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Fantasy And The Virtual Mind Digital Original Edition
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Book Synopsis Fantasy and the Virtual Mind, digital original edition by : Andre Nusselder
Download or read book Fantasy and the Virtual Mind, digital original edition written by Andre Nusselder and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this BIT, André Nusselder uses the core psychoanalytic notion of fantasy to examine our relationship to computers and digital technology. Lacanian psychoanalysis considers fantasy to be an indispensable “screen” for our interaction with the outside world; Nusselder argues that, at the mental level, computer screens and other human-computer interfaces incorporate this function of fantasy: they mediate the real and the virtual.
Download or read book Accelerando written by Charles Stross and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-07-05 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits of human intellect. Biotechnological beings have rendered people all but extinct. Molecular nanotechnology runs rampant, replicating and reprogramming at will. Contact with extraterrestrial life grows more imminent with each new day. Struggling to survive and thrive in this accelerated world are three generations of the Macx clan: Manfred, an entrepreneur dealing in intelligence amplification technology whose mind is divided between his physical environment and the Internet; his daughter, Amber, on the run from her domineering mother, seeking her fortune in the outer system as an indentured astronaut; and Sirhan, Amber’s son, who finds his destiny linked to the fate of all of humanity. For something is systematically dismantling the nine planets of the solar system. Something beyond human comprehension. Something that has no use for biological life in any form...
Book Synopsis Virtual Cities by : Konstantinos Dimopoulos
Download or read book Virtual Cities written by Konstantinos Dimopoulos and published by Unbound Publishing. This book was released on 2020-11-12 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtual cities are places of often-fractured geographies, impossible physics, outrageous assumptions and almost untamed imaginations given digital structure. This book, the first atlas of its kind, aims to explore, map, study and celebrate them. To imagine what they would be like in reality. To paint a lasting picture of their domes, arches and walls. From metropolitan sci-fi open worlds and medieval fantasy towns to contemporary cities and glimpses of gothic horror, author and urban planner Konstantinos Dimopoulos and visual artist Maria Kallikaki have brought to life over forty game cities. Together, they document the deep and exhilarating history of iconic gaming landscapes through richly illustrated commentary and analysis. Virtual Cities transports us into these imaginary worlds, through cities that span over four decades of digital history across literary and gaming genres. Travel to fantasy cities like World of Warcraft’s Orgrimmar and Grim Fandango’s Rubacava; envision what could be in the familiar cities of Assassin’s Creed’s London and Gabriel Knight’s New Orleans; and steal a glimpse of cities of the future, in Final Fantasy VII’s Midgar and Half-Life 2’s City 17. Within, there are many more worlds to discover – each formed in the deepest corners of the imagination, their immense beauty and complexity astounding for artists, game designers, world builders and, above all, anyone who plays and cares about video games.
Book Synopsis Virtual Unreality by : Charles Seife
Download or read book Virtual Unreality written by Charles Seife and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-08-04 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Zero and Proofiness explains how to tell truth from fantasy in the digital world, and why it matters Today, the Internet allows us to spread information faster and to more people than ever before—never mind whether it’s true or not. In Virtual Unreality, mathematician, science reporter, and journalist watchdog Charles Seife takes us deep into the information jungle and cuts a path through the trickery, fakery, and cyber skullduggery that the Internet enables. Providing a much-needed toolkit to help separate fact from fiction, Seife, with his trademark wit and skepticism, addresses the problems that face us every time we turn on our computers and Google our most recent medical symptoms, read a politician’s tweet, fact-check something on Wikipedia, or start an online relationship. Let the clicker beware.
Book Synopsis Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by : David J. Chalmers
Download or read book Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy written by David J. Chalmers and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2022-01-25 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.
Book Synopsis Regulating Markets, digital original edition by : Vili Lehdonvirta
Download or read book Regulating Markets, digital original edition written by Vili Lehdonvirta and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-03-16 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the twenty-first-century digital world, virtual goods are sold for real money. Digital game players happily pay for avatars, power-ups, and other game items. But behind every virtual sale there is a virtual economy, simple or complex. This BIT explains that the objectives of virtual economies—providing content, attracting and retaining users, and earning revenues—are often best pursued in unfree (that is, regulated) rather than free markets.
Download or read book Middlegame written by Seanan McGuire and published by Tordotcom. This book was released on 2019-05-07 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A HUGO AWARD FINALIST! WINNER OF THE LOCUS AWARD FOR BEST FANTASY NOVEL, 2020! A Pick on the 2020 RUSA Reading List! New York Times bestselling and Alex, Nebula, and Hugo-Award-winning author Seanan McGuire introduces readers to a world of amoral alchemy, shadowy organizations, and impossible cities in the standalone fantasy, Middlegame. Meet Roger. Skilled with words, languages come easily to him. He instinctively understands how the world works through the power of story. Meet Dodger, his twin. Numbers are her world, her obsession, her everything. All she understands, she does so through the power of math. Roger and Dodger aren’t exactly human, though they don’t realise it. They aren’t exactly gods, either. Not entirely. Not yet. Meet Reed, skilled in the alchemical arts like his progenitor before him. Reed created Dodger and her brother. He’s not their father. Not quite. But he has a plan: to raise the twins to the highest power, to ascend with them and claim their authority as his own. Godhood is attainable. Pray it isn’t attained. A USA Today Bestseller, and named as one of Paste Magazine's 30 Best Fantasy Novels of the Decade! At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Download or read book VRx written by Brennan Spiegel and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading doctor unveils the groundbreaking potential of virtual medicine. Brennan Spiegel has spent years studying the medical power of the mind, and in VRx he reveals a revolutionary new kind of care: virtual medicine. It offers the possibility of treating illnesses without solely relying on intrusive surgeries or addictive opioids. Virtual medicine works by convincing your body that it's somewhere, or something, it isn't. It's affordable, widely available, and has already proved effective against everything from burn injuries to stroke to PTSD. Spiegel shows how a simple VR headset lets a patient with schizophrenia confront the demon in his head, how dementia patients regain function in a life-size virtual town, and how vivid simulations of patients' experiences are making doctors more empathic. VRx is a revelatory account of the connection between our bodies and ourselves. In an age of overmedication and depersonalized care, it offers no less than a new way to heal.
Book Synopsis The Eye of Minds (The Mortality Doctrine, Book One) by : James Dashner
Download or read book The Eye of Minds (The Mortality Doctrine, Book One) written by James Dashner and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 2013-10-08 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world is virtual, but the danger is real in book one of the bestselling Mortality Doctrine series, the next phenomenon from the author of the Maze Runner series, James Dashner. Includes a sneak peek of The Fever Code, the highly-anticipated conclusion to the Maze Runner series—the novel that finally reveals how the maze was built! The VirtNet offers total mind and body immersion, and the more hacking skills you have, the more fun it is. Why bother following the rules when it’s so easy to break them? But some rules were made for a reason. Some technology is too dangerous to fool with. And one gamer has been doing exactly that, with murderous results. The government knows that to catch a hacker, you need a hacker. And they’ve been watching Michael. If he accepts their challenge, Michael will need to go off the VirtNet grid, to the back alleys and corners of the system human eyes have never seen—and it’s possible that the line between game and reality will be blurred forever. The author who brought you the #1 New York Times bestselling MAZE RUNNER series and two #1 movies—The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials—now brings you an electrifying adventure trilogy an edge-of-your-seat adventure that takes you into a world of hyperadvanced technology, cyber terrorists, and gaming beyond your wildest dreams . . . and your worst nightmares. Praise for the Bestselling MORTALITY DOCTRINE series: “Dashner takes full advantage of the Matrix-esque potential for asking ‘what is real.’” —io9.com “Set in a world taken over by virtual reality gaming, the series perfectly capture[s] Dashner’s hallmarks for inventiveness, teen dialogue and an ability to add twists and turns like no other author.” —MTV.com “A brilliant, visceral, gamified mash-up of The Matrix and Inception, guaranteed to thrill even the non-gaming crowd.” —Christian Science Monitor
Download or read book Digital Delirium written by Arthur Kroker and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 1997-05-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital Delirium is a manifest against the right-wing politics of cyberlibertarianism and for rewiring the question of ethics to digital reality. Bringing together the most creative minds of the digital generation, it explores what is lost and what is gained by being digital.
Book Synopsis Digital Illusion by : Clark Dodsworth
Download or read book Digital Illusion written by Clark Dodsworth and published by Addison-Wesley Professional. This book was released on 1998 with total page 594 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Digital Illusion is the future of entertainment. That future, as seen in this book, is at the intersection of show business and interactivity. It is a future where games, theme-park attractions, and networked virtual worlds are built with seamless, interactive, computer technology, and where exciting new kinds of experience and enjoyment are made possible. It's a future that has already begun! Clark Dodsworth has participated for years in this convergence of the computer and entertainment industries. Here, he gathers prominent contributors from both worlds to describe the design and implementation of computer-based entertainment applications. With striking examples, they show what has been accomplished and preview what is yet to come.
Book Synopsis Alice in Wonderland by : Lewis Carroll
Download or read book Alice in Wonderland written by Lewis Carroll and published by Seven Books. This book was released on 2024-09-25 with total page 102 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 English children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a girl named Alice who falls through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world of anthropomorphic creatures. It is seen as an example of the literary nonsense genre. The artist John Tenniel provided 42 wood-engraved illustrations for the book.It received positive reviews upon release and is now one of the best-known works of Victorian literature; its narrative, structure, characters and imagery have had a widespread influence on popular culture and literature, especially in the fantasy genre. It is credited as helping end an era of didacticism in children's literature, inaugurating an era in which writing for children aimed to "delight or entertain". The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children. The titular character Alice shares her name with Alice Liddell, a girl Carroll knewscholars disagree about the extent to which the character was based upon her.
Download or read book Software and Mind written by Andrei Sorin and published by Andsor Books. This book was released on 2013-01-01 with total page 934 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Addressing general readers as well as software practitioners, "Software and Mind" discusses the fallacies of the mechanistic ideology and the degradation of minds caused by these fallacies. Mechanism holds that every aspect of the world can be represented as a simple hierarchical structure of entities. But, while useful in fields like mathematics and manufacturing, this idea is generally worthless, because most aspects of the world are too complex to be reduced to simple hierarchical structures. Our software-related affairs, in particular, cannot be represented in this fashion. And yet, all programming theories and development systems, and all software applications, attempt to reduce real-world problems to neat hierarchical structures of data, operations, and features. Using Karl Popper's famous principles of demarcation between science and pseudoscience, the book shows that the mechanistic ideology has turned most of our software-related activities into pseudoscientific pursuits. Using mechanism as warrant, the software elites are promoting invalid, even fraudulent, software notions. They force us to depend on generic, inferior systems, instead of allowing us to develop software skills and to create our own systems. Software mechanism emulates the methods of manufacturing, and thereby restricts us to high levels of abstraction and simple, isolated structures. The benefits of software, however, can be attained only if we start with low-level elements and learn to create complex, interacting structures. Software, the book argues, is a non-mechanistic phenomenon. So it is akin to language, not to physical objects. Like language, it permits us to mirror the world in our minds and to communicate with it. Moreover, we increasingly depend on software in everything we do, in the same way that we depend on language. Thus, being restricted to mechanistic software is like thinking and communicating while being restricted to some ready-made sentences supplied by an elite. Ultimately, by impoverishing software, our elites are achieving what the totalitarian elite described by George Orwell in "Nineteen Eighty-Four" achieves by impoverishing language: they are degrading our minds.
Book Synopsis The Lifecycle of Software Objects by : Ted Chiang
Download or read book The Lifecycle of Software Objects written by Ted Chiang and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What's the best way to create artificial intelligence? In 1950, Alan Turing wrote, "Many people think that a very abstract activity, like the playing of chess, would be best. It can also be maintained that it is best to provide the machine with the best sense organs that money can buy, and then teach it to understand and speak English. This process could follow the normal teaching of a child. Things would be pointed out and named, etc. Again I do not know what the right answer is, but I think both approaches should be tried." The first approach has been tried many times in both science fiction and reality. In this new novella, at over 30,000 words, his longest work to date, Ted Chiang offers a detailed imagining of how the second approach might work within the contemporary landscape of startup companies, massively-multiplayer online gaming, and open-source software. It's a story of two people and the artificial intelligences they helped create, following them for more than a decade as they deal with the upgrades and obsolescence that are inevitable in the world of software. At the same time, it's an examination of the difference between processing power and intelligence, and of what it means to have a real relationship with an artificial entity.
Book Synopsis Exodus to the Virtual World by : Edward Castronova
Download or read book Exodus to the Virtual World written by Edward Castronova and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2007-11-27 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Virtual worlds have exploded out of online game culture and now capture the attention of millions of ordinary people: husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, workers, retirees. Devoting dozens of hours each week to massively multiplayer virtual reality environments (like World of Warcraft and Second Life), these millions are the start of an exodus into the refuge of fantasy, where they experience life under a new social, political, and economic order built around fun. Given the choice between a fantasy world and the real world, how many of us would choose reality? Exodus to the Virtual World explains the growing migration into virtual reality, and how it will change the way we live--both in fantasy worlds and in the real one.
Book Synopsis Interface Fantasy by : Andre Nusselder
Download or read book Interface Fantasy written by Andre Nusselder and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2009-09-11 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Behind our computer screens we are all cyborgs: through fantasy we can understand our involvement in virtual worlds. Cyberspace is first and foremost a mental space. Therefore we need to take a psychological approach to understand our experiences in it. In Interface Fantasy, André Nusselder uses the core psychoanalytic notion of fantasy to examine our relationship to computers and digital technology. Lacanian psychoanalysis considers fantasy to be an indispensable “screen” for our interaction with the outside world; Nusselder argues that, at the mental level, computer screens and other human-computer interfaces incorporate this function of fantasy: they mediate the real and the virtual. Interface Fantasy illuminates our attachment to new media: why we love our devices; why we are fascinated by the images on their screens; and how it is possible that virtual images can provide physical pleasure. Nusselder puts such phenomena as avatars, role playing, cybersex, computer psychotherapy, and Internet addiction in the context of established psychoanalytic theory. The virtual identities we assume in virtual worlds, exemplified best by avatars consisting of both realistic and symbolic self-representations, illustrate the three orders that Lacan uses to analyze human reality: the imaginary, the symbolic, and the real. Nusselder analyzes our most intimate involvement with information technology—the almost invisible, affective aspects of technology that have the greatest impact on our lives. Interface Fantasy lays the foundation for a new way of thinking that acknowledges the pivotal role of the screen in the current world of information. And it gives an intelligible overview of basic Lacanian principles (including fantasy, language, the virtual, the real, embodiment, and enjoyment) that shows their enormous relevance for understanding the current state of media technology.
Book Synopsis Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities by : Emiliana Armano
Download or read book Digital Platforms and Algorithmic Subjectivities written by Emiliana Armano and published by University of Westminster Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Algorithms are a form of productive power – so how may we conceptualise the newly merged terrains of social life, economy and self in a world of digital platforms? How do multiple self-quantifying practices interact with questions of class, race and gender? This edited collection considers algorithms at work – for what purposes encoded data about behaviour, attitudes, dispositions, relationships and preferences are deployed – and black box control, platform society theory and the formation of subjectivities. It details technological structures and lived experience of algorithms and the operation of platforms in areas such as crypto-finance, production, surveillance, welfare, activism in pandemic times. Finally, it asks if platform cooperativism, collaborative design and neomutualism offer new visions. Even as problems with labour and in society mount, subjectivities and counter subjectivities here produced appear as conscious participants of change and not so much the servants of algorithmic control and dominant platforms.
