The Mind's Sky Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context [Paperback]

The bestselling author ofComing of Age in the Milky Waydelivers fascinating essays on the human mind, the search for extraterrestrial (and thus nonhuman) intelligence, comet strikes as a source of species extinction, near-death experiences, apocalyptic prophecies, information theory, and the origin of laughter.
 
Praise forThe Mind’s Sky
 
“It is a joy to readThe Mind’s Sky. What a sense of humility in the face of mystery—the spirit of Ulysses, as Tennyson put it, determined ‘to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield’—and sense of poetry too!”—John Archibald Wheeler, physicist, Princeton University
 
“A few chapters into this wonderful book I suddenly realized that I was taking wider views of my own mind’s sky than I have enjoyed in a long time. Ferris illuminates (among other matters) the mysteries of laughter, nirvana, common sense, and Joe Montana. He makes us think big thoughts.”—Jonathan Weiner, author ofThe Next 100 YearsandPlanet Earth

“One of our best and most imaginative writers, Timothy Ferris has never been afraid to tackle big themes.The Mind’s Skyis a dazzling and provocative synthesis of inner and outer space. This book is sure to be as controversial as it is elegant.”—Dennis Overbye, author ofLonely Hearts of the CosmosThis Is Not the Universe
 
The mind does not understand its own reason for being.
—René Magritte                
 
A picture without a frame is not a picture.
—John Archibald Wheeler
 
 
 
Perhaps you’ve seen the painting: A pipe, depicted with photographic realism, floats above a line of careful, schoolboy script that reads Ceci nest pas unlC#