Author: Marcelo Gleiser Publisher: Civitas Books ISBN: 0465031714 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 370
Book Description
Why discovering the limits to science may be the most powerful discovery of allHow much can we know about the world? In this book, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know. Gleiser shows that by aband.
Author: Darold A. Treffert Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers ISBN: 1849058733 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 330
Book Description
In this fascinating book, Dr. Treffert looks at what we know about savant syndrome, and at new discoveries that raise interesting questions about the hidden brain potential within us all. He looks both at how savant skills can be nurtured, and how they can help the person who has them, particularly if that person is on the autism spectrum.
Author: Marcelo Gleiser Publisher: Simon and Schuster ISBN: 1439127867 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 306
Book Description
For millennia, shamans and philosophers, believers and nonbelievers, artists and scientists have tried to make sense of our existence by suggesting that everything is connected, that a mysterious Oneness binds us to everything else. People go to temples, churches, mosques, and synagogues to pray to their divine incarnation of Oneness. Following a surprisingly similar notion, scientists have long asserted that under Nature’s apparent complexity there is a simpler underlying reality. In its modern incarnation, this Theory of Everything would unite the physical laws governing very large bodies (Einstein’s theory of relativity) and those governing tiny ones (quantum mechanics) into a single framework. But despite the brave efforts of many powerful minds, the Theory of Everything remains elusive. It turns out that the universe is not elegant. It is gloriously messy. Overturning more than twenty-five centuries of scientific thought, award-winning physicist Marcelo Gleiser argues that this quest for a Theory of Everything is fundamentally misguided, and he explains the volcanic implications this ideological shift has for humankind. All the evidence points to a scenario in which everything emerges from fundamental imperfections, primordial asymmetries in matter and time, cataclysmic accidents in Earth’s early life, and duplication errors in the genetic code. Imbalance spurs creation. Without asymmetries and imperfections, the universe would be filled with nothing but smooth radiation. A Tear at the Edge of Creation calls for nothing less than a new "humancentrism" to reflect our position in the universal order. All life, but intelligent life in particular, is a rare and precious accident. Our presence here has no meaning outside of itself, but it does have meaning. The unplanned complexity of humankind is all the more beautiful for its improbability. It’s time for science to let go of the old aesthetic that labels perfection beautiful and holds that "beauty is truth." It’s time to look at the evidence without centuries of monotheistic baggage. In this lucid, down-to-earth narrative, Gleiser walks us through the basic and cutting-edge science that fueled his own transformation from unifier to doubter—a fascinating scientific quest that led him to a new understanding of what it is to be human.
Author: Ilana M. Gershon Publisher: Cornell University Press ISBN: 0801464498 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 207
Book Description
Government bureaucracies across the globe have become increasingly attuned in recent years to cultural diversity within their populations. Using culture as a category to process people and dispense services, however, can create its own problems and unintended consequences. In No Family Is an Island, a comparative ethnography of Samoan migrants living in the United States and New Zealand, Ilana Gershon investigates how and when the categories "cultural" and "acultural" become relevant for Samoans as they encounter cultural differences in churches, ritual exchanges, welfare offices, and community-based organizations. In both New Zealand and the United States, Samoan migrants are minor minorities in an ethnic constellation dominated by other minority groups. As a result, they often find themselves in contexts where the challenge is not to establish the terms of the debate but to rewrite them. To navigate complicated and often unyielding bureaucracies, they must become skilled in what Gershon calls "reflexive engagement" with the multiple social orders they inhabit. Those who are successful are able to parlay their own cultural expertise (their "Samoanness") into an ability to subtly alter the institutions with which they interact in their everyday lives. Just as the "cultural" is sometimes constrained by the forces exerted by acultural institutions, so too can migrant culture reshape the bureaucracies of their new countries. Theoretically sophisticated yet highly readable, No Family Is an Island contributes significantly to our understanding of the modern immigrant experience of making homes abroad.
Author: Marcelo Gleiser Publisher: Columbia University Press ISBN: 0231555377 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 387
Book Description
Does technology change who we are, and if so, in what ways? Can humanity transcend physical bodies and spaces? Will AI and genetic engineering help us reach new heights or will they unleash dystopias? How do we face mortality, our own and that of our warming planet? Questions like these—which are only growing more urgent—can be answered only by drawing on different kinds of knowledge and ways of knowing. They challenge us to bridge the divide between the sciences and the humanities and bring together perspectives that are too often kept apart. Great Minds Don’t Think Alike presents conversations among leading scientists, philosophers, historians, and public intellectuals that exemplify openness to diverse viewpoints and the productive exchange of ideas. Pulitzer and Templeton Prize winners, MacArthur “genius” grant awardees, and other acclaimed writers and thinkers debate the big questions: who we are, the nature of reality, science and religion, consciousness and materialism, and the mysteries of time. In so doing, they also inquire into how uniting experts from different areas of study to consider these topics might help us address the existential risks we face today. Convened and moderated by the physicist and author Marcelo Gleiser, these public dialogues model constructive engagement between the sciences and the humanities—and show why intellectual cooperation is necessary to shape our collective future. Contributors include David Chalmers and Antonio Damasio; Sean Carroll and B. Alan Wallace; Patricia Churchland and Jill Tarter; Rebecca Goldstein and Alan Lightman; Jimena Canales and Paul Davies; Ed Boyden and Mark O’Connell; Elizabeth Kolbert and Siddhartha Mukherjee; Jeremy DeSilva, David Grinspoon, and Tasneem Zehra Husain.
Author: Marcelo Gleiser Publisher: Basic Books ISBN: 0465080731 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 366
Book Description
Do all questions have answers? How much can we know about the world? Is there such a thing as an ultimate truth? To be human is to want to know, but what we are able to observe is only a tiny portion of what's "out there." In The Island of Knowledge, physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence. In so doing, he reaches a provocative conclusion: science, the main tool we use to find answers, is fundamentally limited. These limits to our knowledge arise both from our tools of exploration and from the nature of physical reality: the speed of light, the uncertainty principle, the impossibility of seeing beyond the cosmic horizon, the incompleteness theorem, and our own limitations as an intelligent species. Recognizing limits in this way, Gleiser argues, is not a deterrent to progress or a surrendering to religion. Rather, it frees us to question the meaning and nature of the universe while affirming the central role of life and ourselves in it. Science can and must go on, but recognizing its limits reveals its true mission: to know the universe is to know ourselves. Telling the dramatic story of our quest for understanding, The Island of Knowledge offers a highly original exploration of the ideas of some of the greatest thinkers in history, from Plato to Einstein, and how they affect us today. An authoritative, broad-ranging intellectual history of our search for knowledge and meaning, The Island of Knowledge is a unique view of what it means to be human in a universe filled with mystery.
Author: Linda Quiring Publisher: CCB Publishing ISBN: 1771431989 Category : Psychology Languages : en Pages : 92
Book Description
In 1974 Linda Quiring moved to Salt Spring Island, British Columbia to ‘find’ herself. Salt Spring Island was one of the centers for the counter-culture movement in Canada; home to hippies and back-to-the-landers. Soon, Linda encountered an enlightened man, Sydney Banks, and became his first student. Together they wrote Island of Knowledge under Linda’s authorship, detailing Syd’s teachings and the profound changes those listening experienced in their lives, health and relationships. Sydney Banks would ultimately become renowned for his revelation of The Three Principles inherent in those teachings. Linda and Syd remained friends until his passing in 2009. Before his death, Syd approached Linda about the possibility of getting Island of Knowledge republished. However, embarrassed by the ‘hippy’ jargon of the 1970’s, Syd asked that references to the times be changed. In deciding what should be left in, what changed, and what taken out, Linda and her publisher realized the book was in fact an important historical account of an amazing time and place and that to tamper with the integrity of the book would be a great disservice, thus it is republished exactly as is.
Author: Victoria L. Tunnermann Publisher: iUniverse ISBN: 0595148344 Category : Body, Mind & Spirit Languages : en Pages : 114
Book Description
When a bridge opens to the realms beyond our own, it is up to us to take the initiative and cross to the other side. This cannot be successfully completed if we choose the path that leads us toward negativity and unhappiness. That is why Pete and Mejik have come; to extend an invitation... This remarkable book takes us on an adventure to the source of our Truth; that which we must uncover in order to be happy. Through the sacred words of Pete and Mejik, entities who have brought their timeless wisdom to this world, secrets long forgotten are once again revealed. Islands of the Soul employs visualizations and meditations meant to connect us with the seven Islands within us; Quality, Love, Knowledge, Beauty, Balance, Perception, and Nothingness. It is a guide to the regions of our selves that we too often ignore, yet desperately yearn to find. Instead of looking to outside sources for what we desire, we are taught that we alone have the power to manifest our dreams and wishes. We walk away from this book feeling enlightened, knowing we can achieve anything without fear. For once we choose to access our Islands, we create a pathway beyond the realm of fear; a pathway to the Divine within.
Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Author: Darold A. Treffert
Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Author: Ilana M. Gershon
Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Author: Marcelo Gleiser
Author: Linda Quiring
Author: Victoria L. Tunnermann
Author: Samuel Maunder
Author: Samuel Maunder