The Universe of Things - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Universe of Things write by Steven Shaviro. This book was released on 2014-10-01. The Universe of Things available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. From the rediscovery of Alfred North Whitehead’s work to the rise of new materialist thought, including object-oriented ontology, there has been a rapid turn toward speculation in philosophy as a way of moving beyond solely human perceptions of nature and existence. Now Steven Shaviro maps this quickly emerging speculative realism, which is already dramatically influencing how we interpret reality and our place in a universe in which humans are not the measure of all things. The Universe of Things explores the common insistence of speculative realism on a noncorrelationist thought: that things or objects exist apart from how our own human minds relate to and comprehend them. Shaviro focuses on how Whitehead both anticipates and offers challenges to prevailing speculative realist thought, moving between Whitehead’s own panpsychism, Harman’s object-oriented ontology, and the reductionist eliminativism of Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier. The stakes of this recent speculative realist thought—of the effort to develop new ways of grasping the world—are enormous as it becomes clear that our inherited assumptions are no longer adequate to describe, much less understand, the reality we experience around us. As Shaviro acknowledges, speculative realist thought has its dangers, but it also, like the best speculative fiction, holds the potential to liberate us from confining views of what is outside ourselves and, he believes, to reclaim aesthetics and beauty as a principle of life itself. Bringing together a wide array of contemporary thought, and evenhandedly assessing its current debates, The Universe of Things is an invaluable guide to the evolution of speculative realism and the provocation of Alfred North Whitehead’s pathbreaking work.
The Universe of Things
The Universe of Things - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Universe of Things write by Gwyneth A. Jones. This book was released on 2011-01-01. The Universe of Things available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The stories in The Universe of Things span Joness career, from The Eastern Succession, first published in 1988, to the just-published Collision. Each opens a window into a richly depicted culture in which intelligent, resourceful characters struggle to make sense of the mysteries of their world. In the introduction by Steven Shaviro, author of Doom Patrols and Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society, Shaviro notes, As a feminist writer, Jones refuses to accept compromises that leave gender inequities in placeand recognizes how they may well have staved off something worse. And as a science fiction writer, Jones shows deep awareness of how provisional, and fragile, all our acceptances and reconciliations can be, for there are always new potentials, new cultural or technological disruptions in the offing. Jones envisions a future that is different enough from the present that we are forced to recognize the contingencyand changeabilityof the things we take most for granted.
Probable Impossibilities
Probable Impossibilities - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Probable Impossibilities write by Alan Lightman. This book was released on 2022-04-19. Probable Impossibilities available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams tackles "big questions like the origin of the universe and the nature of consciousness ... in an entertaining and easily digestible way” (Wall Street Journal) with a collection of meditative essays on the possibilities—and impossibilities—of nothingness and infinity, and how our place in the cosmos falls somewhere in between. Can space be divided into smaller and smaller units, ad infinitum? Does space extend to larger and larger regions, on and on to infinity? Is consciousness reducible to the material brain and its neurons? What was the origin of life, and can biologists create life from scratch in the lab? Physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, whom The Washington Post has called “the poet laureate of science writers,” explores these questions and more—from the anatomy of a smile to the capriciousness of memory to the specialness of life in the universe to what came before the Big Bang. Probable Impossibilities is a deeply engaged consideration of what we know of the universe, of life and the mind, and of things vastly larger and smaller than ourselves.
The Things That Nobody Knows
The Things That Nobody Knows - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Things That Nobody Knows write by William Hartston. This book was released on 2013-04-01. The Things That Nobody Knows available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A playful and diverting, yet always scientifically rigorous look at those simple mysteries that are yet to be solved Why are so many giraffes gay? Has human evolution stopped? Where did our alphabet come from? Can robots become self-aware? Can lobsters recognize other lobsters by sight? What goes on inside a black hole? Are cell phones bad for us? Why can't we remember anything from our earliest years? Full of the mysteries of life, the universe, and everything, this is a fascinating and unputdownable exploration of the limits of human knowledge of our planet, its history and culture, and the universe beyond.
Powers of Ten
Powers of Ten - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Powers of Ten write by Philip Morrison. This book was released on 1994. Powers of Ten available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Over 100,000 copies of this spectacular journey have already been sold. In forty-two consecutive scenes, each at a different `power of ten` level of magnification, readers are taken from the dimension of one billion light years to the realm of the atom. The text and other illustrations depict what we can perceive at each progressively smaller level of magnitude. " A brilliant pictorial and textual embodiment of a wonderful idea. " Stephen Jay Gould Videos of Powers of Ten are available from: RITELtd. Cross Tree, Walton Street, Walton in Gordano, Clevedon, Avon BS21 7AW Tel: 01275-340279 Fax: 01275-340327
