Download or read book God Human Animal Machine written by Meghan O'Gieblyn and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2022-07-12 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
Download or read book Interior States written by Meghan O'Gieblyn and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2018-10-09 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of The Believer Book Award for Nonfiction "Meghan O'Gieblyn's deep and searching essays are written with a precise sort of skepticism and a slight ache in the heart. A first-rate and riveting collection." --Lorrie Moore A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core (and related) issues of American identity: faith, in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere. What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts? The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country." She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still," and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the fifteen superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection. The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture ("Hell"), a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design ("Species of Origin"), the paradoxes of Christian Rock ("Sniffing Glue"), Henry Ford's reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages ("Midwest World"), and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity ("Ghosts in the Cloud"). Meghan O'Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California - which is to say a whole-hearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.
Download or read book The Human Machine written by Arnold Bennett and published by The Floating Press. This book was released on 2009-04-01 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this delightful volume of insightful and good-humored advice, motivational writer Arnold Bennett points out that for all of the time we humans dedicate to learning, very little of that time is spent endeavoring to elucidate helpful points for living life well, and to the fullest. It's a sad state of affairs that Bennett sets out to remedy in The Human Machine.
Download or read book Bots and Beasts written by Paul Thagard and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2021-10-19 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An expert on mind considers how animals and smart machines measure up to human intelligence. Octopuses can open jars to get food, and chimpanzees can plan for the future. An IBM computer named Watson won on Jeopardy! and Alexa knows our favorite songs. But do animals and smart machines really have intelligence comparable to that of humans? In Bots and Beasts, Paul Thagard looks at how computers ("bots") and animals measure up to the minds of people, offering the first systematic comparison of intelligence across machines, animals, and humans. Thagard explains that human intelligence is more than IQ and encompasses such features as problem solving, decision making, and creativity. He uses a checklist of twenty characteristics of human intelligence to evaluate the smartest machines--including Watson, AlphaZero, virtual assistants, and self-driving cars--and the most intelligent animals--including octopuses, dogs, dolphins, bees, and chimpanzees. Neither a romantic enthusiast for nonhuman intelligence nor a skeptical killjoy, Thagard offers a clear assessment. He discusses hotly debated issues about animal intelligence concerning bacterial consciousness, fish pain, and dog jealousy. He evaluates the plausibility of achieving human-level artificial intelligence and considers ethical and policy issues. A full appreciation of human minds reveals that current bots and beasts fall far short of human capabilities.
Download or read book Gods and Robots written by Adrienne Mayor and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-04-21 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.
Download or read book God in the Machine written by Anne Foerst and published by Dutton Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A thought-provoking analysis of the theological implications of artificial intelligence addresses important--and controversial--questions raised by robotics about the definition of humanity, what it means to have a soul, and what robots can teach us about our relationship with God.
Download or read book The Book of Minds written by Philip Ball and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human? Sciences from zoology to astrobiology, computer science to neuroscience, are seeking to understand minds in their own distinct disciplinary realms. Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Philip Ball pulls the pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe. In so doing, he offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, by locating them in what he calls the “space of possible minds.” By identifying and mapping out properties of mind without prioritizing the human, Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions: What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we? Understanding the space of possible minds also reveals ways of making advances in understanding some of the most challenging questions in contemporary science: What is thought? What is consciousness? And what (if anything) is free will? Informed by conversations with leading researchers, Ball’s brilliant survey of current views about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.
Download or read book Animal Movement written by Mevin B. Hooten and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-03-16 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The study of animal movement has always been a key element in ecological science, because it is inherently linked to critical processes that scale from individuals to populations and communities to ecosystems. Rapid improvements in biotelemetry data collection and processing technology have given rise to a variety of statistical methods for characterizing animal movement. The book serves as a comprehensive reference for the types of statistical models used to study individual-based animal movement. Animal Movement is an essential reference for wildlife biologists, quantitative ecologists, and statisticians who seek a deeper understanding of modern animal movement models. A wide variety of modeling approaches are reconciled in the book using a consistent notation. Models are organized into groups based on how they treat the underlying spatio-temporal process of movement. Connections among approaches are highlighted to allow the reader to form a broader view of animal movement analysis and its associations with traditional spatial and temporal statistical modeling. After an initial overview examining the role that animal movement plays in ecology, a primer on spatial and temporal statistics provides a solid foundation for the remainder of the book. Each subsequent chapter outlines a fundamental type of statistical model utilized in the contemporary analysis of telemetry data for animal movement inference. Descriptions begin with basic traditional forms and sequentially build up to general classes of models in each category. Important background and technical details for each class of model are provided, including spatial point process models, discrete-time dynamic models, and continuous-time stochastic process models. The book also covers the essential elements for how to accommodate multiple sources of uncertainty, such as location error and latent behavior states. In addition to thorough descriptions of animal movement models, differences and connections are also emphasized to provide a broader perspective of approaches.
Download or read book Deadly Animals written by Gordon D. Grice and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2012 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Award-winning writer Grice takes readers on a tour of the animal kingdom--from grizzly bears to great white sharks, tarantulas to tapeworms--that will delight, amaze, and horrify. "A must for everyone even remotely thinking of getting a monkey, a sea lion, or, heaven forbid, a dog."--David Sedaris.
Download or read book Science and the Mind of the Maker written by Melissa Cain Travis and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2018-07-03 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Are We an Accident...or Not? The question of cosmic origins and our place in the grand scheme of things has been debated for millennia. Why do we exist? Why does anything exist at all? Today's popular narrative, based on advancements in science, is that it all happened by natural, random processes. Melissa Cain Travis points to powerful evidence that the opposite is true—that cosmology, astronomy, biochemistry, and other disciplines strongly support what she calls "The Maker Thesis," which explains the origin, rationality, and intricacy of nature and the human mind's capacity to comprehend it. Our universe is made up of numerous complex systems of order that both interact and coexist with each other as if in a carefully choreographed dance. Follow along on a fascinating journey about how the structure of nature and the mind of man resonate in ways that point to a Maker who fully intended the astounding discoveries being made in the natural sciences today.
Download or read book Humans Animals Machines written by Glen A. Mazis and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 2008-09-04 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the overlap and blurring of boundaries among humans, animals, and machines.
Download or read book Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine Reissue of the 1961 second edition written by Norbert Wiener and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A classic and influential work that laid the theoretical foundations for information theory and a timely text for contemporary informations theorists and practitioners. With the influential book Cybernetics, first published in 1948, Norbert Wiener laid the theoretical foundations for the multidisciplinary field of cybernetics, the study of controlling the flow of information in systems with feedback loops, be they biological, mechanical, cognitive, or social. At the core of Wiener's theory is the message (information), sent and responded to (feedback); the functionality of a machine, organism, or society depends on the quality of messages. Information corrupted by noise prevents homeostasis, or equilibrium. And yet Cybernetics is as philosophical as it is technical, with the first chapter devoted to Newtonian and Bergsonian time and the philosophical mixed with the technical throughout. This book brings the 1961 second edition back into print, with new forewords by Doug Hill and Sanjoy Mitter. Contemporary readers of Cybernetics will marvel at Wiener's prescience—his warnings against “noise,” his disdain for “hucksters” and “gadget worshipers,” and his view of the mass media as the single greatest anti-homeostatic force in society. This edition of Cybernetics gives a new generation access to a classic text.
Download or read book The Human Animal Boundary written by Mario Wenning and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-11-27 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Throughout the centuries philosophers and poets alike have defended an essential difference—rather than a porous transition—between the human and animal. Attempts to assign essential properties to humans (e.g., language, reason, or morality) often reflected ulterior aims to defend a privileged position for humans.. This book shifts the traditional anthropocentric focus of philosophy and literature by combining the questions “What is human?” and “What is animal?” What makes this collection unique is that it fills a lacuna in critical animal studies and the growing field of ecocriticism. It is the first collection that establishes a productive encounter between philosophical perspectives on the human–animal boundary and those that draw on fictional literature. The objective is to establish a dialogue between those disciplines with the goal of expanding the imaginative scope of human-animal relationships. The contributions thus do not only trace and deconstruct the boundaries dividing humans and nonhuman animals, they also present the reader with alternative perspectives on the porous continuum and surprising reversal of what appears as human and what as nonhuman.
Download or read book Through Our Eyes Only written by Marian Stamp Dawkins and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 1998 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through Our Eyes Only? is an immensely engaging exploration of one of the greatest remaining biological mysteries: the possibility of conscious experiences in non-human animals. Dawkins argues that the idea of consciousness in other species has now progressed from a vague possibility to a plausible, scientifically respectable view. Written in an accessible and entertaining style, this book aims to show how near -- and how far -- we are to understanding what goes on in the minds of other animals. 'Her approach ... is impeccable ... Her writing is highly accessible, lively and illustrative.' - Booklist on the hardback edition.
Download or read book God Creates a Snake written by Charles Peterson and published by Underfold. This book was released on 2019-08-13 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ever wonder where animals came from? God created them of course! These adorable animals are curious by nature so buckle up because God has some serious explaining to do! Snake! The Boss will see you now! Today is Snake's creation day at the Creation Station and God has a meeting planned to discuss the way ahead. Snake quickly finds out just how much he can do while also learning about some of his--uh--shortcomings. Now you can be a fly on the wall to this hilarious creation story!
Download or read book Turing and the Universal Machine Icon Science written by Jon Agar and published by Icon Books. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the computer is entwined with that of the modern world and most famously with the life of one man, Alan Turing. How did this device, which first appeared a mere 50 years ago, come to structure and dominate our lives so totally? An enlightening mini-biography of a brilliant but troubled man.
Download or read book How to Be Animal written by Melanie Challenger and published by Canongate Books. This book was released on 2021-02-04 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humans are the most inquisitive, emotional, imaginative, aggressive and baffling animals on the planet. But how well do we really know ourselves? How to Be Animal offers a radical take on what it means to be human and argues that at the heart of our psychology is a profound struggle with being animal. Tracing the history of this thinking through to its far-reaching effects on our lives, and drawing on a range of disciplines, Challenger proposes that being an animal is a process, beautiful and unpredictable, and that we have a chance to tell ourselves a new story; to realise that if we matter, so does everything else.
