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May 11, 2012: I was invited by the Cognitive Science Student Association at the University of California Berkeley to be the International Speaker at their Fourth Annual California Cognitive Science Conference on April 28, 2012. I gave a talk titled "What We can Learn about Consciousness from Altered States of Consciousness."
The first part of the talk concerning definitions of consciousness and beliefs about consciousness and reality can be found in my paper:
Barušs, I. (2008). Beliefs about consciousness and reality: Clarification of the confusion concerning consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 15(10–11), 277–292.
The second half of the talk, about what we can learn about consciousness from altered states of consciousness, should show up as a paper soon. I will announce the publication of any such paper(s) in this blog. (Just remember that academia moves at glacial speed.)
At the end of my talk I asked participants at the conference to write a one-minute essay answering the question "What have you learned about consciousness from altered states of consciousness?" and also to write down any comments or questions that they might have. Eighteen participants responded to my request. This is some of what they wrote:
"I have had some experience with lucid dreaming and find it eerily close to reality. That being said, I think that is because I have experienced reality in 'real life' and I feel dreams are simply mirroring that reality. I don't think that dreams are in fact what is real."
"I've learned that consciousness shouldn't be studied through its own filter. Why aren't scientists studying from what part of the brain collective, universal consciousness comes? Why is the scientific community opposed to acknowledging parapsychology?"
"Consciousness is not a static process. It is dynamic and fluid and other states can explore realms and truths that rational waking consciousness cannot even perceive or comprehend."
"Viewing the normal waking life as the assumed standard is a fallacy and all the infinite states of consciousness need to be considered to truly understand what consciousness is and why it is significant."
"There is no reason to believe that our waking state is representative of reality. There is no reason to believe that altered states of consciousness are representative of reality. Always question."
"Lived in [another country] for a year, had a couple of experiences with mediums/psychics that were especially salient. Exactly a case of not being able to believe it until I see it --- something I wouldn't have believed had it not happened to me. So I have one simple question: how can I get involved in this kind of research?"
March 9, 2012: This is some blog, eh? No entries since last fall. Check out the following web site: http://instituteforscientificexploration.org/. Apparently I'm a member.
November 21, 2011: I will be giving a talk titled "Creativity" in the Vitali Student Lounge on Friday, November 25, 2011 at 7:00 p.m. for anyone who is interested. The announcement and a poster for the talk can be found at http://kings.uwo.ca/calendar-of-events/creativity-with-dr-imants-baruss.
September 29, 2011: My review of Anabela Cardoso's book has come out. It's good, but needs more critical thinking. Here is the full reference: Barušs, I. (2011). [Review of Electronic voices: Contact with another dimension? By Anabela Cardoso]. Journal of Scientific Exploration, 25(3), 600–604.
July 7, 2011: Reread the book Magic and Mystery in Tibet by Alexandra David-Neel (Dover, 1932/1971) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Recommended. David-Neel gives some insight into the heterogeneity of native shamanic, Buddhist, and syncretic traditions in Tibet in the early 20th century. And I love her sardonic turns when examining some of the goofier superstitions of Tibetans as well as foreigners. And a powerful writing style. Very incisive.
May 25, 2011: I gave a talk titled "Apparent Anomalous Effects of Intention on Physical Manifestation: Experiments in Remote Healing using Techniques Derived from Matrix Energetics" on May 6, 2011 at the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference at Stockholm University. In Experiment 2, I e-mailed volunteer participants telling them that I would begin a session at a particular time, then I would toss a coin. If it landed heads, I would do a remote healing session; if it landed tails, then I wouldn’t do anything further. They responded with a number from 1 to 6 to three questions: Whether anything unusual happened at that time, whether they felt more fatigued than expected; or whether they felt more energized than expected. From May 26, 2010 to April 15, 2011, there were 58 experimental sessions and 53 control sessions for 22 participants with an average length of 21 minutes for experimental sessions. All averages were higher in the experimental sessions and the absolute value of the difference between more energized and more fatigued was statistically significantly greater in the experimental session than the control session (2.09 vs. 1.57) with z=1.72 (p=.04, one-tailed).
After the Toward a Science of Consciousness conference in Stockholm, I hopped a plane to Riga and gave a talk on May 10, 2011 titled "Mãsdienu jaut~jumi un pJtijumi saist§b~ ar apziÃu un izmain§tiem apziÃas st~vok·iem [Contemporary Questions and Research Concerning Consciousness and Altered States of Consciousness]". There was good attendance at both talks and they were well received with protracted discussions afterwards.
March 4, 2011: I just came back from the ME Level 4 training seminar in San Diego. I went down looking for melting tables and got "Medicine 101" instead. Very technical. A 373 page manual. Lots of body parts. And many techniques with multiple variations. As usual, Richard did some amazing things on stage. Definitely recommended. Again, I appeared to be especially effective "playing" with participants at the seminar. I am curious to see how well these skills will carry over to my usual work.
June 17, 2010: I'm back from the ME training seminar that ran June 4-7, 2010 in Denver and the SSE 29th Annual Meeting in Boulder, Colorado, June 9-12. I enjoyed the ME training seminar. It seemed to me that everything just came together nicely for me. The SSE meeting was ok. If you scroll down, you can see how much I raved about the meeting last year in Virginia. Notwithstanding this year's mediocrity, it was a great opportunity to reconnect with my colleagues and discuss the intricacies of our research. My talk "A Preliminary Study of Remote Healing Using Techniques Derived from Matrix Energetics" was well received. I reported on a study of remote healing using techniques derived from ME from August 2009 to May 2010. It seemed that the remote healing was having beneficial effects on the participants. I will say more about this in writing in the future. Just stay tuned; I'll try to remember to make mention here of my writing that gets published.
April 19, 2010: I decided at the last minute to go to the TAT Center in West Virginia for "The Center Cannot Hold: A Weekend Intensive April 17-18, 2010," and I'm glad I did. It was interesting talking to people who have no self (i.e., who are "liberated") instead of just reading about it. My favourite talk was the first one, "Everyday Life is the Way" by Michael Hall. He did not say anything I did not already know, but he put it so clearly that it seemed to make sense to me in a new way. He was basically suggesting that people do a bit of mindfulness in the course of their everyday lives in order to become aware of the neurotic chatter that goes on for most of us. By doing so, we can start to see how uninteresting such neurotic chatter is and then stop doing it, thereby reducing the degree to which we suffer. Michael's web site is awakentotruth.com.
February 11, 2010: Students have asked me in the past for recommendations of things to read, so I'll make some recommendations from time to time. . . . Hey, how about right now? I just finished reading Soul Survivor: The Reincarnation of a World War II Fighter Pilot (Grand Central Publishing, 2009). It's the story of a boy in the U.S. who recalls some accurate information apparently belonging to a World War II fighter pilot. The events depicted in the book are consistent with typical cases of past life experiences by children as studied, most notably, by Ian Stevenson. The writing itself was a bit overwrought for my taste, and the book is fluffy, not academic, but a fun read nonetheless.
January 19, 2010: My most recent paper "Speculations about the Direct Effects of Intention on Physical Manifestation" has been published in Volume 3 of the Journal of Cosmology. You can read it here: http://journalofcosmology.com/QuantumConsciousness110.html. I thank the editors of the journal for inviting me to submit an article.
December 29, 2009: Professor Allan Combs from the California Institute of Integral Studies gave a talk titled "A History of Consciousness through Art" at King's. This was an interesting examination of trends in the history of ideas as reflected in works of art from various time periods.
November 20, 2009: I gave a talk titled "The Psychology of Intention" at Huron University College on Wednesday, November 4, 2009. I just got really into talking and by the time I stopped, to my surprise, one hour and ten minutes had gone by. The Great Hall was full and we ended up having a good discussion afterwards. And then, toward the end, a demonstration of ME in which I was assisted by Dr. Ian Brown and Ken Kirkpatrick, together with whom I have attended the ME seminars. It was a lot of fun! And several of the attendees told me afterwards that they had found the talk useful.
September 13, 2009: Professor Achim Kempf, Canada Research Chair in the Physics of Information at the University of Waterloo gave a colloquium at King's titled "Thoughts about Physics and Consciousness" in which he discussed his ideas about consciousness and its relationship to entanglement, the anthropic principle, observers in quantum theory, evolution, information, neural nonlinearities, biases in science brought about by the nature of our sensory organs, and Buddhist meditation. The colloquium was well attended and some good questions raised afterwards.
August 20, 2009: I completed ME level 3 in Baltimore over the weekend. I don't feel that I gained that much more from Level 3 than I had from the previous two levels. And I was left with more questions than answers, really, mostly trying to understand the role of stable mental imagery, the will (at different levels), and release into a non-dual state, as parameters affecting the effectiveness of ME.
Professor Achim Kempf has kindly agreed to give a colloquium at King's, and will talk about consciousness! So, former students who have expressed an interest in quantum theory and consciousness are welcome to come. Well, all students, current as well as former, are welcome to come.
July 26, 2009: According to P.
M. H. Atwater, the image most commonly deemed characteristic of their
experiences by near-death experiencers is Gustave Doré's woodcut of the
Empyrean, as seen below.
June 24, 2009: I completed Levels 1 & 2 of Matrix Energetics training in Toronto last weekend. I didn't feel that the training had the same impact on me this time as it did in Miami. I had pretty much figured out most of what was taught in Level 2 on my own. However, I did have some of my questions about the interplay of intention and release answered. In Miami, it seemed that there was a clear distinction between the two, but they became somewhat blurred this time, as I suspected that they needed to be. It's also quite clear that this is the cutting edge of trying to understand the interplay of consciousness and physical manifestation (or, at least, scientifically, using contemporary ideas).
June 17, 2009: I'm back from the Asian Consciousness Festival held at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. I spoke at the Social Approaches to Consciousness Conference on June 9, 2009, where my talk was titled "Beliefs about Consciousness and Reality: Clarification of the Confusion Concerning Consciousness." Yes, based on the recent paper in the Journal of Consciousness Studies. My talk was well-received, but there were only about 20 people listening, and most of them were presenters themselves. My other talk was a plenary session on Sunday morning, June 14, 2009, on the last day of the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference. This one was titled "Beyond Scientific Materialism: Toward a Transcendent Theory of Consciousness." My talk went very well and there were lots of people listening, but the TSC conferences are still largely materialist conferences, so I was a bit of a pariah.
On the subject of materialism, I had an interesting interchange later in the day during a group discussion. A philosopher, who was a self-assured materialist, was stating how everything, including consciousness, is the result of supervention. I asked him what it was on which everything supervened. And he answered "I don't know. You're the physicist." I thought that was interesting. First, that he had mistaken me for a physicist, given that I had carefully identified myself as a psychologist. But, second, that he had completely missed one of the most important points of my talk earlier in the day, namely, that there is no-thing down there. For example, I pointed out that the classical notions of waves and particles are inadequate metaphors for the reality of quantons, the quantum events that make up physical manifestation. I also listed other disturbing features of reality, such as spacelike nonlocality, the fact that elementary particles do not have spatial extension, and the Kocken-Specker Theorem, whereby observables have no values until what is to be observed has been selected or contextuality exists so that values of an observable change depending on what else is being observed. In other words, the "bottom" doesn't provide nearly the kind of base of support that appears to be necessary to even get the supervenience thesis off the ground. I just keep coming back to the importance of researchers examining their own beliefs about reality. And, as I pointed out in my first talk, in the survey of participants at the Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference in Tucson in 1996, Bob Moore and I found that it was exactly the materialists who claimed not to have examined their own beliefs about consciousness and reality.
June 2, 2009: I'm back from the SSE conference at the University of Virginia. It was a great conference! One of the best academic conferences I have attended. (Most are largely a waste of time.) Lindsay (my thesis student) did a great job of presenting her study "Psychological Correlates of Anomalous Human/Machine Interactions" and got accolades from the participants at the conference. One of the highlights of the conference, for me, was Colin Campbell's talk "The China Study" in which he found that a plant-based diet (i.e., vegan) leads to the best health outcomes. I had heard of his research, but had not seen the details of it before. Julie Beischel's talk "Mediumship under the Microscope: Science and the Afterlife" provided yet more evidence that mediums can obtain correct information that they cannot know through conventional means. There have now been a number of studies showing this to be true. Bruce Greyson's talk "Is Postmortem Survival a Scientific Hypothesis?" was just wonderful. In particular, I was left contemplating a case that he mentioned of a man who tried to commit suicide by overdosing on pills. As he was dying, he changed his mind and got up to try to get help. But as he was walking forward, he felt that there were beings present who were getting in his way. However, he also had the clear-headed perspective from about 10 feet above and behind his body of seeing himself hallucinating beings getting in his way. Thus, there appeared to have been two streams of consciousness, one that was hallucinating and the other of which was clear-headed — consciousness acting through the brain and consciousness acting through a discarnate mind. Great conference.
April 29, 2009: I attended the colloquium today at the Perimeter Institute where Bob Coeke from Oxford University gave a talk "Where Quantum Meets Logic, . . . in a World of Pictures!" I really liked Coeke's approach to quantum theory using monoidal categories. It's very clean. This is exactly the sort of thing that I was looking for. However, these are monoidal categories without Cartesian products, so that one cannot immediately exploit the internal logic of a topos. It isn't necessary that one do so, I just wonder if there is a way to internalize the logical structure of quantum theory.
April 27, 2009: I attended the Philosophy of Quantum Field Theory conference April 24–26, 2009 here at Western. One of the things I have found is that mathematicians are somewhat reluctant to say what any of the quantum formalism means. I mean, we all hear about the "shut up and calculate" adage, but it's actually true. The philosophers were at least trying to make sense of it, but usually only by addressing very restricted aspects of quantum theory. One of the things that surprised me was that much of the discussion was still just about quantum mechanics, some of it about quantum mechanics + special relativity, and very little of it actually had to do with quantum field theory, let alone quantum field theory on curved space-time. And there was no mention of some of the things that I find interesting, such as the Kochen-Specker Theorem, inflation, or the lack of spatial extension for elementary particles, and what any of that could mean. Of course, they need not address my agenda. All that means is that I have to carry on myself.
April 19, 2009: My most recent paper has just come out "Characteristics of Consciousness in Collapse-Type Quantum Mind Theories" published in The Journal of Mind and Behavior, Volume 29, Number 3, pp. 255–265. Among other things, I manage to say a bit about the Flicker Theory of the universe and do a little category theory toward the end.
February 26, 2009: I had promised a number of people that I would say something about the Matrix Energetics seminar that I attended last weekend in Miami. Indeed, while I had some powerful experiences, Sunday night, after Level 1 had ended and I was heading back to London, I didn't know what I would say about it to my students in Monday's classes. However, when I woke up on Monday morning, I had come up with the following.
As I see it, there are two essential principles of Matrix Energetics. The first is that you cannot effect radical transformation as long as you maintain a problem/solution mindset. Looking for a solution to a problem reinforces the problem and restricts you to the solutions that a particular way of conceptualizing your problem and its solutions entails. Richard Bartlett used Rupert Sheldrake's notion of morphogenetic fields as a way of explaining this. If you bring a physical complaint to an allopathic physician, then you become enmeshed in the morphogenetic field of conventional allopathic medicine with its benefits and its limitations; in bringing the same complaint to a naturopathic physician you are contained by the naturopathic strategies; and so on. So the idea is to enter a non-dual state of awareness in which both the problem and its potential solutions disappear. From that space, new possibilities can emerge that are not part of any of the existent morphogenetic fields. (Of course, ME now has its own morphogenetic field.)
The second essential principle is the acknowledgement that, according to quantum theory, matter is essentially just, well, it's not clear what it is. But it's certainly not solid. And, somewhat more controversially, that seeing what we see differently creates a change in that which is seen. While Richard didn't refer to it, by the Kochen-Specker Theorem in quantum mechanics, observables cannot have any values at least until a decision has been made as to which observables are to be measured. In other words, reality does not exist in physical form until we decide what to look for. And, since we keep looking over and over again, we are essentially living in a "flicker universe." Again, Richard didn't use that term. (I introduce it for this purpose in my most recent paper which should be out any day now in The Journal of Mind and Behavior.) And it's not that much of a stretch to think that such choosing can affect what it is that we see (other than stochastically).
So, the techniques of ME appear to be based not on looking for pathology but on noticing a point on a person's body (or the space around her) that is "interesting," entangling that point with another that is "interesting," and then dropping one's consciousness into a non-dual state. The idea is that the person with whom one is entangled will also drop into that state and then re-emerge into an expression of manifestation that is different (and more adaptive) than the state in which she previously found herself, because the "measurement" of the two points created an opportunity for a change in the informational structure of that person. We learned variations on this two-point technique, such as the use of time travel, parallel universes, archetypes, and frequencies.
What I noticed, as we seminar participants practiced on one another, was that sometimes interesting things would happen. People's bodies moved as I dropped into the non-dual state and, in one case, I had to catch a woman before she collapsed to the floor. The most quantifiable change occurred for a woman who told me after I had played with her (i.e., applied the (non)-technique), that she could see in focus, something that she had not been able to do prior to that (which, coincidentally, is where Richard started with this). I'm still not sure what to make of ME, but I do think it merits more research to determine its effectiveness for improving people's lives, and for understanding the mechanisms through which it works. (Yes, I know. That's the scientist in me.)
Reference: Bartlett, R. (2007). Matrix energetics: The science and art of transformation. Atria.
January 15, 2009: I realized today that this web page needs more mathematics on it. I was reminded of a quotation on one of the weekly departmental newsletters while I was still a humble graduate student in mathematics: "A theorem a day prevents mental decay." Well, what better place to start than the Einstein equation relating curvature and energy and momentum:
Rμν(x)–1/2gμν(x)R(x)+Λgμν(x)=8πGTμν(x)
where x is a position four-vector and the remaining symbols all have their usual meanings.
October 24, 2008: My paper "Beliefs About Consciousness and Reality: Clarifying the Confusion Concerning Consciousness" has just come out in the current issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. More information can be found at http://www.imprint.co.uk/jcs_15_10-11.html.
August 1, 2008: Course outlines for my fall courses are posted on the web pages for those courses.
July 8, 2008: Psychology 3177F and 3120G are full. I am receiving numerous requests from students to add them to the course over the course limit. While I am sympathetic to students' needs to find courses, please note that I do not do so.
July 2, 2008: I'm back from the Society for Scientific Exploration 27th annual meeting where I presented a paper titled "Toward a Post-Quantum Theory of Consciousness." The meeting itself exceeded my expectations (which is unusual; academic meetings are usually disappointing because of the lack of quality presentations). I found particularly interesting new research showing the direct effects of intention on biological systems. And the panel discussions, with questions from the audience, were excellent!
June 11, 2008: I'm back from the Franklin Merrell-Wolff Conference at The Great Space Center near Lone Pine, California (at the base of Mt. Whitney), where I presented a paper titled "Dreaming to Wake Up: The Psychology of Liberation." The paper was well-received and the meeting itself was interesting. There's something about the land that induces inner stillness. . . . I'm just working on my talk for the SSE meeting in Boulder "Toward a Post-Quantum Theory of Consciousness." Here's the link for that conference: SSE Meeting. It appears to be a really well-organized conference, and should be a lot of fun!
May 27, 2008: My web site has a new look; it's a calico cat theme. I've posted new information about my courses on the courses' web sites and created more links.
May 20, 2008: Quotation from Alan Wallace's book Hidden Dimensions (Columbia University Press, 2007): "Presenting Cartesian dualism and materialistic monism as the only two options for understanding the nature of consciousness is like presenting two impossible dishes on a menu, passenger pigeon breast and marinated duck-billed platypus: they're equally extinct, so neither is a real option in today's world" (page 24). And particularly unpalatable to a vegan in any case, I would think.
May 1, 2008: Professor William Sulis from the Department of Psychiatry at McMaster University gave a talk titled "Emergence, Cognition, and Collective Intelligence" last Tuesday, April 29 at King's. He talked about the notion of collective intelligence in the context of insect colonies and provided various mathematical models (e.g., stochastic models) to describe the interactive dynamics of the insects. What I liked about his talk was the way in which he undermined our usual notions of representation and reliance on "thingness."
April 14, 2008: Professor Andreas Doering from Imperial College gave a colloquium titled "The Topos Approach to the Formulation of Physical Theories" at King's University College on April 11, 2008. It was good talk that provided a different perspective for understanding the foundations of quantum theory in terms of presheaves over a partially ordered set of contexts.
April 7, 2008: I sat in on a senior graduate course, Applied Mathematics 872: Quantum Field Theory for Cosmology taught by Professor Achim Kempf at the University of Waterloo during the winter semester. It was a great course and a bit of an eye opener. 1. After the choppy waters of the endless finagling in quantum mechanics (see, e.g., Clebsch-Gordan coefficients below), I felt that we hit smooth waters and happy sailing. 2. I can't believe that the universe is a mattress. I had come across this before in Tony Zee's book, but hadn't really taken it seriously until I saw the solutions of the Klein-Gordon equation for myself. I'm still not too sure what to make of that. 3. I find it amazing that the universe is actually expanding. I mean, everybody knows the universe is expanding, but I had just shrugged this off as some sort of fad that cosmologists are into. Not so. There is apparently good evidence for it. But that really challenges our notions of space. I mean, the (proper) distance between the end of my nose and the computer screen is increasing as I write this. We know that the mildly depressed have a more accurate representation of reality than "normal" people, but apparently so do psychotics! Now I just have to figure out where consciousness fits into all of this. Should be able to figure that out by the end of the month, I should think.
March 11, 2008: It took four lectures, but I managed to get through the lecture series about category theory. Andreas Doering, from Imperial College, will be speaking about topos theory and the foundations of physics at King's sometime mid-April. I will post the details once they have been arranged.
January 28, 2008: Well, we didn't get nearly as far as we thought, so this coming Friday, February 1, 2008 I will finish up what has become a lecture series by introducing categories of sheaves (a.k.a. Grothendieck topoi) and talk a little bit about how they can be used for modelling conscious mental acts in Husserl's account of intentionality and state vector collapse in quantum mechanics.
January 13, 2008: I gave a lecture last Friday, January 11, titled "An Introduction to Category Theory with Applications to Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness Studies." I managed to only get half-way through, so we're going to continue next Friday. I gave a definition of a category (the arrows-only version) and discussed functors a bit, including functor categories and natural transformations, along with John Baez's idea that a probability amplitude in quantum mechanics is just the hom functor from a Hilbert space to it's comma category over a state vector (this is not quite the way he puts it but this is essentially what is going on). Next Friday I'll talk about the internal structure of a category and hopefully get as far as the definition of an elementary topos, say a little bit about its internal logic, and then do some modelling using Grothendieck topoi.
December 24, 2007: Just finished taking Quantum Mechanics II, an upper level undergraduate applied mathematics and physics course at the University of Western Ontario. It was fun. We ended up looking at orbital momentum and three-dimensional solutions to the Schrodinger equation with radial potentials. Yes, indeed, everybody's favourite, the Clebsch-Gordan coefficients. And, after getting bogged down with an anisotropic Hamiltonian, I found out that there are exceptions to the canonical commutation relations. And, just to keep things interesting, I attended a great lecture about contextuality in the Advanced Quantum Mechanics course at the University of Waterloo. Onward!
August 2, 2007: I'm back from the Quantum Mind 2007 conference at the University of Salzburg. Overall, I was disappointed. I had hoped that a spark would be generated at the conference that would help to move along the quantum theory and consciousness research program. But it was still just too all over the place with both loopy and irrelevant presentations. I don't mind the loopy ones because it's better to err on the side of giving people an opportunity to express themselves in case they do have something worthwhile to say but I don't think there is much value in speakers who start their talks by saying that they've never thought about consciousness before so they're not sure why they got invited to speak at a consciousness conference. At any rate, my talk "Characteristics of Consciousness in Collapse-Type Quantum Mind Theories" went well. I was also encouraged on the second-last day by Menas Kafatos' reference to category theory as a mathematical approach that could be productive, a view with which I agree. And on the last day of the conference, I particularly liked Jeff Tollaksen's approach to time evolution in quantum theory. I might not like it after I've had a closer look at it but, at the moment, I think it could be a productive line of investigation.
June 5, 2007: Welcome to my web site! I've changed things around a bit to make them more attractive. . . . I just got back from the annual meeting of the Society for Scientific Exploration where I presented a paper entitled "Science as a Spiritual Practice." This talk was based on my book Science as a Spiritual Practice which came out in March and has received good reviews so far. More information about the book is on the books page. . . . Please note that I am on sabbatical and will not be teaching any courses or accepting any undergraduate thesis students until September 2008. Students who are interested in finding out about Psychology 110a/b: Altered States of Consciousness, when I teach it, can have a look at the web site for the 2006-07 academic year.