作者：DanielC.Dennett
出版社：W.W.Norton&Company
副标题：TheEvolutionofMinds
出版年：2017-2-7
页数：448
定价：USD28.95
装帧：Hardcover
ISBN：9780393242072
内容简介
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One of America’s foremost philosophers offers a major new account of the origins of the conscious mind.
How did we come to have minds?
For centuries, this question has intrigued psychologists, physicists, poets, and philosophers, who have wondered how the human mind developed its unrivaled ability to create, imagine, and explain. Disciples of Darwin have long aspired to explain how consciousness, language, and culture could have appeared through natural selection, blazing promising trails that tend, however, to end in confusion and controversy. Even though our understanding of the inner workings of proteins, neurons, and DNA is deeper than ever before, the matter of how our minds came to be has largely remained a mystery.
That is now changing, says Daniel C. Dennett. In From Bacteria to Bach and Back, his most comprehensive exploration of evolutionary thinking yet, he builds on ideas from computer science and biology to show how a comprehending mind could in fact have arisen from a mindless process of natural selection. 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 explains that a crucial shift occurred when humans developed the ability to share memes, or ways of doing things not based in genetic instinct. Language, itself composed of memes, turbocharged this interplay. Competition among memes―a form of natural selection―produced thinking tools so well-designed that they gave us the power to design our own memes. The result, a mind that not only perceives and controls but can create and comprehend, was thus largely shaped by the process of cultural evolution.
An agenda-setting book for a new generation of philosophers, scientists, and thinkers, From Bacteria to Bach and Back will delight and entertain anyone eager to make sense of how the mind works and how it came about.
4 color, 18 black-and-white illustrations
作者简介
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Daniel C. Dennett is University Professor and 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.
评论 ······
和《递归与偶然》搭配着一起看。
宇宙的循环与意识的循环，因果（“完满”的解释）与理由（人类需要的合理性），实然与应然，规律与规范。
我在想我应该如何重述丹尼特的理论呢？如何因果的理解规范或说规范如何从因果中建立？如何理解意识与世界？
囫囵吞枣的看完丹内特的意识进化和解释，为什么我觉得他多少具有康德的革命性！我们都是基因和模因共同演化出来的产物，而演化论的视角的确可以作为思维工具和哲学方法论。总之感觉自己的视野提升了，视角也增加了，腰不酸腿不疼了，不过这可能也是意识的幻觉，哈哈！最后对AI恐慌的讨论也很精准，即使深度学习，AI最多达到波普尔生物的认知水平，具备贝叶斯试错能力。与其担心人工智能，不如担心人类自己的自负和非理性，放弃…
核心观点是很有启发的，但是很多时候太啰嗦了，直到本书的最后部分才开始最有趣的论述。
最近才知道，作者是无神论四骑士之一，其他三人的书都读过，这是第一次读他的。competence和comprehension，行未必知，知未必行，第一处棒喝。罗嗦是当然的，要面对信仰上帝的大多数，讲解自然选择下意识和智能之诞生，对付读者认知惯性何等艰难。Matt Ridley那本就是小学生习作。可能是今年读过最重要的一本书，进化论、信息论、笛卡尔、AI等等，至少需要重读两遍。
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