Chapters



The roots of progress
with fire, being a practically unlimited source of energy, and pointy sticks, human beings became the king of the jungle – or the grassy plains.

How to build the best civilisation
Can we at least agree that progress, from the human viewpoint, has actually occurred?

Western Educated Brain
Once upon a time, during the the early days of modern psychology, in an attempt to describe the normal human psyche, psychologists produced what appeared to be a pretty excellent, tentative model :



Intelligence is cultural
Let’s start with a couple of questions. Now that we’ve acquired the tools of logic and reason, now that we’re so smart that we can build rockets, it seems only natural to assume that we are smarter than more primitive folk. I mean : are we more intelligent than a hunter gatherer?

Monkey see…
In Pierre Boulle’s novel “The Planet of the Apes”, we are presented with two main themes :

The imitation game
Our minds are not confined to our brains. Think Encyclopedias, Libraries, Google or even your mum.