Episode · Modern Wisdom · 2018-12-02
Books mentioned on The Social Leap; How We Evolved From Tree Swinging to Human Being - William Von Hippel - #041
William Von Hippel is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Queensland and Author of The Social Leap. Today is nothing short of fascinating as we learn the story of how our ancestors went from being chimps in trees to bipedal apes out on the plains and why we took that dangerous step in our development.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The elephant in the brain
The Elephant in the Brain by Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson is an insightful exploration of human behavior, hidden motives, and the unconscious evolutionary reasons behind why people act the way they do.
Discussed“the same as with my podcast I did with Professor Robin Hanson the elephant in the brain why we are the way we are nowadays is not due to the environment that we evolved in”
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Catching Fire
Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham is a provocative anthropological study arguing that the harnessing of fire and the invention of cooking were the primary driving forces behind human biological and social evolution.
Discussed“so Richard Wrangham talks about that is wonderful book Catching Fire how basically in order to develop the big brain that we have that's supported by such a small gut you need to be eating a lot of me”
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The Purpose of Reality
The Purpose of Reality by Steve Simpson is a philosophical and scientific exploration examining the fundamental nature of existence and biological drives.
Recommended“and this is really beginning with wonderful research by Steve Simpson who's a biologist spent much of his career at Oxford and is now at Sydney University and since schon he's got a wonderful book the nature of nutrition he's shown very clearly that if you vary the protein levels in food animals will weigh over eat carbohydrates in order”
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Light of the Stars
Light of the Stars by Adam Frank is a scientific examination of astrobiology and the potential fate of civilizations confronting climate change across the universe.
Discussed“I think I did a podcast with Professor Adam Frankie wrote light of us stars and he identified that one of the byproducts of any world girdling civilization is going to be the level of global warming that we have because you can't have the energy you need for this civilization without the byproduct of the greenhouse gases and so”
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Consciousness Genesis In Artificial Intelligence
Consciousness Genesis In Artificial Intelligence by professor ibrahim elnoshokaty explores the complex emergence of awareness and cognitive systems within machine learning frameworks.
Recommended“and then if you read super intelligence with a fantastic book on on AI by Professor Nick Bostrom from the future humanities Institute of Oxford you know if there's so many different ways that we can [ __ ] this up like many from ways and it's nearly infinite”
Other mentions in this episode (2) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“very fortunately we've managed to find a slot in Bill's book to which he's currently undergoing in America and I managed to sit down with him to go through his new book the social leap”
“so at this point I'm the easiest way to find me is simply the Google bill or william von Hippel vo nhi ppl my book the social leap is available now in the States and will be available soon in the UK”