Iranian civilization is one of the oldest and most influential civilizations of history, and Iran as the origin of Persian civilization, has been ruled by numerous states throughout history. Some of them, while enjoying considerable glory and high level of economic and political power, have sometimes been declined and finally overthrown. Having these points in mind, the main questions are prese...

The motif throughout is the author's axiom that our ability to perform to capacity depends upon our relations with other humans and not on sheer skill or dexterity. He urges that the effect of intimate human contacts upon the nervous system is becoming a serious problem now that civilisation has rendered the race so highly sensitive. He points out that just as social knowledge led the way to th...

The death of our universe is as certain as our individual death. Some cosmologists have elaborated models which would make the cosmos immortal. In this paper, I examine them as cosmological extrapolations of immortality narratives that civilizations have developed to face death anxiety. I first show why cosmological death should be a worry, then I briefly examine scenarios involving the notion ...

This special issue of Human Biology commemorates the quincentennial of Christopher Columbus's journeys to the New World. This historical event, the collision of New and Old World cultures, forever altered the demography of the world. As a result of this contact, the native peoples of the Americas experienced innumerable hardships, disease, death, and the destruction of civilizations, tribes, an...

In this paper we consider the clash between the pre-scripted character of much narrative and the freedom afforded by a Virtual Environment. We discuss the concept of emergent narrative as a possible way of avoiding this clash. We examine the role of a VE user in a narrative and consider the concept of social presence as a means of reconciling the freedom of the user with the constraints of an e...