Property rights (economics)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_rights_(economics) 

Property rights have developed over ancient and modern history, from Abrahamic law to todays Universal Declaration of Human Rights article 17. Property rights can be understood as constructs in economics for determining how a resource or economic good is used and owned. Resources can be owned by (and hence be the property of) individuals, associations, collectives, or governments. Property rights can be viewed as an attribute of an economic good. This attribute has three broad components and is often referred to as a bundle of rights in the United States:

1. the right to use the good
2. the right to earn income from the good
3. the right to transfer the good to others, alter it, abandon it, or destroy it (the right to ownership cessation)

Conceptualizing Property in Economics Vs Law

The fields of economics and law do not have a general consensus on conceptions of property rights. Various property types are used in law but the terminology can be seen in economic reports. Sometimes in economics, property types are simply described as private or public/common in reference to private goods (excludable and rivalrous goods, like a phone) and public goods (non-excludable and non-rivalrous goods, like air) respectively. Below is a list of the several property types defined and their relation to the economic concepts of excludability (the ability to limit the consumption of the good) and rivalry (a person's consumption of the good reduces the ability of another to consume it).

Types of Property/Regimes

• Property rights can be categorized with excludability and rivalry. Excludability describes the characteristic regarding whether a good can be withheld from certain consumers. In terms of the same good, rivalry describes its accessibility to competing consumers. The combination of excludability and rivalry as parameters is reflected through various types of property rights.
• Open-access property is owned by nobody (res nullius). It is non-excludable, as excluding people is either impossible or prohibitively costly, and can be rivalrous or non-rivalrous. Open-access property is not managed by anyone, and access to it is not controlled. This is also known as a common property resource, impure public good or a common pool resource. Examples of this can be air, water, sights, and sounds. Tragedy of the commons refers to this title. An example would be unregulated forests as there's limited resources available and therefore rivalrous, but anyone may access these resources. If non-rivalrous, it would be a public good (cannot be rivalrous, no matter how much it is used, for example, the ocean (outside of territorial borders)).

Open-access property may exist because ownership has never been established, granted, by laws within a particular country, or because no effective controls are in place, or feasible, i.e., the cost of exclusivity outweighs the benefits.

— Encyclopedia of Law and Economics

• Public property (also known as state property) is excludable and can be rivalrous or non-rivalrous. This type of property is publicly owned, but its access and use are managed and controlled by a government agency or organization granted such authority. For example, a government pavement is non-excludable as anyone may use it but rivalrous as, the more people using it, the more likely it will be too crowded for another to join. Public property is sometimes used interchangeably with public good, usually impure public goods. They may also be a club good, which is excludable and non-rivalrous. An example would be paying to go to an uncongested public bathroom, as the price excludes those who can't afford it but there is ample utilities for more people to use making it non-rivalrous.
• Private property is both excludable and rivalrous. Private property access, use, exclusion and management are controlled by the private owner or a group of legal owners. This is sometimes used interchangeably with private good. An example would be a cellphone as it only one person may use it, making it rivalrous, and it has to be purchased, which makes it excludable.
• Common property or collective property is excludable and rivalrous. Not to be confused with common property in reference to economics, this is in reference to law. It is property that is owned by a group of individuals where access, use, and exclusion are controlled by the joint owners. Unlike private property, common property has multiple owners which allows for a greater ability to manage conflicts through shared benefits and enforcement. This would still be related to private goods. An example of common property would be any private good that is jointly owned.

Property Rights Theory

Introduction

Property rights theory is an exploration of how providing stakeholders with ownership of any factors of production or goods, not just land, will increase the efficiency of an economy as the gains from providing the rights exceed the costs. A widely accepted explanation is that well-enforced property rights provide incentives for individuals to participate in economic activities, such as investment, innovation and trade, which lead to a more efficient market. Implicit or explicit property rights can be created through government regulation in the market, either through prescriptive command and control approaches (e.g. limits on input/output/discharge quantities, specified processes/equipment, audits) or by market-based instruments (e.g. taxes, transferable permits or quotas), and more recently through cooperative, self-regulatory, post-regulatory and reflexive law approaches. In economics, depending on the level of transaction costs, various forms of property rights institutions will develop. In economics, an institution is

"a complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organising relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment."

— Johnathon Turner, The Institutional Order

For specificity in the case of economic property rights, this is a system or structure that has value and stability. Transaction costs are the costs of defining, monitoring, and enforcing property rights. Each institutional form can be described by the distribution of rights. This video provides examples of why enforcing property rights is more efficient for the market than not doing so https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJy7pWK0W8g&ab_channel=KhanAcademy.

Exploration

Ronald Coase

proposed that clearly defining and assigning property rights would resolve environmental problems by internalizing externalities and rely on incentives of private owners to conserve resources for the future. He asserts transaction costs are ideally zero because they cause inefficiencies; due to those who would be allocatively efficient with the ownership being unable to afford or receiving less private benefit than they gain from it, as the transaction costs on top of the cost of purchasing and maintaining the property. This is known as Coase theorem. Critics of this view argue that this assumes that it is possible to internalize all environmental benefits, that owners will have perfect information, that scale economies are manageable, transaction costs are bearable, and that legal frameworks operate efficiently.

John Locke, Adam Smith and Karl Marx

are classical economists that generally recognize the importance of property rights in the process of economic development, and modern mainstream economics agree with such a recognition. John Locke supposed that one's labour was their own property and, consequently, property was any land maintained and sustained through one's own labour as long as there was sufficient and similar quality land to meet the needs of everyone's labour. Using this ideology, property in a broader sense would be taken as any good a person produced or maintains with their own labour. This was later elaborated on by Adam Smith who believed that the amount of labour it takes to produce a good does not provide its value but instead the labour the good commands or the value of goods people will be willing to trade for the good. He felt the division of labour to produce products for others was better for the whole of society.^[28] This was later critiqued by Karl Marx.

Sanford Grossman, Oliver Hart, and John Moore

developed the property rights approach to the theory of the firm based on the incomplete contracting paradigm. These authors argue that in the real world, contracts are incomplete and hence it is impossible to contractually specify what decisions will have to be taken in any conceivable state of the world.  There will be renegotiations in the future, so parties have insufficient investment incentives (since they will only get a fraction of the investment's return in future negotiations); i.e., there is a hold-up problem. Hence, property rights matter, because they determine who has control over future decisions if no agreement will be reached. In other words, property rights determine the parties' future bargaining positions (while their bargaining powers, i.e. their fractions of the renegotiation surplus, are independent of the property rights allocation). The property rights approach to the theory of the firm can thus explain pros and cons of integration in the context of private firms. Yet, it has also been applied in various other frameworks such as public good provision and privatization. The property rights approach has been extended in many directions. For instance, some authors have studied different bargaining solutions, while other authors have studied the role of asymmetric information.

Three important criteria for efficiency of property rights are

(1) universality—all scarce resources are owned by someone;

(2) exclusivity—property rights are exclusive rights;

(3) transferability—to ensure that resources can be allocated from low to high yield uses

— Joseph Mahoney, Economic Foundations of Strategy, pg 109

Benefits of Implementing Property Rights

Opportunism is discouraged as it is harder to exploit a good protected by enforced property rights. For example, a song can be easily pirated from purchased copies and, with no punishment, this form of the free-rider problem likely occurs. This causes the price mechanism to be less effective at finding the true market equilibrium and hurts the owners of the good who did not get it through opportunism.

The moral hazard is less likely to influence the actions of consumers, meaning they will be less likely to exploit resources unsustainably or inefficiently as property is protected. This will lead to a lower group cost overall as people will not be able to exploit these resources as easily, causing less inefficiency issues. For example, if a person's car doesn't have property rights, people will be more likely to mistreat it or steal it for a drive, as there is no real repercussions for doing so.

Property rights are also believed to lower transaction costs by providing an efficient resolution for conflicts over scarce resources. Empirically, using historical data of former European colonies, Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson find substantial evidence that good economic institutions – those that provide secure property rights and equality of opportunity – lead to economic prosperity.

Real-world Interconnectivity

As a nation grows the necessity for a well-defined property rights grows as well. This is due to the underlying assumption that within property rights other people must be present in order to have the rights over somebody else. Additionally, property rights are foundational for a capitalist system, allowing for growth and wealth creation.

North, Wallis and Weingast argue that property rights originate to facilitate elites' rent-seeking activities. Particularly, the legal and political systems that protect elites' claims on rent revenues form the basis of the so-called "limited access order", in which non-elites are denied access to political power and economic privileges. In a historical study of medieval England, for instance, North and Thomas find that the dramatic development of English land laws in the 13th century resulted from elites' interests in exploiting rent revenues from land ownership after a sudden rise in land price in the 12th century. In contrast, the modern "open access order", which consists of a democratic political system and a free- market economy, usually features widespread, secure and impersonal property rights. Universal property rights, along with impersonal economic and political competition, downplay the role of rent-seeking and instead favor innovations and productive activities in a modern economy.

Further Literature

In 2013, researchers produced an annotated bibliography on the property rights literature concerned with two principal outcomes: (a) reduction in investors risk and increase in incentives to invest, and (b) improvements in household welfare; the researchers explored the channels through which property rights affect growth and household welfare in developing countries. They found that better protection of property rights can affect several development outcomes, including better management of natural resources.

Incomplete property rights allow agents with valuation lower than that of the original owners of economic value to inefficiently expropriate them distorting in this way their investment and effort exertion decisions. When instead, the state is entrusted the power to protect property, it might directly expropriate private parties if not sufficiently constrained by an efficient political process. The necessity of strong protection of property for efficiency has been however criticized by a vast legal scholarship, originated from the seminal contribution by Guido Calabresi and Douglas Melamed.

Calabresi and Melamed argue that in the face of transaction costs sufficiently sizeable to prevent consensual trade, legalized private expropriation in the form of, for instance, liability rules can be welfare-increasing. To elaborate, when property is fully protected, some agents with valuation higher than that of the original owners will be unable to legally acquire value because of sizable transaction costs. When the protection of property is weak instead, low-valuation potential buyers inefficiently expropriate original owners. Hence, a rise in the heterogeneity of the potential buyers' valuations makes inefficient expropriation by low-valuation potential buyers be more important from a social welfare point of view than inefficient exclusion from trade and so induces stronger property rights. Crucially, this prediction survives even after considering production and investment activities and it is consistent with a novel dataset on the rules on the acquisition of ownership through adverse possession and on the use of government takings to transfer real property from a private party to another private party prevailing in 126 jurisdictions. These data measure “horizontal property rights” and thus the extent of protection of property from “direct and indirect private takings,” which are ubiquitous forms of expropriation that occur daily within the rule of law and are thus different from predation by the state and the elites, which is much less common but has been the focus of the economics literature. To capture preference diversity, the author uses the contemporary genetic diversity, which is a primitive metric of the genealogical distance between populations with a common ancestor and so of the differences in characteristics transmitted across generations, such as preferences. Regression analysis reveals that the protection of the original owners' property rights is the strongest where contemporary genetic diversity is the largest. Evidence from several different identification strategies suggests that this relationship is indeed causal.

Retrograde and prograde motion

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

Retrograde orbit: the satellite (red) orbits in the direction opposite to the rotation of its primary (blue/black)

Retrograde motion in astronomy is, in general, orbital or rotational motion of an object in the direction opposite the rotation of its primary, that is, the central object (right figure). It may also describe other motions such as precession or nutation of an object's rotational axis. Prograde or direct motion is more normal motion in the same direction as the primary rotates. However, "retrograde" and "prograde" can also refer to an object other than the primary if so described. The direction of rotation is determined by an inertial frame of reference, such as distant fixed stars.

In the Solar System, the orbits around the Sun of all planets and most other objects, except many comets, are prograde. They orbit around the Sun in the same direction as the sun rotates about its axis, which is counterclockwise when observed from above the Sun's north pole. Except for Venus and Uranus, planetary rotations are also prograde. Most natural satellites have prograde orbits around their planets. Prograde satellites of Uranus orbit in the direction Uranus rotates, which is retrograde to the Sun. Nearly all regular satellites are tidally locked and thus have prograde rotation. Retrograde satellites are generally small and distant from their planets, except Neptune's satellite Triton, which is large and close. All retrograde satellites are thought to have formed separately before being captured by their planets.

Most low-inclination artificial satellites of Earth have been placed in a prograde orbit, because in this situation less propellant is required to reach the orbit.

Formation of celestial systems

When a galaxy or a planetary system forms, its material takes a shape similar to that of a disk. Most of the material orbits and rotates in one direction. This uniformity of motion is due to the collapse of a gas cloud. The nature of the collapse is explained by conservation of angular momentum. In 2010 the discovery of several hot Jupiters with backward orbits called into question the theories about the formation of planetary systems. This can be explained by noting that stars and their planets do not form in isolation but in star clusters that contain molecular clouds. When a protoplanetary disk collides with or steals material from a cloud this can result in retrograde motion of a disk and the resulting planets.

Orbital and rotational parameters

Orbital inclination

A celestial object's inclination indicates whether the object's orbit is prograde or retrograde. The inclination of a celestial object is the angle between its orbital plane and another reference frame such as the equatorial plane of the object's primary. In the Solar System, inclination of the planets is measured from the ecliptic plane, which is the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun. The inclination of moons is measured from the equator of the planet they orbit. An object with an inclination between 0 and 90 degrees is orbiting or revolving in the same direction as the primary is rotating. An object with an inclination of exactly 90 degrees has a perpendicular orbit that is neither prograde nor retrograde. An object with an inclination between 90 degrees and 180 degrees is in a retrograde orbit.

Axial tilt

A celestial object's axial tilt indicates whether the object's rotation is prograde or retrograde. Axial tilt is the angle between an object's rotation axis and a line perpendicular to its orbital plane passing through the object's centre. An object with an axial tilt up to 90 degrees is rotating in the same direction as its primary. An object with an axial tilt of exactly 90 degrees, has a perpendicular rotation that is neither prograde nor retrograde. An object with an axial tilt between 90 degrees and 180 degrees is rotating in the opposite direction to its orbital direction. Regardless of inclination or axial tilt, the north pole of any planet or moon in the Solar System is defined as the pole that is in the same celestial hemisphere as Earth's north pole.

Solar System bodies

Planets

All eight planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun in the direction of the Sun's rotation, which is counterclockwise when viewed from above the Sun's north pole. Six of the planets also rotate about their axis in this same direction. The exceptions – the planets with retrograde rotation – are Venus and Uranus. Venus's axial tilt is 177°, which means it is rotating almost exactly in the opposite direction to its orbit. Uranus has an axial tilt of 97.77°, so its axis of rotation is approximately parallel with the plane of the Solar System. The reason for Uranus's unusual axial tilt is not known with certainty, but the usual speculation is that during the formation of the Solar System, an Earth-sized protoplanet collided with Uranus, causing the skewed orientation.

It is unlikely that Venus was formed with its present slow retrograde rotation, which takes 243 days. Venus probably began with a fast prograde rotation with a period of several hours much like most of the planets in the Solar System. Venus is close enough to the Sun to experience significant gravitational tidal dissipation, and also has a thick enough atmosphere to create thermally driven atmospheric tides that create a retrograde torque. Venus's present slow retrograde rotation is in equilibrium balance between gravitational tides trying to tidally lock Venus to the Sun and atmospheric tides trying to spin Venus in a retrograde direction. In addition to maintaining this present day equilibrium, tides are also sufficient to account for evolution of Venus's rotation from a primordial fast prograde direction to its present-day slow retrograde rotation. In the past, various alternative hypotheses have been proposed to explain Venus's retrograde rotation, such as collisions or it having originally formed that way.

Despite being closer to the Sun than Venus, Mercury is not tidally locked because it has entered a 3:2 spin–orbit resonance due to the eccentricity of its orbit. Mercury's prograde rotation is slow enough that due to its eccentricity, its angular orbital velocity exceeds its angular rotational velocity near perihelion, causing the motion of the sun in Mercury's sky to temporarily reverse. The rotations of Earth and Mars are also affected by tidal forces with the Sun, but they have not reached an equilibrium state like Mercury and Venus because they are further out from the Sun where tidal forces are weaker. The gas giants of the Solar System are too massive and too far from the Sun for tidal forces to slow down their rotations.

Dwarf planets

All known dwarf planets and dwarf planet candidates have prograde orbits around the Sun, but some have retrograde rotation. Pluto has retrograde rotation; its axial tilt is approximately 120 degrees. Pluto and its moon Charon are tidally locked to each other. It is suspected that the Plutonian satellite system was created by a massive collision.

Natural satellites and rings

The orange moon is in a retrograde orbit.

If formed in the gravity field of a planet as the planet is forming, a moon will orbit the planet in the same direction as the planet is rotating and is a regular moon. If an object is formed elsewhere and later captured into orbit by a planet's gravity, it can be captured into either a retrograde or prograde orbit depending on whether it first approaches the side of the planet that is rotating towards or away from it. This is an irregular moon.

In the Solar System, many of the asteroid-sized moons have retrograde orbits, whereas all the large moons except Triton (the largest of Neptune's moons) have prograde orbits. The particles in Saturn's Phoebe ring are thought to have a retrograde orbit because they originate from the irregular moon Phoebe.

All retrograde satellites experience tidal deceleration to some degree. The only satellite in the Solar System for which this effect is non-negligible is Neptune's moon Triton. All the other retrograde satellites are on distant orbits and tidal forces between them and the planet are negligible.

Within the Hill sphere, the region of stability for retrograde orbits at a large distance from the primary is larger than that for prograde orbits. This has been suggested as an explanation for the preponderance of retrograde moons around Jupiter. Because Saturn has a more even mix of retrograde/prograde moons, however, the underlying causes appear to be more complex.

With the exception of Hyperion, all the known regular planetary natural satellites in the Solar System are tidally locked to their host planet, so they have zero rotation relative to their host planet, but have the same type of rotation as their host planet relative to the Sun because they have prograde orbits around their host planet. That is, they all have prograde rotation relative to the Sun except those of Uranus.

If there is a collision, material could be ejected in any direction and coalesce into either prograde or retrograde moons, which may be the case for the moons of dwarf planet Haumea, although Haumea's rotation direction is not known.

Asteroids

Asteroids usually have a prograde orbit around the Sun. Only a few dozen asteroids in retrograde orbits are known.

Some asteroids with retrograde orbits may be burnt-out comets, but some may acquire their retrograde orbit due to gravitational interactions with Jupiter.

Due to their small size and their large distance from Earth it is difficult to telescopically analyse the rotation of most asteroids. As of 2012, data is available for less than 200 asteroids and the different methods of determining the orientation of poles often result in large discrepancies. The asteroid spin vector catalog at Poznan Observatory avoids use of the phrases "retrograde rotation" or "prograde rotation" as it depends which reference plane is meant and asteroid coordinates are usually given with respect to the ecliptic plane rather than the asteroid's orbital plane.

Asteroids with satellites, also known as binary asteroids, make up about 15% of all asteroids less than 10 km in diameter in the main belt and near-Earth population and most are thought to be formed by the YORP effect causing an asteroid to spin so fast that it breaks up. As of 2012, and where the rotation is known, all satellites of asteroids orbit the asteroid in the same direction as the asteroid is rotating.

Most known objects that are in orbital resonance are orbiting in the same direction as the objects they are in resonance with, however a few retrograde asteroids have been found in resonance with Jupiter and Saturn.

Comets

Comets from the Oort cloud are much more likely than asteroids to be retrograde. Halley's Comet has a retrograde orbit around the Sun.

Kuiper belt objects

Most Kuiper belt objects have prograde orbits around the Sun. The first Kuiper belt object discovered to have a retrograde orbit was 2008 KV42. Other Kuiper belt objects with retrograde orbits are (471325) 2011 KT₁₉, (342842) 2008 YB3, (468861) 2013 LU28 and 2011 MM₄. All of these orbits are highly tilted, with inclinations in the 100°–125° range.

Meteoroids

Meteoroids in a retrograde orbit around the Sun hit the Earth with a faster relative speed than prograde meteoroids and tend to burn up in the atmosphere and are more likely to hit the side of the Earth facing away from the Sun (i.e. at night) whereas the prograde meteoroids have slower closing speeds and more often land as meteorites and tend to hit the Sun-facing side of the Earth. Most meteoroids are prograde.

Sun

The Sun's motion about the centre of mass of the Solar System is complicated by perturbations from the planets. Every few hundred years this motion switches between prograde and retrograde.

Planetary atmospheres

Retrograde motion, or retrogression, within the Earth's atmosphere is seen in weather systems whose motion is opposite the general regional direction of airflow, i.e. from east to west against the westerlies or from west to east through the trade wind easterlies. Prograde motion with respect to planetary rotation is seen in the atmospheric super-rotation of the thermosphere of Earth and in the upper troposphere of Venus. Simulations indicate that the atmosphere of Pluto should be dominated by winds retrograde to its rotation.

Artificial satellites

Further information: Artificial satellites in retrograde orbit

Artificial satellites destined for low inclination orbits are usually launched in the prograde direction, since this minimizes the amount of propellant required to reach orbit by taking advantage of the Earth's rotation (an equatorial launch site is optimal for this effect). However, Israeli Ofeq satellites are launched in a westward, retrograde direction over the Mediterranean to ensure that launch debris does not fall onto populated land areas.

Exoplanets

Stars and planetary systems tend to be born in star clusters rather than forming in isolation. Protoplanetary disks can collide with or steal material from molecular clouds within the cluster and this can lead to disks and their resulting planets having inclined or retrograde orbits around their stars. Retrograde motion may also result from gravitational interactions with other celestial bodies in the same system (See Kozai mechanism) or a near-collision with another planet, or it may be that the star itself flipped over early in their system's formation due to interactions between the star's magnetic field and the planet-forming disk.

The accretion disk of the protostar IRAS 16293-2422 has parts rotating in opposite directions. This is the first known example of a counterrotating accretion disk. If this system forms planets, the inner planets will likely orbit in the opposite direction to the outer planets.

WASP-17b was the first exoplanet that was discovered to be orbiting its star opposite to the direction the star is rotating. A second such planet was announced just a day later: HAT-P-7b.

In one study more than half of all the known hot Jupiters had orbits that were misaligned with the rotation axis of their parent stars, with six having backwards orbits.

The last few giant impacts during planetary formation tend to be the main determiner of a terrestrial planet's rotation rate. During the giant impact stage, the thickness of a protoplanetary disk is far larger than the size of planetary embryos so collisions are equally likely to come from any direction in three dimensions. This results in the axial tilt of accreted planets ranging from 0 to 180 degrees with any direction as likely as any other with both prograde and retrograde spins equally probable. Therefore, prograde spin with small axial tilt, common for the solar system's terrestrial planets except for Venus, is not common for terrestrial planets in general.

Stars' galactic orbits

The pattern of stars appears fixed in the sky, insofar as human vision is concerned; this is because their massive distances relative to the Earth result in motion imperceptible to the naked eye. In reality, stars orbit the center of their galaxy.

Stars with an orbit retrograde relative to a disk galaxy's general rotation are more likely to be found in the galactic halo than in the galactic disk. The Milky Way's outer halo has many globular clusters with a retrograde orbit and with a retrograde or zero rotation. The structure of the halo is the topic of an ongoing debate. Several studies have claimed to find a halo consisting of two distinct components. These studies find a "dual" halo, with an inner, more metal-rich, prograde component (i.e. stars orbit the galaxy on average with the disk rotation), and a metal-poor, outer, retrograde (rotating against the disc) component. However, these findings have been challenged by other studies, arguing against such a duality. These studies demonstrate that the observational data can be explained without a duality, when employing an improved statistical analysis and accounting for measurement uncertainties.

The nearby Kapteyn's Star is thought to have ended up with its high-velocity retrograde orbit around the galaxy as a result of being ripped from a dwarf galaxy that merged with the Milky Way.

Galaxies

Satellite galaxies

Close-flybys and mergers of galaxies within galaxy clusters can pull material out of galaxies and create small satellite galaxies in either prograde or retrograde orbits around larger galaxies.

A galaxy called Complex H, which was orbiting the Milky Way in a retrograde direction relative to the Milky Way's rotation, is colliding with the Milky Way.

Counter-rotating bulges

NGC 7331 is an example of a galaxy that has a bulge that is rotating in the opposite direction to the rest of the disk, probably as a result of infalling material.

Central black holes

The center of a spiral galaxy contains at least one supermassive black hole. A retrograde black hole – one whose spin is opposite to that of its disk – spews jets much more powerful than those of a prograde black hole, which may have no jet at all. Scientists have produced a theoretical framework for the formation and evolution of retrograde black holes based on the gap between the inner edge of an accretion disk and the black hole.

Anattā

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatt%C4%81 

In Buddhism, the term anattā (Pali: अनत्ता) or anātman (Sanskrit: अनात्मन्) refers to the doctrine of "non-self" – that no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon. While often interpreted as a doctrine denying the existence of a self, anatman is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent, while staying silent on the ultimate existence of an unchanging essence. In contrast, Hinduism asserts the existence of Atman as pure consciousness or witness-consciousness, "reify[ing] consciousness as an eternal self."

Etymology and nomenclature

Anattā is a composite Pali word consisting of an (not, without) and attā (self-existent essence). The term refers to the central Buddhist concept that there is no phenomenon that has "self" or essence. It is one of the three characteristics of all existence, together with dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction) and anicca (impermanence).

Anattā is synonymous with Anātman (an + ātman) in Sanskrit Buddhist texts. In some Pali texts, ātman of Vedic texts is also referred to with the term Attan, with the sense of soul. An alternate use of Attan or Atta is "self, oneself, essence of a person", driven by the Vedic era Brahmanical belief that atman is the permanent, unchangeable essence of a living being, or the true self.

In Buddhism-related English literature, Anattā is rendered as "not-Self", but this translation expresses an incomplete meaning, states Peter Harvey; a more complete rendering is "non-Self" because from its earliest days, Anattā doctrine denies that there is anything called a 'Self' in any person or anything else, and that a belief in 'Self' is a source of Dukkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness). Buddhist scholar Richard Gombrich, however, argues that anattā is often mistranslated as meaning "not having a self or essence", but actually means "is not ātman" instead of "does not have ātman." It is also incorrect to translate Anattā simply as "ego-less", according to Peter Harvey, because the Indian concept of ātman and attā is different from the Freudian concept of ego.

Anattā in early Buddhism

In early Buddhist texts

The concept of Anattā appears in numerous Sutras of the ancient Buddhist Nikāya texts (Pali canon). It appears, for example, as a noun in Samyutta Nikaya III.141, IV.49, V.345, in Sutta II.37 of Anguttara Nikaya, II.37–45 and II.80 of Patisambhidamagga, III.406 of Dhammapada. It also appears as an adjective, for example, in Samyutta Nikaya III.114, III.133, IV.28 and IV.130–166, in Sutta III.66 and V.86 of Vinaya. It is also found in the Dhammapada.

The ancient Buddhist texts discuss Attā or Attan (self), sometimes with alternate terms such as Atuman, Tuma, Puggala, Jiva, Satta, Pana and Nama-rupa, thereby providing the context for the Buddhist Anattā doctrine. Examples of such Attā contextual discussions are found in Digha Nikaya I.186-187, Samyutta Nikaya III.179 and IV.54, Vinaya I.14, Majjhima Nikaya I.138, III.19, and III.265–271 and Anguttara Nikaya I.284. According to Steven Collins, the inquiry of anattā and "denial of self" in the canonical Buddhist texts is "insisted on only in certain theoretical contexts", while they use the terms atta, purisa, puggala quite naturally and freely in various contexts. The elaboration of the anattā doctrine, along with identification of the words such as "puggala" as "permanent subject or soul" appears in later Buddhist literature.

According to Collins, the Suttas present the doctrine in three forms. First, they apply the "no-self, no-identity" investigation to all phenomena as well as any and all objects, yielding the idea that "all things are not-self" (sabbe dhamma anattā). Second, states Collins, the Suttas apply the doctrine to deny self of any person, treating conceit to be evident in any assertion of "this is mine, this I am, this is myself" (etam mamam eso 'ham asmi, eso me atta ti). Third, the Theravada texts apply the doctrine as a nominal reference, to identify examples of "self" and "not-self", respectively the Wrong view and the Right view; this third case of nominative usage is properly translated as "self" (as an identity) and is unrelated to "soul", states Collins. The first two usages incorporate the idea of soul.

No denial of self

Buddhist scholars Richard Gombrich and Alexander Wynne argue that the Buddha's descriptions of non-self in early Buddhist texts do not deny that there is a self. Wynne and Gombrich both argue that the Buddha's statements on anattā were originally a "not-self" teaching that developed into a "no-self" teaching in later Buddhist thought. According to Wynne, early Buddhist texts such as the Anattālakkhana Sutta do not deny that there is a self, stating that the five aggregates that are described as not self are not descriptions of a human being but descriptions of the human experience. According to Johannes Bronkhorst, it is possible that "original Buddhism did not deny the existence of the soul", even though a firm Buddhist tradition has maintained that the Buddha avoided talking about the soul or even denied its existence.

Tibetologist André Migot states that original Buddhism may not have taught a complete absence of self, pointing to evidence presented by Buddhist and Pali scholars Jean Przyluski and Caroline Rhys Davids that early Buddhism generally believed in a self, making Buddhist schools that admit an existence of a "self" not heretical, but conservative, adhering to ancient beliefs. While there may be ambivalence on the existence or non-existence of self in early Buddhist literature, Bronkhorst suggests that these texts clearly indicate that the Buddhist path of liberation consists not in seeking Atman-like self-knowledge, but in turning away from what might erroneously be regarded as the self. This is a reverse position to the Vedic traditions which recognized the knowledge of the self as "the principal means to achieving liberation."

According to Harvey, the contextual use of Attā in Nikāyas is two sided. In one, it directly denies that anything can be found called a self or soul in a human being that is a permanent essence of a human being, a theme found in Brahmanical (Ancient Hindu) traditions. In another, states Peter Harvey, such as at Samyutta Nikaya IV.286, the Sutta considers the materialistic concept in pre-Buddhist Vedic times of "no afterlife, complete annihilation" at death to be a denial of Self, but still "tied up with belief in a Self". "Self exists" is a false premise, assert the early Buddhist texts. However, adds Peter Harvey, these texts do not admit the premise "Self does not exist" either because the wording presumes the concept of "Self" prior to denying it; instead, the early Buddhist texts use the concept of Anattā as the implicit premise.

Developing the self

Main articles: Buddhist Paths to liberation and Personal identity § Theories

According to Peter Harvey, while the Suttas criticize notions of an eternal, unchanging Self as baseless, they see an enlightened being as one whose empirical self is highly developed. This is paradoxical, states Harvey, in that "the Self-like nibbana state" is a mature self that knows "everything as Selfless". The "empirical self" is the citta (mind/heart, mindset, emotional nature), and the development of self in the Suttas is the development of this citta.

One with "great self", state the early Buddhist Suttas, has a mind which is neither at the mercy of outside stimuli nor its own moods, neither scattered nor diffused, but imbued with self-control, and self-contained towards the single goal of nibbana and a 'Self-like' state. This "great self" is not yet an Arahat, because he still does small evil action which leads to karmic fruition, but he has enough virtue that he does not experience this fruition in hell.

An Arahat, states Harvey, has a fully enlightened state of empirical self, one that lacks the "sense of both 'I am' and 'this I am'", which are illusions that the Arahat has transcended. The Buddhist thought and salvation theory emphasizes a development of self towards a Selfless state not only with respect to oneself, but recognizing the lack of relational essence and Self in others, wherein states Martijn van Zomeren, "self is an illusion".

Karma, rebirth and anattā

The Four planes of liberation (according to the Sutta Piṭaka)
stage's "fruit"	abandoned fetters		rebirth(s) until suffering's end
stream-enterer	1. identity view (Anatman) 2. doubt in Buddha 3. ascetic or ritual rules	lower fetters	up to seven rebirths in human or heavenly realms
once-returner			once more as a human
non-returner	4. sensual desire 5. ill will		once more in a heavenly realm (Pure Abodes)
arahant	6. material-rebirth desire 7. immaterial-rebirth desire 8. conceit 9. restlessness 10. ignorance	higher fetters	no rebirth
Source: Ñāṇamoli & Bodhi (2001), Middle-Length Discourses, pp. 41-43.

The Buddha emphasized both karma and anattā doctrines. The Buddha criticized the doctrine that posited an unchanging essence as a subject as the basis of rebirth and karmic moral responsibility, which he called "atthikavāda". He also criticized the materialistic doctrine that denied the existence of both soul and rebirth, and thereby denied karmic moral responsibility, which he calls "natthikavāda". Instead, the Buddha asserted that there is no essence, but there is rebirth for which karmic moral responsibility is a must. In the Buddha's framework of karma, right view and right actions are necessary for liberation.

Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism all assert a belief in rebirth, and emphasize moral responsibility in a way different from pre-Buddhist materialistic schools of Indian philosophies. The materialistic schools of Indian philosophies, such as Charvaka, are called annihilationist schools because they posited that death is the end, there is no afterlife, no soul, no rebirth, no karma, and death is that state where a living being is completely annihilated, dissolved.

Buddha criticized the materialistic annihilationism view that denied rebirth and karma, states Damien Keown. Such beliefs are inappropriate and dangerous, stated Buddha, because they encourage moral irresponsibility and material hedonism. Anattā does not mean there is no afterlife, no rebirth or no fruition of karma, and Buddhism contrasts itself to annihilationist schools. Buddhism also contrasts itself to other Indian religions that champion moral responsibility but posit eternalism with their premise that within each human being there is an essence or eternal soul, and this soul is part of the nature of a living being, existence and metaphysical reality.

Anattā in Theravada Buddhism

Traditional views

Theravada Buddhism scholars, states Oliver Leaman, consider the Anattā doctrine as one of the main theses of Buddhism. The Buddhist denial of a self is what distinguishes Buddhism from major religions of the world such as Christianity and Hinduism, giving it uniqueness, asserts the Theravada tradition. With the doctrine of Anattā, stands or falls the entire Buddhist structure, asserts Nyanatiloka Mahathera.

According to Collins, "insight into the teaching of anattā is held to have two major loci in the intellectual and spiritual education of an individual" as s/he progresses along the Path. The first part of this insight is to avoid sakkayaditthi (Personality Belief), that is converting the "sense of I which is gained from introspection and the fact of physical individuality" into a theoretical belief in a self. "A belief in a (really) existing body" is considered a false belief and a part of the Ten Fetters that must be gradually lost. The second loci is the psychological realization of anattā, or loss of "pride or conceit". This, states Collins, is explained as the conceit of asmimana or "I am"; (...) what this "conceit" refers to is the fact that for the unenlightened man, all experience and action must necessarily appear phenomenologically as happening to or originating from an "I". When a Buddhist gets more enlightened, this happening to or originating in an "I" or sakkdyaditthi is less. The final attainment of enlightenment is the disappearance of this automatic but illusory "I".

The Theravada tradition has long considered the understanding and application of the Anattā doctrine to be a complex teaching, whose "personal, introjected application has always been thought to be possible only for the specialist, the practising monk". The tradition, states Collins, has "insisted fiercely on anattā as a doctrinal position", while in practice it may not play much of a role in the daily religious life of most Buddhists. The Theravada doctrine of Anattā, or not-self not-soul, inspire meditative practices for monks, states Donald Swearer, but for the lay Theravada Buddhists in Southeast Asia, the doctrines of kamma, rebirth and punna (merit) inspire a wide range of ritual practices and ethical behavior.

The Anattā doctrine is key to the concept of Nibbana in the Theravada tradition. The liberated nirvana state, states Collins, is the state of Anattā, a state that is neither universally applicable nor can be explained, but can be realized.

Current disputes

See also: Buddhism in Thailand

The dispute about "self" and "not-self" doctrines has continued throughout the history of Buddhism. In Thai Buddhism, for example, states Paul Williams, some modern era Buddhist scholars have claimed that "Nirvana is indeed the true self", while other Thai Buddhists disagree. For instance, the Dhammakaya tradition in Thailand teaches that it is erroneous to subsume nirvana under the rubric of anattā (non-self); instead, nirvana is taught to be the "true self" or dhammakaya. The Dhammakaya tradition teaching that nirvana is atta, or true self, was criticized as heretical in Buddhism in 1994 by Ven. Payutto, a well-known scholar monk, who stated that 'Buddha taught Nibbana as being non-self". The abbot of one major temple in the Dhammakaya tradition, Luang Por Sermchai of Wat Luang Por Sodh Dhammakayaram, argues that it tends to be scholars who hold the view of absolute non-self, rather than Buddhist meditation practitioners. He points to the experiences of prominent forest hermit monks such as Luang Pu Sodh and Ajahn Mun to support the notion of a "true self". Similar interpretations on the "true self" were put forth earlier by the 12th Supreme Patriarch of Thailand in 1939. According to Williams, the Supreme Patriarch's interpretation echoes the tathāgatagarbha sutras.

Several notable teachers of the Thai Forest Tradition have also described ideas in contrast to absolute non-self. Ajahn Maha Bua, a well known meditation master, described the citta (mind) as being an indestructible reality that does not fall under anattā. He has stated that not-self is merely a perception that is used to pry one away from infatuation with the concept of a self, and that once this infatuation is gone the idea of not-self must be dropped as well. American monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu of the Thai Forest Tradition describes the Buddha's statements on non-self as a path to awakening rather than a universal truth. Bhikkhu Bodhi authored a rejoinder to Thanissaro, agreeing that anattā is a strategy for awakening but stating that "The reason the teaching of anattā can serve as a strategy of liberation is precisely because it serves to rectify a misconception about the nature of being, hence an ontological error." Thanissaro Bhikkhu states that the Buddha intentionally set aside the question of whether or not there is a self as a useless question, and goes on to call the phrase "there is no self" the "granddaddy of fake Buddhist quotes". He adds that clinging to the idea that there is no self at all would actually prevent enlightenment. Thanissaro Bhikkhu points to the Ananda Sutta (SN 44.10), where the Buddha stays silent when asked whether there is a 'self' or not, as a major cause of the dispute.

Anātman in Mahayana Buddhism

Main article: Madhyamaka

See also: śūnyatā

Anātman is one of the main bedrock doctrines of Buddhism, and its discussion is found in the later texts of all Buddhist traditions.

There are many different views of anātman (Chinese: 無我; pinyin: wúwǒ; Japanese: 無我 muga; Korean: 무아 mu-a) within various Mahayana schools.

The early Mahayana Buddhism texts link their discussion of "emptiness" (śūnyatā) to anātman and nirvana. They do so, states Mun-Keat Choong, in three ways: first, in the common sense of a monk's meditative state of emptiness; second, with the main sense of anātman or 'everything in the world is empty of self'; third, with the ultimate sense of Nirvana or realization of emptiness and thus an end to rebirth cycles of suffering. The anātman doctrine is another aspect of śūnyatā, its realization is the nature of the nirvana state and to an end to rebirths.

Nāgārjuna

Nāgārjuna, the founder of Madhyamaka (middle way) school of Mahayana Buddhism, analyzed dharma first as factors of experience. He, states David Kalupahana, analyzed how these experiences relate to "bondage and freedom, action and consequence", and thereafter analyzed the notion of personal self (ātman).

The Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (~200 CE), extensively wrote about rejecting the metaphysical entity called ātman (self, soul), asserting in chapter 18 of his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā that there is no such substantial entity and that "Buddha taught the doctrine of no-self".

Nāgārjuna asserted that the notion of a self is associated with the notion of one's own identity and corollary ideas of pride, selfishness and a sense of psychophysical personality. This is all false, and leads to bondage in his Madhyamaka thought. There can be no pride nor possessiveness, in someone who accepts anātman and denies "self" which is the sense of personal identity of oneself, others or anything, states Nāgārjuna. Further, all obsessions are avoided when a person accepts emptiness (śūnyatā). Nāgārjuna denied there is anything called a self-nature as well as other-nature, emphasizing true knowledge to be comprehending emptiness. Anyone who has not dissociated from their belief in personality in themselves or others, through the concept of self, is in a state of avidya (ignorance) and caught in the cycle of rebirths and redeaths.

Yogācāra

The texts attributed to the 5th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu of the Yogācāra school similarly discuss anātman as a fundamental premise of the Buddha. The Vasubandhu interpretations of no-self thesis were challenged by the 7th-century Buddhist scholar Candrakīrti, who then offered his own theories on its importance.

Tathāgatagarbha Sutras: Buddha is True Self

Some 1st-millennium CE Buddhist texts suggest concepts that have been controversial because they imply a "self-like" concept. In particular are the tathāgatagarbha sūtras, where the title itself means a garbha (womb, matrix, seed) containing Tathāgata (Buddha). These Sutras suggest, states Paul Williams, that "all sentient beings contain a Tathagata" as their "essence, core or essential inner nature". The tathāgatagarbha doctrine, at its earliest probably appeared about the later part of the 3rd century CE, and is verifiable in Chinese translations of 1st millennium CE. Most scholars consider the tathāgatagarbha doctrine of an "essential nature" in every living being is equivalent to "self", and it contradicts the anātman doctrines in a vast majority of Buddhist texts, leading scholars to posit that the tathāgatagarbha sutras were written to promote Buddhism to non-Buddhists.

The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra explicitly asserts that the Buddha used the term "self" in order to win over non-Buddhist ascetics. The Ratnagotravibhāga (also known as Uttaratantra), another text composed in the first half of 1st millennium CE and translated into Chinese in 511 CE, points out that the teaching of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine is intended to win sentient beings over to abandoning "self-love" (atma-sneha) – considered to be one of the defects by Buddhism. The 6th-century Chinese tathāgatagarbha translation states that "Buddha has shiwo (true self) which is beyond being and nonbeing". However, the Ratnagotravibhāga asserts that the "self" implied in tathāgatagarbha doctrine is actually "not-self".

According to some scholars, the Buddha-nature discussed in these sutras does not represent a substantial self; rather, it is a positive language and expression of śūnyatā "emptiness" and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. Other scholars do in fact detect leanings towards monism in these tathagatagarbha references. Michael Zimmermann sees the notion of an unperishing and eternal self in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra. Zimmermann also avers that "the existence of an eternal, imperishable self, that is, buddhahood, is definitely the basic point of the Tathāgatagarbha Sutra". He further indicates that there is no evident interest found in this sutra in the idea of Emptiness (sunyata). Williams states that the "self" in tathāgatagarbha sutras is actually "non-self", and neither identical nor comparable to the Hindu concepts of brahman and self.

Vajrayāna

Tibetan and Nepalese Buddhist deities Nairatmya and Hevajra in an embrace. Nairatmya is the goddess of emptiness, and of anātman realization.

The anātman doctrine is extensively discussed in and partly inspires the ritual practices of the Vajrayāna tradition. The Tibetan terms such as bdag med refer to "without a self, insubstantial, anātman". These discussions, states Jeffrey Hopkins, assert the "non-existence of a permanent, unitary and independent self", and attribute these ideas to the Buddha.

The ritual practices in Vajrayāna Buddhism employs the concept of deities, to end self-grasping, and to manifest as a purified, enlightened deity as part of the Vajrayāna path to liberation from rebirths. One such deity is goddess Nairatmya (literally, non-soul, non-self). She symbolizes, states Miranda Shaw, that "self is an illusion" and "all beings and phenomenal appearances lack an abiding self or essence" in Vajrayāna Buddhism.

Difference between Buddhism and Hinduism

Atman in Hinduism

The Buddhist concept of anattā or anātman is one of the fundamental differences between mainstream Buddhism and mainstream Hinduism, with the latter asserting that ātman (self, soul) exists.

In Hinduism, Atman refers to the essence of human beings, the observing pure consciousness or witness-consciousness. It is unaffected by ego, distinct from the individual being (jivanatman) embedded in material reality, and characterized by Ahamkara ('I-making'), mind (citta, manas), and all the defiling kleshas (impurities). Embodied personality changes over time, while Atman doesn't.

According to Jayatilleke, the Upanishadic inquiry fails to find an empirical correlate of the assumed Atman, but nevertheless assumes its existence, and Advaitins "reify consciousness as an eternal self." In contrast, the Buddhist inquiry "is satisfied with the empirical investigation which shows that no such Atman exists because there is no evidence" states Jayatilleke. According to Harvey, in Buddhism the negation of temporal existents is applied even more rigorous than in the Upanishads:

While the Upanishads recognized many things as being not-Self, they felt that a real, true Self could be found. They held that when it was found, and known to be identical to Brahman, the basis of everything, this would bring liberation. In the Buddhist Suttas, though, literally everything is seen is non-Self, even Nirvana. When this is known, then liberation – Nirvana – is attained by total non-attachment. Thus both the Upanishads and the Buddhist Suttas see many things as not-Self, but the Suttas apply it, indeed non-Self, to everything.

Both Buddhism and Hinduism distinguish ego-related "I am, this is mine", from their respective abstract doctrines of "Anattā" and "Atman". This, states Peter Harvey, may have been an influence of Buddhism on Hinduism.

Anatman and Niratman

The term niratman appears in the Maitrayaniya Upanishad of Hinduism, such as in verses 6.20, 6.21 and 7.4. Niratman literally means "selfless". The niratman concept has been interpreted to be analogous to anatman of Buddhism. The ontological teachings, however, are different. In the Upanishad, states Thomas Wood, numerous positive and negative descriptions of various states – such as niratman and sarvasyatman (the self of all) – are used in Maitrayaniya Upanishad to explain the nondual concept of the "highest Self". According to Ramatirtha, states Paul Deussen, the niratman state discussion is referring to stopping the recognition of oneself as an individual soul, and reaching the awareness of universal soul or the metaphysical Brahman.

Correspondence in Pyrrhonism

Main article: Similarities between Pyrrhonism and Buddhism

The Greek philosopher Pyrrho traveled to India as part of Alexander the Great's entourage where he was influenced by the Indian gymnosophists, which inspired him to create the philosophy of Pyrrhonism. Philologist Christopher Beckwith has demonstrated that Pyrrho based his philosophy on his translation of the three marks of existence into Greek, and that adiaphora (not logically differentiable, not clearly definable, negating Aristotle's use of "diaphora") reflects Pyrrho's understanding of the Buddhist concept of anattā.