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Title: Figments of Reality : The Evolution of the Curious Mind by Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen ISBN: 0-521-66383-0 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 09 September, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.45 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A fabulous exploration of the complexity of evolution
Comment: How could a game with such simple rules, such as evolution by natural selection, produce such complexity? Well, chess has simple rules and we still don't know a sure-fire way to play and win every game. The idea that simple rules may interact to produce wonderful complexity-"simplexity"-is only one of the brain-bending ideas authors Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart gush forth with in this rich and entertaining popular science book. The flip side of "simplexity" is "complicity"-a game where the very act of playing the game changes the rules. Hmm...this looks like evolution again! It's a wonderful exploration of the science behind evolution cast into many different allegories and scenarios, including comical heated discussions among the eight-sexed Zarathustrans, an invention of the authors that does beautifully at reflecting our own egocentric assumptions about the nature of reality -- and the figments of reality.
--Richard Brodie, author, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
Rating: 5
Summary: Your mind is a figment of reality...
Comment: How could a game with such simple rules, such as evolution by natural selection, produce such complexity? Well, chess has simple rules and we still don't know a sure-fire way to play and win every game. The idea that simple rules may interact to produce wonderful complexity-"simplexity"-is only one of the brain-bending ideas authors Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart gush forth with in this rich and entertaining popular science book. The flip side of "simplexity" is "complicity"-a game where the very act of playing the game changes the rules. Hmm...this looks like evolution again! It's a wonderful exploration of the science behind evolution cast into many different allegories and scenarios, including comical heated discussions among the eight-sexed Zarathustrans, an invention of the authors that does beautifully at reflecting our own egocentric assumptions about the nature of reality -- and the figments of reality.
--Richard Brodie, author, VIRUS OF THE MIND: The New Science of the Mem
Rating: 5
Summary: Life, consciousness, mind, and reality explained
Comment: How does life arise from inanimate matter? How does consciousness arise from life? Is consciousness of the universe an illusion? Or is mind itself an illusion?
The British authors of this book are a mathematician and biologist pair who boldly tackle these classic questions in philosophy with some original approaches. Maintaining that life, consciousness, and culture cannot understood by reducing them to the material elements from which they arise, the authors deftly develop a set of interesting concepts. Some of these are not especially original, but they are presented in an unusual light particularly as the authors ably illustrate them with very accessible descriptions of complex biochemical pathways of living matter.
A key concept is that of emergence - well established in philosophy and roughly equated to the popular idea of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. The authors couple this concept with one of their own - complicity, or the interaction of different things which lead them to become entirely new things. A third, among several others, is that of extelligence which arises from the interaction of the intellegences of individuals and is rooted in human culture. Using these and other concepts, the book, which is at the nexus of science and philosophy, seeks to explain how life, consciousness, culture, and reality arise and the relationship between them.
Be prepared to wade through these pages slowly to enjoy the masterful exposition of this book. Or, if you find this tedious, enjoy the elegant prose which uses the lens of science and philosophy to describe events which we might normally frame in different language. In the four-page prologue, a graphic sequence of events unfolds which chart the creation of the universe to the emergence of the symbolic literary creatures which constitute the human species: QUOTE Fifteen thousand million years ago the universe was no bigger than the dot at the end of this sentence......today, the two descendants of those tiny creatures are busy delineating their own limited version of the entire story in strange, angular geometric symbols impressed in contrasting pigment upon sheets of impressed white vegetable matter. UNQUOTE
Having long forgotten more than half the courses I took in college, this book allowed me to relive and reinforce the pleasures of two wonderful philosophy seminars - on theories of mind and philosophy of science. Expect, if you get through the book cover to cover, to see the world a little differently from when you start at the prologue.
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Title: The Collapse of Chaos: Discovering Simplicity in a Complex World by Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart ISBN: 0140178740 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: The Evolution of Technology by George Basalla, Owen Hannaway ISBN: 0521296811 Publisher: Cambridge University Press Pub. Date: 24 February, 1989 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: What Does a Martian Look Like? The Science of Extraterrestrial Life by Jack Cohen, Ian Stewart ISBN: 0471268895 Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 18 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore, Richard Dawkins ISBN: 019286212X Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: May, 2000 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order by Steven Strogatz ISBN: 0786868449 Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 05 March, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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