TRYING BEINGS: From Life's Origins to Total Jerks

What TRYING BEINGS: From Life's Origins to Total Jerks makes

Topics psychology, politics, sociology, language, human-behavior, culture

An informal yet scientific, ironic yet serious, intimate yet broad, opinionated yet non-partisan perspective on life from cradle to grave, from the chemical origins of living, trying beings to today's grave situation. What's grave is more fundamental than this or that global crisis. We can't begin to address them so long as absolute jerks, rise to power, the Stalins, Hitlers and Trumps, absolute god-playing jerks who try reality's patience by pretending they can overrule it. Why humans? Because we have language. With it, we can imagine the ideal, see that we fall short and self-idealize to compensate. For 28 years, Sherman has collaborated closely with UC Berkeley biologist Terrence Deacon, on three topics: Teleogenisis: Explaining how selves struggling for their existence could ever emerge from chemistry. Synergenisis: Explaining how synergies evolve from multi-cellularity to cultures and cults. Logogenesis: Explaining the evolution of human language and how it changes us.

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