The Book of Minds
Understanding Ourselves and Other Beings, From Animals to Aliens
Published on 22. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
512 pages
978-1-5290-6916-7 (ISBN)
Description
Understanding the human mind and how it relates to the world that we experience has challenged philosophers for centuries. How then do we even begin to think about 'minds' that are not human?
Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where they might be found - including in plants, aliens, and God - prize-winning science writer Philip Ball pulls these multidisciplinary pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe.
He offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, arguing that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured, and to think about the 'space of possible minds'.
Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions. What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we?
Ball's thrillingly ambitious The Book of Minds about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.
Taking a uniquely broad view of minds and where they might be found - including in plants, aliens, and God - prize-winning science writer Philip Ball pulls these multidisciplinary pieces together to explore what sorts of minds we might expect to find in the universe.
He offers for the first time a unified way of thinking about what minds are and what they can do, arguing that in order to understand our own minds and imagine those of others, we need to move on from considering the human mind as a standard against which all others should be measured, and to think about the 'space of possible minds'.
Ball sheds new light on a host of fascinating questions. What moral rights should we afford animals, and can we understand their thoughts? Should we worry that AI is going to take over society? If there are intelligent aliens out there, how could we communicate with them? Should we?
Ball's thrillingly ambitious The Book of Minds about the nature and existence of minds is more mind-expanding than we could imagine. In this fascinating panorama of other minds, we come to better know our own.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Pan Macmillan
Target group
Interest Age: From 18 years
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 194 mm
Width: 124 mm
Thickness: 35 mm
Weight
364 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5290-6916-7 (9781529069167)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2022
Picador
€18.49
Available for download
Person
Philip Ball is a freelance writer and broadcaster, and was an editor at Nature for more than twenty years. He writes regularly in the scientific and popular media and has written many books on the interactions of the sciences, the arts, and wider culture. His book Critical Mass won the 2005 Aventis Prize for Science Books. Ball is also a presenter of Science Stories, the BBC Radio 4 series on the history of science. He trained as a chemist at the University of Oxford and as a physicist at the University of Bristol. He is the author of The Modern Myths. He lives in London.