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What Is Life?
- With Mind and Matter and Autobiographical Sketches
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 6 hrs and 8 mins
- Categories: Science & Engineering, Science
Non-member price: $24.37
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In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. The book's central concern is what philosophers call the "mind-body problem". Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness.
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Not adapted for audio book. Inscrutable to laymen.
- By Anonymous User on 12-10-2020
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In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
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The first few hours was interesting the rest was really boring
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From the best-selling author of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics comes a new audiobook about the mind-bending nature of the universe. What are time and space made of? Where does matter come from? And what exactly is reality? Scientist Carlo Rovelli has spent his whole life exploring these questions and pushing the boundaries of what we know. Here he explains how our image of the world has changed throughout centuries.
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Beautifully written and delivered
- By Gav on 24-02-2019
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Until the End of Time
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A journey across time, from our most refined understanding of the universe's beginning, to the closest science can take us to the very end. Explore how life and mind emerged from the initial chaos and how our minds, in coming to understand their own impermanence, seek in different ways to give meaning to experience: in story, myth, religion, creative expression, science, the quest for truth and our longing for the timeless or eternal.
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Clever author just too compacted
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I Am a Strange Loop
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One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks where the self comes from - and how our selves can exist in the minds of others. I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop" - a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called "I". The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.
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5 stars all the way.
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Something Deeply Hidden
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Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
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This book is bloody brilliant
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Not adapted for audio book. Inscrutable to laymen.
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In a rarified world of scientific research, a revolution has been brewing. Its activists are not anarchists, but rather Nobel Laureates in physics and economics and pony-tailed graduates, mathematicians, and computer scientists from all over the world. They have formed an iconoclastic think-tank and their radical idea is to create a new science: complexity. They want to know how a primordial soup of simple molecules managed to turn itself into the first living cell--and what the origin of life some four billion years ago can tell us about the process of technological innovation today.
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The first few hours was interesting the rest was really boring
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Beautifully written and delivered
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Until the End of Time
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Clever author just too compacted
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One of our greatest philosophers and scientists of the mind asks where the self comes from - and how our selves can exist in the minds of others. I Am a Strange Loop argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the "strange loop" - a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called "I". The "I" is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.
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5 stars all the way.
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Something Deeply Hidden
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Sean Carroll, theoretical physicist and one of this world’s most celebrated writers on science, rewrites the history of 20th-century physics. Already hailed as a masterpiece, Something Deeply Hidden shows for the first time that facing up to the essential puzzle of quantum mechanics utterly transforms how we think about space and time. His reconciling of quantum mechanics with Einstein’s theory of relativity changes, well, everything. Most physicists haven’t even recognized the uncomfortable truth: Physics has been in crisis since 1927.
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Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe.
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Fascinating and thought provoking
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Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics written and read by Carlo Rovelli. These seven short lessons guide us, with admirable clarity, through the scientific revolution that shook physics in the 20th century and still continues to shake us today.
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short and sweet
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Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space and it thrives amidst nuclear radiation. In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems.
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Mesmerizing
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How can a blind person learn to see with her tongue or a deaf person learn to hear with his skin? What does a baby born without a nose tell us about our sensory machinery? Might we someday control a robot with our thoughts? And what does any of this have to do with why we dream? The answers to these questions are not right in front of our eyes; they're right behind our eyes. This book is not simply about what the brain is but what it does. Covering decades of research to the present day, Livewired also presents new findings from Eagleman's own research.
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My input
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An Introduction to Information Theory
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Behind the familiar surfaces of the telephone, radio, and television lies a sophisticated and intriguing body of knowledge known as information theory. This is the theory that has permitted the rapid development of all sorts of communication, from color television to the clear transmission of photographs from the vicinity of Jupiter. Even more revolutionary progress is expected in the future.
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From Bacteria to Bach and Back
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What is human consciousness, and how is it possible? This question fascinates thinking people from poets and painters to physicists, psychologists, and philosophers. From Bacteria to Bach and Back is Daniel C. Dennett's brilliant answer, extending perspectives from his earlier work in surprising directions, exploring the deep interactions of evolution, brains, and human culture.
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Bach at it again
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The Book of Why
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"Correlation does not imply causation". This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, sparked by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed causality - the study of cause and effect - on a firm scientific basis.
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Amazing book
- By Anonymous User on 09-07-2018
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The Big Picture
- On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
- By: Sean Carroll
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- Unabridged
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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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Sean's done it again 😁
- By Anonymous User on 07-07-2020
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Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- By: Richard P. Feynman
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With his characteristic eyebrow-raising behavior, Richard P. Feynman once provoked the wife of a Princeton dean to remark, "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!" But the many scientific and personal achievements of this Nobel Prize-winning physicist are no laughing matter. Here, woven with his scintillating views on modern science, Feynman relates the defining moments of his accomplished life.
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amazing book
- By AB on 29-08-2019
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Lost in Math
- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
- By: Sabine Hossenfelder
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
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Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: Observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria.
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The Deficit Myth
- Modern Monetary Theory and How to Build a Better Economy
- By: Stephanie Kelton
- Narrated by: Stephanie Kelton
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- Unabridged
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Any ambitious proposal - ranging from fixing crumbling infrastructure to Medicare for all or preventing the coming climate apocalypse - inevitably sparks questions: how can we afford it? How can we pay for it? Stephanie Kelton points out how misguided those questions really are by using the bold ideas of modern monetary theory (MMT), a fundamentally different approach to using our resources to maximise our potential as a society.
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Essential reading/listening
- By Anthony on 18-06-2020
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Biology: The Science of Life
- By: Stephen Nowicki, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Stephen Nowicki
- Length: 36 hrs and 38 mins
- Original Recording
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One of the greatest scientific feats of our era is the astonishing progress made in understanding biology-the intricate machinery of life-a progress to which the period we are living in right now has contributed the most.As you read these words, researchers are delving ever deeper into the workings of living systems, turning their discoveries into new medical treatments, improved methods of growing food, and innovative products that are already changing the world.
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Brilliant
- By Malcolm on 26-05-2017
Publisher's Summary
Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger's What is Life? is one of the great science classics of the 20th century. A distinguished physicist's exploration of the question which lies at the heart of biology, it was written for the layman but proved one of the spurs to the birth of molecular biology and the subsequent discovery of the structure of DNA. The philosopher Karl Popper hailed it as a "beautiful and important book" by "a great man to whom I owe a personal debt for many exciting discussions."
It appears here together with "Mind and Matter", his essay investigating a relationship which has eluded and puzzled philosophers since the earliest times. Schrödinger asks what place consciousness occupies in the evolution of life and what part the state of development of the human mind plays in moral questions.
Brought together with these two classics are Schrödinger's autobiographical sketches. They offer a fascinating fragmentary account of his life as a background to his scientific writings, making this volume a valuable addition to the shelves of scientist and layman alike.
What listeners say about What Is Life?
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 29-12-2020
An interesting read.
At times the author tends to drift into speculation about mechanisms of human evolution in particular that is based on a now dated view of natural selection: as being a process of 'perfecting' traits to an optimal form in an unchanging fitness landscape. This is reflecting views that were often held at the time of writing and of course without the benefit of the last 60 years of research to shape the authors arguments. That being said the book is very detailed and provides many interesting and thought provocing observations on life the universe and everything and in a very engaging manner. Well worth a read and I would suggest useful as part of further reading material for students of evolutionary biology.
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- Philomath
- 25-01-2019
An extraordinary look at life by a Physicist
One needs to read this book in context. Erwin Schrodinger was an Austrian physicist who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of quantum wave theory in 1934 and was a pioneer of Quantum Theory. This is not only a unique book because it shows biology and the complexity of Life through the eyes of a quantum physicist, but also through the inquisitive and rigorous lens of a theorist. It is no wonder that this book was an inspiration to many prominent scientist of late 20th and early 21st century. Fascinating in its explanation of life as an extension of chemistry and physics one cannot but be amazed at the collaboration of molecules in a symphony creating cells the basic building blocks of life. This is mandatory reading for all scientists, and a true treasure in insightful critical thinking across many fields. A highly recommended classic.
8 people found this helpful
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- From Sacramento
- 01-10-2020
illuminating and superb narration
the latin french and german was spot on, on top of the incredibly illuminating content in physics biology consciousness and philosophy. greatest questions of all time. spectacular..
1 person found this helpful
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- Marty L. Illers
- 07-06-2020
Scientific Thinking At Its Very Best.
The only thing that parallels the quality of this writing is the quality of the reader. I listen to this book over and over - the clarity of Schrödinger, his thought and syntax style is inspiring.
1 person found this helpful
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- Michael D. Fahey
- 10-06-2019
A rare and valued find
This book was published 2 mo before I was born almost 75 years ago. it's amazing how a great mind can make such accurate observations before Watson and Crick'. You'll find this confirmed in 'A Crack in Creation' by Doudna
1 person found this helpful
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- Traci Adams
- 18-01-2021
Timeless Classic
Schrodinger pontificate the philosophical and biological in a classic treatise still affirmed for genius. Chillingly Erwin concludes his autobiography by pontificating all the women's hearts he broke along the way, did the cat die in the box after all? Some bombs are best left ticking...
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- Mr Dag Sjöberg
- 12-04-2020
Dr Schrödinger- An excellent mind
interesting to take part of this highly intelligent person’s thoughts around the profound questions of life and consciousness
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- louise burton
- 10-09-2020
Fascinating
Loved the fact that his independent observations and mindset parallels many great thinkers. It seems there are essential truths..
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