The Dragonfly Door
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • The warm, emotional colors of award-winning artist Barbara L. Gibson
  • Jewel's Reading Excellence Review: Helps children understand nature's life cycle
  • A Message of Hope for Children Who Are Grieving
  • Beautiful and excellent for all who grieve
The Dragonfly Door
John Adams
Manufacturer: Feather Rock Books, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

GeneralGeneral | Ages 4-8 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1934066117

Product Description

Parents will help children identify the beauty and hope in all cycles of life as they follow two insect friends, Lea and Nym, and the struggles one of them endures when her friend disappears. This is a tender story about loss and change, written to help parents express their views about life and death. The book may serve many purposes, such as comforting a grieving child who has lost someone close or providing facts about dragonflies to inquisitive minds. Lea's transformation into a dragonfly may even be used as a metaphor for life-after-death. The Dragonfly Door is beautifully illustrated by award-winning artist Barbara L. Gibson. The book is cherished by parents, grandparents and teachers. It was recently brought to life as a mini-play in Alabama to help children cope with the loss of their classmates. The following is an excerpt from the book: While Nym slept, she heard Lea's voice saying, "Follow me, Nym. I'm going to show you where I am." "Will I see you again?" Nym asked. "Only when it's time for you to die too," Lea replied. "You won't see me in the marsh ever again. But let me show you what I will look like the next time you see me. Here, close your eyes." Nym closed her eyes. "Now look at me," Lea said. Nym opened her eyes and saw ...

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars The warm, emotional colors of award-winning artist Barbara L. Gibson.......2007-09-07

The debut children's picturebook of author John Adams, The Dragonfly Door dares to confront serious topics - of loss, death, grieving, and transition. Nym and Lea are two close insect friends, but one day after Nym yells at Lea, Lea disappears. Nym searches everywhere for her missing friend, and can't find her. At last Nym falls asleep, grief-stricken, and finally hears Lea's voice one more time. "'I died and went to this special place,' Lea said, her voice full of love. 'But I didn't want you to leave,' Nym pleaded. 'I'm sorry I yelled.' 'I know you're sorry,' Lea assured her. 'I left because my water nymph body died while I was picking flowers in the reeds, not because you yelled.'" The warm, emotional colors of award-winning artist Barbara L. Gibson illustrate this highly recommended picturebook for sharing the bittersweet realities of life with young people.

5 out of 5 stars Jewel's Reading Excellence Review: Helps children understand nature's life cycle.......2007-05-10

John Adams brilliantly invites the reader into the world of Nymphs and Dragonflies to explore the changes that take place when Nym's friend goes to a special place.

When I had lost a family member I had read a wonderful story called, "The Water Bug Story." John Adams adds a fresh approach to this story by focusing on friendship loss and giving a voice to his characters. With the help of Gibson's eye-catching nature illustrations, "The Dragon Fly Door" answers general questions surrounding loss, such as feelings about loss, what happens to the nymph's body when he dies, and how a nymph is transformed into a dragonfly.

Adams creatively normalizes typical friendship rivalry and takes the reader on a nature journey to discover that one chooses to resolve conflict, loss, and changes in different ways. Adams concludes the book with uncomplicated educational facts for the inquisitive science mind.

This is a great educational tool for parents, grandparents or professionals to use to help explain the uncontrollable life cycle changes and loss.

Reviewed by Jewel Sample, MS
Award-winning author of Flying Hugs and Kisses(2006), also translated: Besos y Abrazos Al Aire(2006, Spanish edition) and Flying Hugs and Kisses Activity Book(2007)

5 out of 5 stars A Message of Hope for Children Who Are Grieving.......2007-02-26

As President of a nonprofit organization that reaches out to those who are grieving, I was very pleased to read a book such as The Dragonfly Door. This book provides a much needed way to offer children (and adults) a message of hope following the death of a loved one.

Children can relate to the playful nature of Nym and Lea who are the two young nymph friends, the sorrow of Nym when Lea dies, and the comforting feeling when when Nym realizes that he will one day see Lea again as a dragonfly, when he too has made his transformation into a dragonfly.

Our nonprofit organization recommends this book so highly that we have decided to make it available for purchase at all of our events.
-Valerie Marquardt

5 out of 5 stars Beautiful and excellent for all who grieve.......2007-02-18

I received this wonderfully beautiful book on the 8th anniversary of my son's graduation to Heaven ... that evening, I was able to read it with his daughter, who is now 9... I believe she gained another understanding of her Very Own Daddy in a beautiful place that we have not seen just yet ... and though she already knew he is waiting for her, this was another good reminder of that ... I was unaware of the dragonfly's life cycle and was so blessed to see how it seemingly parallels this life and the next. Thank you, John, for a wonderful way to help us all in our continuing journey with grief and the Hope we can have.
Water Bugs & Dragonflies: Explaining Death to Young Children (Looking Up)
Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
  • Great Way to Ease the "Pain" of Death
  • Water Bugs & Dragonflies
  • Great for Preschoolers to Adults!
  • A TINY book that encourages TREMENDOUS faith
  • religious thinking about death
Water Bugs & Dragonflies: Explaining Death to Young Children (Looking Up)
Doris Stickney
Manufacturer: Pilgrim Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Grief & BereavementGrief & Bereavement | Death & Grief | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0829816240

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Great Way to Ease the "Pain" of Death.......2007-10-04

When I first received this book, I thought there is no way this is going to help explain anything and boy was I wrong. My husband of 5 years passed away very sudden and unexpectedly and I bought this book for our two sons who are 4 and 2. I read the story to them when I first received the book. The whole concept of how the water bug's body changed once he became a dragon fly and how he could not go back into the water was excellent. My 4 year old evey requests me to read this book to him. The prayer at the end is awesome. THANKS from a worried mother!

5 out of 5 stars Water Bugs & Dragonflies.......2007-03-08

What a beautiful and simple way to explain death to children (and adults) using the cycle of the waterbug. This story was told to me 22 years ago by the pastor at my father's funeral and I was so excited to find it in book form. I shared it with families when I was a school nurse-teacher and now with my grandchildren when my mom passed away. I would highly recommend it to all who are faced with the task of helping children (and grieving adults) through a very difficult time.

5 out of 5 stars Great for Preschoolers to Adults!.......2007-01-10

My 3.5 yr-old daughter's great-grandpa passed away. We were going to be attending the funeral, and I was one of the readers at the funeral. I knew she needed an explanation of what was going on. A bright girl, I knew that whatever I told her was going to stick, so I wanted to get the words right. I read a touching review of this booklet and decided to give it a try. It is small - the size of a CD booklet. But the words, written by a minister after his son's friend died, are poetic and poignant. 3 months later, my daughter still understands that great-grandpa is in Heaven (dragonfly) and we're still "in the pond" (water bugs). The word Heaven is not used in the book until the prayer at the end of it, which is also simple and great.

5 out of 5 stars A TINY book that encourages TREMENDOUS faith .......2006-07-02

With I first bought this book, - I thought to myself "The Jehovah's 'Watchtower' is bigger than this!" Doubtful this teeny tiny thing would be of benefit at all.... So many of the books I have bought on this delicate and heartwrenching subject are far too scientific, cold, and frank in their language -- too few support a Religious child's upbringing; to BELIEVE that death is not the END, their love LIVES ON, and WILL be with them again.... And finding so many lacking a message of faith only discouraged me further to hold onto my own.
And all these others were bigger, fancier, far more artwork, many more pages - - But "Great things come in small packages"...BELIEVE IT!
I read it aloud just after I purchased it to a friend as we stood waiting for coffee - and found very quickly I had an audience - the patrons in line and the employees behind the counter were listening to me read, to my embarrassment - BUT..it seemed to reach down into each of us, and touch us all in some way or another. The kind employee confided in me when he handed me my coffee that he had lost his girlfriend to Leukemia 5 years ago,-how she suffered, - how HE STILL suffered... And he THANKED me for reading that outloud - ...and then, recognized me as the girl ALWAYS in the store, ALWAYS with tears streaming down my face, for hours, until closing - drinking coffee and kneeling on my knees in the aisles, SEARCHING every bible, every Religious text, books by every psychic and every therapist --Searching for SOMETHING, and he looked in my eyes and said he always knew what it was.....
I bought this book because my first and only love, left me a widow at 26, just two weeks before Thanksgiving, dying beside me in the car on the way to his mother's house- I thought he was sleeping, - but he had suffered an annuerisym, at age 30. My great heartbreak is I have no children to share this with of ours; we were trying to be "smart" and wanted to have everything ' ready ':( - But his nieces and nephews were so very attatched so very close to him, - I am desperate to comfort them -- even though I have yet to find it myself......
To my surprise, - these few pages seemed to have brought some tiny spark of life back into me.
I was never expecting what I intended to ease these children's hurt, instill hope and strengthen their waning faith in this tragedy - would have done this for ME.
There are even prayers and passages from the bible in the back, and an epilogue as touching as the story itself.
This will prove to be a great and cherished blessing, for whomever you give it to.
God bless The Stickneys for sharing this beautiful tale. And God bless you and comfort you if you are searching, too.

5 out of 5 stars religious thinking about death.......2006-02-24

This little tiny book is a wonderful tale for small children about the difficulty of knowing what lies beyond the grave. In the most delicate and gentle way, the authors use the metaphor of the dragonfly larva, who live below the surface of the water, and the adult dragonflies, to illustrate the notion of someone going beyond our sight, to a marvelous place. They can't return to tell us about it. we just have to wait our turn. The authors' notes help to provide a spiritual context for talking to a young child about the death of someone close. I am an Episcopalian, and found the language and theology very congruent with our tradition.
The Curves of Life (Dover Books Explaining Science)
Average customer rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • Very Detailed, But Difficult to Read
  • Spirals in nature and in art
The Curves of Life (Dover Books Explaining Science)
Theodore A. Cook
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 048623701X

Book Description

Classic, well-thought-out examination of the function of the spiral, or helix, in both nature and art. Demonstrates how spiral is fundamental to structure of shells, leaves, horns, human body, drawings of Leonardo, Leaning Tower of Pisa, more. 1914 edition. 426 illustrations.

Customer Reviews:

2 out of 5 stars Very Detailed, But Difficult to Read.......2006-11-12

I bought this book while researching the Logarithmic Spiral. There were only a few references to the Logarithmic Spiral, so it wasn't spot on with what I was looking for. However, I stayed away from this as a source because the text was difficult to read.

5 out of 5 stars Spirals in nature and in art.......2006-04-15

This book (originally published in 1914) is a comprehensive and extraordinary description of spiral formations. It's definitive--a must for anyone interested in art and in the way nature operates.
Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines
Average customer rating: 4 out of 5 stars
  • Clear, interesting writing style
  • A question biologists rarely ask any more
  • Keller's Life and Times of Genetics
  • History, but no explaining
Making Sense of Life: Explaining Biological Development with Models, Metaphors, and Machines
Evelyn Fox Keller
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

GeneralGeneral | Biology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
Developmental BiologyDevelopmental Biology | Biology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0674007468

Book Description

What do biologists want? If, unlike their counterparts in physics, biologists are generally wary of a grand, overarching theory, at what kinds of explanation do biologists aim? How will we know when we have "made sense" of life? Such questions, Evelyn Fox Keller suggests, offer no simple answers. Explanations in the biological sciences are typically provisional and partial, judged by criteria as heterogeneous as their subject matter. It is Keller's aim in this bold and challenging book to account for this epistemological diversity--particularly in the discipline of developmental biology.

In particular, Keller asks, what counts as an "explanation" of biological development in individual organisms? Her inquiry ranges from physical and mathematical models to more familiar explanatory metaphors to the dramatic contributions of recent technological developments, especially in imaging, recombinant DNA, and computer modeling and simulations.

A history of the diverse and changing nature of biological explanation in a particularly charged field, Making Sense of Life draws our attention to the temporal, disciplinary, and cultural components of what biologists mean, and what they understand, when they propose to explain life.

Customer Reviews:

5 out of 5 stars Clear, interesting writing style.......2006-11-06

The method of material presentation made reading clear, understandable and interest as well as curiowity provoking.

3 out of 5 stars A question biologists rarely ask any more.......2005-05-10

Modern biologists rarely concern themselves with what life is. As François Jacob put it, "today we don't interrogate life in our laboratories", and Henri Atlan put it even more plainly: "Today a molecular biologist does not need to use the word 'life' for his work." Nonetheless, at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a lot of interest in defining life, with what now seem to be incredibly optimistic predictions of how long it would take to create life artificially. A little of this interest has survived until now, though Jacob and Atlan are right in regarding it as being far removed from the everyday preoccupations of practising biologists. In this interesting but demanding book, Evelyn Fox Keller traces the development from Stéphane Leduc at the beginning of the twentieth century to the artificial life enthusiasts of today.

Leduc thought that the appearance of forms resembling plants produced by osmotic effects in concentrated colloidal mixtures of inorganic salts had something to tell us about the emergence of life. Although he did not claim that these forms were actually living, some of his supporters were less restrained, and even during his lifetime Leduc became completely marginalized. A different fate awaited his near contemporary d'Arcy Thompson, whose famous book On Growth and Form has retained its appeal up to the present day. Keller is probably right, however, when she writes "yet, for all its fame, I suspect that few people today actually read On Growth and Form, and fewer still know what to make of it". Certainly, few of his admirers appreciate how far removed was his thinking from the neo-darwinism that dominates modern biology.

Keller's careful analysis of Leduc's and Thompson's ideas in the earlier part of the book is not, unfortunately, matched by an equally thorough examination of their successors in theoretical biology. Although she devotes several pages to the career of Nicolas Rashevsky, for example, she barely mentions Rashevsky's ideas, concentrating almost entirely on the political aspects of his career, describing how his early success in establishing a school of theoretical biology in Chicago collapsed in 1954 when his funding evaporated. More serious still, Keller ignores Robert Rosen completely -- mentioning him only in the notes at the end of the book, and then not as a major thinker in his own right but simply as Rashevsky's former student and the writer of his obituary. Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, do not even rate the minimal recognition accorded to Rosen: their names are not mentioned, and neither is their theory of autopoiesis.

In the latter part of the book, therefore, Keller appears to have missed the opportunity to examine ideas of complexity and the importance of treating systems as systems rather than as no more than as collections of components. She takes modern "systems biology" (which is concerned more with complicatedness than with complexity) essentially at its practioners' own valuation; likewise with other trendy ideas like cellular automata, artificial life and so on.

5 out of 5 stars Keller's Life and Times of Genetics.......2003-03-01

Keller's book is a fascinating read about genetics today, but just as fascinating about the intellectual developments that preceded today's thinking. She appreciates the thrill of the chase, but also provides the longer view, showing how scientific explanations that were satisfying to the scientists of a given day have frequently turned out to have little bearing on subsequent science-as our museums, T. Kuhn and Keller herself show. And the explanatory nuggets that scientists mine, which put science at the head of society's power train, often turn into the dusty errata of ensuing decades for reasons connected with researcher's attitudes. (This seems to be a factor some ambitious scientists resent contemplating.) She tracks the inclination of researchers and thinkers to project intentions on the gene-an ingrained "agentic" factor. Particularly interesting is what happened when physicists (she's one herself) tried to apply their particular skills and world view on biology-it seems that the powerful, overall formulas of physics, so brilliant in particle analysis and thinking about the universe on a grand scale, simply don't reach down to the particular instances of biology (Turing's theoretical description of the development of Drosophilia may be highly elegant and efficient, but as it turns out the fly, like Frank Sinatra, prefers to do it its own way). Keller writes clearly and well about her subject-her book also gives a rundown of future directions for genetic research-but for me the fun is in Keller's tracing how the search for knowledge is shaped differently from era to era; Keller's book gives us a glimpse of the waters that knowledge swims in.

2 out of 5 stars History, but no explaining.......2002-11-24

I was rather disappointed in this book. Keller's view of 'explanation' is that it is relative to the needs of each particular culture and their historical time (p. 5). As such, she does not really critique or analyze the various historical concepts to any degree. Essentially, she presents what happened, and who did it, and how some things fell in or out of favor at a given time.

The result is that this book is essentially a narrative of approximately the last century of the history of biology. In that regard, it does succeed somewhat at attempting to condense the efforts of 100+ years of biology into about 300 pages. That is why I gave it two stars.

However, as Keller is a MIT philosopher of science and also trained in theoretical physics, I had expected more analytic depth, and some kind of "edge" - some thesis or thread or some other kind of thematic reason for her to be telling us all this history. Even on the most fundamental question of biology, "what is life?", Keller equivocates, calling it "a historical question, answerable only in terms of the categories that we as human actors choose to honor, and not in logical, scientific or technical terms." (p.294) Indeed, she does not even mention Schrodinger's 1943 lecture, "What is Life?"

The chapters on AI/AL are quite weak, focusing heavily on cellular automata (she mentions Wolfram several times). These tinker-toy computer games are about as close to life as a simulation of an earthquake is to an actual earthquake, in my opinion. Keller, however, describes computer simulations as being part of the 'revitalized' mathematical biology program.

She recounts the 'original' mathematical biology program as the one primarily led by Rashevsky, but also mentions Waddington and Turing. I find it odd that she did not mention Robert Rosen at all, considering he continued on after Rashevsky. I admit I am an admirer of Rosen's works, but her failure to even mention him seems odd considering she devotes an overly large number of pages to Turing's addition to mathematical biology.

Further, had she read Rosen's _Essays on Life Itself_, she would see that mimetic attempts at creating life with computer simulations is utterly ill-conceived. But, then again, since Keller engages in no analysis anyway, I should not be surprised at this.

Finally, Keller claims she shares some similarity to the philosopher of science Nancy Cartwright in believing that there is no set of universal laws of physics (and hence, in Keller's view, no universal set of laws of biology). Cartwright (who's books I admire) makes a good case for there being ontological reasons for this view (see Cartwright's _The Dappled World_). By contrast, Keller sees it as an epistemological problem, because the world is "irreducibly complex" and because of the "disunity of human interests". (p. 301) I think Keller misconstrues Cartwright completely when Keller contrasts her position with one alleging "an underlying incoherence" to the world. Cartwright never supposed, or proposed, 'incoherence' of nature in her writing; rather, Cartwright attempts to make sense of the ontological basis for the patchwork manner of physical laws.

The title _Making Sense of Life_ is misleading, for this book does no such thing, nor even attempts to cobble together an approach to doing so. It may be worthwhile as a history of efforts in biology, but even in that regard I'd prefer a polemic narrator, rather than this one.
Catholic Evidence Training Outlines: A Classic Guide to Understanding & Explaining the Truths of the Catholic Church
Average customer rating: Not rated
    Catholic Evidence Training Outlines: A Classic Guide to Understanding & Explaining the Truths of the Catholic Church
    Frank Sheed , and Maisie Ward
    Manufacturer: Franciscan University Press
    ProductGroup: Book
    Binding: Paperback

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    ASIN: 0940535521
    Explaining Language Change
    Average customer rating: Not rated
      Explaining Language Change
      William Croft
      Manufacturer: Pearson ESL
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      Explaining Human Origins: Myth, Imagination and Conjecture
      Average customer rating: 5 out of 5 stars
      • Excellent Critical Overview
      Explaining Human Origins: Myth, Imagination and Conjecture
      Wiktor Stoczkowski
      Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

      GeneralGeneral | Anthropology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
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      ASIN: 052165730X

      Book Description

      The author argues that theories of human origins developed by archaeologists and physical anthropologists from the early nineteenth century to the present day are structurally similar to Western folk theories, and to the speculations of earlier philosophers. Reviewing a remarkable range of thinkers writing in a variety of European languages, he criticizes the lack of development in theories of human origins, but concludes optimistically that the power of the scientific approach will deliver more reliable theories--only if it is conscious of the baggage it carries over from popular discourse.

      Download Description

      Wiktor Stoczkowski, a palaeo-anthropologist, argues that the theories of human origins developed by archaeologists and physical anthropologists from the early nineteenth century to the present day are structurally similar to Western folk theories, and to the speculations of earlier philosophers. Reviewing a remarkable range of thinkers writing in a variety of European languages, he makes a convincing argument for this case. Even though the book criticises the lack of development in theories of human origins, its conclusion is optimistic about the power of the scientific approach to deliver more reliable theories - but only if the influences of popular discourse on its thinking are properly identified.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars Excellent Critical Overview.......2003-08-20

      Explaining Human Origins is quite a find. Stoczkowski shows both an encyclopedic acquaintance with the available facts and the modern theories concerning anthropogenesis. He also applies a penetrating, logical insight into the interaction between them. This relationship is, in his opinion, all too often none at all.

      He subjects twenty-four hominization scenarios offered over the past two centuries to critical scrutiny, and none of them stand up. Much of the book is taken up with rewriting accounts of bipedalism, brain formation and growth, tool use, etc., in the form of syllogisms, each of which is evaluated with reference to their consistency with the archeological record, their plausibility from other sciences, and their possibility of verification or falsification. Historical, cultural, and political biases are rampant in the analyses, leading researchers not only to hypothesize beyond the facts, but also ignore them and invent others. Many accounts are found to have their origin in classical times, and almost all contain biases from thinkers who speculated before the Additionally, the accounts by scientists of the evolution of human beings are almost always at odds with Darwinism, and even Darwin is found to resort to Lamarckianism in the explanation of bipedalism in humans. More recent scientists are shown try to rephrase pre-Darwinian explanations in terms of natural selection without success.

      Beyond its value as a critical work, this book also makes a fine reference text. It has a broad scope, good footnoting, and a twenty-five-page bibliography.
      Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem
      Average customer rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
      • A great introduction, a great collection, BUY IT!
      • Excellent Overview of the "Hard" Problem of Consciousness
      • Head Wars
      Explaining Consciousness: The Hard Problem

      Manufacturer: The MIT Press
      ProductGroup: Book
      Binding: Paperback

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      1. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind Series) The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Philosophy of Mind Series)
      2. The View from Within: First-person Approaches to the Study of Consciousness (Consciousness Studies) The View from Within: First-person Approaches to the Study of Consciousness (Consciousness Studies)
      3. Conversations on Consciousness: What the Best Minds Think about the Brain, Free Will, and What It Means to Be Human Conversations on Consciousness: What the Best Minds Think about the Brain, Free Will, and What It Means to Be Human
      4. The Experience of Meditation: Experts Introduce the Major Traditions The Experience of Meditation: Experts Introduce the Major Traditions
      5. The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates

      ASIN: 026269221X

      Book Description

      At the 1994 landmark conference "Toward a Scientific Basis for Consciousness," philosopher David Chalmers distinguished between the "easy" problems and the "hard" problem of consciousness research. According to Chalmers, the easy problems are to explain cognitive functions such as discrimination, integration, and the control of behavior; the hard problem is to explain why these functions should be associated with phenomenal experience. Why doesn't all this cognitive processing go on "in the dark," without any consciousness at all? In this book philosophers, physicists, psychologists, neurophysiologists, computer scientists, and others address this central topic in the growing discipline of consciousness studies. Some take issue with Chalmers's distinction, arguing that the hard problem is a nonproblem, or that the explanatory gap is too wide to be bridged. Others offer alternative suggestions as to how the problem might be solved, whether through cognitive science, fundamental physics, empirical phenomenology, or with theories that take consciousness as irreducible.

      Customer Reviews:

      5 out of 5 stars A great introduction, a great collection, BUY IT!.......2007-04-21

      This collection begins with an essay by David Chalmers defending the view that no reductive, materialistic account of consciousness can ever be successful.

      The rest of the book is made up of over two dozen responses to Chalmers's essay--some supportive, some critical, and some derisive. These responses are written by some of the biggest names in the field, and are followed by a concluding essay, again by Chalmers, in which he tries to defend his own views against what has gone before.

      Because of the variety of viewpoints (materialism, dualism, mysterianism) and approaches (neurophysiology, analytical philosophy, quantum mechanics), this collection provides a wonderful introduction to some of the most important aspects of recent work in consciounsess studies. Just check out the table of contents.

      As a reductionist myself, I found Patricia Churchland's argument particularly hard to counter, and I think that anyone, regardless of their perspective, will find food for thought in Mark C. Price's wonderful piece.

      All in all, the best introduction I have ever encountered to the philosophical study of consciousness.

      4 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of the "Hard" Problem of Consciousness.......2005-09-08

      Daniel Dennett's physicalist model of the mind (having its basis in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Neural Networks) claims to explain everything about the working of the mind. Can everything mental be explained by this model? i.e, can all mental properties be reduced to the four entities that constitute the physical: (1) Mass (2) Space (3) Time (4) Electric Charge ?

      Not everything has been explained by this model, sayeth David Chalmers. In a famous paper published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies in 1995, Chalmers argued that the "Hard" problem of consciousness remains untouched by physicalist models of the mind --

      "Why does the performance of [brain] functions result in experience?"

      In other words, why do experiences such as the "sweetness of sugar", or "smell of mothballs", or "blueness of the sky" arise out of the firing of neurons? Why should "experience" arise out of a physical system at all?

      Chalmers got 26 responses for his paper, and he even responded to all the responses in a subsequent paper. This book contains all these papers on the subject.

      The "Hard" problem of consciousness has been around for a long time. Frank Jackson, Sydney Shoemaker, Joseph Levine have all pointed this out before, and Chalmers has merely highlighted the problem. But he has done a pretty good job of it, for even Daniel Dennett is having a "hard" problem being able to sleep nowadays!

      I dropped a star because Chalmers' idea of including "experience" as a fundamental entity is not covered well or convincingly.

      5 out of 5 stars Head Wars.......2001-10-28

      This book was just about my first taste of the consciousness wars. Or no. I’ve been reading about consciousness for about ten years. But it made too much sense to me. My retinas see you, my visual cortex sees my retinas, but who sees my visual cortex? Where does the buck stop? Because the buck does stop. Once it hit me that vision is vision, something you wouldn’t expect from a brain of mere structure and function, electrons moving around, drugs being administered, I embraced magic, and demanded that we are souls, things beyond law. A point-of-view can be such an amazing thing to have that I can even slip into the thought, ‘Only one POV can exist, they’re so unbelievable.’ But as Smith said, ‘There’s no such thing as a leaf, there are only leaves.’

      This book is a delightful bunch of mental flowerings. David Chalmers is the nuclear furnace sun around which the rest of these characters orbit. Although it can seem like some are in different galaxies altogether. His explanation is ‘Information is phenomenal.’ He deftly eludes every attack the others come up with, although this book is not the final round. He admits that his theory is probably wrong, but says this type of speculation is just what we need. My problem is, ‘Info is phenomenal, but where does the subject come from, you need a subject for anything phenomenal to be noticed.’

      (...)Chalmers is a true scholar and looks like he reads everything written about the subject. If you can’t afford the book, there are hundreds of online papers he’s collected. My final line to you is ‘The war is not just in your head.’
      Explaining Water Baptism (The Explaining Series)
      Average customer rating: Not rated
        Explaining Water Baptism (The Explaining Series)
        David Pawson
        Manufacturer: Sovereign World Ltd
        ProductGroup: Book
        Binding: Paperback

        GeneralGeneral | Christian Living | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
        EducationEducation | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
        GeneralGeneral | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
        ASIN: 1852400838
        Explaining Your Faith
        Average customer rating: Not rated
          Explaining Your Faith
          Alister E. McGrath
          Manufacturer: Baker Pub Group
          ProductGroup: Book
          Binding: Paperback

          GeneralGeneral | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
          ApologeticsApologetics | Theology | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
          GeneralGeneral | Theology | Religious Studies | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
          Student LifeStudent Life | College & University | Education | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
          ASIN: 0801057280

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          8. The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)
          9. The Reef Aquarium: A Comprehensive Guide to the Identification and Care of Tropical Marine Invertebrates (Volume 1)
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