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How to Understand Everything: Consilience: A New Way to See the World
Are you sometimes puzzled by how people behave?There is a new way to understand human beings — and everything else.
It’s known as consilience.
Consilience is a new paradigm that reveals how things self-organize from the bottom up – in contrast to how we think and communicate, which is from the top down.
This new paradigm exposes the realities of human nature on both personal and collective levels revealing the overlap between different domains of family, health, business, technology, politics, and spirituality.
Consilience will help you see things differently – and make people less puzzling.
Set off on a mind-altering journey with Tom Beakbane, president of Brand Strategies & Communications Inc., who has helped generate over $5 billion in brand value for his clients, and discover a new way to see the world.
It’s known as consilience.
Consilience is a new paradigm that reveals how things self-organize from the bottom up – in contrast to how we think and communicate, which is from the top down.
This new paradigm exposes the realities of human nature on both personal and collective levels revealing the overlap between different domains of family, health, business, technology, politics, and spirituality.
Consilience will help you see things differently – and make people less puzzling.
Set off on a mind-altering journey with Tom Beakbane, president of Brand Strategies & Communications Inc., who has helped generate over $5 billion in brand value for his clients, and discover a new way to see the world.
- GenresNonfiction
309 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 12, 2021
191 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
About the author
Tom Beakbane
1 book13 followersTom Beakbane is president of Beakbane: Brand Strategies and Communications, a company that has delivered over 20,000 projects to Fortune 500 customers since 1986.
He resurrected the concept of consilience after attempting to account for the gap between textbook theories of human behavior and his experiences creating marketing communications. He closed the gap by tapping into his passion for understanding developments at the frontiers of science.
He has an honors degree in biochemistry and neurophysiology from Durham University in England.
He lives near Toronto, Canada with his wife. They have two daughters.
He resurrected the concept of consilience after attempting to account for the gap between textbook theories of human behavior and his experiences creating marketing communications. He closed the gap by tapping into his passion for understanding developments at the frontiers of science.
He has an honors degree in biochemistry and neurophysiology from Durham University in England.
He lives near Toronto, Canada with his wife. They have two daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
July 7, 2021
Provides a Deeper Understanding
The author goes a long way towards knitting together disparate elements of the world. He encourages us to see many aspects of our experience as a blend rather than discrete parts. This is a masterful work.
The author goes a long way towards knitting together disparate elements of the world. He encourages us to see many aspects of our experience as a blend rather than discrete parts. This is a masterful work.
April 28, 2021
The tl;dr summary: If you’re into business, marketing, leadership; and the sciences, particularly biology (or at least not afraid of it); and you’re on the journey of “how to become” rather than “how to do”, then this book could be just what you’re looking for. It is not a self-help nor “rake it in” book; it is a reflection of Tom Beakbane’s openness, curiosity, and relentless wondering, “How could this be what it appears to be?”
I came across the book by chance, and am listening to the audio version for the third time as I write this review. Kudos also go to the narrator, Philip Battley, who, like Tom Beakbane, is British. This adds value, as Mr. Battley reads the book with the intonation, nuance, and irony which appears to be part of Mr. Beakbane’s style as a branding and marketing professional.
My enthusiasm for and interest in the author’s thesis is enhanced by my prior study of the work of neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, particularly in her book “How Emotions Are Made” (a work where the title might better be, “Why We Make Emotions”).
What caused me to ultimately choose this book is the inclusion of “consilience“ in the title. Beakbane takes some pains to define and offer scenarios of “consilience”. In fact, it is essentially the first idea in the text. Quoting the top of the Introduction: “Consilience is a paradigm that opens up liberating new ways to think about everything relating to science and the natural world, including human behavior. It is more challenging to undergo than other paradigm shifts because it concerns the human brain, which we use to understand[… well… ]everything.”
Given his premise, I offer this feedback: The book might be better titled, “How We Understand Everything and Why It Matters”.
In summary, Beakbane assists us to comprehend some of the essential distinctions between interpreting and verifying reality (looking from the top-down, as by reductionism); and exploring and understanding reality (looking from the bottom-up, as by synthesis). With this book, the author inspires me by the way he has, over many decades as an aficionado of the natural sciences (educationally), plus as an observer of people (professionally), developed a seemingly telephoto-to-fisheye-to-macro mental lens regarding biology, evolution, complexity, and sociology, and their inescapable interrelations.
I came across the book by chance, and am listening to the audio version for the third time as I write this review. Kudos also go to the narrator, Philip Battley, who, like Tom Beakbane, is British. This adds value, as Mr. Battley reads the book with the intonation, nuance, and irony which appears to be part of Mr. Beakbane’s style as a branding and marketing professional.
My enthusiasm for and interest in the author’s thesis is enhanced by my prior study of the work of neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett, particularly in her book “How Emotions Are Made” (a work where the title might better be, “Why We Make Emotions”).
What caused me to ultimately choose this book is the inclusion of “consilience“ in the title. Beakbane takes some pains to define and offer scenarios of “consilience”. In fact, it is essentially the first idea in the text. Quoting the top of the Introduction: “Consilience is a paradigm that opens up liberating new ways to think about everything relating to science and the natural world, including human behavior. It is more challenging to undergo than other paradigm shifts because it concerns the human brain, which we use to understand[… well… ]everything.”
Given his premise, I offer this feedback: The book might be better titled, “How We Understand Everything and Why It Matters”.
In summary, Beakbane assists us to comprehend some of the essential distinctions between interpreting and verifying reality (looking from the top-down, as by reductionism); and exploring and understanding reality (looking from the bottom-up, as by synthesis). With this book, the author inspires me by the way he has, over many decades as an aficionado of the natural sciences (educationally), plus as an observer of people (professionally), developed a seemingly telephoto-to-fisheye-to-macro mental lens regarding biology, evolution, complexity, and sociology, and their inescapable interrelations.
April 1, 2021
If you like learning facts about humans, societies and ideas, then you will enjoy this book. However, the author presents these details to argue a bigger idea of ‘Consilience,’ but I could never see that bigger idea emerging clearly from the text.
‘Consilience’ is a concept coined by Willian Whewell in 1840. It is an “open ended and inclusive” way of thinking (Kindle 85%) in which true understanding arises only when ideas are pulled together from all perspectives (81%). This sounds sensible, but isn’t that just a description of good scholarship?
For a book arguing about the importance of pulling ideas together there were some oddly divisive distinction operating within the text. For example, we hear that only material things can exist (19%). Numbers do not exist in the real world (20%), so they exist only in human minds (46%) as concepts (71%). This is because if something were to exist independently of a human mind then that would be a ‘religious’ idea (21%).
It is true that self-respecting Scientists and Mathematicians are extremely reluctant to believe in Platonic numbers existing in their own realms. But they are often equally reluctant to believe that numbers would cease to exist if all humans died out. The ontological status of non-material things is a complex philosophical problem, which cannot be just defined away, as the book tries to do.
By defining this odd distinction between Science and Religion, the book ends up accusing John Stuart Mill of contradicting his Scientific leanings by falling into Religiously sounding ideas of concepts existing independently of people (71%). Similarly, the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas can be criticised for blurring Science and religion (36%). Yet Mill and Aquinas only seem to err because of how the book has chosen to define ‘Science’ and ‘Religion.’
In places the book risks becoming over-simplistic. It tells us that there is genetic evidence that consciousness evolved 540 million years ago (32%). Really? Many Scientists are still arguing about what consciousness is, leave alone where it came from. We also hear that Parrots communicate by forming sentences (49%). Really? And there are constant comparisons between humans and chimps (55%), even though comparisons with wider groups of animals such as ants and meerkats would be arguably more appropriate on issues of socialness.
Sociologically the book distinguishes between 3 tribes, the ‘climb highers’ (Science), the ‘Hold Firmers’ (Religion) and the ‘Gatherers,’ which seem to be a kind of sociological Postmodernist perspective (61%). This analysis of human society is too simplistic to be informative, as people hold views across those boundaries. And it just isn’t the case that religious people are conservative Republican voters.
In so far as a thesis about Consilience emerged, it seemed to be a moderating idea, avoiding extremism by pulling threads from different sources to provide a ‘new frame of reference’ (41%). But this model does not seem to work. The author gives the example of Evolution vs Creationism (82%) and he suggests that a moderated view might involve accepting evolution yet rejecting the social darwinianism (which groups like the Nazis held). This is exactly the position which Richard Dawkins holds. So, how can proposing Dawkin’s view really be a kind of moderating Consilience between Evolution and Creationism?
Overall, this book contains an impressive amount of facts and information, and the author deserves credit for the research involved. But I was disappointed that it never seemed to really deliver on its bigger idea of ‘Consilience.’ In so far as there was a model, Consilience seemed to veer between being (trivially) just a description of good scholarship and the more interesting idea of reconciling differences of outlook. But that more interesting idea just seemed to collapse upon closer inspection.
‘Consilience’ is a concept coined by Willian Whewell in 1840. It is an “open ended and inclusive” way of thinking (Kindle 85%) in which true understanding arises only when ideas are pulled together from all perspectives (81%). This sounds sensible, but isn’t that just a description of good scholarship?
For a book arguing about the importance of pulling ideas together there were some oddly divisive distinction operating within the text. For example, we hear that only material things can exist (19%). Numbers do not exist in the real world (20%), so they exist only in human minds (46%) as concepts (71%). This is because if something were to exist independently of a human mind then that would be a ‘religious’ idea (21%).
It is true that self-respecting Scientists and Mathematicians are extremely reluctant to believe in Platonic numbers existing in their own realms. But they are often equally reluctant to believe that numbers would cease to exist if all humans died out. The ontological status of non-material things is a complex philosophical problem, which cannot be just defined away, as the book tries to do.
By defining this odd distinction between Science and Religion, the book ends up accusing John Stuart Mill of contradicting his Scientific leanings by falling into Religiously sounding ideas of concepts existing independently of people (71%). Similarly, the medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas can be criticised for blurring Science and religion (36%). Yet Mill and Aquinas only seem to err because of how the book has chosen to define ‘Science’ and ‘Religion.’
In places the book risks becoming over-simplistic. It tells us that there is genetic evidence that consciousness evolved 540 million years ago (32%). Really? Many Scientists are still arguing about what consciousness is, leave alone where it came from. We also hear that Parrots communicate by forming sentences (49%). Really? And there are constant comparisons between humans and chimps (55%), even though comparisons with wider groups of animals such as ants and meerkats would be arguably more appropriate on issues of socialness.
Sociologically the book distinguishes between 3 tribes, the ‘climb highers’ (Science), the ‘Hold Firmers’ (Religion) and the ‘Gatherers,’ which seem to be a kind of sociological Postmodernist perspective (61%). This analysis of human society is too simplistic to be informative, as people hold views across those boundaries. And it just isn’t the case that religious people are conservative Republican voters.
In so far as a thesis about Consilience emerged, it seemed to be a moderating idea, avoiding extremism by pulling threads from different sources to provide a ‘new frame of reference’ (41%). But this model does not seem to work. The author gives the example of Evolution vs Creationism (82%) and he suggests that a moderated view might involve accepting evolution yet rejecting the social darwinianism (which groups like the Nazis held). This is exactly the position which Richard Dawkins holds. So, how can proposing Dawkin’s view really be a kind of moderating Consilience between Evolution and Creationism?
Overall, this book contains an impressive amount of facts and information, and the author deserves credit for the research involved. But I was disappointed that it never seemed to really deliver on its bigger idea of ‘Consilience.’ In so far as there was a model, Consilience seemed to veer between being (trivially) just a description of good scholarship and the more interesting idea of reconciling differences of outlook. But that more interesting idea just seemed to collapse upon closer inspection.
March 13, 2021
Tom Beakbane has produced one of those rare books that is hard to put down. The title alone intrigues with its daring commitment to understanding “everything”. Really? Well, I read the book from start to finish almost at one sitting, and could have read more. I’m not sure I now understand everything, but everything does seem more within reach, and the combination of his warm and curious style, and his facility in making so many ideas and facts accessible with handy metaphor and imagery did seem to pull everything into his ambit - and mine. Thanks Tom, for a great read!
William Gairdner, author of "The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever Agree"
August 12, 2021
Crystallizes those ideas that have been in the back of our minds forever
It took me far too long to read this book, but I am glad I did. This book really surprised me from the outset, and held my interest from beginning to end.
Beakbane’s path through his own experience in marketing, his early education, neuroscience, physiology, evolution, philosophy, economics, political theory and business management may seem strange at the outset, but he clearly guides the reader through, and we never get lost.
And the way he ties it all up at the end is masterful.
Thanks for this, Tom!
It took me far too long to read this book, but I am glad I did. This book really surprised me from the outset, and held my interest from beginning to end.
Beakbane’s path through his own experience in marketing, his early education, neuroscience, physiology, evolution, philosophy, economics, political theory and business management may seem strange at the outset, but he clearly guides the reader through, and we never get lost.
And the way he ties it all up at the end is masterful.
Thanks for this, Tom!
March 3, 2021
How to Understand Everything brings us a collective perspective on our world’s condition and its causes based on human interaction. Through its concept of consilience, it gives us all a clean page and fresh start to explore and understand our human condition, allowing us all to look forward with optimism. It's about understanding our “why’s” versus the “what’s and how’s?”, it has a unique take on our world. It would indeed be pleasing if consilience could be equated with higher states of consciousness and the forward progression of human civilization;
June 20, 2021
Interesting
I enjoyed reading this book because it goes in depth on things that other books might not. There are plenty of ideas and metaphors to guide us to understand what matters most to us.
I enjoyed reading this book because it goes in depth on things that other books might not. There are plenty of ideas and metaphors to guide us to understand what matters most to us.
September 28, 2022
This is what we need
I love the revelations contained in the words of this book so much that I need more. Consilience is real and could be one of the predominant understandings that might save us. Beakbane is awesome in the presentation.
I love the revelations contained in the words of this book so much that I need more. Consilience is real and could be one of the predominant understandings that might save us. Beakbane is awesome in the presentation.
September 7, 2023
the author is clearly intelligent butmhe never fails to remind you,of that fact, all the scientific explanations and ideas did not have a convincing argument it seemed like he was just rambling on scientific facts
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews