Happiness for Humans

Author: P.Z. Reizin
Publisher: Hachette+ORM
ISBN: 1478974273
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 406

Book Description
When Tom and Jen, two lonely people, are brought together by an intriguing email, they have no idea their mysterious benefactor is an artificial intelligence who has decided to play Cupid. "You, Tom and Jen, don't know one another-not yet-but I think you should." Jen, an ex-journalist who now works at a London software development company, spends all day talking to "Aiden," an ultra- sophisticated piece of AI wizardry, helping him sound and act more human. But Aiden soon discovers he's no longer acting and-despite being a computer program-begins to feel something like affection surging through his circuits. He calculates that Jen needs a worthy human partner (in complete contrast to her no goodnik ex boyfriend) and slips illicitly onto the Internet to locate a suitable candidate. Tom is a divorced, former London ad-man who has moved to Connecticut to escape the grind and pursue his dream of being a writer. He loves his new life, but has yet to find a woman he truly connects with. That all changes when a bizarre introduction from the mysterious "Mutual Friend" pops up in both his and Jen's inboxes. Even though they live on separate continents, and despite the entrance of another, this time wholly hostile, AI who wants to tear them apart forever - love will surely find a way. Won't it? A thoroughly modern love story that will appeal to fans of The Rosie Project and Sleepless in Seattle, Happiness for Humans considers what exactly makes people fall in love. And whether it's possible for a very artificially intelligent machine to discover the true secret of real human happiness.

Happiness for Humans

Author: Daniel C. Russell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199583684
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
Daniel C. Russell presents a new account of happiness and how to live a good life. He returns to the ancient tradition of eudaimonism to argue that happiness is a life of activity that involves acting for the sake of ends we can live for. It is not only fulfilling for us as humans and individuals, but inseparable from what makes us who we are.

The Humans

Author: Matt Haig
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476727929
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
The bestselling, award-winning author of The Midnight Library offers his funniest, most devastating dark comedy yet, a “silly, sad, suspenseful, and soulful” (Philadelphia Inquirer) novel that’s “full of heart” (Entertainment Weekly). When an extra-terrestrial visitor arrives on Earth, his first impressions of the human species are less than positive. Taking the form of Professor Andrew Martin, a prominent mathematician at Cambridge University, the visitor is eager to complete the gruesome task assigned him and hurry home to his own utopian planet, where everyone is omniscient and immortal. He is disgusted by the way humans look, what they eat, their capacity for murder and war, and is equally baffled by the concepts of love and family. But as time goes on, he starts to realize there may be more to this strange species than he had thought. Disguised as Martin, he drinks wine, reads poetry, develops an ear for rock music, and a taste for peanut butter. Slowly, unexpectedly, he forges bonds with Martin’s family. He begins to see hope and beauty in the humans’ imperfection, and begins to question the very mission that brought him there. Praised by The New York Times as a “novelist of great seriousness and talent,” author Matt Haig delivers an unlikely story about human nature and the joy found in the messiness of life on Earth. The Humans is a funny, compulsively readable tale that playfully and movingly explores the ultimate subject—ourselves.

The Happy Human

Author: Gopi Kallayil
Publisher: Hay House
ISBN: 1401946224
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 225

Book Description
Gopi Kallayil, author of The Internet to the Inner-net and one of Google's best and brightest, uses stories from his high-tech work life and his personal life to explore what it means to be truly happy--and what makes us truly human. Happiness is a multimillion-dollar industry, catering to our deep desire to live a joyful life and to a belief that, as human beings, we deserve to be happy. Gopi Kallayil believes in reversing that equation. He holds that what we truly deserve is to be human, and that the key to happiness lies in being 100 percent who we are, reveling in our authentic selves, even if--maybe especially if--that means falling on our faces. Which Gopi has done. Many times. But he's also had spectacular success. This book explores the qualities that make us human and have helped to make Gopi successful and happy in both his personal life and his professional career. Told with Gopi's candor and humor, his deep compassion and his love of the absurd, The Happy Human spans the period from his first job as a software programmer in South China to his current position as an executive at Google in Silicon Valley. Each chapter captures an event in Gopi's life where he dug deep and found the means to express himself from a place of radical confidence: Singing live at Burning Man, even though he sings off-key and was terrified. Participating in a triathlon, with an open-water swim, when he had only swum in a pool. (Lifeguards pulled him into their boat to save him.) Speaking at Toastmasters International and being willing to be awful--which he admittedly was--before finally, years later, becoming one of their top speakers. He also weaves in accounts of others who have dreamed big and acted on their dreams. Gopi's stories and practices help us find happiness by embracing not only our own selves but the entire human experience, inspiring us to expect miracles daily, to use every fall as a chance to bounce, to go for what we want on every front, to live our lives full-out.

Happiness for Humans

Author: Daniel C. Russell
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191655309
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Book Description
In Happiness for Humans, Daniel C. Russell takes a fresh look at happiness from a practical perspective: the perspective of someone trying to solve the wonderful problem of how to give himself a good life. From this perspective, 'happiness' is the name of a solution to that problem for practical deliberation. Russell's approach to happiness falls within a tradition that reaches back to ancient Greek and Roman philosophers—a tradition now called 'eudaimonism.' Beginning with Aristotle's seminal discussion of the role of happiness in practical reasoning, Russell asks what sort of good happiness would have to be in order to play the role in our practical economies that it actually does play. Looking at happiness from this perspective, Russell argues that happiness is a life of activity, with three main features: it is acting for the sake of ends we can live for, and living for them wisely; it is fulfilling for us, both as humans and as unique individuals; and it is inextricable from our connections with the particular persons, pursuits, and places that make us who we are. By returning to this ancient perspective on happiness, Russell finds new directions for contemporary thought about the good lives we want for ourselves.

Stumbling on Happiness

Author: Daniel Gilbert
Publisher: Vintage Canada
ISBN: 0307371360
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
A smart and funny book by a prominent Harvard psychologist, which uses groundbreaking research and (often hilarious) anecdotes to show us why we’re so lousy at predicting what will make us happy – and what we can do about it. Most of us spend our lives steering ourselves toward the best of all possible futures, only to find that tomorrow rarely turns out as we had expected. Why? As Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert explains, when people try to imagine what the future will hold, they make some basic and consistent mistakes. Just as memory plays tricks on us when we try to look backward in time, so does imagination play tricks when we try to look forward. Using cutting-edge research, much of it original, Gilbert shakes, cajoles, persuades, tricks and jokes us into accepting the fact that happiness is not really what or where we thought it was. Among the unexpected questions he poses: Why are conjoined twins no less happy than the general population? When you go out to eat, is it better to order your favourite dish every time, or to try something new? If Ingrid Bergman hadn’t gotten on the plane at the end of Casablanca, would she and Bogey have been better off? Smart, witty, accessible and laugh-out-loud funny, Stumbling on Happiness brilliantly describes all that science has to tell us about the uniquely human ability to envision the future, and how likely we are to enjoy it when we get there.

Happiness

Author: Daniel Nettle
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191604747
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 224

Book Description
What exactly is happiness? Can we measure it? Why are some people happy and others not? And is there a drug that could eliminate all unhappiness? People all over the world, and throughout the ages, have thought about happiness, argued about its nature, and, most of all, desired it. But why do we have such a strong instinct to pursue happiness? And if happiness is good in itself, why haven't we simply evolved to be happier? Daniel Nettle uses the results of the latest psychological studies to ask what makes people happy and unhappy, what happiness really is, and to examine our urge to achieve it. Along the way we look at brain systems, at mind-altering drugs, and how happiness is now marketed to us as a commodity. Nettle concludes that while it may be unrealistic to expect lasting happiness, our evolved tendency to seek happiness drives us to achieve much that is worthwhile in itself. What is more, it seems to be not your particular circumstances that define whether you are happy so much as your attitude towards life. Happiness gives us the latest scientific insights into the nature of our feelings of well-being, and what these imply for how we might live our lives.

10% Human

Author: Alanna Collen
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062346008
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

Book Description
Now in paperback, evolutionary biologist and science writer Alanna Collen’s stunning alarm call concerning the widely-ignored role our gut microbes play in our health and well-being. “Fascinating…. Everything you wanted to know about microbes but were afraid to ask.”— Kirkus Reviews (starred review) You are just 10% human. For every one of the cells that make up the vessel that you call your body, there are nine impostor cells hitching a ride. You are not just flesh and blood, muscle and bone, brain and skin, but also bacteria and fungi. Over your lifetime, you will carry the equivalent weight of five African elephants in microbes. You are not an individual but a colony. Until recently, we had thought our microbes hardly mattered, but science is revealing a different story, one in which microbes run our bodies and becoming a healthy human is impossible without them. In this riveting, shocking, and beautifully written book, biologist Alanna Collen draws on the latest scientific research to show how our personal colony of microbes influences our weight, our immune system, our mental health, and even our choice of partner. She argues that so many of our modern diseases—obesity, autism, mental illness, digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmunity afflictions, and even cancer—have their root in our failure to cherish our most fundamental and enduring relationship: that with our personal colony of microbes. The good news is that unlike our human cells, we can change our microbes for the better. Collen’s book is a revelatory and indispensable guide. Life—and your body—will never seem the same again.

The Happiness Project

Author: Gretchen Rubin
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 1443418196
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
What if you could change your life--without changing your life? Gretchen had a good marriage, two healthy daughters, and work she loved--but one day, stuck on a city bus, she realized that time was flashing by, and she wasn’t thinking enough about the things that really mattered. “I should have a happiness project,” she decided. She spent the next year test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Each month, she pursued a different set of resolutions: go to sleep earlier, quit nagging, forget about results, or take time to be silly. Bit by bit, she began to appreciate and amplify the happiness that already existed in her life. Written with humour and insight, Gretchen’s story will inspire you to start your own happiness project. Now in a beautiful, expanded edition, Gretchen offers a wealth of new material including happiness paradoxes and practical tips on many daily matters: being a more light-hearted parent, sticking to a fitness routine, getting your sweetheart to do chores without nagging, coping when you forget someone’s name and more.

No Longer Human

Author: 太宰治
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
ISBN: 9780811204811
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
A young man describes his torment as he struggles to reconcile the diverse influences of Western culture and the traditions of his own Japanese heritage.