In this ambitious and imaginative work, noted social and biological theorist Graeme Donald Snooks explores the origin, development, and role of the self-conscious mind. The Selfcreating Mind_which displaces the mind hypothesized by psychoanalytic, Darwinian, and complexity theorists_provides a new perspective on human nature; the origin, nature, and purpose of the self-conscious mind; the reasons for its continuing breakdown in a significant minority of the population; and on the surest road to mental recovery.

This unique scientific treatise merges science and philosophy, theorizing that the universe, life, and human societies have an innate purpose and are part of a universal reality.

The Self-Creating Universe is a wide-ranging attempt to bring science and spirituality together in a philosophical synthesis. It opens up to the reader exciting new developments in the natural sciences while also showing how these contribute to a worldview which addresses fundamental philosophical and social questions. The key concept is creativity, in both nature and human life. Making use of ideas from the history of philosophy and from recent speculations in sciences including cosmology and evolution, the book offers bold conjectures about the emergence of new forms of order and self-organisation in nature, in consciousness and in human life as a whole. The book is written in an accessible style which is designed to appeal to both the general reader and to specialists interested in the wider implications of their fields.

This volume examines the world of German women writers who emerged in the burgeoning literary marketplace of eighteenth-century Europe.

This book introduces a 'Big History' perspective to understand the acceleration of social, technological and economic trends towards a near-term singularity, marking a radical turning point in the evolution of our planet. It traces the emergence of accelerating innovation rates through global history and highlights major historical transformations throughout the evolution of life, humans, and civilization. The authors pursue an interdisciplinary approach, also drawing on concepts from physics and evolutionary biology, to offer potential models of the underlying mechanisms driving this acceleration, along with potential clues on how it might progress. The contributions gathered here are divided into five parts, the first of which studies historical mega-trends in relation to a variety of aspects including technology, population, energy, and information. The second part is dedicated to a variety of models that can help understand the potential mechanisms, and support extrapolation. In turn, the third part explores various potential future scenarios, along with the paths and decisions that are required. The fourth part presents philosophical perspectives on the potential deeper meaning and implications of the trend towards singularity, while the fifth and last part discusses the implications of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). Given its scope, the book will appeal to scholars from various disciplines interested in historical trends, technological change and evolutionary processes.

The basic aims of contemporary thinking in education are to cultivate a proper comprehension of the meaning and purpose of education and the role of the teacher, and to develop adequate theoretical and methodological frameworks that combine some of the positive sides of the leading theories, while avoiding their disadvantages. Toward these ends, one excellent candidate for consideration is Alfred North Whitehead’s (1861-1947) process-relational philosophy of education, as set forth in The Aims of Education (1929) and elsewhere. The contributors to this volume analyze Whitehead’s philosophy of education in a detailed and critical fashion, including inquiring into the development of cycle-based approaches to education, like Whitehead’s, in intellectual history as well as its potential objective bases. They also demonstrate how this relates to, and can be integrated with, other leading theories of education and contemporary pedagogical thinking, and identify avenues for its positive, practical application in schooling across the globe as well as in scientific research. The book further critically evaluates current educational practices and the organization of educational institutions in this light and the effectiveness of teaching strategies that are founded upon some of its principles, while also exploring the ramifications of its selection and application in education for society in general, as well as for our common civilizational aspirations, including humanity’s addressing of global problems, such as the ecological crisis. In addition, the volume also serves to lay some of the groundwork for its potential further development.