Download or read book The Illusory Boundary written by Martin Reuss and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-09-20 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The view of nature and technology inhabiting totally different, even opposite, spheres persists across time and cultures. Most people would consider an English countryside or a Louisiana bayou to be "natural," though each is to an extent the product of technology. Pollution, widely thought to be a purely man-made phenomenon, results partly from natural processes. All around us, things from the natural world are brought into the human world. At what point do we consider them part of culture rather than nature? And does such a distinction illuminate our world or obscure its workings? This compelling new book challenges the view that a clear and unwavering boundary exists between nature and technology. Rejecting this dichotomy, the contributors show how the history of each can be united in a constantly shifting panorama where definitions of "nature" and "technology" alter and overlap. In addition to recognizing the artificial divide between these two concepts, the essays in this book demonstrate how such thinking may affect societies’ ability to survive and prosper. The answers and ideas are as numerous as the landscapes they consider, for there is no single path toward a more harmonious vision of technology and nature. Technologies that work in one place may not in another. Nature that is preserved in one community might become the raw material of technological progress somewhere else. Add to this the fact that the natural world and technology are not passive players, but are profoundly involved in cultural construction. Understanding such dynamics not only reveals a new historical complexity; it prepares us for coping with many of the most difficult and pressing social issues facing us today. Contributors Peter Coates * Craig E. Colten * Stephen H. Cutcliffe * Hugh S. Gorman * Betsy Mendelsohn * Joy Parr * Peter C. Perdue * Sara B. Pritchard * Martin Reuss * William D. Rowley * Edmund Russell * Joel A. Tarr * Ann Vileisis * James C. Williams * Thomas Zeller

Download or read book The Illusory Boundary written by Martin Reuss and published by University of Virginia Press. This book was released on 2010-08-06 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling new book challenges the view that a clear and unwavering boundary exists between nature and technology. Rejecting this dichotomy, the contributors show how the history of each can be united in a constantly shifting panorama where definitions of "nature" and "technology" alter and overlap.

Download or read book The Oxford Compendium of Visual Illusions written by Arthur Gilman Shapiro and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 833 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visual illusions are compelling phenomena that draw attention to the brain's capacity to construct our perceptual world. The Compendium is a collection of over 100 chapters on visual illusions, written by the illusion creators or by vision scientists who have investigated mechanisms underlying the phenomena. --

Download or read book Conscious Mind Resonant Brain written by Stephen Grossberg and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 771 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How does your mind work? How does your brain give rise to your mind? These are questions that all of us have wondered about at some point in our lives, if only because everything that we know is experienced in our minds. They are also very hard questions to answer. After all, how can a mind understand itself? How can you understand something as complex as the tool that is being used to understand it? This book provides an introductory and self-contained description of some of the exciting answers to these questions that modern theories of mind and brain have recently proposed. Stephen Grossberg is broadly acknowledged to be the most important pioneer and current research leader who has, for the past 50 years, modelled how brains give rise to minds, notably how neural circuits in multiple brain regions interact together to generate psychological functions. This research has led to a unified understanding of how, where, and why our brains can consciously see, hear, feel, and know about the world, and effectively plan and act within it. The work embodies revolutionary Principia of Mind that clarify how autonomous adaptive intelligence is achieved. It provides mechanistic explanations of multiple mental disorders, including symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, autism, amnesia, and sleep disorders; biological bases of morality and religion, including why our brains are biased towards the good so that values are not purely relative; perplexing aspects of the human condition, including why many decisions are irrational and self-defeating despite evolution's selection of adaptive behaviors; and solutions to large-scale problems in machine learning, technology, and Artificial Intelligence that provide a blueprint for autonomously intelligent algorithms and robots. Because brains embody a universal developmental code, unifying insights also emerge about shared laws that are found in all living cellular tissues, from the most primitive to the most advanced, notably how the laws governing networks of interacting cells support developmental and learning processes in all species. The fundamental brain design principles of complementarity, uncertainty, and resonance that Grossberg has discovered also reflect laws of the physical world with which our brains ceaselessly interact, and which enable our brains to incrementally learn to understand those laws, thereby enabling humans to understand the world scientifically. Accessibly written, and lavishly illustrated, Conscious Mind/Resonant Brain is the magnum opus of one of the most influential scientists of the past 50 years, and will appeal to a broad readership across the sciences and humanities.

Download or read book The Illusion of Truth written by Thomas Nehrer and published by John Hunt Publishing. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 383 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Illusion of "Truth" is a multifaceted look at Jesus of Nazareth, his message and religions created, not from his insights into reality, but on fantasy and lore concocted about him. Tom Nehrer builds on scholarly research through personal level of consciousness, exposing myths to find the real Yeshua who trod dusty roadways of first-century Judea. Understanding Jesus’ “Kingdom of Heaven within” requires extensive perspective. This book explores: Historical, social, political and traditional settings for Jesus appearance; The mindset of ancients – how superstitious peasants imagined divine manipulation; Modern man’s mindset – how causality is projected not only onto gods, but onto real world forces, luck, chance and fate, all illusory processes; How life really works – metaphysical connection of Self to Reality, an inner-outer flow; How beliefs create illusions – masking Reality’s flow with shared notions of “Truth” which isn’t.; Many caveats to accepting Gospel accounts as reliable reports of any substance; The real life of Jesus – how the man grew from first-century Jewish thinking to fully visionary status, aware of the Self as driving force in life; The Parables whose rich stories reveal Jesus’ awareness of the functional Oneness of Consciousness/Reality; A deeply critical look at Christianity – its early growth, smothering of alternate explanations and claims to represent true traditions back through the apostles to Jesus. That claim is shown as bogus, when Gospel writers only show apostles as unable to grasp Jesus’ Kingdom illustrations. The Illusion of “Truth” reveals not only how life works and how Jesus was fully aware of its meaning-based flow – but how Christianity grew from ancient notions and layered myth about Jesus, rather than insights from him. ,

Download or read book Integrating Visual System Mechanisms Computational Models and Algorithms Technologies written by Hedva Spitzer and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book No Boundary written by Ken Wilber and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2001-02-06 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A straightforward and accessible study of personal development and human consciousness, as seen through the lens of Eastern and Western therapeutic traditions A simple yet comprehensive guide to the types of psychologies and therapies available from Eastern and Western sources. Each chapter includes a specific exercise designed to help the reader understand the nature and practice of the specific therapies. Wilber presents an easy-to-use map of human consciousness against which the various therapies are introduced and explained. This edition includes a new preface.

Download or read book Colour and Form Perception Straddling the Boundary written by Galina V. Paramei and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Starting from psychophysics, over the last 50 years, most progress in unravelling the mechanisms of color vision has been made through the study of single cell responses, mainly in LGN and striate cortex. A similar development in the study of form perception may seem to be underway, centred on the study of temporal cortex. However, because of the combinatorial characteristics of form perception, we are also observing the opposite tendency: from single-cell activity to population coding, and from static receptive field structures to system dynamics and integration and, ultimately, a synthetic form of psychophysics of color and form perception. From single cells to system integration: it is this development the present Research Topic wishes to highlight and promote. How does this development affect our views on the various attributes of perception? In particular, we are interested in to what extent evolving knowledge in the field of color perception is relevant within a developing integrative framework of form perception. The goal of this Research Topic is to bring together experimental research encompassing both color and form perception. For this volume, we planned a broad scope of topics – on color in complex scenes, color and form, as well as dynamic aspects of form perception. We expect that the Research Topic will be attractive to the community of researchers whose work straddles the boundary between the two visual perception fields, as well as to the wider community interested in integrative/systems neuroscience.

Download or read book Champions of Illusion written by Susana Martinez-Conde and published by Scientific American / Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of visual illusions with explanations of the science behind them, gathered from the Best Illusions of the Year contest. --

Download or read book The Adaptive Brain II written by Stephen Grossberg and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Adaptive Brain, II: Vision, Speech, Language, and Motor Control focuses on a unified theoretical analysis and predictions of important psychological and neurological data that illustrate the development of a true theory of mind and brain. The publication first elaborates on the quantized geometry of visual space and neural dynamics of form perception. Discussions focus on reflectance rivalry and spatial frequency detection, figure-ground separation by filling-in barriers, and disinhibitory propagation of functional scaling from boundaries to interiors. The text then takes a look at neural dynamics of perceptual grouping and brightness perception. Topics include simulation of a parametric binocular brightness study, smoothly varying luminance contours versus steps of luminance change, macrocircuit of processing stages, paradoxical percepts as probes of adaptive processes, and analysis of the Beck theory of textural segmentation. The book examines the neural dynamics of speech and language coding and word recognition and recall, including automatic activation and limited-capacity attention, a macrocircuit for the self-organization of recognition and recall, role of intra-list restructuring arid contextual associations, and temporal order information across item representations. The manuscript is a vital source of data for scientists and researchers interested in the development of a true theory of mind and brain.

Download or read book Cybernetics and the Constructed Environment written by Zihao Zhang and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-07-24 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Grounded in contemporary landscape architecture theory and practice, Cybernetics and the Constructed Environment blends examples from art, design, and engineering with concepts from cybernetics and posthumanism, offering a transdisciplinary examination of the ramifications of cybernetics on the constructed environment. Cybernetics, or the study of communication and control in animals and machines, has grown increasingly relevant nearly 80 years after its inception. Cyber-physical systems, sensing networks, and spatial computing—algorithms and intelligent machines—create endless feedback loops with human and non-human actors, co-producing a cybernetic environment. Yet, when an ecosystem is meticulously managed by intelligent machines, can we still call it wild nature? Posthumanism ideas, such as new materialism, actor-network theory, and object-oriented ontology, have become increasingly popular among design disciplines, including landscape architecture, and may have provided transformative frameworks to understand this entangled reality. However, design still entails a sense of intentionality and an urge to control. How do we, then, address the tension between the designer’s intentionality and the co-produced reality of more-than-human agents in the cybernetic environment? Is posthumanism enough to develop a framework to think beyond our all-too-human ways of thinking? For researchers, scholars, practitioners, and students in environmental design and engineering disciplines, this book maps out a paradigm of environmentalism and ecological design rooted in non-communication and uncontrollability, and puts a speculative turn on cybernetics. Chapters 8 and 9 of this book are freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

Download or read book Filling In written by Luiz Pessoa and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2003-02-27 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The best example of filling-in involves the blind spot, a region of the retina devoid of photoreceptors. Remarkably, the region of visual space corresponding to the blind spot is not perceived as a dark region in space, but instead as having the same color and texture as the surrounding background; hence the expression "filling in." While this type of perceptual completion phenomenon is common in the visual domain, it is argued by the leading scientists who contribute to this book that forms of filling-in also take place in other sensory modalities, including the auditory, somatosensory, and motor systems. In a concluding chapter an integrative approach is taken, which attempts to provide a common framework for completion phenomena occurring on a fast time scale, and cortical reorganization in sensory and motor cortex induced by peripheral damage or skill learning taking place on a slower time scale. It is proposed that systematic changes in the interplay between inhibitory and excitatory inputs permit cortical neurons to become driven by new sources of input, which, in addition to initial perceptual consequences can lead to a long-term structural reorganization of cortex. This book represents a truly interdisciplinary approach to neuroscience, with chapters covering computational modeling, visual psychophysics, functional brain imaging, single-cell physiology, and clinical patient cases. It will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in systems neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, vision science, neuroimaging, perceptual psychology, computational neuroscience, and philosophy of mind.

Download or read book Trends in Mathematical Psychology written by E. Degreef and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2000-04-01 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume comprises a selection of the papers presented at the 14th European Mathematical Psychology Group Meeting, held in Brussels, and three invited lectures. Presented are results and developments in mathematical psychology, especially in the theory of perception and learning, order and measurement, and data analysis.

Download or read book Dynamical Systems A Renewal Of Mechanism Contennial Of Georges David Birkhoff written by Simon Diner and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 1986-09-01 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book commemorates the centenary of the birth of Georges David Birhoff, the father of the theory of Dynamical Systems. It consists of a volume of dedicated papers, reflecting the intellectual revolution of his work. This book is divided into four parts: Fundamental Paradigms — Chaos, Turbulence, Attractors, Bifurcations; Dynamical Systems and Microphysics; Self-Organization and Biological Dynamical Systems; Epistemology and History.

Download or read book Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems 19 written by Bernhard Schölkopf and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 1668 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The annual Neural Information Processing Systems (NIPS) conference is the flagship meeting on neural computation and machine learning. This volume contains the papers presented at the December 2006 meeting, held in Vancouver.

Download or read book Boundaries of a Complex World written by Andrei Ludu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2022-09-24 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 2nd edition of this book provides novel topics and studyies in boundaries of networks and Big Data Systems.The central theme of this book is the extent to which the structure of the free dynamical boundaries of a system controls the evolution of the system as a whole. Applying three orthogonal types of thinking - mathematical, constructivist and morphological, it illustrates these concepts using applications to selected problems from the social and life sciences, as well as economics. In a broader context, it introduces and reviews some modern mathematical approaches to the science of complex systems. Standard modeling approaches (based on non-linear differential equations, dynamic systems, graph theory, cellular automata, stochastic processes, or information theory) are suitable for studying local problems. However they cannot simultaneously take into account all the different facets and phenomena of a complex system, and new approaches are required to solve the challenging problem of correlations between phenomena at different levels and hierarchies, their self-organization and memory-evolutive aspects, the growth of additional structures and are ultimately required to explain why and how such complex systems can display both robustness and flexibility. This graduate-level text addresses a broader interdisciplinary audience, keeping the mathematical level essentially uniform throughout the book, and involving only basic elements from calculus, algebra, geometry and systems theory.

Download or read book Focus on Neuropsychology Research written by Joshua R. Dupri and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2006 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Neuropsychology is the study of brain-behaviour relationships and examines such domains of cognitive functioning as memory, attention, visual-perceptual abilities, language and intellectual function. It is strongly scientific in its approach and shares an information processing view of the mind with cognitive psychology and cognitive science. It is one of the most eclectic of the psychological disciplines, overlapping at times with areas such as neuroscience, philosophy (particularly philosophy of mind), neurology, psychiatry and computer science (particularly by making use of artificial neural networks).