title: Imola Circuit

text: Another modification made to the Imola track is that of Variante Alta, which is situated at the top of the hill leading down to Rivazza and has the hardest braking point on the lap. The Variante Alta, formerly a high-kerbed chicane, was hit quite hard by the drivers which caused damage to the cars and occasionally was the site of quite a few accidents. Before the 2006 Grand Prix, the kerbs were lowered considerably and the turn itself was tightened to reduce speeds and hopefully reduce the number of accidents at the chicane.


title: Imola Circuit

text: The Grand Prix was removed from the calendar of the 2007 Formula One season. SAGIS, the company that owns the circuit, hoped that the race would be reinstated at the October 2006 meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council and scheduled for the weekend of 29 April 2007, provided renovations to the circuit were completed in time for the race, but the reinstatement was denied.


title: Imola Circuit

text: Since 2007, the circuit has undergone major revisions. A bypass to the Variante Bassa chicane was added for cars, making the run from Rivazza 2 to the first Tamburello chicane totally flat-out, much like the circuit in its original fast-flowing days. However, the chicane is still used for motorcycle races.


title: Imola Circuit

text: The old pit garages and paddock have been demolished and completely rebuilt while the pitlane was extended and resurfaced. The reconstruction was overseen by German F1 track architect Hermann Tilke.


title: Imola Circuit

text: In June 2008, with most of the reconstruction work completed, The FIA gave the track a "1T" rating, meaning that an official Formula One Test can be held at the circuit; circuits require the "1" homologation to host a Formula One Grand Prix. As of August 2011, the track received a '1' FIA homologation rating after an inspection by Charlie Whiting.


title: Imola Circuit

text: In June 2015, the owners of the circuit confirmed they were in talks to return to the Formula One calendar should Monza, whose contract was scheduled to run out after the season, be unable to make a new deal to keep hosting a round of the world championship. On 18 July 2016, Imola signed a deal to host the Italian Grand Prix from the season. However, on 2 September 2016, it was announced that Monza had secured a new deal to continue in hosting the race, and Imola's officials took legal action against this decision questioning the legality of government funding awarded to Monza. On 8 November 2016, they withdrew their case. In February 2020, the owners at Imola submitted a bid to replace the 2020 Chinese Grand Prix pending its cancellation as a precaution in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 24 July 2020, it was confirmed that the circuit would be added to the calendar for the 2020 Formula One World Championship with the race being called the "Emilia Romagna Grand Prix" in honour of the region the circuit is situated in. In a break with Formula One tradition the event at the circuit took place over two days instead of three on 31 October and 1 November 2020. Imola was kept on the calendar for 2021, following the postponement of the Chinese Grand Prix due to the ongoing pandemic, and later for the 2022 calendar as well. Imola is due to host a F1 Grand Prix until 2025.


title: Imola Circuit

text: The official lap record for the current Grand Prix circuit layout is 1:15.484, set by Lewis Hamilton during the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, while the unofficial all-time track record is 1:13.609, set by Valtteri Bottas in the qualifying of aforementioned race. The official race lap records at the Imola Circuit are listed as:


title: Imola Circuit

text: Since 1981, the circuit has been hosting the early-September "Mostra Scambio" ("Trading Exposition"), an open-air market primarily focused on the exhibition and trade of vintage vehicles and their parts; this event is also popularly (but inaccurately) called CRAME, after the name of the historical society organizing it.


title: Imola Circuit

text: Partially due to the vicinity of the Romeo Galli athletics stadium, the Acque Minerali park, and the Tre Monti hills, the Autodromo is not commonly used for bicycle or on-foot sporting activities (albeit with notable exceptions, such as two segments of the Giro d'Italia in the 2010s, and 2020 UCI Road World Championships); however, the civic administration does occasionally allocate summer days in which the public can walk or cycle along the track.


title: Cornish people

text: The Cornish people or Cornish (, ) are an ethnic group native to, or associated with Cornwall and a recognised national minority in the United Kingdom, which can trace its roots to the ancient Britons who inhabited southern and central Great Britain before the Roman conquest. Many in Cornwall today continue to assert a distinct identity separate from or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora. Although not included as an explicit option in the UK census, the numbers of those claiming Cornish ethnic and national identity are officially recognised and recorded.


title: Cornish people

text: Throughout classical antiquity, the ancient Britons formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities in Great Britain; the Dumnonii and Cornovii were the Celtic tribes who inhabited what was to become Cornwall during the Iron Age, Roman and post-Roman periods. The name Cornwall and its demonym Cornish are derived from the Celtic Cornovii tribe. The Anglo-Saxon invasion and settlement of Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries restricted the Romano-British culture and language gradually into the north and west of Great Britain whilst the inhabitants of southern and eastern Britain became English. The Cornish people, who shared the Brythonic language with the Welsh and Bretons across the sea, were referred to in the Old English language as the "Westwalas" meaning West Welsh. The Battle of Deorham between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons is thought to have resulted in a loss of landlinks with the people of Wales.


title: Cornish people

text: The Cornish people and their Brythonic Cornish language experienced a process of anglicisation and attrition during the medieval and early modern periods. By the 18th century, and following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain, the Cornish language and identity had faded, largely replaced by the English language (albeit Cornish-influenced West Country dialects and Anglo-Cornish) or British identity. A Celtic revival during the early-20th century enabled a cultural self-consciousness in Cornwall that revitalised the Cornish language and roused the Cornish to express a distinctly Celtic heritage. The Cornish language was granted official recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2002, and in 2014 the Cornish people were recognised and afforded protection by the UK Government under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.


title: Cornish people

text: In the 2011 census, the population of Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly, was estimated to be 532,300. The Cornish self-government movement has called for greater recognition of Cornish culture, politics, and language, and urged that Cornish people be accorded greater status, exemplified by the call for them to be one of the listed ethnic groups in the United Kingdom Census 2011 form.


title: Cornish people

text: Both geographic and historical factors distinguish the Cornish as an ethnic group further supported by identifiable genetic variance between the populations of Cornwall, neighbouring Devon and England as published in a 2012 Oxford University study. Throughout medieval and Early Modern Britain, the Cornish were at some points accorded the same status as the English and Welsh and considered a separate race or nation, distinct from their neighbours, with their own language, society and customs. A process of Anglicisation between 1485 and 1700 led to the Cornish adopting English language, culture and civic identity, a view reinforced by Cornish historian A. L. Rowse who said they were gradually "absorbed into the mainstream of English life". Although "decidedly modern" and "largely retrospective" in its identity politics, Cornish and Celtic associations have advanced the notion of a distinct Cornish national and ethnic identity since the late 20th century. In the United Kingdom Census 2001, despite no explicit "Cornish" option being available, approximately 34,000 people in Cornwall and 3,500 people elsewhere in the UK—a combined total equal to nearly 7 per cent of the population of Cornwall—identified themselves as ethnic Cornish by writing this in under the "other" ethnicity option. The census figures show a change in identity from West to East, in Penwith 9.2 per cent identified as ethnically Cornish, in Kerrier it was 7.5 per cent, in Carrick 6.6 per cent, Restormel 6.3 per cent, North Cornwall 6 per cent, and Caradon 5.6 per cent. Weighting of the 2001 Census data gives a figure of 154,791 people with Cornish ethnicity living in Cornwall.


title: Cornish people

text: The Cornish have been described as "a special case" in England, with an "ethnic rather than regional identity". Structural changes to the politics of the United Kingdom, particularly the European Union and devolution, have been cited as the main stimulus to "a growing interest in Cornish identity and distinctiveness" in late-20th century Britain. The British are the citizens of the United Kingdom, a people who by convention consist of four national groups: the English, Northern Irish, Scots and Welsh. In the 1990s it was said that the notion that the Cornish are to be classified as a nation comparable to the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh, "has practically vanished from the popular consciousness" outside Cornwall, and that, despite a "real and substantive" identity, the Cornish "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English". However, in 2014, after a 15-year campaign, the UK government officially recognised the Cornish as a national minority under the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, giving the Cornish the same status as the Welsh, Scots and Irish within the UK.


title: Cornish people

text: Inhabitants of Cornwall may have multiple political allegiances, adopting mixed, dual or hyphenated identities such as "Cornish first and British second", "Cornish and British and European", or, like Phil Vickery (a rugby union prop for the England national rugby union team and British and Irish Lions), describe themselves as "Cornish" and "English". Meanwhile, another international rugby union player, Josh Matavesi, describes himself as Cornish-Fijian and Cornish not English.


title: Cornish people

text: A survey by Plymouth University in 2000 found that 30% of children in Cornwall felt "Cornish, not English". A 2004 survey on national identity by the finance firm Morgan Stanley found that 44% of respondents in Cornwall saw themselves as Cornish rather than British or English. A 2008 University of Exeter study conducted in 16 towns across Cornwall found that 59% felt themselves to be Cornish and 41% felt "More Cornish than English", while for over a third of respondents the Cornish identity formed their primary "national" identity. Genealogy and family history were considered to be the chief criteria for 'being' Cornish, particularly among those who possessed such ties, while being born in Cornwall was also held to be important.


title: Cornish people

text: A 2008 study by the University of Edinburgh of 15- and 16-year-old schoolchildren in Cornwall found that 58% of respondents felt themselves to be either 'Fairly' or 'Very much' Cornish. The other 42% may be the result of in-migration to the area during the second half of the twentieth century.


title: Cornish people

text: A 2010 study by the University of Exeter into the meaning of contemporary Cornish identity across Cornwall found that there was a "west-east distance decay in the strength of the Cornish identity." The study was conducted amongst the farming community as they were deemed to be the socio-professional group most objectively representative of Cornishness. All participants categorised themselves as Cornish and identified Cornish as their primary ethnic group orientation. Those in the west primarily thought of themselves as Cornish and British/Celtic, while those in the east tended to think of themselves as Cornish and English. All participants in West Cornwall who identified as Cornish and not English described people in East Cornwall, without hesitation, as equally Cornish as themselves. Those who identified as Cornish and English stressed the primacy of their Cornishness and a capacity to distance themselves from their Englishness. Ancestry was seen as the most important criterion for being categorised as Cornish, above place of birth or growing up in Cornwall. This study supports a 1988 study by Mary McArthur that had found that the meanings of Cornishness varied substantially, from local to national identity. Both studies also observed that the Cornish were less materialistic than the English. The Cornish generally saw the English, or city people, as being "less friendly and more aggressively self-promoting and insensitive." The Cornish saw themselves as friendly, welcoming and caring.


title: Cornish people

text: In November 2010 British Prime Minister, David Cameron, said "I think Cornish national identity is very powerful" and that his government would "devolve a lot of power to Cornwall – that will go to the Cornish unitary authority."


title: Cornish people

text: A campaign for the inclusion of a Cornish tick-box in the nationality section of the 2011 census failed to win the support of Parliament in 2009. As a consequence, posters were created by the census organisation and Cornwall Council which advised residents how they could identify themselves as Cornish by writing it in the national identity and ethnicity sections and record Cornish in the main language section. Additionally, people could record Cornwall as their country of birth.


title: Cornish people

text: Like other identities, Cornish has an allocated census code, (06), the same as for 2001, which applied and was counted throughout Britain. People were first able to record their ethnicity as Cornish in the 2001 UK Census, and some 37,000 people did so by writing it in.


title: Cornish people

text: A total of 83,499 people in England and Wales were described as having a Cornish national identity. 59,456 of these were described as Cornish only, 6,261 as Cornish and British, and 17,782 as Cornish and at least one other identity, with or without British. Within Cornwall the total was 73,220 (14% of the population) with 52,793 (9.9%) as Cornish only, 5,185 (1%) as Cornish and British, and 15,242 (2.9%) as Cornish and at least one other identity, with or without British.


title: Cornish people

text: In Scotland 467 people described themselves as having Cornish national identity. 254 with Cornish identity only, 39 as Scottish and Cornish, and 174 having Cornish identity and at least one other UK identity (excluding Scottish).


title: Cornish people

text: Since 2006 school children in Cornwall have been able to record themselves as ethnically Cornish on the annual Schools Census (PLASC). Since then the number identifying as Cornish has risen from 24% to 46%. The Department for Education recommends that parents and guardians determine the ethnicity of children at primary schools whilst pupils at secondary schools can decide their own ethnicity.


title: Cornish people

text: Traditionally, the Cornish are thought to have been descended from the Iron Age Celts, making them distinct from the English, many (but not all) of whom are descended from the Anglo-Saxons who colonised Great Britain from their homelands in northern Europe and drove the Celts to Britain's western and northern fringes. Recent genetic studies based on ancient DNA have complicated this picture, however. During the Bronze Age, most of the people that had inhabited Britain since the Neolithic era were replaced by Beaker People, while scholars have argued that the introduction of the Celtic languages and material culture into Britain and Ireland was by means of cultural diffusion, rather than any substantial migration. Genetic evidence has also suggested that while ancestry inherited from the Anglo-Saxons makes up a significant part of the modern English gene pool (one study suggested an average 38% contribution in eastern England), they did not displace all of the previous inhabitants. A 2015 study found that modern Cornish populations had less Anglo-Saxon ancestry than people from central and southern England, and that they were genetically distinct from their neighbors in Devon. The study also suggested that populations traditionally labelled as "Celtic" showed significant diversity, rather than a unified genetic identity.


title: Cornish people

text: Throughout classical antiquity the Celts spoke Celtic languages, and formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities, notably the Picts and Gaels in the north and the Britons in the south. The Britons were themselves a divided people; although they shared the Brythonic languages, they were tribal, and divided into regional societies, and within them sub-groups. Examples of these tribal societies were the Brigantes in the north, and the Ordovices, the Demetae, the Silures and the Deceangli in the west. In the extreme southwest, what was to become Cornwall, were the Dumnonii and Cornovii, who lived in the Kingdom of Dumnonia. The Roman conquest of Britain in the 1st century introduced Romans to Britain, who upon their arrival initially recorded the Dumnonii, but later reported on the Cornovii, who were possibly a sub-group of the Dumnonii. Although the Romans colonised much of central and southern Britain, Dumnonia was "virtually unaffected" by the conquest; Roman rule had little or no impact on the region, meaning it could flourish as a semi- or fully independent kingdom which evidence shows was sometimes under the dominion of the kings of the Britons, and sometimes to have been governed by its own Dumnonian monarchy, either by the title of duke or king. This petty kingdom shared strong linguistic, political and cultural links with Brittany, a peninsula on continental Europe south of Cornwall inhabited by Britons; the Cornish and Breton languages were nearly indistinguishable in this period, and both Cornwall and Brittany remain dotted with dedications to the same Celtic saints.


title: Cornish people

text: The Sack of Rome in the year 410 prompted a complete Roman departure from Britain, and Cornwall then experienced an influx of Celtic Christian missionaries from Ireland who had a profound effect upon the early Cornish people, their culture, faith and architecture. The ensuing decline of the Roman Empire encouraged the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. The Angles, Jutes, Frisii and Saxons, Germanic peoples from northern Europe, established petty kingdoms and settled in different regions of what was to become England, and parts of southern Scotland, progressively defeating the Britons in battle. The Saxons of the Kingdom of Wessex in particular were expanding their territory westwards towards Cornwall. The Cornish were frequently embattled with the West Saxons, who used their Germanic word "walha" (modern English: Welsh) meaning "stranger" or "foreigner", to describe their opponents, later specifying them as the "Westwalas" (West Welsh) or "Cornwalas" (the Cornish). Conflict continued until King Athelstan of England determined that the River Tamar be the formal boundary between the West Saxons and the Cornish in the year 936, making Cornwall one of the last retreats of the Britons encouraging the development of a distinct Cornish identity; Brittonic culture in Britain became confined to Cornwall, parts of Devon, North West England, South West Scotland and Wales. Although a treaty was agreed, Anglo-Saxon political influence stretched westwards until some time in the late 10th century when "Cornwall was definitively incorporated into the Kingdom of England".


title: Cornish people

text: The Norman conquest of England, which began with an invasion by the troops of William, Duke of Normandy (later, King William I of England) in 1066, resulted in the removal of the Anglo-Saxon derived monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy and its replacement by Normans, Scandinavian Vikings from northern France and their Breton allies, who, in many cases, maintained rule in the Brittonic-speaking parts of the conquered lands. The shires of England were progressively divided amongst the companions of William I of England, who served as England's new nobility. The English would come to absorb the Normans, but the Cornish "vigorously resisted" their influence. At the time of the conquest, legend has it that Cornwall was under the governance of Condor, reported by later antiquarians to be the last Earl of Cornwall to be directly descended from the ancient monarchy of Cornwall. The Earldom of Cornwall had held devolved semi-sovereignty from England, but in 1067 was granted to Robert, Count of Mortain, King William I's half-brother, and ruled thereafter by an Anglo-Norman aristocracy; in the "Domesday Book", the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, "virtually all" landowners in Cornwall "had English names, making it impossible to be sure who was Cornish and who was English by race". However, there was a persistent and "continuing differentiation" between the English and Cornish peoples during the Middle Ages, as evidenced by documents such as the 1173 charter of Truro which made explicit mention of both peoples as distinct.


title: Cornish people

text: The Earldom of Cornwall passed to various English nobles throughout the High Middle Ages, but in 1337 the earldom was given the status of a duchy, and Edward, the Black Prince, the first son and heir of King Edward III of England, became the first Duke of Cornwall as a means for the prince to raise his own capital. Large parts of Cornwall were owned by Edward, 1st Duke of Cornwall, and successive English Dukes of Cornwall became the largest landowners in Cornwall; The monarchy of England established two special administrative institutions in Cornwall, the first being the Duchy of Cornwall (one of only two in the Kingdom of England) and the second being the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments (which governed Cornwall's tin industry). These two institutions allowed "ordinary Cornish people to believe that they had been granted a unique constitutional status to reflect their unique cultural identity". However, the Duchy of Cornwall gradually lost its political autonomy from England, a state which became increasingly centralised in London, and by the early-Tudor period the Cornish had begun to see themselves as "a conquered people whose culture, liberties, and prosperity had been downgraded by the English". This view was exacerbated in the 1490s by heavy taxation imposed by King Henry VII of England upon the impoverished Cornish to raise funds for his military campaigns against King James IV of Scotland and Perkin Warbeck, as well as Henry VII's suspension of the privileges of the Cornish Stannaries. Having provided "more than their fair share of soldiers and sailors" for the conflict in northern England, and feeling aggrieved at "Cornwall's status as England's poorest county", a popular uprising out of Cornwall ensued—the Cornish rebellion of 1497. The rebellion was initially a political march from St Keverne to London led by Thomas Flamank and Michael An Gof, motivated by a "mixture of reasons"; to raise money for charity; to celebrate their community; to present their grievances to the Parliament of England, but gathered pace across the West Country as a revolt against the king.


title: Cornish people

text: Cornish was the most widely spoken language west of the River Tamar until around the mid-1300s, when Middle English began to be adopted as a common language of the Cornish people. As late as 1542 Andrew Boorde, an English traveller, physician and writer, wrote that in Cornwall there were two languages, "Cornysshe" and "Englysshe", but that "there may be many men and women" in Cornwall who could not understand English. While the Norman language was in use by much of the English aristocracy, Cornish was used as a "lingua franca", particularly in the remote far west of Cornwall. Many Cornish landed gentry chose mottos in the Cornish language for their coat of arms, highlighting its socially high status. However, in 1549 and following the English Reformation, King Edward VI of England commanded that the Book of Common Prayer, an Anglican liturgical text in the English language, should be introduced to all churches in his kingdom, meaning that Latin and Celtic customs and services should be discontinued. The Prayer Book Rebellion was a militant revolt in Cornwall and parts of neighbouring Devon against the Act of Uniformity 1549, which outlawed all languages from church services apart from English, and is specified as a testament to the affection and loyalty the Cornish people held for the Cornish language. In the rebellion, separate risings occurred simultaneously in Bodmin in Cornwall, and Sampford Courtenay in Devon—which would both converge at Exeter, laying siege to the region's largest Protestant city. However, the rebellion was suppressed, thanks largely to the aid of foreign mercenaries in a series of battles in which "hundreds were killed", effectively ending Cornish as the common language of the Cornish people. The Anglicanism of the Reformation served as a vehicle for Anglicisation in Cornwall; Protestantism had a lasting cultural effect upon the Cornish by way of linking Cornwall more closely with England, while lessening political and linguistic ties with the Bretons of Brittany.


title: Cornish people

text: The English Civil War, a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists, polarised the populations of England and Wales. However, Cornwall in the English Civil War was a staunchly Royalist enclave, an "important focus of support for the Royalist cause". Cornish soldiers were used as scouts and spies during the war, for their language was not understood by English Parliamentarians. The peace that followed the close of the war led to a further shift to the English language by the Cornish people, which encouraged an influx of English people to Cornwall. By the mid-17th century the use of the Cornish language had retreated far enough west to prompt concern and investigation by antiquarians, such as William Scawen. As the Cornish language diminished the people of Cornwall underwent a process of English enculturation and assimilation, becoming "absorbed into the mainstream of English life".


title: Cornish people

text: The Industrial Revolution had a major impact upon the Cornish people. Cornwall's economy was fully integrated into England's, and mining in Cornwall, always an important source of employment and stability of the Cornish, experienced a process of industrialisation resulting in 30 per cent of Cornwall's adult population being employed by its mines. During this period, efforts were made by Cornish engineers to design steam engines with which to power water pumps for Cornish mines thus aiding the extraction of mineral ore. Industrial scale tin and copper mining operations in Cornwall melded Cornish identity with engines and heavy industry, and Cornwall's leading mining engineer, Richard Trevithick, became "as much a part of Cornwall's heritage as any legendary giant from its Celtic past". Trevithick's most significant success was a high-pressure steam engine used to pump water and refuse from mines, but he was also the builder of the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive. On 21 February 1804, the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place as Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in Wales.


title: Cornish people

text: The construction of the Great Western Railway during the Victorian era allowed for an influx of tourists to Cornwall from across Great Britain. Well into the Edwardian era and interwar period, Cornwall was branded as a rural retreat, a "primitive land of magic and romance", and as an "earlier incarnation of Englishness, a place more English than an England ravaged by modernity". Cornwall, the United Kingdom's only region with a subtropical-like climate, became a centre for English tourism, its coastline dominated by resort towns increasingly composed of bungalows and villas. John Nichols Thom, or Mad Tom, (1799 – 31 May 1838) was a Cornishman self-declared messiah who, in the 19th century led the last battle to be fought on English soil, known as the Battle of Bossenden Wood. While not akin to the Cornish rebellions of the past, he did attract some Cornish support as well as mostly Kentish labourers, although his support was primarily of religious followers.


title: Cornish people

text: In the latter half of the 19th century Cornwall experienced rapid deindustrialisation, with the closure of mines in particular considered by the Cornish to be both an economic and cultural disaster. This, coupled with the rise of Romantic nationalism in Europe inspired and influenced a Celtic Revival in Cornwall, a social, linguistic and artistic movement interested in Cornish medieval ethnology. This Revivalist upsurge investigated Cornwall's pre-industrial culture, using the Cornish language as the "principal badge of [Cornish] nationality and ethnic kinship". The first effective revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book "Handbook of the Cornish Language". His orthography, Unified Cornish, was based on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became influenced by English.


title: Cornish people

text: The visit of King George IV to Scotland in 1822 reinvigorated Scottish national identity, melding it with romanticist notions of tartan, kilts and the Scottish Highlands. As Pan-Celticism gathered pace in the early 20th century, Cornishman L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell and the Cowethas Kelto-Kernuak (a Cornish language interest group) asserted the use of Cornish kilts and tartans as a "national dress ... common to all Celtic countries". In 1924 the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies was formed to facilitate, preserve and maintain Celticity in Cornwall, followed by the similar Gorseth Kernow in 1928, and the formation of the Cornish nationalist political party Mebyon Kernow in 1951. Increased interest and communication across the Celtic nations in Celtic languages and culture during the 1960s and 1970s spurred on the popularisation of the Cornish self-government movement. Since devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, enthusiasts for Cornish culture have pressed for the Cornish language to be taught formally in Cornish schools, while Cornish nationalists have demanded greater political autonomy for Cornwall, for example that it be constituted as the United Kingdom's fifth consistuent country with its own Cornish Assembly.


title: Cornish people

text: The Cornish people are concentrated in Cornwall, but after the Age of Discovery in the early modern period were involved in the British colonisation of the Americas and other transcontinental and transatlantic migrations. Initially, the number of migrants was comparatively small, with those who left Cornwall typically settling in North America or else amongst the ports and plantations of the Caribbean.


title: Cornish people

text: In the first half of the 19th century, the Cornish people were leaders in tin and copper smelting, while mining in Cornwall was the people's major occupation. Increased competition from Australia, British Malaya and Bolivia, coupled with the depletion of mineral deposits brought about an economic decline for Cornish mining lasting half a century, and prompting mass human migration from Cornwall. In each decade from 1861 to 1901, "around 20% of the Cornish male population migrated abroad"—three times that of the average of England and Wales—and totalling over a quarter of a million people lost to emigration between 1841 and 1901. There was a displacement of skilled Cornish engineers, farmers, merchants, miners and tradesmen, but their commercial and occupational expertise, particularly in hard rock mining, was highly valued by the communities they met. Within Great Britain, Cornish families were attracted from Cornwall to North East England—particularly on Teesside—to partake in coal mining as a means to earn wealth by using their mining skill. This has resulted in a concentration of Cornish names on and around Teesside that persists into the 21st century.


title: Cornish people

text: Large numbers of the 19th century Cornish emigrants eventually returned to Cornwall, whilst the rate of emigration from Cornwall declined after World War I. However, the global connections of the remaining Cornish diaspora, which is concentrated in English-speaking countries such as Australia, Canada, South Africa and the United States, are "very strong". Their outreach has contributed to the international spread of Methodism, a movement within Protestant Christianity that was popular with the Cornish people at the time of their mass migration. "Cousin Jacks" is a nickname for the overseas Cornish, thought to derive from the practice of Cornishmen asking if job vacancies could be filled by their cousin named Jack in Cornwall.


title: Cornish people

text: From the beginning of Australia's colonial period until after the Second World War, people from the United Kingdom made up a large majority of people coming to Australia, meaning that many Australian-born people can trace their origins to Britain. The Cornish people in particular were actively encouraged to emigrate to Australia following the demise of Cornish mining in the 19th century. A "vigorous recruiting campaign" was launched to encourage the Cornish to aid with mining in Australia because of their experience and expertise. Free passage to South Australia in particular was granted to hundreds of Cornish miners and their families, so much so, that a large Cornish community gathered in Australia's Copper Coast, and South Australia's Yorke Peninsula became known as "Little Cornwall". It has been estimated between 1837 and 1840, 15 per cent of all assisted migrants to South Australia were Cornish.


title: Cornish people

text: Cornish settlement impacted upon social, cultural and religious life throughout the history of South Australia. Cornish identity was embraced strongly in the Yorke Peninsula, but also in the more outlying mining towns of Kapunda and Burra, where Cornish miners constituted a sizeable community. Methodism, was the main form of religious practice for the Cornish. Methodist sensibilities were held with strong conviction by the migrant Cornish in a direct rivalry with Catholic Irish people in Australia. The Kernewek Lowender is the largest Cornish festival in the world, held in the Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo towns on the Yorke Peninsula, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors bi-annually.


title: Cornish people

text: European fishing ventures in and around Newfoundland during the 16th century were the earliest Cornish activity in what was to become Canada. However, permanent settlement by the Cornish across the Atlantic Ocean was rare until at least the 19th century. The British colonisation of the Americas encouraged additional migration of the Cornish to the Canadas, particularly by those who served in Great Britain's Royal Navy. The creation of the colony of British North America spurred more people from Cornwall to settle in North America; they were registered as English migrants. Many Cornish (and other West Country) immigrants who had been agricultural labourers settled in an area of what is now South Central Ontario in what were the counties of Northumberland, Durham and Ontario, ranging from the towns of Port Hope and Cobourg in the east, to Whitby in the west and to the north ends of those counties.


title: Cornish people

text: In 1825 a band of 60 Cornishmen left Falmouth for Mineral del Monte in central Mexico with of mining machinery with which to apply their mining skill and technologies to resuscitate Mexico's ailing silver mining industry after the neglect caused by the Mexican War of Independence. Following their sea voyage they attempted to dock at Veracruz but were forced away by the Spanish to a beach at Mocambo from where they hauled their machinery through jungle and swamp to Santa Fe. During this haul through the jungle, the Cornishmen and their Mexican helpers fell victim to yellow fever, resulting in 30 Cornish and 100 Mexican fatalities. The fever forced the survivors to abandon their equipment and head inland up into the mountains to Xalapa to try to escape the mosquitos for three months, until the end of the rainy season. Once the rainy season closed the Cornish and Mexican miners continued their "Great Trek" to Mineral del Monte, transporting their machinery to an altitude of above sea level and arriving at their destination on 1 May 1826. Following their arrival, the Cornish community flourished and stayed in central Mexico until the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Although the Cornish community in Mexico broadly returned to Cornwall, they left a cultural legacy; Cornish pasties, Cornish mining museums and a Cornish Mexican Cultural Society are all part of the local heritage and tradition in and around Mineral del Monte.


title: Cornish people

text: The Witwatersrand Gold Rush of 1886 encouraged large numbers of Cornish miners to migrate to the South African Republic. Although an international gold rush, the Cornish overwhelmingly formed the skilled labour force in the Witwatersrand, until the outbreak of the Second Boer War prompted a retreat.


title: Cornish people

text: The discovery of lead ore and copper in North America prompted an influx of Cornish miners to the continent, particularly around the Upper Mississippi River. By the early 19th century Cornish people were present in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—particularly the mining town of Ishpeming. Additional waves of Cornish migrants followed the California Gold Rush of the mid-19th century; in the 1890s it was estimated that in California's Grass Valley, over 60 per cent of the population was Cornish. It has a tradition of carols stemming from the Cornish who settled the area as gold miners in the 19th century. The carols have become "the identity of the town", some of the members of the Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir are descendants of the original Cornish settlers.


title: Cornish people

text: Most migratory Cornish to the United States were classified as English or British, meaning that the precise number of Cornish Americans is difficult to estimate. The aggregate number of immigrants from Cornwall to the United States before World War I is suggested to be around 100,000.


title: Cornish people

text: The survival of a distinct Cornish culture has been attributed to Cornwall's geographic isolation. Contemporaneously, the underlying notion of Cornish culture is that it is distinct from the culture of England, despite its anglicisation, and that it is instead part of a Celtic tradition. According to American academic Paul Robert Magocsi, modern-day Cornish activists have claimed several Victorian era inventions including the Cornish engine, Christmas carols, rugby football and brass bands as part of this Cornish tradition. Cornish cultural tradition is most strongly associated with the people's most historical occupation, mining, an aspect of Cornish history and culture that has influenced its cuisine, symbols and identity. The Cornish writer C. C. Vyvyan wrote in her 1948 book "Our Cornwall": "A man might live and die among us and never gain throughout his allotted span of life one glimpse of the essential Cornwall or the essential Cornishman."


title: Cornish people

text: Cornwall has its own tradition of Christian saints, derived from Celtic extraction, that have given rise to localised dedications. Saint Piran is the 5th century Christian abbot, supposedly of Irish origin, who is patron saint of both tin miners and Cornwall. According to popular mythology, Piran, an Irish scholar who studied Christianity in Ancient Rome was to be drowned in the Irish Sea by the High Kings of Ireland, but instead floated across to Perranporth in Cornwall by the will of God to preach the Gospel. Saint Piran's Flag, a centred white cross on a black field, was described as the "Standard of Cornwall" in 1838 and was re-introduced by Celtic Revivalists thereafter as a county flag of Cornwall. It has been seized upon by the Cornish people as a symbol of their identity, displayed on cars and flying from buildings including those of Cornwall Council. St Piran's Day is an annual patronal fête, and the pre-eminent Cornish festival celebrating Cornish culture and history on 5 March.


title: Cornish people

text: The Cornish language is derived from the Brythonic branch of the Insular Celtic languages. It is closely related to the Breton language, and to a lesser extent shares commonalities with the Welsh language, although they are not mutually intelligible. The language functioned as a community language in Cornwall until a language shift to the English language was completed during the late 18th century. The demise of the Cornish language is attributed to English cultural influence, particularly the political and religious dominance of the English Reformation and the Act of Uniformity 1549 which outlawed all church services within the Kingdom of England that were not in English. The exact date of the death of using the Cornish language is unclear and disputed, but popularly it is claimed that the last monolingual Cornish speaker was Dolly Pentreath, a Mousehole resident who died in 1777.


title: Cornish people

text: The revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book "Handbook of the Cornish Language". He based his work on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance, with his orthography, Unified Cornish, later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became more heavily influenced by English. This set the tone for the next few decades; as the revival gained pace, learners of the language disagreed on which style of Cornish to use, and a number of competing orthographies—Unified Cornish, Unified Cornish Revised, Modern Cornish, Kernewek Kemmyn—were in use by the end of the 20th century. A standard written form was agreed in 2008.


title: Cornish people

text: Cornish is a restored and living modern language, but most of its speakers are enthusiasts, persons who have learned the language through private study. Cornish speakers are geographically dispersed, meaning there is no part of Cornwall where it is spoken as a community language. As of 2009, it is taught in fifty primary schools, although regular broadcast in Cornish is limited to a weekly bilingual programme on BBC Radio Cornwall. Daily life in Cornwall therefore is conducted in the English language, albeit with some regional peculiarities.


title: Cornish people

text: "Legends of the Fall", a novella by American author Jim Harrison, detailing the lives of a Cornish American family in the early 20th century, contains several Cornish language terms. These were also included in the Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins as Col. William Ludlow and Brad Pitt as Tristan Ludlow.


title: Cornish people

text: Early medieval Cornwall was associated with the Matter of Britain, a national myth recounting a legendary Celtic history of Brittonic warriors, including King Arthur. The Matter of Britain was supported by texts such as the "Historia Regum Britanniae", a pseudohistorical account of the history of the ancient Britons, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth. The "Historia Regum Britanniae" chronicled the lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th century forced the Celtic Britons to the west coast, namely Wales and Cornwall. Although broadly thought of as a work of fiction, Geoffrey of Monmouth's work had a lasting effect upon the identity of the Cornish. His "historical construct" characterised the ancient Britons as heroes, which later helped Celtic revivalists to redefine Cornishness as an identity closely related to ancient heroic Celtic folklore.


title: Cornish people

text: Another strand of Cornish folklore is derived from tales of seafaring pirates and smugglers who thrived in and around Cornwall from the early modern period through to the 19th century. Cornish pirates exploited both their knowledge of the Cornish coastline as well as its sheltered creeks and hidden anchorages. For many fishing villages, loot and contraband provided by pirates supported a strong and secretive underground economy in Cornwall.


title: Cornish people

text: Legendary creatures that appear in Cornish folklore include buccas, knockers and piskies. Tales of these creatures are thought to have developed as supernatural explanations for the frequent and deadly cave-ins that occurred during 18th-century Cornish tin mining, or else a creation of the oxygen-starved minds of exhausted miners who returned from the underground.


title: Cornish people

text: Celtic crosses, many dating from between the 7th and 15th centuries, are found in Cornwall and have been used as inspiration in modern and contemporary Cornish visual arts. In the 1780s, John Opie was the first Cornish-born painter to gain widespread attention; his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy and he was described by Joshua Reynolds as "like Caravaggio and Velázquez in one". Artists who appreciated the quality of Cornwall's natural light, such as J. M. W. Turner, began to visit, with more following after the opening of the Great Western Railway, including Whistler and Sickert. Stanhope Forbes and Frank Bramley settled in Cornwall in the 1880s, establishing the Newlyn School of painting "en plein air". By the 1920s, the ceramicist Bernard Leach was established at St Ives, and the St Ives School for abstract artists formed there, influenced by naive painters such as Alfred Wallis, and involving the work of Ben Nicholson, his wife Barbara Hepworth, Naum Gabo and Patrick Heron.


title: Cornish people

text: Anciently, the religion of the Cornish Britons was Celtic polytheism, a pagan, animistic faith, assumed to be led by Druids in full or in part. Early Christianity is thought to have existed in Cornwall during the 1st century, but limited to individual travellers and visitors, possibly including Priscillian, a Galician theologian who may have been exiled to the Isles of Scilly. Celtic Christianity was introduced to Cornwall in the year 520 by Saint Petroc, a Brython from the kingdom of Glywysing, and other missionaries from Wales, as well as by Gaelic monks and holy women from Ireland; this "formative period" has left a legacy of granite high cross monuments throughout Cornwall. Dedications to many different Cornish saints can also be traced to this period. In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism was dominant in Cornwall, and even in the 17th century the Cornish were "fervently Roman Catholic", slow to accept the Protestant Reformation, according to some scholars. The adoption of Anglicanism was, eventually, near-universal in Cornwall and facilitated the anglicisation of the Cornish people. A variety of dissenting congregations such as the Quakers and Baptists were to be found in certain districts. Through a combination of tours of Cornwall by John Wesley, rural isolation and compatibility with Cornish tastes and sensibilities, Methodism, an evangelical revival movement within the Church of England, became the form of Christianity practised by the majority of the population all over Cornwall during the 19th century. During this time other kinds of Methodist churches appeared such as the Bible Christians and there were also Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic revivals within the Church of England.


title: Cornish people

text: Cornish cuisine is a regional variety of British cuisine, strongly rooted in a tradition of using local produce, which is used to create relatively simple dishes. Most prominent in Cornish cuisine is the pasty (sometimes known as the Cornish pasty) made from diced beef, potato, onion and swede (commonly called 'turnip' by the Cornish), enclosed within a pastry crust and then baked. One idea of its origins suggests that it evolved as a portable lunch for Cornish miners, the crust serving as a disposable handle that could be held by a miner's hand without soiling the filling. Fish was an important element of the Cornish diet, but international commercial fishing was also well established by the 16th century, and tons of pilchards were exported from Cornwall to France, Italy and Spain every year. Stargazy pie is an occasional festive Cornish dish with the heads of fish standing on their tails, originally pilchards, piercing a pastry crust. The saffron bun, also known as the tea treat bun, is a sweet bread with its origins in Cornwall.


title: Cornish people

text: With its comparatively small, rural population, major contribution by the Cornish to national sport in the United Kingdom has been limited. There are no teams affiliated to the Cornwall County Football Association that play in the Football League of England and Wales, and the Cornwall County Cricket Club plays as one of the minor counties of English cricket. Viewed as an "important identifier of ethnic affiliation", rugby union has become a sport strongly tied with notions of Cornishness, and since the 20th century, rugby union in Cornwall has emerged as one of the most popular spectator and team sports in Cornwall, with professional Cornish rugby footballers being described as a "formidable force", "naturally independent, both in thought and deed, yet paradoxically staunch English patriots whose top players have represented England with pride and passion". In 1985, sports journalist Alan Gibson made a direct connection between love of rugby in Cornwall and the ancient parish games of hurling and wrestling that existed for centuries before rugby officially began.


title: Cornish people

text: Cornish wrestling (also known as Wrasslin') is a regional, folk style of grappling or martial arts. The Cornwall County Wrestling Association was formed in 1923, to standardise the rules of the sport and to promote Cornish wrestling throughout Cornwall and the world. Together with Cornish hurling (a localised form of medieval football), Wrasslin' has been promoted as a distinctly Celtic game, tied closely with Cornish identity.


title: Cornish people

text: Surfing was popularised in Cornwall during the late 20th century, and has since become readily associated with Cornishness. The waves around the Cornish coastline are created by low pressure systems from the Atlantic Ocean which unleash powerful swells eastwards creating multiple, excellent surfing conditions in some parts of the coast of Cornwall. Newquay, one of Britain's "premier surfing towns", regularly hosts world championship surfing events.


title: Cornish people

text: The politics of Cornwall take place within a wider national political framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the United Kingdom's monarch is head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government, and the supranational framework of the European Union. Cornish politics are marked by a long tradition of Liberalism.


title: Cornish people

text: Important historical institutions were the Duchy of Cornwall and the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments. The Stannary court administered equity, through special laws and legal exemptions, for all matters relating to the tin mines and tin trade in Cornwall. Cornish miners were effectively exempt from the jurisdiction of the law courts at Westminster, except "in such cases as should affect land, life or limb". The ancient privileges of the Stannary Courts and Parliaments were confirmed by successive Royal Charters in the Middle Ages, including those administered by Kings John, Edward I and Edward III of England. As the tin mines of Cornwall lost their economic importance during the 18th and 19th centuries, so the Stannary institutions lost political power. The last Stannary parliament was held at Truro in 1752, and continued, by adjournments, until 11 September 1753.


title: Cornish people

text: As in the rest of Great Britain, the Liberal Party dominated Cornish politics during the 19th century, although Socialism gained limited support in western Cornwall, and the Labour Party won preference after World War I. Nationalism (or regionalism) in Cornwall traces its roots to the Irish Home Rule bills of the late 19th century, and is represented by the Cornish self-government movement, a political action group that is predominantly organised to promote Cornwall as the national homeland of the Cornish, campaign for devolution, and win it the status as a fifth country within the UK rather than outright separatism. More "militant" variants of Cornish nationalism however claim that because of historical constitutional peculiarities regarding the status of Cornwall, the law of the European Union does or should not have jurisdiction over Cornwall until Cornish sovereignty is recognised. Popularisation of Cornish nationalism is attributed to a Celtic cultural revival in Cornwall which itself began with a renewed interest in the Cornish language in the 1920s. The revival of the Cornish language encouraged a parallel revival of Celtic traditions, which by the 1970s had spurred on Cornish nationalism. The United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community in 1973 prompted claims that the Cornish should be granted their own devolved national assembly—the Cornish Assembly—comparable to that of the National Assembly for Wales. Mebyon Kernow is a left-wing political party based in Cornwall, founded in 1951. Its main objective is attaining greater autonomy for Cornwall through the establishment of a legislative Cornish Assembly. As at 2009 Mebyon Kernow has no Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and in the 2009 United Kingdom local elections received 4 per cent of votes to elect councillors to Cornwall Council, behind the Conservative Party (34 per cent), Liberal Democrats (28 per cent), and Independents (23 per cent) Since the 2009 structural changes to local government in England, Cornwall Council has been a unitary authority, serving as the sole executive, deliberative, and legislative body responsible for local policy, setting council tax, and allocating budgets.


title: Cornish people

text: Following the Cornwall Council election in May 2013, the council remained as "no overall control", with the Independent politicians becoming the largest grouping on the council through a modest gain of councillors from the previous election. The Liberal Democrats remained the second largest party after losing 2 councillors and the Conservatives slipped to third after losing over a third of their councillors. The Labour Party (+8), UKIP (+6), and the Green Party (+1) all gained seats, with UKIP and the Greens entering Cornwall Council for the first time. Mebyon Kernow had 6 councilors prior to the election, having added 2 since the 2009 election, their total following the election was reduced to 4.


title: Cornish people

text: In the 2015 general election all Cornish seats were won by the Conservatives. This was repeated in the 2017 general election.


title: Cornish people

text: In the UK's 2021 census plans, a "tickbox" for claiming "Cornish" as a national minority status has not been implemented and is under debate. Since Cornwall was officially given "official national minority status" in 2014, the Cornwall Council's Party Leaders have submitted a letter to the cabinet office of Chloe Smith for the Minister of State. In the coming weeks, Parliament is set to debate The Census Order. If enough Members of Parliament side with the Cornish people and stand in solidarity with their cause, a box to select a "Cornish" identity could be added—reaffirming the official identity they established 6 years prior.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Juliet Anne Virginia Stevenson, (born 30 October 1956) is an English actor of stage and screen. She is known for her role in the film "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (1991), for which she was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. Her other film appearances include "Emma" (1996), "Bend It Like Beckham" (2002), "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003), "Being Julia" (2004) and "Infamous" (2006).


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Stevenson has starred in numerous Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre productions, including Olivier Award nominated roles in "Measure for Measure" (1984), "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" (1986), and "Yerma" (1987). For her role as Paulina in "Death and the Maiden" (1991–92), she won the 1992 Olivier Award for Best Actress. Her fifth Olivier nomination was for her work in the 2009 revival of "Duet for One". She has also received three nominations for the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress: for "A Doll's House" (1992), "The Politician's Wife" (1995) and "Accused" (2010). Other stage roles include "The Heretic" (2011) and "Happy Days" (2014).


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Stevenson was born in Kelvedon, Essex, England, the daughter of Virginia Ruth (née Marshall), a teacher, and Michael Guy Stevenson, an army officer. Stevenson's father was assigned a new posting every two and a half years. When Stevenson was nine, she attended Berkshire's Hurst Lodge School, and she was later educated at the independent St Catherine's School in Bramley, near Guildford in Surrey, and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Stevenson was part of the 'new wave' of actors to emerge from the Academy. Others included Jonathan Pryce, Bruce Payne, Alan Rickman, Anton Lesser, Kenneth Branagh, Imelda Staunton and Fiona Shaw. This led to a stage career starting in 1978 with the Royal Shakespeare Company.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Although she has gained fame through her television and film work and has often undertaken roles for BBC Radio, she is known as a stage actress. Significant stage roles include her performances as Isabella in "Measure for Measure", Madame de Tourvel in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses", Anna in the UK premiere of "Burn This" in 1990 and Paulina in "Death and the Maiden" at the Royal Court theatre and the West End (1991–92). For the last she was awarded the 1992 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actress.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: In the 1987 TV film "Life Story", Stevenson played the part of scientist Rosalind Franklin, for which she won a Cable Ace award. She played the leading role in the Anthony Minghella film "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (1991) and her roles in "The Secret Rapture" (1993), "Emma" (1996), "Bend It Like Beckham" (2002) and "Mona Lisa Smile" (2003). She has more recently starred in "Pierrepoint" (2006), "Infamous" (2006) as Diana Vreeland and "Breaking and Entering" (2006) as Rosemary, the therapist. In 2003, she played the mother of an autistic child in the television film "Hear the Silence", a film promoting the now debunked claims of Andrew Wakefield that the MMR vaccine was responsible for autism in children. The film makers and Stevenson were criticised as Wakefield's professionalism was already seriously in doubt.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: In 2009, she starred in ITV's "A Place of Execution". The role won her the Best Actress Dagger at the 2009 Crime Thriller Awards. She performs as a book reader, and has recorded all of Jane Austen's novels as unabridged audiobooks, as well as a number of other novels, such as "Lady Windermere's Fan", "Hedda Gabler", "Stories from Shakespeare", and "To the Lighthouse". She received lifetime achievement prize at Women in Film And TV awards.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Stevenson married her long-time partner, British anthropologist Hugh Brody, in 2021. They have two children.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: In 2008 she campaigned on behalf of refugee women with a reading of "Motherland" at the Young Vic. She is patron of the UK registered charity "LAM Action", which provides support, information and encouragement to patients with Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) and their families, and raises funds to advance research into LAM. Stevenson is an Amnesty Ambassador and patron of the refugee charity Young Roots.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: On 12 September 2016, Stevenson, as well as Cate Blanchett, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Peter Capaldi, Douglas Booth, Neil Gaiman, Keira Knightley, Jesse Eisenberg, Kit Harington and Stanley Tucci, featured in a video from the United Nations' refugee agency UNHCR to help raise awareness of the global refugee crisis. The video, titled "What They Took With Them", has the actors reading a poem written by Jenifer Toksvig and inspired by primary accounts of refugees, and is part of UNHCR's #WithRefugees campaign, which also includes a petition to governments to expand asylum to provide further shelter, integrating job opportunities and education.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Stevenson's friends and frequent collaborators include director Robert Icke, comedian and feminist broadcaster Deborah Frances-White, poet Aviva Dautch and concert pianist Lucy Parham.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: Stevenson is also a painter, and has talked about how her art has helped her through difficult moments such as lockdown and the death of her stepson.


title: Juliet Stevenson

text: In the 1999 Queens Birthday Honours, Stevenson was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).


title: Special mission unit

text: The term Tier One Special Mission Unit or Special Missions Unit (SMU) is a term sometimes used, particularly in the United States, to describe some highly secretive military special operations forces. Special mission units have been involved in high-profile military operations, such as the killing of Osama bin Laden.


title: Special mission unit

text: The United States military definition in the "Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms" comes from "Joint Publication 3-05.1 – Joint Special Operations Task Force Operations" (JP 3-05.1). JP 3-05.1 defines a "special mission unit" as "a generic term to represent a group of operations and support personnel from designated organizations that is task-organized to perform highly classified activities."


title: Special mission unit

text: The U.S. government does not acknowledge which units specifically are designated as special missions units, only that they have special mission units within the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which is part of U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM). In the early 1990s then–Commander in Chief of SOCOM, General Carl Stiner, identified both Delta Force and SEAL Team Six as permanently assigned special mission units in congressional testimony and public statements. In 1998, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Walter B. Slocombe publicly referred to special mission units during a briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee: "We have designated special mission units that are specifically manned, equipped and trained to deal with a wide variety of transnational threats" and "These units, assigned to or under the operational control of the U.S. Special Operations Command, are focused primarily on those special operations and supporting functions that combat terrorism and actively counter-terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). These units are on alert every day of the year and have worked extensively with their interagency counterparts."


title: Special mission unit

text: Units from the Army's Special Forces, 75th Ranger Regiment, 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment (160 SOAR), and Aviation Technology Office (ATO), and the joint Aviation Tactics Evaluation Group (AvTEG) are controlled by JSOC when deployed as part of JSOC Task Forces such as Task Force 121 and Task Force 145.


title: Special mission unit

text: The Australian Army's elite Special Air Service Regiment is described as being a "special missions unit with unique capabilities within the Australian Defence Force". The Regiment is a component of Australia's Special Operations Command (SOCOMD), and is tasked with conducting "sensitive strategic operations, special recovery operations, training assistance, special reconnaissance and precision strike and direct action".


title: Special mission unit

text: The SASR currently has four sabre squadrons, known as 1, 2, 3 and 4 Squadron. The first three squadrons rotate through the two roles performed by the Regiment; one squadron conducts the counter terrorism/special recovery (CT/SR) role, and the remaining squadrons conduct the warfighting/reconnaissance role, while 4 Squadron is responsible for collecting intelligence and also supports the Australian Secret Intelligence Service.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Renee Jane Paquette is a Canadian-American television personality currently working as a backstage interviewer for All Elite Wrestling (AEW). She was previously known for her time in WWE between 2012 and 2020, where she served as a commentator, presenter, and interviewer under the ring name Renee Young. During her time in WWE, Young also appeared as a main cast member on the reality television series "Total Divas". Prior to signing with WWE, she was a sports broadcaster for The Score Television Network.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Renee Jane Paquette was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. After high school, she applied to several colleges and began training in improv comedy. At the age of 19, she relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a comedic actress, but later moved back to Toronto and auditioned for films, music videos, and commercials there instead. After becoming frustrated with her lack of auditions, she became interested in broadcasting instead of acting.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Paquette began working for The Score Television Network in 2009 on a program called "Right After Wrestling", later renamed "Aftermath", where she presented alongside broadcasters Arda Ocal and Mauro Ranallo as well as former WWE referee Jimmy Korderas.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Paquette signed with the American professional wrestling promotion WWE in October 2012, where she was initially given the ring name Renee Sterling before choosing the name Renee Young (a nod to Neil Young). Her first appearance was as a co-host on the 2012 Survivor Series pre-show alongside Scott Stanford. Young then debuted on the January 23, 2013, episode of "NXT" as a backstage interviewer. She began performing interviews exclusively for WWE Active in February 2013. Renee made her "SmackDown" debut on the March 29 episode, interviewing Randy Orton, Big Show, and Sheamus.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Young began co-hosting the World Tour segments, which was a segment detailing the city they were filming in, showcasing various tourist attractions, before later being promoted as a third main presenter on the "JBL and Cole Show", which was shown on YouTube and WWE's website, until its cancellation in June 2015. It received a Slammy Award for Favorite Web Show of the Year. She also presented "WWE Vintage Collection" alongside Gene Okerlund.


title: Renee Paquette

text: In September 2013, Young made her commentary debut on "NXT". She began performing color commentary during women's matches, before later becoming a full-time color commentator on "NXT" for several months. From July 3, 2014, to January 9, 2015, Young served as a color commentator on "Superstars", alongside Tom Phillips, which made her WWE's first full-time female announcer in more than a decade. In April 2015, Young began hosting her own WWE Network show, "Unfiltered with Renee Young", in which she interviews fellow WWE employees. In June, Young served as the co-host of the sixth season of "Tough Enough", alongside Chris Jericho.


title: Renee Paquette

text: On the December 20, 2016, episode of "SmackDown", Young interviewed Intercontinental Champion The Miz following his successful title defense against Apollo Crews. After Young asked Miz about his "obsession" with Dean Ambrose, Miz sarcastically responded by revealing Young and Ambrose's real-life relationship, prompting her to slap Miz. On December 27, Young was confronted by The Miz's real-life wife, Maryse, backstage on "SmackDown". Maryse slapped Young the following week in retaliation, for which she was fined.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Young filled in for Jonathan Coachman as a guest commentator on the August 13, 2018, episode of "Raw", making her the first woman to call an entire episode of "Raw". Young joined the "Raw" commentary team full-time the following month and became the first permanent female commentator on the program. Beginning in October 2019, Young moved to "SmackDown" as a "special contributor" and began co-hosting the new studio program "WWE Backstage" on Fox Sports 1 with Booker T. On November 1, 2019, Young filled in as commentator on "SmackDown", as Michael Cole and Corey Graves missed the episode due to travel delays returning from Crown Jewel. Young announced her departure from WWE at SummerSlam in August 2020, stating that the event would be her last appearance with the company. Young explained that she left WWE because of the cancelation of "WWE Backstage" and that she felt that she had accomplished everything in WWE.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Paquette, as Renee Young, returned for a special "SmackDown" pre-show on Friday, October 16, co-hosting the kickoff show alongside Booker T as a part of the celebration of season two of "SmackDown" on Fox. Paquette made a special appearance on the return of "WWE Backstage", for the January 30, 2021, episode, promoting the upcoming Royal Rumble, with her returning co-hosts Paige, and Booker T.


title: Renee Paquette

text: In 2021, Paquette began her own podcast "Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette" (later renamed "The Sessions with Renee Paquette"). In addition to the podcast, she created her own YouTube channel to accompany the audio episodes in the form of video clips, and full podcast episodes, under the channel name of "Renee Paquette". In September 2021, she also began hosting a show on Sirius XM with former Strikeforce and UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion Miesha Tate called "Throwing Down with Renee and Miesha".


title: Renee Paquette

text: On October 12, 2022, Tony Khan confirmed via his social media account that Paquette had signed with AEW. She would make her debut that night (AEW's debut in Toronto and Canada in general) on "AEW Dynamite" by starting the show to introduce Christian Cage.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Before joining The Score, Paquette worked for BiteTV, where she presented a show about extreme sports and music called "Rippin' It-N-Lippin' It" during 2008 and 2009. She appeared in a commercial for Oxy and had a part in a Tom Green music video. Prior to this, she had a cameo in the music video for Kelly Clarkson's 2005 song "Behind These Hazel Eyes". She also appeared in a national Noxzema commercial and did a photoshoot for "Toro Magazine". In 2016, Paquette began appearing as a main cast member for the sixth season of "Total Divas". She had previously appeared in several episodes on a recurring basis. She also hosted the podcast "Regular Girls" with Stacy McGunnigle.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Paquette began dating American professional wrestler Jonathan Good (better known as Jon Moxley and formerly Dean Ambrose) in 2013. They were married at their Las Vegas home in an impromptu ceremony in the early hours of April 9, 2017. In November 2020, Paquette and Good announced that they were expecting their first child. Their daughter, Nora Murphy Good, was born on June 15, 2021.


title: Renee Paquette

text: Paquette is a fan of the Vegas Golden Knights ice hockey team. On being a wrestling fan in both her childhood and adulthood, she said, "I attended a few events and WrestleMania VI. My dad is a concert promoter, and he'd get me into the events. I remember being backstage and meeting Stone Cold Steve Austin, Triple H, Chyna, and Trish Stratus as a kid, so it's really funny to me that I ended up here. I went on a different path than wanting to become a WWE Superstar."


title: Renee Paquette

text: In March 2021, Paquette announced that she became an American citizen. In May, she released her cookbook "Messy in the Kitchen: My Guide to Eating Deliciously, Hosting Fabulously and Sipping Copiously".


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The hard problem of consciousness is the problem of explaining why and how humans have qualia or phenomenal experiences. This is in contrast to the "easy problems" of explaining the physical systems that give us and other animals the ability to discriminate, integrate information, and so forth. These problems are seen as relatively easy because all that is required for their solution is to specify the mechanisms that perform such functions. Philosopher David Chalmers writes that even once we have solved all such problems about the brain and experience, the hard problem will still persist.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The existence of a "hard problem" is controversial. It has been accepted by philosophers of mind such as Joseph Levine, Colin McGinn, and Ned Block and cognitive neuroscientists such as Francisco Varela, Giulio Tononi, and Christof Koch. However, its existence is disputed by philosophers of mind such as Daniel Dennett, Massimo Pigliucci, Thomas Metzinger, Patricia Churchland, and Keith Frankish, and cognitive neuroscientists such as Stanislas Dehaene, Bernard Baars, Anil Seth, and Antonio Damasio.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: David Chalmers first formulated the hard problem in his paper "Facing up to the problem of consciousness" (1995) and expanded upon it in his book "The Conscious Mind" (1996). His works have proven to be provocative. Some, such as David Lewis and Steven Pinker, have praised Chalmers for his argumentative rigour and "impeccable clarity". Others, such as Daniel Dennett and Patricia Churchland, believe that the hard problem is best seen as a collection of easy problems and will be solved through further analysis of the brain and behaviour.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Consciousness is an ambiguous term. It can be used to mean self consciousness, awareness, the state of being awake, and so on. Chalmers uses Thomas Nagel's definition of consciousness: "the feeling of what it is like to be something." Consciousness, in this sense, is synonymous with "experience."


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The problem of consciousness, Chalmers argues, is two problems: the "easy problems" and the "hard problem".


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The easy problems are problems concerned with behaviour, and mechanistic analysis of the relevant neural processes that accompany that behaviour. Examples of these include how sensory systems work, how such data is processed in the brain, how that data influences behaviour or verbal reports, the neural basis of thought and emotion, and so on. These are problems that can be analyzed through "structures and functions".


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Chalmers' use of the word "easy" is "tongue-in-cheek". As Steven Pinker puts it, they are about as easy as going to Mars or curing cancer. "That is, scientists more or less know what to look for, and with enough brainpower and funding, they would probably crack it in this century." The easy problems are amenable to reductive inquiry. They are a logical consequence of lower level facts about the world, similar to how a clock's ability to tell time is a logical consequence of its clockwork and structure, or a hurricane is a logical consequence of the structures and functions of certain weather patterns. A clock, a hurricane, and the easy problems, are all the sum of their parts (as are most things).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The hard problem, in contrast, is the problem of "why" and "how" those processes are accompanied by experience. It may further include the question of why these processes are accompanied by this or that particular experience, rather than some other kind of experience. In other words, the hard problem is the problem of explaining why certain mechanisms are accompanied by conscious experience. For example, why should neural processing in the brain lead to the felt sensations of, say, feelings of hunger? And why should those neural firings lead to feelings of hunger rather than some other feeling (such as, for example, feelings of thirst)?


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Chalmers argues that it is conceivable that the relevant behaviours associated with hunger, or any other feeling, could occur even in the absence of that feeling. This suggests that experience is irreducible to physical systems such as the brain. This is the topic of the next section.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Chalmers believes that the hard problem is irreducible to the easy problems: solving the easy problems will not lead to a solution to the hard problems. This is because the easy problems are problems pertaining to the causal structure of the world, and the hard problem relates to consciousness, and facts about consciousness include facts that go beyond mere causal or structural description.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: For example, take the experience of pain. Suppose one were to stub their foot and yelp. In this scenario, the easy problems are the various mechanistic explanations that involve the activity of one's nervous system and brain and its relation to the environment (such as the propagation of nerve signals from the toe to the brain, the processing of that information and how it leads to yelping, and so on). The hard problem is the question of why these mechanisms are accompanied by "the feeling of pain", or why these feelings of pain feel the particular way that they do. Chalmers argues that facts about the neural mechanisms of pain, and pain behaviours, do not lead to facts about conscious experience. Facts about conscious experience are, instead, further facts, not derivable from facts about the brain.In other words, Chalmers believes that solving the easy problems will not solve the hard problems. This is because the easy problems concern "structures and functions" whereas the hard problem contains "further facts" that are not reducible to structural or functional analysis. To return to the above example, this would mean that understanding the neural processing underpinning pain would not explain why those neural processes are accompanied by the feeling of pain. So even once one has explained all the relevant facts about neural processing, facts about what it is like to feel pain would remain unexplained.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Here's an example. If one were to program an AI system, the easy problems concern the problems related to discovering which algorithms are required in order to make this system produce intelligent outputs, or process information in the right sort of ways. The hard problem, in contrast, would concern questions as whether this AI system is conscious, what sort of conscious experiences it is privy to, and how and why this is the case. This suggests that solutions to the easy problem (such as how it the AI is programmed) do not automatically lead to solutions for the hard problem (concerning the potential consciousness of the AI).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Chalmers' diagnosis of the situation is that the easy facts concern structural and functional explanations, but facts about consciousness are not derivable from structural and functional facts. So structural and functional descriptions of the world do not fix facts about consciousness. This is because functions and structures of any sort could conceivably exist in the absence of experience. Alternatively, they could exist alongside a different set of experiences. For example, it is logically possible for a perfect replica of Chalmers to have no experience at all, or for it to have a different set of experiences (such as an inverted visible spectrum, so that the blue-yellow red-green axes of its visual field are run backwards).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The same cannot be said about clocks, hurricanes, or other physical things. In these cases, a structural or functional description is a complete description. A perfect replica of a clock is a clock, a perfect replica of a hurricane is a hurricane, and so on. The difference is that physical things are nothing more than their physical constituents. For example, water is nothing more than HO molecules, and understanding everything about HO molecules is to understand everything there is to know about water. But consciousness is not like this. Knowing everything there is to know about the brain, or any physical system, is not to know everything there is to know about consciousness. So consciousness, then, must not be purely physical.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Chalmers' idea is significant because it contradicts physicalism (sometimes labelled materialism). This is the view that everything that exists is a physical or material thing, so everything can be reduced to microphysical things (such as subatomic particles and the interactions between them). For example, a desk is a physical thing, because it is nothing more than a complex arrangement of a large number of subatomic particles interacting in a certain way. According to physicalism, everything can be explained by appeal to its microphysical constituents, including consciousness. Chalmers' "hard problem" presents a counterexample to this view, since it suggests that consciousness cannot be reductively explained by appealing to its microphysical constituents. So if the hard problem is a real problem then physicalism must be false, and if physicalism is true then the hard problem must not be a real problem.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The hard problem of consciousness has scholarly antecedents considerably earlier than Chalmers, as Chalmers himself has said. Among others, thinkers who have made arguments similar to Chalmers' formulation of the hard problem include Isaac Newton, John Locke, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, John Stuart Mill, and Thomas Henry Huxley. Likewise, Asian philosophers like Dharmakirti and Guifeng Zongmi discussed the problem of how consciousness arises from unconscious matter.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The philosopher Raamy Majeed argued in 2016 that the hard problem is, in fact, associated with two "explanatory targets":


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The first fact concerns the relationship between the physical and the phenomenal (i.e., how and why are some physical states felt states), whereas the second concerns the very nature of the phenomenal itself (i.e., what does the felt state feel like?).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Wolfgang Fasching argues that the hard problem is not about qualia, but about pure what-it-is-like-ness of experience in Nagel's sense, about the very givenness of any phenomenal contents itself:


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Today there is a strong tendency to simply "equate" consciousness with the qualia. Yet there is clearly something not quite right about this. The "itchiness of itches" and the "hurtfulness of pain" are qualities we are conscious "of". So philosophy of mind tends to treat consciousness as if it consisted simply of the contents of consciousness (the phenomenal qualities), while it really is precisely "consciousness" of contents, the very givenness of whatever is subjectively given. And therefore the problem of consciousness does not pertain so much to some alleged "mysterious, nonpublic objects", i.e. objects that seem to be only "visible" to the respective subject, but rather to the nature of "seeing" itself (and in today’s philosophy of mind astonishingly little is said about the latter).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The philosopher Thomas Nagel posited in his 1974 paper "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" that experiences are essentially subjective (accessible only to the individual undergoing them—i.e., felt only by the one feeling them), while physical states are essentially objective (accessible to multiple individuals). So at this stage, he argued, we have no idea what it could even mean to claim that an essentially subjective state just "is" an essentially non-subjective state (i.e., how and why a felt state is just a functional state). In other words, we have no idea of what reductivism really amounts to. To explain conscious experience within the physicalist framework requires an adequate account. He believes this is impossible, because "every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view."


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: In 1983, the philosopher Joseph Levine proposed that there is an "explanatory gap" between our understanding of the physical world and our understanding of consciousness.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Levine's argument is directed at the notion that conscious states are reducible neuronal or brain states. Levine famously uses the example of pain (as an example of a conscious state) is reducible to the firing of c-fibers (a kind of nerve cell). The difficulty is as follows: even if consciousness is physical, it is not clear which physical states correspond to which conscious states. The bridges between the two levels of description will be contingent, rather than necessary. This is significant because in most contexts, relating two scientific levels of descriptions (such as physics and chemistry) is done with the assurance of necessary connections between the two theories (for example, chemistry follows with necessity from physics).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Levine illustrates this point with the following thought experiment. Suppose that humanity were to encounter an alien species, and suppose it is known that the aliens do not have any c-fibers. Even if one knows this, it is not obvious that the aliens do not feel pain: that would remain an open question. This is because the fact that aliens do not have c-fibers does not entail that they do not feel pain (in other words, feelings of pain do not follow with logical necessity from the firing of c-fibers. Levine thinks this and similar thought experiments show that there is an explanatory gap between consciousness and the physical world: even if consciousness is reducible to physical things, consciousness cannot be explained in terms of physical things, because the link between physical things and consciousness is contingent link.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Levine does not think that the explanatory gap means that consciousness is not physical: he is open to the idea that the explanatory gap is only an epistemological problem for physicalism. In contrast, Chalmers thinks that the hard problem of consciousness does show that consciousness is not physical.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Philosophical zombies are a thought experiment commonly used in discussions of the hard problem. They are hypothetical beings physically identical to humans but lack conscious experience. Philosophers such as Chalmers, Joseph Levine, and Francis Kripke take zombies as impossible within the bounds of nature but possible within the bounds of logic. This would imply that facts about experience are not logically entailed by the "physical" facts. Therefore, consciousness is irreducible. In Chalmers' words, "after God (hypothetically) created the world, he had more work to do." Daniel Dennett, a philosopher of mind, has criticised the field's use of "the zombie hunch" which he deems an "embarrassment" that ought to "be dropped like a hot potato".


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: The knowledge argument, also known as "Mary's Room", is another common thought experiment. It centres around a hypothetical neuroscientist named Mary. She has lived her whole life in a black and white room and has never seen colour before. She also happens to know everything there is to know about the brain and colour perception. Chalmers believes that if Mary were to see the colour red for the first time that she would gain new knowledge of the world. That means knowledge of what red looks like is distinct from knowledge of the brain or visual system. In other words knowledge of what red looks like "is irreducible" to knowledge of the brain or nervous system; therefore, experience is irreducible to the functioning of the brain or nervous system. Others disagree, saying the same could be said about Mary knowing everything there is to know about bikes and riding one for the first time, or swimming, etc. Elsewhere, Thomas Nagel has put forward a "speculative proposal" of devising a language that could "explain to a person blind from birth what it is like to see." If such a language is possible then the force of the knowledge argument may be undercut.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Chalmers' formulation of the hard problem of consciousness has provoked considerable debate within philosophy of mind as well as scientific research. Some responses accept the problem as real and seek to develop a theory of consciousness' place in the world that can solve it, while others seek to show that the apparent hard problem as distinct from the easy problems dissolves upon analysis. A third response has been to accept the hard problem as real but deny human cognitive faculties can solve it.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: According to a 2020 Philpapers survey, 29.72% of philosophers surveyed believe that the hard problem does not exist, while 62.42% of philosophers surveyed believe that the hard problem is a genuine problem.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Different solutions have been proposed to the hard problem of consciousness. One of these, weak reductionism, is the view that while there is an epistemic hard problem of consciousness that will not be solved directly by scientific progress, this is due to our conceptualization, not an ontological gap. A traditional solution gaining renewed popularity is idealism, according to which consciousness is fundamental and not simply an emergent property of matter. It is claimed that this avoids the hard problem entirely. Dualism views consciousness as either a non-physical substance separate from the brain or a non-physical property of the physical brain. Meanwhile, panpsychism and neutral monism, broadly speaking, view consciousness as intrinsic to matter.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: There is a split among those subscribing to reductive materialism between those who hold there is no hard problem of consciousness—"strong reductionists" (see below)—and "weak reductionists" who, while remaining ontologically committed to physicalism, accept an epistemic hard problem of consciousness. Put differently, weak reductionists believe there is a gap between two ways of knowing (introspection and neuroscience) that will not be resolved by understanding all the underlying neurobiology, but still believe that consciousness and neurobiology are one and the same in reality. For example, Joseph Levine, who formulated the notion of the "explanatory gap" (see above), states: "The explanatory gap argument doesn't demonstrate a gap in nature, but a gap in our understanding of nature." He nevertheless contends that a full scientific understanding will not close the gap, and that analogous gaps do not exist for other identities in nature, such as that between water and HO. The philosophers Ned Block and Robert Stalnaker agree that facts about what a conscious experience is like to the one experiencing it cannot be deduced from knowing all the facts about the underlying physiology, but by contrast argue that such gaps of knowledge are also present in many other cases in nature, such as the distinction between water and HO.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: To explain why these two ways of knowing (i.e. third-person scientific observation and first-person introspection) yield such different understandings of consciousness, weak reductionists often invoke the "phenomenal concepts strategy", which argues the difference stems from our inaccurate phenomenal concepts (i.e., how we think about consciousness), not the nature of consciousness itself. Thus, the hard problem of consciousness stems only from a dualism of concepts, not a dualism of properties or substances (see next section).


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Dualism is the view that the mind is irreducible to the physical body. There are multiple dualist accounts of the causal relationship between the mental and the physical, of which interactionism and epiphenomenalism are the most common today. Interactionism posits that the mental and physical causally impact one another, and is associated with the thought of René Descartes (1596–1650). Epiphenomalism, by contrast, holds the mental is causally dependent on the physical, but does not in turn causally impact it. In contemporary philosophy, interactionism has been defended by philosophers including Martine Nida-Rümelin, while epiphenomenalism has been defended by philosophers including Frank Jackson (although Jackson later changed his stance to physicalism). Chalmers has also defended versions of both positions as plausible. Traditional dualists such as Descartes believed the mental and the physical to be two separate substances, or fundamental types of entities (hence "substance dualism"); some more recent dualists, however, accept only one substance, the physical, but state it has both mental and physical properties (hence "property dualism").


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: In its most basic form, panpsychism holds that all physical entities have minds (though its proponents in fact take more qualified positions), while neutral monism, in at least some variations, holds that entities are composed of a substance with mental and physical aspects—and is thus sometimes described as a type of panpsychism. Forms of panpsychism and neutral monism were defended in the early twentieth century by the psychologist William James, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, the physicist Arthur Eddington, and the philosopher Bertrand Russell, and interest in these views has been revived in recent decades by philosophers including Thomas Nagel, Galen Strawson, and David Chalmers. Chalmers describes his overall view as "naturalistic dualism", but he says panpsychism is in a sense a form of physicalism, as does Strawson. Proponents of panpsychism argue it solves the hard problem of consciousness parsimoniously by making consciousness a fundamental feature of reality.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Objective idealism and cosmopsychism consider mind or consciousness to be the fundamental substance of the universe. Proponents claim that this approach is immune to both the hard problem of consciousness and the combination problem that affects panpsychism.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: From an idealist perspective, matter is a representation or image of mental processes, and supporters suggest that this avoids the problems associated with the materialist view of mind as an emergent property of a physical brain.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Critics of this approach point out that you then have a decombination problem, in terms of explaining individual subjective experience. In response, Bernardo Kastrup claims that nature has already hinted at a mechanism for this in the condition Dissociative identity disorder (previously known as Multiple Personality Disorder). Kastrup proposes dissociation as an example from nature showing that multiple minds with their own individual subjective experience could develop within a single universal mind.


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Cognitive psychologist Donald D. Hoffman uses a mathematical model based around conscious agents, within a fundamentally conscious universe, to support conscious realism as a description of nature that falls within the objective idealism approaches to the hard problem: "The objective world, i.e., the world whose existence does not depend on the perceptions of a particular conscious agent, consists entirely of conscious agents."


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: David Chalmers has said this form of idealism is one of "the handful of promising approaches to the mind–body problem."


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Many philosophers have disputed that there is a hard problem of consciousness distinct from what Chalmers calls the easy problems of consciousness. Some among them, who are sometimes termed "strong reductionists", hold that phenomenal consciousness (i.e., conscious experience) does exist but that it can be fully understood as reducible to the brain. Others maintain that phenomenal consciousness can be eliminated from the scientific picture of the world, and hence are called "eliminative materialists" or "eliminativists".


title: Hard problem of consciousness

text: Broadly, strong reductionists accept that conscious experience is real but argue it can be fully understood in functional terms as an emergent property of the material brain. In contrast to weak reductionists (see above), strong reductionists reject ideas used to support the existence of a hard problem (that the same functional organization could exist without consciousness, or that a blind person who understood vision through a textbook would not know everything about sight) as simply mistaken intuitions.