The Brain is Wider Than the Sky - Why Simple Solutions Don't Work in a Complex World (Paperback)

A brand-new book from the award-winning SUNDAY TIMES journalist Brian Appleyard. Simplicity has become a brand and a cult. People want simple lives and simple solutions. And now our technology wants us to be simpler, to be 'machine readable'. From telephone call trees that simplify us into a series of 'options' to social networks that reduce us to our purchases and preferences, we are deluged with propaganda urging us to abandon our irreducibly complex selves. At the same time, scientists tell us we are 'simply' the products of evolution, nothing more than our genes. Brain scanners have inspired neuroscientists to claim they are close to cracking the problem of the human mind. 'Human equivalent' computers are being designed that, we are told, will do our thinking for us. Humans are being simplified out of existence. It is time, says Bryan Appleyard, to resist, and to reclaim the full depth of human experience. We are, he argues, naturally complex creatures, we are only ever at home in complexity. Through art and literature we see ourselves in ways that machines never can. He makes an impassioned plea for the voices of art to be heard before those of the technocrats. Part memoir, part reportage, part cultural analysis, THE BRAIN IS WIDER THAN THE SKY is a dire warning about what we may become and a lyrical evocation of what humans can be. For the brain is indeed wider than the sky.

General

Imprint:	Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	September 2012
First published:	September 2012
Authors:	Bryan Appleyard
Dimensions:	197 x 131 x 22mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	280
ISBN-13:	978-1-78022-015-4
Categories:	Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Impact of science & technology on society Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues > Popular science
LSN:	1-78022-015-4
Barcode:	9781780220154

Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate? Let us know about it.

Does this product have an incorrect or missing image? Send us a new image.

Is this product missing categories? Add more categories.

Review This Product

No reviews yet - be the first to create one!