Visar resultat för..."Only Human"

Marjorie Hemming, marriage guidance counsellor, craves concord and harmony the way other people need cigarettes. But cracks are starting to show in the world she's so carefully remade after her early widowhood. Some of her couples refuse to kiss and make up: even Nurse Rose, the TV heroine who looks so like Marjorie, seems about to make a foolhardy blunder. When her adored teenage daughter unexpectedly moves out, this professional expert on human affairs is forced to look at matters a little closer to home.

The gripping final instalment in the Sleeping Giants trilogy - perfect for fans of Ready, Player One, The Martian and Transformers. ________ We always thought the biggest threat to humanity would come from the outside.We were wrong . . . Ten years ago, alien robots descended to Earth killing one hundred million people. And when they retreated, they took brilliant scientist Rose Franklin and her team with them. Now, after nearly ten years on another world, Rose and the Earth Defence Corps manage to escape - only to find that a devastating new war has begun. This time, it's between humans. As the human race looks set to destroy itself, Rose and her comrades must find a way to unite Earth. The stakes couldn't be higher, as the aliens intend to finish the annihilation they started . . .Praise for the Sleeping Giants trilogy: 'This year's The Martian. So good and so eerie' Buzzfeed'Pure, unadulterated literary escapism. In a word: unputdownable' Kirkus Reviews'A sheer blast from start to finish' Blake Crouch, author of the Wayward Pines series'Reminiscent of The Martian and World War Z' Pierce Brown An action-packed tale with apocalyptic stakes' Publishers Weekly

What makes humans cognitively unique, and why are we unique in these ways? Armin W. Schulz suggests that the singularity of our ways of thinking is based in a positive feedback loop that joins innate representations, forms of cultural learning, and technology. This feedback loop explains a number of key applications of our cognitive abilities, from our industriousness through trade, our conceptions of morality, and our ability to engage with the thoughts of others. Discussing the evolution of human cognition is complicated by the fact that it must be recognized to be multi-dimensional, culturally variable, and only differing in degree from non-human cognition. Taking this complexity into account, Schulz develops an interactionist theory of the evolution and nature of distinctively human cognition. At the core of this theory is the idea that underlying human cognitive uniqueness is a complex, interlocking interplay between three different elements: (1) a set of evolved representational expectations; (2) a pronounced disposition for cultural learning, and (3) complex and variegated technology. All three are further underwritten by a unique set of lower-level cognitive abilities, which are in turn influenced by the feedback loop created by the major three.With the help of this feedback loop, key examples of uniquely human cognition can be explained: distinctively human mindreading, distinctively human moral cognition, and the distinctively human propensity for trade. Schulz concludes with an application of this interactionist theory of distinctively human cognition to some issues of contemporary importance: the relationship between distinctively human cognition and increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence, the role of religion in human thought and action, and the relationship between extensive patent regimes and human innovation.It's Only Human makes clear how human cognition can end up differing quite markedly from non-human cognition, even though its individual elements might initially and intrinsically only differ in relatively small degrees.