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A viral video reveals a teen’s dark family history, leaving him to reckon with his heritage, legacy, and identity in this fiery, conversation-starting novel. Eran Sharon knows nothing of his father except that he left when Eran was a baby. Now a senior in high school and living with his protective but tight-lipped mother, Eran is a passionate young man deeply interested in social justice and equality. When he learns that the Houston police have launched a program to increase traffic stops, Eran organizes a peaceful protest. But a heated moment at the protest goes viral, and a reporter connects the Sharon family to a tragedy fifteen years earlier — and asks if Eran is anything like his father, a supposed terrorist. Soon enough, Eran is wondering the same thing, especially when the people he’s gone to school and temple with for years start to look at him differently. Timely, powerful, and full of nuance, Rafi Mittlefehldt’s sophomore novel confronts the prejudices, fears, and strengths of family and community, striking right to the heart of what makes us who we are.
How and why did we become who we are? In "What Makes Us Human?" some of theorld's most brilliant thinkers offer their answers to this perennial puzzle,ncluding Susan Blackmore, Robin Dunbar, Susan Greenfield, Richard Harries,enan Malik, Richard Wrangham, Ian Tattersall, and Lewis Wolpert. Together,hey draw on a broad spectrum of disciplines, from anthropology, biochemistry,edicine, and neuroscience, to philosophy, psychology, and religion, to askhat makes us distinctively human. Is it our cognitive abilities, or our usef tools, our story-telling, our beliefs, our curiosity, our ability to cook,r our culture? Are we half-ape or half-angel? "What Makes Us Human?"xplains how and why our ancestors adapted to their surroundings to produceuch clever, talented, and unlikely progeny. It is for all to enjoy.
Astrophysicist and author Mario Livio investigates perhaps the most human of all our characteristics—curiosity—in this “lively, expert, and definitely not dumbed-down account” (Kirkus Reviews) as he explores our innate desire to know why. Experiments demonstrate that people are more distracted when they overhear a phone conversation—where they can know only one side of the dialogue—than when they overhear two people talking and know both sides. Why does half a conversation make us more curious than a whole conversation? “Have you ever wondered why we wonder why? Mario Livio has, and he takes you on a fascinating quest to understand the origin and mechanisms of our curiosity. I thoroughly recommend it.” (Adam Riess, Nobel Prize Winner in Physics, 2011). Curiosity is not only at the heart of mystery and suspense novels, it is also essential to other creative endeavors, from painting to sculpture to music. It is the principal driver of basic scientific research. Even so, there is still no definitive scientific consensus about why we humans are so curious, or about the mechanisms in our brain that are responsible for curiosity. In the ever-fascinating Why? Livio interviewed scientists in several fields to explore the nature of curiosity. He examined the lives of two of history’s most curious geniuses, Leonardo da Vinci and Richard Feynman. He also talked to people with boundless curiosity: a superstar rock guitarist who is also an astrophysicist; an astronaut with degrees in computer science, biology, literature, and medicine. What drives these people to be curious about so many subjects? An astrophysicist who has written about mathematics, biology, and now psychology and neuroscience, Livio has firsthand knowledge of his subject which he explores in a lucid, entertaining way that will captivate anyone who is curious about curiosity.
Me, Im a gangster. The police know me. Until recently, my job was to rob banks and to rape girls. Now, I realise that my life is more important than that! This is Kasure talking. He lives in Goroka, Papua New Guinea. What caused this change? When Jean-Louis Lamboray and 11 people from all continents launched the Constellation in 2004, they took the prism of our shared humanity to challenge the status quo. They dreamed of a world where communities would take charge of their own lives and connect for sharing and support. They would not teach nor preach but appreciate community strengths. They would not evaluate communities, but communities would assess themselves and learn from their actions. At the outset, Jean-Louis and his friends could only count on their own strengths to inch towards their dream. Now they celebrate a positive epidemic as in more than sixty countries thousands of communities mobilise their own strengths to address their concerns, shape their dream and act to fulfil it. Told with the simplicity of troubadours and of African storytellers this story of stories invites you to reflect and to trust in your own strengths as you join others to address collective challenges. And this is only the beginning of the journey Jean-Louis Lamboray is one of the worlds most impressive public health doctors. Lamborays ideas are original and brilliant, and theyve worked in practice. Richard Preston, contributor to The New Yorker, currently working on a successor book to The Hot Zone. At the Ministry of Health of Senegal, we try very hard to stimulate community ownership of health issues. Jean-Louiss book will help us take further action. Awa-Marie Coll-Seck, Minister of Health and Social Affairs, Senegal.
How a computational framework can account for the successes and failures of human cognition At the heart of human intelligence rests a fundamental puzzle: How are we incredibly smart and stupid at the same time? No existing machine can match the power and flexibility of human perception, language, and reasoning. Yet, we routinely commit errors that reveal the failures of our thought processes. What Makes Us Smart makes sense of this paradox by arguing that our cognitive errors are not haphazard. Rather, they are the inevitable consequences of a brain optimized for efficient inference and decision making within the constraints of time, energy, and memory—in other words, data and resource limitations. Framing human intelligence in terms of these constraints, Samuel Gershman shows how a deeper computational logic underpins the “stupid” errors of human cognition. Embarking on a journey across psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and economics, Gershman presents unifying principles that govern human intelligence. First, inductive bias: any system that makes inferences based on limited data must constrain its hypotheses in some way before observing data. Second, approximation bias: any system that makes inferences and decisions with limited resources must make approximations. Applying these principles to a range of computational errors made by humans, Gershman demonstrates that intelligent systems designed to meet these constraints yield characteristically human errors. Examining how humans make intelligent and maladaptive decisions, What Makes Us Smart delves into the successes and failures of cognition.
Will understanding our brains help us to know our minds? Or is there an unbridgeable distance between the work of neuroscience and the workings of human consciousness? In a remarkable exchange between neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux and philosopher Paul Ricoeur, this book explores the vexed territory between these divergent approaches--and comes to a deeper, more complex perspective on human nature. Ranging across diverse traditions, from phrenology to PET scans and from Spinoza to Charles Taylor, What Makes Us Think? revolves around a central issue: the relation between the facts (or "what is") of science and the prescriptions (or "what ought to be") of ethics. Changeux and Ricoeur ask: Will neuroscientific knowledge influence our moral conduct? Is a naturally based ethics possible? Pursuing these questions, they attack key topics at the intersection of philosophy and neuroscience: What are the relations between brain states and psychological experience? Between language and truth? Memory and culture? Behavior and action? What is a mental representation? How does a sign relate to what it signifies? How might subjective experience be constructed rather than discovered? And can biological or cultural evolution be considered progressive? Throughout, Changeux and Ricoeur provide unprecedented insight into what neuroscience can--and cannot--tell us about the nature of human experience. Changeux and Ricoeur bring an unusual depth of engagement and breadth of knowledge to each other's subject. In doing so, they make two often hostile disciplines speak to one another in surprising and instructive ways--and speak with all the subtlety and passion of conversation at its very best.
'Hugh Mackay is one of this country’s most perceptive social commentators' - Sydney Morning Herald Insightful and engaging, What Makes Us Tick? helps to explain what drives us, concerns us and is important to each of us – from Australia's leading social researcher, Hugh Mackay. Dr Mackay has spent a lifetime listening to people talk about their dreams, fears, hopes, disappointments and passions. As well, his bestselling books have documented the impact of the changes that have been radically reshaping our society. In What Makes Us Tick? he reflects on some of the things that don't change, identifies ten desires that drive us all, and asks: 'Why do we talk as if we're rational, but act as if we're not?'; 'Why do some people always want to take control?'; 'Why do we seek change, yet resist it?'; 'Why do we want more of the things that have failed to satisfy us?'. His exploration of these and other issues goes to the heart of some of life's big questions. In this new edition Hugh Mackay offers a postscript that delves into the many concerns that were raised by people around the country when he was first promoting What Makes Us Tick?. They include: 'Why do people become workaholics?'; 'How can religious people hold such irrational beliefs?'; 'Why are so many people hooked on social media?'; 'What about gender and generational differences?'; 'Shouldn't our desire for security be on the list?', as well as many other issues that resonate with modern Australia. He also offers more thoughts on ... the desire to be taken seriously; the desire for 'my place'; the desire for something to believe in; the desire to connect; the desire to be useful. Raising all these ideas, this is a book that will explain us to ourselves. Hugh Mackay is a psychologist, social researcher and novelist, and is the author of the the bestselling Advance Australia... Where?
A nonfiction picture book that introduces very young children to the concept of diversity in a way that is uplifting and approachable.
For readers of Sapiens and Homo Deus and viewers of The Social Dilemma, psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic tackles one of the biggest questions facing our species: Will we use artificial intelligence to improve the way we work and live, or will we allow it to alienate us? It's no secret that AI is changing the way we live, work, love, and entertain ourselves. Dating apps are using AI to pick our potential partners. Retailers are using AI to predict our behavior and desires. Rogue actors are using AI to persuade us with bots and misinformation. Companies are using AI to hire us—or not. In I, Human psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic takes readers on an enthralling and eye-opening journey across the AI landscape. Though AI has the potential to change our lives for the better, he argues, AI is also worsening our bad tendencies, making us more distracted, selfish, biased, narcissistic, entitled, predictable, and impatient. It doesn't have to be this way. Filled with fascinating insights about human behavior and our complicated relationship with technology, I, Human will help us stand out and thrive when many of our decisions are being made for us. To do so, we'll need to double down on our curiosity, adaptability, and emotional intelligence while relying on the lost virtues of empathy, humility, and self-control. This is just the beginning. As AI becomes smarter and more humanlike, our societies, our economies, and our humanity will undergo the most dramatic changes we've seen since the Industrial Revolution. Some of these changes will enhance our species. Others may dehumanize us and make us more machinelike in our interactions with people. It's up to us to adapt and determine how we want to live and work. The choice is ours. What will we decide?
In 1687 Isaac Newton ushered in a new scientific era in which laws of nature could be used to predict the movements of matter with almost perfect precision. Newton's physics also posed a profound challenge to our self-understanding, however, for the very same laws that keep airplanes in the air and rivers flowing downhill tell us that it is in principle possible to predict what each of us will do every second of our entire lives, given the early conditions of the universe. Can it really be that even while you toss and turn late at night in the throes of an important decision and it seems like the scales of fate hang in the balance, that your decision is a foregone conclusion? Can it really be that everything you have done and everything you ever will do is determined by facts that were in place long before you were born? This problem is one of the staples of philosophical discussion. It is discussed by everyone from freshman in their first philosophy class, to theoretical physicists in bars after conferences. And yet there is no topic that remains more unsettling, and less well understood. If you want to get behind the façade, past the bare statement of determinism, and really try to understand what physics is telling us in its own terms, read this book. The problem of free will raises all kinds of questions. What does it mean to make a decision, and what does it mean to say that our actions are determined? What are laws of nature? What are causes? What sorts of things are we, when viewed through the lenses of physics, and how do we fit into the natural order? Ismael provides a deeply informed account of what physics tells us about ourselves. The result is a vision that is abstract, alien, illuminating, and-Ismael argues-affirmative of most of what we all believe about our own freedom. Written in a jargon-free style, How Physics Makes Us Free provides an accessible and innovative take on a central question of human existence.