Hume and Matters of Fact Essay

According to Hume, there are two types of beliefs, relations of ideas and matters of facts. Relations of ideas are indisputable. Such as a widow is a woman whose husband died. Such thoughts are usually definitions. Since it is impossible for a Widow to be anything other then the definition, these ideas are indisputable. Matters of facts claim that if the opposite is imaginable, then it is possible. Matters of fact are debatable, such as the belief in a God or that the world will end. While it is true that these abstract ideas are easily debatable, other ideas that we held as true are also only matters of fact, such as putting wood in a fire will make I burn. While we hold that it is true that everything falls towards the earth, and that the sun rises, it is possible that the sun will not rise and that things will not fall towards the earth, these beliefs are matters of fact because we can visualize the opposite occurring Hume denies reason any power because he is an empiricist. Instead three main principles exist that help humans form ideas; they are resemblance (when looking at a picture a person thinks of the object), contiguity (thinking of an object that is close spatially), and cause and effect (association). Hume claims that reason alone cannot establish matters of facts. There is no reason to believe that what happened one time will happen again. For example, there is no reason for Adam to believe that a rock will fall if he drops it unless he experiences it many times. Even with experience one cannot reason a matter of fact to be true, because the universe may not be uniform. There is a chance that because one thing happened many times, it makes it more possible that it will not happen again. Hume gives a very possible argument for why the universe may not be uniform. He claims that all beliefs are either arguments based on relation of ideas (such as definitions) or arguments based on experience (such as matters of fact). All arguments based on experience require a uniformity of nature principle. In order to argue that putting wood in a fire makes it burn, someone must do the same action many times, but even then there is no reason to believe that the wood will not burn, but extinguish the fire instead. There is a chance that wood actually extinguishes fires, but once in a while it will just burn instead. Unless nature is uniformed then there would be no reason for anyone to believe that wood will burn. The uniformity of nature cannot be proved or based on experience. If based on experience, a circular argument is formed. Therefore there are no reasons for believing that nature is uniform. Therefore no arguments based on experience are reasonable.

Israeli Wars from 1948 to Present Essay

The 1948 War of Independence, which took place between November 1947 and July 1949, was started by a 6 month civil war between Jewish and Arab militias at the end of the British mandate of Palestine. This turned into a regular war after the declaration of Independence and the intervention of several Arab armies. The five surrounding Arab nations i. e. Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon with support from Saudi Arabia launched a coordinated attack on Israel from the land, sea and air. These countries were urged on by their leaders who assured them that they could return after all Jews had been driven out (Eisenberg 147). The Jews were, however, able to defeat Arab armies resulting in an armistice that was signed in 1949 signaling an end to the conflict. The Armistice agreements were signed between Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. They established the armistice lines between Israel and the West Bank also known as the Green line. The Sinai War of 29th October 1956 involved a military attack on Egypt by Britain, France and Israel. Israeli troops invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and quickly overcame opposition as they raced for the Suez Canal. Britain and France offered to temporarily occupy the Canal Zone and suggested a 10 mile buffer on either side to separate Egyptian forces from the Israelis. Egyptian President Nasser objected and on 31st October 1956, Egypt was attacked by Britain and France. Consequently, the Soviet Union threatened to attack on Egypt’s behalf but it took the intervention of U. S. President Eisenhower to get them to agree to a ceasefire. The war itself lasted for only a week with invading forces withdrawn within a month. The Six Day War took place in June 1967. It was fought between June 5th and June 10th. The war was against Syria, Jordan and Egypt as Israel believed that it was only a matter of time before the three Arab states attacked her. After the 1956 crisis, the United Nations (UN) had established a military presence in the Middle East but in 1967, Egypt made it clear that the UN was unwanted in the region. Israel viewed this as a sign that Egypt was preparing to attack and rather than wait to be hit, they launched a hugely successful military campaign against its perceived enemies. Following the war, the territory held by Israel expanded significantly and it now included the West Bank, Sinai, the Golan Heights and Gaza. The War of Attrition was a limited war that was fought between Israel and Egypt from 1967 to 1970. This war was initiated by Egyptians as a way of recapturing the Sinai from the Israelis who had been in control of the territory since the Six Day War. The Egyptian President believed that Israel would be unable to endure the economic burden and casualties of war. To this end, he ordered calibrated attacks on Israel which would not provoke an all out Israeli war response. The hostilities ended when a ceasefire was signed between the countries in 1970 with frontiers remaining in the same place as when the war began. The Yom Kippur War of 1973 is so called as it began on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), the holiest day of prayer and fasting in the Jewish calendar. This war is variously referred to as the October War. It started with a surprise Arab attack on Israel knowing that the military would be participating in religious celebrations. Israeli forces were initially overwhelmed but by October 8th, bolstered by reserves, they counter attacked in the Sinai. They managed to push back the Egyptian military. The United Nations organized a ceasefire on October 24th and in September 1975, Egypt and Israel signed an interim agreement. Still, there were no significant territorial changes. The First Lebanon War began on 6th June 1982 when Israeli forces invaded Southern Lebanon. The government launched military operations after an assassination attempt against Israel’s ambassador to the U. K. by a mercenary organization opposed to the PLO. Israel then attacked the PLO as well as Syrian and Muslim Lebanese forces before they occupied Southern Lebanon. The war ended after three years in 1985 when Israel stabilized in the safety strap lengthwise along the border. The Second Lebanon War was sparked when Hezbollah guerillas ambushed an Israeli patrol on the border on July 12 2006. Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert declared his intention to free the captives and remove Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon forever and thus began an ultimately inconclusive month long war. During the short conflict, Israel lost 119 soldiers and 43 civilians whilst Lebanese civilians bore the brunt of the war with more than 1000 killed. The UN Security Council unanimously approved UN Resolution 1701 on 11th August 2006 to end hostilities.

Modern Age Europe 1348-1789 Phase Definition 2 Essay

Modern Age Europe 1348-1789 Phase Definition 2 - Essay Example This led to agricultural and industrial expansions in the west during the 18th century (Donald, Ozment & Turner 464). Slave ships were the main mode of transport for slaves from the shipment area along the coasts into Europe and the Americas. The slaves were tied together in the large ships to avoid escaping. This was quite inhuman and some slaves ended up dying in the ships due to inhumane treatment. They were deprived of food and lived in pathetic conditions whereby there was overcrowding in the ships. Many of the slaves died as a result of this. Plantations are large estates whereby a single type of crop is grown. Plantations mainly concentrate on growth of cash crops such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum, cotton and tobacco. In Europe and the Americas, the slaves were used to provide labor in these plantations. Most of the slaves came from Africa although there were others from Asia (Donald, Ozment & Turner 466). Asiento is the permission that was given to countries by Spain, to sell pe ople who would become laborers in these countries. The Sugar Act (1764) was a taxation measure put in place by the British so as to increase funds for supporting the colonies. The act was passed during the reign of George Grenville. The motive behind the measure was to maximize earning of revenue from imports that went into the colonies from Britain. Anybody who violated this taxation measure by evasion of payment or any other way was tried in a court of law. This move ensured that people paid the taxes. The Stamp Act (1765) was a tax measure passed by Parliament. The main objective of taxation was to collect money for use in the colonies. The act involved taxation on all documents dealing with issues of law as well as documents like daily newspapers. Several critics of the act, such as Sons of Liberty, led to its review in 1766. This move was meant to make the act favorable for the people living in the colonies. Charles Townshend (1725-1767) was a chancellor and finance minister in Britain. He is remembered for his efforts, to have parliament sign some acts, for enhancing colonial trade. His relentless efforts did not see the light of the day for some time, but eventually, the British parliament signed some of the acts that he proposed. Intolerable acts refer to drastic measures that were taken by the Parliament in order to deal with the people living in the colonies. One of the measures was closure of the Boston port. This hindered transport in the area to a great extent. The other drastic measures were the moves by parliament to have troops living in private households and the reorganizing of the Massachusetts’ governance structures (Donald, Ozment & Turner 476). George III (1760-1820) was a Briton who served the British government during the period preceding independence and thereafter. He was accused of being an accomplice of the British Parliament in denying people in the colonies their civil liberties between 1763 and 1776. He did not show any ef forts to include the Whig families in his leadership, although the families had served the government for a long time. The First Continental Congress was one of the meetings by committees which were opposed to the British policies and systems of governance. The committee meeting was held in Philadelphia in the year 1774. Its sole aim was to ask and convince the Parliament to go back to restoration of self-rule and stop supervising the activities of the colonies directly (Donald, Ozment & Turner 483). The Treaty of Paris refers to an agreement that was made by key leaders of countries in Europe and America after many years of war. This peace treaty was signed in Paris, France in 1783 (Donald, Ozment &

45 year old male diagnosed with metabolic syndrome Essay

45 year old male diagnosed with metabolic syndrome - Essay Example at take place in the body of patients over time is very important in giving very accurate symptomatic diagnosis that is focused on the giving very specific and efficient management and treatment plans. This paper is dedicated to outlining some of the major forms of pathophysiology changes that take place in the blood vessels of patients over time. This shall be done with specific emphasis on all known aspects of the pathophysiology of Type 2 DM. The rationale behind this approach is that different aspects of the pathophysiology of Type 2 DM come about as a result of changing pathological and physical processes that are take place in the blood vessels of patients over time. Once the right form of management model is given, it is possible to suppress some aspects of the pathophysiology from taking place. In the current case, the 45 year old patient who has been recently diagnosed with Type 2 DM has been noted to have a history of metabolic syndrome. Despite the fact that Type 2 DM is naturally associated with high blood sugar level, the patient is actually suspicion of the fact that his situation with high blood sugar level could be something that was there as a result of the metabolic syndrome. This makes it important to find the relationship between metabolic syndrome and diabetes and find a link between their pathophysiology. Beckman, Creager and Libby (2009) indicated that metabolic syndrome and diabetes indeed have very close relation in terms of both physical and pathological conditions that makes it important to put patients with metabolic syndrome on the lookout for diabetes. This is because patients with metabolic syndrome exhibit a disorder in their energy utilization and storage, which comes about as a result of a number of medical conditions. But because the conversion a nd usage of the energy within the body could trigger a saturated concentration of blood sugar, the chance of developing Type 2 DM has been pegged at four times higher for patients with

How am I prepared to contribute to Pepperdine's mission and community Essay

How am I prepared to contribute to Pepperdine's mission and community of faith, learning, and service - Essay Example Starting from my school I have always been obedient to my religion and faith and have took all the aspects of life along with my strong faith. I have strived for education all my life and have come to the conclusion that one can never stop learning. I can contribute to the mission of Pepperdine university by using my skills to bring about a change in the society along with my faith. With my strong beliefs in religion I believe that I can take both my faith and education together at the same time. Throughout my life I have undergone many instances in which I had to act as a leader and this has given me experience when leading individuals. I believe that I can lead from the front and can strive for education if enrolled in the Pepperdine University. By getting enrolled in the University not only would I be able to commit myself to the mission of Pepperdine but would also be able to learn more. The excellent curriculum of Pepperdine University suits the needs of every student who wants to learn. I being a struggling student always dreamt of studying in a reputable institute. By getting enrolled in the Pepperdine University I can be able to learn and experience more which I can share around with people and make them aware about different things. With the help of the excellence provided by Pepperdine University I would be able to excel in my studies and polish my talent so that it does not come to a waste.

Identification the Stages of C elegans Lab Report

Identification the Stages of C elegans - Lab Report Example Most molecular genetics experiment cannot be employed on humans because of their complexity. In order to perform these experiments, researchers use certain model organisms which can be cultured very easily in the laboratory and is easy to manipulate. These model organisms though physically different from humans bear certain biochemical and physiological features that have been conserved during evolution (Hedges,2002, p838). With this respect, the nematode worm Caenorhabditis Celegans offer certain exceptional advantages and is one of the foremost model systems in molecular genetics. In order to study gene function in model organisms, single gene mutations are introduced and phenotypical characters are analyzed. The result of this analysis may vary-some of these single gene mutations would produce drastic biochemical or structural differences while others may go silent when compared with the wild-type phenotype (Fire at all,1998). Background of RNAi RNAi (RNA inference) also known as post-transcriptional gene silencing is a biological process which down-regulates expression of the targeted gene. Exogenous dsRNA could induce potent and sequence-specific silencing of endogenous gene expression in C.elegans (Fire et al,1998) i.e. intentional introduction of dsRNA into any organism, the difference in traits as a result of gene silencing may be observed. Worms as a model system: Most molecular genetics experiment cannot be employed on humans because of their complexity. In order to perform these experiments, researchers use certain model organisms which can be cultured very easily in the laboratory and is easy to manipulate and Celegans is an ideal organism because of the following characteristics: It is a eukaryote Genome size is small (97 Megabases) Small lifecycle Easy to maintain in laboratory (Gilbert,2000) Gene that we studied: The entire genome of C.elegans has been sequenced and therefore we have a clear understanding about the genes. We used 4 mutant with different genes suppressed so as to try and understand the role of the genes in the wild C.elegans. The genes are day-10, roll-6, by-1, and unc-22.  Material Required: Mutant worms on NGM-lite plates Wild-type worms on NGM-lite plates Binocular dissecting microscope Methods: 1. LAB1-part 1- Plates with wild worms are seen under microscope and behavior is observed. Life stage of microscope and drop on the plate to induce movement. Tapping the plate may also be required to induce movement. Observation of lifecycle is made. 2. LAB1-part 2 Both mutant and wild types are observed under the microscope and morphological and locomotor differences between them are observed and recorded. 2 E. coli are used as the food source for C.elegans. C.elegans are propagated on the lawn of E-coli on NGM-lite medium. The worms are propagated from plate to plate by the process of chucking and picking. Chucking and Picking Chucking is a rapid way of transfer and involved cutting out a portion of the NGM-lite medium where E. coli food source had been consumed and transferring it on a new plate. Picking involves transferring of individual worms with the help of flattened tip of a platinum wire.

What is the role of the UN in the world today and what role should it Essay

What is the role of the UN in the world today and what role should it play in the future - Essay Example 335-60). United Nations is also working for regulating international commerce, compiling data and delivering services. UN had established UNICEF. Women of child-bearing age and children are benefited with the help of UNICEF in more than 100 countries (Arnold, 1995, p. 47) Another most important role the UN playing since its creation and nowadays is to maintain peace worldwide. For this purpose, the United Nations has directed 17 interventions whose function is to form peace keeping forces. These peace keeping forces are formed with the help of different nations that are member of United Nations. The purpose of these peace keeping operations is to reduce the strain that the United Nations had to face in the form of cost of several hundred million dollars a year to spend during the Cold War. Peace keeping operations are in progress to maintain peace in all nations (Barnett, 1995, p. 79-97). The future role of United Nations will be to meet different needs such as security, politics and economic needs of the international community. This role will make sure that the United Nations and its programs, to improve health, peace and other conditions in all nations, are working properly (Beigbeder, 1987, p. 174). New challenges will be met with the help of upgraded management systems and program delivery. United Nations will also establish several services that will improve accountability of management and financial sectors of all nations. It will also make sure that all the spending for the development of different programs, departments and agencies are cost effective. To achieve success in all the future plans, the United Nations will have to develop a clear road map (Boutros-Ghali, 1992/1993, p. 89-102). The programs that had been proven highly effective in the past now seem less important and less effective. This is so because implementation of

Self Leadership Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Self Leadership - Essay Example In today's dynamic world, we need leaders to challenge the status-quo, to create vision of the future, and to inspire organizational members to want to achieve the visions. There are many models and theories that have come into existence high lightening the different facets of leadership. There are many who still believe that leadership is a born talent, leadership is only for top management and one should have an inbuilt charismatic personality to be a leader. The media has long been a believer in trait theories of leadership differentiating leaders from non leaders by focusing on personal qualities and characteristics. The media identify people like Margaret Thatcher, Nelson Mandela, Richard Branson and Rudolph Giuliani etc., and then describe them in terms such as charismatic, enthusiastic and courageous. However, in addition, more recent research provides strong evidence that people who are high self monitors that is highly flexible in adjusting their behaviour in different situa tions are much more likely to emerge as leaders in groups then low self-moni6ors (Dobbins et al., 1990; Zaccaro et al., 1991). Overall the cumulative findings from more than half a century of research leads us to conclude that some traits increase the likelihood of success as a leader, but none of the traits guarantee success (Yukl & Fleet, 1992). The inability to strike gold in the traits 'mines' led researchers to look at the behaviours exhibited by specific leaders. The difference between trait and behavioural theories, in terms of application, lies in their underlying assumptions. If trait theories are valid then leadership are borne rather than made. On the other hand, if there were specific behaviour that identified leaders then we could teach leadership-we could design leadership programmes that implemented these behavioural patterns in individuals who desire to be effective leaders. Other model like contingency theory also been discussed as the understanding of leadership in creased. Attention turned to the study of situations and the belief that leaders are the product of given situation. This approach to leadership recognizes that there exists an interaction between the group and the leader. Fred F. Fielder (1995) has suggested a contingency theory of leadership in which he told that the people become leaders not only because of the attributes of their personalities but also because of various situational factors and the interactions between leaders and group members. The path-goal theory suggests that the main function of the leadership is to clarify and set goals with subordinates, help them to find the best path for achieving the goals and remove obstacles. The theory builds on various motivational and leadership theories of others. More recently, Fiedler and an associate Jeo Garcia (1987) focused on a theory of leadership that states that stress unfavorably affects a situation and that intelligence and experience can lessen the influence of stress on leader. They named the theory as Cognitive Resource Theory. Basically it's the capability or quality of leader who perform under stress. Inspite of its newness cognitive resource theory is developing a solid body of research support (Fiedler, 2002). Paul Hersey, Ken Blanchard and Johnson (2001) have developed a leadership model that has gain a strong following among management development specialists. This model is called situational leadership theory. Situational

Haas and Flower Reading Response Essay Example for Free

Haas and Flower Reading Response Essay â€Å"If readers construct the meaning of texts, how does information transmission work?† Through constructing the meaning of texts, a reader can interpret and summarize chunks of writing into something that is already processed by the reader. Personally, I know that if I begin reading a piece of text that I have never researched or learned in the past, obviously I cannot make an information transmission. On the other hand, when I read a piece of material that Ive learned in the past, it helps me to fully interpret and think critically on the topic. If a reader can complete a create a connection between past learning and the newer topic, the reader can construct a personal judgment or opinion. The readers thesis is then developed and the reader can fully absorb and accomplish what is a â€Å"good read.† â€Å"What kinds of knowledge did you bring to this article that helped you make sense of it?† The information I brought to the article was really a collection of teachings I received through high school. The knowledge to re-read text if I dont fully comprehend the authors point. Also the ability to stop and evaluate the text to figure out what Haas and Flower were trying to explain. I received fairly intensive English courses in high school, from which I was able to transmission my past lessons to the text Haas and Flower presented. Without trying to sound repetitive, I was able to pick apart phrases of the text that I simply didnt understand, even by rereading, and use the context to help make snese of the wording Haas and Flower use.

Lecture by Cornelia Parker at the Bartlett January Essay Example for Free

Lecture by Cornelia Parker at the Bartlett January Essay Cornelia Parker is a London-based sculptor and installation artist. She was born during the year 1956 in Cheshire, England. She was raised on a Cheshire smallholding. Cornelia Parkers work is regarded internationally for its complex, darkly humorous, ironic style. Cornelia Parkers work is highly allusive and patterned with cultural references to cartoons, a style which she adapts to her need to capture things in the moment before they slip away and are lost beyond human perception. When examining her work holistically one can see the following themes driving her work forward consumerism, globalization, and the role of the mass media in contemporary life. Cornelia Parker was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1997 and featured in the 8th International Sharjah Biennial in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates in 2007. Cornelia Parker, sculptor and installation artist intensified her campaign against disused silver a few years later when she crushed hundreds of plated items with a steamroller. She has also flattened thousands of coins under the wheels of passing trains, plucked feathers from Sigmund Freud’s pillow and blown up garden sheds with plastic explosive. The results of these depredations have been hung in art galleries where they have received high praise from public and critics alike. Her collaboration with the actress Tilda Swinton, ‘The Maybe’ at the Serpentine Gallery, was the focus of excited national attention for its display of Swinton, surrounded by objects selected by Parker, sleeping throughout the day in a glass case. In November 1996 Parker mounted a solo show called ‘Avoided Object’ at Chapter Art Gallery in Cardiff. Word of mouth was infectious and the show attracted scouts from London. Avoided Object is the title of series of smaller works which have been developed in liaison with various institutions, including the Rayal Armouries and Madame Tussauds. These â€Å"avoided† objects have often had their identities transformed by being burned, shot, squashed, stretched, drawn, exploded, cut, or simply dropped off cliffs. Cartoon deaths have long held a fascination for Parker: ‘Tom being run over by a steamroller or Jerry riddled with bullet holes. Sometimes the objects demise has been orchestrated, or it may have occurred accidentally or by natural causes. They might be â€Å"preempted† objects that have not yet achieved a fully formed identity, having been plucked prematurely from the production line like Embryo Firearms 1995. They may not even be classified as objects: things like cracks, creases, shadows, dust or dirt The Negative of Whispers 1997: Earplugs made with fluff gathered in the Whispering Gallery, St Paul’s cathedral .Or they m ight be those territories you want to avoid psychologically, such as the backs, underbellies or tarnished surfaces of things.’ Cornelia Parker uses processes of destruction to transform found objects. She steamrolled, explodes, degrade and turn poisonous, and presents the remains of the object. She collects tarnish, dust, stains, and traces of the object as an archive may store the trace or residue of an event. How is memory attached to the object, does it become unstuck during the process? Does the object continue to embody its past in its morphed and rearranged construction? And how is this past still present, through the viewers’ projection of their readings, through clues given in the ‘found’ titles of the artwork? Of the collected silverware, all with different stories, Parker says she wanted to ‘give them one story’, by flattening them with a steamroller. Parker seems to also enjoy the unexpected stories when the reader projects something new onto the artwork or interesting things are discovered within the ‘blow up’. For example, she was asked by a curator at the Tate if the Pornographic prints were made by a human body, which is the curator reading into the Rorschach inkblots. Einstein’s formulae on a blackboard, when photographed under a microscope resemble ‘sea creatures’, Parker suggests nature under the mathematics. She also photographs under a microscope dust collected from Donald Judd’s work, and describes the emerging imagery as ‘Gothic’. Parker is talking art history in her East End flat, standing beside a humming slide projector. Her slightly stooped stance reminds us that tall women are politer than tall men. They succumb to the wearisome need to bend down towards their lesser interlocutors. As she speaks one realizes that her face is rarely in repose her delivery is rapid, nervously energized, its content a dense mixture of anecdote and analysis. The vigor of her commentary is directly reflected in her work, which proliferates in an apparently unbroken stream much like the awesome eruptions that inspire it. She is talking about her enchantment with the exploded view. â€Å"You could just about visualize what the original object was,† she explains, â€Å"but I started thinking how all the fragments might reform to make completely new objects with new uses.† These speculations eventually evolved into the ideas that have so fruitfully driven Parker to make art. In 1991 she took her preoccupation with the metaphysics of explosions to an extreme that marked a breakthrough in her work. Parker filled a garden shed with tools, a lawnmower, a bicycle, books and toys, all culled from the artist’s trove of orphaned objects that is the British car boot sale. The shed was installed and photographed in the Chisenhale Gallery in London’s East End, then dismantled and transported to the British Army School of Ammunition at Kineton. Lieutenant Colonel Joe Hastings and Major Dougie Hewitt applied sticks of pale marzipan explosive to the interior of the shed and blew it to pieces. For several hours squad dies and a delighted Parker combed the area, picking up every single shard and sliver, every shred of the shrapnel of the mower and the mangled mass of bent bike. A few days later an eerie and exquisite sculpture, ‘Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View’, was unveiled in the stark concrete space of the Chisen-hale Gallery. Parker had painstakingly reassembled the shed and its shattered contents, suspending each tiny blasted scrap from a filament of wire and illuminating the whole with a single bare white bulb placed at the epicenter. The shed had been frozen in space a millisecond after its disintegration; only the bang is missing, rather like the cold, dark matter that astronomers say makes up the weight of the Universe. The business of finding new currency for old and familiar objects has led the indefatigable Parker down some exotic pathways. Her ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’ also featured an act of great violence followed by a display of surpassing beauty. Turning again to the cornucopia of the car boot, the artist collected hundreds of old silver and silver-plated tea-pots, candle-sticks, toast-racks, salvers and the odd trombone. The tarnished tat, displaced from numberless mantelpieces, was laid out on the ground in a long, gently curving line and slowly crushed by a steamroller. After the grinding and clanking had subsided, Parker picked up the pieces. The YBAs [Young British Artists], supposedly typified by Damien Hirst, have become inseparable from the controversy staged around their work and Parker is frequently written about as if she were part of the gang. A distinction that generally escapes her commentators is that at the age of 41 she has, in fact, quite happily relinquished the ‘Y’ part of the sobriquet. She graduated from the Fine Arts course at Reading University in 1982 and has been steadily mounting exhibitions in the art capitals of the world ever since. Given that there’s no proper money in art unless you’re up there with Damien, Parker lives off a succession of commissions, awards and residencies, whilst renting a modest shared flat in Shoreditch. At the time of writing she was rather looking forward to seeing her newish partner, a Texan artist on the point of visiting London. The work that so impressed the Turner Prize selectors saw Parker working on a much smaller scale than that of her shed and steamroller period. ‘The Cardiff show,† she says, â€Å"had lots of little residues of objects that are all quite slight but together add up to something solid.† The ‘avoided objects’ speak of their role in a process which has made them seem redundant. â€Å"They’re about things that have lost their life or not yet got a life.† As an example, she cites ‘The Negative of Sound’, a framed assemblage of strands of black lacquer, the swarf discarded from the ‘master’ of a record first cut in Abbey Road Studios. â€Å"The idea of the negative of sound, for me, is fantastic. How can you listen to it? What does it sound like? What kind of instrument would you have to have to play them on?† Avoided objects can also be ex-objects. For ‘Exhaled Cocaine’ Parker persuaded Customs Excise to give her the ashes of seized, incinerated cocaine, presented by the artist as an end product ‘breathed out’ by a crucial process in its history. This poetic recycling of residue is also seen in a piece whose title would, quite wrongly, lead overheated British journalists to believe their usual suspicions were justified. ‘Pornographic Drawings’ is the fruit of another successful transaction with Customs Excise. â€Å"They’re Rorschach blots made from confiscated pornography. The video tape was chopped up into tiny pieces, to get rid of it, and they gave me a big bag full. I wanted to recreate images from things that had been taken out of circulation, so I made an ink out of it. Most of them did turn out to be quite pornographic, but if you think they are, that’s you projecting because they’re only accidental ink blots.† Parker’s attention is directed always at the ignored, undervalued and forgotten. She pushes quizzically at the surface of the everyday until its objects reveal their hidden histories. These stories reveal in turn that much of what we take for granted is immersed in the streams of memory and myth that carry meaning into our lives. Galleries are not the only site in which she has placed her provocations. Forests, railway stations and bell towers have been requisitioned, sometimes for purposes of display, sometimes as places of concealment that may be chanced upon by the unsuspecting. Despite the many forms it takes, Parker’s art has an impressive internal consistency. All her work stems from a wittily philosophical consideration of the processes that bring everyday objects into being. She feels that this preoccupation, in turn, was partly brought into being by a curious event that took place in1961. Even if, she did not win the Turner Prize, many of her Avoided Objects will be seen by the thousands who visit the Tate for the six week show featuring the work of all the nominees. In addition to the works described, visitors will see her embryo guns, the feather from Freud’s pillow, a magnified photo of the grooves of a record owned by Hitler and several other evidences of a refined and ingenious sensibility. Pressed to speculate on her prize-winning chances, the artist is characteristically modest. â€Å"Oh, it’ll just be great to be shown in the Tate† is the most she’ll say. Were Parker to pull it off, however, her power to realize some of her more ambitious projects would be considerably enhanced. NASA, for example, would be bound to send a meteorite back into space for her and she might, at long last, be able to persuade Stanley Kubrick to part with a sample of his navel fluff. A few weeks ago Parker was nominated for the prestigious Turner Prize. Reference ‘Avoided Object’ (2007), Lecture by Cornelia Parker at the Bartlett January. London. Source document