UID:
almafu_9961241655702883
Format:
1 online resource (xxiii, 671 pages) :
,
digital, PDF file(s).
Edition:
1st ed.
ISBN:
1-009-22925-7
,
1-009-22926-5
,
1-009-22927-3
Content:
Have you ever wondered whether we are alone in the universe, or if life forms on other planets might exist? If they do exist, how might their languages have evolved? Could we ever understand them, and indeed learn to communicate with them? This highly original, thought-provoking book takes us on a fascinating journey over billions of years, from the formation of galaxies and solar systems, to the appearance of planets in the habitable zones of their parent stars, and then to how biology and, ultimately, human life arose on our own planet. It delves into how our brains and our language developed, in order to explore the likelihood of communication beyond Earth and whether it would evolve along similar lines. In the process, fascinating insights from the fields of astronomy, evolutionary biology, palaeoanthropology, neuroscience and linguistics are uncovered, shedding new light on life as we know it on Earth, and beyond.
Note:
Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 15 Sep 2023).
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Cover -- Half-title page -- Endorsement page -- Title page -- Imprint page -- Contents -- Tables and Figures -- Preface -- How to Use This Book -- Part I Introduction -- 1 Approaching the Topic -- 1.1 Four Basic Questions -- 1.2 Working Backwards for a Moment -- 1.3 Questions, Questions, Questions -- 1.4 An Unlikely Story -- 1.5 Back to Reality -- 2 Looking beyond Earth -- 2.1 Are We Alone in the Universe? -- 2.2 What We Know about Exoplanets -- 2.3 Exobeings and Their Planetary Environment -- 2.4 Exobeings and Humans on Earth -- 2.5 From Knowns to Unknowns -- 2.6 Sources of Energy and Biological Evolution -- 2.7 The Brains of Exobeings -- 2.8 Emergence and Consciousness -- 3 Striving to Understand -- 3.1 What Is Scientific Speculation? -- 3.2 What Counts as Proof? -- 3.3 What Do Scientists Know and Not Know? -- 3.4 How Accurate Are Facts? -- 3.5 What We Still Cannot Explain -- 3.6 Problems and Mysteries -- 3.7 The Nature of Exceptions -- 3.8 What About 'Weird Life'? -- 3.9 How Different Could They Be from Us? -- 3.10 Two Other Questions -- Part II The Universe We Live In -- 4 Trying to Grasp Size -- 4.1 Astronomy and History -- 4.2 How Has the Universe Developed? -- 4.3 Estimating the Size of the Universe -- 4.4 The Observable Universe -- 5 Star Formation and Planets -- 5.1 Red Dwarfs -- 5.2 Brown Dwarfs -- 5.3 The Life of a Star -- 5.4 Where Do the Elements Come From? -- 5.5 Peering into the Future -- 6 The Likelihood of Life -- 6.1 Basic Preconditions -- 6.2 Favouring Factors -- 6.3 Key Developments and Events -- 6.4 Mass Extinctions in Earth's History -- 6.5 Strikes from Beyond -- 7 Possible Conditions on an Exoplanet -- 7.1 The Fine-Tuning Problem -- 7.2 Small-Scale and Large-Scale Structures -- 7.3 The Underlying Basis of Structure -- 7.4 Emergent Properties -- 7.5 Unintended Side Effects -- 7.6 Things Which Only Happened Once.
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7.7 What Are the Alternatives? -- 8 How and Where to Look for Exolife -- 8.1 Recent Finds in Our Cosmic Neighbourhood -- 8.2 Improved Technology -- 8.3 Methods for Finding Exoplanets -- 8.4 A Planet in the Habitable Zone -- 8.5 What About Rogue Planets? -- 8.6 Rare Earth Hypothesis -- 8.7 The Copernican Principle -- 8.8 Earth Similarity Index and Planetary Habitability Index -- 8.9 Classifying Exoplanets -- 8.10 When is an Exoplanet 'Earth-like'? -- 8.11 Potential for Life on Moons -- 8.12 A Lunar Trio -- 8.13 Microbial Life on a Moon: What Could It Tell Us? -- 8.14 Where Are We at Present? -- 9 The Limits of Exploration -- 9.1 Getting Around the Universe -- 9.2 Sending Out Probes -- 9.3 Getting Here After We Are Gone -- 9.4 A Feeling for Distance -- 10 Assessing Probabilities -- 10.1 Considering the Fermi Paradox -- 10.2 Looking at the Drake Equation -- Part III Our Story on Earth -- 11 The Slow Path of Evolution -- 11.1 Just What Is Life? -- 11.2 Energy Regime of the Body -- 11.3 Finding Out How Life Works -- 11.4 Our Restless World -- 11.5 Energy Gradients -- 11.6 Life Getting Under Way -- 11.7 Functional Principle and Realisation -- 11.8 The Rise of Predators -- 11.9 Different Kinds of Evolution -- 11.10 Genes and Phenotypes -- 11.11 Control from Above or Below? -- 11.12 'Design' from Below -- 12 How Does the Whole Work? -- 12.1 Devices and Organisms -- 12.2 Evolution and Design -- 12.3 Do the Parts Know the Whole? -- 12.4 A Question of Scale -- 12.5 When Do Cells Become an Organism? -- 12.6 Sexual Reproduction -- 12.7 Variety is the Spice of Life -- 12.8 A Quirk in Meiosis -- 12.9 Genetic Mutation -- 12.10 Divergent Evolution -- 12.11 Convergent Evolution -- 12.12 Analogous and Homologous Structures -- 12.13 Epilogue: Profusion in Nature -- 13 The Road to Homo sapiens -- 13.1 The Pitfall of Compressing the Past.
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13.2 Palaeoanthropology: Reaching Back in Time -- 13.3 Rummaging Around in Caves -- 13.4 The Out of Africa Hypothesis -- 13.5 'The March of Progress' -- 13.6 The Context of the Genus Homo -- 13.7 Divisions within the Genus Homo -- 13.8 The Progression of Consciousness -- 13.9 Defining Homo sapiens Anatomically -- 13.10 Energy Intake -- 13.11 Narrow Range of Values -- 13.12 Brain Size -- 13.13 Evolution of Our Anatomy and Physiology -- 13.14 Defining Homo sapiens Culturally -- 13.15 Tool Making, Cognition and Communication -- 13.16 Making Flint Tools -- 13.17 The Management of Fire -- 13.18 The Advent of Cooking -- 13.19 Wearing Clothes -- 13.20 Setbacks in Our Evolution -- 13.21 Hominins: The Big Picture Once More -- 13.22 A Unique Species and the Great Cognitive Gap -- 14 The Rise of Human Societies -- 14.1 In the Beginning Was the Group -- 14.2 Humans, the Great Extenders -- 14.3 The Origins of the Leader -- 14.4 Societies on Exoplanets -- 14.5 The Question of Violence -- 14.6 Evidence for Social Organisation -- 14.7 The Advent of Farming -- 14.8 Culture and Human Evolution -- 14.9 Cultural Buffering -- 14.10 Would Exosocieties Have Money? -- 14.11 And Would They Have Art? -- 14.12 The View from Science Fiction -- Part IV The Runaway Brain -- 15 The Brain-to-Body Relationship -- 15.1 Wallace's Puzzle -- 15.2 Are Brains Necessary for Life? -- 15.3 Structure of the Human Brain -- 15.4 Characteristics of the Human Brain -- 15.5 Windows on the World: The Human Senses -- 15.6 The Cost of Our Brain -- 16 How Brains Develop -- 16.1 Embryogenesis and the Brain -- 16.2 The Proliferation of Neurons -- 16.3 Childhood and Puberty -- 16.4 Lifespan and Aging -- 17 Our Cognition -- 17.1 The Limits of Cognition -- 17.2 Theory of Mind and the Notion of Self -- 17.3 Internalisation of the World We Perceive -- 17.4 The Tiger in the Bush: Our Love of Patterns.
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18 Consciousness -- 18.1 The Role of Emotions -- 18.2 The Origin of Emotions -- 18.3 The Hard Problem -- 18.4 The Sense of Self Again -- 18.5 Size of the Brain and Consciousness -- 18.6 Where Is Consciousness? -- 18.7 Consciousness and Attention -- 18.8 The Conscious and Unconscious Brain: A Division of Labour -- 18.9 The Quantum Brain? -- 18.10 Memory -- 18.11 Neuroplasticity -- 18.12 Consciousness: An Attempted Summary -- 18.13 A Final Remark -- 19 Artificial Intelligence -- 19.1 The Singularity: A Modern Frankenstein? -- 19.2 A Conscious Computer? -- 19.3 Sentio ergo sum Again -- 19.4 The Mental Lives of Exobeings -- Part V Language, Our Greatest Gift -- 20 Looking at Language -- 20.1 What Is Language? -- 20.2 The Purpose of Language -- 20.3 Definitions of Language -- 20.4 Design Features of Language -- 20.5 Structural Notions in Linguistics -- 21 Talking about Language -- 21.1 How Words Represent Meaning -- 21.2 Linguistic Relativity -- 21.3 Language as a Reflection of Speakers' World -- 21.4 Names and Language -- 21.5 Language, Environment and Culture -- 21.6 What Do Speakers Know about Language? -- 21.7 What Are Speaker Intuitions? -- 22 The View from Linguistics -- 22.1 The Complexity Envelope of Language -- 22.2 Levels of Language: Modular Organisation -- 22.3 Language Typology -- 22.4 Language Production -- 22.5 The Human Tongue and Throat -- 22.6 What We Hear -- 22.7 Vowels and Consonants -- 22.8 Convergent Evolution and Language Production -- 23 The Language Faculty and Languages -- 23.1 The Nature of Language Acquisition -- 23.2 The Question of Modality: Sound or Gestures? -- 23.3 Sign Language -- 23.4 Communication by Touch? -- 23.5 Receptive Modality -- 23.6 Language and Writing -- 23.7 Linguistic Diversity on Earth and Beyond -- 23.8 Was There One Original Language? -- 23.9 Language Change -- 24 Language and the Brain.
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24.1 Language Areas in the Brain -- 24.2 The Binding Problem in Language -- 24.3 Evidence from Language Impairments -- 24.4 Types of Aphasia -- 25 Acquiring Language -- 25.1 Are We Predestined for Speech? -- 25.2 The Absence of Exposure to Language -- 25.3 Characteristics of Language Acquisition -- 25.4 Stages of Language Acquisition -- 25.5 Abduction and Ambiguity in Language -- 25.6 Localisation of Language and Early Childhood -- 25.7 Language Transmission -- 25.8 The Logical Problem of Acquisition -- 25.9 The Evidence of Pidgins and Creoles -- 25.10 Is There a Gene for Language? -- 25.11 Constructed Languages -- 26 Humans and Animals -- 26.1 How Intelligent Are Animals? -- Part VI Life and Language, Here and Beyond -- 27 Preconditions for Life -- 27.1 What Can the Range of a Search Be? -- 27.2 The Panspermia Hypothesis -- 27.3 What Can Be Assumed about Exolife Forms? -- 27.4 Habitat Independence and Flexibility -- 27.5 To Recap: The Likelihood of Life -- 27.6 The Role of Serendipity -- 27.7 Being Out of Sync -- 27.8 Post-Human/Post-Biological? -- 28 What Might Exolife Be Like? -- 28.1 Lifespan for Exobeings -- 28.2 What Would Their Average Size Be? -- 28.3 Alternative Ecologies and Behaviours -- 28.4 Feeling Like an Exobeing -- 28.5 What About Free Will and Morality? -- 28.6 What Are Exobeings Likely to Share with Us? -- 28.7 How Smart Might They Be? -- 28.8 How Would They Count? -- 28.9 Would They Have a Sense of Time? -- 29 Looking for Signs of Life -- 29.1 Biosignatures and Technosignatures -- 29.2 The Nature of a Signal -- 29.3 METI: Trying to Get in Touch -- 29.4 Would They Want to Know Us? -- 30 The Issue of First Contact -- 30.1 Some Scenarios -- 30.2 How to Contact Them: Language-Independent Messages -- 30.3 A Messenger from Beyond? -- 30.4 Communicating without Meeting Them -- 30.5 And If We Find One, What Then?.
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30.6 Predicting Reactions.
Additional Edition:
ISBN 1-009-22641-X
Language:
English
URL:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009229272
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