Download or read book Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature written by Ulrich J. Frey and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2010-11-08 with total page 166 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To understand why we humans are as we are, it is necessary to look at the essential building blocks that comprise our nature. The foundations of this structure are our evolutionary origins as primates and our social roots. Upon these rest features such as our emotions, language and aesthetic preferences, with our self-perceptions, self-deceptions and thirst for knowledge right at the top. The unifying force holding these blocks together is evolutionary theory. Evolution provides a deeper understanding of human nature and, in particular, of the common roots of these different perspectives. To build a reliable and coherent model of man, leading authors from fields as diverse as primatology, anthropology, neurobiology and philosophy have joined forces to present essays each describing their own expert perspective. Together they provide a convincing and complete picture of our own human nature.

Download or read book Essential Building Blocks of Human Nature written by Ulrich J. Frey and published by . This book was released on 2011-04-03 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism written by Robert Schuett and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2018-11-14 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Political realism is a highly diverse body of international relations theory. This substantial reference work examines political realism in terms of its history, its scientific methodology and its normative role in international affairs. Split into three sections, it covers the 2000-year canon of realism: the different schools of thought, the key thinkers and how it responds to foreign policy challenges faced by individual states and globally. It brings political realism up-to-date by showing where theory has failed to keep up with contemporary problems and suggests how it can be applied and adapted to fit our new, globalised world order.

Download or read book Nature s Building Blocks written by John Emsley and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2003 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A readable, informative, fascinating entry on each one of the 100-odd chemical elements, arranged alphabetically from actinium to zirconium. Each entry comprises an explanation of where the element's name comes from, followed by Body element (the role it plays in living things), Element ofhistory (how and when it was discovered), Economic element (what it is used for), Environmental element (where it occurs, how much), Chemical element (facts, figures and narrative), and Element of surprise (an amazing, little-known fact about it). A wonderful 'dipping into' source for the familyreference shelf and for students.

Download or read book The Dual Nature of Life written by Gennadiy Zhegunov and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2005-07-25 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life is a diverse and ubiquitous phenomenon on Earth, characterized by fundamental features distinguishing living bodies from nonliving material. Yet it is also so complex that it has long defied precise definition. This book from a seasoned biologist offers new insights into the nature of life by illuminating a fascinating architecture of dualities inherent in its existence and propagation. Life is connected with individual living beings, yet it is also a collective and inherently global phenomenon of the material world. It embodies a dual existence of cycles of phenotypic life, and their unseen driver — an uninterrupted march of genetic information whose collective immortality is guaranteed by individual mortality. Although evolution propagates and tunes species of organisms, the beings produced can be regarded merely as tools for the survival and cloning of genomes written in an unchanging code. What are the physical versus informational bases and driving forces of life, and how do they unite as an integrated system? What does time mean for individuals, life on the global scale, and the underlying information? This accessible examination of principles and evidence shows that a network of dualities lies at the heart of biological puzzles that have engaged the human mind for millennia.

Download or read book Evolution Religion and Cognitive Science written by Fraser Watts and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The cognitive science of religion is an inherently heterogeneous subject, incorporating theory and data from anthropology, psychology, sociology, evolutionary biology, and philosophy of mind amongst other subjects. One increasingly influential area of research in this field is concerned specifically with exploring the relationship between the evolution of the human mind, the evolution of culture in general, and the origins and subsequent development of religion. This research has exerted a strong influence on many areas of religious studies over the last twenty years, but, for some, the so-called 'evolutionary cognitive science of religion' remains a deeply problematic enterprise. This book's primary aim is to engage critically and constructively with this complex and diverse body of research from a wide range of perspectives. To these ends, the book brings together authors from a variety of relevant disciplines, in the thorough exploration of many of the key debates in the field. These include, for example: can certain aspects of religion be considered adaptive, or are they evolutionary by-products? Is the evolutionary cognitive science of religion compatible with theism? Is the evolutionary cognitive approach compatible with other, more traditional approaches to the study of religion? To what extent is religion shaped by cultural evolutionary processes? Is the evolutionary account of the mind that underpins the evolutionary cognitive approach the best or only available account? Written in accessible language, with an introductory chapter by Ilkka Pyssiäinen, a leading scholar in the field, this book is a valuable resource for specialists, undergraduate and graduate students, and newcomers to the evolutionary cognitive science of religion.

Download or read book The Cognitive Science of Religion written by D. Jason Slone and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-10 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Cognitive Science of Religion introduces students to key empirical studies conducted over the past 25 years in this new and rapidly expanding field. In these studies, cognitive scientists of religion have applied the theories, findings and research tools of the cognitive sciences to understanding religious thought, behaviour and social dynamics. Each chapter is written by a leading international scholar, and summarizes in non-technical language the original empirical study conducted by the scholar. No prior or statistical knowledge is presumed, and studies included range from the classic to the more recent and innovative cases. Students will learn about the theories that cognitive scientists have employed to explain recurrent features of religiosity across cultures and historical eras, how scholars have tested those theories, and what the results of those tests have revealed and suggest. Written to be accessible to undergraduates, this provides a much-needed survey of empirical studies in the cognitive science of religion.

Download or read book The Evolution of Religion and Morality written by Martin Lang and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-04 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume draws on a unique dataset to answer pressing questions about human religiosity. Building upon the first volume in this series, it presents results from the second phase of the Evolution of Religion and Morality (ERM) project. The second volume investigates key questions in the evolutionary and cognitive sciences of religion and highlights cultural variability and context specificity of diverse religious systems. Chapters draw on a dataset comprising 2,228 participants from 15 ethnographically diverse societies that stretch from Africa and India through Oceania to South America, and include hunter-gatherers, pastoralists, horticulturalists, subsistence farmers and wage laborers. Four chapters using the full dataset answer the following questions: What are the general predictors of commitment to supernatural agents? Is there a gender gap in religiosity? Does belief in punitive gods facilitates cooperation? Are supernatural agents implicitly associated with moral concerns? Chapters from individual field sites further explore the distinction between moralizing and local gods, the potentially disruptive role of belief in local gods on cooperation with anonymous co-religionists, and the relationship between belief in moralizing gods, cooperation, and differential access to material resources. Above these empirical studies, the book also includes an informed discussion with specialists on the challenges of running such a large cross-cultural project and gives concrete recommendations for future projects. The Evolution of Religion and Morality: Volume II will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religious studies, human evolutionary biology, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion and the sociology of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior.

Download or read book Basic Motivation and Human Behaviour written by Velibor Bobo Kovac and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-06-01 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores how and why humans are motivated to act in the ways that they do. The chapters examine the origins of a given action rather than their superficial appearance, which can often be misleading. Kovac integrates the existing knowledge of the field of motivation into a greater theoretical framework by adopting both analytical and holistic perspectives. This theoretical framework suggests that all human behaviour evolves from the three fundamental underlying tendencies connected to the concepts of control, affiliation and self-expression that are further modified by the mechanism of balanced dual tension. These tendencies are conceptualised as systems of interrelated psychological needs that guide and govern a variety of human actions. As such, this book should be useful to upper-level students and researchers of cognitive and social psychology and all scholars interested in human motivation.

Download or read book How Should Humanity Steer the Future written by Anthony Aguirre and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-09-18 with total page 175 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourteen award-winning essays in this volume discuss a range of novel ideas and controversial topics that could decisively influence the course of human life on Earth. Their authors address, in accessible language, issues as diverse as: enabling our social systems to learn; research in biological engineering and artificial intelligence; mending and enhancing minds; improving the way we do, and teach, science; living in the here and now; and the value of play. The essays are enhanced versions of the prize-winning entries submitted to the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi) essay competition in 2014. FQXi, catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources.

Download or read book Humanity First written by Heli Santavuori and published by BoD - Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-06-22 with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are living in the era of the unification of humankind. Humanity will survive or perish together. So far, self-destruction seems more likely than survival. What is the reason for the self-destructiveness of the human species? This is the crucial question of our time. Finding an answer to this question is the most important ethical and intellectual challenge of our era. Humankind can survive only by building its internal relationships on the basis of self-knowledge. Only in this way we can live in harmony with nature. Our sole survival strategy is the knowledge of human history and human nature. This program pamphlet contains a new and original view of the world today: the change of era, the crisis of democracy, and how we can see features of the future global society already in the present. Humankind ought to come together to study and discuss the basic teachings of our history. To that end, this program provides some practical suggestions. The program relies on the lifework of the Finnish philosopher Matti Puolakka. It makes use of his text archive, notes and speeches, which he left to the New History Association for safekeeping, editing and publication. A short presentation of Puolakka's lifework and a summary of his view of the entire history, i.e. the 2.5-million-year journey of the Homo family, are attached. The program is available also on the web site of the New History Association: https://newhistory.fi.

Download or read book Evolution Development and Complexity written by Georgi Yordanov Georgiev and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 454 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the universe and its subsystems from the three lenses of evolutionary (contingent), developmental (predictable), and complex (adaptive) processes at all scales. It draws from prolific experts within the academic disciplines of complexity science, physical science, information and computer science, theoretical and evo-devo biology, cosmology, astrobiology, evolutionary theory, developmental theory, and philosophy. The chapters come from a Satellite Meeting, "Evolution, Development and Complexity" (EDC) hosted at the Conference on Complex Systems, in Cancun, 2017. The contributions have been peer-reviewed and contributors from outside the conference were invited to submit chapters to ensure full coverage of the topics. This book explores many issues within the field of EDC such as the interaction of evolutionary stochasticity and developmental determinism in biological systems and what they might teach us about these twin processes in other complex systems. This text will appeal to students and researchers within the complex systems and EDC fields.

Download or read book Spirals and Vortices written by Kinko Tsuji and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-04 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This richly illustrated book explores the fascinating and ubiquitous occurrence of spirals and vortices in human culture and in nature. Spiral forms have been used as elements in the arts for thousands of years, whereas their role in nature and science – from DNA and sea shells to galaxies – is still a topic of investigation in numerous fields. Following an introduction to the cultural history of spiral forms, the book presents contributions from leading experts, who describe the origins, mechanisms and dynamics of spirals and vortices in their special fields. As a whole the book provides a valuable source of information, while also taking the reader on an aesthetic and scientific journey through the world of spiral forms.

Download or read book Advances in Religion Cognitive Science and Experimental Philosophy written by Helen De Cruz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Experimental philosophy has blossomed into a variety of philosophical fields including ethics, epistemology, metaphysics and philosophy of language. But there has been very little experimental philosophical research in the domain of philosophy of religion. Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy demonstrates how cognitive science of religion has the methodological and conceptual resources to become a form of experimental philosophy of religion. Addressing a wide variety of empirical claims that are of interest to philosophers and psychologists of religion, a team of psychologists and philosophers apply data from the psychology of religion to important problems in the philosophy of religion including the psychology of religious diversity; the psychology of substance dualism; the problem of evil and the relation between religious belief and empathy; and the cognitive science explaining the formation of intuitions that unwittingly guide philosophers of religion when formulating arguments. Bringing together authors and researchers who have made important contributions to interdisciplinary research on religion in the last decade, Advances in Religion, Cognitive Science, and Experimental Philosophy provides new ways of approaching core philosophical and psychological problems.

Download or read book Information Consciousness Reality written by James B. Glattfelder and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-10 with total page 662 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This open access book chronicles the rise of a new scientific paradigm offering novel insights into the age-old enigmas of existence. Over 300 years ago, the human mind discovered the machine code of reality: mathematics. By utilizing abstract thought systems, humans began to decode the workings of the cosmos. From this understanding, the current scientific paradigm emerged, ultimately discovering the gift of technology. Today, however, our island of knowledge is surrounded by ever longer shores of ignorance. Science appears to have hit a dead end when confronted with the nature of reality and consciousness. In this fascinating and accessible volume, James Glattfelder explores a radical paradigm shift uncovering the ontology of reality. It is found to be information-theoretic and participatory, yielding a computational and programmable universe.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Secularism written by Phil Zuckerman and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 793 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As recent headlines reveal, conflicts and debates around the world increasingly involve secularism. National borders and traditional religions cannot keep people in tidy boxes as political struggles, doctrinal divergences, and demographic trends are sweeping across regions and entire continents. And secularity is increasing in society, with a growing number of people in many regions having no religious affiliation or lacking interest in religion. Simultaneously, there is a resurgence of religious participation in the politics of many countries. How might these diverse phenomena be better understood? Long-reigning theories about the pace of secularization and ideal church-state relations are under invigorated scrutiny by scholars studying secularism with new questions, better data, and fresh perspectives. The Oxford Handbook of Secularism offers a wide-ranging and in-depth examination of this global conversation, bringing together the views of an international collection of prominent experts in their respective fields. This is the essential volume for comprehending the core issues and methodological approaches to the demographics and sociology of secularity; the history and variety of political secularisms; the comparison of constitutional secularisms across many countries from America to Asia; the key problems now convulsing church-state relations; the intersections of liberalism, multiculturalism, and religion; the latest psychological research into secular lives and lifestyles; and the naturalistic and humanistic worldviews available to nonreligious people.

Download or read book Clinical Neuropsychology and the Psychological Care of Persons with Brain Disorders written by George Prigatano and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Despite advances in neuropsychology and the neurosciences, our understanding of how to provide effective psychological care of a person with a brain disorder has been lacking. This book suggests that effective psychological care is possible when the clinician integrates knowledge emanating from the neurosciences with a basic knowledge of human nature and how brain disorders at different stages of development influence both neuropsychological functions and the patient subjective experience of how they have been affected. Combining this integrated knowledge with an understanding of the patient's cultural and psychological background can guide the application of various psychotherapeutic interventions to help patients meaningfully cope with their disorder. This book summarizes this process for a variety of persons with different brain disorders. Brain disorders, psychological care, psychotherapy, human nature, developmental adjustment issues, patient's subjective experience, anosognosia, denial, meaning in life"--