Materials of the Mind

Materials of the Mind PDF Author: James Poskett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226820645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Phrenology was the most popular mental science of the Victorian age. From American senators to Indian social reformers, this new mental science found supporters stretching around the globe. Materials of the Mind tells the story of how phrenology changed the world--and how the world changed phrenology. This is a story of skulls from the Arctic, plaster casts from Haiti, books from Bengal, and letters from the Pacific. Drawing on far-flung museum and archival collections, and addressing sources in six different languages, Materials of the Mind is the first substantial account of science in the nineteenth century as part of global history. It shows how the circulation of material culture underpinned the emergence of a new materialist philosophy of the mind, while also demonstrating how a global approach to history could help us reassess issues such as race, technology, and politics today.

Materials of the Mind

Materials of the Mind PDF Author: James Poskett
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226820645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 382

Get Book

Book Description
Phrenology was the most popular mental science of the Victorian age. From American senators to Indian social reformers, this new mental science found supporters stretching around the globe. Materials of the Mind tells the story of how phrenology changed the world--and how the world changed phrenology. This is a story of skulls from the Arctic, plaster casts from Haiti, books from Bengal, and letters from the Pacific. Drawing on far-flung museum and archival collections, and addressing sources in six different languages, Materials of the Mind is the first substantial account of science in the nineteenth century as part of global history. It shows how the circulation of material culture underpinned the emergence of a new materialist philosophy of the mind, while also demonstrating how a global approach to history could help us reassess issues such as race, technology, and politics today.

How Things Shape the Mind

How Things Shape the Mind PDF Author: Lambros Malafouris
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262528924
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
An account of the different ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body, from prehistory to the present. An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or “all in the head.” This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, he considers how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory definitively adds materiality—the world of things, artifacts, and material signs—into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.

Parallel Minds

Parallel Minds PDF Author: Laura Tripaldi
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 1913029514
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 93

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Book Description
Insights into the intelligence throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and under our skin. Is there a way to understand the materials that surround us not as passive objects, but as other intelligences interacting with our own? In Parallel Minds, expert in materials science and nanotechnology Laura Tripaldi delivers not only detailed insights into the properties and emergent behaviors of matter as revealed by state-of-the-art chemistry, synthetic biology, and nanotech, but also a rich philosophical reflection that crosses the frontier between nature and culture, where the most cutting-edge scientific syntheses resonate with ancient myth. The result is a technomaterial bestiary full of unexpected encounters with “strange minds”—from cobwebs to kevlar and carbon fibre, from centaurs to amoebas to arachnids, from polycephalic slime to resonating plasmons, from viruses to golems. Parallel Minds reveals the intelligence at large throughout the natural and technical environment, in the fabric of our devices and dwellings, in our clothes, and even under our skin. Full of lateral ideas and unexpected images, Tripaldi’s book imbues the study and synthesis of materials with a new urgency. For not only do the materials that surround us participate actively in the construction of the world in which we live, but harnessing their ability to interact intelligently with their environment could be the key to the future of our species.

Raw Materials for the Mind

Raw Materials for the Mind PDF Author: David Warlick
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780966743203
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
In the last five years, a new digital economy has risen, where creative information artisans from across the globe are producing media products and marketing them through a new digital bazaar. The challenge of professional educators is to answer the question, "What are the basic skills of this information driven age, and how do we teach them?

Tools of the Mind

Tools of the Mind PDF Author: Elena Bodrova
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040005438
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
Now in its third edition, this classic text remains the seminal resource for in-depth information about major concepts and principles of the cultural-historical theory developed by Lev Vygotsky, his students, and colleagues, as well as three generations of neo-Vygotskian scholars in Russia and the West. Featuring two new chapters on brain development and scaffolding in the zone of proximal development, as well as additional content on technology, dual language learners, and students with disabilities, this new edition provides the latest research evidence supporting the basics of the cultural-historical approach alongside Vygotskian-based practical implications. With concrete explanations and strategies on how to scaffold young children’s learning and development, this book is essential reading for students of early childhood theory and development.

The Really Hard Problem

The Really Hard Problem PDF Author: Owen Flanagan
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262262754
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A noted philosopher proposes a naturalistic (rather than supernaturalistic) way to solve the "really hard problem": how to live in a meaningful way—how to live a life that really matters—even as a finite material being living in a material world. If consciousness is "the hard problem" in mind science—explaining how the amazing private world of consciousness emerges from neuronal activity—then "the really hard problem," writes Owen Flanagan in this provocative book, is explaining how meaning is possible in the material world. How can we make sense of the magic and mystery of life naturalistically, without an appeal to the supernatural? How do we say truthful and enchanting things about being human if we accept the fact that we are finite material beings living in a material world, or, in Flanagan's description, short-lived pieces of organized cells and tissue? Flanagan's answer is both naturalistic and enchanting. We all wish to live in a meaningful way, to live a life that really matters, to flourish, to achieve eudaimonia—to be a "happy spirit." Flanagan calls his "empirical-normative" inquiry into the nature, causes, and conditions of human flourishing eudaimonics. Eudaimonics, systematic philosophical investigation that is continuous with science, is the naturalist's response to those who say that science has robbed the world of the meaning that fantastical, wishful stories once provided. Flanagan draws on philosophy, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and psychology, as well as on transformative mindfulness and self-cultivation practices that come from such nontheistic spiritual traditions as Buddhism, Confucianism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism, in his quest. He gathers from these disciplines knowledge that will help us understand the nature, causes, and constituents of well-being and advance human flourishing. Eudaimonics can help us find out how to make a difference, how to contribute to the accumulation of good effects—how to live a meaningful life.

Angus Taylor

Angus Taylor PDF Author: Paul Harris
Publisher: Scheidegger and Spiess
ISBN: 9783858818706
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The first book on the South-African sculptor Angus Taylor to offer a comprehensive survey of his entire work to date. South African sculptor Angus Taylor, born in Johannesburg in 1970 and alumnus of the University of Pretoria, is known mainly for his monumental works. For these, in addition to the classic bronze, he uses a selection of materials special to his immediate environment: black granite, red jasper, straw, and the red earth of the Pretoria region. In the symbiosis of these materials with traditional artistic craft techniques, distinctly contemporary works arise, which Taylor pioneeringly positions as figurative landmark sculpture. This first-ever monograph on Taylor offers a comprehensive survey of his oeuvre to date. Key works from his entire career since the founding of his studio Dionysus Sculpture Works in 1997 are featured in full-color illustrations throughout. The essays discuss Taylor's methods, practices, and personal philosophies and put his work in context with South Africa's social situation as well as with his own biography. The book offers a much-welcomed and profound introduction to Taylor's innovative and characteristic body of work.

Building a Second Brain

Building a Second Brain PDF Author: Tiago Forte
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1982167386
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
"Building a second brain is getting things done for the digital age. It's a ... productivity method for consuming, synthesizing, and remembering the vast amount of information we take in, allowing us to become more effective and creative and harness the unprecedented amount of technology we have at our disposal"--

Materials and Design

Materials and Design PDF Author: Michael F. Ashby
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
ISBN: 1856174972
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Materials are the stuff of design. From the very beginning of human history, materials have been taken from the natural world and shaped, modified, and adapted for everything from primitive tools to modern electronics. This renowned book by noted materials engineering author Mike Ashby and Industrial designer, Kara Johnson, explores the role of materials and materials processing in product design, with a particular emphasis on creating both desired aesthetics and functionality. The new edition will feature even more of the highly useful "materials profiles," that give critical design, processing, performance and applications criteria for each material in question. The reader will find information ranging from the generic and commercial names of each material, its physical and mechanical properties, its chemical properties, its common uses, how it is typically made and processed, and even its average price. And with improved photographs and drawings, the reader will be taken even more closely to the way real design is done by real designers, selecting the optimum materials for a successful product. * The best guide ever published on the on the role of materials, past and present, in product development, by noted materials authority Mike Ashby and professional designer Kara Johnson--now with even better photos and drawings on the Design Process * Significant new section on the use of re-cycled materials in products, and the importance of sustainable design for manufactured goods and services * Enhanced materials profiles, with addition of new materials types like nanomaterials, advanced plastics and bio-based materials

Mind Over Matter

Mind Over Matter PDF Author: Don Seiden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781890374020
Category : Art therapy
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description