There is a black hole at the centre of our understanding of life and our selves.In spite of dramatic progress in the neurosciences, we don't know how brains do the most ordinary things, much less the extraordinary.We are missing the root orientation necessary for a sense of who we are and are thus challenged in our attempts to deal with species-level issues like climate change, pandemics, and even AI.Hyperware is a radical proposal in theoretical biology for this mi...

SHORTLISTED FOR THE **PHYSICS WORLD BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019'One of the deepest and most original thinkers of his generation of cognitive scientists. His startling argument has implications for philosophy, science, and how we understand the world around us' Steven Pinker'Is reality virtual? It's a question made even more interesting by this book' Barbara Kiser, Nature**Do we see the world as it truly is? In The Case Against Realit...

Can we trust our senses to tell us the truth?Challenging leading scientific theories that claim that our senses report back objective reality, cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman argues that while we should take our perceptions seriously, we should not take them literally. From examining why fashion designers create clothes that give the illusion of a more “attractive” body shape to studying how companies use color to elicit specific emotions in consumers, and even ...

The bestselling editor of This Explains Everything brings together 175 of the world’s most brilliant minds to tackle Edge.org’s 2014 question: What scientific idea has become a relic blocking human progress?Each year, John Brockman, publisher of Edge.org—”The world’s smartest website” (The Guardian)—challenges some of the world’s greatest scientists, artists, and philosophers to answer a provocative question crucial to our time. In 2014 he asked 175 brilliant mind...

**'Required reading for anyone remotely curious about how they came to be remotely curious' Observer'Enthralling' Spectator**What is human consciousness and how is it possible? These questions fascinate thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers.This is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution,...

"A supremely enjoyable, intoxicating work." —NatureHow 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...

" The Consciousness Instinct could be the clearest and most compelling attempt to demystify the mind yet written." —Julian Baggini, The Wall Street JournalHow do neurons turn into minds? How does physical "stuff"—atoms, molecules, chemicals, and cells—create the vivid and various worlds inside our heads? The problem of consciousness has gnawed at us for millennia. In the last century there have been massive breakthroughs that have rewritten the sci...

Brilliant but overlooked ideas you must know, as revealed by today’s most innovative mindsWhat scientific term or concept ought to be more widely known? That is the question John Brockman, publisher of the acclaimed science salon Edge.org (“The world’s smartest website”—The Guardian), presented to 205 of the world’s most influential thinkers from across the intellectual spectrum—award-winning physicists, economists, psychologists, philosophers, novelists, artists, and more. From th...

A manual for opening the doors of perception and directly engaging the intelligence of the Natural World• Provides exercises to directly perceive and interact with the complex, living, self-organizing being that is Gaia• Reveals that every life form on Earth is highly intelligent and communicative• Examines the ecological function of invasive plants, bacterial resistance to antibiotics, psychotropic plants and fungi, and the human speciesIn Plant Intelli...

Noam Chomsky and Robert Berwick draw on recent developments in linguistic theory to offer an evolutionary account of language and our remarkable, species-specific ability to acquire it.“A loosely connected collection of four essays that will fascinate anyone interested in the extraordinary phenomenon of language.”—New York Review of BooksWe are born crying, but those cries signal the first stirring of language. Within a year...

More than one hundred of the world's leading thinkers write about things they believe in, despite the absence of concrete proofScientific theory, more often than not, is born of bold assumption, disparate bits of unconnected evidence, and educated leaps of faith. Some of the most potent beliefs among brilliant minds are based on supposition alone -- yet that is enough to push those minds toward making the theory viable.Eminent cultural impresario, editor, and publisher of E...

An evolutionary case for the existence of free willScientists are learning more and more about how brain activity controls behavior and how neural circuits weigh alternatives and initiate actions. As we probe ever deeper into the mechanics of decision making, many conclude that agency—or free will—is an illusion. In Free Agents, leading neuroscientist Kevin Mitchell presents a wealth of evidence to the contrary, arguing that we are not mere machines respon...