Download or read book The Soul of A New Machine written by Tracy Kidder and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 2011-08-23 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tracy Kidder's "riveting" (Washington Post) story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry. Computers have changed since 1981, when The Soul of a New Machine first examined the culture of the computer revolution. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations. The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century. "Fascinating...A surprisingly gripping account of people at work." --Wall Street Journal

Download or read book Soul Machine The Invention of the Modern Mind written by George Makari and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2015-11-02 with total page 547 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A brilliant and comprehensive history of the creation of the modern Western mind. Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept—the mind—emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine, but fully neither. In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian George Makari shows how writers, philosophers, physicians, and anatomists worked to construct notions of the mind as not an ethereal thing, but a natural one. From the ascent of Oliver Cromwell to the fall of Napoleon, seminal thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Diderot, and Kant worked alongside often-forgotten brain specialists, physiologists, and alienists in the hopes of mapping the inner world. Conducted in a cauldron of political turmoil, these frequently shocking, always embattled efforts would give rise to psychiatry, mind sciences such as phrenology, and radically new visions of the self. Further, they would be crucial to the establishment of secular ethics and political liberalism. Boldly original, wide-ranging, and brilliantly synthetic, Soul Machine gives us a masterful, new account of the making of the modern Western mind.

Download or read book Digital Soul written by Thomas Georges and published by Westview Press. This book was released on 2004-10-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to artificial intelligence explores the philosophical and scientific implications of building machines that can think and feel more deeply than humans. Reprint.

Download or read book I Know You Got Soul written by Jeremy Clarkson and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2006-05-25 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In I Know You Got Soul, Jeremy Clarkson writes about the machines that he believes have 'soul'. It will come as no surprise to anyone that Jeremy Clarkson loves machines. But it's not just any old bucket of blots, cogs and bearings that rings his bell. In fact, he's scoured the length and breadth of the land, plunged into the oceans and taken to the skies in search of machines with that elusive certain something. And along the way he's discovered: * The safest place to be in the event of nuclear war * Who would win if Superman, James Bond and The Terminator had a fight * The stupidest person he's ever met * What an old Cornish institution called Arthur has to do with 0898 chat lines * And how Jean Claude Van Damme might get eaten by a lion . . . In I Know You Got Soul, Jeremy Clarkson tells stories of the geniuses, innovators and crackpots who put the ghost in the machine. From Brunel's SS Great Britain to the awesome Blackbird spy-plane and from the woeful - but inspiring - Graf Zeppelin to Han Solo's Millennium Falcon, they can't help but love them in return. Praise for Jeremy Clarkson: 'Brilliant . . . laugh-out-loud' Daily Telegraph 'Outrageously funny . . . will have you in stitches' Time Out 'Very funny . . . I cracked up laughing on the tube' Evening Standard

Download or read book Devices of the Soul written by Steve Talbott and published by "O'Reilly Media, Inc.". This book was released on 2007-04-27 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Self-forgetfulness is the reigning temptation of the technological era. This is why we so readily give our assent to the absurd proposition that a computer can add two plus two, despite the obvious fact that it can do nothing of the sort--not if we have in mind anything remotely resembling what we do when we add numbers. In the computer's case, the mechanics of addition involve no motivation, no consciousness of the task, no mobilization of the will, no metabolic activity, no imagination. And its performance brings neither the satisfaction of accomplishment nor the strengthening of practical skills and cognitive capacities." In this insightful book, author Steve Talbott, software programmer and technical writer turned researcher and editor for The Nature Institute, challenges us to step back and take an objective look at the technology driving our lives. At a time when 65 percent of American consumers spend more time with their PCs than they do with their significant others, according to a recent study, Talbott illustrates that we're forgetting one important thing--our Selves, the human spirit from which technology stems. Whether we're surrendering intimate details to yet another database, eschewing our physical communities for online social networks, or calculating our net worth, we freely give our power over to technology until, he says, "we arrive at a computer's-eye view of the entire world of industry, commerce, and society at large...an ever more closely woven web of programmed logic." Digital technology certainly makes us more efficient. But when efficiency is the only goal, we have no way to know whether we're going in the right or wrong direction. Businesses replace guiding vision with a spreadsheet's bottom line. Schoolteachers are replaced by the computer's dataflow. Indigenous peoples give up traditional skills for the dazzle and ease of new gadgets. Even the Pentagon's zeal to replace "boots on the ground" with technology has led to the mess in Iraq. And on it goes. The ultimate danger is that, in our willingness to adapt ourselves to technology, "we will descend to the level of the computational devices we have engineered--not merely imagining ever new and more sophisticated automatons, but reducing ourselves to automatons." To transform our situation, we need to see it in a new and unaccustomed light, and that's what Talbott provides by examining the deceiving virtues of technology--how we're killing education, socializing our machines, and mechanizing our society.Once you take this eye-opening journey, you will think more clearly about how you consume technology and how you allow it to consume you. "Nothing is as rare or sorely needed in our tech-enchanted culture right now as intelligent criticism of technology, and Steve Talbott is exactly the critic we've been waiting for: trenchant, sophisticated, and completely original. Devices of the Soul is an urgent and important book." --Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and The Botany of Desire: A Plant's Eye View of the World "Steve Talbott is a rare voice of clarity, humanity, and passion in a world enthralled by machines and calculation. His new book, Devices of the Soul, lays out a frightening and at the same time inspiring analysis of what computers and computer-like thinking are doing to us, our children, and the future of our planet. Talbott is no Luddite. He fully understands and appreciates the stunning power of technology for both good and evil. His cool and precise skewering of the fuzzy thinking and mindless enthusiasm of the technology true believers is tempered by his modesty, the elegance of his writing, and his abiding love for the world of nature and our capacity for communion with it. " --Edward Miller, Former editor, Harvard Education Letter "Those who care about the healthy and wholesome lives of children can gain much from Steve Talbott's wisdom. He examines the need to help children spend more time touching nature and real life and less touching keyboards. He eloquently questions the assumption that speeding up learning is a good thing. Is, after all, a sped-up life a well-lived life? Most importantly, he reminds all of us that technology is just one part of life and ought not to overshadow the life of self and soul." --Joan Almon, Coordinator, Alliance for Childhood "One of the most original and provocative writers of our time, Steve Talbott offers a rich assortment of insightful reflections on the nature of our humanity, challenging our own thinking and conventional wisdom about advances in technology." --Dorothy E. Denning, Department of Defense Analysis, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA "Are you experiencing growing unease as computational metaphors have seized our discourse? Steve Talbott offers immediate relief. You are not losing your mind! Chapter after chapter, he shows how to draw on the powers of technology without losing your soul or breaking your heart." --Peter Denning, Past President of ACM, Monterey, California "Steve Talbott is a rare writer whose words can alter one's entire perception of the world. He is our most original and perceptive defender of the wholeness of life against the onslaught of mechanism. Devices of the Soul is written with Talbott's typical grace and clarity. It displays a quality hardly found anymore in our high tech culture--wisdom. " --Lowell Monke, Associate Professor of Education, Wittenberg University

Download or read book The Age of Spiritual Machines written by Ray Kurzweil and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Bold futurist Ray Kurzweil, author of The Singularity Is Near, offers a framework for envisioning the future of machine intelligence—“a book for anyone who wonders where human technology is going next” (The New York Times Book Review). “Kurzweil offers a thought-provoking analysis of human and artificial intelligence and a unique look at a future in which the capabilities of the computer and the species that invented it grow ever closer.”—BILL GATES Imagine a world where the difference between man and machine blurs, where the line between humanity and technology fades, and where the soul and the silicon chip unite. This is not science fiction. This is the twenty-first century according to Ray Kurzweil, the “restless genius” (The Wall Street Journal), “ultimate thinking machine” (Forbes), and inventor of the most innovative and compelling technology of our era. In his inspired hands, life in the new millennium no longer seems daunting. Instead, it promises to be an age in which the marriage of human sensitivity and artificial intelligence fundamentally alters and improves the way we live. More than just a list of predictions, Kurzweil’s prophetic blueprint for the future guides us through the inexorable advances that will result in: • Computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain (with human-level capabilities not far behind) • Relationships with automated personalities who will be our teachers, companions, and lovers • Information fed straight into our brains along direct neural pathways Eventually, the distinction between humans and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them.

Download or read book Soul Machine written by Daniel Martin Diaz and published by Luz de Jesus. This book was released on 2019-02-02 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In "Soul Machine" Daniel Martin Diaz examines the mysteries of scientific diagrams, secrets of symbols and their everlasting effect on our psyche. The inspiration for this new body of work comes from the mysteries of consciousness, self-aware systems, philosophy, cellular automata, AI, sacred geometry, time travel, and mystical behaviors at atomic and subatomic levels. In recent years, Diaz became immersed in scientific and philosophical theories. In particular, he became obsessed with scientific diagrams, which explain theories and properties though drawings. Although these rudimentary drawings were without any leanings towards aesthetics, he found them to be beautiful, though that is clearly not their intention. He was inspired to use the simplicity of drawing to create his own interpretations of the concepts of consciousness and other theories on a scientific, philosophical, and spiritual level. All of the projects begin as drawings, which have a beauty and intimacy that paintings cannot capture. Graphite's allure comes from its subtle lines and the quickness in which one can capture an idea.

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 The Machine Has a Soul written by Katy Hull and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-12 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A historical look at the American fascination with Italian fascism during the interwar period In the interwar years, the United States grappled with economic volatility, and Americans expressed anxieties about a decline in moral values, the erosion of families and communities, and the decay of democracy. These issues prompted a profound ambivalence toward modernity, leading some individuals to turn to Italian fascism as a possible solution for the problems facing the country. The Machine Has a Soul delves into why Americans of all stripes sympathized with Italian fascism, and shows that fascism’s appeal rested in the image of Mussolini’s regime as “the machine which will run and has a soul”—a seemingly efficient and technologically advanced system that upheld tradition, religion, and family. Katy Hull focuses on four prominent American sympathizers: Richard Washburn Child, a conservative diplomat and Republican operative; Anne O’Hare McCormick, a distinguished New York Times journalist; Generoso Pope, an Italian-American publisher and Democratic political broker; and Herbert Wallace Schneider, a Columbia University professor of moral philosophy. In fascism’s violent squads they saw youthful glamour and impeccable manners, in the megalomaniacal Mussolini they perceived someone both current and old-fashioned, and in the corporate state they witnessed a politics that could revive addled minds. They argued that with the right course of action, the United States could use fascism to take the best from modernity while withstanding its harmful effects. Investigating the motivations of American fascist sympathizers, The Machine Has a Soul offers provocative lessons about authoritarianism’s appeal during times of intense cultural, social, and economic strain.

Download or read book Company of One written by Paul Jarvis and published by Houghton Mifflin. This book was released on 2019 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What if the real key to a richer and more fulfilling career was not to create and scale a new start-up, but rather, to be able to work for yourself, determine your own hours, and become a (highly profitable) and sustainable company of one? Suppose the better--and smarter--solution is simply to remain small? This book explains how to do just that. Company of One is a refreshingly new approach centered on staying small and avoiding growth, for any size business. Not as a freelancer who only gets paid on a per piece basis, and not as an entrepreneurial start-up that wants to scale as soon as possible, but as a small business that is deliberately committed to staying that way. By staying small, one can have freedom to pursue more meaningful pleasures in life, and avoid the headaches that result from dealing with employees, long meetings, or worrying about expansion. Company of One introduces this unique business strategy and explains how to make it work for you, including how to generate cash flow on an ongoing basis. Paul Jarvis left the corporate world when he realized that working in a high-pressure, high profile world was not his idea of success. Instead, he now works for himself out of his home on a small, lush island off of Vancouver, and lives a much more rewarding and productive life. He no longer has to contend with an environment that constantly demands more productivity, more output, and more growth. In Company of One, Jarvis explains how you can find the right pathway to do the same, including planning how to set up your shop, determining your desired revenues, dealing with unexpected crises, keeping your key clients happy, and of course, doing all of this on your own.

Download or read book Passions of the Soul written by René Descartes and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 1989-12-15 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: TABLE OF CONTENTS: Translator's Introduction Introduction by Genevieve Rodis-Lewis The Passions of the Soul: Preface PART I: About the Passions in General, and Incidentally about the Entire Nature of Man PART II: About the Number and Order of the Passions, and the Explanation of the Six Primitives PART III: About the Particular Passions Lexicon: Index to Lexicon Bibliography Index Index Locorum

Download or read book Grey Aliens and the Harvesting of Souls written by Nigel Kerner and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exposes the agenda behind the bio-robotic grey aliens’ genetic manipulation of certain human races • Reveals the Grey’s nature as sophisticated self-aware machines created by a long vanished extraterrestrial civilization • Explains how their quest to capture human souls appears in the historical record from biblical times • Explains how the phenomenon of racism is a by-product of their genetic tampering In 1997 Nigel Kerner first introduced the notion of aliens known as Greys coming to Earth, explaining that Greys are sophisticated biological robots created by an extraterrestrial civilization they have long since outlived. In this new book Kerner reveals that the Greys are seeking to master death by obtaining something humans possess that they do not: souls. Through the manipulation of human DNA, these aliens hope to create their own souls and, thereby, escape the entropic grip of the material universe in favor of the timeless realm of spirit. Kerner explains that genetic manipulation by the Greys has occurred since biblical times and has led to numerous negative qualities that plague humanity, such as violence, greed, and maliciousness. Racism, he contends, was developed by the aliens to prevent their genetic experiments from being compromised by breeding with others outside their influence. Examining historical records, Kerner shows that Jesus, who represented an uncorrupted genetic line, warned his disciples about the threat posed by these alien interlopers, while Hitler, a pure product of this alien intelligence, waged genocide in an attempt to rid Earth of all those untouched by this genetic tampering. Despite the powerful grip the Greys have on humanity, Kerner says that all hope is not lost. Greys exist wholly in the material world, so if we follow the spiritual laws of reincarnation and karma, aiming for enlightenment and rising above the material--a state the Greys are unable to reach--we can free ourselves from their grasp.

Download or read book Souls in the Great Machine written by Sean Mcmullen and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2002-12-15 with total page 612 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The great Calculor of Libris was forced to watch as Overmayor Zarvora had four of its components lined up against a wall and shot for negligence. Thereafter, its calculations were free from errors, and that was just as well-for only this strangest of calculating machines and its two thousand enslaved components could save the world from a new ice age. And all the while a faint mirrorsun hangs in the night sky, warning of the cold to come. In Sean McMullen's glittering, dynamic, and exotic world two millennia from now, there is no more electricity, wind engines are leading-edge technology, librarians fight duels to settle disputes, steam power is banned by every major religion, and a mysterious siren "Call" lures people to their death. Nevertheless, the brilliant and ruthless Zarvora intends to start a war in space against inconceivably ancient nuclear battle stations. Unbeknownst to Zarvora, however, the greatest threat to humanity is neither a machine nor a force but her demented and implacable enemy Lemorel, who has resurrected an obscene and evil concept from the distant past: Total War. Souls in the Great Machine is the first volume of Sean McMullen's brilliant future history of the world of Greatwinter

Download or read book It Doesn t Have to Be Crazy at Work written by Jason Fried and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2018-10-04 with total page 147 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the authors of the New York Times bestseller Rework, are back with a manifesto to combat all your modern workplace worries and fears.

Download or read book The Soul of the Robot written by Barrington J. Bayley and published by Gateway. This book was released on 2011-11-14 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: He was unique. Alone in a world that did not understand him, he tested the super powers of his mind and body. More than a machine, but less than a man, he searched restlessly for the truth. Before his quest was done, he had died and been reborn, had fought his way from a grim dungeon to a royal throne. Jasperodus, the only super-robot to have been granted consciousness, must decide whether to share his soul-possessing secrets with the other robots or to betray them to save mankind.

Download or read book The Invention of God written by Bill Lauritzen and published by Earth360.com. This book was released on 2011-01-15 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did mythology and religion first begin? Where did the ideas of “God,” “spirit” and “soul” come from? The author takes us to ancient times, showing us how early humans struggled to make sense of the world around them. Drawing on history, geology, volcanology, anthropology, chemistry, astronomy, archeology, oceanography, biology and cognitive science, the author reveals the surprising true meaning of our most sacred stories. “Bill Lauritzen is some kind of genius.” Sir Arthur C. Clarke. “Anyone interested in science and religion should read this book.” Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D., psychologist, UC Irvine. “Bill Lauritzen has systematically analyzed, from an original viewpoint, the historic sources related to the origins of religion. He summarized his research in this interesting and thought-provoking book.” Mamikon Mnatsakanian, Ph.D, astrophysicist and mathematician, California Institute of Technology.

Download or read book Severed Souls written by Terry Goodkind and published by Tor Books. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 563 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Terry Goodkind, author of the Sword of Truth series, comes Severed Souls, a New York Times best selling novel of Richard Rahl, Kahlan Amnell, and their world. From the far reaches of the D'Haran Empire, Bishop Hannis Arc and the ancient Emperor Sulachan lead a vast horde of Shun-Tuk and other depraved "half-people" into the Empire's heart, raising an army of the dead in order to threaten the world of the living. Meanwhile, far from home, Richard Rahl and Kahlan Amnell must defend themselves and their followers from a series of terrifying threats, despite a magical sickness that depletes their strength and which, if not cured, will take their lives...sooner rather than later. "Richard saw the point of a sword blade sticking out from between the man's shoulder blades. He spun back toward Richard after throwing the woman out of the opening, ready to attack. It seemed impossible, but the man looked unaffected by the blade that had impaled him through the chest. It was then, in the weak light from the fire pit off to the side, that Richard got his first good look at the killer. Three knives were buried up to their brass cross-guards in the man's chest. Only the handles were showing. Richard saw, too, the broken end of a sword blade jutting out from the center of the man's chest. The point of that same blade stuck out from the man's back. Richard recognized the knife handles. All three were the style carried by the men of the First File. He looked from those blades that should have killed the big man, up into his face. That was when he realized the true horror of the situation, and the reason for the unbearable stench of death." At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.