BBC R4 Book of the Week ‘Brilliant’ Guardian ‘Fascinating and often delightful’ The Times What if intelligent life on Earth evolved not once, but twice? The octopus is the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien. What can we learn from the encounter?
From the award-winning author of A Questionable Shape and White Dialogues, a brilliant, anxious, and hilarious new collection. A man lends his phone to a stranger in the mall, setting off an uncanny series of Unknown calls that come to haunt his relationship with jealousy and dread. A well-meaning locavore tries to butcher his backyard chickens humanely, only to find himself absorbed into the absurd violence of the pecking order. A student applying for a philosophy fellowship struggles to project himself into the thoughts of his hypothetical judges, becoming increasingly possessed and overpowered by the problem of other minds. And in “The Postcard,” a private detective is hired to investigate a posthumous message that a widower has seemingly received from his dead wife, leading him into a foggy landscape of lost memories, shifting identities, and strange doublings. Cerebral and eerie, captivating and profound, these twelve stories expertly guide us through the paranoia and obsession of everyday horrors, not least the horrors of overthinking what other people might be thinking. With all of Sims’s trademark virtuosity, innovation, and wit, Other Minds and Other Stories continues to expand the possibilities of contemporary fiction.
Think about the last time you tried to change someone’s mind about something important: a voter’s political beliefs; a customer’s favorite brand; a spouse’s decorating taste. Chances are you weren’t successful in shifting that person’s beliefs in any way. In his book, Changing Minds, Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner explains what happens during the course of changing a mind – and offers ways to influence that process. Remember that we don’t change our minds overnight, it happens in gradual stages that can be powerfully influenced along the way. This book provides insights that can broaden our horizons and shape our lives.
Over the past twenty-five years, Thomas Nagel has played a major role in the philosophico-biological debate on subjectivity and consciousness. This extensive collection of published essays and reviews offers Nagel's opinionated views on the philosophy of mind, epistemology, and political philosophy, as well as on fellow philosophers like Freud, Wittgenstein, Rawls, Dennett, Chomsky, Searle, Nozick, Dworkin, and MacIntyre.
The MPD has three roles: keep magic hidden, keep mythics under control, and don't screw up the first two. Kit Morris is the wrong guy for the job on all counts. Begin an all-new journey through the Guild Codex world as you peer behind the mythical curtain into the depths of the ancient organization that controls the everyday lives of magic users.
In 1859 Darwin described a deceptively simple mechanism that he called "natural selection," a combination of variation, inheritance, and reproductive success. He argued that this mechanism was the key to explaining the most puzzling features of the natural world, and science and philosophy were changed forever as a result. The exact nature of the Darwinian process has been controversial ever since, however. Godfrey-Smith draws on new developments in biology, philosophy of science, and other fields to give a new analysis and extension of Darwin's idea. The central concept used is that of a "Darwinian population," a collection of things with the capacity to undergo change by natural selection. From this starting point, new analyses of the role of genes in evolution, the application of Darwinian ideas to cultural change, and "evolutionary transitions" that produce complex organisms and societies are developed. Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection will be essential reading for anyone interested in evolutionary theory
Twelve stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, nine of them never before published in English. Of these twelve short stories by science fiction master Stanisław Lem, only three have previously appeared in English, making this the first "new" book of fiction by Lem since the late 1980s. The stories display the full range of Lem's intense curiosity about scientific ideas as well as his sardonic approach to human nature, presenting as multifarious a collection of mad scientists as any reader could wish for. Many of these stories feature artificial intelligences or artificial life forms, long a Lem preoccupation; some feature quite insane theories of cosmology or evolution. All are thought provoking and scathingly funny. Written from 1956 to 1993, the stories are arranged in chronological order. In the title story, "The Truth," a scientist in an insane asylum theorizes that the sun is alive; "The Journal" appears to be an account by an omnipotent being describing the creation of infinite universes--until, in a classic Lem twist, it turns out to be no such thing; in "An Enigma," beings debate whether offspring can be created without advanced degrees and design templates. Other stories feature a computer that can predict the future by 137 seconds, matter-destroying spores, a hunt in which the prey is a robot, and an electronic brain eager to go on the lam. These stories are peak Lem, exploring ideas and themes that resonate throughout his writing.
Includes stories featured in Pantheon—now an animated series on AMC+ “I know this is going to sound hyperbolic, but when I’m reading Ken Liu’s stories, I feel like I’m reading a once-in-a-generation talent. I’m in awe.” —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author “Captivating.” —BuzzFeed “Extraordinary.” —The Washington Post “Brilliant.” —The Chicago Tribune With the release of The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, Ken Liu’s short fiction has resonated with a generation of readers. From stories about time-traveling assassins, to Black Mirror-esque tales of cryptocurrency and internet trolling, to heartbreaking narratives of parent-child relationships, The Hidden Girl and Other Stories is a far-reaching work that explores topical themes from the present and a visionary look at humanity’s future. This collection includes a selection of Liu’s speculative fiction stories over the past five years—seventeen of his best—plus a new novelette. In addition, it also features an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, the third book in Liu’s epic fantasy series The Dandelion Dynasty. Stories include: Ghost Days; Maxwell's Demon; The Reborn; Thoughts and Prayers; Byzantine Empathy; The Gods Will Not Be Chained; Staying Behind; Real Artists; The Gods Will Not Be Slain; Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer; The Gods Have Not Died in Vain; Memories of My Mother; Dispatches from the Cradle: The Hermit—Forty-Eight Hours in the Sea of Massachusetts; Grey Rabbit, Crimson Mare, Coal Leopard; A Chase Beyond the Storms (an excerpt from The Veiled Throne, Book 3 of the Dandelion Dynasty); The Hidden Girl; Seven Birthdays; The Message; Cutting
“Compelling, and so beautifully written…’The Mind Club’ deftly brings the most up-to-date research about other minds to readers of all backgrounds. It may cause you to think differently about crime and punishment, about business transactions and health care, and even about the upcoming elections. Things might just start looking up.”–The Wall Street Journal From dogs to gods, the science of understanding mysterious minds—including your own. Nothing seems more real than the minds of other people. When you consider what your boss is thinking or whether your spouse is happy, you are admitting them into the "mind club." It’s easy to assume other humans can think and feel, but what about a cow, a computer, a corporation? What kinds of mind do they have? Daniel M. Wegner and Kurt Gray are award-winning psychologists who have discovered that minds—while incredibly important—are a matter of perception. Their research opens a trove of new findings, with insights into human behavior that are fascinating, frightening and funny. The Mind Club explains why we love some animals and eat others, why people debate the existence of God so intensely, how good people can be so cruel, and why robots make such poor lovers. By investigating the mind perception of extraordinary targets—animals, machines, comatose people, god—Wegner and Gray explain what it means to have a mind, and why it matters so much. Fusing cutting-edge research and personal anecdotes, The Mind Club explores the moral dimensions of mind perception with wit and compassion, revealing the surprisingly simple basis for what compels us to love and hate, to harm and to protect.