From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds"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. |
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... cell engulfed the other, and instead of destroying the other and using the parts as fuel or building materials (eating it, in other words), it let it go on living, and, by dumb luck, found itself fitter—more competent in some ways that ...
... and algae in lichens. Thus was born the eukaryotic cell, which, having more working parts, was more versatile than its ancestors, simple prokaryotic cells, such as bacteria.2 Over time these eukaryotes grew much larger, more complex, more.
... cell. This Eukaryotic Revolution paved the way for another great transition, the Cambrian “Explosion” more than half a billion years ago, which saw the “sudden” arrival of a bounty of new life forms. Then came what I call the MacCready ...
... cell. One of them exclaimed, “How could anybody believe in evolution in the face of all that design!” The others did not demur, whatever their private thoughts. Why would anyone say that? Evolutionists aren't embarrassed by the ...
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds Daniel Clement Dennett,Daniel C. Dennett No preview available - 2017 |