Author: Marcienne Martin
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527589455
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Questioning the meaning and nature of the universe and the living world calls upon all existing fields of research. If the answers to these metaphysical questions have not been provided in a strict sense, their deciphering is constantly updated with the various discoveries that are gradually transforming humankind’s view of the surrounding environment. We are referring here to human consciousness, integrated into the world of reality and experienced as such, and not to consciousness whose normative filter, born of various beliefs, subtracts the most recent scientific advances. The relationship between the binary system and the quaternary system is at the origin of this book, which focuses on the questions: is any unit of living organisms only the result of a given programming? What then of the human being? Are they a robot participating in the living world or a consciousness inscribed in a biological habitat?
The Human as a Robot or a Biological Organism
Author: Marcienne Martin
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527589455
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Questioning the meaning and nature of the universe and the living world calls upon all existing fields of research. If the answers to these metaphysical questions have not been provided in a strict sense, their deciphering is constantly updated with the various discoveries that are gradually transforming humankind’s view of the surrounding environment. We are referring here to human consciousness, integrated into the world of reality and experienced as such, and not to consciousness whose normative filter, born of various beliefs, subtracts the most recent scientific advances. The relationship between the binary system and the quaternary system is at the origin of this book, which focuses on the questions: is any unit of living organisms only the result of a given programming? What then of the human being? Are they a robot participating in the living world or a consciousness inscribed in a biological habitat?
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527589455
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 190
Book Description
Questioning the meaning and nature of the universe and the living world calls upon all existing fields of research. If the answers to these metaphysical questions have not been provided in a strict sense, their deciphering is constantly updated with the various discoveries that are gradually transforming humankind’s view of the surrounding environment. We are referring here to human consciousness, integrated into the world of reality and experienced as such, and not to consciousness whose normative filter, born of various beliefs, subtracts the most recent scientific advances. The relationship between the binary system and the quaternary system is at the origin of this book, which focuses on the questions: is any unit of living organisms only the result of a given programming? What then of the human being? Are they a robot participating in the living world or a consciousness inscribed in a biological habitat?
Humans and Robots
Author: Sven Nyholm
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786612283
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
Can robots perform actions, make decisions, collaborate with humans, be our friends, perhaps fall in love, or potentially harm us? Even before these things truly happen, ethical and philosophical questions already arise. The reason is that we humans have a tendency to spontaneously attribute minds and “agency” to anything even remotely humanlike. Moreover, some people already say that robots should be our companions and have rights. Others say that robots should be slaves. This book tackles emerging ethical issues about human beings, robots, and agency head on. It explores the ethics of creating robots that are, or appear to be, decision-making agents. From military robots to self-driving cars to care robots or even sex robots equipped with artificial intelligence: how should we interpret the apparent agency of such robots? This book argues that we need to explore how human beings can best coordinate and collaborate with robots in responsible ways. It investigates ethically important differences between human agency and robot agency to work towards an ethics of responsible human-robot interaction.
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1786612283
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 237
Book Description
Can robots perform actions, make decisions, collaborate with humans, be our friends, perhaps fall in love, or potentially harm us? Even before these things truly happen, ethical and philosophical questions already arise. The reason is that we humans have a tendency to spontaneously attribute minds and “agency” to anything even remotely humanlike. Moreover, some people already say that robots should be our companions and have rights. Others say that robots should be slaves. This book tackles emerging ethical issues about human beings, robots, and agency head on. It explores the ethics of creating robots that are, or appear to be, decision-making agents. From military robots to self-driving cars to care robots or even sex robots equipped with artificial intelligence: how should we interpret the apparent agency of such robots? This book argues that we need to explore how human beings can best coordinate and collaborate with robots in responsible ways. It investigates ethically important differences between human agency and robot agency to work towards an ethics of responsible human-robot interaction.
Representation and Reality in Humans, Other Living Organisms and Intelligent Machines
Author: Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319437844
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
This book enriches our views on representation and deepens our understanding of its different aspects. It arises out of several years of dialog between the editors and the authors, an interdisciplinary team of highly experienced researchers, and it reflects the best contemporary view of representation and reality in humans, other living beings, and intelligent machines. Structured into parts on the cognitive, computational, natural sciences, philosophical, logical, and machine perspectives, a theme of the field and the book is building and presenting networks, and the editors hope that the contributed chapters will spur understanding and collaboration between researchers in domains such as computer science, philosophy, logic, systems theory, engineering, psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, linguistics, and synthetic biology.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319437844
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 379
Book Description
This book enriches our views on representation and deepens our understanding of its different aspects. It arises out of several years of dialog between the editors and the authors, an interdisciplinary team of highly experienced researchers, and it reflects the best contemporary view of representation and reality in humans, other living beings, and intelligent machines. Structured into parts on the cognitive, computational, natural sciences, philosophical, logical, and machine perspectives, a theme of the field and the book is building and presenting networks, and the editors hope that the contributed chapters will spur understanding and collaboration between researchers in domains such as computer science, philosophy, logic, systems theory, engineering, psychology, sociology, anthropology, neuroscience, linguistics, and synthetic biology.
Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement
Author: Herta Nagl-Docekal
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110770210
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Seit 2014 erscheinen die Bände der renommierten Wiener Reihe bei De Gruyter. Das äußere Layout der Bände wurde modernisiert, inhaltlich und personell jedoch ist das Profil der seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten erscheinenden Buchreihe von Kontinuität geprägt. Die Bände sind jeweils einer aktuellen philosophischen Fragestellung gewidmet. Eine internationale Autorenschaft und die Veröffentlichung fremdsprachiger Beiträge sind Elemente des Programms. Die Reihe will dazu beitragen, dogmatische Abgrenzungen zwischen philosophischen Schulen und Traditionen abzubauen.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110770210
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 335
Book Description
Seit 2014 erscheinen die Bände der renommierten Wiener Reihe bei De Gruyter. Das äußere Layout der Bände wurde modernisiert, inhaltlich und personell jedoch ist das Profil der seit mehr als zwei Jahrzehnten erscheinenden Buchreihe von Kontinuität geprägt. Die Bände sind jeweils einer aktuellen philosophischen Fragestellung gewidmet. Eine internationale Autorenschaft und die Veröffentlichung fremdsprachiger Beiträge sind Elemente des Programms. Die Reihe will dazu beitragen, dogmatische Abgrenzungen zwischen philosophischen Schulen und Traditionen abzubauen.
A Neuroscientist Looks At Robots
Author: Donald W Pfaff
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814719633
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
The book, written for a general educated public, compares the most important elements of the human nervous system to the corresponding capacities of robots. Crucial are the areas of activities for which the constraints limiting human and robot performances are much different. Those areas offer opportunities for synergies.The book argues that we now understand mechanisms for emotional feelings in the human brain so well that we will be able to program robots to act as though they also have emotion. Written in a clear and open fashion by an expert neuroscientist, the book will appeal to interested lay readers in addition to neuroscientists and computer scientists.
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 9814719633
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209
Book Description
The book, written for a general educated public, compares the most important elements of the human nervous system to the corresponding capacities of robots. Crucial are the areas of activities for which the constraints limiting human and robot performances are much different. Those areas offer opportunities for synergies.The book argues that we now understand mechanisms for emotional feelings in the human brain so well that we will be able to program robots to act as though they also have emotion. Written in a clear and open fashion by an expert neuroscientist, the book will appeal to interested lay readers in addition to neuroscientists and computer scientists.
Anatomy of a Robot
Author: Despina Kakoudaki
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813572762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition, Anatomy of a Robot explores the political and textual implications of our perennial projections of humanity onto figures such as robots, androids, cyborgs, and automata. In an engaging, sophisticated, and accessible presentation, Despina Kakoudaki argues that, in their narrative and cultural deployment, artificial people demarcate what it means to be human. They perform this function by offering us a non-human version of ourselves as a site of investigation. Artificial people teach us that being human, being a person or a self, is a constant process and often a matter of legal, philosophical, and political struggle. By analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes from Twilight Zone, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle’s Physics and De Anima, she tracks four foundational narrative elements in this centuries-old discourse— the fantasy of the artificial birth, the fantasy of the mechanical body, the tendency to represent artificial people as slaves, and the interpretation of artificiality as an existential trope. What unifies these investigations is the return of all four elements to the question of what constitutes the human. This focused approach to the topic of the artificial, constructed, or mechanical person allows us to reconsider the creation of artificial life. By focusing on their historical provenance and textual versatility, Kakoudaki elucidates artificial people’s main cultural function, which is the political and existential negotiation of what it means to be a person.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813572762
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233
Book Description
Why do we find artificial people fascinating? Drawing from a rich fictional and cinematic tradition, Anatomy of a Robot explores the political and textual implications of our perennial projections of humanity onto figures such as robots, androids, cyborgs, and automata. In an engaging, sophisticated, and accessible presentation, Despina Kakoudaki argues that, in their narrative and cultural deployment, artificial people demarcate what it means to be human. They perform this function by offering us a non-human version of ourselves as a site of investigation. Artificial people teach us that being human, being a person or a self, is a constant process and often a matter of legal, philosophical, and political struggle. By analyzing a wide range of literary texts and films (including episodes from Twilight Zone, the fiction of Philip K. Dick, Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Metropolis, The Golem, Frankenstein, The Terminator, Iron Man, Blade Runner, and I, Robot), and going back to alchemy and to Aristotle’s Physics and De Anima, she tracks four foundational narrative elements in this centuries-old discourse— the fantasy of the artificial birth, the fantasy of the mechanical body, the tendency to represent artificial people as slaves, and the interpretation of artificiality as an existential trope. What unifies these investigations is the return of all four elements to the question of what constitutes the human. This focused approach to the topic of the artificial, constructed, or mechanical person allows us to reconsider the creation of artificial life. By focusing on their historical provenance and textual versatility, Kakoudaki elucidates artificial people’s main cultural function, which is the political and existential negotiation of what it means to be a person.
Biotechnology and the Human Good
Author: C. Ben Mitchell
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589012769
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Some of humankind's greatest tools have been forged in the research laboratory. Who could argue that medical advances like antibiotics, blood transfusions, and pacemakers have not improved the quality of people's lives? But with each new technological breakthrough there comes an array of consequences, at once predicted and unpredictable, beneficial and hazardous. Outcry over recent developments in the reproductive and genetic sciences has revealed deep fissures in society's perception of biotechnical progress. Many are concerned that reckless technological development, driven by consumerist impulses and greedy entrepreneurialism, has the potential to radically shift the human condition—and not for the greater good. Biotechnology and the Human Good builds a case for a stewardship deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian theism to responsibly interpret and assess new technologies in a way that answers this concern. The authors jointly recognize humans not as autonomous beings but as ones accountable to each other, to the world they live in, and to God. They argue that to question and critique how fields like cybernetics, nanotechnology, and genetics might affect our future is not anti-science, anti-industry, or anti-progress, but rather a way to promote human flourishing, common sense, and good stewardship. A synthetic work drawing on the thought of a physician, ethicists, and a theologian, Biotechnology and the Human Good reminds us that although technology is a powerful and often awe-inspiring tool, it is what lies in the heart and soul of who wields this tool that truly makes the difference in our world.
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
ISBN: 9781589012769
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 228
Book Description
Some of humankind's greatest tools have been forged in the research laboratory. Who could argue that medical advances like antibiotics, blood transfusions, and pacemakers have not improved the quality of people's lives? But with each new technological breakthrough there comes an array of consequences, at once predicted and unpredictable, beneficial and hazardous. Outcry over recent developments in the reproductive and genetic sciences has revealed deep fissures in society's perception of biotechnical progress. Many are concerned that reckless technological development, driven by consumerist impulses and greedy entrepreneurialism, has the potential to radically shift the human condition—and not for the greater good. Biotechnology and the Human Good builds a case for a stewardship deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian theism to responsibly interpret and assess new technologies in a way that answers this concern. The authors jointly recognize humans not as autonomous beings but as ones accountable to each other, to the world they live in, and to God. They argue that to question and critique how fields like cybernetics, nanotechnology, and genetics might affect our future is not anti-science, anti-industry, or anti-progress, but rather a way to promote human flourishing, common sense, and good stewardship. A synthetic work drawing on the thought of a physician, ethicists, and a theologian, Biotechnology and the Human Good reminds us that although technology is a powerful and often awe-inspiring tool, it is what lies in the heart and soul of who wields this tool that truly makes the difference in our world.
Performance, Medicine and the Human
Author: Alex Mermikides
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350022160
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 243
Book Description
Performance and medicine are now converging in unprecedented ways. London's theatres reveal an appetite for medical themes – John Boyega is subjected to medical experiments in Jack Thorne's Woycek, while Royal National Theatre produces a novel musical about cancer. At the same time, performance-makers seek to improve our health, using dance to increase mobility for those living with Parkinson's disease or performance magic as physiotherapy for children with paraplegia. Performance, Medicine and the Human surveys this emerging field, providing case studies based on the author's own experience of devising medical performances in collaboration with cancer patients, biomedical scientists and healthcare educators. Examining contemporary medical performance reveals an ancient preoccupation, evident in the practices of both theatre and healing, with the human. Like medicine, theatre puts the human on display in order to understand and, perhaps, alleviate the suffering inherent to the human condition. Medical practice constitutes a sort of theatre in which doctors, nurses and patients perform their humaneness and humanity. This insight has much to offer at a time when established notions of the human are being radically rethought, partly in response to emerging biomedical knowledge. Performance, Medicine and the Human argues that contemporary medical performance can shed new light on what it means to be human – and what we mean by the human, the humane, humanism and the humanities – at a time when these notions are being fundamentally rethought. Its insights are relevant to scholars in performance studies, the medical humanities, healthcare education and beyond.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350022160
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 243
Book Description
Performance and medicine are now converging in unprecedented ways. London's theatres reveal an appetite for medical themes – John Boyega is subjected to medical experiments in Jack Thorne's Woycek, while Royal National Theatre produces a novel musical about cancer. At the same time, performance-makers seek to improve our health, using dance to increase mobility for those living with Parkinson's disease or performance magic as physiotherapy for children with paraplegia. Performance, Medicine and the Human surveys this emerging field, providing case studies based on the author's own experience of devising medical performances in collaboration with cancer patients, biomedical scientists and healthcare educators. Examining contemporary medical performance reveals an ancient preoccupation, evident in the practices of both theatre and healing, with the human. Like medicine, theatre puts the human on display in order to understand and, perhaps, alleviate the suffering inherent to the human condition. Medical practice constitutes a sort of theatre in which doctors, nurses and patients perform their humaneness and humanity. This insight has much to offer at a time when established notions of the human are being radically rethought, partly in response to emerging biomedical knowledge. Performance, Medicine and the Human argues that contemporary medical performance can shed new light on what it means to be human – and what we mean by the human, the humane, humanism and the humanities – at a time when these notions are being fundamentally rethought. Its insights are relevant to scholars in performance studies, the medical humanities, healthcare education and beyond.
Handbook of Ecocriticism and Cultural Ecology
Author: Hubert Zapf
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110314592
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 726
Book Description
Ecocriticism has emerged as one of the most fascinating and rapidly growing fields of recent literary and cultural studies. From its regional origins in late-twentieth-century Anglo-American academia, it has become a worldwide phenomenon, which involves a decidedly transdisciplinary and transnational paradigm that promises to return a new sense of relevance to research and teaching in the humanities. A distinctive feature of the present handbook in comparison with other survey volumes is the combination of ecocriticism with cultural ecology, reflecting an emphasis on the cultural transformation of ecological processes and on the crucial role of literature, art, and other forms of cultural creativity for the evolution of societies towards sustainable futures. In state-of-the-art contributions by leading international scholars in the field, this handbook maps some of the most important developments in contemporary ecocritical thought. It introduces key theoretical concepts, issues, and directions of ecocriticism and cultural ecology and demonstrates their relevance for the analysis of texts and other cultural phenomena.
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110314592
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 726
Book Description
Ecocriticism has emerged as one of the most fascinating and rapidly growing fields of recent literary and cultural studies. From its regional origins in late-twentieth-century Anglo-American academia, it has become a worldwide phenomenon, which involves a decidedly transdisciplinary and transnational paradigm that promises to return a new sense of relevance to research and teaching in the humanities. A distinctive feature of the present handbook in comparison with other survey volumes is the combination of ecocriticism with cultural ecology, reflecting an emphasis on the cultural transformation of ecological processes and on the crucial role of literature, art, and other forms of cultural creativity for the evolution of societies towards sustainable futures. In state-of-the-art contributions by leading international scholars in the field, this handbook maps some of the most important developments in contemporary ecocritical thought. It introduces key theoretical concepts, issues, and directions of ecocriticism and cultural ecology and demonstrates their relevance for the analysis of texts and other cultural phenomena.
The Dirac Effect
Author: Lowen Wuulph
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
ISBN: 1645302695
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 655
Book Description
The Dirac Effect By: Lowen Wuulph Nothing is as it seems in The Dirac Effect. The instant Diroldo "Diro" Mann and a seductive beauty known only as Harlowe make eye contact, they inexplicably fall deeply in love with one another. Yet, after they celebrate their love during a night of seismic erotic excess, Harlowe disappears. Bewildered, Diro sadly concludes that the amorous valence he thought bonded them together was perhaps nothing more for Harlowe than an epic one-night stand. Months later, plagued by a recurring cryptic text message, Diro becomes convinced it's from Harlowe. Decoding the message, he surmises she might be in danger and relying only on other similarly flimsy hunches, he launches a quixotic odyssey to find Harlowe. Something Diro calls "The Dirac Effect" drives almost every aspect of his quest, which is compounded by the erratic appearance of a ghostly vision that he believes he saw first on the night they met. When Diro learns that a very small number of Southern California residents also see this apparition, he wonders if the elusive Harlowe experiences it as well. As Diro's search for Harlowe deepens, other puzzling riddles emerge that connect to the perplexing apparition. Of course, the most important answers he seeks are who is the mysterious Harlowe, why did she disappear, and how can he find her? In pursuit of these answers, Diro encounters an enigmatic stranger who gives him an arcane artifact. What is that artifact's purpose? Has that stranger also intervened in Harlowe's life? Beyond these questions lie other mysteries that surreptitiously affect the destinies of Diro and Harlowe and enmesh both of them in a disturbing network of conspiracies intent on radically changing the entire fabric of human life.
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing
ISBN: 1645302695
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 655
Book Description
The Dirac Effect By: Lowen Wuulph Nothing is as it seems in The Dirac Effect. The instant Diroldo "Diro" Mann and a seductive beauty known only as Harlowe make eye contact, they inexplicably fall deeply in love with one another. Yet, after they celebrate their love during a night of seismic erotic excess, Harlowe disappears. Bewildered, Diro sadly concludes that the amorous valence he thought bonded them together was perhaps nothing more for Harlowe than an epic one-night stand. Months later, plagued by a recurring cryptic text message, Diro becomes convinced it's from Harlowe. Decoding the message, he surmises she might be in danger and relying only on other similarly flimsy hunches, he launches a quixotic odyssey to find Harlowe. Something Diro calls "The Dirac Effect" drives almost every aspect of his quest, which is compounded by the erratic appearance of a ghostly vision that he believes he saw first on the night they met. When Diro learns that a very small number of Southern California residents also see this apparition, he wonders if the elusive Harlowe experiences it as well. As Diro's search for Harlowe deepens, other puzzling riddles emerge that connect to the perplexing apparition. Of course, the most important answers he seeks are who is the mysterious Harlowe, why did she disappear, and how can he find her? In pursuit of these answers, Diro encounters an enigmatic stranger who gives him an arcane artifact. What is that artifact's purpose? Has that stranger also intervened in Harlowe's life? Beyond these questions lie other mysteries that surreptitiously affect the destinies of Diro and Harlowe and enmesh both of them in a disturbing network of conspiracies intent on radically changing the entire fabric of human life.