Virtual Reality: The Last Human Narrative?

Virtual Reality: The Last Human Narrative? PDF Author: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004302301
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Is virtual reality the latest grand narrative that humanity has produced? This book attempts to disentangle the common characteristics of human reality and posthuman virtual reality by examining discourses on psychoanalysis, gene-technology, globalization, and contemporary art.

Virtual Reality: The Last Human Narrative?

Virtual Reality: The Last Human Narrative? PDF Author: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004302301
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Is virtual reality the latest grand narrative that humanity has produced? This book attempts to disentangle the common characteristics of human reality and posthuman virtual reality by examining discourses on psychoanalysis, gene-technology, globalization, and contemporary art.

Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism

Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism PDF Author: Edgar Landgraf
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501335693
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
The literary and scientific renaissance that struck Germany around 1800 is usually taken to be the cradle of contemporary humanism. Posthumanism in the Age of Humanism shows how figures like Immanuel Kant and Johann Wolfgang Goethe as well as scientists specializing in the emerging modern life and cognitive sciences not only established but also transgressed the boundaries of the “human.” This period so broadly painted as humanist by proponents and detractors alike also grappled with ways of challenging some of humanism's most cherished assumptions: the dualisms, for example, between freedom and nature, science and art, matter and spirit, mind and body, and thereby also between the human and the nonhuman. Posthumanism is older than we think, and the so-called “humanists” of the late Enlightenment have much to offer our contemporary re-thinking of the human.

The Crisis of the Human Sciences

The Crisis of the Human Sciences PDF Author: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443833932
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
Centralization and over-professionalization can lead to the disappearance of a critical environment capable of linking the human sciences to the “real world.” The authors of this volume suggest that the humanities need to operate in a concrete cultural environment able to influence procedures on a hic et nunc basis, and that they should not entirely depend on normative criteria whose function is often to hide ignorance behind a pretentious veil of value-neutral objectivity. In sociology, the growth of scientism has fragmented ethical categories and distorted discourse between our inner and outer selves, while philosophy is suffering from an empty professionalism current in many philosophy departments in industrialized and developing countries where boring, ahistorical, and nonpolitical exercises are justified through appeals to false excellence. In all branches of the humanities, absurd evaluation processes foster similar tendencies as they create a sterile atmosphere and prevent interdisciplinarity and creativity. Technicization of theory plays into the hands of technocrats. The authors offer a broad range of approaches and interpretations, reaching from philosophy of education to the re-evaluation of business models for universities.

Posthumanism in Practice

Posthumanism in Practice PDF Author: Christine Daigle
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350293822
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
Problematic assumptions which see humans as special and easily defined as standing apart from animals, plants, and microbiota, both consciously and unconsciously underpin scientific investigation, arts practice, curation, education, and research across the social sciences and humanities. This is the case particularly in those traditions emerging from European and Enlightenment philosophies. Posthumanism disrupts these traditional humanist outlooks and interrogates their profound shaping of how we see ourselves, our place in the world, and our role in its protection. In Posthumanism in Practice, artists, researchers, educators, and curators set out how they have developed and responded to posthumanist ideas across their work in the arts, sciences, and humanities, and provide examples and insights to support the exploration of posthumanism in how we can think, create, and live. In capturing these ideas, Posthumanism in Practice shows how posthumanist thought can move beyond theory, inform action, and produce new artefacts, effects, and methods that are more relevant and more useful for the incoming realities for all life in the 21st century.

Identity, Institutions and Governance in an AI World

Identity, Institutions and Governance in an AI World PDF Author: Peter Bloom
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030361810
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The 21st century is on the verge of a possible total economic and political revolution. Technological advances in robotics, computing and digital communications have the potential to completely transform how people live and work. Even more radically, humans will soon be interacting with artificial intelligence (A.I.) as a normal and essential part of their daily existence. What is needed now more than ever is to rethink social relations to meet the challenges of this soon-to-arrive "smart" world. This book proposes an original theory of trans-human relations for this coming future. Drawing on insights from organisational studies, critical theory, psychology and futurism - it will chart for readers the coming changes to identity, institutions and governance in a world populated by intelligent human and non-human actors alike. It will be characterised by a fresh emphasis on infusing programming with values of social justice, protecting the rights and views of all forms of "consciousness" and creating the structures and practices necessary for encouraging a culture of "mutual intelligent design". To do so means moving beyond our anthropocentric worldview of today and expanding our assumptions about the state of tomorrow's politics, institutions, laws and even everyday existence. Critically such a profound shift demands transcending humanist paradigms of a world created for and by humans and instead opening ourselves to a new reality where non-human intelligence and cyborgs are increasingly central.

Information—Consciousness—Reality

Information—Consciousness—Reality PDF Author: James B. Glattfelder
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030036332
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 662

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Book Description
This open access book chronicles the rise of a new scientific paradigm offering novel insights into the age-old enigmas of existence. Over 300 years ago, the human mind discovered the machine code of reality: mathematics. By utilizing abstract thought systems, humans began to decode the workings of the cosmos. From this understanding, the current scientific paradigm emerged, ultimately discovering the gift of technology. Today, however, our island of knowledge is surrounded by ever longer shores of ignorance. Science appears to have hit a dead end when confronted with the nature of reality and consciousness. In this fascinating and accessible volume, James Glattfelder explores a radical paradigm shift uncovering the ontology of reality. It is found to be information-theoretic and participatory, yielding a computational and programmable universe.

Films and Dreams

Films and Dreams PDF Author: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 0739131435
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Films and Dreams considers the essential link between films and the world of dreams. To discuss dream theory in the context of film studies means moving from the original, clinical context within which dream theory was originally developed to an environment established by primarily aesthetic concerns. Botz-Bornstein deals with dreams as "self-sufficient" phenomena that are interesting not because of their contents but because of the "dreamtense" through which they deploy their being. A diverse selection of films are examined in this light: Tarkovsky's anti-realism exploring the domain of the improbable between symbolization, representation and alienation; Sokurov's subversive attacks on the modern image ideology; Arthur Schnitzler's shifting of thefamiliar to the uncanny and Kubrick's avoidance of this structural model in Eyes Wide Shut; and Wong Kar-Wai's dreamlike panorama of parodied capitalism.

The Philosophy of Viagra

The Philosophy of Viagra PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 940120036X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
The impotency remedy Viagra is the fastest selling drug in history. It has grown beyond being simply a medical phenomenon, but has achieved the status of cultural icon, appearing on television as a pretext for jokes or even as a murder weapon. Viagra has socio-cultural implications that are not limited to sexuality. The Philosophy of Viagra offers a unique perspective as it examines the phenomenon of Viagra through ideas derived from more than two thousand years of philosophical reasoning. In philosophy, Eros has always had a central position. Since Plato, philosophy has held that desire is not only a medical but also a spiritual phenomenon and that scientific explanations claiming to give an exhaustive account of erotic perception are misleading. Philosophical ideas are able to debunk various scientific rationalizations of sexuality – one of which is the clinical-sexological discourse on Viagra. In this volume, several authors interpret Viagra through the lens of classical philosophy explicating the themes of immortality and hedonism. Others offer psychoanalytical considerations by confronting clinical sexology with psychological realities. Still others evoke intercultural aspects revealing the relative character of potency that the phenomenon of Viagra attempts to gloss over.

Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan

Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan PDF Author: Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780739130681
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan: A Comparative Philosophical Study examines the parallels between Russian and Japanese philosophies and religions by revealing a common concept of space in Russian and Japanese aesthetics and political theories. Thorsten Botz-Bornstein shows points of convergence between the two traditions regarding the treatment of space within the realm of identity (both individual and communal), and in formulations of the relationship between regionalism, localism and globalism. Russian and Japanese philosophers like Nishida, Watsuji, Trubetzkoy, and the Eurasianists transformed the traditional notion of communal space, which has always been seen as an organic time-space unity, into a sophisticated element very well described as "time-space development." Botz-Bornstein's comparative study also leads to an analysis of contemporary themes. Reflections on Noh-plays and icons, for example, permit him to untangle the relationships between the virtual, the dream, the imaginary, and reality. Virtual reality, as an environment that pulls users into itself, makes use of strategies that are also common in Noh-plays and icons, both of which share a particular conception of space. The "non-Western" alternatives presented in Aesthetics and Politics of Space in Russia and Japan can be considered as useful additions to contemporary political and aesthetic discourses.

Adventuring in the Englishes

Adventuring in the Englishes PDF Author: Ikram Ahmed Ibrahim Elsherif
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443868930
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
This book is a compilation of articles dealing with linguistic and literary concerns relating to the global production and consumption of literature in English, and global instruction and education in the English language. The umbrella theme of the book is “English Language and Literature in a Globalized World” or “The Global Appropriation and hybridization of English”. The contributing authors are international scholars and creative writers from different parts of the world who offer unique perspectives on the ways in which the English language and English literature are constantly developing and changing in a postcolonial global world. They are mostly professors of English who have cross-cultural teaching experiences and who live or have lived and worked in both Anglophone and non-Anglophone countries. To many of them English is their dominant language, but not the mother tongue. All of them are bilingual or even trilingual. Thus their scholarly investigations are flavoured with their personal experiences or “adventures” with the language and its users. Their unique visions reveal a process of adoption, adaptation, reinvention and appropriation of both the language and its literature in a multi-national, multi-cultural, and multi-lingual community of a world where English has become the most recognizable sign of globalization. This book will appeal to all scholars and practitioners of English language and literature, particularly those interested in colonial and postcolonial studies, modern and post-modern studies, ethnic and minority studies, feminist studies, cross-cultural studies, linguistics, semantics, ESP and curriculum development.