Figments Of Reality

Author : Ian Stewart
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521663830
Total Pages : 348 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Figments of Reality written by Ian Stewart and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular science tour de force from bestselling authors, on evolution of intelligence, culture and mind.

Author : Ian Stewart
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Figments of Reality written by Ian Stewart and published by . This book was released on 1997 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Ian Stewart
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139425293
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Figments of Reality written by Ian Stewart and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1997-07-28 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is the universe around us a figment of our imagination? Or are our minds figments of reality? In this refreshing new look at the evolution of mind and culture, bestselling authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen eloquently argue that our minds necessarily evolved inextricably within the context of culture and language. They go beyond conventional reductionist ideas to look at how the mind is the response of an evolving brain trying to grapple with a complex environment. Along the way they develop new and intriguing insights into the nature of evolution, science and humanity.

Author : Ian Stewart
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141938285
Total Pages : 512 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Collapse of Chaos written by Ian Stewart and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2000-03-02 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we live in a simple or a complex universe? Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart explore the ability of complicated rules to generate simple behaviour in nature through 'the collapse of chaos'. 'The most startling, thought-provoking book I've read all year. I was pleased to learn that most of the things I thought I knew were wrong' -- Terry Pratchett

Author : Peter Corning
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9781139442183
Total Pages : 476 pages
Book Rating : 4.8X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Nature's Magic written by Peter Corning and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2003-05-05 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nature's Magic presents a bold vision of the evolutionary process from the Big Bang to the 21st century. Synergy of various kinds is not only a ubiquitous aspect of the natural world but it has also been a wellspring of creativity and the 'driver' of the broad evolutionary trend toward increased complexity, in nature and human societies alike. But in contrast with the many theories of emergence or complexity that rely on some underlying force or 'law', the 'Synergism Hypothesis', as Peter Corning calls it, is in essence an economic theory of biological complexity; it is fully consistent with mainstream evolutionary biology. Corning refers to it as Holistic Darwinism. Among the many important insights that are provided by this new paradigm, Corning presents a scenario in which the human species invented itself; synergistic, behavioral and technological innovations were the 'pacemakers' of our biological evolution. Synergy has also been the key to the evolution of complex modern societies, he concludes.

Author : T.M. Luhrmann
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691234442
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How God Becomes Real written by T.M. Luhrmann and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hard work required to make God real, how it changes the people who do it, and why it helps explain the enduring power of faith How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people—as if they were standing right next to them? Humans tend to see supernatural agents everywhere, as the cognitive science of religion has shown. But it isn’t easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort—by changing the people who do it and giving them the benefits they seek from invisible others—helps to explain the enduring power of faith. Drawing on ethnographic studies of evangelical Christians, pagans, magicians, Zoroastrians, Black Catholics, Santeria initiates, and newly orthodox Jews, Luhrmann notes that none of these people behave as if gods and spirits are simply there. Rather, these worshippers make strenuous efforts to create a world in which invisible others matter and can become intensely present and real. The faithful accomplish this through detailed stories, absorption, the cultivation of inner senses, belief in a porous mind, strong sensory experiences, prayer, and other practices. Along the way, Luhrmann shows why faith is harder than belief, why prayer is a metacognitive activity like therapy, why becoming religious is like getting engrossed in a book, and much more. A fascinating account of why religious practices are more powerful than religious beliefs, How God Becomes Real suggests that faith is resilient not because it provides intuitions about gods and spirits—but because it changes the faithful in profound ways.

Author : Thomas Nagel
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199919755
Total Pages : 141 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mind and Cosmos written by Thomas Nagel and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-11-22 with total page 141 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The modern materialist approach to life has conspicuously failed to explain such central mind-related features of our world as consciousness, intentionality, meaning, and value. This failure to account for something so integral to nature as mind, argues philosopher Thomas Nagel, is a major problem, threatening to unravel the entire naturalistic world picture, extending to biology, evolutionary theory, and cosmology. Since minds are features of biological systems that have developed through evolution, the standard materialist version of evolutionary biology is fundamentally incomplete. And the cosmological history that led to the origin of life and the coming into existence of the conditions for evolution cannot be a merely materialist history, either. An adequate conception of nature would have to explain the appearance in the universe of materially irreducible conscious minds, as such. Nagel's skepticism is not based on religious belief or on a belief in any definite alternative. In Mind and Cosmos, he does suggest that if the materialist account is wrong, then principles of a different kind may also be at work in the history of nature, principles of the growth of order that are in their logical form teleological rather than mechanistic. In spite of the great achievements of the physical sciences, reductive materialism is a world view ripe for displacement. Nagel shows that to recognize its limits is the first step in looking for alternatives, or at least in being open to their possibility.

Author : Danny Lore
Publisher : Vault Comics
ISBN 13 : 163849052X
Total Pages : 140 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Queen of Bad Dreams written by Danny Lore and published by Vault Comics. This book was released on 2019-12-17 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sandman meets Bladerunner in this LGBTQ+ Fantasy/SciFi blend! Sometimes dreams—called figments—escape the dreamer's mind. And it's Daher's job to track them down. When she finds herself caught up in the dreams of politically powerful family, Daher discovers secrets about the origins of figments. WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A DREAM ESCAPES? When a dream entity known as a figment emerges from a dreamer’s mind, it’s Daher’s job as an IJ to track them down and make the call: reinsert the figment, or grant them agency in our world. After an especially powerful figment escapes the dreams of an even more powerful politician’s son, Daher is pulled headlong into an investigation that traces all the way back to the incident that sent dreams, even nightmares, spilling into our reality. Collects the complete five issue series.

Author : Roger Penrose
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0593315308
Total Pages : 1136 pages
Book Rating : 4.09/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Road to Reality written by Roger Penrose and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2021-06-09 with total page 1136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: **WINNER OF THE 2020 NOBEL PRIZE IN PHYSICS** The Road to Reality is the most important and ambitious work of science for a generation. It provides nothing less than a comprehensive account of the physical universe and the essentials of its underlying mathematical theory. It assumes no particular specialist knowledge on the part of the reader, so that, for example, the early chapters give us the vital mathematical background to the physical theories explored later in the book. Roger Penrose's purpose is to describe as clearly as possible our present understanding of the universe and to convey a feeling for its deep beauty and philosophical implications, as well as its intricate logical interconnections. The Road to Reality is rarely less than challenging, but the book is leavened by vivid descriptive passages, as well as hundreds of hand-drawn diagrams. In a single work of colossal scope one of the world's greatest scientists has given us a complete and unrivalled guide to the glories of the universe that we all inhabit. 'Roger Penrose is the most important physicist to work in relativity theory except for Einstein. He is one of the very few people I've met in my life who, without reservation, I call a genius' Lee Smolin

Author : Troy Banyan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781899293872
Total Pages : 236 pages
Book Rating : 4.76/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Figments of Fudgewick written by Troy Banyan and published by . This book was released on 2002-11-01 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: