Synopsis
Beginnings is a most entertaining book that explores the nature of innovation. It argues that, because all things we experience were once new, they must have a common essence. The author reduces this essence to that strange, buzzing process in which we are all immersed, "dynamical information." With the aid of nearly fifty illustrations, Beginnings then shows this universal process -- varying in its diverse settings only to our unaccustomed eyes -- to underlie the origins of strikingly different entities. The book answers why? and how? by confronting enduring issues in the biological, physical and social sciences and philosophy. Offered also are insights into why each of us is a spectrum of "selves" and the question, what is life?
Beginnings' many examples clarify topics such as how our minds work so flexibly, how we create new works (using Shakespeare's and others'), how human networks form and their ensuing tendencies, what is authority and why we conform to it despite its surprising sources, the fundamental importance of diversity, how new ideas are accepted -- or not -- by groups, the inspiring implications of these new patterns of life and, paradoxically, how we less-than-perfect creatures succeed.
To all you readers who enjoy engrossing works: here's a book that offers a unique, multidimensional perspective of our world and the human condition.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
Dennis Hollenberg, inventor, writer and pioneer in the field of innovation as a dynamical information process of complex systems, first published his ground-breaking ideas in 1986. He lives with his family on the West Coast.
From the Inside Flap
How are your personal beliefs, an Amazonian ecosystem and a Shakespearean sonnet alike? All, author Dennis Hollenberg shows us, are enlivened by the same kind of underlying activity. Exactly what sort of entities perform this activity and how they go about it are the main topics of Beginnings.
In investigating them -- which by turns leads to a vaulting new view of the world -- the writer plays common notions against some very strange realities. Although many writers tell us that the world is complex, Hollenberg unshrouds complexity itself and shows how it has repeatedly bloomed.
Beginnings also unfolds like an odyssey among many of the issues which roil our society today. Neither science disciplines, such as those of genetics and evolution, nor our more personal ideas of religion and philosophy are shielded from the intimate inquiry its perspective affords. Here are answers to enigmatic questions such as, how could nineteen people so strongly cohere to suicidally destroy thousands of innocent lives?
As the many examples make plain, all such activities, however hidden we think they are, derive from like processes and, therefore, submit to this elegant new tool of analysis. Beginnings connects an ancient Greek's obscure 2500 year old musings and the perspectives of both Erasmus Darwin and his famous grandson with the elusive insights of the Nobel Prize winning geneticist, Barbara McClintock.
Beginnings avoids the paths of crass scientism and dogma-blinded religionists. Instead, it ushers readers toward its compelling horizon with insightful asides and subtle humor. This third way reveals the hidden actions that culminate in new ideas and new life forms. All of these entities, like artistic expression, babies and ecosystems, involve complex systems. Aptly titled, this book is about their origins.
Readers who enjoy surprising guides to the back roads of the universe will, in Beginnings, find their view extended at every turn. But, fair warning, accompanying the reader on this journey is the chance of being forever changed.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Search results for Beginnings: Creativity, Belief, Evolution and Our Interconne...
Stock Image
Beginnings: Creativity, Belief, Evolution and Our Interconnected Universe
Seller: St Vincent de Paul of Lane County, Eugene, OR, U.S.A.
Seller rating 5 out of 5 stars
Condition: Like New. hardcover 100% of proceeds go to charity! Clean copy with no writing, notes, creases or highlighting. Item may have been opened and read, but signs of use are minimal. Seller Inventory # V-02-3309