Episode · Modern Wisdom · 2018-12-02
Chris Williamson & William Von Hippel: books mentioned on Modern Wisdom #041
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.
Chris Williamson discussed The elephant in the brain by Kevin Simler. William von Hippel recommended Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham, The Purpose of Reality by Steve Simpson, and Consciousness Genesis In Artificial Intelligence by Professor Ibrahim Elnoshokaty, and discussed Light of the Stars by Adam Frank.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The elephant in the brain
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”
Where to get it
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Catching Fire
Recommended“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”
Where to get it
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The Purpose of Reality
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”
Where to get it
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Light of the Stars
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”
Where to get it
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Consciousness Genesis In Artificial Intelligence
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”
Where to get it
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”