The Human Blend

The Human Blend PDF Author: Alan Dean Foster
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 0345511980
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
In this first novel of a thrilling new series set in our near future, New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster reveals a place where criminals are punished through genetic engineering and body manipulation—and poses profound questions about what it means to be human. Given his name because radical surgery has reduced him to preternatural thinness, Whispr is a thug. In a dark alley in Savannah, Whispr and his partner in crime, Jiminy Cricket, murder what they take to be a random tourist in order to steal his artificial hand. But the victim is also carrying an unusual silver thread, which Whispr and Jiminy grab as well. Chance later deposits a wounded Whispr at the clinic of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Powerful forces have been searching for Whispr since he acquired the mysterious thread, and Jiminy has vanished. All Whispr wants to do is sell the thread, and when he offers to split the profits with Ingrid, she makes an astonishing discovery. So begins the formidable partnership between the Harvard-educated physician and the street-smart thief—as long as they can elude the enhanced assassins that are tracking them.

The Human Blend

The Human Blend PDF Author: Alan Dean Foster
Publisher: Del Rey
ISBN: 0345511980
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this first novel of a thrilling new series set in our near future, New York Times bestselling author Alan Dean Foster reveals a place where criminals are punished through genetic engineering and body manipulation—and poses profound questions about what it means to be human. Given his name because radical surgery has reduced him to preternatural thinness, Whispr is a thug. In a dark alley in Savannah, Whispr and his partner in crime, Jiminy Cricket, murder what they take to be a random tourist in order to steal his artificial hand. But the victim is also carrying an unusual silver thread, which Whispr and Jiminy grab as well. Chance later deposits a wounded Whispr at the clinic of Dr. Ingrid Seastrom. Powerful forces have been searching for Whispr since he acquired the mysterious thread, and Jiminy has vanished. All Whispr wants to do is sell the thread, and when he offers to split the profits with Ingrid, she makes an astonishing discovery. So begins the formidable partnership between the Harvard-educated physician and the street-smart thief—as long as they can elude the enhanced assassins that are tracking them.

The Origin of Ideas

The Origin of Ideas PDF Author: Mark Turner
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 019998882X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Humans are unique among all other species in having one cognitive attribute-the ability, almost without conscious effort, to engage in blending. This is the first book that brings the theory of blending to a wide audience and shows how blending is at the heart of the origin of ideas.

The Philosopher Responds

The Philosopher Responds PDF Author: Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479806374
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
Questions and answers from two great philosophers Why is laughter contagious? Why do mountains exist? Why do we long for the past, even if it is scarred by suffering? Spanning a vast array of subjects that range from the philosophical to the theological, from the philological to the scientific, The Philosopher Responds is the record of a set of questions put by the litterateur Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī to the philosopher and historian Abū ʿAlī Miskawayh. Both figures were foremost contributors to the remarkable flowering of cultural and intellectual life that took place in the Islamic world during the reign of the Buyid dynasty in the fourth/tenth century. The correspondence between al-Tawḥīdī and Miskawayh holds a mirror to many of the debates of the time and reflects the spirit of rationalistic inquiry that animated their era. It also provides insight into the intellectual outlooks of two thinkers who were divided as much by their distinctive temperaments as by the very different trajectories of their professional careers. Alternately whimsical and tragic, trivial and profound, al-Tawḥīdī’s questions provoke an interaction as interesting in its spiritedness as in its content. An English-only edition.

Standardization in the Middle Ages

Standardization in the Middle Ages PDF Author: Line Cecilie Engh
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110773716
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
We live in a world riven through with standards. To understand more of their deep, rich past is to understand ourselves better. The two volumes, Standardization in the Middle Ages. Volume 1: The North and Standardization in the Middle Ages. Volume 2: Europe, turn to the Middle Ages to give a deeper understanding of the medieval ideas and practices that produced--and were produced by--standards and standardization. At first glance, the Middle Ages might appear an unlikely place to look for standardization. The editors argue that, on the contrary, generating predictability is a precondition for meaningful cultural interaction in any historical period and that we may look to the Middle Ages to learn more about the historical, social, and cognitive processes of standardization. This multidisciplinary venture, which includes medievalists from the fields of history, intellectual history, art history, philology, numismatics, and more, as well as scholars of cognitive science, informatics, and anthropology, interrogates how medieval people and groups envisioned and enforced predictability, uniformity, and order, and how they attempted to obtain and maintain standards across vast distances and heterogeneous social and cultural structures.

Minds on Stage

Minds on Stage PDF Author: Felix Budelmann
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192888935
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
Greek tragedy parades, tests, stimulates, and upends human cognition. Characters plot deception, try to fathom elusive gods, and fail to recognise loved ones. Spectators observe the characters' cognitive limitations and contemplate their own, grapple with moral quandaries and emotional breakdown, overlay mythical past and topical present, and all the while imagine that a man with a mask is Helen of Troy. With broad coverage of both plays and cognitive capabilities, Minds on Stage pursues a dual aim: to expand our understanding of Greek tragedy and to use Greek tragedy as a focal point for exploring cognitive thinking about literature. After an introduction that considers questions of methodology, the volume is divided into three parts. Part One examines the dynamics of mind-reading by characters and audience, with articles on Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The chapters in Part Two study aspects of the characters' cognitive sense-making, from individual styles of attributing causes and different manners of remembering, to the use of objects as tools for thinking. Finally, Part Three turns to the cognitive dimension of spectating. The articles treat the spectators' generic expectations and different modes of engagement with the fictional worlds of the plays, the joint nature of their attention to the drama, the nexus between aesthetic illusion and the ethics of deception, as well as the situated nature of cognition that helps both audiences and characters make sense of morally complex situations.

The Literary Mind

The Literary Mind PDF Author: Mark Turner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199839344
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
We usually consider literary thinking to be peripheral and dispensable, an activity for specialists: poets, prophets, lunatics, and babysitters. Certainly we do not think it is the basis of the mind. We think of stories and parables from Aesop's Fables or The Thousand and One Nights, for example, as exotic tales set in strange lands, with spectacular images, talking animals, and fantastic plots--wonderful entertainments, often insightful, but well removed from logic and science, and entirely foreign to the world of everyday thought. But Mark Turner argues that this common wisdom is wrong. The literary mind--the mind of stories and parables--is not peripheral but basic to thought. Story is the central principle of our experience and knowledge. Parable--the projection of story to give meaning to new encounters--is the indispensable tool of everyday reason. Literary thought makes everyday thought possible. This book makes the revolutionary claim that the basic issue for cognitive science is the nature of literary thinking. In The Literary Mind, Turner ranges from the tools of modern linguistics, to the recent work of neuroscientists such as Antonio Damasio and Gerald Edelman, to literary masterpieces by Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, and Proust, as he explains how story and projection--and their powerful combination in parable--are fundamental to everyday thought. In simple and traditional English, he reveals how we use parable to understand space and time, to grasp what it means to be located in space and time, and to conceive of ourselves, other selves, other lives, and other viewpoints. He explains the role of parable in reasoning, in categorizing, and in solving problems. He develops a powerful model of conceptual construction and, in a far-reaching final chapter, extends it to a new conception of the origin of language that contradicts proposals by such thinkers as Noam Chomsky and Steven Pinker. Turner argues that story, projection, and parable precede grammar, that language follows from these mental capacities as a consequence. Language, he concludes, is the child of the literary mind. Offering major revisions to our understanding of thought, conceptual activity, and the origin and nature of language, The Literary Mind presents a unified theory of central problems in cognitive science, linguistics, neuroscience, psychology, and philosophy. It gives new and unexpected answers to classic questions about knowledge, creativity, understanding, reason, and invention.

Metaphor and Ideology

Metaphor and Ideology PDF Author: Mary Therese DesCamp
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004161791
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
This cognitive linguistic analysis of "Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum" demonstrates how women are used to articulate Pseudo-Philo's theology and ideology; how 'mother' is redefined to support female authority to interpret and instruct; and how textual and character authority is constructed conceptually.

Galactic Existence

Galactic Existence PDF Author: Abder Rahim Biad
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0359422209
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 268

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Book Description
Galactic Existence is an extraordinary book that unveils the perplexing reality of our solar existence and elucidates the inner workings of Gravitational Waves, along with their profound impact on life. The book sheds light on the enigmas of discrete matter, as expounded in Quantum Physics, and explores how Gravitational Waves play a role in our mobility, influencing every facet of our existence. Additionally, it provides detailed insights into how the brain, aided by these waves, manages our bodily functions. Galactic Existence, as the term implies, offers a distinctive approach to revitalizing the human being. By effectively managing each individual component within the body, this approach has the potential to restore good health and promote longevity. Single cell therapy, an unconventional technique, is presented as a means to combat formidable diseases and reverse the aging process. While I acknowledge that the research may not conform to conventional standards of explicitness or unambiguity, these inquiries are nevertheless valid. This is because all the facts presented in the book are supported by discoveries in physics and substantiated through empirical evidence.

Karl Barth

Karl Barth PDF Author: Karel Blei
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1725269597
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
The Swiss theologian Karl Barth (1886–1968) was one of the greatest theologians of the twentieth century. This book shows how German and European history of that century—the First World War, the rise of Hitler, the German church struggle—resonates in the theological work of Barth. He opposed National Socialism and criticized the naturalness with which the West got carried away in the Cold War rhetoric after the Second World War. A beautiful, accessible overview work for anyone who wants to get to know Barth better.

3-D Human Modeling and Animation

3-D Human Modeling and Animation PDF Author: Peter Ratner
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118399870
Category : Design
Languages : en
Pages : 403

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Book Description
3-D Human Modeling and Animation Third Edition All the tools and techniques you need to bring human figures to 3-D life Thanks to today's remarkable technology, artists can create and animate realistic, three-dimensional human figures that were not possible just a few years ago. This easy-to-follow book guides you through all the necessary steps to adapt your own artistic skill in figure drawing, painting, and sculpture to this exciting digital canvas. 3-D Human Modeling and Animation, Third Edition starts you off with simple modeling, then prepares you for more advanced techniques for creating human characters. After a brief overview of human anatomy, you'll delve into the basic principles of proportion and structure, along with the different body parts. Exploring human modeling, texturing, rigging, and lighting leads you to more advanced techniques for digital figure animation. Filled with?detailed, practical information about creating and animating 3-D human models, this updated Third Edition now features more than 500 full-color images that detail, step by step, the modeling and animation processes for both male and female figures. Most helpful of all, the included DVD features QuickTime tutorials tied to the modeling chapters and provides detailed color images from the chapters so you can get a quick start in bringing your visions to fruition!