The Existence Puzzles

Author : Tyron Goldschmidt
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136249222
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.28/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Puzzle of Existence written by Tyron Goldschmidt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking volume investigates the most fundamental question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? The question is explored from diverse and radical perspectives: religious, naturalistic, platonistic and skeptical. Does science answer the question? Or does theology? Does everything need an explanation? Or can there be brute, inexplicable facts? Could there have been nothing whatsoever? Or is there any being that could not have failed to exist? Is the question meaningful after all? The volume advances cutting-edge debates in metaphysics, philosophy of cosmology and philosophy of religion, and will intrigue and challenge readers interested in any of these subjects.

Author : M. A. Roberts
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197544142
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.43/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Existence Puzzles written by M. A. Roberts and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Melinda A. Roberts introduces the newcomer to population ethics and investigates the key issues in a way that will be of interest to professional philosophers, economists, lawyers, and students in all those areas who seek to understand what a cogent, intuitively plausible theory of population will look like. To that end, Roberts presents five perplexing but telling existence puzzles that already are or shall soon become important parts of the population ethics literature: the Asymmetry Puzzle, the Pareto Puzzle, the Addition Puzzle, the Anonymity Puzzle, and the Better Chance Puzzle. Roberts develops solutions to the puzzles that together form a partial theory of population, a collection of principles grounded in intuition but highly sensitive to the formal demands of consistency and cogency.

Author : A.J. Jacobs
Publisher : Crown
ISBN 13 : 059313673X
Total Pages : 385 pages
Book Rating : 4.37/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Puzzler written by A.J. Jacobs and published by Crown. This book was released on 2023-04-25 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestselling author of The Year of Living Biblically goes on a rollicking journey to understand the enduring power of puzzles: why we love them, what they do to our brains, and how they can improve our world. “Even though I’ve never attempted the New York Times crossword puzzle or solved the Rubik’s Cube, I couldn’t put down The Puzzler.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project and Better Than Before What makes puzzles—jigsaws, mazes, riddles, sudokus—so satisfying? Be it the formation of new cerebral pathways, their close link to insight and humor, or their community-building properties, they’re among the fundamental elements that make us human. Convinced that puzzles have made him a better person, A.J. Jacobs—four-time New York Times bestselling author, master of immersion journalism, and nightly crossworder—set out to determine their myriad benefits. And maybe, in the process, solve the puzzle of our very existence. Well, almost. In The Puzzler, Jacobs meets the most zealous devotees, enters (sometimes with his family in tow) any puzzle competition that will have him, unpacks the history of the most popular puzzles, and aims to solve the most impossible head-scratchers, from a mutant Rubik’s Cube, to the hardest corn maze in America, to the most sadistic jigsaw. Chock-full of unforgettable adventures and original examples from around the world—including new work by Greg Pliska, one of America’s top puzzle-makers, and a hidden, super-challenging but solvable puzzle—The Puzzler will open readers’ eyes to the power of flexible thinking and concentration. Whether you’re puzzle obsessed or puzzle hesitant, you’ll walk away with real problem-solving strategies and pathways toward becoming a better thinker and decision maker—for these are certainly puzzling times.

Author : Tyron Goldschmidt
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136249230
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Puzzle of Existence written by Tyron Goldschmidt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking volume investigates the most fundamental question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? The question is explored from diverse and radical perspectives: religious, naturalistic, platonistic and skeptical. Does science answer the question? Or does theology? Does everything need an explanation? Or can there be brute, inexplicable facts? Could there have been nothing whatsoever? Or is there any being that could not have failed to exist? Is the question meaningful after all? The volume advances cutting-edge debates in metaphysics, philosophy of cosmology and philosophy of religion, and will intrigue and challenge readers interested in any of these subjects.

Author : Melinda A. Roberts
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780197544167
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Existence Puzzles written by Melinda A. Roberts and published by . This book was released on 2024 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This book introduces newcomers to population ethics, the inquiry into how changes in how many people, and just who, will exist bear on moral law. It also proposes a new way of thinking about the hard cases and questions population ethics is so widely known for. An intuitive first pass at what moral law has to say about choices to bring additional people into existence comes from Narveson. We are "in favour of making people happy." Or so says what this book calls the basic maximizing intuition. But we are "neutral about making happy people." Or so says what this book calls the basic existential intuition (itself a distant and more credible cousin of the person affecting intuition). Ever since questions relating to population variability gained attention in the late 1960s or so, the dominant narrative among population ethicists, including Parfit, has been that Narveson unwittingly contradicted himself-and that as between the two intuitions it's the basic existential intuition that must go. We must, the argument has been accede to a traditional total form of maximizing consequentialism. Leaving us with a (somewhat terrifying) obligation to procreate. Tying our hands in addressing climate change, disapproving of the constitutional rights of contraception and early abortion and giving credence instead to Dobbs v. Jackson and demanding grave sacrifices from vast numbers of people who do or will exist in exchange for the tiniest chance that the human species can multiply indefinitely over the very, very long term. It's a poor story. This book proposes a better story. Hard population cases generate not counterexamples disproving the basic existential intuition but rather a series of puzzles it's our job to solve under the governance of the puzzle-solving rules we all know well: we fit the pieces together without throwing any of them out and within the formal requirements of consistency, cogency and the conceptual principles we seem to have no choice but to accept. Reconciliation, and not refutation, is thus the aim, with each chapter concluding with principles-together, person based consequentialism-that allow us to retain, not the basic maximizing intuition in a careless or unfettered form, but rather in a form that is constrained in very precise ways by the basic existential intuition"--

Author : Anthony J. Everett
Publisher : Stanford Univ Center for the Study
ISBN 13 : 9781575862538
Total Pages : 325 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Empty Names, Fiction, and the Puzzles of Non-existence written by Anthony J. Everett and published by Stanford Univ Center for the Study. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contributions of important researchers working in empty names, fiction, and the puzzles of non-existence.

Author : Robert Nozick
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780674816534
Total Pages : 422 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Socratic Puzzles written by Robert Nozick and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 1997 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the foremost philosophers of our time, Robert Nozick continues the Socratic tradition of investigation. This volume, which illustrates the originality, force, and scope of his work, also displays Nozick's trademark blending of extraordinary analytical rigor with intellectual playfulness. As such, Socratic Puzzles testifies to the great pleasure that both doing and reading philosophy can be. Comprising essays and philosophical fictions, classics and new work, the book ranges from Socrates to W. V. Quine, from the implications of an Israeli kibbutz to the flawed arguments of Ayn Rand. Nozick considers the figure of Socrates himself as well as the Socratic method (why is it a "method" of getting at the truth?). Many of these essays bring classic methods to bear on new questions about choice. How should you choose in a disconcerting situation ("Newcomb's Problem") when your decisions are completely predictable? Why do threats and not offers typically coerce our choices? How do we make moral judgments when we realize that our moral principles have exceptions? Other essays present new approaches to familiar intellectual puzzles, from the stress on simplicity in scientific hypotheses to the tendency of intellectuals to oppose capitalism. As up to date as the latest reflections on animal rights; as perennial as the essentials of aesthetic merit (doggerel by Isaac Newton goes to prove that changing our view of the world won't suffice); as whimsical as a look at how some philosophical problems might appear from God's point of view: these essays attest to the timeliness and timelessness of Nozick's thinking. With a personal introduction, in which Nozick discusses the origins, tools, and themes of his work, Socratic Puzzles demonstrates how philosophy can constitute a way of life.

Author : David Skarbek
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0190672498
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.92/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Puzzle of Prison Order written by David Skarbek and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many people think prisons are all the same-rows of cells filled with violent men who officials rule with an iron fist. Yet, life behind bars varies in incredible ways. In some facilities, prison officials govern with care and attention to prisoners' needs. In others, officials have remarkably little influence on the everyday life of prisoners, sometimes not even providing necessities like food and clean water. Why does prison social order around the world look so remarkably different? In The Puzzle of Prison Order, David Skarbek develops a theory of why prisons and prison life vary so much. He finds that how they're governed-sometimes by the state, and sometimes by the prisoners-matters the most. He investigates life in a wide array of prisons-in Brazil, Bolivia, Norway, a prisoner of war camp, England and Wales, women's prisons in California, and a gay and transgender housing unit in the Los Angeles County Jail-to understand the hierarchy of life on the inside. Drawing on economics and a vast empirical literature on legal systems, Skarbek offers a framework to not only understand why life on the inside varies in such fascinating and novel ways, but also how social order evolves and takes root behind bars.

Author : Anany Levitin
Publisher : OUP USA
ISBN 13 : 0199740445
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Algorithmic Puzzles written by Anany Levitin and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2011-10-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Algorithmic puzzles are puzzles involving well-defined procedures for solving problems. This book will provide an enjoyable and accessible introduction to algorithmic puzzles that will develop the reader's algorithmic thinking. The first part of this book is a tutorial on algorithm design strategies and analysis techniques. Algorithm design strategies — exhaustive search, backtracking, divide-and-conquer and a few others — are general approaches to designing step-by-step instructions for solving problems. Analysis techniques are methods for investigating such procedures to answer questions about the ultimate result of the procedure or how many steps are executed before the procedure stops. The discussion is an elementary level, with puzzle examples, and requires neither programming nor mathematics beyond a secondary school level. Thus, the tutorial provides a gentle and entertaining introduction to main ideas in high-level algorithmic problem solving. The second and main part of the book contains 150 puzzles, from centuries-old classics to newcomers often asked during job interviews at computing, engineering, and financial companies. The puzzles are divided into three groups by their difficulty levels. The first fifty puzzles in the Easier Puzzles section require only middle school mathematics. The sixty puzzle of average difficulty and forty harder puzzles require just high school mathematics plus a few topics such as binary numbers and simple recurrences, which are reviewed in the tutorial. All the puzzles are provided with hints, detailed solutions, and brief comments. The comments deal with the puzzle origins and design or analysis techniques used in the solution. The book should be of interest to puzzle lovers, students and teachers of algorithm courses, and persons expecting to be given puzzles during job interviews.

Author : John Campbell
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0198716257
Total Pages : 225 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Berkeley's Puzzle written by John Campbell and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2014 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sensory experience seems to be the basis of our knowledge of mind-independent things. The puzzle is to understand how that can be: how does our sensory experience enable us to conceive of them as mind-independent? This book is a debate between two rival approaches to understanding the relationship between concepts and sensory experience.