Author: Stuart A. Kauffman
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458722066
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...
Reinventing the Sacred
Author: Stuart A. Kauffman
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458722066
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458722066
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 534
Book Description
Consider the complexity of a living cell after 3.8 billion years of evolution. Is it more awesome to suppose that a transcendent God fashioned the cell at a stroke, or to realize that it evolved with no Almighty Hand, but arose on its own in the c...
Reinventing American Protestantism
Author: Donald E. Miller
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520218116
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Explores the trend in the last thirty years towards new paradigm churches, sometimes called megachurches or postdenominational churches, which are reinventing Christianity by redefining the institutional forms and reconnecting people to the message of first-century Christianity using the media of twentieth century America.
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520218116
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 263
Book Description
Explores the trend in the last thirty years towards new paradigm churches, sometimes called megachurches or postdenominational churches, which are reinventing Christianity by redefining the institutional forms and reconnecting people to the message of first-century Christianity using the media of twentieth century America.
Humanity in a Creative Universe
Author: Stuart A. Kauffman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199390452
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
"In the hard sciences , which can often feel out of grasp for many lay readers, there are "great thinkers" who go far beyond the equations, formulas, and research. Great minds such as Stuart A. Kauffman think about the functions and nature of the universe, the implications of our living existence, and other impossibly fascinating, yet difficult questions. He has dedicated his lifetime to researching "complex systems" at prestigious institutions and now writes his treatise on the most complex systems of all, the creative universe, the limits of scientific laws, and the role of the mind. Grounded in his rigorous training and research background, Kauffman is interdisciplinary in every sense of the word, sorting through the major questions and theories in biology, physics, and philosophy. Best known for his philosophy of evolutionary biology, Kauffman coined the term "UNprestatability" to call into question whether science can ever accurately and precisely predict the future development of biological features in organisms that cannot even be prestated. If not, he argues, no laws will entail biological evolution. As evidenced by the title's mention of creativity, the book stunningly argues that our preoccupation to explain all things with scientific law has deadened our creative nature. In this fascinating book, Kauffman concludes that the development of life on earth is not governed by law, because no theory could ever fully account for the unprestatable emergence of new functional variations of evolution. This book reframes our view of reality, challenging the next generations of great thinkers, and will be discussed for years to come."--Dust jacket.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199390452
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 313
Book Description
"In the hard sciences , which can often feel out of grasp for many lay readers, there are "great thinkers" who go far beyond the equations, formulas, and research. Great minds such as Stuart A. Kauffman think about the functions and nature of the universe, the implications of our living existence, and other impossibly fascinating, yet difficult questions. He has dedicated his lifetime to researching "complex systems" at prestigious institutions and now writes his treatise on the most complex systems of all, the creative universe, the limits of scientific laws, and the role of the mind. Grounded in his rigorous training and research background, Kauffman is interdisciplinary in every sense of the word, sorting through the major questions and theories in biology, physics, and philosophy. Best known for his philosophy of evolutionary biology, Kauffman coined the term "UNprestatability" to call into question whether science can ever accurately and precisely predict the future development of biological features in organisms that cannot even be prestated. If not, he argues, no laws will entail biological evolution. As evidenced by the title's mention of creativity, the book stunningly argues that our preoccupation to explain all things with scientific law has deadened our creative nature. In this fascinating book, Kauffman concludes that the development of life on earth is not governed by law, because no theory could ever fully account for the unprestatable emergence of new functional variations of evolution. This book reframes our view of reality, challenging the next generations of great thinkers, and will be discussed for years to come."--Dust jacket.
Sacred Strategies
Author: Isa Aron
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1566996236
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Sacred Strategies is about eight synagogues that reached out and helped people connect to Jewish life in a new way—congregations that had gone from commonplace to extraordinary. Over a period of two years, researchers Aron, Cohen, Hoffman, and Kelman interviewed 175 synagogue leaders and a selection of congregants (ranging from intensely committed to largely inactive). They found these congregations shared six traits: sacred purpose, holistic ethos, participatory culture, meaningful engagement, innovation disposition, and reflective leadership and governance. They write for synagogue leaders eager to transform their congregations, federations and foundations interested in encouraging and supporting this transformation, and researchers in congregational studies who will want to explore further. Part 1 of this book demonstrates how these characteristics are exemplified in the four central aspects of synagogue life: worship, learning, community building, and social justice. Part 2 explores questions such as: What enabled some congregations to become visionary? What hindered others from doing so? What advice might we give to congregational, federation, and foundation leaders? The picture that emerges in this book is one of congregations that were entrepreneurial, experimental, and committed to 'something better.'
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1566996236
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
Sacred Strategies is about eight synagogues that reached out and helped people connect to Jewish life in a new way—congregations that had gone from commonplace to extraordinary. Over a period of two years, researchers Aron, Cohen, Hoffman, and Kelman interviewed 175 synagogue leaders and a selection of congregants (ranging from intensely committed to largely inactive). They found these congregations shared six traits: sacred purpose, holistic ethos, participatory culture, meaningful engagement, innovation disposition, and reflective leadership and governance. They write for synagogue leaders eager to transform their congregations, federations and foundations interested in encouraging and supporting this transformation, and researchers in congregational studies who will want to explore further. Part 1 of this book demonstrates how these characteristics are exemplified in the four central aspects of synagogue life: worship, learning, community building, and social justice. Part 2 explores questions such as: What enabled some congregations to become visionary? What hindered others from doing so? What advice might we give to congregational, federation, and foundation leaders? The picture that emerges in this book is one of congregations that were entrepreneurial, experimental, and committed to 'something better.'
At Home in the Universe
Author: Stuart Kauffman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019984030X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. We all know of instances of spontaneous order in nature--an oil droplet in water forms a sphere, snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry. What we are only now discovering, Kauffman says, is that the range of spontaneous order is enormously greater than we had supposed. Indeed, self-organization is a great undiscovered principle of nature. But how does this spontaneous order arise? Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls "order for free," that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. Kauffman uses the analogy of a thousand buttons on a rug--join two buttons randomly with thread, then another two, and so on. At first, you have isolated pairs; later, small clusters; but suddenly at around the 500th repetition, a remarkable transformation occurs--much like the phase transition when water abruptly turns to ice--and the buttons link up in one giant network. Likewise, life may have originated when the mix of different molecules in the primordial soup passed a certain level of complexity and self-organized into living entities (if so, then life is not a highly improbable chance event, but almost inevitable). Kauffman uses the basic insight of "order for free" to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena. We see how a single-celled embryo can grow to a highly complex organism with over two hundred different cell types. We learn how the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. And we gain insights into biotechnology, the stunning magic of the new frontier of genetic engineering--generating trillions of novel molecules to find new drugs, vaccines, enzymes, biosensors, and more. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws, that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe. Kauffman's earlier volume, The Origins of Order, written for specialists, received lavish praise. Stephen Jay Gould called it "a landmark and a classic." And Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson wrote that "there are few people in this world who ever ask the right questions of science, and they are the ones who affect its future most profoundly. Stuart Kauffman is one of these." In At Home in the Universe, this visionary thinker takes you along as he explores new insights into the nature of life.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019984030X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
A major scientific revolution has begun, a new paradigm that rivals Darwin's theory in importance. At its heart is the discovery of the order that lies deep within the most complex of systems, from the origin of life, to the workings of giant corporations, to the rise and fall of great civilizations. And more than anyone else, this revolution is the work of one man, Stuart Kauffman, a MacArthur Fellow and visionary pioneer of the new science of complexity. Now, in At Home in the Universe, Kauffman brilliantly weaves together the excitement of intellectual discovery and a fertile mix of insights to give the general reader a fascinating look at this new science--and at the forces for order that lie at the edge of chaos. We all know of instances of spontaneous order in nature--an oil droplet in water forms a sphere, snowflakes have a six-fold symmetry. What we are only now discovering, Kauffman says, is that the range of spontaneous order is enormously greater than we had supposed. Indeed, self-organization is a great undiscovered principle of nature. But how does this spontaneous order arise? Kauffman contends that complexity itself triggers self-organization, or what he calls "order for free," that if enough different molecules pass a certain threshold of complexity, they begin to self-organize into a new entity--a living cell. Kauffman uses the analogy of a thousand buttons on a rug--join two buttons randomly with thread, then another two, and so on. At first, you have isolated pairs; later, small clusters; but suddenly at around the 500th repetition, a remarkable transformation occurs--much like the phase transition when water abruptly turns to ice--and the buttons link up in one giant network. Likewise, life may have originated when the mix of different molecules in the primordial soup passed a certain level of complexity and self-organized into living entities (if so, then life is not a highly improbable chance event, but almost inevitable). Kauffman uses the basic insight of "order for free" to illuminate a staggering range of phenomena. We see how a single-celled embryo can grow to a highly complex organism with over two hundred different cell types. We learn how the science of complexity extends Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection: that self-organization, selection, and chance are the engines of the biosphere. And we gain insights into biotechnology, the stunning magic of the new frontier of genetic engineering--generating trillions of novel molecules to find new drugs, vaccines, enzymes, biosensors, and more. Indeed, Kauffman shows that ecosystems, economic systems, and even cultural systems may all evolve according to similar general laws, that tissues and terra cotta evolve in similar ways. And finally, there is a profoundly spiritual element to Kauffman's thought. If, as he argues, life were bound to arise, not as an incalculably improbable accident, but as an expected fulfillment of the natural order, then we truly are at home in the universe. Kauffman's earlier volume, The Origins of Order, written for specialists, received lavish praise. Stephen Jay Gould called it "a landmark and a classic." And Nobel Laureate Philip Anderson wrote that "there are few people in this world who ever ask the right questions of science, and they are the ones who affect its future most profoundly. Stuart Kauffman is one of these." In At Home in the Universe, this visionary thinker takes you along as he explores new insights into the nature of life.
Van Gogh and Gauguin
Author: Debora Silverman
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780374529321
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 518
Book Description
An original account of the tortuous and revealing relationship between two seminal figures of modern painting, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 9780374529321
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 518
Book Description
An original account of the tortuous and revealing relationship between two seminal figures of modern painting, Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin.
Sacred Demise
Author: Carolyn Baker, Ph.D.
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1440119732
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
The collapse of industrial civilization is rapidly unfolding and offers us an opportunity far beyond mere survival, even as it renders absurd any attempts to “fix” or prevent the end of the world as we have known it. Sacred Demise is about the transformation of human consciousness and the emergence of a new paradigm as a result discovering our purpose in the collapse process, thereby coming home to our ultimate place in the universe. Our willingness to consciously embark on the journey with openness and uncertainty may be advantageous for engendering a quantum evolutionary leap for our species and for the earth community. "We face an awesome internal transition that will take us into very unfamiliar territory and will call upon our deeper resources. Carolyn Baker's Sacred Demise is a courageous, wise, and compassionate guide for us all through this inner journey." Michael Brownlee, Co-founder, Transition Boulder County "Carolyn speaks with a confidence that never flinches from entering into the hardest truths of our times, or from the most difficult truths about the culture we are immersed in, so that we might emerge from the chrysalis of global crisis with open hearts and a renewed way of living on Earth together."--Juan Santos, Fourth World Blogspot
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1440119732
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 394
Book Description
The collapse of industrial civilization is rapidly unfolding and offers us an opportunity far beyond mere survival, even as it renders absurd any attempts to “fix” or prevent the end of the world as we have known it. Sacred Demise is about the transformation of human consciousness and the emergence of a new paradigm as a result discovering our purpose in the collapse process, thereby coming home to our ultimate place in the universe. Our willingness to consciously embark on the journey with openness and uncertainty may be advantageous for engendering a quantum evolutionary leap for our species and for the earth community. "We face an awesome internal transition that will take us into very unfamiliar territory and will call upon our deeper resources. Carolyn Baker's Sacred Demise is a courageous, wise, and compassionate guide for us all through this inner journey." Michael Brownlee, Co-founder, Transition Boulder County "Carolyn speaks with a confidence that never flinches from entering into the hardest truths of our times, or from the most difficult truths about the culture we are immersed in, so that we might emerge from the chrysalis of global crisis with open hearts and a renewed way of living on Earth together."--Juan Santos, Fourth World Blogspot
Reinventing the Tripitaka
Author: Jiang Wu
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498547583
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269
Book Description
The Chinese Buddhist canon is a systematic collection of all translated Buddhist scriptures and related literatures created in East Asia and has been regarded as one of the “three treasures” in Buddhist communities. Despite its undisputed importance in the history of Buddhism, research on this huge collection has remained largely the province of Buddhologists focusing on textual and bibliographical studies. We thus aim to initiate methodological innovations to study the transformation of the canon by situating it in its modern context, characterized by intricate interactions between East and West as well as among countries in East Asia. During the modern period the Chinese Buddhist canon has been translated, edited, digitized, and condensed as well as internationalized, contested, and ritualized. The well-known accomplishment of this modern transformation is the compilation of the Taisho Canon during the 1920s. It has become a source of both doctrinal orthodoxy as well as creativity and its significance has greatly increased as Buddhist scholarship and devotionalism has utilized the canon for various ends. However, it is still unclear what led to the creation of the modern editions of the Buddhist canon in East Asia. This volume explores the most significant and interesting developments regarding the Chinese Buddhist canon in modern East Asia including canon formation, textual studies, historical analyses, religious studies, ritual invention, and digital research tools and methods.
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 1498547583
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 269
Book Description
The Chinese Buddhist canon is a systematic collection of all translated Buddhist scriptures and related literatures created in East Asia and has been regarded as one of the “three treasures” in Buddhist communities. Despite its undisputed importance in the history of Buddhism, research on this huge collection has remained largely the province of Buddhologists focusing on textual and bibliographical studies. We thus aim to initiate methodological innovations to study the transformation of the canon by situating it in its modern context, characterized by intricate interactions between East and West as well as among countries in East Asia. During the modern period the Chinese Buddhist canon has been translated, edited, digitized, and condensed as well as internationalized, contested, and ritualized. The well-known accomplishment of this modern transformation is the compilation of the Taisho Canon during the 1920s. It has become a source of both doctrinal orthodoxy as well as creativity and its significance has greatly increased as Buddhist scholarship and devotionalism has utilized the canon for various ends. However, it is still unclear what led to the creation of the modern editions of the Buddhist canon in East Asia. This volume explores the most significant and interesting developments regarding the Chinese Buddhist canon in modern East Asia including canon formation, textual studies, historical analyses, religious studies, ritual invention, and digital research tools and methods.
The New Sciences of Religion
Author: W. Grassie
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230114741
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 594
Book Description
Performing a critical analysis of new scientific research on religious and spiritual phenomena, Grassie takes a two-staged phenomenological approach working from the 'outside in' and the 'bottom up' without privileging at the outset any religious traditions or philosophical assumptions.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230114741
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 594
Book Description
Performing a critical analysis of new scientific research on religious and spiritual phenomena, Grassie takes a two-staged phenomenological approach working from the 'outside in' and the 'bottom up' without privileging at the outset any religious traditions or philosophical assumptions.
Nature, Culture and the Sacred
Author: Nina Simons
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781732841406
Category : Leadership in women
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons offers inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership with resilience and joy. Informed by her extensive experience with multicultural women's leadership development, Simons replaces the old patriarchal leadership paradigm with a more feminine-inflected style that illustrates the interconnected nature of the issues we face today. Sharing moving stories of women around the world joining together to reconnect people, nature and the land--both practically and spiritually--Nature, Culture and the Sacred is necessary reading for anyone who wants to learn from and be inspired by women who are leading the way towards transformational change by cultivating vibrant movements for social and environmental justice.
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781732841406
Category : Leadership in women
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Book Description
Bioneers co-founder Nina Simons offers inspiration for anyone who aspires to grow into their own unique form of leadership with resilience and joy. Informed by her extensive experience with multicultural women's leadership development, Simons replaces the old patriarchal leadership paradigm with a more feminine-inflected style that illustrates the interconnected nature of the issues we face today. Sharing moving stories of women around the world joining together to reconnect people, nature and the land--both practically and spiritually--Nature, Culture and the Sacred is necessary reading for anyone who wants to learn from and be inspired by women who are leading the way towards transformational change by cultivating vibrant movements for social and environmental justice.