This book centers around a dialogue between Roger Penrose and Emanuele Severino about one of most intriguing topics of our times, the comparison of artificial intelligence and natural intelligence, as well as its extension to the notions of human and machine consciousness. Additional insightful essays by Mauro D'Ariano, Federico Faggin, Ines Testoni, Giuseppe Vitiello and an introduction of Fabio Scardigli complete the book and illuminate different aspects of the debate. Although from completely different points of view, all the authors seem to converge on the idea that it is almost impossible to have real "intelligence" without a form of "consciousness". In fact, consciousness, often conceived as an enigmatic "mirror" of reality (but is it really a mirror?), is a phenomenon under intense investigation by science and technology, particularly in recent decades. Where does this phenomenon originate from (in humans, and perhaps also in animals)? Is it reproducible on some "device"? Do we have a theory of consciousness today? Will we arrive to build thinking or conscious machines, as machine learning, or cognitive computing, seem to promise? These questions and other related issues are discussed in the pages of this work, which provides stimulating reading to both specialists and general readers. The Chapter "Hard Problem and Free Will: An Information-Theoretical Approach" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The systematic lockout of women from social and political power is responsible for the phenomenon of double/multiple discrimination, so that in every social category, the status of women is always the lowest. This severe injustice is at the core of the situation of violence which still remains in the world today and poses a real challenge for the future. Teaching Against Violence deals with gender based violence, paying particular attention to domestic violence, as in this field feminism has tenaciously sought to change the condition of women and, as a result, many international policies have promoted a significant social transformation. The chapters present active techniques that were adopted during the interventions to promote women's empowerment. The contributions face these issues from various perspectives, present the state of the art research in multiple fields of study and suggest educational best practices that can be used where this problem is particularly severe.

This volume looks into the origins of gender-based violence, as well as ways to tackle this issue. The contributions link systematic reflections, unfolding a socio-cultural viewpoint and depictions of concrete action with psychological tools regarding the effect of interventions. The book is a result of the European project "Empower," which is part of the Daphne III Program (2007-2013) and whose goal is to realize the objectives defined by European policy aimed at preventing and fighting all forms of gender-based violence.