Simple Taoism: A Guide to Living in Balance


C. Alexander Simpkins - 1999
    Divided into three parts, the book outlines:A clear explanation of Taoism and how to apply its best aspects to your daily life.Simple instructions for exercises to lead a fuller life—meditation, breathing, chi kung, and tai chi chuan.An informative discussion of key Taoist concepts, including wu-wei (nonaction), yin and yang, and Te (power virtue, life).

Praying Through the Names of God


Tony Evans - 2014
    But which name should you call upon?God has more than one name—each represents a different aspect of His character. When you know which name to call, you will pray more effectively, and more specifically to your need.In this book, Dr. Tony Evans provides tools to transform your prayer life as you get to know God in new ways. You will...experience God as Jehovah Jireh, "the Lord will provide."allow God to be El Simchatch Gili, "God my exceeding joy."make God Your Jehovah Ori, "the Lord my light."know peace through Jehovah Shalon, "the Lord our peace."take God as your power source as Jehovah Uzzi, "the Lord my strength."make wiser decisions by sitting at the feet of Peleh Yo'etz, "Wonderful Counselor."Revitalize your prayer life by connecting your needs with the characteristics of God's names!

The Human Brain Book


Rita Carter - 2009
    It combines the latest findings from the field of neuroscience with expert text and state-of-the-art illustrations and imaging techniques to provide an incomparable insight into every facet of the brain. Layer by layer, it reveals the fascinating details of this remarkable structure, covering all the key anatomy and delving into the inner workings of the mind, unlocking its many mysteries, and helping you to understand what's going on in those millions of little gray and white cells.Tricky concepts are illustrated and explained with clarity and precision, as The Human Brain Book looks at how the brain sends messages to the rest of the body, how we think and feel, how we perform unconscious actions (for example breathing), explores the nature of genius, asks why we behave the way we do, explains how we see and hear things, and how and why we dream. Physical and psychological disorders affecting the brain and nervous system are clearly illustrated and summarized in easy-to-understand terms.The unique DVD brings the subject to life with interactive elements. These include a clickable model of the brain's structure that allows the user to zoom in and discover deeper layers of detail, while complex processes, such as the journey of a nerve impulse, are broken down and simplified through intuitive animations.

A Way with Words: Writing, Rhetoric, and the Art of Persuasion


M.D.C. Drout - 2006
    Drout brings his expertise in literary studies to the subject of rhetoric. From history-altering political speeches to friendly debates at cocktail parties, rhetoric holds the power to change opinions, spark new thoughts, and ultimately change the world. The study of rhetoric not only leads to a greater understanding of how personages such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Winston Churchill elevated the power of speech to majestic heights, but also to a stronger proficiency in using rhetoric in anyone’s day-to-day life. Professor Drout examines the types of rhetoric and their effects, the structure of effective arguments, and how subtleties of language can be employed to engage in more successful rhetoric. Drout also ponders the role of rhetoric in our world and the ageold question of whether it is just a tool for convincing people of things that aren’t true, or whether it is indeed a force for good that will ultimately lead to truth.

A History of Modern Psychology


C. James Goodwin - 1998
    They will also develop a deeper understanding of the many interconnections that exist among the different areas of psychology. Goodwin's book not only provides accounts of the lives and contributions of psychology's pioneers set into historical context; it also contains original writings by these psychologists, interwoven with informative comments from the author. The text is written in a conversational and engaging style with discrete attention to recent scholarship in the history of psychology, especially that of the past 150 years.

The Official Dictionary of Sarcasm: A Lexicon for Those of Us Who Are Better and Smarter Than the Rest of You


James Napoli - 2010
    From advertisements to e-mail, from materialism to remote controls, there's a witty answer for every situation. “You have been waiting patiently for a dictionary like this to come along. And now it is here,” recognizes Napoli. “Not that you give a crap.”

The Structure of Magic I: A Book about Language and Therapy


Richard Bandler - 1975
    Volume I describes the Meta Model, a framework for comprehending the structure of language; Volume II applies NLP theory to nonverbal communication.

Better Than Great: A Plenitudinous Compendium of Wallopingly Fresh Superlatives


Arthur Plotnik - 2011
    Deft praise encourages others to feel as we do, share our enthusiasms. It rewards deserving objects of admiration. It persuades people to take certain actions. It sells things. Sadly, in this "age of awesome," our words and phrases of acclaim are exhausted, all but impotent. Even so, we find ourselves defaulting to such habitual choices as good, great, and terrific, or substitute the weary synonyms that tuble our of a thesaurus -- superb, marvelous, outstanding, and the like. The piling on of intensifers such as the now-silly "super," only makes matters worse and negative modifiers render our common parlance nearly tragic. Until now. Arthur Plotnik, the wunderkind of word-wonks is, without mincing, proffering a well knit wellspring of worthy and wondrous words to rescue our worn-down usage. Plotnik is both hella AND hecka up to the task of rescuing the English language and offers readers the chance to never be at a loss for words!

Mind Design II: Philosophy, Psychology, and Artificial Intelligence


John Haugeland - 1997
    Unlike traditional empirical psychology, it is more oriented toward the how than the what. An experiment in mind design is more likely to be an attempt to build something and make it work--as in artificial intelligence--than to observe or analyze what already exists. Mind design is psychology by reverse engineering.When Mind Design was first published in 1981, it became a classic in the then-nascent fields of cognitive science and AI. This second edition retains four landmark essays from the first, adding to them one earlier milestone (Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence) and eleven more recent articles about connectionism, dynamical systems, and symbolic versus nonsymbolic models. The contributors are divided about evenly between philosophers and scientists. Yet all are philosophical in that they address fundamental issues and concepts; and all are scientific in that they are technically sophisticated and concerned with concrete empirical research.ContributorsRodney A. Brooks, Paul M. Churchland, Andy Clark, Daniel C. Dennett, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Jerry A. Fodor, Joseph Garon, John Haugeland, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Zenon W. Pylyshyn, William Ramsey, Jay F. Rosenberg, David E. Rumelhart, John R. Searle, Herbert A. Simon, Paul Smolensky, Stephen Stich, A.M. Turing, Timothy van Gelder

Philosophy of Biology


Peter Godfrey-Smith - 2013
    Geared to philosophers, biologists, and students of both, the book provides sophisticated and innovative coverage of the central topics and many of the latest developments in the field. Emphasizing connections between biological theories and other areas of philosophy, and carefully explaining both philosophical and biological terms, Peter Godfrey-Smith discusses the relation between philosophy and science; examines the role of laws, mechanistic explanation, and idealized models in biological theories; describes evolution by natural selection; and assesses attempts to extend Darwin's mechanism to explain changes in ideas, culture, and other phenomena. Further topics include functions and teleology, individuality and organisms, species, the tree of life, and human nature. The book closes with detailed, cutting-edge treatments of the evolution of cooperation, of information in biology, and of the role of communication in living systems at all scales.Authoritative and up-to-date, this is an essential guide for anyone interested in the important philosophical issues raised by the biological sciences.

Discourses, Books 1-2


Epictetus - 1925
    The Discourses report wide-ranging discussions between Epictetus and his students.

Fundamentals of Engineering Electromagnetics


David K. Cheng - 1992
    It has been developed in response to the need for a text that supports the mastery of this difficult subject. Therefore, in addition to presenting electromagnetics in a concise and logical manner, the text includes end-of-section review questions, worked examples, boxed remarks that alert students to key ideas and tricky points, margin notes, and point-by-point chapter summaries. Examples and applications invite students to solve problems and build their knowledge of electromagnetics. Application topics include: electric motors, transmission lines, waveguides, antenna arrays and radar systems.

The Darker the Night, the Brighter the Stars: A Neuropsychologist's Odyssey Through Consciousness


Paul Broks - 2018
    The result of that journey is a gorgeous, evocative meditation on fate, death, consciousness, and what it means to be human.The Darker the Night, The Brighter the Stars weaves a scientist's understanding of the mind - its logic, its nuance, how we think about what makes a person - with a poet's approach to humanity, that crucial and ever-elusive why. It's a story that unfolds through the centuries, along the path of humankind's constant quest to discover what makes us human, and the answers that consistently slip out of our grasp. It's modern medicine and psychology and ancient tales; history and myth combined; fiction and the stranger truth.

A Series of Fortunate Events: Chance and the Making of the Planet, Life, and You


Sean B. Carroll - 2020
    Carroll at his very best.--Bill Bryson, author of The Body: A Guide for Occupants From acclaimed writer and biologist Sean B. Carroll, a rollicking, awe-inspiring story of the surprising power of chance in our lives and the worldWhy is the world the way it is? How did we get here? Does everything happen for a reason or are some things left to chance? Philosophers and theologians have pondered these questions for millennia, but startling scientific discoveries over the past half century are revealing that we live in a world driven by chance. A Series of Fortunate Events tells the story of the awesome power of chance and how it is the surprising source of all the beauty and diversity in the living world.Like every other species, we humans are here by accident. But it is shocking just how many things--any of which might never have occurred--had to happen in certain ways for any of us to exist. From an extremely improbable asteroid impact, to the wild gyrations of the Ice Age, to invisible accidents in our parents' gonads, we are all here through an astonishing series of fortunate events. And chance continues to reign every day over the razor-thin line between our life and death.This is a relatively small book about a really big idea. It is also a spirited tale. Drawing inspiration from Monty Python, Kurt Vonnegut, and other great thinkers, and crafted by one of today's most accomplished science storytellers, A Series of Fortunate Events is an irresistibly entertaining and thought-provoking account of one of the most important but least appreciated facts of life.

The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory


David J. Chalmers - 1996
    Dennett, Gerald Edelman, and Roger Penrose, all firing volleys in what has come to be called the consciousness wars. Now, in The Conscious Mind, philosopher David J. Chalmers offers a cogent analysis of this heated debate as he unveils a major new theory of consciousness, one that rejects the prevailing reductionist trend of science, while offering provocative insights into the relationship between mind and brain.Writing in a rigorous, thought-provoking style, the author takes us on a far-reaching tour through the philosophical ramifications of consciousness. Chalmers convincingly reveals how contemporary cognitive science and neurobiology have failed to explain how and why mental events emerge from physiological occurrences in the brain. He proposes instead that conscious experience must be understood in an entirely new light--as an irreducible entity (similar to such physical properties as time, mass, and space) that exists at a fundamental level and cannot be understood as the sum of its parts. And after suggesting some intriguing possibilities about the structure and laws of conscious experience, he details how his unique reinterpretation of the mind could be the focus of a new science. Throughout the book, Chalmers provides fascinating thought experiments that trenchantly illustrate his ideas. For example, in exploring the notion that consciousness could be experienced by machines as well as humans, Chalmers asks us to imagine a thinking brain in which neurons are slowly replaced by silicon chips that precisely duplicate their functions--as the neurons are replaced, will consciousness gradually fade away? The book also features thoughtful discussions of how the author's theories might be practically applied to subjects as diverse as artificial intelligence and the interpretation of quantum mechanics.All of us have pondered the nature and meaning of consciousness. Engaging and penetrating, The Conscious Mind adds a fresh new perspective to the subject that is sure to spark debate about our understanding of the mind for years to come.