The Runaway Species: How Human Creativity Remakes the World - Hardcover

Eagleman, David; Brandt, Anthony

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0857862065 ISBN 13: 9780857862068

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2017

Synopsis

Our ability to remake our world is unique among all living things. But where does our creativity come from, how does it work, and how can we harness it to improve our lives, schools, businesses, and institutions? The Runaway Species is a deep-dive into the creative mind, a celebration of the human spirit, and a vision of how we can improve our future by understanding and embracing our ability to innovate. Composer Anthony Brandt and neurologist David Eagleman seek to discover what lies at the heart of humanity's ability-and drive-to create. Examining hundreds of examples of human creativity, Brandt and Eagleman draw out what creative acts have in common and view them through the lens of cutting-edge neuroscience, uncovering the essential elements of this critical human ability and encouraging a more creative future for all of us.

About this title

About the Author:

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist and the New York Times bestselling author of Sum and Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain. The writer and host of the Emmy-nominated PBS television series The Brain, he is an adjunct professor at Stanford University, a Guggenheim fellow, and the director of the Center for Science and Law. He has also written for publications such as Discover Magazine, and he appears regularly on National Public Radio and the BBC.

Review:

Praise for Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain
"A stunning exploration of the 'we' behind the 'I'. Eagleman reveals, with his typical grace and eloquence, all the neural magic tricks behind the cognitive illusion we call reality." —Jonah Lehrer, author of How We Decide
"Eagleman has a talent for testing the untestable, for taking seemingly sophomoric notions and using them to nail down the slippery stuff of consciousness." —The New Yorker
"Written in clear, precise language, the book is sure to appeal to readers with an interest in psychology and the human mind, but it will also please people who just want to know, with a little more clarity, what is going on inside their own skulls." —Booklist
"A popularizer of impressive gusto...[Eagleman] aims, grandly, to do for the study of the mind what Copernicus did for the study of the stars." —New York Observer
"Incognito does the right thing by diving straight into the deep end and trying to swim. Eagleman, by imagining the future so vividly, puts into relief just how challenging neuroscience is, and will be." —Boston Globe
"Eagleman engagingly sums up recent discoveries about the unconscious processes that dominate our mental life." —The New York Times Book Review
"Incognito feels like learning the secrets of a magician. In clear prose, Eagleman condenses complex concepts and reinforces his points through analogies, pop culture, current events, optical illusions, anecdotes, and fun facts." —Frontier Psychiatrist
"Buy this book. The pithy observations, breezy language and wow-inducing anecdotes provide temporary pleasure, but the book's real strength is in its staying power." —Science News
Praise For Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
"A clever little book by a neuroscientist translates lofty concepts of infinity and death into accessible human terms. What happens after we die? Eagleman wonders in each of these brief, evocative segments. Eagleman's turned out a well-executed and thought-provoking book." —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"This delightful, thought-provoking little collection belongs to that category of strange, unclassifiable books that will haunt the reader long after the last page has been turned. It is full of tangential insights into the human condition and poetic thought experiments . . . . It is also full of touching moments and glorious wit of the sort one only hopes will be in copious supply on the other side." —The New York Times
"Neuroscientist Eagleman offers 40 fates that may await us in the afterlife. A close reading of each carefully measured chapter provides an insight into human nature that is both poignant and sobering... Eagleman's engaging mixture of dark humor, witty quips, and unsettling observations about the human psyche should engage a readership extending from New Age buffs to amateur philosophers." —Carl Hays, Booklist
"Eagleman is a true original. Read Sum and be amazed."—Time Magazine
"You will not read a more dazzling book this year than David Eagleman's Sum. If you read it and aren't enchanted I will eat 40 hats." —Stephen Fry
"Teeming, writhing with imagination." —Los Angeles Times
"David Eagleman's Sum envisions a multiplicity of afterlives: pasts relived in shuffle mode, cast in the dreams of others, and dictated by our credit card reports."—Vanity Fair
"David Eagleman's SUM is a captivating collection of vignettes that portray possible afterlives–creatively conceived and deftly described. Each tale imagines an unexpected reality that might await us, possible worlds that illuminate life with colors rarely encountered." —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe
Praise for The Brain: The Story of You
"An ideal introduction to how biology generates the mind.... structured around crucial and wide-ranging questions, saturated with personal and social relevance. And Eagleman's answers are consistently clear, engaging and thought-provoking." —Nature
"David Eagleman's wide-ranging roundup of the current state of knowledge about the brain is concise, accessible and often very surprising. It's a strange new world inside your head." —Brian Eno
"David Eagleman's The Brain it's an astonishing read. On every page there is a revelation so fantastic as to make one gasp. It would be impossible to take in if we didn't all possess that impossibly extraordinary thing, a brain. Eagleman comes closer than anyone to solving the mystery of how to find the self inside the grey electric mush between our ears." —Stephen Fry
"David Eagleman makes it easy to comprehend the most complex collection of cells in the Cosmos - our brain. If neuroscience had a rock legend this would be him." —Ruby Wax

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0857862065
• ISBN 13: 9780857862068
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304