Dragons of Eden at John Erik Metcalf

About 5 years ago, the summer before I started college, I asked my Uncle Jorge what books he recommend I read. We were in his office so he took a look at his massive collection and started handing me one after another. Today, I’ve been sitting outside rereading one I never finished: Dragons of Eden, by Carl Sagan.

Came in to get some water. Here are a few take aways, thus far:

“My fundamental premise about the brain is that its workings–what we sometimes call ‘mind’– are a consequence of its anatomy and physiology, and nothing more.”
And, in the same paragraph: “…absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”
If the lifetime of the universe (Big Bang to present | 15B years) was compresses into the span of a single year… we’d have, well, this