Sisyphus S Boulder

Consciousness lies at the core of being human. Therefore, to understand ourselves, we need a theory of consciousness. In Sisyphus's Boulder, Eric Dietrich and Valerie Hardcastle argue that we will never get such a theory because consciousness has an essential property that prevents it from ever being explained. Consequently, philosophical debates over materialism and dualism are a waste of time. Scientific explanations of consciousness fare no better. Scientists do study consciousness, and such investigations will continue to grow and advance. However, none of them will ever reveal what consciousness is. In addition, given the centrality of consciousness in philosophy, Dietrich and Hardcastle claim that philosophy itself needs to change. That the central problems of philosophy persist is actually a profound epistemic fact about humans. Philosophy, then, is a limit to what humans can understand. (Series A)

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity and authenticity.

Your life matters, and it matters on an infinite and eternal scale. That may sound like a bold claim. Maybe you spend most of your day behind a desk or chauffeuring children or repeating one of a thousand ordinary routines. Nothing about your daily life seems world-changing or history-making to you. A life-crushing loss or a humiliating setback may leave you feeling that your world is irreparably broken. Chronic illness or a stalled career may have you wondering whether you have anything truly significant to offer. You may have reached the pinnacle of success, and now you find yourself wondering, “Is this all that there is?” Nevertheless, your life matters. That is the core message of Christian hope. This book is devoted to helping its readers not only to understand the concept of hope, but more importantly to draw upon hope as the powerful force that inspires our daily lives. Christian hope is far more than wishful thinking or a positive attitude. Optimism in all its forms places its bets on what we humans can accomplish. By contrast, hope is rooted in what Christ has already achieved on the cross and what God promises to accomplish for us in the future. God connects the dots of our lives.

Long ago the ancestors of the Greeks, Romans, and Hindus were one people living on the Eurasian steppes. At the core of their religion was the "shamanic trance," a natural state but one in which consciousness achieves a profound level of inner awareness. Over the course of millennia, the Indo-Europeans divided and migrated into Europe and the Indian subcontinent. The knowledge of shamanic trance retreated from everyday awareness and was carried on in the form of myths and distilled into spiritual practices--most notably in the Indian tradition of yoga. J. Nigro Sansonese compares the myths of Greece as well as those of the Judeo-Christian tradition with the yogic practices of India and concludes that myths are esoteric descriptions of what occurs within the human body, especially the human nervous system, during trance. In this light, the myths provide a detailed map of the shamanic state of consciousness that is our natural heritage. This book carries on from the works of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell to show how the portrayal of consciousness embodied in myth can be extended to a reappraisal of the laws of physics; before they are descriptions of the world, these laws--like myths--are descriptions of the human nervous system.

In this knock-out collection, Major Jackson savors the complexity between perception and reality, the body and desire, accountability and judgment. Inspired by Albert Camus’s seminal Myth of Sisyphus, Major Jackson’s fifth volume subtly configures the poet as “absurd hero” and plunges headfirst into a search for stable ground in an unstable world. We follow Jackson’s restless, vulnerable speaker as he ponders creation in the face of meaninglessness, chronicles an increasingly technological world and the difficulty of social and political unity, probes a failed marriage, and grieves his lost mother with a stunning, lucid lyricism. The arc of a man emerges; he bravely confronts his past, including his betrayals and his mistakes, and questions who he is as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a poet. With intense musicality and verve, The Absurd Man also faces outward, finding refuge in intellectual and sensuous passions. At once melancholic and jubilant, Jackson considers the journey of humanity, with all its foibles, as a sacred pattern of discovery reconciled by art and the imagination.

Life is an enduring mystery. Yet, science tells us that living beings are merely sophisticated structures of lifeless molecules. If this view is correct, where do the seemingly purposeful motions of cells and organisms originate? In Life's Ratchet, physicist Peter M. Hoffmann locates the answer to this age-old question at the nanoscale. Below the calm, ordered exterior of a living organism lies microscopic chaos, or what Hoffmann calls the molecular storm -- specialized molecules immersed in a whirlwind of colliding water molecules. Our cells are filled with molecular machines, which, like tiny ratchets, transform random motion into ordered activity, and create the "purpose" that is the hallmark of life. Tiny electrical motors turn electrical voltage into motion, nanoscale factories custom-build other molecular machines, and mechanical machines twist, untwist, separate and package strands of DNA. The cell is like a city -- an unfathomable, complex collection of molecular workers working together to create something greater than themselves. Life, Hoffman argues, emerges from the random motions of atoms filtered through these sophisticated structures of our evolved machinery. We are agglomerations of interacting nanoscale machines more amazing than anything in science fiction. Rather than relying on some mysterious "life force" to drive them -- as people believed for centuries -- life's ratchets harness instead the second law of thermodynamics and the disorder of the molecular storm. Grounded in Hoffmann's own cutting-edge research, Life's Ratchet reveals the incredible findings of modern nanotechnology to tell the story of how the noisy world of atoms gives rise to life itself.

From the Franz Kafka Prize–winning author of Lenin’s Kiss, a “stupendous and unforgettable” novel of Mao’s China (The Times, London). In the ninety-ninth district of a re-education compound, freethinking artists and academics are detained to strengthen their loyalty to Communist ideologies. Here, the Musician and her lover, the Scholar, along with the Author and the Theologian, are subjected to grinding physical labor. They are also encouraged to inform on each other’s dissident behavior—for the prize of a chance at freedom. Their preadolescent supervisor, the Child, delights in reward systems and excessive punishments. But when agricultural and industrial production quotas are raised to an unattainable level, the ninety-ninth district dissolves into lawlessness. As inclement weather and famine set in, the people are abandoned by the regime and left alone to survive. Set inside a labor camp during Mao’s Great Leap Forward, Booklist calls The Four Books a “rich and complex novel,” from “China’s most heralded and censored modern writer” (The South China Morning Post).

A new philosophy for finding joy and fulfillment through work, and identifying the career path that’s right for you. Historically, men and women have worked to provide the bare essentials for everyday life. Life is a Bicycle examines work’s higher purpose: to nurture the advancing mind and unfold the soul. It is your birthright to express yourself harmoniously through your daily work. Using the bicycle as a metaphor for the journey, this book lets you discover: The largest collection of quotes ever assembled capturing the art of discovering sincere, heartfelt work Four fountainheads that reveal and spur your desire, will, and love Principles that will guide you through an evolution of thought en route to your professional best Enlightening exercises and insightful questions designed to reveal your true nature The mechanics—but more importantly the heart and soul—of how to discover your professional authenticity If you believe your talent, energy, and appetite indicate ideal work that is capable of bringing out your best while reaping the greatest professional enjoyment possible—and this is the life you want—then you must answer the question: Who’s riding my bicycle?