From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett
From Bacteria to Bach and Back, Daniel C. Dennett
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back
The Evolution of Minds

Author: Daniel C. Dennett

Narrator: Tom Perkins

Unabridged: 15 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 02/07/2017

Synopsis

What is human consciousness and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture. 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 shows how culture enables reflection by installing a bounty of thinking tools, or memes, in our brains. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. The result, a mind that can comprehend the questions it poses, emerges from a process of cultural evolution.

An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers and other researchers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone who hopes to understand human creativity in all its wondrous applications.

About Daniel C. Dennett

Daniel C. Dennett is the Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University and the author of numerous books including Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, Breaking the Spell, Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and Consciousness Explained.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Charlene on March 06, 2017

Every time I read Dennett, I wonder why I have put myself through such an ordeal. Aside from wanting to yell at Dennett, who isn't even in the room, I get the urge to throw things and yell, "No, no, and just NO!". Skillfully, Dennett gives the impression that he is a deep and critical thinker. He do......more

Goodreads review by Dan on March 04, 2017

Surveying Dennett's huge output, this is perhaps his most ambitious and accessible work. The criticisms below that there isn't much in the way of new thinking on several areas is valid and I don't think that proposing many grand new ideas was his intention for this work. As he states toward the begi......more

Goodreads review by Kevin on June 20, 2023

As a cognitive scientist, Daniel Dennett is second to none. His expositions on the developmental evolution of the human mind are the stuff of legend. But as a science popularist (a person who takes complex scientific concepts and makes them pleasing and palatable for schmucks like me) he leaves a lo......more

Goodreads review by Beauregard on March 12, 2017

There is intelligent design. It's just not what the creationist think it is. Nature gives us competencies without comprehension. Comprehension means full understanding. Dennett gives the example of how the computer can do arithmetic without understanding as explained by Turing. His holy trinity with......more

Goodreads review by D.L. on March 27, 2017

The title of this book implies a journey, and that's what it feels like...a long, twisty one with diversions to view the scenery, most of which, frankly, is rather dull. Along the way we're supposed to have learned something about 'the evolution of minds', and perhaps we do, a bit, but not much, hon......more

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