A Medley of Potpourri: Sep 13, 2022

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Tradition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tradition

Olin Levi Warner, Tradition (1895). Bronze tympanum over the main entrance, Library of Congress, Thomas Jefferson Building, Washington, D.C.

A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes (like lawyers' wigs or military officers' spurs), but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings. Traditions can persist and evolve for thousands of years—the word tradition itself derives from the Latin tradere literally meaning to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping. While it is commonly assumed that traditions have an ancient history, many traditions have been invented on purpose, whether that be political or cultural, over short periods of time. Various academic disciplines also use the word in a variety of ways.

The phrase "according to tradition", or "by tradition", usually means that whatever information follows is known only by oral tradition, but is not supported (and perhaps may be refuted) by physical documentation, by a physical artifact, or other quality evidence. Tradition is used to indicate the quality of a piece of information being discussed. For example, "According to tradition, Homer was born on Chios, but many other locales have historically claimed him as theirs." This tradition may never be proven or disproven. In another example, "King Arthur, by tradition a true British king, has inspired many well loved stories." Whether they are documented fact or not does not decrease their value as cultural history and literature.

Traditions are a subject of study in several academic fields, especially in social sciences such as folklore studies, anthropology, archaeology, and biology.

The concept of tradition, as the notion of holding on to a previous time, is also found in political and philosophical discourse. For example, it is the basis of the political concept of traditionalism, and also strands of many world religions including traditional Catholicism. In artistic contexts, tradition is used to decide the correct display of an art form. For example, in the performance of traditional genres (such as traditional dance), adherence to guidelines dictating how an art form should be composed are given greater importance than the performer's own preferences. A number of factors can exacerbate the loss of tradition, including industrialization, globalization, and the assimilation or marginalization of specific cultural groups. In response to this, tradition-preservation attempts have now been started in many countries around the world, focusing on aspects such as traditional languages. Tradition is usually contrasted with the goal of modernity and should be differentiated from customs, conventions, laws, norms, routines, rules and similar concepts.

Definition

Textual traditions of bound manuscripts of the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) are passed down providing additional vowel points, pronunciation marks and stress accents in the authentic Masoretic Text of the Jewish Bible, often the basis for translations of the Christian Old Testament

The English word tradition comes from the Latin traditio via French, the noun from the verb tradere (to transmit, to hand over, to give for safekeeping); it was originally used in Roman law to refer to the concept of legal transfers and inheritance. According to Anthony Giddens and others, the modern meaning of tradition evolved during the Enlightenment period, in opposition to modernity and progress.

As with many other generic terms, there are many definitions of tradition. The concept includes a number of interrelated ideas; the unifying one is that tradition refers to beliefs, objects or customs performed or believed in the past, originating in it, transmitted through time by being taught by one generation to the next, and are performed or believed in the present.

Tradition can also refer to beliefs or customs that are Prehistoric, with lost or arcane origins, existing from time immemorial. Originally, traditions were passed orally, without the need for a writing system. Tools to aid this process include poetic devices such as rhyme and alliteration. The stories thus preserved are also referred to as tradition, or as part of an oral tradition. Even such traditions, however, are presumed to have originated (been "invented" by humans) at some point. Traditions are often presumed to be ancient, unalterable, and deeply important, though they may sometimes be much less "natural" than is presumed. It is presumed that at least two transmissions over three generations are required for a practice, belief or object to be seen as traditional. Some traditions were deliberately invented for one reason or another, often to highlight or enhance the importance of a certain institution. Traditions may also be adapted to suit the needs of the day, and the changes can become accepted as a part of the ancient tradition. Tradition changes slowly, with changes from one generation to the next being seen as significant. Thus, those carrying out the traditions will not be consciously aware of the change, and even if a tradition undergoes major changes over many generations, it will be seen as unchanged.

There are various origins and fields of tradition; they can refer to:

the forms of artistic heritage of a particular culture.
beliefs or customs instituted and maintained by societies and governments, such as national anthems and national holidays, such as Federal holidays in the United States.
beliefs or customs maintained by religious denominations and Church bodies that share history, customs, culture, and, to some extent, body of teachings. For example, one can speak of Islam's tradition or Christianity's tradition.

Many objects, beliefs and customs can be traditional. Rituals of social interaction can be traditional, with phrases and gestures such as saying "thank you", sending birth announcements, greeting cards, etc. Tradition can also refer to larger concepts practiced by groups (family traditions at Christmas), organizations (company's picnic) or societies, such as the practice of national and public holidays. Some of the oldest traditions include monotheism (three millennia) and citizenship (two millennia). It can also include material objects, such as buildings, works of art or tools.

Tradition is often used as an adjective, in contexts such as traditional music, traditional medicine, traditional values and others. In such constructions tradition refers to specific values and materials particular to the discussed context, passed through generations.

Invention of tradition

The term "invention of tradition", introduced by E. J. Hobsbawm, refers to situations when a new practice or object is introduced in a manner that implies a connection with the past that is not necessarily present. For example, the Panhellenic Games were a tradition in Ancient Greece where only Greek men from Greece and Greek colonies could compete. A tradition may be deliberately created and promulgated for personal, commercial, political, or national self-interest, as was done in colonial Africa; or it may be adopted rapidly based on a single highly publicized event, rather than developing and spreading organically in a population, as in the case of the white wedding dress, which only became popular after Queen Victoria wore a white gown at her wedding to Albert of Saxe-Coburg.

An example of an invention of tradition is the rebuilding of the Palace of Westminster (location of the British Parliament) in the Gothic style. Similarly, most of the traditions associated with monarchy of the United Kingdom, seen as rooted deep in history, actually date to 19th century. Other examples include the invention of tradition in Africa and other colonial holdings by the occupying forces. Requiring legitimacy, the colonial power would often invent a "tradition" which they could use to legitimize their own position. For example, a certain succession to a chiefdom might be recognized by a colonial power as traditional in order to favour their own candidates for the job. Often these inventions were based in some form of tradition, but were exaggerated, distorted, or biased toward a particular interpretation.

Invented traditions are a central component of modern national cultures, providing a commonality of experience and promoting the unified national identity espoused by nationalism. Common examples include public holidays (particularly those unique to a particular nation), the singing of national anthems, and traditional national cuisine (see national dish). Expatriate and immigrant communities may continue to practice the national traditions of their home nation.

In scholarly discourse

In science, tradition is often used in the literature in order to define the relationship of an author's thoughts to that of his or her field. In 1948, philosopher of science Karl Popper suggested that there should be a "rational theory of tradition" applied to science which was fundamentally sociological. For Popper, each scientist who embarks on a certain research trend inherits the tradition of the scientists before them as he or she inherits their studies and any conclusions that superseded it. Unlike myth, which is a means of explaining the natural world through means other than logical criticism, scientific tradition was inherited from Socrates, who proposed critical discussion, according to Popper. For Thomas Kuhn, who presented his thoughts in a paper presented in 1977, a sense of such a critical inheritance of tradition is, historically, what sets apart the best scientists who change their fields is an embracement of tradition.

Traditions are a subject of study in several academic fields in social sciences—chiefly anthropology, archaeology, and biology—with somewhat different meanings in different fields. It is also used in varying contexts in other fields, such as history, psychology and sociology. Social scientists and others have worked to refine the commonsense concept of tradition to make it into a useful concept for scholarly analysis. In the 1970s and 1980s, Edward Shils explored the concept in detail. Since then, a wide variety of social scientists have criticized traditional ideas about tradition; meanwhile, "tradition" has come into usage in biology as applied to nonhuman animals.

Tradition as a concept variously defined in different disciplines should not be confused with various traditions (perspectives, approaches) in those disciplines.

Anthropology

Tradition is one of the key concepts in anthropology; it can be said that anthropology is the study of "tradition in traditional societies". There is however no "theory of tradition", as for most anthropologists the need to discuss what tradition is seems unnecessary, as defining tradition is both unnecessary (everyone can be expected to know what it is) and unimportant (as small differences in definition would be just technical). There are however dissenting views; scholars such as Pascal Boyer argue that defining tradition and developing theories about it are important to the discipline.

Archaeology

In archaeology, the term tradition is a set of cultures or industries which appear to develop on from one another over a period of time. The term is especially common in the study of American archaeology.

Biology

Biologists, when examining groups of non-humans, have observed repeated behaviors which are taught within communities from one generation to the next. Tradition is defined in biology as "a behavioral practice that is relatively enduring (i.e., is performed repeatedly over a period of time), that is shared among two or more members of a group, that depends in part on socially aided learning for its generation in new practitioners", and has been called a precursor to "culture" in the anthropological sense.

Behavioral traditions have been observed in groups of fish, birds, and mammals. Groups of orangutans and chimpanzees, in particular, may display large numbers of behavioral traditions, and in chimpanzees, transfer of traditional behavior from one group to another (not just within a group) has been observed. Such behavioral traditions may have evolutionary significance, allowing adaptation at a faster rate than genetic change.

Musicology and ethnomusicology

In the field of musicology and ethnomusicology tradition refers to the belief systems, repertoire, techniques, style and culture that is passed down through subsequent generations. Tradition in music suggests a historical context with which one can perceive distinguishable patterns. Along with a sense of history, traditions have a fluidity that cause them to evolve and adapt over time. While both musicology and ethnomusicology are defined by being 'the scholarly study of music' they differ in their methodology and subject of research. 'Tradition, or traditions, can be presented as a context in which to study the work of a specific composer or as a part of a wide-ranging historical perspective.'

Sociology

The concept of tradition, in early sociological research (around the turn of the 19th and 20th century), referred to that of the traditional society, as contrasted by the more modern industrial society. This approach was most notably portrayed in Max Weber's concepts of traditional authority and modern rational-legal authority. In more modern works, One hundred years later, sociology sees tradition as a social construct used to contrast past with the present and as a form of rationality used to justify certain course of action.

Traditional society is characterized by lack of distinction between family and business, division of labor influenced primarily by age, gender, and status, high position of custom in the system of values, self-sufficiency, preference to saving and accumulation of capital instead of productive investment, relative autarky. Early theories positing the simple, unilineal evolution of societies from traditional to industrial model are now seen as too simplistic.

In 1981 Edward Shils in his book Tradition put forward a definition of tradition that became universally accepted. According to Shils, tradition is anything which is transmitted or handed down from the past to the present.

Another important sociological aspect of tradition is the one that relates to rationality. It is also related to the works of Max Weber (see theories of rationality), and were popularized and redefined in 1992 by Raymond Boudon in his book Action. In this context tradition refers to the mode of thinking and action justified as "it has always been that way". This line of reasoning forms the basis of the logical flaw of the appeal to tradition (or argumentum ad antiquitatem), which takes the form "this is right because we've always done it this way." In most cases such an appeal can be refuted on the grounds that the "tradition" being advocated may no longer be desirable, or, indeed, may never have been despite its previous popularity.

Philosophy

The idea of tradition is important in philosophy. Twentieth century philosophy is often divided between an 'analytic' tradition, dominant in Anglophone and Scandinavian countries, and a 'continental' tradition, dominant in German and Romance speaking Europe. Increasingly central to continental philosophy is the project of deconstructing what its proponents, following Martin Heidegger, call 'the tradition', which began with Plato and Aristotle. In contrast, some continental philosophers - most notably, Hans-Georg Gadamer - have attempted to rehabilitate the tradition of Aristotelianism. This move has been replicated within analytic philosophy by Alasdair MacIntyre. However, MacIntyre has himself deconstructed the idea of 'the tradition', instead posing Aristotelianism as one philosophical tradition in rivalry with others.

In political and religious discourse

The concepts of tradition and traditional values are frequently used in political and religious discourse to establish the legitimacy of a particular set of values. In the United States in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the concept of tradition has been used to argue for the centrality and legitimacy of conservative religious values. Similarly, strands of orthodox theological thought from a number of world religions openly identify themselves as wanting a return to tradition. For example, the term "traditionalist Catholic" refers to those, such as Archbishop Lefebvre, who want the worship and practices of the Church to be as they were before the Second Vatican Council of 1962–65. Likewise, Sunni Muslims are referred to as Ahl el-Sunnah wa Al-Jamā‘ah (Arabic: أهل السنة والجماعة), literally "people of the tradition [of Muhammad] and the community", emphasizing their attachment to religious and cultural tradition.

More generally, tradition has been used as a way of determining the political spectrum, with right-wing parties having a stronger affinity to certain ways of the past than left-wing ones. Here, the concept of adherence tradition is embodied by the political philosophy of traditionalist conservatism (or simply traditionalism), which emphasizes the need for the principles of natural law and transcendent moral order, hierarchy and organic unity, agrarianism, classicism and high culture, and the intersecting spheres of loyalty. Traditionalists would therefore reject the notions of individualism, liberalism, modernity, and social progress, but promote cultural and educational renewal, and revive interest in the Church, the family, the State and local community. This view has been criticised for including in its notion of tradition practices which are no longer considered to be desirable, for example, stereotypical views of the place of women in domestic affairs.

In other societies, especially ones experiencing rapid social change, the idea of what is "traditional" may be widely contested, with different groups striving to establish their own values as the legitimate traditional ones. Defining and enacting traditions in some cases can be a means of building unity between subgroups in a diverse society; in other cases, tradition is a means of othering and keeping groups distinct from one another.

In artistic discourse

Holiday celebrations may be passed down as traditions, as is the case with this distinctly Polish Christmas meal, decor with Christmas tree, a tradition since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century

In artistic contexts, in the performance of traditional genres (such as traditional dance), adherence to traditional guidelines is of greater importance than performer's preferences. It is often the unchanging form of certain arts that leads to their perception as traditional. For artistic endeavors, tradition has been used as a contrast to creativity, with traditional and folk art associated with unoriginal imitation or repetition, in contrast to fine art, which is valued for being original and unique. More recent philosophy of art, however, considers interaction with tradition as integral to the development of new artistic expression.

Relationship to other concepts

In the social sciences, tradition is often contrasted with modernity, particularly in terms of whole societies. This dichotomy is generally associated with a linear model of social change, in which societies progress from being traditional to being modern. Tradition-oriented societies have been characterized as valuing filial piety, harmony and group welfare, stability, and interdependence, while a society exhibiting modernity would value "individualism (with free will and choice), mobility, and progress." Another author discussing tradition in relationship to modernity, Anthony Giddens, sees tradition as something bound to ritual, where ritual guarantees the continuation of tradition. Gusfield and others, though, criticize this dichotomy as oversimplified, arguing that tradition is dynamic, heterogeneous, and coexists successfully with modernity even within individuals.

Tradition should be differentiated from customs, conventions, laws, norms, routines, rules and similar concepts. Whereas tradition is supposed to be invariable, they are seen as more flexible and subject to innovation and change. Whereas justification for tradition is ideological, the justification for other similar concepts is more practical or technical. Over time, customs, routines, conventions, rules and such can evolve into traditions, but that usually requires that they stop having (primarily) a practical purpose. For example, wigs worn by lawyers were at first common and fashionable; spurs worn by military officials were at first practical but now are both impractical and traditional.

Preservation

Woman welcoming the Shabbat, a more than 3300-year-old tradition.

The legal protection of tradition includes a number of international agreements and national laws. In addition to the fundamental protection of cultural property, there is also cooperation between the United Nations, UNESCO and Blue Shield International in the protection or recording of traditions and customs. The protection of culture and traditions is becoming increasingly important nationally and internationally.

In many countries, concerted attempts are being made to preserve traditions that are at risk of being lost. A number of factors can exacerbate the loss of tradition, including industrialization, globalization, and the assimilation or marginalization of specific cultural groups. Customary celebrations and lifestyles are among the traditions that are sought to be preserved. Likewise, the concept of tradition has been used to defend the preservation and reintroduction of minority languages such as Cornish under the auspices of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Specifically, the charter holds that these languages "contribute to the maintenance and development of Europe's cultural wealth and traditions". The Charter goes on to call for "the use or adoption... of traditional and correct forms of place-names in regional or minority languages". Similarly, UNESCO includes both "oral tradition" and "traditional manifestations" in its definition of a country's cultural properties and heritage. It therefore works to preserve tradition in countries such as Brazil.

In Japan, certain artworks, structures, craft techniques and performing arts are considered by the Japanese government to be a precious legacy of the Japanese people, and are protected under the Japanese Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties. This law also identifies people skilled at traditional arts as "National Living Treasures", and encourages the preservation of their craft.

For native peoples like the Māori in New Zealand, there is conflict between the fluid identity assumed as part of modern society and the traditional identity with the obligations that accompany it; the loss of language heightens the feeling of isolation and damages the ability to perpetuate tradition.

Traditional cultural expressions

The phrase "traditional cultural expressions" is used by the World Intellectual Property Organization to refer to "any form of artistic and literary expression in which traditional culture and knowledge are embodied. They are transmitted from one generation to the next, and include handmade textiles, paintings, stories, legends, ceremonies, music, songs, rhythms and dance."

Soliton

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soliton

Solitary wave in a laboratory wave channel

In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. (Dispersive effects are a property of certain systems where the speed of a wave depends on its frequency.) Solitons are the solutions of a widespread class of weakly nonlinear dispersive partial differential equations describing physical systems.

The soliton phenomenon was first described in 1834 by John Scott Russell (1808–1882) who observed a solitary wave in the Union Canal in Scotland. He reproduced the phenomenon in a wave tank and named it the "Wave of Translation".

Definition

A single, consensus definition of a soliton is difficult to find. Drazin & Johnson (1989, p. 15) ascribe three properties to solitons:

They are of permanent form;
They are localized within a region;
They can interact with other solitons, and emerge from the collision unchanged, except for a phase shift.

More formal definitions exist, but they require substantial mathematics. Moreover, some scientists use the term soliton for phenomena that do not quite have these three properties (for instance, the 'light bullets' of nonlinear optics are often called solitons despite losing energy during interaction).

Explanation

A hyperbolic secant (sech) envelope soliton for water waves: The blue line is the carrier signal, while the red line is the envelope soliton.

Dispersion and nonlinearity can interact to produce permanent and localized wave forms. Consider a pulse of light traveling in glass. This pulse can be thought of as consisting of light of several different frequencies. Since glass shows dispersion, these different frequencies travel at different speeds and the shape of the pulse therefore changes over time. However, also the nonlinear Kerr effect occurs; the refractive index of a material at a given frequency depends on the light's amplitude or strength. If the pulse has just the right shape, the Kerr effect exactly cancels the dispersion effect and the pulse's shape does not change over time. Thus, the pulse is a soliton. See soliton (optics) for a more detailed description.

Many exactly solvable models have soliton solutions, including the Korteweg–de Vries equation, the nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the coupled nonlinear Schrödinger equation, and the sine-Gordon equation. The soliton solutions are typically obtained by means of the inverse scattering transform, and owe their stability to the integrability of the field equations. The mathematical theory of these equations is a broad and very active field of mathematical research.

Some types of tidal bore, a wave phenomenon of a few rivers including the River Severn, are 'undular': a wavefront followed by a train of solitons. Other solitons occur as the undersea internal waves, initiated by seabed topography, that propagate on the oceanic pycnocline. Atmospheric solitons also exist, such as the morning glory cloud of the Gulf of Carpentaria, where pressure solitons traveling in a temperature inversion layer produce vast linear roll clouds. The recent and not widely accepted soliton model in neuroscience proposes to explain the signal conduction within neurons as pressure solitons.

A topological soliton, also called a topological defect, is any solution of a set of partial differential equations that is stable against decay to the "trivial solution". Soliton stability is due to topological constraints, rather than integrability of the field equations. The constraints arise almost always because the differential equations must obey a set of boundary conditions, and the boundary has a nontrivial homotopy group, preserved by the differential equations. Thus, the differential equation solutions can be classified into homotopy classes.

No continuous transformation maps a solution in one homotopy class to another. The solutions are truly distinct, and maintain their integrity, even in the face of extremely powerful forces. Examples of topological solitons include the screw dislocation in a crystalline lattice, the Dirac string and the magnetic monopole in electromagnetism, the Skyrmion and the Wess–Zumino–Witten model in quantum field theory, the magnetic skyrmion in condensed matter physics, and cosmic strings and domain walls in cosmology.

History

A plaque marking the workshop of John Scott Russell at 8 Stafford Street in Edinburgh.

In 1834, John Scott Russell describes his wave of translation. The discovery is described here in Scott Russell's own words:

I was observing the motion of a boat which was rapidly drawn along a narrow channel by a pair of horses, when the boat suddenly stopped – not so the mass of water in the channel which it had put in motion; it accumulated round the prow of the vessel in a state of violent agitation, then suddenly leaving it behind, rolled forward with great velocity, assuming the form of a large solitary elevation, a rounded, smooth and well-defined heap of water, which continued its course along the channel apparently without change of form or diminution of speed. I followed it on horseback, and overtook it still rolling on at a rate of some eight or nine miles an hour, preserving its original figure some thirty feet long and a foot to a foot and a half in height. Its height gradually diminished, and after a chase of one or two miles I lost it in the windings of the channel. Such, in the month of August 1834, was my first chance interview with that singular and beautiful phenomenon which I have called the Wave of Translation.

Scott Russell spent some time making practical and theoretical investigations of these waves. He built wave tanks at his home and noticed some key properties:

The waves are stable, and can travel over very large distances (normal waves would tend to either flatten out, or steepen and topple over)
The speed depends on the size of the wave, and its width on the depth of water.
Unlike normal waves they will never merge – so a small wave is overtaken by a large one, rather than the two combining.
If a wave is too big for the depth of water, it splits into two, one big and one small.

Scott Russell's experimental work seemed at odds with Isaac Newton's and Daniel Bernoulli's theories of hydrodynamics. George Biddell Airy and George Gabriel Stokes had difficulty accepting Scott Russell's experimental observations because they could not be explained by the existing water wave theories. Their contemporaries spent some time attempting to extend the theory but it would take until the 1870s before Joseph Boussinesq and Lord Rayleigh published a theoretical treatment and solutions. In 1895 Diederik Korteweg and Gustav de Vries provided what is now known as the Korteweg–de Vries equation, including solitary wave and periodic cnoidal wave solutions.

An animation of the overtaking of two solitary waves according to the Benjamin–Bona–Mahony equation – or BBM equation, a model equation for (among others) long surface gravity waves. The wave heights of the solitary waves are 1.2 and 0.6, respectively, and their velocities are 1.4 and 1.2.

The upper graph is for a frame of reference moving with the average velocity of the solitary waves.

The lower graph (with a different vertical scale and in a stationary frame of reference) shows the oscillatory tail produced by the interaction. Thus, the solitary wave solutions of the BBM equation are not solitons.

In 1965 Norman Zabusky of Bell Labs and Martin Kruskal of Princeton University first demonstrated soliton behavior in media subject to the Korteweg–de Vries equation (KdV equation) in a computational investigation using a finite difference approach. They also showed how this behavior explained the puzzling earlier work of Fermi, Pasta, Ulam, and Tsingou.

In 1967, Gardner, Greene, Kruskal and Miura discovered an inverse scattering transform enabling analytical solution of the KdV equation. The work of Peter Lax on Lax pairs and the Lax equation has since extended this to solution of many related soliton-generating systems.

Note that solitons are, by definition, unaltered in shape and speed by a collision with other solitons. So solitary waves on a water surface are near-solitons, but not exactly – after the interaction of two (colliding or overtaking) solitary waves, they have changed a bit in amplitude and an oscillatory residual is left behind.

Solitons are also studied in quantum mechanics, thanks to the fact that they could provide a new foundation of it through de Broglie's unfinished program, known as "Double solution theory" or "Nonlinear wave mechanics". This theory, developed by de Broglie in 1927 and revived in the 1950s, is the natural continuation of his ideas developed between 1923 and 1926, which extended the wave-particle duality introduced by Albert Einstein for the light quanta, to all the particles of matter. In 2019, researchers from Tel-Aviv university measured an accelerating surface gravity water wave soliton by using an external hydrodynamic linear potential. They also managed to excite ballistic solitons and measure their corresponding phases.

In fiber optics

Much experimentation has been done using solitons in fiber optics applications. Solitons in a fiber optic system are described by the Manakov equations. Solitons' inherent stability make long-distance transmission possible without the use of repeaters, and could potentially double transmission capacity as well.

Year	Discovery
1973	Akira Hasegawa of AT&T Bell Labs was the first to suggest that solitons could exist in optical fibers, due to a balance between self-phase modulation and anomalous dispersion. Also in 1973 Robin Bullough made the first mathematical report of the existence of optical solitons. He also proposed the idea of a soliton-based transmission system to increase performance of optical telecommunications.
1987	Emplit et al. (1987) – from the Universities of Brussels and Limoges – made the first experimental observation of the propagation of a dark soliton, in an optical fiber.
1988	Linn F. Mollenauer and his team transmitted soliton pulses over 4,000 kilometers using a phenomenon called the Raman effect, named after Sir C. V. Raman who first described it in the 1920s, to provide optical gain in the fiber.
1991	A Bell Labs research team transmitted solitons error-free at 2.5 gigabits per second over more than 14,000 kilometers, using erbium optical fiber amplifiers (spliced-in segments of optical fiber containing the rare earth element erbium). Pump lasers, coupled to the optical amplifiers, activate the erbium, which energizes the light pulses.
1998	Thierry Georges and his team at France Telecom R&D Center, combining optical solitons of different wavelengths (wavelength-division multiplexing), demonstrated a composite data transmission of 1 terabit per second (1,000,000,000,000 units of information per second), not to be confused with Terabit-Ethernet. The above impressive experiments have not translated to actual commercial soliton system deployments however, in either terrestrial or submarine systems, chiefly due to the Gordon–Haus (GH) jitter. The GH jitter requires sophisticated, expensive compensatory solutions that ultimately makes dense wavelength-division multiplexing (DWDM) soliton transmission in the field unattractive, compared to the conventional non-return-to-zero/return-to-zero paradigm. Further, the likely future adoption of the more spectrally efficient phase-shift-keyed/QAM formats makes soliton transmission even less viable, due to the Gordon–Mollenauer effect. Consequently, the long-haul fiberoptic transmission soliton has remained a laboratory curiosity.
2000	Steven Cundiff predicted the existence of a vector soliton in a birefringence fiber cavity passively mode locking through a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror (SESAM). The polarization state of such a vector soliton could either be rotating or locked depending on the cavity parameters.
2008	D. Y. Tang et al. observed a novel form of higher-order vector soliton from the perspectives of experiments and numerical simulations. Different types of vector solitons and the polarization state of vector solitons have been investigated by his group.

In biology

Solitons may occur in proteins and DNA. Solitons are related to the low-frequency collective motion in proteins and DNA.

A recently developed model in neuroscience proposes that signals, in the form of density waves, are conducted within neurons in the form of solitons. Solitons can be described as almost lossless energy transfer in biomolecular chains or lattices as wave-like propagations of coupled conformational and electronic disturbances.

In material physics

Solitons can occur in materials, such as ferroelectrics, in the form of domain walls. Ferroelectric materials exhibit spontaneous polarization, or electric dipoles, which are coupled to configurations of the material structure. Domains of oppositely poled polarizations can be present within a single material as the structural configurations corresponding to opposing polarizations are equally favorable with no presence of external forces. The domain boundaries, or “walls”, that separate these local structural configurations are regions of lattice dislocations. The domain walls can propagate as the polarizations, and thus, the local structural configurations can switch within a domain with applied forces such as electric bias or mechanical stress. Consequently, the domain walls can be described as solitons, discrete regions of dislocations that are able to slip or propagate and maintain their shape in width and length.

In recent literature, ferroelectricity has been observed in twisted bilayers of van der Waal materials such as MoS₂ and graphene. The moiré superlattice that arises from the relative twist angle between the van der Waal monolayers generates regions of different stacking orders of the atoms within the layers. These regions exhibit inversion symmetry breaking structural configurations that enable ferroelectricity at the interface of these monolayers. The domain walls that separate these regions are composed of partial dislocations where different types of stresses, and thus, strains are experienced by the lattice. It has been observed that soliton or domain wall propagation across a moderate length of the sample (order of nanometers to micrometers) can be initiated with applied stress from an AFM tip on a fixed region. The soliton propagation carries the mechanical perturbation with little loss in energy across the material, which enables domain switching in a domino-like fashion.

It has also been observed that the type of dislocations found at the walls can affect propagation parameters such as direction. For instance, STM measurements showed four types of strains of varying degrees of shear, compression, and tension at domain walls depending on the type of localized stacking order in twisted bilayer graphene. Different slip directions of the walls are achieved with different types of strains found at the domains, influencing the direction of the soliton network propagation.

Nonidealities such as disruptions to the soliton network and surface impurities can influence soliton propagation as well. Domain walls can meet at nodes and get effectively pinned, forming triangular domains, which have been readily observed in various ferroelectric twisted bilayer systems. In addition, closed loops of domain walls enclosing multiple polarization domains can inhibit soliton propagation and thus, switching of polarizations across it. Also, domain walls can propagate and meet at wrinkles and surface inhomogeneities within the van der Waal layers, which can act as obstacles obstructing the propagation.

In magnets

In magnets, there also exist different types of solitons and other nonlinear waves. These magnetic solitons are an exact solution of classical nonlinear differential equations — magnetic equations, e.g. the Landau–Lifshitz equation, continuum Heisenberg model, Ishimori equation, nonlinear Schrödinger equation and others.

In nuclear physics

Atomic nuclei may exhibit solitonic behavior. Here the whole nuclear wave function is predicted to exist as a soliton under certain conditions of temperature and energy. Such conditions are suggested to exist in the cores of some stars in which the nuclei would not react but pass through each other unchanged, retaining their soliton waves through a collision between nuclei.

The Skyrme Model is a model of nuclei in which each nucleus is considered to be a topologically stable soliton solution of a field theory with conserved baryon number.

Bions

The bound state of two solitons is known as a bion, or in systems where the bound state periodically oscillates, a breather. The interference-type forces between solitons could be used in making bions. However, these forces are very sensitive to their relative phases. Alternatively, the bound state of solitons could be formed by dressing atoms with highly excited Rydberg levels. The resulting self-generated potential profile features an inner attractive soft-core supporting the 3D self-trapped soliton, an intermediate repulsive shell (barrier) preventing solitons’ fusion, and an outer attractive layer (well) used for completing the bound state resulting in giant stable soliton molecules. In this scheme, the distance and size of the individual solitons in the molecule can be controlled dynamically with the laser adjustment.

In field theory bion usually refers to the solution of the Born–Infeld model. The name appears to have been coined by G. W. Gibbons in order to distinguish this solution from the conventional soliton, understood as a regular, finite-energy (and usually stable) solution of a differential equation describing some physical system. The word regular means a smooth solution carrying no sources at all. However, the solution of the Born–Infeld model still carries a source in the form of a Dirac-delta function at the origin. As a consequence it displays a singularity in this point (although the electric field is everywhere regular). In some physical contexts (for instance string theory) this feature can be important, which motivated the introduction of a special name for this class of solitons.

On the other hand, when gravity is added (i.e. when considering the coupling of the Born–Infeld model to general relativity) the corresponding solution is called EBIon, where "E" stands for Einstein.

Alcubierre drive

Erik Lentz, a physicist at the University of Göttingen, has theorized that solitons could allow for the generation of Alcubierre warp bubbles in spacetime without the need for exotic matter, i.e., matter with negative mass.

Deity

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deity

Examples of representations of deities in different cultures; from top to bottom: Hinduism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Maya, Roman, Shinto, Christianity, Greek, and Inca.

A deity or a god is a hypothetical supernatural being who is considered divine or sacred. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines deity as a god or goddess, or anything revered as divine. C. Scott Littleton defines a deity as "a being with powers greater than those of ordinary humans, but who interacts with humans, positively or negatively, in ways that carry humans to new levels of consciousness, beyond the grounded preoccupations of ordinary life".

Religions can be categorized by how many deities they worship. Monotheistic religions accept only one deity (predominantly referred to as "God"), whereas polytheistic religions accept multiple deities. Henotheistic religions accept one supreme deity without denying other deities, considering them as aspects of the same divine principle. Nontheistic religions deny any supreme eternal creator deity, but may accept a pantheon of deities which live, die and may be reborn like any other being.

Although most monotheistic religions traditionally envision their God as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and eternal, none of these qualities are essential to the definition of a "deity" and various cultures have conceptualized their deities differently. Monotheistic religions typically refer to God in masculine terms, while other religions refer to their deities in a variety of ways—male, female, hermaphroditic, or genderless.

Historically, many ancient cultures—including the ancient Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Germanic peoples—personified natural phenomena, variously as either deliberate causes or effects. Some Avestan and Vedic deities were viewed as ethical concepts. In Indian religions, deities were envisioned as manifesting within the temple of every living being's body, as sensory organs and mind. Deities were envisioned as a form of existence (Saṃsāra) after rebirth, for human beings who gain merit through an ethical life, where they become guardian deities and live blissfully in heaven, but are also subject to death when their merit is lost.

Etymology

Kobayashi Eitaku painting showing the god Izanagi (right) and Izanami, a goddess of creation and death in Japanese mythology.

The English language word deity derives from Old French deité, the Latin deitatem or "divine nature", coined by Augustine of Hippo from deus ("god"). Deus is related through a common Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origin to *deiwos. This root yields the ancient Indian word Deva meaning "to gleam, a shining one", from *div- "to shine", as well as Greek dios "divine" and Zeus; and Latin deus "god" (Old Latin deivos). Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Latin dea and Greek thea. In Old Persian, daiva- means "demon, evil god", while in Sanskrit it means the opposite, referring to the "heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of high excellence, exalted, shining ones".

The closely linked term "god" refers to "supreme being, deity", according to Douglas Harper, and is derived from Proto-Germanic *guthan, from PIE *ghut-, which means "that which is invoked". Guth in the Irish language means "voice". The term *ghut- is also the source of Old Church Slavonic zovo ("to call"), Sanskrit huta- ("invoked", an epithet of Indra), from the root *gheu(e)- ("to call, invoke").

An alternate etymology for the term "god" comes from the Proto-Germanic Gaut, which traces it to the PIE root *ghu-to- ("poured"), derived from the root *gheu- ("to pour, pour a libation"). The term *gheu- is also the source of the Greek khein "to pour". Originally the German root was a neuter noun. The gender of the monotheistic God shifted to masculine under the influence of Christianity.In contrast, all ancient Indo-European cultures and mythologies recognized both masculine and feminine deities.

Definitions

Pantheists believe that the universe itself and everything in it forms a single, all-encompassing deity.

There is no universally accepted consensus on what a deity is, and concepts of deities vary considerably across cultures. Huw Owen states that the term "deity or god or its equivalent in other languages" has a bewildering range of meanings and significance. It has ranged from "infinite transcendent being who created and lords over the universe" (God), to a "finite entity or experience, with special significance or which evokes a special feeling" (god), to "a concept in religious or philosophical context that relates to nature or magnified beings or a supra-mundane realm", to "numerous other usages".

A deity is typically conceptualized as a supernatural or divine concept, manifesting in ideas and knowledge, in a form that combines excellence in some or all aspects, wrestling with weakness and questions in other aspects, heroic in outlook and actions, yet tied up with emotions and desires. In other cases, the deity is a principle or reality such as the idea of "soul". The Upanishads of Hinduism, for example, characterize Atman (soul, self) as deva (deity), thereby asserting that the deva and eternal supreme principle (Brahman) is part of every living creature, that this soul is spiritual and divine, and that to realize self-knowledge is to know the supreme.

Theism is the belief in the existence of one or more deities. Polytheism is the belief in and worship of multiple deities, which are usually assembled into a pantheon of gods and goddesses, with accompanying rituals. In most polytheistic religions, the different gods and goddesses are representations of forces of nature or ancestral principles, and can be viewed either as autonomous or as aspects or emanations of a creator God or transcendental absolute principle (monistic theologies), which manifests immanently in nature. Henotheism accepts the existence of more than one deity, but considers all deities as equivalent representations or aspects of the same divine principle, the highest. Monolatry is the belief that many deities exist, but that only one of these deities may be validly worshipped.

Monotheism is the belief that only one deity exists. A monotheistic deity, known as "God", is usually described as omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent and eternal. However, not all deities have been regarded this way and an entity does not need to be almighty, omnipresent, omniscient, omnibenevolent or eternal to qualify as a deity.

Deism is the belief that only one deity exists, who created the universe, but does not usually intervene in the resulting world. Deism was particularly popular among western intellectuals during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pantheism is the belief that the universe itself is God or that everything composes an all-encompassing, immanent deity. Pandeism is an intermediate position between these, proposing that the creator became a pantheistic universe. Panentheism is the belief that divinity pervades the universe, but that it also transcends the universe. Agnosticism is the position that it is impossible to know for certain whether a deity of any kind exists. Atheism is the non-belief in the existence of any deity.

Prehistoric

Statuette of a nude, corpulent, seated woman flanked by two felines from Çatalhöyük, dating to c. 6000 BCE, thought by most archaeologists to represent a goddess of some kind.

Scholars infer the probable existence of deities in the prehistoric period from inscriptions and prehistoric arts such as cave drawings, but it is unclear what these sketches and paintings are and why they were made. Some engravings or sketches show animals, hunters or rituals. It was once common for archaeologists to interpret virtually every prehistoric female figurine as a representation of a single, primordial goddess, the ancestor of historically attested goddesses such as Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Cybele, and Aphrodite; this approach has now generally been discredited. Modern archaeologists now generally recognize that it is impossible to conclusively identify any prehistoric figurines as representations of any kind of deities, let alone goddesses. Nonetheless, it is possible to evaluate ancient representations on a case-by-case basis and rate them on how likely they are to represent deities. The Venus of Willendorf, a female figurine found in Europe and dated to about 25,000 BCE has been interpreted by some as an exemplar of a prehistoric female deity. A number of probable representations of deities have been discovered at 'Ain Ghazal and the works of art uncovered at Çatalhöyük reveal references to what is probably a complex mythology.

Religions and cultures

Sub-Saharan African

Yoruba deity from Nigeria

Diverse African cultures developed theology and concepts of deities over their history. In Nigeria and neighboring West African countries, for example, two prominent deities (locally called Òrìṣà) are found in the Yoruba religion, namely the god Ogun and the goddess Osun. Ogun is the primordial masculine deity as well as the archdivinity and guardian of occupations such as tools making and use, metal working, hunting, war, protection and ascertaining equity and justice. Osun is an equally powerful primordial feminine deity and a multidimensional guardian of fertility, water, maternal, health, social relations, love and peace. Ogun and Osun traditions were brought into the Americas on slave ships. They were preserved by the Africans in their plantation communities, and their festivals continue to be observed.

In Southern African cultures, a similar masculine-feminine deity combination has appeared in other forms, particularly as the Moon and Sun deities. One Southern African cosmology consists of Hieseba or Xuba (deity, god), Gaune (evil spirits) and Khuene (people). The Hieseba includes Nladiba (male, creator sky god) and Nladisara (females, Nladiba's two wives). The Sun (female) and the Moon (male) deities are viewed as offspring of Nladiba and two Nladisara. The Sun and Moon are viewed as manifestations of the supreme deity, and worship is timed and directed to them. In other African cultures the Sun is seen as male, while the Moon is female, both symbols of the godhead. In Zimbabwe, the supreme deity is androgynous with male-female aspects, envisioned as the giver of rain, treated simultaneously as the god of darkness and light and is called Mwari Shona. In the Lake Victoria region, the term for a deity is Lubaale, or alternatively Jok.

Ancient Near Eastern

Egyptian

Egyptian tomb painting showing the gods Osiris, Anubis, and Horus, who are among the major deities in ancient Egyptian religion.

Ancient Egyptian culture revered numerous deities. Egyptian records and inscriptions list the names of many whose nature is unknown and make vague references to other unnamed deities. Egyptologist James P. Allen estimates that more than 1,400 deities are named in Egyptian texts, whereas Christian Leitz offers an estimate of "thousands upon thousands" of Egyptian deities. Their terms for deities were nṯr (god), and feminine nṯrt (goddess); however, these terms may also have applied to any being – spirits and deceased human beings, but not demons – who in some way were outside the sphere of everyday life. Egyptian deities typically had an associated cult, role and mythologies.

Around 200 deities are prominent in the Pyramid texts and ancient temples of Egypt, many zoomorphic. Among these, were Min (fertility god), Neith (creator goddess), Anubis, Atum, Bes, Horus, Isis, Ra, Meretseger, Nut, Osiris, Shu, Sia and Thoth. Most Egyptian deities represented natural phenomenon, physical objects or social aspects of life, as hidden immanent forces within these phenomena. The deity Shu, for example represented air; the goddess Meretseger represented parts of the earth, and the god Sia represented the abstract powers of perception. Deities such as Ra and Osiris were associated with the judgement of the dead and their care during the afterlife. Major gods often had multiple roles and were involved in multiple phenomena.

The first written evidence of deities are from early 3rd millennium BCE, likely emerging from prehistoric beliefs. However, deities became systematized and sophisticated after the formation of an Egyptian state under the Pharaohs and their treatment as sacred kings who had exclusive rights to interact with the gods, in the later part of the 3rd millennium BCE. Through the early centuries of the common era, as Egyptians interacted and traded with neighboring cultures, foreign deities were adopted and venerated.

Levantine

A 4th century BC drachm (quarter shekel) coin from the Persian province of Yehud Medinata, possibly representing Yahweh seated on a winged and wheeled sun-throne.

The ancient Canaanites were polytheists who believed in a pantheon of deities, the chief of whom was the god El, who ruled alongside his consort Asherah and their seventy sons. Baal was the god of storm, rain, vegetation and fertility, while his consort Anat was the goddess of war and Astarte, the West Semitic equivalent to Ishtar, was the goddess of love. The people of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah originally believed in these deities, alongside their own national god Yahweh. El later became syncretized with Yahweh, who took over El's role as the head of the pantheon, with Asherah as his divine consort and the "sons of El" as his offspring. During the later years of the Kingdom of Judah, a monolatristic faction rose to power insisting that only Yahweh was fit to be worshipped by the people of Judah. Monolatry became enforced during the reforms of King Josiah in 621 BCE. Finally, during the national crisis of the Babylonian captivity, some Judahites began to teach that deities aside from Yahweh were not just unfit to be worshipped, but did not exist. The "sons of El" were demoted from deities to angels.

Mesopotamian

Akkadian cylinder seal impression showing Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love, sex, and war

Wall relief of the Assyrian national god Aššur in a "winged male" hybrid iconography

Ancient Mesopotamian culture in southern Iraq had numerous dingir (deities, gods and goddesses). Mesopotamian deities were almost exclusively anthropomorphic. They were thought to possess extraordinary powers and were often envisioned as being of tremendous physical size. They were generally immortal, but a few of them, particularly Dumuzid, Geshtinanna, and Gugalanna were said to have either died or visited the underworld. Both male and female deities were widely venerated.

In the Sumerian pantheon, deities had multiple functions, which included presiding over procreation, rains, irrigation, agriculture, destiny, and justice. The gods were fed, clothed, entertained, and worshipped to prevent natural catastrophes as well as to prevent social chaos such as pillaging, rape, or atrocities. Many of the Sumerian deities were patron guardians of city-states.

The most important deities in the Sumerian pantheon were known as the Anunnaki, and included deities known as the "seven gods who decree": An, Enlil, Enki, Ninhursag, Nanna, Utu and Inanna. After the conquest of Sumer by Sargon of Akkad, many Sumerian deities were syncretized with East Semitic ones. The goddess Inanna, syncretized with the East Semitic Ishtar, became popular, with temples across Mesopotamia.

The Mesopotamian mythology of the first millennium BCE treated Anšar (later Aššur) and Kišar as primordial deities. Marduk was a significant god among the Babylonians. He rose from an obscure deity of the third millennium BCE to become one of the most important deities in the Mesopotamian pantheon of the first millennium BCE. The Babylonians worshipped Marduk as creator of heaven, earth and humankind, and as their national god. Marduk's iconography is zoomorphic and is most often found in Middle Eastern archaeological remains depicted as a "snake-dragon" or a "human-animal hybrid".

Indo-European

Greek

Zeus, the king of the gods in ancient Greek religion, shown on a gold stater from Lampsacus (c. 360–340 BCE)

Corinthian black-figure plaque of Poseidon, the Greek god of the seas (c. 550–525 BCE)

Attic white-ground red-figured kylix of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, riding a swan (c. 46–470 BCE)

Bust of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, copy after a votive statue of Kresilas in Athens (c. 425 BCE)

The ancient Greeks revered both gods and goddesses. These continued to be revered through the early centuries of the common era, and many of the Greek deities inspired and were adopted as part of much larger pantheon of Roman deities. The Greek religion was polytheistic, but had no centralized church, nor any sacred texts. The deities were largely associated with myths and they represented natural phenomena or aspects of human behavior.

Several Greek deities probably trace back to more ancient Indo-European traditions, since the gods and goddesses found in distant cultures are mythologically comparable and are cognates. Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, for instance, is cognate to Indic Ushas, Roman Aurora and Latvian Auseklis. Zeus, the Greek king of gods, is cognate to Latin Iūpiter, Old German Ziu, and Indic Dyaus, with whom he shares similar mythologies. Other deities, such as Aphrodite, originated from the Near East.

Greek deities varied locally, but many shared panhellenic themes, celebrated similar festivals, rites, and ritual grammar. The most important deities in the Greek pantheon were the Twelve Olympians: Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Aphrodite, Hermes, Demeter, Dionysus, Hephaestus, and Ares. Other important Greek deities included Hestia, Hades and Heracles. These deities later inspired the Dii Consentes galaxy of Roman deities.

Besides the Olympians, the Greeks also worshipped various local deities. Among these were the goat-legged god Pan (the guardian of shepherds and their flocks), Nymphs (nature spirits associated with particular landforms), Naiads (who dwelled in springs), Dryads (who were spirits of the trees), Nereids (who inhabited the sea), river gods, satyrs (a class of lustful male nature spirits), and others. The dark powers of the underworld were represented by the Erinyes (or Furies), said to pursue those guilty of crimes against blood-relatives.

The Greek deities, like those in many other Indo-European traditions, were anthropomorphic. Walter Burkert describes them as "persons, not abstractions, ideas or concepts". They had fantastic abilities and powers; each had some unique expertise and, in some aspects, a specific and flawed personality. They were not omnipotent and could be injured in some circumstances. Greek deities led to cults, were used politically and inspired votive offerings for favors such as bountiful crops, healthy family, victory in war, or peace for a loved one recently deceased.

Germanic

The Kirkby Stephen Stone, discovered in Kirkby Stephen, England, depicts a bound figure, who some have theorized may be the Germanic god Loki.

In Germanic languages, the terms cognate with 'god' such as Old English: god and Old Norse: guð were originally neuter but became masculine, as in modern Germanic languages, after Christianisation due their use in referring to the Christian god.

In Norse mythology, Æsir (singular áss or ǫ́ss) are the principal group of gods, while the term ásynjur (singular ásynja) refers specifically to the female Æsir. These terms, states John Lindow, may be ultimately rooted in the Indo-European root for "breath" (as in "life giving force"), and are cognate with Old English: os (a heathen god) and Gothic: anses.

Another group of deities found in Norse mythology are termed as Vanir, and are associated with fertility. The Æsir and the Vanir went to war, according to the Nordic sources. The account in Ynglinga saga describes the Æsir–Vanir War ending in truce and ultimate reconciliation of the two into a single group of gods, after both sides chose peace, exchanged ambassadors (hostages), and intermarried.

The Norse mythology describes the cooperation after the war, as well as differences between the Æsir and the Vanir which were considered scandalous by the other side. The goddess Freyja of the Vanir taught magic to the Æsir, while the two sides discover that while Æsir forbid mating between siblings, Vanir accepted such mating.

Temples hosting images of Germanic deities (such as Thor, Odin and Freyr), as well as pagan worship rituals, continued in Nordic countries into the 12th century, according to historical records. It has been proposed that over time, Christian equivalents were substituted for the Germanic deities to help suppress paganism, during Christianisation. Worship of the Germanic gods has been revived in the modern period as part of the new religious movement of Heathenry.

Roman

4th-century Roman sarcophagus depicting the creation of man by Prometheus, with major Roman deities Jupiter, Neptune, Mercury, Juno, Apollo, Vulcan watching.

The Roman pantheon had numerous deities, both Greek and non-Greek. The more famed deities, found in the mythologies and the 2nd millennium CE European arts, have been the anthropomorphic deities syncretized with the Greek deities. These include the six gods and six goddesses: Venus, Apollo, Mars, Diana, Minerva, Ceres, Vulcan, Juno, Mercury, Vesta, Neptune, Jupiter (Jove, Zeus); as well Bacchus, Pluto and Hercules. The non-Greek major deities include Janus, Fortuna, Vesta, Quirinus and Tellus (mother goddess, probably most ancient). Some of the non-Greek deities had likely origins in more ancient European culture such as the ancient Germanic religion, while others may have been borrowed, for political reasons, from neighboring trade centers such as those in the Minoan or ancient Egyptian civilization.

The Roman deities, in a manner similar to the ancient Greeks, inspired community festivals, rituals and sacrifices led by flamines (priests, pontifs), but priestesses (Vestal Virgins) were also held in high esteem for maintaining sacred fire used in the votive rituals for deities. Deities were also maintained in home shrines (lararium), such as Hestia honored in homes as the goddess of fire hearth. This Roman religion held reverence for sacred fire, and this is also found in Hebrew culture (Leviticus 6), Vedic culture's Homa, ancient Greeks and other cultures.

Ancient Roman scholars such as Varro and Cicero wrote treatises on the nature of gods of their times. Varro stated, in his Antiquitates Rerum Divinarum, that it is the superstitious man who fears the gods, while the truly religious person venerates them as parents. Cicero, in his Academica, praised Varro for this and other insights. According to Varro, there have been three accounts of deities in the Roman society: the mythical account created by poets for theatre and entertainment, the civil account used by people for veneration as well as by the city, and the natural account created by the philosophers. The best state is, adds Varro, where the civil theology combines the poetic mythical account with the philosopher's. The Roman deities continued to be revered in Europe through the era of Constantine, and past 313 CE when he issued the Edict of Toleration.

Native American

Inca

Top: Inti Raymi, a winter solstice festival of the Inca people, reveres Inti, the sun deity—offerings include round bread and maize beer; Bottom: Deity Viracocha

The Inca culture has believed in Viracocha (also called Pachacutec) as the creator deity. Viracocha has been an abstract deity to Inca culture, one who existed before he created space and time. All other deities of the Inca people have corresponded to elements of nature. Of these, the most important ones have been Inti (sun deity) responsible for agricultural prosperity and as the father of the first Inca king, and Mama Qucha the goddess of the sea, lakes, rivers and waters. Inti in some mythologies is the son of Viracocha and Mama Qucha.

Inca Sun deity festival

Oh creator and Sun and Thunder,
be forever copious,
do not make us old,
let all things be at peace,
multiply the people,
and let there be food,
and let all things be fruitful.

—Inti Raymi prayers

Inca people have revered many male and female deities. Among the feminine deities have been Mama Kuka (goddess of joy), Mama Ch'aska (goddess of dawn), Mama Allpa (goddess of harvest and earth, sometimes called Mama Pacha or Pachamama), Mama Killa (moon goddess) and Mama Sara (goddess of grain). During and after the imposition of Christianity during Spanish colonialism, the Inca people retained their original beliefs in deities through syncretism, where they overlay the Christian God and teachings over their original beliefs and practices. The male deity Inti became accepted as the Christian God, but the Andean rituals centered around Inca deities have been retained and continued thereafter into the modern era by the Inca people.

Maya and Aztec

The zoomorphic feathered serpent deity (Kukulkan, Quetzalcoatl)

In Maya culture, Kukulkan has been the supreme creator deity, also revered as the god of reincarnation, water, fertility and wind. The Maya people built step pyramid temples to honor Kukulkan, aligning them to the Sun's position on the spring equinox. Other deities found at Maya archaeological sites include Xib Chac – the benevolent male rain deity, and Ixchel – the benevolent female earth, weaving and pregnancy goddess. The Maya calendar had 18 months, each with 20 days (and five unlucky days of Uayeb); each month had a presiding deity, who inspired social rituals, special trading markets and community festivals.

A deity with aspects similar to Kulkulkan in the Aztec culture has been called Quetzalcoatl. However, states Timothy Insoll, the Aztec ideas of deity remain poorly understood. What has been assumed is based on what was constructed by Christian missionaries. The deity concept was likely more complex than these historical records. In Aztec culture, there were hundred of deities, but many were henotheistic incarnations of one another (similar to the avatar concept of Hinduism). Unlike Hinduism and other cultures, Aztec deities were usually not anthropomorphic, and were instead zoomorphic or hybrid icons associated with spirits, natural phenomena or forces. The Aztec deities were often represented through ceramic figurines, revered in home shrines.

Polynesian

Deities of Polynesia carved from wood (bottom two are demons)

The Polynesian people developed a theology centered on numerous deities, with clusters of islands having different names for the same idea. There are great deities found across the Pacific Ocean. Some deities are found widely, and there are many local deities whose worship is limited to one or a few islands or sometimes to isolated villages on the same island.

The Māori people, of what is now New Zealand, called the supreme being as Io, who is also referred elsewhere as Iho-Iho, Io-Mataaho, Io Nui, Te Io Ora, Io Matua Te Kora among other names. The Io deity has been revered as the original uncreated creator, with power of life, with nothing outside or beyond him.Other deities in the Polynesian pantheon include Tangaloa (god who created men), La'a Maomao (god of winds), Tu-Matauenga or Ku (god of war), Tu-Metua (mother goddess), Kane (god of procreation) and Rangi (sky god father).

The Polynesian deities have been part of a sophisticated theology, addressing questions of creation, the nature of existence, guardians in daily lives as well as during wars, natural phenomena, good and evil spirits, priestly rituals, as well as linked to the journey of the souls of the dead.

Abrahamic

Christianity

Holy Trinity (1756–1758) by Szymon Czechowicz, showing God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit, all of whom are revered in Christianity as a single deity.

Christianity is a monotheistic religion in which most mainstream congregations and denominations accept the concept of the Holy Trinity. Modern orthodox Christians believe that the Trinity is composed of three equal, cosubstantial persons: God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The first person to describe the persons of the Trinity as homooúsios (ὁμοούσιος; "of the same substance") was the Church Father Origen. Although most early Christian theologians (including Origen) were Subordinationists, who believed that the Father was superior to the Son and the Son superior to the Holy Spirit, this belief was condemned as heretical by the First Council of Nicaea in the fourth century, which declared that all three persons of the Trinity are equal. Christians regard the universe as an element in God's actualization and the Holy Spirit is seen as the divine essence that is "the unity and relation of the Father and the Son". According to George Hunsinger, the doctrine of the Trinity justifies worship in a Church, wherein Jesus Christ is deemed to be a full deity with the Christian cross as his icon.

The theological examination of Jesus Christ, of divine grace in incarnation, his non-transferability and completeness has been a historic topic. For example, the Council of Chalcedon in 451 CE declared that in "one person Jesus Christ, fullness of deity and fullness of humanity are united, the union of the natures being such that they can neither be divided nor confused". Jesus Christ, according to the New Testament, is the self-disclosure of the one, true God, both in his teaching and in his person; Christ, in Christian faith, is considered the incarnation of God.

Islam

Ilah, ʾIlāh (Arabic: إله; plural: آلهة ʾālihah), is an Arabic word meaning "god". It appears in the name of the monotheistic god of Islam as Allah (al-Lāh). which literally means "the god" in Arabic. Islam is strictly monotheistic and the first statement of the shahada, or Muslim confession of faith, is that "there is no ʾilāh (deity) but al-Lāh (God)", who is perfectly unified and utterly indivisible.

The term Allah is used by Muslims for God. The Persian word Khuda (Persian: خدا) can be translated as god, lord or king, and is also used today to refer to God in Islam by Persian, Urdu, Tat and Kurdish speakers. The Turkic word for god is Tengri; it exists as Tanrı in Turkish.

Judaism

The tetragrammaton in Phoenician (12th century BCE to 150 BCE), Paleo-Hebrew (10th century BCE to 135 CE), and square Hebrew (3rd century BCE to present) scripts.

Judaism affirms the existence of one God (Yahweh, or YHWH), who is not abstract, but He who revealed himself throughout Jewish history particularly during the Exodus and the Exile. Judaism reflects a monotheism that gradually arose, was affirmed with certainty in the sixth century "Second Isaiah", and has ever since been the axiomatic basis of its theology.

The classical presentation of Judaism has been as a monotheistic faith that rejected deities and related idolatry. However, states Breslauer, modern scholarship suggests that idolatry was not absent in biblical faith, and it resurfaced multiple times in Jewish religious life. The rabbinic texts and other secondary Jewish literature suggest worship of material objects and natural phenomena through the medieval era, while the core teachings of Judaism maintained monotheism.

According to Aryeh Kaplan, God is always referred to as "He" in Judaism, "not to imply that the concept of sex or gender applies to God", but because "there is no neuter in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew word for God is a masculine noun" as he "is an active rather than a passive creative force".

Mandaeism

In Mandaeism, Hayyi Rabbi (lit=The Great Life), or 'The Great Living God', is the supreme God from which all things emanate. He is also known as 'The First Life', since during the creation of the material world, Yushamin emanated from Hayyi Rabbi as the "Second Life." "The principles of the Mandaean doctrine: the belief of the only one great God, Hayyi Rabbi, to whom all absolute properties belong; He created all the worlds, formed the soul through his power, and placed it by means of angels into the human body. So He created Adam and Eve, the first man and woman." Mandaeans recognize God to be the eternal, creator of all, the one and only in domination who has no partner.

Asian

Anitism

Top: Bakunawa depicted in a Bisaya sword hilt; Bottom: Ifugao rice deity statues

Anitism, composed of a diverse array of indigenous religions from the Philippines, has multiple pantheon of deities, with each ethnic group having their own. The most notable deities are almost always the deity or deities considered by specific ethnic groups as their supreme deity or deities.

Bathala is the Tagalog supreme deity, while Mangechay is the Kapampangan supreme deity. The Sambal supreme deity is Malayari, the Blaan supreme deity is Melu, the Bisaya supreme deity is Kaptan, and so on. There are more than a hundred different ethnic groups in the Philippines, each having their own supreme deity or deities. Each supreme deity or deities normally rules over a pantheon of deities, contributing to the sheer diversity of deities in Anitism.

Buddhism

Top: Buddhist deity in Ssangbongsa in South Korea; Bottom: Chinese deity adopted into Buddhism

Buddhists do not believe in a creator deity. However, deities are an essential part of Buddhist teachings about cosmology, rebirth, and saṃsāra. Buddhist deities (such as devas and bodhisattvas) are believed to reside in a pleasant, heavenly realm within Buddhist cosmology, which is typically subdivided into twenty six sub-realms.

Devas are numerous, but they are still mortal; they live in the heavenly realm, then die and are reborn like all other beings. A rebirth in the heavenly realm is believed to be the result of leading an ethical life and accumulating very good karma. A deva does not need to work, and is able to enjoy in the heavenly realm all pleasures found on Earth. However, the pleasures of this realm lead to attachment (upādāna), lack of spiritual pursuits, and therefore no nirvana. The vast majority of Buddhist lay people in countries practicing Theravada, states Kevin Trainor, have historically pursued Buddhist rituals and practices because they are motivated by their potential rebirth into the deva realm. The deva realm in Buddhist practice in Southeast Asia and East Asia, states Keown, include gods found in Hindu traditions such as Indra and Brahma, and concepts in Hindu cosmology such as Mount Meru.

Mahayana Buddhism also includes different kinds of deities, such as numerous Buddhas, bodhisattvas and fierce deities.

Hinduism

Top: Ganesha deity of Hinduism; Bottom: Saraswati, Hindu goddess of knowledge and music

The concept of God varies in Hinduism, it being a diverse system of thought with beliefs spanning henotheism, monotheism, polytheism, panentheism, pantheism and monism among others.

In the ancient Vedic texts of Hinduism, a deity is often referred to as Deva (god) or Devi (goddess).The root of these terms mean "heavenly, divine, anything of excellence". Deva is masculine, and the related feminine equivalent is devi. In the earliest Vedic literature, all supernatural beings are called Asuras. Over time, those with a benevolent nature become deities and are referred to as Sura, Deva or Devi.

Devas or deities in Hindu texts differ from Greek or Roman theodicy, states Ray Billington, because many Hindu traditions believe that a human being has the potential to be reborn as a deva (or devi), by living an ethical life and building up saintly karma. Such a deva enjoys heavenly bliss, till the merit runs out, and then the soul (gender neutral) is reborn again into Saṃsāra. Thus deities are henotheistic manifestations, embodiments and consequence of the virtuous, the noble, the saint-like living in many Hindu traditions.

Jainism

Padmavati, a Jain guardian deity

Like many ancient Indian traditions, Jainism does not believe in a creator, omnipotent, omniscient, eternal God; however, the cosmology of Jainism incorporates a meaningful causality-driven reality, and includes four realms of existence (gati), and one of them for deva (celestial beings, gods). A human being can choose and live an ethical life (karma), such as being non-violent (ahimsa) against all living beings, thereby gain merit and be reborn as deva.

Jain texts reject a trans-cosmic God, one who stands outside of the universe and lords over it, but they state that the world is full of devas who are in human-image with sensory organs, with the power of reason, conscious, compassionate and with finite life. Jainism believes in the existence of the soul (Self, atman) and considers it to have "god-quality", whose knowledge and liberation is the ultimate spiritual goal in both religions. Jains also believe that the spiritual nobleness of perfected souls (Jina) and devas make them worship-worthy beings, with powers of guardianship and guidance to better karma. In Jain temples or festivals, the Jinas and Devas are revered.

Zoroastrianism

Investiture of Sassanid emperor Shapur II (center) with Mithra (left) and Ahura Mazda (right) at Taq-e Bostan, Iran

Ahura Mazda (/əˌhʊrəˌmæzdə/); is the Avestan name for the creator and sole God of Zoroastrianism. The literal meaning of the word Ahura is "mighty" or "lord" and Mazda is wisdom. Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism, taught that Ahura Mazda is the most powerful being in all of the existence and the only deity who is worthy of the highest veneration. Nonetheless, Ahura Mazda is not omnipotent because his evil twin brother Angra Mainyu is nearly as powerful as him. Zoroaster taught that the daevas were evil spirits created by Angra Mainyu to sow evil in the world and that all people must choose between the goodness of Ahura Mazda and the evil of Angra Mainyu. According to Zoroaster, Ahura Mazda will eventually defeat Angra Mainyu and good will triumph over evil once and for all. Ahura Mazda was the most important deity in the ancient Achaemenid Empire. He was originally represented anthropomorphically, but, by the end of the Sasanian Empire, Zoroastrianism had become fully aniconic.

Skeptical interpretations

The Greek philosopher Democritus argued that belief in deities arose when humans observed natural phenomena such as lightning and attributed such phenomena to supernatural beings.

Attempts to rationally explain belief in deities extend all the way back to ancient Greece. The Greek philosopher Democritus argued that the concept of deities arose when human beings observed natural phenomena such as lightning, solar eclipses, and the changing of the seasons. Later, in the third century BCE, the scholar Euhemerus argued in his book Sacred History that the gods were originally flesh-and-blood mortal kings who were posthumously deified, and that religion was therefore the continuation of these kings' mortal reigns, a view now known as Euhemerism. Sigmund Freud suggested that God concepts are a projection of one's father.

A tendency to believe in deities and other supernatural beings may be an integral part of the human consciousness. Children are naturally inclined to believe in supernatural entities such as gods, spirits, and demons, even without being introduced into a particular religious tradition. Humans have an overactive agency detection system, which has a tendency to conclude that events are caused by intelligent entities, even if they really are not. This is a system which may have evolved to cope with threats to the survival of human ancestors: in the wild, a person who perceived intelligent and potentially dangerous beings everywhere was more likely to survive than a person who failed to perceive actual threats, such as wild animals or human enemies. Humans are also inclined to think teleologically and ascribe meaning and significance to their surroundings, a trait which may lead people to believe in a creator-deity. This may have developed as a side effect of human social intelligence, the ability to discern what other people are thinking.

Stories of encounters with supernatural beings are especially likely to be retold, passed on, and embellished due to their descriptions of standard ontological categories (person, artifact, animal, plant, natural object) with counterintuitive properties (humans that are invisible, houses that remember what happened in them, etc.). As belief in deities spread, humans may have attributed anthropomorphic thought processes to them, leading to the idea of leaving offerings to the gods and praying to them for assistance, ideas which are seen in all cultures around the world.

Sociologists of religion have proposed that the personality and characteristics of deities may reflect a culture's sense of self-esteem and that a culture projects its revered values into deities and in spiritual terms. The cherished, desired or sought human personality is congruent with the personality it defines to be gods. Lonely and fearful societies tend to invent wrathful, violent, submission-seeking deities, while happier and secure societies tend to invent loving, non-violent, compassionate deities. Émile Durkheim states that gods represent an extension of human social life to include supernatural beings. According to Matt Rossano, God concepts may be a means of enforcing morality and building more cooperative community groups.

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Tuesday, September 13, 2022

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