Here are 100 books that The True Creator of Everything fans have personally recommended if you like
The True Creator of Everything.
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Since childhood I've been fascinated with the beauty of organic molecules. I pursued this passion in graduate school at Brown University and through a postdoctoral position at Stanford University. My professional career began at a startup pharmaceutical company in California, which evolved into research positions in agriculture and food ingredients. After 30 years I retired as a vice-president of research and development for a food ingredients company. I developed a passion for food and cooking and subsequently acquired a position as the science editor for America’s Test Kitchen, which I held for over 12 years. Today at the age of 80 I still write and publish scientific papers and books about food, cooking, and nutrition.
This book was the inspiration for my book and was written by a professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. It sets out a convincing argument that cooking may have been started by the earliest humans about 2 million years ago, which is far earlier than most anthropologists believe. Much of Wrangham’s arguments are based on his own research that illustrates how cooking provided better nutrition resulting in the expansion of the human brain by 60% over thousands of years giving humans a head-start over all other living species.
In this stunningly original book, Richard Wrangham argues that it was cooking that caused the extraordinary transformation of our ancestors from apelike beings to Homo erectus. At the heart of Catching Fire lies an explosive new idea: The habit of eating cooked rather than raw food permitted the digestive tract to shrink and the human brain to grow, helped structure human society, and created the male-female division of labour. As our ancestors adapted to using fire, humans emerged as "the cooking apes".
Covering everything from food-labelling and overweight pets to raw-food faddists, Catching Fire offers a startlingly original argument about…
I was stimulated by Norbert Wiener’s “Cybernetics” to study circuits in the brain that control behavior. For my graduate studies, I chose the olfactory bulb for its experimental advantages, which led to constructing the first computer models of brain neurons and microcircuits. Then I got interested in how the smell patterns are activated when we eat food, which led to a new field called Neurogastronomy, which is the neuroscience of the circuits that create the perception of food flavor. Finally, because all animals use their brains to find and eat food, the olfactory system has provided new insights into the evolution of the mammalian brain and the basic organization of the cerebral cortex.
If flavorful food has been a critical element in the evolution of our large brains, how did large brains give rise to our high intelligence? This is to be found in the circuits of our cerebral cortex and the regions to which it is connected. Daeyeol Lee is one of the leaders in research on how the cerebral cortex generates behavior in monkeys, for its insights into how this occurs in humans. This is providing new ways to define the neural basis of intelligence based on the application of new single-cell recording techniques in primates and brain scanning techniques in humans.
With his approach based on a deep understanding of how primates gave rise to humans, Lee asks the critical questions: What is intelligence? How did it evolve from monkeys to humans? Can computers and artificial intelligence ever equal human biological intelligence in all its complexity? Based on Lee’s research…
What is intelligence? How did it begin and evolve to human intelligence? Does a high level of biological intelligence require a complex brain? Can man-made machines be truly intelligent? Is AI fundamentally different from human intelligence? In Birth of Intelligence, distinguished neuroscientist Daeyeol Lee tackles these pressing fundamental issues. To better prepare for future society and its technology, including how the use of AI will impact our lives, it is essential to understand the biological root and limits of human intelligence. After systematically reviewing biological and computational underpinnings of decision making and intelligent behaviors, Birth of Intelligence proposes that true…
I’m a historian of science fascinated by how scientists cope with uncertainty. I’m drawn to books that identify and try to explain the gaps in scientific knowledge and describe ways of knowing that might not be called scientific. I love to read stories about how ordinary people discover extraordinary things about their environments. I’m always curious about what happens when savvy locals are visited by scientific experts. Will they join forces? Admit what they don’t know? Or is a struggle brewing?
I was captivated by an insight that came to Firestein while he was teaching college biology. Science courses typically teach what scientists know about their disciplines, but what’s most exciting to scientists is what they don’t know.
So Firestein had the brilliant idea to design a course where scientists would share their “ignorance”—the questions that keep them up at night and propel new research. It helps that the author used to work as a stand-up comic!
Knowledge is a big subject, says Stuart Firestein, but ignorance is a bigger one. And it is ignorance-not knowledge-that is the true engine of science.
Most of us have a false impression of science as a surefire, deliberate, step-by-step method for finding things out and getting things done. In fact, says Firestein, more often than not, science is like looking for a black cat in a dark room, and there may not be a cat in the room. The process is more hit-or-miss than you might imagine, with much stumbling and groping after phantoms. But it is exactly this "not…
I was stimulated by Norbert Wiener’s “Cybernetics” to study circuits in the brain that control behavior. For my graduate studies, I chose the olfactory bulb for its experimental advantages, which led to constructing the first computer models of brain neurons and microcircuits. Then I got interested in how the smell patterns are activated when we eat food, which led to a new field called Neurogastronomy, which is the neuroscience of the circuits that create the perception of food flavor. Finally, because all animals use their brains to find and eat food, the olfactory system has provided new insights into the evolution of the mammalian brain and the basic organization of the cerebral cortex.
The other books in this series are mostly about the real brain. But artificial intelligence promises us a new enhanced brain. What does the future hold? Terrence Sejnowski is a neuroscientist who was one of the first to realize the potential of AI. Since he has been there from the start, in this book he gives the reader an exciting inside story on the people and the advances that are reshaping our lives.
Early attempts at AI were limited, but once computational power took off big computers running multilayer neural nets began proving that they could defeat humans at the most demanding games, enhance human capabilities such as pattern recognition, text recognition, language translation, and driverless vehicles, and work to obtain rewards, just like a human. While these advances are dramatic, it is well to remember that the networks are built not from representations of real neurons, but rather from…
How deep learning—from Google Translate to driverless cars to personal cognitive assistants—is changing our lives and transforming every sector of the economy.
The deep learning revolution has brought us driverless cars, the greatly improved Google Translate, fluent conversations with Siri and Alexa, and enormous profits from automated trading on the New York Stock Exchange. Deep learning networks can play poker better than professional poker players and defeat a world champion at Go. In this book, Terry Sejnowski explains how deep learning went from being an arcane academic field to a disruptive technology in the information economy.
I have wondered about what goes on in the brains of animals and people since I was a youth. My research career began by studying how some genes affect behavior. Little surprise, it turns out, that many such “behavioral” genes influence the way the brain is built. So, I began to study brain development using embryos from a variety of experimental laboratory animals and developed a university course on this topic. When I retired, I decided to share what I learned. The other books on this list are great examples of readable books that would likely be exciting to anyone else interested in the story of how the human brain is built.
This is a truly excellent book on brain evolution, mostly from the vertebrate and mammalian perspective. It is quite academic, though I found it much easier to read than most university-level textbooks. The flow is logical, and it covers a huge range of issues from a conceptual point of view.
I really enjoyed learning about how different animals evolved to possess different mental skills and capacities and how these abilities are linked to particular structures in the brain, such as the cerebral cortex.
Brain Evolution is a complex weave of species similarities and differences, bound by diverse rules or principles. This book is a detailed examination of these principles, using data from a wide array of vertebrates but minimizing technical details and terminology. It is written for advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and more senior scientists who already know something about 'the brain,' but want a deeper understanding of how diverse brains evolved. The book opens with a brief history of evolutionary neuroscience, then introduces the various groups of vertebrates and their major brain regions. The core of the text explores: what aspects of…
I've been working in the field of AI for 40 years, first in graduate school and then as a professor. For the most part, I have had my head in the sand, focusing on the minutiae that occasionally lead to publications, the coins of the academic realm. When deep learning started exhibiting human-level pattern recognition abilities, the number of AI books for the general public began to swell. Unfortunately, the science-fiction scenarios were a bit much. Since understanding, recognizing, and admitting problems are vital steps toward a solution, I find these books to be the most important warnings of the impending tech-dominated future.
I have always been fascinated by feedback loops, so even though the positive feedbacks discussed in this book have a very negative impact on society, they stir my technical curiosity.
More importantly, Ward highlights a very real problem with AI technology and its deployment: the potential for automated recommendations and other nudges to move us, as a population, toward conformity and predictability.
Ward actually writes about 3 nested loops: 1) our evolved human tendencies, 2) the exploitation of those tendencies by human-based enterprises, such as capitalism and marketing, and 3) exploitation of those same tendencies by AI tools.
"The best book I have ever read about AI." -Roger McNamee, New York Times bestselling author of Zucked Artificial intelligence is going to change the world as we know it. But the real danger isn't some robot that's going to enslave us: It's our own brain. Our brains are constantly making decisions using shortcuts, biases, and hidden processes-and we're using those same techniques to create technology that makes choices for us. In The Loop, award-winning science journalist Jacob Ward reveals how we are poised to build all of our worst instincts into our AIs, creating a narrow loop where each…
My favorite books are a mix of classics, scientific, and recent thrills. They are relatable, underdog personal stories of survival and how we fit into our world, which I think match well withAfter Mind. Many years ago, after reading the adapted screenplay for Blade Runner from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, I fell in love with the idea of living a lot longer than humans are supposed to. Since then, I’ve worked in movie marketing, engineering design, and construction. Basically, I think humans need more time for all our dreams. I hope you enjoy these books for our road ahead. We’re on a lifelong journey and there’s a long way to go.
How to Create a Mindis a fascinating non-fiction book that explores the intricacies of the human brain and the potential for creating artificial intelligence. It does an excellent job of weaving together scientific research, personal anecdotes, and philosophical musings. Powerful computers are essential to solving human longevity. So, I ask what if those computers need to be partly human themselves? I wish we could simply feed this book into an AI, let it know this is the blueprint to how our human minds work, then set it free to do its best creation. Make us into a human-computer that can live past our expectations. Whether fictional or real, this is a survival story that will leave even non-sci-fi fans with a lot to consider.
The bold futurist and bestselling author of The Singularity is Nearer explores the limitless potential of reverse-engineering the human brain
Ray Kurzweil is arguably today's most influential-and often controversial-futurist. In How to Create a Mind, Kurzweil presents a provocative exploration of the most important project in human-machine civilization-reverse engineering the brain to understand precisely how it works and using that knowledge to create even more intelligent machines.
Kurzweil discusses how the brain functions, how the mind emerges from the brain, and the implications of vastly increasing the powers of our intelligence in addressing the world's problems. He thoughtfully examines emotional…
Kevin Davis is the author of three non-fiction books about the criminal
justice system, The Wrong Man,Defending the Damned and The Brain Defense. Davis has also authored eight
nonfiction children’s books. He’s an award-winning journalist and magazine
writer based in Chicago.
Is the brain a separate, independent entity from who we are? Do our
brains control us, or do we control our brains? Or is it something in between?
In an often lyrical, easy-to-understand narrative, neuroscientist David
Eagleman argues that it’s the unconscious that influences most of what we do,
even before we’re aware that we’ve decided to do something.
If the conscious mind--the part you consider to be you--is just the tip of the iceberg, what is the rest doing?
In this sparkling and provocative book, renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman navigates the depths of the subconscious brain to illuminate its surprising mysteries. Why can your foot move halfway to the brake pedal before you become consciously aware of danger ahead? Is there a true Mel Gibson? How is your brain like a conflicted democracy engaged in civil war? What do Odysseus and the subprime mortgage meltdown have in common? Why are people whose names begin with J more like…
I embarked on this arduous journey of making sense of the I in AI while working as an Assistant Professor of Finance, which, however, began to look increasingly uninteresting and oppressive. With this innovative endeavor, I return home to philosophy. Apart from being passionate about AI in academia, I’m a tech entrepreneur by heart with three software start-ups in Germany, Switzerland, and Malawi under my belt. Moreover, I served as Deputy Director of and Head of AI at the Swiss Fintech Innovation Lab in Zurich, as Director of Startup Grind Geneva, and I continue to fulfill my role as start-up coach/judge and mentor in various startup programs.
If there were only five things I could bring to an island to live on, Terrel Miedaner’s deeply thought-provoking fiction book The Soul of Anna Klane would be among those five items.
His book is on a question which is more fundamental than the one on the I in AI. The Soul of Anna Klane ponders the many sides of the question of what constitutes life and consciousness: the scientific, the atheistic, and the religious with due respect.
It showed me how little we know about the brain, mind, and soul. And if we don’t understand the center of human intelligence, how can we make sense of the I in AI? Undoubtedly one of the best books I have ever read. For this reason, it would be on an island where I only possess five things so that I’m not distracted from reading it again and again. The effect would…
She's the golden darling of a wealthy genius. A child-prodigy. Yogi adept. And dying of brain tumor. She wants to heal herself, but the courts and the doctors cry "no" - and enter her brain with an incredible million-dollar probe that cures her body, while it splits her soul -- and sends it hurtling into a psychic hell...
Only Anatol Klane knows of his daughter's spirit-death. Now he must take her life... and convince an astonished world that he has set her free...
I have been a doctor, psychiatrist, and brain researcher for nearly 50 years. I have treated thousands of patients, written over a thousand scientific articles, and given a similar number of lectures to medical and neuroscience students and to the general public. I have held many leadership positions in this field for academic groups both in UK and Europe and in 2009 I set up the charity Drug Science, to tell the truth about drugs and addiction.
A book written after decades of research by a leading neuroscientist to share his love of the brain with the general public. An ideal starter book for those of you who want to get a sense of all the different parts of the complex organ that comprise the human brain. In a series of chapters on the many different parts, regions structures, and brain processes this book provides a succinct yet comprehensive overview of the brain. It explains what the different parts do to make your brain work and how they work together they make us do what we do and makes sense of what we are.
Everything we think, do and refrain from doing is determined by our brain. From religion to sexuality, it shapes our potential, our desires and our characters. Taking us through every stage in our lives, from the womb to falling in love to old age, Dick Swaab shows that we don't just have brains: we are our brains.
'A blockbuster about the brain ... provocative, fascinating, remarkable' Clive Cookson, Financial Times
'A giant in the field' Zoe Williams, Guardian
'Engrossing, intriguing and enlightening' Robin Ince
'Enchantingly written' The Times Higher Education
'Wide-ranging, fun and informative ... as an ice-breaker at parties,…
