
Ways of Being
Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence
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Narrated by:
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James Bridle
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By:
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James Bridle
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans - or do we share it with other beings?
Recent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognised. These other beings are the animals, plants and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we've built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours.
In Ways of Being, writer and artist James Bridle considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on Earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn and many worlds to gain.
©2022 James Bridle (P)2022 Penguin AudioCritic reviews
Bridle's writing weaves cultural threads that aren't usually seen together, and the resulting tapestry is iridescently original, deeply disorientating and yet somehow radically hopeful. The only futures that are viable will probably feel like that. This is a pretty amazing book, worth reading and rereading. (Brian Eno)
New ways of thinking
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This book deserves an award
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Thought provoking
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Of course, the whole thing feels overly optimistic in the era of Trump 2: "Technological processes like artificial intelligence won't build a better world by themselves, just as they won't tell us anything useful about general intelligence. What they can do is lay bare real workings of the moral and more than human landscape we find ourselves in and to inspire us to create better worlds together."
An excellent synthesis of recent thinking on intelligence
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Stunning beautifully conceived
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Humbling, timely and mind shifting
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Inspiring, informative, mindset-shifting
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Superb
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Expansive
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My book of the decade
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