Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
A monumental book. Very dense, very challenging, but really worth the effort.
When I read it
Summer break in Italy 2021. Started on the flight out, could not put it down.
Why I picked it up
Time to get educated on the subject of evolution by natural selection, its inner workings and its philosophcal implications.
Interesting bits
Not intelligent design
Small mechanical, accidental, algorithmic changes give the appearance of intelligent and/or teleological design. Design = chance + necessity
Cranes and Skyhooks
Tree of Life
Conway’s Game of Life
As a simulation of evolution bound by just a couple of rules.
Leibniz’s best of all possible worlds and the process of natural selection
Genetic evolution vs cultural evolution in Homo Sapiens
The changes in human evolution through very little time (in evolutionary terms) are due to cultural evolution rather than genetic one (that needs much more time)
Dawkins’s memes
As counterpart of the genes in cultural evolution of humans. Def: a unit of cultural transmission or a unit of “imitation”
Dennett’s take on Penrose’s “The Emperor’s Mind
Mind as a pure algorithmic process. On AI
Quotes
Inspiration & Next
Dawkins’s “The Blind Watchmaker” is a natural follow up (maybe should have read before this - anyway, bumped up in TBR list). Dennet seems to pontificate and higly admire Dawkins.
Other titles referenced in the book and TBR’ed:
Prisoner’s Dilemma: John Von Neumann, Game Theory, and the Puzzle of the Bomb - William Poundstone
The Recursive Universe: Cosmic Complexity and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge - William Poundstone
Dennett’s book on consciousness (Consciousness Explained).
Dennett is one of my new heroes.
AI and Mind