Presents the author's thesis that consciousness, in its manifestation in the human quality of understanding, is doing something that mere computation cannot; and attempts to understand how such non-computational action might arise within scientifically comprehensive physical laws.

What's in a shadow? Menace, seduction, or salvation? Immaterial but profound, shadows lurk everywhere in literature and the visual arts, signifying everything from the treachery of appearances to the unfathomable power of God. From Plato to Picasso, from Rembrandt to Welles and Warhol, from Lord of the Rings to the latest video game, shadows act as central players in the drama of Western culture. Yet because they work silently, artistic shadows often slip unnoticed past audiences and critics. Conceived as an accessible introduction to this elusive phenomenon, Grasping Shadows is the first book that offers a general theory of how all shadows function in texts and visual media. Arguing that shadow images take shape within a common cultural field where visual and verbal meanings overlap, William Sharpe ranges widely among classic and modern works, revealing the key motifs that link apparently disparate works such as those by Fra Angelico and James Joyce, Clementina Hawarden and Kara Walker, Charles Dickens and Kumi Yamashita. Showing how real-world shadows have shaped the meanings of shadow imagery, Grasping Shadows guides the reader through the techniques used by writers and artists to represent shadows from the Renaissance onward. The last chapter traces how shadows impact the art of the modern city, from Renoir and Zola to film noir and projection systems that capture the shadows of passers-by on streets around the globe. Extending his analysis to contemporary street art, popular songs, billboards, and shadow-theatre, Sharpe demonstrates a practical way to grasp the "dark side" that looms all around us.

Once you graduate from the academy, you're guaranteed an assignment. That was what Coura had always known and still believed even as she wasn't certain what position she desired. Unfortunately, her destiny never intended for such a simple life. Her mentor, dark mage master Byron, shows her there is more to the world when they travel to the capital city. However, underlying political manipulation and looming threats teach Coura how fragmented her world really is, and will become. Something frightening awaits as a secret locked away within herself as a child is forced to the forefront when she is confronted by angelic beings unseen for decades. Could her new, supposedly evil power stand up to that of legend? And, despite training with the sword and dark magic her entire life, is Coura truly prepared for the role she was fated to play between the angels and long-forgotten demons?

Events during both the Second World War and the cold war unfurl to reveal an intricate and dangerous web of espionage and romance in this fast-paced thriller that gives insight into the murky world of intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies. After Ronal Cameron leaves his simple candle-making and provisioning business for a visit to Russia, he mysteriously disappears, leaving his lover, Nina, and her friend, Rachel. Cameron' s wartime job as a Navy technologist has caught up with him, and when he finally returns to his home in Britain, he finds his life complicated in the most unexpected of ways.

The dark side of the soul is a terrifying place. "I'm about to be murdered!" With this message, an intruder wakes up Lizeth Frontenac in the middle of the night. He gives her his name, his address, and begs for her help, then vanishes into thin air before she can do anything. Lizeth doubts her own eyes. Was the man just a dream? A hallucination? In the morning she learns he was neither, for a body is found a state away, in the same town, on the same road. And he wasn't the only one. On the same night, under the same full moon, all across the country, eleven other people are also killed. When a victim's distraught boyfriend seeks out Lizeth and her sister Hyla for help, they are plunged into a mystery so intricate, tracking murders so perplexing and numerous as to boggle the mind. Is it a ritual? A cult? One killer or a dozen? The answer keeps slipping through their fingers. And one of their own might be next.

There is a long-lasting controversy concerning our mind and consciousness. Mind, Brain, Quantum AI, and the Multiverse proposes a connection between the mind, the brain, and the multiverse. The author introduces the main philosophical ideas concerning mind and freedom, and explains the basic principles of computer science, artificial intelligence of brain research, quantum physics, and quantum artificial intelligence. He indicates how we can provide an answer to the problem of the mind and consciousness by describing the nature of the physical world. His proposed explanation includes the Everett Many-Worlds theory. This book tries to avoid any non-essential metaphysical speculations. The text is an essential compilation of knowledge in philosophy, computer science, biology, and quantum physics. It is written for readers without any requirements in mathematics, physics, or computer science.

In this original, wide-ranging, and endlessly thought-provoking work of popular nonfiction, a leading science writer uncovers the pervasive presence of shadows in our world. For Plato, shadows were the symbol of our limitations. For Galileo, they knocked the Earth from the center of the cosmos. They are a source of fear and a symbol of ignorance, and they loom large in art and design, mythology and folklore, physics and metaphysics, and architecture and urban planning. From shadows puppets and the psychology of shadows to the role of shadows in astronomy and the influence of shadows on the architectural profiles of our cities, Roberto Casati awakens our fascination in this tour-de-force of investigation and imagination.