Professor Michael Edgeworth McIntyre is an eminent scientist who has also had a part-time career as a musician. In this book he offers an extraordinary synthesis, revealing the many deep connections between science, music, and mathematics. He avoids equations and technical jargon. The connections are deep in the sense of being embedded in our very nature, rooted in biological evolution over hundreds of millions of years.
Michael guides us through biological evolution, perception psychology, and even unconscious science and mathematics, all the way to the scientific uncertainties about the climate crisis.
He also has a message of hope for the future. Contrary to popular belief, he holds that biological evolution has given us not only the nastiest, but also the most compassionate and cooperative parts of human nature. This insight comes from recognizing that biological evolution is far more than a simple competition between selfish genes. Instead, he argues, in some ways it is more like the turbulent, eddying flow in a river or in an atmospheric jet stream, a complex process spanning a vast range of timescales.
Professor McIntyre is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London (FRS) and has long been interested in how different branches of science can better communicate with each other, and with the public. His work harnesses aspects of neuroscience and psychology that point toward the deep 'lucidity principles' that underlie skilful communication, principles related to the way music works — music of any genre.
This Second Edition sharpens the previous discussion of communication skills and their importance for today's great problems, ranging from the widely discussed climate crisis to the need to understand the strengths and weaknesses of artificial intelligence.
Contents:
- Foreword by Herbert E Huppert FRS
- Preface to the Second Edition
- About the Author
- The Unconscious Brain
- What is Lucidity? What is Understanding?
- Mindsets, Evolution, and Language
- Acausality Illusions, and the Way Perception Works
- What is Science?
- Music, Mathematics, and the Platonic
- Postlude: The Amplifier Metaphor for Climate
- References and Endnotes
- Index
Readership: Young scientists in academia: undergraduate and graduate; students, and postdoctoral researchers. Also more senior scientists and mentors, and a general readership of scientifically-minded lay persons, as well as Musicians interested in scientific aspects of music.
Key Features:
- ADVANTAGE OVER OTHER BOOKS: the book brings together a set of interconnected insights from the sciences and the arts that are so deep, and so basic, that they deserve to be better known than they are. They are deep in the sense of being deep in our nature, and evolutionarily ancient. Yet they are hardly ever discussed together — not discussed in any book I'm aware of. For instance, they include: Sharpened insights into the power and the limitations of science, and into what science is and is not; What we know and don't know about the climate crisis; How unconscious assumptions impede problem-solving; How human nature differs — profoundly — from the predictions of selfish-gene theory; How communication skills can be improved by, for instance, understanding how skill in the use of language can be informed by the way music works — music of any genre
- TIMELINESS AND TOPICALITY: Good communication and scientific insight will be crucial to tackling today's and tomorrow's great problems including the problems of climate change, biodiversity, and future pandemics and, now more urgently than ever, the problem of understanding the strengths and weaknesses of artificial intelligence
