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An engaging and insightful journey into human consciousness. What if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the essence of human consciousness? In The Elephant and the Blind, influential philosopher Thomas Metzinger, one of the world's leading researchers on consciousness, brings together more than 500 experiential reports to offer the world's first comprehensive account of states of pure consciousness. Drawing on a large psychometric study of meditators in 57 countries, Metzinger focuses on “pure awareness” in meditation—the simplest form of experience there is—to illuminate the most fu...
A major hallmark in the adaptive control of voluntary action is the ability to anticipate short and long term future events. Anticipation in its various forms is an important prerequisite for (higher order) cognitive abilities such as planning, reasoning and the pursuit of both immediate goals and long-term goals that may even stand in opposition to immediate desires and needs (e.g., to invest in pension funds). Therefore, it is not surprising that diverse and rather independent research lines have evolved, all somehow targeting various anticipatory capacities that are involved in the control of voluntary action and thus, contribute to the uniqueness of human goal-directed behavior. For exam...
Volume 33 of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion brings together an open section and two special sections that illuminate new vistas in the study of religious and non-religious belief. Special section 1 examines the historical roots of religious practice emerging from Greater Khurāsān – a historical ‘cross-road’ for many world religions. Special section 2 initiates a paradigm shift in study of religious and non-religious belief in relation to children, insisting upon foregrounding children’s narratives. Both special sections explore under-researched areas, underlining the significance of historical and contextual approaches. At an intrinsic level the volume interrogates the power dynamics that determine why particular voices and approaches are prioritised in the study of religious and non-religious belief, and why others remain under- or mis-heard.
Should a self-driving car prioritize the lives of the passengers over the lives of pedestrians? Should we as a society develop autonomous weapon systems that are capable of identifying and attacking a target without human intervention? What happens when AIs become smarter and more capable than us? Could they have greater than human moral status? Can we prevent superintelligent AIs from harming us or causing our extinction? At a critical time in this fast-moving debate, thirty leading academics and researchers at the forefront of AI technology development come together to explore these existential questions, including Aaron James (UC Irvine), Allan Dafoe (Oxford), Andrea Loreggia (Padova), Andrew Critch (UC Berkeley), Azim Shariff (Univ. .
Figures of Chance II: Chance in Theory and Practice proposes a multidisciplinary analysis of cultural phenomena related to notions of chance and contingency. Alongside its transhistorical companion volume (Figures of Chance I), it considers how the projective and predictive capacity of societies is shaped by representations and cultural models of a reality that is understood, by varying degrees, to be contingent, unpredictable, or chaotic. This volume reevaluates the role played by figurative representations of chance in contemporary discourses about chance and contingency. Written by seven interdisciplinary teams, and encompassing philosophy, literature, history of science, sociology, mathematics, cognitive science, information science, and art history, this text puts scientific conceptions of chance into dialogue with their contemporary literary and artistic representations. It thus brings out the central role played by art in the human perception of chance, and in our methods for projecting the future, in order to better understand contemporary human attitudes in the face of risk.
Republicans who live closer to the U.S.-Mexico border are less likely to support constructing a wall than those who live farther away. After a mass shooting, gun sales and permit applications skyrocket in nearby communities. Experiencing an extreme weather event like a hurricane or flood can encourage someone to attribute climate change to human activity. Why do we react so differently to faraway events and ones that take place on our doorsteps, and what does this reveal about our political landscape? Proximity Politics is a groundbreaking examination of the role of distance in shaping attitudes, behaviors, and understandings of the world. Analyzing geocoded survey data, Jeronimo Cortina doc...
Chi, oggi, può essere definito editore? Ognuno di noi, libero di produrre, curare, diffondere contenuti, può a pieno titolo definirsi tale. Il paradosso è che i più indifesi, in questo passaggio storico, sono proprio i produttori di contenuto di estrazione più tradizionale, disorientati dal venir meno delle solide certezze che avvolgevano prodotti, ruoli e processi industriali. Tuttavia il lavoro di professionisti della comunicazione – giornalisti, scrittori, editori – in questo paesaggio di sovrabbondanza informativa e amatorializzazione di massa, non perde di valore, ma diventa sempre più prezioso e si arricchisce di sfumature e significati nuovi, a patto di aprirsi senza riserve alle logiche della Rete. Questo testo di Sergio Maistrello è una grammatica essenziale che distilla processi e meccanismi per aiutare ognuno dei protagonisti di questa trasformazione a trovare il proprio posto in questo ecosistema.