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Author: Mark L. Y. Chan
Publisher: ATF Press
ISBN: 9781920691011
Category : Genetic engineeing
Languages : en
Pages : 244
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Book Description
The twenty-first century has been dubbed the Biotech Century. The explosive increase in our knowledge of the human genome continues to fuel speculations on the possibilities of human genetic modifications. This has been greeted with either enthusiasm or anxiety, for alongside the many euphoric pronouncements about potential benefits are serious questions about the impact of biotechnology and the prospect of manipulating molecular information. What impact will breakthroughs in genetic science will have on our understanding of the human person and the shape of human society? Is the significance of the human person reducible to his or her genetic make-up? What part do our genes play in determining human behaviour, and how would this affect our understanding of human freedom? Drawing on an international panel of writers representing different disciplinary perspectives and a number of Christian traditions, this book seeks to assess the impact of recent developments in genetic science on the Christian understanding of the human person. The essays in this volume address these concerns.
Author: Mark L. Y. Chan
Publisher: ATF Press
ISBN: 9781920691011
Category : Genetic engineeing
Languages : en
Pages : 244
Get Book Here
Book Description
The twenty-first century has been dubbed the Biotech Century. The explosive increase in our knowledge of the human genome continues to fuel speculations on the possibilities of human genetic modifications. This has been greeted with either enthusiasm or anxiety, for alongside the many euphoric pronouncements about potential benefits are serious questions about the impact of biotechnology and the prospect of manipulating molecular information. What impact will breakthroughs in genetic science will have on our understanding of the human person and the shape of human society? Is the significance of the human person reducible to his or her genetic make-up? What part do our genes play in determining human behaviour, and how would this affect our understanding of human freedom? Drawing on an international panel of writers representing different disciplinary perspectives and a number of Christian traditions, this book seeks to assess the impact of recent developments in genetic science on the Christian understanding of the human person. The essays in this volume address these concerns.
Author: Arthur Koestler
Publisher: Hutchinson Radius
ISBN:
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 466
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Book Description
Author: Steven Horst
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198043155
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that it cannot, and that this implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding. In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology. Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm. Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds.
Author: Rick C. Looijen
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 9401595607
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 362
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Book Description
Holism and reductionism are traditionally seen as incompatible views or approaches to nature. Here Looijen argues that they should rather be seen as mutually dependent and hence co-operating research programmes. He sheds some interesting new light on the emergence thesis, its relation to the reduction thesis, and on the role and status of functional explanations in biology. He discusses several examples of reduction in both biology and ecology, showing the mutual dependence of holistic and reductionist research programmes. Ecologists are offered separate chapters, clarifying some major, yet highly and controversial ecological concepts, such as `community', `habitat', and `niche'. The book is the first in-depth study of the philosophy of ecology. Readership: Specialists in the philosophy of science, especially the philosophy of biology, biologists and ecologists interested in the philosophy of their discipline. Also of interest to other scientists concerned with the holism-reductionism issue.
Author: Susan McKinnon
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226500241
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 341
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Book Description
"This book mobilizes experts from several fields of anthropology - cultural, archaeological, linguistic, and biological - to offer a compelling challenge to the resurgence of reductive theories of human biological and social life. It presents evidence to contest such theories and to provide a multifaceted account of the complexity and variability of the human condition".--Back cover.
Author: 'Trick Slattery
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780993866906
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
Learn why the belief in free will doesn't make sense, and why you and the rest of humankind will be better off abandoning it! Free will is an ability many think they posses. Most, however, aren't aware of the dangers imposed by such a belief, and have never thought about free will other than their own assumptions based on a pervasive feeling. The logic, reason, and evidence, however, says something entirely different. Have you ever blamed yourself for something you've done in the past? If so, for how long? Perhaps you still are? Have you ever held a grudge over another person or them you? Perhaps you have hatred for someone who has opposing ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. Or maybe you think someone is more deserving than another or to blame for their own situation? The belief in free will embeds itself within so much of what we think, feel, and do. It isn't just about abstract philosophical metaphysics that applies only to those in academic circles. The belief in free will is a root feeling and concept that has an effect on how most people think about politics, religion, economics, morality / ethics, law, criminal and justice systems, feelings about ourselves, our relationship to others, and our relationship to the world around us. It's for this reason that the topic needs to move away from academia and into the real world. Individually, the free will topic means a lot to you and everything you think, say, and do. Overall, the topic means a great deal for the entirety of humanity. There are real world consequences to holding such a belief in free will, and those consequences are more dire than one would suspect. Free will is often taken for granted and assumed as something positive. The reality, however, is something surprisingly different and, at least initially, counter-intuitive. In actuality, the belief in free will creates people who have resentment, guilt, and hatred. It drives inequality, egoism, poverty dismissal, retributive tendencies, non-connectedness, and a slew of other unhelpful and downright dangerous thoughts and feelings. If we continue holding on to such illusions as if they are real, the future looks bleak. Rather than try to understand causes and fix things at base, we'll just assume that people could have done other than they did. It is, after all, much easier to place blame on people than it is to look for actual causes. It's a much simpler task to suggest that you or the another person simply could have or should have done differently. If, however, we begin to break away from the illusion -- If we begin to understand that free will is not a rational belief -- only then can humanity progress to a state of less ego, more understanding, and start to develop solutions based on reality rather than fictions. We can either keep holding on to the ultimately harmful free will illusion, or break the illusion in the most educated and safe ways possible. And the only way to break the illusion is with well reasoned information. In this enlightening book, 'Trick Slattery gives the ultimate case against free will, and also explores why it's important that we begin to recognize this fact and understand what it means. He makes the case that it's not only an illusion, but a harmful illusion at that. The only way to begin mending the harms this illusion has caused is to understand why it simply can't exist, and what it does and doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Free will is an illusion. We experience a feeling of free will, but that feeling doesn't correlate with something real. It's only a feeling. Come be a part of the history that breaks the free will illusion for the betterment of humankind!
Author: Christian List
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674239814
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 225
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Book Description
A crystal-clear, scientifically rigorous argument for the existence of free will, challenging what many scientists and scientifically minded philosophers believe. Philosophers have argued about the nature and the very existence of free will for centuries. Today, many scientists and scientifically minded commentators are skeptical that it exists, especially when it is understood to require the ability to choose between alternative possibilities. If the laws of physics govern everything that happens, they argue, then how can our choices be free? Believers in free will must be misled by habit, sentiment, or religious doctrine. Why Free Will Is Real defies scientific orthodoxy and presents a bold new defense of free will in the same naturalistic terms that are usually deployed against it. Unlike those who defend free will by giving up the idea that it requires alternative possibilities to choose from, Christian List retains this idea as central, resisting the tendency to defend free will by watering it down. He concedes that free will and its prerequisites—intentional agency, alternative possibilities, and causal control over our actions—cannot be found among the fundamental physical features of the natural world. But, he argues, that’s not where we should be looking. Free will is a “higher-level” phenomenon found at the level of psychology. It is like other phenomena that emerge from physical processes but are autonomous from them and not best understood in fundamental physical terms—like an ecosystem or the economy. When we discover it in its proper context, acknowledging that free will is real is not just scientifically respectable; it is indispensable for explaining our world.
Author: Steven Horst
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0195317114
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 242
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Book Description
Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that it cannot, and that this implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding.In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology.Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm.Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds.
Author: David Deutsch
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 014196961X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400
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Book Description
An extraordinary and challenging synthesis of ideas uniting Quantum Theory, and the theories of Computation, Knowledge and Evolution, Deutsch's extraordinary book explores the deep connections between these strands which reveal the fabric of realityin which human actions and ideas play essential roles.
Author: Eugene Taylor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 140082219X
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
At the turn of the twentieth century, William James was America's most widely read philosopher. In addition to being one of the founders of pragmatism, however, he was also a leading psychologist and author of the seminal work, The Principles of Psychology (1890). While scholars argue that James withdrew from the study of psychology after 1890, Eugene Taylor demonstrates convincingly that James remained preeminently a psychologist until his death in 1910. Taylor details James's contributions to experimental psychopathology, psychical research, and the psychology of religion. Moreover, Taylor's work shows that out of his scientific study of consciousness, James formulated a sophisticated metaphysics of radical empiricism. In light of historical developments in psychology, as well as the current philosophic implications of the neuroscience revolution related to the biology of consciousness, Taylor argues that both the subject matter of James's investigations and his metaphysics of radical empiricism are just as important for psychology today as James believed they were in his own time. This book represents a major new contribution both to James scholarship and to the history of American psychology. Although philosophers have analyzed radical empiricism, this book is the first to trace the development of radical empiricism as a metaphysics addressed to psychologists. It is also the first to show James's involvement in depth-psychology and psychotherapeutics and to trace historical continuity between James's work on consciousness and subsequent developments in psychoanalysis, personality theory, and humanistic psychology.
