This lecture sets out from some central features of crime, criminal law and the criminal process in order to explore underlying questions about what kind of institutional phenomenon criminal law is, and what its various social meanings and functions are. Looking at criminal law as one among many systems of social norms, the lecture distinguishes between the quasi-moral and the instrumental aspects of criminal law, and explores the shifting balance between these different dimensions and the relationship between these changes and broader social, political and economic developments in modern Britain. The lecture concludes with an assessment of the likely impact of the Human Rights Act on the basic structure of criminal law. The stars revolve steadily in the night sky. The moon goes through repeated 'phases'.
Snail shells are spiral, flowers are symmetric.
The quest for scientific understanding of the world around us has largely been a response to the implicit questions raised by these patterns. In this sense, chaos is not another term for 'randomness'. It just looks as though it isn't. The lecture describes the origins of chaos and its implications for the present and the future, contrasting the concept with more conventional views of science. Words are arbitrary pairings between a sound and a meaning, stored in memory.