Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
By: Cecilia Heyes
3.78
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
“This is an important book and likely the most thoughtful of the year in the social sciences… Highl…
Want to Read $ 19.25"In short, distinctively human cognitive mechanisms are tracking targets that move too fast for genetic evolution. In a stable phase, “as similative alleles"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"There are a number of potential answers. It could be that cognitive gadgets have not been genetically assimilated because they are locally but not globally optimal, or that genetic assimilation has been obstructed by fitness valleys, or by lack of appropriate genetic variance (WestEberhard, 2003; 2005). But my guess is that the most important factor is the speed of environmental change. Distinctively human cognitive mechanisms need to be nimble, capable of changing faster than genetic evolution allows, because their job is to track specific, labile features of the environment. For example, social learning strategies track “who knows"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"Many cognitive mechanisms, like imitation and mindreading, not only do their jobs well, but do jobs that, when done well, seem likely to en hance reproductive tness—to increase the number of babies pro duced by the bearers of the cognitive mechanisms. This has led some researchers to assume that, even if new cognitive mechanisms are produced by learning in a culturesoaked environment, they will later become genetically assimilated. In other words, they may start out as cognitive gadgets, constructed in the course of development through social interaction, but then selection will progressively favor genetic mutations that reduce the experiencedependence of the gadgets’ de velopment, converting them into cognitive instincts (Henrich, 2015)."-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"In contrast with cognitive gadgets, the components of the starter kit (Chapter 3) are ripe for genetic assimilation because they do nonspecific jobs that continue to be worth doing in spite of rapid and radical change in human social environments. Social tolerance and motivation promote the development of cooperation whether people are shifting rocks or designing rockets together. Attending closely to faces and voices opens a floodgate of information from other people, whether the information is about the value of a root or a roux, and high power associative learning and executive function improve problem solving across a huge range of social and asocial problems. Changes to cognitive mechanisms that increase the supply of information from social sources, and the efficiency of problemsolving across domains, are good targets for genetic assimilation because they remain adaptive as long as the developmental environment contains knowledgeable agents and tricky problems to be solved. But changes to cognitive mechanisms that tune human development to specific features of the culturesoaked environment—cognitive gadgets—are poor targets for genetic assimilation because they re main adaptive only until those features change."-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
If you liked the philosophy plot in Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking by Cecilia Heyes , here is a list of 9 books like this:
1. The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy: Building and Rebuilding the Human Brain
By: Louis Cozolino
4.12
Format: None pages, Hardcover
In contrast to this view, recent theoretical perspectives and technological advances in brain imagi… read more
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2. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter
By: Joseph Henrich
3.91
Format: None pages, Kindle Edition
Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, ofte… read more
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3. The Dictator's Handbook: Why Bad Behavior is Almost Always Good Politics
By: Alastair Smith , Bruce Bueno de Mesquita
4.03
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
For eighteen years, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith have been part of a team revolutioni… read more
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4. Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life
By: Nick Lane
3.87
Format: 216 pages, Paperback
If it weren't for mitochondria, scientists argue, we'd all still be single-celled bacteria. Indeed,… read more
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6. How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
By: Mortimer J. Adler , Charles van Doren
3.98
Format: 426 pages, Paperback
How to Read a Book, originally published in 1940, has become a rare phenomenon, a living classic. I… read more
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"In short, we can only learn from our "betters"."-Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
"A good rule always describes the ideal performance."-Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
"The mind can atrophy, like the muscles, if it is not used."-Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
"True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline."-Mortimer J. Adler, How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
7. What Is Life? with Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches
By: Roger Penrose , Erwin Schrödinger
3.78
Format: 288 pages, Paperback
What Is Life? is a 1944 non-fiction science book written for the lay reader by physicist Erwin Schr… read more
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8. Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
By: Chip Heath , Dan Heath
4.30
Format: 256 pages,
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9. Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
By: Charles Duhigg
4.05
Format: 320 pages, Hardcover
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593243916. Who and what are supercommunicators? They're the … read more
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"Strong leaders didn't help people align. In fact, groups with a dominant leader had the least amount of neural synchrony."-Charles Duhigg, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
"To communicate with someone, we must connect with them. When we absorb what someone is saying and they comprehend what we say, it's because our brains have, to some degree, aligned."-Charles Duhigg, Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
10. Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You
By: Ali Abdaal
4.01
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
We're told that to achieve more we need to work longer, focus harder, sacrifice more. But it's a li… read more
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11. How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
By: Epictetus
4.11
Format: 173 pages, Hardcover
A superb new edition of Epictetus's famed handbook on Stoicism--translated by one of the world's le… read more
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"A companion's crudeness is bound to rub off on the one he is with, no matter how refined that person may be."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
"Don't we recall that no one does injury or benefit to another, but that the cause of each of these things is a judgement."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
"Don't ask for things to happen as you would like them to, but wish them to happen as they actually do, and you will be all right."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
"But to myself all predictions are favorable if I wish them to be, since it is up to me to benefit from the outcome, whatever it may be."-Epictetus, How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life (Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
12. Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment
By: Daniel Kahneman
3.66
Format: 454 pages, Hardcover
From the bestselling author of Thinking, Fast and Slow and the co-author of Nudge, a groundbreaking… read more
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13. The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
By: Christof Koch
3.92
Format: 280 pages, Hardcover
Koch describes how the theory explains many facts about the neurology of consciousness and how it h… read more
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"To bring home the centrality of consciousness to life, consider a devil’s bargain in which you gain unlimited wealth at the expense of your conscious experiences. You get all the money you want but m…"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Mind-as-software is an unspoken background assumption that needs no justification. It is as obvious as the existence of the devil used to be. For what is the alternative to mind-as-software? A soul? …"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Their [personal digital assistants] siren voices are living proof of our times - that our mind is software, running on the computer that is our brain. Consciousness is just a couple of clever hack aw…"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
"Purkinje cells are among the most elaborate of all neurons; the cerebellum maps the body and outside space onto its tens of billions of neurons. Yet none of this seems sufficient to generate consciou…"-Christof Koch, The Feeling of Life Itself: Why Consciousness Is Widespread but Can't Be Computed
14. Neurodiversity and the Myth of Normal
By: Kyler Shumway
3.77
Format: 4 pages, Audible Audio
We’ve all been told, at one point or another, to "just be yourself." Whether you are starting schoo… read more
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15. Gut Reactions: The Science of Weight Gain and Loss
By: Simon Quellen Field
3.55
Format: 256 pages, Paperback
How much do you really know about how the human body works and how it reacts to food, exercise, nut… read more
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16. How to Consciously Design Your Ideal Future
By: Benjamin P. Hardy
3.73
Format: 140 pages, Kindle Edition
Animals are the direct product of their environment. They reactively evolve over-time based on exte… read more
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17. Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
By: Cecilia Heyes
3.78
Format: 304 pages, Hardcover
“This is an important book and likely the most thoughtful of the year in the social sciences… Highl… read more
Want to Read $ 19.25Similar categories in Cecilia Heyes's Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking book and Cecilia Heyes's Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
- cultural
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- evolution
- psychology
- philosophy
- neuroscience
- brain
- nonfiction
- audiobook
"In short, distinctively human cognitive mechanisms are tracking targets that move too fast for genetic evolution. In a stable phase, “as similative alleles"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"There are a number of potential answers. It could be that cognitive gadgets have not been genetically assimilated because they are locally but not globally optimal, or that genetic assimilation has …"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"Many cognitive mechanisms, like imitation and mindreading, not only do their jobs well, but do jobs that, when done well, seem likely to en hance reproductive tness—to increase the number of babies …"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
"In contrast with cognitive gadgets, the components of the starter kit (Chapter 3) are ripe for genetic assimilation because they do nonspecific jobs that continue to be worth doing in spite of rapid …"-Cecilia Heyes, Cognitive Gadgets: The Cultural Evolution of Thinking
18. The Unaccountability Machine: Why Big Systems Make Terrible Decisions - and How The World Lost its Mind
By: Dan Davies
4.07
Format: 304 pages, Kindle Edition
'Entertaining, insightful ... compelling' Financial Times 'A clear and compelling account of how de… read more
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19. The Four Realms of Existence: A New Theory of Being Human
By: Joseph E. LeDoux
3.97
Format: 368 pages, Hardcover
One of the world’s leading experts on mind and brain takes us on an expedition that reveals a new v… read more
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20. The Evolved Apprentice: How Evolution Made Humans Unique (Jean Nicod Lectures)
By: Kim Sterelny
4.18
Format: 264 pages, Hardcover
Over the last three million years or so, our lineage has diverged sharply from those of our great a… read more
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