Someone Dropped A Paper Somewhere.

It is a field of knowledge proposed by me, defined as the study of nature in all its expressions, but from the point of view of alternative non-real possibilities. My background is in ecological economics, but I started to have broader interests that encompass other fields of knowledge. However, instead of an interest in traditional knowledge, I started to study fantastic facts and concepts (fantasy). It is not (only) a literary endeavor, but an attempt to create a new (!?) realm of knowledge aside mathematics, philosophy, and science. I will bring up some themes that can be raised as being of interest to fantastic natural history. By scope or complexity, from mathematics to politics, to aesthetics and art.

✨Ava✨

A lenticular print you can unlock when you back the kickstarter here! Less than 8 days left to back.

A @nasa postou essa foto hoje, da emissão de raios gama detectada pelo satélite SWIFT, que é um telescópio espacial para raios gama. Uma das coisas mais impressionantes sobre esse evento é que teve origem numa provável explosão estelar que ocorreu a cerca de 2 bilhões de anos luz de distância (também a cerca de 2 bilhões anos atrás). Apesar dessa distância e do tempo percorridos, que reduziram sua intensidade antes de chegar à Terra, o evento foi tão brilhante, tão energético, que saturou sensores de vários satélites e detectores e ionizou a atmosfera de nosso planeta. Imaginem o que teria ocorrido se um evento desses tivesse ocorrido mais próximo do sistema solar.

magic is everywhere

The mythical fox // Dennis Lehtonen

In Finnish the word for northern lights is ”revontulet” and it directly translates to ”fox fires.” According to the old mythology when it runs along the tundra, the fox’s flaming tail sweeps snowflakes into the sky and the fur scratches the trees, setting the skies on fire. That is how the northern lights are created. 

Originally a Twitter Thread, with the help of Thread Reader

Baldolino Calvino🏳️‍🌈🚩🇧🇷✨♻️🌱

Oct 1 • 15 tweets • 4 min read

Fantasy is not science, nor philosophy, and not real (of course). This may seem obvious, but what I am trying to do is creating an exact, non-contradictory definition of fantasy, not as an art genre, but as an object of study. Not by science, but by fantastic natural history.

Fantasy - Wikipedia

"Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore."

Fantasy, Magic (not meaning prestidigitation), Mythology, and Folklore can be understood as equivalent, overlaping concepts. Wikipedia's entry is mostly tautological, circular, thus.

However, this is an article about the artistic genre, and one could say that it refers to art expression (written, musical, cinematic, other) that uses these references. This is enough for this use case, but we do not advance in an objective conceptualization of fantasy.

Fantasy (psychology) - Wikipedia

"(...) fantasy is a broad range of mental experiences, mediated by the faculty of imagination in the human brain, and marked by an expression of certain desires through vivid mental imagery."

This entry about the concept of fantasy in psychology gives a more elaborared view of it. However, what differentiates fantasy from other instances of human creativjty? The article continues: "Fantasies are associated with scenarios that are absolutely impossible."

Wikipedia's entry on Fantasy (psychology) does not give any reference to this concept, and proceeds listing the importance of Fantasy for various theoretical approaches (Freud, Klein, Lacan), or pathologies (narcissistic personality disorder, schizophrenia). It is not unified.

More revealing is Wikipedia's "History of Fantasy" (about the literary genre).

" (...) the supernatural and the fantastic were an element of literature from its beginning. The modern genre is distinguished from tales and folklore (...)"

It makes a clear distintion between ancient myths and folklore, and so-called "modern fantasy", whose first explicit representant was Scottish author George MacDonald in the late XIX century, with his novels "The Princess and the Goblin" and "Phantastes".

Important precursors were Dickens, Thackeray, Andersen, Ruskin, Morris. And MacDonald's work enormously influenced Tolkien and Lewis. One key word in this historic description of Fantasy is "speculative". And a defining characteristic of modern fantasy is the "fantasy world".

Distinctive differences of modern fantasy are the postulate of a secondary fantasy world apart from reality; fictitious by design; and narratives from a (group of) author(s) with an interpretative aim. Myths or folklore does not have any of these characteristics.

The entry goes on in a detailed description of the development of Fantasy as a literary genre, since writings about tales and legends from Middle Ages. However, one fun example of how medieval mind understood the fantastic can be seen in the novel "Baudolino" by Umberto Eco.

Most of this Wikipedia's entry is based upon https://twitter.com/john_clute and John Grant's https://sf-encyclopedia.com/fe/, published in 1997, and fully available on the internet.

More to come, be patient.

There is no need to dance anymore, I’m told. 

There never was a need to dance in the first place, but it gave us joy, hope, happiness… It gave us a soul. 

And I laugh at the mere thought of stopping.

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炎麒-Enki-

I'd like to call the attention of you in the audience for this terrible disease. Help to raise awareness, share.

https://www.academia.edu/resource/work/84103601

academia.edu

A pictorial review of pediatric brain tumor response assesment, part one

Diffuse midline gliomas (DMGs) are a type of brain tumor located in the midline of the brain, characterized by complex molecular characteris

We are all stardust (Carl Sagan).

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

#spacepic #space #jwst #astronomy #astrophoto #stem #stardust #photography #astrophotography #pilarsofcreation #eaglenebula #serpens #starcreation #stars #newbornstars #science #sciencephotograpy #jameswebspacetelescope #infraredastronomy