Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think by Byron Reese

Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think by Byron Reese

Byron Reese gets to the heart of what makes humans different from all others.' -- Midwest Book Review. What makes the human mind so unique? And how did we get this way? This fascinating tale explores the three leaps in our history that made us what we are -- and will change how you think about our future. Look around. Clearly, we humans are radically different from the other creatures on this planet. But why? Where are the Bronze Age beavers? The Iron Age iguanas? In Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think, Byron Reese argues that we owe our special status to our ability to imagine the future and recall the past, escaping the perpetual present that all other living creatures are trapped in. Envisioning human history as the development of a societal superorganism he names Agora, Reese shows us how this escape enabled us to share knowledge on an unprecedented scale, and predict -- and eventually master -- the future. Thoughtful, witty, and compulsively readable, Reese unravels our history as an intelligent species in three acts: Act I: Ancient humans undergo 'the awakening,' developing the cognitive ability to mentally time-travel using language; Act II: In 17th century France, the mathematical framework known as 'probability theory' is born -- a science for seeing into the future that we used to build the modern world; Act III: Beginning with the invention of the computer chip, humanity creates machines to gaze into the future with even more precision, overcoming the limits of our brains. A fresh new look at the history and destiny of humanity, readers will come away from Stories, Dice, and Rocks that Think with a new understanding of what they are -- not just another animal, but a creature with a mastery of time itself.

Byron Reese is the founder of several high-tech companies and has obtained or has pending numerous patents in disciplines as varied as crowdsourcing, content creation, and psychographics. Together the websites he has launched have received over a billion visitors, covering a variety of topics including news, reference, and history.
Bloomberg Businessweek credits Reese as having quietly pioneered a new breed of media company and the Financial Times describes him as one of the new wave of internet entrepreneurs out to turn the economics of the media industry on its head. Even Business Insider calls him an awesome guy.
Reese currently heads up research and development for Demand Media (NYSE: DMD)

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781637741344
ISBN 10	1637741340
Title	Stories, Dice, and Rocks That Think
Author	Byron Reese
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	BenBella Books
Year published	2022-08-23
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.