From Bacteria to Bach and Back - Daniel Dennett - Book overview

I picked up this book from the ‘new book’ shelf in my local public library a couple of  weeks ago. 

Written by Daniel Dennett and published this year - 2017 - by Norton Publishers. The Guardian offers a comprehensive review 

Timing was just right for a wet weekend which allowed for two evenings of concerted reading. The main argument in the book is the role of evolution in producing the human brain. In short, evolution does not need to be ‘smart’ or to understand where it is headed. It just needs to ‘be’ and time will weed out the physical traits and ‘memes’ which will not last. There is an interplay between what is availed in the brains of individuals, with access to social learning affordances. Language, writing, apps, social media are seen to be things invented by humans, to further the development of their species. 

Its a longish book - 400 plus pages with helpful index, list of further readings and 20 plus pages of pertinent references but worth the effort to get into. The book is written for non-academic readers.

Examples and analogies are based on computers and other items familiar to a general audience, help to make clear, the more complex concepts.

The book has 15 chapters categorised into 3 parts. Part one sets the scene, going through the rationale for the argument to be sustained through the book and an overview of the foundational theories. Part 2 – from evolution to intelligent design – contains the main content of the book. There is an overview of the biological evolutionary process with the parallel cultural evolution’s role in forming human thinking. The two chapters in the last part, brings the various threads together to argue support the argument and contains some insights into the future.

The last chapter is perhaps most important. Here, the argument is for humans to be cognisant of their inherent ‘power’. Artificial intelligence may now have arrived, but it the humans, who have invented it, to understand the implications, to leverage the advantages and to ensure the worse implications do not come into fruition.

Overall, a good summary of Dennett's work, reiterating his scholarship into the 'mind' and how we should use our brains better. All in, a worthwhile read with pertinent learning to further / reinforce my understanding of evolutionary psychology.

Evolutionary psychology - some interim concepts

Various meanders and exploration of literature on learning a trade  has led to encounter with a few books on evolutionary psychology.

So this post offers some brief book summaries and impressions .

First up, Before the dawn: recovering the lost history of our ancestors, by Nicolas Ward. Reviewed with some summaries here. 

This book lays out the evolutionary path taken by our ancestors with emphasis on how our genetical heritage evolved. Of importance is the work completed over the last several decades whereby learning on genetics confirms the ‘out of Africa’ theory. Our ancestors evolved over many millennium in Africa and due to hypothesised climate change 50,000 years ago gradually migrated out to inhabit the whole world. Therefore, there was a bit of a genetical bottleneck back then. Africans have the most varied genome. Whereas all other ‘races’ have much less diversity. 

Secondly, the evolved apprentice by Kim Sterelny, to be summarised in next week’s blog. This is the book that started my explorations into evolutionary psychology.

The evolved apprentice has several references to Professor Sterelny's previous book, Thoughts in a hostile world: The evolution of human cognition. This book discusses the various ways in which humans’ hunter and gatherer lifestyle, led to the development of how we now learn, behave, cooperate, make decisions etc. Examples from studies of primates are used to understand some of the roots for human behaviours and practices. Two theories are discussed in detail through the book: - social intelligence hypothesis and  massive modularity hypothesis. Both concepts still areas of contention, so critique of social intelligence found here and massive modularity, here.Thoughts in a hostile world does layout the arguments for evolutionary psychology approaches and the book provides a good overview and introduction to the subject.