Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation
Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe
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Narrated by:
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Alan Peterson
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By:
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George Musser
About this listen
"This is a delightful account of one of the deepest and most fascinating explorations going on today at the frontier of our knowledge."—Carlo Rovelli, bestselling author of The Order of Time and Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
A revelatory exploration of how a "theory of everything" depends upon our understanding of the human mind
The whole goal of physics is to explain what we observe. For centuries, physicists believed that observations yielded faithful representations of what is out there. But when they began to study the subatomic realm, they found that observation often interferes with what is being observed—that the act of seeing changes what we see. The same is true of cosmology: our view of the universe is inevitably distorted by observation bias. And so whether they’re studying subatomic particles or galaxies, physicists must first explain consciousness—and for that they must turn to neuroscientists and philosophers of mind.
Neuroscientists have painstakingly built up an understanding of the structure of the brain. Could this help physicists understand the levels of self-organization they observe in other systems? These same physicists, meanwhile, are trying to explain how particles organize themselves into the objects around us. Could their discoveries help explain how neurons produce our conscious experience?
Exploring these questions and more, George Musser tackles the extraordinary interconnections between quantum mechanics, cosmology, human consciousness, and artificial intelligence. Combining vivid descriptions with portraits of scientists working on the cutting edge, Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation shows how theories of everything depend on theories of mind—and how they might be one and the same.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
©2023 George Musser (P)2023 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"The renowned science writer George Musser has taken on one of our time’s greatest issues: AI, how it works, and what makes it so powerful. This masterfully written book shows a surprising connection with theoretical physics.”—Max Tegmark, professor at MIT and bestselling author of Life 3.0 and Our Mathematical Universe
"George Musser is one of my favorite science writers of all time. Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation is an important book that will inform both the future of physics and the philosophy of mind.”—Annaka Harris, bestselling author of Conscious: A Brief Guide to the Fundamental Mystery of the Mind
“Electrifying . . . Musser explores the fascinating ways in which scientists are studying the physics of the mind . . . Musser has a talent for distilling complex science into accessible language . . . Lucid and endlessly intriguing, [Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation] will expand readers’ minds.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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- By Maya H Saric on 03-10-23
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Welcome to the Universe
- An Astrophysical Tour
- By: Michael A. Strauss, J. Richard Gott, Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 17 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Welcome to the Universe is a personal guided tour of the cosmos by three of today's leading astrophysicists. Inspired by the enormously popular introductory astronomy course that Neil deGrasse Tyson, Michael A. Strauss, and J. Richard Gott taught together at Princeton, this book covers it all - from planets, stars, and galaxies to black holes, wormholes, and time travel.
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All About What We Know About the Universe - ALL
- By J.B. on 02-17-17
By: Michael A. Strauss, and others
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Reentry
- SpaceX, Elon Musk, and the Reusable Rockets That Launched a Second Space Age
- By: Eric Berger
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 12 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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From launchpad explosions to a pernicious cricket infestation to the demanding management style of Musk himself, the rise of SpaceX was beset with challenges and far from inevitable. Find out how the startup beat the odds and flew high enough to outpace their rivals... and where they're going next.
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Appreciated the engineering details
- By Will on 10-19-24
By: Eric Berger
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Inspired
- How to Create Tech Products Customers Love, Second Edition
- By: Marty Cagan
- Narrated by: Marty Cagan
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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How do today's most successful tech companies - Amazon, Google, Facebook, Netflix, Tesla - design, develop, and deploy the products that have earned the love of literally billions of people around the world? Perhaps surprisingly, they do it very differently from the vast majority of tech companies. In Inspired, technology product management thought leader Marty Cagan provides listeners with a master class in how to structure and staff a vibrant and successful product organization and how to discover and deliver technology products that your customers will love.
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Great book, terrible audio wanted to ask a refund
- By Srikanth Ramanujam on 11-15-18
By: Marty Cagan
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The Butchering Art
- Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine
- By: Lindsey Fitzharris
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Butchering Art, the historian Lindsey Fitzharris reveals the shocking world of 19th-century surgery on the eve of profound transformation. She conjures up early operating theaters - no place for the squeamish - and surgeons, working before anesthesia, who were lauded for their speed and brute strength. They were baffled by the persistent infections that kept mortality rates stubbornly high. A young, melancholy Quaker surgeon named Joseph Lister would solve the deadly riddle and change the course of history.
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Not one boring moment!
- By WRWF on 12-22-17
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Cosmic Queries
- StarTalk’s Guide to Who We Are, How We Got Here, and Where We’re Going
- By: James Trefil, Lindsey N. Walker - editor, Neil deGrasse Tyson
- Narrated by: Neil deGrasse Tyson, Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In this illuminating audiobook, Tyson and coauthor James Trefil, a renowned physicist and science popularizer, take on the big questions that humanity has been posing for millennia - How did life begin? What is our place in the universe? Are we alone? - and provide answers based on the most current data, observations, and theories.
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Not worth it
- By Daniel Earl on 03-15-21
By: James Trefil, and others
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Ranger Confidential
- Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks
- By: Andrea Lankford
- Narrated by: Julia Motyka
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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The real stories behind the scenery of America’s national parks. For 12 years, Andrea Lankford lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon. She won arguments with bears. She slept with a few too many rattlesnakes. Hell yeah, it was the best job in the world! Fortunately, Andrea survived it.
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Depressing from Cover to Cover
- By Drew (@drewsant) on 04-13-15
By: Andrea Lankford
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Supremacy
- AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World
- By: Parmy Olson
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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In November 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the scenes, battles for control and prestige between the world’s two leading AI firms, OpenAI and DeepMind, who now steers Google's AI efforts, has remained elusive—until now.
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Author doesn’t understand AI
- By David on 09-30-24
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Spooky Action at a Distance
- The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time-and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything
- By: George Musser
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
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What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally stop to ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time. The phenomenon - the ability of one particle to affect another instantly across the vastness of space - appears to be almost magical.
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Rambling but Asks Good Questions
- By Michael on 12-19-15
By: George Musser
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Superconvergence
- How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform our Lives, Work, and World
- By: Jamie Metzl
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster, Jamie Metzl
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Leading futurist and OneShared.World founder Jamie Metzl explores how genome sequencing, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are not only changing our lives, but catalyzing each other in radical and accelerating ways. These technologies have the potential to improve our health, feed billions of people, supercharge our economies, and store essential information for millions of years, but can also—if we are not careful—do immeasurable harm.
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Great Book Somewhat Spoiled by Self-Promotion
- By Jack E. Koepke on 06-22-24
By: Jamie Metzl
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The Blind Spot
- Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience
- By: Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, Evan Thompson
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.
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Good book.
- By Daniel L Mercer on 08-01-24
By: Adam Frank, and others
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Sentience
- The Invention of Consciousness
- By: Nicholas Humphrey
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
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We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Weaving together intellectual adventure and cutting-edge science, Nicholas Humphrey describes in Sentience his quest for answers: from his discovery of blindsight in monkeys and his pioneering work on social intelligence to breakthroughs in the philosophy of mind.
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Audible, please re-record this!
- By H on 03-13-24
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Our Mathematical Universe
- My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy, and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist.
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Wow!
- By Michael on 02-02-14
By: Max Tegmark
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Supremacy
- AI, ChatGPT, and the Race that Will Change the World
- By: Parmy Olson
- Narrated by: Lisa Flanagan
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
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In November 2022, a webpage was posted online with a simple text box. It was ChatGPT, and was unlike any app people had used before. It was more human than a customer service agent, more convenient than a Google search. Behind the scenes, battles for control and prestige between the world’s two leading AI firms, OpenAI and DeepMind, who now steers Google's AI efforts, has remained elusive—until now.
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Author doesn’t understand AI
- By David on 09-30-24
By: Parmy Olson
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Spooky Action at a Distance
- The Phenomenon That Reimagines Space and Time-and What It Means for Black Holes, the Big Bang, and Theories of Everything
- By: George Musser
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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What is space? It isn't a question that most of us normally stop to ask. Space is the venue of physics; it's where things exist, where they move and take shape. Yet over the past few decades, physicists have discovered a phenomenon that operates outside the confines of space and time. The phenomenon - the ability of one particle to affect another instantly across the vastness of space - appears to be almost magical.
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Rambling but Asks Good Questions
- By Michael on 12-19-15
By: George Musser
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Superconvergence
- How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform our Lives, Work, and World
- By: Jamie Metzl
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster, Jamie Metzl
- Length: 15 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Leading futurist and OneShared.World founder Jamie Metzl explores how genome sequencing, gene editing, artificial intelligence, and other technologies are not only changing our lives, but catalyzing each other in radical and accelerating ways. These technologies have the potential to improve our health, feed billions of people, supercharge our economies, and store essential information for millions of years, but can also—if we are not careful—do immeasurable harm.
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Great Book Somewhat Spoiled by Self-Promotion
- By Jack E. Koepke on 06-22-24
By: Jamie Metzl
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The Blind Spot
- Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience
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- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
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The Blind Spot goes where no science book goes, urging us to create a new scientific culture that views ourselves both as an expression of nature and as a source of nature's self-understanding, so that humanity can flourish in the new millennium.
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Good book.
- By Daniel L Mercer on 08-01-24
By: Adam Frank, and others
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Sentience
- The Invention of Consciousness
- By: Nicholas Humphrey
- Narrated by: Michael Langan
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
We feel, therefore we are. Conscious sensations ground our sense of self. They are crucial to our idea of ourselves as psychic beings: present, existent, and mattering. But is it only humans who feel this way? Do other animals? Will future machines? Weaving together intellectual adventure and cutting-edge science, Nicholas Humphrey describes in Sentience his quest for answers: from his discovery of blindsight in monkeys and his pioneering work on social intelligence to breakthroughs in the philosophy of mind.
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Audible, please re-record this!
- By H on 03-13-24
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Our Mathematical Universe
- My Quest for the Ultimate Nature of Reality
- By: Max Tegmark
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Max Tegmark leads us on an astonishing journey through past, present and future, and through the physics, astronomy, and mathematics that are the foundation of his work, most particularly his hypothesis that our physical reality is a mathematical structure and his theory of the ultimate multiverse. In a dazzling combination of both popular and groundbreaking science, he not only helps us grasp his often mind-boggling theories, but he also shares with us some of the often surprising triumphs and disappointments that have shaped his life as a scientist.
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Wow!
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What listeners say about Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- @DrCarlHoffman
- 11-15-23
This is a great book to stimulate your thinking
I am a process theologian that claims the God of the Bible is found in quantum mechanics. I have written a non-published book on the subject. This book affirmed my thinking that the vagaries of quantum physics allows God to act. I highly recommend this book.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-24-23
A comprehensive update on the today’s intersection between physics and philosophy.
This is an exciting and fast flowing update on how today’s physical sciences  have come to a point where they must tackle notions of perception, consciousness, and ‘mind’ in order to make meaningful progress. In a thorough review and comparison of leading theories across a variety of scientific domains, including neural networks, quantum mechanics, time and space, evolution of complex systems and philosophy of mind, Musser effectively demonstrates a need for a new type of thinking that draws from different scientific domains and accounts for the role that we ourselves play as an integral part of the ‘whole’ picture that science aims to describe. I highly recommend this read to anyone curious enough to dive into the deep-end of where theoretical physics, philosophy and theories of consciousness meet as of Nov. 2023.
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- Oliver
- 01-17-24
Strong Start, Discursive Ending
This book brings together the standard references in Consciousness Studies, but through the lense of physics. the first few chapters were very lucid, and it felt like they were laying the foundation for a clear thesis. Unfortunately, several chapters in the middle felt barely relevant, and then the end came rather abruptly. Overall, it was a strong effort to bring together diverse sources on consciousness. I enjoyed the ride, but was disappointed when the book failed to present a thesis or a call to action. The field is becoming crowded with books that digress at the end. Nobody expects an author to "solve" the Hard Problem, but it's still fair to ask for a clear conclusion.
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- Spider-guy
- 11-19-23
Sure-footed guide on a misty path
The best of several recent books on what we sentient beings must be made of. Lacks a nod to How the Hippies Saved Physics, but for a hint near the end at cosmic conversations with neural nets.
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