The Knowledge Machine
How Irrationality Created Modern Science
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Narrated by:
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Julian Elfer
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By:
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Michael Strevens
About this listen
A paradigm-shifting work that revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science.
Captivatingly written, interwoven with historical vignettes ranging from Newton's alchemy to quantum mechanics to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Michael Strevens' wholly original investigation of science asks two fundamental questions: Why is science so powerful? And why did it take so long, 2,000 years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics, for the human race to start using science to learn the secrets of nature? The Knowledge Machine's radical answer is that science calls on its practitioners to do something irrational: By willfully ignoring religion, theoretical beauty, and, especially, philosophy - essentially stripping away all previous knowledge - scientists embrace an unnaturally narrow method of inquiry, channeling unprecedented energy into observation and experimentation.
Like Yuval Harari's Sapiens or Thomas Kuhn's 1962 classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine overturns much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world.
©2020 Michael Strevens (P)2020 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Already internationally acclaimed for his elegant, lucid writing on the most challenging notions in modern physics, Sean Carroll is emerging as one of the greatest humanist thinkers of his generation as he brings his extraordinary intellect to bear not only on the Higgs boson and extra dimensions but now also on our deepest personal questions. Where are we? Who are we? Are our emotions, our beliefs, and our hopes and dreams ultimately meaningless out there in the void?
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ABSOLUTE MUST READ!
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The World According to Physics
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Shining a light on the most profound insights revealed by modern physics, Jim Al-Khalili invites us all to understand what this crucially important science tells us about the universe and the nature of reality itself. Al-Khalili begins by introducing the fundamental concepts of space, time, energy, and matter, and then describes the three pillars of modern physics - quantum theory, relativity, and thermodynamics - showing how all three must come together if we are ever to have a full understanding of reality.
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excellent book
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In this fascinating and illuminating work, Leonard Mlodinow guides us through the critical eras and events in the development of science, all of which, he demonstrates, were propelled forward by humankind's collective struggle to know. From the birth of reasoning and culture to the formation of the studies of physics, chemistry, biology, and modern-day quantum physics, we come to see that much of our progress can be attributed to simple questions - why? how? - bravely asked.
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10/10 Got What I Wanted.
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When Matthieu Ricard and Trinh Thuan met at an academic conference in the summer of 1997, they began discussing the many remarkable connections between the teachings of Buddhism and the findings of recent science. That conversation grew into an astonishing correspondence exploring a series of fascinating questions. Did the universe have a beginning? Might our perception of time in fact be an illusion, a phenomenon created in our brains that has no ultimate reality? What is consciousness and how did it evolve?
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The
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Sagan's lectures about the possibility of God
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Disappointing
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Over two millennia ago, the prescient insights of Anaximander paved the way for cosmology, physics, geography, meteorology, and biology, setting in motion a new way of seeing the world. His legacy includes the revolutionary ideas that the Earth floats in a void, that animals evolved, that the world can be understood in natural rather than supernatural terms, and that universal laws govern all phenomena. In this elegant work, the renowned theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli brings to light the importance of Anaximander’s overlooked influence on modern science
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Wide ranging case for a Critical Figure in the Evolution of Science
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The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
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A good book may have the power to change the way we see the world, but a great book actually becomes part of our daily consciousness, pervading our thinking to the point that we take it for granted, and we forget how provocative and challenging its ideas once were - and still are. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that kind of book.
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The problem is not with the book
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The Grand Biocentric Design
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What is consciousness? Why are we here? Where did it all come from - the laws of nature, the stars, the universe? Humans have been asking these questions forever, but science hasn't succeeded in providing many answers - until now. In The Grand Biocentric Design, Robert Lanza, one of Time magazine's "100 Most Influential People", is joined by theoretical physicist Matej Pavšic and astronomer Bob Berman to shed light on the big picture that has long eluded philosophers and scientists alike.
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Should be in the fiction section.
- By Frank on 12-29-20
By: Robert Lanza, and others
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What listeners say about The Knowledge Machine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Ivan
- 06-26-21
Beautifully written, fascinating thesis
Strevens must have studied the flowers of rhetoric, because this book is so beautifully written. The thesis is that science is successful and has so much continuity because it demands an "irrational" separation between cold, empirical reporting and the aesthetic judgements of individual scientists (who are nonetheless permitted to express their views informally). Strevens argues that this kind of separation is unnatural and counterintuitive, and that it was only in the peculiar, Newtonian, post 30 Years War milieu of 17th century Europe that such a separation could arise.
Overall, I find the argument compelling, but I'm not expert enough to pronounce judgment on its correctness. I was hoping to hear the author connect his theory with Bayesian models of inquiry, but I think I know how he might do that.
If you think science is a simple matter of falsification, this book will help set you straight. Either way, this was a really fun listen.
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3 people found this helpful
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- appmur3030
- 02-08-23
Eye opening and informative
After finishing “The Enlightenment,” this was a good companion that focused on science in a fresh way.
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- Anonymous User
- 08-21-24
An exceptionally good book
A great analysis of the foundations of modern science. A very well written book that draws on the author's vast knowledge of the history of science and presents some fantastic insights on what has made the scientific method so successful.
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- ScottF
- 01-02-23
Awe
This is an important read . We live in elegance and order. The author shares his understanding and it is wonder..
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- Sean Clement
- 04-13-21
The best book I have consumed in a very long time.
Hard to overstate the breadth of so short a work, The Knowledge Machine attempts to explain the rationality, irrationality, objective and subjective pieces that come together to form science and it's demarcation from natural philosophy. A must read for any science or science adjacent person.
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- Anthony I. Jack
- 08-01-22
Fascinating story of how science came to be
Strevens gives a strong and historically well illustrated account of the development of modern science. His claim is that science took so long to fully develop because it requires a type of irrationality - an unreasonable narrowing of thought. As far as it goes, the book is strong and enjoyable to read. My main complaint is that Strevens does little to clarify other types of reasoning and where they might play an important role that science alone cannot fulfill.
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- John
- 05-02-21
Almost there. Scholarly review.
I wanted the book to succeed, but it fails. Science is distinct from mere engineering precisely because more than prediction and control matter; theory does too. The Iron Rule (i) marginalizes or altogether ignores the role of the creation of new forms of mathematics (e.g. statistics, calculus, information theory, causality, topology etc.),(ii) the development of regimented reference to real objects which expand language & linguistic inferential capacities, and (iii) the generation of "styles of reasoning" (cf. Hacking) which expand what can be talked about and connect experimental phenomenon to theory. All three components are part of scientific communication, not just informal conversation and thing, and any can decisively decide debates. These new kinds of logics, empirically motivated or forced (e.g. Fourier analysis) allow for kinds of debate distinct from before the Scientific Revolution(SR), but which don't suffer the pathologies of "natural philosophy": endless cycles of debate and the generation of distinct schools of thought.
Mathematics can alone constrains the antics of the world and saves us from countless unnecessary experiments, trials and controls. Science is not a pile of data or an Iron Rule "to look", but also a developing theoretical framework increasingly free of Bacon's language idol and replaces old words with an ever-growing empirically rich language that unifies and can falsify in practice as well as experiment.. The generation and effort into regimenting a language with references to actual, causally relevant objects, and the languages role in gluing together phenomenon and providing inferences similar to mathematical ones, capable of deciding debate is ignored.
This shortcoming produces another; how is it that a scientific operationalization (reduction of a hypothesis to an experiment) counts as good or relevant? Pragmatists have an answer: it comes down to generating a desired power over nature, but pandemonium is in the details, and Strevens ignores this mystery. (He almost gets it with his rhyming thought experiment). As a former practicing scientist the creative act of testing a hypothesis often included a concomitant persuasive act of convincing others the experiment is relevant, and this requires a "Style of Reasoning", which is not quite a paradigm, but which requires education and practice to develop. The Iron Rule presumes operationalization is easy, when it is not.
Summary: I wish the inter-workings of the knowledge machine were fully exposed, but much remains a black box.
(1) How does a new mathematics form and become authoritative?
(2) How do new ways of talking generate right material inferences?
(3) What sorts of "Bridge Law" consensuses connect a proposed operationalization from experiment to verbal/mathematical theory?
These are severe shortcomings. The knowledge machine is held together by theory, not merely facts or tricks or hacks (like machine translation or GPT-3, so much AI work, engineering formulae or Sui Dynasty Chinese canal building). Scientific data connect like lego blocks into a structure of stable theories, with a shape that allows for mathematical and linguistic inference and the appropriate placement of new blocks of observations.
Sociologically, the works failure to regard the role of replicability and technology in science. Accumulation of data doesn't just happen, because people re-test general relativity, for example, but because subsequent experiments require scientists to reproduce previous experiments to move forward. In the biological sciences, re-using a strain or protein for further inquiry critically augments knowledge. And, in areas where science translates to commercial applications, successful commercial technologies can settle debates (Heavier than air controlled flight happens, contrary to theorists who denied the possibility.).
As for the historical scholarship, there is nothing novel. But, too little credit is given to Boyle who set forth the rules of communication, and too much to Newton whose remarks were ignored on the Continent, while Boyle was not. Newton broke his metaphysical "shallowness" when it came to light and "absolute space".
A worthy attempt, part of the story for sure, but lots missing. We still don't know how the knowledge machine works.
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- Pedro
- 04-05-23
cutting the Gordian knot
what makes the scientific method so effective is the ruthlessness with which it pursues the truth. this was a great reader and a helpful way to look at the debate. a must read for all science fans and philosophical types.
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- Admin
- 04-13-23
Excellent
Strevens’s book is clear and in touch with the literature and history of science and scientific development. This should be required reading for philosophers of science and scientists alike.
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-18-23
Somewhat entertaining if you find irony funny.
First, the narration was great! Good job there! Unfortunately that is the nicest thing I can say about this book. The author comes across as an idiot who's ignorance on the supposed subject of this book is blatantly clear. This reads like a regurgitation of dogma dictated by a particularly liberal college professor by a poor college student just trying to pass their class with a "C". Though I'd grade this drivel a "D" for the complete lack of understanding and verifiably false claims used to support arguments. I was really hoping for something engaging on a interesting topic but I regret wasting my time on this book. SKIP
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