Top

AI & SOCIETY

Published in:

30-01-2018 | Book Review

From Bacteria to Bach and Back

Allen Lane, 2017, London 496 pages, ISBN-10: 0241003563

Author: Simon Penny

Published in: AI & SOCIETY | Issue 2/2019

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Excerpt

While Daniel Dennett’s writing always addresses big questions, the reach of From Bacteria to Bach is audacious. His goal—to explain the emergence of mind as a biological (and post-biological) phenomenon, beginning from the first principles, i.e., protolife. In this work, Dennett is to be commended for his combination of broad scholarly reach combined with readability. Dennett has no need to awe and obfuscate with neologisms or obscure terminology. A thoughtful high school student could get most of this. While humanists have sneered at his scientism, from this reviewer’s point of view, he negotiates the hoary old two-culture problem with generosity and finesse. Throughout, Dennett maintains a (qualified) posthumanist stance. He argues, quite reasonably, for human exceptionalism in terms of our mental capabilities, but human exceptionalist as he is, he is emphatically biologically materialist on the matter of mind and maintains that he is also non-dualist (more in this below). …

previous article AI & Society: In Memoriam

next article DELINQUENT GENIUS: the strange affair of man and his technology

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

The title of the hit song by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich (1967) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o99K-HaAzQc

Title: From Bacteria to Bach and Back
Allen Lane, 2017, London 496 pages, ISBN-10: 0241003563
Author: Simon Penny
Publication date: 30-01-2018
Publisher: Springer London
Published in: AI & SOCIETY / Issue 2/2019
Print ISSN: 0951-5666
Electronic ISSN: 1435-5655
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-018-0797-9

Springer Professional

Excerpt

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Springer Professional "Technik"

Other articles of this Issue 2/2019

Hubert Dreyfus, the artificial and the perspective of a doubled philosophy

Man as ‘aggregate of data’

Vulnerability under the gaze of robots: relations among humans and robots

Announcing the Professor Cooley archive at Waterford Institute of Technology, Ireland: a celebration of the legacy of Mike Cooley

DELINQUENT GENIUS: the strange affair of man and his technology

Anonymity and commitment: how do Kierkegaard and Dreyfus fare in the era of Facebook and “post-truth”?

Premium Partner