An Infinity of Interpretations

An Infinity of Interpretations PDF Author: Ph. D. Ronald E. Kimmons
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1440176639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
In An Infinity of Interpretations, Dr. Kimmons explores a simple thesis: Life has no meaning except what we assign to it. Dr. Kimmons' simple thesis helps us begin to understand why there is such a variety of interpretations of just about everything encountered in modern times, including ideas and behavioral phenomena from politics, science, social science, entertainment, and religion. Dr.Kimmons proposes that most of what we want to accomplish in this lifetime is driven not by a quest for money, power, sex, glory, religion, or objective knowledge. Rather, what we want to accomplish in this lifetime is driven by our desire to understand, justify, and perpetuate our life. While including bits and pieces of his own life story (along with social commentary about a variety of matters taking place in these times), in this book Dr. Kimmons addresses the origins of his thesis and uses Freud and White as part of a theoretical framework for his thesis. The core of Dr. Kimmons' book, however, is his attempt to illustrate how individuals may actualize themselves through completely different processes but all with the same ultimate goal or end in mind: To understand, justify, and perpetuate one's life. Is it true that there are few, if any, absolutes in this world? Dr. Kimmons seems to believe that, and through his examination of a simple thesis encourages us to proceed carefully in this life lest we offend life itself.

An Infinity of Interpretations

An Infinity of Interpretations PDF Author: Ph. D. Ronald E. Kimmons
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1440176639
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 218

Get Book

Book Description
In An Infinity of Interpretations, Dr. Kimmons explores a simple thesis: Life has no meaning except what we assign to it. Dr. Kimmons' simple thesis helps us begin to understand why there is such a variety of interpretations of just about everything encountered in modern times, including ideas and behavioral phenomena from politics, science, social science, entertainment, and religion. Dr.Kimmons proposes that most of what we want to accomplish in this lifetime is driven not by a quest for money, power, sex, glory, religion, or objective knowledge. Rather, what we want to accomplish in this lifetime is driven by our desire to understand, justify, and perpetuate our life. While including bits and pieces of his own life story (along with social commentary about a variety of matters taking place in these times), in this book Dr. Kimmons addresses the origins of his thesis and uses Freud and White as part of a theoretical framework for his thesis. The core of Dr. Kimmons' book, however, is his attempt to illustrate how individuals may actualize themselves through completely different processes but all with the same ultimate goal or end in mind: To understand, justify, and perpetuate one's life. Is it true that there are few, if any, absolutes in this world? Dr. Kimmons seems to believe that, and through his examination of a simple thesis encourages us to proceed carefully in this life lest we offend life itself.

The Beginning of Infinity

The Beginning of Infinity PDF Author: David Deutsch
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141969695
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 571

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Book Description
'Science has never had an advocate quite like David Deutsch ... A computational physicist on a par with his touchstones Alan Turing and Richard Feynman, and a philosopher in the line of his greatest hero, Karl Popper. His arguments are so clear that to read him is to experience the thrill of the highest level of discourse available on this planet and to understand it' Peter Forbes, Independent In our search for truth, how far have we advanced? This uniquely human quest for good explanations has driven amazing improvements in everything from scientific understanding and technology to politics, moral values and human welfare. But will progress end, either in catastrophe or completion - or will it continue infinitely? In this profound and seminal book, David Deutsch explores the furthest reaches of our current understanding, taking in the Infinity Hotel, supernovae and the nature of optimism, to instill in all of us a wonder at what we have achieved - and the fact that this is only the beginning of humanity's infinite possibility. 'This is Deutsch at his most ambitious, seeking to understand the implications of our scientific explanations of the world ... I enthusiastically recommend this rich, wide-ranging and elegantly written exposition of the unique insights of one of our most original intellectuals' Michael Berry, Times Higher Education Supplement 'Bold ... profound ... provocative and persuasive' Economist 'David Deutsch may well go down in history as one of the great scientists of our age' Scotsman

The Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

The Everett Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics PDF Author: Jeffrey A. Barrett
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400842743
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
Hugh Everett III was an American physicist best known for his many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which formed the basis of his PhD thesis at Princeton University in 1957. Although counterintuitive, Everett's revolutionary formulation of quantum mechanics offers the most direct solution to the infamous quantum measurement problem--that is, how and why the singular world of our experience emerges from the multiplicities of alternatives available in the quantum world. The many-worlds interpretation postulates the existence of multiple universes. Whenever a measurement-like interaction occurs, the universe branches into relative states, one for each possible outcome of the measurement, and the world in which we find ourselves is but one of these many, but equally real, possibilities. Everett's challenge to the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics was met with scorn from Niels Bohr and other leading physicists, and Everett subsequently abandoned academia to conduct military operations research. Today, however, Everett's formulation of quantum mechanics is widely recognized as one of the most controversial but promising physical theories of the last century. In this book, Jeffrey Barrett and Peter Byrne present the long and short versions of Everett's thesis along with a collection of his explanatory writings and correspondence. These primary source documents, many of them newly discovered and most unpublished until now, reveal how Everett's thinking evolved from his days as a graduate student to his untimely death in 1982. This definitive volume also features Barrett and Byrne's introductory essays, notes, and commentary that put Everett's extraordinary theory into historical and scientific perspective and discuss the puzzles that still remain.

The Science of Meaning

The Science of Meaning PDF Author: Derek Ball
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019105996X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
By creating certain marks on paper, or by making certain sounds-breathing past a moving tongue-or by articulation of hands and bodies, language users can give expression to their mental lives. With language we command, assert, query, emote, insult, and inspire. Language has meaning. This fact can be quite mystifying, yet a science of linguistic meaning-semantics-has emerged at the intersection of a variety of disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, computer science, and psychology. Semantics is the study of meaning. But what exactly is "meaning"? What is the exact target of semantic theory? Much of the early work in natural language semantics was accompanied by extensive reflection on the aims of semantic theory, and the form a theory must take to meet those aims. But this meta-theoretical reflection has not kept pace with recent theoretical innovations. This volume re-addresses these questions concerning the foundations of natural language semantics in light of the current state-of-the-art in semantic theorising.

Absorbing Perfections

Absorbing Perfections PDF Author: Moshe Idel
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300135076
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description
In this wide-ranging discussion of Kabbalah—from the mystical trends of medieval Judaism to modern Hasidism—one of the world’s foremost scholars considers different visions of the nature of the sacred text and of the methods to interpret it. Moshe Idel takes as a starting point the fact that the postbiblical Jewish world lost its geographical center with the destruction of the temple and so was left with a textual center, the Holy Book. Idel argues that a text-oriented religion produced language-centered forms of mysticism. Against this background, the author demonstrates how various Jewish mystics amplified the content of the Scriptures so as to include everything: the world, or God, for example. Thus the text becomes a major realm for contemplation, and the interpretation of the text frequently becomes an encounter with the deepest realms of reality. Idel delineates the particular hermeneutics belonging to Jewish mysticism, investigates the progressive filling of the text with secrets and hidden levels of meaning, and considers in detail the various interpretive strategies needed to decodify the arcane dimensions of the text.

The Interpretation of Religious Experience

The Interpretation of Religious Experience PDF Author: John Watson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Experience (Religion)
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description


The Limits of Interpretation

The Limits of Interpretation PDF Author: Umberto Eco
Publisher: Bloomington, Ind. : Indiana University Press
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
In this new collection of essays, Eco focuses on what he calls the limits of interpretation, or, as he once noted in another context, ""the cancer of uncontrolled interpretation"". Readers of Eco's other work will find here all the ingredients with which they have become familiar--vast learning, an agile and exciting mind, good humor and a brilliance of insight.

God and the Mathematics of Infinity

God and the Mathematics of Infinity PDF Author: H Chris Ransford
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
ISBN: 3838210190
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 154

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Book Description
Drawing on incontrovertible results from the science and mathematics of Infinity, H. Chris Ransford analyzes the traditional concept of Godhood and reaches astonishing conclusions. He addresses humankind's abiding core debate on the meaning of spirituality and God. Using mathematics to explore key questions within this debate, the author is led to counter-intuitive conclusions, including some that had long baffled humanity: For instance, why does evil exist if there is a God? The book fastidiously does not take sides nor proffers opinions, it only follows allowable mathematics wherever it leads. By doing so, it makes a major contribution to an understanding of the nature of reality.

Infinity

Infinity PDF Author: Lillian Rosanoff Lieber
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Infinite
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description


The Interpretation of Dreams

The Interpretation of Dreams PDF Author: Artemidorus (Daldianus.)
Publisher: Original Books.
ISBN:
Category : Dreams
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description