In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance" view of the nature of reality as opposed to a "two-substance" or "many-substance" view. Both the definition of "physical" and the meaning of physicalism have been debated. Physicalism is related to materialism. Physicalism grew out of materialism with advancements of the physical sciences in explaining observed phenomena; the terms are used interchangeably, although they are sometimes distinguished, for example on the basis of physics describing more than just matter. The philosophical zombie argument is an attempt to challenge Physicalism; the word "physicalism" was introduced into philosophy in the 1930s by Otto Neurath and Rudolf Carnap. The use of "physical" in physicalism is a philosophical concept and can be distinguished from alternative definitions found in the literature.

A "physical property", in this context, may be a metaphysical or logical combination of properties which are physical in the ordinary sense. It is common to express the notion of "metaphysical or logical combination of properties" using the notion of supervenience: A property A is said to supervene on a property B if any change in A implies a change in B. Since any change in a combination of properties must consist of a change in at least one component property, we see that the combination does indeed supervene on the individual properties; the point of this extension is that physicalists suppose the existence of various abstract concepts which are non-physical in the ordinary sense of the word. Physicalism defined in terms of supervenience does not entail that all properties in the actual world are type identical to physical properties, it is, compatible with multiple realizability. From the notion of supervenience, we see that, assuming that mental and biological properties supervene on physical properties, it follows that two hypothetical worlds cannot be identical in their physical properties but differ in their mental, social or biological properties.

Two common approaches to defining "physicalism" are the object-based approaches. The theory-based conception of physicalism proposes that "a property is physical if and only if it either is the sort of property that physical theory tells us about or else is a property which metaphysically supervenes on the sort of property that physical theory tells us about"; the object-based conception claims that "a property is physical if and only if: it either is the sort of property required by a complete account of the intrinsic nature of paradigmatic physical objects and their constituents or else is a property which metaphysically supervenes on the sort of property required by a complete account of the intrinsic nature of paradigmatic physical objects and their constituents". Physicalists have traditionally opted for a "theory-based" characterization of the physical either in terms of current physics, or a future physics; these two theory-based conceptions of the physical represent both horns of Hempel's dilemma: an argument against theory-based understandings of the physical.

Hempel's dilemma is that if we define the physical by reference to current physics physicalism is likely to be false, as it is likely that much of current physics is false. But if we instead define the physical in terms of a future or completed physics physicalism is hopelessly vague or indeterminate. While the force of Hempel's dilemma against theory-based conceptions of the physical remains contested, alternative "non-theory-based" conceptions of the physical have been proposed. Frank Jackson for example, has argued in favour of the aforementioned "object-based" conception of the physical. An objection to this proposal, which Jackson himself noted in 1998, is that if it turns out that panpsychism or panprotopsychism is true such a non-materialist understanding of the physical gives the counterintuitive result that physicalism is also true since such properties will figure in a complete account of paradigmatic examples of the physical. David Papineau and Barbara Montero have advanced and subsequently defended a "via negativa" characterization of the physical.

The gist of the via negativa strategy is to understand the physical in terms of what it is not: the mental. In other words, the via negativa strategy understands the physical as "the non-mental". An objection to the via negativa conception of the physical is that it doesn't have the resources to distinguish neutral monism from physicalism. Adopting a supervenience-based account of the physical, the definition of physicalism as "all properties are physical" can be unravelled to: 1) Physicalism is true at a possible world w if and only if any world, a physical duplicate of w is a duplicate of w simpliciter. Applied to the actual world, statement 1 above is the claim that physicalism is true at the actual world if and only if at every possible world in which the physical properties and laws of the actual world are instantiated, the non-physical properties of the actual world are instantiated as well. To borrow a m

There are no less than five fables concerning an impertinent insect, taken in general to refer to the kind of interfering person who makes himself out falsely to share in the enterprise of others or to be of greater importance than he is in reality. Some of these stories are included among Aesop's Fables, while others are of origin, from them have been derived idioms in English and Russian. Credited as among Aesop's Fables, recorded in Latin by Phaedrus, the fable is numbered 137 in the Perry Index. There are versions by the so-called Syntipas via the Syriac, Ademar of Chabannes in Mediaeval Latin, in Medieval English by William Caxton; the story concerns a flea that travels on a camel and hops off at its journey's end, explaining that it does not wish to tire the camel any further. The camel replies. Phaedrus comments that "He who, while he is of no standing, boasts to be of a lofty one, falls under contempt when he comes to be known." Babrius recorded a variant story in which a gnat settles on a bull's horn but offers to fly off again if he finds it too much of a burden.

The bull replies that he is indifferent either way and the moral is much the same as in the contemporary Phaedrus. The fable did not become known in Britain until a Latin verse translation appeared in Victorian text books and versions in English fable collections. Ademar of Chabannes, who had a history of forgery, came up with a story of his own which he passed off as ancient; this appears as fable 564 in the Perry Index. There a gnat challenges a bull to a trial of strength but claims that, by accepting, the bull has acknowledged it as his equal. Ademar's comment is that the bull "should have dismissed this opponent as beneath contempt and the impertinent creature would not have had anything to boast about." The fable was composed in Latin by Laurentius Abstemius and appeared in his Hecatomythium under the title Musca et Quadrigae. It was added to the Perry Index as Fable 724. Here a fly perches on comments on how much dust it is raising. Gabriele Faerno included it in his own Centum Fabulae, giving the impression that it was of Aesopic origin although verbally it is close to the text of Abstemius.

Francis Bacon took the fable to be Aesopic, observing that "It was prettily devised of Æsop: The fly sat upon the axle-tree of the chariot-wheel, said, What a dust do I raise!" at the start of his essay “On Vainglory”. ‘the fly on the coach wheel’ became an English idiom with the meaning of "one who fancies himself of mighty importance but, in reality of none at all". This fable has the longest history of internal change, it is numbered 498 in the Perry Index. There a fly seated on the cart threatens to sting the mule; the mule replies that he only fears his whip. Empty threats from bystanders mean nothing; this too entered the European canon, first through Heinrich Steinhöwel's collection of Aesop's fables and thereafter from books derived from it, including Caxton's collection. In Roger L'Estrange large collection, his "The Fly on the Wheel" seems to blend the two fables together: "What a Dust do I raise! says the Fly upon the Coach-Wheel? and what a rate do I drive at, says the same Fly again upon the Horse's Buttock?"

La Fontaine's Fables expands the scenario with his treatment of "La coche et la mouche", where the emphasis shifts wholly to the insect. Six horses strain to pull a stage-coach up a sandy hill and all the passengers are obliged to get out. A fly now buzzes about, urging on the horses and supervising the progress of the coach complains that all the work has been left to it alone; the fabulist comments, This version of the fable has twice been set to music: as the fifth piece in Benjamin Godard's Six Fables de La Fontaine. In French the idiomatic phrase Faire la mouche du coche continues to be applied to self-important do-nothings. In Russian, the phrase "Мы пахали!" is used to mock people exaggerating their contributions, after Ivan Dmitriev's variant featuring a fly that rides on a bull's horn as it ploughs. Hitherto, the fables had been pithily told, but La Fontaine's leisurely and circumstantial narration over the length of 32 lines went on to infect those who followed him in other languages with similar prolixity.

William Godwin adapted the gist to a short story of "The Fly in the Mail Coach" in his Fables Ancient and Modern, although otherwise seeming to draw more from L'Estrange than La Fontaine. The same is true of the prose version of "The Fly and the Wagon" that appeared in The Flowers of Fable. Claimed there to be translated from the Dutch, that too mixes Abstemius with La Fontaine and culminates in a horse killing the fly with a switch of its tail

Chicago City Limits, is the longest running improvisational theatre company in New York City, New York. Chicago City Limits is New York City's seminal improvisational theatre company, founded in 1977. George Todisco started the group in Chicago with actors participating in the workshop program at The Second City, studying under Del Close. Among the players were founding members Todisco, Linda Gelman, Bill McLaughlin, Carol Schindler, Paul Zuckerman, Rick Crom and Christopher Oyen. Oyen served as The Second City's stage manager, Todisco, McLaughlin and Sandy Smith, all appeared in "The Del Close Farewell Salute to Chicago" in 1978. In 1979, Chicago City Limits relocated to New York, performing at Catch a Rising Star, the Improv, the Duplex, Folk City and other notable NYC clubs, it established its own theater in the summer of 1980 on W 42nd Street, thus creating NYC's most successful improvisational theatre to date, the last improvisational theatre in NYC to offer the New York company salaried positions.)

After setting up the theater on 42nd Street, the troupe relocated to the Jan Hus Playhouse at 351 E 74th St. and at their own theatre, once again, at 1105 1st Avenue, at The Broadway Comedy Club on E 53rd St. and returned to the Jan Hus Playhouse, before suspending its run in 2016. The group no longer has a performance space, but tours sporadically and offers workshop opportunities. CCL was a three-time recipient of The Manhattan Association of Clubs Award; the Chicago City Limits National Touring Company received the first MAC Award given for Best Comedy/Improv Group in 1987 and again in 1988. The New York Company won again in 2008. In 2011, Top 10 New York City by Eleanor Berman rated it one of New York City's top 10 comedy clubs. George Todisco ø Linda Gelman †ø Bill McLaughlin Carol Schindler Paul Zuckerman ø Rick Crom ) Christopher Oyen ø David Regal Eddie Ellner Judy Nazemetz Terry Sommer John Cameron Telfer Rick Simpson Judith Searcy Harry Prichett Wayne Barker Wendy Chatman Carole Buggé Carl Kissin † Gary Adler John Webber Leslie Upson Andy Daly Frank Spitznagel Denny Siegel Sean Conroy John O'Donnell Joe DeGise II ƒ Victor Varnado Joe O'Brien Rob Schiffmann π Tara Copeland Mike Leffingwell Eugene Cordero Morgan Phillips Kimmy Gatewood Travis Ploeger Annie Schiffmann, née Figenshu Canedy Knowles Kobi Libii Stefan Schick Rick Hip-Flores Malachi Nimmons, Jr.

Julia Young Assaf Gleizners ƒ- Co-Director ø- Co-Producer †- Director of The Chicago City Limits National Touring Company π- Musical Director œ- Accompanist Pete Aguero Jessica Allen Larry Bell Tony Carnevale David Chernicoff Jeff Clinkenbeard Claudia Cogan Mike Colasuonno Jamie Denbo Colton Dunn Brian Finkelstein Jason Fletcher Sharon Fogerty Adrianne Frost Danny Glover Alison Grambs Wendy Herlich Suzanne Hevner Sharon Jensen Lisa Jolley Anthony King Rachel Korowitz Meg Sweeney Lawless Emmy Laybourne Annie Lebeau œ Beth Littleford Simone Lutz Jono Manelli œ Michael Martin Andy McCann Robert McCaskill † John McMahon π Caitlin Miller David Miner ø Jim Mironchik œ Julie Mullen Jen Nails Doug Nervik π Susan Peahl Eddie Pepitone Joe Perce Molly Prather Ian Prior Mary Purdy Steve Purnick Deb Rabbai Amy Rhodes Charlie Sanders Michael Sansonia π Celia Schaefer Ben Schecter œ Paul Scheer Jeff Scherer Danielle Schnieder Rory Scholl Joe Schwartz Ann Scobie Ges Selmont ø Eliza Skinner Rich Sommer Chris Tallman John Ten Eyck Peter Tolan ¥ Greg Triggs Nelson Walters Amy Wilsonƒ- Co-Director ø- Co-Producer †- Director of The Chicago City Limits National Touring Company π- Musical Director œ- Accompanist ¥- Hired, no performances Dented He She It Chicago City Limits: Population 5 Blizzard of ‘81 Chicago City Limits in Sensible Shoes Chicago City Limits: Greatest Hits Chicago City Limits in 3D Chicago City Limits with Clam Sauce Chicago City Limits Behind Bars Nancy Get Your Gun Choice Cuts X: The Roman Numeral Current Jam Taking Liberties Taking More Liberties 10 of Inequity The Best of Chicago City Limits Everything Kills Scandals of'89 Saddam You're Rockin' the Boat Power of Suggestion The Official Comedy Team of the Olympics Unconventional Wisdom Generation Ecch Let Loose the Dogs of Improv Two Johns Kissin Leslie That's What You Said Right to Laugh Party chicagocitylimits.comedy Subpoenas Envy Lame Duck Soup Chicago City Limits Turns 20: Now And Forever...

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