Stories, dice, and rocks that think : how humans learned to see the future - and shape it / Byron Reese.
Material type:
TextPublisher: Dallas, TX : BenBella Books, Inc., [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Description: 294 pages ; 24 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781637741344
- 1637741340
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Dr. James Carlson Library | NonFiction | 153 R329 | Available | 33111011002710 | ||||
|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | 153 R329 | Available | 33111010885487 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
What makes the human mind so unique? And how did we get this way?
This fascinating tale explores the three leaps in our history that made us what we are-and will change how you think about our future.
Look around. Clearly, we humans are radically different from the other creatures on this planet. But why? Where are the Bronze Age beavers? The Iron Age iguanas? In Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think , Byron Reese argues that we owe our special status to our ability to imagine the future and recall the past, escaping the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in.
Envisioning human history as the development of a societal superorganism he names Agora, Reese shows us how this escape enabled us to share knowledge on an unprecedented scale, and predict-and eventually master-the future.
Thoughtful, witty, and compulsively readable, Reese unravels our history as an intelligent species in three acts-
. Act I- Ancient humans undergo "the awakening," developing the cognitive ability to mentally time-travel using language
. Act II- In 17th century France, probability theory is born-a science for seeing into the future that we used to build the modern world
. Act III- Beginning with the invention of the computer chip, humanity creates machines to gaze into the future with even more precision, overcoming the limits of our brains
A fresh new look at the history and destiny of humanity, readers will come away from Stories, Dice, and Rocks that Think with a new understanding of what they are-not just another animal, but a creature with a mastery of time itself.
Includes annotations and index.
"A message from the author: Our species has long played an existential game of Mad Libs, trying to fill in the blank on what seems like a pretty straightforward sentence: "Humans are the only creatures that ______." But each time a new answer to the question of what makes us unique is offered, it is immediately pounced on by nay-sayers eager to disprove it and to show that there isn't really anything that special about us at all-- that we are just another animal. But common sense tells us that simply isn't true. Our planet is populated by two types of creatures: us and a giant menagerie of beings so unlike us that the tiniest overlap is cause for curious wonder. It's not our bodies that give us preeminence; it's our minds. We are endowed with a temporal mental plasticity that enable our minds to roam freely through time, untethered from the here and now. We can remember what happened yesterday and use it to speculate on what might happen tomorrow; we can recall our childhood and contemplate our old age. No other creature on Earth even knows that there is a future, or a past for that matter; instinctual behavior aside, animals live outside time. There was a time when creatures that looked like us were animals, and they, too, didn't know there was a future or a past. How did we get from there to a point where we could think about the future; influence it; and finally, perhaps master it? Pour yourself a drink, sit back, and get comfortable, because I have quite a story to tell you.--Byron Reese"--page 2 of cover.