Books

The Disruption of Thought

Non-fiction book written for popular audience. Eclectic book combining insights from several fields, including neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, psychology, philosophy, economics, sociology, and technology.

Lays out a new(ish) model of human thought that explains thinking as an emergent property arising from meta-modular connections across three planes – biological (modules within the embodied brain), cultural (modules socially constructed and shared across time, place and people), and technological (modules spanning the material/digital things and technology around us).

The book uses this framework to show the massive change that is occurring across all three planes.

Makes the case that the sum of these changes is an emergent ‘disruption of thought’ – the consequences of which become the most important issue facing humanity, one few if any are aware of and working to address. The importance stems from a) the disruption being root cause for the existential social and cultural problems that are facing modern civilization, and b) the disruption undermines our collective ability to collaborate on complex problems of other existential importance (e.g. climate change).

These novel concepts have been reviewed by over 100 thought leaders from around the world across fields as diverse as neuroscience, national security, and technology. Findings have been highly supported.

~200 pages/85,000 words; pre-publication status. Complete, submitted for peer-review. Accepted for publication by Brill Press in 2024. Foreword by Vint Cerf.

The Great Irony of Technology

Non-fiction book written for a popular audience.

Premise is the observation that technology has left most people in the US significantly better off than 20, 50, or 100 years ago, but paradoxically feeling worse.

Book then examines how this Irony is variously manifested in ~15 US subgroups, across class, race, gender, geography, educational, and other factors. Book concludes that root cause of this dynamic is an interplay between how human nature shapes adoption of technology, and discusses this root cause in some depth, as well as raising possible solutions.

Makes the point that if this dynamic continues into the future, the accelerating trends in technology across many areas are likely to lead to a rapid erosion of human quality of life, but that this may be avoidable if it is recognized and addressed.

The book is currently about 110,000 words (~350 pages). About 95% complete, but undergoing a modest rewrite. Accepted for publication by Brill Press in 2024. Foreword by Tony Aghazarian.

The History of Thought – Book 1: the co-evolution of Technology and cognition in primate species

An academic book resulting from 10+ years research into the effects of technology (e.g. physical, behavioral, or cultural adaptations; manipulations of physical environments) on cognitive evolution of humanity’s primate ancestors.

Co-written with Chet Sherwood, Professor of Anthropology at The George Washington University (also director of the National Chimpanzee Brain Resource, and member of National Academy of Science, Center for the Advanced Study of Human Paleobiology and the George Washington University Mind-Brain Institute).

Addresses a gap in the literature by reviewing the evolution of primate cognition from ~70 million years ago (mya) to ~1 mya, with a special focus on the interplay between cognitive adaptations, technological adoptions, evolution, and evolutionary niches. Then connects those adaptations to their modern relevance.

Central point: modern human thought and interactions with Technology can be better understood by deeply examining how and why advanced cognitive functions evolved in our primate past.

Pre-publication status – 90% complete; has been through 2 rounds of peer review at Oxford University Press, with the second-round receiving unanimous recommendations to publish. Proposal is undergoing final edits before being re-submitted for final editorial board review. Book 1 of a two-volume series. ~450 pages; ~1,000 citations

The History of Thought – Book 2: the co-evolution of Technology and cognition in primate species

Co-written with Timothy Taylor (Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of World Prehistory, Jan Eisner Professor of Archaeology at Comenius University in Bratislava, and author of several books on human prehistory). An academic book based on research into the effects of technology on human thought. Addresses a gap in the academic literature by integrating work across evolutionary psychology, archaeology, history, economics, neuroscience, psychology, and more, and spanning from the human present to the very deep past.

Reviews evolution of proto-human and human cognition from ~8 mya to the present, with special focus on the interplay between cognitive adaptations, social/cultural, technological adoptions/evolutions and evolutionary niches, and the emergence of language. The book traces the way in which we have become physically weaker as we have become more intelligent and examines the background to this recent biological ‘de-evolution.’ The argument contextualizes many modern-day issues, from increasing cultural polarization, and gender theory to the problems of atavistic violence, fundamentalist belief systems, and factors that lead to rising cultural polarization and emerging nationalism trends.

Central point: modern human thought can be better understood by seeing how human thought evolved biologically over millions of years in a synergistic relationship with the technological innovations which are not merely its product but also, paradoxically, its cause. The insights in this volume yield an important new understanding and model of human thought, one that shows that thought is remarkably contingent and vulnerable to the unpredictable aftereffects of material advances.

Pre-publication status – 60% complete; has been through 2 rounds of peer review at Oxford University Press, with the second-round receiving unanimous recommendations to publish. Proposal is undergoing final edits before being re-submitted for final editorial board review. Book 2 of a two-volume series. ~450 pages; ~1,000 citation

Other writing projects:

Narrative Campaign Field Guide: In 2021, deep in the midst of the pandemic, I had the opportunity to co-author a book on narrative campaigns (aka information operations), stemming from Atlantic Council’s global efforts to support global COVID vaccination initiatives, and recognizing/countering related misinformation/disinformation. My contributions emphasized “information” – how to identify and promote “information” proactively, rather solely seeking and combatting misinfo/disinfo, which can – through the use of technology like AI, cloud, smartphones, and AI – quickly becoming a numbing and reactive game of whack-a-mole.

The Return of Magic: For a few years now, I’ve been observing how people increasingly treat Technology as magic. The more I’ve studied this, researched the role of magic in human societies, and thought about the unintended consequences of this change, the more profound it has become to my thinking. This book project is well underway, and is percolating as I focus on getting the earlier book projects published. The central premise is that constantly accelerating technology has outstripped our ability to understand it, individually, or collectively, and the result is that people’s lives are increasingly influenced by mysterious forces that they don’t understand. Magic was a central sense-making mechanism for millennia, but fell victim to human progress, most especially the Enlightenment, through vectors like science, education, medicine, and technology. The result of these positive forces were significant advances in human culture. However, coincident with the present-day ‘re-enchantment’ is an erosion of the central pillars of human society and progress, including a wavering faith in science, medicine, law, government, and even, possibly, civilization. This represents a reversal of a several centuries old uplift in the human condition.