How to Make a Human Being: A Body of Evidence
Author(s): Christopher Potter
A startling investigation of what it means to be human. Human beings know how to make machines. But what kind of machine is a human being? And could we ever make one? In order to answer these questions, other questions get in the way: What is it like to be a human being? What is it like to be some other kind of animal? What is reality? What is consciousness? Is there a God? What is love? Why live? The questions proliferate. But all these questions can be viewed as facets of a single question: What is science? In 'How To Make a Human Being' Christopher Potter shows how, at every scale of description, human beings escape the net of scientific reductionism. What it is to be human can be glimpsed in the details: in the opening of a window, in a shared joke. But cannot be caught by any reductive scientific description.
Product Information
Praise for 'You Are Here': 'One of the most entertaining and thoughtful pop-science books to be published for years' Sunday Times 'Anyone drawn to the big questions will enjoy this latest synthesis' New Scientist 'A wonderful, miraculous book ...The whole universe bottled for your delight' Stephen Fry 'You Are Here will provide an antidote to existential vertigo, helping you find your feet in a limitless universe' Matt Ridley 'One of the best popular science books I have ever read' Guardian
Christopher Potter spent almost a quarter of a century in publishing, over 17 of those years at the independent publishing house Fourth Estate, where he became publisher and managing director. His first book was the much-praised 'You Are Here, A Portable History of the Universe'. 'How To Make a Human Being' is his second.
General Fields
- :
- : HarperCollins Publishers
- : Fourth Estate Ltd
- : 28 February 2014
- : 240mm X 159mm
- : United Kingdom
- : 01 April 2014
- : books
Special Fields
- : Christopher Potter
- : Hardback
- : 599.9
- : 336