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Author: Mark L. Y. Chan Publisher: ATF Press ISBN: 9781920691011 Category : Genetic engineeing Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
The twenty-first century has been dubbed the Biotech Century. The explosive increase in our knowledge of the human genome continues to fuel speculations on the possibilities of human genetic modifications. This has been greeted with either enthusiasm or anxiety, for alongside the many euphoric pronouncements about potential benefits are serious questions about the impact of biotechnology and the prospect of manipulating molecular information. What impact will breakthroughs in genetic science will have on our understanding of the human person and the shape of human society? Is the significance of the human person reducible to his or her genetic make-up? What part do our genes play in determining human behaviour, and how would this affect our understanding of human freedom? Drawing on an international panel of writers representing different disciplinary perspectives and a number of Christian traditions, this book seeks to assess the impact of recent developments in genetic science on the Christian understanding of the human person. The essays in this volume address these concerns.
Author: Mark L. Y. Chan Publisher: ATF Press ISBN: 9781920691011 Category : Genetic engineeing Languages : en Pages : 244
Book Description
The twenty-first century has been dubbed the Biotech Century. The explosive increase in our knowledge of the human genome continues to fuel speculations on the possibilities of human genetic modifications. This has been greeted with either enthusiasm or anxiety, for alongside the many euphoric pronouncements about potential benefits are serious questions about the impact of biotechnology and the prospect of manipulating molecular information. What impact will breakthroughs in genetic science will have on our understanding of the human person and the shape of human society? Is the significance of the human person reducible to his or her genetic make-up? What part do our genes play in determining human behaviour, and how would this affect our understanding of human freedom? Drawing on an international panel of writers representing different disciplinary perspectives and a number of Christian traditions, this book seeks to assess the impact of recent developments in genetic science on the Christian understanding of the human person. The essays in this volume address these concerns.
Author: Steven Rose Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198034245 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 351
Book Description
A distinct voice in the nature/nurture debate, Rose's series of essays are a response to the biological reductionism of Richard Dawkins's book, The Selfish Gene (OUP, 1990), which insists that all aspects of human life are in our genes, and everything arises as a consequence of natural selection. Rose argues that life depends on the elaborate web of interactions that occur within cells, organisms, and ecosystems, and in which DNA has but one part to play.
Author: Steven Horst Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0198043155 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 242
Book Description
Contemporary philosophers of mind tend to assume that the world of nature can be reduced to basic physics. Yet there are features of the mind consciousness, intentionality, normativity that do not seem to be reducible to physics or neuroscience. This explanatory gap between mind and brain has thus been a major cause of concern in recent philosophy of mind. Reductionists hold that, despite all appearances, the mind can be reduced to the brain. Eliminativists hold that it cannot, and that this implies that there is something illegitimate about the mentalistic vocabulary. Dualists hold that the mental is irreducible, and that this implies either a substance or a property dualism. Mysterian non-reductive physicalists hold that the mind is uniquely irreducible, perhaps due to some limitation of our self-understanding. In this book, Steven Horst argues that this whole conversation is based on assumptions left over from an outdated philosophy of science. While reductionism was part of the philosophical orthodoxy fifty years ago, it has been decisively rejected by philosophers of science over the past thirty years, and for good reason. True reductions are in fact exceedingly rare in the sciences, and the conviction that they were there to be found was an artifact of armchair assumptions of 17th century Rationalists and 20th century Logical Empiricists. The explanatory gaps between mind and brain are far from unique. In fact, in the sciences it is gaps all the way down.And if reductions are rare in even the physical sciences, there is little reason to expect them in the case of psychology. Horst argues that this calls for a complete re-thinking of the contemporary problematic in philosophy of mind. Reductionism, dualism, eliminativism and non-reductive materialism are each severely compromised by post-reductionist philosophy of science, and philosophy of mind is in need of a new paradigm. Horst suggests that such a paradigm might be found in Cognitive Pluralism: the view that human cognitive architecture constrains us to understand the world through a plurality of partial, idealized, and pragmatically-constrained models, each employing a particular representational system optimized for its own problem domain. Such an architecture can explain the disunities of knowledge, and is plausible on evolutionary grounds.
Author: Giles R. DeMourot Publisher: ISBN: Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 428
Book Description
Determinism Is Alive and Well examines the concept of Determinism in the natural and social sciences, in particular quantum and relativistic physics, and history. It purports to show that determinism has not become an obsolete concept, but remains an essential general scientific principle. The author attempts to develop the modern concept of determinism through tentative theories such as quantum logic, a theory of the jump from the quantum to the classic level of matter and the Systemic Information Effect (SIE), and discusses holism and reductionism. It also examines the applicability of determinism and reductionism in the social sciences. Giles R. DeMourot holds a Doctorate in Law (JD), an MBA, a B.Sc. in Pharmacology and a BA in Classical Arabic, all from US Universities. Over the years he has served in the US Government in various capacities, both in the US and overseas. He then joined the private sector, working mainly in Europe including the UK. He now resides in France.
Author: Giles R. DeMourot Publisher: ISBN: 9781842900208 Category : Business & Economics Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Determinism Is Alive and Well examines the concept of Determinism in the natural and social sciences, in particular quantum and relativistic physics, and history. It purports to show that determinism has not become an obsolete concept, but remains an essential general scientific principle. The author attempts to develop the modern concept of determinism through tentative theories such as quantum logic, a theory of the jump from the quantum to the classic level of matter and the Systemic Information Effect (SIE), and discusses holism and reductionism. It also examines the applicability of determinism and reductionism in the social sciences. Giles R. DeMourot holds a Doctorate in Law (JD), an MBA, a B.Sc. in Pharmacology and a BA in Classical Arabic, all from US Universities. Over the years he has served in the US Government in various capacities, both in the US and overseas. He then joined the private sector, working mainly in Europe including the UK. He now resides in France.
Author: 'Trick Slattery Publisher: ISBN: 9780993866906 Category : Languages : en Pages : 352
Book Description
Learn why the belief in free will doesn't make sense, and why you and the rest of humankind will be better off abandoning it! Free will is an ability many think they posses. Most, however, aren't aware of the dangers imposed by such a belief, and have never thought about free will other than their own assumptions based on a pervasive feeling. The logic, reason, and evidence, however, says something entirely different. Have you ever blamed yourself for something you've done in the past? If so, for how long? Perhaps you still are? Have you ever held a grudge over another person or them you? Perhaps you have hatred for someone who has opposing ideas, thoughts, and beliefs. Or maybe you think someone is more deserving than another or to blame for their own situation? The belief in free will embeds itself within so much of what we think, feel, and do. It isn't just about abstract philosophical metaphysics that applies only to those in academic circles. The belief in free will is a root feeling and concept that has an effect on how most people think about politics, religion, economics, morality / ethics, law, criminal and justice systems, feelings about ourselves, our relationship to others, and our relationship to the world around us. It's for this reason that the topic needs to move away from academia and into the real world. Individually, the free will topic means a lot to you and everything you think, say, and do. Overall, the topic means a great deal for the entirety of humanity. There are real world consequences to holding such a belief in free will, and those consequences are more dire than one would suspect. Free will is often taken for granted and assumed as something positive. The reality, however, is something surprisingly different and, at least initially, counter-intuitive. In actuality, the belief in free will creates people who have resentment, guilt, and hatred. It drives inequality, egoism, poverty dismissal, retributive tendencies, non-connectedness, and a slew of other unhelpful and downright dangerous thoughts and feelings. If we continue holding on to such illusions as if they are real, the future looks bleak. Rather than try to understand causes and fix things at base, we'll just assume that people could have done other than they did. It is, after all, much easier to place blame on people than it is to look for actual causes. It's a much simpler task to suggest that you or the another person simply could have or should have done differently. If, however, we begin to break away from the illusion -- If we begin to understand that free will is not a rational belief -- only then can humanity progress to a state of less ego, more understanding, and start to develop solutions based on reality rather than fictions. We can either keep holding on to the ultimately harmful free will illusion, or break the illusion in the most educated and safe ways possible. And the only way to break the illusion is with well reasoned information. In this enlightening book, 'Trick Slattery gives the ultimate case against free will, and also explores why it's important that we begin to recognize this fact and understand what it means. He makes the case that it's not only an illusion, but a harmful illusion at that. The only way to begin mending the harms this illusion has caused is to understand why it simply can't exist, and what it does and doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Free will is an illusion. We experience a feeling of free will, but that feeling doesn't correlate with something real. It's only a feeling. Come be a part of the history that breaks the free will illusion for the betterment of humankind!
Author: Mariam Thalos Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0199917647 Category : Philosophy Languages : en Pages : 291
Book Description
This book argues that there is causation at every scale of measurement - countering the philosophical position that causation, or "activity," occurs only at the minutest scales of measurement (the scale of microphysics). Thalos's scale-free model, as she shows, is much more hospitable to the models of physicists than are the single-scale models proposed by both reductionists and emergentists.
Author: Fabio Scardigli Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3030055051 Category : Science Languages : en Pages : 119
Book Description
In this small book, theoretical physicist Gerard 't Hooft (Nobel prize 1999), philosopher Emanuele Severino (Lincei Academician), and theologian Piero Coda (Pontifical Lateran University) confront one another on a topic that lies at the roots of quantum mechanics and at the origin of Western thought: Determinism and Free Will. "God does not play dice" said Einstein, a tenacious determinist. Quantum Mechanics and its clash with General Relativity have reanimated ancient dilemmas about chance and necessity: Is Nature deterministic? Is Man free? The “free-will theorem” by Conway and Kochen, and the deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics proposed by 't Hooft, revive such philosophical questions in modern Physics. Is Becoming real? Is the Elementary Event a product of the Case? The cyclopean clash between Heraclitus and Parmenides has entered a new episode, as evidenced by the essays in this volume.
Author: Mark L. Y. Chan
Author: Mark L. Y. Chan
Author: Arthur Koestler
Author: Steven Rose
Author: Steven Horst
Author: Giles R. DeMourot
Author: Giles R. DeMourot
Author: 'Trick Slattery
Author: Mariam Thalos
Author: Richard E. Lee
Author: Fabio Scardigli