"As data harvesting continues its exponential growth and computing power increases beyond what we can even imagine, AI and Big Data will be able to predict what we want for breakfast, what shoes we will buy, which political party we will vote for, and who we will fancy in a bar. Indeed, these deep-learning machines will know us better than we know ourselves. The day awaits when academia and big business will be able to quantify just how predictable each of us are. If indeed we are predictable like machines, to what extent are we alive, and under what definition? In The Human Test, quantum physicist Ron Folman unites findings from cognitive science, quantum physics, philosophy, and technology to offer a prescient look into this startling new era of human existence. If we are indeed found to be predictable, it will change everything we thought we knew about human nature. The Human Test strives for a new paradigm, and this new paradigm is found in human predictability. Existing monitors of general brain activity measure only very rudimentary aspects of the human experience, or what may be called human life; could the advent of a disruptive new technology bring about a much more insightful measure of who we are? While The Human Test describes a new and profound near-future impact of AI, it is rooted in a topic of paramount importance to humans: the enigma of consciousness and how it defines human life-or, what differentiates humans from all other life forms. Ultimately, The Human Test addresses some of the most fundamental questions about our species, starting with the most crucial: do we have free will, or are we merely machines? Fortunately, there is an antidote to predictability: creativity, that wondrous state of being original and inherently not predictable. Ultimately, Folman argues that if we can understand predictability, we can learn how to distance ourselves from it, and transcend to a purer idea of what human life should look like"-- Provided by publisher.

Book by Domb, Cyril

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The concept of mass is one of the most fundamental notions in physics, comparable in importance only to those of space and time. But in contrast to the latter, which are the subject of innumerable physical and philosophical studies, the concept of mass has been but rarely investigated. Here Max Jammer, a leading philosopher and historian of physics, provides a concise but comprehensive, coherent, and self-contained study of the concept of mass as it is defined, interpreted, and applied in contemporary physics and as it is critically examined in the modern philosophy of science. With its focus on theories proposed after the mid-1950s, the book is the first of its kind, covering the most recent experimental and theoretical investigations into the nature of mass and its role in modern physics, from the realm of elementary particles to the cosmology of galaxies. The book begins with an analysis of the persistent difficulties of defining inertial mass in a noncircular manner and discusses the related question of whether mass is an observational or a theoretical concept. It then studies the notion of mass in special relativity and the delicate problem of whether the relativistic rest mass is the only legitimate notion of mass and whether it is identical with the classical (Newtonian) mass. This is followed by a critical analysis of the different derivations of the famous mass-energy relationship E = mc2 and its conflicting interpretations. Jammer then devotes a chapter to the distinction between inertial and gravitational mass and to the various versions of the so-called equivalence principle with which Newton initiated his Principia but which also became the starting point of Einstein's general relativity, which supersedes Newtonian physics. The book concludes with a presentation of recently proposed global and local dynamical theories of the origin and nature of mass. Destined to become a much-consulted reference for philosophers and physicists, this book is also written for the nonprofessional general reader interested in the foundations of physics.

The International Conference on Complex Systems provides a unique opportunity for scientists to rise above the disciplinary boundaries and explore unity in complex systems. This volume contains the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Complex Systems. The sessions ranged from the opening talk by Nobel laureate Philip Anderson on emergence and the relevance of complex systems to physics to the final panel that included many of the great management gurus of this generation. The plenary session topics for the second conference were emergence, description and modeling, self-organization, networks, time series, agents in action, and complexity and management. Talks in these sessions often focused on contributions in specific disciplines, but each session contained a diverse set of disciplines to show the strategies and concepts that can be applied generally to complex systems. Overall, the conference presentations dealt with issues of significant public interest, including individual psychology, dynamics of social and economic change, the human genome, and ecology.The New England Complex Systems Institute is an independent educational and research institution dedicated to advancing the study of complex systems, including new concepts and methodologies that are affecting all fields of science and engineering, and are being applied to technology, business, and even social policy. NECSI organizes conferences, workshops, short courses, and other activities from which books will be produced for the NECSI Series on Complexity. The books will range from conference proceedings and graduate textbooks to general-audience trade books, and will address fundamental concepts, new frontiers, and innovative applications of complex systems.