and dreaded by the Grand Inquisitors").
 * If its purpose were merely to consume them it would be less effective. In fact, it is simply the expression/expansion of gynergy for its own sake, and this transcendence of Fury itself is the Renaissance of Fire. In its light, the patriarchal male is forced to see his history of holocausts, to re-view the multitudes of women sacrificed as burnt offerings to his gods. This is his "beatific vision," his Last End.
 * I believe what she's saying is that women's energy is rightly feared by men, but not because it will kill them; because it is so powerful that it will force them to look at history through new eyes and examine the ways in which they have oppressed women. She is inverting the Catholic beatific vision, which comes after death—when it's too late to change one's behavior on earth—with a vision that passes before the eyes of the living.
 * But as I wrote, this is a language of its own, and I think we need to cite reliable secondary sources that interpret what Daly is saying instead of engaging in our own exegesis. Gyn/Ecology is almost 40 years old—surely there are feminist theologians who have written about it whose work we can cite. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 01:53, 27 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. And I didn't mean that you said "... taking pleasure ... or as having failed ...."; I meant that I was building on your description, but I assume you don't support that extension, either. If her work can yield such different interpretations on multiple points just within the Daly passages we're discussing, then our summarizing may be beyond reach. It's interesting to contemplate why there seems so little published academic analysis of her works, as I agree there should be more than I've been finding and I gather she was widely taught. Her language was dense, in my experience when I first read it (albeit not so dense in her memoir), but academics deal with that all the time, so I'm still puzzled by the seeming dearth of secondary analyses. I'll put this project aside for now. Nick Levinson (talk) 04:50, 27 August 2017 (UTC)

Ida Hammer and Brittany Shoot
The article says:
 * In an interview with journalist Brittany Shoot, Ida Hammer criticized Daly as transphobic for these views.

Ida who? Brittany who? Should I know? Should I care? Should the reader? Brittany Shoot is evidently a freelance journalist. In 2010, she wrote "Ida Hammer has been writing The Vegan Ideal for several years". Could be, but the domain veganideal.org is for sale, and Hammer evidently lost interest in the site in 2011. Google found nearly 13,000 results for "Ida Hammer", some of whom may (or may not) be the same woman but most of whom are definitely not. What makes her an expert on Mary Daly or transphobia, and why are we promoting her opinion as if it mattered? — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 02:38, 4 March 2018 (UTC)

Might be misleading
HI, I just searched for instances of "parthenogenesis" in Gyn/Ecology and it doesn't seem to refer to women literally doing that(although I haven't read the whole book). Since if the author doesn't hold this view, it wouldn't be fair to add it. I think it should be deleted until a source, preferably with quotes is added.Samiwamy (talk) 02:31, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

 * I also didn't find the word "lusty" in the book.Samiwamy (talk) 02:33, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

title: Talk:Mary Daly


text:
Talk:Om mani padme hum

Devanāgarī correction
"ॐ मणिपद्मे हूं" is incorrect. It should actually be: ॐ मणि पद्मे हूं. There's no saṃdhi in "मणिपद्मे" ("maṇi padme"). If saṃdhi was involved and इ is the last vowel in "मणि" ("mani"), it wouldn't make sense and an incorrect use of saṃdhi.

Request for citation
Hey, can we have a citation for this quote from Shakyamuni? - Nat Krause 10:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Apologise for not putting it up straight away. It's there now. Beta m (talk)

 * Well, you cited a particular teacher saying this is what the Buddha said, but I think the article should cite a specific sutra or other text where the quote comes from. I don't really have a particular axe to grind here, or a reason to think that the Buddha didn't say this, but other people might (almost certainly would) dispute it. - Nat Krause 15:26, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

 * Be bold and edit the text in such a way to make it NPOV then please. q;-) Beta m (talk)

 * Actually, I read your source a little more closely and found that it did mention an original source, the Karandavyuha Sutra, so I have altered the text to specify that. - Nat Krause 09:15, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Possible mistake in Tibetan writing?
-- 1) There seems to be a tsheg (a tibetan space, the little tick mark after a word) between the syllables of "mani". Instead of "om mani padme hum" it says "om ma ni padme hum". Shouldn't it be: ༀ་མཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ། ?    I might be mistaken on this one though, I do see google images with the tsheg in place there as well...

-- 2) There also is a tsheg after hum, before the shad (the tibetan period), shouldn't it be omitted?

Can anyone please verify this (I don't feel I'm qualified enough)?

Both tshegs are correct. padme is written in contracted form (the ma subfixed to the da) and so counts as one syllable even though it is pronounced as two. Epicœne 08:55, 8 July 2006 (UTC) In Chenrezig saddhana, there are 5 tshegs in here: ༀ་མ་ཎི་པད་མེ་ཧཱཱུུྃྃ།. It is a small book as a gift by Tsangsar tulku rinpoche, but unfortunately the book didn't have an ISBN. --212.74.161.152 12:43, 28 December 2006 (UTC) (I am user warrenchen in zh.wikipedia.org)

 * When writing Sanskrit mantras in Tibetan, tsheg is not required ~ though in texts it is usually inserted to aid reading. When mantras are like this are used as gzungs placed within within images etc. tsheg should never be used.

Chris Fynn (talk) 14:58, 1 October 2008 (UTC)
 * The mantra has six syllables OM MA-NI PAD-ME HUM and (when using tsheg) it can be written either:ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པདྨེ་ཧཱུྃ། or ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པད་མེ་ཧཱུྃ།. The second way separates all the syllables. There should never be a tsheg before the shad. (Tsheg is only used before a shad after the letter nga.)

 * the syllables in Sanskrit are oṃ ma ṇi pa dme hūṃ. Tibetan finds dme a difficult phonetic combination so changes pa.dme to pad.me. It is correct as far as Tibetan orthography goes, and the sounds come out the same. mahaabaala (talk) 13:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of the mantra
There is a contradiction between this article and the article 'Mantra', and the latter seems to be right. Here the traditional interpretation (jewel in the lotus) is ascribed to Donald Lopez, but in the other article Lopez is said to be the scholar who rejected it and replaced it by his own new interpretation (Manipadma as a personal name). 85.212.129.97 20:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

 * Lopez has a long an detailed discussion of the word manipadme. He does 'reject' it he places it in context and shows that it was originally a Tibetan interpretation, but that the Dalai Lama has adopted it. mahaabaala (talk) 09:09, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

"I invoke the jeweline luminosity of the immortal lotus flower to transcend all earthly boundaries" always worked for meMmmarkkk (talk) 22:54, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Highest image
I created and uploaded an image Image:Om-mani-padme-hum-mantra.svg to replace the JPEG mani-mantra image currently used, as a vector transcription of that image -SVG is often preferable. Would this be more suitable than Image:Mani mantra.jpg? Nihiltres(t.c.s) 04:02, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

OM MANI PADME HUM HRIH
I'm thinking about adding a paragraph about the so-called 'seed-syllable' hrih that is sometimes added to the end of the mantra. I'll do it when I have a spare minute! In the meantime you can read about it here http://www.hrih.info/. And if someone feels like beating me to it, even better!

Effect of Nameology.......
Whether the practice of the six-syllables should be lineaged or not, I leave this for open debate. Since the dharma is associated with the deity name in which one of them is called Kannon, coinsidently it sounds like Canon. I have not read the Norma J Watts' book of The Art of Nameology: Uncovering the Meaning Behind a Name (ISBN-13: 978-1932783537), however I assume that there is something to say about the effect of association. Bear in mind, not every BEING in this universe who has an integrity to live harmoniously with others. If a scientific research is conducted in this field, I believe that a statistical result will tell some interesting stories.

Sadly enough, there was no patent technology to protect names in old days and important names can be utilized as a tool of counter-effect.

Anyhow according to some school's tradition of Asian Buddhism, newly ordinated buddhists have to be renamed. Whether this long history of the practice is consciously/purposely preserved to reduce personal karma or not, those monks and nuns can tell.

Book cover images are needed for the topics.....
If people out there could provide them

PY: 2004
 * 1) ISBN-10: 9710376020
 * 2) ISBN-13: 978-9710376025

PY: 1974
 * 1) ISBN-10: 9710376020
 * 2) ISBN-13: 978-9710376025

PY: 2003
 * 1) ISBN-10: 9710376020
 * 2) ISBN-13: 978-9710376025

PY: 1989
 * 1) ISBN-10: 3893380507
 * 2) ISBN-13: 978-3893380503

Safety data for practising
Can we have some sources? Otherwise I'll delete them. Most of them seem unnecessary and use poor English, not to mention that they were unregistered. Jmlee369 11:17, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Unclear table
Is there any way the table describing the various possible meanings can be better explained? The "symbol of the deity" and "wish them to be born into" columns are nearly incomprehensible, and not aided by the fact that searching Wikipedia for Buddhist Deities leads you to God in Buddhism as opposed to the Dhyani Buddhas, which, if I'm not mistaken, is what it means to describe. Anyway, that stuff is very vague and could really use some clarification, or at least corresponding links to other articles.

BladeSire 9:55, 08 July 2008 (EST)

What's happening....???
Why is the page truncated —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.23.210.203 (talk) 04:41, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

The following refs are useful to complete the Authentication section and please help

http://www.thdl.org/texts/reprints/jts/JTS_07_02.pdf

http://www.cqvip.com/QK/80443X/2003002/8922419.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.23.210.203 (talk) 05:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/toModule.do?prefix=/search&page=/search_detail.jsp?seq=35282

http://buddhism.lib.ntu.edu.tw/BDLM/toModule.do?prefix=/search&page=/search_detail.jsp?seq=30871 Especially this one

http://www.elib.gov.ph/details.php?cat_id=494853

http://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=g5DxR29F-iYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=Om+Mani+Sadhanamala&ots=CbAfBMjURB&sig=6_fW3Lt5WmscHuvkyNbxsK-ijiw#PPA10,M1

 * Thank you. This is really useful stuff. I'll try to go through the online material when I get a chance and try to find the books when I get back to school in a month. --Gimme danger (talk) 06:01, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

It really annoys me that the rest of the text in the section of Authentication does not appear

Not the most famous Buddhist chant
I took off the qualification that this was the "most famous Buddhist chant" because it is doubtful that it is. Chinese Buddhism rarely if ever refers to Om Mani Padme Hume and there are a lot more Chinese Buddhist followers than Tibetan Buddhist followers. The qualification was possibly written by someone who lives in the West where Tibetan Buddhism has some popularity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.146.12.104 (talk) 03:18, 11 January 2009 (UTC)

A.H. Francke
I would like to read his article. How can I get it? He has also written two books,.
 * Austerlitz -- 88.72.30.166 (talk) 14:46, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

, , -- 88.72.30.166 (talk) 15:18, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Additional information

 *
 *
 * Austerlitz -- 88.75.71.60 (talk) 14:28, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

-- 88.75.71.60 (talk) 14:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)
 *

Further Symbolism

 * Here it is said that the syllable HUM is part of the symbolism of Akshobhya.

 * Austerlitz -- 88.75.71.60 (talk) 15:08, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

 * The syllable hūṃ finds a variety of associations in Buddhism especially as time goes on. It's presence here is slightly awkward which probably is due to being created before Tantra got systematised. See Studholme's book. Jayarava 20:28, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Capitalisation
The use of capitals on this page is completely mad! Why is every word of the mantra capitalised? The scholarly convention is to capitalise everything or nothing - since Sanskrit has no capitals! All caps sucks, but is presumably used to highlight mantras. I would recommend that the page adopts lower case, or at most initial caps. We're writing in English! mahaabaala (talk) 13:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Maṇipadme
As the article itself says 'maṇipadme' is one word, a Sanskrit compound (tatpuruṣa or bahuvrīhi take your pick), and yet the page consistently has it as two words (both for some reason capitalised). mahaabaala (talk) 13:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

 * This fact is now in the article but needs a citation. So here are a couple:

 * Studholme, Alexander. 2002. The origins of oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ : a study of the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. Albany : State university of New York Press.
 * Lopez, D. S. (jr.) 1988. Prisoners of Shangri-la : Tibetan Buddhism and the West. Chicago University Press. p.114ff. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahaabaala (talk • contribs) 20:27, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

oṃ not auṃ
The sign for auṃ ॐ is not appropriate in this context - Buddhists always use oṃ with the monophthong rather than the diphthong. The two are written differently in Sanskrit and Tibetan scripts. In Devanāgarī this is written ओं. Auṃ is specific to Hinduism and originating in some of the later principle Upaniṣads. See http://www.visiblemantra.org/om.html for a discussion of this issue. mahaabaala (talk) 13:43, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Japanese usage
False statemet: the six-syllable mantra known in Japan is not "om mani padme hum" found in karandavyuha. Karandavyuha and "om mani padme hum" were unknown in Japan in the past and in canonical writings. Regards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.54.207.204 (talk) 09:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Gen Rinpoche => Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Gen Rinpoche was cited as author of Heart Treasure of the Enlightened one. I put Dilgo Khyentse Rinponche instead (since that is what the cover says). I have never seen the 'Gen' name/title before. If anyone can justify using 'Gen Rinpoche' instead of Dilgo Khyentse please change it back :) --95.166.112.222 (talk) 20:45, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Yet another variant...
I saw this variant on a site: ॐ मणिपद्मे हूँ What is this? Neither the first nor the last character are covered in the article, so it might be a dialect or something. -andy 77.191.205.168 (talk) 09:39, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

 * ॐ is the Hindu 'auṃ' with the diphthong vowel - the form is left over from the script which predates Devanāgarī. In this case it is wrong, and the correct spelling is ओं. The rest is correct standard Devanāgarī and reads maṇipadme hūṃ. Jayarava 20:19, 17 October 2011 (UTC)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mahaabaala (talk • contribs)

Vocative?
Unless I've got my Sanskrit declension wrong, if "maṇipadme" is a vocative, it must be that of a feminine noun: maṇipadmā. But in that case, surely it can't be referring to Avalokiteśvara because he only becomes a woman in Chinese tradition, which wouldn't be reflected in a Sanskrit name. Kannan91 (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Sigh. There is a lot of historical discussion of this issue. But the most likely, and least discussed, option is that this is not Classical Sanskrit at all, but Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit based probably on the Magadhī Prakrit and is in fact a masculine nominative singular. See my blog post on words that end in -e in mantras. You can compare the declensions in Edgerton's Dictionary and Grammar of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Jayarava 20:24, 17 October 2011 (UTC) Jayarava 12:03, 18 October 2011 (UTC)

Proposed alternative links in "Om mani padme um"
A compilation of texts from ancient India made by Teresa E. Rohde "La India literaria" (Spanish edition by Editorial Porrúa, Mexico, 1977) in a section about the "Laws of Manú", makes a citation of a text from the Book II of these laws: "The young novice must always pronounce the sacred monosyllabe in the beginning and at the end of the study of the sacred scripture, any reading that has not been preceded by Aum is erased little by little, as well as the one that has not been followed by the monosyllabe. The letter a, the letter u, and the letter m, which together form the sacred monosyllabe, have been taken out by Brahma from the three sacred books. Of the three vedas, the lord of Creatures has also taken out, stanza by stanza, the invocation addressed to the sun, and that begins by the word "Tad"".

Here we may think having found a possible explanation for the initial "Om", and the final "Um" of this famous mantra, that would be equivalent to the "Aum" that the Manu's laws prescribe to reinforce the memory of the sacred texts. As previously said, the sanskrit word "mani" has the meaning of jewel, our word "diamond" will join the meaning "jewel", to the word "dyaus", the force, the brightness in the protoeuropean; we must not forget that the Buddah belonged to the indian group of princes, this group possibly coming from european regions, a fact remarked by the coincidence of the name of a gothic queen of Spain, "Goswintha" - the path of cows - with the indian name "Govind". The words "Zeus", "Jupiter=Dyaus pitar", Zeus father, unrelated to the Christian Trinity, and its similar the latin word "Deus", the french "Dieu", the italian "Dio" and the spanish "Dios", would all come from "dyaus", but as dyaus having had the meaning of clarity, brightness, "diamond" would mean "the bright jewel". The word "padme" may be a single word of sanskrit, or even a variation in the spelling of "Tad", the sun, and for this purposes it can be brought here that "svastika", from the sanskrit "sv", well, and "asti", to be, sanskrit, as spanish, difference between ser -be, and -estar -be: at a location, in a condition, etc- , so svastika would mean "wellbeing", this symbol, formerly linked to solar cults, can be found in so different places as the main entry to a jainist university in India, the cover of the single "Atlantis", by Donovan, and also in archeological sites, such as floor mosaics of roman villas, and being part of the ornamentation of the last temple of Jerusalem, before its destruction by the romans and the diaspore (Book: "El fértil creciente y la Biblia", by J Gonzalez-Echegaray), the ancient goths had also a solar cult, having as names, "Oberon", "Alberic", and the greek cult to "Apollion", one the Bible makes identical with "Abbadon the exterminator", was also initially a solar cult, greeks soon realizing that "it can't be god somebody that is always walking the same path, like a donkey tied to a treadmill". In the New Testament, a reference is made to Jesus as "The Sun coming from the heights will visit us", obviously intended to divert the previous concepts of deity to the new Christian Faith's Divinity as exclusive of any former worship. Even when the rules in the graphic and phonetical changes in the course of evolution and diversification of languages and words are known, it would be good having an expert in sanskrit language, or even better, somebody having sanskrit as his/her childhood tongue providing us with more information about the possible roots and meanings of the word "Padme". Is padme a single word?. Is it composed of a derivative of "tad", plus something else?. The basic concepts in this are sketched, it remains to people really expert in these fields to say about its value, if any. Salut +--Jgrosay (talk) 18:00, 21 May 2012 (UTC)

General Comments
Under the section 14th Dalai Lama there are a couple of dashes that seem surplus to requirements, like below:

 * -- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronggy (talk • contribs) 06:21, 12 November 2013 (UTC)

The new advantures of Ocean Girl
In the The New Adventures of Ocean Girl animated series there's a spell repeatedly appeared which exactly this phrase, can someone add to the In popular culture section? Vutrankien (talk) 03:15, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

Please remove the image
The image of the mantra "in various Asian languages" is clearly premodern and is full of mistakes. Please consider removing or replacing with accurate illustrations.

Translation
The article does an astonishing job at avoiding giving an English translation, although two apparently minority versions are buried deep in the lower reaches of the text. The lead needs a para explaining that the issues around an English translation are complicated, but giving 2-3 common versions. Johnbod (talk) 15:37, 25 October 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with you completely Johnbod, and think it would be a service to the community for somebody to create this section. --- FULBERT (talk) 06:36, 28 October 2019 (UTC)
 * Still nothing done! Johnbod (talk) 05:32, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Done. Johnbod (talk) 16:17, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Alphabetize List of Transliterations?
Would folks mind if I listed the transliterations in alphabetical order?

— iFaqeer (talk to or email me) 03:40, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

Please change the audio file
"Om Manny Padmay Hoom" - The audio file seems to have been recorded by someone who does not have a good pronunciation of Sanskrit, and listening to it is just a bummer because a lot of people are gonna be misinformed about it. I request someone who actually has some proficiency in Sanskrit to replace the file. Chronikhiles (talk) 05:25, 28 September 2022 (UTC)
 * Isn't a Tibetan accent (or one of the many) more appropriate? Johnbod (talk) 05:28, 28 September 2022 (UTC)

Thai transcription
The Thai transcription isn't in modern central Thai I think. Orphan nikhahit ( ํ)characters (not part of Sara Am ำ) are really only used in Sanskrit and Pali loan words as I understand it.

I'll change to โอม มณี ปัทเม หูม but happy to be corrected. Gitwit1975 (talk) 14:26, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Om mani padme hum