A brilliantly clear and penetrating exposition of developments in physical science and mathematics brought about by the advent of non-Euclidean geometries, including in-depth coverage of the foundations of geometry, the theory of time, Einstein's theory of relativity and its consequences, other key topics.

    They develop an interpretation of quantum mechanics which gives a clear, intuitive understanding of its meaning and in which there is a coherent notion of the reality of the universe without assuming a fundamental role for the human observer. With the aid of new concepts such as active information together with non-locality, they provide a comprehensive account of all the basic features of quantum mechanics, including the relativistic domain and quantum field theory. It is shown that, with the new approach, paradoxical or unsatisfactory features associated with the standard approaches, such as the wave-particle duality and the collapse of the wave function, do not arise. Finally, the authors make new suggestions and indicate some areas in which one may expect quantum theory to break down in a way that will allow for a test. The Undivided Universe is an important book especially because it provides a different overall world view which is neither mechanistic nor reductionist. This view will ultimately have radical implications not only in physics but also in our general approach to all areas of life.

    He holds that the universe is self-aware, and that consciousness creates the physical world.

    Pulitzer Prize–winning author Siddhartha Mukherjee, a leading cancer physician and researcher, selects the year’s top science and nature writing from journalists who dive into their fields with curiosity and passion, delivering must-read articles from a wide array of fields.

    Each essay gives a biographical background for its subject and a description of the main strands of their thought, together with summaries of their major works.The thirty-four chronologically-organized essays are a comprehensive introduction to Western philosophy's major figures.Dr Jeremy Stangroom is a founding editor of The Philosophers' Magazine, one of the world's most popular philosophy publications. He has written and/or edited numerous books, including: New British Philosophy, What Philosophers Think and Great Thinkers A-Z (all with Julian Baggini); The Dictionary of Fashionable Nonsense and Why Truth Matters (with Ophelia Benson); and What Scientists Think. He is a frequent contributor to New Humanist magazine, and he is also the editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy web site.James Garvey teaches philosophy at the University of Nottingham and is Secretary of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

    Before this explosive growth into the modern age took place, an all-but-forgotten genius strove for forty years to win acceptance for the atomic theory of matter and an altogether new way of doing physics. Ludwig Boltz-mann battled with philosophers, the scientific establishment, and his own potent demons. His victory led the way to the greatest scientific achievements of the twentieth century. Now acclaimed science writer David Lindley portrays the dramatic story of Boltzmann and his embrace of the atom, while providing a window on the civilized world that gave birth to our scientific era. Boltzmann emerges as an endearingly quixotic character, passionately inspired by Beethoven, who muddled through the practical matters of life in a European gilded age. Boltzmann's story reaches from fin de siecle Vienna, across Germany and Britain, to America. As the Habsburg Empire was crumbling, Germany's intellectual might was growing; Edinburgh in Scotland was one of the most intellectually fertile places on earth; and, in America, brilliant independent minds were beginning to draw on the best ideas of the bureaucratized old world.Boltzmann's nemesis in the field of theoretical physics at home in Austria was Ernst Mach, noted today in the term Mach I, the speed of sound. Mach believed physics should address only that which could be directly observed. How could we know that frisky atoms jiggling about corresponded to heat if we couldn't see them? Why should we bother with theories that only told us what would probably happen, rather than making an absolute prediction? Mach and Boltzmann both believed in the power of science, but their approaches to physics could not have been more opposed. Boltzmann sought to explain the real world, and cast aside any philosophical criteria. Mach, along with many nineteenth-century scientists, wanted to construct an empirical edifice of absolute truths that obeyed strict philosophical rules. Boltzmann did not get on well with authority in any form, and he did his best work at arm's length from it. When at the end of his career he engaged with the philosophical authorities in the Viennese academy, the results were personally disastrous and tragic. Yet Boltzmann's enduring legacy lives on in the new physics and technology of our wired world.Lindley's elegant telling of this tale combines the detailed breadth of the best history, the beauty of theoretical physics, and the psychological insight belonging to the finest of novels.

    But behind both works lay the assumption that the philosophy of language is in the end a branch of the philosophy of the mind: speech acts are forms of human action and represent just one example of the mind's capacity to relate the human organism to the world. The present book is concerned with these biologically fundamental capacities, and, though third in the sequence, in effect it provides the philosophical foundations for the other two. Intentionality is taken to be the crucial mental phenomenon, and its analysis involves wide-ranging discussions of perception, action, causation, meaning, and reference. In all these areas John Searle has original and stimulating views. He ends with a resolution of the 'mind-body' problem.

    Drawing from a broad spectrum of disciplines, he shows how many common models of reality err by confusing the three realms.

    The selections range from his earliest days as a theoretical physicist to his death in 1955; from such subjects as relativity, nuclear war or peace, and religion and science, to human rights, economics, and government.

    The theme of Heisenberg's exposition is that words and concepts familiar in daily life can lose their meaning in the world of relativity and quantum physics. This in turn has profound philosophical implications for the nature of reality and for our total world view.

    Written expressly for "anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but does not know how to approach them," Think provides a sound framework for exploring the most basic themes of philosophy, and for understanding how major philosophers have tackled the questions that have pressed themselves most forcefully on human consciousness.

    Philosopher Alex Rosenberg maintains that science is the only thing that can really answer them—all of them. His bracing and ultimately upbeat book takes physics seriously as the complete description of reality and accepts all its consequences. He shows how physics makes Darwinian natural selection the only way life can emerge, and how that deprives nature of purpose, and human action of meaning, while it exposes conscious illusions such as free will and the self. The science that makes us nonbelievers provides the insight into the real difference between right and wrong, the nature of the mind, even the direction of human history. The Atheist's Guide to Reality draws powerful implications for the ethical and political issues that roil contemporary life. The result is nice nihilism, a surprisingly sanguine perspective atheists can happily embrace.

    He spent two years gathering information that demonstrates this and along the way interviewed more than a hundred experts in a number of different fields. Among them were parapsychologists, medical doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, quantum physicists, and researchers into the true nature of reality. Specific examples are presented that indicate what happens when we die, for example that memories can be formed and retained despite a subject’s brain having been shutdown and the blood drained from it. Questions such as whether or not you will be able to communicate with living loved ones after death are addressed, if it is possible to be reborn, and what might be missing from reproductive theory to explain the various phenomena indicated in the many case histories and scientific investigations presented. All of us will someday cross the border to what Shakespeare called "The undiscovered country." As long as we must make that trip, wouldn’t it be smart to find out where we are going and what to expect when we get there?

    Central is a defense of his "outsider test of faith," arguing that believers should test their faith with the same skeptical standards they use to evaluate the other faiths they reject, as if they were outsiders. Experts in medicine, psychology, and anthropology join Loftus to show why, when this test is applied to Christianity, it becomes very difficult to rationally defend. Collectively, these articles reveal that popular Christian beliefs tend to rely on ignorance of the facts. Drawing together experts in diverse fields, including Hector Avalos, Richard Carrier, David Eller, and Robert Price, this book deals a powerful blow against Christian faith.

    Part 1, on propositional logic, is the old Introduction, but contains much new material. Part 2 is entirely new, and covers quantification and identity for all the logics in Part 1. The material is unified by the underlying theme of world semantics. All of the topics are explained clearly using devices such as tableau proofs, and their relation to current philosophical issues and debates are discussed. Students with a basic understanding of classical logic will find this book an invaluable introduction to an area that has become of central importance in both logic and philosophy. It will also interest people working in mathematics and computer science who wish to know about the area.