Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 January 27

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January 27

The oldest piece of music

I was wondering; what is the oledest piece of music, and by that I mean notes you can actually play, that are still preserved today? Are there left any notes from antiquity? Thanks--Aciram (talk) 00:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Some candidates are the Delphic Hymns, the Seikilos epitaph (oldest complete), or a "cuneiform tablet from Nippur dated to about 2000 BCE". See also History of classical music traditions and Ancient music (from where I quoted the Nippur tablet). ---Sluzzelin talk 00:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Please see the videographic evidence found here. schyler (talk) 14:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Seclusion of upperclasswomen in Imperial China

I have never really found out exactly what I want to know about the question above. I have come to understand, that women where oppressed by Confucian ideals in pre-republican China. But I was wondering about their restricitions in a social sence, when it came contact with the oposite sex. Where women allowed to socialize and meet with men outside of the family? I realise, of course, that women of the working classes had to work and was thus naturally less restricted, so my question is directed toward women of the upper classes. From novels taking place in the early modern age, I have the impression that Upper class Chinese women where not allowed to mix with men at all unless they where family members, and that social life were gender separated. At court, even the empresses talked to men from behind a screen. Was it so in reality? Where Chinese upper class women allowed to mix with men outside of family, or did they live in seclusion? Did the royal women and lady in waitings at court mix with men, or did they live a more secluded life as well? Did the empresses and lady in waiting participate in any officiall ceremonies which allowed them to show themselwes and mix with men? Thank you.--Aciram (talk) 00:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I do not have a ditrect answer to your questions, but the practice of Foot binding suggests that upper-class women did not walk around much, and were seen more as objects or ornaments than nowadays. 92.24.187.66 (talk) 11:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding is that in traditional society formally and ritualistically upper class women were not allowed to mix with men from outside the family. On social occasions, there would be separate rooms for the women and the men. There were regional variations, and on some special occasions (certain festivals) it was acceptable for women and men to participate in celebrations on the street.

However, in practice, it seems the boundaries were not so clear. Novels like Jin Ping Mei certainly suggest that a lot of hanky-panky went on beneath the veneer of strict separation. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 13:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

"Pre-Republican China" covers thousands and thousands of years. One should really be more specific. This painting indicates that mixing did occur at least in the period of this work (said to be a 12th century copy of a 10th century original). TresÁrboles (talk) 21:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You could read the Four Great Classical Novels and other literature for clues. The "fifth novel" Jin Ping Mei was considered pornographic but "it also deals with larger sociological issues—such as the role of women in ancient Chinese society", according to its article. 92.28.244.55 (talk) 20:28, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Noblewomen criminals in the old age

In the 18th-century and 19th-century, one has the impression that mostly people from the working classes where put in prison. This impression as strongest when it comes to women. I'm just wondering; how usual was it for women from the upper classes to be put in prison for crimes such as theft, murder and similar crimes? --85.226.41.143 (talk) 00:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

First of all, upper class and noble (aristocratic) are not synonymous. Secondly, what country are you referring to? Thirdly, there are punishments that don't involve prison: murder often led quickly to capital punishment. Fourthly, the rich have much less need to steal, in the petty sense (a loaf of bread, a pocket handkerchief). They are more likely to embezzle on a grand scale, and women have had less access to the careers that allowed that. Fifthly, I'm not sure what you mean by "similar crimes", as murder and theft are quite different. BrainyBabe (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

what a hot response. 91.183.62.45 (talk) 03:07, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, Countess Elizabeth Báthory was put under house arrest rather than undergo a trial that might reflect badly on the Hungarian nobility; her servants and alleged accomplices were not so well treated. Jeanne of Valois-Saint-Rémy, being of much less exalted descent, went to prison for the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. Clarityfiend (talk) 03:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There was Frances Carr, Countess of Somerset, who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for murder. She admitted her guilt but received a pardon from King James I of England, and was thus spared execution. In the 16th century, gentlewoman Alice Arden was burnt at the stake for having participated in the murder of her husband.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You may, also, be interested in Mary Blandy --Frumpo (talk) 12:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, the examples are interesting. Elizabeth Báthory is a good example that noblewomen was treated differently. I know of noblewomen/non-noblewomen being imprisoned and executed for political crimes, so I was reffering to theft, murder and other non-political crimes. It seems very rare that upperclass-women, noble or not, was but in prison and punished by a non-roal court for non-political crimes. How usual was it in the Victorian age for a "lady" to be put in prison?--85.226.41.143 (talk) 17:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It would be unwise to draw general conclusions about legal practices across Europe over a period of two or more centuries from a few cherry-picked cases. A much more defined and comprehensive dataset would be required. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 18:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

In England, until well into the 19th Century, prison was only for debtors and those awaiting trial or transportation or execution. There were 222 offences that carried the death penalty in 1815; including "malice in a child aged 7–14 years" and "blacking the face or using a disguise whilst committing a crime". See Capital punishment in the United Kingdom, Bloody Code, Penal transportation and Prison "For most of history, imprisoning has not been a punishment in itself, but rather a way to confine criminals until corporal or capital punishment was administered." Alansplodge (talk) 22:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Current account + Capital and Financial account = 0

Why do the current account and the capital and financial account sum to zero when the currency is floated? 220.253.245.51 (talk) 00:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The relationship is automatic. A current account deficit results in an outflow of the country's currency. The resulting surplus must return to the deficit country in the form of credit or it will no longer be able to finance its imports and the current account will automatically move toward balance. The obverse holds for a surplus country: It must lend its surplus or its export markets will no longer be able to finance their imports, and the surplus will disappear. Marco polo (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Want to mess with protectionists' heads? Ask them about the massive US capital account surplus and what they propose to do about it.DOR (HK) (talk) 08:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the wonderful world of Double-entry bookkeeping. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 17:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Patron gods and patron saints

Did the idea of patron saints evolve from the idea of patron gods when Christianity replaced polytheism? Some gods were patrons of a particular city, e.g. Athens or Aphrodisias. Maybe the most important ones were gods of some particular virtue or phenomenon (beauty, war, wisdom, the ocean, etc.). Michael Hardy (talk) 02:32, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Probably in some particular cases (for example, I seem to remember that a church to St. Cosmas and Damian was directly built on top of and/or converted from a shrine to the Dioscuroi in Thessaloniki. However, I doubt whether it could be carried too far as a set of abstract correspondences... AnonMoos (talk) 03:35, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

A Protestant could argue that the Roman Catholic approach, of praying to Mother Mary or to Saints rather than directly to God, is an echo of polytheism and is really not all that different, practically speaking, from Hinduism. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 03:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The article veneration is of particular importance regarding how Catholics and some protestant sects view the acts of veneration and worship as distinct, while other protestant sects do not, and helps explain some of the differences between how the Catholics and the Protestants deal with the "cult of saints". --Jayron32 04:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

@AnonMoos: I didn't have in mind that particular patron gods were replaced by particular patron saints, but rather that the idea of patron saints evolved from the idea of patron gods. Is there any specific evidence of that beyond the circumstantial evidence in the chronology, conjoined with a certain similarity of ideas? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:28, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The Catholic Encyclopedia suggested that from the beginning of Christianity, churches were typically built at sites associated with saints and martyrs, and people started going to particular churches to pray to particular saints and relics, which led to the veneration of saints. The association of saints with locations came before other forms of patronage. Later, patron saints came to be associated with religious orders, professional guilds and other societies, which is how we get patrons like Saint Luke, the patron of medieval painters' guilds and hence of painting generally. For such societies, saints provided a focus for devotion and a badge or image (like having a motto or emblem).

Apart from the Catholic Encyclopedia's account, Christianity has always been wary of the dangers of venerating saints, but even though the Pope doesn't want people worshipping them, Catholic authorities find it useful encourage devotion to a variety of saints. For devotees this may fulfil a polytheistic impulse (most of the world's religions aside from the Abrahamic religions are polytheistic) but it has useful functions for the Catholic church: providing role models; encouraging devotion, pilgrimage, and donations; etc. So the influence of polytheism may play a part but it's not a case of direct transfer from pagan gods to saints. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:30, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It also reinforces the "hierarchy" construct of the Roman Catholic Church. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting to consider that there are Saints in Hinduism, too – if saints were just gods by another name, what use would a polytheistic religion have for them...? (Though I know the issue is more complex than that, and to the question did the notion of saints evolve from the notion of gods, I'd have to say "probably at least somewhat").

Judaism does not traditionally have much in the way of the veneration of saints, so the whole idea and practice of venerating them must have come from somewhere (cf. Origins of Christianity#Roots in paganism).

On the other hand, for example, Hagiography says: "In Western Europe hagiography was one of the more important vehicles for the study of inspirational history during the Middle Ages" – a motivating factor or purpose in the veneration of saints which was perhaps not usually as important in (though of course to varying degrees still a part of) the practice of worshiping gods. WikiDao ☯ 00:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Judaism does have some veneration of the patriarchs and matriarchs, complete with pilgrimage sites for their tombs. Not quite the same, but similar. Adam Bishop (talk) 05:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, fair enough – I thought I'd get called on that one – but, still: Origins of Christianity#Roots in paganism WikiDao ☯ 17:11, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to those who answered. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:04, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Little Ice Age and rise in infant mortality

I have edited many articles on medieval women, both royal and noble, and I have discovered that more children died in the later medieval period than in the previous centuries. The rise in infant mortality appears to coincide with the Little Ice Age that began c.1450. Is this just OR on my part or has there been any scientific research carried out on this subject? Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 13:26, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

• It's probably too hard to parse out exact causes when there are several to choose from. The so-called "little ice age" probably led to decreased farm productivity, and thus decreased nutrition for mothers, which would lead to an increase in infant mortality. But there were also waves of disease which ran through Europe during most of the middle ages. The peak of the Black Death was a full century before your date, but waves of plagues of various kinds were common throughout the middle ages, perhaps some such plague coincided with that time period as well. --Jayron32 13:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
• I think this is very hard to conclude from anecdotal evidence. Maybe sources just became better due to increased literacy? Or maybe children died so often in earlier periods that nobody bothered reporting it ("in the year of the Lord 1345, it rained" ;-). Unless you have a carefully designed study with some safeguards, I'd be very careful about stating the effect, let alone the connection. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:00, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking of the direct physical effects of the Little Ice Age, namely the colder weather and dampness which would have been deadly for newborns in chilly stone castle keeps. I have noticed that more royal children did die after 1450. Look at how many of Philippa of Hainault's children survived compared to Elizabeth of York's or Henry VIII's. This high infant mortality plagued the European royal dynasties for centuries.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 14:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia articles are not really a good place to collect data about this. They could be wrong, but even if they're not, we're still only looking at royalty, a very small part of the population. What about all the other millions of people who were also having children? (The lack of medical records for this period doesn't help...to get info about infant mortality you have to go digging through graveyards, and even that will only tell you about the people who were buried in that graveyard.) Also, when does the Little Ice Age really begin and end? The article has a range of almost 400 years for possible start dates (and it probably wasn't around 1450). There could be other reasons for a high death rate for royalty; maybe the royals were starting to inbreed more frequently. Maybe the mortality rate stayed the same (or decreased), but there was no increase in food supply or medical care, so it appears larger because there were far more people in general. There could be dozens of other reasons. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:29, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

A Google Books search for "infant mortality" "little ice age" turns up Infant and child mortality in the past By Alain Bideau, Bertrand Desjardins, Héctor Pérez Brignoli. One of the included pieces briefly suggests that a possible reason for decline in infant mortality was that cooler summers meant fewer of the infectious diseases that were prevalent in summer. All the books say that there is not enough good data. So if you were able to make a systematic count of recorded infant mortality in the upper classes over a period of time, you might end up with a useful database for scholars to draw on. There would be much still to argue about, not least, was there recording bias (as suggested above, but there seem to be ways to allow for it), was wetnursing a factor, how far is it possible to generalise from elite groups to the majority population. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:50, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(e/c)Brief and Precarious Lives: Infant Mortality in Contrasting Sites from Medieval and Post-Medieval England (AD 850–1859) notes a study which found that infant mortality fluctuated with the price of wheat during the previous year, ie. the mother's nutrition during pregnancy (and presumably breastfeeding also) had an effect as Jayron says. The paper also says that in the late-medieval period, infant mortality was higher in urban areas where older infants tended to die of various diseases, rather than infants dying at birth due to congenital problems, premature birth etc. I don't know much about the period, but could it be possible that the urban population was increasing, thus increasing the risk of disease? It also says that infant mortality records were not common before the mid-15th century.

There's also Some New Evidence of Crises and Trends of Mortality in Late Medieval England which is more about mortality in the general population. It seems to hem-and-haw a bit over the figures, but makes a point that recessions in the fifteenth century, beginning in the 1440s, may have caused women to marry later, and thus give birth older. They also led to a decrease in living standards and increased the population in cities as people looked for work. I haven't found any studies linking a rise in infant mortality with the Little Ice Age, but there are plenty on the mortality crises of the 14th and 15th centuries and several which point to poor nutrition, economic recession, waves of disease and an increase in urban population linked to mortality or infant mortality, all of which happened during that period. --Kateshortforbob _talk 15:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I recall having read in Nancy Mitford's bio on Louis XIV that the reason so many royal and noble offspring died in 17th century France was because the doctors literally killed them with their blood-letting etc. I also recall reading that in contrast, the infant mortality levels of the French colonists in New France [Quebec] was much lower in comparison.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 17:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

At a slight tangent, but, encouraged by the date above of 1859 (the latest I've ever seen for "post-medieval"), this is too good an opportunity not to jump in and mention a book I've been perusing: the 1823 Advice to young mothers on the physical education of children by Margaret King Moore, one of the Irish aristocratic family briefly but life-changingly educated by Mary Wollstonecraft. The "physical education" is not of the "how to bring your baby up to be a golf pro" sort, but rather, how to bathe a newborn, how to breastfeed and wean a baby, how to discipline a toddler, etc. From the habits she preaches against (e.g. do not allow the physician to bleed the baby), you can get a good idea of what was current in infant management, and this may give a ray of insight into changing fashions and thier impact on mortality and morbidity. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Relevant events may include the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and eruption of Kuwae. Also, have you tried Google Scholar? ~AH1^(TCU) 18:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The Stone Diaries

Houses in Vinegar Hill

Where is The Stone Diaries set? Our article doesn't specify, I can't find the answer online, and I don't have access to the book itself. I'm writing about the Vinegar Hill Historic District in Bloomington, Indiana; according to an account in an architectural survey of the neighborhood, "The area was memorialized in Carol Shields' novel, The Stone Diaries", but I'm not sure whether to understand this as saying that the area is the setting of the book or that it's simply mentioned. Nyttend (talk) 16:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

According to this account of the novel, Daisy (whose life is described in the book) was born in Tyndall, Manitoba, moved to Winnipeg when she was looked after by a neighbour and then on to Bloomington, Indiana, where she lived with her father, before eventually ending up in Florida. So it is the setting for part of the novel (not that I've ever read it). Mikenorton (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The place is significant in the book. I have a copy of it at home. Are you looking for something specific? Bielle (talk) 17:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Nothing specific: I thought that the architectural survey meant that the neighborhood was at least part of the book's setting, and I wanted to know whether I'd properly understood my source or not. The Novelguide source speaks directly to what I'm talking about — the historic district is composed of the stone mansions on First Street (see photo) that are mentioned by that webpage. Nyttend (talk) 18:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Resignation from the House of Commons (UK)

I know about the archaic tradition whereby members of the British lower house can resign.

However I have a question about its specifics. The BBC states:

"Under current rules, members wishing to step down must apply for an office of profit under the crown. "

Once they've applied, they are disqualified from the House of Commons; ergo the seat is vacant and a by-election can be called.

However, don't all the cabinet positions qualify as "offices of profit under the crown"? The salary of cabinet members is higher than those of ordinary members. I realise that newly-appointed ministers formerly had to seek re-election in a by-election, I think around 40-50 years ago, but if this practice was still changed, why the is it still different for the two offices used for resignations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SamUK (talk • contribs) 19:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Some more insight comes from the following quote from an article on the indian situation, which resembles the UK system: "In England, there is no general theory that a disqualification arises from holding an office of profit under the Crown. There disqualifications are specific and disqualification arises only when a person holds a disqualifying office so declared under a parliamentary legislation ." Together with the rest of the article, I come away with the understanding that there are some profitable crown offices that do not involve disqualification and some that do. This law dictionary has a long section on Parliament, from which "All the persons thus enumerated are utterly incapable of sitting in the House of Commons whilst they continue in their respective situations. But by 15 Geo. 2. c. 22. § 3. the treasurer or comptroller of the navy, the secretaries of the treasury, the secretary to the chancellor of the exchequer, secretaries of the admiralty, under-secretary to any of the secretaries of state, deputy-paymaster of the army, and persons having an office or employment for life, or during good behaviour, are expressly excepted from the prohibition, and are therefore eligible.". I guess the more modern offices of state fall under similar provisions. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

See:Appointment to the office of Crown Steward and Bailiff of the three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham --Aspro (talk) 20:06, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) ::This - and the fact sheets attached to it - seem to indicate that the rule applies to any paid office under the crown; but further implies that the traditional two are the only such offices. It may be, of course, that that source, though authoritative, has simplified the matter for public consumption. --ColinFine (talk) 20:08, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Just means: under the employment of the King/Queen, thus causing a potential a COI where loyalties may be divided. --Aspro (talk) 20:14, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

See Resignation from the British House of Commons. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 20:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

It is an interesting issue, because at first one could consider the Prime Minister and the Cabinet as parliamentary officers, and not officers of the Monarch directly, and that would get around the problem, excepting that there are MPs that also hold one of the Great Offices of State (as one example, Sir George Young, 6th Baronet is an MP and also Lord Privy Seal, and historically it would be pretty hard to argue that these offices derived from the Parliament before they derived from the Monarch. I think its one of those oddities, in the annals of history there were likely other offices which disqualified one from Parliament, but those likely were useful offices. The Chiltern Hundreds is specifically used because it comes with no benefits nor any job description associated with it. --Jayron32 21:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You all seem to be trying to identify some kind of logic in the British Constitution. This is quite fruitless. Just accept that the only way to resign from the House of Commons is to apply for a job that doesn't really exist and hasn't for some hundreds of years. That's how it works and long may it continue. Alansplodge (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Since the UK has no written constitution, and no parliament can restrain a future parliament from doing something, can't Parliament just repeal the 17th-century law that requires members to go through a legal fiction to resign? Or do they keep it for tradition's sake? -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:41, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Good Lord, man, this is revolutionary stuff you're talking about! I'm still not happy with women (gasp!) being permitted to vote and be elected to the Commons. Thin end of the wedge and all that, old chap. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 00:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

To take a serious stab at the question, let me flip it around for you: Why is there a need to change the current law? Seriously, from a pragmatic or a practical point of view, what is the need to change how it works. Presumably, if a member is to resign from the House of Commons, it would be required for them to submit some official letter of resignation, have the letter notarized and witnessed, the receipt of said letter would have to be recorded and so on and so forth. It's all the same actions, just a few words change, from "Being granted the Bailiwick of the Chiltern Hundreds" to "Resigned". The effort needed to make a cosmetic change to the name of a process which only gets used every few years at MOST, isn't worth the legislative time that could be spent passing actual laws which, you know, actually are important to running the country. --Jayron32 01:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

And would it make our country a slightly duller and sadder place. We like it as it is thank you. Alansplodge (talk) 01:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

For once I can buy that. I still think y'all need to get rid of the monarchy. But this little piece of trivia is beautiful as it is; why spoil it by making it make sense? --Trovatore (talk) 02:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It's always fun when people from one country tell another country what it needs to do, when their own country has serious issues of its own to be getting on with (as every country has). -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 03:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Contrary to rumor, I am not in control of the United States. --Trovatore (talk) 05:48, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess what Mwalcoff's getting at is, why is it necessary to resort to the indirect method of procuring an appointment that renders an MP ineligible to continue to be an MP, rather than a direct resignation. MPs who leave do so for whatever their reasons are, but I would hazard a guess that it's virtually never because they actually wish to become ineligible to remain; as far as they're concerned, it has absolutely nothing to do with their eligibility, and everything to do with their private reasons for leaving. It's really a question of the principle involved; the number of words required to be put on paper to achieve the outcome under either scenario is neither here nor there. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little curious now — the Resignation from the British House of Commons article says that the offices are "only nominally paid". How much is that? In the States the traditional nominal salary is one dollar a year. In the UK is it one pound a year? When multiple MPs resign on the same day, do they get a pro-rated amount for the time they were in office, or do they each get the whole pound? --Trovatore (talk) 08:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a very informative House of Commons factsheet here but it doesn't mention the actual payment. Nominal damages awarded by courts and Peppercorn rents were usually one shilling (£0.05). Alansplodge (talk) 09:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

One shilling! For being steward of three whole hundreds! I won't do it. I want at least a guinea, not a penny less. --Trovatore (talk) 10:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

History of randomly selected jurors?

I read that South Carolina (in 1638?) was the first modern example of a court jury chosen by random selection. Unfortunately I have lost the reference and need to check if this is true. The important part of the statement is 'randomly-selected'. There are earlier juries but they weren't randomly selected. Also, I wonder if that should read "South Carolina was the first in North America to...."? I MIGHT have read that in the recently published book (not easy to hand): "The Political Potential of Sortition: A study of the random selection of citizens for public office" by Oliver Dowlen / 300 pp., £30 / $58, 978-1845401375 (cloth), August 2008

(I have perused "Jury Trial" on Wikipedia, didn't find anything.)

MedianMale (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There were no European settlements in South Carolina in 1638. Rmhermen (talk) 23:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the Carolinas did not separe into "North" and "South" until the early 1700s.(?) Michael Hardy (talk) 23:10, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

There were no European settlements in the Carolinas between 1590 and about 1650 in the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina and 1670 at Charleston in South Carolina. Rmhermen (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

lapel ribbons with accompanying letter

I watched Pres. Barack Obama's State of the Union address the other night. What I noticed was members of Congress were wearing black-and-white lapel ribbons, to remember the victims of the 2011 Tucson shooting. I saw on The Hill website [1] a nice picture of one of the ribbons. In the text to the right of the picture was a letter asking members of Congress and the Senate to wear the ribbons in honor of Gabrielle Giffords. Where can I get a copy of the picture and the letter? Anyone know?24.193.90.61 (talk) 22:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Why can't I remember my pre-life?

If various religious denominations say that the prelife is the same as the afterlife, why can't I remember it? --70.179.181.251 (talk) 23:33, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Becuse the various religious denominations have many fantastic beliefs which are not true. The prelife is however the same as the afterlife, as neither exist except in imagination. Many or probably most people cannot differentiate very well between what is imagined and what is actually true. 92.24.186.58 (talk) 22:22, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

WikiDao ☯ 13:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Bravo, WikiDao. Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 17:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It's at best silly asking a question based on a fantasy premise. See Russell's teapot. 92.28.252.115 (talk) 00:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Childhood amnesia, aka infant amnesia. I imagine it would extend backwards. BrainyBabe (talk) 23:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Your premise that religions say it's the same is not correct, the religions that believe in reincarnation also say that the previous memories are wiped prior to birth. However, some of them do have a belief that with work those memories can be recovered, others hold that they can't be. I think the Abrahamic ones hold that it can't be, and the eastern religions that it can be (but I'm not totally sure). Ariel. (talk) 00:44, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You don't "remember" it because there was no "you" there to "member" it the first time. Sorry to be clever, but seriously, there is no afterlife at all, and our experience of not remembering our prelife is consistent with that. They are exactly the same. So in that sense those religions are absolutely correct the afterlife is exactly the same as the prelife. It's a little like asking why we don't remember the future.Greg Bard (talk) 00:56, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As he plants his feet on the soapbox and commences to rant. Edison (talk) 16:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You can argue whether or not an afterlife exists, but to assert absolutely that there is no afterlife is extremely arrogant. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 01:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Whether Greg is arrogant or not is not relevant to whether he is right. Whether billions believe in a god or not is not relevant to whether they are wrong. Personal attitudes, socially charismatic or not, do not affect one's chances of correctness in an assertion, and popularity of an idea does not affect whether it's correct. Reality is not open to vote.173.11.0.145 (talk) 20:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

No it is not arrogant at all. Arrogance is when a person presumes that they due some privilege that they are not. It seems to me that belief in a afterlife is supremely arrogant, quite frankly. Logic, reason, a world history's worth of evidence, one's own experience and common sense do not support the belief in the existence of the afterlife AT ALL. This is a reference desk for humanities, and I feel responsible to give honest, forthright responses whether they are comfortable or not.Greg Bard (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Thinking you're smarter than the billions of believers around the world is nothing but arrogance. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 05:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

OMG ("goodness," that is) Bugs, you have jumped off the deep end now. Say listen, I have made no claim to any special level of intelligence. You are making an ad hominem on me, and an argumentum,ad populum about the world's many believers. I can "assert absolutely" that there is no teapot orbiting Mars without any arrogance, and I can rightly make the same claim about the afterlife without any arrogance either.Greg Bard (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

But don't billions of them think the other billions have it wrong anyway? HiLo48 (talk) 06:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

As do atheists. Atheism is also a type of religion. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Interestingly Bugs, I am a little different than many other atheists, in that I agree that for some atheism is a religion, and those atheists have a right to all the privileges that religious organizations have (tax-free etc.). However, I must also caution you that atheism is not an attack on believers any more than bald is a hair color, and an empty glass is not an attack on beverages. That whole line of thought is not productive, and in fact, quite silly.Greg Bard (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheists just believe in one less god than most of those billions. HiLo48 (talk) 06:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The gods atheists believe in is humanity, despite all evidence to the contrary. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:37, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, close. Humanism is distinct from atheism, although many atheists are humanists and vice versa.Greg Bard (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, there's plenty of people who claim to remember past or "pre" lives. But as far as I know none have stood up to any kind of critical scrutiny. Vespine (talk) 01:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

...and the overwhelming likelihood is that they never will.Greg Bard (talk) 02:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

"overwhelming likelihood" - that's a statement that most could live with. What you said before, though, was an absolute - "there is no afterlife at all". Better to allow even the most remote of possibilities than to absolutely deny them. -- Jack of Oz [your turn] 02:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It is an overwhelming likelihood in the same sense that it is overwhelmingly likely that the world is round. None of them ever will stand up to scrutiny because they are all false, because there's no such thing as a pre-life. Asking why one doesn't remember it is just as absurd as asking why a computer doesn't remember what you typed into it before you turned it on 173.11.0.145 (talk) 20:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I wrote that during a particularly fair minded moment. The reality is that none of these type of claims will ever stand up to critical thinking. My apologies.Greg Bard (talk) 02:23, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, yes, from a rigorously rational or even scientific perspective, there's just no such thing as a "past life experience" for all intents and purposes. Nobody is going to remember where they left the keys 500 years ago to that safe with all those Spanish pieces-of-eight in it (dammit).

But, this is the Humanities desk. This sort of thing has other purposes and uses than those that pertain to a purely "rationalistic" modality. Now, I don't get too much out of this particular religiophilosophical notion myself (although metempsychosis, broadly interpreted and considered in terms of Evolutionary psychology, for example, can be sort of interesting if there's not much else going on, I suppose...). But, others do get something out of this sort of thing – and I say more power to them! Ideas like this are powerful enough to change lives in reality. That is: there is a reality in which what is important are qualities such as emotional fulfillment, spiritual development, personal satisfaction, and so forth. That reality is not always entirely rational (and in fact when it is insisted that "spiritual reality" must have the same sort of validity that "rational reality" has, that can cause all kinds of trouble (on the personal level, and to entire groups and societies, too)). Nevertheless, when understood and treated the right way, this reality has its own very powerful uses and purposes, and it would be just as ill-considered and occasionally as disastrous to dismiss it altogether for not being rational as it would be to insist that it must be as real in the same way as things in the domain of Science are "real".

It is the world of the Humanities, and it is important enough to have its own Reference desk. Here, we ought to take it for what it is and respect it for what it's worth. WikiDao ☯ 02:50, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

This being the Humanities desk, though, it ought to be acknowledged that the concept of Reincarnation has a rich history across many cultures/religions/philosophies. Our article covers a variety of ways that "past lives" can be understood; do you (OP) have a preference for any particular "religious denomination" or school of thought about why you are having difficulty remembering your life prior to this one? WikiDao ☯ 01:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Most Asian religions believe in reincarnation as did Christians until Constantine ruined the party. Actually, a good hypnotist should be able to help the OP recall his previous incarnations. A friend of mine went to one.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:10, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

"as did Christians until Constantine ruined the party." Source, please? Rmhermen (talk) 15:52, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll have to get out my old books on reincarnation. As soon as I find the passage which blames Constantine I'll add it here.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

The Scientology process of auditing claims to let you remember incidents from your past lives. It supposedly is rather expensive, with various nasty side effects, so I don't recommend it ;-). More info: Have You Lived Before This Life by L. Ron Hubbard. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 08:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Since it hasn't been mentioned directly yet, see also past life regression for more information. ---Sluzzelin talk 09:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

In religions that propose reincarnation (hinduism and buddhism, primarily) memories and individual personality are considered superficial accretions over the "true" self. The "true" self is reincarnated according to its particular karma, but wiped clean of all the superficial coverings. In more philosophical forms of these faiths, in fact, the '"true" self is equated with a universal self (brahman or buddha nature), and so every incarnation is the reincarnation of the universal self.

For a crass, inaccurate, but maybe serviceable analogy, think of it as reinstalling the system on your computer: a reinstall creates the same the operating system (reincarnates it, as it were), but all your personal files are gone as though they never existed. --Ludwigs2 14:59, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

True enough on some levels. Though the Buddha is supposed to have attained detailed memory of all his past lives (including as eg. insects, and as gods) before letting it all go: in Buddhism, it is more accurate to say that the true Self is no "self", and the aim of Buddhism is to realize that all sense of "self" is illusion and thereby to be eternally released from the karmic cycle of death-and-rebirth. (And the Bhagavad Gita in Hinduism veers toward that same notion at times, though, yes, there is more an emphasis perhaps on finding the "true self" in "oneness" with the "infinite spirit" as you were describing, Ludwigs).

Back to the question, though, perhaps the OP would be interested in our article on Reincarnation research...? WikiDao ☯ 16:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The problem of false memory syndrome from recovered memory therapy is significant; psychiatric practice in this regard seems to have differed little from Scientology and other such boondoggles. If people can be induced to remember things from this life that didn't happen, the same could happen for other lives. This is not to say that all memories of former incarnations are false, but only that the principal methods credited by Westerns sources for recovering them are known to be unreliable. Personally I would also think that even if a person correctly and truthfully recalls details from several former lives, it does not prove a unique and sequential relationship with those lives - after all, clairvoyance, remote sensing, out of body experiences, prophecy, and certain inaccurate notions of precognition all describe the ability of people to perceive things from an incorporeal or third-person perspective, and we can't rule out the paranormal when we're considering a paranormal hypothesis. We would need hundreds of well-verified reincarnated memories to even begin trying to rule out that people don't recall memories from two different past lives who were contemporaries of one another, and there's just not such a large body of evidence - just anecdotes, sometimes intriguing, but always controversial. I should say, from a theoretical point of view, that the universal atman suggests that all lives are past lives and future lives of one another in a universal consciousness, while the individual soul questions whether the acts of an individual human life are worth preserving from one revision of the universe to the next. Wnt (talk) 16:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Even supposing you could remember what went on in the womb prior to birth, then there is no guarantee of any memory of a previous life, even if one did exist. The reason is that the soul from your previous life would have to enter your developing embryo, and there is no mechanism to explain the transition. Although pseudoscientific, some people claim to recall both a previous life as well as their afterlife, and some institutes appear to have claimed that testing in the 1970's surrounding memories of an afterlife point to natural disasters in 1998 followed by more natural disasters in 2100 but a technologically-advanced world by 2300. ~AH1^(TCU) 18:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

You have to be careful with assertions like that. the problem is that history differs in the details but is strongly patterned in general behavior. For instance, the sinking of the USS Maine is a perfect parallel to the destruction of the twin towers: both were the destruction of a major US symbol; both were attributed to terrorists; both were the trigger point on major wars; both had conspiracy theories about having been done intentionally by the government. same can be said for Pearl Harbor, the bombing of the Reichstag, and I imagine numerous other events throughout history. History is remarkably predictable (in hindsight, anyway). So, if I have a memory under hypnosis of a big explosion that killed many people and tossed the world into war, which of these events am I remembering? or am I simply confabulating a story based on an unconscious recognition of the pattern and some kind of cueing that puts it into a perspective? --Ludwigs2 19:03, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Well it looks like Rmhermen redirected "Pre-life" to "Pre-existence" which is a whole other story. And a lot more what it sounds like the OP is actually asking about, too. I'm not sure how we got going on Past lives, but that's all very different it seems from Pre-life, which is (as the OP says) supposed to be a lot like the Afterlife. But, again, there are a variety of ways of believing in it; not sure which the OP prefers, but I don't see from the article any one answer as to why one might not "remember" one's "existence" before one had a human life (according, of course, to those various systems of belief). WikiDao ☯ 02:43, 29 January 2011 (UTC)