Technology, Mythology and the Search for Meaning
Author: R. Douglas Francis
Publisher:
Published: 2024
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781527552784
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: R. Douglas Francis
Publisher:
Published: 2024
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9781527552784
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Author: Douglas Francis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Published: 2023-11-15
Total Pages: 173
ISBN-13: 1527552799
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →This book offers a big-picture look at the evolution of Western thought on technology by focusing on seven periods when there was a paradigm shift in perspective. A techno-myth is used to identify, shape and capture the beliefs of each era. Drawing from philosophy, literature, social sciences, physical sciences, mythology, and cultural history, the book brings to life the ideas of the great thinkers and the ancient myths. What their message tells us is that we have failed to learn from the mistakes of the past. We have allowed technology to take control of our lives and narrowed our thinking to a one-dimensional, materialistic perspective. We have become prisoners in Max Weber’s metaphoric iron cage. But they also tell us how to free ourselves by humanizing technology so that humans are in control, which is explored in depth in this book.
Author: Meghan O'Gieblyn
Publisher: Anchor
Published: 2022-07-12
Total Pages: 305
ISBN-13: 0525562710
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →A strikingly original exploration of what it might mean to be authentically human in the age of artificial intelligence, from the author of the critically-acclaimed Interior States. • "At times personal, at times philosophical, with a bracing mixture of openness and skepticism, it speaks thoughtfully and articulately to the most crucial issues awaiting our future." —Phillip Lopate “[A] truly fantastic book.”—Ezra Klein For most of human history the world was a magical and enchanted place ruled by forces beyond our understanding. The rise of science and Descartes's division of mind from world made materialism our ruling paradigm, in the process asking whether our own consciousness—i.e., souls—might be illusions. Now the inexorable rise of technology, with artificial intelligences that surpass our comprehension and control, and the spread of digital metaphors for self-understanding, the core questions of existence—identity, knowledge, the very nature and purpose of life itself—urgently require rethinking. Meghan O'Gieblyn tackles this challenge with philosophical rigor, intellectual reach, essayistic verve, refreshing originality, and an ironic sense of contradiction. She draws deeply and sometimes humorously from her own personal experience as a formerly religious believer still haunted by questions of faith, and she serves as the best possible guide to navigating the territory we are all entering.
Author: Dennis Ford
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 2007-09-10
Total Pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9780520934207
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →In The Search for Meaning: A Short History, Dennis Ford explores eight approaches human beings have pursued over time to invest life with meaning and to infuse order into a seemingly chaotic universe. These include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics, and naturalism. In engaging, companionable prose, Ford boils down these systems to their bare essentials, showing the difference between viewing the world from a religious point of view and that of a naturalist, and comparing a scientific worldview to a philosophical one. Ford investigates the contributions of the Greeks, Kant, and William James, and brings the discussion up to date with contemporary thinkers. He proffers the refreshing idea that in today's world, the answers provided by traditional religions to increasingly difficult questions have lost their currency for many and that the reductive or rationalist answers provided by science and postmodernism are themselves rife with unexamined assumptions.
Author: Iddo Landau
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2017-07-01
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 0190657685
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Does life have meaning? Is it possible for life to be meaningful when the world is filled with suffering and when so much depends merely upon chance? Even if there is meaning, is there enough to justify living? These questions are difficult to resolve. There are times in which we face the mundane, the illogically cruel, and the tragic, which leave us to question the value of our lives. However, Iddo Landau argues, our lives often are, or could be made, meaningfulwe've just been setting the bar too high for evaluating what meaning there is. When it comes to meaning in life, Landau explains, we have let perfect become the enemy of the good. We have failed to find life perfectly meaningful, and therefore have failed to see any meaning in our lives. We must attune ourselves to enhancing and appreciating the meaning in our lives, and Landau shows us how to do that. In this warmly written book, rich with examples from the author's life, film, literature, and history, Landau offers new theories and practical advice that awaken us to the meaning already present in our lives and demonstrates how we can enhance it. He confronts prevailing nihilist ideas that undermine our existence, and the questions that dog us no matter what we believe. While exposing the weaknesses of ideas that lead many to despair, he builds a strong case for maintaining more hope. Along the way, he faces provocative questions: Would we choose to live forever if we could? Does death render life meaningless? If we examine it in the context of the immensity of the whole universe, can we consider life meaningful? If we feel empty once we achieve our goals, and the pursuit of these goals is what gives us a sense of meaning, then what can we do? Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World is likely to alter the way you understand your life.
Author: James Hollis
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2005-05-05
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 1101216697
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →What does it really mean to be a grown up in today’s world? We assume that once we “get it together” with the right job, marry the right person, have children, and buy a home, all is settled and well. But adulthood presents varying levels of growth, and is rarely the respite of stability we expected. Turbulent emotional shifts can take place anywhere between the age of thirty-five and seventy when we question the choices we’ve made, realize our limitations, and feel stuck— commonly known as the “midlife crisis.” Jungian psycho-analyst James Hollis believes it is only in the second half of life that we can truly come to know who we are and thus create a life that has meaning. In Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Hollis explores the ways we can grow and evolve to fully become ourselves when the traditional roles of adulthood aren’t quite working for us, revealing a new way of uncovering and embracing our authentic selves. Offering wisdom to anyone facing a career that no longer seems fulfilling, a long-term relationship that has shifted, or family transitions that raise issues of aging and mortality, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life provides a reassuring message and a crucial bridge across this critical passage of adult development.
Author: Michael Willesee
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2019-10-29
Total Pages: 288
ISBN-13: 9781760556754
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →'Willesee has always been a news-hound in pursuit of a story.' Sydney Morning HeraldPerfect for fans of Proof of Heaven, this part memoir, part investigation is a spellbinding spiritual quest around the world and deep into the heart of life's ultimate riddle.Is there life after death?Does God exist? How do you explain miracles? In a career spanning fifty years and thousands of stories, legendary Australian journalist Mike Willesee dared to pose the big questions as part of his ongoing quest for meaning.Born into the Catholic faith, with early ambitions to be a priest, he tried to escape his spiritual destiny by pursuing a path as an investigative journalist. But fate kept catching up, as A Sceptic's Search for Meaning reveals. He had a premonition his plane was going to crash, moments before it did.He found himself the neighbour of one of Australia's most passionate investigators of mystical phenomena, who convinced Mike to join him on his quest. Among many such adventures, Mike flew to Bolivia to interview Katya Rivas, dubbed 'God's secretary'. He watched as the barely literate woman who claimed never to have read the Bible wrote page after page of perfect theology in multiple languages. He also sat by her bed as blood started to ooze from her brow, her hands and her feet - the telltale signs of stigmata.Written in his final year as Mike fought a losing battle with cancer, A Sceptic's Search for Meaning is a moving and intriguing tale of one man's attempt to make sense of the profound mysteries of faith.PRAISE FOR MEMOIRS'A cracking tale of good fortune, ambition, risk-taking, self-belief and driving curiosity.' Daily Telegraph
Author: Adrienne Mayor
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2020-04-21
Total Pages: 294
ISBN-13: 0691202265
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.
Author: Erik Davis
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
Published: 2015-03-17
Total Pages: 457
ISBN-13: 1583949305
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →TechGnosis is a cult classic of media studies that straddles the line between academic discourse and popular culture; it appeals to both those secular and spiritual, to fans of cyberpunk and hacker literature and culture as much as new-thought adherents and spiritual seekers How does our fascination with technology intersect with the religious imagination? In TechGnosis—a cult classic now updated and reissued with a new afterword—Erik Davis argues that while the realms of the digital and the spiritual may seem worlds apart, esoteric and religious impulses have in fact always permeated (and sometimes inspired) technological communication. Davis uncovers startling connections between such seemingly disparate topics as electricity and alchemy; online roleplaying games and religious and occult practices; virtual reality and gnostic mythology; programming languages and Kabbalah. The final chapters address the apocalyptic dreams that haunt technology, providing vital historical context as well as new ways to think about a future defined by the mutant intermingling of mind and machine, nightmare and fantasy.
Author: Jean Staune
Publisher: Templeton Foundation Press
Published: 2006-11
Total Pages: 268
ISBN-13: 1599471027
DOWNLOAD EBOOK →Explores the mysteries of reality from a multi-faith, multi-cultural perspective. -- Back cover.