Ways of Being

Beyond Human Intelligence

by James Bridle

12h runtime; narrated by the author, 364 pages

English language

Published April 7, 2022 by Penguin Audio.

ASIN:: B09NQDXXMT

(7 reviews)

What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans - or do we share it with other beings?

Recent years have seen rapid advances in 'artificial' intelligence, which increasingly appears to be something stranger than we ever imagined. At the same time, we are becoming more aware of the other intelligences which have been with us all along, unrecognised. These other beings are the animals, plants and natural systems that surround us, and are slowly revealing their complexity and knowledge - just as the new technologies we've built are threatening to cause their extinction, and ours.

What does it mean to be intelligent? Is it something unique to humans - or do we share it with other beings?

In Ways of Being, writer and artist James Bridle considers the fascinating, uncanny and multiple ways of existing on Earth. What can we learn from these other forms of intelligence and personhood, and how can we change our societies to live more equitably with one another and the non-human world? From Greek oracles to octopuses, forests to satellites, Bridle tells a radical new story about ecology, technology and intelligence. We must, they argue, expand our definition of these terms to build a meaningful and free relationship with the non-human, one based on solidarity and cognitive diversity. We have so much to learn and many worlds to gain.

3 editions

sechstelgeviert reviewed Ways of Being by James Bridle

Reading the book feels like a child taking you by the hand to drag you to all of the awe-inspiring things they found in the garden this afternoon

4 stars

It contains so many interesting anecdotes about and insights into the world around us from vastly different perspectives that I'm sure I'll flip it open every once in a while, just to read up on how exactly that experiment with the fern that was able to hear was set up again…

I'm not sure how many of the details will stick, and at times the points were made as stories more than with stringent logic, but it's an inspiring book nonetheless that more than once made me feel deeply entangled with the world around me, and excited about taking the insight seriously.

Thomas reviewed Ways of Being by James Bridle

Not sure on this one

3 stars

I found this book quite hard to read for some reason. Some interesting stories and some grand ideas.

loppear reviewed Ways of Being by James Bridle

Yes.

5 stars

Where I am right now, after an overlapping decades-long journey through computability, animal and ecological intelligence, finding human humility after capitalism's techno-categorizing-hubris. Seeking an answer to how technology, how participation in understanding, should adapt to a collaborative-multiple-perspective de-centering of humanity and our binary truths. This sticks to a deep middle, the claims Bridle makes for "opening up to the more-than-human world" are broad, pointed in good directions, and avoid anger or hopelessness while staying critical. My recommendations for adjacent reading would be Frans de Waal's "Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are", Emma Marris' "Wild Souls", Richard Power's "The Overstory", and a lot of Ursula K LeGuin, but the bibliography has a whole stack of new reading lined up for me too.