From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

    • 4.3 • 16 Ratings
    • $14.99
    • $14.99

Publisher Description

"A supremely enjoyable, intoxicating work." —Nature

How did we come to have minds? For centuries, poets, philosophers, psychologists, and physicists have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled abilities. Disciples of Darwin have explained how natural selection produced plants, but what about the human mind?

In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett builds on recent discoveries from biology and computer science to show, step by step, how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. A crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Competition among memes produced thinking tools powerful enough that our minds don’t just perceive and react, they create and comprehend.

An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers and scientists, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain all those curious about how the mind works.

GENRE
Nonfiction
RELEASED
2017
February 7
LANGUAGE
EN
English
LENGTH
496
Pages
PUBLISHER
W. W. Norton & Company
SELLER
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
SIZE
10.6
MB

Customer Reviews

harwood19 ,

You will like the author...

in the sense that you are glad his attempts make sense, that he's doing this work, and that you find it all fascinating.

You will give it 4 stars instead of 5 to emulate the awesome humility required to sneak-peak at the evolution of minds.

Being wrong is part of humanity, and the most powerful of AI's will require such a characteristic no matter how fast, or slow, goes the requirement. Historical foundations provide credibility, and books aside, just be happy the author exists.

Pompon pomp ,

Fascinating

Very intense

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