Multi-Scale Visualization and Interpretation of Geological Relationships

Visualization and interpretation of geological observations into a cohesive geological model are essential to Earth sciences and related fields. Various emerging technologies offer approaches to multi-scale visualization of heterogeneous data, providing new opportunities that facilitate model development and interpretation processes. These include increased accessibility to 3D scanning technology, global connectivity, and Web-based interactive platforms. The geological sciences and geological engineering disciplines are adopting these technologies as volumes of data and physical samples greatly increase. However, a standardized and universally agreed upon workflow and approach have yet to properly be developed. In this thesis, the 3D scanning workflow is presented as a foundation for a virtual geological database. This database provides augmented levels of tangibility to students and researchers who have little to no access to locations that are remote or inaccessible. A Web-GIS platform was utilized jointly with customized widgets developed throughout the course of this research to aid in visualizing hand-sized/meso-scale geological samples within a geologic and geospatial context. This context is provided as a macro-scale GIS interface, where geophysical and geodetic images and data are visualized. Specifically, an interactive interface is developed that allows for simultaneous visualization to improve the understanding of geological trends and relationships. These developed tools will allow for rapid data access and global sharing, and will facilitate comprehension of geological models using multi-scale heterogeneous observations.

Language, Logos, and Social Ontology: Naturalist and Post-Naturalist Narratives of Human Rationality and Social Reality

I distinguish two ways that philosophers have approached and explained the reality and status of human social institutions. I call these approaches “naturalist” and “post-naturalist”. Common to both approaches is an understanding that the status of mind and its relation to the world or “nature” has implications on a conception of the status of institutional reality. Naturalists hold that mind is explicable within a scientific frame that conceives of mind as a fundamentally material process. By proxy, social reality is also materially explicable. Post-naturalists critique this view, holding instead that naturalism is parasitic on contemporary science—it therefore is non-compulsory and distorts how we ought to understand mind and social reality. A comparison of naturalism and post-naturalism will comprise the content of the first chapter. The second chapter turns to tracing out the dimensions of a post-naturalist narrative of mind and social reality. Post-naturalists conceive of mind and its activity of thought as sui generis, and it transpires from this that social institutions are better understood as a rational mind’s mode of the expression in the world. Post-naturalism conceives of social reality as a necessary dimension of thought. Thought requires a second person and thereby a tradition or context of norms that come to both structure its expression and become the products of expression. This is in contrast to the idea that social reality is a production of minds, and thereby derivative. Social reality, self-conscious thought, and thought of the second person are therefore three dimensions of a greater unity.