The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin Hardback - 2004 - 1st Edition
by Keith E. Stanovich
- New
- Hardcover
Stanovich considers the recent developments in cognitive science and biology that argue that humans are "robots"--merely replicating human genes--and proposes how to rescue our sense of ourselves as autonomous beings.
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Details
- Title The Robot's Rebellion: Finding Meaning in the Age of Darwin
- Author Keith E. Stanovich
- Binding Hardback
- Edition number 1st
- Edition 1
- Condition New
- Pages 374
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
- Date May 15, 2004
- Illustrated Yes
- Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
- Bookseller's Inventory # A9780226770895
- ISBN 9780226770895 / 0226770893
- Weight 1.43 lbs (0.65 kg)
- Dimensions 9.08 x 6.24 x 1.24 in (23.06 x 15.85 x 3.15 cm)
- Library of Congress subjects Evolutionary psychology, Philosophical anthropology
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 2003018562
- Dewey Decimal Code 128
First line
What philosopher Daniel Dennett is referring to in the quote above is something that is known to an intellectual elite but largely unknown to the general public: that the cognitive sciences will, in the twenty-first century, destroy many traditional concepts that humans have lived with for centuries.
From the rear cover
The idea that we might be robots is no longer the stuff of science fiction; decades of research in evolutionary biology and cognitive science have led many esteemed scientists to the conclusion that, according to the precepts of universal Darwinism, humans are merely the hosts for two replicators (genes and memes) that have no interest in us except as conduits for replication. Richard Dawkins, for example, jolted us into realizing that we are just survival mechanisms for our own genes, sophisticated robots in service of huge colonies of replicators to whom concepts of rationality, intelligence, agency, and even the human soul are irrelevant. Accepting and now forcefully responding to this decentering and disturbing idea, Keith Stanovich here provides the tools for the "robot's rebellion," a program of cognitive reform necessary to advance human interests over the limited interest of the replicators and define our own autonomous goals as individual human beings. He shows how concepts of rational thinking from cognitive science interact with the logic of evolution to create opportunities for humans to structure their behavior to serve their own ends. These evaluative activities of the brain, he argues, fulfill the need that we have to ascribe significance to human life. We may well be robots, but we are the only robots who have discovered that fact. Only by recognizing ourselves as such, argues Stanovich, can we begin to construct a concept of self based on what is truly singular about humans: that they gain control of their lives in a way unique among life forms on Earth--through rational self-determination.
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Citations
- Choice, 12/01/2004, Page 675
- Publishers Weekly, 04/05/2004, Page 50
