Summa Technologiae
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Summa Technologiae
''Summa Technologiae'' (the title is in Latin, meaning "Summa (Compendium) of Technology" in English) is a 1964 book by Polish author Stanisław Lem. ''Summa'' is one of the first collections of philosophical essays by Lem. The book exhibits depth of insight and irony usual for Lem's creations. The name is an allusion to ''Summa Theologiae'' by Thomas Aquinas.Joanna Zylinska, translator's introduction, in: ''Summa Technologiae'', University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis-London, 2013, . Description Paraphrasing the author, the book tries to "examine the thorns of roses that have not flowered yet" - in other words, to deal with problems of the remote (and in some cases, not so remote) future. The primary question Lem treats in the book is that of civilization in the absence of limitations, both technological and material. He also looks at moral-ethical and philosophical consequences of future technologies. Despite its age and a number of inaccuracies in specific domains (e.g., ma ...
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Stanisław Lem
Stanisław Herman Lem (; 12 September 1921 – 27 March 2006) was a Polish writer of science fiction and essays on various subjects, including philosophy, futurology, and literary criticism. Many of his science fiction stories are of satirical and humorous character. Lem's books have been translated into more than 50 languages and have sold more than 45 million copies. Worldwide, he is best known as the author of the 1961 novel ''Solaris (novel), Solaris''. In 1976 Theodore Sturgeon wrote that Lem was the most widely read science fiction writer in the world. Lem is the author of the fundamental philosophical work "Summa Technologiae", in which he anticipated the creation of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and also developed the ideas of human autoevolution, the creation of Simulacrum, artificial worlds, and many others. Lem's science fiction works explore philosophical themes through speculations on technology, the nature of intelligence, the impossibility of com ...
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Iosif Shklovsky
Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky (russian: Ио́сиф Самуи́лович Шкло́вский; sometimes transliterated ''Josif, Josif, Shklovskii, Shklovskij'') (1 July 1916 – 3 March 1985) was a Soviet astronomer and astrophysicist. He is remembered for work in theoretical astrophysics and other topics, as well as for his 1962 book on extraterrestrial life, the revised and expanded version of which was co-authored by American astronomer Carl Sagan in 1966 as ''Intelligent Life in the Universe''. He won the Lenin Prize in 1960 and the Bruce Medal in 1972. Asteroid 2849 Shklovskij and the crater Shklovsky (on the Martian moon Phobos) are named in his honor. He was a Corresponding Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences since 1966. Early life Shklovsky was born in Hlukhiv, a city in the Ukrainian part of the Russian Empire, into a poor Ukrainian Jewish family. After graduating from the seven-year secondary school, he worked as a foreman on building Baikal Amur Mainline. ...
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Theguardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust Limited, Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, th ...
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Evgeny Morozov
Evgeny Morozov (Russian: Eвге́ний Моро́зов; be, Яўгені Марозаў; born in 1984) is an American writer, researcher, and intellectual from Belarus who studies political and social implications of technology. He was named one of the 28 most influential Europeans by ''Politico'' in 2018. Life and career Morozov was born in 1984 in Soligorsk, Belarus. He attended the American University in Bulgaria and later lived in Berlin before moving to the United States. Morozov has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University, a fellow at the New America Foundation, and a contributing editor of and blogger for ''Foreign Policy'' magazine, for which he wrote the blog Net Effect. He has previously been a ''Yahoo!'' fellow at Georgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service, a fellow at the Open Society Institute, director of new media at the NGO Transitions Online, and a columnist for the Russian newspaper '' Akzia''. In 2009, he was chosen as a TED Fellow wher ...
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Science Fiction And Futurology
''Science Fiction and Futurology'' ( pl, Fantastyka i futurologia) is a monograph of Stanisław Lem about science fiction and futurology, first printed by Wydawnictwo Literackie in 1970. The official Lem website describes the book as a triple feature: an attempt to create a theory of the genre, a self-interpretation of Lem's own works, and a review of the world's science fiction, "a yet another Lem's General Theory of Everything - everything related to science fiction and its role in human knowledge acquisition"."Fantastyka i futurologia"
at Lem's official website
In the book, Lem reviews and classifies works of over 400 science fiction writers. The book was acutely critical of Western science fiction. As Lem wrote, "SF became a vulgar mythology of a technological civilization.... This monograph is an expr ...
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Mir Publishing House
Mir Publishers (russian: Издательство "Мир") was a major publishing house in the Soviet Union which continues to exist in modern Russian Federation. It was established in 1946 by a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers and has headquartered in Moscow, Russia since then. It was completely state funded, which was the reason for the low prices of the books it published. Its scope was domestic and translated special and tutorial literature in various domains of science and engineering: mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, agriculture, transport, energy, etc. Many Soviet scientists and engineers were its contributors. The staff provided translation from original Russian. In addition, during the Soviet times it was known for translated foreign scientific and popular science books as well as science fiction. Many of Mir's books were and are used as textbooks for studies of science in many countries.
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New Scientist
''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publishes a monthly Dutch-language edition. First published on 22 November 1956, ''New Scientist'' has been available in online form since 1996. Sold in retail outlets (paper edition) and on subscription (paper and/or online), the magazine covers news, features, reviews and commentary on science, technology and their implications. ''New Scientist'' also publishes speculative articles, ranging from the technical to the philosophical. ''New Scientist'' was acquired by Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) in March 2021. History Ownership The magazine was founded in 1956 by Tom Margerison, Max Raison and Nicholas Harrison as ''The New Scientist'', with Issue 1 on 22 November 1956, priced at one shilling (a twentieth of a pound in pre-decimal UK cu ...
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Joanna Zylinska
Joanna Zylinska (born Joanna Żylińska, 5 May 1971) is a United Kingdom writer, researcher and artist. She is Professor of Media Philosophy + Critical Digital Practice at King's College London. Prior to Joining King's in September 2021 she was Professor of New Media and Communications, and in 2017–2020, Co-Head of the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, at Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2017 she proposed a “feminist counter-apocalypse” as an alternative to the dangers of the "Exit of Man", Artificial Intelligence and Populism. Life Zylinska was born in 1971. She was brought up in Poland and moved to the UK during her graduate studies. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Wrocław. She was a lecturer there. She is interested in new media and art and particularly the effects of emerging technology. Zylinska's work engages with stories of our human collapse as a civilization and as a species. This involves raising questions about our mode ...
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Filozofia Przypadku
''The Philosophy of Chance'', with subtitle ''"Literature in the Light of Empiricism"'' ( pl, Filozofia przypadku. Literatura w świetle empirii) is an essay by Polish author Stanisław Lem on the literary theory and the influence of literature on the modern culture. However, as literary critic Henryk Markiewicz noted, the subtitle is somewhat misleading: starting with Lem's take on literary theory, the essay turns into the "General Theory of Everything": of the Universe, evolution, and culture, based on a premise that chance, eventuality is the universal factor.An afterword to the book/ref> The essay was first published in 1968 by Wydawnictwo Literackie as a book of over 600 pages. Lem's literary theory In the essay, Lem criticizes the contemporary literary theory, in particular, Roman Ingarden's ''Literary Work of Art'', and proceeds with his own. He cautions that he deals only with the ontological side of the issue, disregarding the esthetical side of literature. Lem's expo ...
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Leszek Kołakowski
Leszek Kołakowski (; ; 23 October 1927 – 17 July 2009) was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought, especially his three-volume history, '' Main Currents of Marxism'' (1976). In his later work, Kołakowski increasingly focused on religious questions. In his 1986 Jefferson Lecture, he asserted that " learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed, but to know who we are".Leszek Kołakowski, "The Idolatry of Politics," reprinted in ''Modernity on Endless Trial'' (University of Chicago Press, 1990, paperback edition 1997), , , , p. 158. Due to his criticism of Marxism and of the Communist state system, Kołakowski was effectively exiled from Poland in 1968. He spent most of the remainder of his career at All Souls College, Oxford. Despite being in exile, Kołakowski was a major inspiration for the Solidarity movement that flourished in Poland in the 1980s and helped bring about the collapse o ...
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Pasquinade
A pasquinade or pasquil is a form of satire, usually an anonymous brief lampoon in verse or prose, and can also be seen as a form of literary caricature. The genre became popular in early modern Europe, in the 16th century, though the term had been used at least as early as the 4th century, as seen in City of God by Augustine of Hippo. Pasquinades can take a number of literary forms, including song, epigram, and satire. Compared with other kinds of satire, the pasquinade tends to be less didactic and more aggressive, and is more often critical of specific persons or groups. The name "pasquinade" comes from ''Pasquino'', the nickname of a Hellenistic statue, the remains of a type now known as a ''Pasquino Group'', found in the River Tiber in Rome in 1501 – the first of a number of "talking statues of Rome" which have been used since the 16th century by locals to post anonymous political commentary. The verse pasquinade has a classical source in the satirical epigrams of anci ...
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Polityka
''Polityka'' (, ''Politics'') is a centre-left weekly news magazine in Poland. With a circulation of 200,050 (as of April 2011), it was the country's biggest selling weekly, ahead of ''Newsweek''s Polish edition, ''Newsweek Polska'', and ''Wprost''. ''Polityka'' has a slightly intellectual, socially liberal profile, setting it apart from the more conservative ''Wprost'' and the glossier approach of ''Newsweek Poland''. Prominent editors and permanent contributors have included Adam Krzemiński, Janina Paradowska, Daniel Passent, Ludwik Stomma, Adam Szostkiewicz, Jacek Żakowski, Ryszard Kapuściński, Jerzy Urban, and Krzysztof Zanussi. History and profile Established in 1957, after Stalinism had subsided in Poland, ''Polityka'' slowly developed a reputation for moderately critical journalism, promoting economical way of thinking, although always remaining within the communist-imposed boundaries that still constrained the press. Notably, ''Polityka'' was launched to replace ...
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