Virtuality and Humanity - 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 Virtuality and Humanity write by Sam N. Lehman-Wilzig. This book was released on 2022-01-01. Virtuality and Humanity available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This is a pioneering study of virtuality through human history: ancient-to-modern evolution and recent expansion; expression in many fields (chapters on Religion; Philosophy, Math, Physics; Literature and the Arts; Economics; Nationhood, Government and War; Communication); psychological and social reasons for its universality; inter-relationship with "reality." The book's thesis: virtuality was always an integral part of humanity in many areas of life, generally expanding over the ages. The reasons: 1- brain psychology; 2- virtuality's six functions — escape from boredom to relieving existential dread. Other questions addressed: How will future neuroscience, biotech and "compunications" affect virtuality? Can/should there be limits to human virtualizing?
Human Virtuality and Digital Life
Human Virtuality and Digital Life - 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 Human Virtuality and Digital Life write by Richard Frankel. This book was released on 2021-08-12. Human Virtuality and Digital Life available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Winner of the Gradiva® Best Book Award 2022, and the Courage to Dream Book Prize 2023 from the Academy of the American Psychoanalytic Association! This book is a psychoanalytic and philosophical exploration of how the digital is transforming our perception of the world and our understanding of ourselves. Drawing on examples from everyday life, myth, and popular culture, this book argues that virtual reality is only the latest instantiation of the phenomenon of the virtual, which is intrinsic to human being. It illuminates what is at stake in our understanding of the relationship between the virtual and the real, showing how our present technologies both enhance and diminish our psychological lives. The authors claim that technology is a pharmakon - at the same time both a remedy and a poison - and in their writing exemplify a method that overcomes the polarization that compels us to regard it either as a liberating force or a dangerous threat in human life. The digital revolution challenges us to reckon with the implications of what is being called our posthuman condition, leaving behind our modern conception of the world as constituted by atemporal essences and reconceiving it instead as one of processes and change. The book’s postscript considers the sudden plunge into the virtual effected by the 2020 global pandemic. Accessible and wide-reaching, this book will appeal not only to psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, and philosophers, but anyone interested in the ways virtuality and the digital are transforming our contemporary lives.
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy - 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 Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy write by David J. Chalmers. This book was released on 2022-01-25. Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.
How We Became Posthuman
How We Became Posthuman - 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 How We Became Posthuman write by N. Katherine Hayles. This book was released on 2008-05-15. How We Became Posthuman available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. In this age of DNA computers and artificial intelligence, information is becoming disembodied even as the "bodies" that once carried it vanish into virtuality. While some marvel at these changes, envisioning consciousness downloaded into a computer or humans "beamed" Star Trek-style, others view them with horror, seeing monsters brooding in the machines. In How We Became Posthuman, N. Katherine Hayles separates hype from fact, investigating the fate of embodiment in an information age. Hayles relates three interwoven stories: how information lost its body, that is, how it came to be conceptualized as an entity separate from the material forms that carry it; the cultural and technological construction of the cyborg; and the dismantling of the liberal humanist "subject" in cybernetic discourse, along with the emergence of the "posthuman." Ranging widely across the history of technology, cultural studies, and literary criticism, Hayles shows what had to be erased, forgotten, and elided to conceive of information as a disembodied entity. Thus she moves from the post-World War II Macy Conferences on cybernetics to the 1952 novel Limbo by cybernetics aficionado Bernard Wolfe; from the concept of self-making to Philip K. Dick's literary explorations of hallucination and reality; and from artificial life to postmodern novels exploring the implications of seeing humans as cybernetic systems. Although becoming posthuman can be nightmarish, Hayles shows how it can also be liberating. From the birth of cybernetics to artificial life, How We Became Posthuman provides an indispensable account of how we arrived in our virtual age, and of where we might go from here.
Handbook of Virtual Humans
Handbook of Virtual Humans - 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 Handbook of Virtual Humans write by Nadia Magnenat-Thalmann. This book was released on 2005-10-31. Handbook of Virtual Humans available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Virtual Humans are becoming more and more popular and used in many applications such as the entertainment industry (in both film and games) and medical applications. This comprehensive book covers all areas of this growing industry including face and body motion, body modelling, hair simulation, expressive speech simulation and facial communication, interaction with 3D objects, rendering skin and clothes and the standards for Virtual Humans. Written by a team of current and former researchers at MIRALab, University of Geneva or VRlab, EPFL, this book is the definitive guide to the area. Explains the concept of avatars and autonomous virtual actors and the main techniques to create and animate them (body and face). Presents the concepts of behavioural animation, crowd simulation, intercommunication between virtual humans, and interaction between real humans and autonomous virtual humans Addresses the advanced topics of hair representation and cloth animation with applications in fashion design Discusses the standards for Virtual Humans, such as MPEG-4 Face Animation and MPEG-4 Body Animation.
