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The User Illusion
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Book Synopsis The User Illusion by : Tor Norretranders
Download or read book The User Illusion written by Tor Norretranders and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 1999-08-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As John Casti wrote, "Finally, a book that really does explain consciousness." This groundbreaking work by Denmark's leading science writer draws on psychology, evolutionary biology, information theory, and other disciplines to argue its revolutionary point: that consciousness represents only an infinitesimal fraction of our ability to process information. Although we are unaware of it, our brains sift through and discard billions of pieces of data in order to allow us to understand the world around us. In fact, most of what we call thought is actually the unconscious discarding of information. What our consciousness rejects constitutes the most valuable part of ourselves, the "Me" that the "I" draws on for most of our actions--fluent speech, riding a bicycle, anything involving expertise. No wonder that, in this age of information, so many of us feel empty and dissatisfied. As engaging as it is insightful, this important book encourages us to rely more on what our instincts and our senses tell us so that we can better appreciate the richness of human life.
Book Synopsis The User Illusion by : Tor Nørretranders
Download or read book The User Illusion written by Tor Nørretranders and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis The User Illusion by : Tor Norretranders
Download or read book The User Illusion written by Tor Norretranders and published by Penguin. This book was released on 1999-08-01 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As John Casti wrote, "Finally, a book that really does explain consciousness." This groundbreaking work by Denmark's leading science writer draws on psychology, evolutionary biology, information theory, and other disciplines to argue its revolutionary point: that consciousness represents only an infinitesimal fraction of our ability to process information. Although we are unaware of it, our brains sift through and discard billions of pieces of data in order to allow us to understand the world around us. In fact, most of what we call thought is actually the unconscious discarding of information. What our consciousness rejects constitutes the most valuable part of ourselves, the "Me" that the "I" draws on for most of our actions--fluent speech, riding a bicycle, anything involving expertise. No wonder that, in this age of information, so many of us feel empty and dissatisfied. As engaging as it is insightful, this important book encourages us to rely more on what our instincts and our senses tell us so that we can better appreciate the richness of human life.
Download or read book The Self Illusion written by Bruce Hood and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a "self" has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion - it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. In The Self Illusion, Dr. Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. He explains that self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. The author argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without. But things are changing as our technology develops and shapes society. The social bonds and relationships that used to take time and effort to form are now undergoing a revolution as we start to put our self online. Social networking activities such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter threaten to change the way we behave. Social networking is fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships is outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. This book ventures into unchartered territory to explain how the idea of the self will never be the same again in the online social world.
Book Synopsis The Generous Man by : Tor Norretranders
Download or read book The Generous Man written by Tor Norretranders and published by Da Capo Lifelong Books. This book was released on 2006-09-29 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When it comes to sex, Darwin didn't go far enough. Whereas his theory of natural selection dictates that species adapt the most efficient and logical traits (a streamlined fin, say, or a long wingspan), Generous Man makes the case that an animal's success, sexually, depends on developing the least efficient traits. Nørretranders uses as the central symbol of his theory the peacock's plumage. It's cumbersome, showy, and inefficient — and therefore terribly attractive to peahens. Put more simply, nothing shows a potential mate just how worthy you are as a partner than your ability to be wasteful and inefficient. It's like a man with money to burn. But money isn't everything: humans really measure their worth by doing something that's difficult. This is a central — though hitherto overlooked — factor in evolution. In order to win a partner to mate with, humans display their best sides. We strive for perfection, prove we are willing to help others, show consideration, and go out of our way. In other words, we are generous. This book shows how our nobler traits derive from our need for sex and are, in fact, the best way to get more of it.
Book Synopsis The End of Illusions by : Andreas Reckwitz
Download or read book The End of Illusions written by Andreas Reckwitz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2021-06-28 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.
Book Synopsis The Knowledge Illusion by : Steven Sloman
Download or read book The Knowledge Illusion written by Steven Sloman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-03-14 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The Knowledge Illusion is filled with insights on how we should deal with our individual ignorance and collective wisdom.” —Steven Pinker We all think we know more than we actually do. Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don’t even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We’re constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact—and usually we don’t even realize we’re doing it. The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individual-oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things. The Knowledge Illusion contends that true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the community around us.
Book Synopsis The Last Illusion by : Porochista Khakpour
Download or read book The Last Illusion written by Porochista Khakpour and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A kaleidoscopic tale inspired by a legend from the medieval Persian epic "Book of Kings" follows the coming-of-age of a feral Middle Eastern youth in New York City on the eve of the September 11 attacks. By the award-winning author of Sons and Other Flammable Objects. 25,000 first printing.
Book Synopsis The Moment of Complexity by : Mark C. Taylor
Download or read book The Moment of Complexity written by Mark C. Taylor and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-09 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We live in a moment of unprecedented complexity, an era in which change occurs faster than our ability to comprehend it. With "The Moment of Complexity", Mark C. Taylor offers a map for the unfamiliar terrain opening in our midst, unfolding an original philosophy of our time through a remarkable synthesis of science and culture. According to Taylor, complexity is not just a breakthrough scientific concept but the defining quality of the post-Cold War era. The flux of digital currents swirling around us, he argues, has created a new network culture with its own distinctive logic and dynamic.
Download or read book Collective Illusions written by Todd Rose and published by Hachette Go. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and social psychology research, an acclaimed author demonstrates how so much of our thinking is informed by false assumptions—making us dangerously mistrustful as a society and needlessly unhappy as individuals. The desire to fit in is one of the most powerful, least understood forces in society. Todd Rose believes that as human beings, we continually act against our own best interests because our brains misunderstand what others believe. A complicated set of illusions driven by conformity bias distorts how we see the world around us. From toilet paper shortages to kidneys that get thrown away rather than used for transplants; from racial segregation to the perceived “electability” of women in politics; from bottled water to “cancel culture,” we routinely copy others, lie about what we believe, cling to tribes, and silence people. The question is, Why do we keep believing the lies and hurting ourselves? Todd Rose proves that the answer is hard-wired in our DNA: our brains are more socially dependent than we realize or dare to accept. Most of us would rather be fully in sync with the social norms of our respective groups than be true to who we are. Using originally researched data, Collective Illusions shows us where we get things wrong and, just as important, how we can be authentic in forming opinions while valuing truth. Rose offers a counterintuitive yet empowering explanation for how we can bridge our inference gap, make decisions with a newfound clarity, and achieve fulfillment. **National Bestseller** **Wall Street Journal Bestseller** **Named Amazon's 2022 Best Book of the Year in Business, Leadership, and Science**
Book Synopsis The Digital Mind by : Arlindo Oliveira
Download or read book The Digital Mind written by Arlindo Oliveira and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How developments in science and technology may enable the emergence of purely digital minds—intelligent machines equal to or greater in power than the human brain. What do computers, cells, and brains have in common? Computers are electronic devices designed by humans; cells are biological entities crafted by evolution; brains are the containers and creators of our minds. But all are, in one way or another, information-processing devices. The power of the human brain is, so far, unequaled by any existing machine or known living being. Over eons of evolution, the brain has enabled us to develop tools and technology to make our lives easier. Our brains have even allowed us to develop computers that are almost as powerful as the human brain itself. In this book, Arlindo Oliveira describes how advances in science and technology could enable us to create digital minds. Exponential growth is a pattern built deep into the scheme of life, but technological change now promises to outstrip even evolutionary change. Oliveira describes technological and scientific advances that range from the discovery of laws that control the behavior of the electromagnetic fields to the development of computers. He calls natural selection the ultimate algorithm, discusses genetics and the evolution of the central nervous system, and describes the role that computer imaging has played in understanding and modeling the brain. Having considered the behavior of the unique system that creates a mind, he turns to an unavoidable question: Is the human brain the only system that can host a mind? If digital minds come into existence—and, Oliveira says, it is difficult to argue that they will not—what are the social, legal, and ethical implications? Will digital minds be our partners, or our rivals?
Book Synopsis Empire of Illusion by : Chris Hedges
Download or read book Empire of Illusion written by Chris Hedges and published by Knopf Canada. This book was released on 2009-07-28 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer prize–winner Chris Hedges charts the dramatic and disturbing rise of a post-literate society that craves fantasy, ecstasy and illusion. Chris Hedges argues that we now live in two societies: One, the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world, that can cope with complexity and can separate illusion from truth. The other, a growing majority, is retreating from a reality-based world into one of false certainty and magic. In this “other society,” serious film and theatre, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins. In the tradition of Christopher Lasch’s The Culture of Narcissism and Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, Hedges navigates this culture — attending WWF contests as well as Ivy League graduation ceremonies — exposing an age of terrifying decline and heightened self-delusion.
Book Synopsis From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds by : Daniel C. Dennett
Download or read book From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds written by Daniel C. Dennett and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-02-07 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A supremely enjoyable, intoxicating work." —Nature How did we come to have minds? For centuries, poets, philosophers, psychologists, and physicists have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled abilities. Disciples of Darwin have explained how natural selection produced plants, but what about the human mind? In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show, step by step, how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. A crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Competition among memes produced thinking tools powerful enough that our minds don’t just perceive and react, they create and comprehend. An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers and scientists, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain all those curious about how the mind works.
Download or read book Mind Time written by Benjamin Libet and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2009-07 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our subjective inner life is what really matters to us as human beings--and yet we know relatively little about how it arises. Over a long and distinguished career Benjamin Libet has conducted experiments that have helped us see, in clear and concrete ways, how the brain produces conscious awareness. For the first time, Libet gives his own account of these experiments and their importance for our understanding of consciousness. Most notably, Libet's experiments reveal a substantial delay--the mind time of the title--before any awareness affects how we view our mental activities. If all conscious awarenesses are preceded by unconscious processes, as Libet observes, we are forced to conclude that unconscious processes initiate our conscious experiences. Freely voluntary acts are found to be initiated unconsciously before an awareness of wanting to act--a discovery with profound ramifications for our understanding of free will. How do the physical activities of billions of cerebral nerve cells give rise to an integrated conscious subjective awareness? How can the subjective mind affect or control voluntary actions? Libet considers these questions, as well as the implications of his discoveries for the nature of the soul, the identity of the person, and the relation of the non-physical subjective mind to the physical brain that produces it. Rendered in clear, accessible language, Libet's experiments and theories will allow interested amateurs and experts alike to share the experience of the extraordinary discoveries made in the practical study of consciousness.
Download or read book Capitalism written by Fred L. Block and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2018-05-04 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtually everyone—left, right, and center—believes that capitalist economies are autonomous, coherent, and regulated by their own internal laws. This view is an illusion. The reality is that economies organized around the pursuit of private profit are contradictory, incoherent, and heavily shaped by politics and governmental action. But the illusion remains hugely consequential because it has been embraced by political and economic elites who are convinced that they are powerless to change this system. The result is cycles of raised hopes followed by disappointment as elected officials discover they have no legitimate policy tools that can deliver what the public wants. In Capitalism, leading economic sociologist Fred L. Block argues that restoring the vitality of the United States and the world economy can be accomplished only with major reforms on the scale of the New Deal and the post–World War II building of new global institutions.
Download or read book Ho'oponopono written by Ulrich E. Duprée and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Powerful yet concise, this revolutionary guide summarizes the Hawaiian ritual of forgiveness and offers methods for immediately creating positive effects in everyday life. Exploring the concept that everyone is deeply connected--despite feelings of singularity and separation--four tenets are disclosed for creating peace with oneself and others: I am sorry, Please forgive me, I love you, and Thank you. Offering practical exercises, this simple four-step system encourages readers to focus on difficult conflicts within personal relationships and heal the past. By addressing these issues, owning one's feelings, and accepting unconditional love, unhealthy situations transform into favorable experiences. The final chapters delve into love, relationships, health, career and healing the planet.
Book Synopsis A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion by : Albert Einstein
Download or read book A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion written by Albert Einstein and published by Running Press Adult. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bestselling author and physicist Stephen Hawking assembles the most groundbreaking works by Albert Einstein together into one volume and provides introductions to each work.
