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What's Expected Of Us
”What's Expected of Us” is a science fiction short story by American writer Ted Chiang, initially published on 6 July 2005 by ''Nature''. The story was also included in the 2006 anthology '' Year's Best SF 11'' and in the 2019 collection '' Exhalation: Stories''. Plot summary A small device, the Predictor, looks like a remote control. It consists of a button and a green display. When you press the button, the screen flashes. However, it flashes a second before you click on the button—in fact sending a signal from the future. Millions of these devices have been sold. The Predictors create a dystopic world by providing evidence that free will is actually a myth—the future is predetermined and fixed. As a result, people become lethargic and just stop eating entirely. See also * Free will and determinism * Free will theorem * Locus of control Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces (beyond their influence), have contro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ted Chiang
Ted Chiang (born 1967) is an American science fiction writer. His work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and six Locus awards. His short story "Story of Your Life" was the basis of the film ''Arrival'' (2016). He was an artist in residence at the University of Notre Dame in 2020–2021. Early life, family and education Ted Chiang was born in 1967 in Port Jefferson, New York. His Chinese name is Chiang Feng-nan (). Both of his parents were born in Mainland China and immigrated to Taiwan with their families during the Chinese Communist Revolution before immigrating to the United States. His father, Fu-pen Chiang, is a distinguished professor of mechanical engineering at Stony Brook University. Chiang graduated from Brown University with a computer science degree. Career Chiang began submitting stories to magazines in high school. After attending the Clarion Workshop in 1989 he sold his first story, "The Tower of Babylo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scientific American
''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it is the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. ''Scientific American'' is owned by Springer Nature, which in turn is a subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishing Group. History ''Scientific American'' was founded by inventor and publisher Rufus Porter (painter), Rufus Porter in 1845 as a four-page weekly newspaper. The first issue of the large format newspaper was released August 28, 1845. Throughout its early years, much emphasis was placed on reports of what was going on at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, U.S. Patent Office. It also reported on a broad range of inventions including perpetual motion machines, an 1860 device for buoying vessels by Abraham Lincoln, and the universal joint which now can be found ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Science Fiction Short Stories
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for scientific reasoning is tens of thousands of years old. The earliest written records in the history of science come from Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in around 3000 to 1200 BCE. Their contributions to mathematics, astronomy, and medicine entered and shaped Greek natural philosophy of classical antiquity, whereby formal attempts were made to provide explanations of events in the physical world based on natural causes. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, knowledge of Greek conceptions of the world deteriorated in Western Europe during the early centuries (400 to 1000 CE) of the Middle Ages, but was preserved in the Muslim world during the Islamic Golden Age and later by the efforts of Byzantine Greek scholars who brought Greek man ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Problem Of Mental Causation
The problem of mental causation is a conceptual issue in the philosophy of mind. That problem, in short, is how to account for the common-sense idea that intentional thoughts or intentional mental states are causes of intentional actions. The problem divides into several distinct sub-problems, including the problem of causal exclusion, the problem of anomalism, and the problem of externalism. However, the sub-problem which has attracted most attention in the philosophical literature is arguably the exclusion problem. Description The basic problem of mental causation is an intuitive one: on the face of it, it seems that mental events cause physical events (and vice versa), but how can mental events have any causal effect on physical events? Suppose that a person, John, orders dessert after dinner. It seems that at least one cause for such a physical, behavioral event is that John desired to have dessert and believed that by ordering dessert he would be able to soon have dessert. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Locus Of Control
Locus of control is the degree to which people believe that they, as opposed to external forces (beyond their influence), have control over the outcome of events in their lives. The concept was developed by Julian Rotter, Julian B. Rotter in 1954, and has since become an aspect of personality psychology. A person's "wiktionary:locus, locus" (plural "loci", Latin for "place" or "location") is conceptualized as internal (a belief that one can control one's own life) or external (a belief that life is controlled by outside factors which the person cannot influence, or that chance or Destiny, fate controls their lives). Individuals with a strong internal locus of control believe events in their life are primarily a result of their own actions: for example, when receiving exam results, people with an internal locus of control tend to praise or blame themselves and their abilities. People with a strong external locus of control tend to praise or blame external factors such as the teach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Will Theorem
The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that if we have a free will in the sense that our choices are not a function of the past, then, subject to certain assumptions, so must some elementary particles. Conway and Kochen's paper was published in ''Foundations of Physics'' in 2006. In 2009, the authors published a stronger version of the theorem in the ''Notices of the American Mathematical Society''. Later, in 2017, Kochen elaborated some details. Axioms The proof of the theorem as originally formulated relies on three axioms, which Conway and Kochen call "fin", "spin", and "twin". The spin and twin axioms can be verified experimentally. # Fin: There is a maximal speed for propagation of information (not necessarily the speed of light). This assumption rests upon causality. # Spin: The squared spin component of certain elementary particles of spin one, taken in three orthogonal directions, will be a permutation of (1,1,0). # Twin: It is possible to "entangl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Will And Determinism
Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procure political rights, as for a disenfranchised group * Free will, control exercised by rational agents over their actions and decisions * Free of charge, also known as gratis. See Gratis vs libre. Computing * Free (programming), a function that releases dynamically allocated memory for reuse * Free format, a file format which can be used without restrictions * Free software, software usable and distributable with few restrictions and no payment * Freeware, a broader class of software available at no cost Mathematics * Free object ** Free abelian group ** Free algebra ** Free group ** Free module ** Free semigroup * Free variable People * Free (surname) * Free (rapper) (born 1968), or Free Marie, American rapper and media personality ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Free Will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actions that are freely chosen. It is also connected with the concepts of advice, persuasion, deliberation, and prohibition. Traditionally, only actions that are freely willed are seen as deserving credit or blame. Whether free will exists, what it is and the implications of whether it exists or not are some of the longest running debates of philosophy and religion. Some conceive of free will as the right to act outside of external influences or wishes. Some conceive free will to be the capacity to make choices undetermined by past events. Determinism suggests that only one course of events is possible, which is inconsistent with a libertarian model of free will. Ancient Greek philosophy identified this issue, which remains a major focus o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues covering two-week spans. Although its reviews and events listings often focus on the Culture of New York City, cultural life of New York City, ''The New Yorker'' has a wide audience outside New York and is read internationally. It is well known for its illustrated and often topical covers, its commentaries on popular culture and eccentric American culture, its attention to modern fiction by the inclusion of Short story, short stories and literary reviews, its rigorous Fact-checking, fact checking and copy editing, its journalism on politics and social issues, and its single-panel cartoons sprinkled throughout each issue. Overview and history ''The New Yorker'' was founded by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a ''The New York Times, N ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th and 9th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stories
Story or stories may refer to: Common uses * Story, a narrative (an account of imaginary or real people and events) ** Short story, a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting * Story (American English), or storey (British English), a floor or level of a building * News story, an event or topic reported by a news organization Social media *Stories (social media), a collection of messages, images or videos, often ephemeral ** Facebook Stories, short user-generated photo or video collections that can be uploaded to the user's Facebook ** Instagram Stories, a feature in Instagram that let the user post vertical images that will disappear in 24 hours ** Snapchat Stories, a feature in Snapchat which allows users to compile snaps into chronological storylines, accessible to all of their friends Film, television and radio * Story Television, an American digital broadcast television network * Story TV, a South Korean television drama production company * ''Sto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Year's Best SF 11
''Year's Best SF 11'' is a science fiction anthology edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer that was published in 2006. It is the eleventh in the Year's Best SF series. Contents The book itself, as well as each of the stories, has a short introduction by the editors. * David Langford: "New Hope for the Dead" (Originally in ''Nature'', 2005) *Hannu Rajaniemi: "Deus Ex Homine" (Originally in '' Nova Scotia: New Scottish Speculative Fiction'', 2005) * Gardner R. Dozois: "When the Great Days Came" (Originally in ''F&SF'', 2005) * Daryl Gregory: "Second Person, Present Tense" (Originally in ''Asimov's'', 2005) *Justina Robson: "Dreadnought" (Originally in ''Nature'', 2005) *Ken MacLeod: "A Case of Consilience" (Originally in ''Nova Scotia'', 2005) *Tobias S. Buckell: "Toy Planes" (Originally in ''Nature'', 2005) *Neal Asher: "Mason's Rats" (Originally in ''Asimov's'', 2005) *Vonda N. McIntyre: "A Modest Proposal" (Originally in ''Nature'', 2005) *Rudy Rucker: "Guadalupe and Hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
