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Good Reads  Reference  Physical Sciences  Popular Science

Quarks to Culture How We Came to Be

Popular Science
By: Tyler Volk(Author)
250 pages, 40 b/w illustrations
NHBS
A thought-provoking and spirited intellectual exercise, this book goes all the way from Big Bang to Big Ben to ask if there is a universal pattern in how our world is organised.
Quarks to Culture
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  • Quarks to Culture ISBN: 9780231179607 Hardback May 2017 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 6 days
    £29.99
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Price: £29.99
About this book Contents Customer reviews Biography Related titles

About this book

Our world is nested, both physically and socially, and at each level we find innovations that are necessary for the next. Consider: atoms combine to form molecules, molecules combine to form single-celled organisms; when people come together, they build societies. Physics has gone far in mapping the basic mechanics of the simplest things and the dynamics of the overall nesting, as have biology and the social sciences for their fields. But what can we say about this beautifully complex whole? How does one stage shape another, and what can we learn about human existence through understanding an enlarged field of creation and being?

In Quarks to Culture, Tyler Volk answers these questions, revealing how a universal natural rhythm – building from smaller things into larger, more complex things – resulted in a grand sequence of twelve fundamental levels across the realms of physics, biology, and culture. He introduces the key concept of "combogenesis", the building-up from combination and integration to produce new things with innovative relations. He explores common themes in how physics and chemistry led to biological evolution, and biological evolution to cultural evolution. Volk also provides insights into linkages across the sciences and fields of scholarship, and presents an exciting synthesis of ideas along a sequence of things and relations, from physical to living to cultural. The resulting inclusive natural philosophy brings clarity to our place in the world, offering a roadmap for those who seek to understand big history and wrestle with questions of how we came to be.

Contents

Preface

Part I. Combogenesis and a Grand Sequence
1. Natural Chapters and Nested Scales
2. The Core Theme: Combogenesis

Part II. 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

Part III. 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

Customer Reviews (1)

  • A spirited thought experiment
    By Leon (NHBS Catalogue Editor) 6 Mar 2019 Written for Hardback


    How did we get here? It's a simple question, but as all parents will affirm, the simplest questions can have the most complicated answers. With Quarks to Culture, Tyler Volk, a professor in biology and environmental studies, looks at our human culture and goes all the way back to the beginning (yes, the very beginning) to ask: "Is there a pattern here?". What follows is a book that should be taken as a spirited thought experiment.

    Biologists are fascinated with these questions, and plenty of books have marvelled at the vast chain of being, trying to discern patterns. This ranges from popular treatments such as Life Ascending or Restless Creatures to more scholarly ones, such as The Major Transitions in Evolution, The Major Transitions in Evolution Revisited, or Biology's First Law. Some say it is energy, others that it is information. "No, physics is life's silent commander", says a third. But Volk wants to look beyond this, at, as he puts it, "the whole shebang", all the way from elementary particles to political states, from quarks to culture, to search for a universal pattern. And Volk sees one.

    See, Volk says, our world, our whole universe, is like a giant Matryoshka doll, one set of things nested inside the next. (Actually, he does not refer to these Russian dolls anywhere, I do – but it's a fitting metaphor.) Simple things combine to form larger complex wholes that have new properties. This is the phenomenon of emergence and is the domain of systems theory and complexity studies. And that is the universal pattern that Volk sees.

    But he is not content with calling it emergence, instead calling it "combogenesis": things combine and integrate with other things into new, larger things at a new level. At this new level, these larger things can form new kinds of relationships with others at the same level, giving rise to yet another new level. And so on, in an upwards cascade of nestedness, something he dubs the "grand sequence". Now, throwing around your own terms and calling things "grand sequences" all sounds a bit, well, grandiose and reeks of hubris. Luckily, that is not at all the spirit of this book, and Volk keeps things uncomplicated and pragmatic, talking of "things" and "levels".

    In twelve chapters, Volk takes that logic to reason his way up twelve levels. So, fundamental quanta (quarks, leptons, bosons, etc.) combine to form nucleons (protons and neutrons), which combine to form atomic nuclei, and on it goes to atoms, molecules, prokaryotic cells, eukaryotic cells (via endosymbiosis, see One Plus One Equals One), multicellular organisms, animal social groups, human tribes, agricultural settlements, and finally geopolitical states.

    A final series of chapters looks at the whole sweep, highlighting several interesting observations. First off, as he acknowledges, it is unapologetically anthropocentric. I am sure that following the same reasoning you could draw up other "grand sequences" with different endpoints (molecules, stars & planets, galaxies, superclusters?). But Volk wants to focus on how we humans got to where we are. Second, are there more levels further down or higher up? The latter is something he speculates on in the epilogue. The former, as he points out, is what physicists are labouring over worldwide, with string theory being one, albeit controversial candidate.

    It also spans several fields, from physics to biological evolution to cultural evolution. Volk introduces the idea of dynamical realms, with certain steps (such as from molecules to cells) heralding a major transition, literally opening up a new world of possibilities. Cells, then, are the base level of the realm of biological evolution. Is there an explanation for these major transitions? Here he names one last new concept: the alphakit. An alphakit contains a small number of elements that can be combined into an enormous number of possible ways. The first example to come to mind is how a limited number of letters can be combined into almost unlimited arrays of words, sentences, books, etc. You can do a lot with those basic building blocks.

    The argument is not so neat that an alphakit automatically signals a major transition. For example, there are only 92 stable kinds of atoms, but the number of possible molecules is huge. However, molecules are not, by themselves, alive. At this point we're still in the realm of physics. But the reverse seems to hold: major transitions seem to require these alphakits. On the border of the realms of physics and biology few atoms give rise to many molecules. Some of these molecules (the combo of four DNA bases and a small number of amino acids) give rise to larger numbers of other molecules (genes and proteins). Same at the transition from biological evolution to cultural evolution where a small number of letters gives rise to language, allowing for the next series of iterations. Also invoked here is the concept of a field of possibilities, which are all the theoretically possible combinations of elements. Wagner introduced this in his fascinating Arrival of the Fittest to argue how evolution can probe these multidimensional spaces of possible protein sequences to rapidly come up with innovative solutions to life's problems.

    Earlier on, Volk makes a distinction between what is and is not a case of combogenesis. So, cells combining to form multicellular animals is combogenesis, but whales evolving from worms is not. The latter is a matter of "more of the same", not "more of a different kind". By that logic, the alphakits Volk introduces sometimes involve combogenesis (from atoms to molecules), but sometimes they don't (from amino acids to proteins, these are both types of molecules).

    No doubt readers both inside and outside of complexity studies will find plenty to question and criticise here. I mentioned the possibility of other "grand sequences". Harold Morowitz did a similar exercise in his book The Emergence of Everything but required 28 steps. And I wonder: is combogenesis really different enough from emergence to warrant its own term?

    My impression is that Volk would be delighted to see his ideas discussed. Quarks to Culture is engagingly written, often chatty (a style I personally enjoy). To wade into subatomic particle physics as a biologist is courageous of Volk, but he seems to have read up on the topic and spoken to plenty of colleagues who explained it to him. Volk excels at translating that for his readers, kindling a new interest in me. Despite the questions and eyebrows this book might raise for some, if you read it in the spirit it was intended – a thought experiment rather than a fully fledged theory – I expect you will find it a rewarding and thought-provoking intellectual exercise.
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Biography

Tyler Volk is professor of biology and environmental studies at New York University and a recipient of the University's Distinguished Teaching Award and Golden Dozen Award. His books include Metapatterns: Across Space, Time, and Mind (Columbia, 1995); Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth (1998); and CO2 Rising: The World's Greatest Environmental Challenge (2008).

Popular Science
By: Tyler Volk(Author)
250 pages, 40 b/w illustrations
NHBS
A thought-provoking and spirited intellectual exercise, this book goes all the way from Big Bang to Big Ben to ask if there is a universal pattern in how our world is organised.
Media reviews

"The fact that [Volk] accomplishes this grand sweep within just 250 pages makes the book a superb contribution deserving of wide readership [...] With impressive learning, rigorous analysis, and artful writing."
Science

"It's hard to convey the excitement of what Tyler Volk has achieved in Quarks to Culture. Here we have well-chosen words, in crystal-clear paragraphs, combining to form compelling chapters, all of which add up to a convincing account of where we humans fit in the grand scheme of things. Volk is, in short, a systems thinker. Few writers could have written such a book as this."
– Liam Heneghan, DePaul University

"There are many books that attempt to build grand theories of everything. This is among the best. Volk has the breadth of intellect, the insatiable curiosity, the scientific rigor, and the philosophical depth to wander so widely. He does so with both creativity and wonder, yielding a provocative thesis – combogenesis – that is boldly innovative and metaphorically evocative, while tempered by humility and open-mindedness."
– Mitchell Thomashow, author of Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist

"Science advances at so fast a rate nowadays that few scholars can arrive at a big-picture understanding of the universe. Not so for Volk, who takes us on a fascinating ride from quarks to culture, explaining how the cosmos levels up at each stage, not by differentiation but by integration of existing things. A must-read for anyone interested in metapatterns and major transitions."
– Nathalie Gontier, University of Lisbon

"Tyler Volk has a marvelous talent for synthesizing scientific knowledge from a broad range of fields into a single all-encompassing vision, which he imparts with wit and poetic grace. Quarks to Culture, which highlights deep, recurring patterns in the structure of the cosmos, will help us see our wondrous world anew."
– John Horgan, director, Center for Science Writings, Stevens Institute of Technology

"Tyler Volk has written a splendid book that will engage many across divides of knowledge and worldviews. Comprehensive and thought-provoking, it offers a compelling narrative of a vision forward for humans and nature."
– Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, coauthor of Journey of the Universe

"Quarks to Culture is a must-read. It weaves the myriad patterns of universe, life, and consciousness into a wonderful new tapestry. Volk combines scientific rigor and love for the humanities into a gentle, no-nonsense, full-of-facts, passionately well-written, fundamental new guide to help us better see ourselves in this ever-changing world."
– Francesco Tubiello, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization

"The identification of a universal principle – combogenesis – allows one to see the early history of the universe and the evolution of life and the evolution of human civilization through the same lens. An interesting, holistic way of viewing human history back to the origin of the universe."
– John Mayfield, author of The Engine of Complexity

"While not aiming for a Theory of Everything Volk does provide a scientifically believable reconstruction of 'how we came to be' [...] [in his] very rich and stimulating book."
– Frank Visser, Integral World

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