O | | Occam’s Razor | Do not unnecessarily multiply explanatory entities. The philosophical and scientific rule stating that the simplest of two or more competing theories or explanations is preferable. | | | | Oglala Sioux | The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux number 17,775, about one third speaks Lakota as their native language. The Oglala live in the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota bordering Nebraska and 50 miles east of Wyoming. The reservation has broadly three parts, pine covered hills and ridges, grassy plains and a desert area. All three parts are noted for natural beauty. The Oglala Sioux see themselves primarily as part of the Lakota or Sioux people. | | | | Omega Point | Omega point is a term invented by French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe the ultimate maximum level of complexity-consciousness, considered by him the aim towards which consciousness evolves. Rather than divinity being found “in the heavens” he held that evolution was a process converging toward a “final unity”, identical with the Eschaton and with God. According to Teilhard and the Russian scholar and biologist Vladimir Vernadsky (author of The Geosphere 1924 and The Biosphere 1926), the planet is in a transformative process, metamorphosing from the biosphere into the noosphere. | | | | Ophelia | From Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Admittedly negotiating the simultaneous rationalization and preservation of insanity, to answer the important question of how to read Ophelia’s madness. Ophelia initially appears “shaped to conform to external demands, to reflect others desires” she is Laertes’ “angel”, Polonius’ “Commodity” and Hamlet’s “spectre of his psychic fears”. While the conflicting messages from these male/masculine sources damage Ophelia’s psychological identity, their sudden absence provokes her mental destruction. Optimistically, Ophelia’s madness offers the capability of speech, the opportunity to discover individual identity, and the power to verbally undermine authority. A thorough analysis of Ophelia’s mad ramblings (and their mutual levels of meaning) provides “a singular expose of society, of the turbulent reality beneath the surface of calm” but her words still suggest a fragmented self and provide others the opportunity to manipulate meanings that best suit them. Ophelia’s death is also open to interpretation. While the Queen describes “the accidental drowning of an unconsciously precocious child,” this suggests that Ophelia’s choice might be seen as the only courageous–indeed rational–death in Shakespeare’s bloody drama. | | | | Oprah Winfrey | Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, MS) is the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest rated talk show in television history. She is also an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century, the most philanthropic African American of all time, and the world’s only Black billionaire for three straight years. She is also, according to several assessments, the most influential woman in the world. | | | | Original Face | Your face before your parents were born; the pure formless Witness, prior to the manifest world. |
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