Possible

The first up-to-date and comprehensive examination of all issues pertaining to realism about possible worlds. An invaluable introduction to the topic, it includes many original developments and insights.

Using cultural theory, author R. Bruce Brasell investigates issues surrounding the discursive presentation of the American South as biracial and explores its manifestation in documentary films, including such works as Tell about the South, bro•ken/ground, and Family Name. After considering the emergence of the region's biraciality through a consideration of the concepts of racial citizenry and racial performativity, Brasell examines two problems associated with this framework. First, the framework assumes racial purity, and, second, it assumes that two races exist. In other words, biraciality enacts two denials, first, the existence of miscegenation in the region and, second, the existence of other races and ethnicities. Brasell considers bodily miscegenation, discussing the racial closet and the southeastern expatriate road film. Then he examines cultural miscegenation through the lens of racial poaching and 1970s southeastern documentaries that use redemptive ethnography. In the subsequent chapters, using specific documentary films, he considers the racial in-betweenness of Spanish-speaking ethnicities (Mosquitoes and High Water, Living in America, Nuestra Communidad), probes issues related to the process of racial negotiation experienced by Asian Americans as they seek a racial position beyond the black and white binary (Mississippi Triangle), and engages the problem of racial legitimacy confronted by federally non-recognized Native groups as they attempt the same feat (Real Indian).

The Renaissance, scholars have long argued, was a period beset by the loss of philosophical certainty. In Possible Knowledge, Debapriya Sarkar argues for the pivotal role of literature--what early moderns termed poesie--in the dynamic intellectual culture of this era of profound incertitude. Revealing how problems of epistemology are inextricable from questions of literary form, Sarkar offers a defense of poiesis, or literary making, as a vital philosophical endeavor. Working across a range of genres, Sarkar theorizes "possible knowledge" as an intellectual paradigm crafted in and through literary form. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers such as Spenser, Bacon, Shakespeare, Cavendish, and Milton marshalled the capacious concept of the "possible," defined by Philip Sidney as what "may be and should be," to construct new theories of physical and metaphysical reality. These early modern thinkers mobilized the imaginative habits of thought constitutive to major genres of literary writing--including epic, tragedy, romance, lyric, and utopia--in order to produce knowledge divorced from historical truth and empirical fact by envisioning states of being untethered from "nature" or reality. Approaching imaginative modes such as hypothesis, conjecture, prediction, and counterfactuals as instruments of possible knowledge, Sarkar exposes how the speculative allure of the "possible" lurks within scientific experiment, induction, and theories of probability. In showing how early modern literary writing sought to grapple with the challenge of forging knowledge in an uncertain, perhaps even incomprehensible world, Possible Knowledge also highlights its most audacious intellectual ambition: its claim that while natural philosophy, or what we today term science, might explain the physical world, literature could remake reality. Enacting a history of ideas that centers literary studies, Possible Knowledge suggests that what we have termed a history of science might ultimately be a history of the imagination.

Mathematical modelling and simulation is an increasingly powerful area of mathematics and computer science, which in recent years has been fuelled by the unprecedented access to larger than ever stores of data. These techniques have an increasing number of applications in the professional and political spheres, and people try to predict the results of certain courses of action as accurately as possible. Computing Possible Futures explores the use of models on everyday phenomena such as waiting in lines and driving a car, before expanding the model's complexity to look at how large-scale computational models can help imagine big scale " scenarios like the effect self-driving cars on the US economy. The successes and failures of complex real world problems are examined, and it is shown how few, if any, failures are due to model errors or computational difficulties. It is also shown how real life decision makers have addressed important problems and used their model-based understanding of possible futures to inform these decisions. Written in an entertaining and accessible way, Computing Possible Futures will help those concerned about the futurity of their decisions to understand what fundamentally needs to be done, why it needs to be done, and how to do it.

We have always been formed in the mistaken belief that success is reserved for only a few people, and that the rest of us have to be content with waiting for luck to come to us to achieve what we yearn for. This book explains and develops the thesis that all human beings are genetically configured to seek and achieve success, that we do it naturally, spontaneously, without realizing it, and that no one can escape it because it is impossible to overcome the logical laws that govern our thoughts. It shows how erroneous conceptions of the world around us directly affect the conditioning of our thoughts, diverting us from the pursuit of the goals we have set for ourselves. It contains a detailed exposition about intolerance to frustration, its fundamental causes, its harmful effects, and how to correct it. A text that will help you discover yourself, get rid of the obstacles that prevent you from moving forward, and set realistic goals that you will ALWAYS be able to achieve. In short, a book that will serve as a guide and orientation for the paths to SUCCESS.

If the present alienation of mind from nature, i.e., the Cartesian reality principle, is to be overcome, there surely must be a climate of extreme depression amounting in many quarters to despair One way or another there is an opportunity here for a good writer who should fill out in terms of concrete events and experiences the issues If a society is really faced with startling changes and fairly imminent ones (and there is a good deal of evidence that ours is) it cannot be amiss for a few people here and there to be peering ahead, however inadequately, by way of preparation for them. Owen Barfield: The Coming Trauma of Materialism

In this provocative book, John Burnheim argues that there is an alternative to our current political and economic structure. In a bold and original discussion of how and why the present system fails and what we might do to bring about genuine democracy, Burnheim offers the outline of a new kind of society, forcing us to reexamine our assumptions about the limits and possibilities of modern political systems.

It is a story of a boy; Aditya; who struggles hard to achieve his dreams despite many odds. The novel takes the reader through Aditya’s early childhood adventures to success in the school and college. The college trekking expedition to Himalayas takes the reader through beautiful unique experiences of Himalayas where Aditya wins his love. It describes ways to understand the world in a different way and even touches various social issues prevalent in India like caste; religion; child abuse; corruption and inflation. In the final part; it talks of the inner voice and mysticism of the universal soul which are considered to be great guiding forces for a human being; provided he lowers his defence mechanisms to hear it. It is a philosophical; psychological and motivational story. This book won’t let its reader lose the battle of life. It equips them to understand the world better and never get used by anybody. A self motivating novel which will provide energy to its readers to excel and succeed in life; especially those who are in search of their dream.