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adamsgardner10's review against another edition
4.0
Brain science has moved on, but nobody writes about science better than the man, Carl Sagan. This one's a quick read and a good intro to the evolutionary history of our brains, coupled with tasty philosophical nuggets and speculations on the future of intelligence and evolution.
kauther's review against another edition
3.0
The book is fun and easy to read, but it doesn’t satisfy the incredible complexities of the subject. The book is a lot like a summary of what people knew about consciousness at the time of writing, plus reflection and speculations from Sagan. Having read many of Richard Dawkins’s books, I didn’t get much out of this, except an entertaining summary.
Keep in mind that a lot has changed in the field of the subject since the book was written, and, again, it contains a lot of speculations by Sagan.
Keep in mind that a lot has changed in the field of the subject since the book was written, and, again, it contains a lot of speculations by Sagan.
quenchgum's review against another edition
3.0
One of the lesser points Sagan introduces is the analytical check our "left" brain must impose on our "right" brain's more intuitive connections. Ironically I would argue that Sagan's hesitance to check himself was this book's biggest failure. Often he excitedly drew out connections, usually preceded by a phrase such as "I wonder," that do not stand his left-brained test of reason.
With that said, I found the book worth the read. Sagan draws up a quick tour of human evolutionary lineage with a focus on our neocortical developments. He also always had a ready comparison to primates in order to more
fully showcase what makes us "human". As always, the line is thinner and more vague than many more orthodox religions would like to believe.
One major takeaway was the human ability, through the development of the neocortex, to have built-in "intelligence", I.e. analytical thinking, as compared to "instinct". Whereas instinctual information is programmed into tightly packed DNA (and is therefore limited in nature) and survives solely off adaptive selection, intelligence (or extragenetic info) resides in a larger brain capacity.. it is the ability to think on the fly and respond successfully to innumerable changing environments and situations.
Sagan introduces many other varying ideas and usually does a good job supporting them scientifically. All in all, if you ignore anything he says about aliens or computers, it's a good read.
With that said, I found the book worth the read. Sagan draws up a quick tour of human evolutionary lineage with a focus on our neocortical developments. He also always had a ready comparison to primates in order to more
fully showcase what makes us "human". As always, the line is thinner and more vague than many more orthodox religions would like to believe.
One major takeaway was the human ability, through the development of the neocortex, to have built-in "intelligence", I.e. analytical thinking, as compared to "instinct". Whereas instinctual information is programmed into tightly packed DNA (and is therefore limited in nature) and survives solely off adaptive selection, intelligence (or extragenetic info) resides in a larger brain capacity.. it is the ability to think on the fly and respond successfully to innumerable changing environments and situations.
Sagan introduces many other varying ideas and usually does a good job supporting them scientifically. All in all, if you ignore anything he says about aliens or computers, it's a good read.
filachan's review against another edition
4.0
To describe the book in one phrase I’d pick “An ode to intelligence, mostly human”.
Hope to update it in a couple of days with a bit more details.
Hope to update it in a couple of days with a bit more details.
fake_xylophone's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75