He reveals the astonishing new culture wars playing out in our workplaces, universities, schools and homes in the names of social justice, identity politics and intersectionality.We are living through a postmodern era in which the grand narratives of religion and political ideology have collapsed. In their place have emerged a crusading desire to right perceived wrongs and a weaponization of identity, both accelerated by the new forms of social and news media. Narrow sets of interests now dominate the agenda as society becomes more and more tribal--and, as Murray shows, the casualties are mounting.

    In the aftermath, Harris discovered that most people - from religious fundamentalists to non-believing scientists - agree on one point: science has nothing to say on the subject of human values. Indeed, our failure to address questions of meaning and morality through science has now become the most common justification for religious faith. It is also the primary reason why so many secularists and religious moderates feel obligated to "respect" the hardened superstitions of their more devout neighbors.In this explosive new book, Sam Harris tears down the wall between scientific facts and human values, arguing that most people are simply mistaken about the relationship between morality and the rest of human knowledge. Harris urges us to think about morality in terms of human and animal well-being, viewing the experiences of conscious creatures as peaks and valleys on a "moral landscape." Because there are definite facts to be known about where we fall on this landscape, Harris foresees a time when science will no longer limit itself to merely describing what people do in the name of "morality"; in principle, science should be able to tell us what we ought to do to live the best lives possible.Bringing a fresh perspective to age-old questions of right and wrong and good and evil, Harris demonstrates that we already know enough about the human brain and its relationship to events in the world to say that there are right and wrong answers to the most pressing questions of human life. Because such answers exist, moral relativism is simply false - and comes at increasing cost to humanity. And the intrusions of religion into the sphere of human values can be finally repelled: for just as there is no such thing as Christian physics or Muslim algebra, there can be no Christian or Muslim morality.Using his expertise in philosophy and neuroscience, along with his experience on the front lines of our "culture wars," Harris delivers a game-changing book about the future of science and about the real basis of human cooperation.

    So, why do we perceive a flow of time? Is the future “already there”, and is the past “still there”, even though we are only aware of a single moment of time? Drawing on the latest ideas from both relativity and quantum theory, award-winning science writer John Gribbin (In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat) addresses the questions that have baffled philosophers since antiquity and Zeno’s arrow paradox. Along the way, we find that in the quantum world it is literally true that a watched pot never boils, and learn how physicists have come to terms with the idea of the four-dimensional block universe as an explanation of the distinction between past, present and future. Why do eggs break when we drop them, but never unbreak? The Universe as we know it began in a Big Bang, which in some sense marks the beginning of time. Is it possible that we need to invoke the Big Bang to explain why we never see unbroken eggs? This idea glories in the name “the past hypothesis”, but many physicists regard it as no more than an attempt to sweep the problem of the arrow of time under the rug. Read The Time Illusion and see if you agree!

    In this acclaimed number one national best-seller, one of our country's most distinguished political philosophers argues that the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis. Allan Bloom's sweeping analysis is essential to understanding America today. It has fired the imagination of a public ripe for change.

    Drawing on his experiences as a former priest, Watts skillfully explains how the intuition of Eastern religion—Zen Buddhism, in particular—can be incorporated into the doctrines of Western Christianity, allowing people of all creeds to enjoy a deeper, more meaningful relationship with the spiritual in our present troubled times.

    In A Generation of Sociopaths, Gibney examines the disastrous policies of the most powerful generation in modern history, showing how the Boomers ruthlessly enriched themselves at the expense of future generations.Acting without empathy, prudence, or respect for facts--acting, in other words, as sociopaths--the Boomers turned American dynamism into stagnation, inequality, and bipartisan fiasco. The Boomers have set a time bomb for the 2030s, when damage to Social Security, public finances, and the environment will become catastrophic and possibly irreversible--and when, not coincidentally, Boomers will be dying off. Gibney argues that younger generations have a fleeting window to hold the Boomers accountable and begin restoring America.

    Our society now embraces sharing like never before: time alone is being forced out of our lives by the constant pings of smartphones and prods of social media. But what if solitude still has something to offer us - something we have forgotten, but that we still desperately need? In Solitude, award-winning author Michael Harris examines why being alone matters now more than ever before. He reflects on the paradoxical feeling of isolation that emerges from being constantly connected - and on how learning the beauty of solitude can help us escape it. After all, it is when we are alone that we realise the greatest truths about ourselves. Being alone - really alone - could be the only antidote to the frenzy of our digital age. Rich with stories about the transformative power of solitude, and drawing on the research of the world's leading neuroscientists and behavioural psychologists, Solitude offers a timely and profound exploration of how to be alone - and why it matters for us all.

    And the worst part is that it's contagious, leading reasonably courteous people to stoop to new lows in order to respond to the ever-coarsening encounters we face every day.In this engaging and illuminating new book, bestselling author and all-around curious guy Danny Wallace looks at the reasons behind the rudeness, and what we can do to stop it. His quest to stop the madness includes interviews with neuroscientists, psychologists, NASA scientists, politicians, and other experts. He joins a Radical Honesty group, talks to LA drivers about road rage, and confronts his own online troll in a pub—all to better understand the scourge that's turning normal people into bullies, tantruming toddlers, trolls, and other types of everyday monsters.Want to be part of the solution? Let Danny Wallace be your smart and funny guide.

    As a result, East Asian thought is “holistic”—drawn to the perceptual field as a whole and to relations among objects and events within that field. By contrast, Westerners focus on salient objects or people, use attributes to assign them to categories, and apply rules of formal logic to understand their behavior. From feng shui to metaphysics, from comparative linguistics to economic history, a gulf separates the children of Aristotle from the descendants of Confucius. At a moment in history when the need for cross-cultural understanding and collaboration have never been more important, The Geography of Thought offers both a map to that gulf and a blueprint for a bridge that will span it.

    We are, however, the pleroma itself, for we are a part of the eternal and infinite. But we have no share thereof, as we are from the pleroma infinitely removed; not spiritually or temporally, but essentially, since we are distinguished from the pleroma in our essence as creatura, which is confined within time and space. Yet because we are parts of the pleroma, the pleroma is also in us. Even in the smallest point is the pleroma endless, eternal, and entire, since small and great are qualities which are contained in it. It is that nothingness which is everywhere whole and continuous. Only figuratively, therefore, do I speak of created being as a part of the pleroma. Because, actually, the pleroma is nowhere divided, since it is nothingness. We are also the whole pleroma, because, figuratively, the pleroma is the smallest point (assumed only, not existing) in us and the boundless firmament about us. But wherefore, then, do we speak of the pleroma at all, since it is thus everything and nothing? I speak of it to make a beginning somewhere, and also to free you from the delusion that somewhere, either without or within, there standeth something fixed, or in some way established, from the beginning. Every so-called fixed and certain thing is only relative. That alone is fixed and certain which is subject to change. What is changeable, however, is creatura. Therefore is it the one thing which is[...]".

    To be published on the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace, imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor.

    The computer programmer, the doctor, the artist, and even the parent and citizen all engage in a craftsman’s work. In this thought-provoking book, Sennett explores the work of craftsmen past and present, identifies deep connections between material consciousness and ethical values, and challenges received ideas about what constitutes good work in today’s world. The Craftsman engages the many dimensions of skill—from the technical demands to the obsessive energy required to do good work. Craftsmanship leads Sennett across time and space, from ancient Roman brickmakers to Renaissance goldsmiths to the printing presses of Enlightenment Paris and the factories of industrial London; in the modern world he explores what experiences of good work are shared by computer programmers, nurses and doctors, musicians, glassblowers, and cooks. Unique in the scope of his thinking, Sennett expands previous notions of crafts and craftsmen and apprises us of the surprising extent to which we can learn about ourselves through the labor of making physical things.

    We are looking for a personal breakthrough, a turning point, a revelation that brings with it new meaning. The Book of Secrets--a crystalline distillation of insights and wisdom accumulated over the lifetime of one of the great spiritual thinkers of our time--provides an exquisite new tool for achieving just that.Every life is a book of secrets, ready to be opened. The secret of perfect love is found there, along with the secrets of healing, compassion, faith, and the most elusive one of all: who we really are. We are still mysteries to ourselves, despite the proximity of these answers, and what we most long to know remains lodged deep inside. Because answers to the questions at the center of life are counterintuitive, they are often hidden from view, sequestered from our everyday gaze. In his ongoing quest to elevate our experience, bestselling author Deepak Chopra has isolated fifteen secrets that drive the narrative of this inspiring book--and of our lives. From "The World Is in You" and "What You Seek, You Already Are" to "Evil Is Not Your Enemy" and "You Are Truly Free When You Are Not a Person," The Book of Secrets is rich with insights, a priceless treasure that can transport us beyond change to transformation, and from there to a sacred place where we can savor the nectar of enlightenment. "The Book of Secrets is the finest and most profound of Deepak Chopra’s books to date. Want the answers to the secrets of life? Let me recommend that you start right here." -- Ken Wilber, author of A Brief History of EverythingFrom the Hardcover edition.

    Some of the objects are described by future historians; others through found materials, short stories, or dialogues. All come from a very real future.

    Each section also includes quizzes, games, and mental exercises.