Concept Progress

Concept Progress
Author: Leo Indman
Publisher: Leo Indman
Total Pages: 278
Release: 2017-04-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0998828947

Concept Progress is a fusion of science fiction and philosophy. It is a metaphysics that centers on progress being a driving force in human evolution. This recurring viewpoint has previously stirred much debate. However, as we escalate through the 21st century, the evidence is plentiful. Concept Progress offers a fresh perspective into the topic, citing humanity's ongoing accomplishments as a convincing piece of that evidence. In the book, we celebrate ourselves for our achievements, challenge our perceived limits, and conclude that progress will eventually produce the most evolved life form. In so doing, we look back to the beginning of time and circle forward to a time that is farther away than the current age of the universe. While the tone of the book's body resembles that of a philosophical prose, with each chapter, the reader realizes more and more that the narrative is actually one of science fiction. The intent of the book's structure and approach is manifold. First, it is safe to say that any literature that points to the future is already, by definition, a work of fiction—no matter how serious it tries to sound. Imagining future technologies, foreseeing the next stages of human evolution, and exploring the realm of the highest dimension surely makes it a science fiction. Second, the book is a collection of concepts—abstract notions of the mind that reflect our grasp on certain aspects of reality. It is also a play on those concepts, exposing how our progressive understanding of these notions can gradually be transcended. Each chapter starts with a sketch of a particular concept whose humanistic yet quantum mechanical context lets us identify with it and be mystified by it. From the concepts of sound and light to the concepts of consciousness and coexistence, each concept tale depicts a personal expression of our mutual worldview. Third, each one of the ten chapters concludes with a short sci-fi story. These stories project the theme further and subtly point to each other. As we connect the dots from one story to another, the outline reveals a world that makes us wonder whether we are headed toward its future or whether we will bypass it as an alternate universe. In one story, we meet the inventor of mind-reading technology while in another story, we meet an artificial life form that will be made possible by this technology. Yet another story is about the time-traveling mind of an astrophysicist whose life's work has impacts on whole timelines, as revealed by a different story. In the end, it all comes together with the final piece of the puzzle completing not only the short story series, but also the novel as a whole. Each three-part chapter is a triad with a distinct purpose in mind. We begin the journey with our own curiosity. This basic emotion allows us to open the door to that which we are so curiously seeking. Essentially, that covers everything. In questioning the entirety of existence, we commence with the premise that it is the element of life that sends us on a quest for meaning. So we review the trend of life's evolution on Earth from its roots to the present day and follow this trend into the distant future. The process of evolutionary development leads us to a recipe for one's own personal progress, which is comprised of physical, mental, and spiritual ingredients. It soon becomes clear that a species can change only insofar as its individual members embrace this change. And we realize that our choice in the matter has impacts not only on our own future, but also on the future of everyone who shares our timeline. In some ways, Concept Progress is a modern commentary of Charles Darwin's revolutionary theory of evolution. In other ways, it is an encouraging observation of our humble human existence. As we widen the time scale and follow an evolutionary trend from biological, social, and cosmic angles, the concepts of evolution and progress slowly but surely become synonymous.

History of the Idea of Progress

History of the Idea of Progress
Author: Robert Nisbet
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 594
Release: 2017-07-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351515462

The idea of progress from the Enlightenment to postmodernism is still very much with us. In intellectual discourse, journals, popular magazines, and radio and talk shows, the debate between those who are "progressivists" and those who are "declinists" is as spirited as it was in the late seventeenth century. In History of the Idea of Progress, Robert Nisbet traces the idea of progress from its origins in Greek, Roman, and medieval civilizations to modern times. It is a masterful frame of reference for understanding the present world. Nisbet asserts there are two fundamental building blocks necessary to Western doctrines of human advancement: the idea of growth, and the idea of necessity. He sees Christianity as a key element in both secular and spiritual evolution, for it conveys all the ingredients of the modern idea of progress: the advancement of the human race in time, a single time frame for all the peoples and epochs of the past and present, the conception of time as linear, and the envisagement of the future as having a Utopian end. In his new introduction, Nisbet shows why the idea of progress remains of critical importance to studies of social evolution and natural history. He provides a contemporary basis for many disciplines, including sociology, economics, philosophy, religion, politics, and science. History of the Idea of Progress continues to be a major resource for scholars in all these areas.

The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity

The Idea of Progress in Classical Antiquity
Author: Ludwig Edelstein
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2019-12-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1421435586

Originally published in 1967. Ludwig Edelstein characterizes the idea of "progress" in Greek and Roman times. He analyzes the ancients' belief in "a tendency inherent in nature or in man to pass through a regular sequence of stages of development in past, present, and future, the latter stages being—with perhaps occasional retardations or minor regressions—superior to the earlier." Edelstein's contemporaries asserted that the Greeks and Romans were entirely ignorant of a belief in progress in this sense of the term. In arguing against this dominant thesis, Edelstein draws from the conclusions of scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and discusses ideas of Auguste Comte and Wilhelm Dilthey.

Well-Being: Expanding the Definition of Progress

Well-Being: Expanding the Definition of Progress
Author: Alonzo L. Plough
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2020-10-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0190080493

Cities and countries around the globe are starting to incorporate a well-being approach by reorienting policies and budgets to benefit people and long-term sustainability. With insights from an international group of scientists, practitioners, and innovators, Well-Being considers the measurement focus of conversations surrounding well-being, then moves beyond to action: shifts in policy, narratives, and power, and alignment with other movements acrosssectors.

The End of Progress

The End of Progress
Author: Amy Allen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2016-01-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231540639

While post- and decolonial theorists have thoroughly debunked the idea of historical progress as a Eurocentric, imperialist, and neocolonialist fallacy, many of the most prominent contemporary thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School—Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Rainer Forst—have defended ideas of progress, development, and modernity and have even made such ideas central to their normative claims. Can the Frankfurt School's goal of radical social change survive this critique? And what would a decolonized critical theory look like? Amy Allen fractures critical theory from within by dispensing with its progressive reading of history while retaining its notion of progress as a political imperative, so eloquently defended by Adorno. Critical theory, according to Allen, is the best resource we have for achieving emancipatory social goals. In reimagining a decolonized critical theory after the end of progress, she rescues it from oblivion and gives it a future.

The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief

The Ancient Concept of Progress and Other Essays on Greek Literature and Belief
Author: Eric Robertson Dodds
Publisher: Clarendon Press
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1985
Genre: Civilization, Greco-Roman
ISBN: 9780198143772

These essays represent the full range of Dodds' literary and philosophical interests, and his ability to combine profound scholarship with the lucid humanity of a teacher convinced of the value of Greek studies to the modern world.

The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-century Britain

The Idea of Progress in Eighteenth-century Britain
Author: David Spadafora
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 488
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780300046717

The idea of progress stood at the very center of the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Britain, closely linked to every major facet of the British Enlightenment as well as to the economic revolutions of the period. Drawing on hundreds of eighteenth-century books and pamphlets, David Spadafora here provides the most extensive discussion ever written of this prevailing sense of historical optimism.

Scheduling Strategies for Middle Schools

Scheduling Strategies for Middle Schools
Author: Michael D. Rettig
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2013-10-30
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1317921763

With over 150 sample schedules, this book shows how scheduling strategies can enhance your school's capacity to offer exploratory courses, interdisciplinary teaching teams, teacher-based guidance programs, and other programs and practices which are responsive to the needs of early adolescents.

A Short History of Progress

A Short History of Progress
Author: Ronald Wright
Publisher: House of Anansi
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2004
Genre: Civilization
ISBN: 0887847064

Each time history repeats itself, so it's said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human population, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water — the very elements of life. The most urgent questions of the twenty-first century are: where will this growth lead? can it be consolidated or sustained? and what kind of world is our present bequeathing to our future?In his #1 bestseller A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright argues that our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,000-year experiment we have participated in but seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of triumph and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we recognize the experiment's inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome.