Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction

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Author :
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199657122
Total Pages : 129 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (996 download)

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Book Synopsis Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction by : Stephen Mumford

Download or read book Metaphysics: A Very Short Introduction written by Stephen Mumford and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-08-30 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An introduction to metaphysics offers questions and answers covering such issues as properties, changes, time, personal identity, nothingness, and consciousness.

Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn

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Publisher : Bantam
ISBN 13 : 034553963X
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (455 download)

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Book Synopsis Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn by : Amanda Gefter

Download or read book Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn written by Amanda Gefter and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2014-01-14 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY KIRKUS REVIEWS In a memoir of family bonding and cutting-edge physics for readers of Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality and Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist?, Amanda Gefter tells the story of how she conned her way into a career as a science journalist—and wound up hanging out, talking shop, and butting heads with the world’s most brilliant minds. At a Chinese restaurant outside of Philadelphia, a father asks his fifteen-year-old daughter a deceptively simple question: “How would you define nothing?” With that, the girl who once tried to fail geometry as a conscientious objector starts reading up on general relativity and quantum mechanics, as she and her dad embark on a life-altering quest for the answers to the universe’s greatest mysteries. Before Amanda Gefter became an accomplished science writer, she was a twenty-one-year-old magazine assistant willing to sneak her and her father, Warren, into a conference devoted to their physics hero, John Wheeler. Posing as journalists, Amanda and Warren met Wheeler, who offered them cryptic clues to the nature of reality: The universe is a self-excited circuit, he said. And, The boundary of a boundary is zero. Baffled, Amanda and Warren vowed to decode the phrases—and with them, the enigmas of existence. When we solve all that, they agreed, we’ll write a book. Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn is that book, a memoir of the impassioned hunt that takes Amanda and her father from New York to London to Los Alamos. Along the way, they bump up against quirky science and even quirkier personalities, including Leonard Susskind, the former Bronx plumber who invented string theory; Ed Witten, the soft-spoken genius who coined the enigmatic M-theory; even Stephen Hawking. What they discover is extraordinary: the beginnings of a monumental paradigm shift in cosmology, from a single universe we all share to a splintered reality in which each observer has her own. Reality, the Gefters learn, is radically observer-dependent, far beyond anything of which Einstein or the founders of quantum mechanics ever dreamed—with shattering consequences for our understanding of the universe’s origin. And somehow it all ties back to that conversation, to that Chinese restaurant, and to the true meaning of nothing. Throughout their journey, Amanda struggles to make sense of her own life—as her journalism career transforms from illusion to reality, as she searches for her voice as a writer, as she steps from a universe shared with her father to at last carve out one of her own. It’s a paradigm shift you might call growing up. By turns hilarious, moving, irreverent, and profound, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn weaves together story and science in remarkable ways. By the end, you will never look at the universe the same way again. Praise for Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn “Nothing quite prepared me for this book. Wow. Reading it, I alternated between depression—how could the rest of us science writers ever match this?—and exhilaration.”—Scientific American “To Do: Read Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn. Reality doesn’t have to bite.”—New York “A zany superposition of genres . . . It’s at once a coming-of-age chronicle and a father-daughter road trip to the far reaches of this universe and 10,500 others.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer

A Universe from Nothing

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Author :
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1451624476
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (516 download)

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Book Synopsis A Universe from Nothing by : Lawrence M. Krauss

Download or read book A Universe from Nothing written by Lawrence M. Krauss and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-01-10 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author and acclaimed physicist Lawrence Krauss offers a paradigm-shifting view of how everything that exists came to be in the first place. “Where did the universe come from? What was there before it? What will the future bring? And finally, why is there something rather than nothing?” One of the few prominent scientists today to have crossed the chasm between science and popular culture, Krauss describes the staggeringly beautiful experimental observations and mind-bending new theories that demonstrate not only can something arise from nothing, something will always arise from nothing. With a new preface about the significance of the discovery of the Higgs particle, A Universe from Nothing uses Krauss’s characteristic wry humor and wonderfully clear explanations to take us back to the beginning of the beginning, presenting the most recent evidence for how our universe evolved—and the implications for how it’s going to end. Provocative, challenging, and delightfully readable, this is a game-changing look at the most basic underpinning of existence and a powerful antidote to outmoded philosophical, religious, and scientific thinking.

The Vindication of Nothingness

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Author :
Publisher : BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN 13 : 3868385878
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (683 download)

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Book Synopsis The Vindication of Nothingness by : Marco Simionato

Download or read book The Vindication of Nothingness written by Marco Simionato and published by BoD – Books on Demand. This book was released on 2021-11-17 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The philosophical question of nothingness has often been controversial. The main core of the question is the use of ‘nothing’ or ‘nothingness’ as a noun phrase rather than a quantifier phrase. This work deals with the question of nothingness and metaphysical nihilism in analytic philosophy. After evaluating an account of nothingness based on the notion of an empty possible world, the present work proposes two original arguments for metaphysical nihilism. With a preface by Graham Priest. “Simionato’s book delivers a welcome deepening of our understanding of nothing.” Graham Priest

The Puzzle of Existence

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Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136249222
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (362 download)

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Book Synopsis The Puzzle of Existence by : Tyron Goldschmidt

Download or read book The Puzzle of Existence written by Tyron Goldschmidt and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-05 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking volume investigates the most fundamental question of all: Why is there something rather than nothing? The question is explored from diverse and radical perspectives: religious, naturalistic, platonistic and skeptical. Does science answer the question? Or does theology? Does everything need an explanation? Or can there be brute, inexplicable facts? Could there have been nothing whatsoever? Or is there any being that could not have failed to exist? Is the question meaningful after all? The volume advances cutting-edge debates in metaphysics, philosophy of cosmology and philosophy of religion, and will intrigue and challenge readers interested in any of these subjects.

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?

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Author :
Publisher : Basic Books
ISBN 13 : 0465010385
Total Pages : 242 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (65 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? by : Leszek Kolakowski

Download or read book Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? written by Leszek Kolakowski and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2007-11-20 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do we have free will? How can we know anything? What is justice? Why is there evil in the world? What is the source of truth? Is it possible for God not to exist? Can we really believe what we see? These are some of the questions that have intrigued the world's greatest thinkers over the ages. They are questions that make us think about the way we live, work, relate to each other, and see the world. In elegant and accessible prose, the eminent philosopher Leszek Kolakowski explores the essence of these ideas and their ongoing relevance as he introduces us to the great figures of Western thought: from Socrates to St. Augustine, Descartes to Nietzsche, and beyond. Reflecting on the great issues that animate our lives -- good and evil, truth and beauty, faith and the soul, free will and consciousness -- Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? offers a guided tour of Western philosophy by one of the world's greatest living experts.

Why Does the World Exist

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0871404095
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (714 download)

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Book Synopsis Why Does the World Exist by : Jim Holt

Download or read book Why Does the World Exist written by Jim Holt and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this astonishing and profound work, an irreverent sleuth traces the riddleof existence from the ancient world to modern times.

The Ultimate Why Question

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Publisher : CUA Press
ISBN 13 : 0813218632
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (132 download)

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Book Synopsis The Ultimate Why Question by : John F. Wippel

Download or read book The Ultimate Why Question written by John F. Wippel and published by CUA Press. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers studies by prominent scholars and philosophers about the question how have major figures from the history of philosophy, and some contemporary philosophers, addressed "the ultimate why question": why is there anything at all rather than nothing whatsoever?

The Mystery of Existence

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Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 0470673559
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (76 download)

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Book Synopsis The Mystery of Existence by : John Leslie

Download or read book The Mystery of Existence written by John Leslie and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This compelling study of the origins of all that exists, including explanations of the entire material world, traces the responses of philosophers and scientists to the most elemental and haunting question of all: why is anything here—or anything anywhere? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why not nothing? It includes the thoughts of dozens of luminaries from Plato and Aristotle to Aquinas and Leibniz to modern thinkers such as physicists Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg, philosophers Robert Nozick and Derek Parfit, philosophers of religion Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, and the Dalai Lama. The first accessible volume to cover a wide range of possible reasons for the existence of all reality, from over 50 renowned thinkers, including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, and the Dalai Lama Features insights by scientists, philosophers, and theologians Includes informative and helpful editorial introductions to each section Provides a wealth of suggestions for further reading and research Presents material that is both comprehensive and comprehensible

Is Nothing Something?

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Publisher : Parallax Press
ISBN 13 : 1937006654
Total Pages : 50 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (37 download)

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Book Synopsis Is Nothing Something? by : Thich Nhat Hanh

Download or read book Is Nothing Something? written by Thich Nhat Hanh and published by Parallax Press. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Is Nothing Something? Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh answers heartfelt, difficult, and funny questions from children of all ages. Illustrated with original full-color artwork by Jessica McClure, Is Nothing Something? will help adults plant the seeds of mindfulness in the young children in their lives. Beginning with the most basic questions, "What is important in life?" and "Why is my brother mean to me?" and progressing through issues that we all wrestle with, such as "How do I know if I really love somebody?", "How long am I going to live?", and "What does God look like?", each page presents a question with a short answer from Thich Nhat Hanh, appropriate for beginning readers to work with on their own. The back of the book has the first complete children’s biography of Thich Nhat Hanh, along with basic, kid-friendly instructions for mindful breathing and mindful walking. Both humorous and profound, Is Nothing Something? is the perfect resource for kids with questions, adults looking to answer them, and anyone with questions of their own.

Nothingness

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 80 pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis Nothingness by : Alan Watts

Download or read book Nothingness written by Alan Watts and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Talking About Nothing

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199780439
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (997 download)

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Book Synopsis Talking About Nothing by : Jody Azzouni

Download or read book Talking About Nothing written by Jody Azzouni and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2010-09-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ordinary language and scientific language enable us to speak about, in a singular way (using demonstratives and names), what we recognize not to exist: fictions, the contents of our hallucinations, abstract objects, and various idealized but nonexistent objects that our scientific theories are often couched in terms of. Indeed, references to such nonexistent items-especially in the case of the application of mathematics to the sciences-are indispensable. We cannot avoid talking about such things. Scientific and ordinary languages thus enable us to say things about Pegasus or about hallucinated objects that are true (or false), such as "Pegasus was believed by the ancient Greeks to be a flying horse," or "That elf I'm now hallucinating over there is wearing blue shoes." Standard contemporary metaphysical views and semantic analyses of singular idioms on offer in contemporary philosophy of language have not successfully accommodated these routine practices of saying true and false things about the nonexistent while simultaneously honoring the insight that such things do not exist in any way at all (and have no properties). That is, philosophers often feel driven to claim that such objects do exist, or they claim that all our talk isn't genuine truth-apt talk, but only pretence. This book reconfigures metaphysics (and the role of metaphysics in semantics) in radical ways that allow the accommodation of our ordinary ways of speaking of what does not exist while retaining the absolutely crucial presupposition that such objects exist in no way at all, have no properties, and so are not the truth-makers for the truths and falsities that are about them.

Something to Talk About

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0593102525
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (931 download)

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Book Synopsis Something to Talk About by : Meryl Wilsner

Download or read book Something to Talk About written by Meryl Wilsner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A showrunner and her assistant give the world something to talk about when they accidentally fuel a ridiculous rumor in this debut romance. Hollywood powerhouse Jo is photographed making her assistant Emma laugh on the red carpet, and just like that, the tabloids declare them a couple. The so-called scandal couldn't come at a worse time—threatening Emma's promotion and Jo's new movie. As the gossip spreads, it starts to affect all areas of their lives. Paparazzi are following them outside the office, coworkers are treating them differently, and a “source” is feeding information to the media. But their only comment is “no comment”. With the launch of Jo’s film project fast approaching, the two women begin to spend even more time together, getting along famously. Emma seems to have a sixth sense for knowing what Jo needs. And Jo, known for being aloof and outwardly cold, opens up to Emma in a way neither of them expects. They begin to realize the rumor might not be so off base after all…but is acting on the spark between them worth fanning the gossip flames?

Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing

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Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0199270503
Total Pages : 217 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (992 download)

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Book Synopsis Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing by : Bede Rundle

Download or read book Why There is Something Rather Than Nothing written by Bede Rundle and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work offers an explanation of fundamental facts of existence in purely philosophical terms, without appeal either to theology or cosmology. It will provoke and intrigue anyone who wonders about these questions.

How to Do Nothing

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Publisher : Melville House
ISBN 13 : 1612198554
Total Pages : 259 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (121 download)

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Book Synopsis How to Do Nothing by : Jenny Odell

Download or read book How to Do Nothing written by Jenny Odell and published by Melville House. This book was released on 2020-12-29 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ** A New York Times Bestseller ** NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time • The New Yorker • NPR • GQ • Elle • Vulture • Fortune • Boing Boing • The Irish Times • The New York Public Library • The Brooklyn Public Library "A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto."—Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times Book Review One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019" Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress. Far from the simple anti-technology screed, or the back-to-nature meditation we read so often, How to do Nothing is an action plan for thinking outside of capitalist narratives of efficiency and techno-determinism. Provocative, timely, and utterly persuasive, this book will change how you see your place in our world.

The Book of Nothing

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Author :
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307554813
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book of Nothing by : John D. Barrow

Download or read book The Book of Nothing written by John D. Barrow and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2009-05-20 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What conceptual blind spot kept the ancient Greeks (unlike the Indians and Maya) from developing a concept of zero? Why did St. Augustine equate nothingness with the Devil? What tortuous means did 17th-century scientists employ in their attempts to create a vacuum? And why do contemporary quantum physicists believe that the void is actually seething with subatomic activity? You’ll find the answers in this dizzyingly erudite and elegantly explained book by the English cosmologist John D. Barrow. Ranging through mathematics, theology, philosophy, literature, particle physics, and cosmology, The Book of Nothing explores the enduring hold that vacuity has exercised on the human imagination. Combining high-wire speculation with a wealth of reference that takes in Freddy Mercury and Shakespeare alongside Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Stephen Hawking, the result is a fascinating excursion to the vanishing point of our knowledge.

An Aristotelian Account of Induction

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Publisher : McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN 13 : 0773575766
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (735 download)

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Book Synopsis An Aristotelian Account of Induction by : Louis Groarke

Download or read book An Aristotelian Account of Induction written by Louis Groarke and published by McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP. This book was released on 2009-11-01 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In An Aristotelian Account of Induction Groarke discusses the intellectual process through which we access the "first principles" of human thought - the most basic concepts, the laws of logic, the universal claims of science and metaphysics, and the deepest moral truths. Following Aristotle and others, Groarke situates the first stirrings of human understanding in a creative capacity for discernment that precedes knowledge, even logic. Relying on a new historical study of philosophical theories of inductive reasoning from Aristotle to the twenty-first century, Groarke explains how Aristotle offers a viable solution to the so-called problem of induction, while offering new contributions to contemporary accounts of reasoning and argument and challenging the conventional wisdom about induction.