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Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind First Edition

by Ian Stewart (Author), Jack Cohen (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 28 ratings
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Peppered with wit and controversial topics, this is a refreshing new look at the co-evolution of mind and culture. Bestselling authors Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen (The Collapse of Chaos, 1994) eloquently argue that our minds evolved within an inextricable link with culture and language. They go beyond conventional views of the function and purpose of the mind to look at the ways that the mind is the response of an evolving brain that is constantly adjusting to a complex environment. Along the way they develop new and intriguing insights into the nature of evolution, science, and humanity that will challenge conventional views on consciousness. The esteemed authors tantalize the reader with these bold new outlooks while putting a revolutionary spin on such classic philosophical problems as the nature of free will and the essence of humanity. This clearly written and enjoyable book will inspire any educated reader to critically evaluate the existing notions of the nature of the human mind.
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  1. ISBN-10
    0521663830
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0521663830
  3. Edition
    First Edition
  4. Publisher
    Cambridge University Press
  5. Publication date
    October 28, 1999
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6 x 0.85 x 9 inches
  8. Print length
    340 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"One of the most heartening and innovative books of the year...This kind of book explodes the notion of the imminent and final theory of everything; by the same token, it shows that the death of science has been greatly exaggerated." The Sunday Times of London

"[The authors] are witty, erudite, clever, and generally clear-headed in this rationalist's view of the universe and human evolution...delightful..." Library Journal

"It analyzes the evolution of mankind's consciousness from a new and intriguing perspective. It argues that the mind evolved in the context of culture and language, aiding survival in a complex and competitive world." Biology Digest

"The most thought-provoking book I've read all year." Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series

"A stimulating theory of how mind, consciousness, and culture have coevolved to create our species by two masters of informed, scientific speculation. Try it...you'll learn a lot. Who could ask for more?" John L. Casti, Santa Fe Institute and Technical University of Vienna, author of Would-Be Worlds

"Figments of Reality is highly recommended for college-level collections and any non-specialist general reader." Bookwatch

"A delightful read that is excellent for academic collections and general collections with a highly literate readership." Mark L. Shelton, Library Journal

"Stewart and Cohen show how intelligence and extelligence interact by way of language and how the end product formulates culture...the authors are quick-witted and provide a lively exposition." Science News

"While the subject matter is rather heady, the authors are quickwitted and provide a lively exposition." Science News Books

"It analyzes the evolution of mankind's consciousness from a new and intriguing perspective. It argues that the mind evolved in the context of culture and language, aiding survival in a complex and competitive world." Biology Digest

Book Description

Popular science tour de force from bestselling authors, on evolution of intelligence, culture and mind.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Cambridge University Press; First Edition (October 28, 1999)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 340 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0521663830
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0521663830
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.23 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.85 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 28 ratings

About the author

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Ian Stewart

Ian Stewart

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Ian Stewart FRS is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics at the University of

Warwick and a leading popularizer of mathematics. He is author or coauthor of

over 200 research papers on pattern formation, chaos, network dynamics, and

biomathematics. He has been a Fellow of the Royal Society since 2001, and has

served on Council, its governing body. He has five honorary doctorates.

He has published more than 120 books including Why Beauty is Truth, Professor

Stewart's Cabinet of Mathematical Curiosities, Calculating the Cosmos,

Significant Figures, and the four-volume series The Science of Discworld with

Terry Pratchett and Jack Cohen. He has also written the science fiction novels

Wheelers and Heaven with Jack Cohen, and The Living Labyrinth and Rock Star with

Tim Poston.

He wrote the Mathematical Recreations column for Scientific American from 1990

to 2001. He has made 90 television appearances and 450 radio broadcasts, most of

them about mathematics for the general public, and has delivered hundreds of

public lectures on mathematics.

His awards include the Royal Society’s Faraday Medal, the Gold Medal of the

Institute of Mathematics and Its Applications, the Zeeman Medal (IMA and London

Mathematical Society), the Lewis Thomas Prize (Rockefeller University), and the

Euler Book Prize (Mathematical Association of America).

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
28 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

CWG
5.0 out of 5 stars Figments of Reality, Stewart & Cohen: Excellent
Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2013
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Excellent book on emergence of the human mind. Highly recommended for those who are studying evolutionary computing as it applies to large, complex self-organizing systems.
One person found this helpful
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Edwin Slonim
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful synthesis of what we know & suspect about our Mind
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 1999
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A thoroughly enjoyable synthesis of many views concerning the evolution of mind, consciousness, free will etc.
Clearly written, with wit and parody where appropriate. There are dialogs which recall Goedel Escher Bach (although with perhaps fewer levels of meaning), and depth.
The authors clearly distinguish between facts and their opinions, and confess to less than absolute certainty on occasion, which is refreshing.
Highly recommended.
4 people found this helpful
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David J. Willson
4.0 out of 5 stars If you think you know how your mind works -- this book will make you think again!
Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2014
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Excellent book -- I wish I had known about it earlier!
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Govindan Nair
5.0 out of 5 stars Life, consciousness, mind, and reality explained
Reviewed in the United States on September 10, 2003
How does life arise from inanimate matter? How does consciousness arise from life? Is consciousness of the universe an illusion? Or is mind itself an illusion?
The British authors of this book are a mathematician and biologist pair who boldly tackle these classic questions in philosophy with some original approaches. Maintaining that life, consciousness, and culture cannot understood by reducing them to the material elements from which they arise, the authors deftly develop a set of interesting concepts. Some of these are not especially original, but they are presented in an unusual light particularly as the authors ably illustrate them with very accessible descriptions of complex biochemical pathways of living matter.
A key concept is that of emergence - well established in philosophy and roughly equated to the popular idea of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. The authors couple this concept with one of their own - complicity, or the interaction of different things which lead them to become entirely new things. A third, among several others, is that of extelligence which arises from the interaction of the intellegences of individuals and is rooted in human culture. Using these and other concepts, the book, which is at the nexus of science and philosophy, seeks to explain how life, consciousness, culture, and reality arise and the relationship between them.
Be prepared to wade through these pages slowly to enjoy the masterful exposition of this book. Or, if you find this tedious, enjoy the elegant prose which uses the lens of science and philosophy to describe events which we might normally frame in different language. In the four-page prologue, a graphic sequence of events unfolds which chart the creation of the universe to the emergence of the symbolic literary creatures which constitute the human species: QUOTE Fifteen thousand million years ago the universe was no bigger than the dot at the end of this sentence......today, the two descendants of those tiny creatures are busy delineating their own limited version of the entire story in strange, angular geometric symbols impressed in contrasting pigment upon sheets of impressed white vegetable matter. UNQUOTE
Having long forgotten more than half the courses I took in college, this book allowed me to relive and reinforce the pleasures of two wonderful philosophy seminars - on theories of mind and philosophy of science. Expect, if you get through the book cover to cover, to see the world a little differently from when you start at the prologue.
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3.0 out of 5 stars notations
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2013
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A previous owner has put biro annotations in the margins of the first180 pages. Distracting, as they seem meaningless to me.
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Richard Brodie
5.0 out of 5 stars A fabulous exploration of the complexity of evolution
Reviewed in the United States on August 19, 2000
How could a game with such simple rules, such as evolution by natural selection, produce such complexity? Well, chess has simple rules and we still don't know a sure-fire way to play and win every game. The idea that simple rules may interact to produce wonderful complexity-"simplexity"-is only one of the brain-bending ideas authors Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart gush forth with in this rich and entertaining popular science book. The flip side of "simplexity" is "complicity"-a game where the very act of playing the game changes the rules. Hmm...this looks like evolution again! It's a wonderful exploration of the science behind evolution cast into many different allegories and scenarios, including comical heated discussions among the eight-sexed Zarathustrans, an invention of the authors that does beautifully at reflecting our own egocentric assumptions about the nature of reality -- and the figments of reality.
--Richard Brodie, author, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme
9 people found this helpful
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jenjen
1.0 out of 5 stars Not happy.
Reviewed in the United States on December 9, 2016
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I didnt buy it the software downlaoded o ln its own. Not happy.
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Travis Chalmers (angus@total.net)
5.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining and enlightening
Reviewed in the United States on July 2, 1998
JC & IS (Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart) have written another great book on complexity and evolution. Figments of Reality is an immensely entertaining read that tests our ideas about evolution, and convincingly argues the case for the coevolution of mind and culture. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll not put it down until you've finished reading all of it.
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Stephanie
5.0 out of 5 stars Bien vulgarisé et passionnant
Reviewed in France on January 17, 2019
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Je connaissais la version plus simplifiée avec Pratchett dans Science of Discworld, cette source est aussi passionnante en étant plus détaillée. Agréable à lire et intelligent, je recommande !
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Amazon-Kunde
5.0 out of 5 stars Helpful and interesting
Reviewed in Germany on February 27, 2013
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If you want to learn how complexity came to be in evolution, this is a great start. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
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David J Warden
5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging but brilliant and entertaining book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 5, 2011
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Professor Cohen spoke to Dorset Humanists on 14th May 2011

We were greatly entertained, and sometimes a little baffled, by Professor Jack Cohen's lecture on 14th May entitled Apes, Angels and Ancestors (or, The Ape with the Curious Mind). Not to be defeated, I spent several days of my holiday reading Figments of Reality: The Evolution of the Curious Mind which Cohen co-wrote with mathematician Professor Ian Stewart. This challenging but brilliant and entertaining book sheds a great deal of light on Professor Cohen's lecture. The question it sets out to answer is this: "How did mind arise from inanimate matter?" - a question of importance to all rationalists and Humanists seeing as millions of religious people think that the mind is ultimately detachable from the brain. Here's my 12-point summary of Cohen and Stewart's fascinating story:

1. Life came into being as a consequence of perfectly reasonable chemistry. Organic and even inorganic matter has self-organising properties. (To illustrate the point, Professor Cohen treated us to a live Belousov-Zhabotinskii demonstration in which blue rings spontaneously form in a rusty-red cocktail of chemicals.)

2. Atoms can produce entirely new molecules by combining in new ways. The most interesting molecules are not just complicated but organised. One type of organised molecule, a replicating molecule, is what got life going.

3. To cut a long story short, the complexity we see around us today is a snapshot of a `game' that has been in progress for five billion years. It is the evolutionary game of `Survival' which has no fixed rules and countless trillions of players.

4. Special creation is ruled out because there are too many examples of `bad design' such as the way our foodway crosses our airway, and the risky proximity of our excretory and reproductive organs - remnants of our evolutionary history.

5. Evolution produced brains because they're jolly good gadgets to run the sensory and locomotive systems which assist with survival. The brain is essentially a `feature detector' (`mother', `food', `predator', etc.)

6. Mind is not a magic ingredient in the brain. It is an emergent property of the brain. Mind is not a thing. It's a process.

7. Our impressions of reality are not the same as reality itself. Bees and bats see things differently. The mind is a `Virtual Reality Sensorium' containing vivid impressions like `red', `bang!' and `ouch!'. The mind has cleverly created the illusion of an internal observer (that's you).

8. The mind is attracted to symmetry. People whose mates have symmetrical faces have better orgasms.

9. Intelligence is generated by the interactive co-evolution of brainy animals and their culture. Many animals have some basic intelligence, including chimps, cats, dolphins and geckos, but not owls which are as thick as two short planks.

10. A certain amount of what you are is written in your genes. But without cultural `Make-a-Human-Kits' (tribal customs, parenting skills and so on) you would not learn language or anything else that makes you a proper human.

11. Individual intelligence is now vastly augmented by cultural `extelligence' (language, writing, the Internet). Cultural extelligence used to be stored in Holy Texts.

12. Culture is now a downhill bicycle race with unstoppable momentum and no end in sight. It could all end in global anarchy, violence, and war. Or (a more optimistic scenario) - a global multiculture.
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HENDERSON Xavier
5.0 out of 5 stars impressionnant
Reviewed in France on June 4, 2020
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un auteur à connaitre. toutes les oeuvres ne sont pas aisément accessibles. je recommande celle ci
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HELEN SANDFORD
5.0 out of 5 stars Great as always
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2019
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Loved this book. Intelligently written.
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