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LaMettrie's L'Homme Machine: A study in the origins of an idea

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As a classic of the French Enlightenment, L'Homme Machine has in the past been of equal interest to students of philosophy, science, and literature. The present edition offers the first established text, with extensive notes. In his introduction, Dr. Vartanian discusses La Mettrie's thesis, its sources, the place of the man-machine idea in the development of La Mettrie's materialism, and its critical impact on the intellectual struggles of the eighteenth century.
... Also this work provides the proper ground for establishing the idea of Man Machine. The concept has its roots in Descartes, 29 and later taken up by La Mettrie, 30 in his "L'Homme Machine (1747)", --understandably facing insurmountable difficulties --and shared vigorously by Schopenhauer, 31 and by many (to some degree) in recent years (e.g. Baum; 32 Mlodinow 33 ). ...
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Beings, animate or inanimate, are dynamical systems which continuously interact with the (external and /or internal) environment through the physical or physiologic interfaces of their Kantian (representational) realities. And the nature of their interactions is determined by the inner workings of their systems. It is from this perspective that this work attempts to address some of the long-held philosophical questions, major one among them consciousness-- in the context of the physicality of the dynamic systems.
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