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...

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...

"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...

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...

This "fascinating and illuminating account" explores how we might perceive the mind if we didn't put humans at the center of our understanding ( The Guardian Observer).Popular science writer Philip Ball explores a range of sciences to map our answers to a huge, philosophically rich question: How do we even begin to think about minds that are not human?Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where to find them—including in plants, aliens, and God—Ph...

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...

A clinical psychologist explores how the brain acquired self-awareness, functional autonomy, the ability to think, and the power of speech in this short, fascinating account on the emergence of the human mind.How did the human mind emerge from the collection of neurons that makes up the brain? How did the brain acquire self-awareness, functional autonomy, language, and the ability to think, to understand itself and the world? In this volume in the Essential Knowled...

Two neuroscientists reveal why consciousness exists and how it works by examining eighteen increasingly intelligent minds, from microbes to humankind—and beyond.Why do you exist? How did atoms and molecules transform into sentient creatures that experience longing, regret, compassion, and even marvel at their own existence? What does it truly mean to have a mind—to think? Science has offered few answers to these existential questions until now.Journey o...