Souls in the Great Machine

Souls in the Great Machine PDF Author: Sean Mcmullen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312870558
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
An Australia destroyed by a nuclear holocaust is ruled by a computer made of human components imprisoned inside. When a component becomes defective it is shot.

Souls in the Great Machine

Souls in the Great Machine PDF Author: Sean Mcmullen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0312870558
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 454

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Book Description
An Australia destroyed by a nuclear holocaust is ruled by a computer made of human components imprisoned inside. When a component becomes defective it is shot.

Souls in the Great Machine

Souls in the Great Machine PDF Author: Sean Mcmullen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780765344571
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 612

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Book Description
The great Calculor of Libris was forced to watch as Overmayor Zarvora had four of its components lined up against a wall and shot for negligence. Thereafter, its calculations were free from errors, and that was just as well-for only this strangest of calculating machines and its two thousand enslaved components could save the world from a new ice age. And all the while a faint mirrorsun hangs in the night sky, warning of the cold to come. In Sean McMullen's glittering, dynamic, and exotic world two millennia from now, there is no more electricity, wind engines are leading-edge technology, librarians fight duels to settle disputes, steam power is banned by every major religion, and a mysterious siren "Call" lures people to their death. Nevertheless, the brilliant and ruthless Zarvora intends to start a war in space against inconceivably ancient nuclear battle stations. Unbeknownst to Zarvora, however, the greatest threat to humanity is neither a machine nor a force but her demented and implacable enemy Lemorel, who has resurrected an obscene and evil concept from the distant past: Total War. Souls in the Great Machine is the first volume of Sean McMullen's brilliant future history of the world of Greatwinter

Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind

Soul Machine: The Invention of the Modern Mind PDF Author: George Makari
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393248690
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 547

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Book Description
A brilliant and comprehensive history of the creation of the modern Western mind. Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept—the mind—emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine, but fully neither. In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian George Makari shows how writers, philosophers, physicians, and anatomists worked to construct notions of the mind as not an ethereal thing, but a natural one. From the ascent of Oliver Cromwell to the fall of Napoleon, seminal thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Diderot, and Kant worked alongside often-forgotten brain specialists, physiologists, and alienists in the hopes of mapping the inner world. Conducted in a cauldron of political turmoil, these frequently shocking, always embattled efforts would give rise to psychiatry, mind sciences such as phrenology, and radically new visions of the self. Further, they would be crucial to the establishment of secular ethics and political liberalism. Boldly original, wide-ranging, and brilliantly synthetic, Soul Machine gives us a masterful, new account of the making of the modern Western mind.

God, Human, Animal, Machine

God, Human, Animal, Machine PDF Author: Meghan O'Gieblyn
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0525562710
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.

The Soul of A New Machine

The Soul of A New Machine PDF Author: Tracy Kidder
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0316204552
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
Tracy Kidder's "riveting" (Washington Post) story of one company's efforts to bring a new microcomputer to market won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award and has become essential reading for understanding the history of the American tech industry. Computers have changed since 1981, when The Soul of a New Machine first examined the culture of the computer revolution. What has not changed is the feverish pace of the high-tech industry, the go-for-broke approach to business that has caused so many computer companies to win big (or go belly up), and the cult of pursuing mind-bending technological innovations. The Soul of a New Machine is an essential chapter in the history of the machine that revolutionized the world in the twentieth century. "Fascinating...A surprisingly gripping account of people at work." --Wall Street Journal

Severed Souls

Severed Souls PDF Author: Terry Goodkind
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 0765327740
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 559

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Book Description
"Severed Souls -- A sweeping new novel of Richard Rahl, Kahlan Amnell, and their world from New York Times Bestselling author, Terry Goodkind"--

MediEvil

MediEvil PDF Author: Chris Sorrell
Publisher: Titan Comics
ISBN: 1787734471
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 50

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Book Description
The un-dead hero of MediEvil returns in this thrilling prequel from the original creators of the critically acclaimed videogame. After being swept through time and landing in his own past, Sir Daniel Fortesque finds himself teaming up with old friends – including a were-dog and cockney-fairies – in order to once again save the kingdom of Gallowmere. The evil sorcerer Zarok is raising an evil un-dead army, and Sir Dan is the only one who can ensure his cowardly former-self prevails. Delve deep into MediEivl lore as the secret history of Sir Dan is revealed, and a brand new adventure, that follows on directly from MediEvil 2, begins!

Soulminder

Soulminder PDF Author: Timothy Zahn
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1497646162
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Science redefines life and death in this novel by the #1 New York Times–bestselling, Hugo Award–winning author. Dr. Adrian Sommers’s world was destroyed in a split second of distracted driving. The accident left his son wavering between life and death. When the end came, Sommers’s family was torn apart, but the tragedy gave him hope and an obsessive mission: to forestall death through science and technology. Years of experimentation lead Sommers to develop Soulminder, a device capable of capturing a dying person’s life essence and holding it safely in stasis while physicians heal the body from injury or disease. But there are those who recognize Soulminder’s true potential: body-swapping, obstruction of justice, extortion, and perhaps even immortality. As Sommers struggles to retain control over the use of his invention against corrupt and dangerous factions, he must question his own moral judgment and motives in creating Soulminder and determine if humanity has earned the right to harness the power of life and death. From the author of Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, this is not only a tale of a father’s desperate love for his son but also “an intriguing thought experiment. . . . Those who enjoy deep philosophical questions will appreciate being left with much to ponder” (Publishers Weekly).

We Sold Our Souls

We Sold Our Souls PDF Author: Grady Hendrix
Publisher: Quirk Books
ISBN: 1683690214
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
“A gloriously over-the-top scare fest that has hidden depths. Readers will root for Kris all the way to the explosive, poignant finale.”—Publishers Weekly From the New York Times best-selling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires. Only a girl with a guitar can save us all. Every morning, Kris Pulaski wakes up in hell. In the 1990s she was lead guitarist of Dürt Würk, a heavy-metal band on the brink of breakout success until lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom, leaving his bandmates to rot in obscurity. Now Kris works as night manager of a Best Western; she’s tired, broke, and unhappy. Then one day everything changes—a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band. Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite Dürt Würk and confront the man who ruined her life. Her journey will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a satanic music festival. A spine-tingling horror novel, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul.

Eyes of the Calculor

Eyes of the Calculor PDF Author: Sean Mcmullen
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780765345127
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 596

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Book Description
Two thousand years in the future, the Dragon Librarians of Australica have just one means to hold their world together: kidnap every numerate person on their continent and rebuild their out-of-date, human-powered computer, the Calculor.