How to Make a Human Being: A Body of Evidence

How to Make a Human Being: A Body of Evidence
Christopher Potter

A startling investigation of what it means to be human.Human beings know how to make machines. But what kind of machine is a human being? And could we ever make one?In order to answer these questions, other questions get in the way:What is it like to be a human being?What is it like to be some other kind of animal?What is reality?What is consciousness?Is there a God?What is love?Why live?The questions proliferate.But all these questions can be viewed as facets of a single question:What is science?In ‘How To Make a Human Being’ Christopher Potter shows how, at every scale of description, human beings escape the net of scientific reductionism. What it is to be human can be glimpsed in the details: in the opening of a window, in a shared joke. But cannot be caught by any reductive scientific description.

Copyright (#ulink_aac5b3d1-e37c-56ea-8874-d3e348f2f1d2)

Fourth Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 77–85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.4thestate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)

First published in Great Britain by Fourth Estate in 2014

Copyright © Christopher Potter 2014

Christopher Potter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007447794

Ebook Edition © MARCH 2014 ISBN: 9780007447800

Version: 2015-02-02

For Peter

Contents

Cover (#u603d2718-7d5e-520e-a678-a424fbf29dab)

Title Page (#u6b148000-0af1-553f-ad5a-55ad3b21b799)

Copyright (#u116fa6a7-ac3f-5d66-894f-ee91ba63de41)

Dedication (#u5ea8f964-e556-52d7-a453-e2aaad9d3656)

PART ONE: Materials and Instructions (#udb6abee6-0e9d-56dd-a701-f887f276cfe4)

Section 1: Getting started (#u10dd6383-5506-5bf4-ab8e-ffac4b940a66)

Section 2: What can the matter be? (#u5e384718-9816-5550-a862-d64bf939a3fd)

Section 3: Taking sides (#u3c6ed209-0816-5bc0-93ea-fd975441bdbd)

Section 4: Nothing → something → everything (#ud34210ee-78ce-5f5d-93e2-977861794fbd)

Section 5: What is science? (#u68e8aacf-2bf8-5fa4-a805-f30d1b1d3b1b)

Section 6: What is the universe? (#u17d53146-57c9-5691-aee7-30e1767dd286)

Section 7: Evidence for the existence of an external world (#u1f4cde98-5f5f-5541-bf12-82383bcb93a0)

Section 8: Evidence against the existence of an external world (#u48d9e757-9af7-5080-a9cb-3c8b8c16da0f)

Section 9: On time (#u4b5c0d19-8ad3-5822-9a9a-c654eccd035f)

Section 10: On things (#uad3dfa84-67ae-5e7b-8822-4ffb97ad9535)

Section 11: Starting again (#u519659fd-966a-53bb-a335-a83a2df66ab3)

PART TWO: Animating the Doll (#u0552d050-467b-544c-b082-cb218417fa26)

Section 1: Matter → meat (#ua3271a58-eae3-50ef-8ccf-49d94c1fd37d)

Section 2: Making babies (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 3: On consciousness (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 4: On the self (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 5: Meat → mind (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 6: On perception (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 7: On free will (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 8: On behaviour (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 9: There is always something missing (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 10: When the gene is no longer enough (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 11: On tools and human evolution (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 12: Being rather than making (#litres_trial_promo)

PART THREE: On Being Human (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 1: On culture (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 2: On the relationship between human beings and nature (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 3: On the relationship between human beings and other animals (#litres_trial_promo)

Section 4: On the relationship between human beings and other human beings (#litres_trial_promo)