Download or read book Cosmos Culture written by Steven J. Dick and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 620 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From GPO Bookstore's Website: Authors with diverse backgrounds in science, history, anthropology, and more, consider culture in the context of the cosmos. How does our knowledge of cosmic evolution affect terrestrial culture? Conversely, how does our knowledge of cultural evolution affect our thinking about possible cultures in the cosmos? Are life, mind, and culture of fundamental significance to the grand story of the cosmos that has generated its own self-understanding through science, rational reasoning, and mathematics? Book includes bibliographical references and an index.

Download or read book Cosmos Culture Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context written by Steven J. Dick and published by Government Printing Office. This book was released on 2012-01-27 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOTE: NO FURTHER DISCOUNT FOR THIS PRINT PRODUCT--OVERSTOCK SALE -- Significantly reduced list price During the last 50 years, coincident with the Space Age, cosmic evolution has been recognized as the master narrative of the universe, history writ large. Cosmic evolution includes physical, biological, and cultural evolution, and of these the latter is by far the most rapid. In this volume, authors with diverse backgrounds in science, history, anthropology, and more, consider culture in the context of the cosmos. How does our knowledge of cosmic evolution affect terrestrial culture? Conversely, how does our knowledge of cultural evolution affect our thinking about possible cultures in the cosmos? Are life, mind, and culture of fundamental significance to the grand story of the cosmos that has generated its own self-understanding through science, rational reasoning, and mathematics? Might this lead to cultural evolution on a large enough scale to allow the universe to both create and steer itself toward its own destiny? Related products: NASA's First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives; NASA 50 Anniversary Proceedings can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01336-1 Bringing the Future Within Reach: Celebrating 75 Years of the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center, 1941-2016 can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/033-000-01377-9 Other products produced by National Aerounautics and Space Administration (NASA) can be found here: https://bookstore.gpo.gov/agency/550

Download or read book Cosmos Culture written by National Aeronautics and Space Administration and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2013-10 with total page 614 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cosmic evolution, the idea that the universe and its constituent parts are constantly evolving, has become widely accepted only in the last 50 years. It is no coincidence that this acceptance parallels the span of the Space Age. Although cosmic evolution was first recognized in the physical universe early in the 20th century, with hints even earlier, the relationships among planets, stars, and galaxies, and the evolution of the universe itself, became much better known through the discoveries by planetary probes and space telescopes in the latter half of the century. It was also during the last 50 years—a century after Darwin proposed that evolution by natural selection applies to life on our own planet—that researchers from a variety of disciplines began to seriously study the possibilities of extraterrestrial life and “the biological universe.” Considering biology from this broader cosmological perspective has expanded biological thinking beyond its sample-of-one straightjacket, incorporating biology into cosmic evolution. Astrobiology is now a robust discipline even though it has yet to find any life beyond Earth. But there is a third component to cosmic evolution beyond the physical and the biological. Even if we only know of culture on one planet so far, cultural evolution has been an important part of cosmic evolution on Earth, and perhaps on many other planets. Moreover, it also dominates the other two forms of evolution in terms of its rapidity. Humans were not much different biologically 10,000 years ago, but one need only look around to see how much we have changed culturally. Yet, unlike the study of biological evolution, which has made great progress since Darwin's Origin of Species, the scientific study of cultural evolution languished after Darwin's death for the better part of a century. Only within the past few decades has significant progress been made, and concerned with advancing their fledging science, cultural evolutionists have yet to expand their thinking beyond their current planetary sample-of-one concerns. But if life and intelligence do exist beyond Earth, it is likely that culture will arise and evolve. In this volume authors with diverse backgrounds in science, history, and anthropology consider culture in the context of the cosmos, including the implications of the cosmos for our own culture.

Download or read book Cosmos Culture Cultural Evolution in a Cosmic Context written by Steven J. Dick and published by US National Aeronautics and Space Admin. This book was released on 2010-03-09 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Product Description: During the last 50 years, coincident with the Space Age, cosmic evolution has been recognized as the master narrative of the universe, history writ large. Cosmic evolution includes physical, biological, and cultural evolution, and of these the latter is by far the most rapid. In this volume, authors with diverse backgrounds in science, history, anthropology, and more, consider culture in the context of the cosmos. How does our knowledge of cosmic evolution affect terrestrial culture? Conversely, how does our knowledge of cultural evolution affect our thinking about possible cultures in the cosmos? Are life, mind, and culture of fundamental significance to the grand story of the cosmos that has generated its own self-understanding through science, rational reasoning, and mathematics? Might this lead to cultural evolution on a large enough scale to allow the universe to both create and steer itself toward its own destiny?

Download or read book Cosmic Evolution written by Eric J. Chaisson and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2001-02-16 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chaisson addresses some of the most basic issues we can contemplate: the origin of matter and the origin of life, and the ways matter, life, and radiation interact and change with time. He designs for us an expansive yet intricate model depicting the origin and evolution of all material structures.

Download or read book Cosmological Theories of Value written by Mark Lupisella and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Building from foundations of modern science and cosmic evolution, as well as psychological and philosophical perspectives of value and meaning, this book explores some of humanity’s biggest questions: · Is the Universe “about something”? · What might be roles for life and intelligence in cosmic evolution? · How might we think about value, meaning, purpose, and ethics in a cosmic evolutionary context? The author explores how the sciences of relativity and quantum theory, combined with cosmic evolution and philosophical traditions such as process philosophy, contribute to the development of a broad “relationalist framework”. That framework helps inform perspectives such as “scientific minimalism” and “cosmological theories of value”. Cosmological Reverence, Cosmocultural Evolution, and the Connection-Action Principle are explored as examples of cosmological theories of value, all of which help inform how we might think about ethics, value, and meaning in a cosmic context – including application to the search for extraterrestrial life and the future of intelligence in the universe. This book will benefit a diverse range of practitioners in philosophy, science, and policy, including interdisciplinary fields such as Science and Society and cultural evolution studies. From the Foreword: “This volume ranges from the sciences of cosmic evolution, relativity, and quantum mechanics, to value theory and process philosophy, all with the goal of exploring how they relate to humanity in the sense of worldviews and meaning. With his three cosmological theories of value, Lupisella goes beyond the bounds of most books on naturalism, and into fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our relation to it. To read Lupisella is to have a mind-boggling experience, to want to race to references, to want to know more.” Steven J. Dick Former Baruch S. Blumberg NASA/ Library of Congress Chair in Astrobiology Former NASA Chief Historian

Download or read book Memetics written by Tim Tyler and published by Tim Tyler. This book was released on 2011-08-19 with total page 326 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Memetics is the name commonly given to the study of memes - a term originally coined by Richard Dawkins to describe small inherited elements of human culture. Memes are the cultural equivalent of DNA genes - and memetics is the cultural equivalent of genetics. Memes have become ubiquitous in the modern world - but there has been relatively little proper scientific study of how they arise, spread and change - apparently due to turf wars within the social sciences and misguided resistance to Darwinian explanations being applied to human behaviour. However, with the modern explosion of internet memes, I think this is bound to change. With memes penetrating into every mass media channel, and with major companies riding on their coat tails for marketing purposes, social scientists will surely not be able to keep the subject at arm's length for much longer. This will be good - because an understanding of memes is important. Memes are important for marketing and advertising. They are important for defending against marketing and advertising. They are important for understanding and managing your own mind. They are important for understanding science, politics, religion, causes, propaganda and popular culture. Memetics is important for understanding the origin and evolution of modern humans. It provides insight into the rise of farming, science, industry, technology and machines. It is important for understanding the future of technological change and human evolution. This book covers the basic concepts of memetics, giving an overview of its history, development, applications and the controversy that has been associated with it.

Download or read book The Beginning and the End written by Clément Vidal and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-05-16 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating journey to the edge of science, Vidal takes on big philosophical questions: Does our universe have a beginning and an end or is it cyclic? Are we alone in the universe? What is the role of intelligent life, if any, in cosmic evolution? Grounded in science and committed to philosophical rigor, this book presents an evolutionary worldview where the rise of intelligent life is not an accident, but may well be the key to unlocking the universe's deepest mysteries. Vidal shows how the fine-tuning controversy can be advanced with computer simulations. He also explores whether natural or artificial selection could hold on a cosmic scale. In perhaps his boldest hypothesis, he argues that signs of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are already present in our astrophysical data. His conclusions invite us to see the meaning of life, evolution and intelligence from a novel cosmological framework that should stir debate for years to come.

Download or read book Expanding Worldviews Astrobiology Big History and Cosmic Perspectives written by Ian Crawford and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-06-07 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collates papers presented at two international conferences (held at the Australian National University in 2018 and Birkbeck College London in 2019) exploring the relationships between big history and astrobiology and their wider implications for society. These two relatively new academic disciplines aim to integrate human history with the wider history of the universe and the search for life elsewhere. The book will show that, despite differences in emphasis, big history and astrobiology share much in common, especially their interdisciplinary approaches and the cosmic and evolutionary perspectives that they both engender. Specifically, the book addresses the unified, all-embracing, nature of knowledge, the impact of big history on humanity and the world at large, the possible impact of SETI on astrobiology and big history, the cultural signature of Earth’s inhabitants beyond our own planet, and the political implications of a planetary worldview. The principal readership is envisaged to comprise scholars working in the fields of astrobiology, big history and space exploration interested in forging interdisciplinary links between these diverse topics, together with educators, and a wider public, interested in the societal implications of the cosmic and evolutionary perspectives engendered by research in these fields.

Download or read book The Intelligence of the Cosmos written by Ervin Laszlo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-10-17 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the cutting edge of science and living spirituality: a guide to understanding our identity and purpose in the world • Outlines the new understanding of matter and mind coming to light at the cutting edge of physics and consciousness research • Explains how we can evolve consciously, become connected with each other, and flourish on this planet • Includes contributions from Maria Sagi, Kingsley L. Dennis, Emanuel Kuntzelman, Dawna Jones, Shamik Desai, Garry Jacobs, and John R. Audette For the outdated mainstream paradigm the world is a giant mechanism functioning in accordance with known and knowable laws and regularities. The new paradigm emerging in science offers a different concept: The world is an interconnected, coherent whole, and it is informed by a cosmic intelligence. This is not a finite, mechanistic-material world. It is a consciousness-infused whole-system world. We are conscious beings who emerge and co-evolve as complex, cosmic-intelligence in-formed vibrations in the Akashic Field of the universe. Ervin Laszlo and his collaborators from the forefront of science, cosmology, and spirituality show how the re-discovery of who we are and why we are here integrates seamlessly with the wisdom traditions as well as with the new emerging worldview in the sciences, revealing a way forward for humanity on this planet. They explain how we have reached a point of critical incoherence and tell us that to save ourselves, our environment, and society, we need a critical mass of people to consciously evolve a new thinking. Offering a guidepost to orient this evolution, Laszlo examines the nature of consciousness in the universe, showing how our bodies and minds act as transmitters of consciousness from the intelligence of the cosmos and how understanding science’s new concept of the world enables us to re-discover our identity and our purpose in our world. With bold vision and forward thinking, Laszlo and his contributors Maria Sagi, Kingsley L. Dennis, Emanuel Kuntzelman, Dawna Jones, Shamik Desai, Garry Jacobs, and John R. Audette outline the new idea of the world and of ourselves in the world. They help us discover how we can overcome these divisive times and blossom into a new era of peace, coherence, connection, and global wellbeing.

Download or read book What is Life On Earth and Beyond written by Andreas Losch and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Approaches from the sciences, philosophy and theology, including the emerging field of astrobiology, can provide fresh perspectives to the age-old question 'what is life?'. Has the secret of life been unveiled and is it nothing more than physical chemistry? Modern philosophers will ask if we can even define life at all, as we still don't know much about its origins here on Earth. Others regard life as something that cannot simply be reduced to just physics and chemistry, while biologists emphasize the historical component intrinsic to life on Earth. How can theology constructively interpret scientific findings? Can it contribute constructively to scientific discussions? Written for a broad interdisciplinary audience, this probing volume discusses life, intelligence and more against the background of contemporary biology and the wider contexts of astrobiology and cosmology. It also considers the challenging implications for science and theology if extraterrestrial life is discovered in the future.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior written by and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2019-01-21 with total page 3052 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Encyclopedia of Animal Behavior, Second Edition, Four Volume Set the latest update since the 2010 release, builds upon the solid foundation established in the first edition. Updated sections include Host-parasite interactions, Vertebrate social behavior, and the introduction of ‘overview essays’ that boost the book's comprehensive detail. The structure for the work is modified to accommodate a better grouping of subjects. Some chapters have been reshuffled, with section headings combined or modified. Represents a one-stop resource for scientifically reliable information on animal behavior Provides comparative approaches, including the perspective of evolutionary biologists, physiologists, endocrinologists, neuroscientists and psychologists Includes multimedia features in the online version that offer accessible tools to readers looking to deepen their understanding

Download or read book Journey of the Universe written by Brian Thomas Swimme and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2011-06-28 with total page 125 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basis for the Emmy-winning film. “A wonderful, highly readable account of the history of the universe from the Big Bang through the present moment.”—Thomas Lovejoy, University Professor in Environmental Science and Policy, George Mason University Through the astonishing combined achievements of natural scientists worldwide, we now have a detailed account of how galaxies and stars, planets and living organisms, human beings and human consciousness came to be. And yet . . . we thirst for answers to questions that have haunted humanity from the very beginning. What is our place in the 14-billion-year history of the universe? What roles do we play in Earth’s history? How do we connect with the intricate web of life on Earth? In Journey of the Universe, Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker tell the epic story of the universe from an inspired new perspective, weaving the findings of modern science together with enduring wisdom found in the humanistic traditions of the West, China, India, and indigenous peoples. The authors explore cosmic evolution as a profoundly wondrous process based on creativity, connection, and interdependence, and they envision an unprecedented opportunity for the world’s people to address the daunting ecological and social challenges of our times. Journey of the Universe transforms how we understand our origins and envision our future. Though a little book, it tells a big story one that inspires hope for a way in which Earth and its human civilizations could flourish together. “What’s most striking about Swimme and Tucker’s work is a simple but beautiful assumption: a cosmological orientation opens the human mind to wonder, gratitude, humility, and creativity.”—Orion

Download or read book Astrobiology written by Octavio A. Chon Torres and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-09-22 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ASTROBIOLOGY This unique book advances the frontier discussion of a wide spectrum of astrobiological issues on scientific advances, space ethics, social impact, religious meaning, and public policy formulation. Astrobiology is an exploding discipline in which not only the natural sciences, but also the social sciences and humanities converge. Astrobiology: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy is a multidisciplinary book that presents different perspectives and points of view by its contributing specialists. Epistemological, moral and political issues arising from astrobiology, convey the complexity of challenges posed by the search for life elsewhere in the universe. We ask: if a convoy of colonists from Earth make the trip to Mars, should their genomes be edited to adapt to the Red Planet’s environment? If scientists discover a biosphere with microbial life within our solar system, will it possess intrinsic value or merely utilitarian value? If astronomers discover an intelligent civilization on an exoplanet elsewhere in the Milky Way, what would be humanity’s moral responsibility: to protect Earth from an existential threat? To treat other intelligences with dignity? To exploit through interstellar commerce? To conquer? Audience The book will attract readers from a wide range of interests including astronomers, astrobiologists, chemists, biologists, space engineers, ethicists, theologians and philosophers.

Download or read book Cloning Branching Patterns the Major Transitions of Evolution Other writings written by Christopher Portosa Stevens and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2018-08-07 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sample: "What does language do? Or, what does culture do? Language and culture are non-genetic mechanisms for increasing the number of qualities across individuals, and language and culture also increase the capacity for intraspecific assortative mating across individuals in the human species (by increasing the number of dissimilarities and categories of similarities across individuals in the human species). It is interesting to consider functional analogies amongst animals and plants: Birdsong and feather colors in bird species, and the colors and shapes of angiosperm flowering plant species play similar functions in these species, i.e., they increase the number and differentiation of characteristics across individual organisms, thus increasing the capacity for assortative mating across individual organisms in bird species (intraspecific assortative mating), and increasing the capacity for assortative mating across angiosperm species and insect, bee, and bird species (interspecific assortative mating).""

Download or read book Astrobiology Discovery and Societal Impact written by Steven J. Dick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines humanistic aspects of astrobiology, exploring approaches, critical issues, and implications of the discovery of extraterrestrial life.

Download or read book Discovery and Classification in Astronomy written by Steven J. Dick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-09 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Astronomical discovery involves more than detecting something previously unseen. The reclassification of Pluto as a dwarf planet in 2006, and the controversy it generated, shows that discovery is a complex and ongoing process – one comprising various stages of research, interpretation and understanding. Ranging from Galileo's observation of Jupiter's satellites, Saturn's rings and star clusters, to Herschel's nebulae and the modern discovery of quasars and pulsars, Steven J. Dick's comprehensive history identifies the concept of 'extended discovery' as the engine of progress in astronomy. The text traces more than 400 years of telescopic observation, exploring how the signal discoveries of new astronomical objects relate to and inform one another, and why controversies such as Pluto's reclassification are commonplace in the field. The volume is complete with a detailed classification system for known classes of astronomical objects, offering students, researchers and amateur observers a valuable reference and guide.