Living on Earth - Godfrey-Smith, Peter
24,99 €
inkl. MwSt.

Versandfertig in über 4 Wochen
  • Gebundenes Buch

The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet. If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our species would arise in the last thirty minutes or so of the final hour. But life itself is not such a late arrival: It has existed on Earth for something like 3.7 billion years-most of our planet's history and over a quarter of the age of the universe (as far as we can tell). What have these organisms-bacteria, animals, plants, and the rest-done in all this time? In Living on Earth, the philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith proposes a new…mehr

Andere Kunden interessierten sich auch für
Produktbeschreibung
The bestselling author of Other Minds shows how we and our ancestors have reinvented our planet. If the history of the Earth were compressed down to a year, our species would arise in the last thirty minutes or so of the final hour. But life itself is not such a late arrival: It has existed on Earth for something like 3.7 billion years-most of our planet's history and over a quarter of the age of the universe (as far as we can tell). What have these organisms-bacteria, animals, plants, and the rest-done in all this time? In Living on Earth, the philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith proposes a new way of understanding how the actions of living beings have shaped our planet. Where his acclaimed books Other Minds and Metazoa explored the riddle of how conscious minds came to exist on Earth, Living on Earth turns to what happens when we look at the mind from another side-when we come to see organisms as active causes, not merely as results of the evolutionary process. The planet we inhabit is significantly the work of other living beings, who shaped the environments that we ourselves later transformed. To that end, Godfrey-Smith takes us on a grand tour of the history of life on earth. He visits Rwandan gorillas and Australian bowerbirds, returns to coral reefs and octopus dens, considers the impact of language and writing, and weighs the responsibilities our unique powers bring with them, as they relate to factory farming, habitat preservation, climate change, and the use of animals in experiments. Ranging from the seas to the forests, and from animate matter's first appearance to its future extinction, Godfrey-Smith offers a novel picture of the course of life on Earth and how we might meet the challenges of our time, the Anthropocene.
Autorenporträt
Peter Godfrey-Smith is the author of the bestselling Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness, which has been published in more than twenty languages, and Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind. His other books include Theory and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science and Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, which won the 2010 Lakatos Award. He is a professor in the School of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Sydney.
Rezensionen
'Living on Earth is a hugely important book ... Sweeping, careful, and courageous ... Godfrey-Smith writes with grace, humility, and wisdom ... The picture he paints reaffirms our continuity with the natural world, and impresses on us the urgency of the choices we now face' Anil Seth, director of the Centre for Consciousness Science at the University of Sussex and author of Being You: A New Science of Consciousness

'Only Peter Godfrey-Smith could write this book. It offers a vast, kaleidoscopic, and immensely thought-provoking overview of the development of life on Earth ... We are often told that human beings are part of the natural world, but rarely is the mutual influence between people and the rest of our shared ecosystem spelled out with such care' Sean Carroll, professor at Johns Hopkins University and author of Quanta and Fields

'In Living on Earth, Peter Godfrey-Smith combines vivid and compelling descriptions of the natural world, unexpectedly fascinating scientific results, and philosophical arguments that are exceptionally clear and accessible as well as deep and profound' Alison Gopnik, professor at the University of California, Berkeley and author of The Gardener and the Carpenter

'Strap in as Peter Godfrey-Smith takes us on a dazzling exploration of the planet's diverse tenants, all of whom sculpted the environment we'd later inherit and transform. An essential read for understanding the legacy of the spot we're standing in right now, and its future' David Eagleman, neuroscientist at Stanford University and author of Incognito and Livewired

'Peter Godfrey-Smith not only reviews science, he probes it. In his hands this always yields rich new insights on the nature of life' Michael S. Gazzaniga, professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara and author of The Consciousness Instinct

…mehr