The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World

The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World PDF Author: Laurence Scott
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393353087
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
You are a four-dimensional human. Each of us exists in three-dimensional, physical space. But, as a constellation of everyday digital phenomena rewires our lives, we are increasingly coaxed from the containment of our predigital selves into a wonderful and eerie fourth dimension, a world of ceaseless communication, instant information, and global connection. Our portals to this new world have been wedged open, and the silhouette of a figure is slowly taking shape. But what does it feel like to be four-dimensional? How do digital technologies influence the rhythms of our thoughts, the style and tilt of our consciousness? What new sensitivities and sensibilities are emerging with our exposure to the delights, sorrows, and anxieties of a networked world? And how do we live in public with these recoded private lives? Laurence Scott—hailed as a "New Generation Thinker" by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC—shows how this four-dimensional life is dramatically changing us by redefining our social lives and extending the limits of our presence in the world. Blending tech-philosophy with insights on everything from Seinfeld to the fall of Gaddafi, Scott stands with a rising generation of social critics hoping to understand our new reality. His virtuosic debut is a revelatory and original exploration of life in the digital age.

The Four-Dimensional Human

The Four-Dimensional Human PDF Author: Laurence Scott
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0099591898
Category : Digital media
Languages : en
Pages : 274

Book Description
"SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2015 WINNER OF THE JERWOOD PRIZE A constellation of everyday digital phenomena is rewiring our inner lives. We are increasingly coaxed from the three-dimensional containment of our pre-digital selves into a wonderful and eerie fourth dimension, a world of ceaseless communication, instant information and global connection. Our portals to this new world have been wedged open, and the silhouette of a figure is slowly taking shape. But what does it feel like to be four-dimensional? How do digital technologies influence the rhythms of our thoughts, the style and tilt of our consciousness? What new sensitivities and sensibilities are emerging with our exposure to the delights, sorrows and anxieties of a networked world? And how do we live in public, with these recoded private lives? Tackling ideas of time, space, friendship, commerce, pursuit and escape, and moving from Hamlet to the ghosts of social media, from Seinfeld to the fall of Gaddafi, from Facebook politics to Oedipus, The Four-Dimensional Human is a highly original and pioneering portrait of life in a digital landscape."

The Fourth Dimension of Existence

The Fourth Dimension of Existence PDF Author: Nasr Saad
Publisher: Createspace Independent Pub
ISBN: 9781477582923
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 172

Book Description
From the infinity of space to the eternity of time to the possibility of the afterlife, both science and religion have attempted to answer a number of existential quandaries about our place in the universe. Yet these perplexing puzzles cannot be solved by anything provided in our limited three dimensional perspective. This provocative book by atomic physicist Dr. Nasr Saad proposes that a fourth dimension of existence can provide the perspective and comprehension necessary to arrive at logical answers to the unanswered questions of our existence. The Fourth Dimension of Existence draws on Saad's unique education. He is schooled in both philosophy and theology alongside his rigorous training in atomic physics. “I was sure that rational answers could only come from a perfect synthesis of the methodologies of the three major disciplines of the human mind: science, philosophy, and religion,” says Saad. “Most of the times they are in open conflict with one another in their findings and their conclusions; however, this situation should not be the norm all the time; these disciplines are the product of the human reason and the human reason is one.” Saad feels that a thorough fusion of the methodologies of science, philosophy, and religion could yield logical answers to the questions humans have been asking themselves since the dawn of human consciousness. The author admits that the fourth dimension has a robust history of representation in science fiction. He mentions flatland and hyperspace among other fictional fourth dimensions to illustrate the rich and imaginative preoccupations of the human mind. He even explains the curved space-time fourth dimension that haunts the minds of “science fiction mathematicians.” The fourth dimension that preoccupies the author is not the fantastical sci-fi scenario of the popular imagination. Rather, it is an existential dimension that would provide us with the necessary distance to understand our own world and its heretofore unsolvable mysteries. He feels the search for such a dimension is not a pipe dream but can be carried out and executed by rational means. At the same time, we need to realize the fourth dimension would exist on principles completely unrelated to our own three-dimensional world. “It will provide a scientific explanation for the strong link that should exist between matter and spirit and between this life and our existence,” says Saad. “It will make us realize in a logical and powerful way how and why our life is short but our existence is not.” Despite these intriguing scenarios, Saad feels there remains a fourth existential dimension that can bring a rational explanation to all our perplexing questions. His book is a guide to this possible reality and the various ways it could be ascertained.

Shadows of Reality

Shadows of Reality PDF Author: Tony Robbin
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300129629
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 151

Book Description
In this insightful book, which is a revisionist math history as well as a revisionist art history, Tony Robbin, well known for his innovative computer visualizations of hyperspace, investigates different models of the fourth dimension and how these are applied in art and physics. Robbin explores the distinction between the slicing, or Flatland, model and the projection, or shadow, model. He compares the history of these two models and their uses and misuses in popular discussions. Robbin breaks new ground with his original argument that Picasso used the projection model to invent cubism, and that Minkowski had four-dimensional projective geometry in mind when he structured special relativity. The discussion is brought to the present with an exposition of the projection model in the most creative ideas about space in contemporary mathematics such as twisters, quasicrystals, and quantum topology. Robbin clarifies these esoteric concepts with understandable drawings and diagrams. Robbin proposes that the powerful role of projective geometry in the development of current mathematical ideas has been long overlooked and that our attachment to the slicing model is essentially a conceptual block that hinders progress in understanding contemporary models of spacetime. He offers a fascinating review of how projective ideas are the source of some of today’s most exciting developments in art, math, physics, and computer visualization.

The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality

The Fourth Dimension: Toward a Geometry of Higher Reality PDF Author: Rudy Rucker
Publisher: Courier Corporation
ISBN: 0486779785
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 243

Book Description
One of the most talented contemporary authors of cutting-edge math and science books conducts a fascinating tour of a higher reality, the Fourth Dimension. Includes problems, puzzles, and 200 drawings. "Informative and mind-dazzling." — Martin Gardner.

The Fourth Dimension

The Fourth Dimension PDF Author: Charles Howard Hinton
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fourth dimension
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description

Four-dimensional Education

Four-dimensional Education PDF Author: Charles Fadel
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781518642562
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
The foundational reason for why we find it so difficult to rebuild school curricula around the needs of the modern world is that we lack an organizing framework that can help prioritise educational competencies, and systematically structure the conversation around what individuals should learn at various stages of their development. Four-dimensional education provides a clear and actionable first-of-its-kind organizing framework of competencies needed for this century. Its main innovation lies in not presenting yet another one-size-fits-all list of what individuals should learn, but in crisply defining the spaces in which educators, curriculum planners, policymakers and learners can establish what should be learned, in their context and for their future.

Evolution in Four Dimensions, revised edition

Evolution in Four Dimensions, revised edition PDF Author: Eva Jablonka
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262525844
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 577

Book Description
A pioneering proposal for a pluralistic extension of evolutionary theory, now updated to reflect the most recent research. This new edition of the widely read Evolution in Four Dimensions has been revised to reflect the spate of new discoveries in biology since the book was first published in 2005, offering corrections, an updated bibliography, and a substantial new chapter. Eva Jablonka and Marion Lamb's pioneering argument proposes that there is more to heredity than genes. They describe four “dimensions” in heredity—four inheritance systems that play a role in evolution: genetic, epigenetic (or non-DNA cellular transmission of traits), behavioral, and symbolic (transmission through language and other forms of symbolic communication). These systems, they argue, can all provide variations on which natural selection can act. Jablonka and Lamb present a richer, more complex view of evolution than that offered by the gene-based Modern Synthesis, arguing that induced and acquired changes also play a role. Their lucid and accessible text is accompanied by artist-physician Anna Zeligowski's lively drawings, which humorously and effectively illustrate the authors' points. Each chapter ends with a dialogue in which the authors refine their arguments against the vigorous skepticism of the fictional “I.M.” (for Ipcha Mistabra—Aramaic for “the opposite conjecture”). The extensive new chapter, presented engagingly as a dialogue with I.M., updates the information on each of the four dimensions—with special attention to the epigenetic, where there has been an explosion of new research. Praise for the first edition “With courage and verve, and in a style accessible to general readers, Jablonka and Lamb lay out some of the exciting new pathways of Darwinian evolution that have been uncovered by contemporary research.” —Evelyn Fox Keller, MIT, author of Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines “In their beautifully written and impressively argued new book, Jablonka and Lamb show that the evidence from more than fifty years of molecular, behavioral and linguistic studies forces us to reevaluate our inherited understanding of evolution.” —Oren Harman, The New Republic “It is not only an enjoyable read, replete with ideas and facts of interest but it does the most valuable thing a book can do—it makes you think and reexamine your premises and long-held conclusions.” —Adam Wilkins, BioEssays

Spaceland

Spaceland PDF Author: Rudy Rucker
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 1429980079
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
Joe Cube is a Silicon Valley hotshot--well, a would-be hotshot anyway--hoping that the 3-D TV project he's managing will lead to the big money IPO he's always dreamed of. On New Year's Eve, hoping to impress his wife, he sneaks home the prototype. It brings no new warmth to their cooling relationship, but it does attract someone else's attention. When Joe sees a set of lips talking to him (floating in midair) and feels the poke of a disembodied finger (inside him), it's not because of the champagne he's drunk. He has just met Momo, a woman from the All, a world of four spatial dimensions for whom our narrow world, which she calls Spaceland, is something like a rug, but one filled with motion and life. Momo has a business proposition for Joe, an offer she won't let him refuse. The upside potential becomes much clearer to him once she helps him grow a new eye (on a stalk) that can see in the fourth-dimensional directions, and he agrees. After that it's a wild ride through a million-dollar night in Las Vegas, a budding addiction to tasty purple 4-D food, a failing marriage, eye-popping excursions into the All, and encounters with Momo's foes, rubbery red critters who steal money, offer sage advice and sometimes messily explode. Joe is having the time of his life, until Momo's scheme turns out to have angles he couldn't have imagined. Suddenly the fate of all life here in Spaceland is at stake. Rudy Rucker is a past master at turning mathematical concepts into rollicking science fiction adventure, from Spacetime Donuts and White Light to The Hacker and the Ants. In the tradition of Edwin A. Abbott's classic novel, Flatland, Rucker gives us a tour of higher mathematics and visionary realities. Spaceland is Flatland on hyperdrive! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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