Inside Rupert's Brain


Book Description

How the world's most powerful media mogul really thinks The third book in Portfolio's new series looks at Rupert Murdoch, the controversial chairman and CEO of News Corp. He is the subject of endless gossip, speculation, and criticism, but what really drives his bold (and usually successful) gambles? Based on comments from News Corp. executives and competitors, and interviews with Wall Street analysts, investors, and other media experts, Paul La Monica's book explores some of the most fascinating questions about Murdoch. For instance: How did he grow a small Australian newspaper company into a global media empire? Why did he challenge the TV establishment with the Fox Network and Fox News Channel—for profits or for deeper reasons? Did his obsession with The Wall Street Journal lead him to overpay for Dow Jones? How has he dealt with detractors and enemies, including Ted Turner and John Malone? Was he smart to acquire MySpace to launch his Internet strategy? Why does he still work so hard at age 77 with a net worth of $8.8 billion and nothing to prove?




Liberating Content


Book Description

This volume brings together two series of papers: one began with Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore's 1997 paper 'On an Alleged Connection Between the Theory of Meaning and Indirect Speech'. The other series started with their 1997 paper 'Varieties of Quotation'. The central theme throughout is that only when communicative content is liberated from semantic content will we make progress in understanding language, communication, contexts, and their interconnection. These are the papers in which Cappelen and Lepore introduced speech act pluralism and semantic minimalism, and they provide the foundation for one of the most powerful attacks on contextualism in contemporary philosophy.




Insensitive Semantics


Book Description

Insensitive Semantics is an overview of and contribution to the debates about how to accommodate context sensitivity within a theory of human communication, investigating the effects of context on communicative interaction and, as a corollary, what a context of utterance is and what it is to be in one. Provides detailed and wide-ranging overviews of the central positions and arguments surrounding contextualism Addresses broad and varied aspects of the distinction between the semantic and non-semantic content of language Defends a distinctive and explanatorily powerful combination of semantic minimalism and speech act pluralism Confronts core problems which not only run to the heart of philosophy of language and linguistics, but which arise in epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy as well




Inside Rupert's Brain


Book Description

A portrait of News Corp.'s controversial chairman and CEO draws on the comments of top executives, competitors, and Wall Street experts to address such topics as how he grew his global media empire, the real reasons he challenged the television establishment, and his acquisition of MySpace.




The Idea of the Brain


Book Description

An "elegant", "engrossing" (Carol Tavris, Wall Street Journal) examination of what we think we know about the brain and why -- despite technological advances -- the workings of our most essential organ remain a mystery. "I cannot recommend this book strongly enough."--Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm For thousands of years, thinkers and scientists have tried to understand what the brain does. Yet, despite the astonishing discoveries of science, we still have only the vaguest idea of how the brain works. In The Idea of the Brain, scientist and historian Matthew Cobb traces how our conception of the brain has evolved over the centuries. Although it might seem to be a story of ever-increasing knowledge of biology, Cobb shows how our ideas about the brain have been shaped by each era's most significant technologies. Today we might think the brain is like a supercomputer. In the past, it has been compared to a telegraph, a telephone exchange, or some kind of hydraulic system. What will we think the brain is like tomorrow, when new technology arises? The result is an essential read for anyone interested in the complex processes that drive science and the forces that have shaped our marvelous brains.




Unfolding Consciousness


Book Description

Exploring the Living Universe and Intelligent Powers in Nature and Humans, author Edi Bilimoria heralds the new science of consciousness and offers the readers a roadmap and necessary tools to achieve future growth. Presented in three volumes, plus volume IV contains references, resources & further reading, they reveal the unity of the Eastern and Western branches of our perineal wisdom. Bilimoria shows how science seeks truth using a synthesis of both traditions. Evidence from a wide range of sources— scientific, medical, philosophical, religious, and cultural— is put forward to argue the case that humans are spiritual beings, primarily, and not merely complicated biological machines. Bilimoria teaches that consciousness is not the product of matter but the primary &‘ element' from which all else emanates. This process and its underlying mechanisms are described in detail with much clarity. This work has over 2000 references and is supported by copious tables and diagrams, plus individual chapter summaries and sidenotes to assist readers in navigating the multidimensional terrain traversed.Key areas - The scientific and esoteric worldviews compared and contrasted - The ultimate promise of science - The &‘ soft' and &‘ hard' problems of consciousness: How external input to the physical senses results in an internal, subjective experience - Quantum physics: its contribution to a new scientific paradigm - The Mystery Teachings of All Ages: their worldwide unity and central message - &‘ Wet computers' and computers: Is the brain no different, in principle, from a computer? - Death and after: the transition and continuity of consciousness in other realms - Paranormal phenomena and apparitions - Subtle bodies - Evolution and destiny - Powers latent in human beings - Divinity and the united message of all world religions - The question of immortality - The primacy of consciousness and the manner of its unfoldment from the unmanifest realms to the physical world Edi Bilimoria' s guest appearance on the Shepheard-Walwyn podcast series can be found on this link. https://shepheardwalwyn.com/edi-bilimoria-unfolding-consciousness-why-sapolsky-is-wrong-and-how-to-get-in-tune-with-life/




Extended Epistemology


Book Description

One of the most important research programmes in contemporary cognitive science is that of extended cognition, whereby features of a subject's cognitive environment can in certain conditions become constituent parts of the cognitive process itself. The aim of this volume is to explore the epistemological ramifications of this idea. The volume brings together a range of distinguished and emerging academics, from a variety of different perspectives, to investigate the very idea of an extended epistemology. The first part of the volume explores foundational issues with regard to an extended epistemology, including from a critical perspective. The second part of the volume examines the applications of extended epistemology and the new theoretical directions that it might take us. These include its ethical ramifications, its import to the epistemology of education and emerging digital technologies, and how this idea might dovetail with certain themes in Chinese philosophy.




Semantic Singularities


Book Description

This book aims to provide a solution to the semantic paradoxes. It argues for a unified solution to the paradoxes generated by our concepts of denotation, predicate extension, and truth. The solution makes two main claims. The first is that our semantic expressions 'denotes', 'extension' and 'true' are context-sensitive. The second, inspired by a brief, tantalizing remark of Gödel's, is that these expressions are significant everywhere except for certain singularities, in analogy with division by zero. A formal theory of singularities is presented and applied to a wide variety of versions of the definability paradoxes, Russell's paradox, and the Liar paradox. Keith Simmons argues that the singularity theory satisfies the following desiderata: it recognizes that the proper setting of the semantic paradoxes is natural language, not regimented formal languages; it minimizes any revision to our semantic concepts; it respects as far as possible Tarski's intuition that natural languages are universal; it responds adequately to the threat of revenge paradoxes; and it preserves classical logic and semantics. Simmons draws out the consequences of the singularity theory for deflationary views of our semantic concepts, and concludes that if we accept the singularity theory, we must reject deflationism.




Riders


Book Description

From the queen of the British bestseller lists comes the classic hit every Englishwoman remembers with a sigh -- Riders, the steamy, scandalous tale of sexual and equestrian competition within the heroic world of international show jumping. Welcome to a world of cutthroat competition populated by fearless athletes, wealthy sponsors, and beautiful starlets and set against the glorious Cotswold countryside and the playgrounds of the world. Within this arena we meet the brooding gypsy Jake Lovell, under whose magic hands the most difficult horse or woman becomes biddable, who is driven by his hatred of Rupert Campbell-Black, the handsome and supremely confident star of the show ring. They steal each other's horses and love each other's women as they push themselves and their mounts to impossible extremes, until their feud erupts, with devastating consequences, at the Los Angeles Olympics.




Neuro-ProsthEthics


Book Description