The evolution of complexity is an important outcome of the process of evolution. Evolution has produced some remarkably complex organisms, although the actual level of complexity is very hard to define or measure accurately in biology, with properties such as gene content, the number of cell types or morphology all being used to assess an organism’s complexity.

This observation that complex organisms can be produced from simpler ones has led to the common misperception of evolution being progressive and having a direction that leads towards what are viewed as higher organisms.

In the 19th century, some scientists believed that all Nature had an innate striving to become more complex with evolution. This belief may reflect then-current ideas that all creation was gradually evolving to a higher, more perfect state.

According to this view, the evolution of parasites from a basic organism to parasite was seen as “devolution” and contrary to nature. This view has sometimes been used metaphorically by social theorists and propagandists to decry a class of people as degenerate parasites. Today, “devolution” is regarded as nonsense; rather, lineages will become simpler or more complicated according to whatever forms have a selective advantage.

Organisms that reproduce more quickly and plentifully than their competitors have an evolutionary advantage. Consequently, organisms can evolve to become simpler and thus multiply faster and produce more offspring, as they require fewer resources to reproduce. A good example are parasites such as malaria and mycoplasma, These organisms often dispense with traits that are made unnecessary through parasitism on a host.

However, evolution can also produce more complex organisms. Complexity often arises in the co-evolution of hosts and pathogens, with each side developing ever more sophisticated adaptations, such as the immune system and the many techniques pathogens have developed to evade it. 

More generally, the growth of complexity may be driven by the co-evolution between an organism and the ecosystem of predators, prey and parasites to which it tries to stay adapted. Any of these become more complex in order to cope better with the diversity of threats offered by the ecosystem formed by the others, the others will also have to adapt by becoming more complex, thus triggering an on-going evolutionary arms race towards more complexity. This trend may be reinforced by the fact that ecosystems themselves tend to become more complex over time as species diversity increases, together with the linkages or dependencies between species.

A false awakening is an event in which someone dreams they have awoken from sleep. This illusion of having awakened is very convincing to the person. After a false awakening, people will often dream of performing daily morning rituals, believing they have truly awakened. A dream in which a false awakening takes place is sometimes colloquially referred to as a double dream, or a dream within a dream.

It may occur either following an ordinary dream or following a lucid dream, one in which the dreamer has been aware of dreaming. Particularly if the false awakening follows a lucid dream, the false awakening may turn into a pre-lucid dream, in which the dreamer may start to wonder if they are really awake and may or may not come to the correct conclusion.

A false awakening has significance to the simulation hypothesis which states that what we perceive as true reality is in fact an illusion as evidenced by our minds’ inability to distinguish between reality and dreams. Therefore, advocates of the simulation hypothesis argue that the probability of our true reality being a simulated reality is affected by the prevalence of false awakenings.

Certain aspects of life may be dramatized or out of place in false awakenings. Details like being able to see a painting on a wall, not being able to talk or difficulty reading are common. In some experiences, the human senses are heightened or changed. For instance, one may be able to see things in greater detail, or lesser detail, or one may feel an intense burst of fear and anxiety, or possibly pleasure.

Because the dreamer is still dreaming after a false awakening, it is possible for there to be more than one false awakening in a single dream. Often, dreamers will seem to have awakened, begin eating breakfast, brushing teeth, and so on and then find themselves back in bed, begin daily morning rituals, believe that they have awakened again, and so forth. The French psychologist Yves Delage reported an experience of his own of this kind, in which he experienced four successive false awakenings. The philosopher Bertrand Russell claimed to have experienced about a hundred false awakenings in succession while coming round from a general anaesthetic.

Kenosis is a Greek word for emptiness, which is used as a theological term. It is the concept of the self-emptying of one’s own will and becoming entirely receptive to God and its perfect will. It is used both as an explanation of the Incarnation, and an indication of the nature of God’s activity and condescension.

An apparent dilemma arises when Christian theology posits a God outside of time and space, who enters into time and space to become human. The doctrine of Kenosis attempts to explain what the Son of God chose to give up in terms of his divine attributes in order to assume human nature. Since the incarnate Jesus is simultaneously fully human and fully divine, Kenosis holds that these changes were temporarily assumed by God in his incarnation, and that when Jesus ascended back into heaven following the resurrection, he fully reassumed all of his original attributes and divinity.

Specifically it refers to attributes of God that are thought to be incompatible with becoming fully human. For example, God’s omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience as well as his aseity, eternity, infinity, impassibility and immutability. The Orthodox Mystical Theology of the East emphasises following the example of Christ. Kenosis is only possible through humility and presupposes that one seeks union with God. The Poustinia tradition of the Russian Orthodox Church is one major expression of this search.

Kenosis is not only a Christological issue in Orthodox theology, it has moreover to do with Pneumatology, namely to do with the Holy Spirit. Kenosis, relative to the human nature, denotes the continual epiklesis and self-denial of one’s own human will and desire. With regards to Christ, there is a kenosis of the Son of God, a condescension and self sacrifice for the redemption and salvation of all humanity. Humanity can also participate in God’s saving work through theosis; becoming holy by grace.

Another perspective is the idea that God is self-emptying. He poured out himself to create the cosmos and the universe, and everything within it. Therefore, it is our duty to pour out ourselves. This is similar to C.S. Lewis’s statement in Mere Christianity that a painter pours his ideas out in his work, and yet remains quite a distinct being from his painting. In so doing, we become deified like God. Another term for this process is theosis.

Kombucha is the Western name for sweetened tea that has been fermented using a macroscopic solid mass of microorganisms called a kombucha colony.

The culture contains a symbiosis of acetic acid bacteria. The culture itself looks somewhat like a large pancake, and though often called a mushroom, a Mother of vinegar or by the acronym SCOBY (for Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast), it is clinically known as a zoogleal mat.

The recorded history of this drink dates back to the Qin Dynasty in China around 250 BC. The Chinese called it the Immortal Health Elixir, because they believed Kombucha balanced the Spleen and Stomach and aided in digestion, allowing the body to focus on healing. Knowledge of kombucha eventually reached Russia and then Eastern Europe around the Early Modern Age, when tea first became affordable to the populace.

The name kombucha is said to have originated in Japan. Reportedly, a Korean physician called Kombu or Kambu treated the Emperor Inyko with the tea. It became known by a combination of the name, Kombu and the word, cha, meaning tea. However, in Japan, kombucha tea is known as kocha kinoko which translates as tea mushroom. Kombu literally means kelp in Japanese and the name Kombucha is used to refer to a hot drink made from powdered kelp.

Kombucha contains many different cultures along with several organic acids, active enzymes, amino acids, and polyphenols. For the home brewer, there is no way to know the amounts of the components unless a sample is sent to a laboratory. The US Food and Drug Administration has no findings on the effects of kombucha. Final kombucha may contain some of the following components depending on the source of the culture: Acetic acid, which provides much anti-microbial activity; butyric acid, gluconic acid, glucuronic acid, lactic acid, malic acid, oxalic acid, usnic acid, as well as some B-vitamins.

Health claims for kombucha focus on a chemical called glucuronic acid, a compound that is used by the liver for detoxification. The idea that glucuronic acid is present in kombucha is based on the observation that glucuronic acid conjugates are increased in the urine after consumption of kombucha.

However, the active component in kombucha is most likely glucaric acid. This compound helps in the elimination of glucuronic acid conjugates that are produced by the liver. When glucuronic acid conjugates are disposed in the bowel during the elimination process, normal gut bacteria can break up these conjugates using an enzyme called beta-glucuronidase. Glucaric acid is an inhibitor of this bacterial enzyme, so the end result is that the glucuronic acid waste is properly eliminated the first time, rather than being reabsorbed and detoxified over and over. Thus, glucaric acid probably makes the liver more efficient.

Interestingly, glucaric acid is commonly found in fruits and vegetables, and is being explored independently as a cancer preventive agent. It has also been discovered that the bacterial beta-glucuronidase enzyme can interfere with proper disposal of a chemotherapeutic agent, and that antibiotics against the gut microbiota can prevent toxicity of some chemotherapy drugs.

Other health claims may be due to the simple acidity of the drink, possibly influencing the production of stomach acids or modifying the communities of microorganisms in the GI tract. For example, anecdotal reports suggest better experience with foods that ‘stick’ going down such as rice or pasta. This is mostly due to relief of stomach gas responsible for preventing proper digestion.

Numerology is any of many systems, traditions or beliefs in a mystical or esoteric relationship between numbers and physical objects or living things.

Numerology and numerological divination were popular among early mathematicians, such as Pythagoras, but are no longer considered part of mathematics and are regarded as pseudomathematics by modern scientists. This is similar to the historical development of astrology out of astronomy, and alchemy from chemistry. Today, numerology is often not associated with numbers, but with the occult, alongside astrology and similar divinatory arts.

The term can also be used for those who, in the view of some observers, place excess faith in numerical patterns, even if those people don’t practice traditional numerology. For example, in his 1997 book Numerology: Or What Pythagoras Wrought, mathematician Underwood Dudley uses the term to discuss practitioners of the Elliott wave principle of stock market analysis.

Many alchemical theories were closely related to numerology. Persian alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan, inventor of many chemical processes still used today, framed his experiments in an elaborate numerology based on the names of substances in the Arabic language.

Scientific theories are sometimes labeled numerology if their primary inspiration appears to be mathematical rather than scientific. This colloquial use of the term is quite common within the scientific community and it is mostly used to dismiss a theory as questionable science.

The best known example of numerology in science involves the coincidental resemblance of certain large numbers that intrigued such eminent men as mathematical physicist Paul Dirac, mathematician Hermann Weyl and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington. These numerical co-incidences refer to such quantities as the ratio of the age of the universe to the atomic unit of time, the number of electrons in the universe, and the difference in strengths between gravity and the electric force for the electron and proton.

Large number co-incidences continue to fascinate many mathematical physicists. For instance, James G. Gilson has constructed a “Quantum Theory of Gravity” based loosely on Dirac’s large number hypothesis. Wolfgang Pauli was also fascinated by the appearance of certain numbers, including 137, in physics.

Numerology is a popular plot device in fiction. It can range from a casual item for comic effect, such as in an episode titled The Seance of the 1950s TV sitcom I Love Lucy, where Lucy dabbles in numerology, to a central element of the storyline, such as the movie Pi, in which the protagonist meets a numerologist searching for hidden numerical patterns in the Torah.

There are no set definitions for the meaning of specific digits. However, common examples include:

0. Everything or absoluteness. All
1. Individual. Aggressor. Yang.
2. Balance. Union. Receptive. Yin.
3. Communication/interaction. Neutrality.
4. Creation.
5. Action. Restlessness.
6. Reaction/flux. Responsibility.
7. Thought/consciousness.
8. Power/sacrifice.
9. Highest level of change.
10. Rebirth.

Delphinium is a genus of about 300 species of perennial flowering plants in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae, native throughout the Northern Hemisphere and also on the high mountains of tropical Africa. The common name, shared with the closely related genus Consolida, is Larkspur.

The flower has five petal-like sepals which grow together to form a hollow pocket with a spur at the end, which gives the plant its name. Within the sepals are four true petals. The seeds are small and often shiny black. The plants flower from late spring to late summer, and are pollinated by butterflies and bumble bees. Most species are toxic. Despite the toxicity, Delphinium species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Dot Moth and Small Angle Shades.

Other names are lark’s heel (Shakespeare), lark’s claw and knight’s spur. The scientific name comes from the Latin for dolphin, alluding to the shape of the opening flower. The Forking Larkspur (Delphinium consolida) prefers chalky loams. It grows wild in cornfields, but has become very rare nowadays. The flowers are commonly purple, but a white variety exists as well. Baker’s larkspur (Delphinium bakeri) and Yellow larkspur (D. luteum), both native to very restricted areas of California, are highly endangered species.

All parts of the plant contain an alkaloid delphinine and are very poisonous, causing vomiting when eaten, and death in larger amounts. In small amounts, extracts of the plant have been used in herbal medicine. Gerard’s Herbal reports that drinking the seed of larkspur was thought to help against the stings of scorpions, and that other poisonous animals could not move when covered by the herb, but does not believe it himself. Grieve’s herbal reports that the seeds can be used against parasites, especially lice and their nits in the hair. A tincture is used against asthma and dropsy.

The juice of the flowers, mixed with alum, gives a blue ink. The plant was connected to Saint Odile and in popular medicine used against eye diseases. It was one of the herbs used on the feast of St. John and as such warded against lightning. In Transylvania, it was used to keep witches from the stables, probably because of its black color.

Larkspur, especially tall larkspur, is a significant cause of cattle poisoning on rangelands in the eastern United States. Larkspur is more common in high-elevation areas, and many ranchers will delay moving cattle onto such ranges until late summer when the toxicity of the plants is reduced.

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamic system may produce large variations in its long term behavior. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly’s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location. The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to large-scale alterations of events. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. While the butterfly does not cause the tornado, the flap of its wings is an essential part of the initial conditions resulting in a tornado.

Although a butterfly flapping its wings has remained constant in the expression of this concept, the location of the butterfly, the consequences, and the location of the consequences have varied widely.

Recurrence, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions, together with sensitive dependence on initial conditions are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range, since it is impossible to measure the starting atmospheric conditions completely accurately.

The term “butterfly effect” itself is related to the work of Edward Lorenz, an American mathematician and meteorologist, and is based in Chaos Theory and sensitive dependence on initial conditions. It was first described in literature by the  French mathematician Jacques Hadamard in 1890, and popularized in Pierre Duhem’s 1906 book La théorie physique son objet et sa structure (The physical theory, its purpose and structure).

The idea that one butterfly could eventually have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent historic events seems first to have appeared in a 1952 short story by the cience fiction author Ray Bradbury, although Lorenz made the term popular. In 1961, Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction, when, as a shortcut on a number in the sequence, he entered the decimal .506 instead of entering the full .506127 the computer would hold.

The result was a completely different weather scenario. Lorenz published his findings in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences noting that “One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull’s wings could change the course of weather forever.” Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly. According to Lorenz, upon failing to provide a title for a talk he was to present at the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972, Philip Merilees concocted “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” as a title.

Time travel is the concept of moving between different moments in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space, either sending objects or information backwards in time to a moment before the present, or sending objects forward from the present to the future without the need to experience the intervening period at the normal rate. 

Time travel has not been proven to be impossible nor possible. Any technological device, whether fictional or hypothetical, that is used to achieve time travel is known as a time machine.

Some interpretations of time travel also suggest that an attempt to travel backwards in time might take one to a parallel universe whose history would begin to diverge from the traveler’s original history after the moment the traveler arrived in the past. Although time travel has been a common plot device in fiction since the 19th century, and one-way travel into the future is arguably possible given the phenomenon of time dilation based on velocity in the theory of special relativity, it is currently unknown whether the laws of physics would allow backwards time travel.

Several experiments have been carried out to try to entice future humans, who might invent time travel technology, to come back and demonstrate it to people of the present time. Events such as Perth’s Destination Day or MIT’s Time Traveler Convention heavily publicized permanent advertisements of a meeting time and place for future time travelers to meet.

In 1982, a group in Baltimore, identifying itself as the Krononauts, hosted an event of this type welcoming Visitors from the Futures. These experiments only stood the possibility of generating a positive result demonstrating the existence of time travel, but have failed so far. No time travelers are known to have attended these events.

It is theoretically possible that future humans have traveled back in time, but have traveled back to the meeting time and place in a parallel universe. Another factor is that for all the time travel devices considered under current physics, it is impossible to travel back to before the time machine was actually made.