Philosophy of science Books

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Book SynopsisMartin Harwit, author of the influential book Cosmic Discovery, asks key questions about the scope of observational astronomy. Humans have long sought to understand the world we inhabit. Recent realization of how our unruly Universe distorts information before it ever reaches us reveals distinct limits on how well we will ultimately understand the Cosmos. Even the best instruments we might conceive will inevitably be thwarted by ever more complex distortions and will never untangle the data completely. Observational astronomy, and the cost of pursuing it, will then have reached an inherent end. Only some totally different lines of approach, as yet unknown and potentially far more costly, might then need to emerge if we wish to learn more. This accessible book is written for all astronomers, astrophysicists, and those curious about how well we will ever understand the Universe and the potential costs of pushing those limits.Trade Review'A fitting conclusion, and perhaps the most provocative of Martin Harwit's trilogy, Cosmic Discovery, In Search of the True Universe, and now Cosmic Messengers, which discusses the limitations of what we can learn about the universe from observational astronomy, and the implications for the future of observational astronomy and society.' Lennard A. Fisk, Thomas M. Donahue Distinguished University Professor of Space Science, University of Michigan'This brilliant work by the distinguished astrophysicist - and philosophy-of-science theoretician - Martin Harwit brings forward a uniquely synthesized view of astronomy and astrophysics, and how we got to be where we are in understanding the Universe. This magnum opus is a fascinating book that should be read by all astrophysicists and held by all libraries.' Jay M. Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy, Williams College, Massachusetts'… this is an interesting and challenging book.' Robert Connon Smith, The Observatory magazine'I am not aware of a better 36-page introduction to cosmology. … the book is interesting and informative.' William L. Vanderburgh, Metascience'Cosmic Messengers should be of interest to a wide audience of astronomers, other scientists, historians of science, government agency planners, and anyone who wants to see the fruits of curiosity- driven research. It will also be a valuable resource to students and others aiming to place their research into a much larger context.' James Moran, Physics TodayTable of ContentsPreface; Part I. Instruments, Messengers, and Cosmic Messages: 1. Instruments, Messengers, Astrophysics and Cosmochemistry; 2. Primordial Messengers and their Interpretation; Part II. The Bounded Energies of Nature's Messengers: 3. Cosmic Ray Particles, Photons, and Leptons; 4. Gravitational Waves; 5. Gravitational Lensing; Part III. Parameters Specifying Individual Messengers: 6. The Ranges of Messenger Parameters; Part IV The Pace of Progress; 7. An Era of Surveys; 8. The Accumulation of Discoverable Phenomena; 9. The Human Aspect of the Cosmic Search; Appendix: Symbols, Glossary, Units and their Ranges; Index.

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Book SynopsisThe scientific and rational conclusion that intelligence and not chaos is the driving force behind the universe.

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Book SynopsisScientific literacy is an essential aspect of any undergraduate education. Recipes for Science responds to this need by providing an accessible introduction to the nature of science and scientific methods appropriate for any beginning college student. The book is adaptable to a wide variety of different courses, such as introductions to scientific reasoning, methods courses in scientific disciplines, science education, and philosophy of science.Special features of Recipes for Science include contemporary and historical case studies from many fields of physical, life, and social sciences; visual aids to clarify and illustrate ideas; text boxes to explore related topics; plenty of exercises to support student recall and application of concepts; suggestions for further readings at the end of each chapter; a glossary with helpful definitions of key terms; and a companion website with course syllabi, internet resources, PowerPoint presentations, lecture notes, addi

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Book SynopsisThis is a rare book on a rare topic: it is about ''action'' and the Principle of Least Action. A surprisingly well-kept secret, these ideas are at the heart of physical science and engineering. Physics is well known as being concerned with grand conservatory principles (e.g. the conservation of energy) but equally important is the optimization principle (such as getting somewhere in the shortest time or with the least resistance). The book explains: why an optimization principle underlies physics, what action is, what `the Hamiltonian'' is, and how new insights into energy, space, and time arise. It assumes some background in the physical sciences, at the level of undergraduate science, but it is not a textbook. The requisite derivations and worked examples are given but may be skim-read if desired. The author draws from Cornelius Lanczos''s book The Variational Principles of Mechanics (1949 and 1970). Lanczos was a brilliant mathematician and educator, but his book was for a postgraduate audience. The present book is no mere copy with the difficult bits left out - it is original, and a popularization. It aims to explain ideas rather than achieve technical competence, and to show how Least Action leads into the whole of physics.Trade ReviewJennifer Coopersmith has written a most welcome book, the first historically and philosophically motivated full study since two classics written nearly a half-century ago... [She] has attempted and succeeded admirably I believe in her aim to write a modern book on the history and philosophy of the action principles, as well as to give the technical details. * Chris Gray, American Journal of Physics *Any careful reader of this book will seek out the monograph without fail and benefit from its perusal... I have no hesitations in recommending this book to any physical scientist or engineer who wants to understand variational principles better. * M. P. Gururajan, Contemporary Physics *Recommended. * CHOICE *[C]ontagious enthusiasm and a sense of humour unusual in this kind of literature ... The first part is excellent reading for anybody with an interest in the history and philosophy of science. I also recommend the book to students in physics and mathematics who are willing to dig deeper into this subject after taking classes in analytical mechanics, and I believe that it is accessible to any student in STEM disciplines. Practitioners in physics from any sub-discipline will enjoy a refresh and a different point of view that puts their tools of the trade in a broader context. * Andrea Giammanco, CERN Courier *Inspired by the monumental work of Lanczos, Jennifer Coopersmith has constructed a beautiful exposition of the philosophical basis underlying classical mechanics. It has enough technical meat to be interesting to an expert, while remaining accessible to a novice. * Gerald Jay Sussman, Panasonic Professor of Electrical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *This is a well written and comprehensible presentation of some of the most fascinating and fundamental principles which theoretical physics has uncovered. The author has done a great job in making accessible 'as if-laws' to a broader audience. * Helmut Pulte, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany *This book has a general audience: every practicing physicist -- and a specific audience: every physics textbook writer. Envision and teach physics powerfully and directly with energy, action, and the Principle of Least Action. * Edwin F. Taylor, Senior Research Scientist Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology *Table of ContentsAPPENDICES

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Book SynopsisA new understanding of the role of myth and archetypal principles in our lives, based on the insights of a new cosmology.Trade Review'The radically expanded cosmological perspective that Keiron Le Grice has set out in The Archetypal Cosmos reflects a paradigm shift of enormous relevance for the future of psychology and psychotherapy. Le Grice has performed an invaluable service in carefully thinking through and articulating a spiritually informed view of the cosmos that integrates these developments … A lucid and groundbreaking synthesis.' — Stanislav Grof, author of Psychology of the Future and When the Impossible Happens'Le Grice has a gift, perhaps even a genius, for extremely clear assessments, expositions, and formulations of complex ideas -- all grounded in a deeper vision of things, which makes this clarity possible.'-- Richard Tarnas, author of The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche'Keiron Le Grice's book is a fantastic achievement, combining complex theories from leading figures in psychology and the physical sciences -- especially Carl Jung, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, and David Bohm. Le Grice's original synthesis demonstrates how profoundly these figures belong together in a new unified world view. With both the excellence of the writing and the high-powered nature of the ideas, The Archetypal Cosmos is destined to be an essential element in the contemporary planetary canon.'-- Brian Swimme, Professor of Cosmology, California Institute of Integral Studies'Humanity has much to gain from this synthesis between planetary cycles and the dynamics and patterns of human experience.'--Ruth Parnell, Nexus, April/May 2011.'The book takes the reader on an epic journey through many contrasting landscapes of thought.'The book is a brilliant synthesis of new ideas, and readers will have to decide for themselves whether the argument is ultimately compelling. It is certainly stated in a comprehensive manner.'--David Lorimer, Scientific Medical Network Review, Summer 2011'This is a book of considerable importance and relevance to the times we live in; for what it does is to bridge and overcome the longstanding historic gap between inner and outer worlds, thereby demolishing the West's Cartesian dualism in all its aspects. No mean thing, to put it lightly; and in doing this it heralds a new age which its author believes has already begun.'Keiron Le Grice's The Archetypal Cosmos has an immense amount to offer, having given this reviewer much food for thought.'--Jack Herbert, Temenos Academy

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Book SynopsisIn The Nature of Technology, ground-breaking economist W. Brian Arthur explores the extraordinary way in which the technology that surrounds us and allows us to live our modern lives has actually been developed. Rather than coming from a series of one-off inventions, almost all the technology we use today comes from previous developments: these technologies are not being created, but are instead evolving.With fascinating examples, from laser printers to powerplants, Arthur reveals how our own problem-solving skills and creative vision can evolve alongside these technologies, and how this understanding can even improve our understanding of the wider world.Trade ReviewA profoundly social view of innovation * The New York Times *Deeply analytical and thought-provoking * Good Book Guide *Entertaining and informative ... a thought-provoking book * Literary Review *

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Book Synopsis-- What is the true nature of water and does it have memory?-- By working with the rhythm and flow of water, can we increase its life-giving power?Water is not only fundamental to life but is essential for the cycles and changes in nature. John Wilkes argues as well that water is the universal bearer of whatever character we put into it. For this reason the way we treat water is of crucial importance to our health, and to the well-being of our planet.Working with his remarkable invention, the Flowform, Wilkes has uncovered hidden secrets of the world of water, and at the same time created an artform of great beauty. His lifetime of applied research into rhythms and water, fully revealed in this book for the first time, has startling implications for such topical issues as farming and irrigation; food production and processing; water treatment and recycling; and health and cosmetic products.This ground-breaking book is lavishly illustrated to show both the beauty of the Flowform and the wide range of its applications.Trade Review'With extraordinary depth of vision, Wilkes shares more than thirty years of accumulated ideas, experiments, experiences and creative, innovative designs with water. Benefits from many photographs and illustrations.'-- Maggie Lee, Resurgence, May 2004'John Wilkes patented his first Flowform water sculpture over 30 years ago. This is the story of his studies into the nature and behaviour of water and the pioneering development of the special water sculptures. Detailed accounts of research are richly illustrated, including many beautiful images of the swirling patterns. The book is full of both scientific observations and a celebration of the beauty and wonder of water, and the beauty and wonder of the sculptures it has inspired John Wilkes and his team to create.'-- Kathleen Askew, Permaculture, March 2004'One of the aims of the book is to raise our consciousness about water and get us to reassess our attitude to it and in this it most definitely succeeds. With the aid of copious photographs, drawings and diagrams, our attention is drawn to how much life there is in water. I found this an extremely interesting, informative and attractive book.'-- Rosemary Usselman, New View, December 2003'Contains many beautiful illustrations of water-in-motion from rivers and waterfalls, to the art of designing water features for a garden.'-- Pentacle, Spring 2004Table of ContentsPart 1: Rhythm and polarity1. Water and rhythm2. Rhythm and flow: the water cycle3. MetamorphosisPart 2: Discovering the Flowform4. Experimenting with water5. Discovery of the Flowform Method6. The Flowform and the Living WorldPart 3: Applications and Research7. Järna: the first major Flowform project8. The next generation of Flowforms9. The Metamorphic Sequence10. Research with Cascades11. Flowform related developments12. The Flowform throughout the World13. Present and FutureAppendix 1: MetamorphosisAppendix 2: Flowform types, designs and applicationsAppendix 3: Scientific and technical aspectsAppendix 4: Virbela Rhythm Research Institute

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAt once expansive and intimate, empirical and immanent, analytical and intuitive, material and spiritual—science and poetry get to dance joyfully together in these pages, allowing us to see and celebrate our fundamental kinship with all beings, united by the forces that propel life's improbable unfolding. In this time of crisis, we urgently need the planetary ethic that resists the degradation of the shimmering world. * Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants *I am so glad this important book is being revised for our time. It is wise, calm, and compassionate; it treats us as the mature, complex, and fascinating creatures that we are; and it helps point the way towards a future where we act together far better than at present. * Bill McKibben, Founder of 350.org and author of The Flag, the Cross, and Wonders What the Hell Happened and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at his Suburban Boyhood *What a beautiful, lyrical, lively, fascinating, and outstanding book. Delightful to read. Awesome achievement. * Richard Wrangham, Human Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, author of The Goodness Paradox *Not since Loren Eiseley or Lewis Thomas has biology had such an eloquent spokesperson, nor one with so much heart. Finally, someone who can breathe life into molecules and make us feel it. * Terrence Deacon, Cognitive Science Program, University of California Berkeley, author of Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter *Goodenough's bridge between science and religion is both eloquent and elegant. She offers the poetry, power, and passion of her vision of nature, born from scientific knowledge and nurtured by religious sensibility, and she illumines the path to an ecomorality that is comprehensive and compelling. * Mary Evelyn Tucker, School of the Environment, Yale University, co-producer of the film Journey of the Universe *This book is a gem. Not only are the science passages an exquisite introduction to astronomy, cell biology and evolution, but her reflections on the meaning she personally derives from such knowledge leave the reader yearning for more. Her passages on the meaning of death--indeed, a celebration of death, for the kind of life and love only it can call forth--is unsurpassed by all the outpourings from the humanities. She is fully, intimately, restfully at home in the universe, in her version of divinity: the sacred depths of nature. And then, able to draw no more from either the science or her own soul, she offers up a poem or psalm from various of the world's wisdom traditions. * Connie Barlow, Eco-activist, author of Green Space, Green Time: The Way of Science *A truly fascinating, wide-ranging, beautifully written, and eye-opening book that considers the origins of earth, the origins of life itself, where we are now, where we are most likely heading, and the importance of developing a shared global cosmology and ecomorality that can benefit us all in the future. * Marc Bekoff, Ecology and Evolution, U. Colorado, author of Rewilding our Hearts: Building Pathways of Compassion and Coexistence *Ursula Goodenough argues passionately, wisely and even lyrically for a new, modern, scientifically-informed world view that can tell us both about the Universe we inhabit and the moral rules we need to inhabit it well. This is a wonderful account of the history of life by a great biologist. It invites us to find in modern science the profound sense of wonder and belonging, and the deep ethical sense present in all the world's religious traditions. * David Christian, History, Macquarie University, author of Origin Story: A Big History of Everything *Even better the second time around! Engagingly and clearly written, replete with striking metaphors—especially ones from music—and with conscientious respect for the scientifically untrained reader. A convincing demonstration of the integral relation between generously open-minded natural science and equally receptive, non-dogmatic religious thought. The two are shown to interact with, jointly inform, and mutually inspire one another in Goodenough's engrossing version of Religious Naturalism. Here the compelling sacredness of all of living and non-living nature is brought into sharp focus. * Donald Crosby, Philosophy, Colorado State University, author of Sacred and Secular: Responses to Life in a Finite World *What perfect timing for this revised edition of Ursula Goodenough's classic, The Sacred Depths of Nature. As we witness and experience, emotionally and socially, the unraveling of the biosphere and industrial civilization, a meaningful, reverential worldview grounded in evidence is more relevant than ever. An excellent introduction to the religious naturalist orientation! Only my wife, Connie Barlow's, Green Space Green Time, is even in the same league. Bravo, Ursula! * Michael Dowd, Eco-theologian, author of Thank God for Evolution *Tender, yet passionate, Goodenough immerses us in a collective spiritual vision, allowing us to discover and feel the numinous in science, synthesizing these understandings and the religious impulse without doing harm to either. Our best hope for a future. * Anne Druyan, Writer/director/producer of COSMOS and co-creator with Carl Sagan of the motion picture CONTACT *The Sacred Depths of Nature is both a spiritual exercise and a sophisticated, crystal clear, and lyrical primer on what science teaches us about this wondrous universe and the mysterious gift that is being here at all. * Owen Flanagan, Philosophy, Duke University, author of The Geography of Morals *No one speaks for Indigenous Peoples as a whole, nor does one person speak for any Indigenous lifeway. Yet indigenous elders do speak about their people's relationships with the cosmos, with our shared world. In The Sacred Depths of Nature, Ursula Goodenough presents an exquisite and informed view of life on Earth from the perspective of a "religious naturalist." By including appreciative attention to Indigenous ways of knowing, Ursula points towards ways of assent, attunement, and intimacy that elders also know from the standpoints of their lifeways. The depths of this vibrancy resonates in the fecundity of emerging life, speaking to both. * John Grim Forum On Religion and Ecology, Yale University, editor of Indigenous Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community *Goodenough invites us to share her extraordinary personal experience of nature and its meaning, and encourages us to imagine that this can be our experience too. That's the great joy she gives us, the gift of herself and, with it, the gift of ourselves. It's irresistible. * Philip Hefner, Lutheran School of Theology, author of Human Becoming in an Age of Science, Technology, and Faith *Hosanna! Here, now, this! The New Revised Version of Sacred Depths of Nature is manna from heaven on Earth. Muons and neutrinos, eukaryotic sex and somatic death, covenant with mystery, Goodenough's Gospel of Life is the true myth we and our planet desperately need. * Michael S. Hogue, Meadville Lombard Theological School, author of American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World *This book is a treasure for all those who seek to connect with a deeper meaning in the universe without jettisoning empirical scientific evidence. Ursula Goodenough dissolves the conventional split between science and religious orientation, showing with delightful prose and breathtaking examples how a deeply scientific investigation can naturally lead us to a 'covenant with mystery' and a 'credo of continuation.' * Jeremy Lent, Author, The Patterning Instinct and The Web of Meaning *Thank you, Ursula Goodenough, for telling us the science-based story of life on earth and the wonders of our universe in a way that brings them down to the level of our hearts, and deeper still, to the very place from where our prayers come. * Peter Mayer, Singer/songwriter, lyricist of "Blue Boat Home." *To experience the sacred, we need not ask the WHY question, which is, after all, unanswerable. In this absolutely amazing book, biologist Ursula Goodenough shows us that pondering the HOW of things brings us face to face with that which is sacred. Through science, poetry, and her own remarkable personal stories, Goodenough shares her profound religious stance as a Credo of Continuation. * Jennifer Morgan, President, Deeptime Network *An engaging, authoritative account of the evolution and molecular basis of life from the perspective of a religious naturalist who rejoices in the complexity and wonder of the natural world. A successful cell biologist and gifted writer, Goodenough weaves together our scientific understanding of the appearance, place and workings of life on earth in the context of the diversity of religious traditions. The book will inspire both scientists and non-scientists to appreciate the magic of our existence and the necessity to preserve that which makes it possible. * Thomas Pollard, Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, Yale University, co-author of textbook Cell Biology 4th Edition *Goodenough's masterpiece unites the beauty of biology and the wonders of evolution in a magnificent, heartfelt celebration of life. Like its author, this book is eloquent, vibrant, inspiring and truly one-of-a-kind. * Barbara Smuts, Psychology, University of Michigan, author of Sex and Friendship in Baboons *Incisive, comprehensive, witty, and beautiful, with paragraph after paragraph of lucidity and significance. We could be witnessing one of the most important cultural events of the last three centuries - the moment when scientists themselves take seriously their role in forging a planetary wisdom. * Brian Swimme, Evolutionary cosmologist, California Institute of Integral Studies, co-author of The Journey of the Universe *A delicious account of the grandeur and intricacies of natural reality that will have you falling in love with the beauty of scientific knowledge while honoring the grand wisdom of religious valuing. The new chapters on human evolution, human morality, and eco-morality reveal why The Sacred Depths of Nature remains a remarkable gift for our generation. Goodenough demonstrates, in her inimitable lucid, poetic style, a religious naturalist orientation that is uniquely positioned to address—all at once!—such urgent topics as systemic, structural racism, cultural imperialism, and environmental injustices. * Carol Wayne White, Bucknell University, author of Black Lives and Sacred Humanity Toward an African American Religious Naturalism *I have been waiting years for this paean to the universe. With lustrous turns of phrase, skillful explanations of nature, a profound vision of the past, and a prescient sense of the future, Ursula Goodenough reintroduces us to the present moment, the fulsome present, bursting with an invitation to gratitude and reverence. There's not a single person on this planet who doesn't need and deserve this book. * Wesley J. Wildman, School of Theology and Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences, Boston University, author of Spirit Tech *The first edition of The Sacred Depths of Nature was a revelation to me. Before reading it, I had no idea that the workings of a single cell were so elaborate as to be awe-inspiring. This second edition has brought many more such revelations. Illustrated with lovely photos and poems from wise poets, this is a detailed short treatise on the science of life. It proves once again that a science book can be a page turner. I learned from every page and could not wait for the next one. * Paul Woodruff, Philosophy, U Texas Austin, author of Living Toward Virtue: Practical Ethics in the Spirit of Socrates *Extensively revised with full-color photos and diagrams, each chapter begins with a story about the dynamics of Nature, including the origins and evolution of the universe and life on Earth. The book's construction is like a science-based "daily devotional" and can best be read as such. It is rich and detailed enough that you may want to read it over time. Like the first edition, each topic is carefully yet poetically examined objectively through the lens of science, followed by the author's personal reflections on each. * Harold Wood, Universal Pantheist Society *Table of ContentsPersonal 1997 (first edition) Personal 2022 (second edition) Introduction How This Book Is Put Together 1 Origins of the Earth 2 Origins of Life 3 How Life Works 4 How an Organism Works 5 How Evolution Works 6 The Evolution of Biodiversity 7 Awareness and the I-Self 8 Interpretations and Feelings 9 Sex 10 Intimacy 11 Multicellularity and Death 12 Human Evolution 13 Human Morality and Ecomorality Epilogue: Emergent Religious Principles The Religious Naturalist Orientation Endnotes: Legends for Cover Image and Chapter Frontispieces Endnotes: References and Further Reading/Resources

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Book SynopsisPlanet Earth needs a self-help book, and this is itThe future is happening to us far faster than we thought it would and this book explains whyFifty years after Marshall McLuhan''s ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture The Medium is the Massage, Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist extend the analysis to today, touring the world that''s redefined by the Internet, decoding and explaining what they call the ''extreme present''.The Age of Earthquakes is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives. The authors invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and ''mindsource'' images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists. Wayne Daly''s striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It''s like a culturally prescient, all-knoTrade ReviewBrainy book that will rock your world * Evening Standard *Absolutely amazing -- Jon Snow * Channel 4 News *An email-like, culturally-perceptive exploration of our digital realities... a mix between a dystopian modern glossary, Internet memes, multiple-choice dropdowns, mindsourced images and a fair bit of wisdom, it is a self-help book for the "last generation that will die" * AnOther Magazine *A philosophical Anarchist Cookbook for the online era, when we are in touch with everyone at once all the time, or like to feel that we are... Like Marshall McLuhan's iconic dictum "the medium is the message" or the staccato bursts of meaning of George W.S. Trow's essay-book In the Context of No Context, The Age of Earthquakes is an abstract representation of how we feel now about how we are now. It's a book insistently engaged with the present tense... Perhaps it is the 21st century's first book-meme * Pacific Standard *Many of us feel like technologies of the future are arriving too slowly, but a new philosophy-cum-modern-self-help book suggests that, in fact, it's dawning on us faster than we ever thought possible * Vice *A pocket-sized primer on our blossoming obsolescence -- Kate Sutton * Art Forum *Age of Earthquakes = panic-inducingly addictive -- Penny Martin, editor of The GentlewomanIt's a fun, visual and easy read. Verdict: In the future all books will be written this way -- Sultan Saood Al QassimiAn abstract representation of how we feel about our digital world * Hello! *I don't know about you but I would very much like a guide to this brave new world * Huck *Addictive... A fun read. But one that makes you question how you read, why you read and just how much the internet has restructured our brains... It is a book not only inspired by the internet, but seemingly written by the internet. It is as if the internet gained not only artificial self-consciousness but wisdom - and then became your pal -- Tod Wodicka * National *I think everyone should read it -- Mike Pinnington * Double Negative *The Age of Earthquakes seeks to induce paradoxical visions of the contemporary, both ambivalent and critical * V Magazine *

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Book SynopsisSamir Okasha approaches evolutionary biology from a philosophical perspective in Agents and Goals in Evolution, analysing a mode of thinking in biology called agential thinking. He considers how the paradigm case involves treating an evolved organism as if it were an agent pursuing a goal, such as survival or reproduction, and seeing its phenotypic traits as strategies for achieving that goal or furthering its biological interests. As agential thinking deliberately transposes a set of concepts--goals, interests, strategies--from rational human agents and to the biological world more generally, Okasha''s enquiry firstly looks at the justification for this: is it mere anthropomorphism, or does it play a genuine intellectual role in the science? From this central question, key points are considered such as: how do we identify the ''goal'' that evolved organisms will behave as if they are trying to achieve? Can agential thinking ever be applied to groups rather than to individual organisms? And how does agential thinking relate to the controversies over fitness-maximization in evolutionary biology? In addition, Okasha examines the relation between the adaptive and the rational by considering whether organisms can validly be treated as agent-like. Should we expect their evolved behaviour to correspond with that of rational agents as codified in the theory of rational choice? If so, does this mean that the fitness-maximizing paradigm of the evolutionary biologist can be mapped directly to the utility-maximizing paradigm of the rational choice theorist? All of these important questions are engagingly raised and discussed at length.Trade ReviewOkasha provides a convincing and valuable analysis of a particular, some might say peculiar, way of doing science. Both biologists and philosophers will have much to gain from reading this book. * J. Arvid Ågren, The Quarterly Review of Biology *Review from previous edition Agents and Goals in Evolution is essential reading for philosophers and biologists interested in subjects where reference to agency occurs, including fitness optimization, kin selection, and social evolution. It also touches on the relation between rationality and evolution, which could make it of interest to scholars working outside evolutionary biology but seeking to understand the appeal to evolution in different scientific fields. * Adrian Stencel, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences *Samir Okasha's 2018 book might well become the consensus classic text for biologists to fall back on when they find themselves unable to resist both function talk and agent talk in the course of their inquiries and explanations. It covers the ground with admirable clarity, caution and scholarship, delving in detail into the formal work by Hamilton, Maynard Smith, Grafen, Trivers and others, while also considering a wealth of theoretical and empirical research in behavioral ecology, cognitive ethology, economics and psychology. * Daniel C. Dennett, Metascience *His book is thought-provoking, and it provides an excellent entry point into an interesting multidisciplinary literature. I will certainly make use of it in the future as a reference work. * Andy Gardner, Metascience *remarkably well argued and deep for a book that covers so much ground. Okasha clarifies and organizes many formerly disparate ways of using agential thinking in biology, discussing grand ideas with extraordinary clarity and subtly. * Hannah Rubin, Metascience *I have barely scratched the surface here of the many subtle, rich and illuminating points made in this book. Anyone with a serious interest in the foundations of evolutionary theory and the nature of evolutionary explanation will get a lot out of it, whatever their disciplinary background. * Jonathan Birch, Mind *Okasha's overall discussion is admirably clear, focused, and integrative, despite ranging over literatures from evolutionary biology, game theory, rational choice theory, and the philosophy of economics. He brings much order to what can be a confusing set of issues and debates . . . those looking for a clear overview of agential thinking in the evolutionary sciences will learn much from the book, and it will be important reading for philosophers of the biological and social sciences more generally. * Robert A Wilson, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *Table of ContentsPart I: Agency in Evolutionary Biology 1: Agential Thinking and its Rationale 2: Genes and Groups as Agents Part II: The Goal of Fitness Maximization 3: Wright s Adaptive Landscape, Fisher s Fundamental Theorem 4: Grafen s Formal Darwinism, Adaptive Dynamics 5: Social Evolution, Hamilton s Rule, Inclusive Fitness Part III: Rationality meets Evolution 6: The Evolution-Rationality Connection 7: Can Adaptiveness and Rationality Part Ways? 8: Risk, Rational Choice and Evolution Final Thoughts

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Book SynopsisThis volume presents two closely related essays by Thomas Nagel: Gut Feelings and Moral Knowledge and Moral Reality and Moral Progress. Both essays are concerned with moral epistemology and our means of access to moral truth; both are concerned with moral realism and with the resistance to subjectivist and reductionist accounts of morality; and both are concerned with the historical development of moral knowledge. The second essay also proposes an account of the historical development of moral truth, according to which it does not share the timelessness of scientific truth. This is because moral truth must be based on reasons that are accessible to the individuals to whom they apply, and such accessibility depends on historical developments. The result is that only some advances in moral knowledge are discoveries of what has been true all along.Table of ContentsPreface 1. Gut Feelings and Moral Knowledge 2. Moral Reality and Moral Progress Index

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Book SynopsisFinished only weeks before his death in 1994, this autobiography traces the trajectory that led Feyerabend him from an isolated, lower-middle-class childhood in Vienna to the height of international academic success as one of this century's most influential intellectuals.

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Book SynopsisOriginally published in German in 1935, this monograph anticipated solutions to problems of scientific progress, the truth of scientific fact and the role of error in science now associated with the work of Thomas Kuhn and others. Arguing that every scientific concept and theoryincluding his ownis culturally conditioned, Fleck was appreciably ahead of his time. And as Kuhn observes in his foreword, Though much has occurred since its publication, it remains a brilliant and largely unexploited resource.To many scientists just as to many historians and philosophers of science facts are things that simply are the case: they are discovered through properly passive observation of natural reality. To such views Fleck replies that facts are invented, not discovered. Moreover, the appearance of scientific facts as discovered things is itself a social construction, a made thing. A work of transparent brilliance, one of the most significant contributions toward a thoroughly sociological account o

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Book SynopsisThis introduction to the philosophy of technology discusses its sources and uses. Tracing the changing meaning of technology from ancient times to the modern day, it identifies two important traditions of critical analysis of technology: the engineering approach and the humanities approach.

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Book SynopsisThis book is about how the wonderful diversity of the universe can arise out of a set of fairly simple basic laws. It is written by an expert in both the fundamental laws and the complex structures that they can produce.'' Stephen Hawking''s acclaim of Murray Gell-Mann''s literary debut is typical of the reception the book received on first publication in 1994.From one of the twentieth century''s greatest scientists comes this unique, highly personal vision of the connections between the basic laws of physics and the complexity and diversity of the natural world. THE QUARK AND THE JAGUAR - the simple and the complex - is an irresistibly engaging and rewarding introduction to the life''s work of physicist, polymath and Nobel Laureate Murray Gell-Mann.

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Book SynopsisHans Vaihinger (18521933) was an important and fascinating figure in German philosophy in the early twentieth century, founding the well-known journal Kant-Studien. Yet he was overshadowed by the burgeoning movements of phenomenology and analytical philosophy, as well as hostility towards his work because of his defense of Jewish scholars in a Germany controlled by Nazism.However, it is widely acknowledged today that The Philosophy of As If' is a philosophical masterwork. Vaihinger argues that in the face of an overwhelmingly complex world, we produce a simpler set of ideas, or idealizations, that help us negotiate it. When cast as fictions, such ideas provide an easier and more useful way to think about certain subjects, from mathematics and physics to law and morality, than would the truth in all its complexity. Even in science, he wrote, we must proceed as if a material world exists independently of perceiving subjects; in behaviour, we must act as Table of ContentsForeword to the Routledge Classics Edition Michael Rosenthal General Introduction Part 1: Basic Principles General Introductory Remarks on Fictional Constructs A. The Enumeration and Division of Scientific Fictions B. The Logical Theory of Scientific Fictions C. Contributions to the History and Theory of Fictions D. Consequences for the Theory of Knowledge Part 2: Amplified Study of Special Problems 1. Artificial Classification 2. Further Artificial Classifications 3. Adam Smith's Method in Political Economy 4. Bentham's Method in Political Science 5. Abstractive Fictional Methods in Physics and Psychology 6. Condillac's Imaginary Statue 7. Lotze's 'Hypothetical Animal' 8. Other Examples of Fictitious Isolation 9. The Fiction of Force 10. Matter and Materialism as Mental Accessories 11. Abstract Concepts as Fictions 12. General Ideas as Fictions 13. Summational, Nominal, and Substitutive Fictions 14. Natural Forces and Natural Laws as Fictions 15. Schematic Fictions 16. Illustrative Fictions 17. The Atomic Theory as a Fiction 18. Fictions in Mathematical Physics 19. The Fiction of Pure Absolute Space 20. Surface, Line, Point, etc., as Fictions 21. The Fiction of the Infinitely Small 22. The History of the Infinitesimal Fiction 23. The Meaning of the' As If' Approach 24. The Fictive Judgment 25. The Fiction contrasted with the Hypothesis Part 3: Historical Confirmations A. Kant’s Use of the ‘As If’ Method B. Forberg, The Originator of the Fichtean Atheism-Controversy, and his Religion of As-If C. Lange's 'Standpoint of the Ideal' D. Nietzsche and his Doctrine of Conscious Illusion. Subject Index Index of Names

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Book Synopsis Stimulating and often startling discussions between three friends, all highly original thinkers: Rupert Sheldrake, controversial biologist, Terence McKenna , psychedelic visionary, and Ralph Abraham , chaos mathematician. Their passion is to break out of paradigms that retard our evolution and to explore new possibilities. Through challenge and synergy they venture where few have gone before, leading their readers on an exciting journey of discovery. Their discussions focus on the evolution of the mind, the role of psychedelics, skepticism, the psychic powers of animals, the structure of time, the life of the heavens, the nature of God, and transformations of consciousness. “Three fine thinkers take us plunging into the universe of chaos, mind, and spirit. Instead of leaving us lost, they bring us back with startling insights and more wonder than we knew we had.” —Matthew Fox, Original Blessing and Sheer Joy A jam-session of the mind, an intellectual movable feast, an on-going conversation that began over twenty years ago and remains as lively and relevant today as it ever was. Sadly, Terence had to leave the conversation a little earlier than planned. But the appearance of this book of trialogues at this critical, historical juncture is a reaffirmation of the potency of the optimistic vision that the trialogues express. —Dennis McKenna, brother of the late Terence McKenna Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of many books including The Sense of Being Stared At, And Other Aspects of the Extended Mind. Ralph Abraham is a mathematician, one of the pioneers of chaos theory and the author of several books including Chaos, Gaia, Eros: A Chaos Pioneer Uncovers the Three Great Streams of History. The late Terence McKenna was a scholar of shamanism, ethno-botanist, psychedelic researcher and author of many books including Food of the Gods and True Hallucinations.

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Book SynopsisDual-Aspect Monism and the Deep Structure of Meaning investigates the metaphysical position of dual-aspect monism, with particular emphasis on the concept of meaning as a fundamental feature of the fabric of reality. As an alternative to other positions mainly dualism, physicalism, idealism that have been proposed to understand consciousness and its place in nature, the decompositional version of dual-aspect monism considers the mental and the physical as two aspects of one underlying undivided reality that is psychophysically neutral. Inspired by analogies with modern physics and driven by its conceptual problems, Wolfgang Pauli, Carl Gustav Jung, Arthur Eddington, John Wheeler, David Bohm, and Basil Hiley are the originators of the approaches studied. A radically novel common theme in their approaches is the constitutive role of meaning and its deep structure, relating the mental and the physical to a psychophysically neutral base.The authors reconstruct the formal struTrade Review"In summary, the present book is well-written and provides a fascinating philosophical alternative to the usual suspects from metaphysics . . . It is recommended to those who feel that the problem of understanding mind and consciousness has something to do with the fundamental nature of reality itself. Its emphasis on the role of meaning in grounding this reality is novel and makes for a refreshing read."Robert Prentner, Journal of Consciousness Studies"The core argument of the book comes across clearly enough, the argument is of great philosophical and cultural importance, and the detailed discussions amply repay study. Also, this book is, to my mind, one of the most illuminating works yet published for understanding the philosophical underpinnings of Jung’s thought and its potential contributions to our current cultural situation."Roderick Main, Journal of Analytical Psychology“We have in this book a remarkable argument for the centrality of meaning in the workings of the world taken as a whole . . . While remaining grounded in careful analysis and a profound grasp of the argument’s scientific, philosophical, and psychological foundations, there is an almost mystical dimension as well . . . Atmanspacher and Rickles challenge analytical psychology and modern physics to a rich dialogue going forward.”George B. Hogenson, International Journal of Jungian StudiesTable of ContentsIntroductionPart 1: Monism and Meaning1. Historical Background to Dual-Aspect Monism2. Varieties of MeaningPart 2: Three Approaches to Dual-Aspect Monism3. Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Gustav Jung4. Arthur Eddington and John Wheeler5. David Bohm and Basil HileyPart 3: Discussion and Perspectives6. Comparative Discussion7. Ideas for Future Research8. Outlook: After Physicalism

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Book SynopsisThis Element offers a novel concept of human nature, which avoids problematic essences and helps unite references to human nature across the sciences and popular media. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.Table of Contents1. Introduction; 2. Against Human Nature; 3. Is Human Nature a Bin of Traits?; 4. The Trait Cluster Account of Human Nature; 5. Challenges to the LTC Account of Human Nature; 6. What Can We Do with the LTC Account of Human Nature?; 7. Conclusions; References.

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Book SynopsisBerry discusses motivations for, and alternatives to, the Potentialist approach to set theory, providing a new and more intuitive justification for the standard axioms of set theory. This book will interest students and scholars of the philosophy of set theory, modal logic, and the role of mathematics in the sciences.

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Book SynopsisDistinctive in its attention to both the underlying philosophical and sociological aspects of science and technology, the second edition of this popular textbook provides students with an up-to-date road map of the complex interdisciplinary terrain of science and technology studies.Trade Review“Sergio Sismondo’s book represents a very useful and clear introduction to Science and Technology Studies (STS), a relatively new academic field that has at its core the relationship between scientific knowledge, technological systems, and society . . . The rich set of references can help readers who want to learn more.” (Theor Med Bioeth, 1 May 2012) Praise for first edition "For an introduction to science and technology studies, one cannot find a better book. Sismondo sets a high standard for clarity of writing for books aimed at university students. The important historical background blends well with the underlying philosophical and sociological concepts. Extremely important to all readers are the boxed-text case studies, definitions, and examples that permeate and intelligently adorn every chapte. The index and references immensely help readers desiring to learn more." (Choice, November 2003) "Carefully argued and well balanced…topics are handled with a clarity and lightness... overall impression…of a field with solid foundations that is looking to the future." (ISIS)Table of ContentsPreface vii 1 The Prehistory of Science and Technology Studies 1 2 The Kuhnian Revolution 12 3 Questioning Functionalism in the Sociology of Science 23 4 Stratification and Discrimination 36 5 The Strong Programme and the Sociology of Knowledge 47 6 The Social Construction of Scientific and Technical Realities 57 7 Feminist Epistemologies of Science 72 8 Actor-Network Theory 81 9 Two Questions Concerning Technology 93 10 Studying Laboratories 106 11 Controversies 120 12 Standardization and Objectivity 136 13 Rhetoric and Discourse 148 14 The Unnaturalness of Science and Technology 157 15 The Public Understanding of Science 168 16 Expertise and Public Participation 180 17 Political Economies of Knowledge 189 References 205 Index 236

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Book SynopsisWhy are we alive? Most things in the universe aren't. And if you trace the evolutionary history of plants and animals back far enough, you will find that, at some point, neither were we. Scientists have wrestled with this problem for centuries, and no one has been able to offer a credible theory. But in 2013, at just 30 years old, biophysicist Jeremy England published a paper that has utterly upended the ongoing study of life's origins. In Every Life Is on Fire, he describes, for the first time, his highly publicized theory known as dissipative adaptation. In any disordered system, matter clumps together and breaks apart, mostly randomly, without consequence. But some of the clumps that form are momentarily better at doing one specific job: dissipating energy. These structures are less likely to fall apart. Over time, they become better at both withstanding the disorder surrounding them and creating copies of themselves. From this deep insight, grounded in thermodynamics, England is able to isolate the emergence of the first life-like behaviors. Scientists have always thought that life began as a stroke of spectacular luck. But in fact, life may be inevitable, a product of the iron physical laws of the universe.England is both a world-class physicist and an ordained rabbi, and so his enquiry doesn't end with the physics of life. We ask questions like "How did life begin?" not just for the fun of scientific inquiry, but because we want a deeper understanding of who we are and why we're here. Even if physics can explain how life-like behaviors emerged, England doubts that reducing life down to the energy flows of a bunch of microscopic particles can ever give us a satisfying answer to what it means to be alive?. He believes that life is fundamentally a philosophical distinction, not a natural one. So before we can seriously look for life's physical origins, we must first make basic choices about what we think life means. This is something researchers often fail to recognize, and it is why, throughout In Every Life Is on Fire, England informs the premises of his theory with a careful exploration of what life is for.For anyone who reads this book, no matter their creed, In Every Life Is On Fire offers a rare work of popular science that explores not just what science does, but how it imbues our lives with meaning.

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Book SynopsisThe world, we are told, is made up of particles and forces. Evolution, impelled by the single purpose of survival, is guided by chance through natural selection -- survival of the fittest. DNA, from the core of each cell, directs the chemical-mechanical unfolding of life. Consciousness and self are mere artefacts of the brain’s firing neurons, it is argued.The great scientific revolution of the last five hundred years, with its technological glories and medical miracles, has arrived at the above set of summary conclusions -- or some slightly tweaked variations -- depicting a random, indifferent and wholly impersonal cosmos.But it is a picture that has been fraying at the edges for some time. Progress in medicine, quantum physics, open-systems biology, consciousness studies, epistemology, the arts and philosophy all point in a radically different direction. However, fresh, coherent narratives have not yet fully emerged out of this progress, and so the old model stubbornly endures. Hearts and Minds: Reclaiming the Soul of Science and Medicine tells a tale of emerging discoveries that restore ourselves and our own understanding as integral to the workings of the world.Trade Review'Hearts and Minds is a remarkable book. Alexander, a veteran writer on medical research and therapies, takes us directly into an exploration of a central question of our time: is everything -- most importantly consciousness (including thinking, feeling, meaning, and values) produced ultimately by neurons, molecules, DNA and hormones? It is a rich offering -- always exciting, well-told and made understandable to us less-than-expert readers.' -- Douglas Sloan, Professor of History and Education Emeritus at Columbia University, New York

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Book SynopsisWhat do scientists actually do? Is science "value-free"? How has science evolved through history? Where is science leading us? "Introducing Philosophy of Science" is a clear and incisively illustrated map of the big questions underpinning science. It is essential reading for students, the general public, and even scientists themselves.

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Book SynopsisIs everything Information? This is a tantalizing question which emerges in modern physics, life sciences, astronomy and in today’s information and technology-driven society. In Powers of Two expert authors undertake a unique expedition - in words and images - throughout the world (and scales) of information. The story resembles, in a way, the classic Powers of Ten journeys through space: from us to the macro and the micro worlds . However, by following Powers of Two through the world of information, a completely different and timely paradigm unfolds. Every power of two, 1, 2, 4, 8…. tells us a different story: starting from the creation of the very first bit at the Big Bang and the evolution of life, through 50 years of computational science, and finally into deep space, describing the information in black holes and even in the entire universe and beyond…. All this to address one question: Is our universe made of information? In this book, we experience the Information Universe in nature and in our society and how information lies at the very foundation of our understanding of the Universe.From the Foreword by Robbert Dijkgraaf: This book is in many ways a vastly extended version of Shannon’s one-page blueprint. It carries us all the way to the total information content of the Universe. And it bears testimony of how widespread the use of data has become in all aspects of life. Information is the connective tissue of the modern sciences. […] Undoubtedly, future generations will look back at this time, so much enthralled by Big Data and quantum computers, as beholden to the information metaphor. But that is exactly the value of this book. With its crisp descriptions and evocative illustrations, it brings the reader into the here and now, at the very frontier of scientific research, including the excitement and promise of all the outstanding questions and future discoveries.Message for the e-reader of the book Powers of Two The book has been designed to be read in two-page spreads in full screen mode. For optimal reader experience in a downloaded .pdf file we strongly recommend you use the following settings in Adobe Acrobat Reader: - Taskbar: View > Page Display > two page view - Taskbar: View > Page Display > Show Cover Page in Two Page View - Taskbar: ^ Preferences > Full Screen > deselect " Fill screen with one page at a time" - Taskbar: View > Full screen mode or ctrl L (cmd L on a Mac) ***** Note: for reading the previews on Spinger link (and on-line reading in a browser), the full screen two-page view only works with these browsers: Firefox - Taskbar: on top of the text, at the uppermost right you will see then >> (which is a drop-down menu) >> even double pages - Fullscreen: F11 or Control+Cmd+F with Mac Edge - Taskbar middle: Two-page view and select show cover page separatelyTrade Review“The book … a very unusual collection of some facts about the relationship between the immaterial world represented by bits and the real physical world described by fundamental physical equations. This book continues the very categorical point of view of J. A. Wheeler … . The book presents short articles on various areas of modern science … in which it is shown that in these areas in some mysterious way there is a connection with the theory of information.” (Vladimir Dzhunushaliev, zbMATH 1479.83004, 2022)Table of ContentsForeword by Robbert DijkgraafChapter 0: IntroductionJoy-riding the Universe – by the authorWorking as an astronomer, data scientist and professor of astro-informatics for nearly fifty years, Edwin Valentijn has witnessed and first-hand engineered the dawn of the era of Big Data in science and society. Throughout his career, he became increasingly aware of the role of information in our world: in computers, in our society, and even in nature and in the Universe itself.The Information UniverseFollowing the increasing powers of two, the story paints a journey through the whole world of information, both in society and in nature. Each step opens a door into a new world: from the first bits with the Big Bang and the dawn of life, going through fifty years of human technology, all the way up to the information content of the whole Universe.What is Information? - Item pageThe basics of information are introduced.Chapter 1: The beginningSpace-time foam – Ti (0 bit: 20 =1)The very first power of two: 20, corresponds to the value one. This identifies the single, eternal, indistinguishable state: the primordial sea from which our Universe emerged – sometimes called the Space-time foam. I call this Ti, the reverse of It. This is one of the miraculous new notions in the story of the Powers of Two.Multiverse: Anthropic principle (Item page)From Ti, the primordial space-time foam, countless universes arise with widely different characteristics: the Multiverse. The Anthropic Principle is a philosophical consideration which states that we, people, will find ourselves in a universe that is suitable for intelligent life to emerge. Therefore, this Principle demonstrates that conditions in our Universe are not “fine-tuned” to the existence of human life and a “creator” doesn’t exist.Big bang (1 bit: 21 =2 states)At the Big Bang the first bit is created. From the indistinguishable unity of the primordial foam Ti, “the zeros were separated from the 1’s”: the first bit corresponds to two possible states. This bit is the first step on our journey to capture the ever-increasing complexity of our expanding Universe in terms of information, through the increasing powers of two.What is a bit? (Item page)The bit is at the core of the concept of information. A bit is any system that can have two states. Humans assign meanings to these states, which are illustrated with the concept of the traffic light: red or green, stop or go. The combination of multiple bits creates an exponentially increasing number of possible states, and hence meanings.Multicellular life (2 bit: 22 =4 states) / (4 bit: 24 =16 states)?Life started with exchanging information between cells. This is fundamental for the evolution of any kind of life. It took at least two billion years for uni-cellular to evolve into multi-cellular organisms around 600 million years ago, and to start the exchange of information between their different cells. By exchanging information, cells collaborate and act as a unified whole: life.The game of life (Item page)The characteristic features of life (or any complex system in the Universe) can be created from information. A simple computer game is all you need to demonstrate this concept. A famous example is Conway's Game of Life, which is full of visuals of living, growing, moving and dying objects. This game was already made on the computers of the early 70's with just a few lines of code.Chapter 2: People's Information UniverseASCII (7 bit: 27 =128 states)There is currently no physical theory how the digital world connects to the human consciousness. In the world of Information Technology (IT) all information exchange is based on agreements between people. For instance, ASCII, a simple list relating each letter of the alphabet to a 7-bit string, connects the digital world to the human consciousness. Machu Picchu (8 bit: 28 =256, 1 byte)The Intiwatana stone, a giant rock carved by the Inca's of ancient Machu Picchu in Peru, can be considered as a first 8-bit hard disk. Why so? As the sunrays lit the different surfaces of this huge rock throughout the year, it triggered the Inca's activities: sowing, harvesting, celebrating and praying.This ancient stone dissolves both the boundaries between heaven and earth, and those between the digital and natural Information Universe. In fact, the stone represents an ultimate picture of the cross-over between the in vivo and the in vitro Information Universe - a main theme of the book. In vitro being the man made technology to handle information and in vivo being the information built in nature, in this case the orbit and the light rays of the sun.First computers (16 bit: 216 =65.536, 2 byte)When computers emerged in the 1970's, astronomers first adopted them to steer their telescopes. Back then, a maximal effort to understand the mathematics of the problem was needed to squeeze the solution into the small computer memory. Nowadays, with large amounts of computing power and machine learning at their disposal, scientists and computer programmers often do the reverse.Star Peace vs. Star Wars (Item page)King Juan Carlos adored the harmony of galaxies as a source of inspiration for people on earth, in those days when Ronald Reagan was promoting his Star-wars programme. With this adoration in mind, in 1985, he gave an inspiring speech at the Royal inauguration of the international astronomical observatory on La Palma, Canary Islands. The inauguration was attended by, for those days, an unprecedented large crowd of European royals and government officials despite the great threat of terrorist attacks by the ETA. (the next and later spreads on facts vs fakes elucidate the relevance of this spread in the story line).Pre-internet Facts and Fakes (Item page)“Edwin Valentijn saved the life of the Dutch Queen Beatrix by catching her just before falling off a cliff at the inauguration on La Palma”, according to the headlines in Dutch newspapers. Fake news-stories are at all times alike and can only be dispelled by tracing links of information to their source, links or associations being a fundamental property of the Information Universe. Later, I discuss the less innocent case of overdrawing attention to terrorist attacks in the past decade.Hard disk (24 bit: 224 =1.6*107, 2 Mb)Only sixty years ago, a 5 MB hard disk weighed over five tons, and had to be loaded onto an aeroplane by using a truck. Now, we carry a thousand times more information in our trouser pocket. This demonstrates the amazing advance of information technology over the past decades. (Picture: first IBM hard disk loaded onto a plane).The telephone (Item page) As a precursor of the Internet, the telephone offered many of the same advantages and dangers, and was heavily discussed at its introduction. Whether telephone or the Internet, it all revolves around communication or copying of information. The telephone, as example of it, is one of the major discoveries of the 20th century. DNA (32 bit: 232 = 4*109, 500 Mb) – Guest author: Charley Lineweaver The information in the DNA creates life. All base pairs of the human DNA can be stored on a 500 Mb drive. How is this information communicated? How does a cell know it has to build part of a liver and not an eye, while they all have the same DNA? Apoptosis and the role of information exchange.Where does biological Information come from? (Item page) – Guest author: Charley Lineweaver Charley Lineweaver, expert on evolutionary biology, exoplanetology and astrobiology, will expand on the role of information in the evolution of life.Lifelines (Item page) – Guest author: Morris SwertzWhat is the role of nature versus that of nurture? A key question in modern health research. In Lifesciences, this question is addressed now using Big Data, like the astronomers who acquire huge data volumes to address the same question on the nature of galaxies. In Lifelines, a cohort of 165.000 people is studied over a period of 30 years using hospital data, blood samples and DNA scans.DVD (33 bit: 233 =9*109, 1 Gb)It’ s amazing how fast the digital image revolution went since 1989.30 years ago, Philips lab approached me since they had made a big discovery: it was possible to store many digital images on a CD. They were chasing me for digital images. While NASA had less than a thousand, I had 32.000 galaxy images obtained by scanning photographic plates from the European Southern Observatory – the first large digital image collection.Human Brain (36 bit: 236 =7*1010, 9 Gb) – Guest author: Katrin Amunts- JulichIn the large EU human brain project, the activities of the human brain are simulated in computers. This is a very difficult mission since the transistors in computers consume 100.000 billion times more energy than the synapsis of neurons. Our brains consist of 1011 neurons, corresponding to 9 Gb of data.Thinking of Karlheinz Meier, coordinator of the Human Brain Project in Heidelberg, Katrin Amunts will author two spreads on the role of information in the human brain.Neuromorphic computing – Guest author: Katrin AmuntsCurrently, it takes a hundred years of a supercomputer’s time to compete with the learning power of only a single day of the human brain. “Neuromorphic computing” researchers design electronic systems inspired by the human brain, in order to make computers many times faster and more energy efficient.CT scan (38 bit: 238 =3*1011, 34 Gb) – Guest author: Anders YnnermanNow it is possible to look inside animal and human bodies on touchscreens. Forensic investigations on, for instance, corpses of victims can be done with touch-screen tables. You can look inside, rotate, scroll and zoom animal and human bodies using tens of gigabytes of CT scan data. Prof. Anders Ynnerman explains how he does it.Terabytes (45 bit: 245 =4.4*1012, 1 Tb) - The largest (astronomical) datasetsDark energy and dark matter: two mysterious constituents of our Universe. How do astronomers get and handle the data from the VLT Survey Telescope on a high mountain top in Chile to shed lights on these ‘still too dark’ topics. This Telescope surveys the sky every hour at night generating Terabytes of astronomical data.Gravity as a lens (Item page) – Guest author: Margot BrouwerWhen light rays are bent by the gravity of a heavy object, this object acts as a lens. This effect can be used to map dark matter, which is invisible but constitutes 80% of the matter in our visible Universe. In 1915, Albert Einstein posed that gravity is equivalent to the curvature of the fabric of space and time itself, leading to the lensing effect.Weak gravitational lensing surveys – Guest author: Margot BrouwerTerabytes of astronomical data are reduced to a few numbers, describing how dark matter behaves and what is its true nature. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCyYGWqCmFw&t=23sEntering the Petabyte regime (53 bit: 253 =1*1015, 1 Pb)How do we technically acquire and deal with Petabytes of data?Dark Matter maps (Item page)A first dark matter map projected on the night sky. An ultimate encounter between the digital world of modern astronomical observations, and nature: the mysterious dark matter mapped on top of the everyday “night” stellar sky. A visualization that condenses Terabytes of astronomical data to a simple map.Metadata for Peta-data (62 bit: 262 =6*1017, 600 Pb)With pointers, one can connect everything in the Information Universe. Pointers are often inserted in Metadata (data about data) - an ultimate tool for dealing with Big Data. It is possible to create unique pointers to hundreds of Petabytes of data, using a string of less than 64 bits. This is what makes pointers so powerful and indispensable in current and future stages of the big data era; not only for astronomical research, but also for companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook.Downloading the Universe (Item page)The universe can be seen as a spreadsheet, certainly in the way we map it on our computers (in vitro), but also in nature (in vivo). Perceiving the Universe as a spreadsheet links bit to It.Meta data (Item page)A visualisation of the enormous complexity of data models which trace all pointers between data items. (picture: thrilling still from a full dome animation of a data model)Future (astronomical) datasets (item page)While current telescopes collect astronomical datasets of Terabytes, future telescopes such as the LSST and the Euclid satellite, instead, will collect Petabytes. These enormous amounts of data need a whole new approach to data management. For the Euclid satellite my “Universe as a spreadsheet” approach has been adopted.The Euclid satellite (Item page) – Guest author: Margot BrouwerEuclid is ESA’s new space mission to map the Dark Universe. At a distance of 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, this telescope will observe billions of galaxies. Its goal: to shed light on the nature of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, which make up 95% of our Universe. Dr. Margot Brouwer, Dutch scientific communication officer for Euclid, will explain more.The Information Universe (Item page)The resemblance of the overall structure of the real observed Universe (in vivo) with the simulated universe (in vitro), based on the concurrent cosmological model, gave a lot of credit to the latter. When we zoom out the Universe, we see billions of galaxies forming a web-like structure. Amazingly, astronomers can now compute and simulate these structures with very large supercomputers.The lost boy (Item page)Information is timeless, and knows no boundaries. It crosses over the in vivo and the in vitro Information Universe. This concept is well illustrated through daily life stories involving time. At the age of five, a boy loses sight of his older brother on a train in India, and eventually gets lost on the streets of Mumbai. Twenty years later, after being adopted by a family in Australia, he is able to find his natural mother (in vivo) through only searching on Google maps (in vitro).Qbits (50 qbit: 250 =1.1*1015 qbit, 1 Pbit) – Guest author: Lieven VandersypenUsing fundamental particles (quanta, such as electrons) to perform calculations and build computers, is one of the most exciting cross-overs between the in vivo and the in vitro Information Universe. Prof. Lieven Vandersypen, who leads a Quantum Computing group at TU Delft in the Netherlands, will explain how this technology will change the way we compute.Quantum entanglement (Item page) – Guest author: Lieven VandersypenThe states of two particles can be intimately linked (entangled), no matter how far they are separated. What Einstein famously dismissed as “spooky action at a distance”, can now be established on demand at TU Delft in the Netherlands. Prof. Vandersypen will explain how his research group, for the first time ever, both create and apply this entanglement in laboratory.Entanglement (item page) - EVThe Square Kilometre Array (64 bit: 264 =1.3*1018, 1 Eb) – Guest author: TBAThe Square Kilometre Telescope will collect data at the rate of the global internet traffic of 2013, in its endeavour to answer fundamental questions about the origin and evolution of the Universe, and its search for extra-terrestrial life.Cryptography (128 bit: 2128 =3.4*1038) – Guest author Tanja LangeEncrypted messages should not be decoded by adversaries, be they criminals or hostile countries. Cryptography enables secure communications and is one of the few applications which require 128-bit numbers. A guest author will explain more.Chapter 3: Deep spaceThe Desert (128-256 bit) Theoretical physics is not progressing much in the last decennia – some call it a crisis. Likely, an observational breakthrough is out of reach: the highest man-made information density on earth is produced by the high energy accelerators at CERN. But these accelerators have to be 1013 -1015 more powerful to reach the fundamental unit of information, which is probably at the same level of the Planck length. Unfortunately, there is no way to reach this unit of information with these instruments. This enormous gap in reaching all the domains in the Information Universe is illustrated in a figure and in a very sobering, but instructive table in the Appendix.Black holes (128-256 bit?) – Guest author: Manus VisserCan information disappear into a black hole? The Information paradox. Stephen Hawking wondered it and started a field in which space and time are described in terms of information. Dr. Manus Visser, expert on gravity and space-time, will explain more.Observing a Black Hole: Event Horizon Telescope – Guest author: Heino FalckeThe first image of a black hole. Prof. Heino Falcke, chair of the Event Horizon Telescope Science Council, will explain how information from a world-wide network of telescopes was combined using atomic clocks, to create the first ever image of a black hole. (Picture: first image of a black hole)Cogwheels: a deeper level – Guest author: Gerard 't HooftNobel laureate ‘t Hooft explains his views on cogwheels, carrying the fundamental information in the Universe.Gravitational waves – Guest author: Chris van den BroeckLinks: The Universe as a spreadsheetLinks, joins, references, URLs, blockchain, associations and even entanglement in physics are all different words for the same building block, forming the connections in the Information Universe.Cosmic Microwave Background – Guest author: Margot BrouwerParticles of light created in the hot and dense state of the Universe after the Big Bang are still flying through the Universe today. Together, these 1077 photons contain the largest amount of information known in the Universe. This information can still be accessed through telescopes, and brings us invaluable information about the dawn of our Universe.Emergent Gravity – Guest author: Erik VerlindeProf. Erik Verlinde, professor of theoretical physics at the University of Amsterdam, won the Spinoza prize for his new theory explaining gravity. In his theory, all matter, space and time consist of information and are all connected by entanglement. If this theory is correct, the information content of the entire Universe is 2399. This is the highest power described in this book, and actually, in physics.Chapter 4: It from BitOne big information processing machine – Guest author: Gerard 't Hooft (TBC)t Hooftt Hooft: : ““there is something happening at a different level of nature”there is something happening at a different level of nature”..On the origin of physical information. – Guest author: Stefano GottardiThe ear In the ear information is copied a dozen times!The eye – on the visual perception of data- climate change. Links to - facts and fakes- the system of ScienceThe System of ScienceHow does this system work? Discussing Hegel’s system of science, logic, technology, Nature, life, physics, consciousness.Artificial IntelligenceThe machine learning and the data-base oriented communities are still living on different planets. I discuss and revisit Tegmark’s recent book Life 3.0 by comparing 3 crosscuts through the Information Universe: i) the classical computer centric view ii) the data centric view iii) the artificial intelligence view.Information densityThe average information density of the universe can be compared to that of written text.Black Body radiation On the information aspects of the third big physical breakthrough of the 20th century (next to General relativity and quantum mechanics).EntropyDiscussing Shannon’s work and identifying that “Information only exists in relation to its environment”. Examples will be given.Cosmic information, cosmogenesis and dark energy by PadmanabhanCosmic information connects the cosmological constant to cosmogenesisIt from BitIs the Universe one big information processing machine?ConsciousnessVery little is known about the consciousness and I refrain from addressing the consciousness per se. A relevant list of about 5 facts we do know are listed. Any view on the relation between the consciousness and the Information Universe should at least deal with this list.Somnium – Musician Jacco Gardner performing at DOTLiveplanetarium at Eurosonic 2019 show case music festival- Inspired by Kepler’s Somnium – directed by EV The Information UniverseAn overview.Facts and fakesHow is all this related to the current facts and fakes issues on the Internet? How do you make sure that what you are reading is accurate and comes from a reliable source?The link between Open Science, FAIR and reliability of data.

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Book Synopsis"Structure of Science: Problems in the Logic of Scientific Explanation - 2nd Edition".Trade ReviewErnest Nagel's work, The Structure of Science , has earned for itself the status of an outstanding standard work in its field. It offers an exceptionally thorough and comprehensive methodological and philosophical exploration encountered in those diverse fields. Nagel's discussion is distinguished by the lucidity of its style, the incisiveness of its reasoning, and the solidity of its grounding in all the major branches of scientific inquiry. The Structure of Science has become a highly influential work that is widely invoked in the methodological and philosophical literature. Recent controversies between analytics and historic-sociological approaches to the philosophy of science have not diminished its significance; in fact, it seems to me that the pragmatist component in Nagel's thinking may be helpful for efforts to develop a rapprochement between the contending schools. --Carl G. Hempel

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2018 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Title!PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS EDITIONS This is a brilliantly clear introduction (and indeed reframing) of the history and philosophy of science in terms of worldviews and their elements. In addition, the book is incredibly well-informed from both a scientific and philosophical angle. Highly recommended.Scientific and Medical Network Unlike many other introductions to philosophy of science, DeWitt''s book is at once historically informative and philosophically thorough and rigorous. Chapter notes, suggested readings, and references enhance its value.Choice Written in clear and comprehensible prose and supplemented by effective diagrams and examples,Worldviewsis an ideal text for anyone new to the history and philosophy of science. As the reader will come to find out, DeWitt is a gifted writer with the unique ability to break down complex and techTable of ContentsList of Figures xv Acknowledgments xix Introduction 1 Part I: Fundamental Issues 5 1 Worldviews 7 Aristotle’s Beliefs and the Aristotelian Worldview 7 Aristotle’s beliefs 8 The Aristotelian worldview 12 The Newtonian Worldview 12 Concluding Remarks 13 Evidence 13 Common sense 14 2 Truth 17 Preliminary Issues 17 Clarifying the Question 18 Correspondence Theories of Truth 19 Coherence Theories of Truth 20 Different versions of coherence theories 20 Problems/Puzzles about Correspondence Theories of Truth 22 Assessing the accuracy of representations 23 The Total Recall scenario 24 A word of caution 26 Problems/Puzzles for Coherence Theories of Truth 26 Philosophical Reflections: Descartes and the Cogito 28 Concluding Remarks 29 3 Empirical Facts and Philosophical/Conceptual Facts 31 Preliminary Observations 31 A Note on Terminology 34 Concluding Remarks 34 4 Confirming and Disconfirming Evidence and Reasoning 36 Confirmation Reasoning 36 Disconfirmation Reasoning 37 Inductive and Deductive Reasoning 37 Concluding Remarks 42 5 The Quine–Duhem Thesis and Implications for Scientific Method 43 The Quine–Duhem Thesis 43 Bodies of beliefs and the tribunal of experience 44 Crucial experiments 45 The underdetermination of theories 46 Implications for Scientific Method 47 Aristotle’s axiomatic approach 48 Descartes’ axiomatic approach 51 Popper’s falsificationism 51 The hypothetico-deductive method 52 Concluding Remarks 53 6 A Philosophical Interlude: Problems and Puzzles of Induction 54 Hume’s Problem of Induction 54 Hempel’s Raven Paradox 57 Goodman’s Gruesome Problem 59 Concluding Remarks 60 7 Falsifiability 61 Basic Ideas 61 Complicating Factors 62 Concluding Remarks 64 8 Instrumentalism and Realism 66 Prediction and Explanation 66 Instrumentalism and Realism 67 Concluding Remarks 70 Part II: The Transition from the Aristotelian Worldview to the Newtonian Worldview 73 9 The Structure of the Universe on the Aristotelian Worldview 75 The Physical Structure of the Universe 75 Conceptual Beliefs about the Universe 77 Concluding Remarks 80 10 The Preface to Ptolemy’s Almagest: The Earth as Spherical, Stationary, and at the Center of the Universe 81 The Earth as Spherical 82 The Earth as Stationary 84 Common-sense arguments 84 The argument from objects in motion 86 The argument from stellar parallax 88 The Earth as the Center of the Universe 90 Concluding Remarks 91 11 Astronomical Data: The Empirical Facts 92 The Movement of the Stars 93 The Movement of the Sun 94 The Movement of the Moon 95 The Movement of the Planets 95 Concluding Remarks 98 12 Astronomical Data: The Philosophical/Conceptual Facts 99 A Scientific Problem with the Motion of the Heavenly Bodies 99 Three cautionary notes 102 Could This Account Be Used for a Moving Earth? 103 Concluding Remarks 104 13 The Ptolemaic System 106 Background Information 106 A Brief Description of the Components of Ptolemy’s Treatment of Mars 107 The Rationale behind These Components 108 Concluding Remarks 114 14 The Copernican System 115 Background Information 115 Overview of the Copernican System 116 Comparison of the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems 117 Respecting the facts 117 Complexity 118 Retrograde motion and other more “natural” explanations 118 From a realist standpoint, which system is the more plausible model of the universe? 120 What Motivated Copernicus? 121 Neoplatonism 121 Copernicus’ commitment to uniform, circular movement 122 The Reception of the Copernican Theory 123 Concluding Remarks 124 15 The Tychonic System 125 16 Kepler’s System 128 Background Information 128 Tycho Brahe’s empirical observations 128 Tycho and Kepler 129 Kepler’s System 130 What Motivated Kepler? 131 Kepler’s desire to read the mind of God 132 Concluding Remarks 136 17 Galileo and the Evidence from the Telescope 138 Background Information 138 Galileo and the Catholic church 138 A note on the nature of the evidence from the telescope 139 Galileo’s Evidence from the Telescope 141 Mountains on the moon 141 Sunspots 142 The rings, or “ears,” of Saturn 142 The moons of Jupiter 143 The phases of Venus 144 The stars 148 The Reception of Galileo’s Discoveries 148 Falsifiability issues 149 Concluding Remarks 152 18 A Summary of Problems Facing the Aristotelian Worldview 154 Problems for the Aristotelian Worldview 154 The Need for a New Science 157 Concluding Remarks 157 A word of caution 158 19 Philosophical and Conceptual Connections in the Development of the New Science 159 The Size of the Universe 159 Concluding Remarks 162 20 Overview of the New Science and the Newtonian Worldview 164 The New Science 164 The three laws of motion 165 Universal gravitation 165 Overview of the Newtonian Worldview 166 Philosophical Reflections: Instrumentalist and Realist Attitudes Toward Newton’s Concept of Gravity 168 Concluding Remarks 170 21 Philosophical Interlude: What Is a Scientific Law? 171 Scientific Laws 171 Common features associated with scientific laws 172 Exceptionless regularities 174 Counterfactuals 174 Context dependence 176 Ceteris paribus clauses 177 Concluding Remarks 178 22 The Development of the Newtonian Worldview, 1700–1900 179 Remarks on the Development of the Major Branches of Science, 1700–1900 179 Chemistry 180 Biology 181 Electromagnetic theory 182 General comments 184 Minor Clouds 184 The Michelson–Morley experiment 184 Black body radiation 187 Other issues 188 Concluding Remarks 190 Part III: Recent Developments In Science and Worldviews 191 23 The Special Theory of Relativity 193 Absolute Space and Absolute Time 193 Overview of the Special Theory of Relativity 195 The Irresistible Why Question 201 Is Special Relativity Self-Contradictory? 201 What about their disagreements on what the other clocks read? 204 From Joe’s point of view 205 From Sara’s point of view 205 Spacetime, Invariants, and the Geometrical Approach to Relativity 206 Concluding Remarks 210 24 The General Theory of Relativity 211 Basic Principles 211 The Einstein Field Equations and Predictions of General Relativity 213 Philosophical Reflections: General Relativity and Gravity 217 Concluding Remarks 218 25 Philosophical Interlude: Are (Some) Scientific Theories Incommensurable? 219 Preliminary Considerations 219 Exploring Incommensurability 221 Terminological incommensurability 222 Methodological incommensurability 224 Different worlds incommensurability 226 Discussion: Incommensurability and Scientific Progress 227 Concluding Remarks 229 26 Introduction to Quantum Theory: Basic Empirical Facts and the Mathematics of Quantum Theory 230 Facts, Theory, and Interpretation 230 The quantum facts 231 Quantum theory itself 231 Interpretations of quantum theory 232 Some Quantum Facts 232 A brief excursion into a reality issue 233 Four experiments 235 Overview of the Mathematics of Quantum Theory 239 Descriptive overview of the mathematics of quantum theory 239 If the mathematics of quantum theory is a familiar sort of wave mathematics, why do we often hear that quantum theory is such an unusual theory? 240 A somewhat more detailed, but still descriptive, overview of the mathematics of quantum theory 242 The evolution of states over time 247 Concluding Remarks 247 27 The Reality Question: The Measurement Problem and Interpretations of Quantum Theory 248 The Measurement Problem 248 What is a measurement? 248 The role of measurement in Newtonian science 250 The role of measurement in quantum theory 250 Schrödinger’s cat 253 The Measurement Problem 255 Subjectivity vs. objectivity 255 Measurement contexts vs. nonmeasurement contexts 256 System vs. apparatus; macroscopic vs. microscopic levels 256 Universality 257 Concluding thoughts on the measurement problem 258 Interpretations of Quantum Theory 258 Collapse interpretations 259 Mild measurement-dependent reality 261 Moderate measurement-dependent reality 262 Radical measurement-dependent reality (consciousness-dependent reality) 262 Non-collapse interpretations 263 Einstein’s realism 263 Bohm’s realism 265 The many-worlds interpretation 267 Observations on the interpretations of quantum theory 268 Concluding Remarks 271 28 Quantum Theory and Locality: EPR, Bell’s Theorem, and the Aspect Experiments 272 Background Information 272 The EPR Thought Experiment 273 The argument for (1) 275 Bell’s Theorem 276 Aspect’s Experiments 280 Locality, Nonlocality, and Spooky Action at a Distance 281 Concluding Remarks 285 29 Overview of the Theory of Evolution 286 Overview of the Basics of Evolutionary Theory 286 Darwin’s and Wallace’s discovery: Evolution by natural selection 286 A brief overview of evolutionary theory since Darwin and Wallace 288 A word of caution 292 Darwin’s and Wallace’s Paths to Natural Selection 293 The development of Darwin’s views 293 The development of Wallace’s views 296 Darwin’s On the Origin of Species 297 The reception of the Origin of Species 299 Concluding Remarks 299 30 Reflections on Evolution 300 Implications for Religion 300 Dennett, Dawkins, Weinberg, and others: “no” 301 Haught, process philosophy, and process theology 302 Discussion 305 Morality and Ethics 307 Empirical Studies 310 The iterated prisoner’s dilemma 310 The ultimatum game 313 Additional notes on cooperation and altruism 315 The trust game 316 Concluding Remarks 318 31 Worldviews: Concluding Thoughts 320 Overview 320 Reflections on Relativity Theory 322 Reflections on Quantum Theory 324 Reflections on Evolutionary Theory 325 Metaphors 326 Chapter Notes and Suggested Reading 329 References 349 Index 357

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Book Synopsis‘The most important book of 2022.’ Dr. Robert Malone Desmet’s work on mass formation theory was brought to the world’s attention on The Joe Rogan Experience and in major alternative news outlets around the globe. Read this book to get beyond the sound bites! In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet deconstructs the societal conditions that allow collective hypnosis to take hold. By analysing the global pandemic, he identifies the phenomenon of ‘mass formation’ and illustrates how humanity is being forcibly, unconsciously led into a reality of technocratic totalitarianism, which aggressively excludes alternative views and relies on destructive groupthink, vilifying non-conformist thought as ‘dissident.’ Building on Hannah Arendt’s essential work on totalitarianism, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Desmet offers a sharp critique of the cultural ‘groupthink’ that existed pre-pandemic but has steadily and inexorably advanced during the Covid crisis. He cautions against the dangers of our current societal landscape, media consumption, and reliance on manipulative technologies, offering simple solutions – both individual and collective – to prevent the willing sacrifice of our ability to think critically. The Psychology of Totalitarianism serves as an indispensable and fundamental guide to understanding this key moment in history. ‘Mattias Desmet's [theory of mass formation hypnosis] is great. . . . Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere.’ Eric ClaptonTrade Review"As I walk through the halls of a major US medical center, I see eyes that divert themselves away from me as I pass. When we engage in our usual discussions on patients, the topic of COVID-19 vaccination brings a halting response: ‘We don’t want to talk about it.’ I see fear, shame, and a never-ending cycle of groupthink that has been more contagious among physicians than aerosolized SARS-CoV-2 in a crowded elevator. Mattias Desmet, like a guided missile, has hit the target. The medical community is in mass formation and this led to a much larger penumbra that has enveloped the general population. In this book, Desmet has constructed an explanatory framework from which the cohesive fabric is suspended that clearly and concisely explains what is happening and what the next steps are that each and every one of us need to take to break the ‘spell’ and restore normalcy. A must read for our time.” —Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH; chief medical advisor, Truth for Health Foundation"Transcending medical controversies, this book offers an indispensable window into the social phenomenon we call COVID." —Charles Eisenstein, author of Sacred Economics and The Coronation"Mattias Desmet is the world’s expert on the phenomenon of mass formation—and one of the most sincere, thoughtful, and important intellectuals of the twenty-first century. If you want to understand why and how the coronavirus pandemic response unfolded the way it did at a societal level and—even more importantly—how to prevent such a travesty from happening again, The Psychology of Totalitarianism is essential reading. Desmet shows us how to reclaim our humanity in an increasingly dehumanized and mechanized world." —Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, trial attorney; cofounder, Berlin’s Corona Investigative Committee"In this masterful book, Desmet asks how we have arrived at the doorstep of totalitarianism. Taking the reader on a wild, scholarly ride through history, science, and psychology, he delivers answers both necessary and unexpected." —Heather Heying, PhD, evolutionary biologist; coauthor of A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century"Desmet is waking a lot of people up to the dangerous place we are now with a brilliant distillation of how we ended up here." —Robert F. Kennedy, Jr."Mattias Desmet’s theory of mass formation is the most important lens through which we can understand the COVID-19 pandemic and the social aberrations that accompanied it. In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, Desmet explains how and why people will willingly give up their freedom, how the masses can give rise to a totalitarian leader, and—most importantly—how we can resist these phenomena and maintain our common humanity. This is the most important book of 2022." —Dr. Robert Malone, author of Lies My Gov’t Told Me"Mattias Desmet’s [theory of mass formation hypnosis] is great. . . . Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere." —Eric Clapton"The foundational thinkers on mass formation are joined by Mattias Desmet, who now stands shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Arendt, Jung and Freud. His understanding and analysis of contemporary group behavior in a destabilized society, presents a fascinating window into the minds of the most complex beings on the planet. Desmet’s seminal work underlines the increasingly dangerous behavior of humanity—and that it must be understood and reversed if we are to survive as a species." —David Marks, writer and documentary producer"One of the most important books I’ve ever read." —Ivor Cummins, The Fat Emperor Podcast

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Book SynopsisOne of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, it provides the clearest statement of the fundamental idea that guided his work: that our knowledge grows by an unending process of trial and error.Trade Review'The central thesis of the essays and lectures gathered together in this stimulating volume is that our knowledge, and especially our scientific knowledge, progresses by unjustified (and unjustifiable) anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, in a word by conjectures. Professor Popper puts forward his views with a refreshing self-confidence.' - The Times Literary Supplement'Professor Popper holds that truth is not manifest, but extremely elusive, he believes that men need above all things, open-mindedness, imagination, and a constant willingness to be corrected. In summarizing his views in this way, I have done scant justice to the subtlety and importance of his argument. His own presentation of his case is luminously clear.' - Maurice Cranston, Listener'Popper holds that truth is not manifest, but extremely elusive, he believes that men need above all things, open-mindedness, imagination, and a constant willingness to be corrected.' – Maurice Cranston, Listener

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Book SynopsisThe new edition of this authoritative introduction to the philosophy of technology includes recent developments in the subject, while retaining the range and depth of its selection of seminal contributions and its much-admired editorial commentary.Table of ContentsSource Acknowledgments ix Introduction to the Second Edition xiii Part I The Historical Background 1 Introduction 3 1 On Dialectic and “Technē” 9 Plato 2 On “Technē” and “Epistēmē” 19 Aristotle 3 The Greek Concepts of “Nature” and “Technique” 25 Wolfgang Schadewaldt 4 On the Idols, the Scientific Study of Nature, and the Reformation of Education 33 Francis Bacon 5 Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View 47 Immanuel Kant 6 The Nature and Importance of the Positive Philosophy 54 Auguste Comte 7 On the Sciences and Arts 68 Jean-Jacques Rousseau 8 Capitalism and the Modern Labor Process 74 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Part II Philosophy, Modern Science, and Technology 89 Positivist and Postpositivist Philosophies of Science 91 9 The Scientific Conception of the World: The Vienna Circle 101 Rudolf Carnap, Hans Hahn, and Otto Neurath 10 Paradigms and Anomalies in Science 111 Thomas Kuhn 11 Experimentation and Scientific Realism 121 Ian Hacking 12 Hermeneutical Philosophy and Pragmatism: A Philosophy of Science 131 Patrick A. Heelan and Jay Schulkin 13 What are Cultural Studies of Science? 147 Joseph Rouse 14 Revaluing Science: Starting from the Practices of Women 161 Nancy Tuana 15 Is Science Multicultural? 171 Sandra Harding 16 On Knowledge and the Diversity of Cultures: Comment on Harding 183 Shigehisa Kuriyama The Task of a Philosophy of Technology 187 17 Philosophical Inputs and Outputs of Technology 191 Mario Bunge 18 Analytic Philosophy of Technology 201 Maarten Franssen 19 On the Aims of a Philosophy of Technology 205 Jacques Ellul 20 Toward a Philosophy of Technology 210 Hans Jonas 21 The Technology Question in Feminism: A View from Feminist Technology Studies 224 Wendy Faulkner Part III Defining Technology 239 Introduction 241 22 Conflicting Visions of Technology 249 Mary Tiles and Hans Oberdiek 23 The Mangle of Practice 260 Andrew Pickering 24 The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts 266 Trevor J. Pinch and Wiebe E. Bijker 25 Actor-Network Theory (ANT) 278 Bruno Latour 26 Actor-Network Theory: Critical Considerations 289 Sergio Sismondo Part IV Heidegger on Technology 297 Introduction 299 27 The Question Concerning Technology 305 Martin Heidegger 28 On Philosophy’s “Ending” in Technoscience: Heidegger vs. Comte 318 Robert C. Scharff 29 Focal Things and Practices 329 Albert Borgmann 30 Heidegger and Borgmann on How to Affirm Technology 350 Hubert L. Dreyfus and Charles Spinosa 31 Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads: Critique of Heidegger and Borgmann 362 Andrew Feenberg Part V Technology and Human Ends 375 Human Beings as “Makers” or “Tool-Users”? 377 32 Tool Users vs. Homo Sapiens and the Megamachine 381 Lewis Mumford 33 The “Vita Activa” and the Modern Age 389 Hannah Arendt 34 Putting Pragmatism (especially Dewey’s) to Work 406 Larry Hickman 35 Buddhist Economics 421 E. F. Schumacher Is Technology Autonomous? 426 36 The “Autonomy” of the Technological Phenomenon 430 Jacques Ellul 37 Do Machines Make History? 442 Robert L. Heilbroner 38 The New Forms of Control 449 Herbert Marcuse 39 Technological Determinism Is Dead; Long Live Technological Determinism 456 Sally Wyatt Technology, Ecology, and the Conquest of Nature 467 40 Mining the Earth’s Womb 471 Carolyn Merchant 41 The Deep Ecology Movement 482 Bill Devall 42 Deeper than Deep Ecology: The Eco-Feminist Connection 491 Ariel Salleh 43 In Defense of Posthuman Dignity 495 Nick Bostrom Part VI Technology as Social Practice 503 Technology and the Lifeworld 505 44 Cultural Climates and Technological Advance in the Middle Ages 511 Lynn White, Jr. 45 Three Ways of Being-With Technology 523 Carl Mitcham 46 A Phenomenology of Technics 539 Don Ihde 47 Postphenomenology of Technology 561 Peter-Paul Verbeek 48 Technoscience Studies after Heidegger? Not Yet 573 Robert C. Scharff Technology and Cyberspace 582 49 Consciousness in Human and Robot Minds 588 Daniel C. Dennett 50 Why Heideggerian AI Failed and How Fixing It Would Require Making It More Heideggerian 597 Hubert L. Dreyfus 51 A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century 610 Donna Haraway 52 A Moratorium on Cyborgs: Computation, Cognition, and Commerce 631 Evan Selinger and Timothy Engström 53 Anonymity versus Commitment: The Dangers of Education on the Internet 641 Hubert L. Dreyfus Technology, Knowledge, and Power 648 54 Panopticism 654 Michel Foucault 55 Do Artifacts Have Politics? 668 Langdon Winner 56 The Social Impact of Technological Change 680 Emmanuel G. Mesthene 57 Technology: The Opiate of the Intellectuals, with the Author’s 2000 Retrospective 693 John McDermott 58 Democratic Rationalization: Technology, Power, and Freedom 706 Andrew Feenberg

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOne of Science Friday's Best Science Books of 2015, chosen by Maria Popova One of The Independent.ie Irish Writers' Top Reads 2015 One of Brainpickings' The Best Science Books of 2015 "The Physicist and the Philosopher is an extraordinarily rich and wide-ranging work. Canales has rescued from near oblivion a fascinating, highly significant debate that is still relevant in an age which has begun uneasily to question the hegemony of science and its uncontrollable child, technology."--John Banville, London Review of Books "In illuminating a historic 1922 debate between Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson about the nature of time, Canales marks a turning point in the power of philosophy to influence science."--Publishers Weekly "Sparks--both incendiary and illuminating--fly from the collision of two giants!"--Booklist, starred review "This fascinating, scholarly, readable look at physics and epistemology will interest readers of science, history, philosophy, and biography."--Library Journal, starred review "Whether or not you agree, this humane and melancholy account of how two talents misunderstood each other will linger in the mind."--New Scientist "[Canales] weaves a tale around Europe and to America... [Her] subject raises important core philosophical issues, like the scope of philosophy itself."--Michael Ruse, The Chronicle of Higher Education "This fascinating book traces a debate about the nature of time... Canales has done a masterful job of research and explication. Her account of the debate is lively, the background of it is interesting, and the debate's ramifications as filtered through other minds are downright exciting. Anyone interested in physics or philosophy will have a field day with this book."--Kelly Cherry, The Smart Set "Canales does sterling work investigating these engagements ... [A] stimulating book."--Graham Farmelo, Nature "In The Physicist and the Philosopher, Canales recounts how Bergson challenged Einstein's theories, arguing that time is not a fourth dimension definable by scientists but a 'vital impulse,' the source of creativity. It was an incendiary topic at the time, and it shaped a split between science and humanities that persisted for decades--though Einstein was generally seen as the winner and Bergson is all but forgotten."--Nancy Szokan, Washington Post "A book remarkable both for its profound research and for its elegance in presentation. Intellectual history should always be so accessible."--Benjamin Franklin Martin, Key Reporter "[General and professional readers] will learn much from a study that is accessible and edifying to a great diversity of readers."--Choice "The Physicist and the Philosopher ... is at least three things: a monument to precise scholarship, an exemplar of logical clarity, and a fine example of excellent writing. I have rarely learned more from a book."--Peter A.Y. Gunter, Physics in Perspective "Brilliant."--James Gleick, Bits in the Ether "A masterwork of cultural forensics."--Maria Popova, Brainpickings "It's hard to imagine that any single author will ever outdo this account of the recent history of our concepts of time."--Chris Nunn, Journal of Consciousness Studies "A gripping critique of Einstein's thought and a convincing rehabilitation of Bergsonian time, freed from the tyranny of mathematics."--Hilary Davies, The TabletTable of ContentsPreface vii PART 1. THE DEBATE CHAPTER 1 Untimely 3 CHAPTER 2 "More Einsteinian than Einstein" 16 CHAPTER 3 Science or Philosophy? 38 PART 2. THE MEN CHAPTER 4 The Twin Paradox 53 CHAPTER 5 Bergson's Achilles' Heel 62 CHAPTER 6 Worth Mentioning? 73 CHAPTER 7 Bergson Writes to Lorentz 87 CHAPTER 8 Bergson Meets Michelson 98 CHAPTER 9 The Debate Spreads 114 CHAPTER 10 Back from Paris 131 CHAPTER 11 Two Months Later 139 CHAPTER 12 Logical Positivism 153 CHAPTER 13 The Immediate Aftermath 162 CHAPTER 14 An Imaginary Dialogue 172 CHAPTER 15 "Full-Blooded" Time 179 CHAPTER 16 The Previous Spring 195 CHAPTER 17 The Church 203 CHAPTER 18 The End of Universal Time 218 CHAPTER 19 Quantum Mechanics 230 PART 3. THE THINGS CHAPTER 20 Things 241 CHAPTER 21 Clocks and Wristwatches 252 CHAPTER 22 Telegraph, Telephone, and Radio 265 CHAPTER 23 Atoms and Molecules 274 CHAPTER 24 Einstein's Films: Reversible 283 CHAPTER 25 Bergson's Movies: Out of Control 292 CHAPTER 26 Microbes and Ghosts 303 CHAPTER 27 One New Point: Recording Devices 315 PART 4. THE WORDS CHAPTER 28 Bergson's Last Comments 327 CHAPTER 29 Einstein's Last Thoughts 337 Postface 349 Acknowledgments 359 Notes 363 Bibliography 423 Index 451

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Book SynopsisExplores the wealth of evidence for the reality of the biofield. Examining the wealth of evidence supporting the reality of the human biofield, Eric Leskowitz, M.D., explores the role of life energy in healing therapies and outlines its many manifestations at the individual, group, and global levels. He shows how energy therapies have been taboo in the West, from the French Royal Academy’s suppression of Franz Mesmer’s animal magnetism, to the FDA’s persecution of Wilhelm Reich and his orgone box therapy, to Wikipedia’s biased coverage of energy psychology. He then reveals irrefutable evidence for the clinical benefits of energy-based therapies and describes the obstacles he faced in his own attempts to bring these holistic approaches into the world of academic medicine. The author’s detailed exploration of phantom limb pain shows that this phenomenon is not a psychosomatic creation of the brain but is a tangible energetic st

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Book SynopsisThe New Biology argues that mechanical reductionism, though helpful in answering many biological questions, cannot on its own explain complex biological systems. Promoting a more holistic approach, the authors contend that both mechanistic and organicist views are invaluable frameworks for understanding life.Trade ReviewA feisty, engaging, and highly readable exploration of contemporary trends in biology. This book makes a compelling case for recovering organicist approaches to biology if we are to understand the complexity of life and biological systems. -- Alister McGrath, Andreas Idreos Professor of Science and Religion, University of Oxford Since the time of Aristotle, the nature of living systems has been a topic of major philosophical and scientific debate, enhanced by the rise of molecular biology and the sciences of emergent complexity during the twentieth century. In lucid prose, Reiss and Ruse reveal how the debate is extremely relevant to our lives today. -- Bruce Weber, coauthor of Darwinism Evolving The mechanism-holism debate undergirds much of the history and philosophy of biology, but it is often cast as a stale topic fraught with abstractions about the properties of life. This book offers us a lively, engaging, and occasionally provocative rethink about an age-old topic that is very much alive and relevant to contemporary biology today. -- Vassiliki Betty Smocovitis, University of Florida A fascinating exploration. Reiss and Ruse offer a clear roadmap for a better understanding of complexity and emergence across the life sciences, vital for evolution, behavioral science, science education, and science's conversation with faith. -- Joe Cain, Professor, University College London Science is often portrayed as an objective quest for truth, not influenced by the social, cultural, historical, and religious contexts in which it is practiced. In this splendid book, Michael Ruse and Michael Reiss show that science has always been, and will likely always be, in reciprocal influence, and in continuous interaction, with the many ways through which we perceive the world. Reading this book will make you see science in a brand new way. -- Kostas Kampourakis, coauthor of Uncertainty: How It Makes Science Advance This is an informative, clearly written, and timely exploration of the historical roots and the current uses and misuses of the notions of mechanism and organicism. The insights in this book could lead to richer methodologies and better coping mechanisms across health, gender, race, ecological sustainability, and religion. -- Eva Jablonka, author of Picturing the Mind: Consciousness through the Lens of Evolution

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Book SynopsisThis lively account of the foundations of quantum mechanics is at once elementary and deeply challenging. It is an introduction accessible to anyone with high school mathematics and, at the same time, a rigorous discussion of the most important recent advances in our understanding of quantum physics, a number of them made by the author himself.Trade ReviewOver the past two decades, philosophers of physics have worked long and hard…to extract the philosophical pith from the theoretical physics. There are now a number of excellent books which explain the issues at a reasonably advanced level to non-physicists. Albert’s is among the best of the bunch. -- David Papineau * Times Literary Supplement *A lively, lucid, elementary, yet deeply challenging account. The layperson and seasoned philosopher and scientist alike could do no better in their attempts to get out of the quantum muddle than to read this book. -- Frank Arntzenius, University of Southern CaliforniaThis is a wholly original, engaging, and provocative work on the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, written in David Albert’s inimitable style. -- Jeffrey Bub, University of MarylandTable of ContentsPreface 1. Superposition 2. The Mathematical Formalism and the Standard Way of Thinking about It 3. Nonlocality 4. The Measurement Problem 5. The Collapse of the Wave Function 6. The Dynamics by Itself 7. Bohm's Theory 8. Self-Measurement Appendix: The Kochen-Healy-Dieks Interpretations Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the story of John Draper, Andrew White, and the conflict thesis: a centuries-old misconception that religion and science are at odds with one another.Renowned scientist John William Draper (1811-1882) and celebrated historian-politician Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918) were certain that Enlightened Science and Dogmatic Christianity were mortal enemies--and they said as much to anyone who would listen. More than a century later, their grand and sweeping version of history dominates our landscape; Draper and White''s conflict thesis is still found in countless textbooks, lecture series, movies, novels, and more. Yet, as it would later be discovered, they were mistaken. Their work has been torn to shreds by the experts, who have declared it totally at odds with reality. So how, if this is the case, does their wrongheaded narrative still live on? Who were these two men, and what, exactly, did they say? What is it about their God-versus-Science conflict thesis that convinced so many? And what--since both claimed to love Science and love Christ--were they actually trying to achieve in the first place? In this book, physicist David Hutchings and historian of science and religion James C. Ungureanu dissect the work of Draper and White. They take readers on a journey through time, diving into the formation and fallacy of the conflict thesis and its polarizing impact on society.The result is a tale of Flat Earths, of anesthetic, and of autopsies; of Creation and Evolution; of laser-eyed lizards and infinite worlds. It is a story of miracles and mathematicians; souls and Great Libraries; the Greeks, the scientific method, the Not-So-Dark-After-All Ages... and, of course, of popes and unicorns.Trade ReviewThe book is an important contribution to the study of the warfare thesis. This book is a comprehensive story, and not discrete chapters. As a result, its content will likely be utilized in many different contexts and read for many years to come. * Brent Purkaple, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith *In Of Popes and Unicorns David Hutching and James Ungureanu give us brief biographies of Draper and White before diving into their books to test their assertions. They do a thorough, readable, and at times very witty, job of dismantling the conflict thesis, showing that many of Draper and White's historical arguments are not just muddle headed or over-simplifications but rather are based on falsehoods and evidence that simply isn't there. The 'conflict thesis' has long been discarded as inadequate scholarship. In some historical instances it is just plain false, in others it does not do justice to the complexity of the history involved. This is all well known among academic historians of science, but David Hutchings and James Ungureanu have done a very good job of making the facts page-turningly-accessible to a wider audience. * Mark McCartney, Solas *The book's engaging tone and adept use of anecdote and metaphor recommends it for a popular audience. * Victoria Lorrimar, Trinity College Queensland, Australian College of Theology, Brisbane, Australia, Metascience *The real strength of this book is in its accessibility. It's a fun read and written in a fairly light-hearted and even conversational style, punctuated by quirky historical episodes and interesting analogies. I had never heard of the fictional (and then, oddly, non-fictional) hamlet of Agloe, New York, but the authors tell the strange story of an invented town that then came - to - be, before putting it to use to illustrate a point. There are also enough topical references and jokes to make what could be a dull exposition on historiography a lively tour of science through history. * Tim O'Neill, History for Atheists, Goodreads *Enjoyable and light-hearted ... an extremely useful jumping-off point for further reading. * Paul Dicken, The American Conservative *Extremely informative and highly entertaining. The authors have not only dispelled the myths that support the conflict thesis, theyve also explained where those myths came from and how they became so pervasive. * James Hannam, author of The Genesis of Science *Our understanding of history and what it passes down to us, at least from our frame of reference, is vested in our cultural context and the voices of those who reinforce it. The book sets to challenge this—or perhaps, one might say, to set the record straight. As its authors lift the lid on the historical narrative of the relationship between science and the church, they tell a story of those who have influenced this and laid out a conflict between the two—a conflict which Hutchings and Ungureanu argue is false. Science and faith, they show, can sit more comfortably together in our collective search for truth than one might first think, and we are much worse off when they do not. Itâs important that we look back and reflect from time to time; Of Popes and Unicorns helps us do this in a thought-provoking way. But, above all, it's simply a good, enjoyable read. * Paul Hardaker FInstP, FRMetS, Cmet, CEO of the Institute of Physics and Chair of the Board for Sense About Science *In this robust critique, Hutchings and Ungureanu provide many fascinating insights into the historical roots of the idea that there is some intrinsic conflict between science and religion. What is truly startling is the way that this false narrative continues to permeate popular culture. In an engaging style, the book demonstrates that fake news is nothing new and shows how the creative conspiracy theories of the 19th century continue to exert their long tentacles into present-day thinking. * Denis Alexander, Emeritus Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion and Emeritus Fellow, University of Cambridge *This is a gripping, powerful, and vital story of the most successful and damaging conspiracy theory ever conceived. The sleuthing of Hutchings and Ungureanu is as engaging as the best detective writing and as meticulously researched. This is a book that every teacher, scientist, historian, and pastor needs to read. And, students: I wish I had this given to me when I was 14. Read it now. It really matters. * Tom McLeish, FRS, Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of York *In this highly entertaining account of one of the greatest intellectual deceptions ever inflicted upon the public, Hutchings and Ungureanu describe the main characters (with all their attendant eccentricities) who created and/or promulgated the conflict thesis. Despite the best efforts of historians of science to overturn it, this conflict remains stubbornly embedded in our collective consciousness, harming both religion and science. I can only hope that this book is widely read and that it plays its part in undoing that damage. * Ard A. Louis, Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford *The book's engaging tone and adept use of anecdote and metaphor recommends it for a popular audience. It contains the appropriate level of detail- Draper and White are presented in a nuanced way without defaulting to the strawman argumentation with which these figures have so often been charged....ideally this book would be read by scientists or general readers who have accepted the conflict thesis as a matter of fact. * Victoria Lorrimar, Metascience *The book's engaging tone and adept use of anecdote and metaphor recommends it for a popular audience. * Victoria Lorrimar, Metascience *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Fooling the World Chapter 2: Lone Voices? Chapter 3: Flat Wrong Chapter 4: Walnuts for Brains Chapter 5: Tales from the Gap Chapter 6: Myths, Myths, Everywhere Chapter 7: Bridges Badly Built Chapter 8: Old Dogma, New Tricks Chapter 9: Agloe and How to Get Rid of It Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisRenowned philosopher of science David Z Albert offers an innovative approach to understanding the fundamental physical underpinnings of quantum mechanics. Albert shows how we can discern all the baffling features of quantum theory in a simple picture of the pushings and pullings of concrete and high-dimensional, fundamental physical “stuff.”Trade ReviewThe physical interpretation of quantum mechanics has been a controversial riddle since the 1920s, when Niels Bohr argued that the atom’s inner workings could not be described in physical terms. Today, many philosophers and physicists disagree, but there’s no consensus on an alternative. Philosopher David Albert’s provocative book argues, in three essays, that Bohr’s quantum-measurement problem starts to make sense if the wave function is understood as the fundamental physical ‘stuff’ of the Universe. -- Andrew Robinson * Nature *An enormously significant contribution to the philosophy of physics and to metaphysics more generally. In his usual charming and deceptively easy-to-follow style, Albert proposes a novel account of the relation between the fundamental and the non-fundamental—one of the central issues in metaphysics. This is sure to generate a great deal of discussion in the field. -- Barry Loewer, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Rutgers UniversityA must-read for anyone interested in the philosophy of physics or adjacent portions of metaphysics. Wave-function realism’s offensive is advanced, its defenses bolstered, its intuitive core reimagined. Insightful and deep and challenging and (of course) fun—vintage Albert. -- Theodore Sider, author of The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of ScienceAlbert presents a strikingly original picture of the structure of quantum mechanics and how it describes the world. He shows, by construction, what it is that unifies approaches like the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber theory, Bohmian mechanics, and the many-worlds formulations. For those who understand the quantum measurement problem and have begun to think carefully about how to solve it, this is an essential read. -- Jeffrey Barrett, author of The Conceptual Foundations of Quantum MechanicsFor a quarter of a century, David Albert has been one of the chief advocates of the wave-function-realist interpretation of quantum mechanics. In this beautifully written and provocative new book, Albert presents the case, as he sees it, for wave-function realism and its surprising higher-dimensional metaphysical framework. -- Alyssa Ney, author of The World in the Wave Function: A Metaphysics for Quantum PhysicsQuantum-mechanical phenomena prove that somehow or other classical physics—and even ‘common sense’—have led us massively astray about the fundamental structure of the world. Albert, in his inimitable conversational style, digs deeply into the argument that our intuitive notion of the structure of physical space lies at the root of the problem. -- Tim Maudlin, author of Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory

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Book SynopsisThroughout the ages, people have experienced the life-giving and healing forces in water. Water is integral to life, and surrounds us in nature and in our own bodies. But not all water is the same. Water can carry good energies, and bad energies. How can we understand water enough to know the difference?Theodor Schwenk, the renowned author of Sensitive Chaos, founded an institute for water research in the Black Forest in Germany. He developed the Drop Picture Method, which displays the characteristics of water clearly for the non-specialist. Today, the Institute continues his work and here presents momentous findings about the quality of our drinking water, groundwater, spring water and river water.Stunningly illustrated in colour, this book offers a unique insight into the world of water.Trade Review'Many of the photographs are beautiful...any book which brings a greater public awareness of the questions surrounding water and our relationship with it is to be welcomed.'--Robert Schuck, Light magazine, Winter 2006'This book makes a wonderful present! It presents in a clear way the nature of water and revealed out of the work of Theodor Schwenk. It is simply and richly laid out with colour, black and white photos and drawings of water phenomena. For me, the piece de resistance of the book are the wonderfully photographed images of time sequences stages of water dropping into still water.'-- Richard Swann, Star and Furrow, Winter 2005'A clear description of the drop picture method ... the book is beautifully illustrated throughout with fine photographs of water and studies of drop formations. It serves as a very valuable introduction to water's properties. For anyone who wants to understand water's life and formative power and something of its mysterious nature, the book is an excellent beginning.'-- Margaret Jonas, New View, December 2005'This book puts water and its patterns in perspective, concluding that we must understand the true nature of water as part of an effort to comprehend the cyclical workings of nature. In an age dominated by linear thinking and manipulation of nature, the significance of this lesson cannot be overstressed. This beautifully illustrated book will engage the reader both scientifically and aesthetically.'-- Scientific & Medical Network Review, December 2005Table of ContentsForeword 7Introduction 91. Water in Different Realms 112. Water Phenomena 253. The Drop Picture Method 454. Research Results Using the Drop Picture Method 635. Basic Research: Drop Phenomena 80Conclusion 93Appendix: The Institute of Flow Sciences, Herrischried 95Glossary 101Photograph acknowledgments 103References 103Bibliography 104Index 107

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Book SynopsisThe eighteenth-century naturalist Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) argued that plants are animate, living beings and attributed them sensation, movement, and a certain degree of mental activity, emphasizing the continuity between humankind and plant existence. Two centuries later, the understanding of plants as active and communicative organisms has reemerged in such diverse fields as plant neurobiology, philosophical posthumanism, and ecocriticism. The Language of Plants brings together groundbreaking essays from across the disciplines to foster a dialogue between the biological sciences and the humanities and to reconsider our relation to the vegetal world in new ethical and political terms.Viewing plants as sophisticated information-processing organisms with complex communication strategies (they can sense and respond to environmental cues and play an active role in their own survival and reproduction through chemical languages) radically transforms our notion of plants as unresponsive beings, ready to be instrumentally appropriated. By providing multifaceted understandings of plants, informed by the latest developments in evolutionary ecology, the philosophy of biology, and ecocritical theory, The Language of Plants promotes the freedom of imagination necessary for a new ecological awareness and more sustainable interactions with diverse life forms.Contributors: Joni Adamson, Arizona State U; Nancy E. Baker, Sarah Lawrence College; Karen L. F. Houle, U of Guelph; Luce Irigaray, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris; Erin James, U of Idaho; Richard Karban, U of California at Davis; André Kessler, Cornell U; Isabel Kranz, U of Vienna; Michael Marder, U of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU); Timothy Morton, Rice U; Christian Nansen, U of California at Davis; Robert A. Raguso, Cornell U; Catriona Sandilands, York U.Trade Review"The Language of Plants boasts a consistent and compelling through-line: what kind of 'languages' plants use and how the plant languages themselves might change the languages humans use to talk about plants. A collection of high-quality essays like this one constitutes a very timely introduction and intervention in critical plant studies."—Jeffrey T. Nealon, author of Plant Theory: Biopower and Vegetable Life"The Language of Plants is an excellent and important collection of original essays that intervene in the exceptionally rapidly growing field of critical plant studies, contributing to a contemporary movement to de-center the human, overcome dualistic thinking, and grant agency, intelligence, and consciousness to matter."—Cheryll Glotfelty, co-editor of The Bioregional Imagination: Literature, Ecology, and Place"Any individuals concerned for plants and the environment will find this a worthwhile, thought-provoking book."—CHOICE"From notions of plant intelligence to decoding the lexicon of compounds that allows vegetal life to communicate with friends, foes and themselves, this mind-expanding work opens up new ways of apprehending the world."—The Sydney Morning Herald"The editors have gathered essays from the realms of science, literature and philosophy to make a provocative read in hopes of deepening the appreciation of the interdependence of humans and plants. "—The AgeTable of ContentsContentsIntroductionMonica Gagliano, John C. Ryan, and Patrícia Vieira Part I. Science1. The Language of Plant Communication (and How it Compares to Animal Communication)Richard Karban2. Speaking in Chemical Tongues: Decoding the Language of Plant VolatilesRobert A. Raguso and André Kessler3. Unravelling the “Radiometric Signals” from Green LeavesChristian Nansen4. Breaking the Silence: Green Mudras and the Faculty of Language in PlantsMonica GaglianoPart II. Philosophy5. To Hear Plants SpeakMichael Marder6. What the Vegetal World Says to UsLuce Irigaray7. The Intelligence of Plants and the Problem of Language: A Wittgensteinian ApproachNancy E. Baker8. A Tree By Any Other Name: Language-use and Linguistic ResponsibilityKaren L. F. Houle9. What Vegetables Are Saying about ThemselvesTimothy MortonPart III. Literature10. The Language of Flowers in Popular Culture and BotanyIsabel Kranz11. Phytographia: Literature as Plant WritingPatrícia Vieira12. Insinuations: Thinking Plant Politics with The Day of the TriffidsJoni Adamson and Catriona Sandilands13. What the Plant Says: Plant Narrators and the Ecosocial ImaginaryErin James14. In the Key of Green?: The Silent Voices of Plants in PoetryJohn C. RyanAcknowledgmentsContributorsIndex

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Book Synopsis Biocentrism shocked the world with a radical rethinking of the nature of reality. But that was just the beginning. In Beyond Biocentrism, acclaimed biologist Robert Lanza, one of TIME Magazine's "100 Most Influential People in 2014," and leading astronomer Bob Berman, take the reader on an intellectual thrill-ride as they re-examine everything we thought we knew about life, death, the universe, and the nature of reality itself.The first step is acknowledging that our existing model of reality is looking increasingly creaky in the face of recent scientific discoveries. Science tells us with some precision that the universe is 26.8 percent dark matter, 68.3 percent dark energy, and only 4.9 percent ordinary matter, but must confess that it doesn't really know what dark matter is and knows even less about dark energy. Science is increasingly pointing toward an infinite universe but has no ability to explain what that really means. Concepts such as time, space, and even causality are increasingly being demonstrated as meaningless.All of science is based on information passing through our consciousness but science hasn't the foggiest idea what consciousness is, and it can't explain the linkage between subatomic states and observation by conscious observers. Science describes life as a random occurrence in a dead universe but has no real understanding of how life began or why the universe appears to be exquisitely designed for the emergence of life.The biocentrism theory isn't a rejection of science. Quite the opposite. Biocentrism challenges us to fully accept the implications of the latest scientific findings in fields ranging from plant biology and cosmology to quantum entanglement and consciousness.By listening to what the science is telling us, it becomes increasingly clear that life and consciousness are fundamental to any true understanding of the universe. This forces a fundamental rethinking of everything we thought we knew about life, death, and our place in the universe.Trade Review"Lanza and Berman employ cutting edge science to rediscover ancient truths about life and death and reconceptualize our very notions of reality and consciousness. Beyond Biocentrism is an enlightening and fascinating journey that will forever alter your understanding of your own existence."—Deepak Chopra"This intriguing and provocative book will challenge some of what you know and push you into rethinking your view of science—all the while entertaining you with a fast-paced, exhilarating narrative journey."—David J. Eicher, editor in chief, Astronomy Magazine"Beyond Biocentrism is a joyride through the history of science and cutting-edge physics, all with a very serious purpose: to find the long-overlooked connection between the conscious self and the universe around us."—Corey S. Powell, former editor-in-chief, Discover magazine"[Beyond Biocentrism] offers a neurobiological point of view to help answer questions about the world around us. Lanza and Berman make the journey towards a better understanding of the role of consciousness and perception. . . . A fun read."—Kwang-Soo Kim, professor of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Harvard Medical School, and director, Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, McLean Hospital "Lanza and Berman's latest statement of their theory of ‘biocentrism' changes the way we think about age-old religious questions such as the origin of the universe and human immortality. Based on cutting edge work in physics and biology and explained with exceptional clarity, Beyond Biocentrism is a must-read for anyone interested in science and religion."—Ronald M. Green, professor emeritus for the study of ethics and human values, and former chairman of the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College "Will machines ever achieve consciousness? Are plants aware? Is death an illusion? These are some of the big questions tackled in Beyond Biocentrism, which serves up a new, biology-based theory of everything that is as delightful to read as it is fascinating. Tremendously clear and lovely writing—a huge achievement."—Pamela Weintraub, psychology & health editor for Aeon Magazine, former Executive Editor of Discover Magazine and former editor in chief of OMNI MagazinePraise for Biocentrism:"An extraordinary mind. . . . Having interviewed some of the most brilliant minds in the scientific world, I found Dr. Robert Lanza's insights into the nature of consciousness original and exciting. His theory of biocentrism is consistent with the most ancient traditions of the world which say that consciousness conceives, governs, and becomes a physical world. It is the ground of our Being in which both subjective and objective reality come into existence."—Deepak Chopra"This is a brave new book. Instead of placing life as an accidental byproduct, the authors place life at the apex of universal existence and purpose. It is a very thrilling and disturbing read. While the proposals made in Biocentrism seem radical and counter-intuitive at first, a bit of reflection will soon make the images clearer and place us on the pathway to a better and more commonsensical mindset."—Michael Gooch, author of Wingtips with Spurs"Both interesting and worth the effort of reading it . . . From the way [Lanza] chooses to present his arguments, it's clear he has a solid grasp of esoteric disciplines . . . His style is conversational . . . And his sense of wonder . . . is as infectious as it is delightful."—Midwest Book Review

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Book SynopsisBruno Latour is among the most important figures in contemporary philosophy and social science. His ethnographic studies have revolutionized our understanding of areas as diverse as science, law, politics and religion.Trade Review"For those utterly bewildered yet enthralled or those who would simply like a guide to take them through the maze of Latour's writing, the work of De Vries offers the perfect answer. De Vries' great explanatory style and the clear guiding lines that the books sets out makes this a very valuable resource for anyone who wishes to study Latour without getting lost." Waterstones AmsterdamTable of ContentsPreface 1 Empirical philosophy 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Making Paris visible 1.3 The path towards 'empirical philosophy' 1.4 The power of addition 2 Science studies 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Sociology of Scientific Knowledge 2.3 An anthropologist visits a laboratory 2.4 Anatomy of a scientific paper 2.5 Realism in and about science 3 Science and society 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Pasteurization of France: War and Peace of Microbes 3.3 The Pasteurization of France: Irreductions 3.4 Another turn after the social turn 3.5 The turn to ontology 4 Another social science 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Deploying what makes up the social 4.3 Deploying how the social is stabilized 4.4 Shifting focus 5 A philosophy for our time 5.1 Introduction 5.2 We have never been modern 5.3 The modern Constitution 5.4 Relationism 5.5 Cosmopolitics 6 A comparative anthropology of the Moderns 6.1 Introduction 6.2 A research protocol for a comparative anthropology 6.3 'Empirical philosophy' redefined 6.4 Inquiring 'modes of existence' 6.5 The modern experience: fifteen modes 6.6 Facing 'Gaia' 7 Bibliography Index

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