In mystical ethics, some virtues have a foundational role in relation to other virtues; that is, other virtues are in some ways dependent on, conditional to, or rooted in them. This is a gradational concept, and therefore one can speak of foundational and more foundational among foundational virtues in mysticism. Honesty is the most foundational virtue in mystical ethics, and other virtues are ...

When John Down was 18 years old, he had some kind of mystical experience. He met a girl that appeared so peculiar, that he felt sorry for her and, consciously or unconsciously, would spend his whole life searching for this phenomenon. He decided to study Medicine, became the director of the largest “Asylum for Idiots” in England and wrote articles and books about the thing that fascinated him s...

This paper presents, for the first time, a comprehensive scholarly examination of the history and principles of major traditions of esoteric healing. After a brief conceptual overview of esoteric religion and healing, summaries are provided of eight major esoteric traditions, including descriptions of beliefs and practices related to health, healing, and medicine. These include what are termed ...

In this paper we review the current understanding of aesthetics. There are three aspects to aesthetics namely: the form, the action and the experience. We explore these aspects and highlight their relevance for entertainment. We then investigate ubiquitous entertainment systems notably from an interaction point of view. We advocate and define how ubiquitous entertainment could and should rely o...

Although industrial and product designers are keenly aware of the importance of design aesthetics, they make aesthetic design decisions largely on the basis of their intuitive judgments and "educated guesses". Whilst ergonomics and human factors researchers have made great contributions to the safety, productivity, ease-of-use, and comfort of human-machine-environment systems, aesthetics is lar...

The objectives of this study were to compare the ratings of professionals and laypeople with and without a cleft regarding the facial aesthetics of adult patients previously treated for orofacial clefting. The necessity for further treatment, as perceived by the respective groups, is also compared. The design of the study was a cross-sectional study. Professionals (two plastic surgeons, one den...

Even though aesthetics and affordances are two important factors based on which designers provide effective ways of interaction through their artifacts, there is no study or theoretical model that relates these two aspects of design. We suggest a theoretical explanation that relates the underlying functionality of aesthetics, in particular, of interaction aesthetics and of affordances in the de...

Aesthetics plays a major role in real design. To date, aesthetics is mostly ignored in studies dealing with computational design support systems. Probably, the main reason for this omission is that aesthetics is tightly associated with art which is perceived to be beyond the capabilities of computational techniques. The paper outlines a model for the incorporation of aesthetic judgment in desig...