The Puzzle Of Existence

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 : 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 : Jim Holt
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0871404095
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why Does the World Exist written by Jim Holt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this astonishing and profound work, an irreverent sleuth traces the riddleof existence from the ancient world to modern times.

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 : James Mackay
Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 : 145679678X
Total Pages : 81 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Puzzle of Life written by James Mackay and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2011-09-12 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does it mean to have a life? While science attempts to unravel the mysteries of the universe, and the wonders of the creature we call a human being, religion remains rooted in the dogmas of the past. But religion endures as a powerful force throughout the world, and many of its tenets are forever relevant to human existence. Conflicts continue to rage across many regions of our planet, and millions of people still live in constant fear. We need scientists and theologians to help us understand the human condition, but we also need good leaders to navigate the human race through the dangerous waters to come. Do our experiences of the 20th century offer any hope for the 21st? Can science and religion ever be reconciled, and will the nations of the world one day be able to live together in harmony? Can mankind ever solve the puzzle of life? This book explores these and other questions; its ambition is to throw some light on what it means to be alive at the beginning of the 21st century. Science is explained in terms that should be understandable to everyone, and mathematics does not feature at all.

Author : Joe Jordan
Publisher : Trafford Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1490797068
Total Pages : 198 pages
Book Rating : 4.69/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Jigsaw Puzzle of Life written by Joe Jordan and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2019-09-04 with total page 198 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are many questions that almost every person ask at some point in life. Many puzzle over the implications of various potential answers before giving up and deciding to keep on living just for the moment—not concerned with any cosmic purpose or destiny.

Author : Kristen Radtke
Publisher : Pantheon
ISBN 13 : 1101870834
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Imagine Wanting Only This written by Kristen Radtke and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Forbes • Lit Hub • Electric Lit A gorgeous graphic memoir about loss, love, and confronting grief When Kristen Radtke was in college, the sudden death of a beloved uncle and the sight of an abandoned mining town after his funeral marked the beginning moments of a lifelong fascination with ruins and with people and places left behind. Over time, this fascination deepened until it triggered a journey around the world in search of ruined places. Now, in this genre-smashing graphic memoir, she leads us through deserted cities in the American Midwest, an Icelandic town buried in volcanic ash, islands in the Philippines, New York City, and the delicate passageways of the human heart. Along the way, we learn about her family and a rare genetic heart disease that has been passed down through generations, and revisit tragic events in America’s past. A narrative that is at once narrative and factual, historical and personal, Radtke’s stunning illustrations and piercing text never shy away from the big questions: Why are we here, and what will we leave behind? (With black-and-white illustrations throughout; part of the Pantheon Graphic Novel series)

Author : John Leslie
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470673559
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.53/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Mystery of Existence written by John Leslie and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling study of the origins of all that exists, including explanations of the entire material world, traces the responses of philosophers and scientists to the most elemental and haunting question of all: why is anything here—or anything anywhere? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why not nothing? It includes the thoughts of dozens of luminaries from Plato and Aristotle to Aquinas and Leibniz to modern thinkers such as physicists Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg, philosophers Robert Nozick and Derek Parfit, philosophers of religion Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, and the Dalai Lama. The first accessible volume to cover a wide range of possible reasons for the existence of all reality, from over 50 renowned thinkers, including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, and the Dalai Lama Features insights by scientists, philosophers, and theologians Includes informative and helpful editorial introductions to each section Provides a wealth of suggestions for further reading and research Presents material that is both comprehensive and comprehensible

Author : Bede Rundle
Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 019153367X
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Why there is Something rather than Nothing written by Bede Rundle and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2004-02-05 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why should there be anything at all? Why, in particular, should a material world exist? Bede Rundle advances clear, non-technical answers to these perplexing questions. If, as the theist maintains, God is a being who cannot but exist, his existence explains why there is something rather than nothing. However, this can also be explained on the basis of a weaker claim. Not that there is some particular being that has to be, but simply that there has to be something or other. Rundle proffers arguments for thinking that that is indeed how the question is to be put to rest. Traditionally, the existence of the physical universe is held to depend on God, but the theist faces a major difficulty in making clear how a being outside space and time, as God is customarily conceived to be, could stand in an intelligible relation to the world, whether as its creator or as the author of events within it. Rundle argues that a creator of physical reality is not required, since there is no alternative to its existence. There has to be something, and a physical universe is the only real possibility. He supports this claim by eliminating rival contenders; he dismisses the supernatural, and argues that, while other forms of being, notably the abstract and the mental, are not reducible to the physical, they presuppose its existence. The question whether ultimate explanations can ever be given is forever in the background, and the book concludes with an investigation of this issue and of the possibility that the universe could have existed for an infinite time. Other topics discussed include causality, space, verifiability, essence, existence, necessity, spirit, fine tuning, and laws of Nature. Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing offers an explanation of fundamental facts of existence in purely philosophical terms, without appeal either to theology or cosmology. It will provoke and intrigue anyone who wonders about these questions.

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.