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Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think
How Humans Learned to See the Future--and Shape It
By Byron Reese
Published by BenBella Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
"Byron Reese gets to the heart of what makes humans different from all others." —Midwest Book Review
What makes the human mind so unique? And how did we get this way?
This fascinating tale explores the three leaps in our history that made us what we are—and will change how you think about our future.
Look around. Clearly, we humans are radically different from the other creatures on this planet. But why? Where are the Bronze Age beavers? The Iron Age iguanas? In Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think, Byron Reese argues that we owe our special status to our ability to imagine the future and recall the past, escaping the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in.
Envisioning human history as the development of a societal superorganism he names Agora, Reese shows us how this escape enabled us to share knowledge on an unprecedented scale, and predict—and eventually master—the future.
Thoughtful, witty, and compulsively readable, Reese unravels our history as an intelligent species in three acts:
Act I: Ancient humans undergo “the awakening,” developing the cognitive ability to mentally time-travel using language
Act II: In 17th century France, the mathematical framework known as 'probability theory' is born—a science for seeing into the future that we used to build the modern world
Act III: Beginning with the invention of the computer chip, humanity creates machines to gaze into the future with even more precision, overcoming the limits of our brains
A fresh new look at the history and destiny of humanity, readers will come away from Stories, Dice, and Rocks that Think with a new understanding of what they are—not just another animal, but a creature with a mastery of time itself.
What makes the human mind so unique? And how did we get this way?
This fascinating tale explores the three leaps in our history that made us what we are—and will change how you think about our future.
Look around. Clearly, we humans are radically different from the other creatures on this planet. But why? Where are the Bronze Age beavers? The Iron Age iguanas? In Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think, Byron Reese argues that we owe our special status to our ability to imagine the future and recall the past, escaping the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in.
Envisioning human history as the development of a societal superorganism he names Agora, Reese shows us how this escape enabled us to share knowledge on an unprecedented scale, and predict—and eventually master—the future.
Thoughtful, witty, and compulsively readable, Reese unravels our history as an intelligent species in three acts:
A fresh new look at the history and destiny of humanity, readers will come away from Stories, Dice, and Rocks that Think with a new understanding of what they are—not just another animal, but a creature with a mastery of time itself.
Product Details
- Publisher: BenBella Books (August 23, 2022)
- Length: 304 pages
- ISBN13: 9781637741344
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Raves and Reviews
"""From storytelling and heritage passed down between generations to examples of synchronicity in action and its development and influence on belief systems and human predictions and interpretations of the world, Byron Reese gets to the heart of what makes humans different from all others.""
—Midwest Book Review
""We found the book insightful, thought provoking and well worth reading. You will come away smarter . . . Definitely one for the cooler autumn evenings to read.""
—Irish Tech News
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