Download or read book The Thought Experiment Something to Do with Nothing to Learn written by Marshall Sanders and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A composition of a human mind. A drifter writing along lifes different paths. Wrote with passion and some capturing the sorrows of contemporary life.
Download or read book The Great Mental Models Volume 1 written by Shane Parrish and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2024-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.
Download or read book Learn To Think Using Thought Experiments written by Patrick King and published by PKCS Media. This book was released on 2020-03-16 with total page 106 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Use the mental tools that the world's greatest thinkers used to generate epiphanies, explore the world, and hone their reasoning. In traditional education, you're taught to recite and regurgitate. Going a step farther, you might learn some critical thinking skills. But what about applying them in the most audacious, fascinating, and inquisitive ways possible with thought experiments? Philosophical and exploratory thinking pushes your boundaries and opens new worlds. Learn to Think Using Thought Experiments is about how to analyze, perceive, and interact with information and situations - all in your mind and imagination. It poses a hypothetical and forces you to engage it and answer questions and reason through arguments you've never known. This book will confuse, frustrate, and ultimately improve your thinking prowess like nothing else, on account of being thrown into the mental deep end. Challenge yourself and you will grow. Improve critical thinking by applying it in innovative and novel ways. Patrick King is an internationally bestselling author and social skills coach. His writing draws of a variety of sources, from scientific research, academic experience, coaching, and real life experience. Become more naturally curious, inquisitive, and Sherlock Holmes-like. - The curious case of two cats and what they teach us about uncertainty. - What choosing between 1 and 5 people says about you. - Why this entire world might just be a dream or simulation. - What a javelin has to do with infinite. - How Zeno's tortoise represents the point where reality and numbers diverge. - How Chinese logicians, beetles, fish, and monkeys demonstrate different angles of reality and perception. Learn to thrive in uncertain situations and contemplate more thoroughly and deeply. Thought experiments are a classic tool that everyone can use, and they enable us to explore more abstract situations and reason through them. Master thought experiments and you can master simply dealing with difficult, uncertain, impossible, or confusing questions and situations.
Download or read book The First 20 Hours written by Josh Kaufman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of practicing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By completing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the methods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard keyboard, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the simple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Figure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcomponents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accurate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chainsaws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.
Download or read book Evolutionary Philosophy written by Ed Gibney and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2012-04-24 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolutionary Philosophy is the foundation text for a new belief system. We are all products of evolution. Understanding all of the implications of this statement leads to a comprehensive worldview that can answer our universally shared questions: Where did I come from? What am I? What is a good life? How do I know? These questions and many more are answered in this book, before the beliefs of 60 of the top philosophers of history are put to the test in an evaluation of the survival of their fittest ideas. This is an audacious work of research and analysis from author Ed Gibney, who finishes by asking readers to help Evolutionary Philosophy to grow and adapt as mankind's knowledge continues to accumulate. This clear and accessible work promises to help you reevaluate mankind's place in the universe and your place in society.
Download or read book Thought Experiments written by Roy A. Sorensen Associate Professor of Philosophy New York University and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1992-08-06 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sorensen presents a general theory of thought experiments: what they are, how they work, what are their virtues and vices. On Sorensen's view, philosophy differs from science in degree, but not in kind. For this reason, he claims, it is possible to understand philosophical thought experiments by concentrating on their resemblance to scientific relatives. Lessons learned about scientific experimentation carry over to thought experiment, and vice versa. Sorensen also assesses the hazards and pseudo-hazards of thought experiments. Although he grants that there are interesting ways in which the method leads us astray, he attacks most scepticism about thought experiments as arbitrary. They should be used, he says, as they generally are used--as part of a diversified portfolio of techniques. All of these devices are individually susceptible to abuse, fallacy, and error. Collectively, however, they provide a network of cross-checks that make for impressive reliability.
Download or read book How to Do Nothing written by Jenny Odell and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ** A New York Times Bestseller ** NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time • The New Yorker • NPR • GQ • Elle • Vulture • Fortune • Boing Boing • The Irish Times • The New York Public Library • The Brooklyn Public Library "A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto."—Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times Book Review One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019" Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.
Download or read book The Life You Can Save written by Peter Singer and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2010 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Argues that for the first time in history we're in a position to end extreme poverty throughout the world, both because of our unprecedented wealth and advances in technology, therefore we can no longer consider ourselves good people unless we give more to the poor. Reprint.
Download or read book The Solidarity Solution written by Kristi A. Olson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "As both the leftist political philosopher G.A. Cohen and the conservative economist Milton Friedman have pointed out, equal income is unfair to the hardworking. The ideal tax system-the one used to evaluate actual tax systems-would thus adjust taxation and redistribution for differential labor burdens. Measuring labor burdens, however, is no easy task. Some philosophers and economists attempt to sidestep the measurement problem by invoking envy-freeness. A distribution is envy-free when no one prefers someone else's bundle of goods (or bads) to her own. Yet, eliminating envy in the labor market is not always possible, and minimizing envy when it cannot be eliminated is not always fair. The Solidarity Solution provides an answer: fair labor-income bundles are those that could be justified to free and equal individuals. Part one develops the solidarity solution by showing how rigorous distributive implications can be derived from a relational ideal. Part two uses the solidarity solution to critique the competing theories of fair income distributions of Ronald Dworkin, Philippe Van Parijs, and Marc Fleurbaey. Finally, part three identifies implications for the gender wage gap and taxation"--
Download or read book Imagination in Teaching and Learning written by Kieran Egan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-16 with total page 189 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Young people learn most readily when their imaginations are engaged and teachers teach most successfully when they are able to see their subject matter from their pupils' point of view. It is, however, difficult to define imagination in practice and even more difficult to make full use of its potential. In this original and stimulating book, Kieran Egan, winner of the prestigous Grawemeyer award for education in 1991, discusses what imagination really means for children and young people in the middle years and what its place should be in the midst of the normal demands of classroom teaching and learning. Egan uses a bright and witty style to move from a brief history of the ways in which imagination has been regarded over the years, through a general discussion of the links between learning and imagination. A selection of sample lesson plans show teachers how they can encourage effective learning through stimulating pupils' imaginations in a variety of curriculum areas, including maths, science, social studies and language work.
Download or read book Necessary Conditions of Learning written by Ference Marton and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-20 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Necessary Conditions of Learning presents a research approach (phenomenography) and a theory (the variation theory of learning) introduced and developed by Ference Marton and taken up by his wide and varied following around the world—together with their practical applications in educational contexts. Reflecting Marton’s whole lifetime's work, the unique and significant contribution of this book is to offer an evidence-based answer to the questions "How do we make novel meanings our own?" and "How do we learn to see things in more powerful ways?" The presentation makes use of hundreds of empirical studies carried out in Europe and Asia which build on the theory. The line of reasoning and the way in which the examples are put together is consistent with the theory—it is both presented and applied. The main argument is that in order to learn we have to discern, and to discern the intended ideas we must be presented with carefully structured variation, against a background of invariance. We then go through processes of contrast, generalization, and fusion in order to make sense. These insights form a practical framework for those who design teaching and teaching materials. Necessary Conditions of Learning is a major original work for which scholars of pedagogical theory have been waiting a long time.
Download or read book Thought Experiments between Nature and Society written by Bojan Borstner and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2017-06-23 with total page 490 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a prominent figure in analytic philosophy of the 20th and 21st centuries, Nenad Miščević has enriched, enhanced, and expanded many areas of the field. This volume, dedicated to him for his 65th birthday, follows the virtues he so much respects – conceptual analysis, rigorous use of logics, and clear definitions – and applies them to a very hot topic in philosophy, thought experiments. Present throughout the history of philosophy, thought experiments have become indispensable for the discipline and for analytic philosophy in particular. But questions can be asked, as to what exactly is a thought experiment, what it consists of, and, most importantly, if it is even useful for philosophy. Next to these conceptual questions, this collection tackles thought experiments that have tradition, some of them very long, like The Ring of Gyges, The Social Contract, and Descartes’ Evil Demon. Others, like Twin Earth, Gettier cases and Brain-in-a-Vat thought experiments, have prompted at least half-a-century-long trails. One cannot understand contemporary analytic philosophy without understanding these trails and traditions. Nenad’s closest friends and colleagues, from all over Europe, share their thoughts on this topic in this book, followed diligently by Nenad’s comments on their work.
Download or read book The Hidden Messages in Water written by Masaru Emoto and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-07-05 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this New York Times bestseller, internationally renowned Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto shows how the influence of our thoughts, words and feelings on molecules of water can positively impact the earth and our personal health. This book has the potential to profoundly transform your world view. Using high-speed photography, Dr. Masaru Emoto discovered that crystals formed in frozen water reveal changes when specific, concentrated thoughts are directed toward them. He found that water from clear springs and water that has been exposed to loving words shows brilliant, complex, and colorful snowflake patterns. In contrast, polluted water, or water exposed to negative thoughts, forms incomplete, asymmetrical patterns with dull colors. The implications of this research create a new awareness of how we can positively impact the earth and our personal health.
Download or read book When Teaching Becomes Learning written by Eric Sotto and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2007-05-15 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intended to help anyone who teaches, this book has something of a cult following. Drawing on extensive teaching experience, the author presents a personal account of good practice, written in an engaging and accessible style and based on extensive scholarly sources. Part I 'Learning' and Part II 'Teaching' complement one another, and the book as a whole offers an insight into how to teach in any set of circumstances. It does so without being prescriptive, instead helping teachers to think through their own problems and situations. As a result When Teaching Becomes Learning is a book to which teachers will return on countless occasions. This edition has been updated throughout and now has 2 new chapters - Reflections of Educational Technology, and Why Teach? Chapters are now also divided up so they are each shorter and more user-friendly than before.
Download or read book Michael Allen s 2012 e Learning Annual written by Michael W. Allen and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-08-15 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The field of e-learning continues to experience dramatic and turbulent growth. Over time, as technology has improved and the method's real capabilities have emerged, e-learning has gained widespread acceptance and is now the fastest growing sector of corporate learning. As in years past, Michael Allen's Annual offers a diverse and important collection that contains some of the most current insights and best practices that will help both educators and workplace learning leaders address issues of design and implementation, as well as strategy and culture. In addition, this new volume offers a diverse mix of content that spans the full spectrum of technology-based learning. Year after year, the Annual discusses emerging trends in social media; showcases e-learning innovation; presents contemporary- and best-practices; tackles big-picture, strategic issues; and provides a host of useful tips and techniques. Additional content is also available online. Praise for Michael Allen's 2012 e-Learning Annual "Michael Allen's Annual really is annual. I found new examples and provocative ideas—just what I was looking for." —Allison Rossett, professor of educational technology, San Diego State University "Just another academic anthology? Hardly! Michael Allen has convinced e-learning's super-heroes to join forces to crush complacency, demolish dogma, rewrite rules, streamline strategies, and light a brighter future for e-learning. Warning: The accumulated wisdom and original thinking of this elite team of designers, practitioners, consultants, and researchers will leave you dissatisfied with your current e-learning efforts and aching to put their ideas into play." —William Horton, author, e-Learning by Design and consultant, William Horton Consulting "The real learning at conferences takes place in the hallways. This wonderful book is like eavesdropping on those conversations, except that Michael has put the top thinkers in our field in the hall for you." —Jay Cross, chairman, Internet Time Alliance Nabeel Ahmad Clark Aldrich Bobbe Baggio Tony Bingham Julia Bulkowski Bryan Chapman Phil Cowcill Allan Henderson Peter Isackson Cheryl Johnson Cathy King Leslie Kirshaw Tina Kunshier David Metcalf Corinne Miller Craig Montgomerie Frank Nguyen Maria Plakhotnik Tonette Rocco Anita Rosen Patti Shank Clive Shepherd Martyn Sloman Belinda Smith Susan Smith Nash Ken Spero Carla Torgerson Thomas Toth Reuben Tozman Marc Weinstein
Download or read book Philosophical Provocations written by Colin McGinn and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2017-08-18 with total page 327 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pithy, direct, and bold: essays that propose new ways to think about old problems, spanning a range of philosophical topics. In Philosophical Provocations, Colin McGinn offers a series of short, sharp essays that take on philosophical problems ranging from the concept of mind to paradox, altruism, and the relation between God and the Devil. Avoiding the usual scholarly apparatus and embracing a blunt pithiness, McGinn aims to achieve as much as possible in as short a space as possible while covering as many topics as possible. Much academic philosophical writing today is long, leaden, citation heavy, dense with qualifications, and painful to read. The essays in Philosophical Provocations are short, direct, and engaging, often challenging philosophical orthodoxy as they consider issues in mind, language, knowledge, metaphysics, biology, ethics, and religion. McGinn is looking for new ways to think about old problems. Thus he writes, about consciousness, “I think we have been all wrong,” and goes on to suggest that both consciousness and the unconscious are mysteries. Summing up his proposal on altruism, he remarks, “My suggestion can now be stated, somewhat brutally, as follows: human altruism is the result of parasitic manipulation.” He takes a moment to reflect: “I really don't know why it is good to be alive, though I am convinced that the standard suggestions don't work.” McGinn gets straight to the point and states his position with maximum clarity. These essays offer provocative invitations to think again.
Download or read book The Alignment Problem Machine Learning and Human Values written by Brian Christian and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 459 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A jaw-dropping exploration of everything that goes wrong when we build AI systems and the movement to fix them. Today’s “machine-learning” systems, trained by data, are so effective that we’ve invited them to see and hear for us—and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Recent years have seen an eruption of concern as the field of machine learning advances. When the systems we attempt to teach will not, in the end, do what we want or what we expect, ethical and potentially existential risks emerge. Researchers call this the alignment problem. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole—and appear to assess Black and White defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And as autonomous vehicles share our streets, we are increasingly putting our lives in their hands. The mathematical and computational models driving these changes range in complexity from something that can fit on a spreadsheet to a complex system that might credibly be called “artificial intelligence.” They are steadily replacing both human judgment and explicitly programmed software. In best-selling author Brian Christian’s riveting account, we meet the alignment problem’s “first-responders,” and learn their ambitious plan to solve it before our hands are completely off the wheel. In a masterful blend of history and on-the ground reporting, Christian traces the explosive growth in the field of machine learning and surveys its current, sprawling frontier. Readers encounter a discipline finding its legs amid exhilarating and sometimes terrifying progress. Whether they—and we—succeed or fail in solving the alignment problem will be a defining human story. The Alignment Problem offers an unflinching reckoning with humanity’s biases and blind spots, our own unstated assumptions and often contradictory goals. A dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, it takes a hard look not only at our technology but at our culture—and finds a story by turns harrowing and hopeful.
