From Bacteria to Bach and Back: The Evolution of Minds

By:

Sign Up Now! Already a Member? Log In
You must be logged into Bookshare to access this title. Learn about membership options, or view our freely available titles.

Synopsis
One of America’s foremost philosophers offers a major new account of the origins of the conscious mind. How did we come to have minds? For centuries, this question has intrigued psychologists, physicists, poets, and philosophers, who have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled ability to create, imagine, and explain. Disciples of Darwin have long aspired to explain how consciousness, language, and culture could have appeared through natural selection, blazing promising trails that tend, however, to end in confusion and controversy. Even though our understanding of the inner workings of proteins, neurons, and DNA is deeper than ever before, the matter of how our minds came to be has largely remained a mystery. That is now changing, says Daniel C. Dennett. In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, his most comprehensive exploration of evolutionary thinking yet, he builds on ideas from computer science and biology to show how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. Part philosophical whodunit, part bold scientific conjecture, this landmark work enlarges themes that have sustained Dennett’s legendary career at the forefront of philosophical thought. In his inimitable style—laced with wit and arresting thought experiments—Dennett explains that a crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. Competition among memes—a form of natural selection—produced thinking tools so well-designed that they gave us the power to design our own memes. The result, a mind that not only perceives and controls but can create and comprehend, was thus largely shaped by the process of cultural evolution. An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers, scientists, and thinkers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone eager to make sense of how the mind works and how it came about.
Copyright:
2017

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
ISBN-13:
9780393242089
Related ISBNs:
9780393242072, 9780393355505, 9780393242072, 9780393355505
Publisher:
W. W. Norton & Company
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Daniel C. Dennett
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Nonfiction, Science, Health, Mind and Body, Religion and Spirituality, Philosophy
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

Reviews

No Rating Yet