You know him. We all have one. That exasperating Thanksgiving blusterer digs in his heels even as the foundation of his denial thaws faster than the Arctic ice caps.Written and illustrated by Dr. John Cook, cognitive psychologist and founder of the award-winning website Skeptical Science, Cranky Uncle combines humor and science to make clear, calm, and winnable arguments in the public controversy of climate change. Can we change our Cranky Uncle's mind? Probably, regrettably, not. But Dr. Cook makes it easier for us to understand him. And armed with this knowledge, prevent climate misinformation from spreading further.

    This was H. William (Bill) Dettmer’s six-day course in the Logical Thinking Process, an exceptionally powerful methodology for strategy definition and problem solving, based on the methods of Dr. Eli Goldratt, author of The Goal and systems management legend, adapted and refined by Bill Dettmer. Towards the end of the course I realized how mastering this rigorous methodology changes the way you approach situations of any kind. It helps you deal with difficult situations in a way few if any other methodologies can. Achieve breakthrough results by deciphering complex causality, unearthing false assumptions and removing the conflicts caused by faulty mental models; this is what the Logical Thinking Process helps us to do, using classical cause-effect logic. In this book, a simple, everyday example is used to demonstrate how to apply the Logical Thinking Process and how it helps us drive success by making sounder, more rational decisions. The book also contains practical organizational examples and a concise overview of the framework.

    Have you ever struggled to reconcile Jesus’s commands to not resist evil, turn the other cheek, and love your enemies with his use of a whip to clear the temple, his praise for the Roman centurion, his command to the disciples to buy swords, and his frequent warnings of violent judgment, not to mention Revelation’s prophecy that he will eventually return to kill God’s enemies with a sword?In this tightly packed volume, Fleischer provides a systematic, biblically based, and comprehensive overview of Jesus’s relationship with violence, one that may forever change how you view his ministry and your calling.“Easy-to-read and compellingly argued … masterfully demonstrated … a treasure trove of insights …” – Greg Boyd (from the Foreword)

    And before you enter, bring a pair of flippers, an umbrella, and a great deal appetite for humor. Through your adventure, you'll receive potent doses of satire, humor, sarcasm, logic, and 'what if' scenarios. And if you're lucky, you may even find (and have a conversation with) yourself, there.Living in a Paracosm is an exercise in learning that the same rules do not apply to everything and reason doesn't always reign supreme. What is important is that you be yourself and find your unique voice in life. Written in a lyrical style, not only does the author present a skewed version of reality, but he also elucidates it with an escapist profundity. A fair bit of poems will include illustrations that complete and better explain them and are written to awaken a feeling of wonder within you.The poised rhymes will have you grounded. And yet the artistic intent alludes to an elusive dystopia hinting at the works of Dali or Kahlo combined with the comedy of Bo Burnham. And if you're courageous enough to keep treading the slippery path, you'll experience a myriad of other emotions some of which might be new to you.Philosophical, funny, and sometimes downright obtuse, each poem will reflect distinct humanness and will keep you entertained for a long time.

    The first step equips you with the intellectual virtues and conversational virtues necessary for critical thinking.The second step on our journey equips you with a variety of methods and tools for critical thinking and philosophical reasoning. Through tangible suggestions, lively and engaging examples, and a bit of technical jargon, you'll come away a better thinker and – ideally – a better human being.Critical thinking, like mastering a musical instrument, requires practice. That's why the next three steps on our journey will apply the methods and tools previously explored to central issues in philosophy of science and philosophy mind: scientism, laws of nature, and the nature of the mind. With a depth of insight, a breadth of coverage, and a touch of humor, this book will engage both beginner and advanced readers in the field of philosophy. This book is the beginning of your journey of discovery. The treasure of truth awaits.

    The author, a leading research mathematician, presents a series of engaging and compelling mathematical statements with interesting elementary proofs. These proofs capture a wide range of topics, including number theory, combinatorics, graph theory, the theory of games, geometry, infinity, order theory, and real analysis. The goal is to show students and aspiring mathematicians how to write proofs with elegance and precision.

    After an introduction to functional programming languages, we present propositional logic, λ-calculus, the Curry-Howard correspondence, first-order logic, Agda, dependent types and homotopy type theory.

    Games like Sudoku and Mastermind are fun and engrossing recreational activities, but they also share deep foundations in mathematical logic and are worthy of serious intellectual inquiry. Games for Your Mind explores the history and future of logic puzzles while enabling you to test your skill against a variety of puzzles yourself.In this informative and entertaining book, Jason Rosenhouse begins by introducing readers to logic and logic puzzles and goes on to reveal the rich history of these puzzles. He shows how Carroll's puzzles presented Aristotelian logic as a game for children, yet also informed his scholarly work on logic. He reveals how another pioneer of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan, drew on classic puzzles about liars and truthtellers to illustrate Kurt G�del's theorems and illuminate profound questions in mathematical logic. Rosenhouse then presents a new vision for the future of logic puzzles based on nonclassical logic, which is used today in computer science and automated reasoning to manipulate large and sometimes contradictory sets of data.Featuring a wealth of sample puzzles ranging from simple to extremely challenging, this lively and engaging book brings together many of the most ingenious puzzles ever devised, including the Hardest Logic Puzzle Ever, metapuzzles, paradoxes, and the logic puzzles in detective stories.

    

    Armstrong analyzes the cognitive processes involved in constructing and exchanging stories, exploring their role in the neurobiology of mental functioning.Armstrong argues that the ways in which stories order events in time, imitate actions, and relate our experiences to others' lives are correlated to cortical processes of temporal binding, the circuit between action and perception, and the mirroring operations underlying embodied intersubjectivity. He reveals how recent neuroscientific findings about how the brain works--how it assembles neuronal syntheses without a central controller--illuminate cognitive processes involving time, action, and self-other relations that are central to narrative.An extension of his previous book, How Literature Plays with the Brain, this new study applies Armstrong's analysis of the cognitive value of aesthetic harmony and dissonance to narrative. Armstrong explains how narratives help the brain negotiate the neverending conflict between its need for pattern, synthesis, and constancy and its need for flexibility, adaptability, and openness to change. The neuroscience of these interactions is part of the reason stories give shape to our lives even as our lives give rise to stories.Taking up the age-old question of what our ability to tell stories reveals about language and the mind, this truly interdisciplinary project should be of interest to humanists and cognitive scientists alike.

    

    Conflicting messages bombard us every day with news on everything from politics and world events to investments and alternative health. The daily paper, nightly news, websites, and social media each compete for our attention and each often insist on a different version of the facts. Inevitably, we have questions:Who is telling the truth? How would we know? How did we get here? What can we do?Beyond Fake News answers these and other queries. It offers a technological and market-based explanation for how our informational environment became so polluted. It shows how purveyors of news often have incentives to mislead us, and how consumers of information often have incentives to be misled. And it chronicles how, as technology improves and the regulatory burdens drop, our information-scape becomes ever more littered with misinformation. Beyond Fake News argues that even when we really want the truth, our minds are built in such a way so as to be incapable of grasping many facts, and blind spots mar our view of the world. But we can do better, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals, we can improve the accuracy of our understanding of the world by knowing who to trust and recognizing our limitations. And as a society, we can take important steps to reduce the quantity and effects of misinformation.