The Multiple Realization Book

The Multiple Realization Book
Author: Thomas W. Polger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0198732899

Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first full investigation of multiple realization--the idea that minds can be realized in ways other than the human brain. They cast doubt on the hypothesis and offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, and in chemistry, biology, and related fields.

The Multiple Realization Book

The Multiple Realization Book
Author: Thomas W. Polger
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016-09-02
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0191047104

Since Hilary Putnam offered multiple realization as an empirical hypothesis in the 1960s, philosophical consensus has turned against the idea that mental processes could be identified with brain processes, and multiple realization has become the keystone of the 'antireductive consensus' across philosophy of science broadly. Thomas W. Polger and Lawrence A. Shapiro offer the first book-length investigation of multiple realization. Their analysis of multiple realization serves as a starting point to a series of philosophically sophisticated and empirically informed arguments that cast doubt on the generality of multiple realization in the cognitive sciences. In the course of making their case, they respond to classic defenses of multiple realization that Jerry Fodor, Ned Block, and other prominent philosophers of psychology have offered. Polger and Shapiro conclude that the identity theory, once left for dead, remains a viable theory of mind—one that, when suitably framed, enjoys the benefits typically thought to accrue only to theories of mind that presuppose the truth of multiple realization. As Polger and Shapiro see matters, mind-brain identities have played an important role in the growth and achievements of the cognitive sciences, and they see little prospect—or need—for multiple realization in an empirically-based theory of mind. This leads Polger and Shapiro to offer an alternative framework for understanding explanations in the cognitive sciences, as well as in chemistry, biology, and other non-basic sciences.

Physical Realization

Physical Realization
Author: Sydney Shoemaker
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2007-07-19
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199214395

How can physicalism be true? How can all facts about the world be constituted by facts about the distribution in the world of physical properties? Shoemaker's answer to this question involves showing how the mental properties of a person can be 'realised' in the physical properties of that person.

Product Realization

Product Realization
Author: Anna C. Thornton
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 480
Release: 2021-02-03
Genre: Technology & Engineering
ISBN: 1119649536

PRAISE FOR PRODUCT REALIZATION: GOING FROM ONE TO A MILLION "A must-read reference for anyone who intends to successfully build a product and bring it to market." Desh Deshpande, Entrepreneur & Life Member of MIT Corporation "This book is a go-to resource for new and experienced hardware teams to help them plan for and execute a new hardware startup successfully and avoid common pitfalls. Highly recommended." Bill Aulet, Managing Director, The Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship & Professor of the Practice, MIT Sloan School and Author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship "An excellent, practical guide for first time entrepreneurs building physical world products." Laila Partridge, Managing Director, STANLEY+Techstars Accelerator "Product Realization picks up where so many product design books end. Here is the book that explains it all chock full of shop-floor wisdom, fascinating stories and compelling examples." Steven Eppinger, Professor of Management Science and Engineering Systems, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "Product Realization contains the critical information and roadmap hardware entrepreneurs need as they take their concepts from prototype to production." Ken Rother, Managing Director eLab and Visiting Lecturer of Management, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University Product Realization: Going from One to a Million delivers a comprehensive treatment of the entire product launch process from beginning to end. Drawing upon the author's extensive first-hand experience with dozens of successful product launches, the book explores the process of bringing a design from prototype to product. It illustrates the complicated and interdisciplinary process with vignettes and examples, provides checklists and templates to help teams, and points out common challenges teams will face. Perfect for both students, start-ups, and engineers in the field, Product Realization: Going from One to a Million will be the go-to reference for engineers seeking practical advice and concrete strategies to launch higher quality products, at the right cost and on time.

The Multiple States of the Being

The Multiple States of the Being
Author: René Guénon
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2001
Genre: Ontology
ISBN: 9780900588600

The Multiple States of the Being is the companion to, and the completion of, The Symbolism of the Cross, which, together with Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta, constitute René Guénon's great trilogy of pure metaphysics. In this work, Guénon offers a masterful explication of the metaphysical order and its multiple manifestations-of the divine hierarchies and what has been called the Great Chain of Being-and in so doing demonstrates how jñana, intellective or intrinsic knowledge of what is, and of That which is Beyond what is, is a Way of Liberation. Guénon the metaphysical social critic, master of arcane symbolism, comparative religionist, researcher of ancient mysteries and secret histories, summoner to spiritual renewal, herald of the end days, disappears here. Reality remains.

Natural Minds

Natural Minds
Author: Thomas W. Polger
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2006-01-20
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780262264167

In Natural Minds Thomas Polger advocates, and defends, the philosophical theory that mind equals brain—that sensations are brain processes—and in doing so brings the mind-brain identity theory back into the philosophical debate about consciousness. The version of identity theory that Polger advocates holds that conscious processes, events, states, or properties are type- identical to biological processes, events, states, or properties—a "tough-minded" account that maintains that minds are necessarily identical to brains, a position held by few current identity theorists. Polger's approach to what William James called the "great blooming buzzing confusion" of consciousness begins with the idea that we need to know more about brains in order to understand consciousness fully, but recognizes that biology alone cannot provide the entire explanation. Natural Minds takes on issues from philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, and metaphysics, moving freely among them in its discussion. Polger begins by answering two major objections to identity theory—Hilary Putnam's argument from multiple realizability (which discounts identity theory because creatures with brains unlike ours could also have mental states) and Saul Kripke's modal argument against mind-brain identity (based on the apparent contingency of the identity statement). He then offers a detailed account of functionalism and functional realization, which offer the most serious obstacle to consideration of identity theory. Polger argues that identity theory can itself satisfy the kind of explanatory demands that are often believed to favor functionalism.

Supervenience and Mind

Supervenience and Mind
Author: Jaegwon Kim
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1993-11-26
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521439961

This collection of essays presents the core of the work of influential philosopher Jaegwon Kim.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Neuroscience
Author: John Bickle
Publisher: OUP USA
Total Pages: 652
Release: 2009-07-27
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0195304780

This title is a collection of interdisciplinary research from contributors including both philosophers and neuroscientists. Topics covered include the neurobiology of learning and memory perception and sensation, neurocomputational modelling neuroanatomy, neuroethics, and neurology and clinical neuropsychology.

Initiation and Spiritual Realization

Initiation and Spiritual Realization
Author: René Guénon
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2004-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780900588426

Initiation and Spiritual Realization is the closest thing to a work on 'spiritual direction' René Guénon ever wrote, touching as it does upon such vital topics as the transmission of initiatic grace, the various types and functions of the spiritual master, obstacles the aspirant is likely to encounter, different modes of contemplation, and the degrees of spiritual realization. A companion volume to Perspectives on Initiation, where Guénon had defined the nature of initiation and of the organizations qualified to transmit it, Initiation and Spiritual Realization was the first thematic collection of Guénon's articles to appear after his death. And one doctrine expressed in this book stands out as particularly timely: that esoterism is not and cannot be a religion in itself, since to take it as such is to reduce it to an 'alternative' exoterism, and a heterodox one at that. Initiatic esoterism can only be legitimately and effectively practiced within the context of one of the established, revealed religions.