Winnicott is concerned with the springs of imaginative living and of cultural experience in every sense, with whatever determines an individual's capacity to live creatively and to find life worth living.
This volume explores how and why we deny, or manipulate, or convert, or enhance reality. Finding it important to come to terms with reality, with what is there before us, and, with reality however defined, to live responsibly, this collection takes a truly multidisciplinary approach to examining the idea that history, the truth, facts, and the events of the present time can be refashioned as prismatic, theatrical, something we can play with for agendas either noble or ignoble. An international team of contributors considers the issue of how and why, in dealing what is there before us, we play with reality by employing theatre, fiction, words, conspiracy theories, alternate realities, scenarios, and art itself. Chapters delve into issues of fake news, propaganda, virtual reality, theatre as real life, reality TV, and positive ways of refashioning and enhancing your own reality. Drawing on examples from film studies to sociology, from the social sciences to medicine, this volume will appeal to scholars and upper-level students in the areas of communication and media studies, comparative literature, film studies, economics, English, international affairs, journalism, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theatre.
“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News “Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same explosive force.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness. With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games. Jane McGonigal is also the author of SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient.
A leading philosopher takes a mind-bending journey through virtual worlds, illuminating the nature of reality and our place within it. Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already. Along the way, Chalmers conducts a grand tour of big ideas in philosophy and science. He uses virtual reality technology to offer a new perspective on long-established philosophical questions. How do we know that there’s an external world? Is there a god? What is the nature of reality? What’s the relation between mind and body? How can we lead a good life? All of these questions are illuminated or transformed by Chalmers’ mind-bending analysis. Studded with illustrations that bring philosophical issues to life, Reality+ is a major statement that will shape discussion of philosophy, science, and technology for years to come.
Bending Reality is the innovative process used by billionaires, tech leaders, and the world's most successful people to make the impossible . . . probable. Victoria Song teaches readers how to unlock the hidden power within their bodies to get what they want. After achieving success but lacking fulfillment as a student at Yale University and Harvard Business School, and then as a Forbes 30 Under 30 Venture Capitalist, Victoria set off on an unusual quest to study, train, and work with more than 24 of the best coaches, therapists, and healers in the world. She then deployed the skills and tools she'd learned with a diverse group of the world's highest performers. Through it all, she's discovered the codes that enable her clients to bend reality toward the directions they want. By accessing this extraordinary ability, Victoria's clients have sold a company for 4 billion dollars, grown revenue 1,000% during a pandemic, and pivoted to design a more effective COVID-19 vaccine. Victoria reveals the meta-framework behind peak performance, self-development, therapy, and meditation that is accessible for all. Whether you've studied these areas closely or this is the first book you've read on this topic, you'll have a front row seat to how the world's elite use this knowledge to achieve more while doing less. In this fast-paced guide to success, you will learn how to: Bend reality by mastering two states of being that most people aren't even aware of. Navigate change and face the unknown like the greatest leaders. Access creative downloads that artists, musicians, and geniuses receive. Make your own luck--there's literally a recipe! Find your unique "zone of genius" and live from it every day. Packed with powerful tools and exercises, Bending Reality will move you beyond intellectual understanding to embodiment. This is not another mindset book. You're ready for Bending Reality if you realize it's time to go beyond the mind and harness the full capacity of your consciousness to make quantum leaps in every area of your life. After learning how to bend reality, you will no longer need to memorize rules, tips, or tricks, but you will embody the essence of a remarkable leader who can make the impossible--probable.
Many designers, policy makers, teachers, and other practitioners are beginning to understand the usefulness of using digital games beyond entertainment. Games have been developed for teaching, recruiting and to collect data to improve search engines. This book examines the fundamentals of designing any game with a serious purpose and provides a way of thinking on how to design one successfully. The reader will be introduced to a design philosophy called “Triadic Game Design.”; a theory that all games involve three worlds: the worlds of Reality, Meaning, and Play. Each world is affiliated with aspects. A balance needs to be found within and between the three worlds. Such a balance is difficult to achieve, during the design many tensions will arise, forcing designers to make trade-offs. To deal with these tensions and to ensure that the right decisions are made to create a harmonic game, a frame of reference is needed. This is what Triadic Game Design offers.
How augmented reality and virtual reality are taking their places in contemporary media culture alongside film and television. T This book positions augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) firmly in contemporary media culture. The authors view AR and VR not as the latest hyped technologies but as media—the latest in a series of what they term “reality media,” taking their places alongside film and television. Reality media inserts a layer of media between us and our perception of the world; AR and VR do not replace reality but refashion a reality for us. Each reality medium mediates and remediates; each offers a new representation that we implicitly compare to our experience of the world in itself but also through other media. The authors show that as forms of reality media emerge, they not only chart a future path for media culture, but also redefine media past. With AR and VR in mind, then, we can recognize their precursors in eighteenth-century panoramas and the Broadway lights of the 1930s. A digital version of Reality Media, available through the book’s website, invites readers to visit a series of virtual rooms featuring interactivity, 3-D models, videos, images, and texts that explore the themes of the book.
Ervin Laszlo's tour de force, What is Reality?, is the product of a half-century of deep contemplation and cutting-edge scholarship. Addressing many of the paradoxes that have confounded modern science over the years, it offers nothing less than a new paradigm of reality, one in which the cosmos is a seamless whole, informed by a single, coherent consciousness manifest in us all. Bringing together science, philosophy, and metaphysics, Laszlo takes aim at accepted wisdom, such as the dichotomies of mind and body, spirit and matter, being and nonbeing, to show how we are all part of an infinite cycle of existence unfolding in spacetime and beyond. Augmented by insightful commentary from a dozen scholars and thinkers, along with a foreword by Deepak Chopra and an introduction by Stanislav Grof, What is Reality? offers a fresh and liberating understanding of the meaning and purpose of existence.
A fascinating exploration of the history, development, and future of virtual reality, a technology with world-changing potential, written by award-winning journalist and author David Ewalt, stemming from his 2015 Forbes cover story about the Oculus Rift and its creator Palmer Luckey. You’ve heard about virtual reality, seen the new gadgets, and read about how VR will be the next big thing. But you probably haven’t yet realized the extent to which this technology will change the way we live. We used to be bound to a physical reality, but new immersive computer simulations allow us to escape our homes and bodies. Suddenly anyone can see what it’s like to stand on the peak of Mount Everest. A person who can’t walk can experience a marathon from the perspective of an Olympic champion. And why stop there? Become a dragon and fly through the universe. But it’s not only about spectacle. Virtual and augmented reality will impact nearly every aspect of our lives—commerce, medicine, politics—the applications are infinite. It may sound like science fiction, but this vision of the future drives billions of dollars in business and is a top priority for such companies as Facebook, Google, and Sony. Yet little is known about the history of these technologies. In Defying Reality, David M. Ewalt traces the story from ancient amphitheaters to Cold War military laboratories, through decades of hype and failure, to a nineteen-year-old video game aficionado who made the impossible possible. Ewalt looks at how businesses are already using this tech to revolutionize the world around us, and what we can expect in the future. Writing for a mainstream audience as well as for technology enthusiasts, Ewalt offers a unique perspective on VR. With firsthand accounts and on-the-ground reporting, Defying Reality shows how virtual reality will change our work, our play, and the way we relate to one another.