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Quarks to Culture : How We Came to Be / Tyler Volk.
Author
Volk, Tyler
[Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/Created
New York, NY : Columbia University Press, [2017]
©2017
Description
1 online resource : 40 black and white illustrations
Availability
Available Online
JSTOR DDA
Ebook Central Perpetual, DDA and Subscription Titles
Details
Subject(s)
Life
—
Origin
[Browse]
Summary note
Atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form single-celled organisms. When people come together, they build societies. Our world is nested, both physically and socially, and at each level we find innovations that were necessary for the next level. Physics has gone far in mapping the basic mechanics of the simplest things and dynamics of the overall nesting, as have biology and the social sciences for their fields. But what if anything can we say about this beautifully complex whole? Might there be general processes we can identify? How do phases shape others, and what more can we learn about human existence through understanding an enlarged field of creation and being? Quarks to Culture explores the rhythm within what Tyler Volk calls the "grand sequence," a series of levels of sizes and innovations building from elementary quanta to globalized human civilization. The key is "combogenesis," the building-up from combination and integration to produce new things with innovative relations. Themes unfold in how physics and chemistry led to biological evolution, and biological evolution to cultural evolution. Volk develops an inclusive natural philosophy that brings clarity to our place in the world, a roadmap for our minds. As combogenesis repeats, patterns enrich like an expanding musical progression. Quarks to Culture provides new insights into linkages in our sciences and presents an exciting synthesis of ideas across a sequence of things and relations, from physical to living to cultural. It is high adventure for readers who seek to understand big history and wrestle with questions of how we came to be. -- Provided by publisher.
Bibliographic references
Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-240) and index.
Source of description
Description based on print version record.
Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
Preface
Part 1. Combogenesis and a Grand Sequence
1. Natural Chapters and Nested Scales
2. The Core Theme
Part 2. Twelve Fundamental Levels
3. A Big Bang Start of Things and Relations
4. The Nucleons, with Immortal Proton and Fragile Neutron
5. Atomic Nuclei from Mutual Aid
6. Atoms with Space-Filling, Electric Mandalas
7. An Expanding Cornucopia of Molecules
8. Simple Cells Launch Life and Evolution
9. The Sexy Eukaryotic Cell
10. Multiple Ramps to the Complex Multicellular Organism
11. Animal Social Groups Wild with Possibilities
12. Tribal Metagroups and Cultural Evolution
13. Transplantable Agrovillages
14. Geopolitical States, Masters of Acquisition and Merger
3. Dynamical Realms and Themes
15. Dynamical Realms and Their Base Levels
16. Alphakits: Atomic, Genetic, Linguistic
17. Themes in Evolutionary Dynamics
18. Convergent Themes of Combogenesis
Epilogue. What About the Future?
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index.
Show 27 more Contents items
ISBN
9780231544139
0231544138
OCLC
1013954304
Doi
10.7312/volk17960
Statement on language in description
Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage.
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Quarks to culture : how we came to be / Tyler Volk.
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