
The Blind Spot
Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.99
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Perry Daniels
About this listen
In The Blind Spot, astrophysicist Adam Frank, theoretical physicist Marcelo Gleiser, and philosopher Evan Thompson call for a revolutionary scientific worldview, where science includes-rather than ignores or tries not to see-humanity's lived experience as an inescapable part of our search for objective truth. They urge practitioners to reframe how science works for the sake of our future in the face of the planetary climate crisis and increasing science denialism.
When we try to understand reality only through external physical things imagined from this outside position, we lose sight of the necessity of experience. This is the Blind Spot, which the authors show lies behind our scientific conundrums about time and the origin of the universe, quantum physics, life, AI and the mind, consciousness, and Earth as a planetary system. The authors propose an alternative vision: scientific knowledge is a self-correcting narrative made from the world and our experience of it evolving together.
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.
©2024 Adam Frank, Marcelo Gleiser, and Evan Thompson (P)2024 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
-
Conjectures and Refutations
- The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
- By: Karl Popper
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 22 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper’s most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insights into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge but our aims and our standards grow through an unending process of trial and error.
-
-
Essential for Age of AI
- By Chris Mays on 08-08-23
By: Karl Popper
-
The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- By: Marcelo Gleiser
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
-
-
Island of knowledge
- By Joshua Kring on 07-26-15
By: Marcelo Gleiser
-
Why? The Purpose of the Universe
- By: Philip Goff
- Narrated by: Philip Goff
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why are we here? What's the point of existence? On the "big questions" of meaning and purpose, Western thought has been dominated by the dichotomy of traditional religion and secular atheism. In this pioneering work, Philip Goff argues that it is time to move on from both God and atheism. Through an exploration of contemporary cosmology and cutting-edge philosophical research on consciousness, Goff argues for cosmic purpose: the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life.
-
-
Great beginning and middle. Disappointing conclusion.
- By rocky500 on 10-01-24
By: Philip Goff
-
All Things Are Full of Gods
- The Mysteries of Mind and Life
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, "Do you see this flower, my love?"
-
-
It's all in the mind
- By Owen Kelly on 08-30-24
-
Tech Agnostic
- How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation
- By: Greg M. Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Boyles
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today’s technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT’s influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging listeners to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of “tech,” this book argues for tech agnosticism—not worship—as a way of life.
-
-
Woke nonsense
- By Fingersfive on 11-30-24
By: Greg M. Epstein
-
Decoding Jung's Metaphysics
- The Archetypal Semantics of an Experiential Universe
- By: Bernardo Kastrup
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carl Gustav Jung was the 20th century's greatest articulator of the primacy of mind in nature, a view whose origins vanish behind the mists of time. The present book scrutinizes Jung's work to distil and reveal that extraordinary, hidden metaphysical treasure: For Jung, mind and world are one and the same entity; reality is fundamentally experiential, not material; the psyche builds and maintains its body, not the other way around; and the ultimate meaning of our sacrificial lives is to serve God by providing a reflecting mirror to God's own instinctive mentation.
-
-
Fantastic read.
- By Anonymous User on 09-03-23
By: Bernardo Kastrup
-
Conjectures and Refutations
- The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
- By: Karl Popper
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 22 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper’s most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insights into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge but our aims and our standards grow through an unending process of trial and error.
-
-
Essential for Age of AI
- By Chris Mays on 08-08-23
By: Karl Popper
-
The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- By: Marcelo Gleiser
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
-
-
Island of knowledge
- By Joshua Kring on 07-26-15
By: Marcelo Gleiser
-
Why? The Purpose of the Universe
- By: Philip Goff
- Narrated by: Philip Goff
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why are we here? What's the point of existence? On the "big questions" of meaning and purpose, Western thought has been dominated by the dichotomy of traditional religion and secular atheism. In this pioneering work, Philip Goff argues that it is time to move on from both God and atheism. Through an exploration of contemporary cosmology and cutting-edge philosophical research on consciousness, Goff argues for cosmic purpose: the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life.
-
-
Great beginning and middle. Disappointing conclusion.
- By rocky500 on 10-01-24
By: Philip Goff
-
All Things Are Full of Gods
- The Mysteries of Mind and Life
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, "Do you see this flower, my love?"
-
-
It's all in the mind
- By Owen Kelly on 08-30-24
-
Tech Agnostic
- How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation
- By: Greg M. Epstein
- Narrated by: Alex Boyles
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Today’s technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT’s influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging listeners to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of “tech,” this book argues for tech agnosticism—not worship—as a way of life.
-
-
Woke nonsense
- By Fingersfive on 11-30-24
By: Greg M. Epstein
-
Decoding Jung's Metaphysics
- The Archetypal Semantics of an Experiential Universe
- By: Bernardo Kastrup
- Narrated by: Michael Butler Murray
- Length: 4 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carl Gustav Jung was the 20th century's greatest articulator of the primacy of mind in nature, a view whose origins vanish behind the mists of time. The present book scrutinizes Jung's work to distil and reveal that extraordinary, hidden metaphysical treasure: For Jung, mind and world are one and the same entity; reality is fundamentally experiential, not material; the psyche builds and maintains its body, not the other way around; and the ultimate meaning of our sacrificial lives is to serve God by providing a reflecting mirror to God's own instinctive mentation.
-
-
Fantastic read.
- By Anonymous User on 09-03-23
By: Bernardo Kastrup
-
Mathematica
- A Secret World of Intuition and Curiosity
- By: David Bessis, Kevin Frey - translator
- Narrated by: Mike Lenz
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Math has a reputation for being inaccessible. People think that it requires a special gift or that comprehension is a matter of genes. Yet, the greatest mathematicians throughout history, from Rene Descartes to Alexander Grothendieck, have insisted that this is not the case.
-
-
Great General Creativity Guide (w' math as a lens)
- By V. Bandy on 07-19-24
By: David Bessis, and others
-
The Demon in the Machine
- How Hidden Webs of Information Are Solving the Mystery of Life
- By: Paul Davies
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is life? In this penetrating and wide-ranging book, world-renowned physicist and science communicator Paul Davies searches for answers in a field so new and fast-moving that it lacks a name; it is a domain where biology, computing, logic, chemistry, quantum physics, and nanotechnology intersect.
-
-
Thought Provoking
- By Amazon Customer on 08-26-24
By: Paul Davies
-
The Primacy of Doubt
- From Quantum Physics to Climate Change, How the Science of Uncertainty Can Help Us Understand Our Chaotic World
- By: Tim Palmer
- Narrated by: Tim Palmer
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why does your weather app say “there’s a 10 percent chance of rain” instead of “it will be sunny”? In large part, this is due to the insight of award-winning physicist Tim Palmer, who pioneered the introduction of uncertainty into weather and climate prediction. Now, he wants to apply it to how we study everything else.
-
-
Applied chaos theory; beware of quantum quackery
- By James S. on 03-10-23
By: Tim Palmer
-
What Is Metaphysics, What Is Philosophy and Other Writings
- By: Martin Heidegger
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This recording contains four important and related works by Heidegger: 'What Is Philosophy', 'What Is Metaphysics', 'On the Essence of Truth' and 'The Question of Being'.
-
-
English Heidegger
- By Anonymous User on 01-20-25
By: Martin Heidegger
-
Then I Am Myself the World
- What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It
- By: Christof Koch
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book's heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems.
-
-
The Exciting Side of Science
- By Christi McAdams on 02-23-25
By: Christof Koch
-
A Post-Truth World
- Politics, Polarization, and a Vision for Transcending the Chaos
- By: Ken Wilber
- Narrated by: Christopher Ragland
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Our overwhelmingly divisive socio-political climate is among the greatest challenges of our time. Not only in America but also internationally, it seems that almost every issue raises incredibly vocal oppositional views. Not least of all, the arising of vast networks of disinformation is a testament to our deepening rifts. With so much hostility, antagonism, cynicism, and discord, how can we mend the ruptures in our society?
-
-
"Culture wars" = solved! ...
- By pianistcomposer on 07-31-24
By: Ken Wilber
-
Life as No One Knows It
- The Physics of Life's Emergence
- By: Sara Imari Walker
- Narrated by: Sara Imari Walker
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like. In Life as No One Knows It, physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that solving the origin of life requires radical new thinking and an experimentally testable theory for what life is.
-
-
Fascinating thought patterns
- By John linden on 09-10-24
-
The Allure of the Multiverse
- Extra Dimensions, Other Worlds, and Parallel Universes
- By: Paul Halpern
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 11 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Allure of the Multiverse, physicist Paul Halpern tells the epic story of how science became besotted with the multiverse, and the controversies that ensued. The questions that brought scientists to this point are big and deep: Is reality such that anything can happen, must happen? How does quantum mechanics "choose" the outcomes of its apparently random processes? And why is the universe habitable? Each question quickly leads to the multiverse.
-
-
Disappointing
- By Amazon Customer on 02-26-24
By: Paul Halpern
-
Ways of Attending
- How Our Divided Brain Constructs the World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focused, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.
-
-
Basically a short version...
- By Douglas on 04-24-25
By: Iain McGilchrist
-
Being and Time
- By: Martin Heidegger
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain, Taylor Carman
- Length: 23 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Being and Time was published in 1927 during the Weimar period in Germany, a time of political, social and economic turmoil. Heidegger himself did not escape the pressures and his nationalism, and undeniable anti-Semitism in the following decades cast a shadow over the man, but not the work. Being and Time is not coloured by expressions of his later views (unlike other writings) and remains an outstanding document.
-
-
Surprised it works as audio
- By Anonymous on 02-02-20
By: Martin Heidegger
-
Metaphysics
- By: Aristotle
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Aristotle's Metaphysics was the first major study of the subject of metaphysics - in other words, an inquiry into 'first philosophy', or 'wisdom'. It differs from Physics which is concerned with the natural world: things which are subject to the laws of nature, things that move and change, are measurable. In Metaphysics, the study falls on 'being qua being' - being insofar as it is being; the causes and principles of being, the causes and principles of substances.
-
-
More relevant and needed than ever before!!!
- By Dino Valente on 05-31-17
By: Aristotle
-
The Dawn of Mind
- How Matter Became Conscious and Alive
- By: James Cooke PhD
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 11 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Although consciousness is at the very center of who we are, its exact nature continues to confound modern science. From where does consciousness originate? At our core, are we material bodies or immaterial conscious minds? Many assume that consciousness is a product of our complex brains, a product of evolution—and yet, there is no evolutionary reason that a mechanical function of the brain should allow us to enjoy the beauty of a sunrise or become intoxicated with the smell of rain on dry earth.
-
-
Insightful
- By james on 04-04-25
By: James Cooke PhD
People who viewed this also viewed...
-
The Embodied Mind
- Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press)
- By: Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch
- Narrated by: Toby Sheets
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A new edition of a classic work that originated the "embodied cognition" movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices.
-
-
Unfortunate narration.
- By Jose on 07-17-18
By: Francisco J. Varela, and others
-
Light of the Stars
- Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth
- By: Adam Frank
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Light of the Stars is science at the grandest of scales, and it tells a radically new story about what we are: one world in a universe awash in planets. Building on his widely discussed scientific papers and New York Times op-eds, astrophysicist Adam Frank shows that not only is it likely that alien civilizations have existed many times before, but also that many of them have driven their own worlds into dangerous eras of change.
-
-
First steps only
- By David on 11-25-18
By: Adam Frank
-
Why? The Purpose of the Universe
- By: Philip Goff
- Narrated by: Philip Goff
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why are we here? What's the point of existence? On the "big questions" of meaning and purpose, Western thought has been dominated by the dichotomy of traditional religion and secular atheism. In this pioneering work, Philip Goff argues that it is time to move on from both God and atheism. Through an exploration of contemporary cosmology and cutting-edge philosophical research on consciousness, Goff argues for cosmic purpose: the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life.
-
-
Great beginning and middle. Disappointing conclusion.
- By rocky500 on 10-01-24
By: Philip Goff
-
Ways of Attending
- How Our Divided Brain Constructs the World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focused, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.
-
-
Basically a short version...
- By Douglas on 04-24-25
By: Iain McGilchrist
-
The Little Book of Aliens
- By: Adam Frank
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone is curious about life in the Universe, UFOs and whether ET is out there. Over the course of his thirty-year career as an astrophysicist, Adam Frank has consistently been asked about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. Are aliens real? Where are they? Why haven’t we found them? What happens if we do?
-
-
Simply Outstanding
- By CarlosR on 04-22-24
By: Adam Frank
-
All Things Are Full of Gods
- The Mysteries of Mind and Life
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, "Do you see this flower, my love?"
-
-
It's all in the mind
- By Owen Kelly on 08-30-24
-
The Embodied Mind
- Cognitive Science and Human Experience (MIT Press)
- By: Francisco J. Varela, Evan Thompson, Eleanor Rosch
- Narrated by: Toby Sheets
- Length: 10 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A new edition of a classic work that originated the "embodied cognition" movement and was one of the first to link science and Buddhist practices.
-
-
Unfortunate narration.
- By Jose on 07-17-18
By: Francisco J. Varela, and others
-
Light of the Stars
- Alien Worlds and the Fate of the Earth
- By: Adam Frank
- Narrated by: Kevin Pariseau
- Length: 7 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Light of the Stars is science at the grandest of scales, and it tells a radically new story about what we are: one world in a universe awash in planets. Building on his widely discussed scientific papers and New York Times op-eds, astrophysicist Adam Frank shows that not only is it likely that alien civilizations have existed many times before, but also that many of them have driven their own worlds into dangerous eras of change.
-
-
First steps only
- By David on 11-25-18
By: Adam Frank
-
Why? The Purpose of the Universe
- By: Philip Goff
- Narrated by: Philip Goff
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Why are we here? What's the point of existence? On the "big questions" of meaning and purpose, Western thought has been dominated by the dichotomy of traditional religion and secular atheism. In this pioneering work, Philip Goff argues that it is time to move on from both God and atheism. Through an exploration of contemporary cosmology and cutting-edge philosophical research on consciousness, Goff argues for cosmic purpose: the idea that the universe is directed towards certain goals, such as the emergence of life.
-
-
Great beginning and middle. Disappointing conclusion.
- By rocky500 on 10-01-24
By: Philip Goff
-
Ways of Attending
- How Our Divided Brain Constructs the World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Mike Fraser
- Length: 1 hr
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Attention is not just receptive, but actively creative of the world we inhabit. How we attend makes all the difference to the world we experience. And nowadays in the West we generally attend in a rather unusual way: governed by the narrowly focused, target-driven left hemisphere of the brain.
-
-
Basically a short version...
- By Douglas on 04-24-25
By: Iain McGilchrist
-
The Little Book of Aliens
- By: Adam Frank
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Everyone is curious about life in the Universe, UFOs and whether ET is out there. Over the course of his thirty-year career as an astrophysicist, Adam Frank has consistently been asked about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe. Are aliens real? Where are they? Why haven’t we found them? What happens if we do?
-
-
Simply Outstanding
- By CarlosR on 04-22-24
By: Adam Frank
-
All Things Are Full of Gods
- The Mysteries of Mind and Life
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Rachael Beresford
- Length: 22 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In a blossoming garden located far outside all worlds, a group of aging Greek gods have gathered to discuss the nature of existence, the mystery of mind, and whether there is a transcendent God from whom all things come. Turning to Eros, Psyche asks, "Do you see this flower, my love?"
-
-
It's all in the mind
- By Owen Kelly on 08-30-24
-
Putting Ourselves Back in the Equation
- Why Physicists Are Studying Human Consciousness and AI to Unravel the Mysteries of the Universe
- By: George Musser
- Narrated by: Alan Peterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Strong Start, Discursive Ending
- By Oliver on 01-17-24
By: George Musser
-
Life as No One Knows It
- The Physics of Life's Emergence
- By: Sara Imari Walker
- Narrated by: Sara Imari Walker
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What is life? This is among the most difficult open problems in science, right up there with the nature of consciousness and the existence of matter. All the definitions we have fall short. None help us understand how life originates or the full range of possibilities for what life on other planets might look like. In Life as No One Knows It, physicist and astrobiologist Sara Imari Walker argues that solving the origin of life requires radical new thinking and an experimentally testable theory for what life is.
-
-
Fascinating thought patterns
- By John linden on 09-10-24
-
The Island of Knowledge
- The Limits of Science and the Search for Meaning
- By: Marcelo Gleiser
- Narrated by: William Neenan
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How much can we know about the world? In this audiobook physicist Marcelo Gleiser traces our search for answers to the most fundamental questions of existence, the origin of the universe, the nature of reality, and the limits of knowledge. In so doing he reaches a provocative conclusion: Science, like religion, is fundamentally limited as a tool for understanding the world. As science and its philosophical interpretations advance, we face the unsettling recognition of how much we don't know.
-
-
Island of knowledge
- By Joshua Kring on 07-26-15
By: Marcelo Gleiser
-
Then I Am Myself the World
- What Consciousness Is and How to Expand It
- By: Christof Koch
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Then I Am Myself the World, Christof Koch explores the only thing we directly experience: consciousness. At the book's heart is integrated-information theory, the idea that the essence of consciousness is the ability to exert causal power over itself, to be an agent of change. Koch investigates the physical origins of consciousness in the brain and how this knowledge can be used to measure consciousness in natural and artificial systems.
-
-
The Exciting Side of Science
- By Christi McAdams on 02-23-25
By: Christof Koch
-
Silicon
- From the Invention of the Microprocessor to the New Science of Consciousness
- By: Federico Faggin
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The creation of the microprocessor launched the digital age. The key technology allowing unprecedented integration, and the design of the world’s first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, were the achievement of Federico Faggin. In Silicon, internationally recognized inventor and entrepreneur Federico Faggin chronicles his “four lives”: his formative years in war-torn Northern Italy, his pioneering work in American microelectronics, his successful career as a high-tech entrepreneur, and his more recent explorations into the mysteries of consciousness.
-
-
Thought provoking!
- By Sasa Pocek on 12-26-23
By: Federico Faggin
-
Galileo's Error
- Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness
- By: Philip Goff
- Narrated by: Maxwell Caulfield
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Understanding how brains produce consciousness is one of the great scientific challenges of our age. Some philosophers argue that consciousness is something "extra", beyond the physical workings of the brain. Others think that if we persist in our standard scientific methods, our questions about consciousness will eventually be answered. And some suggest that the mystery is so deep, it will never be solved.
-
-
Good but basic
- By ginger on 01-23-20
By: Philip Goff
-
Waves in an Impossible Sea
- How Everyday Life Emerges from the Cosmic Ocean
- By: Matt Strassler
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 11 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Waves in an Impossible Sea, physicist Matt Strassler tells a startling tale of elementary particles, human experience, and empty space. He begins with a simple mystery of motion. When we drive at highway speeds with the windows down, the wind beats against our faces. Yet our planet hurtles through the cosmos at 150 miles per second, and we feel nothing of it. How can our voyage be so tranquil when, as Einstein discovered, matter warps space, and space deflects matter? The answer, Strassler reveals, is that empty space is a sea, albeit a paradoxically strange one.
-
-
No pdf
- By Mark on 01-14-25
By: Matt Strassler
-
Euclid's Window
- The Story of Geometry from Parallel Lines to Hyperspace
- By: Leonard Mlodinow
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Through Euclid's Window Leonard Mlodinow brilliantly and delightfully leads us on a journey through five revolutions in geometry, from the Greek concept of parallel lines to the latest notions of hyperspace. Here is an altogether new, refreshing, alternative history of math revealing how simple questions anyone might ask about space -- in the living room or in some other galaxy -- have been the hidden engine of the highest achievements in science and technology.
-
-
Wow!
- By Eric on 08-13-10
By: Leonard Mlodinow
-
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
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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.
-
-
Rambling but Asks Good Questions
- By Michael on 12-19-15
By: George Musser
-
Reality+
- Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy
- By: David J. Chalmers
- Narrated by: Grant Cartwright
- Length: 17 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Virtual reality is genuine reality; that’s the central thesis of Reality+. In a highly original work of “technophilosophy,” David J. Chalmers gives a compelling analysis of our technological future. He argues that virtual worlds are not second-class worlds, and that we can live a meaningful life in virtual reality. We may even be in a virtual world already.
-
-
A book that could have been an email
- By Peter C. on 04-15-22
-
Psychopolitics
- Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power
- By: Byung-Chul Han
- Narrated by: Peter Noble
- Length: 2 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Byung-Chul Han, a star of German philosophy, continues his passionate critique of neoliberalism, trenchantly describing a regime of technological domination that, in contrast to Foucault’s biopower, has discovered the productive force of the psyche.
-
-
Jargon and ambiguity are not honest intellectualism
- By carsonwelker on 10-18-24
By: Byung-Chul Han
-
The World Behind the World
- Consciousness, Free Will, and the Limits of Science
- By: Erik Hoel
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 7 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Throughout history, two perspectives on the world have dueled in our minds: the extrinsic—that of mechanism and physics—and the intrinsic—that of feelings, thoughts, and ideas. The intrinsic perspective allows us to tell stories about our lives, to chart our anger and our lust, to understand our psychologies. The extrinsic allows us to chart the physical world, to build upon it, and to travel across it. These perspectives have never been reconciled; they almost seem to exist on different planes of thought.
-
-
An insightful overview of consciousness research
- By Vanilor on 07-27-24
By: Erik Hoel
What listeners say about The Blind Spot
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Erin
- 10-30-24
Dense audiobook but intriguing read
This is pretty dense for an audiobook, but my bigger issue is who this book is for. I’m an academic but not a scientist or a philosopher, and I felt like this book assumed that readers would already have a specialist’s knowledge in places. Intriguing read nonetheless.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Oliver
- 11-02-24
A point that needed to be made.
The Blind Spot makes an important point about the flaws and paradoxes that arise from common philosophical attitudes among scientists. The authors demonstrate that scientific thinking can be separated from these attitudes.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Daniel L Mercer
- 08-01-24
Good book.
A much needed injection of humility into our divided world. Stupid fifteen word minimum. I was so concise, and now I must blather.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- William
- 05-14-24
a resource worth reading in parallel to listening
opening physics chapters shruggable, but comes into its own with biological, AI, consciousness, and biosphere. IMO too dense for a stand-alone audiobook, but still the content is worth engaging with. Missed the mesoscale concepts of material science, like bending paperclip till fatigue failure -- that's an expression of physical duration.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful