Showing results for "IT" in Consciousness & Thought

Death might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn't meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints—and death is the ultimate constraint—make our actions meaningful. In Life Is Short, Rickles explains why the finiteness and shortness of life is the essence of its meaning-and how this insight is the key to making the most of the time we do have.

"Consciousness is what makes the mind-body problem really intractable." So begins Thomas Nagel's classic 1974 essay "What is it Like to be a Bat?" Nagel's essay initiated the now widespread attention to consciousness as a central problem for philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience; it also influenced the recognition of the consciousness of nonhuman creatures as an important subject of study.

Living together amicably, creatively, in complete relationship with one another – if that is what is essential then we need not only a different kind of mind but also a different quality of affection, love. What is the function of a religious mind? Our struggle in life is dualistic: good and bad, right and wrong, holy and unholy, the ideal and the fact. There is only the fact, not the ideal. Is it possible to look at life as though you are looking for the first time? What is the content of the unconscious?

The Most Human Human is a provocative, exuberant, and profound exploration of the ways in which computers are reshaping our ideas of what it means to be human. Its starting point is the annual Turing Test, which pits artificial intelligence programs against people to determine if computers can...

In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book's heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems.

Flanagan has firsthand knowledge of what it is like to be an addict. That experience informs this important and novel work. He pairs the sciences that study addiction with a sophisticated view of the consciousness-brain/body relation to make his core argument: that substance addictions comprise a heterogeneous set of "psychobiosocial" behavioral disorders. He explains that substance addictions do not have one set of causes, such as self-medication or social dislocation, and they do not have one neural profile, such as a dysfunction in dopamine system.

What if the path to a meaningful life isn't about what happens to you, but how you respond? Learn to master your mindset when it matters most. The Stoic Habit offers a practical pathway to developing the strength of character needed to handle any of life's challenges with wisdom and purpose. For...

What is love? Aside from being the title of many a popular love song, this is one of life's perennial questions. In What Love Is, philosopher Carrie Jenkins offers a bold new theory on the nature of romantic love that reconciles its humanistic and scientific components.

Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club". It's easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of minds do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds - while incredibly important - are a matter of perception.

Brought to you by Penguin. Do you ever feel like a failure? Enter widely acclaimed observer of daily life Professor Joe Moran, not to tell you that everything will be all right in the end, but to reassure you that failure is an occupational hazard of being human. It's the small print in life's...

Drawing on his thirty years of teaching and service, Bo Lozoff shows why compassion—not success, self-improvement, or self-esteem—is at the root of happiness. Lozoff covers themes such as developing honesty, learning humility, dealing with anger, and honoring relationships. He shows how practices such as a daily vow of kindness or a simple commitment of time with others can have a profound effect on ourselves and our world.

Today’s technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT’s influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging listeners to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of “tech,” this book argues for tech agnosticism—not worship—as a way of life.

In 1968, at the climax of the '60s, Os Guinness visited the United States for the first time. There he was struck by an impression he’d already felt in England and elsewhere: Beneath all the idealism and struggle for freedom was a growing disillusionment and loss of meaning. “Underneath the efforts of a generation”, he wrote, “lay dust”. Even more troubling, Christians seemed uninformed about the cultural shifts and ill-equipped to respond. Guinness took on these concerns by writing his first book, The Dust of Death.

What takes place when one falls in love? Why has sex taken on such extraordinary importance? How will you know that it is stupid to be a nationalist? You see or understand only when the mind is quiet, when you are aware without any choice. When I say, ‘I love you,’ I have blocked myself from looking at you. Is it possible to look totally impersonally and yet be completely intimate? One takes a drug and has an extraordinary experience. At the base of this is the demand for wider and deeper experiences. Why do you want experience?

Paul Thagard explores the physiological workings and metaphorical resonance of balance in the brain, the body, and society. He describes the neural mechanisms that keep bodies balanced and explains why their failures can result in nausea, falls, or vertigo. Thagard connects bodily balance with leading ideas in neuroscience, including the nature of consciousness.

What is human happiness and how can we promote it? These questions are central to human existence and Happiness Explained draws on scientific research from economics, psychology, and philosophy, as well as a range of other disciplines, to outline a new paradigm in which human flourishing plays a central role in the assessment of national and global progress. It shows why the traditional national income approach is limited as a measure of human wellbeing.

Where there is authority there can be no discovery of something new. Relationship based on an idea cannot be a self-revealing process. Self-knowledge is understood, uncovered and its process revealed through relationship. Is it possible to love without the interference of the mind? When the mind becomes supreme, all-important, then there can be no affection. Q: what is that thinking that must come to an end? What do you mean by thinking and thought?

In "Per una vita migliore" Mario Rigoni ci conduce in un importante viaggio all'interno di noi stessi e del mondo. Il dialogo che porta avanti in tutto il testo è canalizzato da Esdra, strumento di collegamento tra gli esseri umani e le Entità disincarnate. E a rispondere è Michele l'Arcangelo, che con grande cura e dolcezza ci fornisce consigli e chiarimenti affinché possiamo vivere la migliore vita possibile. È così che Michele l'Arcangelo e Mario Rigoni diventano gli esponenti di due mondi, quello della Schiera Luminosa e quello degli esseri umani.

In questo audiolibro sono raccolti i due capolavori di Joseph Murphy: "Il Potere del Subconscio Tecniche scientifiche che ti permetteranno di utilizzare le forze illimitate del tuo Subconscio" e "Energia Cosmica: il potere miracoloso dell'universo". Perché un uomo è triste mentre un altro è felice? Perché un uomo è contento e prospera mentre un altro è avvilito e indigente? Perché un uomo è ansioso e pieno di paure mentre un altro possiede fiducia e fede? Perché un uomo ha una meravigliosa casa piena di lusso mentre un altro conduce un'esistenza misera in una baracca?

Platone diceva che conoscere bene significa adeguarsi a Dio. Ogni atto del conoscere era per il grande filosofo quasi una ripetizione dell'opera del Demiurgo, del creatore cioè e dell'ordinatore del mondo ideale eterno, del cielo, del tutto. L'educazione intellettuale era dunque anch'essa un'operazione divina. Vista alla luce di queste affermazioni, vecchie di due e più millenni ma non per questo meno risonanti di verità e di saggezza, l'opera di Atkinson ci appare in tutta la sua attualità e importanza. E' questa, infatti, essenzialmente un'opera di educazione.