Un llibre profund i alhora accessible d’un dels pensadors més importants, que ens ofereix una visió de la consciència humana des del punt de vista de l’evolució.

Bacteria to Bach and Back is an infuriating book. It is too long, repetitive, indulgently digressive and self-referential (no fewer than 64 references to his own publications). But underlying it all there is a subtle and interesting argument. The bare bones are these: mind and consciousness are no more and no less mysterious than other natural phenomena, such as gravity. Granted the right chemical and physical conditions, life forms will emerge from the primeval slime, and granted the right conditions, life will evolve large-brained organisms such as humans – who are profoundly social animals and hence need to be able to communicate, cooperate and compete with their fellows. This requires the ability to think, remember, plan, empathise – in a word, to have a mind. And minds require large and complex brains to enable and sustain them, all generated by Natural Selection.

The capitals are important; they emphasise a point Dennett repeatedly makes, stealing the clothes of the creationists, that Natural Selection is an Intelligent Designer, constantly improving life forms through the blind Darwinian processes of favouring fitter, better adapted variants and winnowing out less fit ones. From the very origins of life, Natural Selection generates Intelligent Design, producing organisms that show competence without comprehension. Both an amoeba retreating from a noxious stimulus and, say, a room thermostat are competent in this sense, without comprehending the reasons for their actions.