Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama /ˈdɑːlaɪ ˈlɑːmə/ is a monk of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest of the schools of Tibetan Buddhism founded by Je Tsongkhapa. The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso.

The Dalai Lama is considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, called Chenrezig in Tibetan. The name is a combination of the Mongolic word dalai meaning "ocean" (being the translation of the Tibetan name, 'Gyatso') and the Tibetan word བླ་མ་ (bla-ma) meaning "guru, teacher, mentor". The Tibetan word "lama" corresponds to the better known Sanskrit word "guru".

From 1642 until the 1950s (except for 1705 to 1750), the Dalai Lamas or their regents headed the Tibetan government or Ganden Phodrang which governed all or most of the Tibetan plateau from Lhasa with varying degrees of autonomy, up to complete sovereignty. This government also enjoyed the patronage and protection of firstly Mongol kings of the Khoshut and Dzungar Khanates (1642–1720) and then of the emperors of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1720–1912).

Millennium Science Initiative

The Millennium Science Initiative (MSI), a project of The World Bank and the Science Initiative Group, is an international initiative to build capacity in science and technology in the developing world. Inaugurated in Chile in 1998, the MSI now has a major presence in Chile, Brazil, and Uganda, and also is active on a smaller scale in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Highly adaptable to circumstances, the MSI achieves its mission through a variety of vehicles, among them competitively chosen centers or networks of excellence in scientific research and training.

History

The Millennium Science Initiative came into being over the course of several years, building on the rich history of previous attempts to build S&T capacity in the developing world. These attempts have included programs of the The Academy of Science for the Developing World, UNESCO, ICSU, the European Union, private foundations, Scandinavian aid organizations, and The World Bank.

The specific concept for the MSI represents the confluence of two initiatives. First, in 1997, then World Bank president James Wolfensohn was exploring ways in which the Bank might incorporate science and technology into its development strategy. Mr. Wolfensohn, who also chaired the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, sought the advice of the Institute Director at the time, Phillip Griffiths.

Thupten Jinpa

Thupten Jinpa Langri (b. 1958) has been the principal English translator to the Dalai Lama since 1985. He has translated and edited more than ten books by the Dalai Lama including The World of Tibetan Buddhism (Wisdom Publications, 1993), A Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus (Wisdom Publications, 1996), and the New York Times bestseller Ethics for the New Millennium (Riverhead, 1999).

Thupten Jinpa Langri was born in Tibet in 1958. He received his early education and training as a monk at Zongkar Choede Monastery in Hunsur near Mysore, Karnataka, South India and later joined the Shartse College of Ganden monastic university, in Mundgod, Karnataka, South India, where he received the Geshe Lharam degree. He taught Buddhist epistemology, metaphysics, Middle Way philosophy and Buddhist psychology at Ganden for five years. Jinpa also holds a B.A. Honors degree in Western Philosophy and a Ph.D. degree in Religious Studies, both from Cambridge University, UK.

Arthur Zajonc

Arthur Guy Zajonc (/ˈzeɪ.ənts/ ZAY-ənts; born 11 October 1949, Boston, Massachusetts) is a physicist and the author of several books related to science, mind, and spirit; one of these is based on dialogues about quantum mechanics with the Dalai Lama. Zajonc, professor emeritus at Amherst College as of 2012, has been teaching there since 1978. He has served as the General Secretary of the Anthroposophical Society in America. From January 2012 to June 2015 he was president of the Mind and Life Institute.

Biography

Zajonc received a B.S. in engineering physics from the University of Michigan in 1971. He received an M.S. (1973) and Ph.D. (1976) in physics at the University of Michigan as well. From 1976-1978 he was a research associate at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics at the University of Colorado and the National Bureau of Standards, Boulder, Colorado.

Zajonc became an assistant professor of physics at Amherst College in 1978, and was promoted to associate professor in 1984 and full professor in 1991. In 2006 he became an Andrew W. Mellon Professor at Amherst. He retired from this position in 2011, and is now Andrew W. Mellon Professor Emeritus at Amherst College.

Michel Bitbol

Michel Bitbol (born March 12, 1954) is a French researcher in philosophy of science.

He is "Directeur de recherche" at CNRS, previously in the Centre de Recherche en Epistémologie Appliquée (CREA) of École polytechnique (Paris, France). He is now a member of Archives Husserl, Ecole Normale Superieure (Paris, France).

Career

His research interests are mainly focused on the influence of quantum physics on philosophy. He first worked on Erwin Schrödinger's metaphysics and philosophy of physics.

Using theorems demonstrated by Jean-Louis Destouches, Paulette Destouches-Février, and R.I.G. Hughes, he pointed out that the structure of quantum mechanics may be derived to a large extent from the assumption that microscopic phenomena cannot be dissociated from their experimental context. His views on quantum mechanics converge with ideas developed by Julian Schwinger and Asher Peres, according to whom quantum mechanics is a "symbolism of atomic measurements", rather than a description of atomic objects. He also defends ideas close to Anton Zeilinger's, by claiming that quantum laws do not express the nature of physical objects, but only the bounds of experimental information.