The Thread of Random Internetz

Anatomy (from the Greek ἀνατομία anatomia, from ἀνατέμνειν ana: separate, apart from, and temnein, to cut up, cut open) is a branch of biology that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy (zootomy) and plant anatomy (phytotomy). In some of its facets anatomy is closely related to embryology, comparative anatomy and comparative embryology,[1] through common roots in evolution.

Greek (ελληνική γλώσσα IPA: [e̞liniˈkʲi ˈɣlo̞sa] or simply ελληνικά IPA: [e̞liniˈka] — "Hellenic") is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people, mainly in Greece and Cyprus but also by minority and emigrant communities in numerous other countries.

Greek has been written in the Greek alphabet since the 9th century BC in Greece (before that, in Linear B during the 15th-13th centuries BC), and the 4th century BC in Cyprus (before that in Cypriot syllabary). Greek literature has a continuous history of nearly three thousand years.

The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects,[1] including most of the major languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), much of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent (South Asia). The Indo-European (Indo refers to the Indian subcontinent, since geographically the language group spreads from Europe in the west to India in the east) group has the largest numbers of speakers of the recognised families of languages in the world today, with its languages spoken by approximately three billion native speakers.[2

A language is a dynamic set of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the elements used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon. Language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication; although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that linguists use to define language

A symbol is something --- such as an object, picture, written word, a sound, a piece of music, or particular mark --- that represents (or stands for) something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. Symbols indicate (or serve as a sign for) and represent ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. For example, in the United States, Canada, Australia and Great Britain, a red octagon is the symbol that conveys the particular idea of (or means) "STOP".

Common examples of symbols are the symbols used on maps to denote places of interest, such as crossed sabres to indicate a battlefield, and the numerals used to represent numbers. Common psychological symbols are the use of a gun to represent a penis or a tunnel to represent a vagina. [1] See: phallic symbol and yonic symbo

An entity is something that has a distinct, separate existence, though it need not be a material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is animate. Entities are used in system developmental models that display communications and internal processing of, say, documents compared to order processing.

An entity could be viewed as a set containing subsets. In philosophy, such sets are said to be abstract objects.

Sometimes, the word entity is used in a general sense of a being, whether or not the referent has material existence; e.g., is often referred to as an entity with no corporeal form, such as a language. It is also often used to refer to ghosts and other spirits. Taken further, entity sometimes refers to existence or being itself. For example, the former U.S. diplomat George F. Kennan once said that "the policy of the government of the United States is to seek . . . to preserve Chinese territorial and administrative entity."

The word entitative is the adjective form of the noun entity. Something that is entitative is "considered as pure entity; abstracted from all circumstances", that is, regarded as entity alone, apart from attendant circumstances.

In law, an entity is something capable of bearing legal rights and obligations. It generally means "legal entity" (such as a business entity or a corporate entity) or "artificial person" but also includes "natural person".

In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, but in philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, and is often contrasted with essence. Philosophers investigate questions such as "What exists?" "How do we know?" "To what extent are the senses a reliable guide to existence?" "What is the meaning, if any, of assertions of the existence of categories, ideas, and abstractions."

The word "existence" comes from the Latin word 'existere', meaning to appear or emerge or stand out.

The word 'exist' is certainly a grammatical predicate, but philosophers have long disputed whether it is also a logical predicate. Some philosophers claim that it predicates something, and has the same meaning as 'is real', 'has being', 'is found in reality', 'is in the real world' and so on. Other philosophers deny that existence is logically a predicate, and claim that it is merely what is asserted by the etymologically distinct verb 'is', and that all statements containing the predicate 'exists' can be reduced to statements that do not use this predicate. For example, 'A Four-leaved clover exists.' can be rephrased as 'There is a clover with four leaves.'

This philosophical question is an old one, and has been discussed and argued over by philosophers from Aristotle, through Avicenna, Aquinas, Scotus, Hume, Kant, Kierkegaard and many others.

In mathematical logic existence is a quantifier, the "existential quantifier", symbolized by ∃, a backwards capital E. To symbolize "Four leaf clovers exist," mathematicians would first define predicates, P(x) = "x is a clover" and Q(x) = "x has four leaves", and then form the well-formed formula (∃x)(P(x) and Q(x)).

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, truth, justice, beauty, validity, mind and language.[1][2] Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing these questions (such as mysticism or mythology) by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on reasoned argument.[3] The word philosophy is of Ancient Greek origin: φιλοσοφία (philosophÃ*a), meaning "love of knowledge", "love of wisdom".[4][5][6]

Mysticism (from the Greek μυστικός, an initiate of a mystery religion, μυστήρια meaning "initiation"[1]) is the pursuit of achieving communion, identity with, or conscious awareness of ultimate reality, the Other, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight.

In many cases, the purpose of mysticism and mystical disciplines such as the use of entheogens or meditation, is to reach a state of return or re-integration with the Godhead. A common theme in mysticism is that the mystic and all of reality or God are a unity, termed Unio Mystica "mystical union". The purpose of mystical practices is to achieve that oneness in experience, to achieve a larger identity and re-identify with the all that is. Terms for this fundamental experience occur with various connotations in most or all religious traditions,

* Theosis (Christianity)
* Henosis (Neoplatonism)
* Irfan (Islam)
* Nirvana, Satori, Samadhi (Buddhism)
* Samadhi, Moksha (Hinduism)
* Moksha (Jainism)

Enlightenment or Illumination are generic English terms for the phenomenon, translating Latin illuminatio applied to Christian prayer in the 15th century De Imitatione, but equally to the four stages of enlightenment in Buddhism etc.

Mystic traditions often form a sub-current within larger religious traditions such as Kabbalah within Judaism, Sufism within Islam, Vedanta within Hinduism, Christian mysticism within Christianity.

Mystery Religions, Sacred Mysteries or simply Mysteries, were "religious cults of the Graeco-Roman world, full admission to which was restricted to those who had gone through certain secret initiation rites."[1